Themes
This is the first episode in which the audience sees a dream sequence from Faith's perspective. Both this episode and Who Are You are meant to explore Buffy and Faith's relationship from Faith's perspective, as well as Faith's perspective of her relationship with the Mayor. Faith's dream sequences depict her Norman Rockwell vision of the way her life was, in which she is a normal girl who is loved by a father (the Mayor), and her belief that Buffy is the monster who ruined it all. In Faith's third and final dream sequence, Faith finally defeats Buffy and wakes from her coma.
The characterization of Faith in this episode is "very Lucifer." She wakes up in a version of hell, the hospital basement. She emerges from this hell and goes after the person who put her there.
In their book discussing existentialism in Buffy, Richardson and Rabb argue that this episode and the next (intended or not) explore the impact of Sartre's Look - the outside view that causes a person to redefine themselves from the perspective of the Other. They interpret Faith's defection to the Mayor and relentless dreams of Buffy stalking her as Faith's attempt to escape Buffy’s judgmental Look and the accompanying guilt it brings. When the two Slayers meet again, Faith immediately denies her possession by Buffy, saying, "You’re not me." However, she is beginning to acknowledge the guilt brought on by Buffy's Look; when Buffy expresses concern for the innocent people surrounding them, Faith claims there is no such thing as an innocent person. Richardson and Rabb point out that, therefore, Faith herself "must realize at some level she is not innocent, but is in fact guilty of horrendous crimes."
Read more about this topic: This Year's Girl
Famous quotes containing the word themes:
“In economics, we borrowed from the Bourbons; in foreign policy, we drew on themes fashioned by the nomad warriors of the Eurasian steppes. In spiritual matters, we emulated the braying intolerance of our archenemies, the Shi’ite fundamentalists.”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)
“I suppose you think that persons who are as old as your father and myself are always thinking about very grave things, but I know that we are meditating the same old themes that we did when we were ten years old, only we go more gravely about it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)