Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Part I. Being The Perfect Boyfriend: Malcom, Ted & Riley

The idea of robotic love is first breached in Season 1 with the episode, I Robot, You Jane. Poor nerdy Willow doesn't know how to talk to boys. Xander, the only boy she can talk to is infatuated with her best friend, the perky, pretty, super-hero Buffy. Luckily for Willow, Buffy doesn't share his affections or life would truly be hell. So Willow retreats to her computer and does what many of us unlucky in love types do - cruise the chat rooms and internet. Actually, she doesn't really need to cruise, all she needs to do is scan Malcome into her computer and list him under the file named Willow and he conveniently contacts her. Malcome - Giles states is a demon that tempts those who long for love and attention. Prays on young impressionable minds. Willow is an excellent target as are the other computer nerds. They all get validation and support primarily through their computer terminals.

Malcom is the perfect boyfriend, supportive, complimentary, interested in what Willow thinks and feels. And best of all he is safely contained behind a computer screen - she does not have to worry about the face to face rejection. When he asks to meet her - she understandably puts him off, even sort of panics, causing him to kidnap her instead. When faced with the real Malcom, Willow freaks - this is not the kind supportive friend she'd written to, this is a monster. He asks for her love, tells her they should be together, that they understand one another. But she rejects him and he tries to kill her. Buffy luckily saves the day. At the end of the episode, Willow wonders if she is truly doomed, the only person to ever take an interest in her romantically is a robot. And the audience notes that Willow has a serious problem - she needs someone to take an interest in her - to feel special, to be important. Hence the reason she was attracted to Malcom to begin with. The internet entity of Malcom made Willow feel wanted, less alone. But when confronted with the robotic reality - she was understandably horrified.

Joyce Summers has a similar experience in the Season 2 episode Ted. Recently divorced, struggling to raise a daughter and hold a job, Joyce doesn't get out much. She aches for companionship. She aches for someone to help her raise her daughter. So along comes Ted, the perfect boyfriend. He cooks. He appears to be good with kids, taking her daughter and her daughter's friends out to play golf. And most important - he is interested in Joyce. Joyce is the center of his world. Unfortunately, like Malcom, Ted isn't all he appears. He wants the perfect wife, the perfect child. Ted wants to control his world, just as Malcom wanted to control his. Except Ted really is a robot, a robot imprinted with the desires and personality of his human creator.

This is what Xander tells us about Ted: "So, I'm Ted, the sickly loser. I'm dying and my wife dumps me. I build a better Ted. He brings her back, holds her hostage in his bunker'o'love until she dies. And then he keeps bringing her back, over and over. Now, now that's creepy on a level I hardly knew existed."

(Is it? Sort of reminds me of few old stories: the first is the tale of Bluebeard who keeps hunting the perfect wife and beheads the ones who don't fit until he gets it right, hiding their corpses in the attic or proverbial closet, sort like robot Ted hides the bodies of his disappointing wives).

Willow oddly enough appreciates Ted's abilities and sympathizes with him. Stating the sad part is he was such a genius. Willow would like to control love as well. To create the perfect boyfriend. Ted similarly wants the perfect wife, one who will stay with him. But, instead of creating this wife, Ted recreates himself - as Xander puts it - builds a better Ted. 'I'll create the perfect husband. I'm not good enough as I am, she left the current version, so I'll make a better model.' This reminds me quite a bit of Willow who believes she's more interesting with magic. As she tells Buffy in Wrecked - without magic I was just a girl, Tara never knew that girl, she wouldn't have liked that girl. And later in Two to Go - Willow was the loser who people picked on for her mousy ways. (Outside of OZ and Tara no one took an interest in her.) Magic makes her better, builds a better Willow (a scary vieney Willow but a better one from Willow's perspective). I'm not unconvinced Willow wasn't somewhat impressed with Ted's idea of building a better self. An idea that sickened Xander. Both Ted and Willow believe that the fault lies with them. If they can be different - they can control love. They deserve love, they just don't know how to get it. Another character this reminds me of is Riley Finn. (Who I will explore in more depth in Part III of this analysis.) When Buffy first meets Riley he is the perfect studly boyfriend. Super-powered like she is. Although he notices with some chagrin she can still pummel him. Mystical energy beats the manufactured brand any day. Riley's strength is manufactured. His skills and natural abilities have been enhanced with drugs and other technological ingredients over time- providing him with super-strength. When these drugs almost kill him in Out of My Mind, Riley undergoes an operation and the super-strength is removed. He is no longer "super-solider" and therefore cannot keep up with his girlfriend either in bed or in the field. He believes that she can't love him as he is. Weak kittenish Riley. That he has to be the Perfect boyfriend just as he had to be the Perfect solider. As a result, Riley eventually leaves Buffy.

Joyce and Buffy really don't want perfect love or for that matter the perfect man. They would just like to be loved, appreciated. Joyce's attraction and disappointment in Ted was actually quite touching. He seemed to be the perfect man. He seemed to care only about her. What the human Ted didn't understand - is it wasn't super-strength or longevity his wife needed. It was love, unconditional and simple. If he had loved her he would have been able to let her go. Unfortunately robot Ted is incapable of understanding these concepts just as robot/demon Malcome is. Willow tells Malcome, 'I'm not a possession.' That's Malcom's concept of love - she's a possession, she's his. Just as Ted's concept of love is Joyce is his. Riley, to his credit, is far more advanced, he doesn't view love in this manner. No, Riley's problem is he can't believe he is good enough for Buffy as he is. He can't measure up to her without the super-strength and stamina. Malcom and Ted know they measure up what they can't understand is why the objects of their affection don't appreciate it and return their affection. Why can't you love me? Why don't you want me to take care of you? Well, if you can't - I'll kill you.

Part II. The Perfect Girlfriend: April, the Buffybot and Katrina

The Stepford Wives, a book and later a 1970's horror movie, starring Kathryn Ross, is about a bunch of men in a small community who murder their wives, replacing them with robot imitations. The robots are the perfect wives. They do all the things a perfect wife should do: housework, cook meals, entertain at dinner parties, raise kids, pleasure their husbands and they never ever complain. Real wives want to work, paint, hire a housekeeper, get depressed, etc. But the Stepford Wife - well she's the perfect solution. Predictable. Programmable. And best yet, she will stay with you forever.

The Stepford Wives reminds me of a far older tale of a man who constructs the perfect female. The Greek myth of Pygmalion, the king who makes a woman out of ivory and has it brought to life by Aphrodite. Once he does, he teaches the statue how to be human and it is more or less under his control. George Bernard Shaw adapted this story and modernized it in his play of the same name about a rich linguist who takes a poor flower girl under his wing and teaches her how to be a lady, treating her as a thing or robot in the process. She makes the mistake of falling for her teacher only to discover that he is incapable of loving her - she is, in his head, just his creation. My Fair Lady, a musical by Lerner and Lowe is a much more positive presentation on the same theme.

In Btvs' I Was Made To Love You - Warren attempts to create the perfect girlfriend. He actually has purer and less sexist motivations than the creeps in the Stepford Wives. As he states to Buffy, " I didn't make a toy, I made a girlfriend."

BUFFY: They're not talking to you, you're not gettin' dates ... you start thinking, "hey, this isn't fair."
WARREN: Yeah, I mean, I felt like I deserved to have someone. You know, I mean, everyone deserves to have someone.
BUFFY: So naturally you turned to manufacturing.
WARREN: Kinda.
BUFFY: And how long did it take to build yourself that little toy?
WARREN: Oh, no, she's not a toy. I mean, I know what you're thinking, but she's more than that.
BUFFY: I'm sure she has many exciting labor-saving attachments.
WARREN: No, I made her to love me. I mean, she cares about what I care about, and I didn't make a toy. I made a girlfriend.
BUFFY: A girlfriend. Are you saying ... are you in love with her?
WARREN: I really thought I would be. I mean, she's perfect. I don't know, I ... I guess it was too easy. And predictable. You know, she got boring. (Buffy rolls her eyes) She was exactly what I wanted, and I didn't want her. (laughs crazily) I thought I was going crazy.

I can sort of identify with Warren here. It's awfully hard to find someone to click with, who gets your jokes, who loves you. And doesn't everyone deserve to have someone? That's why the creator in A.I. creates the robot boy with the special skill to love. That's why Gepetto creates Pinocchio. And that's why Pygmalion asks Aphrodite to animate his beloved statue. We all want someone to love us. But is it right to create something with the impetus to love you without any guarantee you will love it back? What if you don't? The perfect girlfriend can get awfully boring. She does whatever you want, but there's no surprises, no suspense. As Spike puts it in Bargaining, that's all a robot is, perfect, predictable, boring, the perfect teacher's pet. While Warren is a step above the creeps who design the Stepford Wives - after all he really didn't want a slave at this point, he wanted a girlfriend, he doesn't understand that you can't just create something, make it love you, then forget it exists.

WARREN: Okay, I didn't really dump her, as much as I, uh, went out, and, uh, didn't come back. (Buffy stares) I left her, I ... left her in my dorm room.
BUFFY: (angry) You left her in your dorm room?!
WARREN: Well, I figured I could just kinda get away until her batteries gave out. Which should have been days ago.
BUFFY: Did you even tell her? I mean, did you even give her a chance to fix what was wrong?
WARREN: I didn't need to fix anything. I mean, her batteries were supposed to run down. Really, they should be completely dead by now.

The real world metaphor is pretty obvious. Riley leaves Buffy with a less than twenty-four hour ultimatum. Takes off. Doesn't give her a chance to even try and fix things. A common theme for Buffy. Every guy she gets romantically attached to or cares deeply about, takes off, starting with Hank Summers. From Buffy's perspective the worst thing that Warren could have done is just leave April sitting there, alone in his dorm room. It reminds me of scene from AI, where the mother takes her robot son out to the forest and leaves him there all alone with his teddy bear, nothing else. When all else fails, let's abandon the thing that didn't work out. The SG repeats this behavior pattern with the poor Buffybot in Bargaining. Willow mentions how they need to do something about it and Xander mentions it's a loss. Not worth salvaging. So the poor robot is tortured by the demon bikers and dismembered in a horrifically violent scene where they tie her arms and legs to four bikes and go off in four different directions. (Reminds me of an old Edgar Allan Poe Movie called Pit and the Penduleum.) It is ironic that the bot's original owner, Spike, is the one who finds her, driving up with her surrogate daughter Dawn on a demon bike. Spike, barely able to look at her, tells Dawn that she isn't real, that it's just a robot, but he goes and picks up her pieces, examining the wreckage, muttering, "look what they've done to you." The SG barely think about her. And to their credit, she was a nuisance, breaking up Willow's spell, bringing the demons straight to their doorstep.

At the end of IWMTY, Spike orders the Buffybot. Obsessed and lonely, Spike wants what Warren did, a girlfriend. But unlike Warren, Spike doesn't just want a girlfriend, not any old girl would do - if that was the case, he'd still be with Harmony or he'd just find someone. He really hasn't had any problems getting women. Sheila, Harmony, Drusilla, and the goth chick in Hells Bells all come to mind. No, Spike wants Buffy. Only Buffy. And since he obviously can't have Buffy, he orders the next best thing - a copy. Sort of similar to the parents in AI., who order a robot boy to love them, their real son lasped into a coma and may never get off life support. So they order a replacement. They miss the real thing of course, but the replacement offers some advantages - such as never getting sick. Spike also can't have the real thing, so he orders one to be made, one that is everything he thinks the real one would be if she loved him. One who slays vampires, loves her friends, and loves him. The result makes me think of a Harlequin novel or the romantic Buffy/Spike fanfic, makes one wonder if ME reads fanfic. (*Quick disclaimer - no I am NOT sabershadowkitten, no relation, do not know the woman or man who runs that site. I'm shadowkat. Never wrote fanfic in my life until I joined the Fanged Four FanFic Round Robin on ATP board… we'll see the results, a tad nervous. Now back to our discussion.)

Before Spike orders his robot, the writers do something fascinating, they compare him to April, scissoring back and forth between the two character's quests for love and acceptance. Building up their mutual desperation to the point that their resulting acts make perfect sense. Both are freaks. Both outcasts. Both hollow, soulless beings, that appear to everyone including the audience to be unworthy of love. First we see Spike try to speak to Buffy at a frat party. She understandably rejects him. (Wouldn't you? He had her in handcuffs the last episode and let Dru knock her out with a cattle prod. Actually she's quite polite about it. I would have staked him, especially after he tells her that she can put her hands on his tight hot body and throw him out. But then, Buffy is far more heroic and compassionate than I am. Not to mention forgiving.) Then April shows up looking for Warren and Warren hides from her. I think Buffy would have hidden from Spike if given half a chance. Luckily April throws him out the window. April is a little like Ted and Malcom - you don't love me or do what I want, you're dead. Robots up to this point were bad news.
The next comparison is far more disturbing and painful. It is, in a way, played for comedy, but the p.o.v is so clearly on Spike and April that we as an audience inwardly cringe. Spike rushes into the Magic Box on fire. Puts himself out and tries to interact with SG, in hopes of continuing his relationship with them and through them Buffy. They justifiably reject him and do so somewhat cruelly. He has formed a dangerous attraction for their friend, Buffy, and they cannot afford to encourage him in any way. Giles even threatens him, suggesting he move on or else. The way this scene is played, makes me cringe in sympathy for Spike. Then, as if to emphasize this, the scene shifts to April asking a bunch of people where Warren is. They proceed to cruelly ridicule and lie to her. This scene isn't as uncomfortable as the one with Spike, but it is just as disturbing. If you've ever had anyone reject you or treat you like an idiot - these two scenes back to back may have brought up some unpleasant memories. The people involved do not see their actions as cruel or reprehensible. After all April is not real. She's a robot. She can't perceive the cruelty. And Spike? Well, he's not real either, he's a loser, a soulless demon, evil. He does not deserve love, compassion, respect or tolerance. All he deserves is ridicule. Which I guess makes it okay. In Spielberg's A.I. there is a similar scene with the robot boy and the real son of the parents. The real son has come out of his coma and returned home. His parents have a party for him. During the party the real boy and his friends play with and cruelly ridicule the robot boy. You're just a toy, they tell him. You're not real. They could never love you because you aren't real! It's okay to treat someone cruelly if they don't deserve your respect, if they aren't human or real. Right?

After these scenes - Spike and April slowly degenerate into despair and rage. When April discovers that Warren doesn't love her but loves Buffy instead, she inflicts her bent-up rage and disappointment onto Buffy, even growling. What? April's a robot. She doesn't have feelings. Well apparently there was a screw-up in the programming, April does. Just like the A.I. robot boy did, reacting to the real son's ridicule and teasing by attacking him just as a real boy would. And what does Spike do? He packs up his Buffy shrine and takes it over to Warren, whom he's figured out created a robot girlfriend. Perfect solution, Spike thinks. I can't have the original, I'll get the next best thing a copy. He's lonely. And he needs someone. Is this evil? Who was evil in this episode? Personally I think we create our own monsters or at least have hand in their creation. Warren created the Aprilbot but was unable to shut her down or take responsibility for his creation, instead he runs away, hoping her batteries will run down and his current girlfriend will never find out. Of course the Aprilbot catches up to him and his current girlfriend, Katrina finds out, and leaves him in a huff. Buffy and the SG hope they can just ignore Spike, ridicule him, be cruel and he will go away and leave them alone, move on. But Spike is a demon and can't let go of things. No more than Angelus or Dru or Darla or the Aprilbot can, it's not their nature. They aren't human. They are like Ted or Malcom. The fact that Spike hopes to transfer his affections to a robot is actually an improvement over Malcom and April's desire to kill the obstacle or object. But his desire to build the Buffybot - to his specifications terrified me at the end of that episode. After all - look what happened with April? A violent robot on the rampage.

Ironic that the one robot in our lineup that did not turn out to be a violent creation was built to Spike's specifications. The Buffbot is a charming, witty parody of Buffy. In fact she seems to be more approachable and affectionate than the real Buffy. To the extent that her friends think she actually is Buffy. "You couldn't tell me from a robot?" Buffy accuses them. And the Buffbot's charming response? "I don't think I'm a robot." Spike wants more than just a girlfriend when he creates the Buffbot, he wants Buffy. And in the Buffbot we get a clearer picture of what he thinks Buffy is and why he has a thing for her. Forget for a minute their sexual excursions and think about her interactions with the other SG. Why did the SG buy her as Buffy? She doesn't react in the same way as April did with a one-track mind. She actually responds to the SG as if they are her family and friends. She wants to slay vampires. When they fight Glory and Giles is injured - Buffbot risks her life to save him, getting horribly injured in the process. In fact she beats the real Buffy to the punch. And when Spike goes missing? She goes to the SG to ask for help. Warren didn't come up with these little touches, he doesn't really know the SG. Spike did. Spike, as redcat puts it in her post on ideals and women in the long misogyny thread on ATP board, "Spike wants someone to serve, just as I always imagined that William fantasized himself the knight serving his lady." So when he creates the robot - he creates someone who will not only be sexually uninhibited with him but who he can also serve in the war against the vampires. Very ironic. Wouldn't it have made more sense for her to be against slaying vampires? Spike doesn't create a Stepford Wife or a sex slave, really, he creates his approximation of what a lady is. Complete with chaste knee length skirt and perky smile.

Except he grows bored of her after a while. I agree with redcat, who indicates in her ideal and women post that Spike has an almost bored look on his face while the Buffbot is giving him a blowjob and when she asks if he wants her to replay the program - he says, "no, program, don't say that, just be Buffy." And when Buffy pretends to be the Buffbot to see if he betrayed Dawn's origins to Glory, he acknowledges that she is his true concern. "When she confronts him with the obscene nature of his failure (building the Buffbot), his first emotion is shame."(redcat, ATP board). The Buffbot as Spike himself states in Bargaining, became predictable after awhile, boring, the perfect automaton. She'll never be exactly like Buffy and after Buffy dies, he finds that he cannot bear to be near her. Spike has learned the difference between real and not real. You can't create the perfect girlfriend.

What does the Buffbot represent metaphorically? The writers use her repeatedly throughout the show. First in The Gift as a distraction for Glory. Then later after Buffy dies we see that the SG have replaced Buffy with the Buffbot. The Buffbot manages to convince the world that Buffy isn't dead, so that Dawn isn't carted off to social services or to her delinquent father and the demons don't invade Sunnydale. And the Buffbot is more approachable and emotionally interactive with the SG then Buffy is when she returns. She goes with Dawn to school and charms the teachers. As Dawn states - they wanted to make it National Buffy Day. They loved her. Xander's snide reply: "And they couldn't figure out this wasn't Buffy?" The Buffbot lets Dawn sleep next to her at night and is kind to Spike. Spike can't bear to be near her, but she continues to smile perkily at him. She even tries to interact with Giles, who realizes that she just can't comprehend the notion of breathing or inner chi (neither can I for that matter…but hey, that's not the point). The real Buffy pushes everyone away, puts up a wall between herself and her friends and family. The only one who gets through oddly enough is Spike. Who she doesn't consider real. Buffy's sexual relationship with Spike reminds me a lot of Spike's with the Buffybot and Warren's with April. Using something to make yourself feel good regardless of what the thing feels for you in return. The Buffybot is left for dead by the SG. As Spike tells Dawn, it's not real, it's just a robot. Which means we shouldn't care. When we last see her she is just a head and torso lying admist a bunch of bonfires and wreckage, looking very lost. Dawn bends over her to shut her eyes and she moves responding to the gesture. Asking where her other self, the real self ran off to. It is a touching scene, particularly since it follows the SG's abandonment of her. An abandonment that Buffy has always feared. Xander and Willow leave the Buffbot to the demons, racing through the woods to save themselves. The Buff bot had gone to Willow to be repaired as Willow programmed. But the creator neglects its creation to save itself. Yes, I know you can argue that Spike or Warren really created the Bot, but Willow brought her back to life, Willow changed her programming, and Willow imprinted the information to seek her whenever she got hurt. Willow became the bot's mother. Just as Willow becomes Buffy's when she brought her back from the Earth's womb. And just as Willow neglects the bot, allowing the bot to be destroyed to go after her own ends, she attempts to discard Buffy in an open grave fighting demons Willow has created. Like Warren, Willow wanted the perfect creation, but doesn't know what to do with it when it wants more than she can give. Echoes of Malcom? Or am I reaching?

At last we come to Katrina, the human turned into a robot by a dampening device. Reminds me a little of Professor Walsh and her behavior modification chips, which I will get to shortly. Also it makes sense that Warren would move in this direction - not that big a step from actual robot to turning an ex-girlfriend into one to realize one's desires. And Jonathan always felt he was more successful with women when they didn't see him as he really was. Like Willow, Jonathan uses magic to hide himself - dampening Katrina's ability to actually see him protects him from rejection. In fact that's why they do it - avoiding rejection from the girls. Buffy states it perfectly in IWMTY: "They're not talking to you, you're not gettin' dates ... you start thinking, "hey, this isn't fair."" So I'll make you "like" me. Make you be my slave. Make you my stepford wife. Actually the image of Katrina in the French maid's uniform brought back memories of the Stepford wives. In the film we are led to believe that the women aren't actual robots, so much as have been brainwashed into living automatons. I was actually relieved when I discovered they were actually robots. Warren's abuse of Katrina in Dead Things is at first played humorously, with light music and laughs, until the mood breaks and she comes out of it. Her accusation of rape takes them all by surprise. All but Warren. Warren has gone from manufacturing a girlfriend to creating a step-ford wife. A slave who will address his every whim. And when he accidentally kills her - he really doesn't see it as being much different than shutting off April. Yeah, he has to hide it. But it's no big deal. She was just a girl. Just a robot. For Warren - the distinction has become blurred. In fact, I would take this a step further to state that Warren is slowly becoming like the mad Prof Walsh - he no longer sees people as human beings, he sees them as things to manipulate to fit his ends. The metaphor of Katrina as a robot only heightens this view. As does his treatment of his underlings, Jonathan and Andrew. Tools to reach his ends.

What if Katrina had really been a robot? Would her treatment have been justified? Is it more ethical to treat a robot in this manner? Would we have been less horrified if Warren had treated April or the Buffbot in this manner? Spike seemed to use the Buffbot in this way - except the Buffbot was a willing participant, even appeared to enjoy it. Just as Spike is a willing participant with Buffy, even seems to enjoy it. Except the Buffbot is programmed to enjoy it. Is Spike similarily programmed? Conditioned by the chip? By his desire for Buffy to accept any affection he can from her? Does it matter that she doesn't/can't love him while he can't help but love her to distraction? Does it matter that Spike doesn't love/can't love the Buffbot while the Buffbot can't help but love him? Does Spike's willing participation and the fact that he is not programmed make Buffy's actions less reprehensible morally? Should we use someone else, an entity with feelings, to make ourselves feel better?

In I ROBOT by Issac Asimov, later made into the movie Bicentennial Man with Robin Williams, this question is raised. A robot for years is used as a slave until he is finally set free and falls for and marries a human woman. His owner determines that it is wrong to enslave a creature with a mind of its own. Star Trek The Next Generation raises similar questions with two separate characters - the first was the robot Lt. Data on Star Trek Next Generation who initially is used to make the other characters feel better. Denise Crosby's character way back in the first season sleeps with him to feel better, he tells her that's one of his abilities. Later, after she dies, he touchingly mourns her. The Doctor on Star Trek's Voyager - a hologram, not real, struggles to obtain the right not to be moved about at the crew's will. Through these robotic metaphors - the writers express the immorality of using someone to make ourselves feel good without concern for their feelings. Btvs takes it a step further by comparing three selfish acts with different levels of severity. The worst is Katrina. The next is Willow's suppression of Tara's memories - very similar to the dampening of Katrina's consciousness and the third is Buffy's initiation of a sexual relationship with a vampire that she knows loves her passionately and to distraction and would literally stake himself for her. Each act is wrong. Why? Because in each situation the object is being treated as just that an object, to be controlled (Tara), to be used then discarded (Spike), or to be all three - (the robot-like Katrina).

It's easy to justify misuse of an object. It has no feelings. Just as it is easy to justify the misuse of an evil soulless thing. It's evil. It's feelings don't matter. It's not real. And if it's not real, not good, not worthy of respect, then what we do to it isn't real and doesn't matter. It's just a toy, after all. Something we throw in the closet, in the garbage or under the bed when we are done with it.

Chapter Text

In August, 2001, my boss gave an impromptu instruction session on management techniques. The crux of his little lesson was the perfect manager had the same responses and abilities as a robot. Perfect. We seem to be obsessed with the word perfect. I remember reading an interview with SMG about the musical and how she didn't want to do another one without lots of practice because she is a perfectionist. She isn't happy unless it's perfect. The perfect performance. The perfect weight. The perfect image. The perfect world - a world of plasticine images and smooth lines.

This is a popular theme in science-fiction. Robots, the perfect automatons would control society in a better manner than humans, because those nasty chaotic emotions wouldn't get in the way. The Terminator was about the robots killing off the humans, because they felt the humans were a disease on the planet. Matrix followed a similar idea. Then there's the Japanese Anime and Magna novels where people are combined with robotic parts to make them more durable, able to withstand anything. The Japanese magna and anime sci-fi concentrate heavily on avoiding apocalypse, the results of nuclear war, and the negative results of technology. The anime film Ghost in the Shell falls into this category.

In the 1980s, while I was wandering around Wales persuading innocent villagers to tell me folk stories, I shared a ride with two military guys - serving time in Italy. I believe they were army but can't remember. Anyway we got to talking and they told me that in the military - you aren't supposed to think, except to the extent that you can understand and obey orders. The perfect solider they told me was a robot, someone who would back you up without question. You needed people who would climb a hill and race into a firestorm, possibly getting killed in the process. If the soliders questioned their commanders, we'd have mass chaos. In boot camp, he told me, we're taught to obey, our ego is stripped away, until there is just a grub, a solider, obeying orders in its place. The perfect robot. Or at least that's the intent. But suffice it to say, life doesn't work that way. We're human, we feel and it's awfully difficult to ignore emotions when it comes to things like killing other human beings or getting killed yourself.

So wouldn't it be wonderful if we could create the perfect solider? A robot to fight for us? And why stop there? How about the perfect cop? The perfect fireman? The perfect student? The perfect worker? The perfect teacher? The perfect actor? I remember in grade school, we theorized that in the year 2001 - our teachers would be robots or computers. And just a few years ago, with all the advancements in animations and digitization, it was theorized that soon we would no longer need human actors. Robots could do everything. And they'd be better at it than us, because after all they didn't have our problems, they didn't possess what Freud would have called the id. No need for comfort, food, shelter, love, sex or joy. Automatons. Perfect.

1. Adam, Daryl, and Frankenstein

In Btvs, Professor Walsh through the use of Skinner-like conditioning techniques, medical science and technology attempted to create the perfect group of super-soliders. She started small with Riley and the Initiative soliders, then built her way up through chipping demons like Spike, and finally the creation of Adam. Professor Walsh's motivation is simple; she just wants to make the world a better place and to be God. She even calls Adam and Riley her sons. Her creations. She's a bit like Dr. Frankenstein in the Mary Shelley novel of the same name.

In Frankenstein - the protagonist, Dr. Frankenstein believes you can create life from death. He believes by doing so, we have conquered death. Shelley wrote the novel shortly after she miscarried her first child. Tormented by dreams of giving birth to a monster or having her dead child brought back to life, Shelley wondered what would happen if we tried to circumvent nature and create life from death. The results were chaotic. The resulting Monster destroyed everything Frankenstein valued. This reminds me of Professor Walsh, who like Dr. Frankenstein strives to show the scientific world that she can harness the chaotic forces of nature to create a super-solider that will obey her orders. The perfect solider. Instead she creates the perfect monster: Adam, who like Frankenstein's Monster, kills her, destroys her reputation, and her soul.

This is not the first time Btvs has explored the Frankenstein theme. In Some Assembly Required, (Season 2, Btvs) a high school science nerd resurrects his dead brother, Daryl, from the grave by piecing together dead body parts. Like Frankenstein's Monster, Daryl wants a mate. Both Frankenstein and Daryl are lonely creations, outcastes. They remind me a little of Spike in Season 4, after Harmony has left him and he's forced to fend for himself. All three are outcasts due to the interference of science. Spike had a role before; he was Mr. Big Bad Vampire and part of demon society, a dark warrior. Now, with the chip, he's a neutered vampire that no one takes seriously, except the demons he pummels for fun. Daryl also had a role - he was the football hero. Then he died. And now he's been brought back to life and is alone. A monster. His brother did it supposedly out of love, playing god. Similar to Dr. Frankenstein who attempts to resurrect his dead wife after the monster kills her. Walsh to her credit, or discredit, had far less personal motivations. (This could also be paralleled with Willow who decides to bring back Buffy and later Tara. Willow is as arrogant as Prof. Walsh and Daryl's brother, believing she can play god with natural rules.) But back to Daryl, who wants a mate. And not just any mate - he wants a mate just like him with Cordelia's head. So his brother attempts to construct one, just as Dr. Frankenstein constructs one. But has a change of heart when he has to kill someone to complete the task. Frustrated, Daryl takes over and tries to do it himself. Fortunately Buffy stops him before he can kill Cordy. In Some Assembly Required - the creator once again has to deal with the chaotic desires of his creation. The boy's best intentions - to bring his beloved brother back to life only result in corrupting his brother's memory and everything his dead brother touches. His attempt to create something better, to cheat death, only causes more death and destruction. Just as Professor Walsh's attempt to cheat death and harness the forces of chaos only results in more chaos and death. Nature refuses to be controlled.

Like Daryl and Frankenstein are pieced together from corpses, Adam is revealed to be pieced together from numerous demons and humans and technology. A hodgepodge of medical and technical science. To the extent that the human part of Adam no longer has an identity, no longer exists, he becomes something new, just as Daryl and Frankenstein have. All three creations challenge their creators' vision, intent on following their own paths. 'We are not just tools to be used at your whim,' they seem to declare, going in the opposite direction from their creators' vision. Instead of being their creator's perfect child, a reaffirmation of life, they become monsters or reaffirmations of death and destruction.

2. Riley, Spike and Robocop

Riley, Walsh's second son, is the reverse of Adam, the good "perfect" son. Of course Riley isn't a monster, he's a man who has been feed drugs and conditioned over time to follow Prof. Walsh and the dictates of the organization that recruited him. Riley is already the perfect solider, created not by biology or technology but by behavorist conditioning. Riley is the result of "psychology". Super-strong. Smart. Follows orders without question. Sees the world in the black and white shades that the military and Prof. Walsh painted for him. He like the "Adam" in the Eden Story, avoids partaking of the tree of good and evil. He prefers the nice comfortable orderly world he inhabits. He does not want to follow his own initiative, he'd rather follow the government's or if you like the PTB's dictates, it's easier.

Riley reminds me a little of RoboCop, ( played by Peter Weller). In this film, a good cop (Alex Murphy) who played by the rules, followed the system, and gave his life up for his partner in a bust gone bad, is co-opted by a huge corporation and turned into Robocop, a technological wonder of steel, computer chips, and human tissue. At first, Murphy has no problems with this, believing it is for the good of the public, then slowly discovers the corporation's nefarious ends and also what he has had to give up to become the perfect solider. He can no longer see his wife and child. He is in a word dead to them. He no longer requires human comforts: food, shelter, comfort, sex and love. I re-watched a section of Robo-cop II recently, in this section - Murphy's wife is suing the corporation and police force for what they did to her husband, who they insist is dead, but he still is visiting her as Robocop. The corporation pulls Robocop in and in a lengthy interrogation session conditions him to believe that he is not human, that he has no feelings, that he has no wife. That his primary purpose is to serve the law and nothing else. He must be the perfect solider. Outside life mustn't interfere with that in any way. Who he is and what he does is no longer dictated by him but by the organization he serves.

Riley tries to be the perfect solider, even gives his superiors the benefit of the doubt when Walsh attempts to kill Buffy. He doesn't trust Buffy's account of this event, even after he sees evidence of Walsh's culpability with his own eyes. (Goodbye Iowa) Riley is so conditioned by Walsh, that he can't quite believe she would betray him not until the evidence is made painfully real. In fact after Adam kills Walsh, he believes Buffy may been responsible for the Professor's death. His friend, Forrest, certainly believes it. It isn't until Adam appears on the scene and tells Riley that Walsh drugged him repeatedly over time and had big plans for them both that Riley begins to break with the establishment. Poor Riley, corn-fed farm boy joins the military, does well, gets promoted, only to have some crazy Professor use him as a psychology experiment.

Psychology experiments. The man is turned into a machine not through medical science but through psychological conditioning, through the breaking down of his defenses. The Manchurian Candidate is a classic example of psychological conditioning. The film starring Lawrence Harvey and Frank Sinatra is about a man who is conditioned to kill government leaders with post-hypnotic suggestion and drugs. His mother learns of his conditioning and uses it to manipulate her way into politics. In the end it backfires on her just as Professor Walsh's behavioral conditioning backfires. Riley doesn't do what Prof Walsh wants any more than Lawrence Harvey does what his mother wants. The difference, in Btvs, the good doctor uses drugs and behavioral modification chips instead of hypnotic suggestion. As Spike states at the beginning of Primeval, when he discovers that he, Adam, and Riley have chips, "Oh, I see, it's chips all around."

Riley isn't only conditioned by drugs; he also has a chip in his chest controlling his behavior. If he gets out of line, it will immobilize him. Professor Walsh thought of all the variables. Riley is the mad professor's unwilling lab experiment. The tragedy? Riley volunteered, he willingly subjected himself to the good Professor's tutelage but he did not subject himself to her lab experiments. She did that without his knowledge. So it's not his fault right? It's not his fault that he becomes her lab experiment, that he gets co-opted by the military, that he almost becomes something he hates. He's not culpable for the things the Initiative does.

Many fans believe the theme of Season 4 was all about taking the "Initiative" in our lives, choosing our own course instead of having someone else choose it for us. Does Riley? In one episode, Riley tells Buffy he's not very good at gray, he prefers the black and white organized world of the military where people told him what to do. Buffy counters that while it is difficult to chart your own course it is worth it and he has options. He can either go back to the military or he can use what he's learned and find a way of fighting demons on his own. She had to make a similar decision when she broke with the Watcher's Council.

Unlike Robocop's Officer Murphy, Riley has choices. He is human, not a robot, not held back by technology. He can and does remove his behavior modification chip in Primeval and for part of Season 5, actually does attempt to chart a course away from the military. When his toxins are removed in Out of My Mind, he is no longer the super solider. No outside force has an influence over him. He is his own man. He can chart his own course. Officer Murphy in Robocop remains encased in his robotic armor, his choices dictated by those who created him. His attempts to break free are emotionally and morally scarring. He remains an outcast from his own kind, sort of similar to Spike. Spike tries on numerous occasions to remove his chip but he can't. It is permanently encased in his skull; forced removal could render him a vegetable.

In Season 4, Spike and Riley are closely paralleled. Both get chipped. Professor Walsh attempts to control both of them. Both become her unwilling lab experiments. She wants to turn both of them into a type of super-solider. (Well maybe just one, the other might be more of a dissection, but you get the point.) Both escape this fate. And both momentarily join Adam in his cause. Adam bribes Spike with the possibility his chip's removal while he uses Riley's chip to coerce him into participating.

This on-going parallel between Riley and Spike reminds me a lot of a Psych 101 course I took and hated in college. The course consisted of teaching a small, rather cute rat to run through a maze. To get the rat to run through this maze, we had to condition its' responses. The whole class was about how we can condition certain behavioral responses. In the case of the rat, if it ran in the right direction - it got cheese, if it ran in the wrong direction it received a small shock. Spike is given a chip that reinforces negative conditioning, it is technically speaking an electronic leash. What it does is change the course of Spike's existence. The chip makes it impossible for him to hurt a living creature. He can hurt demons as he discovers in Doomed, apparently the government doesn't consider demons living. He can also pick flowers or stomp on grass. But he can't hurt humans, dogs, kitty cats, rats, etc as far as we know. Riley receives positive reinforcement from his conditioning. He does the right thing, takes his vitamins - he gets super-strong and is promoted. Goes off his meds, breaks with the government - he becomes weak and kittenish.

Poor Spike. After the installation of the chip, he attempts to bite Willow and slay Buffy. Instead Buffy ends up saving him from the government. He does eventually adapt to his situation, becoming an informant for the Scooby Gang. Occasionally fighting demons for them on the side. But in doing so, he has become an outcaste to his own kind. In the same episode that Riley leaves the Initiative, Spike is thrown out of Willy's demon bar. Both are forced to leave the worlds they knew, that they were comfortable in, and seek a new path.

Of the two, Riley eventually reverts back to the old one. For a while he follows Buffy's path as the demon hunter, until his super-strength is removed and she begins to shut him out of that portion of her life. Notice he's not charting his own path here, he's just following Buffy's, he has in effect switched from the Initiative's path to Buffy's "slayer" path. Unfortunately, Buffy isn't cooperating - as early as Buffy vs. Dracula, she leaves him out of her demon hunting duties. And in the beginning of Out of My Mind, Buffy is upset with both Spike and Riley for helping her. And Riley still has his strength at this point.

Instead of charting his own course, Riley has merely jumped from being the "perfect" solider in the government's initiative, to being the "perfect" boyfriend. And to his credit, he is the "perfect studly boyfriend" - at least in the beginning. Always provides that shoulder to cry on - whether she wants one or not. Always there to help with the demon slaying - whether she wants him to or not. Always supportive. All he wants from her is to feel needed. To have her lean on him. To be her project as she is his. Riley doesn't know any other way to treat her. As Graham puts it, "Oh so you're the Mission's true love? You used to have a mission Riley." For Riley, life has no meaning unless someone else sets the rules, boundaries, and of course, the mission. He likes following orders, being the "perfect robot".

Spike on the other hand, does not. He is after all a demon. And a particularly odd one at that. Adapts to the situation as it arises. And charts his own haphazard course. In Off-kilter's post, 10,000 methods of Spike, she paints the picture of a demon who doesn't give up. If plan A doesn't work, he'll try plan B to get what he wants. It's actually sort of inspiring to watch. And very different from Riley - who tries to set his own course, falls on his ass, and reverts back to the safety of the army, with its clear rules and boundaries. (*Quick disclaimer - I am not saying "our" military creates automatons or is an easy path in "our" world, we're talking about "Jossverse" metaphors here. Fantasy world guys not real world. I have the utmost respect for the real men and women who choose to serve our countries.)

Unlike Riley who goes with the flow, tries to be the "good" son, Spike fights it. He reminds me of A Clockwork Orange's Alex - making the most of the conditioning in his brain. Conditioning does have an effect on him - he reacts to the positive and negative stimulus of those around him like Pavlov's Dog (the dog who learns not to push the lever if it shocks him). If I can't hit humans, I'll hit demons - he thinks. Not because it helps humans, but because it gets rid of the violent energy coursing inside him, suffocating him. Spike doesn't want to be the perfect robot, he doesn't want to be held by someone else's strings. He desires to be in charge of his own destiny. His self-loathing erupts when he finds himself at the mercy of someone else's. Riley on the other hand prefers to be safe within the confines of the organization, the organization's solider or puppet. His self-loathing erupted when he was alone, purposeless. (See OOMM - Into the Woods, Season 5).

3. Kendra, Sam, The Buffy-bot and Ghost in the Shell

Speaking of puppets on strings, I recently rewatched the anime film, Ghost in A Shell. The film is about a cyborg girl (Major) who is defined completely by her job as the perfect operative for a secret organization. The "ghost" in the shell - refers to the computer generated soul inside the artificial body. Or real soul generated by the human brain harvested and placed in the body. The Major isn't sure which. At one point in the film she asks: "What if I'm not real? What if what I feel, who I am is all just based on how I'm treated by those around me?" She aches to exist outside other's constructs of reality. This reminds me of ponygirl's comment under my previous Robot Metaphor post, which asks - am I treating those around me as real or just as constructs of the reality I've imposed on them? Is who they are based on me?

Is who we are and what we do based solely on others' expectations of us? Their emotional programming? Are we, like the Major in Ghost in The Shell - tools for others bidding?

In Btvs - Kendra is the "perfect" slayer. She even has the slayer handbook. Follows it rigidly. When she was a child, her parents willingly gave her over to her Watcher. She never saw them again. Nor did she date boys or develop friendships. You aren't supposed to - she tells Buffy. Emotion weakens you. Emotional ties compromise you. You must work alone with only your watcher as your guide. This is similar to the First Slayer in Buffy's dream in Restless - we are alone and the slay is the only thing that is important. Kendra's speech, her habits, even her reactions to people are almost robot like. She feels anger and embarrassment, but pushes these emotions aside, as not important. Vampires should be killed, regardless of souls. Emotion weakens you. Life is dictated by the books she's studied. It's telling that Giles mentions in What's My Line Part II, that even though he had a handbook, he knew it wouldn't work for Buffy. Buffy refuses to be the council's puppet. She refuses to turn off her emotions or follow the dictates of some handbook. Or be destiny's fool. Buffy refuses to be just "the slayer". While Kendra believes that being just "the slayer" is her destiny. A destiny which results in Kendra' death, and as Kendra would probably put it - as it's supposed to. Slayer dies. New one born. Happens all the time. And usually before 21. What does Spike tell Buffy in Fool For Love? "Your friends, mother, little sis, tie you to this world…without them you would have died long ago." He may be right, Kendra is easily taken out by Drusilla in Becoming Part I.

The Major in the anime film version of Ghost in The Shell, like Buffy, does not want to be just a puppet, she seeks to know herself and seeks to know the world outside of the network she is a part of. Just as Buffy seeks to know more than just slaying and the network she's a part of. Both eventually break with that network or organization, both suffer a type of death by doing so. The Major merges with another computer program or ghost and in doing so is freed upon the net, grows up, becomes more than just a "ghost" in the shell or as she puts it "an individual based on computerized memory." The other ghost or "puppet master program" that she merges with, tells her that "all things must change in a dynamic environment, to remain as you are limits you." Buffy seems to see this as well, by making the choice to jump from the tower of her adolescence, she is free to literally emerge renewed from the earth's womb as an adult. She makes the choice to jump. Not her watcher or the council who no doubt would have ordered her to kill her sister instead. Buffy jumps to find her own destiny, just as the Major jumps into another program to find her's. By dying both are resurrected to a new life. They don't necessarily choose this new life, the Major finds herself in the robotic body of a child and Buffy has to break out of her coffin. But both choose to continue to struggle forward, better for the experience.

Left behind after Buffy's jump, the Buffybot, remains unchanged. Continuing to fight Buffy's fight as Willow programs her to. Continuing to repeat phrases from her old sex programs to Spike. Even those programs aren't completely wiped out. She states inappropriate but charming quips that are reminiscent of Kendra. She treats Dawn as the nice little sister, unchanging in her attitude towards her. And admires Spike's washboard abs and brain as she did before she changed owners. The "perfect" little robot. Except for one teensy problem - like Kendra, she is easily killed. She can't adapt to new situations or live outside the box. If she gets injured, she goes to her programmer, when her programmer or mother abandons her, she is destroyed so that her ex-lover is left rumbling through the wreckage, mourning her loss while her surrogate sister gently tries to close her eyes. The Buffbot's death is as painful as Kendra's because neither reach their full potential, yet it is just as inevitable. Without the ability to grow beyond the boundaries of a reality constructed by others - we are doomed to be squashed by the changes and turmoil the world unleashes on us. In the Buffbot's case, it's the pirate demons who tear her apart like a little boy ripping the arms and legs off his sister's Barbie doll. They treat her as the toy she so accurately plays. In Kendra's case, it's Drusilla, Drusilla with all her lovely dolls, that kills Kendra, seeing Kendra as just another wind-up doll she can knock aside.

It is ironic that a Watcher created Kendra and Willow - a would be Watcher re-programmed and gave new birth to the Buffbot. Both the Watchers and Willow desire to control their world. They do so by finding and training slayers or in Willow's case programming a robot and bringing Buffy back from the dead. Like Professor Walsh, they mean no harm. They want to make the world a safer better place. But as Giles tells Prof. Walsh in A New Man, the Council in Helpless, and later Willow in Flooded, such control comes with an incredibly high price. Nature cannot be controlled. It must be respected.

Which brings us to Sam, the missionary turned solider. Sam is an interesting character. Like Riley she has been raised by organizations that adore rules and order. She is first the "perfect" missionary, then the "perfect" solider, and finally the "perfect" wife. Missionaries historically go into uncivilized areas to exert order. They believe, somewhat arrogantly, that they are civilizing the people, they are providing them with a set of rules to live by and thus bettering their lives. History does not always look kindly on the results. Novels such as The Poisonwood Bible, At Play in the Fields of The Lord, and Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness all discuss the chaos created by well-meaning missionaries, who arrogantly believe they can tame what they deem to be the wilderness. The women innocently view themselves as saviors, unaware of the destruction they wrought on the people they wish to civilize. This is Sam in As You Were.

In AYW, Sam hero-worships Buffy, comparing her to Santa Clause, which Anya told us was actually a child eating boogy man in THE BODY. Buffy is similarly compared to the boogy man by Forrest in Season 4. A mystical unexplainable force, outside the boundaries of reality defined by Sam and Riley's organizations. When Buffy and Sam discuss Riley's break with Buffy, Sam tells Buffy, there are no bad guys here. It was good you let Riley go. It took him a year to get over you. (Implying that Buffy was outside his reality, his league?) Better to be with no guy than the wrong one. These sound like platitudes, designed to make Buffy feel better, but result in the opposite. But Buffy can't help but love Sam. Sam is perfect. Kind. Comforting. She tells Willow that Willow has succeeded in doing something few can accomplish, give up dark magics. Charming Willow to exchange emails with Sam, a woman she swore she'd hate on Buffy's behalf. Xander receives advice on how to take pictures at his wedding, seeing Sam and Riley as the Perfect Marriage, which he, Xander, can only hope to live up to. But, as Exegy points out on numerous well written posts regarding AS YOU WERE (and Exegy - forgive me if I misquote you- don't have any copies in front of me, so going by memory here), these messages from Sam and Riley are comforting yet also slightly robotic and clichè. The Scoobies see Sam and Riley as the ideal, but if you look closely, you'll see the helicopter they leave in does not go up but across. Sam and Riley do not go to heaven. And their words are just platitudes similar to April's comforting clichés. "Darkness before the dawn…lemons make lemonade…the wheel turns, your up your down, your still a wonderful woman…" Do these words really matter when the meaning is hollow behind them? Riley knows nothing about Buffy's life. He doesn't even know she died to save the universe.

Riley and Sam get their mission, their strokes, their sense of reality not from themselves but from the organization they are with. As Buffy states - "do you get dental with that?" Apparently so. They also have gadgets, guns that misfire, and safe houses. It seems to be the perfect life - but is it? Is it just an illusion? Made of plasticine and kelvar and cool gadgets? The perfect world seems perfect from the outside, but if we dive inside it, we'll discover all too quickly how hollow it truly is.

4. Warren, Willow : the Warrenbot & Buffybot

No Robot Metaphor analysis would be complete without discussing the Warrenbot and the two people associated with it. Warren and Willow - very similar, two characters who hide themselves behind electronics and magic. They remind me of the Wizard of OZ, no not the title, the little man behind the curtain, the little man who put on such a big show for Dorothy and her friends, nearly scaring them to death. Don't pay attention to the man hiding behind the curtain the scary creation on the screen tells them. They do and reality changes. Like the little man, Willow and Warren are afraid to be seen as they are. They'd prefer to show something else to the world instead. Both are guilty of the same fatal flaw, they want to hide.

From the second episode of Season 1, Harvest, we see Willow hacking into a computer to get information on the city's sewer system. Willow is constantly hiding behind a computer. In I Robot You Jane - Willow is spending more time with her computer than her friends, preferring the company of the emails that drift across it. Later in Season 6, after Willow gives up magic, we see her once again hiding behind the computer - pulling out useful information on the geeks. Warren likewise hides behind a computer. Behind gadgets. He always has. It's safer than real people. Gadgets he can control. It's fitting that he uses a gun to kill Buffy, it's another man-made gadget. A gadget that Riley and his soliders use and Buffy states is never useful. Apparently it's more useful than she realized.

When Warren wants to escape from Willow's fury - he builds yet another gadget. Just as Willow reprograms the Buffbot to protect the inhabitants of Sunnydale from the demons. Neither gadget works. They are both limited. Willow easily destroys the Warrenbot and furious by his attempts to evade her, sets out with even more purpose to kill and torture him. I wonder if he would have been better off if she'd found him on the bus? The Buffbot leads the demons directly to Willow, breaking up her spell and almost getting her killed. Neither gadget worked as intended. Both were declared lost.

In Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Warren and Willow are not content with interpreting their own reality, they want to interpret everyone else's as well. They want to control their world. They want to impose their will on it. Make it like it is in their heads. Just as Dr. Frankenstein, Professor Walsh and the corporations behind Robo-cop and the Ghost in the Shell wanted to control theirs. But what world are we living in when everything is mechanized and plastic and perfect? The world of Riley and Sam? Or the world of Professor Walsh? Do we really want someone else to dictate what we should feel? How we should do our job? What to aspire to? Do we want to become robots? Is it really so wonderful being perfect? Do we really want a perfect, mechanized world?

In Conclusion

In the film Ghost in The Shell, the main character (Major) who is literally a ghost in a robot shell is told to merge her consciousness and soul with another program, in doing so they will enter a vast network of programs and gradually become we as opposed to I and be a part of the world at large instead of forever isolated from it as individual programs. If a robot is akin to what Freud described as super-ego - that morality based on knowledge alone and no emotional ties, then where does that leave us as human beings? Well, it has been suggested that morality as a construct of society alone with all its legal boundaries and rules isn't all that effective. What is to prevent us from breaking them? Fear of imprisonment? Are we worshipping at the alter of knowledge and by doing so, by being overly self-conscious of our fate and our existence, becoming in effect robots, no longer in contact with the very thing that makes life meaningful? (Paul MacDonald addresses some of this in his essay on Myth, located at the Fictionary Corner of www.atpobtvs.com.)

It is good to reflect on our experience, but if that is all that we do - then we no longer have the experiences to reflect on. And if we do too much reflection - we lose the meaning entirely. There are times that words limit the meaning. There are times that meaning or experience can be felt more fully and keenly without words or reflection. And these times must be treasured. Morality based on legal rules, societal constructs and knowledge alone becomes eventually meaningless. And we become automatons following these rules - much like the Buffybot or even Riley in Btvs. But without morality, without caring for each other - seeing it as nothing but rules - we become like Spike, Willow and Warren - amoral or immoral emotional powderkegs. So how do we know? Spike answers this question for us in Seeing Red. After the attempted rape - it is difficult to determine who is more upset, Buffy or Spike. Spike seems utterly and completely tormented. He can't even drink a glass of vodka without shattering it. He rails at Clem asking what it is that he is feeling and tries to gouge the chip in his head out as if that is the route cause. Prior to this - the reason he goes to see Buffy, is his pain at having hurt her by sleeping with Anya. I think we all agree that Spike is by definition amoral, legal rules mean nothing to him, he certainly doesn't care about the dictates of society - to care he'd need a soul - right? It's the chip that keeps him from hurting living things and it's his love for Buffy that keeps him from hurting her. But why does his love keep Spike from hurting Buffy? We take it for granted that it does, but have we ever thought about why? It does because when he hurts Buffy, he hurts himself. Killing Buffy would destroy him. Just as failing to save her in The Gift, threatened to destroy him. He states in Intervention - that he would die before letting Glory find out about Dawn because it would destroy Buffy, and he couldn't live knowing she was in that much pain due to him. In a sense, and this is truly ironic, Spike's reasons for not hurting Buffy are far truer and far more moral than Buffy's for not killing Warren. Spike's don't come from laws or society, they come from the heart. Now extend this to why Giles gives Willow the magic at the end of Grave - to link her with humanity's pain, his view is to give her a reason not to hurt humanity or the earth by realizing that if she does so, she hurts herself. This is why only Xander could stop her, not Buffy. Buffy throws rules and order and society at Willow. Xander throws love and if you hurt me, you hurt yourself. Don't you see - if you take down the world, you must take me first - and all you do is hurt yourself more?

We are part of each other - far more than we realize. When we hit or kill or maim, it is like bruising a portion of ourselves. The reason not to hurt each other is far simpler than we think - we shouldn't do it because it hurts us. When we give and help each other - we help ourselves. We are our neighbor. We are all part of each other, the earth and the universe. The problem with focusing too much on laws, theories, science and knowledge is we start to isolate our being in armored technological constructs and risk losing the very thing that makes us human, that makes us connected that makes us - us. And I think Btvs gets this across both with Adam - who is disconnected from humanity and demons. As well as all the other robot metaphors throughout the years. It's like the choice the rogue program gives the major in Ghost in The Shell - you can either die isolated in that shell, limited or merge with me and become part of the universe. Which would you choose?