The Buffyverse Character Countdown (#7)

#7.

Hero: Winifred "Fred" Burkle (Angel Seasons 2-5)

Joss Whedon, I won’t forgive you for this one. You can kill Ms. Calendar. You can kill Joyce. You can kill Tara. You can even kill Spike.

But what you did to Fred was downright unforgivable.

I’m not going to act as if Fred Burkle has the most complex character arc of all of the main heroes in Angel or that she’s the most psychologically engaging or that she had the most important role in the show. I’ll even admit that the timing of Fred’s death is a devious fake-out that kept fans on their toes. But what Fred did provide was a spirit of optimism and joy into Angel that the series desperately needed and practically ran on for two entire seasons. Fred is one of the main reasons why Angel’s third season is one of its best and a key reason why Season Four isn’t entirely unwatchable. Her arc, strictly defined, might be small, but what she offers to group dynamic, general tone, and overall series character is monumental. There has never been a character in the Buffyverse whose light-hearted nature is more infectious or who is, dare I say it, more lovable.

Winifred Burkle is a genius, and an ambitious one at that. Despite growing up in the conservative South, she continues to push herself intellectually and morally. Better yet, her adorable family supports all of her ambitions to become one of the world’s top physicists. Unfortunately for Fred’s future, one of her professors, jealous of her potential, transports her to the dimension of Pylea, in which humans are treated like cattle. We don’t get to see all of the trauma Fred undergoes during this period, but five years of physical, psychological, emotional, and possibly even sexual abuse reduce her to a gibbering wreck by the time Angel Investigations arrives in the dimension. She manages to assist them throughout their time in Pylea, and they manage to return her to her rightful home, but she makes the choice to remain in Los Angeles with them and help defend the innocent.

After Fred starts to adjust back to normal life in Angel’s third season, getting over an initial attraction to Angel linked to her savior complex, she immediately becomes a central part of the team. Her gleefulness towards problem solving and tenderness towards others is such that every single member of the Angel Investigations team quickly becomes a lifelong friend of hers… with Wesley falling particularly hard. That said, after her Pylean experience, Fred is naturally wary of certain types of attachments. Considering matters from her perspective, her choice of Gunn as her first significant other isn’t all that unsurprising. Since she’s really only ever been a student prior to her exile, she’d naturally flock to the more inexperienced, “safe” choice of Gunn. Unfortunately for Fred’s character, this love triangle leads to her often becoming the object of Wesley and Gunn's affections within individual episodes’ plots. She maintains her own character, but she often has to play on the defensive side when things go wrong, as is the case in “Billy,” wherein both Gunn and Wesley, while under the influence of Billy's blood, try to kill her. In moments like this, Fred feels like a character more acted upon than acting.

That said, Fred is more complex than her plot placement would often suggest. Fred’s main psychological quirk is her inferiority complex. Having been a victim for so long, she is hesitant to claim that she can ever be a hero on par with the rest of the cast. She’s not the most athletic, the most strategically minded, or the most “balls to the wall” character in the cast. She’s so terrified of being perceived as weak that she cannot bear to even see her loving, supportive family when they arrive in Los Angeles, for fear that she won’t be psychologically whole while seeing them. However, the entire cast is aware that Fred’s capacity to love others in spite of the trauma she has undergone makes her more powerful than nearly all of them put together. And that’s not to mention her superior intellect, one that could put every single character in the entire Buffyverse to shame.

However, in the episode, “Supersmmetry,” we see a side of Fred that is well and truly terrifying. When Fred discovers the man who sent her to Pylea in the first place, she becomes determined to kill him… and she does. Sure, Gunn steps in and snaps her professor’s neck before she is able to suck him into a portal to a hell dimension – the equivalent of stealing someone’s kill in a game of Super Smash Bros. – but Fred at no point stops in her attempt to get revenge. The act definitely takes something out of her – just as everyone in the cast warns – and it leads to her breaking up with Gunn. More importantly, it more closely aligns her with Wesley, as he, as opposed to Gunn, allows her to make her own choices as to whether or not to take the path of vengeance rather than forcing her to obey the will of the group. This episode puts Fred and Wesley’s Season Five relationship into context, revealing that there’s more to their relationship to mere intellectual compatibility and narrative contrivrance; at their core, these are two people who learn to respect one another.

All of Fred’s heroic potential emerges, oddly enough, in the Jasmine story arc. It might seem odd for Fred to save the day during the most apocalyptic arc in Angel, but there’s actually quite a bit of thematic continuity within this narrative decision. Fred has previously been a slave within a seemingly bright and happy environment; now, as everyone else becomes a slave to Jasmine’s cheery, hippie magic, it is Fred who must free them. Against all odds, despite being the one sane person surviving in a world run by the Buffyverse equivalent of the Antichrist, Fred manages to free her friends one by one by exposing them to Jasmine’s blood, an act of incredible heroism that she finally is able to accept as genuine. Her resilience, intellect, and compassion all pay off, as she sees through the lies of Jasmine’s false paradise and embraces the ambiguity of the world. It’s a great turn for her character in an otherwise weak arc.

Fred is even wonderful in her limited role in Season Five. As the head of the revamped Wolfram & Hart’s science division, she assists the main cast in dozens of missions. She is the first character in Angel to ever treat Spike with any level of respect or decency. She even gains the confidence to go on a few dates with non-Angel Investigations personnel, even if her date with Knox goes about as well as any date with someone who wants to use your body as a vessel for an elder demon god can. She even finally gets together with Wesley after two and a half seasons of agonizing waiting. After their kiss in “Smile Time,” the audience is prepared for a whole new world of relationship dynamics to close out the season…

One episode later, and Fred is destroyed. Not killed. Not even murdered. Not even disintegrated or dusted. No: her soul – the essence of her being – is burned into nothingness as Illyria takes control of her body. Not only can she not be revived, but she also cannot experience the peace of heaven or the agony of hell. She is splintered out of existence. It is, without a doubt, the most excruciating, frustrating, and exquisitely painful death in the entire Buffyverse, and I cannot forgive Joss Whedon for it. Why does Fred’s death hurt more than any other in the entire series? We have to watch it happen over the course of an entire episode. There’s hardly a moment in “A Hole in the World” when Fred isn’t hacking up blood, convulsing in spasms, growing clammy, or muttering out words of forgiveness for not being physically strong enough to survive her soul being burned into nothingness. Tara’s death might have been arbitrary and cruel in its indifference, Joyce’s death might have been draining in its impact on the characters, but Fred’s death is the most horrifying as it is the closest to most adults’ reality. Sure, most of our loved ones don’t die from demons infecting their souls, but most people do die from drawn-out sickness that takes months, if not years, to take its toll, all while the loved ones can do nothing to help but watch and provide emotional support for the passing. The guilt, the frustration, the impotent fury: all of these emotions deeply resonate with those who have ever seen a loved one die from a terminal illness. It’s hurts so much because it reminds us of those we’ve lost ourselves.

Regrettably, Fred’s death also makes perfect dramatic sense for the series. Of all the characters remaining in the Angel cast at that point, she was the one whose death created the best set-up for the season finale. She does not die for the sole purpose of making Wesley’s arc more dramatic; rather, she dies because there is simply nowhere else for her to go. She’s already a hero who has overcome her greatest crisis, and the loss of the delight she brings to the series on a regular basis is loss enough for the audience to feel her death as much as Wesley does. During her tenure on Angel, Fred makes pretty much every single audience member her best friend; she’s just that sweet. She might not be the most complex hero, but she is one of the most virtuous and fun. Her death is simply impossible to get over, though…

Villain: Faith Lehane (Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 3-4, Angel Season 1 - "Five By Five")

Let’s get the bad out of the way first: I’ve never really liked Elisha Dushku as an actress, and even her best work as Faith is somewhat overwrought. Also, at times, the costuming department puts Faith into so much leather that she starts to look like an overcompensating edgelord rather than the truly dark anti-hero that she is. Combine these minor quibbles with the fact that Faith is a henchman, and she necessarily falls beneath her boss and several other villains on this list. However, it must be noted that both of these concerns are tiny when compared to the enormous amount of things Faith gets right as a villain. The doppelganger trope is a fairly tired one amongst television villains, but, gosh darn it, Faith offers so much new material to the role that she ends up as one of the most fascinating and rewarding antagonists in the entire series. She has some of the single best moments of any villain in the entire series, from stellar fight scenes, to deliciously sinister dialogue, to her terrifying final appearance as an antagonist.

Faith’s transformation into one of the main villains of Season Three is a gradual one, but we see hints of it in even her first appearance. Unlike Buffy, Faith seems to take a sadistic delight in killing off vampires, treating it as more of a game than a fight against an inexorable evil. Her only moments of perfect compassion and kindness emerge during her moments of weakness, such as when she freezes up while fighting the vampire who killed her original Watcher, Kakistos, or when she starts to connect with her false Watcher, Gwendolyn Post. Her first watcher’s death and her second’s betrayal further lay the groundwork for Faith’s distrust of personal connection. She treats her sexual partners as if they were dish rags, deflowering Xander in “The Zeppo” and leaving him out to dry. The only person she ever truly connects to is Buffy. She’s attracted to Buffy’s power and willingness to fight dirty, producing a noticeable homoerotic tension as they are fighting vampires. The fraught nature of their dynamic throughout the season is palpable, as we know that a trigger-happy Faith cannot be good for the world, let alone a trigger-happy Faith and Buffy.

Faith’s willingness to ignore innocents in the crossfire while “fighting the good fight” leads to her downfall, as she kills a human being by accident. Faith, however, repulsed by the thought of being held under the authority of the Watchers’ Council, falls back on flimsy utilitarian justifications for her actions: after all, if she saves people, isn’t she entitled to have screw-ups? On some level, Faith does feel guilt, but, rather than be horrified at herself and own up to her faults, she decides that she “doesn’t care” about her victim’s death. She then teams up with the Mayor and assists him in his plan to transform into a pure demon. Throughout the season, she attempts to seduce Angel and turn him into Angelus, captures Willow and secures the materials for the Mayor’s ascension, murders several demons and humans who are in the Mayor’s way, and very nearly kills Angel with a poisoned arrow. In every scene of Season Three villainy, Faith’s hellcat personality and lustful attraction towards Buffy holds true, as each villainous act she commits is one more step towards making Buffy more like her. In “Graduation Day, Part One,” we actually see her succeed, as Buffy very nearly kills Faith with the dark Slayer’s own knife, intent on feeding her foe to a dying Angel.

Faith is Buffy’s “shadow self” in Season Three, an even darker and more foreboding foil than Cordelia in previous seasons. If Cordelia is Buffy without the Slayer powers, without the responsibility whatsoever, Faith is what would happen if Buffy took the Slayer powers and suited them to her own ends. Faith is great power without great responsibility. Faith is carnal, while Buffy is principled. The only time they overlap is when Faith deliberately toys with Buffy’s emotions and relationships – at once our hero’s greatest strength and her near-fatal weakness. Faith is Buffy’s equal and opposite, making their final battle one of the most rewarding in the entire series.

Faith’s villainous romp also extends beyond the lifespan of her master. In Buffy’s fourth season, Faith awakes from the coma Buffy put her into during the events of “Graduation Day” and decides to terrorize Buffy once more as an act of revenge for killing her boss, the only person whom she thinks ever showed her genuine kindness and love. Enraged at being entirely cut off from the world once more, Faith decides to show Buffy how it feels to be alone by switching bodies with her. The resulting episode, “Who Are You,” might be full of dark humor (the absurdity of Sarah Michelle Gellar acting as Faith pretending to be Buffy is a lovely little trick), but it’s also full of plenty of disturbing moments, such as when Faith rapes Riley while in Buffy’s body and starts beating up Buffy in her body aggressively, almost as if she’s not fighting Buffy but fighting herself. Throughout the episode, Faith realizes just how much love Buffy receives throughout her life, from her mother’s kindness, to Willow’s friendship, to Riley’s devotion; all of these factors merely serve to remind Faith that she has nothing that she can truly care about.

At the episode’s end, with Faith finally back in her own body, she hides out in Los Angeles, now determined to end her life due to how miserable it is. However, she decides to make her final job a memorable one: killing Angel, so as to leave one last gut punch to Buffy on her way out. To this end, Faith ends up kidnapping Wesley and torturing him: it’s a chance for her to finally exert her frustrations against all those who she feels have abandoned her and used her. However, throughout the entire torture sequence, Wesley holds strong and defends himself, while Faith’s justifications for her torment become weaker and her appearance becomes more sickly and feral. The final fight between Faith and Angel is a truly emotional one, with Angel never throwing the first punch and Faith flailing desperately in an attempt to have Angel kill her. All she can do is assert her own villainy, despite the fact that she does have a soul and feels guilt for all of the wrong she has done. For her, being dead is better than being alone with the weight of her crimes: a crisis Angel himself once faced in “Amends.”

When one looks over Faith’s character sheet, it’s truly hard to beat her in terms of pure diegetic achievement. At many times throughout Buffy Season Three, the Scoobies are more concerned with beating Faith than they are with beating the Mayor. (Heck, one could argue that her betrayal of the Scoobies even makes the Mayor’s evil all the more potent, as the Scoobies are too distracted by Faith’s power to realize just how dangerous the Mayor is on his own.) She’s also got psychological depth behind her evil that tops nearly every other villain in the series, what with her wanting to eliminate moral ambiguity by labelling herself as purely evil. She’s the most self-destructive villain in the entire series, but her Slayer powers ensure that she’ll cause quite the bit of carnage on the way out.

Given this considerable rap sheet, why, then, is Faith below the top six? Well, as noted before, not liking Elisha Dushku’s performance and costume design is a big part of it. Many of her behaviors and mannerisms do feel like dated late 90s slang. More importantly, while Faith has plenty of motivation surrounding her general evil, most of her individual evil actions aren’t self-motivated enough. Excepting the events of “This Year’s Girl,” “Who Are You,” and the final act of “Five by Five,” she’s nearly always doing evil things on the behalf of a greater mastermind. Her more petty evil actions most definitely earn her points, as they add a nice dose of personality, but I’m not sure they’re sufficient to rank Faith higher than her various bosses throughout the series. She ultimately ends up more interesting for what she does to Buffy than what she is in and of herself. Faith is a great character, but I would not go as far as to call her a favorite or even the best character at any given point in the series. She’s an excellent villain, but she just misses out.