MY THOUGHTS on a article about Season 7.

I saw this article being linked on Whedonesque and thought it had a lot of valid points, but some things I disagree with. It's a article with ten statements about Season 7. It's very interesting, but like I said, I didn't agree with everything.

This is the comment I left on the article(most of it anyway, it was too long to be posted over there);

I agree to a lot in this article, but I have some disagreements. The major ones I will post below.

8."There's one specific point to address, which numerous people have made the subject of fics over the years; that a girl suddenly becoming a Slayer might accidentally use her unaccustomed strength to hurt or even kill someone else... and by extension, Buffy and Willow would be responsible for that. While a clever idea, I've never thought it worked that way: all the girls being empowered seemed to me to know exactly what had happened to them, and be in full control... whether it's Baseball Girl's cheeky smile or the look of determination in Abused Trailer Girl's face. 'The Chain' made that explicit, with the emphasis on how the new Slayer was hit by all the accumulated knowledge and memories and wisdom of the entire preceding Slayer line all at once. Of course, it doesn't mean that a newly Called woman will use her powers for good, but it seems clear to me that she'd use them with understanding. And I've already said I don't believe in toddler Slayers. :-)"

As we saw in the commercial in The Chain with Andrew and Vi(I think it was them), although the girl has strange dreams of being another girl in another time, she doesn't know what she is, or why, so no, it's not explicit that all new slayers are in full control and knowledge of what happened to them . For all they know they've been slipped some steroids in their drink and have weird superstrength and dreams to thank for it.

10. I respect and understand your opinions, but if Buffy had made all those women into slayers without the threat of The First's army, she should have deserved a beating.Giving someone power can be wrong. How easy do you think it is, with information about your slayer origin or not, to make love to a fragile human or to hold a newborn baby without squezzing to hard? Accidents happen, self-control slack. Superstrength and a bunch of predator-senses aren't for everyone. Unless they choose it.

It's not right to hand out power like that. Definitly not since not Buffy, Willow or probably anyone alive or dead, fully understands how the slayer energy changes a person, what it is and what exactly it does. They put demonic energy into unwilling girls. They were made into hunters. That fact is undeniable. Remember Buffy needing to hunt in Buffy vs Dracula, before she went to sleep next to Riley? I don't think Buffy would have felt the urge to hunt before she was Chosen. She has been made more... predator-like.

I understand that Buffy didn't have much choice in Season 7, and after all, most slayers she has known had been well adjusted girls(everyone but the first slayer who tried to kill Buffy and her friends in Restless and of course, Faith). They were unwillingly changed but dealt with it.

"However, my main argument against this charge is to say that really, the question of consent is the wrong question to be asking. Becoming a Slayer wasn't something imposed on these women from outside... it was already there inside them in potential, and it was only "the rules made up by a bunch of men thousands of years ago" that prevented them from all having that power. It was the Shadowmen who violated their consent, and all Buffy and Willow did was ensure that these women could enjoy the benefits of that long-ago action as well as having to suffer its downsides. They were breaking the chains, not adding new ones."

Wheter they were born to become potentials, or if the shadowmens spell "blessed" them when they were newborns, you can't say that just because it was in them, it should be let out. Buffy and Willow violated their consent just as much as the shadowmen. The shadowmen might have created slayers from nothing, while Willow created slayers from potentials, but that still does't give them the right to take away choice. I have the potential to become a martial art fighter, but that doesn't mean that I should(although even comparing the most skilled martial art fighter with a mystical demonic fighter is ridicoulous, but still.)

"On a metaphorical level, just as the story of 'Buffy The Vampire Slayer' was that of Buffy growing up and becoming an adult woman with full acceptance of her responsibilities, so Slayerhood is a metaphor for adult agency. You don't choose to become an adult, you don't "consent" to puberty or maturity. It happens regardless of your wishes, but you do get to choose how you respond to the changes in your body and your life."

I think that's not entirely a good metaphor. You can't compare what nature, our bodies have evolved to to survive, to the conscious acts of Buffy & Willow. The act of evolving from girl to women is unconscious and in our DNA, while the potentials becoming slayers was a conscious act. Adulthood, you can't consent to, slayerhood, you can. I might be to picky, but I just wanted to point that out.

That said, I think Buffy made the choice she had to make. Maybe the shadowmen did too, I have no idea of their motives. Weird that they couldn't find a willing girl tough.