"Want, take, have," Faith told Buffy back in the day, before the murder and torture and betrayal and all that -- and the thing is, the thing it took her a year in prison to sort out, piecing herself together without the pressure to play to or against anyone else's expectations (turns out, you beat a couple assholes up the first week in gen pop and treat the guards like part of the machinery, and most people are real quick to leave you alone), is this: she wasn't wrong.
Yeah, she fucked up the execution (turns out, just 'cause nobody ever respected her boundaries wasn't a reason to ignore everyone else's in turn; that's just passing on the trauma and pretending it's cool), but the core of it, the raw, bloody, beating heart that screamed her right to have desires -- to want sex, power, respect, love, life -- isn't dirty or shameful or whatever the fuck society feeds girls from babies to grandmas, all those lies about nurture and purity and selflessness until you start to think, fuck it, if wanting makes you evil, then why not be evil -- at least then you can be yourself instead of a shadow of all the people pressed around you, hungry, trying to hack off bits of your self and your soul until you fit their pet narrative.
Turns out, femme fatale is just as much somebody else's story as chaste heroine -- that old Madonna/whore thing Giles mentioned once to Wesley when they didn't realize Faith was in earshot, where you can be good or you can want things, but never both together -- and Faith is done with playing that game; when she gets out, she'll be more thoughtful with her methods (turns out, sometimes if you ask, people will even give you stuff without threats or bribes), but what she wants, she'll win.
Take a Third Option
Yeah, she fucked up the execution (turns out, just 'cause nobody ever respected her boundaries wasn't a reason to ignore everyone else's in turn; that's just passing on the trauma and pretending it's cool), but the core of it, the raw, bloody, beating heart that screamed her right to have desires -- to want sex, power, respect, love, life -- isn't dirty or shameful or whatever the fuck society feeds girls from babies to grandmas, all those lies about nurture and purity and selflessness until you start to think, fuck it, if wanting makes you evil, then why not be evil -- at least then you can be yourself instead of a shadow of all the people pressed around you, hungry, trying to hack off bits of your self and your soul until you fit their pet narrative.
Turns out, femme fatale is just as much somebody else's story as chaste heroine -- that old Madonna/whore thing Giles mentioned once to Wesley when they didn't realize Faith was in earshot, where you can be good or you can want things, but never both together -- and Faith is done with playing that game; when she gets out, she'll be more thoughtful with her methods (turns out, sometimes if you ask, people will even give you stuff without threats or bribes), but what she wants, she'll win.