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Musings on Caleb, and the nature of good and evil.
Although first - Darcy made everything work again! *dances* I have missed my Mac (and Firefox) sooooo much!
Anyway, I've been discussing Caleb in the AOQ threads, and another poster explained what his/her dislike of Caleb stemmed from. This sparked thoughts, because I didn't agree (well not as such):
I don't think that Caleb='All that's wrong with religion' is what the character is supposed to be. At least that only comes way, way down the list (and is also way too simple). If that was all that he was supposed to be, then I'd be extremely offended. But Caleb isn't religious at all really (contrast him with Book from Firefly f.ex.). Caleb is a person gone wrong, not someone destroyed by religion - it is *he* who has destroyed his own faith (if ever he had any), as he says himself:
"Just looking for answers. Just looking for the Lord in the wrong damn places. Then you showed me the light."
He's a (former) minister, I think, because Christianity is the main religion in the West. If Joss had made a show elsewhere Caleb might have been Muslim or Buddhist or something else. But the religious background is important, because he's the opposite of what he should be - a minister ought to be someone caring for people, helping them, serving them, always ready to forgive, always seeing the best in people and prepared to give them another chance (see Book again - he ain’t perfect, but he tries). And for The First to have so utterly destroyed anything good within this man speaks volumes about what it's like. (Caleb was obviously well on the way all by himself though, and The First just pushed him further in the right direction.)
Another point is that Evil isn't a thing at all really. Evil is quite simply the absence of good. Evil cannot create, only twist and destroy. The First wants to take over the world - it is not capable of making its own...
We see this most clearly in Caleb - he uses religious imagery (borrowing from Christianity), and only looks to kill and cause pain - not to make anything new. And the things he is proud of (his strength, intellect etc.) are all 'good' things in themselves. Evil can't ever be evil as fully as good is good.
And evil is always destructive: the more evil Caleb becomes, the less there is of him - he's almost a cypher already: A vessel for The First. Contrast with Spike or Anya, who have continually grown and gathered new strengths, becoming more and more real. As Anya puts it in ‘Hells Bells’:
“...before I knew you, I was like a completely different person. Not even a person, really...”
Goodness makes people more - it changed Spike from just another vampire to a Champion, changed his love from selfserving to selfless:
Spike: I told you. I want to stop Angel. I want to save the world.
Buffy: Okay, fine. You're not down with Angel. Why would you ever come to me?
Spike: I want Dru back. I want it like it was before he came back. The way she acts around him...
‘Becoming’
Buffy: No. No, you've done enough. You could still—
Spike: No, you've beat them back. It's for me to do the cleanup.
Buffy: Spike!
Spike: I mean it! I gotta do this.
‘Chosen’
Anyway, I've been discussing Caleb in the AOQ threads, and another poster explained what his/her dislike of Caleb stemmed from. This sparked thoughts, because I didn't agree (well not as such):
I don't think that Caleb='All that's wrong with religion' is what the character is supposed to be. At least that only comes way, way down the list (and is also way too simple). If that was all that he was supposed to be, then I'd be extremely offended. But Caleb isn't religious at all really (contrast him with Book from Firefly f.ex.). Caleb is a person gone wrong, not someone destroyed by religion - it is *he* who has destroyed his own faith (if ever he had any), as he says himself:
"Just looking for answers. Just looking for the Lord in the wrong damn places. Then you showed me the light."
He's a (former) minister, I think, because Christianity is the main religion in the West. If Joss had made a show elsewhere Caleb might have been Muslim or Buddhist or something else. But the religious background is important, because he's the opposite of what he should be - a minister ought to be someone caring for people, helping them, serving them, always ready to forgive, always seeing the best in people and prepared to give them another chance (see Book again - he ain’t perfect, but he tries). And for The First to have so utterly destroyed anything good within this man speaks volumes about what it's like. (Caleb was obviously well on the way all by himself though, and The First just pushed him further in the right direction.)
Another point is that Evil isn't a thing at all really. Evil is quite simply the absence of good. Evil cannot create, only twist and destroy. The First wants to take over the world - it is not capable of making its own...
We see this most clearly in Caleb - he uses religious imagery (borrowing from Christianity), and only looks to kill and cause pain - not to make anything new. And the things he is proud of (his strength, intellect etc.) are all 'good' things in themselves. Evil can't ever be evil as fully as good is good.
And evil is always destructive: the more evil Caleb becomes, the less there is of him - he's almost a cypher already: A vessel for The First. Contrast with Spike or Anya, who have continually grown and gathered new strengths, becoming more and more real. As Anya puts it in ‘Hells Bells’:
“...before I knew you, I was like a completely different person. Not even a person, really...”
Goodness makes people more - it changed Spike from just another vampire to a Champion, changed his love from selfserving to selfless:
Spike: I told you. I want to stop Angel. I want to save the world.
Buffy: Okay, fine. You're not down with Angel. Why would you ever come to me?
Spike: I want Dru back. I want it like it was before he came back. The way she acts around him...
‘Becoming’
Buffy: No. No, you've done enough. You could still—
Spike: No, you've beat them back. It's for me to do the cleanup.
Buffy: Spike!
Spike: I mean it! I gotta do this.
‘Chosen’
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That's what bothered me too - if something seems simple, then it's probably because there are layers. (That could probably be the first rule of the Buffy verse!)
I've had a look around your LJ and I *love* your header. Is it sharable?
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http://community.livejournal.com/spring_spangel/52639.html
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