On Chaos and Order

[chani]

I've been reading eurydice72 's Wanton World and its sequel because I love her writing, because it was Spuffy and because Ethan Rayne played a major role...which made me think of Chaos vs Order again.

Were we supposed to equate Chaos with Evil and Order with Good in the Jossverse?

Well I don't think so.

Of course we had evil creatures that caused mayhem and disorder in Buffy's world. The Gentlemen brought a silent Chaos in Sunnydale, and the Hellions in "Bargaining" are another good example. Spike himself in "School Hard" embodied Chaos when he disrupted the Parents-teachers meeting and also later when he killed the Annoying One and asked for "less rituals and more fun". When Dawn's blood opened the portal because of Doc in "The Gift", Chaos ensued.

But the order wasn't necessarily good on the show.

The Mayor for instance, was rather a man of order, a real stickler for principles.
Ted the evil robot followed rules and wanted Buffy to submit to those rules. Same with Snyder.

I also think that Caleb through his outfit and his speeches showed he rooted for a certain order, even if twisted, an order that rejected women.


Even in Ats, W&H's world was nothing but organized and even the Hell they provided to punish Lindsey was quite tidy. In "Destiny", Eve said that the order of the world was disrupted by a second vampire with a soul, hence Spike screwing (the) harmony. And in the end, Angel brought on chaos in the SP's order.

And Jasmine offered nothing but an order, the Pax Jasmina.

So I don't think that Order = Good and Chaos= Evil in the Jossverse. Good and evil lied in the characters.

Buffy herself did not necessarily mean to maintain any order. She fought back evil, she slayed evil creatures. She mostly followed her conscience and her heart. Even when she was a student (whether in High School or in College) she didn't really embrace the system.

BTW she screwed up the order built by Maggie Walsh and in "Chosen" she destroyed the order that the CoW had kept through the centuries.

My friend sisterluck  pointed out to me that Kendra embodied Order while Faith would be the persononification of Chaos, which kinda put buffy in the middle...

But I think that behind Faith's "want, take, have" motto she actually craved order and authority, something that The Mayor precisely gave her. She wanted to follow the CoW's rules, she was shocked when she heard about Buffy hiding Angel in "Revelations", and she was willing to follow the guidance of her new watcher, Gwendolyn Post. She needed to belong to an order, she needed a system to misbehave within.

It's only after being deceived by the Institution that Faith went evil. Wesley failed her too...In a way she only swapped an order for another when she decided to work for The Mayor, following his orders.

And after that she chose the order of jail.

I've always found very interesting Faith's dreams of season 4 when she was still in a coma, and we got to see Buffy through her eyes. Buffy appeared very powerful and dangerous in her dreams, salvage even.

Maybe because Buffy mostly acted upon her own principles instead of following orders.

Faith, the rogue Slayer has never been a rebel, but Buffy, the good Slayer was "un électron libre" at the end of the day.

For the Ancient Greek, at the beginning, there was only Chaos, it was the source if everything, even before Chronos. Chaos is the Potential from wich many different orders can be built...all the Nature's forces are within Chaos, all the possibilities pre-exist in Chaos while an order, a system is based on rules that keep one possibility and get rid of the others. It's like the process of the Chosen One in BTVS.

So in a way Buffy was an agent of Chaos when she removed the calling of one Slayer in "Chosen" and turned all the Potential into Slayers.

Chaos vs Order is nothing but the Greek "aorgic" vs "organic", it's Dionysos vs Apollo ever and ever...None is good and none is evil.

Comments

[candlelightfrot.livejournal.com]

Well... then... you could always just do what you do and find a reason to have me bend over then *spank* me!

Should I put on my cassock (soutane) again? But only if you Ashtonize yourself!

;~P

...

[frenchani.livejournal.com]

If only I had something to Ashtonize myself...

[candlelightfrot.livejournal.com]

Just trying to bring some sort of Order to the Chaos that is us!