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Popular Culture Review
“Oz is not dangerous” and that “something happened to him that wasn’t his fault.”
Riley’s refusal to consider biography when thinking of HSTs even prompts Buffy
to call him a “bigot,” but by the end of the episode Riley has learned his lesson: “I
was in a total black-and-white spaceaepeople versus monsters—and it ain’t like
that, especially when it comes to love.” This point is particularly relevant to Buffy’s
own past romance with Angel, the vampire with a soul, and her ability to judge
each individual creature according to his/her own personal history repeatedly puts
her at odds with the institutions she encounters. For example, Buffy’s decision to
leave the Council is a direct result of their refusal to help Angel after he is poisoned
by the rogue slayer Faith (“Graduation Day, Part One”); the Council’s inability to
consider Angel’s unique history and its decision to condenm him outright as a
vampire convinces Buffy that she would be more effective on her own.
Because of his experiences, Angel is keenly aware of the impact of personal
history and the importance of making distinctions between individuals. In the
episode “Sanctuary,” Angel is the only one to defend Faith when she is being
hunted down by Buffy, the Council, the police, and the Wolfram and Hart law
firm. Wesley, who has recently been brutally tortured by Faith, tries to convince
Angel that she deserves to be punished for her actions, and he follows a logic
similar to The Initiative’s in overlooking her history and interpreting her motives
as simply animalistic instinct:
Wesley: There are far more humane ways to deal with a rabid animal.
Angel: She’s not an animal.
Wesley: No?
Angel: She’s a person, and in case you’ve forgotten, we’re not in the
business of giving up on people.
Wesley: I believe in helping people. I do not believe in coddling
murderers.. .There is evil in that girl.. .If you set her free, she’ll kill again.
Angel: You can’t just arbitrarily decide whose souls are worth saving and
whose aren’t.
Angel’s defense of Faith is clearly based on the idea that one must use
knowledge of the individual criminal’s background in order to devise a sentence
appropriate to the crime. While this episode seems to mimic the dialogue between
Buffy and Riley, a similarity heightened by the fact that both episodes originally
aired on the same night, it is ironic that Buffy makes a special appearance in this
episode of Angel in which she also condemns Faith as a monster who cannot be
reformed. Faced with the excessive assault of the Council’s hit squad, however,
Buffy reconsiders her personal vendetta against Faith and helps in her rescue, a
decision which is ultimately affirmed by Faith’s confession to the police and which