+THE 'BECAUSE IT'S COOL' PRINCIPLE+

Seasons 6 references up to 6.7 'Once More With Feeling'.

The world of Buffy is full of moral ambiguity: who's good, who's bad, who's bad with the possibility of being good or who's good with the possibility to being bad. But it wasn't always this way; there was a clear moral universe established in Season 1. The preferred reading was humans good, vampires bad. True, a vampire could be good, but really that vampire (Angel) was effectively human. The show was also concerned with certain genre conventions, and with subverting them rather than establishing new ones, so it stuck to this mythology. You were either evil or you were good, and audience was expected to condemn the evil and support the good.

But gradually, since Season 2, this basic idea seems to have been subverted. In Spike and Anya, for example, there are two characters who seems to be in flagrant violation of the morals of the Buffyverse, yet neither are character's we're encouraged to wish dead, like the Master. It's not true that the morals have changed; Spike killing humans is no less evil now than it was three years ago, nor is it any more acceptable for Anya to feel guiltless about a thousand years of havoc. In theory, the show should be condemning Spike, Anya, Xander and many other characters. So why doesn't it, or more specifically why aren't the viewers expected to? Well, because it's cool.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer is called Buffy the Vampire Slayer, after all. It's not meant to be taken seriously, or at least not entirely seriously, and we aren't meant to judge everything by the show's specific morality. The moral and metaphysical universe in Buffy isn't fluid, with everything grey and no absolutes. Of course there are absolutes. There is good and there is evil, that's the whole basis of the show. Morals and metaphysics in Buffy are fluid or 'grey' due to the 'Because it's Cool' principle.

A perfect example is Spike. Now, while he's gradually become a more sympathetic character, this wasn't always the case. Up and until Season 5, Spike didn't seem to have any good in him. He was morally reprehensible, a killer with no conscience. Except we were never really encouraged to condemn him, in the way we were Angelus. Firstly, Spike never really seemed to kill anyone, or at least he only ever killed extras. Spike was never going to kill Willow in 'Lover's Walk', and we weren't expecting him to. But he's evil, or at least he definitely was evil. So why aren't we expected to condemn him, and bay for his dust? Because he's cool. Spike might be irrevocably evil, but the idea of a real vampire in love with a Slayer is cool; so, under the principle, we can forget worrying about whether he's a fiend of hell and deserves to be staked. After all, he's cool.

Similarly, take Anya. A thousand years as a vengeance demon whose actions were feminist but still somewhat evil, and now as a human she shows no regret for them. So by rights we should be expected to condemn her; after all, once Angel got his soul back he became the poster-boy for A Tortured Conscience, despite his evil acts having been those of the demon which had taken control of his dead body. But Anya doesn't care, and while it's assumed she should stop maiming, the show doesn't encourage us to think that she should feel any guilt or the need for redemption. Why? Because she's cool: or, more importantly, because the idea that Xander could only find happiness with an immoral ex-demon is cool, too.

Any similar thorny moral issue in the show can be resolved by the 'Because it's Cool' principle, or it's companion, the 'Because that Would Suck' principle. Take the example of Xander, who deliberately summoned up a demon in 'Once More With Feeling' that killed several people and nearly abducted his friend's sister to Hell. He's culpable, no two ways about it. So why isn't he torn up with guilt? Why aren't the viewers expected to want him to pay penance? Well, because that would suck.

In Buffy the Vampire Slayer there are two main forces which dictate the preferred reading of the show: fixed morals (good vs. evil), and an inherent frivolousness (coolness). Sometimes coolness can contradict the morality of the show, where something which is done because it's cool can seem immoral and even a subversion of the very idea of 'fighting the good fight'. But of course the contradiction doesn't matter; coolness is never immoral, but amoral, as it exists apart from the Buffyverse morality. Why? Well, because it's cool.

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