Entropy: Righteousness, Self-Righteousness and Substitution

by Lori

After reading Klytaimnestra's and Taramisu's reviews and thinking about Colleen's response, I wanted to present a slightly different take on the Entropy episode. It seems to me that one of the issues of this "Oh, Grow Up!" season has been the Scoobies's inability to distinguish between righteousness and self-righteousness, and a resulting inability to empathize with or listen to others' pain. Perhaps it's not even inability so much as disability.

Buffy and Xander begin this episode on fairly shaky ground: they have been righteous world-saveage warriors in the past (which is crucial to each one's self-image), but each in her or his own way has done things recently which are hard to justify. Now they are putting on the armor of self-righteousness: it is right to break up with an evil, soulless thing; it is right to wait for marriage if I'm not ready. They want to be able to reassure themselves "I am right." While I might well agree with each one's actions, the result is that because this is armor, because this is about self, neither one listens to any one else at all.

I am struck by Xander's initial approach to Anya; he has rehearsed his own justifications, which might include "I'm sorry" yet would always be followed by "but...I have my reasons." He is not allowing her to express pain, he is not inquiring about her, because he's got to be self-righteous. This is All. About. Xander. We see Buffy do this too with Spike in the crypt AND with Anya during the comic wish scene. Their "I'm sorry, but" formulation appears to address the other party's feelings but in fact does not. For Buffy and Xander, to my eyes, the most important part of the formula is what comes after the "but": their self-righteous justification. They can't afford to spend time on the "I'm sorry--how do YOU feel? What do YOU want to say?", because it threatens that second part. They cannot empathize.

Xander further substitutes his own qualms about his actions with his loathing for (and consistent bullying of) Spike, and Buffy goes along with it; how else do we explain the ludicrous assertion that Spike would have planted a camera in Buffy's yard? Yeah right, he's Mr. Technology. Their self-righteous need to blame the Other means that in fact they are not fulfilling their righteous duty: hey, those responsible for Katrina's death and Buffy's poisoning are still out there, people. Even when Willow's initial computer work seems to emphasize that it can't be Spike, Xander clings to the substitution; he literally doesn't want to accept that it's not Spike's fault. This tellingly disables the two of them--when we see the "crime" of Spike and Anya's liaison, Buffy and Xander completely forget the REAL crime. Self-righteousness forestalls righteousness here.

Xander and Buffy are poisoned by self-righteousness here, it seems to me, but Spike and Anya are not initially immune. Although neither one of the demons has the same investment in righteousness that Xander and Buffy has, both of them want to be able to say "I am right." Spike's attempts to talk to Buffy and Anya's attempts to get vengeance seem to fit this desire. Unable to get their ex-partners to hear them or give them any sense that indeed they ARE right or at least that their feelings matter, the two have their Magic Box scenes. As they start to drink, what Spike and Anya do is what Buffy and Xander do: they self-righteously blame the exes for a variety of relationship crimes. (The fact that I almost wholly agree with both Spike and Anya is neither here nor there.) They're not listening to each other, but using each other's self-righteousness to build their own, to put on the armor.

What's different here--and why I disagree with Taramisu's take of the scene--is that both Spike and Anya DO take off the armor. Anya reveals her pain, her sense that maybe Xander didn't want her and that she's unlovable, to Spike, and he listens to her. The moment where he (misty-eyed) stops himself from shushing her pain is really powerful to me, and then he validates her identity as desirable, lovable woman without more than a passing insult of Xander. While Anya doesn't reciprocate with the same amazing level of compassion, she does say that she wants to see his "sexy dance," to see him be happy. The comfort-sex then is to reassure each other that they are "right," lovable, without the intent to hurt Xander or Buffy. The fact that the only way Spike believes he can communicate with a woman is through sex (because that's what Buffy has taught him)is probably also at work here. Their action is born of empathy, it seems to me. Unfortunately, the comfort sex is substitution, and it doesn't work. That seems to explain to me the silence afterward: how can they say that the validation can only come from the ex-partners, without hurting the other? However, Spike and Anya do exchange looks, and in my eyes express respect for each other. I respect the two of them at this moment too, I have to say.

Meanwhile, Xander has armored himself with an axe, false righteousness (we kill evil things, don't we?), and self- righteousness (she hurt me, I am right to hurt her too). He's still substituting during this attempted crime passionel, in what is no less than attempted murder. The words he says to Anya--that she "sickens" him--are further false righteousness and self- righteousness. While Buffy doesn't use righteousness in the way Xander does, she does throw out the self-righteous, and unjustified, "Didn't take you very long." Xander and Buffy are still blaming the Other. Anya's honest and hurtful evaluation of Xander is perilously close to self-righteousness (although, again, I agree with her); Spike, shockingly, doesn't seem to justify himself. His comment revealing his liaison with Buffy is not said in a smug or gloating way, to my ears; it's just fact. Facts aren't very useful to those clinging to self-righteousness, though, and Xander and Buffy will end the episode even more disabled than when they began.

---

Lori