Response to some opinions of Ripper!Giles

[beccaelizabeth]

You can never lose yourself, on account of actually being yourself, all the time. Maybe not a self you like, but still self. Same with that 'true self' bit - it's all true. All in there somewhere. Just sometimes you show the face you want to claim later, and other times you want to turn your back on it.

Can't take bits of you and call them not-you. I mean if it was fingers that would be obvious. Lindsey aside, there is no evil hand, there's just hand. Same with all this 'Ripper was his bad self' bit - Ripper was his self, and there was bits of it get called bad. Doesn't mean you can cut it off and chuck it out, any more than you could with fingers and be healthy.

Understand, balance, use.
Not call not-self.
Got to own your demons before you can control them.

Comments

[executrix.livejournal.com]

I'd agree with you more completely for RL than for the Buffyverse--in the Buffyverse, you can be possessed or brainsucked or have your soul taken away or put back in--all of which has got to affect your moral agency.

[beccaelizabeth]

true


I was being cranky about a specific thing though so I forgot to mention / account for that stuff.

If acting like big bad Ripper was a response to being possessed then it wouldn't be his true self. But as far as I read canon big bad Ripper set out to go get possessed, so it wasn't a response, his true self at the time was just acting like a jerk and decided that would somehow help.

[ceruleancat.livejournal.com]

Agree.

There even isn't any unnatural excuse for Rupert to be 'big bad Ripper'.
Although even with unnatural forces, Buffyverse tends to retain the wholeness of self. The division of Xander, for instance - both parts were stressed to be components of the whole Xander. And, in Dopplegangland, Angel suggests that vamps are still very much like they were as human in terms of character.

WILLOW: It's horrible! That's me as a vampire? I'm so evil and... skanky. (aside to Buffy, worried) And I think I'm kinda gay.
BUFFY: (reassuringly) Willow, just remember, a vampire's personality has nothing to do with the person it was.
ANGEL: Well, actually... (gets a look from Buffy) That's a good point.

Even when Angel tries to separate himself from Angelus, it's the souled vs. un-souled that are battling, not the self, not the character.

Ripper is just a name for Rupert at a certain stage of his life. Aspects of what people tend to think of as 'Ripper' crop up throughout. There are aspects of his charactdr that he doesn't like that were very prominent in his youth, in the "Ripper period", but they are a part of him, not some alternate personality.