Is it okay to mistreat a metaphor? A Jossverse poll.

[shapinglight]

Okay, so we all know (I think) that BtVS is not a show about vampires and that if Joss Whedon had been left to follow his own instincts there might well have been no vampire characters in the show, beyond disposable villain of the week/season. Vampires were there to be staked by Buffy as comic relief or as metaphors for parts of her growing up process.

We weren't supposed to care about them, and to make sure we didn't fall into that trap, Joss introduced the vampires-are-soulless-and-therefore-can-never-be-anything-but-evil idea to differentiate between the characters we were supposed to care about and those we weren't.

More behind cut, with a poll.



Of course, with the introduction of Spike and Dru, things began to get messy, and they only got messier when Spike became a show regular and poor, hopeless Harmony got vamped. They got messier still when Angel had his fling with Darla in AtS season 2, Spike and Buffy had their affair in BtVS season 6, and when Harmony became a regular in AtS season 5, and so on and so on. In other words, the vampire characters grew personalities, let us into their lives and made us care about them, or at least be intrigued by them. They became people, not things, or some of them did.

That being the case, I'd be interested to know whether people think there's some measure of degree in the way the good guys can treat vampires as opposed to the way they treat other humans. Please note, I'm not saying they shouldn't kill them. It pretty much goes without saying that they have to. But if they treat them badly otherwise - for instance, the way Spike treats Harmony, and the way Angel treats Darla in Epiphany - does it matter the same, or less?

[Poll #1575802]

Also, I might as well fess up and admit this poll is the result of an ongoing dispute on a comics fanboard about Spike's treatment of a female vampire character (not Harmony) in a recent issue of the Angel comic, but I have had qualms about the subject for a long time. No, I don't think Joss meant us to approve of Spike's treatment of Harmony in AtS season 5, but I suspect we were meant to disapprove less because she was a vampire, and I really don't know what the AtS writers thought they were saying in the scene in Epiphany where Lorne and Angel are discussing his Despair Sex with Darla, but the RL connotations are very unpleasant. See here for the text of that exchange.

ETA: As usual, I seem to have framed my poll questions badly. If you vote 'yes' in the poll, it doesn't follow that you think vampires are fluffy kittens and should be treated as such, just that you don't think that just because they're vampires anything goes.

Comments

[sueworld2003.livejournal.com]

For me It's always been about the point is that the 'good guys' shouldn't be seen as stooping to the 'bad guys' level.

Also how Whedon defined what Vampires as a whole were capable of is such a huge grey area.

[shapinglight]

For me It's always been about the point is that the 'good guys' shouldn't be seen as stooping to the 'bad guys' level.

Yes, that's a big part of it for me too. The good guys should know better, and of course there are plenty of times when they do, such as when Buffy tells Faith to stop pummelling the vampire in Faith, Hope and Trick and just slay him already.

However, there are plenty of times when they don't know better and I often feel the no soul thing is used as a kind of get out clause, no matter the circumstances.

[empty-mirrors.livejournal.com]

The way you treat someone reflects on you as a person not on them. Thus, if you treat even a souless vamp badly, IMO you lessen yourself as a 'good guy'. Everyone/everything should be respected - within the realms of possibility, of course. This is why, for me, The Initiative could never be 'good guys', even without the Adam fiasco. You don't torture a dangerous animal/vampire/demon, you put it down quickly and humanely.

During the series, all the 'good guys' walked the line on this one. And IMO most of them failed the test.

[shapinglight]

Very well put.

:applauds:

[elisi]

You know, it's not so much about the vampires, as about the people - if they mistreat someone, that says more about *them*, as people, than about what they're mistreating. Like how we treat pets.

(I hope that makes sense.)

ETA: empty_mirrors said it much better. I agree with her.

[shapinglight]

It makes perfect sense, don't worry.

[rahirah]

I wouldn't necessarily say it's wrong to treat vampires badly because it hurts their feelings, but I think that treating one's enemies inhumanely makes one no better than the 'inhuman' enemies you're fighting.

[shapinglight]

Very much yes to the second part of your comment. Re: the first, I think that would still apply if it was a vampire you knew as more than just canon fodder, which of course in Buffyverse terms is very few indeed. In other words, I don't think the fact that Harmony is a vampire mitigates Spike's treatment of her, ie. just because someone is an inhuman monster doesn't mean you should be one back to them.

[mrs-underhill.livejournal.com]

My answer would be more like "Heroes shouldn't treat vampires badly because it'll morally corrupt the heroes". And why? Because vampires can suffer and feel, yes, and so option 1 suits me best.

As for vampires serving as metaphores of everyday evil which can assault us and of which Christians pray to deliver them - I'm totally on-board with this, just like with Tolkien's Orcs.
A vampire attacking someone in the dark alley is the embodiment of evil and horror of someone actually attacking you in the dark alley. It's real evil, it's out there, it exists in the world, and Buffy fighting it is the metaphore of someone coming to help and stop the attack.
When Buffy kills a vamp it symbolized exactly that - stopping that evil - not necessarily killing the person who does it. Evil is inside us, and some people let it control them. Buffy could be a metaphore for someone scaring off the attacker, the policeman showing up on time and arresting him, or someone bringing the attacker back to reason even, and making him repent. I.e. an intervention of Good vs. Evil which stops the Evil in whatever way.

So I'm fine with using vampires as embodiments of this kind of evil, the evil which should be destroyed. But in Jossverse vampires came to symbolize more than that - they also started to represent real people with failed moral compass, and painfull process of getting the soul back is the metaphore for repenting. Actually almost all the vampires we came to care about went through some kind of redemption process - even Harmony.
Warren is for all purposes a vampire in this context - as he forfeited the use of his soul and went on the evil way.

But in both contexts, with vampires symbolizing fallen people and embodiments of evil, it's important for heroes not to cross the line themselves. Fire, stake, sunlight, decapitation destroy vamps, so quick kill along those lines is a metaphore for destroying evil. But torturing vamps shows heroes falling into moral trap. Not sure Joss always made a good job of making it clear, but he tried at least.

[shapinglight]

and so option 1 suits me best.

I know I could have phrased it better. :( I always do that in polls - go for the jokey questions and then realise they don't express what I mean very well.

I like the way you distinguish between vampires as metaphor and as characters. I suppose they usually do fulfill both functions in popular fiction, but that distinction has probably never been as clear as it is in BtVS. Less clear, I think, in AtS, where the title character was a vampire himself and called upon to interact with other vampires.

it's important for heroes not to cross the line themselves

Yep, agreed, also agreed that Joss didn't always make a good job of showing that moral trap, and think he fell down quite spectacularly in one issue of the Buffy comic.

[flake-sake.livejournal.com]

Ok, Not that easy a question to answer. To me (and I know that's only partly in accrdance with the Jossverse) the fight between humans and vampires is a kind of natural war. One side kills the other, it's written into both their natures to survive. It's also written into vampire's natures to torture their victims. Pretty much like a cat toys with a mouse it's killing.

That in my mind does not make it ok for a being that claims to have morals to torture cats...or vampires. If you claim moral superiority, if you claim to be on the good side, this ha to extend to ethic treatment of the enemy.
In my mind also to some kind of warriors honor (which is the reason why I'm very ok with Buffy not staking Spike in S4, because it would have been like shooting a tiger in a cage).

So no, you can't do everything you want to vampires without becoming evil yourself. They warrant a high level of paranoia. They warrant killing on sight if they pose a danger, but you can't torture them and get to feel good afterwards.

Of course it happens, it's a war, but it should never be a moment a hero just slides over. Torture is to leave a mark on the torturer as well, and it does.

[shapinglight]

That in my mind does not make it ok for a being that claims to have morals to torture cats...or vampires. If you claim moral superiority, if you claim to be on the good side, this ha to extend to ethic treatment of the enemy.

I agree, even if the only course open to you because of the nature of that enemy is to exterminate them as quickly and painlessly as possible.

Of course it happens, it's a war, but it should never be a moment a hero just slides over. Torture is to leave a mark on the torturer as well, and it does.

Though sadly not so far in the Buffy comics of either stripe.

[hello-spikey.livejournal.com]

*cough* hero privilege.

If the behavior would not be good coming from a bad guy, it's not good coming from a good guy.

I hate the implication, the implicit deceit in so much of our fiction, that acceptable behavior changes according to this invisible 'protagonist' sign. Buffyverse is pretty bad at this. It's a selfish morality that translates to the way people in reality choose people to be courteous to and people who 'aren't worth it'.

[ms-scarletibis.livejournal.com]

Agreed :D

[ex_peasant441]

You destroy a dangerous dog, but you do it the quickest, kindest way possible. Anything less adds to the sum of cruelty in the world and leads to an escalation of cruel behaviour which results in everyone suffering more.

I don't think Buffy understood this fully. For her it seemed to be far more about responding to 'goodness' with goodness and 'evil' with evil.

I also don't think Angel understood it. He seemed to believe it was more important to show compassion to everything because he thought none of us have the right to make a judgement about when, as it were, a dog was so dangerous it had to be put down. He did of course kill things all the time, but I suspect that in every case he saw it as a bad thing he had done - giving in to his dark side - and he could only get through it by focussing on the victims he had saved as notches on his bed post towards redemption.

Giles understood. Also probably Wes, Cordelia and possibly Spike by the end.

[shapinglight]

Hmm, I'm not so sure I agree about Angel. I don't think he ever felt bad about killing another vampire, except maybe Darla. Not that I'm saying he should.

I do think Buffy was guilty of what you say at times, but very far from all the time. She's shocked when she sees Faith laying into that vampire in Faith, Hope and Trick. She knows that isn't how a Slayer should behave.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

It matters in some sense. I have no problem with the whole Slayer mission statement. But there is a point where one needs to be aware of the hero's need to be...well... heroic and it not become "Jack Bauer is right even when he's on a torture-spree!" There is a point where the hero's actions reflect who the hero is, so there are lines that can be crossed where the hero goes from a force of good to sadist (I'm not saying that the characters went there, but that this boundary is there).

It's kind of (though not exactly like) the True Blood plot where the humans kept the vampire locked in the basement to use his blood as a drug. Even if the that vampire had been evil (and we had no indication that he was, but even if he had been) the thing was that at that point the humans had become vampires themselves.
The 'good guys' actions matter inasmuch as it is actions that define them as 'good guys' it's not an unchanging birthright.

And if Joss thought that the vampires wouldn't take over, then he was terribly, terribly naive. Vampires always take over. There's a reason why they keep popping up again and again and again in fiction -- they fascinate people!

[shapinglight]

The 'good guys' actions matter inasmuch as it is actions that define them as 'good guys' it's not an unchanging birthright.

Agreed, and it miffs me more than ever that my outrage over the source of this post keeps being dismissed because it was a vampire who was badly treated (and by Spike, which of course makes it even worse in my eyes :().

[next_to_normal]

What everybody else said, pretty much. It's not about whether vampires have feelings, or if they're evil or not. It's about, "You're the good guys. You should act like it."

[shapinglight]

Bizarre how this seems so obvious to everyone here, and yet some people have such trouble with it.

[ubi4soft.livejournal.com]

This is the fourth time when I try to leave a coherent comment.

The post and people whom are OK with Spike's treatment of Felicia Valentine I suppose they are OK with fucking a sheep, milking and then cooking it. I have no idea but maybe cannibals were doing it this way. I thought we're supposed to be more civilized than cannibals.

[shapinglight]

The most recent refutation of my view I got was that being so outraged over the way Spike treated this woman(pire) would somehow detract from the seriousness of it were he ever to treat a human woman that way.

Yes, really.

[2maggie2.livejournal.com]

I very much agree with the argument about what it does to the people who do the torturing, etc.

I'd add that it's even more complicated in the 'verse, because while vampires are sometimes just personifications of evil; they are sometimes real persons. Contrary to what Daniel said at IDW, they are not programmed to *just* be evil. Spike's willingness to halt a killing spree to save Drusilla in Lie to Me is a *choice*. A shark presumably couldn't make a choice like that, couldn't care about anything more than being a predator. The very first vamps we saw on the show were quite capable of giving up their own lives out of loyalty to the Master. Again, that's a sign of something other than an animal-like predatory nature. And those two examples come from early on when it's NOT as complicated as it gets when we find out that vampires are capable of being complex, engaging characters.

I'm not one who believes that Joss never meant the show to go in the direction of really muddying the waters on the question -- or that the role of the vampires was something forced on him. According to at least one interview, the whole point of introducing Spike was exactly to muddy the waters on the question of what 'evil' is in the verse. A vampire who can love tenderly isn't just a stakeable metaphor. It introduces a huge tension into the text, and I think that's deliberate.

ETA: Also, having Buffy torture a vampire in an episode called When She Was Bad pretty much is all you need to know about whether it's "OK" to torture vampires. It was clearly dark for Buffy to torture a vampire who pretty much just was a personification of evil. It'd be that much worse to do it to a vampire who was also shown in a quasi-human light (i.e. as an actual character rather than disposable villain).

[rebcake.livejournal.com]

You've got my vote! I, too, think the change was intentional. It made everything much more interesting.

[pfeifferpack.livejournal.com]

I've always felt that you lose the moral high ground when you behave badly. If you are the supposed "good guy" then you should act like it even to those you deem "bad guys". This goes in RL as well as fiction. For example, "good guys" don't torture. "Good guys" don't bully (and when they do they cease to be the "good guys").

Kathleen

[ms-scarletibis.livejournal.com]

Agreed :)

[rebcake.livejournal.com]

I think that the metaphor was effective AND that it changed as the show went on. As the (human) characters became more aware of the shades of grey in the world, even the "extra" vampires became more individualized. The "Shemp" from Bargaining and Holden Webster are examples of this. The metaphor of evil (vampires) became deeper and richer as the show did. (Okay, maybe the Shemp wasn't all that deep.)

I find it hard to believe that we are expected to see them as feeling nothing and deserving of anything humans can think to throw at them. The Initiative (and the Nazis, before them) were shown to be capable of the kind of rational, banal human evil that we all know is no metaphor.

[shapinglight]

I find it hard to believe that we are expected to see them as feeling nothing and deserving of anything humans can think to throw at them. The Initiative (and the Nazis, before them) were shown to be capable of the kind of rational, banal human evil that we all know is no metaphor.

Oh, I agree, but it's astonishing how many people appear not to. :(

[angearia.livejournal.com]

I think it's wrong to mistreat any being. So what Angel did to Darla? Wrong. What Buffy did to Spike in Season 6, both using him and beating him in the alley? Wrong.

But I don't have a problem with Buffy busting into Spike's crypt and popping him in the nose. People constantly see this as abuse on her part, but I don't. It's a reminder to Spike that she's the Slayer and she'll slay him if he does something evil. It's the dominance language they speak. And right around then Spike was plotting against her so it was important. If she'd not punched him, he'd have thought she was going soft (just like how he said "ow, wait not ow. You feeling all right? This stuff usually hurts."). He sees her not hurting him as weak. He's a vampire. She's the Slayer. And just because he can't hit doesn't mean he can't rustle up a demon army like Dru and Darla did in AtS. So Buffy has to maintain a position of dominance with him, even though she refuses to kill him when he has a chip.

Now, as for Angel with Harmony in Season 5, I think Harmony would've stayed loyal to Angel if she'd felt a connection with him. Vampires lacking a moral compass need emotion and loyalty to inspire them to change. Harmony is like Vampire Lite--she's prime for redemption. And in fact she's always seemed more redeemable in her vampire years than her human ones--which to me spells growth. She is capable of change. So in this respect, Angel failed her. He's soulblind to her ability to change just as he's soulblind to the fact that Spike had already changed before he'd gotten the soul. This is why I think Angel doesn't understand redemption as much as Spike--he doesn't believe in redemption in the far reaches, where as Spike's lived it.

[snickfic]

This is why I think Angel doesn't understand redemption

And I'd say this is true even when soullessness wasn't the issue - look at Angel's response to Lindsey in "Blind Date."

[hello-spikey.livejournal.com]

Also, I should add:

No writer should ever be a slave to a device in their story. That way lies stagnation.

However,

As I think on it, actually, it is really, REALLY okay to mistreat vampires. As long as they are named Spike.

[whichclothes.livejournal.com]

I agree. As long as the poor thing's all better in the end. Ahem.

[candleanfeather.livejournal.com]

My answer is along Magggie's line. The vampire thing in the Jossverse is very complicated because they never were written in a coherent way: most of them are just metaphors, but some of them are developped as real persons. The fact is that many persons have a very simplified view about it and lack all the nuances and the questions these nuances raise. Like Maggy I believe Joss wanted to introduce complexity in his verse and he used the opportunity that characters such as Spike were providing to do it. I think they were perfectly conscious of what they were doing. I've read very recently an extract of an interview by J Espenson that revealed that, contrary to the common belief, James Marsters played Spike like they wanted him to do. And the situation is also made more complex by the fact that rough treatments of vampires weren't treated coherently either: violence against them is often presented as comedy but you'll find other striking exemples of such that are used as big red signs that ther's something wrong with the "good guys": see for that Buffy and the fleeing vampire whore, Riley staking the vampiress he let bite him, the torture in When she was bad.... But I want also to add that violence inflicted to characters and treated as comedy isn't reserved to the vampires: see what happens to Dawn for exemple in Same Time Same Place for exemple.

Anyway, you know my feeling and thoughts about the use of torture by "good" guys.

[shapinglight]

Anyway, you know my feeling and thoughts about the use of torture by "good" guys.

Yes, I do, and share them. I do take on board what you say about it not just being vampires who the recipients of the comedy violence treatment, though. I think BtVS/AtS are shows where the lines between RL and fantasy become very blurry indeed, which is possibly what happens when something you have visualised as relatively simple (the vampires as metaphor thing) becomes more complicated.

[rua1412.livejournal.com]

For me humans shouldn't less themselves to the souless or evil level.

We should have morals, preventing us to act in that way.

[shapinglight]

I agree, though as others have pointed out, it can be done as long as it's clear we're not supposed to think it's a good thing. And it's not always clear, unfortunately.

Sorry to have been so slow answering your comment. I've been busy, had headaches, sore hands.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_sharvie_/]

I'll kill a fly with a flyswatter, but I won't pin it down and rip off its wings.

Basically what everyone else is saying. It's more a reflection on the hero than the villain.

[shapinglight]

Yes, exactly. Sorry to have been so slow answering your comment. Things have been a bit all over the place this last week.

[spartan5000.livejournal.com]

First off, I'm not very up to date on fannish things -- about as close as I get to Greater Fandom is occasionally bumping into and reading something you or Sueworld write about in your journals. I'm not sure where you stand on the issue, but one thing I have to disagree with strongly is the idea that Joss wanted vampires to be unlovable, disposable villains. I never even realized that was accepted by fandom.

Buffy and the Scoobies, supposedly the outcasts of Sunnydale High, gradually revealed themselves to be the most powerful and exclusive clique in the school, and grew in the reach of that power year by year. Vampires on the other hand, supposedly powerful creatures and lords of the underworld in Season One, slowly revealed themselves to be the ultimate outcasts and outsiders, reduced to being the minions of others and either hated and feared or despised by both sides of their lineage. As well, there were very few one-dimensional vampires after the end of the first season and too much care was taken with vampire canon and with their storyline for it to be an accident, with Joss and his own minions using even the vampires we saw for only a few moments on screen to tell us something about the vampire as a class of demon, and through that, about the vampires we saw most often -- Angel, Spike, Darla, Drusilla and even Harmony -- and they in turn told us even more about the Vampire. Joss had to be the guiding force behind that, it had his fingerprints all over it. It was just the sort of complex, tricksy story he likes to tell the most. Vampires didn't grow personalities on their own, they got personalities because Joss gave them to them, from BtVS to AtS and right on into the comics. While the actors and writers and even the directors might have contributed something, it seems to me that it would have been impossible for that careful creation of canon and character to continue to build on itself and develop from one show and into another, season after season, without Joss being intimately involved, especially given that he was at the helm of one show or the other for a significant portion of the time. I also disagree that we weren't supposed to love and even feel some sympathy for these characters and creatures. Joss Whedon is a smart man and, most importantly of all, he was a fan. He specializes in writing people, not cardboard cut-outs, and then making real people love them, even if they aren't always very lovable. He's got a keen sense for human nature to begin with and has certainly been around more than long enough to figure out what different types of fans would love or like or empathize with or feel sympathy for or be drawn to, and he wrote -- or had written -- all of his characters, even his monsters, so that they would be loved or cared about by different types of fans or that fans could identify with, writing specific characters in such a way that fans would continue to love them or identify with them in spite of how unlovable they might get at times. I think Joss knew just what people would love about certain characters and he had them written to be loved. Spike and Wesley are both perfect examples.

[shapinglight]

I think we're going to have to agree to disagree about this one to a certain extent.

I don't deny that once the vampires on the show became characters Joss has to have been behind the decision as to what could be done with them - how their characters could be developed and utilised to further the story he wanted to tell. Like you say, he's a smart man and he obviously knew that in order for them to make an impact on the story, they had to be fully developed characters with backstory.

However, IMO the fact remains that BtVS was never meant to be a show about vampires, and if what I've read about the origins of the show is true - and I've no reason to think it isn't - the original vampire character, Angel, was not Joss's idea at all, but that of David Greenwalt and Gail Berman, the producer. Which is not to say that having had the character inserted into the show, Joss wouldn't then think of wonderful things he could do with him and want to bring him very different characters like Spike and Dru, who would both comment on Angel's story through their connection with him and contrast with him, and, in Spike's case, go on to have strong story arcs themselves.

Anyway, I'm very sorry to have been so slow answering your comment. I've been very busy, plus rather unwell (migraines and poorly hands).

[sockmonkeyhere.livejournal.com]

I can't remember the exact phrasing, but there's a saying along the lines of "The true test of decency is not how you treat your friends, but how you treat your enemies."

When you torture an evil person/demon/whatever, you're guilty of the very same thing that you're trying to stop in the evil person: cruel behavior. By participating in torture, you've become an evil person, too.

(I've posted the above comments at IDW more times than I can count, only to be shouted down by the fanboys and BL. To this day I remain appalled at their Cruelty-Yay! mentality.)

[shapinglight]

You and me both, Socky.

[thismaz.livejournal.com]

if they treat them badly ... does it matter the same, or less?
Answer in comments
I don't think it matters if the victim/person/entity being treated badly is a vampire, a person, or a frog. The act of treating anything sentient badly does bad things to your soul. Treating someone badly is not about the treatee, it is all about the treater. *shrugs*

[harsens-rob.livejournal.com]

*This* was my major point of my longer response - it's about the health of the hero.

http://harsens-rob.livejournal.com/175956.html

[harsens-rob.livejournal.com]

I posted a linkage at my LJ page with a longer response, but the short answer to your poll is: Yes, yes it does matter.

It matters because the line between soldier and psychopath is very thin when there are no rules regarding how you treat the enemy.

Re: http://harsens-rob.livejournal.com/175956.html

[shapinglight]

Hi. Sorry to have been so slow responding to your comment. I've been very busy over the weekend, plus a bit incapacitated by migraines, which have fortunately gone off now.

Thanks for your input. It's hard to see how anyone wouldn't agree with what you say, but I have certainly come across plenty of people online who take a very different view.

[ms-scarletibis.livejournal.com]

I'd then ask, what is the point of being a "good guy"? Shouldn't that mean you treat things humanely? That cruelty and torture are off the table? Oh sure, you can kill them/fight them with honor, but all that other stuff...cruel and unusual and unnecessary. And, as soul having humans in the Buffyverse, they're supposed to know better, and be better. But they are human, and a lot of times, they do know better, but they just aren't better.

I think the "vampires are a metaphor" went out the window all the way back in s1, when Darla was clearly distraught over losing Angel, who she said she loved, and how she died--his named whispered from her lips. That wasn't...that made her not one dimensional. And how the Master screamed in anguish at losing her...he had a more visceral reaction to her death than oh say Willow did to Jesse's.

As for Angel and Lorne's convo, well, the thing is, you can't really put it in real world connotations. It's not like they were saying Angel woke up next to...what, the dialogue was implying, if it had been an RL moment, that Angel was at the bottom, drunk or something, and woke up to someone hideously unattractive, right? Except that isn't the context here--Darla is on the other side. He was literally sleeping with the enemy (his own doing, sure, but still), and waking up the next day, he realized that. And either way, vampires treating other vampires bad...it's not limited to vampires. There have been many a human in the Buffyverse, soul having and all, who weren't filled with goodness and light. I think it just goes to the person/being how good they are or not. However, clearly humans are supposed to have the edge in that department...but as we've seen, they don't. Not always.

[harsens-rob.livejournal.com]

...he had a more visceral reaction to her death than oh say Willow did to Jesse's.


This has always bugged me... Jesse became that friend we dare not mention ever again. But that isn't the only problem with "The Harvest" as I pointed out in my review of it: We also have the whole gang laughing and joking when Jesse has been dead all of 3 days! And they never bother mentioning how his folks reacted to his complete disappearance - I mean I know parents are often mysteriously absent - but you'd think their normal, human grief would be enough to put Willow and Xander in a funk.

I guess they just bounce back really fast ... or are sociopaths.