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Sorting the Buffyverse (Faith Lehane)


abhorsen.

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This is a gift for @Dojh167 as part of our December wishlist event - I hope it makes sense to you! ❤️ (If it doesn't, feel free to argue. :P )

 

Note: I use the sortinghatchats system - +here’s (M to be safe) a link to their ‘basics’ post. To briefly summarize, though, they sort everyone on two different (and equally important) aspects of their personality: the first (your “primary” house) is why you do things, where the second (your “secondary” house) is how you do things.

I sorted Buffy Summers awhile back, and I'm finally following with her fellow slayer, Faith Lehane. There’s a pretty prevalent tendency to see Faith and Buffy as two sides of the coin - light and dark, Gryffindor and Slytherin, etc. I don’t think it’s that simple, though - and while Faith has a good Slytherin primary performance sometimes, I don’t think she’s actually a Slytherin primary or a Slytherin secondary.

Primary (the “why”)

Faith’s primary is a little hard, because by the time Faith enters the series, she’s just so, so damaged. I feel like I probably shouldn’t include Go Ask Malice in this, especially since I’m not including the comic books… but even without it, it’s very clear that Faith had a turbulent and abusive life before being called. The Faith we see early on in the show is not someone with a healthy primary - she’s someone who’s been badly hurt.

It’s very, very easy to see her tendency to focus on herself and the people she’s closest to as indicating a Slytherin primary, but while Faith at her lowest looks a little like a petrified Slytherin primary, Faith at her best doesn’t look anything like a healthy Slytherin primary. Faith’s issue isn’t that she kicks people out of her inner circle; her issue is that she wants desperately for the world to be her inner circle, and she can’t deal with the pain that entails.

She hits a turning point after she wakes up from her coma and runs off to Los Angeles. When Angel (and Wesley) protect her despite having very good reason not to, that centers her enough to choose to turn herself into the police. She only breaks out when Wesley tells her that Angel needs help. Once she’s helped them, she heads to Sunnydale, and pretty quickly adopts the potential Slayers as part of her community.

That’s the key here - Faith isn’t particularly discerning about who she turns into her community. She just knows she needs someone. A Slytherin primary would have been more discerning - they would not have wanted as desperately as Faith did to belong to any group that would have her. She wants to belong with the Scoobies, with Gwendolyn Post, with the Mayor, with Angel (and Wesley), with the potential slayers... Even at her lowest, Faith doesn’t want to be alone, and at her best, she actively works toward positive relationships within those groups.

That’s a Hufflepuff primary:

Hufflepuff Primaries value people. They value community, bond to groups, and they make their decisions off of who is in the most need and who is the most vulnerable and who they can help. They value fairness because every person is a person and feel best when they give everyone a fair chance.

She probably has a Slytherin primary performance, too, but it’s just an act.

Secondary (the “how”)

Her secondary is a lot more straightforward. Faith is a Gryffindor secondary through and through:

Gryffindor Secondaries charge. They meet the world head-on and challenge it to do its worst. Gryffindor Secondaries are honest, brash, and bold in pursuit of things they care about. Known for their bravery, it is almost a moral matter to stay true to themselves in any situation that they’re in.

Even as her why changes over the course of the show, especially after she escapes from prison, Faith’s how is always very straightforward. Faith doesn’t finesse or negotiate her way through anyway - she just attacks it. She says what she thinks, and she does what she says.

Faith will jump into a manhole without knowing how many vampires are waiting for her on the other side, because “I don't know how many's down there, but I wanna find out, and I'll know when I land.” Faith barely has time to process that Angel has reverted to Angelus (again) before jumping through the glass and breaking out of prison. Faith attacks every situation she’s put in headfirst.

In summary, Faith is a (burned) Hufflepuff primary with a Slytherin primary performance and a Gryffindor secondary.

(Italicized quotes from sortinghatchats)

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