Beyond Selidor

I love this analysis of Faith, and agree 100%. Faith has a lot of self-loathing, and I think while in some ways she was more of an ideal slayer than Buffy, she was also not the ideal teenage girl - neither was Buffy, but Buffy still "fit in" society better. She had a family, she had a favorite teacher, she had friends - I can't imagine Faith really had friends. Maybe the kind of friends Cordelia had, except people who were closer to Faith in personality, but that's different from what Buffy, Willow and Xander had. I think Faith wanted to have that with Buffy, but she was also a little jealous of her, and so she tried to make Buffy more like her, except that backfired horribly. :/ (Oddly I'd argue Cordelia was similar. I think she wanted to be part of the Scoobies more than she'd let on, and she knew Buffy was a version of her with super powers and actual friends and stuff. Now I wish we'd had a scene with Faith and Cordelia together, even though I think Faith would've had even less patience with her, and vice versa.)