#rantcanon

[magaprima]

Having seen the comments and anons on @concreteangel1221 ‘s blog about Lilith and how she less deserving of redemption than freaking Blackwood, I feel I had to have a little rant, because you guys know I have written literal essays of headcanons about this character and her actions and her experiences. 

Lilith does do, within the timeline of the show, ‘morally bad’ things (I’m using quote marks not only because the benchmark of morals is different on the show, but also that the concept of being good or evil was something invented by abrahamic religions, because the old religions/ways/gods had a more discretionary, personal compass aspect to things). We see her kill Mary, we see her kill the teenage boy to summon the Greendale 13, we see her create a creature to ‘rip the skin from Sabrina Spellman’s bones’ (the other stuff she does is no different than Sabrina, Ambrose, Hilda, Zelda, Nick etc actions, so I’m not listing it). 

However, before I go on to points and reasons why this does not stop her from having redemption or being a worth/morally capable character, I want to add, that as Lilith killed Mary, she did so on instruction from the Dark Lord (the writers confirmed in discussions about Part 3 that she was made to pick Mary specifically) and she has resurrected her. Zelda has also killed Hilda many times and resurrected her. Killing the teenage boy was, as we gauge from her monologue, a means to an end; ‘the dark lord was growing impatient with me’ so desperation not to suffer at his hands pushed her to summon the Greendale 13, which required a life. I’m just justifying her actions, I’m just saying she didn’t go out and murder for the hell of it, there was a reason, and her own self-preservation. And then when she creates the Adam Creature to kill Sabrina, I’ve already made huge posts about how that was created out of grief and anger, and how existing and surrounded by a patriarchal society made her attack the woman, the ‘competition’ rather than the man that was really to blame (as in society we women are encouraged to see each other as the enemy and men as the goal), and for that matter, her place didn’t work, she can only be accused of intent here and not action. 

But now I have seen lots of comments on posts on tumblr, instagram etc where people say Lilith needs to suffer (as if she hasn’t already), that she should be punished for what she did (as if she hasn’t been punished enough) and that she’s pure evil and totally the villain no matter what.

And I want to introduce those people to something called the Abuse Cycle. Simply put, the idea that someone who has been a long time abuse victim has an increased likelihood of becoming an abuser themselves, because this suffered behaviour becomes normalised behaviour (a pop culture reference I always make for explaining this is Regina Mills when she tells Henry ‘I don’t know how to love very well’ because her experiences of Motherhood were only ever via Cora and that was a very abusive relationship). I have made posts which compare Lilith’s relationship with the Dark Lord as a marriage of domestic abuse, as she even uses the archetypal reasoning of ‘he wasn’t like this in the beginning. He was kind at first’ and often people who enter long-term abusive marriages have come from abusive homes, and believe the latter is an escape from the former (Lilith believes Lucifer is her saviour from the abuse of the False God/Adam/The Garden) and because this new abuser will occasionally reward them and assure them that they love them (i.e here have more power, here be my handmaiden and right hand, one day you’ll be my Queen beside me), the victim often reasons, for sake of survival, that this is just the way this person loves, and it’s not their fault they behave this way (’the more he became this thing of darkness’, it’ll be different when he’s back to his true form etc). And so they stay until the thought of leaving terrifies them, and the threat of being caught is worse than the threat of staying, and eventually this becomes normal and acceptable and just the way life is. They know no different. Lilith, until she meets Adam 2.0, knows no different. First Adam and Lucifer are her only experiences of long term relationships and both are violent and abusive. 

Now the most large-scale example of an abuse cycle is human trafficking, another thing I have compared the Lilith-Lucifer-Sabrina dynamic too, especially as Lilith does use the word ‘groom’ in reference to Sabrina. With human trafficking cycles, long term trafficked victims often become abusers of other victims as a way of elevating themselves and earning themselves a more comfortable existence. For example, a young girl could be trafficked, then after 5 years of ‘loyalty’, she’s told to bring in other girls like her, she’s told that if she does, she’ll have to see fewer ‘customers’, that these new girls will do the worst jobs. So she does it, she goes out and brings other girls back to make her life easier. Then the traffickers create the idea of hierarchy; yes you’re still one of the girls, but if you help your abuser ‘break in’ the new girls, punish them and train them, well then you become the ‘manager’ of the girls, you move up a level, you’re important, and important people get better food, they get more comfortable beds. Sure they get beaten still, sure they have to still do their ‘job’, but there’s less of it now and they have status, they have a little bit of power for themselves and that’s better than no power at all. And therein the cycle begins. 

This really is very similar to what has happened to Lilith. She was brought in by Lucifer, thought him kind and they were in love, and then he changed, became ‘this thing of darkness’ and she is abused, mentally and physically (the way she hides her face in the second episode of part 1 shows how used she is to him hitting her when he’s disappointed, and the way she asks to kiss his feet show she’s learned how to calm that temper. She has made a life within her abuse, a way to survive, a way to tell herself everything is fine and good) for thousands of years. Thousands of years of suffering this behaviour, being surrounded by it, knowing nothing else, is going to make it the norm for you. Like she literally has nothing to compare to in her experiences. And now she is told ‘if you do all these things (including those I listed above) you will finally be Queen, and this new girl can take your shitty jobs and suffer your shitty position, while you rule’, and like the trafficked victims, Lilith, understandably, jumps on this and does everything she can to make it possible. Why should she care about Sabrina? She’s just some half-mortal who has had a lovely life for sixteen years, while Lilith has suffered for thousands? Now it’s someone else’s turn. Why should she care that she makes another victim?  Better to be the absuer than the abused, right?

Only, through her time in Greendale, surrounded by people who, while morally dark grey/black by Christian standards, are relatively good people, people who thank Lilith when she does something, who speak to her as an equal, who go to her for help, people who care about her, even love her (Adam specifically), surrounded by healthy relationships, living in that cottage without fear of abuse or beatings, living essentially a peaceful life, Lilith actually does start to care. She defends Theo’s right to be on the basketball team, she respects Roz’s decision to want to study away from others, and arranges that space in the library, and, in the finale, she helps Sabrina defeat the Dark Lord, and, quite notably, actually grabs the Dark Lord by the neck (telekinetically) blowing the subservient cover she has maintained for milennia in order to stop Sabrina from being hurt/abused as she has been. Because, remember Lilith knows his wrath personally and when she sees him marching towards Sabrina with it, she pulls him back ‘hold that nasty thought!’ and then, not only does she show sympathy for Sabrina losing Nick, she assures her she’ll take good care of him, and she returns her favourite teacher to her and allows Sabrina to have her powers without any need to sign a book, giving her both ‘power and freedom’. 

Lilith, after thousands of years of abuse, of normalising that abuse, of becoming the abuser herself, breaks the abuse cycle. She breaks.the.abuse.cycle. And that is a massive thing, and an admirable thing, and, in my opinion, shows us what Lilith’s core character was before abuse and experiences etc (I do maintain Lilith’s core, original character is more akin to Sabrina). Someone who can go through such long term abuse and extreme levels of it too, and then break their own abuse cycle and behave differently, is not just someone worthy of redemption, but someone who should be applauded. 

Yet, people will jump to say she’s evil and deserves more suffering, while Faustus will be defended. I like Blackwood as a character and I really love Richard in the role, but no I don’t think he’s a good person, and unless he shows real remorse and changes his ways in Part 3 or 4, then no he isn’t worthy of approval/forgiveness etc. I mean, we don’t know how he treated Constance, but the fact she had to ask for his approval whether to eat a cake, her fear and stress over giving him sons, and her general demeanour are very revealing. And then we have the atrocious thing he did to Zelda (which I won’t go into because many people have already done that) and perhaps the things he does are the very reason Edward forbid him from pursuing Zelda in the first place, and then he created a manifesto to oppress all witches, declaring women to be less than men, he made a secret society of warlocks that had such a nazi-esque demeanour it would be fucking terrifying to be surrounded by that, and then, when he didn’t want to accept the rule of a woman, he decided to poison an entire coven, before making plans to have his son and daughter married to each other in the future (and lets not forget when Zelda threatened to slit Prudence’s throat, he said he had his other children, so he could spare to lose that one). And there is no abuse cycle for him to follow; he is a white male witch. He has been born to every privilege. 

I get if people don’t like Lilith (actually, I don’t, she’s fabulous, haha, but everyone is entitled to like or dislike characters) and I get people wanting Faustus to have a redemption arc, but you can’t possibly say that he is more deserving of chances, or that Lilith’s actions are worse, when you take all things in context. Similarly, as regards Zelda: she has been horrendous to her sister, abusive in more ways than one, but the fact she apologises for the harrowing, that she did stop killing Hilda after the nightmare episode, and how she encouraged Hilda to embrace her sexuality and gives her help and advice and a glamour makeover, and then gets her back into the church of night, all shows that Zelda is taking steps to make it up to her sister. People who are saying she hasn’t done enough and she’s still bad, like we are literally only just seeing Zelda realise the error of treating Hilda as she did, but the fact she has made changes and altered her behaviour accordingly shows that she, like Lilith, is breaking her own cycle. 

So back off attacking women for less and defending men for more, people. Even fictional ones. 

Also Lilith gets demonised enough from her own mythology in the real world, I ain’t gonna add to it in a fictional one.