Faith

Real Name: Faith Lehane

Identity/Class: Vampire slayer - supernaturally enhanced human

Occupation: Vampire Slayer

Affiliations: Buffy Summers, Angel, Rupert Giles, Willow Rosenberg, Kennedy, Xander Harris, Mayor Richard Wilkins III, Anya, Spike, Fred Burkle, Wesley Wyndham-Pryce, Charles Gunn, Lorne, Cordelia Chase, Connor, Robin Woods, unnamed deceased first Watcher

(former) Wolfram and Hart

Enemies: The Beast; Kakistos; Mr.Trick; the First, the Gatherers

(former) Buffy Summers, Angel, Rupert Giles, Willow Rosenberg, Xander Harris,Wesley Wyndham-Pryce (deceased), Anya Christina Emmanuella Jenkins/Anyanka (deceased), Cordelia Chase (deceased), Daniel "Oz" Osbourne

Known Relatives: Unnamed mother (presumably deceased)

Aliases: Buffy Summers

Base of Operations: U.S.A. - briefly Sunnydale, California, then Los Angeles, then Sunnydale again, now mobile

First Appearance: Buffy the Vampire Slayer #37 "Faith, Hope and Trick" (Warners Bros, 13th October 1998)

Powers/Abilities: Superhuman strength, speed and agility. Accelerated healing.

History: Faith's full background is unknown, but what little has come to light suggests she had a troubled childhood. However, Faith had something extra going for her: like a number of young girls around the world, Faith was born with the mystical potential to become the Slayer, a woman possessed of superhuman attributes and a duty to slay the vampires and demons who preyed on humanity. There was only ever one Slayer at a time, with each new one being called when the current incumbent died. So it was with Faith, who became the Slayer when a girl called Kendra was killed. Like most Slayers, she was trained and directed by a Watcher, a member of a secret society which had monitored and fought the supernatural for centuries. Faith was a good Slayer, but she was cocky...at least until she faced Kakistos, an ancient vampire who easily defeated her and slew her Watcher. Terrified, Faith fled.

Remembering her Watcher telling her of another Slayer living in Sunnydale, California, Faith headed there. There she encountered Buffy Summers, Kendra's predecessor (who had died and been revived, thus activating Kendra but breaking the "only one Slayer at a time" rule for the first time in history), and together they faced and slew Kakistos. For a little while Faith was accepted into Buffy's circle of friends and family, the "Scooby Gang". However as time passed, she began to feel that they considered her second-best to the older Slayer, always unfavourably judged in comparison to her. Faith was a more brutal fighter, reveling in the violence. Finally she crossed the line, accidentally staking a human. She tried to cover up her mistake, and informed the shocked Buffy that she didn't care (though this was likely bravado). This marked the beginning of a downward spiral into evil; the Watchers tried to kidnap Faith and take her back to England for punishment, but she escaped. Although the rest of Buffy's friends felt she had crossed a line, she gained a second chance with them when she killed the local head vampire, Mr.Trick, just as he was about to murder Buffy. But even as she was being accepted back, unknown to the Scooby Gang, Faith offered her services to the evil Mayor Wilkins, who had been Mr.Trick's boss.

Mayor Wilkins was truly evil, but he gave Faith one thing she had never had before: unconditional love and acceptance. He treated her as a daughter, and, already feeling she was damned and worthless, she would do anything to please him and have him make her feel worth something. It wasn't long before her alliance with the local "big bad" was exposed, and she and Buffy faced each other in a fight to the death. Buffy won, though only just, leaving Faith in a coma. When she awoke nearly a year later she was horrified to find that Buffy had slain the Mayor, and she targeted the other Slayer for vengeance. Using a charm left for her by her dead mentor, she swapped bodies with her enemy, stealing her life. Living as Buffy for a few days began to open her eyes; she saw that Buffy's life was not as perfect and easy as she had always believed, she discovered how good it felt for people to see her as a hero, and she saw how others viewed her as Faith. Another confrontation with Buffy put her back in her own body, and unable to cope with the revelations and emotions, she fled Sunnydale.

Arriving in Los Angeles, she was hired by Wolfram and Hart, an evil, demonic law firm, to kill Angel, Buffy's former boyfriend who had recently moved to that city. She accepted the assignment, but it became clear that her heart wasn't in it, and that she really wanted to provoke Angel into killing her, ending her pain. Angel, no stranger to being evil and seeking redemption, refused to do this, and instead took her in and tried to help her back on the path. Accepting that she had to take responsibility for her actions, she turned herself over to the police to face the charges for the crimes she had committed. She was sent to prison, getting by as best she could, and occasionally visited by Angel.

She remained in prison for around three years, apart from a couple of periods of freedom- once when the Watcher's Council required her to handle a serious crisis and another time when a vampire wanted to organise a Slayer hunt. Then Angel was turned back into Angelus, his evil, soulless, vampire self. Needing to recapture him so they could restore his soul, Angel's allies enlisted Faith's help, and she broke out of prison to assist them. With the help of Willow, a witch who was one of Buffy's Scooby Gang, Angel was captured and restored. Then Willow told Faith of an even bigger problem. The First Evil had come to Sunnydale, and was targetting all the potential Slayers; Buffy needed all the help she could get. Faith returned with Willow to Sunnydale, where she joined a small army of "potentials" in helping the Scooby Gang battle the minions of the First. Eventually they entered the very Hellmouth that sat beneath the city; Willow used her magic to activate all the potential Slayers the world over, and then another of Buffy's allies, Spike, sacrificed himself to close the Hellmouth forever. Faith was last seen among the group who escaped the subsequent destruction of Sunnydale, beginning a promising relationship with Robin Woods, another ally and the son of a Slayer who died some twenty years earlier.

Comments: Created by Joss Whedon, played by Eliza Dushku.

CLARIFICATIONS: Not to be confused with

Any Additions/Corrections? Please let me know.

Back to US Independents Page

Home

All images and characters depicted on this site are copyright their respective holders, and are used for informational purposes only. No infringement is intended and copyrights remain at source.