Cowboy Bebop: Faye & Jet

[branchandroot]

Unsquare Dance

They bounce off each other a lot in this story. In fact, while they each play foil to Spike in some way, their respective primary focuses could be said to be each other.

Opposites Attract

“Ballad,” of course, features Jet perfectly willing to hang Faye out to dry when she gets caught going after the trap-bounty, but then he has rather the same reaction when she calls him to come help her get Spike out of the trap so it doesn’t quite seem personal. I found it interesting that two episodes later, in “Jazz,” Spike is the one who couldn’t care less about Faye or the money she took because he’s focused on Julia; by contrast, Jet is the one who says they should look for Faye as Callisto is “a dangerous area for a woman alone.” Oh, yeah, and for the money too. When Jet finds Faye at Gren’s apartment instead of Gren he appears to give up on his search for that bounty in favor of getting Faye back to the Bebop. On the way we have one of those exchanges we see every so often between Faye and Jet that shows up a fairly deep understanding of each other between them.

Jet notes that Faye had to know that taking the money from the safe when she left while leaving the Swordfish and the Hammerhead intact would ensure that Spike and Jet would come after her, and asks “Were you just testing us?” Rather than answering directly, Faye points out that there was only 20,000 woolongs in the safe. Jet blinks and asks “Really?” whereupon Faye, rather tiredly, calls him an idiot. Couple of things I would point out here. For one, Faye never denies that she was testing her companions’ attachment to her. If we put this together with Gren’s guess that she left in the first place because she was afraid of losing them we get a pretty complex picture of Faye’s motivation for these two episodes. By taking the money she is, indeed, giving Jet and Spike an excuse to come after her, but by taking such a small amount she assures herself that if they come, it will be for her sake and not the money. Another point is that Jet, right through the story, is the treasurer of this little group; he’s the one who keeps track of finances and worries about them. It’s rather out of character for him not to know how much or little is in the safe. The two strongest readings for Faye calling Jet an idiot are that she’s annoyed he’s ruined her plan to figure out just how much she means to he and Spike, or that she’s telling him she doesn’t believe he didn’t know how little she took. Since she sounds less annoyed than weary, I’m inclined to the latter.

We see another of these exchanges in “My Funny Valentine.” Faye comes storming into Jet’s bonsai studio wanting him to fix the shower. He tells her he’s busy, and reaches for his com as it rings. In a very Faye moment, she grabs it first and tells whoever it is that they’re busy. Jet, somewhere between dismayed and annoyed says, “don’t just hang up! What if it’s an emergency?” at which point it rings again. Faye gives it a considering look, and then a downright evil grin spreads across her face. Jet actually smiles at her antics and gives in: “Oh, all right. You’ll be happy if I fix it, right?” Pretty tolerant. He doesn’t get gruff again until Faye turns serious and concerned, and asks why he hasn’t gotten his arm fixed, at which point Jet returns to taciturn mode and tells her “This ship is my ship; and this arm is my arm. Don’t tell me what to do.” The whole scene crystallizes their typical relationship. They’ll banter and play over little things; consider their game of strip poker in “Toys in the Attic” and Jet’s insistence that Faye pay him back the COD charges before she can watch the video in “Speak Like a Child.” It’s the big things they get uncomfortable with.

Of course, in between, we also have Faye’s rather snippy comment at the beginning of “Ganymede Elegy” as Jet talks with his old buddy: “He used to be a cop? That explains…why I don’t get along with him.” In the long run, though, I think I would read this in light of the way Faye and Jet seem to oppose each other in parallel. Consider, for instance, their comments about the opposite sex.

In “Sympathy for the Devil” Jet remarks, to Faye incidentally, that “women easily betray others, but men live for duty [giri].” Faye, of course, questions this, and Jet finishes “that’s what I’d like to believe,” which takes a bit of the oomph out of his statement, but still. Then there’s his repeated opinion in “Valentine” that “Women don’t work on reason.”

Faye reciprocates this comment with her sentiments in “Sympathy”: “Men are such idiots.” And then there’s her remark in “Elegy” as Jet takes off to see his old flame Alisa: “Really, men are hopeless romantics.”

And then, of course, there are Faye and Jet’s comments on each other’s unsuitable relationships. In “Valentine” Jet says that “Women as insistent as her tend to be the ones who get emotionally swayed by their exes,” to which Spike responds “Is that so?” In “Boogie-Woogie Feng-Shui” Faye suggests that Jet really is attracted to Pao’s daughter and that “The more righteous a guy was in his youth the more likely he’s gonna fall for a young girl later in life.” Spike responds once again with “Is that so?” In parallel with Jet’s comment in “Valentine” that women don’t work on reason, Faye remarks in “Boogie-woogie” that “Guys are so clueless.”

It gets kind of hard to miss after a while. Faye and Jet think an awful lot alike for two people who disagree so much. It’s one of the things that I think makes the ending not tragic. In the anime tradition of opposites attracting, and those people getting on the best who fight the most Faye and Jet seem likely to be a solid team and keep each other going after Spike is gone. This possibility is highlighted by the scene Faye observes in port, of a woman talking to herself about how there’s no place for her; the woman’s son comes to find her after all and tells her of course he wants her to stay with him and it will all work out. Likewise the preview of the very last episode in which Fay and Jet are talking about Ein rather domestically–as if he was their kid. The port scene, though, is what lends extra weight to Faye’s distress when Spike leaves in the last episode: “My memory came back but nothing good came out of it. There was no place for me to return to. This was the only place I could go back to! But now…where are you going? Why do you have to go? Are you telling me you’re going to just throw your life away!?”

Fortunately for our depression quotient there are a couple of nice indications that Faye and Jet do and will care for each other. When Spike and Jet have to split up in “Brain Scratch” to find both Faye and one of the Brain Dream controllers Jet (the one with the money remember?) hikes off to stand in line and tells Spike “I’m trusting you with Faye.” When Spike calls Faye to come back to the Bebop he first plays on her sympathy for Jet by telling her he was shot (25). When she does come back, and immediately wants to deliver Julia’s message to Spike, Jet asks rather huffily whether “You came back here just to see Spike?” (25). It’s kind of cute.

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The Other One

This is not to say that I don’t understand why people like to write romance fics for Faye and Spike. They have their own relationship, and there are several places where Faye is paralleled with Julia.

The most obvious is probably in “Ballad” when Spike wakes up to Faye humming the same song Julia was humming when he woke up after last getting shot up in a cathedral. There’s the preview of “Jupiter Jazz II” in which Spike says he likes “women that aren’t normally feminine but show that side of themselves on some chance occasions.” Faye’s voice interjects a really-how-interesting sound, and Spike adds that he wasn’t talking about her. The implication, of course, is that she is that kind of woman also. Also in that episode the barkeep at Rester House, in the course of equating the two women’s beauty, tells Jet that Faye and Julia chose the same seat at the bar. Then there’s the scene where Spike tells Jet about Julia: “she was a piece of me I had lost. She is my other half that I had longed for. She’s back,” that last bit referring to Faye coming in for a landing (25).

On the other hand, there are also times when Faye and Spike act more like brother and sister. For instance, consider “Elegy” when Faye says “You’re a fool if you think your woman still thinks about you,” and Spike fires back “You’re a fool if you think all women are like you.” They don’t sound particularly acrimonious, just comfortably snippy. Then, too, I have trouble envisioning Spike getting into a flying shoot-out with Julia the way he does with Faye in “Valentine.” There’s another moment of Taunt the Sibling interaction when Faye swings the Redtail around to shoot back at Spike and says “I won’t go easy on you!” Spike, looking rather miffed, says “That was my line.” Spike occasionally lectures her, as in “Boogie-woogie” when he says “Sometimes it’s good to act without asking ‘what’s in it for me.’ We’re fairies who are going to grant the princess’ wish.” Faye seems entertained by this image. After the information that Jet is injured fails to secure Faye’s immediate agreement to return, Spike loses his temper and snaps “I’m telling you to stop wandering so much and just come back!” very big-brotherly, which causes Faye to hang up on him in a snit (very little-sisterly). When she comes to give him Julia’s message and the syndicate starts firing on the Bebop Spike teases her “Maybe they followed you here.” When Faye looks stricken, however, he relents and tells her “Oh, well, it was bound to happen sooner or later” (25).

They have their own moments of similarity. For instance, they are both banished to smoke outside while Meifa is on board (21). During the hunt for the pirates in “Wild Horses,” both Faye and Spike want to fire on the identical trucks to see which one runs away (much to Jet’s dismay). They sport identical bloodthirsty grins, and Spike comments cheerfully that it’s the first time he’s agreed with Faye. But I think that Faye and Jet show more evidence of actual understanding.

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The music for this page, “Unsquare Dance,” is by Dave Brubek et. al., off the album Jazz Collection. You will get why, I think, if you’re set up to listen in stereo. There are two players, snatching the rhythm back and forth between them. It struck me as a wonderful parallel to Faye and Jet’s relationship.