maggie2: (Default)
maggie2 ([personal profile] maggie2) wrote2009-01-12 05:27 pm

Spike and Season 8

It's not so obvious to me that Spike isn't going to play a role in season 8

 

I’m under the impression that a lot of people assume that Spike will certainly not figure in season 8, and that Joss either never was interested in Spike (or Spuffy) or he views that story as settled and is just moving on.   Of course, we won’t know until the tale is done, but it does seem to me that it would be very strange if the same writer who knew that Angel marked Buffy for life didn’t think that Spike, who played at least as major a role in Buffy’s story, could vanish from her story without trace. But all I want to argue for here is the proposition that based on what we have seen in the first 21 issues, there is plenty of room for Spike to enter the story, perhaps even in an important way.

 

Before getting to the text, it’s worth observing that Scott Allie has said (Slayalive Q&A #20, question 4) that Joss has the right to use the characters in Angel as much as he likes. There thus seems to be no contractual reason for Spike to remain offstage. All that will matter is what the story demands. 

 

While I wouldn’t go so far as to argue that the story demands that Spike play a role, there is a fair amount of text at this point that would retrospectively set up his appearance.

 

1.   Buffy is the main character of the series. (Duh). When last we saw her, Spike was arguably the most important person in her world – the one who was in her heart, the one with whom she shared the fiery hands of passion, the one whose name was the last word she spoke in the entire series, the one with whom she spent what could well have been her last night in the world, the one who stood by her when all her other significant folks kicked her out of her own house, etc. etc. etc. The status of Buffy’s relationship with the person who was so very important to her was left hanging at the end of the story. It matters how it is resolved. Really. Angel hung over her story for years. It’s unreasonable to think that Spike vanished without a trace in 18 months, or that the resolution of Buffy's story with Spike is insignficant.

 

And it’s not like the writers of season 8 are insensible of the fact that romantic story lines from season 7 need to be resolved in season 8. Pretty much the first thing we learn about Faith in #6 is that Robin ended up not surprising her – she’s still very much alone. It took a while, but we finally learn that Xander really did spend some serious time mourning Anya (#13). If Joss really wanted to close off the Spike/Buffy story line, he’d have done so much the way Faith/Robin got closed out. He didn’t.

 

2. On the contrary, one of the first things Joss tells us about Buffy is that she doesn’t know the significance of the Immortal to either Angel or Spike.  It opens the door to the possibility that she does not know that they tried to track her down in TGIQ. Far from closing the story down, Joss offers a tantalizing detail that reminds us that we really don’t know where things stand between Buffy and Spike.

 

3. There is the mysterious absence of Spike from Buffy’s dream space (#3), where every other significant figure in her life is present. (With the possible exception of Hank). Angel is here, as is Riley. Tara, and Dawn, and Faith, and, Joyce, and all the major villains and the Scoobies. There are cubes from early in Buffy’s life through season 7 (Xander with an eye patch; Caleb).   There are three ways I can think of to account for this fact. (a) The scenes and figures drawn were chosen by Jeanty and have no particular significance. But Enisy asked Allie about this, and Allie says that Joss did interact with Jeanty both about what should be there and about what should not be there (Slayalive Q&A #19, question 6). (b) Buffy really doesn’t see Spike as an important person in her life (beyond his usefulness in her erotic fantasies).   That defies imagination. Whether it’s the fiery hands of passion or the bathroom scene, Spike has impacted Buffy enormously, both in good ways and in bad ways. (c) The absence is significant in a way that has yet to be revealed.

 

4. Buffy finally mentions Spike in A Beautiful Sunset sandwiched between Angel and Riley. As already noted, both Angel and Riley figured in her dream space. They’ve also both (now) appeared in the series. Angel in a nod to what lies firmly behind Buffy (#20); and Riley as either a villain or an undercover ally (#19). If two of the three major loves in Buffy’s life deserve a role in the series, it is even stranger that Joss couldn’t be arsed to close out a dangling thread about her most recent romantic involvement. 

 

5. There are plenty of places where one can read resonances with Buffy’s history with Spike, things that could take on different shades if Spike turns out to be part of this story.   In the first battle we are shown, Buffy is in a church killing a demon with a cross. The last time we saw Buffy in a church with a demon, the demon was draped on the cross in one of the most arresting images of the entire series.   General Voll points to the crater at Sunnydale and says “look what she did to her hometown”. But when Buffy last had anything to say about what caused that crater, her answer was “Spike”.   In Buffy’s dream about Xander, she promises to be gentle “this time”, yet knocks off Xander’s head and worries about being dark. There are resonances here with her not-so-gentle relationship with Spike, which was epitomized in the alley scene in Dead Things where she didn’t quite knock his head off. Buffy even says “oh balls” here, which is a line that comes from that scene in DT. Ethan’s entrance into her dream is teased as Spike (we just see his Spike-like clothes at the end of #2) and Buffy explicitly objects to him calling her “pet”.    Skipping ahead, and going in less detail: Dracula’s relationship with Xander mirrors in some ways Spike’s relationship with Buffy (evil vampire crossing lines to help the good guys because of love); Willow tells Frey that the most important men in Buffy’s life are lurks (and that that fact makes it too simple to say that Buffy’s life is about eliminating them); and in the most recent issue we have Clem and Harmony allied, the two demons who were friendly with Spike during his time in Sunnydale. None of these allusions or references have to mean anything. But they are available to mean something if Spike turns out to figure in the story. 

 

So we’ll see. It’s true that we’re nearly two years into the comics. But we’re also just over half way through the “season”. And in many of the seasons on Buffy, the real contours of the season aren’t revealed until the second half. It’s too soon to claim that Joss is going to pay no attention to Spike.  Indeed, I tend to think that the strange absences and silences point to a larger role rather than a smaller one – since the failure to close out Spike/Buffy quickly seems to demand some sort of pay-off when the story finally is continued.

shapinglight: (Comics cover Spike)

[personal profile] shapinglight 2009-01-13 02:29 pm (UTC)(link)
Interesting discussion, Maggie. Sadly, I fear I'd have to stick myself in the cynics' camp on this one. I'm not expecting any appearance from Spike. I think that threesome pic - in which Joss specifically told Jeanty to draw Buffy more inclined towards Angel - may well be the only explicit reference to him during the whole run of the comic.

I would like to be wrong, of course. And it's not that I think Joss hates Spike or anything. Indeed, he recently said some very nice things about the character, even that he preferred him to Angel. However, those were nice things about the character, not about Spuffy. Where that's concerned, part of me suspects that Joss would like to sweep it under the carpet and pretend it never happened, because dealing with the AR is too tricky and he's running scared about it.

I think he intends us to think that Spuffy is so over in Buffy's mind that Spike really is reduced to a sex fantasy (which he has to share with Angel). He doesn't figure in the memory cube sequence because she never thinks about him. This seems bizarre to me, as I think even Scott Allie would agree that her relationship with Spike was more impactful/important than her relationship with Riley.

Sorry. I know that sounds horribly cynical and pessimistic, but there it is.

Also, not sure if you read the letters page of no 21, but someone actually asked when all the blanks between the end of season 7 and the beginning of season 8 would be filled in and was told by Scott Allie that they wouldn't be. I suspect that Spike is one of those blanks.

I'm just glad that when the AtS characters went to IDW, Spike went with them, even though Allie wanted to keep him, because if he'd stayed at Dark Horse, he would have been stuck in limbo, unwanted by Joss for season 8 and unusuable by IDW. I have issues with A: AtF too, but I do find the story a great deal more accessible - and likeable - than season 8, and at least the characters seem more like their canon selves most of the time.
next_to_normal: (Default)

[personal profile] next_to_normal 2009-01-13 02:40 pm (UTC)(link)
Thing is, none of those things would've happened just because the fans wanted them. They happened because they made the show better. Spike was kept alive because James Marsters was a brilliant actor and Spike was an incredible character with limitless room to grow. He fundamentally changed the show. So did making Angel a regular - without that, we wouldn't have the Buffy/Angel relationship and Angelus, which was a defining element of both the show and Buffy herself. Riley went away because the relationship wasn't working - the chemistry wasn't there. If fan hatred alone was enough to make a character go away, Kennedy wouldn't have lasted more than an episode.

My point is, Joss has certainly done things the fans liked or wanted - if he didn't, he wouldn't have any fans. But he doesn't do them just because we want them, so if you think fans drooling for a Spuffy reunion is enough to get you one, I'd say you're mistaken. If Joss thinks he can tell a good story by doing it, then yeah, he'll do it. But he's not going to sacrifice the story he wants to tell just for fan service.

[identity profile] 2maggie2.livejournal.com 2009-01-13 04:43 pm (UTC)(link)
Emmie has ably handled this, especially the first one.

With respect to the second, I'd put it like this. I think these issues have very much been in play over the course of the series. Indeed, I think it's all part of a main theme: which is how much does a hero have to worry about the immediate results of an action versus how much does a hero have to worry about the big picture consequences. There was a steady trajectory in Buffy on this: from being unwilling to sacrifice a friend for the world in Choices; to seeing that she might have to sacrifice Dawn to save the world, but refusing to live in a world that demanded such sacrifices; to saying she's willing to make such sacrifices if necessary in Lies My Parents Told Me. There's a corresponding hardening of Buffy's heart, which I think is a pretty good critique of consequentialist reasoning (where the big picture is more important than the means employed to get there). Giles murder of Ben is a part of the commentary on consequentialist reasoning; and I think that it's a driving force in the rift between him and Buffy. With the irony that even as she resists that sort of logic (see her defense of Spike to Giles in season 7), she's steadily moving towards his position... or at least is taking on board his concerns much more than she did way back in Choices. So far from not being addressed, I'd say it's one of the main themes of the show -- one of the sorts of threads that nerdy academics would write essays about.

[identity profile] deannab.livejournal.com 2009-01-13 04:55 pm (UTC)(link)
In any case, either Allie's an idiot, or he's lying to us. I don't think highly of him, so I'd say either one is equally possible.

Could be both. How do we know that Joss has ever told him whether or not Buffy knows that Spike is alive? Joss has probably just told him the basic structure of Season 8, but not the details, or everything that's planned for Season 9. Just enough that Allie smugly thinks he's "in the loop," but when you quiz him on details, he'd likely just give his opinion in order to save face and make him seem more important and knowledgeable than he really is. He's just the editor, not the writer, and he's the editor of a whole lot of other DH comics to try to keep track of. We know what Allie thinks of Spuffy, so of course THAT would be HIS opinion. And Allie never said that JOSS said that Buffy knows.

Half of everything Allie says sounds like he's talking out of his ass. If he turns out to be right on this, I'd attribute it more to coincidence than him actually having a clue.

[identity profile] 2maggie2.livejournal.com 2009-01-13 05:04 pm (UTC)(link)
Thanks for your thoughtful reply. People keep moving this to a discussion of Spuffy, and I'm definitely not arguing that Spuffy will continue. I just think that Spuffy has an impact on current Buffy, and so we need to know how Spuffy resolved. But I should also add that the Chosen could not possibly have been written by someone who wanted to sweep Spuffy under the rug as a result of the after effects of SR. Perhaps we have different understandings of what that relationship was or how important it was to Buffy's story. But on my reading Joss knows perfectly well how central Spike is and he threw in a raft of details to make it clear that Spike has been central for a long time.

I can't share your relief about Spike being shipped off to IDW because I really don't like how AtF has played out. The characterization of Spike is off in a way that disconnects me from the character enough that when he was momentarily dusted I realized that it wasn't a disaster for me because he wasn't the real Spike. And also because I think Lynch doesn't see how rich the source material is and has flattened it down in a way that looses much of what I thought was brilliant in the series. I'm waiting for the end to see if it can be retrieved, but I've got a pretty long rant on AtF to put out at some point. OTOH, if that's all the Spike we could get because you are right about Joss's refusal to explore the character further, I suppose some Spike even if it's not really the real Spike is better than none. And Lynch hasn't trashed the character by any means. I recognize that Lynch LIKES Spike a great deal. I just don't think Lynch is a good enough writer for this material. So I'd still have lost something if Spike remains over at IDW, and a part of me would see Spike's "real" story as being in suspension in any case.

I did see Allie on the blanks that wouldn't be filled, but Spike wasn't on that list -- and obviously some blanks have been filled. As I said elsewhere on this thread, I do think there are other blanks that simply have to be filled as well. Most urgently we need to see how Buffy came to be a bank robber. If Joss thinks that's a blank that needs no filling, then I'll join you in all the ranting and cynicism.

BTW: There's an irony for me in all of this. The segment of fandom that I most respect and learn the most from mostly hates season 8 and mostly likes or even loves AtF. The segment of fandom that loves season 8 (on other boards) is not nearly so interesting. Anyway, y'all distrust Joss for a variety of reasons. The main reason I distrust Joss is that he picked Lynch to do AtF and had a hand in outlining the story there. If you want to sell me on the notion that Joss is not all that, that's where you'd start. But that's obviously not how y'all see it -- and so I have these strong reactions, but also think that I might well be completely loony to have them.

[identity profile] 2maggie2.livejournal.com 2009-01-13 05:09 pm (UTC)(link)
Thanks!

It's hard for me to not be affected by people's distrust of Joss, which is why I've waited a long time to post this and been careful to say that it *could* happen, not that it *will* happen. Given all the absences, my opinion of Joss would drop a lot if there were no follow through on it. It would be bad writing, as you say.

[identity profile] 2maggie2.livejournal.com 2009-01-13 05:13 pm (UTC)(link)
Totally OK to friend me.

If Joss wants the souled vampires out (which is not unreasonable), he'd have written Spike out by now. And it's still the case that Joss could bring Spike on in a way that is commensurate with the undue silence up to now, but still intend for Spike to ultimately be out of the story line. Indeed, I think that's most likely how it will work out.

[identity profile] 2maggie2.livejournal.com 2009-01-13 05:28 pm (UTC)(link)
I love that opening line! You could write a whole essay on that one line.

And I agree about waiting. While I am more optimistic than pessimistic, I do think it's entirely possible that the season could play out in a way that would make me reject it.
next_to_normal: (Default)

[personal profile] next_to_normal 2009-01-13 05:59 pm (UTC)(link)
Yeah, I have to admit, Allie tends to piss me off most of the time, so his involvement has been a definite detriment in my view of the comics. Frankly, I'll probably be pissed either way with this statement - if it's true, I think it's out of character that no one's keeping secrets, and as pointed out, it's a blatant continuity error. If it's not true, I'll be pissed that Allie is so irresponsible that he'd state as fact something he knows nothing about, when it has such a huge impact on how we view Buffy and what she knows (and I'm not just talking about Spike).

[identity profile] sueworld2003.livejournal.com 2009-01-13 06:13 pm (UTC)(link)
I'm interested here, in why don't you like Lynch's version of Spike?

I have to say I have my reservations, but considering these comics are pandering more to a male audience (as are the season 8 ones) and so really cannot go down any romance route, or let Spikes more complex side to his personality show, I think he's doing fairly well really.

[identity profile] 2maggie2.livejournal.com 2009-01-13 06:55 pm (UTC)(link)
Perhaps our reservations are the same, and I'm just not so forgiving about the version of Spike that is necessary to pander to juvenile male audiences.

I should say before I give my list that it pains me to be at odds with Lynch on this. He's obviously a nice guy. And he obviously likes Spike. I wanted to like this more than I have. But here it is:

1. The whole business about sordid scenarios and boasting about them with every male in shouting distance. That's just not Spike at all. I don't doubt that Spike has a healthy sexual appetite. And I've no problem with him indulging it. But Spike doesn't have a list of sordid scenarios he's just now getting around to. As he told Buffy, he's been around forever and done everything. And Spike doesn't boast. Teenage boys boast, and while Spike is often immature, he's not immature in that way. The one time Spike boasts about his sex life is in the middle of an argument with Angel about Buffy, and it only comes up because Spike believes that Buffy loves Angel more and the sex thing is the only thing he can use against Angel. In other words, in that one instance, Spike's boasting isn't at all the sort of boasting that we see in the comics. Repeatedly in the comics. Over and over again. It's annoying. And a bit more than annoying if we recall that an essential element of Spike is that he's really after closeness and not raw sexual experience. So portraying him as having a 14-year-old's attitude towards sex is really off about something that's important about Spike.

2. The whole running from trouble thing. That does have some basis in canon. Spike runs from the Loan Shark, for example. But he runs towards fights more often. Especially when others are at stake. So I was willing to let this jarring note slide until we got to the stupid elevator joke in First Night, which not only favors the joke over the character, but which Lynch actually says in his notes is meant to show that Spike is the reluctant hero where Angel is not. Did Lynch even see Damage? The comparison between the two is more complex than portrayed here. This point is more annoying than fatal. But still annoying.

3. Lynch has put the Spike/Angel relationship back to where it was at the beginning of season 5 with no explanation. One senses that he doesn't even realize that there was an arc there. And that leads us to the absences that bug me.

4. I wanted the story about how Angel-Spike develops in light of Angel having acknowledged Spike as a champion, but with Spike's dawning realization that Angel's moral compass is off. Loyalty trumped Spike's own sensibilities in NFA, but I'd have liked to see that tension play out when the negative consequences of Angel's actions are so clear. All we got was one snarky complaint from Spike in his first scene with Angel, that doesn't really have any sense that Angel was MORALLY off in his decision making (as opposed to merely failing to see that LA might get sent to hell as a result of his actions). Of course, Lynch doesn't seem to think that there's anything morally off with Angel, so it shouldn't be too surprising that he's not picking up that thread in the context of Spike and Angel's relationship. Droggyn just didn't happen as far as I can tell.

5. Spike had reclaimed "effulgence" in NFA which is a way of coming to terms with William that he'd never done before. I'd like to have seen if that made any kind of difference for him. But that's just not there at all, since Spike has unaccountably regressed in many ways.

There are things I have liked. Spike: AtF has some good moments for Spike. There are moments when we get glimpses of Spike's depth. And maybe Lynch can even write Spike in a way that overcomes my deep misgivings. But I really don't have any faith in Lynch at this point; which is probably not unlike the lack of faith you all have in Joss.

[identity profile] shipperx.livejournal.com 2009-01-13 07:18 pm (UTC)(link)
One that always comes to mind for Season 7 is the "Eye of Botox". I no longer even remember what it was that was said, just that it never really went anywhere.
ext_7259: (Duster_by_awmp)

[identity profile] moscow-watcher.livejournal.com 2009-01-13 07:23 pm (UTC)(link)
But why does Spike coming in to Season 8 equate to "happy couples"? That's the last thing I'd expect and I'm hoping that he does appear.

I think I subconsciously wrote about happy resolution because the only other possible scenario is Faith/Robin Wood resolution: a short notification about the end of the relationship, "good-bye, Buffy" - "so long, Spike". And I don't want to think about it. I'd be happy to be wrong, but I think that Joss won't use Spike or Angel unless the s8 circulation drops so drastically the whole project will be in danger of cancellation. But I don't think it will happen. Season 8 started at 100-plus thousand copies, dropped down to 74 thousand copies by #19 and my estimation is that it will end with about 50 thousand. Enough to keep it going, no need for Spike the Rating Raiser.
(cynical? moi?) :)))
ext_7259: (Default)

[identity profile] moscow-watcher.livejournal.com 2009-01-13 07:33 pm (UTC)(link)
Buffy and Spike was a central storyline of Season 7.

... for Spuffy fans. Not for Joss. For him it was all about the slayer line, the female power, the Potentials, Willow's rehabilitation, Dawn's acceptance of her normality. Spike/Buffy interaction got paltry screentime and it was fans imagination that made it fly.
shapinglight: (comic book spike with chain)

[personal profile] shapinglight 2009-01-13 07:36 pm (UTC)(link)
Hi Maggie. Will do my best to attempt to answer your comment. I didn't mean to move the discussion to Spuffy. However, if Spike were to be in the comic, the question of Spuffy would have to arise, wouldn't it, so it sort of naturally follows?

I don't think Joss wanted to sweep Spuffy under the carpet in Chosen. I think that, in fact, he gave Spuffy 'shippers about as much as he felt he could get away with - certainly far more than the rabid Bangels like our friends on IDW thought they should have had. However, I think it highly likely he wouldn't want to go through that again and will not revisit that storyline in any way, which, in the context of this comic, means keeping Spike well out of things.

I do share some of your concerns about A: AtF. Brian Lynch has, IMO, made a number of huge mistakes - major, major things - but what he's done with Spike hasn't really been one of them (unless he ends up with that wretched Spider creature). Okay, I dislike the harem thing intensely, but I can't call it a major mistake because Spike isn't really a major character in A: AtF. In fact, he doesn't really have a story. This has made me grit my teeth at times, but Lynch has given me other good Spike stuff (his three solo series) that have made me able to take the bad with the good, if you see what I mean. After all, A: AtF is about Angel. I just have to accept that. So yes, I am still glad that Spike went to IDW, if only because I got Spike: Asylum, Spike: Shadow Puppets and Spike: After the Fall out of it, and Lynch's love of the character shines through in every issue of those, even though his interpretation of him may not be quite the same as mine.

FWIW, I don't hate season 8, or love A: AtF. I just don't like season 8 very much, and I find A: AtF more accessible, because apart from Buffy herself, it features the characters I like the best. I don't like Comics Buffy and I resent being made to dislike her, because I loved Buffy in the show. I also don't distrust Joss exactly (I've never thought of him in trust/distrust terms), but I am disappointed to discover once again (my first clue was on reading the original Fray comics series) that what interests him most in his own 'verse and what interests me most seem to be poles apart.

[identity profile] 2maggie2.livejournal.com 2009-01-13 07:38 pm (UTC)(link)
Joss gave Spike the heroic death, had Buffy choose him in an episode called The Chosen (which, yeah, had other meanings, but certainly this one as well), had Buffy's last word be Spike, gave the couple the flaming hands of passion, and finished off the destruction of Sunnydale with Spike's trademark knocking over the Welcome to Sunnydale sign. If that's what you mean by Joss not caring about Spike or Spike/Buffy, then I wonder what he'd have had to do to convince you that he did care.
ext_7259: (Default)

[identity profile] moscow-watcher.livejournal.com 2009-01-13 07:42 pm (UTC)(link)
these issues have very much been in play over the course of the series.

Exactly. Issues. Not the concrete situation with Willow.

I suppose the same may be applied to Spike. The issues of Buffy's emotional distance and her attempts to find connection will be in play, but in other circumstances and with other characters.

(I repeat, again, that I will be happy if Joss will prove me wrong).
ext_7259: (Default)

[identity profile] moscow-watcher.livejournal.com 2009-01-13 07:50 pm (UTC)(link)
I don't say that Joss didn't care about Spike. But I think that for Joss the focus of season 7 wasn't Buffy and Spike; it was Buffy and Potentials. And in s8 he develops the latter arc. Spike (as well as Angel) would distract the audience from the main arc.

Just my impression.

[identity profile] angearia.livejournal.com 2009-01-13 07:58 pm (UTC)(link)
Hee! Am I uninteresting because I prefer Season 8 to AtF? ;)

[identity profile] angearia.livejournal.com 2009-01-13 08:03 pm (UTC)(link)
I am disappointed to discover once again (my first clue was on reading the original Fray comics series) that what interests him most in his own 'verse and what interests me most seem to be poles apart.

What interests you most that is poles apart? What was it you saw in Fray that brought this realization? Just me being curious. :)

[identity profile] angearia.livejournal.com 2009-01-13 08:23 pm (UTC)(link)
Except that Buffy's most meaningful interactions throughout that season are with Spike. I could go through a breakdown of the episodes and say that scene here, this scene there. Buffy's mission for that season besides protecting the potentials was putting her faith in Spike and helping him fight the First's influence. Buffy's connection to Spike and his struggles during that season got equal or more attention than Willow or Xander or Dawn.

It's rather telling that in an episode where Willow is being magically attacked by Amy and becoming Warren, Buffy is going on a mission to help save Spike from the chip's defects. And the season keeps showing how she's putting all this trust in him. Trust that the other characters question and resent her for. Nearly every main character got an episode that featured them center stage - Willow in Same Time, Same Place and TKIM, Dawn in Potential, Andrew in Storyteller. Yet on the whole Spike played a bigger role in more episodes throughout the season - Beneath You, Sleeper, Never Leave Me, Bring on The Night & Showtime with the being tortured and bringing forth the Turokhan, Potential (training the girls with Buffy), TKIM (his chip starts misfiring and Buffy helps him), Get it Done (gets his 'stones' back and kills the demon to rescue Buffy), LMPTM, Empty Places (the Andrew/bike mission Giles sends him on where he learns 'it's for her alone to wield'), Touched (confronting everyone who kicked out Buffy and giving her the confidence to keep fighting, giving her the strength to get the Scythe). And then his significance in Chosen is really evident.

Episodes where Spike played a significant role - Beneath You...no scratch that. I was honestly about to list them and realized that every following episode has some Spike interaction. What's important is that starting with CWDP, Buffy's focus encompasses two goals: protecting the potentials and helping Spike. Helping Spike even by giving him a new purpose in training the Potentials. Being a good guy. Showing him how to change and be counted.

Buffy and Spike didn't get paltry screentime during Season 7. I really disagree with that. Obviously Buffy is the central figure that anchors every episode of the show. For the mission, she dedicated herself to the potentials. For personal reasons, she dedicated herself to Spike. While the Potentials did take up a lot of space during Season 7, Buffy and Spike were the notable exceptions to those characters who truly lost screentime and significant arcs - Dawn and Xander especially. Dawn's arc of being trained by Buffy was jettisoned and Xander was mostly taking up space, fixing the house, unknowingly dating a demon for Valentine's day and finally the unfortunate tragedy when he lost an eye fighting Caleb.

[identity profile] 2maggie2.livejournal.com 2009-01-13 10:02 pm (UTC)(link)
Ha! You are the exception that proves the rule. (Well, Stormwreath also).

[identity profile] 2maggie2.livejournal.com 2009-01-13 10:12 pm (UTC)(link)
If Joss did want to pretend that Spike never existed, it'd be the first time ever that a major relationship just went poof from the 'verse without leaving any impact. Angel was always present, even though I'd bet large sums of money that Joss never had any intention of having Bangel as a final outcome. It's just that Bangel in seasons 1-3 shaped Buffy in ways that could never be overlooked. Riley, who I don't think affected Buffy deeply, still got carted out for a (horrible) reprise in season 6, and was mentioned again in season 7, and is back again in season 8. So I'm just not understanding why people are so sure that Spike, and Spike alone, is just gone, having left virtually no footprint on the shape of the series. Especially since Spike looms very large over the last three seasons, and was last depicted as the person closest to Buffy.

I mention the mischaracterization of Spike in AtF only to say that it detaches me enough from the character Lynch is writing about that I don't really think I'm getting stories about the real Spike. If there weren't other things that I think are irreparable, I'd probably go with it and enjoy the stuff about Spike that I can enjoy and pretend the rest just isn't there. We'll have to do a big wrap up when AtF is over. I don't want to go into full slam mode until Lynch has had a chance to tell the whole story. But my real problems aren't related to Spike.

I'm sympathetic to your concerns about not liking Buffy. I don't think I had been clear that this was a big factor for you and presumably for other people. I guess for me it feels like a bit of a vindication. I wrote an essay about Buffy and Faith a good while back where I said that it seemed to me that because Buffy had not yet hit rock bottom that there were still issues in play concerning her self-righteousness and some other darkish aspects to her. And sure enough, that seems to be exactly what Joss is exploring. I would be shocked if Joss leaves Buffy in darkish places, but since I always thought that it was an element to her, I'm quite delighted to see it finally worked through. So I guess this would be a point of strong difference between us. One of the things I like best is one of the things that most puts you off the series.

[identity profile] sueworld2003.livejournal.com 2009-01-14 12:16 am (UTC)(link)
"Allie tends to piss me off most of the time, so his involvement has been a definite detriment in my view of the comics."

Oh christ. tell us about it! Nearly every time that man opens his mouth he says something that irritates.

[identity profile] sueworld2003.livejournal.com 2009-01-14 12:28 am (UTC)(link)
Oh god you've have to list a lot more then you have here to math my misgiving about both Joss and season 8 love. *g*

I get what you're saying, but I have to disagree about the bragging thing. Spike does brag, but normally only in the company of other men. He has a bit of a different approach when he's with women.

I think the fact these comics are now mainly aimed at men is the reason we are seeing these approaches, Your average comic book guy isn't going to be at all interested in the softer/more complex side of Spike whatsoever I'm afraid. They want Spike in conflicts with Angel, and surrounded by 'hot babes', which is depressing I know, but thats the way they think judging by comic books today.

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