Hmm... I certainly agree with you that Spike could show up, but that's based more on the fact that there's nothing that absolutely precludes it than any hunch I have that he will show up.
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.
As you pointed out, it's not like Spike hasn't been mentioned at all. Obviously, he appears in Buffy's threesome fantasies with Angel. And we did get "people who love me tend to die" with a particular reference to Spike. I wouldn't put it past Joss to think that "closes off" the Spuffy story line sufficiently - she still thinks about him occasionally, but clearly things between them are over enough that she's not going to find him or expecting him to show up, even though she apparently knows he's alive. Which brings me to point number two...
It opens the door to the possibility that she does not know that they tried to track her down in TGIQ.
According to Scott Allie, we can assume Buffy knows everything that anyone in her organization knows, including Andrew. (Personally, I think this is a ridiculous premise for a group that has been hellbent on keeping secrets from each other for seven years, but I'm not the editor.) That means she knows Spike's alive, and she knows he and Angel came to see her in Rome, and she apparently didn't do anything about it. That doesn't bode well for her still having feelings for him - and if she really is over him, then there's nothing to "close off," is there?
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.
True, but Angel wasn't really there, as in his actual post-NFA (or post-ATF at this point) character showing up in the present day storyline. So even if Spike does make an appearance, there's no guarantee it will be him in the flesh and not a dream sequence or flashback or something else.
To be honest, I don't think any future appearance by Spike warrants this conspicuous absence in earlier issues. Would it be giving anything away for him to appear in her dream space? It's not like those cubes tell us how she feels about any of it, just that they're there in her mind somewhere. Would it really spoil anything to show that Buffy missed or grieved for him the way Xander mourned Anya? I think we all pretty much assume it happened (it's only natural), so it wouldn't be telling us anything we didn't sort of already know.
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Date: 2009-01-12 11:58 pm (UTC)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.
As you pointed out, it's not like Spike hasn't been mentioned at all. Obviously, he appears in Buffy's threesome fantasies with Angel. And we did get "people who love me tend to die" with a particular reference to Spike. I wouldn't put it past Joss to think that "closes off" the Spuffy story line sufficiently - she still thinks about him occasionally, but clearly things between them are over enough that she's not going to find him or expecting him to show up, even though she apparently knows he's alive. Which brings me to point number two...
It opens the door to the possibility that she does not know that they tried to track her down in TGIQ.
According to Scott Allie, we can assume Buffy knows everything that anyone in her organization knows, including Andrew. (Personally, I think this is a ridiculous premise for a group that has been hellbent on keeping secrets from each other for seven years, but I'm not the editor.) That means she knows Spike's alive, and she knows he and Angel came to see her in Rome, and she apparently didn't do anything about it. That doesn't bode well for her still having feelings for him - and if she really is over him, then there's nothing to "close off," is there?
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.
True, but Angel wasn't really there, as in his actual post-NFA (or post-ATF at this point) character showing up in the present day storyline. So even if Spike does make an appearance, there's no guarantee it will be him in the flesh and not a dream sequence or flashback or something else.
To be honest, I don't think any future appearance by Spike warrants this conspicuous absence in earlier issues. Would it be giving anything away for him to appear in her dream space? It's not like those cubes tell us how she feels about any of it, just that they're there in her mind somewhere. Would it really spoil anything to show that Buffy missed or grieved for him the way Xander mourned Anya? I think we all pretty much assume it happened (it's only natural), so it wouldn't be telling us anything we didn't sort of already know.