![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Spike and 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.
no subject
... 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.
no subject
no subject
Just my impression.
no subject
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.