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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.
Continuing due to passing the word limit above
Maggie's done a good job of explaining this:
my disappointment would be not so much that their aren't themes, but rather that they are entirely pedestrian and uninteresting. Who doesn't think that you should keep on trying even when things look bleak? Seriously. It's not a theme that tells me *anything* that I don't already know.
But there's something else to add from my perspective and that's the lack in the layered presence of the themes. Whedon's themes are present in the actions of the characters but also present in the language *and* the art of the piece, which when read superficially doesn't resonate thematically. But when you are doing a close reading, they keep rising up. What's more, I can find multiple themes and ideas in every issue of Season 8. There's big themes for the season and there's little themes that are almost like subheadings of the themes exploring the little nuances because the themes aren't "pedestrian and uninteresting", but make you consider the meaning of humanity, rather than just tell you straight 'this is the moral kids, keep on chugging along'.
With After the Fall it's just simplistic themes for the entire story. And it doesn't make me think the way Season 8 does. I remarked recently that the only thing AtF makes me wonder if who's going to die next - and now we know. No one died that wasn't dead or already dying in NFA. And there's still hope for Gunn. I think the best example of a non-simplistic theme in AtS would be in Season 4 when Lilah paints Angel and the good guys defeating Jasmine as "ending world peace". Hamnoo? But it's a question with no clear answer. How important is free will compared to peace? What is an appropriate price to pay for peace on Earth?
The plot is actually tighter than Buffy.
Well, I'd say yes the plot is tighter if we were only reading #1-5, then skip to #9 and continue to the end. First Night's placement makes no sense to me and its unclear when Spike: AtF is meant to be read. If a newcomer read S: AtF before you start AtF (which makes sense, its set before AtF), then you're spoiled for the dramatic reveal of Gunn being a vampire in the first issues of AtF. So S: AtF doesn't go there. But where *does* it go? It's unclear. And considering that S: AtF adds important character development to Spike, Illyria and Connor - I view it as necessary to the story. Except it's a separate story, so its divergent existence really downplays that AtF is tightly plotted when unplanned off-shoots of the main story keep getting created.
Season 8's design puts one-shots and mini-arcs into the heart of its nature. After the Fall was being sold as a story told like a mini-series or movie. Straight shot all the way through. It didn't happen that way.
Barring those narrative placement bungles, yes it is more tightly plotted when you look at just #1-5, #9-17 (presumably since it hasnt been released yet) and also when you just look at Spike: AtF. But they just don't fit together well with the original storytellers intent. I view AtF as being written with the plot and character moments driving the story. Not the theme. And I think the lack of prioritizing the theme is evident.