Spike and Season 8

[maggie2]

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.

Comments

[2maggie2.livejournal.com]

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.

[sueworld2003.livejournal.com]

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.

[2maggie2.livejournal.com]

Spike brags about sex? I recall him complaining about no sex because he was a ghost; and there's the scene with Angel which is about where he stands with Buffy and not about getting laid. What am I missing here?

And to repeat, I'm not forgiving if the reason for these problems is because IDW wants to pander to a bunch of boys. Or to put it another way, if they want to sell out, then who cares what's "canon" -- which is something that only matters because the original work was better than that.

[sueworld2003.livejournal.com]

Well Spike himself has admitted in his past he has bragged, and remember his comment to Angel during their fight in Destiny. Yes I know that was in extreme circumstances, but I could see Spike bragging with the right audience and under the right circumstances.

"And to repeat, I'm not forgiving if the reason for these problems is because IDW wants to pander to a bunch of boys."

Joss is IMO is guilty of doing exactly the same when it comes to season 8 of course.

[2maggie2.livejournal.com]

Well, I'll agree to disagree about who's pandering.

When Spike said he was a braggart he was talking about things like killing slayers (School Hard). Very different from coming across as so hard up for sex that one would go around boasting of it to others.

And as I said, the comments to Angel in Destiny are totally about Buffy and totally not generic boasting about getting laid. There's a world of difference here, and the fact that Brian presumably can't tell the difference is a big part of why I don't think he gets Spike, or his relationship with Angel. I wish I could remember specific examples, but there's a ton of meta on LJ by people who totally get what was going on in Destiny and that it had NOTHING to do with the sort of adolescent posturing that Brian has Spike doing. (Sorry, it's a button for me -- and I'm willing to believe that your understanding of Spike is quite different from my own, which would be why it doesn't bug you as much.)