maggie2: (Default)
maggie2 ([personal profile] maggie2) wrote2009-01-29 08:21 pm

Buffy’s Dance with the Vamps: Why Spike’s Soul Matters


In response to some comments on my previous post, here's a four-page essay on the role Spike's soul plays in Buffy's story. 

 

In the comments to my last post on multiple motivations, there was a lot of discussion about whether Spike’s soul matters, and if so how. The conversations are mostly about how Spike’s soul fits in with his own journey, but the dilemma comes with trying to figure out what the “soul” means in the ‘verse as a whole. I’ve tried for a long time to come up with one theory of the soul, but I can’t find one that does justice to both Angel’s story and to Spike’s. This is not to say that the individual stories aren’t compelling and insightful. But the “soul” seemed to shift around to fit the demands of the story at the moment. Sidebar: and let’s just get one thing off the table for good:  whatever it is that “soul” means in the ‘verse, it has nothing to do with what a Christian would call a soul. But that’s a topic for another day.

 

 

[livejournal.com profile] candleanfeather observes in a comment that there are often ambiguities and tensions that crop up when we try to reconcile the multiple stories being told in the ‘verse.  I agree with her, and would argue that it’s a feature and not a bug. Sidebar: another story for another day.   But while I don’t think there’s one unifying principle that picks up all the details for all the stories in a way that is coherent, I do think there’s one primary story which actually does make sense, which drives the plotting involved with souls. And that’s the story of what the vampires with souls mean to Buffy and her journey. Cause as Joss has said, the question you always have to start with is “what’s the Buffy of it”.

 

The Buffy of the Vampire with Souls: The Basic Theory

 

Buffy is a human being who has been endowed with special powers that are at least associated with the demonic. One of her central projects in BtVS is coming to terms with the two sides of herself, finding a way to reconcile them. One way to dramatize Buffy’s internal struggle to reconcile the demonic with the human is to involve her in romances with creatures that have similar struggles. And what could serve that purpose better than a vampire with a soul, a demon who struggles with his humanity the way Buffy struggles with her demonic power? Enter Angel.

 

In falling in love with Angel, Buffy is falling in love with the singular creature in her acquaintance who has both demonic and human forces within him. His soul tames the demon and allows her to enter into a relationship with the demonic, which is a vehicle for coming to terms with the demonic within her. The demonic here is often understood as purely evil, but it’s clear that a domesticated version of it is good: it’s a source of strength and power and sheer exuberance. Sidebar: Angel is the antithesis of exuberant, of course; but check out Angelus!. When Buffy attempts an actual union with Angel, however, things fall apart in a devastating way. It turns out that for Angel, the price of loving Buffy is losing his own soul.   Buffy’s first experience with trying to be in relationship with the demonic is traumatic and deeply scarring. After a yearlong coda wherein Buffy and Angel try to pretend that they can be together without being together, they separate, and Buffy retreats from the demonic side of herself. (Bad experiences with Faith are a part of this movement).

 

Buffy’s next move is to ignore the demonic side of herself by entering into a romantic relationship with Riley. Riley’s synthetic superpower makes this possible, I think, but the relationship is never fully satisfying to Buffy who needs to make peace with the genuine demonic within her. Two things happen that spell an end to Buffy’s relationship with Riley. First, the big spell at the end of season 4 unleashes the primitive slayer basically forcing Buffy to reengage with the project of coming to terms with the demonic origins of her own power. Second, Riley loses the synthetic power-up and ceases to be able to engage that side of Buffy in any way. Buffy has to stop pretending that she’s just a human, and that means she has to risk going into the dark, a journey which begins not remotely coincidentally in an episode called Into the Woods. Her refusal to engage and reconcile herself with her demonic side, which is the source of her power, but also a potential source of exuberance, is a big part of her growing death wish, I think.

 

But Buffy is not yet out of options. Spike is there, waiting for her in the dark. Now, Spike does NOT have a soul and is therefore NOT a fit companion for Buffy. What he does have, though, is some impulse towards the human in his demon. The judge remarked on that back in Surprise; it has been given room to grow by virtue of the chip which hindered Spike’s unfettered expression of his demonic self; and it has now manifested itself in the form of Spike’s love for Buffy. But though the demon in Spike is inclining towards the human, the absence of the soul still means he can’t mirror Buffy properly. It’s not unlike the way that Riley’s synthetic demonic powers were insufficient to mirror Buffy’s genuinely demonic side. Buffy is nonetheless drawn to Spike, but the result is that she is drawn further towards the demonic in herself, and risks losing her human side altogether.   But where Angel’s love for Buffy cost him his soul, it turns out that Spike’s love for Buffy ultimately drives him to seek a soul.  

 

This is huge. Where Buffy’s first effort to enter into her necessary dance with the dark ended in disaster, her second (reluctantly entered into) dance with the dark ends up with her having inspired a vampire to the unprecedented act of seeking a soul.   Painful and ugly as their relationship often  was, Spike’s quest for the soul turns Buffy’s dangerous dance with the dark into something quite beautiful. As a result of it, she now has a partner who can be the perfect mirror for her. He’s a vampire with a soul, but unlike Angel he’s the vampire who wanted the soul.   Buffy’s reconciliation with Spike over the course of season seven reflects her own internal reconciliation with her own power.  By the end, she and Spike have become very close, and she has become very confident and sure of herself as a human who can exercise demonic powers without being overwhelmed by them. It is only at this stage in her journey that Buffy can think about sharing her powers with others, and it’s no coincidence that Buffy comes to possess the scythe which is the vehicle for spreading her powers with the aid of the strength Spike gave her (End of Days).   Spike’s quest for the soul is an essential moment in Buffy’s story.

 

Some Further Thoughts

 

1. Notice that Angel, the vampire who was cursed with a soul that his demonic self utterly loathes, serves as Buffy’s mirror during a stage in her journey when she regards her own calling as a slayer as a curse. In addition to the fact that she literally cannot be united with Angel without unleashing evil upon the world, Buffy needs to transcend Angel if she is ever to get to a stage where she can regard her slayer calling as a gift and not a curse or a burden. Bangel just is not a possible long run outcome on this account. Not without something earth shattering that would induce Angelus to actually seek a soul himself. Angel’s true story, which is now (appropriately) distinct from Buffy’s is about how one comes to terms with being human when one’s deepest nature is in rebellion against that project.   Whether this is even possible remains an open question.

 

2. Spike’s acquisition of the soul is in service to Buffy’s story. But in terms of his own story it is also a good thing. As I argued above, there was always an inclination to the human present in Spike, and with the soul he steps into the full realization of that yearning.  At the end of season 5, we see that Spike has come to see, even without the soul, that he aspires to be at least treated like a man. The acquisition of a soul which allows him to enter into an even deeper relationship with the human side of himself is just a fulfillment of that aspiration.

 

3.  Because Spike has been such an essential part of Buffy’s story, we need to know how this relationship resolved in order to understand where Buffy is at.   Does she still think that she loves Angel more? If so, she hasn’t embraced her demonic side as well as she might have, because this would represent a yearning to be with someone who has a big rift between his demonic side and his human side.  Or does the apparent lack of peace Buffy is currently suffering reflect the way things finally resolved between them when Spike returned from the dead?   The Buffy we saw at the end of The Chosen could have been done with this part of her journey. The Buffy we see now is not nearly so obviously done with that part of her journey. So what happened? We need to know. This is the second biggest reason why I think it would be strange if Joss didn’t tell us more about Spike in season 8. Sidebar: the first biggest reason is that he’d have closed out the story in a few bubbles if it were really over in his mind.

 

4. As should be obvious, Spike’s acquisition of the soul is NOT a weak echo of Angel’s story, but rather is the story redone in the right key. Buffy doesn’t need a demon cursed with a soul; she needs a demon who fought for one.  

 

5. A good deal of the angst of Spuffy in season five and especially season six is because in the context of this framework things couldn’t work between Buffy and Spike until Spike had a soul. But it’s also the case that there’s an extra helping of angst because Buffy is working out her trauma with Angel in the context of her relationship with Spike.   It would take a lot of space to elaborate on this, but a lot of the abuse Buffy heaps upon Spike strikes me as a projection of her anger at Angel onto Spike. I think that’s part of why emotionally, Buffy’s reconciliation with Spike serves also to heal her long-standing wounds from the debacle with Angel. Spike has given Buffy a great deal, including absorbing a lot of the suffering that was really due to Angel and not him. I think that’s intentional. Spike has made a huge gift to Buffy, sacrificing his whole self. Joss’s choice to let him die apparently in the full belief that his love was not returned (despite the fact that he’s absorbed the anger and pain caused by Angel) just underscores the gratuitous nature of what Spike has done for Buffy.   Spike is a big hero here. Indeed, instead of complaining that Spike has been given short shrift by Whedon, the more live concern strikes me as being whether or not Spike’s role ends up outshining Buffy’s to the detriment of whatever feminist message the show is supposed to be conveying. 

 

6. The standard story that we get from interviews with Whedon, other writers, and Marsters is that Spike was supposed to be killed off in season 2; was brought back in season 4 to take up the snarky truth-telling position vacated by Cordelia; and then (presumably because of the character’s popularity) got sucked into the role of being Buffy’s major romantic partner. That might well be true. But if you take this story that I’ve just told and read through from the very beginning you’ll find a shocking amount of supporting detail. Angelus as having no humanity in contrast to Spike’s humanity is established early on. Buffy’s insight into this is established as early as Lie to Me. There’s a long-standing sexual tension between the two, both in how the actors respond to one another and in things like their mutual expression of preference when it comes to who they want to fight (What’s My Line). [I’ve read recently that for years Jane Espenson had a note taped to her wall that said that Buffy has sex dreams about Spike.] In season four, there is an awful lot of detail that could be marshaled in support of the argument that Riley was always going to be an inadequate solution to Buffy’s problem and that Spike was going to end up being the answer no matter how unlikely that seemed to be on the surface. One example of many is Something Blue when it is exactly Buffy’s fear of being attracted to the dark Spike that moves her from utterly indifferent to Riley to thinking that’s a direction she wants to go. I’m not going to say that this story was planned from the get go. But I am saying that you can read the whole show as if it was planned from the get go. However that came about, the results are pretty cool.  And if this is how Joss treats a character he doesn’t like, then I’m really glad that he didn’t like Spike.


ext_15169: Self-portrait (Buffy and Spike figures)

[identity profile] speakr2customrs.livejournal.com 2009-01-30 08:52 am (UTC)(link)
How is Buffy's name the embodiment of feminine strength? Surely she's simply named after Buffy St. Marie in the same way as the central characters in 'Clueless' are named after Cher and Dionne Warwick, and the idea is to define her as a product of the same environment and time as those characters.
shapinglight: (Default)

[personal profile] shapinglight 2009-01-30 10:57 am (UTC)(link)
Very interesting, Maggie, and can I also say that after yesterday, it's good to read a piece of meta that doesn't leave me feeling shaken and upset. (It was stupid of me to get so upset, I know, but there it is).

I've never thought Joss hated Spike, btw. I don't think he 'hates' any of the characters he creates/co-creates. That would be incredibly counter-productive. However, though I've often felt that one way to view the Spike/Buffy relationship in season 7 was to see it as Buffy being healed of the trauma her relationship with Angel had caused her (which is not, as you say, to say she couldn't have an entirely different, and better, relationship down the road with Angel now, because she's healed and all), I'm not convinced that's how Joss saw it, or that he saw Spike's relationship with Buffy as being nearly as important to her as it was to him (Spike, I mean). I don't know.

I would be better able to accept your reading if the story had emphatically ended in Chosen, but since Joss has chosen to continue it in some fashion, all the questions remain open. If Spike is never referenced again in season 8, then I fear I must conclude that Joss has already compartmentalised Spike/Buffy as being something that Buffy is 'over' and that no longer has any relevance for her.

I do definitely agree with you, though, that Buffy could never settle down (or however you want to put it) with a 'normal' human partner. It just wouldn't work. We've seen that over and over.

Sorry this isn't very insightful, and with far too much emphasis on the 'shipping element of your post (its smallest component) and not enough of the very interesting exposition on Buffy's nature and character.

[identity profile] enisy.livejournal.com 2009-01-30 02:05 pm (UTC)(link)
As you know, I love your reading best of all, Maggie, even though I'm not convinced that Joss had all these parallels and reversals in mind while writing the story. (There's another quote that might back up your theory, though, besides Jane Espenson's note about the sex dreams. James Marsters said in a Harsh Light of Day Q&A, back in 2006, that he'd once asked Joss whether he'd subconsciously written the Riley/Buffy relationship in such a way that it left things really open for Spike, and Joss had replied in a sarcastic tone that maybe he had "unconsciously" -- implying that it had been quite conscious on his part. :P *shrugs*)
next_to_normal: (Default)

[personal profile] next_to_normal 2009-01-30 02:18 pm (UTC)(link)
That would explain the experimentation, because human or vampire--soulless or souled, she can't seem to keep a man.

I don't think that's her reason for experimentation. It may certainly feel like she can't keep a man, but I don't think she thought, "Well, gosh, I've had such a terrible time with men, let's try women for a while." I think she experiments because she's isolated herself to the point that she's surrounded by only women. The only men available are Xander and Andrew, and I can't see anything happening with them. She is looking to make a connection with someone, because - as she told us in the first issue - she's lonely and she misses sex. And the only person to make a connection with is a woman, so she takes it. But ultimately, it's not going to go anywhere because Buffy isn't a lesbian.

Now, you could say that Buffy is consciously or unconsciously sabotaging herself by seeking out a relationship with someone she knows will never work, because that's what always happens to her. But I don't think she specifically turns to a woman out of frustration or disappointment with men.

I just don't see "slayer status" meaning equal.

They're equal in the sense that they're both Slayers, therefore they both have the same human/demon make-up. This whole essay is about Buffy coming to terms with her demonic side, so that's the only factor that really matters when we compare Buffy's lovers. Angel and Spike were mirrors - they were demons struggling with humanity, while Buffy is a human struggling with her demonic side. Satsu, being a Slayer, is also a human with a demonic side, so she's less a mirror (where the reflection is reversed) and more a representation of Buffy as she is.
lynnenne: (buffy big damn hero)

[personal profile] lynnenne 2009-01-30 02:39 pm (UTC)(link)
I actually meant the character is the embodiment of feminine strength, not the name. But one could make a case that the word "buff" means fit or strong. In fact, Willow makes a pun on this in one episode ("Aren't you naturally buff, Buff?")

I don't think I see the connection between Buffy St. Marie and the character of Buffy. One is a Native Canadian folk musician and political activist who came of age in the 60s; the other is a 90s valley girl, from a time and place where consumerism and shallowness reigned supreme. It seems pretty unlikely that Joss would want to identify Buffy as a product of the 60s anti-war, anti-racism, anti-povery movement. (Unless he really did want to draw attention to the heroic aspects of her character.)

[identity profile] jamalov29.livejournal.com 2009-01-30 03:03 pm (UTC)(link)
Great post. Here via [livejournal.com profile] sueworld2003. Thank you for the much interesting thoughts.I really enjoyed your analysis. And here :
But where Angel’s love for Buffy cost him his soul, it turns out that Spike’s love for Buffy ultimately drives him to seek a soul. Nods contentedly. This difference always struck me as something meaningful in the spuffy relationship.
next_to_normal: (Default)

[personal profile] next_to_normal 2009-01-30 03:10 pm (UTC)(link)
Satsu seems to have a bit of an axe to grind on where she is with Buffy.

Yeah... I have to admit, I didn't feel much sympathy for Satsu in that preview. Doesn't Kennedy point out that this is what happens when you seduce a straight girl? She knew what she was getting into, and she did it anyway. That's the big difference I see between her and Spike - Spike honestly believed Buffy loved him, and Buffy used that to get what she wanted, so he's got a legitimate beef there. Satsu knew this wasn't going anywhere, she knew Buffy wasn't a lesbian, but she made the choice to take what she could get. Now it's like she's cranky that Buffy didn't suddenly turn gay and return her love. I can understand her feeling hurt (unrequited love always sucks), but she did bring it on herself in a way.

if you need to answer those questions (however you choose to), surely Joss also has to answer them.

Yeah, that's true, and I think a big part of my frustration with the comics is that he hasn't answered those questions, so I'm completely lost as to how to interpret what we've already read.

I totally agree with your analysis of Spike. Even though it took all of season 5 and After the Fall to get all that development out, we didn't really spend a lot of time confused about Spike the way we are about Buffy. We knew right off the bat why he wasn't going to see Buffy - he couldn't because he was a ghost. And once it was possible for him to leave, we got a big answer right away, when we find out that he's not going to find Buffy and why. But we're on issue #22 of season 8, and still not even a hint of how she feels about the whole Spike/Angel thing, or if she even knows what's going on. IMO, that's too long to leave readers confused. Joss is probably lucky in that he has so many devoted fans who will stick it out to the end no matter what, but if this were a fanfic written by someone else, I think very few would keep reading. Maybe he has a master plan here, but I think he's dropping the ball on the execution.
next_to_normal: (Default)

[personal profile] next_to_normal 2009-01-30 03:21 pm (UTC)(link)
Well, he also seems to be oblivious to the impropriety of a superior officer shagging one of her lieutenants, so I'd say it probably wasn't about Riley's morality. :)

Although, to be fair, they didn't actually have a relationship until the spring semester, at which point, Buffy wasn't in Walsh's class anymore. It may have been inappropriate for Riley to make overtures while he was her TA, but it's not the same as if they were dating or sleeping together.
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[identity profile] moscow-watcher.livejournal.com 2009-01-30 03:30 pm (UTC)(link)
Great essay!

Joss told recently that as soon as he met James Marsters he started to shape the Spike we know:

http://icafreak.livejournal.com/267794.html

Yet even in the script of School Hard, written before the auditions started, there are surprizing tidbits that suggest that Spike was doomed to become a major player and Buffy's mirror. "Home, sweet home". "Do we really need weapons for this?" Indeed. :)

Also, Buffy and Spike wear "Spuffy red marks" in this episode.

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

Sometimes I wonder if it was karmic. I mean - rewatch School Hard. As soon as Dru tries to "see" the slayer, her face changes. She says she can't see her. But with in hindsight it looks like she saw Spike "covered with the slayer" but lied to him.
ext_15169: Self-portrait (Default)

[identity profile] speakr2customrs.livejournal.com 2009-01-30 03:40 pm (UTC)(link)
Buffy only stopped being in Walsh's class because Maggie tried to kill her and then was herself killed by Adam; Buffy had referred to Riley as her 'boyfriend' before that point and they were definitely dating, even if they hadn't yet consummated the relationship.

When I researched TAs for a fic one of my sources was a website giving guidance for English graduate students taking a position as TAs in American universities; something that was stressed over and over again was that if you even asked out a student in a class you graded then you would be immediately booted out of the university and kicked straight back to England, probably in the baggage hold. Riley was guilty of gross impropriety either through lack of morals or extreme stupidity - either of which makes him unfit to be a partner for Buffy.

I have written fics in which Riley is a good guy - but then I've also written fics in which Warren is a good guy, and I actually find that easier.
ext_7259: (Default)

[identity profile] moscow-watcher.livejournal.com 2009-01-30 04:00 pm (UTC)(link)
I'm suspicious of the party line that Spike was intended to be killed off. I think the writing staff adopted that line at the beginning, in case Marsters didn't work out or the fans hated him, and then just ran with it. But I suspect that Joss always intended for Spike to turn into a shadow-self for Buffy

You know, I started rereading James' quotes on how he landed the role

http://www.jamesdb.com/index.php?c=3&s=20&q=75#75

mostly to find a quote to prove that initially Spike wasn't particularly important for Joss. But the more I read the more I get convinced that you may be right. "They had been searching for someone for a long time, and hadn't found him", "They had been looking for a 'Spike' for a long time and hadn't found him", "They looked at big names"...

Interesting.

OTOH, Joss says that his initial interest in Spike had nothing to do with Buffy.

http://icafreak.livejournal.com/267794.html
ext_15169: Self-portrait (Default)

[identity profile] speakr2customrs.livejournal.com 2009-01-30 04:14 pm (UTC)(link)
I wasn't saying that there was any connection between Buffy St. Marie and the character of Buffy; only that Buffy's name was probably taken from that of the musician because naming daughters after female singers of the 60s seemed to be in vogue in California during the period when Buffy was (theoretically) born. Possibly it might have been meant to say something about Joyce's character, choosing B St M over Cher, or Gladys Knight, or Dianna Ross, but it might simply have been that 'Buffy' makes a much more modern-sounding name than most of the others.
ext_15169: Self-portrait (Mythbusters)

[identity profile] speakr2customrs.livejournal.com 2009-01-30 04:18 pm (UTC)(link)
But I don't think she specifically turns to a woman out of frustration or disappointment with men.

I am convinced that she turns to a woman because Joss thinks it will sell more comics and for no other reason.
lynnenne: (buffy by ruuger)

[personal profile] lynnenne 2009-01-30 05:24 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh, that makes sense. I didn't realize that naming your kids after 60s singers was a popular trend at the time.
ext_15169: Self-portrait (Default)

[identity profile] speakr2customrs.livejournal.com 2009-01-30 05:29 pm (UTC)(link)
My source for that is only the movie 'Clueless' - but I presume that they were satirising something genuine.
next_to_normal: (Default)

[personal profile] next_to_normal 2009-01-30 05:58 pm (UTC)(link)
Buffy only stopped being in Walsh's class because Maggie tried to kill her and then was herself killed by Adam

Buffy was in Walsh's class in the fall semester - which ended in December (for reference, "Hush" was the last episode to air in December). In fact, in "A New Man," Buffy's already gotten her final grade (B-). Unless she was taking a second semester of psych (which there's no evidence of - we don't see her in class after the "Hush" dream sequence), she wouldn't have had Riley as a TA in the spring anyway.

As I said, it's probably inappropriate for Riley to be interested in her when he's her TA, but the actual relationship starts after the class has ended.
ext_15169: Self-portrait (Default)

[identity profile] speakr2customrs.livejournal.com 2009-01-30 06:02 pm (UTC)(link)
She's still in Walsh's class in 'A New Man', broadcast on 25 January 2000.
next_to_normal: (Default)

[personal profile] next_to_normal 2009-01-30 06:04 pm (UTC)(link)
How do you figure that?
ext_15169: Self-portrait (Default)

[identity profile] speakr2customrs.livejournal.com 2009-01-30 06:06 pm (UTC)(link)
My evidence for that is the Giles/Walsh interview scene - which makes no sense if Buffy has already left the class. I take the "I always knew you could do better than a B minus" as referring to the grades Buffy usually gets rather than her final grade for the class.
next_to_normal: (Default)

[personal profile] next_to_normal 2009-01-30 06:16 pm (UTC)(link)
I don't see anything in that scene that couldn't be said about Buffy after the class is finished. Walsh is clearly still an influence on Buffy, but I had plenty of professors who influenced me after I left their class.

Honestly, it doesn't really matter to me. If you want to believe that Riley is a cretin with no morals, knock yourself out. I disagree.

[identity profile] 2maggie2.livejournal.com 2009-01-30 06:28 pm (UTC)(link)
I do think that Joss is doing this leap forward, slowly reveal how they got there thing. One of the early covers was a picture of Buffy as a jigsaw with a good number of the pieces missing. So, for example, the revelation that Buffy was robbing banks served to bring into focus a bunch of things that didn't make sense. But we still need to know how she got there in order to understand that. Anywho, I'm thinking the reveal about where she's at with Spike will be part of that.

I think it's interesting story telling. It's very much like what they did in BSG, which I understand Joss likes a lot. But you are right that the big downside to it (assuming that's what's going on) is that he's made his audience a very long time to figure out what's up.

We'll see. I remain hopeful. But that could just be naivete on my part.

[identity profile] 2maggie2.livejournal.com 2009-01-30 06:37 pm (UTC)(link)
I'm so excited to reaad through this thread and find a few tidbits that say I might be right and nothing that says otherwise!

There's a part of me that believes this was always more or less the game plan (certainly from HLOD on), and that Joss doesn't always tell us the whole truth in interviews. I need to recheck this, but on the season 1 DVD, he does commentary about how he thought of Buffy which is that he imagined an opening scene about a blonde being menaced, only then it turned out that instead of being eaten, she kicked monster booty. Well, the actual opening scene of the series is of a blonde girl who looks like she's probably going to get eaten by her date, but the reversal isn't that the blonde is the slayer, it's that the blonde is a vampire, and she's the one who is going to munch on her date. It's a sort of double reversal. But in the interview, Joss lays it out the way it would look on the surface (in a show called BtVS, you'd expect the opening scene to be what Joss describes).

But even if it was all an accident, it was a pretty accident.

[identity profile] 2maggie2.livejournal.com 2009-01-30 06:37 pm (UTC)(link)
Thanks!

[identity profile] 2maggie2.livejournal.com 2009-01-30 06:48 pm (UTC)(link)
Thanks!

Funny how arguments can bother, even when they're weak. (I've often had that reaction). But this argument really is weak. Notice, for example, the way his original argument places a lot of weight on two quotes from the scene. It turns out that neither quote fits into the sequence as he would have you believe and as he needs to make the argument work. It's the telltale sign of someone who is working very hard to convince themselves that an unpleasant fact is false. For him, the unpleasant fact is that Buffy and the Slayerettes did not route the ubervamps themselves. Too bad, though. They didn't.

If Joss doesn't mention Spike in season 8, then not only is my theory completely wrong; it's also the case that Joss has abandoned his most basic principles about story-telling, namely that histories matter and that events permanently mark his characters. Moreover, he's portraying his protagonist as the sort of shallow bitch who went through all of that with Spike, but who hasn't been affected by him in any way (to the extent that we don't need to know what the final chapter was there in order to understand her). I just can't believe that's where Joss is at. And if he is, then I'll just have to believe that BtVS is sort of the equivalent of a bunch of monkeys typing and accidentally producing Hamlet. Which, you know, is possible, but not very likely.

[identity profile] 2maggie2.livejournal.com 2009-01-30 06:53 pm (UTC)(link)
I was watching the first half of season 4 a while back and I was just shocked at how many times there were details that foreshadowed that Buffy was going to end up with Spike, or that suggested that we should view Spike and Riley as rivals. It's very hard for me to watch season 4 and believe that Joss didn't have big plans for Spike -- massive cognitive dissonance.

Thanks for the tidbit of supporting evidence. Someday I'll put up a post with all those things that caught my eye, but it probably won't be too soon.

In any case, if it really was an accident, we are still entitled to read the text we have, and that text supports my reading!

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