maggie2 | A Spuffy Reading of Season 8

A Spuffy Reading of Season 8

Warning: Because I want to be an optimist in any case, I cannot resist a tide when one starts -- even if it's small.

The Small Tide: Here's

angearia's latest. She links to

ladyofthelog and

me_llamo_nic both of whom write optimistic spins. They spawned optimistic thoughts below the cut.

I respect the pessimistic view. I wouldn't even bet against it. But maybe y'all could read the following in the spirit of "wouldn't it be cool if..."

So having read the three posts linked above, I thought some thoughts on the way home from work. I draw liberally on their insights, and am not going to footnote line by line (or at all). Call this a gathering, with a bit of extra juice.

The what of the basic spin is just that the Buffy/Angel stuff is unbelievably OTT. I've been saying this since #33. It's as cheesy as ever in #36. Cheesier, even. Velveeta cheesiest. This just cannot be taken at face value by anyone not pre-committed to True Bangel Love. At a minimum we have the show-stopper of Buffy calling the day she destroyed the world her bestest day ever. The piece I missed in my brief sojourn into pessimism, now supplied by the lovely ladies I've already cited is that Buffy ends the issue fully aware of how awful the day has been. She does get back to herself. AFTER she sends Angel away and AFTER she has her talk with Spike.

So that prompts the big why. Why is season 8 about the Bangel on the cheesiest possible steroids?

angearia wrote a post way back when about Season 8 as an epic fairy tale. Let me twist it a bit. Season 8 is about Buffy's attachment to her fairy tale, and the way it's been destroying her life. Buffy's fairy tale is that there once was a mysterious dark prince who was the only one in all the realm who inhabited her harsh lonely domain between the demonic and the human. He alone could accompany the slayer. But alas, their togetherness pushed him to the demonic side. And so Buffy was alone. But! She could keep the dream alive in her heart. Angel is everything to her. Angel is the reason she has to live alone in the battle. Angel is her drama. His defection to the dark and the resulting need for her to Give Him Up is the price Buffy pays to be the slayer.  The thought of him kept her company in the battle zone. It also kept everyone else out. Buffy has been emotionally arrested since Becoming. Twangel tells his minions that this ends when Buffy turns the sword on herself. She already did that, though. In Becoming when she gave up the one last thing she had to lose -- her dream of not being alone.

So Angel is presented to us as the Big Bad of the season. Angel single-handedly stopped Buffy's emotional growth cold when she was in high school. She's been an emotional husk since then. Angel is the figure Buffy has to overcome if she's ever to go forward. So he's the big bad. But as we saw in Twilight, Buffy doesn't hardly overcome him. She's overcome by him and the world is destroyed. So far in season 8 Buffy has had her behind seriously thrashed by this Big Bad.

But here's the rub. At the end of Chosen it seemed like Buffy had finally gotten unstuck. Another vampire ambled into her life. Like Angel he loved her. Unlike Angel, his love for Buffy drove him to the light, and not out into the dark. Once he got the soul, he stood by her in battle. And above all, he touched her. They were close that night. She was there. It was a possible breakthrough. Maybe she could give up the fantasy of Angel and step into the scary unpredictable reality of letting someone in.   She backed off, though. "Does it have to mean anything". Angel reappears and she runs into his arm. Fantasy! Good! How much of a fantasy is it? Angel is filmed in gauzy lens. He's OOC. It's anything but real. But for once, Buffy resists. The kiss is broken off quickly. She puts Angel off. She chooses Spike as her champion. And then she finally ventures into something real and offers him an I love you. The first one she's offered to anyone but Angel.

So what happened? Well, it's scary to give up a fantasy. Buffy barely stammers out the ILY. And Spike reassures her that she doesn't really. I'll defend to the death why this is a perfectly reasonable thing for Spike to say from his POV. But the impact it has on Buffy is to give her permission to retreat into the fantasy.   A few months later, she hears he's back. He's not called. This is hurtful (has he moved on?) But that's not the only or even the main reason Buffy doesn't do anything. She'll risk the pain if she wants something. The reason she doesn't call is because she doesn't want to risk the intimacy. Fantasy is comfortable. And she's wrapped it around herself hard since she was sixteen years old.

Fast forward to Season 8.

Buffy can't make a connection. This is the big theme. She's busy with her slayer army, but feels isolated. She's sunk back into her fantasy though. We're told this by the way Angel is strewn across her dream cube space. She only lets Spike in for a sex fantasy, but she's turned to Angel with that dreamy claddagh ring on her finger. He's got her heart. It's perfect. He's got her heart and he's not real. She can turn to fantasy!Angel for comfort and not have to risk the intimacy she's been fighting against her whole life. She dreams of him in #20. He's all mysterious and handsomey. She can't talk to him. He's not real. But he's so dreamy.

Satsu and Xander are there to represent Buffy's competing desire to move out of the fantasy and back into the scary painful risky realm of actual connection. Satsu is a transparent stand-in for Spike. Xander is quite real. And for a moment in Retreat, she seems to make a move. But she's too late. Did she deep down know she was too late? Xander suggests something like that. She wants to get real, but it's scary -- and it makes sense that she'd sabotage herself by only going for it when it can't happen. Then he can reject her, and she can keep building up her self-concept of herself as rejected. It's the mask she puts on her own desire to stay isolated in her castle.

Castle. Right. Buffy is a princess in a tower. Literally living in a castle. She wants Prince Charming to come and rescue her. She doesn't want Mr. Real to wake her up. But she needs Mr. Real to wake up. Enter Satsu in LWH for the dry run on this. But Buffy isn't gay. Not so you'd notice. That's the dress rehearsal.

So now we come to the big explanation for the Epic Silence about Spike. Why is Spike not in the dream cube space? He's real. He's available. He's scary. Deny! Deny! How does Buffy explain her thoughts about him? Great Muppity Odin, I miss that sex. Spike gets a supporting role in her sex fantasies. Why does she give Satsu a fling? Satsu, the punkish right hand person with an unrequited love for her? Spike without the actual attachment. What does she tell herself about not going after Spike? She's too busy? Sure. Everyone she loves gets hurt and runs away. He's moved on with Angel (!). Lots of reasons. She hangs on to her fantasy. In Anywhere But Here she's dreaming on the beach with a copy of The Vampire Lestat at hand. Joss has told us twice in inteviews while the comics were being written that Spike is more evolved. In one of them, he called Angel Lestat. Andrew tells Buffy that she traded up when she moved on to Spike. We get three frames on her frozen speechless reaction.

She makes her (safe) reach out for real intimacy to Xander. Gets smacked down. Is feeling all isolated and in swoops Angel. She grabs him. Epic sex. Oops. Epic sex? She loses herself in the physical and forgets to even tell him she loves him. At least at first. It's all escape. They literally blast out of the planet. The world literally falls in on itself in their wake. What a great move -- you jump into the fantasy and you don't just leave the world behind. You destroy it.

But Buffy has conflicting feelings. She gets to her fantasy and realizes she can't stay there. Also, if she really stayed there, it wouldn't exactly be a fantasy anymore would it? She has to go back to fight for the world. Having made that decision, right at that moment, in smashes Spike. Mr. Real himself. Oh shit. Oh, shit, shit, shit. She flies into the air with Mr. Wonderful Fantasy Man and swears her undying love to him. While sending him off the playing field. Mr. "I want to spend my life with you" has to be sent off in order for her to say that she wants to spend her life with him. It's not just buttering him up to let him go. It's that the precondition of making a connection for Buffy is that there be no possibility of actual connection. Bangel has flourished in her heart BECAUSE he's been gone; BECAUSE he's unavailable. So she pledges her troth to the fantasy that cannot ever be real.

And then squares her shoulders to deal with Mr. Real. The posts I linked to above spell this out very well, and I won't repeat. Spike grounds her in three seconds flat. She's back to the painful reality of the world she's just destroyed. He's just given her the kiss of true love and awakened her from her sleep.

So if this is the story, why is Allie so reserved about Spuffy? Joss plays tragedy, not comedy. Spike just woke her up. It's probably too late because all hell has just broken loose and by all accounts, the toll is going to be grim.

But hey! The point of Spuffy is that it's not about happy fairy tale endings. We've got a shot, though, at getting something real.

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Loved this. A wonderful explanation of the appeal for Buffy of clinging to her "love" for Angel.

There are so many brilliant people on my flist!

The first one she's offered to anyone but Angel.

I just have to point out--Buffy doesn't even offer Angel his I love you. Not the first one. He asks her point blank if she loves him, and she says, tentatively, yes she does love him. After the first I love you, she does volunteer the I love yous. But Spike's is the first we ever see her offer unsolicited like that.

Just sayin'.

But that only underlines your point, I think. That the intimacy that she dipped her toes in during that I-love-you-flamey-hands moment with Spike was so, so new and utterly terrifying, that when she isn't immediately nurtured in that new space, she retreats.

Love this. Also love that you point out that Angel was filmed with a gauzy lens in Chosen. I don't think I'd fully processed that before.

Brilliant, Maggie!

Fantasy and real, all brought together to show how Season 8 has progressed. Remember Angel's line "This isn't a fairytale" to which Buffy responds "when you kiss me I want to die." To Buffy, it really is a fairytale.

Gah, when you think about Buffy being trapped in a dreamstate in LWH and her creating her own fantasy world in Twilight, there's so many levels of self-constructed prisons. Oh! Remember the the triple x's that she thought were bars?

This post is incredibly wonderful food for thought. Just brilliant.

I think I took for granted that Buffy wants to retreat into safe fantasy when I was discussing why she wouldn't go after Spike. Because she's always been afraid of risking herself in this regard--it's something I unconsciously know, but couldn't vocalize.

This is plausible. It's also very sad. I so wish that Joss would allow Buffy to grow. But I kind of think he likes keeping her where she is...

I really needed to see their faces! I feel better now

"A few months later, she hears he's back. He's not called. This is hurtful (has he moved on?) But that's not the only or even the main reason Buffy doesn't do anything."

I can just see that-- she wants HIM to come to her. Then she'll believe in this love. But it's all on him. Sigh.

The thing is, I guess I'm tired of Joss's story style. I'm perfectly willing to believe that the B/Aness is OTT and that it will all turn into some tragic thing where they cannot be together because when together they lose their effing minds and the world is destroyed.

It's Joss. He's not through until people are screaming or in tears.

I find it far more difficult to believe that the conclusion will make me any more sanguine with the story regarding Spuffy, nor am I willing to believe that Joss will deliver something that I think will balance out the high toll he's exacted on Spuffy. Sure, I'm willing to believe that Joss might toss a couple of cookie crumbs at the end. But, frankly, at this point, I'm sick of crumbs and I'm doubly sick of plausible deniability. And I honestly don't think Joss has it in him to dole out anything else.

So while I believe that Joss will have a twist at the end, I still don't expect to have much ~~any~~ sense of satisfaction with crumbs that might be scattered off the table.

I guess I'm just tired of the way Whedon does things.

Sorry for the negativity.

This is fantastic. I can definitely buy this. This is easily the reading that makes the most sense.

I think I'm where you are - right now, the only thing I have any faith in at all is Spike. Par for the course, really.

I'm in the same place as

shipperx

I was optimistic, over and over again.

I got kicked in the gut and then the teeth by Whedon and his minions story choices.

Repeatedly.

And I never got the payoff I needed to make it even remotely worth it.

And I'm sick of it.

The comics just seem to have put the final nail in the coffin of my Joss love or the possibility of my ever rewatching the show itself.

And that is a tragedy.

I loved that show and its been irrevocably ruined in retrospect.

Oh, Maggie - awesome!

I agree with You, but it is still hard to see this story roll out. I guess this is due to me having lost faith in Whedon to really bring this story forward, to bring about at least some conclusion/closure.

Whedon is too invested in Bangel (porn) to back off that ship - even if for marketing reasons alone. And, on that i'm with Beer_Good, i'm too old to rehash that theme over and over and over again.

Well, i know this is my personal stuff, but at this point in my life i really need an end to that kind of romanticism B/A represent. Just teasing and subtexting and mild subversion isn't going to reingnite my love for the comic book continuation of BtVS.

Perhaps Whedon will surprise me - but, as others have said, i need text this time, not subtext (and this is purely from an anti-B/A standpoint, i make no claim whatsoever about what should or should not happen to other romantic relationships in the comics).

If Whedon has the guts to gut B/A (hehe), he'll alienate a part of his fanbase and readership. And i don't think he has the guts.

To end on a more positive note, Your essay is really well thought out and i'm glad You're back to being MAGGIE the GREAT! :-) (soothing my nerdrage ;-))

I really love this. I will say, though, that this is proof that I don't really need the comics in my life, because I do think Buffy has grown beyond the obsession with Angel. I really don't think that by the time S7 rolls around that she's still really clinging to the idea of him much at all. Of course, she's still terrified of love because people always abandon her, but I just don't feel like it's all about Angel anymore. Of course, that's only interpretation, and lots of people would disagree with me. But still, the comics feel like regression to me because of this, and I'm just not interested in that.

But! Again, I'm really loving your reading of this and find it fascinating and interesting and I'm glad that it all came together for you and especially that you got your hope back because I hate seeing people be hurt by this. So: yay!

Completely awesome! I'm glad you decided to have a fling with optimisim, so much more fun (and meaningful)than gloom and doom!

I just had this realization over on

elisi's journal (where she notes how crackilicious Buffy/Angel are acting, but is it OOC because Season 8 also had Xander/Dracula):

BRILLIANT. You just proved why Buffy/Angel are possessed by equating it to Xander/Dracula.

(Which I don't you meant to, but...!!!)

Xander and Dracula start off and really aren't BFFs. Xander is flatout terrified at the suggestion he has to go see Dracula because of thrall. He spends an entire issue being OTT BFF with Dracula because of thrall and having Renee trying to shake him out of it. Then Renee dies--Xander completely shakes off the thrall and becomes his own man. Dracula tries to reclaim him as his manservant when Dracula wishes to leave Tokyo and Xander says he'll kill him if ht calls him that name again.

Buffy glow = Xander thrall.

FREE WILL IS A THEME

*

Xander/Dracula is one of my favorite bits of the season.

Maggie, I don't think your post could be more spot on. I'm more than tempted to read season 8 like some sort of psychoanalysis of Buffy. From almost the beginning hadn't she been given a sort of challenge with the "You can't fight what's inside of you"? Regression, return to the past also phases and parts of the process of mental healing. And is it really by luck that Angel speaks of a shrink in this comic? My guess is not.

Rubs her own hands with glee. Seems like Whedon is in great shape after all!Yay!

Maggie, are you and Emmie some kind of brainy geniuses?(i think there ain't such a word,lol)

I never quite looked at it that way. I've always loved both ships, but season 8 just destroyed Bangel for me. Yet, this makes so much sense in so many ways. I really don't want the Buffy/Angel romanceto be screwed but that's exactly what has happened.

I have lots of hope for Spuffy. My Spuffy heart got even more optimistic after reading your essay. I'm bookmarking it for sure. I love your thinky thoughts*hugs you and your brain*

I definitely agree this is a possibility, but like others I need some text, not for Spuffy really, but that their behavior is messed up. That's the niggling issue I have with this interpretation. We see similarities with Xander's POV in The Zeppo, but whose POV are we looking at here? We need someone textual confirmation that something is wrong which we haven't got so far with all the OOC behavior.

Overall, though, I like your ideas and it fits in with my guess that the comics might somehow be a construct of Buffy. A fantasy world built on her anxieties, that's why all the recurring characters from the past. Not to say it's not happening, but that she's somehow making it happen, but to me S8 is a little *too* much of a worst case scenario.

I don't think she's woken up yet, though. I don't think that will happen until 40.

So--yes, I finally get to comment! Yay! And this is wonderful--down to the line, what Buffy felt and is feeling. Obviously this reading can still be Jossed. But it makes so much sense for this to be the story, than for Bangel forever to be. Why would Joss trash Buffy AND Angel like that if he's setting them up to be righteous? And why, for that matter, would he do so in the first place when he's said repeatedly where his sympathies lie on the Angel-Spike spectrum?

Satsu and Xander are there to represent Buffy's competing desire to move out of the fantasy and back into the scary painful risky realm of actual connection. Satsu is a transparent stand-in for Spike. Xander is quite real. And for a moment in Retreat, she seems to make a move. But she's too late. Did she deep down know she was too late? Xander suggests something like that. She wants to get real, but it's scary -- and it makes sense that she'd sabotage herself by only going for it when it can't happen. Then he can reject her, and she can keep building up her self-concept of herself as rejected. It's the mask she puts on her own desire to stay isolated in her castle.

So here's the thing. When you mentioned about going after Xander when it was too late, something clicked. I've been thinking about "Into the Woods" lately, partly because I saw a review up which made me cranky (along the usual "stupid Marti may have wanted a weepie but she shouldn't have done it on MY show!" lines) and partly because of the Riley one-shot. If Satsu is a summing up of how Buffy dealt with her relationship with Spike, I think that, in addition to being about Bander qua Bander, "Turbulence" also replays Buffy's helicopter run. Bander is not a metaphor for Biley, because Biley ultimately isn't that important in and of itself. What's important is that Buffy had a year and a half to make a real emotional connection with Riley, and she held back until the second when it was too late to catch him. Epic irony on Buffy--she finally opens her heart out but she's TOO LATE! Unless maybe Buffy knew that it was too late when she started running; that on some subconscious level Buffy hoped and prayed that Riley would be gone so she wouldn't have to follow through on her current grand gesture. Turbulence has one of the only Buffy/Riley scenes in the comics AND has Xander referencing his infamous pep talk in ItW. So yeah--while Buffy may well have tried to talk to Xander in Retreat part 3, the fact that she only definitively did so when it was too late leads to Buffy's M.O. As long as someone isn't real, she can have feelings for them. I do think Buffy was more sincere in "Turbulence" than she was in "Into the Woods," but her ACTIONS, regardless of the feelings underneath them, are similar.

(Speaking of Into the Woods: "There are giants in the sky" is a reference to the Into the Woods show.)

So the season, structurally, has been replaying Buffy's relationship history in reverse chronological order: it's all about sex (Satsu/Spike), she puts her heart out for her normal guy but she probably does so after she knows it's too late (Xander/Riley) culminating in her First Ever Love (Twangel/Angel). So what's next? Spike is back, Xander is still here, Angel still around. What does she do?

Damn this was brilliant...I've been like a monkey on speed...going from post to post trying to stay positive and you and Emmie and ladyofthelog did it for me ..so Yay!

I'm not sure we'll get anything we want Spuffywise, but at least I'm feeling not so ragey now and with some hope.I also finally "read" the comic, and it definitely helped to see their faces.Buffy looks like a deranged Barbie doll when she's spewing all that nonsense to Angel. Yup, something is definitely up...just look at how she looks when Spike tells her what's the sitch. Like you said he grounds her in 3 seconds flat.:) That's our Spike. God, how awesome was he in this? OMG!

Again...brilliant post.

~Ami

Aww. This is a lovely post, and I really enjoyed your deconstruction of Buffy's fairy tale. :)

I love your thoughts.

Angel is the figure Buffy has to overcome if she's ever to go forward.

Hmmm. Never thought about the events in season 8 this way. Good food for thought.

Love your thoughts on all of this, and I think you've hit the nail on the head. Though I'm with those that are just too tired of the merry-go-round to care very much.

I just had a few more thoughts about this.

1. In ToYL, Buffy dresses up to go meet Riley. Why? He's married and so completely unavailable.

2. It's obvious now, but Daniel Craig and Christian Bale! It's not just about thinly veiled Angel and Spike analogues. It's about fantasy. Willow talks about how actual partners (Kennedy!) aren't allowed in said fantasies.

3. I think I started writing this somewhere but my comment might have gotten eaten, so forgive me if this is a repeat. But Angel's OOC-ness in Chosen is for the same reason he's OOC in season eight, and it's not just about Buffy. Angel's fantasy, we're told over and over again, is to be the knight in shining armour--"Awakening" on AtS is all about this, most notably. And he is 100% playing this role in "Chosen," not because he doesn't care that he's just lost Cordelia and Connor and made a pact with the devil but because he does care and is himself in "deny! deny! deny!" mode. Because IDW is telling Angel's story up until he smashes through that portal, I'm guessing we won't get the Joss nuances, but I suspect it will be similar: the IDW line ends with Angel losing everything and so he tries to return to Buffy.

4. More on Angel and Sunnydale: "Chosen" happens right after "Home," where Angel makes a perfect home for his son that he is excluded from. It's a replay of "Pangs" with a home celebratory dinner that Angel casts himself out of. So, having lost Cordelia, written Connor out of his life, and wiped his friends' memories, he goes to rejoin the Sunnydale family he already left. No dice from Buffy. Did Angel know that Buffy was going to toss him out subconsciously--if not for the battle, then for afterward?

I love this post! I read #36 Thursday night and am trying to get caught up with the discussion. I'm just so happy that I'm not the only one who really liked this issue, who feels hopeful for the first time in a long while. Viva la positive! This interpretation makes sense. I am right there with you. This entire season is about living in a dream, a fantasy. Someone has to pop the bubble - kiss the princess - to wake her up and bust her out of the fantasy prison she built for herself. Bangel is a fantasy. Spuffy is real. It's always been true. I think Joss might just be finally saying it point blank.

ETA: Thank you for the links at the top of your post! Illuminating insights there.

Edited 2010-09-11 20:17 (UTC)

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Nice work

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