Flaws in Narrative Structure or how it can fail - as seen in Buffy the Vampire Slayer

As you already know, I have stepped away a bit from the Buffy fandom, but I did read this essay by the writer Foz Meadows - Buffy and the men in her life. Which to be truthful is actually more of a comparison piece of Spuffy vs. all of Buffy's other romantically inclined relationships. I read it mainly because I'm stuck in my apartment with a broken foot and don't feel like getting up and fixing breakfast, which I know I should do. Maybe I'll just combine lunch and breakfast - and that way I only have to get up once.

What is interesting about this meta, although I prefer the word essay for various reasons, is the following paragraph:

[Eh, prior to this paragraph, foz meadows establishes how Riley, Xander, and other characters that are considered good are never really taken to task for their actions nor shown to redeem themselves. In particular Xander. And it occurs to me that this essay should come with an advisory to Xander fans - Foz Meadows clearly doesn't like the character that much. I don't know why this is...but it is rare to find Xander fans who like Spike and vice versa. You will find Xander fans that are ambivalent about Spike or found him interesting on a certain level, and well vice versa. I'm in that category. But fans who "love" both? Or consider both favorite male characters? No.]

There is, I suspect, a rather awful reason for this – and, indeed, for why Spike alone of all Buffy’s lovers and love interests accepts responsibility for his actions. It’s all down to narrative impetus: we, the viewers, are meant to sympathise with Xander, just as we’re meant to sympathise with Angel and Riley. At base, we “know” they’re all good guys, and as such, their contrition is implied. We don’t need to see them apologise, because the surrounding story is structured to suggest that they’ve already been forgiven off-camera. But Spike, by contrast, begins as a villain. His developmental arc is the most dramatic and varied in the whole show, culminating in a radical heel face turn at the end of S6. We need to see his redemption, because otherwise, there’s no reason to believe that it’s taken place – and to an extent, this makes sense: if the audience can reasonably infer that something has happened, then it’s a waste of script and wordage to insert it. The problem is that, if the good guys never apologise on screen, then their goodness is called into question – which is why the most fucked up relationship in the whole show is simultaneously the most equitable. Neither Buffy nor the audience can assume anything about Spike’s intentions that we aren’t actually shown, and as a result, he has to work the hardest out of anyone to be seen as good.

This fascinates me as both a writer myself, and a critique of a narrative structure or style quite common with television and comic book writers of my generation. The next generation of writers, I've noticed, is sort of breaking with this pattern. And it is admittedly not all of them. It also underlines something that has been needling me about Mutant Enemy's writing in all of their series, in particular Whedon. This tendency to take it on faith that if a character is "good" - they can do horrible things, but the audience forgives them without requiring the audience to necessarily witness apologies or redemptive acts. Or you can just blame it on the drugs, the booze, or they just weren't themselves. The writer's seem to stop just short of examining why the character did it and the character's actions.
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1. I'm enjoying True Blood more than the critics and everyone else is apparently. I actually liked last year better than the previous years, and this episode better. In part because I'm really NOT a Bill fan, so the direction they've taken with the character works for me - it is more or less how I saw him. And, well, I adore the introduction of Rutger Hauer - he's in some respects playing a much much older version of the character he portrayed in the film version of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, or at least as far as I can tell.
I'm admittedly a Rutger Hauer fan - yes, I've watched all of his B movies including The Osterman Weekend and Flesh and Blood, I think it was called Flesh and Blood, it's been a while. And my favorite Hauer films are: 1) Ladyhawk, 2) Blade Runner, 3) Nighthawks, and 4) The Hitcher. He plays the villain in the last three films.

The other reason I love True Blood in the later seasons is what they've done in regards to Tara and Pam, who have become wickedly cool.

2. Mad Men is good, but can Don Draper be any more of a misogynistic ass? He's a nasty piece of work this season. I feel sorry for his wife. Morale? Don't marry pretty men or women for that matter. Everyone else, on the other hand, is rather interesting.

( spoilers for Mad Men )