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shadowkatFinished re-watching up to All the Way ( my least favorite episode of the season and the only one I can't really fanwank much eupheusim for. There's at least one or two every season of every tv series I've seen in my life. So this in nothing. If there's only two or three episodes I'm not nutty about - I figure the show is close to brilliant. If there's none and that's rare, it is, and it has only happened in tv shows with less than 13 episodes airing.)
The Buffy/Spike relationship continues to fascinate me, even if I continue to find fandom's multi-faceted response to the relationship a bit headache inducing, and oddly enough, incredibly intriguing. Part of the reason for this is the type of fan I am.
I adore and ship both characters. Buffy and Spike. They are my favorite tv characters of all time. I liked them together. I liked them apart. They are those rare characters that are interesting regardless of whether they are together or not in my opinion. And I identify on a personal level with each one. While Buffy and Angel in my opinion were far more interesting apart, and boring together, not helped by the fact that whenever Angel is with Buffy (with the possible exception of Chosen) he talks like a walking Hallmark Card commericial, cheap romance novel, or a Barry Manilow song. Angel as a character really does not get explored in depth until he leaves Buffy. Spike is another story.
I think the difference between Spike and Angel, and B/A and B/S is the writers planned the Buffy/Angel storyline out from the beginning and the Angel character, while the Spike character was unplanned, outside of the fact that he was Drusilla's paramour, and the Buffy/Spike relationship was unplanned - it was allegedly pitched to Whedon in S4 by James Marsters who at the time was desperately trying to figure out the character's motivation, and by Sarah Michelle Gellar. Whether these back-stage rumors are true is irrelevant, because Whedon clearly states in S5 commentary that it dawned on him S4 that Spike was madly in love with Buffy and he decided to explore exactly what that meant. It sort of came to them in the progress of telling the tale, just who Spike was as a character came to him through the telling - the story told him who Spike was. Which means figuring out authorial intent in regards to that relationship or even Spike for that matter feels a bit like asking James Joyce what he was thinking when he was writing Ulysses or what I intend when I write half the stuff I do in this live journal. I'm not entirely sure the writers know, except that they were admittedly exploring power and control issues - as they state over and over again in commentary. And the Spike/Buffy relationship has always been about power and control. They have a sort of tug of war battle going on between them - a dance of wills. Who can get the upper hand. Since they are more or less evenly matched and about the same physical type, size and shape, it is hard to tell.
My difficulty with fandom in relation to the Buffy/Spike arc is well the fandom split into at least seven factions [actually make that 9 and possibly even more, since I'm certain I've left out a couple], all certain they were right, that their opinion is most important, and how could anyone on the planet see it otherwise.
1) The first faction is what I like to call the Fundies - this group had problems with the fact that Spike loved Buffy, mostly because they assumed Angel didn't love her without a soul. They more or less took everything Giles tells Buffy in Welcolme to the Hellmouth and Harvest as the gospel or book on the series.
2)The second is what I like to call the evilistas - this group liked Spike with Drusilla, evil, the big bad, and felt he was emasculated or whipped or made uncool a la Fonzie in the latter days of Happy Days, and as a result was ruined as a character when he fell for Buffy.
3) The third group is the redemptionistas - this group wanted Spike to be redeemed without getting a soul, they wanted to see if he could become good and choose to become good via the chip. Some redemptionistas just wanted him to be redeemed and loved the soul arc.
4) The fourth group, dislikes Buffy and thinks Spike is redeemed in S6, that he is not evil, that Buffy is a bitch for not loving him back, and that she is the guilty party and needs to take responsibility for her actions and Spike is better off without her. Or this group believes that Spike is fine the way he is, and Buffy is horrible for not wanting to be his mate and run off with him. And that she's the monster. Not Spike. She's the one who should be taking responsibility. In S7 - they felt that her treatment of him was horrendous in the first five episodes. [This group broke off from the fandom during S6, specifically the episodes Gone and Dead Things.]
5) The fifth group - thinks that Spike was a rapist and misogynist and racist to boot, and how could anyone in their right mind like the character or the B/S relationship after Seeing Red and/or Lies My Parents Told Me, after he killed Robin Wood's cool mother, and found the majority of the B/S scenes after LMPTM to be gross. This group doesn't believe Spike can be redeemed until he burns or does away with or buries Nikki Wood's jacket. And hated the episode Touched because as they put it, Buffy cuddling with her attempted "rapist" sickened them. [ETC - this is not intended as a trivalization of the fans who disliked Spike because the character for various and understandable reasons triggered a negative response. We all have that reaction from time to time to a fictional character - I did to Robin Wood, which is why I rarely discuss the character or interact with fans of the character. It does however address those fans who feel the need to criticize and condemn other fans for liking a character that pushes their buttons. These are the fans who fought in the Spike Wars and make it difficult to discuss the tv show online. The ones who were upset by the character and chose to stop watching or picking up the comics..reacted much the same way I reacted to the British TV Show The Office. Like I said, we all have our buttons and triggers. Tolerating those who like things we hate is not as easy as it looks, particularly if the reason we hate something is grounded in a real life experience that gives us nightmares.]
6) The sixth group -thought it was an amazing romance, loved both characters and want them to ride off into the sunset together and have lots of kids.
7) Then of course there is a seventh group - which is those of us who loved both characters, possibly even all the characters, loved analyzing the relationship, possibly all relationships, and really don't necessarily see B/S riding off into the sunset and having lots of kids nor particularly want that.
8. The Spikestas or Spike Universialists - People who are ambivalent about the character of Buffy and not really fans of the B/S ship or rather ambivalent about it, but loved Spike no matter what he did, and also loved other characters, regardless of their feelings towards Spike. Spike universialists often ship S/R and S/X per example.
9. The ninth group who was ambivalent about the character of Spike, the B/S relationship, and probably shipped someone else and tried to ignore or made snarky comments about factions 1-8. This group was annoyed by Spikefans and the antiSpike fan arguements that took over the boards.
[The B/A, B/X, and B/R shippers also fall in there somewhere. And there are folks who fall between or within more than one section depending on their mood. I've admittedly clumped a couple of folks together such as the SpikeUniversalistas and the BuffyUniversalistas. You can't pigeon hole people no matter how hard you try.]
These groups fight like crazy. And when the show was on the air - the fights were called "The Spike Wars" - making some fans hate the character and the show in the latter seasons, because they had little tolerance for the conflict it created (see #9). The fights, which have not ended by the way, make it difficult to discuss the B/S relationship or Spike on line. It is probably worth noting that I count as friends representatives from each and every one of the factions listed above and have fought with each of them regarding the topic to the point in which we decided in order to preserve the friendship to agree to disagree. Or at least something to that effect. And yes, I know I generalized on those catgories, like I said people defy pigeon holing. I'm in faction 7, in guess you haven't guessed.
The romantic relationship doesn't really pick up speed until Fool for Love - which I think is the first time that Spike really hits on Buffy, or attempts to hit on Buffy. She denies him of course and rightly so. Since he is discussing death. Spike in his head has to a degree mixed sex/love/and death. As Buffy states to Holden Webster in Conversations with Dead People much later - what is it with you vampires - and sex and violence and death? Also in Spike's speech to Buffy - he states - "Death is your gift, you create it with your hands, day after day" - it is the speech of a killer speaking to another killer. And it is similar to Dracula's statement to Buffy - in which he calls her killer, and Riley's in Restless, in which he says, be like that "killer". Both Dracula and Riley - are romantically involved with Buffy when they state it, or trying to seduce her. Spike is doing much the same thing here.
The Darla backstory is on Angel at the same time - and in that story, Darla is telling Angel to kill a child, Darla is celebrating Spike killing a slayer, and Darla is begging Angel to kill her, to make her a vampire, to take away the pain of the soul. Spike is telling Buffy that is what she wants - she wants to die. And when that happens, when she admits it, he'll walk in, "Death", and have himself a great day. He's "death". He defines himself as "death" in the episode. And another title for the episode could well be Buffy's date with Death. Except, in watching the Spike/Buffy relationship unfold from that relationship forward, it slowly becomes apparent that Spike wants the opposite from Buffy. He doesn't want to die, he wants to live. He wants to be a man. He no longer wants to be "dead". It's the opposite of Darla - who wants to "die" to become "dead", here Spike wants to feel alive. Buffy makes him feel like he's not dead - which is what he literally sings to her in OMWF.
The next bunch of episodes set up the power-play push-me, pull-me dynamic that appears later. This power play or weird dance is set up in Fool For Love. Buffy dances with Death. Death comes to her door with a gun, but instead of killing her, he sits down and comforts her on the illness of her mother. She reciprocates by bringing her mother and sister to death's/spike's door, in order to protect them from Glory. But she blames him when her sister, Dawn, finds out what she is, the key. Then asks his assistance in finding her sister. She pushes him aside when he declares his love, then he chains her up to force her to admit hers, only to have her lock him out of her house and her life. He makes a robot version of her to cope, the robot unfortunately draws Glory's attention to him, and her minions capture him thinking he's the key. To protect Dawn's identity, he endures Glory's torture and barely escapes with his life. This act of courage and complete self-lessness - moves Buffy to kiss him. It changes everything. She lets him back into her life and tells him that it is one act that she will never forget. The rest is unreal. It is the first time that Buffy truly acknowledges the man inside of Spike and he changes, he becomes more like he once was - the fool for love, and not death, not the killer. He is her knight errant. Her hero. Yet, when his moment of glory comes, he falls off the tower, crashes to the ground, unable to save the damsel. It is Buffy who saves her, and Buffy who equally falls off, but to her death. Spike, already dead, survives. Buffy, alive, dies.
When Buffy is brought back to life by her friends, she feels undead. Or like she should be dead. Physically depressed. I'm not sure if you've ever experienced physical depression? It's not the same as emotional depression. Physical depression is when you contemplate suicide in reality, not just think about it, but actually consider it, because that would mean you could just sleep forever, be warm, be safe, and not feel. The world hurts when you are physically depressed. It hurts to open your eyes. To think. To care. Everything seems pointless. Buffy is dead inside when she crawls out of her grave. And the world she crawls out to is literally on fire. It is not the world that she left.
She goes to Spike - but not as a man, as death. The person who spoke to her in Fool for Love. Who said, sooner or later you will want it and when you do? I'll be there and have myself a real good day. But Spike doesn't greet her as death, he greets her as well the knight errant, the man she let back into her house, the man who grieved her loss, and is filled with self-loathing for not being able to save her sister, for failing on his promise. The man who would die a hundred times to bring her back and who has literally counted every day that she has been gone. It is not death who meets her, even if he has a knife in his hand and starts off with a wry threat. He drops the knife quickly. Tells her that she can sit. And then surprises her with a monologue about how he wants her to know that he hadn't forgotten about his promise. That he knows that he failed her. That it is his fault she died. And how every night he saves her.
Perhaps it is the speech that makes it possible for her to tell him the truth that she cannot tell her friends. At any rate at the end of the episode Afterlife, Buffy leaves her friends momentarily to be alone. And finds Spike lurking in the shadows. It is broad daylight. She is clearly surprised to see him. Since it is daylight. Death lurking in the shadows. He can't come fully into the light. And she tells him where she was, that she was happy, and that she wants to go back. She wants to be dead.
The next few episodes she spends trying not to give into her own death wish. Trying to cope. Trying to be happy for her friends. But each time she seeks out Death - Spike, she drinks with him, she chats with him, she enjoys fighting with him, and she flirts with him. He alone seems to get it. She feels dark and empty and there he is.
He is acting very subdued. A knight errant. Stalwart. Careful. Only occassionally does he fall into the manipulative role ...the kitty poker, and the drinking. Telling Buffy she belongs with him, in the dark, as a slayer. That she should be the slayer, not the normal girl. In S5 she desperately wanted to be the normal girl and was struggling with the slayer, in fact she kills herself in order to save the normal girl - her sister who is in her head at least also herself. Here, she's back, and she's wondering if the normal girl has a life or a purpose outside of the slayer.
It's really not until OMWF and Smashed, that the relationship takes the mind-blowing subversive turn that caused fandom to split into nine factions, although to a degree they already had with the introduction of Spike in S4. But in S6, things get interesting.
Buffy and Spike do a couple of role reversals. Even before Once More With Feeling - Spike and Buffy have to a degree reversed roles. When Buffy comes back this round, its very different than When She Was Bad - here, Buffy plays the vigilante hero, the dark knight, to Spike's femme fatale informant. Some fans have even equated Spike with the villianous Bond girl with the heart of gold. OR the bad boy with the heart of gold. But he is actually more in the girl role here. Since Buffy has all the power. He has very little. She can lock him out at any time. It's not until Smashed that he gets a bit of his power back - he can hurt her and that's when they have sex for the first time. Because he can hurt her. He is now her equal. Before that point, they don't have sex.
Yet...he's not her equal. He keeps trying to be. It feels a lot like the old Philip Marlow romance - where he flirts with the shadow lady, sleeps with her, but goes back home to his gal Friday. Was this intentional on the part of the writers? To have Buffy in the role of the stoic male hero who beats his mistress, uses her for sex, knows she will most likely betray him, and would like to save her, but knows it's not possible because she is beneath him? Angel the Series - in that series we have Lilah and Wes. Wes and Lilah is the trope. The writers do almost the same tale with these two characters. They also do it with Angel and Darla, with Darla in the femme fatal position. And Angel can't really redeem her, without her getting pregnant and the kid doing it. But in Buffy it's the opposite.
In my previous posts/metas on Buffy/Angel and Buffy/Riley - I pointed out how the theme of paternalism and sexism keeps popping up and being explored. Buffy is a horror series. And the writer wrote it as a response to the blatant sexism in horror films that he had seen. The pretty blond girl has sex, goes into an alley, and gets killed. In the Buffy/Spike relationship - the sexism is explored in a new and different way - or rather the power play between the genders is. Buffy's own power is explored. And it is to a degree explored in relation to Spike. What is odd about the exploration and potentially subversive is that Buffy is in the role of the man in the relaltionship or the traditional male role. She is playing the noir male hero - and Spike the noir female romantic interest, the bad girl who may betray you or may have a heart of gold, it's never clear. Spike's the girl from the wrong side of the tracks, the one you can't trust. He's treated like a dumb blond at times. The other woman. The dirty secret. And like the mistress or other woman - he keeps insisting Buffy tell her friends about them, that Buffy let him into her life, or better yet leave her friends and go off with him. When they are together, he doesn't want her to leave. In the Buffy/Riley, Buffy/Angel relationships - Riley and Angel are leaving Buffy's bed, her side. But here, Buffy is leaving Spike's bed, his side.
His relationship with Dawn in earlier episodes is almost maternal in some ways. He never quite succeeds in protecting her. Buffy does, Spike not so much. But Spike unlike Buffy, can talk to Dawn and seems to connect with her in earlier episodes. (As an aside the writers stopped the Spike/Dawn interaction when they noticed that there was chemistry between the actors and that bothered them. I always found that funny in an ironic sort of way.)
They both stay the gender they currently are. Their roles just have flipped. And what is also a bit mind-blowing is that writers took the hero to that place, they had the hero actually use the villian to jerk off. Granted, I've seen it done with male heroes, but not female ones. And not quite in this way.
Nor do most shows take the hero to the depths that Buffy the Vampire Slayer took Buffy. They explore Buffy's dark side in S6. They don't use another character, such as Faith to do it as they did in S3. Nor do they use another couple such as Dru and Spike. They drop the easy metaphor and explore Buffy's issues regarding her own power, her own sexuality, and her dark impulses through her relationship with Spike. He is death, he is her alter-ego, he is her demon.
And I think part of the reason the audience freaked out the way they did is that in that exploration, the writers also explored gender roles. Women - the writers stated could be abusive, they could be powerful, they could be in control, they aren't just victims.
Xander is the weakest character on the show. He has no power. As the series progresses, Willow the former damsel becomes more and more powerful, capable of fighting alongside Buffy, while Xander is often told to get to safety. It is Xander that Buffy tells in S7 to get Dawn to safety. "Women and children must not fight in wars" - except in Season 7 the "women" being told to stay safe are "Xander" from Buffy, and "Robin Wood" from Faith. Xander takes on the traditional "girl Friday" role, or female best friend role, while Spike takes on the traditional femme fatal or bad girl who can be redeemed role. He's not really the bad boy who gets redeemed so much as the bad girl. Sure there is a whole "momma" complex and "savior" complex theme going on in S7, but in S6, there really isn't.
Buffy launches herself at Spike in Smashed. She inserts his penis into herself. She jumps onto it. There's a deleted scene in which she is literally riding him, while he lies prone below, she isn't looking at him, she's just riding him, having an orgasm. It's similar to a man riding a woman from behind, not looking at her face, and having the orgasm. The house comes down around them. And the next morning, she leaves, while he is stuck in the ruins. In the trope, it is the opposite. Heck in the series itself, up to this point, it has been the opposite, from Angel to Parker. Compare Innocence to Wrecked, in Innocence - Angelus describes sex with Buffy as not all that, then in Wrecked, Buffy describes sex with Spike as not all that. You were convienent she tells him. Just as Angelus tells her - yeah it was swell. But that's all it was. Note the role reversial. Buffy is not the romantic female here. She's abusive to her lover. She beats him up. She feels guilty about it. She tells him he is not her boyfriend and she is not his love. She denies him. All things that Spike does to Harmony and Wes to Lilah.
Before Smashed, before Once More With Feeling - Buffy's relationship with Spike is a role reversial. She's his boss. She tells him what to do. She orders him around. Compare to Angel who comes and says, do this and do that in his own series and in Buffy provides guidance and advice. Or Riley - who does much the same thing. Here, with Spike, Buffy is telling Spike what to do. In All the Way, she enters his crypt without knocking, throws a cross-bow at him and instructs him to help her find Dawn and take down the vamps. If she doesn't want his help, she says get lost. In earlier episodes in S5 - she says, this is my job, go elsewhere. I don't need you holding me back. Much like Batman might scold Catwoman, or DareDevil would scold Electra. OR Angel scolds Cordy.
The gender role reversal in of itself is clearly deliberate. It is done systematically and consistently throughout the series and is commented on by the writers. Who state that they are interested in power and who has it, and in particular female empowerment. Our society is sexist. When we have children, we dress the boys in baseball outfits and blue, the girls in pink and frilly dresses. Women get manicures, wear dresses, and look pretty, boys play sports, wear pants, and never get a manicure. (Of course this is not true, but it is what is expected.) The guy is not the sex object in cinema or tv, the woman is supposed to be. Women have traditionally played that role. Men are the firemen, the soliders, the cops, the doctors, while women are the nurses, teachers, cooks, day-care workers and fashion designers. But this is not true. There are women firefighters, cops, and doctors, just as there are male nurses, teachers, day-care workers, and fashion designers. Our gender is not the only thing that defines us, and it does not define who we become. Whedon in Buffy is underlining this idea - Buffy - a cute, sexy, girl, who likes the NEW Kids on the Block, painting her nails, and dancing, is a vampire slayer - who hunts and fights vampires. Traditional male territory. She is the weapon. And her relationship with Spike including how she handles the attempted rape and how she deals with him afterwards, is traditional male territory. She is not the victim. She does not allow herself to be one. She saves him not the other way around.
It's unsettling for fans to see their heroine beat up her bad-boy lover, have sex with him while invisible, and use him for sex but not love. "I'm Buffy's soddin sex slave" - Spike states to Xander in a half mutter. Normally the female role in these shows. He's the sex object. Not her. In Gone - an invisible Buffy goes to Spike, strips him of his clothes, and has her fiendish way with him. The film The Hollow Man with Kevin Bacon - the protagonist/villian does a similar thing - he goes after the heroine and has his fiendish way with her. In fact there's a whole slew of tv shows and films where an invisible "man" goes and spies on the women in the nude in a lockerroom. Here, Spike is nude. Buffy invisible. Buffy has her way with Spike. The metaphor of course is the same as the one in Fool For Love - Buffy is dancing with death. She is gone, invisible, dead. He is visible, alive. She is not treating him like a man, she is treating him like death. She is making love to death. At the end of Gone, when she becomes visible, she moves away from Spike a bit and back towards her family and friends. Life. Then in Doublemeat Palace back to death. It's back and forth throughout, until finally in Grave, when Spike/Death has left the premises, she crawls out of her grave, and Spike gets a soul to a strand of song stating ..."and it is only by dying that we get eternal life..". It's the opposite of the Buffy/Angel relationship - where Willow curses Angelus with a soul and Buffy kills Angel the man, sending him to hell, and goes there herself, fighting her way back without him in S3 episode Anne and Dead Mans' Party. Here, Buffy crawls out of her grave, as Spike regains his soul. While in Bargaining - Spike wants to die, and in Afterlife, hits his hands against the wall, copying Buffy's scratches on her knuckles from crawling out of her grave. Bargaining ends at night, in a horrorfic landscape, hell on earth. Both Spike and Buffy are in hell. In Grave, they are climbing out of hell and into the bright light.
Is this subversive? Yes and no. In part. The portion that is - is the role reversal.
And the hero's actions specifically in the middle episodes of the season. The hero going there with the villian yet not in a romantic way. The hero becoming monsterous, giving into her darker impulses, if only for a little while. That is subversive, perhaps. And that is in part what upset so many people online. But because the hero goes there, the hero is able to see Spike in a different light in season 7. She has a better understanding of the demon inside, that dark impulse. She understands him perhaps better than he understands himself. And what she fights for in S7 is his ability to choose who he is, for all of their ability to do so...to become something better. That's the other theme the relationship addresses - choosing how we define ourselves and our roles, not letting society and outsiders do it, whether they be a Watcher's Council, our friends, or our lovers.
It's late and I've rambled long enough. Going to bed. Am thinking strongly of seeing a bunch of co-ops in Forest Hills tomorrow.
The Buffy/Spike relationship continues to fascinate me, even if I continue to find fandom's multi-faceted response to the relationship a bit headache inducing, and oddly enough, incredibly intriguing. Part of the reason for this is the type of fan I am.
I adore and ship both characters. Buffy and Spike. They are my favorite tv characters of all time. I liked them together. I liked them apart. They are those rare characters that are interesting regardless of whether they are together or not in my opinion. And I identify on a personal level with each one. While Buffy and Angel in my opinion were far more interesting apart, and boring together, not helped by the fact that whenever Angel is with Buffy (with the possible exception of Chosen) he talks like a walking Hallmark Card commericial, cheap romance novel, or a Barry Manilow song. Angel as a character really does not get explored in depth until he leaves Buffy. Spike is another story.
I think the difference between Spike and Angel, and B/A and B/S is the writers planned the Buffy/Angel storyline out from the beginning and the Angel character, while the Spike character was unplanned, outside of the fact that he was Drusilla's paramour, and the Buffy/Spike relationship was unplanned - it was allegedly pitched to Whedon in S4 by James Marsters who at the time was desperately trying to figure out the character's motivation, and by Sarah Michelle Gellar. Whether these back-stage rumors are true is irrelevant, because Whedon clearly states in S5 commentary that it dawned on him S4 that Spike was madly in love with Buffy and he decided to explore exactly what that meant. It sort of came to them in the progress of telling the tale, just who Spike was as a character came to him through the telling - the story told him who Spike was. Which means figuring out authorial intent in regards to that relationship or even Spike for that matter feels a bit like asking James Joyce what he was thinking when he was writing Ulysses or what I intend when I write half the stuff I do in this live journal. I'm not entirely sure the writers know, except that they were admittedly exploring power and control issues - as they state over and over again in commentary. And the Spike/Buffy relationship has always been about power and control. They have a sort of tug of war battle going on between them - a dance of wills. Who can get the upper hand. Since they are more or less evenly matched and about the same physical type, size and shape, it is hard to tell.
My difficulty with fandom in relation to the Buffy/Spike arc is well the fandom split into at least seven factions [actually make that 9 and possibly even more, since I'm certain I've left out a couple], all certain they were right, that their opinion is most important, and how could anyone on the planet see it otherwise.
1) The first faction is what I like to call the Fundies - this group had problems with the fact that Spike loved Buffy, mostly because they assumed Angel didn't love her without a soul. They more or less took everything Giles tells Buffy in Welcolme to the Hellmouth and Harvest as the gospel or book on the series.
2)The second is what I like to call the evilistas - this group liked Spike with Drusilla, evil, the big bad, and felt he was emasculated or whipped or made uncool a la Fonzie in the latter days of Happy Days, and as a result was ruined as a character when he fell for Buffy.
3) The third group is the redemptionistas - this group wanted Spike to be redeemed without getting a soul, they wanted to see if he could become good and choose to become good via the chip. Some redemptionistas just wanted him to be redeemed and loved the soul arc.
4) The fourth group, dislikes Buffy and thinks Spike is redeemed in S6, that he is not evil, that Buffy is a bitch for not loving him back, and that she is the guilty party and needs to take responsibility for her actions and Spike is better off without her. Or this group believes that Spike is fine the way he is, and Buffy is horrible for not wanting to be his mate and run off with him. And that she's the monster. Not Spike. She's the one who should be taking responsibility. In S7 - they felt that her treatment of him was horrendous in the first five episodes. [This group broke off from the fandom during S6, specifically the episodes Gone and Dead Things.]
5) The fifth group - thinks that Spike was a rapist and misogynist and racist to boot, and how could anyone in their right mind like the character or the B/S relationship after Seeing Red and/or Lies My Parents Told Me, after he killed Robin Wood's cool mother, and found the majority of the B/S scenes after LMPTM to be gross. This group doesn't believe Spike can be redeemed until he burns or does away with or buries Nikki Wood's jacket. And hated the episode Touched because as they put it, Buffy cuddling with her attempted "rapist" sickened them. [ETC - this is not intended as a trivalization of the fans who disliked Spike because the character for various and understandable reasons triggered a negative response. We all have that reaction from time to time to a fictional character - I did to Robin Wood, which is why I rarely discuss the character or interact with fans of the character. It does however address those fans who feel the need to criticize and condemn other fans for liking a character that pushes their buttons. These are the fans who fought in the Spike Wars and make it difficult to discuss the tv show online. The ones who were upset by the character and chose to stop watching or picking up the comics..reacted much the same way I reacted to the British TV Show The Office. Like I said, we all have our buttons and triggers. Tolerating those who like things we hate is not as easy as it looks, particularly if the reason we hate something is grounded in a real life experience that gives us nightmares.]
6) The sixth group -thought it was an amazing romance, loved both characters and want them to ride off into the sunset together and have lots of kids.
7) Then of course there is a seventh group - which is those of us who loved both characters, possibly even all the characters, loved analyzing the relationship, possibly all relationships, and really don't necessarily see B/S riding off into the sunset and having lots of kids nor particularly want that.
8. The Spikestas or Spike Universialists - People who are ambivalent about the character of Buffy and not really fans of the B/S ship or rather ambivalent about it, but loved Spike no matter what he did, and also loved other characters, regardless of their feelings towards Spike. Spike universialists often ship S/R and S/X per example.
9. The ninth group who was ambivalent about the character of Spike, the B/S relationship, and probably shipped someone else and tried to ignore or made snarky comments about factions 1-8. This group was annoyed by Spikefans and the antiSpike fan arguements that took over the boards.
[The B/A, B/X, and B/R shippers also fall in there somewhere. And there are folks who fall between or within more than one section depending on their mood. I've admittedly clumped a couple of folks together such as the SpikeUniversalistas and the BuffyUniversalistas. You can't pigeon hole people no matter how hard you try.]
These groups fight like crazy. And when the show was on the air - the fights were called "The Spike Wars" - making some fans hate the character and the show in the latter seasons, because they had little tolerance for the conflict it created (see #9). The fights, which have not ended by the way, make it difficult to discuss the B/S relationship or Spike on line. It is probably worth noting that I count as friends representatives from each and every one of the factions listed above and have fought with each of them regarding the topic to the point in which we decided in order to preserve the friendship to agree to disagree. Or at least something to that effect. And yes, I know I generalized on those catgories, like I said people defy pigeon holing. I'm in faction 7, in guess you haven't guessed.
The romantic relationship doesn't really pick up speed until Fool for Love - which I think is the first time that Spike really hits on Buffy, or attempts to hit on Buffy. She denies him of course and rightly so. Since he is discussing death. Spike in his head has to a degree mixed sex/love/and death. As Buffy states to Holden Webster in Conversations with Dead People much later - what is it with you vampires - and sex and violence and death? Also in Spike's speech to Buffy - he states - "Death is your gift, you create it with your hands, day after day" - it is the speech of a killer speaking to another killer. And it is similar to Dracula's statement to Buffy - in which he calls her killer, and Riley's in Restless, in which he says, be like that "killer". Both Dracula and Riley - are romantically involved with Buffy when they state it, or trying to seduce her. Spike is doing much the same thing here.
The Darla backstory is on Angel at the same time - and in that story, Darla is telling Angel to kill a child, Darla is celebrating Spike killing a slayer, and Darla is begging Angel to kill her, to make her a vampire, to take away the pain of the soul. Spike is telling Buffy that is what she wants - she wants to die. And when that happens, when she admits it, he'll walk in, "Death", and have himself a great day. He's "death". He defines himself as "death" in the episode. And another title for the episode could well be Buffy's date with Death. Except, in watching the Spike/Buffy relationship unfold from that relationship forward, it slowly becomes apparent that Spike wants the opposite from Buffy. He doesn't want to die, he wants to live. He wants to be a man. He no longer wants to be "dead". It's the opposite of Darla - who wants to "die" to become "dead", here Spike wants to feel alive. Buffy makes him feel like he's not dead - which is what he literally sings to her in OMWF.
The next bunch of episodes set up the power-play push-me, pull-me dynamic that appears later. This power play or weird dance is set up in Fool For Love. Buffy dances with Death. Death comes to her door with a gun, but instead of killing her, he sits down and comforts her on the illness of her mother. She reciprocates by bringing her mother and sister to death's/spike's door, in order to protect them from Glory. But she blames him when her sister, Dawn, finds out what she is, the key. Then asks his assistance in finding her sister. She pushes him aside when he declares his love, then he chains her up to force her to admit hers, only to have her lock him out of her house and her life. He makes a robot version of her to cope, the robot unfortunately draws Glory's attention to him, and her minions capture him thinking he's the key. To protect Dawn's identity, he endures Glory's torture and barely escapes with his life. This act of courage and complete self-lessness - moves Buffy to kiss him. It changes everything. She lets him back into her life and tells him that it is one act that she will never forget. The rest is unreal. It is the first time that Buffy truly acknowledges the man inside of Spike and he changes, he becomes more like he once was - the fool for love, and not death, not the killer. He is her knight errant. Her hero. Yet, when his moment of glory comes, he falls off the tower, crashes to the ground, unable to save the damsel. It is Buffy who saves her, and Buffy who equally falls off, but to her death. Spike, already dead, survives. Buffy, alive, dies.
When Buffy is brought back to life by her friends, she feels undead. Or like she should be dead. Physically depressed. I'm not sure if you've ever experienced physical depression? It's not the same as emotional depression. Physical depression is when you contemplate suicide in reality, not just think about it, but actually consider it, because that would mean you could just sleep forever, be warm, be safe, and not feel. The world hurts when you are physically depressed. It hurts to open your eyes. To think. To care. Everything seems pointless. Buffy is dead inside when she crawls out of her grave. And the world she crawls out to is literally on fire. It is not the world that she left.
She goes to Spike - but not as a man, as death. The person who spoke to her in Fool for Love. Who said, sooner or later you will want it and when you do? I'll be there and have myself a real good day. But Spike doesn't greet her as death, he greets her as well the knight errant, the man she let back into her house, the man who grieved her loss, and is filled with self-loathing for not being able to save her sister, for failing on his promise. The man who would die a hundred times to bring her back and who has literally counted every day that she has been gone. It is not death who meets her, even if he has a knife in his hand and starts off with a wry threat. He drops the knife quickly. Tells her that she can sit. And then surprises her with a monologue about how he wants her to know that he hadn't forgotten about his promise. That he knows that he failed her. That it is his fault she died. And how every night he saves her.
Perhaps it is the speech that makes it possible for her to tell him the truth that she cannot tell her friends. At any rate at the end of the episode Afterlife, Buffy leaves her friends momentarily to be alone. And finds Spike lurking in the shadows. It is broad daylight. She is clearly surprised to see him. Since it is daylight. Death lurking in the shadows. He can't come fully into the light. And she tells him where she was, that she was happy, and that she wants to go back. She wants to be dead.
The next few episodes she spends trying not to give into her own death wish. Trying to cope. Trying to be happy for her friends. But each time she seeks out Death - Spike, she drinks with him, she chats with him, she enjoys fighting with him, and she flirts with him. He alone seems to get it. She feels dark and empty and there he is.
He is acting very subdued. A knight errant. Stalwart. Careful. Only occassionally does he fall into the manipulative role ...the kitty poker, and the drinking. Telling Buffy she belongs with him, in the dark, as a slayer. That she should be the slayer, not the normal girl. In S5 she desperately wanted to be the normal girl and was struggling with the slayer, in fact she kills herself in order to save the normal girl - her sister who is in her head at least also herself. Here, she's back, and she's wondering if the normal girl has a life or a purpose outside of the slayer.
It's really not until OMWF and Smashed, that the relationship takes the mind-blowing subversive turn that caused fandom to split into nine factions, although to a degree they already had with the introduction of Spike in S4. But in S6, things get interesting.
Buffy and Spike do a couple of role reversals. Even before Once More With Feeling - Spike and Buffy have to a degree reversed roles. When Buffy comes back this round, its very different than When She Was Bad - here, Buffy plays the vigilante hero, the dark knight, to Spike's femme fatale informant. Some fans have even equated Spike with the villianous Bond girl with the heart of gold. OR the bad boy with the heart of gold. But he is actually more in the girl role here. Since Buffy has all the power. He has very little. She can lock him out at any time. It's not until Smashed that he gets a bit of his power back - he can hurt her and that's when they have sex for the first time. Because he can hurt her. He is now her equal. Before that point, they don't have sex.
Yet...he's not her equal. He keeps trying to be. It feels a lot like the old Philip Marlow romance - where he flirts with the shadow lady, sleeps with her, but goes back home to his gal Friday. Was this intentional on the part of the writers? To have Buffy in the role of the stoic male hero who beats his mistress, uses her for sex, knows she will most likely betray him, and would like to save her, but knows it's not possible because she is beneath him? Angel the Series - in that series we have Lilah and Wes. Wes and Lilah is the trope. The writers do almost the same tale with these two characters. They also do it with Angel and Darla, with Darla in the femme fatal position. And Angel can't really redeem her, without her getting pregnant and the kid doing it. But in Buffy it's the opposite.
In my previous posts/metas on Buffy/Angel and Buffy/Riley - I pointed out how the theme of paternalism and sexism keeps popping up and being explored. Buffy is a horror series. And the writer wrote it as a response to the blatant sexism in horror films that he had seen. The pretty blond girl has sex, goes into an alley, and gets killed. In the Buffy/Spike relationship - the sexism is explored in a new and different way - or rather the power play between the genders is. Buffy's own power is explored. And it is to a degree explored in relation to Spike. What is odd about the exploration and potentially subversive is that Buffy is in the role of the man in the relaltionship or the traditional male role. She is playing the noir male hero - and Spike the noir female romantic interest, the bad girl who may betray you or may have a heart of gold, it's never clear. Spike's the girl from the wrong side of the tracks, the one you can't trust. He's treated like a dumb blond at times. The other woman. The dirty secret. And like the mistress or other woman - he keeps insisting Buffy tell her friends about them, that Buffy let him into her life, or better yet leave her friends and go off with him. When they are together, he doesn't want her to leave. In the Buffy/Riley, Buffy/Angel relationships - Riley and Angel are leaving Buffy's bed, her side. But here, Buffy is leaving Spike's bed, his side.
His relationship with Dawn in earlier episodes is almost maternal in some ways. He never quite succeeds in protecting her. Buffy does, Spike not so much. But Spike unlike Buffy, can talk to Dawn and seems to connect with her in earlier episodes. (As an aside the writers stopped the Spike/Dawn interaction when they noticed that there was chemistry between the actors and that bothered them. I always found that funny in an ironic sort of way.)
They both stay the gender they currently are. Their roles just have flipped. And what is also a bit mind-blowing is that writers took the hero to that place, they had the hero actually use the villian to jerk off. Granted, I've seen it done with male heroes, but not female ones. And not quite in this way.
Nor do most shows take the hero to the depths that Buffy the Vampire Slayer took Buffy. They explore Buffy's dark side in S6. They don't use another character, such as Faith to do it as they did in S3. Nor do they use another couple such as Dru and Spike. They drop the easy metaphor and explore Buffy's issues regarding her own power, her own sexuality, and her dark impulses through her relationship with Spike. He is death, he is her alter-ego, he is her demon.
And I think part of the reason the audience freaked out the way they did is that in that exploration, the writers also explored gender roles. Women - the writers stated could be abusive, they could be powerful, they could be in control, they aren't just victims.
Xander is the weakest character on the show. He has no power. As the series progresses, Willow the former damsel becomes more and more powerful, capable of fighting alongside Buffy, while Xander is often told to get to safety. It is Xander that Buffy tells in S7 to get Dawn to safety. "Women and children must not fight in wars" - except in Season 7 the "women" being told to stay safe are "Xander" from Buffy, and "Robin Wood" from Faith. Xander takes on the traditional "girl Friday" role, or female best friend role, while Spike takes on the traditional femme fatal or bad girl who can be redeemed role. He's not really the bad boy who gets redeemed so much as the bad girl. Sure there is a whole "momma" complex and "savior" complex theme going on in S7, but in S6, there really isn't.
Buffy launches herself at Spike in Smashed. She inserts his penis into herself. She jumps onto it. There's a deleted scene in which she is literally riding him, while he lies prone below, she isn't looking at him, she's just riding him, having an orgasm. It's similar to a man riding a woman from behind, not looking at her face, and having the orgasm. The house comes down around them. And the next morning, she leaves, while he is stuck in the ruins. In the trope, it is the opposite. Heck in the series itself, up to this point, it has been the opposite, from Angel to Parker. Compare Innocence to Wrecked, in Innocence - Angelus describes sex with Buffy as not all that, then in Wrecked, Buffy describes sex with Spike as not all that. You were convienent she tells him. Just as Angelus tells her - yeah it was swell. But that's all it was. Note the role reversial. Buffy is not the romantic female here. She's abusive to her lover. She beats him up. She feels guilty about it. She tells him he is not her boyfriend and she is not his love. She denies him. All things that Spike does to Harmony and Wes to Lilah.
Before Smashed, before Once More With Feeling - Buffy's relationship with Spike is a role reversial. She's his boss. She tells him what to do. She orders him around. Compare to Angel who comes and says, do this and do that in his own series and in Buffy provides guidance and advice. Or Riley - who does much the same thing. Here, with Spike, Buffy is telling Spike what to do. In All the Way, she enters his crypt without knocking, throws a cross-bow at him and instructs him to help her find Dawn and take down the vamps. If she doesn't want his help, she says get lost. In earlier episodes in S5 - she says, this is my job, go elsewhere. I don't need you holding me back. Much like Batman might scold Catwoman, or DareDevil would scold Electra. OR Angel scolds Cordy.
The gender role reversal in of itself is clearly deliberate. It is done systematically and consistently throughout the series and is commented on by the writers. Who state that they are interested in power and who has it, and in particular female empowerment. Our society is sexist. When we have children, we dress the boys in baseball outfits and blue, the girls in pink and frilly dresses. Women get manicures, wear dresses, and look pretty, boys play sports, wear pants, and never get a manicure. (Of course this is not true, but it is what is expected.) The guy is not the sex object in cinema or tv, the woman is supposed to be. Women have traditionally played that role. Men are the firemen, the soliders, the cops, the doctors, while women are the nurses, teachers, cooks, day-care workers and fashion designers. But this is not true. There are women firefighters, cops, and doctors, just as there are male nurses, teachers, day-care workers, and fashion designers. Our gender is not the only thing that defines us, and it does not define who we become. Whedon in Buffy is underlining this idea - Buffy - a cute, sexy, girl, who likes the NEW Kids on the Block, painting her nails, and dancing, is a vampire slayer - who hunts and fights vampires. Traditional male territory. She is the weapon. And her relationship with Spike including how she handles the attempted rape and how she deals with him afterwards, is traditional male territory. She is not the victim. She does not allow herself to be one. She saves him not the other way around.
It's unsettling for fans to see their heroine beat up her bad-boy lover, have sex with him while invisible, and use him for sex but not love. "I'm Buffy's soddin sex slave" - Spike states to Xander in a half mutter. Normally the female role in these shows. He's the sex object. Not her. In Gone - an invisible Buffy goes to Spike, strips him of his clothes, and has her fiendish way with him. The film The Hollow Man with Kevin Bacon - the protagonist/villian does a similar thing - he goes after the heroine and has his fiendish way with her. In fact there's a whole slew of tv shows and films where an invisible "man" goes and spies on the women in the nude in a lockerroom. Here, Spike is nude. Buffy invisible. Buffy has her way with Spike. The metaphor of course is the same as the one in Fool For Love - Buffy is dancing with death. She is gone, invisible, dead. He is visible, alive. She is not treating him like a man, she is treating him like death. She is making love to death. At the end of Gone, when she becomes visible, she moves away from Spike a bit and back towards her family and friends. Life. Then in Doublemeat Palace back to death. It's back and forth throughout, until finally in Grave, when Spike/Death has left the premises, she crawls out of her grave, and Spike gets a soul to a strand of song stating ..."and it is only by dying that we get eternal life..". It's the opposite of the Buffy/Angel relationship - where Willow curses Angelus with a soul and Buffy kills Angel the man, sending him to hell, and goes there herself, fighting her way back without him in S3 episode Anne and Dead Mans' Party. Here, Buffy crawls out of her grave, as Spike regains his soul. While in Bargaining - Spike wants to die, and in Afterlife, hits his hands against the wall, copying Buffy's scratches on her knuckles from crawling out of her grave. Bargaining ends at night, in a horrorfic landscape, hell on earth. Both Spike and Buffy are in hell. In Grave, they are climbing out of hell and into the bright light.
Is this subversive? Yes and no. In part. The portion that is - is the role reversal.
And the hero's actions specifically in the middle episodes of the season. The hero going there with the villian yet not in a romantic way. The hero becoming monsterous, giving into her darker impulses, if only for a little while. That is subversive, perhaps. And that is in part what upset so many people online. But because the hero goes there, the hero is able to see Spike in a different light in season 7. She has a better understanding of the demon inside, that dark impulse. She understands him perhaps better than he understands himself. And what she fights for in S7 is his ability to choose who he is, for all of their ability to do so...to become something better. That's the other theme the relationship addresses - choosing how we define ourselves and our roles, not letting society and outsiders do it, whether they be a Watcher's Council, our friends, or our lovers.
It's late and I've rambled long enough. Going to bed. Am thinking strongly of seeing a bunch of co-ops in Forest Hills tomorrow.
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Date: 2009-08-05 09:42 pm (UTC)I adore your essay, and the entire gender-reversal aspect of Spike's character (even with Dru) is part of what makes him so enduring, IMO. I love the way you've highlighted Buffy's similarities to other (almost always male) anti-heroes in S6. Quite cool. I don't think I would have enjoyed BtVS so much if it wasn't for all the complicated, difficult, blurry morality. So much more interesting that the usual fare.