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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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no subject
Date: 2009-08-01 04:59 am (UTC)with regard to Spike I am both #7 AND #3:
I wanted Spike's redemption, but in my eyes his choosing to regain his soul was his redemption, but of course having to actually function in the world with that soul made for even further character development in S7... so it all worked for me.
In Eastern religions (unlike Christianity) your deeds are all important, and not your motives, so at the end of S2 when Spike helps Buffy save the world, he had terrible reasons... but he earned some serious good karma.
And just like in RL that good karma took the most inconvenient form: he was given a chip in his head which forced him to change his life style, and kept him from playing with the other vampires (leaving him thrown together more and more with the Scoobies).
From my point of view it was brilliant, and falling in love with Buffy was (from my POV) even more good karma (more highly humiliating and inconvenient good karma) which came from him helping the Scoobies.... He wanted to entice Buffy into the darkness with him, but in the end he was forced to go off and seek his soul.
I loved his character arc, and I loved seeing him trying to find his way on Angel's season 5....
Brian Lynch has done a masterful job of capturing the redeemed soulful vampire who still has the snark, humor, and many of the other faults he always had (because of course those would all still be there).
Anyway I love your essay above, I really feel that the relationship between Buffy and Spike really moved both characters forward in such interesting ways. While the relationship between Buffy and Angel always seemed to still be stuck in High School. But that is not to say that Buffy would end up with Spike, I've actually been happy w/them completely divided in the comic books....
no subject
Date: 2009-08-01 05:41 am (UTC)I have nothing to add because I think this is all brilliant. And I find it amusing, as I was just doing some more of my write-up of Buffy's depression and how Spike is representative of the death that she's missing and craving in S6.
I love your thoughts.
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Date: 2009-08-01 06:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-01 07:27 am (UTC)But then, so much murk! I really struggled with the attempted rape. I felt that if Spike loved then he would not rape, if he did rape then he did not love. Simple as. In retrospect, I had completely overlooked the power dynamic and abuse that Buffy gives out through season 6 (or deliberately turned a blind eye). I suppose I was overlaying my own black and white view of sexual power and violence. The discomfort with the storyline from then on is I guess what the writers were trying to get me to explore.
Lovely analysis as always. I hope that those involved in making Buffy/Angel read this blog from time to time because you really are incredibly good. :)
no subject
Date: 2009-08-01 01:17 pm (UTC)I was a redemptionista pretty much in the same way that you were. Quite a few of them, however, believed that the soul counteracted what they wanted. I remember having long arguments with my pal J about it.
Others, like and I, saw it more well the way you describe above .
I think what was at the root of some of the arguments, is how people define redeemption. Some of the factions are somewhat "rigid" or "black and white" in their worldview. You are either good or you are ever.
There is no in between. Their definition of redemption is Angel's, which is the "shanshu" - being washed of all sin, being the pristine white knight. Perfect. And your "motivation" matters almost more than your action.
It is the Judeo/Christian Western cultural perspective that your motivation is more important than the action.
Why you did it, matters more than what. God grants "redemption" and "forgiveness" - no one else.
And if you make mistakes or are cruel, then clearly not redeemed. It's pretty much the all or nothing argument.
I don't look at life that way. I see it pretty much how you described above.
no subject
Date: 2009-08-01 01:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-01 01:27 pm (UTC)Joss now pops into Whedonesque from time to time. But he didn't back then. The only board they read was Bronze Beta - which is mostly chat and no essays, and now, with the comics, whedonesque which is also chat. I think they have to a degree read a few of the scholarly works that have been published or the tv critical reviews. But fan stuff? Probably not.
Would love it if they did. But I guess a small part of me is relieved that they don't. ;-)
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Date: 2009-08-01 01:45 pm (UTC)According to
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Date: 2009-08-01 01:56 pm (UTC)I included the universalistas in seven. I may go back to clarify that.
I wrote essays on every character in the series and enjoyed characters who did not like Spike. (Example: Riley)
no subject
Date: 2009-08-01 01:58 pm (UTC)But mostly? I think a lot of people arguing this position always hated Spike, and are justifying their dislike.... While in fact they just resent Angel leaving Sunnydale and they want him to return so that he and Buffy can be all tragic forever (until the show crashed and burned from boredom).
JMPO of course. hee
no subject
Date: 2009-08-01 02:19 pm (UTC)Sometimes discussing Spike with an Angel or B/A fan, particularly the diehard ones, feels a bit like discussing Obama with a George W. Bush or John McCain fan - you don't do it.
no subject
Date: 2009-08-01 02:26 pm (UTC)It is true: I left several message boards because I hated having to read 'kill Spike' every time I went to those boards... or having the same circular arguments with the same people every day.
Luckily I found Crumbling Walls and eventually Marsters Mobsters... I wasn't interested in fan fic, and (re: MM) I wasn't as big a James Marsters fan as most of them, but at least I was talking to people who agreed that Spike was an interesting character with a fantastic story arc!
It made it easier to discuss all aspects of the unfolding Buffy story when I didn't have to constantly discuss Seeing Red.
OTOH too many of the Marsters fans watched the show as though he was the star, and Spike was the central character, which made it really difficult to discuss Buffy's role! lol
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Date: 2009-08-01 02:47 pm (UTC)Also, I sort of like to argue about things, but am not crazy about conflict. What can I say take the girl out of law school but you can't quite take the law school out of the girl. I did litigation in law school as well as negotiation. And I do it for a living, more or less.
At any rate - I preferred boards like Buffy Cross and Stake (until I got sick of being spoiled), Angel's Soul Board (also until I got sick of being spoiled) and
the ATPO board - because the vast majority of fans were actually universalists. They liked to analyze and figure out the show. Sure there were a few that fell into the first 6 factions, but the vast majority were mostly interested in lively discussion. I could ignore the ones that made my blood boil. And like I said, on my flist, I have representatives of every faction mentioned above and just about every ship in the series. While I may find their pov and worldview exceedingly frustrating at times, I figure they must feel the same way about mine - but we seem to agree on other things. Heck, the best boss I ever had, the lady who is responsible for getting me my current job is a diehard George W. Bush fan. She loved Bush. She loved
Regan. She hates and is afraid of Obama. We occassionally discuss politics, but I do it with a sense of humor.
Per example - just the other day, we were discussing going to DC. She said if she went, she'd have to resist the urge to blow up the White House. I laughed and said in response, well I get that, I felt much the same way while George W was in office. And let it go at that. I know of at least four wonderful people that fit under faction 4 or is it 5 - the one that can't understand how anyone in their right mind could like Spike after Seeing Red or Lies My Parents Told ME or like the B/S relationship. They are amazing. We just don't agree on that issue and a few others here and there.
no subject
Date: 2009-08-01 02:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-02 01:32 am (UTC)The eight and ninth factions are:
8. Spike universialistas - people ambivalent about Buffy and not really into Spuffy, but love Spike no matter what, and loved other characters - often ones who did not like him.
(This is different from faction 7 in that they are ambivalent about Buffy and the B/S ship.)
9. People ambivalent about Spike who were extremely annoyed with how the character took over the fanboards. (the writer of a fangirl's guide to the Spike wars is most likely an example of faction 9).
no subject
Date: 2009-08-02 04:09 am (UTC)To be honest, I started blinded by cheekbones of heaven but I got bored worshiping. Spike is my one and only true love so to speak, but this didn't stop me trying to understand and appreciate the other characters, especially Angel and Buffy. Right now I'm reading old threads on shipping wars and I can certainly say that active B/Aers, a mix of 1,2 and 5 or your group, are the worst haters towards Spike and S/B.
no subject
Date: 2009-08-02 04:35 am (UTC)"your group"???
Huh?
Please clarify.
Faction 7 is similar to faction 8, the only difference is we love Buffy and Spike. Although most of us prefer Spike a little to Buffy and on some occassions Buffy a little to Spike. Depending on our moods.
Or were you referring to faction 9? I can't remember the numbers that well.
I adore Spike by the way. But I liked the other characters for the most part.
no subject
Date: 2009-08-02 06:27 am (UTC)a mix of 1,2 and 5 ON your group list
big apologies
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Date: 2009-08-02 02:02 pm (UTC)Your attempt at classification for fandom made me laugh: it's so accurate though of course nobody can be exactly pigeonholed as you recognized it yourself. :)
For my part, I'd probably would be a cross between 7 and 8: when I write meta it's mostly about Spike (though non exclusive) but enjoys reading well thought meta on other characters too. I love Spike in all his incarnations (except in season 5 of Ats which IMO fails to do anything really interesting for the character)but my reasons for appreciating him differ wildly in each cases. Like you, certain groups in fandom leaves me a bit unsettled : group 2 for example I can understand, it's just a question of taste but "fundies", to understand can anyone can have such a simplistic and rigid reading of a show so full of complexities, discontinuities, which continually evolves is beyond me.
In regard to the rest of your post, three points come to the fore:
- it's rare to see someone underlining the human side of Spike before soul like you do, though, IMO it's impossible to understand the character's arc without it. It's one of the foundations of the character that had been laid as far as season 2 even though they only really began to make something with it from season 5 on.
- Buffy and Spike relationship in season 6 is really complex and works on several levels but one of the hardest thing in it is to see how what she dismisses in Spike is not so much the monster but the man. It's never totally clear to me if she really doesn't see him or if she doesn't want to see him. I tend to think the latter, and for me that's where the real monstrosity lays.
- Buffy in season 7 is litteraly a liberator for Spike : the whole is season is saturated with images of alienations and liberations. Though Spike plays a role in his own liberation. I made a piece of meta on this subject once : you can find it in my LJ (archives, april the 7th, 2008) if it interests you.
no subject
Date: 2009-08-02 02:06 pm (UTC)Hee.
no subject
Date: 2009-08-02 02:46 pm (UTC)On point two...the fact that Buffy keeps dismissing the man in Spike? I don't think she does completely. I think she struggles with what she sees. Her relationship with Spike is in some respects the inverse of her relationship with Angel. With Angel she kept denying the monster in him, pretending it didn't exist. Claiming it was not there. Even when he became the monster. When it popped up, she'd back away, then drift back again - believing that the man predominated. During this portion of her journey she's righteous and true, she believes what her watchers have told her lock stock and barrell. Her belief is the vampire is not the human, the human is gone, the vampire is masquerading as the human, it's just an act. Then Angel throws a wrench into that, but he tells her he has a soul. He does not say - I'm human now because I have a soul. Nor does he say that the demon is gone. He says - can you imagine what it would be like to have done all the things I have and to care? Kill me if you wish, I won't stop you.
Buffy hears - oh, I'm human now and the monster isn't in control. We know this because in Dopplegangland and Lie to Me, she reiterates what Giles has told her - that the vampire is not you. And Angel, in Dopplegangland steps forward and almost corrects her, then quickly backtracks. It's not until Enemies S3 Buffy and Sanctuary in S1 Angel - that Buffy begins to see that she may have had this wrong.
With Spike...she's struggling with the fact that there's a man inside. She recognizes that he is there - if she didn't, she would not do some of the things she does. She certainly sees him in Afterlife. And she sees him in As You Were - when she states - I'm sorry, William. But, she has to dimiss him. She has to think of him as the monster - because it justifies her own actions towards him. He gets that on a certain level - when he sings in Once More with Feeling - "whisper in a dead mans ear, it isn't real" and "since I'm only dead to you..."
That's what frustrates him in S6. In S5 - she had begun to treat him like a man - she brought her mother and sis to him for protection, she kissed him and told him what he'd done for her and Dawn had been heroic, she asked his help to get them out of Sunnydale, she included him in the fight against Glory.
He assumes when she returns that she is still seeing him in that light. But Buffy is depressed. When you are depressed you can't see anything, everything is gray, colorless, meaningless. There is no light. There is only gray. Drab. And you fall a little bit in love with the idea of death. She doesn't see Spike when she comes back. She sees the escape he can provide her. There are moments that she sees what she is doing to him - in Dead Things, in As You Were, in Hells Bells,
and to a degree in Entropy and Seeing Red - part of the reason she doesn't let Xander stake him in either episode is because she does acknowledge the man and she even refers to the man in her discussion with Xander. But she cannot acknowledge the man inside, because to do so - makes her the monster and brings into question what she does each night, what she has been taught, and her worldview. And Buffy has a monster inside - a darker impulse. We all do. The writer is exploring the darker impulse. In the S5 commentary they state - when you discover that darker side of your power, how do you deal with it? Do you embrace it? Do you forsake it along with the good? Do you kill yourself? Or do you learn to live with it?
The writer talks about this arc in Restless - where Buffy denies she's a demon, a killer, but as we learn in S7, she does have a demon inside her - that is where her power comes from. She's kindred to the vampire.
Will be sure to check out your meta when I get the chance. Thank you for mentioning it.
I'm going to throw a bucket of cold water on you here...
Date: 2009-08-05 07:49 pm (UTC)You missed a fairly big group of Buffy fans:
People who hate Spike because they've heard just about every word he ever said to Buffy through the entirety of Season 6 from the mouths of their real-life abusive boyfriends. Or they heard it come out of the mouths of the real-life abusive boyfriends of their best friends in college.
Just to say: There are people out there who were severely triggered by the whole S6 Spike thing for very good reasons. I fell into the "my best friend had Spike as her abusive boyfriend" group, and I more than once had to run interference to get her away from him. Sadly, he never stayed away long...until he finally got nailed for his 3 DUI and had to flee the state.
Aside from my friend that I got to witness in real time, I knew a couple of people who had that Buffy-Spike abusive relationship lurking in their past (wherein they were subject to all the evil crap that came out of Spike's mouth during that season in real life...sometimes accompanied by fists and sometimes not). By the end of the season, every single one of them had stopped watching show. Not one of them wants anything at all to do with BtVS — they don't buy the DVDs, comics, or any fan-related things. They just voted with their eyeballs and wallets.
The worst part is when I'd try to discuss this during S6 or S7 or try to explain why some fans actually had a very good reason for hating the ship (which by the way is a very different thing from hating the shippers), I'd get dogpiled by Spike/Buffy fans. Then my explanation for why was basically dismissed as "unimportant" and (even better) I was accused of lying.
So...yeah. I feel like the list you've got above trivializes a few things, or is dismissive of people who don't agree with you on Spike or Spike/Buffy for what may be some very, very good real-life reasons.
Here via su_herold
Date: 2009-08-05 08:42 pm (UTC)Something I’ve been wondering is how much being around in fandom at the time affected the way people perceived things/which categories they fell into. I mean, for me it was easy enough to be like “Oh look, both of these characters are interesting and their relationship is interesting, awesome.” The only people I talked to about it as I watched were RL friends who all either liked Spike, liked Buffy/Spike, or didn’t care about that relationship at all. Thus, I could just squee about how fascinating it was without having to defend that position against someone who actively disagreed.
But if I’d been participating in a fandom where I felt that that opinion was being attacked all the time? I feel like I probably would have been pushed into a different category, or end up with stronger negative feelings about other characters, or something. For instance, while I love B/S the most I also quite enjoy B/A, but my guess is that if I’d been in the fandom, I would have ended up retroactively disliking B/A.
And I definitely think I would have been a lot more of a redemtionista, and probably would have ended up arguing things I don’t really believe. As you discuss above, a lot of people see redemption (here and in other fandoms) as a rather black and white thing: you have to become a great, perfect person, and as a Spike fan, I’m pretty sure I would have ended up trying to defend him in those terms.
But I’ve been thinking about it, and for me, if there is a morally gray character that I like (which there almost always is—my love of Spike is in no way unprecedented!), I almost always would like to see them redeemed, but that redemption can be a small thing – one step in the right direction when it matters, not a past-erasing reversal of character. Indeed, Spike getting a soul and then sacrificing himself at the end of S7 are both much BIGGER gestures than some other characters I love make. No, he does not become a perfect person after getting his soul, but that was never what I was looking for.
So, yeah, I’m not really sure what point I’m making, other than to say this is all really interesting and, for me, a n00b to Buffy, brings up a lot of questions about why people react the way they do to things – how much of it is innate opinion, and how much of it is innate opinion that is then pushed to more extreme places because of fan interaction?
no subject
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.
Re: I'm going to throw a bucket of cold water on you here...
Date: 2009-08-05 09:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-06 01:49 am (UTC)This made me feel the Buffy love. She's sunk so low and so far from the person she wants to be in Season 6. In Season 7, she's still feeling the effects of that, so terribly tired and outnumbered and inexperienced. But she doesn't give up on either of them. My hero. :)
Re: I'm going to throw a bucket of cold water on you here...
Date: 2009-08-06 02:03 am (UTC)Not sure why you responded and didn't let it slip? I'm guessing because this means a lot to you?
If you read the post carefully, you'd have noted that I said more than once that people defy pigeon-holing and there's probably more categories. I was discussing the factions that annoyed me or I factored myself in. I was explaining why I find it difficult at times to discuss this thing I love on my own live journal, without defriending or filtering out half my flist. And being me, I was poking fun at it. Because that's how I deal with things that bug me - I poke fun, I don't mean to trivalize, I make fun of it. Black humor if you will.
Regarding your experience? I've had the same ones with fans and friends. But across a much broader spectrum and associated with far more characters than you. I wish I could say Spike is the only character of this series or any other that I've seen fans react this way to. He's not. God, the number of fans who felt that way about Xander...I grew sick of defending the character. Or Buffy. Or Willow - oh god, the Willow haters. And there's also the Wes, Angel, Cordy, Darla, Connor (Connor's a big one), etc. And many for the same reasons you mention.
Like you, I had a friend who had and continues to seek relationships with men who I would describe as a lot like Spike. In fact it drove her to suicide. She tried to kill herself. She enjoyed Season 6 and the character by the way, but was never a fan of the show and did not like most of the other characters. My friend was a lot like Harmony in the Spike/Harmony relationship. So, trust me I have experience with this. My friend is an addictive and self-destructive personality. She, however, is not anything like the people in the show. And her boyfriends weren't Spike.
And if I had a dollar for every fan, several who actually told me their stories in person, over the phone, about how characters in a fictional "horror" television show that deals with difficult themes -reminded them of someone who hurt them and why didn't I hate the character like they did because that character obviously represented all that was bad - I'd be a wealthy woman. Heck if I had a dollar for every fan who said everything you wrote above about Xander, Buffy, Willow, etc..
I don't trivalize the pain. And as you know, I understand the trigger - Robin Wood triggered me - can't stand to watch him.
And I can't watch The Office either - especially the British version because the lead character has the exact mannerisms as a serial bully boss that abused me around 9/11 did. I want to vomit when I watch the British version of the Office. So I get triggers. What I do not understand is why people feel the need to condemn and criticize fans who are do not perceive the character in this way, who are not triggered, and may look at it differently. Doesn't their experiences count too? Doesn't their outlook?
I'm sorry if you felt I trivalized it. That was not my intent.
It's my sense of humor - to make fun of fandom, which I do a lot. I make fun of my own weird obsessive fixation on a tv show. But I am not making fun of your friends. And for the same reasons I can't watch the Office, they can't watch Buffy.
It's personal. What I object to is projecting that on to others - making them feel bad for liking a "fictional" character. Likeing a fictional character who is an anti-hero or hurts other fictional characters does not mean you like these types in real life. I don't. Unlike my friend - I stay clear of abusive and critical men - I'd never put up with what Anya did regarding Xander, and I'd never put up with Spike.
But that does not mean I can't adore and appreciate those characters - they are GREAT characters. I like soap operas too, but not in real life. In real life I've 0 tolerance for them.
Re: I'm going to throw a bucket of cold water on you here...
Date: 2009-08-06 02:09 am (UTC)Very well-said.
Thank you.
:)
Re: Here via su_herold
Date: 2009-08-06 02:18 am (UTC)I am a lot like you in my fictional tastes and I like Spike for the same reasons you do. I adore morally gray characters.
They fascinate me.
Re: Here via su_herold
Date: 2009-08-06 03:27 am (UTC)This is a really good point. Though I would distinguish between people who are turned off by a character because of some real-life related trigger (as Liz_marks was talking about), and those who are turned off because the character just doesn't jive with how they like their characters (fictional turn ons/offs, if you will). I think people who are reacting to a real-life parallel are generally going to have a hard time understanding those who forgive or find interesting that character not matter what, for very understandable reasons.
People who just don't like a character because they don't might be able to understand people who do like that character more often (and vica versa) if fandom wars didn't get in the way. Mild to extreme dislike of a character can get turned into searing hatred (and liking of a character can be turned into unwavering defense no matter what) by fandom arguments. Of course, at this point I'm moving to abstractions, because I wasn't around enough in the Buffy fandom to know if that might have been true in this case, but I've definitely seen it in other fandoms.
Of course, the line (between fictional kinks and real life triggers) is blurry. Even if they haven't actually experienced abuse (or whatever else, depending on the character), I guess some people just can't understand how someone could like a morally questionable character. This is something I've seen a lot when reading old Buffy meta -- people stop liking Buffy, or don't like Spike, or whatever, because they made X, Y, and Z questionable action. Often, fans of Buffy/Spike/whoever try to defend the action, while I'm sitting there like "why does it matter if this was the right thing to do in the real world?"
I don't care if fictional characters are someone I'd actually like in the real world, but apparently other people do. And it's true that that is a POV I sometimes have a hard time wrapping my head around. My only qualification for liking a character is finding them interesting or entertaining, qualities that have very little to do with how moral they are (if anything, I, like you, tend to find gray characters MORE interesting).
Re: I'm going to throw a bucket of cold water on you here...
Date: 2009-08-06 02:46 pm (UTC)Note that I am not getting on anyone for liking a character. Note that I didn't say "you should be ashamed of loving a character I hate" at all in response to you or anyone else here. Not only was it not said, it wasn't even implied.
In fact, had this been nothing more than a post singing the praises of Spike or Spuffy, I would've just skipped over the post completely (which is my S.O.P. since I have plenty of Spike fans and Spuffy shippers on my Flist). Love all the characters you want, love any character you want, love any ship you want. I simply don't care.
What I objected to (and what I was reacting to) was the dismissive tone you expressed against other fans. As someone who actually was driven off of several discussion boards because 1) I didn't like Spike and 2) Did like Xander, I tend to get a little nervous when I see posts like this where "those other awful fans over there" are pretty much dismissed as not being quite as legitimate as fans who agree with the OP. I very, very much don't want to return to those days, thankyouverymuch.
That's what I was reacting to, and that's why I felt I had to say something.
You said you didn't mean to, but from the tone of your post I couldn't actually tell that. At all.
Your response in which you're kind of accusing me of harshing your Spike-squee (and again, Spike-squee all you like...it's your LJ so you sure as hell don't need my or anyone else's permission to squee or get your hate on in your own space) says that you read waaaaaaay more into my objection than was actually there.
The whole of my objection, just to reiterate, can be boiled down to: "Don't you think you're being just a little too dismissive of other fans without trying to figure out where they're coming from?"
Again, no one says you have to do it. For myself, I've found that at least figuring out where other people are coming from makes fandom experience a lot more pleasant.
Also, I assumed that a public post meant that you were open to dissenting opinions (and again, my dissenting opinion was that you appear to be dissing fans who don't actually agree with you). If that was not the case, then I apologize.
If dissenting opinions aren't welcome on a post, you might want to indicate that. As for me, I usually slap "Don't bother commenting if you disagree." I've only done that on two posts, though, and neither one of them were fandom-related because opinions about characters or ships in the end aren't all that important in the grand scheme of things.
*shrug*
I'm sorry if I misread your post and overreacted, but not for nothing, it should be noted that you really misread my objection.
Re: Here via su_herold
Date: 2009-08-06 03:09 pm (UTC)This is precisely what happened in BtVS fandom, I'm afraid, and it made my fandom experience pretty much hellish. A lot of the different factions retreated to different boards, and each faction was absolutely convinced that they were the most picked-on faction in all of fandom.
By the way, none of the above was actually true. All of the factions were picked on equally. The trick was finding the fanboard where you were welcome (like dedicated character boards or 'ship boards), or where the moderators ruled with an iron fist to prevent flamewars between factions (TWoP).
Fandom was a very unpleasant place, shall we say. (And I should state that my response to
The problem with fanwars is this: I walked into online fandom at the end of S5 right when the "Spike wars" were heating up. I actually liked Spike as a character at the time (even as I kept scratching my head why the Scoobs didn't just stake his ass already, but hey, Spike entertained me and I was fine with it). Imagine when the shipwars started happening in S6 and suddenly I found myself no longer welcome on some corners because I disagreed with Spuffy and saw it as abusive.
Now, in a normal conversation, you try to explain your position. The other person tries to explain theirs. You go back-and-forth. It may get heated. In the end you agree to disagree and change the subject.
In fan wars? You get dog-piled, flamed, nasty emails and messages, told to kill yourself, accused of all kinds of things, and you kind of throw up your hands. The problem is, as the fanwars go on for years, you stop seeing "the other fans" as reasonable and see them as a solid block of unrelenting assholes. As soon as you "otherize" those people, you stop dealing with them, you stop interacting with them, and you don't bother getting their side of the story.
The fact is, I was always aware that I was dealing with a real-life trigger, and I tried like hell not to spill it over on real-life fans who for very good reasons of their own like the things that I don't. But when you get belittled enough over and over again by fans in the same faction when you state your case in a conversation thread on what's supposed to be a neutral discussion board...*shrug*...let's just say that all your good intentions about not painting all fans in the same fan faction with the same "they're all assholes" brush goes right out the window.
So, in short, my problem (and the problem of most of the people I hung out with online) was the nasty behavior of other fans and other fanfactions.
How bad was it? My objection above is actually a reaction against what back in the day would be taken as yet another fanwar/flamewar bait.
Re: Here via su_herold
Date: 2009-08-06 06:31 pm (UTC)Your description of how very nasty things were, at least for some people, definitely helps me understand what I'm finding as a dip my toe into the fandom now. I mean, there is tons of interesting meta and great fic around, but there is also an underlying tone of bitterness to a lot of what I read. I was really struck when browsing TWoP (my go-to board for general TV discussion) by how much negativity there still was. People seem to spend more time talking about what they didn't like about the series than what they did, which is hard for me to deal with as someone coming to it as a new shiny that I generally enjoyed quite a lot.
Re: I'm going to throw a bucket of cold water on you here...
Date: 2009-08-06 09:43 pm (UTC)Except, that I did go back and clarify the post. And that my livejournal is spontaneous musings.
Re: Here via su_herold
Date: 2009-08-07 01:27 am (UTC)Also the investment is different. What people aren't saying and I think this needs to be said is we are all taking it far too personally. We are taking a point of view or perspective that happens to be different than our own as a personal affront. It's not. It is like arguing politics or abortion or the death penalty. When you are emotionally invested in specific pov and someone attacks that pov - you act as if they attacked you or worse your child.
I joined the Buffy fandom in the sixth season of the series, just after Gone aired. At the time I joined it - and I joined a spoiler board - the spoiler that was out was that Spike was going to get his chip removed. The argument online at that time was - is he going to get the chip removed and become evil or become good? We honestly believed that he was getting his chip removed and not getting a soul. Also at that time, people thought Anya was going to be the big bad not Willow. (I didn't - I knew Tara was going to die and Willow would flip but, they almost had me convinced.)
Emotions ran high for a lot of reasons. People online were invested in the series in a way that verged on fanaticism. When the series did not do what they wanted, they were pissed. When fellow fans had a pov that differed from their own they took it personally.
The arguments online were very similar to arguments about abortion and the death penality. People took it personally. It's not. It's just a different perspective. They are not attacking the person with the pov, they are attacking the pov. But we often...have troubles comparmentalizing when our pov arises from something personal and many fans made it personal.
But - please understand, people had fallen in love with a show and characters that they saw a certain way and were writing fanfic about in a certain way - then suddenly the writers took the characters in a way that was counter to their pov. Many fans for example did not want Spike to be sexually involved with Buffy - for them, the show jumped the shark when it did that - they wanted the show they watched in the first five seasons. I don't agree with them. And I'm glad the writers went in the direction they did. But I can understand their pov. It is not a pov that I agree with.
The reason you see so much bitterness and why it is difficult to post on Buffy, is because a lot of fans felt that the writers let them down, betrayed them by taking the show in a direction that offended them. They took what the writers did personally. It's not personal. It was not their story on the screen. And it was not the fans characters. But fans often have troubles getting that. Because they loved the show and loved the characters. On one board - one of my friends wrote a fanfic script called the rescue - it was about the fans rescuing the characters from the Buffy writers and taking them to a nicer place. Very tongue in check script, but it expressed what many people felt and explains the bitterness you see online with people who joined the fandom before Season 6, and hate the latter seasons because it was counter to their worldview or pov or offended their pov.
Re: Here via su_herold
Date: 2009-08-07 01:32 am (UTC)We actually see the series very similarily. And I agree with everything you stated above.