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BTVS S6 Essay - Abdicating Power or Letting Others Define Who We Are (Doublemeat to AYW)
Before I do the meta a couple of caveats:
1. Of all the episodes of Buffy I've rewatched since April 2009, these four episodes were the hardest to rewatch and the least enjoyable. Yes, I enjoyed Ted, Bad Eggs, Amends, and Teacher's Pet more. There's lots of reasons for that, the big one is in some ways these episodes are the most emotionally horrifying. And well, we all have our triggers. Also, sigh, the dialogue really sucks in these episodes. I think Dead Things is the only one that doesn't suffer from bad dialogue - which is a good thing, because it is a pivotal episode and hard to watch for other reasons - if it had bad dialogue...shudder. Example from As You Were (which has possibly the worst dialogue of just about any Buffy episode, with Older and Far Away being a close second) : "Slayer if I knew you were coming? I would have baked you cake." (WTF?? That's Spike's line in AYW. Apparently I was wrong, Angel isn't the only character to get cursed with bad fanfic/pulp romance novel lines. Spike gets a few doozies in S6, although to be fair they are only in these four episodes. Older and Far Away is worse. Oh well, at least Spike doesn't sound like a walking hallmark card commericial. Also, is it just me or does Sam (Riley's wife) resemble a Tony Roberts self-help guru in AYW? Seriously, I think that might be her true calling.)
2. Since I get the triggers, I am putting the bulk of this post behind an lj-cut. If B/S bugged you, you might want to stop here. Although I'm NOT romanticizing them in this post. Far from it. At any rate, if any of this hits your buttons? Avoid. Life is too short to send your blood pressure sky-rocketing over an internet post about a tv show. Trust me, I know.
I think part of my problem with Doublemeat Palace through As You Were is that Buffy, whose point of view we are mainly in, has given up her power. She has allowed those around her to define her role, who she is, her responsibilities, and what she can do.
These are painful episodes to watch, particularly if you've ever experienced any of this yourself. Most of us, I think have, to one degree or another. After I watched them, again, I reminded myself that the show I was watching is a horror show and the writers are writing a blend of psychological and gothic horror. The horror they are concentrating on in Season 6 is the mundane stuff...the stuff that deadens us, makes us wish we were dead, and gives us nightmares. The dead-end job. The soul-killing shift. The mystery meat. The ex-boyfriend who shows up with the perfect life, after you dumped him a year ago - demonstrating that yes, all he needed to do to be happy was dump you. The horrible in-laws. The list goes on. The writers are also, as stated repeatedly in commentary, exploring how we handle personal power and what power means.
Doublmeat Palace starts off the arc...and in each episode, it is mentioned. We see Buffy in her crazy hat. Her stinky greasy clothes. The job seems to deaden her. And she feels wrong. She takes it for the money, but fears that she is stuck, unable to leave. To escape her fears, she engages in paralyzing sex. Sex that takes her out of herself. Spike is, at this stage, little more than a "fuck-buddy". They rarely converse. Their sex is perfunctory. She sees him on a break, grabs him, and has him fuck her behind a garbag dump. At this point she really doesn't care.
Spike for his part is still manipulating the situation. He wants more, may even believe the paralyzing sex is getting him somewhere. As he states in Dead Things:But you like what I do to you. (She may not like or love him, but she does love what he does to her, how he makes her feel and that, in his view, gives him power over her.)
In these four episodes, Spike is moving in on Buffy's life. He is taking control. As I stated in my last post on B/S - there is a push-pull power play going on here and it has been going on for quite some time. In Smashed - Gone, Buffy is driving it, or appears to be. In Doublemeat through AYW - Spike is driving it, or appears to be. Although it does jump back and forth between the two of them quite a bit.
Doublemeat - Spike makes a visit to Buffy's workplace. Again, we are completely in Buffy's pov. He is, from her pov, the only one who seems to think she is better than this, not just a tool for the workforce. What he tells her is appealing, it is partly what she wants to hear, it is also partly what scares her.
Spike starts out ribbing Buffy about kind of demon she is. Buffy responds that she is not a demon. He looks skeptical. She states - you being able to hit me does not make me a demon. Then he shrugs and drops the teasing, takes another tact, asking if she'll come away with him. Leave this place. She responds that she can't - she needs the money.
Spike:"I can get you money. Leave with me now. You are better than this place...this place will kill you."
It is to a degree what Buffy wants to hear. Her job is deadening her. It's boring. Dull. Slow. And the people difficult to deal with. She feels like a loser. And her friends aren't helping. They show up, order, and she offers to pay, which Xander appreciates to a degree. They try to be supportive, but it comes across as patronizing and condescending. It's during this episode, that I felt an overwhelming urge to punch Xander really hard in the stomach.
Of all the characters in the series - Xander should be the most sympathetic to Buffy's plight, considering he went through the same thing in S4, except he didn't need money as badly and wasn't fighting demons in his spare time or rather didn't have to fight demons in his spare time. His behavior, while in character and realistic, is difficult to watch. Xander is blind to anything but his own fears about the wedding to Anya. In each episode that's all he and Anya talk about or avoid talking about.
But Buffy's relationship with Spike, Buffy knows is not the answer. He can't save her from the Doublemeat Palace - which she attempts to leave in other ways, including getting it into her head that there's something wrong with the organization or the meat. If this had been ATS - that would have been the case. Here, it's a little old lady customer, a somewhat annoying customer that they call wig lady, who happens to be demon with a tentacle that looks like a cross between Ridely Scott's Alien and a penis (hereinafter called Penis Monster). The penis monster paralyzes Buffy from the legs down. Her facial reaction to its paralyzing ejaculation is similar to her reaction to Spike's thrusts outside. It's another embrace of death. Disappearing from this world much as those before her at the Doublemeat. No one seems to miss them - since it is a dead-end job with loads of turn-over. Surviving there five years would be a fate worse than death in Buffy's view. When she finds a way to stay at the end, apparently the secret is the burgers are made of a vegetable compound flavored with beef fat (not far-fetched, quite a few companies do that), the manager tells her that she doesn't want people who don't like the job to be employees, she wants people with initiative, people who want to move up in the organization - and shows Buffy her little name tag - see "five years". The manager looks a bit like an older version of Buffy, blond hair, etc. And Buffy feels as if she is looking into the mirror and seeing her future self.
The other storyline going on is Willow's. Willow has also suppressed her power. She has done so because those around her have said she is addicted to magic. No one has asked why. No one has looked at what it is that is causing Willow to delve into black magic. Tara certainly doesn't. Nor does Xander. Perhaps they don't want to see? Amy however does seem to get it and pushes all of Willow's buttons. The scene between Amy and Willow, the last we see of Amy until Killer in Me - is creepy. Amy comes to Willow's and Buffy's house and asks Willow if she can keep the cage. This is the reason she visited Willow. She wants the rat cage with the wheel and tunnel. Willow who is out of it, looks at Amy and shrugs, okay, but why? Amy grimaces and says, haltingly, it is home. You know. Willow shrugs again and says go ahead. It's a small moment. But Amy clearly is not taking the cage in a fit of nostalgia. Looking back at Willow, she says, hey I'll give you a birthday gift - Willow is confused. "It's not my birthday, but someone else's is coming up.." states Willow. So Amy says, "consider it an early one" and doses Willow with magic. The magic makes her woozy and drunk. Everything she touches seems to melt or become limp. It's not a nice spell. At the end of the episode, Willow tells Amy not to ever come by again. And Amy retorts - "with all your magic, you couldn't see fit to make me not a rat sooner?" Willow is defensive and says she didn't know and warns Amy again to stay away from her, before shutting the door in Amy's face.
Amy = Willow in a way took away Amy's freedom. She kept Amy in a cage. She did not work hard to find a spell to make Amy human again. Instead she made Amy her pet. She controlled Amy's life. She bought Amy a wheel. A tunnel. A cage. And was even at one stage considering getting another rat for Amy to play with. Granted Amy turned herself into the rat, but how Willow dealt with it - was controlling. Willow used Amy's condition to make Willow feel better. To give Willow comfort. To give Willow a companion or a friend - as she herself states in Smashed (oh Amy, at least I still have you). And Willow cages Amy long before she had power. Sure, it was with the best of intentions.
Willow's actions towards Amy can in a way be compared to Buffy and Spike's relationship. Buffy is using Spike to make herself feel better. But she's not alone in that, Spike is using Buffy's current condition to his advantage.
In Dead Things - the themes begun by Doublemeat are explored in more depth. Enter the Trioka, Warren, Jonathan and Andrew - who use a magic spell to control how Katrina thinks and looks at the world. Katrina's power is removed. She sees Warren as her Master. Note not as Warren.
As Master. He controls her. Warren demonstrates what happens when you take things too far. Warren states that he loves Katrina. Wants her. But it is not love. He is obsessed with her. He wants to possess and control her. To hurt her for rejecting him. To belittle her.
The scenes with Warren and Katrina are cleverly juxtaposed with Buffy and Spike. Although, I'm not really sure who is Warren and who is Katrina in the B/S relationship, they flip roles and it is far from simple.
Buffy to Tara: "Using him? How is that right? That's wrong!"
Tara to Buffy:"Buffy you are going through a lot. And it's not that simple..."
It's not. Nor is either really controlling the other. They are more or less taking advantage of a situation. They probably have the best of intentions. Buffy is turned on by Spike. And he knows it. He's a vampire - he can sense her attraction to him. But he also knows that she is disgusted by her attraction, that his power is limited to that attraction. He is clearly frustrated.
Spike: What is this to you?
Buffy: This?
Spike: You and me..
Buffy: Just this.
Spike: Do you even like me?
Buffy: Sometimes.
Spike (lifting up the handcuffs): Do you trust me?
Buffy (looking turned on) whispers: never.
He gets in by offering the kinky sex. The control. I'll handcuff you. Hurt you. Make you come.
Spike:Are we actually having a conversation? Isn't this the point in which you knock me in the head and go off, virtue fluttering.
Buffy: Well, as soon as my legs can get moving..
Paralyzed by him. He turns her on. She turns him on.
Spike: You were amazing, the things you do, the way you make it hurt in all the wrong places
Buffy: You got the job done yourself
But they don't go past the sex. And the sex is taking her over. More and more he's defining who she is.
Spike: I've never been with such an animal.
Buffy: I'm not an animal
Spike: want to see the teeth marks?
Which causes her to hunt her underwear and flee. But he changes her mind with the handcuffs.
Later when her friends state things like "have you been all tied up" or "rough night with a vamp" - she gets uncomfortable and squirms. At the Bronze, on the balcony, possibly one of the most controversial scenes in the series and equally hot and equally disturbing - again because it is juxtaposed with Katrina and Warren, not to mention Xander and Anya dancing gaily. Xander and Anya...are disturbing in these episodes as well but for different reasons.
And of course Willow who is subdued and acting much as she did in S1-S2, as if she has no personal power or agency. That's another theme here - about giving up one's personal agency.
Buffy on the balcony - she is removed from her friends, watching them from above - like she did in the Tower in The Gift and when she was dead. They could be in another plain of existence. She feels separated from them. Spike comes up behind her. She does not turn to look at him. He tells her not to look away from her friends.
Spike: Look at them down there. Think what they would do, what they would think if they knew what we did? What we are doing? You don't belong with them, you belong in the dark with me. (this isn't exact wording but it is the gist.)
Then to prove his point, he removes her underwear and takes her from behind in two quick thrusts. It's anal sex by the way. In case you are curious. Nothing else is plausible from their positions. She asks him not to. He says stop me. It's their routine. They've been playing this game of push-me/pull-me since Once More With Feeling. When he tells her to leave, and she comes back. Or he leaves and she pulls him back. Or she kisses him, then knocks him aside. It's power games. Sex is power. At least sex is power to Spike. That's what the vampire metaphor is - sexual power. It is hidden behind the seductive thrall. But Dracula pulled it in Buffy vs. Dracula, and Spike is doing it here. In fact if you listen closely to the dialogue in this scene - you'll note how similar it is to Dracula's in the scene where he gets Buffy to let him bite her, and for her to drink from him.
Dracula: You are like me. You are kindred. A killer. Here, take a taste, see who you are.
Here, she falls into Spike. She wants to. She gives him her power, lets him take her agency, take control. In Dead Things - Spike is in the driver's seat.
After the Bronze, Buffy goes to the graveyard and his crypt, barely resists going inside and being with him. Prays for a distraction. When she's given a crying victim, any crying victim, she's thankful. But the demons summoned cause a temporal disturbance. She can't figure out what is happening. She interacts with Spike, but is confused by him. And the Trioka who has killed Katrina after she rightfully accused them of date-rape, has now done a glamour spell to convince Buffy and Spike that Jonathan is Katrina, until she can find the body. It's cleverly done. By the by - the rape of Katrina, I found to be far worse than any of the other rapes in the series. It's a metaphor for date-rape drug. And very common on college campuses.
And they kill Katrina because she comes to and calls them on their scam. Although the murder is accidental, Warren intended to rape his girlfriend not kill her. He wanted to take her agency, her free will away, and turn her into a toy that he could control and play with.
Buffy and Spike are different. Spike doesn't want a toy. He wants Buffy. But he wants Buffy to be his, to enter his world. When Buffy believes she's killed Katrina - he is of two minds, one - he panicks, afraid he'll lose her again, and two - he sees an opportunity to get more control, to make her dependent on him for a change.
So he tells her that she has to get out of here. That he'll take care of everything. And again, we are in Buffy's pov. Buffy has a dream - in it she is sleeping with Spike, he comes to her bed, comforts her, kisses her, soothes her, tells her that it is their guilty little secret. And she dreams of how she's using him, how she feels great with him, and how she doesn't trust him or herself. Her own self-hatred comes out in the dream. She sees herself as a killer. She is killing Spike - asking if he trusts her, and killing Katrina. Note, it's not Spike or Katrina asking if they trust her, but the other way around. Buffy sees herself in this episode as Warren. She identifies with Warren. Spike is her toy. Her sex slave. She's using him to make herself feel better. He is dancing to her tune. He's the one with no agency.
This perspective is not entirely true. Like I said above, they flip roles in the episode - which is why this is one of the better episodes of the series. It's not clear which character is in control.
When Buffy wakes, horrified, she goes to Dawn and states that she killed someone and is turning herself in. Dawn comforts Buffy at first, attempts to be close to her sister - then realizes what her sister is doing, and protests. You want to leave, she tells Buffy. This is another excuse to hurt yourself. Which is not untrue. And hurt Dawn. Dawn feels Buffy is punishing her, for being brought back.
Buffy goes to the cops and Spike fights to stop her.
Buffy: Let me go.
Spike: Can't. I love you.
Buffy: No, you don't.
Spike: You think I haven't tried not to?
Buffy:Try harder.
Spike: Sorry love I can't let you do this.
She hits him. He grabs her. She hits him. He hits her. She hits him. He says: That's right, take it all out on me, love. All of it. Put it on me. (He's begging her anything to stop her.)
Prior to this point, we've learned he tried to hide the body, but it got found anyway and they fight over the ethics of it. Having recently seen Bad Girls where Faith forces Buffy to help her hide a person that Faith accidentally killed in the river - I can see why Buffy gets upset. In that episode, Buffy is literally pulled down by the body in her nightmares.
Buffy starts hitting Spike, beating him up. Until his face changes from the demon's to a human one. The scene is similar to the scene in Who Are You, with almost the same dialogue.
In Who Are You (S4) Faith in Buffy's body is punching Buffy in Faith's body repeatedly. Stating you are ugly, wrong, evil, horrible, soulless. The statements are of course not directed at Buffy but towards Faith. Just as Buffy's statements regarding Spike, you are soulless, evil, there is no good in you - are directed towards herself. She can bear to be with him - because he tells her she is wrong, that she is like him, dark. She can't bear to be with her sister - who requires the warm mother, requires Buffy to be her cheery self.
"He says he understands me, birds of a bloody feather.." she says in Gone.
Then Spike's face becomes the bruised bloody human face of her lover and she backs away shocked, in pain, humilated, horrified. She is reeling back, repulsed by what she has done to him. And he states..."you always hurt the one you love, pet." In a way - taking control once again, or attempting to. The statement - haunts her, and when she hears Katrina is the girl who died, she realizes it wasn't her after all. But Warren. When Willow asks how she knows it is Warren, Buffy states "you always hurt the one you love." And it is Dawn stalking off, hurt and bewildered in the background.
After that we do Older and Far Away, and As You Were. These episodes are about Buffy slowly pulling out of her relationship with Spike, taking back some of her own agency. They are also, unfortunately two of the worst written episodes in the series. Ambitious, but poorly written. The dialogue in both episodes made me cringe. And the plots don't make a lot of sense. You also have an overwhelming desire to root for the demons to kill all the characters, which is never a good thing.
At any rate - in Older and Far Away, we meet Halfrek - or Halfrek showed up in Dead Things, can't remember if she makes an appearance in Dead Things first or not. At any rate when she pops up, she and Anya have an interesting chat. Anya starts talking about Xander, and how she realizes that she isn't the easiest person to love.
Halfrek - "Who ever told you that you aren't easy to love?"
Anya: "Well no one, but Xander sometimes says that it would be better if I didn't love money because that's wrong, and-"
Halfrek - "you mean, he corrects you?"
Halfrek points out what has been grating on my nerves since Bargaining - Xander's unending and constant criticism of Anya. It was humorous when he was a teen, not it is just obnoxious.
But it is in both this episode and especially As You Were - juxtaposed with the bickering of his own family. He and Anya are even seen hiding in their bathroom from their relatives.
To be fair, Anya is equally critical. Her criticism of Xander is also unending. Their relationship is an off-shoot of the Cordy/Xander relationship - and just as abusive.
It's not physically abusive, no, it is more insidious, it is emotional abuse. Xander was raised in this type of environment - he doesn't know anything else and it scares the hell out him. We see Xander eating constantly and Anya is obsessed with the wedding, making it perfect, even if she has to kill everyone - because in her head she thinks that will solve everything.
In Older and Far Away and As You Were - it is clear they care about each other, but they also can't respect each other. Both want the other person to be someone else. They irritate one another. And both want to control the other one. Xander does it in a passive-aggressive manner, making jokes, or ignoring what Anya says, rolling his eyes. Anya is equally passive-aggressive - taking it out on Dawn or those around her, or obsessing about the wedding.
Both are afriad to be apart, and afraid to be together.
Neither have power. They've given to the wedding. The wedding has taken over, along with how they believe other's percieve them. With Riley and Sam - they aspire to be the perfect couple. We only see Riley and Sam through Buffy, Willow and Xander's eyes. We don't know anything about them outside of that. And they look like an advertisement for the armed forces.
Fake. Not real. Buffy doesn't see the scar over Riley's eye, or notice the fact that neither wears a ring. Or that they are always speaking military. OR that Riley did not tell her about Sam off the bat.
Their role in the episode is to emphasize the lack of power the other characters have. Willow's inability to do magic and being told that her choice not to is courageous and strong.
Again how others perceive it. Buffy's being told in a somewhat condescending manner who she is. Riley does tell her that he's been given clearance to take out Spike, but states it is her choice. HE gives her power over that decision. Her reaction is - how can you ask this of me? I'm sleeping with him. I'm sleeping with Spike. And he pretty much reacts as she did when he slept with the vamp whores, which Spike reminds him of. Spike when Riley bursts in believes he's in the driver's seat. See, he says, the girl likes the monster in her man.
But Riley proves him wrong - when Buffy is forced to see the monster in Spike.
Buffy:It's not Spike. He's not competent enough to be the doctor. (actually I think she's right there, he's probaly just holding the eggs for someone else in exchange for a fee.)This is Spike!
Riley: Right, amoral, opportunistic, and manipulative. Or have you forgotten.
Both men stare at Buffy.
When they find the demon eggs - which are a metaphor for fruits of Buffy and Spike's relationship - Buffy confronts Spike. And he states, it's not what she thinks, he was just holding them...(Which I think is true, and I think the writer intended, and I think Buffy actually believes). He also says and this is the important bit and why Buffy does break things off with him: "You're one to speak of games. You play me all the time. Changing the rules as you want. You know what I am. You've always known. But you come to me all the same."
He's furious when he states it. But it is possibly the most honest and heartfelt thing he has said since Once More With Feeling.
And she takes it to heart. Because when she comes back, after telling Riley not to kill him.
She knows he's not the threat Riley thinks he is. She says:"I'm not goint to bend you out of shape for the eggs. I know that's just you. One of your schemes. And I admit I want you.
I always want you. But I am using you. And it is killing me. I have to stop."
It's the response or parallel to what she tells Tara in Dead Things: "Don't forgive me. Please don't forgive me. I'm wrong. I have to be wrong. I used him." She is horrified by how she is treating him. By things she is doing to him. As she says to Holden Webster:"I was a monster to him. Yet at the same time I almost let him take me over." She is taking responsibility here, it is her choice to end it. She says :"I'm sorry, William." It's an apology for her behavior. She knows she came to him, asked him to tell her he loved her, asked him to make love to her. That when she sees him on her lawn after being told she was too stinky to fight by a dead stinky vamp, she calls him out, she goes to him, and lets him fuck her, hard. Hurt her, yet at the same time, make her come, make her feel less stinky.
He is the only one who doesn't call her stinky. She call fall into him, lose herself in him.
And there's something appealing about that.
But at the end of As You Were, after seeing Sam and Riley leave together in the helicopter, having the life Buffy craves. The demon fighters. Saving the world. In their James Bond suits.
Buffy realizes she has choices. She does not have to sleep with Spike. She can pull herself out of her grave. It's hard but she can do it.
Older and Far Away has a similar ending - she doesn't leave the house with her friends, escape, she faces her responsibilities head on, her sister, her job, her house. She lets Spike leave and closes the door to rejoin Dawn.
We see Buffy pulling away from death here, back towards the light, living. As she does so, Willow moves closer to Tara, and Xander and Anya appear to be on the brink of imploding.
Willow in AYW and Older and Doublemeat is taking control as well. It is Willow who saves Buffy's life in Doublemeat and it is Willow who chooses not to do magic in Doublemeat through AYW. But, in Willow's case this is a mislead, much as the Xander/Anya deal is - these characters are shirking responsibility, hiding from it, either in comfort food, wedding plans, or in the belief that it is substance abuse or addiciton. Willow never looks at why she misuses magic - even though the hints are there. Nor does Xander look at what is wrong with his relationship with Anya. Even though he more or less states it in the car - we will turn into my parents and our kids will hide from us. Tara stands up for Willow, true, but she doesn't look at what Willow is - she blames the magic or the addiction. When I'm not so sure Willow is addicted. I think Willow just has troubles understanding power or how to use it.
It's a reflection of Buffy's own view of it.
Buffy lets others define her power in these episodes, define who she is. Riley tells her she is this person. He doesn't listen to her. Xander tells her she's this. Spike another thing. Willow another. Buffy prior to this season, defined herself. Here - she is being defined.
She's lost herself inside their interpretations and allowed them to take her power, her agency away - much as Warren removes Katrina's or Willow removed Amy's. It's not deliberate and it is gradual. But Spike is not empowered by her choices. If anything it is the reverse.
Spike is not Warren any more than Buffy is. Their push-me/pull-me has left both powerless, both treading water.
Buffy's decision to break it off comes a little too late...Spike's too confused by then.
And he does not quite understand where she is coming from. He misreads her. And while her choice gives her power, it takes it away from him. And he'll spend the next four episodes attempting in various ways to get his power over her back - to grab her back.
Off to bed. Too late. Again.
1. Of all the episodes of Buffy I've rewatched since April 2009, these four episodes were the hardest to rewatch and the least enjoyable. Yes, I enjoyed Ted, Bad Eggs, Amends, and Teacher's Pet more. There's lots of reasons for that, the big one is in some ways these episodes are the most emotionally horrifying. And well, we all have our triggers. Also, sigh, the dialogue really sucks in these episodes. I think Dead Things is the only one that doesn't suffer from bad dialogue - which is a good thing, because it is a pivotal episode and hard to watch for other reasons - if it had bad dialogue...shudder. Example from As You Were (which has possibly the worst dialogue of just about any Buffy episode, with Older and Far Away being a close second) : "Slayer if I knew you were coming? I would have baked you cake." (WTF?? That's Spike's line in AYW. Apparently I was wrong, Angel isn't the only character to get cursed with bad fanfic/pulp romance novel lines. Spike gets a few doozies in S6, although to be fair they are only in these four episodes. Older and Far Away is worse. Oh well, at least Spike doesn't sound like a walking hallmark card commericial. Also, is it just me or does Sam (Riley's wife) resemble a Tony Roberts self-help guru in AYW? Seriously, I think that might be her true calling.)
2. Since I get the triggers, I am putting the bulk of this post behind an lj-cut. If B/S bugged you, you might want to stop here. Although I'm NOT romanticizing them in this post. Far from it. At any rate, if any of this hits your buttons? Avoid. Life is too short to send your blood pressure sky-rocketing over an internet post about a tv show. Trust me, I know.
I think part of my problem with Doublemeat Palace through As You Were is that Buffy, whose point of view we are mainly in, has given up her power. She has allowed those around her to define her role, who she is, her responsibilities, and what she can do.
These are painful episodes to watch, particularly if you've ever experienced any of this yourself. Most of us, I think have, to one degree or another. After I watched them, again, I reminded myself that the show I was watching is a horror show and the writers are writing a blend of psychological and gothic horror. The horror they are concentrating on in Season 6 is the mundane stuff...the stuff that deadens us, makes us wish we were dead, and gives us nightmares. The dead-end job. The soul-killing shift. The mystery meat. The ex-boyfriend who shows up with the perfect life, after you dumped him a year ago - demonstrating that yes, all he needed to do to be happy was dump you. The horrible in-laws. The list goes on. The writers are also, as stated repeatedly in commentary, exploring how we handle personal power and what power means.
Doublmeat Palace starts off the arc...and in each episode, it is mentioned. We see Buffy in her crazy hat. Her stinky greasy clothes. The job seems to deaden her. And she feels wrong. She takes it for the money, but fears that she is stuck, unable to leave. To escape her fears, she engages in paralyzing sex. Sex that takes her out of herself. Spike is, at this stage, little more than a "fuck-buddy". They rarely converse. Their sex is perfunctory. She sees him on a break, grabs him, and has him fuck her behind a garbag dump. At this point she really doesn't care.
Spike for his part is still manipulating the situation. He wants more, may even believe the paralyzing sex is getting him somewhere. As he states in Dead Things:But you like what I do to you. (She may not like or love him, but she does love what he does to her, how he makes her feel and that, in his view, gives him power over her.)
In these four episodes, Spike is moving in on Buffy's life. He is taking control. As I stated in my last post on B/S - there is a push-pull power play going on here and it has been going on for quite some time. In Smashed - Gone, Buffy is driving it, or appears to be. In Doublemeat through AYW - Spike is driving it, or appears to be. Although it does jump back and forth between the two of them quite a bit.
Doublemeat - Spike makes a visit to Buffy's workplace. Again, we are completely in Buffy's pov. He is, from her pov, the only one who seems to think she is better than this, not just a tool for the workforce. What he tells her is appealing, it is partly what she wants to hear, it is also partly what scares her.
Spike starts out ribbing Buffy about kind of demon she is. Buffy responds that she is not a demon. He looks skeptical. She states - you being able to hit me does not make me a demon. Then he shrugs and drops the teasing, takes another tact, asking if she'll come away with him. Leave this place. She responds that she can't - she needs the money.
Spike:"I can get you money. Leave with me now. You are better than this place...this place will kill you."
It is to a degree what Buffy wants to hear. Her job is deadening her. It's boring. Dull. Slow. And the people difficult to deal with. She feels like a loser. And her friends aren't helping. They show up, order, and she offers to pay, which Xander appreciates to a degree. They try to be supportive, but it comes across as patronizing and condescending. It's during this episode, that I felt an overwhelming urge to punch Xander really hard in the stomach.
Of all the characters in the series - Xander should be the most sympathetic to Buffy's plight, considering he went through the same thing in S4, except he didn't need money as badly and wasn't fighting demons in his spare time or rather didn't have to fight demons in his spare time. His behavior, while in character and realistic, is difficult to watch. Xander is blind to anything but his own fears about the wedding to Anya. In each episode that's all he and Anya talk about or avoid talking about.
But Buffy's relationship with Spike, Buffy knows is not the answer. He can't save her from the Doublemeat Palace - which she attempts to leave in other ways, including getting it into her head that there's something wrong with the organization or the meat. If this had been ATS - that would have been the case. Here, it's a little old lady customer, a somewhat annoying customer that they call wig lady, who happens to be demon with a tentacle that looks like a cross between Ridely Scott's Alien and a penis (hereinafter called Penis Monster). The penis monster paralyzes Buffy from the legs down. Her facial reaction to its paralyzing ejaculation is similar to her reaction to Spike's thrusts outside. It's another embrace of death. Disappearing from this world much as those before her at the Doublemeat. No one seems to miss them - since it is a dead-end job with loads of turn-over. Surviving there five years would be a fate worse than death in Buffy's view. When she finds a way to stay at the end, apparently the secret is the burgers are made of a vegetable compound flavored with beef fat (not far-fetched, quite a few companies do that), the manager tells her that she doesn't want people who don't like the job to be employees, she wants people with initiative, people who want to move up in the organization - and shows Buffy her little name tag - see "five years". The manager looks a bit like an older version of Buffy, blond hair, etc. And Buffy feels as if she is looking into the mirror and seeing her future self.
The other storyline going on is Willow's. Willow has also suppressed her power. She has done so because those around her have said she is addicted to magic. No one has asked why. No one has looked at what it is that is causing Willow to delve into black magic. Tara certainly doesn't. Nor does Xander. Perhaps they don't want to see? Amy however does seem to get it and pushes all of Willow's buttons. The scene between Amy and Willow, the last we see of Amy until Killer in Me - is creepy. Amy comes to Willow's and Buffy's house and asks Willow if she can keep the cage. This is the reason she visited Willow. She wants the rat cage with the wheel and tunnel. Willow who is out of it, looks at Amy and shrugs, okay, but why? Amy grimaces and says, haltingly, it is home. You know. Willow shrugs again and says go ahead. It's a small moment. But Amy clearly is not taking the cage in a fit of nostalgia. Looking back at Willow, she says, hey I'll give you a birthday gift - Willow is confused. "It's not my birthday, but someone else's is coming up.." states Willow. So Amy says, "consider it an early one" and doses Willow with magic. The magic makes her woozy and drunk. Everything she touches seems to melt or become limp. It's not a nice spell. At the end of the episode, Willow tells Amy not to ever come by again. And Amy retorts - "with all your magic, you couldn't see fit to make me not a rat sooner?" Willow is defensive and says she didn't know and warns Amy again to stay away from her, before shutting the door in Amy's face.
Amy = Willow in a way took away Amy's freedom. She kept Amy in a cage. She did not work hard to find a spell to make Amy human again. Instead she made Amy her pet. She controlled Amy's life. She bought Amy a wheel. A tunnel. A cage. And was even at one stage considering getting another rat for Amy to play with. Granted Amy turned herself into the rat, but how Willow dealt with it - was controlling. Willow used Amy's condition to make Willow feel better. To give Willow comfort. To give Willow a companion or a friend - as she herself states in Smashed (oh Amy, at least I still have you). And Willow cages Amy long before she had power. Sure, it was with the best of intentions.
Willow's actions towards Amy can in a way be compared to Buffy and Spike's relationship. Buffy is using Spike to make herself feel better. But she's not alone in that, Spike is using Buffy's current condition to his advantage.
In Dead Things - the themes begun by Doublemeat are explored in more depth. Enter the Trioka, Warren, Jonathan and Andrew - who use a magic spell to control how Katrina thinks and looks at the world. Katrina's power is removed. She sees Warren as her Master. Note not as Warren.
As Master. He controls her. Warren demonstrates what happens when you take things too far. Warren states that he loves Katrina. Wants her. But it is not love. He is obsessed with her. He wants to possess and control her. To hurt her for rejecting him. To belittle her.
The scenes with Warren and Katrina are cleverly juxtaposed with Buffy and Spike. Although, I'm not really sure who is Warren and who is Katrina in the B/S relationship, they flip roles and it is far from simple.
Buffy to Tara: "Using him? How is that right? That's wrong!"
Tara to Buffy:"Buffy you are going through a lot. And it's not that simple..."
It's not. Nor is either really controlling the other. They are more or less taking advantage of a situation. They probably have the best of intentions. Buffy is turned on by Spike. And he knows it. He's a vampire - he can sense her attraction to him. But he also knows that she is disgusted by her attraction, that his power is limited to that attraction. He is clearly frustrated.
Spike: What is this to you?
Buffy: This?
Spike: You and me..
Buffy: Just this.
Spike: Do you even like me?
Buffy: Sometimes.
Spike (lifting up the handcuffs): Do you trust me?
Buffy (looking turned on) whispers: never.
He gets in by offering the kinky sex. The control. I'll handcuff you. Hurt you. Make you come.
Spike:Are we actually having a conversation? Isn't this the point in which you knock me in the head and go off, virtue fluttering.
Buffy: Well, as soon as my legs can get moving..
Paralyzed by him. He turns her on. She turns him on.
Spike: You were amazing, the things you do, the way you make it hurt in all the wrong places
Buffy: You got the job done yourself
But they don't go past the sex. And the sex is taking her over. More and more he's defining who she is.
Spike: I've never been with such an animal.
Buffy: I'm not an animal
Spike: want to see the teeth marks?
Which causes her to hunt her underwear and flee. But he changes her mind with the handcuffs.
Later when her friends state things like "have you been all tied up" or "rough night with a vamp" - she gets uncomfortable and squirms. At the Bronze, on the balcony, possibly one of the most controversial scenes in the series and equally hot and equally disturbing - again because it is juxtaposed with Katrina and Warren, not to mention Xander and Anya dancing gaily. Xander and Anya...are disturbing in these episodes as well but for different reasons.
And of course Willow who is subdued and acting much as she did in S1-S2, as if she has no personal power or agency. That's another theme here - about giving up one's personal agency.
Buffy on the balcony - she is removed from her friends, watching them from above - like she did in the Tower in The Gift and when she was dead. They could be in another plain of existence. She feels separated from them. Spike comes up behind her. She does not turn to look at him. He tells her not to look away from her friends.
Spike: Look at them down there. Think what they would do, what they would think if they knew what we did? What we are doing? You don't belong with them, you belong in the dark with me. (this isn't exact wording but it is the gist.)
Then to prove his point, he removes her underwear and takes her from behind in two quick thrusts. It's anal sex by the way. In case you are curious. Nothing else is plausible from their positions. She asks him not to. He says stop me. It's their routine. They've been playing this game of push-me/pull-me since Once More With Feeling. When he tells her to leave, and she comes back. Or he leaves and she pulls him back. Or she kisses him, then knocks him aside. It's power games. Sex is power. At least sex is power to Spike. That's what the vampire metaphor is - sexual power. It is hidden behind the seductive thrall. But Dracula pulled it in Buffy vs. Dracula, and Spike is doing it here. In fact if you listen closely to the dialogue in this scene - you'll note how similar it is to Dracula's in the scene where he gets Buffy to let him bite her, and for her to drink from him.
Dracula: You are like me. You are kindred. A killer. Here, take a taste, see who you are.
Here, she falls into Spike. She wants to. She gives him her power, lets him take her agency, take control. In Dead Things - Spike is in the driver's seat.
After the Bronze, Buffy goes to the graveyard and his crypt, barely resists going inside and being with him. Prays for a distraction. When she's given a crying victim, any crying victim, she's thankful. But the demons summoned cause a temporal disturbance. She can't figure out what is happening. She interacts with Spike, but is confused by him. And the Trioka who has killed Katrina after she rightfully accused them of date-rape, has now done a glamour spell to convince Buffy and Spike that Jonathan is Katrina, until she can find the body. It's cleverly done. By the by - the rape of Katrina, I found to be far worse than any of the other rapes in the series. It's a metaphor for date-rape drug. And very common on college campuses.
And they kill Katrina because she comes to and calls them on their scam. Although the murder is accidental, Warren intended to rape his girlfriend not kill her. He wanted to take her agency, her free will away, and turn her into a toy that he could control and play with.
Buffy and Spike are different. Spike doesn't want a toy. He wants Buffy. But he wants Buffy to be his, to enter his world. When Buffy believes she's killed Katrina - he is of two minds, one - he panicks, afraid he'll lose her again, and two - he sees an opportunity to get more control, to make her dependent on him for a change.
So he tells her that she has to get out of here. That he'll take care of everything. And again, we are in Buffy's pov. Buffy has a dream - in it she is sleeping with Spike, he comes to her bed, comforts her, kisses her, soothes her, tells her that it is their guilty little secret. And she dreams of how she's using him, how she feels great with him, and how she doesn't trust him or herself. Her own self-hatred comes out in the dream. She sees herself as a killer. She is killing Spike - asking if he trusts her, and killing Katrina. Note, it's not Spike or Katrina asking if they trust her, but the other way around. Buffy sees herself in this episode as Warren. She identifies with Warren. Spike is her toy. Her sex slave. She's using him to make herself feel better. He is dancing to her tune. He's the one with no agency.
This perspective is not entirely true. Like I said above, they flip roles in the episode - which is why this is one of the better episodes of the series. It's not clear which character is in control.
When Buffy wakes, horrified, she goes to Dawn and states that she killed someone and is turning herself in. Dawn comforts Buffy at first, attempts to be close to her sister - then realizes what her sister is doing, and protests. You want to leave, she tells Buffy. This is another excuse to hurt yourself. Which is not untrue. And hurt Dawn. Dawn feels Buffy is punishing her, for being brought back.
Buffy goes to the cops and Spike fights to stop her.
Buffy: Let me go.
Spike: Can't. I love you.
Buffy: No, you don't.
Spike: You think I haven't tried not to?
Buffy:Try harder.
Spike: Sorry love I can't let you do this.
She hits him. He grabs her. She hits him. He hits her. She hits him. He says: That's right, take it all out on me, love. All of it. Put it on me. (He's begging her anything to stop her.)
Prior to this point, we've learned he tried to hide the body, but it got found anyway and they fight over the ethics of it. Having recently seen Bad Girls where Faith forces Buffy to help her hide a person that Faith accidentally killed in the river - I can see why Buffy gets upset. In that episode, Buffy is literally pulled down by the body in her nightmares.
Buffy starts hitting Spike, beating him up. Until his face changes from the demon's to a human one. The scene is similar to the scene in Who Are You, with almost the same dialogue.
In Who Are You (S4) Faith in Buffy's body is punching Buffy in Faith's body repeatedly. Stating you are ugly, wrong, evil, horrible, soulless. The statements are of course not directed at Buffy but towards Faith. Just as Buffy's statements regarding Spike, you are soulless, evil, there is no good in you - are directed towards herself. She can bear to be with him - because he tells her she is wrong, that she is like him, dark. She can't bear to be with her sister - who requires the warm mother, requires Buffy to be her cheery self.
"He says he understands me, birds of a bloody feather.." she says in Gone.
Then Spike's face becomes the bruised bloody human face of her lover and she backs away shocked, in pain, humilated, horrified. She is reeling back, repulsed by what she has done to him. And he states..."you always hurt the one you love, pet." In a way - taking control once again, or attempting to. The statement - haunts her, and when she hears Katrina is the girl who died, she realizes it wasn't her after all. But Warren. When Willow asks how she knows it is Warren, Buffy states "you always hurt the one you love." And it is Dawn stalking off, hurt and bewildered in the background.
After that we do Older and Far Away, and As You Were. These episodes are about Buffy slowly pulling out of her relationship with Spike, taking back some of her own agency. They are also, unfortunately two of the worst written episodes in the series. Ambitious, but poorly written. The dialogue in both episodes made me cringe. And the plots don't make a lot of sense. You also have an overwhelming desire to root for the demons to kill all the characters, which is never a good thing.
At any rate - in Older and Far Away, we meet Halfrek - or Halfrek showed up in Dead Things, can't remember if she makes an appearance in Dead Things first or not. At any rate when she pops up, she and Anya have an interesting chat. Anya starts talking about Xander, and how she realizes that she isn't the easiest person to love.
Halfrek - "Who ever told you that you aren't easy to love?"
Anya: "Well no one, but Xander sometimes says that it would be better if I didn't love money because that's wrong, and-"
Halfrek - "you mean, he corrects you?"
Halfrek points out what has been grating on my nerves since Bargaining - Xander's unending and constant criticism of Anya. It was humorous when he was a teen, not it is just obnoxious.
But it is in both this episode and especially As You Were - juxtaposed with the bickering of his own family. He and Anya are even seen hiding in their bathroom from their relatives.
To be fair, Anya is equally critical. Her criticism of Xander is also unending. Their relationship is an off-shoot of the Cordy/Xander relationship - and just as abusive.
It's not physically abusive, no, it is more insidious, it is emotional abuse. Xander was raised in this type of environment - he doesn't know anything else and it scares the hell out him. We see Xander eating constantly and Anya is obsessed with the wedding, making it perfect, even if she has to kill everyone - because in her head she thinks that will solve everything.
In Older and Far Away and As You Were - it is clear they care about each other, but they also can't respect each other. Both want the other person to be someone else. They irritate one another. And both want to control the other one. Xander does it in a passive-aggressive manner, making jokes, or ignoring what Anya says, rolling his eyes. Anya is equally passive-aggressive - taking it out on Dawn or those around her, or obsessing about the wedding.
Both are afriad to be apart, and afraid to be together.
Neither have power. They've given to the wedding. The wedding has taken over, along with how they believe other's percieve them. With Riley and Sam - they aspire to be the perfect couple. We only see Riley and Sam through Buffy, Willow and Xander's eyes. We don't know anything about them outside of that. And they look like an advertisement for the armed forces.
Fake. Not real. Buffy doesn't see the scar over Riley's eye, or notice the fact that neither wears a ring. Or that they are always speaking military. OR that Riley did not tell her about Sam off the bat.
Their role in the episode is to emphasize the lack of power the other characters have. Willow's inability to do magic and being told that her choice not to is courageous and strong.
Again how others perceive it. Buffy's being told in a somewhat condescending manner who she is. Riley does tell her that he's been given clearance to take out Spike, but states it is her choice. HE gives her power over that decision. Her reaction is - how can you ask this of me? I'm sleeping with him. I'm sleeping with Spike. And he pretty much reacts as she did when he slept with the vamp whores, which Spike reminds him of. Spike when Riley bursts in believes he's in the driver's seat. See, he says, the girl likes the monster in her man.
But Riley proves him wrong - when Buffy is forced to see the monster in Spike.
Buffy:It's not Spike. He's not competent enough to be the doctor. (actually I think she's right there, he's probaly just holding the eggs for someone else in exchange for a fee.)This is Spike!
Riley: Right, amoral, opportunistic, and manipulative. Or have you forgotten.
Both men stare at Buffy.
When they find the demon eggs - which are a metaphor for fruits of Buffy and Spike's relationship - Buffy confronts Spike. And he states, it's not what she thinks, he was just holding them...(Which I think is true, and I think the writer intended, and I think Buffy actually believes). He also says and this is the important bit and why Buffy does break things off with him: "You're one to speak of games. You play me all the time. Changing the rules as you want. You know what I am. You've always known. But you come to me all the same."
He's furious when he states it. But it is possibly the most honest and heartfelt thing he has said since Once More With Feeling.
And she takes it to heart. Because when she comes back, after telling Riley not to kill him.
She knows he's not the threat Riley thinks he is. She says:"I'm not goint to bend you out of shape for the eggs. I know that's just you. One of your schemes. And I admit I want you.
I always want you. But I am using you. And it is killing me. I have to stop."
It's the response or parallel to what she tells Tara in Dead Things: "Don't forgive me. Please don't forgive me. I'm wrong. I have to be wrong. I used him." She is horrified by how she is treating him. By things she is doing to him. As she says to Holden Webster:"I was a monster to him. Yet at the same time I almost let him take me over." She is taking responsibility here, it is her choice to end it. She says :"I'm sorry, William." It's an apology for her behavior. She knows she came to him, asked him to tell her he loved her, asked him to make love to her. That when she sees him on her lawn after being told she was too stinky to fight by a dead stinky vamp, she calls him out, she goes to him, and lets him fuck her, hard. Hurt her, yet at the same time, make her come, make her feel less stinky.
He is the only one who doesn't call her stinky. She call fall into him, lose herself in him.
And there's something appealing about that.
But at the end of As You Were, after seeing Sam and Riley leave together in the helicopter, having the life Buffy craves. The demon fighters. Saving the world. In their James Bond suits.
Buffy realizes she has choices. She does not have to sleep with Spike. She can pull herself out of her grave. It's hard but she can do it.
Older and Far Away has a similar ending - she doesn't leave the house with her friends, escape, she faces her responsibilities head on, her sister, her job, her house. She lets Spike leave and closes the door to rejoin Dawn.
We see Buffy pulling away from death here, back towards the light, living. As she does so, Willow moves closer to Tara, and Xander and Anya appear to be on the brink of imploding.
Willow in AYW and Older and Doublemeat is taking control as well. It is Willow who saves Buffy's life in Doublemeat and it is Willow who chooses not to do magic in Doublemeat through AYW. But, in Willow's case this is a mislead, much as the Xander/Anya deal is - these characters are shirking responsibility, hiding from it, either in comfort food, wedding plans, or in the belief that it is substance abuse or addiciton. Willow never looks at why she misuses magic - even though the hints are there. Nor does Xander look at what is wrong with his relationship with Anya. Even though he more or less states it in the car - we will turn into my parents and our kids will hide from us. Tara stands up for Willow, true, but she doesn't look at what Willow is - she blames the magic or the addiction. When I'm not so sure Willow is addicted. I think Willow just has troubles understanding power or how to use it.
It's a reflection of Buffy's own view of it.
Buffy lets others define her power in these episodes, define who she is. Riley tells her she is this person. He doesn't listen to her. Xander tells her she's this. Spike another thing. Willow another. Buffy prior to this season, defined herself. Here - she is being defined.
She's lost herself inside their interpretations and allowed them to take her power, her agency away - much as Warren removes Katrina's or Willow removed Amy's. It's not deliberate and it is gradual. But Spike is not empowered by her choices. If anything it is the reverse.
Spike is not Warren any more than Buffy is. Their push-me/pull-me has left both powerless, both treading water.
Buffy's decision to break it off comes a little too late...Spike's too confused by then.
And he does not quite understand where she is coming from. He misreads her. And while her choice gives her power, it takes it away from him. And he'll spend the next four episodes attempting in various ways to get his power over her back - to grab her back.
Off to bed. Too late. Again.
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Ah, did
While part of me admittedly would have preferred your take - I don't think it works within the context of the series nor would it have made sense in regards to the characters. Spike still is an amoral, opportunistic, manipulative creature (Riley isn't wrong about that nor does Spike disagree with Riley, he more or less looks at Buffy as if she is nuts). The thing about AYW - is Riley isn't exposing Spike's monster to Buffy, so much as reminding her of it. Unfortunately, Older and Far Away and As You Were are too poorly written to demonstrate that well - the point gets a bit defused. Dead Things does a better job.
In Older and Far Away - the writers are attempting to show us how Spike as he currently is does not fit in Buffy's life. Nor does Spike particularly want to fit in it. He wants Buffy to join him in his life. Their disagreement in Older is partly about that. In which she says, I was insane to think you could be with my friends, and he states and I was insane..then breaks off and says no you are. He still believes that she can and should join him. The fact it is daylight and he can't physically leave her house when she first attempts it - more or less emphasizes the point. Also at the end of Older, he leaves, and she stays with Dawn. The push me/pull me in Older through AYW is partly between Dawn and Spike. "I have to go see to Dawn"
Spike - "no stay here." She comes in and Dawn asks what kept her so long. And why is the sandwich all smushed.
Spike is not offering to be the father to Dawn or join her. Not that she would accept it. He's pulling Buffy away from her friends, aways from that. Granted that is partly her fault.
But it is also what makes it difficult for them to change the relationship and heal it - at least at this point. Plus, both characters in this season are at war with themselves. Buffy is at war with herself, and so is Spike. So the tug of war is internal as well as external. Neither is capable emotionally or pyschologically of doing what you suggest. None of the characters are.
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I think your 'unpeeling' of the Buffy/Spike dynamic in this season is masterful.
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What Warren does to Katrina is by far the worst attempted rape in the show, because it was premeditated and he knew exactly what he was doing.
Agreed. It is also the most sexist and demeaning. He is literally trying to turn Katerina into April - a sexbot. Remove her agency or will completely. Which being unsucessful, he manages to kill her instead.
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And I'll always think the meta got away from the writers in "Dead Things" because someone pouring out their self-hate onto another person isn't actually a metaphor for pouring out ones self-hate on another person. It is exactly what it is, there's no meta level to it even though they perhaps meant there to be because Spike's a vampire and all. It's just that is what domestic violence is -- pouring out self-loathing onto someone who will take the punishment. For me that has always been the nadir of Buffy's character arc.
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Two things.
1. Context. Spike is shown in handcuffs in a nightmare where Buffy is dreaming about killing Katrina and Spike. Why is she combining the two and why do both wear handcuffs? Simple - she was trying to avoid Spike and ran into Katrina. During the fight she accidently hits both Spike and Katrina. The dream is a guilt dream. It emphasizes her belief that she is using Spike. That he is her sex slave. That she is taking advantage of his feelings for her. This is her pov remember. (She's not the only quilty party here by the way, Spike is also taking advantage of Buffy as well.)
And I'll always think the meta got away from the writers in "Dead Things" because someone pouring out their self-hate onto another person isn't actually a metaphor for pouring out ones self-hate on another person. It is exactly what it is, there's no meta level to it even though they perhaps meant there to be because Spike's a vampire and all. It's just that is what domestic violence is -- pouring out self-loathing onto someone who will take the punishment.
This is a generalization that ignores the context and the situation as well as the people involved. If the two parties were Xander and Anya? Yeah, I would agree with you. But they aren't.
In Domestic Violence - one person is stronger than the other. The other person can't fight back, they can't do anything. They are trapped.
Here we have two people of equal strength and power - as has been demonstrated over five seasons. Spike is strong enough to kill a demon. He is strong enough to take down Angelus. And he has killed not one but two slayers. He's a trained killer. And as he proved in Smashed - more than capable of holding his own when he wants to.
You can't say, oh, yeah, I know Spike is a vampire, but that doesn't matter here. Because not only is Spike a vampire, he is a 130 year old vampire, who has killed a couple of slayers and several demons.
Also within the context of the scene - Buffy is not punching Spike in his home, or in her's. She is doing it in the alley outside of a police station. He is preventing her from doing her duty. He's doing it when she's just had a horrific nightmare about it, and is convinced that she killed an innocent woman. Right now, Buffy is more upset because she killed a human being - who was defenseless and could not fight back.
Spike is fighting Buffy. He does punch her. He throws her across the alley and to the ground. He turns into vamp face and does it again. He's not meekly stating, oh don't go in honey. Or pulling gently at her jacket.
He throws her across the alley - the space of five to ten feet. A normal woman would have broken her arm.
Also, he manipulates her into beating him up - because he believes that it will keep her from turning herself in. He thinks she just needs a punching bag. He's wrong. But, ironically, he does achieve his objective just not quite in the way he intended. She realizes it is Warren, because, and this is important, Buffy identifies with Warren. She identified with Warren in I Was Made To Love You and she does so here. Except, I'd hardly describe Riley as an April, or Spike as a Katrina. But in Buffy's head she's doing this to them.
She blames herself. And it really isn't all her.
To blame Buffy solely for what happens in the alley is ignoring the context of the scene, as well as who Spike is. He's not prevented from hurting Buffy here.
Is it brutal? Yes. Was she wrong to take out her anger at herself on him? Definitely. That is why she breaks up with him in As You Were - because she realizes she is using him to make herself feel better. As he states in Never Leave Me - "you hated yourself back then and you took it out on me." She nods. "But you told me that, didn't you? I just didn't understand it, not like I do now."
Both parties are abusive here. You can't place all the blame on one or the other. They go back and forth - within the same episode. It's power games.
The back and forth in the alley is about power.
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Thanks for the thinkie thoughts. I like revisiting these old discussions, but I still tend to think that the metaphor got swamped by the concrete in "Dead Things."
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Except that Buffy actually is stronger than Spike (remember the troll hammer?) but that phsyical aspect is almost beside the point. It's not actually about physical strength, which the writers seemed to change at will to fit their needs. In the real world the rise in female on male domestic violence (which does exist) frequently struggles with the fact that a male is physically stronger than a female. But it's not actually predicated on a physical strength differential. It's predicated on the psychology of it. Many times -- most times -- in dysfunctional relationships that lead to domestic violence, there's the ability to 'fight back' or to walk away. That they don't is part of the dysfunction. It's not just the one dishing it out is dysfunctional. There's a psychology in the one on the receiving end -- in being the one to submit, to 'take it', and in being the one to rationalize that he/she only hits me because she loves me.
That very concrete truth about domestic abuse wasn't in the writers minds when they penned the episode. I agree that that they did not intend us to view it thought the lens domestic violence. However unintenitonally, it's there, and that for some viewers it was screaming (I remember Marti Noxon's shocked reaction when Zap2It.com inverviewed her the day after the episode aired and asked her what it meant that they'd just turned Buffy into a domestic abuser. It was easy to see that Noxon had never thought of it in those terms... and equally clear that on viewing it, the Zap2It reporter had).
The writers got caught up in the metaphorical reading of it. But sometimes it's difficult for the audience to overlook the more concrete level on which the story takes place, and, for me at least in this case, that reality overwhelmed the supernatural and the metaphorical (just as it did during "Seeing Red"). This is why for all that is good in "Dead Things," it is, for me, far and away the most disturbing thing that Buffy ever did. And I still find that period of story difficult to revisit.
TV is a visual medium and it's a written story, so first a foremost a story plays on the level of plot -- of images and of words. Metaphor may texture it and expand it. And, on a really good day, it makes it exponentially better so that occasionally it transcends the concrete. But it also, inescapably, plays on a nuts and bolts level. That's what I think Mutant Enemy lost sight of there. While I agree that they were shooting for the metaphor, what they forgot to fully compensate for is the fact that while they can say "this is not a pipe," what the audience first sees is a pipe.
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In regards to authorial intent? I really don't think we'll ever truly know what was in their heads, anymore than we know what is in the heads of the writers of our favorite novels. In most cases the writers themselves don't know.
A TV show is not the same as an academic essay or meta, with endnotes and footnotes, and clear arguments. (Any more than my essays are like those, actually...I tend to do stream of consciousness and am bound to offend people.) It's a story that the writer is telling first and foremost. The themes - they aren't always aware of.
Also, I think what a lot of people forget when they are arguing this online, including myself, is that we don't necessarily share the same perspective. I.e - you may see a pipe, and I may see an aqueduct. Or you see a pipe and I see a stick of metal.
A better one may be a cigar - you see a cigar and I see a phallic symbol. Or an instrument of torture.
So how to know what the artist intended? Seems impossible when you consider the audience doesn't even see the image the same way. And it is bewildering - when someone sees say a cigar as a penis, when you know it is a cigar. How can they see it that way? Are they an idiot? Sometimes a cigar is just that a cigar.
BUT...it's possible that it was also meant to be a penis. And no, not an idiot, they just well saw it differently is all.
For me, I look for consistencies - things from prior episodes.
Similar bits of dialogue, or action, to see if they fit a pattern - that tells me what they may have intended. I look for the pattern. Example - Faith's position, dialogue, and reaction after pummeling Buffy in Who Are You is almost identical to Buffy's position, dialogue, and reaction in the alley - this is the psychological metaphor of the shadow self. That's how I analyzed it. Another way to analyze it would be the more literal interpretation, which is to compare Buffy's reactions to Spike to Spike's treatment of Harmony in Harsh Light of Day - Crush. To see similarities. There are a few, possibly enough to get across the theme of domestic violence. One is a metaphorical interpretation and one an literal one.
I think, from what I've seen of the author's other works and the tv landscape in general - that they possibly intended both interpretations. Attempting, perhaps clumsily depending again on your perspective, to demonstrate that anyone can do these crimes, hero or villian, that the world is far from simple, and
we have to be careful not to demonize people who are granted troubled, violent, nasty at times. A rapist can also be a hero, a gentleman or lady, and kind. A man and/or woman who beats their spouse, could also be wonderful to the homeless shelter folks - she helps each day. In the early seasons - it's pure metaphor. The domestic violence and rape is still there, but it is comforting because you see it through layers of metaphor. Faith's actions towards Xander, Xander's actions towards Buffy in the Pack, Spike's attack on Willow in the Initiative, Lover's Walk, and his attack's on Buffy in School Hard and Halloween (clearly metaphors for rape, but hidden behind the vampire metaphor.) Or even Faith's beating of Buffy in Who are You. Or Spike's treatment of Harmony.
In the later seasons, the metaphor for rape or domestic violence is stripped away...we can't as easily rationalize or justify it. It's brutal and painful to watch. It's not dressed up in gothic horror metaphors. In other words, the cigar is a penis. A rubber penis. It is obviously not just a cigar.
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But..oh well. ;-)
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And I think I perhaps didn't express myself particularly well with the "This is not a pipe" reference in that what I hoping to express was that in the Magritte painting of "This is Not a Pipe" there is painting of a pipe with the inscription below it saying "This is not a pipe." It's brilliant in the way it makes you think, just as I think that the BtVS use of metaphor and interpretation enriches BtVS far beyond what is simply on screen. Still, reading the caption "this is not a pipe" is a secondary action. Initially, upon viewing the Magritte painting, you see a pipe. Like the caption below the painting, metaphor, theme, and subtext can make you stop and think and give you a great deal to think about (e.g. It's not a pipe. It's an image of a pipe.) It elevates the whole. But before you ever reach the point of pondering the meaning of it all, you see what is visually depicted. It can't bypass completely what is visually presented to the viewer on its most mundane level.
Er... I hope that makes sense. I too tend to write in stream of consciousness too. :)
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Now, I know what you were talking about. My analogy must have sounded bizarre, since I clearly had no idea what you meant when you wrote - "this is not a pipe" but the viewer sees the pipe. ;-)
Actually this may be a very good example of what I was trying to get at above. ;-)
Which is the reference to Magritt's painting "this is not a pipe" only will make sense to someone who a)has seen the painting or b) knows about it. Otherwise, they are left trying to envision it. Or as in the case above - if you leave out the Magritt bit, they are left thinking okay that analogy doesn't make sense...but I'll try to figure it out anyhow (without asking for clarification - which would be the better approach.).
I think this is how miscommunications happen online. We assume we know what the other person is referring to or talking about, or that we understand their experience of an event. And if their reference or point or experience lies outside of our frame of reference or experience, we, I think, wander off bewildered by it or will clumsily try to make sense of it by linking it to something we know - as I did with the cigar analogy.
In situations where the experience carries a trigger - such as sexual violence, racial violence/racial discrimination, or domestic violence - the reaction of both parties may become inflammatory, particularly if one does not have a similar experience or frame of reference. If for example you are talking to someone who had an abusive boyfriend that Spike reminds them of - they may react to your take on Dead Things and Buffy with abject horror. While if you have someone who had an abusive boyfriend or girlfriend that Buffy reminds them of - they might react to someone who hated Spike in the episode and is defending Buffy with abject horror. I actually saw those reactions happen online at the time the episode aired - there was a flame war between Buffy fans who believed Spike raped her in the balcony scene and Spike fans who believed Buffy was a domestic abuser in the alley scene. It got so bad that the moderator who had been raped - told them to shape up or she'd kick them all off the board. The same thing happened in LMTPM (between Robin sympathizers and Spike sympathizers) and Seeing Red. People assume the perspective contradictory to their own is evil. It's not. They assume that person who has that perspective is condoning domestic violence or rape, they aren't - they may just see/experience what is happening on screen differently.
Another example: I was one of five witnesses to a hit and run accident in college. The cop who took the statements told me that every person he spoke with said a different thing, some contradictory. I saw the person who took off, get out of his car, look at me and the victim, look confused. Think the victim was okay. I ran to get help. And when I got back, he was gone. The people behind me, saw the girl lying on the ground and the car driving off - they didn't see me leave my backpack by her and run to get help or see the man get out of his car. I assumed I had to get help, I did not realize someone else had already called for help.
Same thing here - you are focusing on Spike. You see him. Someone else sees Buffy and her pain, and guilt, and the war inside her, and Spike forcing himself on her in the Bronze, while you may see Spike seducing her at the Bronze.
While someone who has not seen the episode, would listen to our discussion of it and be bewildered as to why we would be interested in a tv series that has such horrific things in it. ;-)
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Oh yeah, flamewars have a way of sometimes coming to that point and when it does it can end up being anywhere between uncomfortable to absurd, to occasional cruel. I once had someone who identified very strongly with Buffy ending up swearing I was the devil over a few of my opinions. :/ I do think we should strive to understand that at the end of the day it's fiction and we all have different reactions to things. It doesn't make someone bad, stupid, or evil to have a different one.
Actually, when reading back through the comments of the old Barb post that I mentioned and that Green_maia found, I found in my old comments a reference to an incident and had to think "Oh yeah. That was around that time..."
I had long since compartmentalized the stuff and forgotten that its influence had seeped into a few of my opinions regarding Dead Things. Basically a guy that I knew, someone who had grown up two houses down from my own, who I had known my entire life, whose entire family I knew, and who I had babysat as a child, in his mid-twentites beat both of his parents to death one night. (It always frightened/disturbed me that the day before he did this he'd been over at my parents house helping my Mom get a virus out of her computer. We never -- no one ever -- thought that in a million years that he'd be capable of such a thing). Anyway, his defense during the trial was that he'd been clinically depressed (he had had many bouts with drug addiction in his life -- probably self-medicating -- but he'd been sober for several months before and during his crime). Anyway, while I think it's probably true that he was clinically depressed (he committed suicide in prison a few years ago) I couldn't accept the reasoning of his defense. Many people suffer depression, but they don't kill. There's still free will. So, yeah. Influences. Probably more for the worse than the better, but, yeah, I can see that incident's influence in some of my reactions. The timing of the incident and the "Dead Things" episode was a little too contemporaneous for me to keep the thoughts entirely separate.
Again, interesting conversation. Thanks.
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I also had triggers regarding Buffy S6 and S7 - which explains my obsession with the story - I think if it weren't for those triggers, subconscious and conscious, I would not have gotten as invested as I did at the time. Sometimes, at least in my case, seeing it play out fictionally and metaphorically can be comforting. It made me feel less alone - like someone out there got how I was feeling inside.
While S6 was on, I was struggling with a pseudo-nervous breakdown brought on by two simultaneous events: post-traumatic stress disorder in relation to 9/11 (I lived in NYC and lived within 30 miles of the twin towers and had almost gone to them that very morning to get tickets to a Peter Gabriel concert) and a serial bully boss who had decided he hated me and set up a conspiracy to get me out of my job. Both things were bizarre and more or less changed my life.
(Now, I didn't get into an abusive sexual relationship or beat up anyone...I coped by writing meta online and getting into the occassional flame war. ;-) )
So I identified with Buffy, with Spike to an extent, and with the characters. I could not stand the sight of Robin Wood in S7 - because the actor had the same smug mannerisms and manipulative attitude as the boss serial bullying me. (They looked nothing a like - the serial bully boss looked more like the guy in the British version of the comedy the Office, even had the same name - which is why I've never been able to watch that show. But Robin Wood's treatment of Buffy, Spike, and his smug attitude for some reason reminded me of that boss - who was the reason I was unemployed for 23 months. I left the job in a recession, without another one in place.)
By the way, what you described above doesn't sound like just clinical depression, although clinical depression is a bit broad of a term and at times all-encompassing. I'm not even sure what it actually means any more, since I've seen it used in multiple contexts. It's unfortunately become a media catch-all phrase to describe a broad range of emotional and mental illnesses - ranging from severe to mild. It's as bad as manic depressive and bipolar.
As well as attention deficit disorder and dyslexia.
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