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shadowkatThe odd thing about posting in blogs or on facebook is sometimes you feel as if you are just adding a layer to the babble page. All these voices. Any listeners?
Been rewatching Buffy S7 now. And found myself blown away by the layered metaphors and prose poetry in the first four episodes. These are a lot better than I remembered. I think removing the anticipation and not watching them with a critical posting board mumbling in the background may have made a difference? Or maybe I just see things now that I didn't before? (shrugs) Buffy is one of those rare tv shows that you actually see new things in it each time you watch. Even more with the appropriate distance.
It's a huge shift from S6, which was in some respects less poetic in style and more raw. Here we are going back to the beginning or roots of the series, but much like Stephen King's novel "IT", the monsters aren't the ones the teens feared, but rather ones that adults do. Old demons haunting the hallways of the high schools we may have physically left behind, but emotionally never quite did.
[ETA - post below has been edited slightly, I added a paragraph and changed some dialogue. If you are at all curious about why I am obsessed with this show still and the characters of Spike and Buffy, this meta and the three or four before it - are the places to figure it out. ]
Buffy's greatest fear in Lessons is the high school. Not just any high school but the one that had, as she puts it, tried to kill her for three years. And now, she has to send her sister there - she can't change school districts and she can't afford private school. She's forced to go back there - and it is there she runs smack dab into her demons, and as we learn in a later episode the high school is filled to the brim with them.
In his acceptance speech and Q&A for the Cultural Humanist Award, Joss Whedon states that
he was interested in exploring the themes of power and redemption in his works. How people abuse power and how people feel powerless. He also stated that we all at one point or another feel a need for redemption for abusing the power that we have. While we must own our actions, take responsibility for them, they do not define who we are. The actions are the demons, not us. We can learn not to do it again. The leap of faith is to believe in humanity, the good in humanity to rise above it, all evidence to the contrary. The theme of the seventh season of Buffy he states was about becoming one of many, to share one's power with others, not to go it alone.
In Lessons, Buffy discovers a tailsman - it brings forth three vengeance spirits the moment she touches it. The three brought forth are a girl torn apart by a werewolf, a boy who pokes out his eye with a pencil and says can you be my girlfriend, and a janitor screaming at her to leave this place. They are in a sense metaphorical representations of Giles, Willow and Xander. Her failings towards each. Her fears. They block her way to Dawn, they take Dawn. And Dawn is with two friends when Buffy hunts for her, Buffy in the Giles role. While at the center - is Spike, representing perhaps the part of herself she can't quite face, the slayer, the demon. Yet, here, when she finds Spike, he isn't a demon, but a man, broken, splintered. Insane. Filled to the brim with guilt. A shattered soul. He tells her how to defeat the demons then tells her to go, which she does, half hoping he is little more than a mirage. Telling no one he is real, because by denying it, perhaps he isn't.
Yet, the moment he is left alone, the manifest spirit of all her old demons emerges...it takes the shape and form of every hateful thing Buffy has faced and conquered, from Warren Miers (human) all the way back to the Master (a vampire), and finally, Buffy herself. Each stating Buffy's own fears and uncertainities about Spike and herself to Spike - her counterpart. Her subconscious. Buried deep inside the basement of the place that still haunts her nightmares.
It - this spirit, the First Evil, or so it calls itself, says souls are meaningless, slipperier than a greased eel, that once you are evil, you always are - there is no redemption. There is no way to fight back the night. And it is not about right or wrong...either...it is about power!
Power. Whedon stated in his speech that for years he thought he had none, then suddenly realized he did have quite a bit and was abusing it. He hopes he can be redeemed for it. He thinks we all may feel the same. All his characters he states are flawed, all including Buffy seek redeemption, for that is the human condition.
In Beneath You - enter Nancy and her psycho ex-boyfriend, a lowly slug, a worm. She goes to Anya, a vengeance demon as Anya states - "you wish it, I dish it." Anya has for a thousand years been inflicting vengeance or "justice" as Halfrek likes to call it, on all those who have hurt women. She does it by turning the offender into a demon or calling up a demon to punish them. It is usually the former. And it is how her wedding got broken up in Hells Bells - one of her former "victims" decided to pay Anya back for her crime - by showing Xander his worst fears. When Xander stands her up at the alter, Anya takes D'Hoffryn up on his offer to turn her back into one of his vengeance demons. Except Vengeance as she tells Willow does not have the same thrill it once did.
Here the metaphor works on multiple levels. In a way it is sort of subversive. We live in a culture that thrives on vengeance. Our laws, our morals. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. The Wrath of God. Or as Joss Whedon calls it - the skybully. If you hurt someone, you pay for it. Redemption is for suckers.
But, vengeance has it's price. Anya demonizes Ronnie - Nancy's ex boyfriend. She turns him into the demonic equivalent of his action - an acting worm seeking to devor Nancy, from beneath you it devors - literally.
Onto the scene arrives another ex-boyfriend, potentially psycho, depending on your pov. In Buffy, Xander and Dawn's - Spike is psycho. He attempted to rape Buffy the last time she saw him. Then left town for parts unknown. Now, he's back. She first discovers him messy, in the basement, beneath the ground. Now he's cleaned up. In a blue shirt. Neat. Mannered. Polite. Almost too polite. They are understandably wary. But he asks to help. His offer to help is juxtaposed with Willow worrying about coming back early, to lend a hand. Wondering if she'll be welcome, if she won't lost control again.
GILES TO WILLOW: I would offer some guarantee you'll be welcomed back in Sunnydale with
open arms. But I can't. You may not be wanted. But you will be needed.
Buffy to Spike: When did you become a champion to the people?
SPIKE to Buffy: I didn't. I'm just a guy who can lend a hand, if you let me.
Both Spike and Willow enter the scene in their separate episodes with suspicion. Buffy leaps to the conclusion that Willow may be evil again, may be skinning people. The Skineater - or Gnarl - is an interesting metaphor. And possibly the creepiest monster they've done since the Gentleman. In Native American Culture - Skineaters are bad spirits, vengeance spirits.
Often associated with magic. They take numerous shapes. Quite frightening. The Gnarl is in Same Time Same Place. In Beneath You - it is a sluggoth demon - the predatory man size worm with teeth and shaped like a penis or snake. A perfect metaphor for rape or sexual assault.
The stalker ex-boyfriend. When Buffy sees Spike again, he magically appears in her house, no knock, and convinces her he is here to help. But he is an unknown quantity.
So she gives Spike a chance, lets him help - with decidedly mixed results. They go to the hole that the worm came out of, and there's nothing there. Spike says maybe some muck but that's it. Just as there's nothing from their past relationship. She can tell he has changed, but as she states, I don't know what into. Or what you are. Have you changed in to the worm that I'm metaphorically chasing? Are you real? Are you playing a game with me? He says he has changed but he's not going to tell her how. He backs away from it.
They go to the Bronze and run into Anya, who admits to turning Ronnie into a Sluggoth Demon. That's when Anya sees the soul inside Spike and Spike freaks. He wants to hide. He doesn't want her to see it. He pulls away from her. But she won't stop. She keeps saying oh my god, oh my god, I can see you, how did you do it? You aren't supposed to be able to do that. He punchs her before she can say more. Clearly pannicing. Buffy misinterprets his actions, seeing the old Spike. Perhaps wanting to see the old Spike. Like Nancy - she wants to demonize Spike. It is easier if he's the demon that she can stake. A lowly worm who attacks her. Not human. Not a man. She can't attack the action, but she can attack the person who does the action.
So they fight, Buffy taking Anya's place on the battleground. And Spike all too willing to be demonized by her, plays the demon. States what she wants to hear, plays the demon - and echoes everything she has worried over and thought back to her like a dark reflection, the dark reflection he's always been:
BUFFY
You haven't changed, Spike.
He shoves her. She punches him. He punches her back. And Buffy goes nuts. She launches a left-right-hook combination and punctuates it with a roundhouse kick to the head. As she does so, Spike SPEAKS, almost smiling:
SPIKE
Ooh, working out some issues, are we?
Guess this'd be first contact since
you-know-when ... up for another
round in the balcony, then?
SPIKE (cont'd)
And no, I haven't changed, not a lick, not a nip, not a tickles..and watching your face trying to figure
me out was absolutely delicious.
They are back to their old dance and Spike is half enjoying it. It's easier. He's the lust demon, the sluggoth demon. Her fears. Not a man. He is all the actions she is ashamed of. And he taunts her with them. All the worms that left her and tormented her and broke her heart.
But Xander interrupts - Nancy has fled and Buffy goes after her to hopefully save her from the Sluggoth. Spike follows in demon face. Much as the sluggoth goes after Nancy.
Meanwhile Xander begs Anya to withdraw the curse. Anya struggles with it. Vengeance as she tells Willow in Same Time Same Place no longer has its appeal. She half fears it. And is holding back. After watching what Willow did...she is no longer certain it's worth the toll. She used to love it. For a thousand years. Now...it feels wrong somehow.
When Buffy finally catches up to Nancy, saves her from the Sluggoth, Spike intervenes to attack the demon - "leave the killing to us, demons!" he states and plunges the pole into it. His face is human at this point. And at that moment, the Sluggoth metamporhises back into Ronnie. Anya has withdrawn her curse. Spike's chip goes off. Both men scream. And Spike says something that is completely out of character...as he quickly removes the pole from Ronnie's chest. "I'm sorry. Hardly helpful. Bad. Not good." And begins to go a bit insane. He screams out for help as Buffy is busy helping Ronnie, covering him with a coat. While Nancy screams at Anya and the others then flees sick.
"Help me!" screams Spike.
"Stop it, Spike. You aren't the one who needs help."
"Stop. Right. Good for you. If only I could. I get it. The jokes on Spike. Going to be a circus...here for the show. All this a warm-up act, when the main attraction hits the stage, everything will come tumbling down in flames and blood. From Beneath You it Devours. Poor Ronnie..."he covers his mouth as if he wants to throw-up and runs off into the night.
Thrown, Buffy follows. Everything he has said is from her own nightmares. From Beneath You. Up until now, she looks at Spike and sees what he did not who he is. The worm. The rapist. The stalker. The psycho boyfriend. Because it is easier. If she can lable him, she doesn't have to deal with him. Or with what happened between them.
She follows him to a church, a church - the metaphorical place for sancturary, a place of peace, redemption, forgiveness, and judgement. Inside, we get a close-up of a painting of a priest comforting a penitent sinner.
A cross jangles from her neck. A cross that matches the one at the top of the row. The light is moonlight. And from behind her, he looms, naked to the waist, just like Ronnie. Bare of costume, just like Ronnie. Scrapes on the place where his heart is, just like Ronnie.
Spike: Didn't work. Couldn't Hide. Just a costume. (he puts his shirt over the pew)
Buffy: No more mind games Spike.
Spike: No more mind games, no more mind.
Buffy (taken aback) - she looks at him and tries to touch his chest, "what happened to you?"
(It's the second time she's asked and the second time she's tried to touch the scrapes on his chest.)
Spike: No touching. No touching. Am I flesh to you? Am I flesh...feed on flesh, my flesh.
Solid through. Get it hard. Service the girl.
Buffy freaks as he begins to unbelt his buckle and pushes him back, he reflexively grabs her by the throat, and she throws him across the room, where he crashes into some pews. She is furious and frightened.
Spike: Right girl doesn't want to be serviced. No spark. Aren't we in a sodden engine.
All of what Spike says is metaphor. Prose poetry. Most lost on Buffy who really doesn't think so much in metaphors and is trying desperately to follow him. He's scaring the hell out of her. He is in some respects her worst nightmare. She could have dealt with the Spike taunting her in the Bronze, or the Spike jabbing Ronnie then not understanding why that was a bad thing. But this Spike - filled with remorse, ashamed of himself, and half crazed...is well, it is similar to Nancy starring at Ronnie's wounded naked body on the ground. Wondering who is the demon here, her or him? By demonizing him or making Ronnie his actions, is she, well abusing her own power here? Buffy must be wondering the same.
Buffy: Did you what think you could come back and what be with me?
Spike: Well, there's always a first time.
And perhaps he's right. But he's insane. She tells him this is his last chance, if he doesn't tell her what's going on with him, she's done with him once and for all.
Spike: I tried to find it, of course.
Buffy: Find what?
Spike: The spark. The missing... the piece... that fit. That would make me fit. Because you didn't want... God, I can't. Not with you looking.
What follows has got to be the most beautiful piece of television writing I've heard or seen. It is one of those rare bits of magic that well, everything works and falls oh so perfectly into place. Although parts of Battlestar Galatica came awfully close at times. It's intricate and heartfelt and straight out of the creator of the series head. The story goes for those reading this that don't know it - at the eleventh hour, Whedon rewrote Doug Petrie's script, and reshot the last scene with a boneweary James Marsters and an equally bone weary Gellar - what resulted is one of the most beautiful and touching pieces of film in Whedon's career.
And you can't get the words from the shooting script at Buffyworld, because those are the original words...the one's that Whedon rewrote and are actually filmed and appear onscreen- aren't in Petrie's script, because Petrie did not write them.
Spike: Did I kill you? Dreamed of killing you. At least I think they were dreams. Am I soft? Did you make me soft? Holding Myself, crying buckets of salt. Over your ending. Angel— he should have warned me. (Buffy begins to realize what he's talking about. She gulps.) He makes a good show of forgetting, but it's here, in me... all the time. The spark. (pause) I wanted to give you... what you deserve. And I got it. They put the spark in me. And now all it does is burn.
Buffy: Your soul.
Buffy looks horrified. Rocked. Shattered. It's a moment much like the one in Innocence, where everything Buffy thought was true is not. The world has shifted, turned inside out. Upside down. She rocks back on her feet. Her eyes fill with tears and bulge. And she must be replaying what Angel said, what she's said.
(Angel: Can you imagine having done all the things I've done and to care?? - Season 1, Angel
Buffy: You can't be good without a soul. You are a thing. An evil, soulless thing. Season 6.
Buffy: You can't love without a soul. That's a chip in your head. You are like a serial killer in prison. S5.
Xander: He doesn't have a soul Buffy. Without a soul he is evil. That chip is just a leash. S6
Giles: The vampire is not human. It has the appearance of the human. It walks and talks like a human. But the human soul is gone. It merely has the personality. S1 Welcome to the Hellmouth - not exact wording.)
The expression on Buffy's face is similar to the one she had in Beauty and the Beasts when Angel returned, similar to the one in Innocence, and similar to the one she has in Becoming when she realizes he's back again. And finally similar to the look of horror she has when she realized she killed Katrina, and when she realizes she beat up Spike. It is one of pure raw pain.
Spike (doesn't laugh so much chuckles, a soft pained chuckle like one you might give after telling a painful truth, vulnerable, and lonely): Bit worse for lack of use.
Buffy: You got your soul back. How?
Spike: It's what you wanted, right? It's what you wanted, right?!(He looks up at the rafters - at the heavens) And-and now everybody's in here, talking. Everything I did, everyone I— and him. And it. The other... the thing... beneath... beneath you. It's here, too. Everybody... they all just tell me go. Go... to hell.
Buffy: Why? Why would you do that?
Spike: Buffy, shame on you. Why does a man do what he mustn't? For her. To be hers. To be the kind of man who would nev—
(He pauses, almost crying. Who would never rape a girl, yet once he gets the soul - he realizes it is no guarantee. That the attempted rape is as much a man's crime as a demon's. That he did do these things. To others. Many. As he himself states in Lessons - "I had a speech, memorized it whole, but she won't understand, she'll never understand.." And the First Evil taunts - of course she won't...and trying to get a soul to be what, good, you can't be good, you are just a pathetic smuck, because a soul is meaningless..." ETA: Another bit here, that's important - is Spike is stating why he got the soul, but he is saying something else as well, something Angel tries to tell Buffy in Amends, but it doesn't come across quite as well as it does here - perhaps because here, we also have Willow who echoes Spike's words. Spike thought he could go back to his former self - that is what he tells the demon in Africa in Villians and in Grave - give me what I want, what is mine, return me to my "former" self. It is what he says in Seeing Red - "she thinks she knows who I am, but I wasn't always this way, bitch is going to see a change. She thinks she's better than me.." - he's talking about the man he was before Dru turned him, the man who died. Emphasis - THE MAN. And it is what he says above - why does a "man" do what he mustn't. To be the kind of "man". This is highly ironic - when you consider up until As You Were - Spike has been saying, the girl needs a little monster in her man. He has to a degree gloried in being the monster, the cool dude. Yet after Seeing Red - he realizes it is the monster that is the problem. He's not a man with a monster, he is a monster with a man inside. So he gets his soul and he finds out...
Willow to Giles: I want to be just Willow again. Go back to who I once was, before the magic. Be Wilow.
Giles: in the end, we are all who we are. We always have been. Even with all the changes.
William, Spike...he is and has always been William. He is and has always been Spike. It is like Xander - Suave and Geek, or Angel and Angelus. It is Whedon's response at the cultural Humanist interview - they are both. We are both light and dark. Both war inside us all every day. )
Spike: To be a kind of man. And she shall look on him with forgiveness... and everybody will forgive and love. (Spike goes to the cross at the front of the church.) He will be loved. (He drapes himself over the cross. His skin begins to burn. The perfect metaphor for the impossibility of forgiveness of the burning blaze of those who will always see him for the act. And demonize him for it. He's a vampire, a monster, and the cross burns. As does the soul inside his unholy, dead form.)
Spike: So everybody's okay, right? (Buffy is crying.) C-can we rest now? Buffy? Can we rest?
The desire to be forgiven, yet in the attempt, to only be burned. The cross burns him. It is sharp and refuses to comfort. And Buffy...can do nothing.
In this episode, the writer communicates the pain of the damned. Or those we damn. We exile. Burn asunder.
Yet states, via Anya and Nancy, Xander and Buffy herself...that nothing is gained by doing it.
No one hates Spike more than Spike. That's the ironic twist here, Spike sees himself as the worm, the sluggoth demon, the demon. He got the soul because he could not forgive himself for attempting to rape her, he can't let her touch him because it brings it to the fore. It's a lovely twist - the character who had his power in sex, now rejects that power almost completely. He rejects the vampire. He hates it. Yet suppressing it only gives it more power over him. The First can whisper its sweet nothings in his ears. When Dawn threatens to set him on fire, he barely winces. The thing of it is - he is on fire. All he does is burn.
He cannot see her loving him or wanting him or caring. Who would. William is a bad man.
I hurt the girl - he tells Buffy in Help.
Willow is in a similar situation. Like Spike, Willow is trying to prove to everyone that she is not evil, but mostly she is trying to prove it to herself. I am not this horrible person.
Yet, she is terrified to face her friends. So she hides. Does a spell, where she is literally not in the same time as they are. Out of synce. She feels out of sync with them - so is.
Also like Beneath You - Willow is equally tormented by a metaphorical demon. A skineater - who torments it's victims much in the same way she tormented Warren. Skinning them alive.
She like Warren had been, is paralyzed, and the gnarl demon pulls off her skin.
Lonliness is also emphasized here as it is in the church sequence in Beneath You - where Willow is alone. Friendless. Cut off from the group. She's here too early she believes. She's not fully healed yet. And she is afraid.
When she encounters Spike in the basement, his words could very well be her own.
Spike: You put your heart back in your chest, wall off the bad parts, think it could help, but it doesn't...nothing changes.
Willow fears she can't wall off the bad parts. The power is a part of her now. She can't not use it. She can't get rid of it. And it scares her. It scares her that she will abuse it again, lose control. As she states to Xander in Help - "I'm afraid I'm magic the hammer and use it to crack open my friends skulls." He is stating control - don't hold it too losely, but don't use too much force or you will kill your thumb, she's stating you don't get it - I have too much power - and if I lose control it will hurt you, not just me.
She sees herself as a bomb that could explode.
Whedon - in his cultural humanist speech mentioned that the addiction metaphor was used here too - in a way, that when people lose control with a substance, they become someone else.
The demon in the bottle. And to a degree it is here with Willow and Spike - both struggling with the demon in the proverbial bottle. Except unlike alcohol or smoking, the bottle isn't something they can quite completely, it is part of them. The metaphor is layered.
Willow like Spike also fears how others see her. "I can't not with you watching" - Spike says in Beneath You, or in Same Time Same Place - "I should hide my face, from you, you know what I've done."
They are struggling to forgive themselves. It's an odd thing. But when we hurt someone else, either intentionally or unintentionally, we often hurt ourselves even more. It is harder, I think, to forgive oneself than others. We hold ourselves to a higher standard.
William had always seen himself as a good man. And Spike was proud of how evil he was. The big bad. The two are at war. William who wants to be a good man. And Spike who glories in the demon. The rush. The chaos. Put together...it gets murky, gray. And when he inserts the soul...the world shatters around him. Who is he? And he is overwhelmed by what he has done.
Willow likewise...saw herself as a good person. And was proud of her power. The great witch.
Powerful. But she has killed people. Rack and Warren. Bad people true. But people. She went crazy and almost destroyed the world. She was the big bad. She tried to kill Giles and Dawn.
Can she find redemption? Can she control it? She too is overwhelmed by what she has done.
Buffy sits crosslegged in front of Willow and shares her strength. I have so much, I'm giving it away, she states. And apologizes for not seeing that it was not Willow who had done this.
But Willow states...you are the slayer. You have to ask the hard questions.
Yet, the story is still Buffy's. And it still goes back to Lessons. Buffy is afraid of her own power. And her own demons populate the old basement of the high school. Buried there.
But still there. Never quite burned away. She may have killed the mayor and destroyed the school - but the demons still reside inside it. The metaphorical demons of her childhood, of her own past. Represented by Spike - who like Angel has a soul, but is not Angel. And the soul, what does it even mean? Does it even matter after Warren? After Willow? After her own behavior? She kills vampires...but if vampires can get souls...why kill them?
The answer Whedon provides himself in his lecture - "vampires buck the system, they are immortal, that is their crime. Their inability to die. Inability to share in the cycle of death. By staking them, Buffy returns them to that cycle...in a way."
So where does that leave Spike or even Willow? Powerful. Able to bring the dead back to life.
Spike who is a vampire. Yet also a man. Remorseful. Hating his own crime, condemning himself more than she ever could.
Buffy: "What do you do when you can't help?"
Dawn:"But you did help ...you tried. If it weren't for you, she wouldn't have been my friend. If it weren't for you...she wouldn't have had someone else care...you tried. Sometimes you can't save everyone."
Death, Whedon states, is what we are all the most afraid of. Terrified of. We try to skirt around it. We try to make it something it's not. But it is inevitable. It is part of who and what we are as human beings. And we cannot save anyone from it. Stories help us handle it.
As they I think, help us handle things like redemption, how to handle horrible horrible things that people do to us and worse still the horrible things we do to others.
Can we find our own redemption? Spike seems to ask that in Beneath You. Can you forgive me?
Can I forgive myself? As does Willow in words neatly juxtaposed ...can my friends forgive me?
And what if they don't?
Giles states...perhaps they won't. Perhaps they can't. There are no guarantees. All you can do is walk through the door and lend a hand. Try.
So Spike and Willow walk through the doors and try to lend a hand, albeith awkwardly.
In Help, Spike saves Buffy and Cassie, before disappearing. And in Same Time Same Place, Willow tries to defeat the Gnarl. And lends a hand researching Cassie's background.
These metaphors reflect back on the one in Lessons - three manifest spirits seeking vengeance against Buffy for not saving them. Manifest spirits Buffy herself has brought into being.
By touching the tailismin. She defeats them, when Xander breaks the tailsman, by working together. And realizing...she can't save everyone. But she tried.
Power...can be used wisely, tempered, as one might hammar a nail. We have the power to forgive ourselves and others. The power to redeem ourselves. The power to change and evolve.
The power to learn. And the power to condemn, judge, avenge, and hurt. Both war inside us.
The light and dark in constant play.
Been rewatching Buffy S7 now. And found myself blown away by the layered metaphors and prose poetry in the first four episodes. These are a lot better than I remembered. I think removing the anticipation and not watching them with a critical posting board mumbling in the background may have made a difference? Or maybe I just see things now that I didn't before? (shrugs) Buffy is one of those rare tv shows that you actually see new things in it each time you watch. Even more with the appropriate distance.
It's a huge shift from S6, which was in some respects less poetic in style and more raw. Here we are going back to the beginning or roots of the series, but much like Stephen King's novel "IT", the monsters aren't the ones the teens feared, but rather ones that adults do. Old demons haunting the hallways of the high schools we may have physically left behind, but emotionally never quite did.
[ETA - post below has been edited slightly, I added a paragraph and changed some dialogue. If you are at all curious about why I am obsessed with this show still and the characters of Spike and Buffy, this meta and the three or four before it - are the places to figure it out. ]
Buffy's greatest fear in Lessons is the high school. Not just any high school but the one that had, as she puts it, tried to kill her for three years. And now, she has to send her sister there - she can't change school districts and she can't afford private school. She's forced to go back there - and it is there she runs smack dab into her demons, and as we learn in a later episode the high school is filled to the brim with them.
In his acceptance speech and Q&A for the Cultural Humanist Award, Joss Whedon states that
he was interested in exploring the themes of power and redemption in his works. How people abuse power and how people feel powerless. He also stated that we all at one point or another feel a need for redemption for abusing the power that we have. While we must own our actions, take responsibility for them, they do not define who we are. The actions are the demons, not us. We can learn not to do it again. The leap of faith is to believe in humanity, the good in humanity to rise above it, all evidence to the contrary. The theme of the seventh season of Buffy he states was about becoming one of many, to share one's power with others, not to go it alone.
In Lessons, Buffy discovers a tailsman - it brings forth three vengeance spirits the moment she touches it. The three brought forth are a girl torn apart by a werewolf, a boy who pokes out his eye with a pencil and says can you be my girlfriend, and a janitor screaming at her to leave this place. They are in a sense metaphorical representations of Giles, Willow and Xander. Her failings towards each. Her fears. They block her way to Dawn, they take Dawn. And Dawn is with two friends when Buffy hunts for her, Buffy in the Giles role. While at the center - is Spike, representing perhaps the part of herself she can't quite face, the slayer, the demon. Yet, here, when she finds Spike, he isn't a demon, but a man, broken, splintered. Insane. Filled to the brim with guilt. A shattered soul. He tells her how to defeat the demons then tells her to go, which she does, half hoping he is little more than a mirage. Telling no one he is real, because by denying it, perhaps he isn't.
Yet, the moment he is left alone, the manifest spirit of all her old demons emerges...it takes the shape and form of every hateful thing Buffy has faced and conquered, from Warren Miers (human) all the way back to the Master (a vampire), and finally, Buffy herself. Each stating Buffy's own fears and uncertainities about Spike and herself to Spike - her counterpart. Her subconscious. Buried deep inside the basement of the place that still haunts her nightmares.
It - this spirit, the First Evil, or so it calls itself, says souls are meaningless, slipperier than a greased eel, that once you are evil, you always are - there is no redemption. There is no way to fight back the night. And it is not about right or wrong...either...it is about power!
Power. Whedon stated in his speech that for years he thought he had none, then suddenly realized he did have quite a bit and was abusing it. He hopes he can be redeemed for it. He thinks we all may feel the same. All his characters he states are flawed, all including Buffy seek redeemption, for that is the human condition.
In Beneath You - enter Nancy and her psycho ex-boyfriend, a lowly slug, a worm. She goes to Anya, a vengeance demon as Anya states - "you wish it, I dish it." Anya has for a thousand years been inflicting vengeance or "justice" as Halfrek likes to call it, on all those who have hurt women. She does it by turning the offender into a demon or calling up a demon to punish them. It is usually the former. And it is how her wedding got broken up in Hells Bells - one of her former "victims" decided to pay Anya back for her crime - by showing Xander his worst fears. When Xander stands her up at the alter, Anya takes D'Hoffryn up on his offer to turn her back into one of his vengeance demons. Except Vengeance as she tells Willow does not have the same thrill it once did.
Here the metaphor works on multiple levels. In a way it is sort of subversive. We live in a culture that thrives on vengeance. Our laws, our morals. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. The Wrath of God. Or as Joss Whedon calls it - the skybully. If you hurt someone, you pay for it. Redemption is for suckers.
But, vengeance has it's price. Anya demonizes Ronnie - Nancy's ex boyfriend. She turns him into the demonic equivalent of his action - an acting worm seeking to devor Nancy, from beneath you it devors - literally.
Onto the scene arrives another ex-boyfriend, potentially psycho, depending on your pov. In Buffy, Xander and Dawn's - Spike is psycho. He attempted to rape Buffy the last time she saw him. Then left town for parts unknown. Now, he's back. She first discovers him messy, in the basement, beneath the ground. Now he's cleaned up. In a blue shirt. Neat. Mannered. Polite. Almost too polite. They are understandably wary. But he asks to help. His offer to help is juxtaposed with Willow worrying about coming back early, to lend a hand. Wondering if she'll be welcome, if she won't lost control again.
GILES TO WILLOW: I would offer some guarantee you'll be welcomed back in Sunnydale with
open arms. But I can't. You may not be wanted. But you will be needed.
Buffy to Spike: When did you become a champion to the people?
SPIKE to Buffy: I didn't. I'm just a guy who can lend a hand, if you let me.
Both Spike and Willow enter the scene in their separate episodes with suspicion. Buffy leaps to the conclusion that Willow may be evil again, may be skinning people. The Skineater - or Gnarl - is an interesting metaphor. And possibly the creepiest monster they've done since the Gentleman. In Native American Culture - Skineaters are bad spirits, vengeance spirits.
Often associated with magic. They take numerous shapes. Quite frightening. The Gnarl is in Same Time Same Place. In Beneath You - it is a sluggoth demon - the predatory man size worm with teeth and shaped like a penis or snake. A perfect metaphor for rape or sexual assault.
The stalker ex-boyfriend. When Buffy sees Spike again, he magically appears in her house, no knock, and convinces her he is here to help. But he is an unknown quantity.
So she gives Spike a chance, lets him help - with decidedly mixed results. They go to the hole that the worm came out of, and there's nothing there. Spike says maybe some muck but that's it. Just as there's nothing from their past relationship. She can tell he has changed, but as she states, I don't know what into. Or what you are. Have you changed in to the worm that I'm metaphorically chasing? Are you real? Are you playing a game with me? He says he has changed but he's not going to tell her how. He backs away from it.
They go to the Bronze and run into Anya, who admits to turning Ronnie into a Sluggoth Demon. That's when Anya sees the soul inside Spike and Spike freaks. He wants to hide. He doesn't want her to see it. He pulls away from her. But she won't stop. She keeps saying oh my god, oh my god, I can see you, how did you do it? You aren't supposed to be able to do that. He punchs her before she can say more. Clearly pannicing. Buffy misinterprets his actions, seeing the old Spike. Perhaps wanting to see the old Spike. Like Nancy - she wants to demonize Spike. It is easier if he's the demon that she can stake. A lowly worm who attacks her. Not human. Not a man. She can't attack the action, but she can attack the person who does the action.
So they fight, Buffy taking Anya's place on the battleground. And Spike all too willing to be demonized by her, plays the demon. States what she wants to hear, plays the demon - and echoes everything she has worried over and thought back to her like a dark reflection, the dark reflection he's always been:
BUFFY
You haven't changed, Spike.
He shoves her. She punches him. He punches her back. And Buffy goes nuts. She launches a left-right-hook combination and punctuates it with a roundhouse kick to the head. As she does so, Spike SPEAKS, almost smiling:
SPIKE
Ooh, working out some issues, are we?
Guess this'd be first contact since
you-know-when ... up for another
round in the balcony, then?
SPIKE (cont'd)
And no, I haven't changed, not a lick, not a nip, not a tickles..and watching your face trying to figure
me out was absolutely delicious.
They are back to their old dance and Spike is half enjoying it. It's easier. He's the lust demon, the sluggoth demon. Her fears. Not a man. He is all the actions she is ashamed of. And he taunts her with them. All the worms that left her and tormented her and broke her heart.
But Xander interrupts - Nancy has fled and Buffy goes after her to hopefully save her from the Sluggoth. Spike follows in demon face. Much as the sluggoth goes after Nancy.
Meanwhile Xander begs Anya to withdraw the curse. Anya struggles with it. Vengeance as she tells Willow in Same Time Same Place no longer has its appeal. She half fears it. And is holding back. After watching what Willow did...she is no longer certain it's worth the toll. She used to love it. For a thousand years. Now...it feels wrong somehow.
When Buffy finally catches up to Nancy, saves her from the Sluggoth, Spike intervenes to attack the demon - "leave the killing to us, demons!" he states and plunges the pole into it. His face is human at this point. And at that moment, the Sluggoth metamporhises back into Ronnie. Anya has withdrawn her curse. Spike's chip goes off. Both men scream. And Spike says something that is completely out of character...as he quickly removes the pole from Ronnie's chest. "I'm sorry. Hardly helpful. Bad. Not good." And begins to go a bit insane. He screams out for help as Buffy is busy helping Ronnie, covering him with a coat. While Nancy screams at Anya and the others then flees sick.
"Help me!" screams Spike.
"Stop it, Spike. You aren't the one who needs help."
"Stop. Right. Good for you. If only I could. I get it. The jokes on Spike. Going to be a circus...here for the show. All this a warm-up act, when the main attraction hits the stage, everything will come tumbling down in flames and blood. From Beneath You it Devours. Poor Ronnie..."he covers his mouth as if he wants to throw-up and runs off into the night.
Thrown, Buffy follows. Everything he has said is from her own nightmares. From Beneath You. Up until now, she looks at Spike and sees what he did not who he is. The worm. The rapist. The stalker. The psycho boyfriend. Because it is easier. If she can lable him, she doesn't have to deal with him. Or with what happened between them.
She follows him to a church, a church - the metaphorical place for sancturary, a place of peace, redemption, forgiveness, and judgement. Inside, we get a close-up of a painting of a priest comforting a penitent sinner.
A cross jangles from her neck. A cross that matches the one at the top of the row. The light is moonlight. And from behind her, he looms, naked to the waist, just like Ronnie. Bare of costume, just like Ronnie. Scrapes on the place where his heart is, just like Ronnie.
Spike: Didn't work. Couldn't Hide. Just a costume. (he puts his shirt over the pew)
Buffy: No more mind games Spike.
Spike: No more mind games, no more mind.
Buffy (taken aback) - she looks at him and tries to touch his chest, "what happened to you?"
(It's the second time she's asked and the second time she's tried to touch the scrapes on his chest.)
Spike: No touching. No touching. Am I flesh to you? Am I flesh...feed on flesh, my flesh.
Solid through. Get it hard. Service the girl.
Buffy freaks as he begins to unbelt his buckle and pushes him back, he reflexively grabs her by the throat, and she throws him across the room, where he crashes into some pews. She is furious and frightened.
Spike: Right girl doesn't want to be serviced. No spark. Aren't we in a sodden engine.
All of what Spike says is metaphor. Prose poetry. Most lost on Buffy who really doesn't think so much in metaphors and is trying desperately to follow him. He's scaring the hell out of her. He is in some respects her worst nightmare. She could have dealt with the Spike taunting her in the Bronze, or the Spike jabbing Ronnie then not understanding why that was a bad thing. But this Spike - filled with remorse, ashamed of himself, and half crazed...is well, it is similar to Nancy starring at Ronnie's wounded naked body on the ground. Wondering who is the demon here, her or him? By demonizing him or making Ronnie his actions, is she, well abusing her own power here? Buffy must be wondering the same.
Buffy: Did you what think you could come back and what be with me?
Spike: Well, there's always a first time.
And perhaps he's right. But he's insane. She tells him this is his last chance, if he doesn't tell her what's going on with him, she's done with him once and for all.
Spike: I tried to find it, of course.
Buffy: Find what?
Spike: The spark. The missing... the piece... that fit. That would make me fit. Because you didn't want... God, I can't. Not with you looking.
What follows has got to be the most beautiful piece of television writing I've heard or seen. It is one of those rare bits of magic that well, everything works and falls oh so perfectly into place. Although parts of Battlestar Galatica came awfully close at times. It's intricate and heartfelt and straight out of the creator of the series head. The story goes for those reading this that don't know it - at the eleventh hour, Whedon rewrote Doug Petrie's script, and reshot the last scene with a boneweary James Marsters and an equally bone weary Gellar - what resulted is one of the most beautiful and touching pieces of film in Whedon's career.
And you can't get the words from the shooting script at Buffyworld, because those are the original words...the one's that Whedon rewrote and are actually filmed and appear onscreen- aren't in Petrie's script, because Petrie did not write them.
Spike: Did I kill you? Dreamed of killing you. At least I think they were dreams. Am I soft? Did you make me soft? Holding Myself, crying buckets of salt. Over your ending. Angel— he should have warned me. (Buffy begins to realize what he's talking about. She gulps.) He makes a good show of forgetting, but it's here, in me... all the time. The spark. (pause) I wanted to give you... what you deserve. And I got it. They put the spark in me. And now all it does is burn.
Buffy: Your soul.
Buffy looks horrified. Rocked. Shattered. It's a moment much like the one in Innocence, where everything Buffy thought was true is not. The world has shifted, turned inside out. Upside down. She rocks back on her feet. Her eyes fill with tears and bulge. And she must be replaying what Angel said, what she's said.
(Angel: Can you imagine having done all the things I've done and to care?? - Season 1, Angel
Buffy: You can't be good without a soul. You are a thing. An evil, soulless thing. Season 6.
Buffy: You can't love without a soul. That's a chip in your head. You are like a serial killer in prison. S5.
Xander: He doesn't have a soul Buffy. Without a soul he is evil. That chip is just a leash. S6
Giles: The vampire is not human. It has the appearance of the human. It walks and talks like a human. But the human soul is gone. It merely has the personality. S1 Welcome to the Hellmouth - not exact wording.)
The expression on Buffy's face is similar to the one she had in Beauty and the Beasts when Angel returned, similar to the one in Innocence, and similar to the one she has in Becoming when she realizes he's back again. And finally similar to the look of horror she has when she realized she killed Katrina, and when she realizes she beat up Spike. It is one of pure raw pain.
Spike (doesn't laugh so much chuckles, a soft pained chuckle like one you might give after telling a painful truth, vulnerable, and lonely): Bit worse for lack of use.
Buffy: You got your soul back. How?
Spike: It's what you wanted, right? It's what you wanted, right?!(He looks up at the rafters - at the heavens) And-and now everybody's in here, talking. Everything I did, everyone I— and him. And it. The other... the thing... beneath... beneath you. It's here, too. Everybody... they all just tell me go. Go... to hell.
Buffy: Why? Why would you do that?
Spike: Buffy, shame on you. Why does a man do what he mustn't? For her. To be hers. To be the kind of man who would nev—
(He pauses, almost crying. Who would never rape a girl, yet once he gets the soul - he realizes it is no guarantee. That the attempted rape is as much a man's crime as a demon's. That he did do these things. To others. Many. As he himself states in Lessons - "I had a speech, memorized it whole, but she won't understand, she'll never understand.." And the First Evil taunts - of course she won't...and trying to get a soul to be what, good, you can't be good, you are just a pathetic smuck, because a soul is meaningless..." ETA: Another bit here, that's important - is Spike is stating why he got the soul, but he is saying something else as well, something Angel tries to tell Buffy in Amends, but it doesn't come across quite as well as it does here - perhaps because here, we also have Willow who echoes Spike's words. Spike thought he could go back to his former self - that is what he tells the demon in Africa in Villians and in Grave - give me what I want, what is mine, return me to my "former" self. It is what he says in Seeing Red - "she thinks she knows who I am, but I wasn't always this way, bitch is going to see a change. She thinks she's better than me.." - he's talking about the man he was before Dru turned him, the man who died. Emphasis - THE MAN. And it is what he says above - why does a "man" do what he mustn't. To be the kind of "man". This is highly ironic - when you consider up until As You Were - Spike has been saying, the girl needs a little monster in her man. He has to a degree gloried in being the monster, the cool dude. Yet after Seeing Red - he realizes it is the monster that is the problem. He's not a man with a monster, he is a monster with a man inside. So he gets his soul and he finds out...
Willow to Giles: I want to be just Willow again. Go back to who I once was, before the magic. Be Wilow.
Giles: in the end, we are all who we are. We always have been. Even with all the changes.
William, Spike...he is and has always been William. He is and has always been Spike. It is like Xander - Suave and Geek, or Angel and Angelus. It is Whedon's response at the cultural Humanist interview - they are both. We are both light and dark. Both war inside us all every day. )
Spike: To be a kind of man. And she shall look on him with forgiveness... and everybody will forgive and love. (Spike goes to the cross at the front of the church.) He will be loved. (He drapes himself over the cross. His skin begins to burn. The perfect metaphor for the impossibility of forgiveness of the burning blaze of those who will always see him for the act. And demonize him for it. He's a vampire, a monster, and the cross burns. As does the soul inside his unholy, dead form.)
Spike: So everybody's okay, right? (Buffy is crying.) C-can we rest now? Buffy? Can we rest?
The desire to be forgiven, yet in the attempt, to only be burned. The cross burns him. It is sharp and refuses to comfort. And Buffy...can do nothing.
In this episode, the writer communicates the pain of the damned. Or those we damn. We exile. Burn asunder.
Yet states, via Anya and Nancy, Xander and Buffy herself...that nothing is gained by doing it.
No one hates Spike more than Spike. That's the ironic twist here, Spike sees himself as the worm, the sluggoth demon, the demon. He got the soul because he could not forgive himself for attempting to rape her, he can't let her touch him because it brings it to the fore. It's a lovely twist - the character who had his power in sex, now rejects that power almost completely. He rejects the vampire. He hates it. Yet suppressing it only gives it more power over him. The First can whisper its sweet nothings in his ears. When Dawn threatens to set him on fire, he barely winces. The thing of it is - he is on fire. All he does is burn.
He cannot see her loving him or wanting him or caring. Who would. William is a bad man.
I hurt the girl - he tells Buffy in Help.
Willow is in a similar situation. Like Spike, Willow is trying to prove to everyone that she is not evil, but mostly she is trying to prove it to herself. I am not this horrible person.
Yet, she is terrified to face her friends. So she hides. Does a spell, where she is literally not in the same time as they are. Out of synce. She feels out of sync with them - so is.
Also like Beneath You - Willow is equally tormented by a metaphorical demon. A skineater - who torments it's victims much in the same way she tormented Warren. Skinning them alive.
She like Warren had been, is paralyzed, and the gnarl demon pulls off her skin.
Lonliness is also emphasized here as it is in the church sequence in Beneath You - where Willow is alone. Friendless. Cut off from the group. She's here too early she believes. She's not fully healed yet. And she is afraid.
When she encounters Spike in the basement, his words could very well be her own.
Spike: You put your heart back in your chest, wall off the bad parts, think it could help, but it doesn't...nothing changes.
Willow fears she can't wall off the bad parts. The power is a part of her now. She can't not use it. She can't get rid of it. And it scares her. It scares her that she will abuse it again, lose control. As she states to Xander in Help - "I'm afraid I'm magic the hammer and use it to crack open my friends skulls." He is stating control - don't hold it too losely, but don't use too much force or you will kill your thumb, she's stating you don't get it - I have too much power - and if I lose control it will hurt you, not just me.
She sees herself as a bomb that could explode.
Whedon - in his cultural humanist speech mentioned that the addiction metaphor was used here too - in a way, that when people lose control with a substance, they become someone else.
The demon in the bottle. And to a degree it is here with Willow and Spike - both struggling with the demon in the proverbial bottle. Except unlike alcohol or smoking, the bottle isn't something they can quite completely, it is part of them. The metaphor is layered.
Willow like Spike also fears how others see her. "I can't not with you watching" - Spike says in Beneath You, or in Same Time Same Place - "I should hide my face, from you, you know what I've done."
They are struggling to forgive themselves. It's an odd thing. But when we hurt someone else, either intentionally or unintentionally, we often hurt ourselves even more. It is harder, I think, to forgive oneself than others. We hold ourselves to a higher standard.
William had always seen himself as a good man. And Spike was proud of how evil he was. The big bad. The two are at war. William who wants to be a good man. And Spike who glories in the demon. The rush. The chaos. Put together...it gets murky, gray. And when he inserts the soul...the world shatters around him. Who is he? And he is overwhelmed by what he has done.
Willow likewise...saw herself as a good person. And was proud of her power. The great witch.
Powerful. But she has killed people. Rack and Warren. Bad people true. But people. She went crazy and almost destroyed the world. She was the big bad. She tried to kill Giles and Dawn.
Can she find redemption? Can she control it? She too is overwhelmed by what she has done.
Buffy sits crosslegged in front of Willow and shares her strength. I have so much, I'm giving it away, she states. And apologizes for not seeing that it was not Willow who had done this.
But Willow states...you are the slayer. You have to ask the hard questions.
Yet, the story is still Buffy's. And it still goes back to Lessons. Buffy is afraid of her own power. And her own demons populate the old basement of the high school. Buried there.
But still there. Never quite burned away. She may have killed the mayor and destroyed the school - but the demons still reside inside it. The metaphorical demons of her childhood, of her own past. Represented by Spike - who like Angel has a soul, but is not Angel. And the soul, what does it even mean? Does it even matter after Warren? After Willow? After her own behavior? She kills vampires...but if vampires can get souls...why kill them?
The answer Whedon provides himself in his lecture - "vampires buck the system, they are immortal, that is their crime. Their inability to die. Inability to share in the cycle of death. By staking them, Buffy returns them to that cycle...in a way."
So where does that leave Spike or even Willow? Powerful. Able to bring the dead back to life.
Spike who is a vampire. Yet also a man. Remorseful. Hating his own crime, condemning himself more than she ever could.
Buffy: "What do you do when you can't help?"
Dawn:"But you did help ...you tried. If it weren't for you, she wouldn't have been my friend. If it weren't for you...she wouldn't have had someone else care...you tried. Sometimes you can't save everyone."
Death, Whedon states, is what we are all the most afraid of. Terrified of. We try to skirt around it. We try to make it something it's not. But it is inevitable. It is part of who and what we are as human beings. And we cannot save anyone from it. Stories help us handle it.
As they I think, help us handle things like redemption, how to handle horrible horrible things that people do to us and worse still the horrible things we do to others.
Can we find our own redemption? Spike seems to ask that in Beneath You. Can you forgive me?
Can I forgive myself? As does Willow in words neatly juxtaposed ...can my friends forgive me?
And what if they don't?
Giles states...perhaps they won't. Perhaps they can't. There are no guarantees. All you can do is walk through the door and lend a hand. Try.
So Spike and Willow walk through the doors and try to lend a hand, albeith awkwardly.
In Help, Spike saves Buffy and Cassie, before disappearing. And in Same Time Same Place, Willow tries to defeat the Gnarl. And lends a hand researching Cassie's background.
These metaphors reflect back on the one in Lessons - three manifest spirits seeking vengeance against Buffy for not saving them. Manifest spirits Buffy herself has brought into being.
By touching the tailismin. She defeats them, when Xander breaks the tailsman, by working together. And realizing...she can't save everyone. But she tried.
Power...can be used wisely, tempered, as one might hammar a nail. We have the power to forgive ourselves and others. The power to redeem ourselves. The power to change and evolve.
The power to learn. And the power to condemn, judge, avenge, and hurt. Both war inside us.
The light and dark in constant play.