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shadowkatRather slow and draggy day. Looking forward to taking off next weekend to the poconos to visit my aunts, who are rather fun. And I haven't seen or spent much time with since I was a small child and they were teenagers. It's all so very nostalagic in a way. Also attempting to draw and then do watercolors from recent photos taken of my neice. We shall see if I can do it. Haven't watercolored or drawn anything seriously for about five years. A bit on the rusty side.
Read a few posts on Spuffy, and the ambivalence many people felt towards BTVS's or canon's depiction of the Spuffy or Buffy/Spike relationship. Maybe ambivalence isn't quite the right word? At any rate they were comparing the relationship to one that I was really ambivalent about: Cordelia/Angel. Can't say I disliked them, so much as I was mildly curious and sort of ambivalent. I watched Ats for Wesley, Illyria/Fred, Lilah, sometimes Gunn (in S5 definitely Gunn), Lorne, Drusilla, Darla, and the Spike/Angel relationship. All of which I'm still getting with the possible exception of Wes, Darla and Lilah in the comic books. So, yay, me. I wasn't ambivalent towards Buffy/Spike. It remains amongst my favorite television couplings. For a lot of reasons. That said, I remain unsatisfied in how it was resolved or the fact that the writer seems to want to drag out the non-resolution for forever and a day in the comic books. Oh, I know full well what the writer's intent was - but it left me unsatisfied, in much the same way that ATS and the Spike/Angel relationship left me unsatisfied. It was as if both were left sort of up in the air. Brian Lynch - has actually to a degree resolved the S/A relationship to my satisfaction - they exchanged ring-tones at the end of Angel After the Fall and more or less acted like the Sam and Dean of the Whedonverse (except unrelated). Brothers in blood if not by biology. Acknowledging each other's strengths and weaknesses and moving past their rivaleries. Whedon, unlike Lynch, hasn't satisfied me on any of his characters relationships...which is rather aggravating. My tolerance for being teased is only going to last so long before I give up and move on to greener pastures (ie. fanfic - wait, already there.)
The problem with the Spike/Buffy relationship is the ambivalence in the writing towards the end of the series - the writers began to cater to one specific branch of the fandom that I don't like very much. Less said about that the better. And as a result backed away from providing any clear resolution. My problem with fandom's is that often I feel the fandom gets in the way of the story that the writer is trying to tell. Or the writer starts listening to the vocal critics within it. Or the ratings. Or the network execs. Instead of just telling the story they have in their heads. This doesn't happen so much with first novels - because you are unaware of your audience. When you become aware - the audience often gets in the way.
Makes you self-conscious and can be crippling. I've seen it happen a lot. It is so easy, I think, to stand as judge, jury, and executioner on someone else - but not so easy when someone does it to you. I often wonder how many fans could handle the criticism they've thrown at others - if it were in turn thrown at them? I don't know if I could. I hate criticism. And experience has taught me, that I am not alone in that. It is worth pondering I think.
At any rate, while on the one hand I find the whole "I love you", and "no, you don't" sequence rather fascinating and touching, on the other - it left the story unresolved or hanging, because it could be interpreted in one too many ways. Sometimes Whedon is a bit too poetical in his storytelling. Leaving things far too open to interpretation - which while fun on one hand is aggravating on the other.
I can argue that it is resolved (but don't feel like it right now and please no, need to do it yourself - I've read the royal anna's essays and elsi's and written my own on the ATPO board and in this journal regarding the issue ad naseum - the skinny is, their statements were what they believed the other one needed to hear in order to do what needed to be done. Spike said - no, you don't - in response to her - "I love you", because he knew he was dying. He knew he wasn't coming out that place alive. He was burning from the inside out and felt it. He also knew what she went through when she thought she killed Angel, when Riley left, and heck he loss her. He did not want her to go through the hell he did mourning her. He wanted her to move on, to move up into the light. He was more or less saying the same thing to Buffy in Chosen that Angel does in Graduation Day, except he means it. Unlike Angel he does cut her loose. He doesn't return. He doesn't tell her he is alive. He doesn't stalk her or spy on her, except when he discovers that Angel is doing it and follows Angel. From Spike's pov he is giving her a gift, he is letting her go. It's what she needs from him in order to leap out of the hellmouth and into her life. And I think Buffy understood that. It's why she does leave and why she does clasp his hand, and why she is smiling at the end. She knew he gave her a gift. She also knew that he knew she loved him, but by the same token, he told her that if he did not want her to love him - he did not want her love, if it only kept her back.)And that nothing more needs to be said. And it even did the impossible which is satisfy two factions of the fandom which were at complete odds over the relationship. As well as unsatisfy two factions that were at complete odds. Brilliant that.
But...but...but...it did not satisfy me on an emotional level. Intellectually maybe. But not emotionally. If Spike had stayed dead? Maybe. If Buffy referenced his loss and how she felt towards him? Maybe. That was what was lacking. I never cry in Chosen, because it doesn't satisfy the emotions, just the intellect. I have the same issues with Anya's death, which felt to a degree swept underneath the rug - although I tend to be generally ambivalent regarding Anya as a character. I needed a sense of resolution towards those deaths that I never really got outside of fanfic and a comic about Xander visiting Dracula.
I sort of wish Whedon didn't feel the need to satisfy both factions and now that the series is over and he's doing the comics - he'd bite the bullet and resolve the stupid thing. If he can spend five pages on Xander and Dawn, three issues on OZ and Willow (which was resolved) plus not one but five episodes resolving Angel and Buffy, he can give me one page that resolves Spike and Buffy. One panel. And I'm sorry Always Darkest wasn't it.
Don't get me wrong - I don't need her to ride off into the sunset with Spike or have wild monkey sex. I don't think that works in Whedon's tale for either character for a lot of reasons. What I want is a brief little scene in which she lets him know much as she did Angel that she cares about him, loves him, but acknowledges that their paths just can't be together right now...maybe some day, but not now. She doesn't know. But she will always care about him and love him and that she misses him and if things could be different...and I'd like him to say somewhat the same thing. What I want in short is a scene similar to the one between Angel and Buffy in Chosen, or Buffy and Riley in As You Were but without all the posturing.
That's all. Not hard to write. That would resolve the story in an "emotionally" satisfying way.
But I don't think the writer will do it. I don't know what he will do.
On the fanfic side of the fence...I find myself enjoying the alternate universe fics, not mind you the everybody's human which read like regurgiated plots of every romance novel I've ever read in my life, but the what-if tales. What-if they did this instead of that. And the fill in the gap tales. And the what if Buffy met Spike after he survived hell-LA, what then.
In some respects the fanfic of Spuffy is more emotionally satisfying than the canon. While the canon is more intellectually satisfying than the fanfic. It's weird - I wish I could find intellectually and emotionally satisfying...and in some fanfics, I do come close. I myself wrote one in an attempt to obtain that emotional and intellectual satisfaction, as well as address some of the negative reactions I'd gotten to the relationship. I think when you hate something someone else loves - and have moral issues with it to boot, it is a good thing to keep in mind that they may well feel the same way, and justifiably so, about something you love and adore. Our mileage differs. Tolerating that difference is sometimes I think the real challenge we all face in fandom and the one we seem to fail on the most.
Well, I'll end this spontaneous and unedited musing on that random note tonight. Bed calls.
Make of it what you will.
Read a few posts on Spuffy, and the ambivalence many people felt towards BTVS's or canon's depiction of the Spuffy or Buffy/Spike relationship. Maybe ambivalence isn't quite the right word? At any rate they were comparing the relationship to one that I was really ambivalent about: Cordelia/Angel. Can't say I disliked them, so much as I was mildly curious and sort of ambivalent. I watched Ats for Wesley, Illyria/Fred, Lilah, sometimes Gunn (in S5 definitely Gunn), Lorne, Drusilla, Darla, and the Spike/Angel relationship. All of which I'm still getting with the possible exception of Wes, Darla and Lilah in the comic books. So, yay, me. I wasn't ambivalent towards Buffy/Spike. It remains amongst my favorite television couplings. For a lot of reasons. That said, I remain unsatisfied in how it was resolved or the fact that the writer seems to want to drag out the non-resolution for forever and a day in the comic books. Oh, I know full well what the writer's intent was - but it left me unsatisfied, in much the same way that ATS and the Spike/Angel relationship left me unsatisfied. It was as if both were left sort of up in the air. Brian Lynch - has actually to a degree resolved the S/A relationship to my satisfaction - they exchanged ring-tones at the end of Angel After the Fall and more or less acted like the Sam and Dean of the Whedonverse (except unrelated). Brothers in blood if not by biology. Acknowledging each other's strengths and weaknesses and moving past their rivaleries. Whedon, unlike Lynch, hasn't satisfied me on any of his characters relationships...which is rather aggravating. My tolerance for being teased is only going to last so long before I give up and move on to greener pastures (ie. fanfic - wait, already there.)
The problem with the Spike/Buffy relationship is the ambivalence in the writing towards the end of the series - the writers began to cater to one specific branch of the fandom that I don't like very much. Less said about that the better. And as a result backed away from providing any clear resolution. My problem with fandom's is that often I feel the fandom gets in the way of the story that the writer is trying to tell. Or the writer starts listening to the vocal critics within it. Or the ratings. Or the network execs. Instead of just telling the story they have in their heads. This doesn't happen so much with first novels - because you are unaware of your audience. When you become aware - the audience often gets in the way.
Makes you self-conscious and can be crippling. I've seen it happen a lot. It is so easy, I think, to stand as judge, jury, and executioner on someone else - but not so easy when someone does it to you. I often wonder how many fans could handle the criticism they've thrown at others - if it were in turn thrown at them? I don't know if I could. I hate criticism. And experience has taught me, that I am not alone in that. It is worth pondering I think.
At any rate, while on the one hand I find the whole "I love you", and "no, you don't" sequence rather fascinating and touching, on the other - it left the story unresolved or hanging, because it could be interpreted in one too many ways. Sometimes Whedon is a bit too poetical in his storytelling. Leaving things far too open to interpretation - which while fun on one hand is aggravating on the other.
I can argue that it is resolved (but don't feel like it right now and please no, need to do it yourself - I've read the royal anna's essays and elsi's and written my own on the ATPO board and in this journal regarding the issue ad naseum - the skinny is, their statements were what they believed the other one needed to hear in order to do what needed to be done. Spike said - no, you don't - in response to her - "I love you", because he knew he was dying. He knew he wasn't coming out that place alive. He was burning from the inside out and felt it. He also knew what she went through when she thought she killed Angel, when Riley left, and heck he loss her. He did not want her to go through the hell he did mourning her. He wanted her to move on, to move up into the light. He was more or less saying the same thing to Buffy in Chosen that Angel does in Graduation Day, except he means it. Unlike Angel he does cut her loose. He doesn't return. He doesn't tell her he is alive. He doesn't stalk her or spy on her, except when he discovers that Angel is doing it and follows Angel. From Spike's pov he is giving her a gift, he is letting her go. It's what she needs from him in order to leap out of the hellmouth and into her life. And I think Buffy understood that. It's why she does leave and why she does clasp his hand, and why she is smiling at the end. She knew he gave her a gift. She also knew that he knew she loved him, but by the same token, he told her that if he did not want her to love him - he did not want her love, if it only kept her back.)And that nothing more needs to be said. And it even did the impossible which is satisfy two factions of the fandom which were at complete odds over the relationship. As well as unsatisfy two factions that were at complete odds. Brilliant that.
But...but...but...it did not satisfy me on an emotional level. Intellectually maybe. But not emotionally. If Spike had stayed dead? Maybe. If Buffy referenced his loss and how she felt towards him? Maybe. That was what was lacking. I never cry in Chosen, because it doesn't satisfy the emotions, just the intellect. I have the same issues with Anya's death, which felt to a degree swept underneath the rug - although I tend to be generally ambivalent regarding Anya as a character. I needed a sense of resolution towards those deaths that I never really got outside of fanfic and a comic about Xander visiting Dracula.
I sort of wish Whedon didn't feel the need to satisfy both factions and now that the series is over and he's doing the comics - he'd bite the bullet and resolve the stupid thing. If he can spend five pages on Xander and Dawn, three issues on OZ and Willow (which was resolved) plus not one but five episodes resolving Angel and Buffy, he can give me one page that resolves Spike and Buffy. One panel. And I'm sorry Always Darkest wasn't it.
Don't get me wrong - I don't need her to ride off into the sunset with Spike or have wild monkey sex. I don't think that works in Whedon's tale for either character for a lot of reasons. What I want is a brief little scene in which she lets him know much as she did Angel that she cares about him, loves him, but acknowledges that their paths just can't be together right now...maybe some day, but not now. She doesn't know. But she will always care about him and love him and that she misses him and if things could be different...and I'd like him to say somewhat the same thing. What I want in short is a scene similar to the one between Angel and Buffy in Chosen, or Buffy and Riley in As You Were but without all the posturing.
That's all. Not hard to write. That would resolve the story in an "emotionally" satisfying way.
But I don't think the writer will do it. I don't know what he will do.
On the fanfic side of the fence...I find myself enjoying the alternate universe fics, not mind you the everybody's human which read like regurgiated plots of every romance novel I've ever read in my life, but the what-if tales. What-if they did this instead of that. And the fill in the gap tales. And the what if Buffy met Spike after he survived hell-LA, what then.
In some respects the fanfic of Spuffy is more emotionally satisfying than the canon. While the canon is more intellectually satisfying than the fanfic. It's weird - I wish I could find intellectually and emotionally satisfying...and in some fanfics, I do come close. I myself wrote one in an attempt to obtain that emotional and intellectual satisfaction, as well as address some of the negative reactions I'd gotten to the relationship. I think when you hate something someone else loves - and have moral issues with it to boot, it is a good thing to keep in mind that they may well feel the same way, and justifiably so, about something you love and adore. Our mileage differs. Tolerating that difference is sometimes I think the real challenge we all face in fandom and the one we seem to fail on the most.
Well, I'll end this spontaneous and unedited musing on that random note tonight. Bed calls.
Make of it what you will.
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Re: Clarification on how I view canon
Date: 2009-10-06 04:33 pm (UTC)Example: "in other words, he did the same thing he sort of did with the tv shows, which I also found confusing - which is whenever the two shows canons did logically fit, he'd say well they are in two different universes or separate shows. "
That sentence makes no sense. "IT should be whenever the two shows canons did NOT logically fit, he'd say well they are in two different universes or separate shows." TV writers and comic book writers are notorious for doing this with their multiple issues. I always find it annoying. They basically let the two shows universes cross over and fit whenever it is conveinent for their story, and retcon all the times it isn't.
Which makes following tv and comic serials headache inducing, particularly if you are watching or collecting spin-offs.