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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: About Spike in the Comics...
Date: 2009-10-07 05:12 pm (UTC)1.He totally thinks there's a deliberate negative space around Spike and that it has to pay off. (As he put it to me, a failure to pay it off wouldn't kill season 8 for him, but it would be #1 on his WTF parade).
Exactly! or Word!
angearia used to be strong on the notion that Spike has to matter in season 8's plot -- but since Allie's most recent Q&A she seems to think Spike won't show until season 9 and hasn't really said what that does to the negative Spike space situation.
Has it ever occurred to anyone that maybe the reveal of when Spike will appear or if he appears would give away a major plot point? I mean Allie is in the business of selling comic books - why would he give away spoilers? The SlayAlive's with Allie remind me of the Bronze Betas with David Fury - who like Allie was adept at pissing off fans and misleading them. He had people in 2002 (S6) convinced that Spike was getting his chip removed not going after a soul. You can't get reliable spoilers from a comic book editor - come on.
2. Add in the fact that Spike's sacrifice is bound up with the slayer spell that is the explicit focus of season 8 and I think that her feelings for him *have* to be resolved (cause Buffy's private life always mirrors her other issues).
The sacrifice and the slayer spell have another link.
Willow. Compare Chosen to Get it Done. In both episodes, Buffy is asking her two lieut, the most powerful of her allies who she really can't do this without - to unleash the power within. In Get-it-Done they release the darkness to get her back. Their demon side. While Buffy is refusing to take more power inside her and she apologises to Willow for it. In Chosen she asks them to release the light - Willow releases the spell in the scythe and empowers everyone, Spike releases the power of his soul and destroys everything undead including himself.
Now Buffy fears that she did the wrong thing regarding the spell - that telling Willow to unleash her power, to be the witch - will lead her to killing Willow in the future. Meanwhile she's being criticized around the world for killing vampires and the one leading the charge against Buffy on reality tv is Spike's ex-girl friend, Harmony.
Spike and the potential slayers closed the hellmouth and killed the vampires. BUT - dead things don't stay buried apparently - who are the first bad guys to pop up? Warren and Amy. And where are they? In the Sunnydale Crater or the hellmouth that Spike left behind. And what is the spell Amy uses? You can only be awoken by True Love's kiss (note not Xander or Willow) nor by someone Buffy necessarily love's in return, but someone who loves and would do anything for Buffy regardless of what she feels for them. Satsu.
Someone who is like Buffy - a slayer. Who fights alongside her. And takes orders from her, as well as gives them. Someone like what Spike was to her before there was another slayer around.
TBC
Re: About Spike in the Comics...
Date: 2009-10-07 05:13 pm (UTC)Always Darkest and the kiss between Xander and Dawn in the last issue reminded me of something, perhaps because I saw it so recently...and that is the kiss that Spike witnesses between Buffy and Angel in End of Days and Chosen. A kiss that he does confront her on and almost kicks her out of the basement regarding, but backs off because he loves her anyway. The kiss that occurs in End of Days - happens not long after Spike and Buffy have a conversation that is rather emotional and raw. He admits to her that she is the only person he's ever in a 100 plus years connected with. And with complete openess and vulnerability admits that it terrifies him that she doesn't see him or feel the same way...and if that is true, stake him now. She tells him that she was there with him. That he gave her that strength. He asks what does that mean, and Buffy pulls back and covers, saying does it have to mean anything? Spike lets it go, getting more than he's gotten before her in the past and more or less satisfied until that is, the Buffy and Angel kiss.
I've always wondered what the writer was doing when he put that kiss in there. He more or less explained it from Angel's pov and he's explained it from Spike's pov (it demonstrates that Spike would have saved the world regardless and unlike the old Spike, would not turn against her out of jealousy. Hence the First Evil's appearance next to him while he watches.) And he explained what it meant for Buffy. So I get that.
But...
In Chosen you have this:
Buffy: I love you.
Spike: No (pause - where he looks meaningfully in her eyes with compassion and complete unconditional love) you don't. (looks away) But thanks for saying it.
Now go, it's for me to do the clean up.
And she, crying, finally lets go of his hand and dashes to the top. She rides the top of the bus and watchs the devastation of Sunnydale behind her. Then is the first to hop off and run towards the crater. The only thing she says, the only question she answers in that scene is Giles' - which is half muttered (and she's asked several everything from what will you do now, Buffy or how great is this, etc).
Giles: Who did this.
Buffy: Spike.
Okay, now lets skip a year into the future. Buffy is dreaming. She's been knocked to the ground by Caleb - the last time she fought Caleb was in End of Days, right before she kissed Angel. Caleb is knocked aside, just as he was when he attacked her in End of Days and Angel knocked him aside. She hears a voice. It is Spike's but she isn't sure. Say's I missed you. The frame widens, Angel appears, and says which one? Then he and Spike kiss in the same pose, exactly the same pose as she and Angel did. Even the same angle almost.
Then we have last issue, with Buffy having a deep and emotionally satisfying conversation with Xander, where she feels she can open herself up to him. She takes his advice, confronts Willow, then returns as he advised to tell him what happened...maybe more, it is not clear - and catches him in a tight embrace with Dawn - again in the same pose as she and Angel had been.
Whedon has done this not once but twice now. If he'd done it once - just with Xander and Dawn, I wouldn't have noticed. Or if he had her come in on them differently...but the Xander/Dawn kiss follows an emotional connection between Xander and Buffy. Just as the Buffy/Angel kiss followed an emotional connection between Buffy and Spike.
Afterwards, Buffy is all business. She's shut down again.
Re: About Spike in the Comics...
Date: 2009-10-07 05:13 pm (UTC)It's clear from the comics and most of S7 - that much like Angel in S3, before he returned, Buffy can't talk to anyone about Spike. None of them liked Spike. They all thought she was crazy for liking him. Giles tried to kill him. They accused her of putting them in danger for him. And when his name came up, her friends went quiet. Andrew was the only Spike fan. And note Andrew is the only one who mentions Spike by name and is the only one that we know of that has seen Spike alive.
Andrew's comment regarding him - a throw away line is "I think you totally traded up, I'm all team Spike" or something like that. Why? It's almost as if he is attempting to bond with her about something he knows everyone else is negative on?
4. Something is up. Buffy's unresolved feelings have to be a big part of it. And if you put a gun to my head, I'd go out on a limb and say it's going to fold into the main storyline about Twilight and/or the slayer spell somehow
Agreed. Up until Harmonic Divergence, I wasn't sure.
Then I thought okay just imagining things after Always Darkest, but the last issue? I see a definite pattern emerging here.
What worries me is that Whedon will make Spike - Twilight. Because that is the obvious conclusion. Or makes the most sense from all those teasers. But from a character perspective and a canon perspective - it doens't make sense at all. It has to be plausible after all - and considering the events of Angel S5 - Spike as Twilight makes absolutely no sense. Twilight acts nothing like Spike - if anything he reminds me more of Adam or Caleb. He lacks Spike's evil sense of humor and it would a complete regression of a character arc that the writer is proud of and has stated as much, recently. Also there is IDW to consider, who might take exception to Whedon making one of their comic headliners into the major villain in the Buffy comics. Although admittedly, there are ways around that.
There are however other options. Twilight could have Spike as a captive. Harmony could? He could be a secret weapon. Any number of things. Or Twilight could be another reality's version of Spike?
I don't know. But you are right, something's up.