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shadowkatAs an aside : the whole argument that the slayers have upset the balance and Twilight's aim to repair it by sacrificing them for the greater good makes him redeemable - reminds me a lot of a rather fascinating fanfic I just read entitled Necessary Evils by lj user rarhirah. In it, Willow's bringing Buffy back, along with Spike changing sides has upset the balance, so Willow chooses to power up/join forces with the First Evil to set the balance straight. To do so, she has to kill Dawn and Buffy - which is a small price to pay for saving the world. She surrounds herself with the First's minions and demons, also kills people - justifying her actions - stating that it is for the greater good. She is saving billions of lives. But the truth is she's getting off on being the one to do it, her pride (hubris) and the desire for power (which she now has in spades) is blinding her to what she is actually doing, so she does not see that there is another way. Twilight apparently is doing the exact same thing.
Okay, I'm been pondering this ever since the whole Twilight reveal...actually before that, but I'd admittedly shrugged it off, because I thought, you know the character is owned more or less by IDW, so what they can do with him on Dark Horse is rather limited. The Twilight reveal threw that argument out the window. It's gone by-by. Apparently I was dead wrong about the copyright sitch. IDW has the rights to the story or verse, but not exclusive to characters that appeared on both series, which to be fair, Scott Allie did tell us way back when.
Which brings me to my question, the one no one seems to be asking or answering at the moment, at least not seriously - "where in the frigging heck is Spike?"
Okay, sure, according to the Angel TV series (let's ignore the Angel comics for the moment), he was with Angel in HEll LA - fighting the demons that his good old pal Angel brought down on them all. If there's an apocalypse to be had trust Angel to not only sniff it out but to bring it to pass. Then feel really quilty about it.
So, assuming he was not killed in HELL LA - according to IDW, Brian Lynch, and Joss Whedon - he wasn't. (See Angel After the Fall and Spike After the Fall for specifics), where is he?
Granted he could be off doing his thing, oblivious to this whole Twilight biz. But I doubt it - considering the players, and his past relations with them. And while you could argue he's not important, or I don't care, and he played his role...there's a few items that bare considering:
1. If you want a slayer killer or expert on slayers? Who are you gonna call?
We have a group that wants to get rid of a slayer army. Wants to kill slayers and has allied itself with vampires to do so. Apparently all these slayers are a problem, although what problem has yet to be explained. (I guess stealing money from a vault and a submarine classifies you in the Buffyverse as a frightening terrorist who will destroy the world and upset the balance. Actually, I think it's more a case of writers block on what the heck do I do with 1800 slayers??? This made a lot more sense in my head than it does on paper.
(While pulling LA into Hell is nooo problemo and causing the resurrection of an old demon is no problemo.))
Anyhow, assume for the moment, that slayers are the problem. So...what character is known for killing slayers? Who has a rep for killing slayers? Not only killing them, but studying them in depth, hunting them down, tracking them? Who was able to hunt, track, and kill two slayers?
And the only one able to do it? Note Angel never could or even wanted to. Drusilla is the only other vamp to do it, and she didn't have to do any tracking.
Spike. Not only is Spike an expert on slayers, he's killed two of them, and struts about in a coat he grabbed off a slayer. (Okay not anymore, since the coat was burned up in Italy while he was traisping after Angel who was traisping after Buffy. Remember that, I'll get back to it shortly.) He is the one who told Buffy in graphic detail how he killed two slayers.
Which vampire was involved in training the potentials to fight vampires up until they became slayers? Spike. Spike was assisting Buffy in teaching the potentials to fight.
Who is obsessed with slayers? Spike. Angel could have cared less - Angel only got caught up in Buffy, the girl. Spike was obsessed with the slayer, fell for the girl much later.
In fact it is Spike who tells both Wood and Buffy the vampire's view of slayers: He says to Wood, Life of the Chosen One, always alone, always about the mission, believe me, I know.
And he states at different points to both Wood and Buffy, vampire - slayer. Slayers are our natural enemy - we kill them. It's them or us.
And Spike is the only vampire to seek a soul - for a slayer. He fell in love with a slayer as a vampire, while he was planning to kill her no less.
Spike is all about slayers. Heck over in Angel S5 - it is Spike not Angel who fights Dana, gets captured by Dana and is brutally mutilated by Dana - the crazy rogue slayer. And it is Spike who backs up Andrew's story about the slayer empowerment spell, tells Angel the specifics, and explains that it is unlikely that Dana can be saved, she's a monster like they are. Angel attempts to take control of Dana, Spike shrugs it off as tragic.
Even if Spike never met Buffy, one would think they'd call the legendary slayer killer?
OR even if he's moved on, why not call him? If he still loves her - again why hasn't Twilight contacted Spike? Or has he?
2. Who knows the slayer spell, the scythe, and Buffy better than anyone? Who has intimate knowledge of why they did that spell, the planning of it, and the outcome? Who was supportive of it - outside of Buffy's nearest and dearest?
Spike. He was directly involved. He was in the hellmouth when it was activated. It was activated around the same time his amulet was.
3. Who besides the slayers were involved in the destruction of Sunnydale and the defeat of the first?
Spike.
4. Now, for a moment, let's jump over to Angel. Spike has intimate knowledge of what happened to Angel in S5 and in Hell LA. He knows about Connor, he knows about WEs and Fred and Dana.
He also knows Angelus.
He followed Angel to Italy the last time Angel went traisping after Buffy and tried to interfer with her life. It was in part to help him, and I think, in part to stop him.
He also called Angel on spying on Buffy.
And to my knowledge he's been more or less joined to Angel's hip up until Angel Aftermath - which to the best of my knowledge is not really part of the Whedon canon anyway.
He also knows all of Angel's secrets and his weaknesses, things Buffy and Faith don't even know.
5. Spike has a wicked habit of screwing up people's plans and saving the day for the good guys. In Becoming - he foils Angel's plans, in Season 3 - the Mayor is worried enough about him that he tries to have him killed, luckily for the Mayor he leaves town, in Season 4 - he screws up Adam's plans and Buffy's. In S5, he screws up Glory's. In Season 6...he goes and gets a soul - which wakes up the First - who decides the balance has been disrupted.
And in S7 - he blows up the vampires and takes out all of Sunnydale, not to mention gives Buffy the necessary boost of confidence to figure out that empowering everyone is the way to go - and bon voyage first. And he fouls up Angel's plan to sacrifice himself in the battle.
In Angel S5 - he disrupts the balance when he becomes corporeal.
Spike is all about chaos, all about disrupting the balance in things. Breaking the rules.
He went and got a soul - vampires aren't supposed to do that. He hunted and tracked slayers and tried to kill them - vampires are supposed to avoid them. He does the opposite of what the PTB want.
Then jumping to the story itself...there are all these weird bits:
1. Ethan Raine's whole appearance in Long Way Home screams Spike. Heck he's in Spike's trademark attire - Angel doesn't really wear a long black leather duster and red shirt most of the time. He uses British pet names such as my love or love, or "pet" - which Buffy takes exception to and insists he stop using immediately. And the first dream he thrusts her inside in her dreamscape is a sexual fantasy of a threesome with Angel and Spike. He's also the one trying to warn her about Amy and Twilight. Ethan - if you recall - was a trickster character who worshipped the Goddess of Chaos, Saga Vasuki, and got his knowledge and power through her.
2. Satsu and Buffy - their relationship is oddly similar to Buffy and Spike's = unrequited love, right hand man/lieutentant, who would do anything for Buffy, and Twilight kicks aside, first breaking her nose.
3. Dawn's romance/sex with Kenny's roomate, Nick, which turn's her into numerous things...
and Nick smokes cigarettes, has dirty hair, wears funky clothes, doesn't care what anyone thinks, and plays in a band - a cliche, sure, but also a billy idol wannabe...like Spike.
4. Andrew's comment to Buffy off-hand in Predators and PRey - about how she traded up from Angel, having met Angel, he's all team Spike. Buffy's says nothing. Is notably silent.
5. Always Darkest - Spike shows up, she says she misses him, Angel asks which one, and can she tell the difference between them, before he kisses Spike and says he always had a weakness for bottled blonds. She ends up marrying Warren, in a church with a congregation of her worse enemies - all the demons she defeated, with Tara as her bridesmaid, while Spike and Angel have sex in the pews, smooching noises off-screen. Waking up, she's bleary eyed and in a foul mood.
6. Both Riley and Twilight/Angel react to an army guy talking about a "spike" in magic. They zero in on the word "spike", and Twilight says they need to kill this "spike".
And of course, as 2maggie2 pointed out in the comments to my last post on Twilight, his absence is all the more glaring for all the people accounted for. We got Harmony - Spike's ex, having a reality series. Clem has showed up (although I don't remember him...but I'll take her word for it). Warren. Amy. OZ. Riley. Even Tara has been referenced more than once, along with Robin Wood - in No Future for You. Dracula. Faith is there. And Ethan Raine. Granted Anya isn't mentioned, but...she's not really pertinent to Buffy so much as Xander.
So it's glaring that Spike is not, in any way. Except either in a sex dream attached to Angel,
or by mild and vague reference - "my lovers tend to oh die, or get sent to hell, or burn up...", or "I'm all Team Spike".
I'd say you could dismiss this except for the bits I cited above - that Spike killed slayers and this story is about slayers, plural. That Spike has been a wild card and upset the balance in not one but two shows -by getting a soul. That Spike knows slayers. Loves them.
Hates them. Obsesses over them. And finally that Spike has a deep bond with Angel as well as Buffy - the two people fighting. He's the only character who has literally had intimate relations with both Buffy and Angel. The only one who knows both of them well, has followed both of their leads, and looks up to both of them at one time or another.
So, again, where is Spike? What is his role going to be? He's clearly not Twilight (thank you Joss, because that would have been out of character...in a big way, I can see Angel falling into that power trap, but not Spike. That does not mean I can't envision Spike helping Angel, although I doubt it - he question Angel every step of the way on the whole WRH deal, he basically lives to second-guess Angel. )
And why all the silence regarding him? Whether the writers care about him or not, they've gone to a lot of trouble in the past and present to demonstrate his connections to the mythos, which are arguably tighter than Angel's - in some respects. You don't have to be a Spike fan to notice that. I know I've had one too many discussions with non-Spike fans regarding how many slayers he's killed and his relationship with them.
Plus if the story is supposed to be about relationships - Buffy has had five. She has slept with four men. In the comics - each has been referenced - Parker, Riley, Angel, Spike.
Parker is referenced by Xander in connection with Dawn's actions that lead to her Giantess status. Spike briefly by Andrew. Riley shows up. Angel is Twilight. Of the four, the most meaningful were arguably Riley, Angel and Spike. The two that changed the course of her life were Spike and Angel. Angel was the one who broke and shut down/closed her heart. Spike was the one who opened it. Finally Satsu, who may well be to Spike, what Riley was to Angel.
The only relationship that has not been wrapped up - that ended with a cliff-hanger of sorts, was Buffy/Spike - she told him that she loved him, he said no you don't, and died. She to our knowledge doesn't know he's alive. He to our knowledge doesn't know she cares, and thinks she has moved on to better climes. Angel knows Spike is alive. Angel knows Buffy loves him.
So why is that relationship left hanging, but the Buffy/Angel one revisited - when it actually was wrapped up in Chosen? Why are they revisiting Buffy/Angel? How does this fit with the theme of empowerment? Or power in general?
Okay, I'm been pondering this ever since the whole Twilight reveal...actually before that, but I'd admittedly shrugged it off, because I thought, you know the character is owned more or less by IDW, so what they can do with him on Dark Horse is rather limited. The Twilight reveal threw that argument out the window. It's gone by-by. Apparently I was dead wrong about the copyright sitch. IDW has the rights to the story or verse, but not exclusive to characters that appeared on both series, which to be fair, Scott Allie did tell us way back when.
Which brings me to my question, the one no one seems to be asking or answering at the moment, at least not seriously - "where in the frigging heck is Spike?"
Okay, sure, according to the Angel TV series (let's ignore the Angel comics for the moment), he was with Angel in HEll LA - fighting the demons that his good old pal Angel brought down on them all. If there's an apocalypse to be had trust Angel to not only sniff it out but to bring it to pass. Then feel really quilty about it.
So, assuming he was not killed in HELL LA - according to IDW, Brian Lynch, and Joss Whedon - he wasn't. (See Angel After the Fall and Spike After the Fall for specifics), where is he?
Granted he could be off doing his thing, oblivious to this whole Twilight biz. But I doubt it - considering the players, and his past relations with them. And while you could argue he's not important, or I don't care, and he played his role...there's a few items that bare considering:
1. If you want a slayer killer or expert on slayers? Who are you gonna call?
We have a group that wants to get rid of a slayer army. Wants to kill slayers and has allied itself with vampires to do so. Apparently all these slayers are a problem, although what problem has yet to be explained. (I guess stealing money from a vault and a submarine classifies you in the Buffyverse as a frightening terrorist who will destroy the world and upset the balance. Actually, I think it's more a case of writers block on what the heck do I do with 1800 slayers??? This made a lot more sense in my head than it does on paper.
(While pulling LA into Hell is nooo problemo and causing the resurrection of an old demon is no problemo.))
Anyhow, assume for the moment, that slayers are the problem. So...what character is known for killing slayers? Who has a rep for killing slayers? Not only killing them, but studying them in depth, hunting them down, tracking them? Who was able to hunt, track, and kill two slayers?
And the only one able to do it? Note Angel never could or even wanted to. Drusilla is the only other vamp to do it, and she didn't have to do any tracking.
Spike. Not only is Spike an expert on slayers, he's killed two of them, and struts about in a coat he grabbed off a slayer. (Okay not anymore, since the coat was burned up in Italy while he was traisping after Angel who was traisping after Buffy. Remember that, I'll get back to it shortly.) He is the one who told Buffy in graphic detail how he killed two slayers.
Which vampire was involved in training the potentials to fight vampires up until they became slayers? Spike. Spike was assisting Buffy in teaching the potentials to fight.
Who is obsessed with slayers? Spike. Angel could have cared less - Angel only got caught up in Buffy, the girl. Spike was obsessed with the slayer, fell for the girl much later.
In fact it is Spike who tells both Wood and Buffy the vampire's view of slayers: He says to Wood, Life of the Chosen One, always alone, always about the mission, believe me, I know.
And he states at different points to both Wood and Buffy, vampire - slayer. Slayers are our natural enemy - we kill them. It's them or us.
And Spike is the only vampire to seek a soul - for a slayer. He fell in love with a slayer as a vampire, while he was planning to kill her no less.
Spike is all about slayers. Heck over in Angel S5 - it is Spike not Angel who fights Dana, gets captured by Dana and is brutally mutilated by Dana - the crazy rogue slayer. And it is Spike who backs up Andrew's story about the slayer empowerment spell, tells Angel the specifics, and explains that it is unlikely that Dana can be saved, she's a monster like they are. Angel attempts to take control of Dana, Spike shrugs it off as tragic.
Even if Spike never met Buffy, one would think they'd call the legendary slayer killer?
OR even if he's moved on, why not call him? If he still loves her - again why hasn't Twilight contacted Spike? Or has he?
2. Who knows the slayer spell, the scythe, and Buffy better than anyone? Who has intimate knowledge of why they did that spell, the planning of it, and the outcome? Who was supportive of it - outside of Buffy's nearest and dearest?
Spike. He was directly involved. He was in the hellmouth when it was activated. It was activated around the same time his amulet was.
3. Who besides the slayers were involved in the destruction of Sunnydale and the defeat of the first?
Spike.
4. Now, for a moment, let's jump over to Angel. Spike has intimate knowledge of what happened to Angel in S5 and in Hell LA. He knows about Connor, he knows about WEs and Fred and Dana.
He also knows Angelus.
He followed Angel to Italy the last time Angel went traisping after Buffy and tried to interfer with her life. It was in part to help him, and I think, in part to stop him.
He also called Angel on spying on Buffy.
And to my knowledge he's been more or less joined to Angel's hip up until Angel Aftermath - which to the best of my knowledge is not really part of the Whedon canon anyway.
He also knows all of Angel's secrets and his weaknesses, things Buffy and Faith don't even know.
5. Spike has a wicked habit of screwing up people's plans and saving the day for the good guys. In Becoming - he foils Angel's plans, in Season 3 - the Mayor is worried enough about him that he tries to have him killed, luckily for the Mayor he leaves town, in Season 4 - he screws up Adam's plans and Buffy's. In S5, he screws up Glory's. In Season 6...he goes and gets a soul - which wakes up the First - who decides the balance has been disrupted.
And in S7 - he blows up the vampires and takes out all of Sunnydale, not to mention gives Buffy the necessary boost of confidence to figure out that empowering everyone is the way to go - and bon voyage first. And he fouls up Angel's plan to sacrifice himself in the battle.
In Angel S5 - he disrupts the balance when he becomes corporeal.
Spike is all about chaos, all about disrupting the balance in things. Breaking the rules.
He went and got a soul - vampires aren't supposed to do that. He hunted and tracked slayers and tried to kill them - vampires are supposed to avoid them. He does the opposite of what the PTB want.
Then jumping to the story itself...there are all these weird bits:
1. Ethan Raine's whole appearance in Long Way Home screams Spike. Heck he's in Spike's trademark attire - Angel doesn't really wear a long black leather duster and red shirt most of the time. He uses British pet names such as my love or love, or "pet" - which Buffy takes exception to and insists he stop using immediately. And the first dream he thrusts her inside in her dreamscape is a sexual fantasy of a threesome with Angel and Spike. He's also the one trying to warn her about Amy and Twilight. Ethan - if you recall - was a trickster character who worshipped the Goddess of Chaos, Saga Vasuki, and got his knowledge and power through her.
2. Satsu and Buffy - their relationship is oddly similar to Buffy and Spike's = unrequited love, right hand man/lieutentant, who would do anything for Buffy, and Twilight kicks aside, first breaking her nose.
3. Dawn's romance/sex with Kenny's roomate, Nick, which turn's her into numerous things...
and Nick smokes cigarettes, has dirty hair, wears funky clothes, doesn't care what anyone thinks, and plays in a band - a cliche, sure, but also a billy idol wannabe...like Spike.
4. Andrew's comment to Buffy off-hand in Predators and PRey - about how she traded up from Angel, having met Angel, he's all team Spike. Buffy's says nothing. Is notably silent.
5. Always Darkest - Spike shows up, she says she misses him, Angel asks which one, and can she tell the difference between them, before he kisses Spike and says he always had a weakness for bottled blonds. She ends up marrying Warren, in a church with a congregation of her worse enemies - all the demons she defeated, with Tara as her bridesmaid, while Spike and Angel have sex in the pews, smooching noises off-screen. Waking up, she's bleary eyed and in a foul mood.
6. Both Riley and Twilight/Angel react to an army guy talking about a "spike" in magic. They zero in on the word "spike", and Twilight says they need to kill this "spike".
And of course, as 2maggie2 pointed out in the comments to my last post on Twilight, his absence is all the more glaring for all the people accounted for. We got Harmony - Spike's ex, having a reality series. Clem has showed up (although I don't remember him...but I'll take her word for it). Warren. Amy. OZ. Riley. Even Tara has been referenced more than once, along with Robin Wood - in No Future for You. Dracula. Faith is there. And Ethan Raine. Granted Anya isn't mentioned, but...she's not really pertinent to Buffy so much as Xander.
So it's glaring that Spike is not, in any way. Except either in a sex dream attached to Angel,
or by mild and vague reference - "my lovers tend to oh die, or get sent to hell, or burn up...", or "I'm all Team Spike".
I'd say you could dismiss this except for the bits I cited above - that Spike killed slayers and this story is about slayers, plural. That Spike has been a wild card and upset the balance in not one but two shows -by getting a soul. That Spike knows slayers. Loves them.
Hates them. Obsesses over them. And finally that Spike has a deep bond with Angel as well as Buffy - the two people fighting. He's the only character who has literally had intimate relations with both Buffy and Angel. The only one who knows both of them well, has followed both of their leads, and looks up to both of them at one time or another.
So, again, where is Spike? What is his role going to be? He's clearly not Twilight (thank you Joss, because that would have been out of character...in a big way, I can see Angel falling into that power trap, but not Spike. That does not mean I can't envision Spike helping Angel, although I doubt it - he question Angel every step of the way on the whole WRH deal, he basically lives to second-guess Angel. )
And why all the silence regarding him? Whether the writers care about him or not, they've gone to a lot of trouble in the past and present to demonstrate his connections to the mythos, which are arguably tighter than Angel's - in some respects. You don't have to be a Spike fan to notice that. I know I've had one too many discussions with non-Spike fans regarding how many slayers he's killed and his relationship with them.
Plus if the story is supposed to be about relationships - Buffy has had five. She has slept with four men. In the comics - each has been referenced - Parker, Riley, Angel, Spike.
Parker is referenced by Xander in connection with Dawn's actions that lead to her Giantess status. Spike briefly by Andrew. Riley shows up. Angel is Twilight. Of the four, the most meaningful were arguably Riley, Angel and Spike. The two that changed the course of her life were Spike and Angel. Angel was the one who broke and shut down/closed her heart. Spike was the one who opened it. Finally Satsu, who may well be to Spike, what Riley was to Angel.
The only relationship that has not been wrapped up - that ended with a cliff-hanger of sorts, was Buffy/Spike - she told him that she loved him, he said no you don't, and died. She to our knowledge doesn't know he's alive. He to our knowledge doesn't know she cares, and thinks she has moved on to better climes. Angel knows Spike is alive. Angel knows Buffy loves him.
So why is that relationship left hanging, but the Buffy/Angel one revisited - when it actually was wrapped up in Chosen? Why are they revisiting Buffy/Angel? How does this fit with the theme of empowerment? Or power in general?
