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shadowkatI was going to entitle this entry shipping the bad boy, but when I thought about it, I realized I don't really see Spike that way, even though most people do. Regrettably. And while it is true that most of the characters on Buffy or any well-written television serial are controversial...my experiences shipping a controversial character that split the online fandom associated with the show he was in, begun and ended largely with Spike. Unlike many people on lj, I'm not a cereal fan - I don't jump fandoms. And I've only really been in one. One from my perspective was more than enough.
This should go without saying, but I'll say it anyway just in case, everything I post within this entry is opinion, none of it is factual and it is based solely on my perspective. I can't speak for others, only myself. I've done polls on shipping Spike, recently in fact, and yet, I feel they are largely inaccurate. Can I really state with any certainty that the majority of Spike Shippers are female and over the age 40? Just because one poll provided that result? No. Polls, all polls, specifically those on the internet provide little truth. Just conjecture.
I can't remember when I started shipping Spike to be honest. At the moment it feels like frigging forever. The character is so ingrained in my psyche. Even before the show aired, I had character tropes similar to him in a book that I'd written. Ambiguous snarky male characters that stepped out of the dark shadows of a noir gothic novel or mystery.
Edgy. Reluctant heroes. Male hookers with hearts of gold.
I do know that when I ventured online to join the Buffy fandom and discuss the show on fan boards - I was shipping the character pretty hard. And back then, as cliquish as fandom was and still is, it was easier to join the public spoiler boards. The character specific boards that were more tightly monitored required networking to get in. I know I remember investigating a few. If you didn't know the posters, you were ignored or pushed to the curb. BAPS and Sunnydale U were definitely like that. The public forums were easier in that regard. But they weren't in another.
It depends on what your purpose was of course. I wanted to analyze the show in detail.
Speculate on future plot arcs. And discuss all the characters arcs, in particular Spike's.
In short, I wanted to read and discuss meta and to a degree fanfic - which was new to me.
My difficulty was - when I jumped fully online in Jan 2002, Spike was a controversial character and his fans...had a reputation that made if difficult to ship him on public boards without people jumping to conclusions. I feared that my meta and essays would not be taken seriously if I let people know up front that I shipped Spike back then. I was right about that. So for a while I posted and discussed everyone but Spike, building up interest and respect from non-Spike fans. I was afraid, and rightly so it turns out, that people would dismiss everything I had to say based solely on the fact that I loved Spike and Spuffy.
The character was volatile. Most if not all of my fights in fandom centered around Spike. I'd been accused on boards for liking him solely for his cheekbones (because other Spike fans squee-ed about them on the boards, so obviously I must feel the same way), people told me I was a rapist-sympathizer (considering I worked prior to law school on a domestic violence project and was involved with a rape crisis center and had written articles in college on date rape..this annoyed me), been compared to women who fall in love with serial killers (I've met serial killers and hitmen in real life - trust me they are nothing like Spike, actually quite a bit like Walt on Breaking Bad to be honest and the drug-dealing characters on The Wire), or told that I was racist because some Spike fan who I'd never met or interacted with saw Spike as metaphor for the dis-enfranchized minority (honestly, I find the idea of a vampire representing a disenfranchized minority deeply offensive and insane, but clearly if one Spike fan thinks it, we all do).
The human tendency to generalize and how faulty that can be - is no more evident than in fandom. Bangle shippers get a bad name because of the fanatic fringe who attacks everyone else, just as Angel shippers often do...the vocal minority can make us all look bad.
Not all Bangle shippers hate Spike or Spuffy. Any more than all Spuffy/Spike shippers hate Angel or Bangle. You can't really generalize, well you can try, but you'd be wrong.
Posts such as this one - " An Educated Fangurl's Guide to the Spike Wars which was written by a long-time Buffy fan who was clearly not a Spike shipper and had issues with people who were, often, and unintentionally, made it hard for me to be a Spike shipper, because I often felt as if I was constantly being categorized and/or judged by the non-Spike shippers or those who did not ship the character, rather it was because they didn't like the character, didn't like specific fans interpretations, didn't like how the character affected their precious fandom base, or were largely ambivalent. I felt that the moment they discovered I was a "Spike Shipper" - they ceased to take anything I said seriously - I was placed in a category in their head. I remember at one point writing a similar post myself, except I was categorizing the detractors, and getting blasted for it. Deservedly so.
This happens with controversial character shipping - we start to build factions, or teams, (Team Spike, Team Angel, etc) and we fight with each other over whose interpretation of the character is the correct one or worse, which one the creator intended. Pulling in writer and actor interviews to support our perspective or interpretation of the text - which is a Doylist analysis and doesn't work for everyone, because at the end of the day a work of art is a bit like a child. You may have raised that child to be this one thing or created that work to express this specific view, but I'm sorry - it's not going to do that. It becomes its own entity and the more people it interacts with, the more it changes its meaning. James Joyce once wrote that he preferred not to reveal his intent, he often forgot what it was anyhow, feeling what the reader found inside his work was what he intended and often far more interesting that what he may have originally intended. Often what we find in a work of art is far more interesting than the creator thought we'd find. Taking that away from someone...as the writer of the Kite Runner expressed, can ruin their enjoyment of the work, kill its appeal. The work can in fact be rendered meaningless or could become something the viewer now hates. Intent is also, murky, writers don't often know, particularly collaborative writers...their intent is mostly to write something that is entertaining, gets good ratings, and provides them with a steady income.
Of course the writers didn't make it easy on me either...they put the character through the ringer. I never knew what they'd do with Spike next, which to be honest was what I liked about him. He felt like the quintessential existentialist. Making his own fate. Trying to change his lot in life. Falling down on the job constantly. Unlike Angel, who appeared to be a Fate's proverbial puppet, his strings pulled by either the PTB or the ancient old Ones, all depending on whether or not he had a soul, Spike seemed determined to be his own man, master of his own body, his own fate. He came into the story obsessed with controlling others...and left obsessed with controlling himself. I could relate to Spike - the social awkwardness, the pit-bull mentality, the god-awful poetry, the bravado, and the snark. And it helped greatly that the actor who played him - played him with rigorous and at times passionate abandon. Never had I seen a performance so raw, so unrestrained, so brave. To this day I'm not sure what it was that pulled me into the character - the actor's performance, the writing, the direction or a combo of all of the above. I'm guessing the latter. I've seen Marsters in other series and films, as well as on stage, but never like he was as Spike. For some reason - he brought a raw emotionality and physicality to this character that he did not choose to bring to any other. Why that is, I'll never know. I want to ask him. But I'm not sure he'll give an answer or even understand the question. It's not the sort of thing you ask a stranger.
Of the writing choices...the hardest one to deal with as a Spike Shipper, was one that I was actually prepared for and the reason I frequented the spoiler boards - because much like Tara's death, I'd guessed they would go down that road the moment Spike and Buffy started boinking each other like bunnies. Of course the writers would have Spike attempt to force Buffy to have sex with him, aka attempted rape. I knew they were going to do that.
Because they had to do something to convince the character to search for a soul or get the chip out - something major. Also they kept hinting at it in all their interviews. I hoped they wouldn't, because it would make life difficult online.
Being highly analytical, the attempted rape scene did not bother me. I could pull it apart rationally, and see it from a legal and psychological perspective. I could separate the raw emotion from what actually happened and break it down bit by bit. But I soon realized after various interactions with fans on and offline that not everyone is analytical. Or thinks that way. Also a lot of people saw what happened through their own lense of experience, experiences that were darker and different from mine. I had a friend online at the time, who had been raped, who had no problems with the scene and was a Spuffy/Spike shipper afterwards. She was a navy nurse. Happily married. While someone I meet in person at a fan board mini-meetup could not handle either Spike or Spuffy after that scene and insisted he raped her and he was a rapist and I was crazy for seeing otherwise. It was difficult for me not to tell the woman she was hair-brained and a bit dim in retaliation. I am happy to say that I merely stated that I saw it differently and changed the conversation to something less volatile. I did that a lot in regards to Spike.
Other problematic episodes included...Lies My Parents Told Me, which I'd also been heavily spoiled for and knew about ahead of time. I lost online friends over that episode. We just perceived it completely differently. I was not a fan of Robin Wood for various reasons, mainly the actor grates on my nerves - he always came across to me, regardless of the role he is playing, like a smug know-it-all ass hole. And I did not perceive Spike as deliberately killing Robin's mother, he killed a slayer - which was decisively different in my brain from how Angelus killed Dru's family, Holtz's family, and intended on killing Buffy's. Spike targeted the slayer, or the main person gunning for him, Angelus went after the family and slowly worked his way up to his target. That was obvious to me from the script, it made no sense that other's didn't perceive the same thing - but they saw it differently. So from my perspective, Spike didn't necessarily owe Robin anything more than he owed anyone else. As he put it - I've killed a lot of people's mothers. And he had. Of those people, Nikki really wasn't a big deal - she could fight, she could kill vampires, she wasn't really a victim. She was another warrior. It was different. I seriously doubt Spike even knew she was a mother at the time. Robin reminded me of Anya and Holtz (who I was more sympathetic towards and found more interesting - possibly because he was better written), he was about vengeance, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth...which rarely solves anything. And I thought the series did a good job of pointing that out. In many respects, Robin felt like Buffy's version of Holtz, except I had more sympathy for Holtz on Angel - Holtz lost everything, Angelus and Darla decimated his family, turned his children into vampires. And it was personal - they'd gone after Holtz' family instead of killing Holtz himself, which smacked of cowardice from my perspective. Spike went after the fighter, ignored Robin the defenseless little boy or her Watcher. I had to admire him a bit for doing that.
So I got into fights with fans over Lies. And was not helped by other factions of the fandoms...one that saw Spike as a metaphor for the disenfranchized minority (mind-boggling to me, I never understood that perspective) and another that was unduly obsessed with the metaphorical significance and redemptive qualities of that damn jacket. (I kept wanting to make them all read Frank Miller's Sin City - which was basically how the writer's viewed the jacket). That episode was controversial on so many levels.
Add to this mix Angel, and the various people who felt the need to compare Angel to Spike as evidence that Spike couldn't be redeemed, wasn't redeemed, or hadn't shown remorse. This of course only works if you perceive Angel as having any of those qualities or being remotely on the road towards redemption. If you, however, perceive Angel as a puppet who wants the approval of the big bully in the sky or the big bully down below, depending on the state of his soul at the moment and will do literally anything to get that approval...this argument won't work. Particularly if you tend to be more of an existentialist than a determinist, or believe strongly in free will and taking responsibility for your own actions and have serious issues with authority figures.
It also won't work if David Boreanze's acting skills feel stiff or wooden to you and you think he's basically phoning it in. If you, like me, are a fan of raw emotional acting, and find reactive or restrained acting on the wooden side...you probably thought Spike was more demonstrative in his remorse than Angel. So the problem with the Angel vs. Spike wars - was people didn't view the characters the same way. I fought with my own brother on it - my brother and I do not perceive the world from the same angle. He loved Titantic (cinematography), thought Ang Lee's The Hulk was the best superhero film, was bored by Hugo...and preferred Angel the Series to Buffy. We think differently and we have the same parents, the same dna makeup and were derived from the same gene pool.
The difficulty with shipping Spike was also to a degree the stupid media and marketing folks at Fox who regrettably catered to the viewers who shipped Buffy/Angel and did not like Spike except as a side-kick to either Buffy or Angel. Angel, curse him, became a problem for many Spike shippers. Except when we shipped Spike with Angel, then not so much, which many people began to do, myself included, because I did technically enjoy both characters. That said there were and still are fans that did not want Spike anywhere near Angel the series or Angel. I remember fighting with fans when Spike joined Angel. Some fans hoped he'd come back ugly, because then Angel wouldn't have any competition in the looks department. (I'm not kidding.) Other's felt Spike would take over Angel's show and ruin it and were requesting a boycott - which annoyed Tim Minear (one of the series writers) to such a degree that he popped up on a fan board and kicked their asses, shocking everyone. From the media and writers perspectives...Spike shippers were often depicted in a less than savory light. Articles in EW and various fan mags, depicted Spike as the perennial bad boy. And perhaps he was. But not everyone saw it that way.
And of course everyone is triggered or turned on by different things, I've learned it's impossible to generalize. There were so many aspects of the character that intrigued me, some of which I know creeped out or triggered others...his obsessive love of Buffy - to the point that it drives him insane. His layered character, you see one thing, peel it back, get the opposite. The bluster. The sexist comments. The banter. The ambiguity.
I liked the fact that I never quite knew which direction Spike would go in or why, neither did the actor who played him half the time - he was a chaotic character, a trickster,
filled with pathos and twisted morality.
Some fans believed he destroyed the series, by muddling the metaphors and making the morality of Buffy far more ambiguous, not to mention Angel's journey. By the end of S7, it was no longer clear if Angel could be redeemed without reconciling with his alter-ego, Angelus. Spike through a monkey wrench in that plot line. Also the line between soul and unsouled got blurred with Spike...who instead of trying to bite and drain Buffy either turning her into a vampire or killing her, attempted merely to fuck her - and when she stopped him, still wounded and vulnerable in her bathroom, horrified he retreats, he doesn't try to kill her or attempt to do it again - he goes in search of a way to ensure he doesn't that he can be worthy of her love.
In one infamous essay, How Spike Ruined Buffy - by yet another fan who despised Spike fans and Spike shippers and especially Spuffy, the writer lays the blame for everything he disliked about the final two seasons of the series at Spike's feet, citing the first three seasons sans Spike to be the best. The essay was often quoted by people who hated post S4 Spike and felt it validated their perspective. Reading it, I remember thinking...at the time, that yes, again this makes it difficult to write meta and be taken seriously. It also made it painful to be in the fandom. The essay, in retrospect, seems fairly silly...and reminds me a little of Gary Marshall's humorous response to fans who stated that Fonzie ruined Happy Days. He didn't. The writers ran out of ideas, Richie Cunningham the heart and soul of the series grew up and moved away. And they had no where to go. Anyone with an analytical bone in their body could figure that out. No more than Spike ruined Buffy - if anything Buffy for many fans became more interesting. And it certainly wasn't just about Buffy and Spike, there were various subplots. And people who have done Buffy by the numbers, literally counting the number of times Spike appears, number of lines, etc vs other characters such as Xander, noted there really is no difference from S4 and S4 and S6 and S7. And Xander, Buffy and Willow have more lines and mentions. Articles such as the one cited above made it difficult to ship Spike online. I lost count of the number of "helpful" souls who felt the need to either quote it or send it to me whenever I attempted to discuss the character on public fanboards or dissect the character's arc. Or when I discussed what did not work for me regarding the series...which granted opens up that door.
Shipping controversial characters in a fandom is always going to lead to friction. You will be attacked. And disappointed. Often feeling as if the writers are against you. Marti Noxon and David Fury made no friends amongst the majority of Spike shippers in S5 and S6 with their constant harping on Spike as the bad boy. Spike fans often wondered if the writers were watching the show they were creating or paying attention. Marti having no filter, stated outlandish and at times insulting things regarding Spike fans...but she paled in comparison to David Fury, who famously stated Spike fans were like women who sent serial killers letters in prison. It won Fury few fans. And as an entertainment writer...you sort of need to worry about that. Which was why Whedon refrained from interacting on forums and was far more careful. Ironically, Fury recanted everything he said on year later...stating he was wrong about Spike. As did Marti. But it was too little, too late.
On the flip side...you ran into a lot of creative people in the fandom, who came from all walks of life. You also had this delicious character that you could tear apart a million different ways. A character that was played with such abandon by the actor. Marsters unlike most of the cast, rarely phoned it in. He was always on. Always emoting. His performances in S6 were so raw they were painful to watch at times, as they were in S5 and S4. The actor took risks, he pushed through barriers, he took whatever the writers threw at him and pushed it to the next level. Other actors looked better and sparked more when they were paired with Spike, they became more interesting. At one point according to
DVD commentary, the other actors were begging the writers to write scenes for them with Spike. The difficulty with the Spuffy relationship is those scenes began to diminish, if anything I felt the show was hurt by less Spike - I wanted Xander/Spike scenes, Dawn/Spike, Willow/Spike and Giles/Spike. I felt short-changed. Being a Spike shipper did influence how I watched the series, if the writer of How Spike Ruined Buffy - saw too much Spike and wanted less, I was the exact opposite, I craved more. The more obsessed I became the more I saw the series through that character, and in a way it became the Spike show for me...Buffy falling into my review mirror.
Being a shipper of a character can do that...it can put blinders on. It becomes difficult to see past that haze. By the same token, I resented people derailing my posts or critiquing them - with the statement - you only see Spike or your blinded by your love of this character or "you obviously adore Spike" - heavily implying that therefore, I can't take anything you write seriously. They'd belittle you for what you loved. Today, someone stated to me...that we aren't defined by our beliefs but by what we love. It's what we love that guides us. And inspires. And makes us wake up each morning. To be told that your views are questionable on a series because you ship a controversial character is beyond annoying. Few things enrage me more than someone telling me how I think or feel, telling me how my feelings affect other things or my views of those items. My immediate response is the last time I checked? You can't see my face. You aren't a telepath. You don't know what I'm feeling or thinking - how dare you assume that you do!
That's possibly the hardest part of shipping a character online, controversial or otherwise...constantly being told how you think, feel, or view things...being belittled for your views - whether intentional or not. Feeling judged. And at times excluded.
Fandom has its factions, its cliques. Any group with people does, it's human nature.
And often that is based on which characters you love. Being part of a diverse fandom and wishing to interact with a diverse group of people can be difficult. Particularly when we all see the characters we adore so differently. Even inside the Spike fandom, I'd struggle.
Some saw him as a poor woobie, others preferred evil Spike, others the snarky ambiguous unsouled character, others the existentialist...the list is endless. Some are Spangle shippers, some Spuffy, some Spander and others Spillow. (Along with a vast array of ships, I have not mentioned.) We fight there too. Not quite agreeing. I, for example, had no problems with the whole quest for a soul bit, while others did. Nor did the fact that he forced himself sexually on Buffy (AR bit) bother me that much...I found the scene itself impossible to watch - they way they shot and filmed that sequence was brutal. I felt sorry for everyone involved. It was almost as if the filmmakers wanted to hurt the audience.
But when I thought about the scene and what actually occurred, I realized how the camera fooled me. But I've fought with people on that scene endlessly, getting nowhere.
Shipping Spike has never been easy. It wasn't in 2002, it isn't now. Different. Not easy.
And ten years later, I'm struck by how similar some of the problems are...demonstrating how little we understand one another or how unwilling we are to do so...so determined to push our own point of view. It's not really about who is wrong or right...so much as
being able to see a view that is different. But as a shipper, you don't want to see the negative view of something you love, you want to continue to love it. You also want to be
respected...for other views related or unrelated to that love. I think anyone who has loved a controversial character in a fandom, regardless of who it is...can most likely relate.
Then of course there's the people who think...why are you still into the character? But I'm not completely...not as invested as I once was. I can see things clearer now. I care less. Time has faded the love bit by bit. But the fact that the character trope was a favorite of mine before he appeared on screen, doesn't surprise me at all that is long after. As a friend stated once upon a time to me..."Spike is your sexual fantasy come to life" and perhaps in some respects he was. There were too many things that hit my kinks hard and still do. And they aren't necessarily what people think. The frustrated poet, philosopher, and psychologist inside me fell for him hard. I loved the duality. I loved how the writers took a romantic villian, a metaphor for lust, and slowly over time turned him into a romantic hero...albeit a deeply flawed one for both Buffy and Angel. He had the best lines, he never did what I expected, and he was sexy. Few characters before or since resonated for me in the same way.
I'm not sure the people on my flist who...saw the character vastly differently than I did will ever understand. Nor will the one's who saw him that way but are either turned off by the things I fell in love with - unless you've read bad poetry to a college audience of 100 people and had people come up to you afterwards and state...great performance, bad poetry - you may never get it. Or for that matter be the brunt of unrequited love, been horribly rejected, and never really experienced someone pursuing you...Spike may make no sense to you. Experience is 90% of it, I think. And if your experiences clash with mine, if you were stalked, had an abusive boyfriend, or hate poetry and think its silly or are an excellent poet - you make look at Spike with derision. And the whole Mommy bit, I know, turns many people off...but it fascinated me...it appealed to the mythologist and frustrated psyche major in my soul and it was such a nice twist away from the annoyingly stale Daddy issues mythos that permeated most tv shows including this one.
But regardless of what you think about Spike or whether you understand my feelings for this character specifically, I think you or rather everyone who comes upon this post probably does understand what it is like to love or ship something others violently dislike. Or don't comprehend. What it is like to be ridiculed for it. To be made fun of. To worry about admitting to it or be outted as a "shipper of XYZ", what it is like to be defensive about your favorite character or season or series, and what it is like to avoid the detractors. To get upset over negative articles by writers of the show about him or her. All fandoms have controversial characters that people adore. We all have read an article similar to How Spike Ruined Buffy in regards to our favorite character (*cough*Connor*cough* or *cough*Dawn*cough*). And, I get, oddly enough, a lot of comfort from that. To love something other's find ugly or stupid or silly or dumb...and find others who understand why you do, get it completely...that is the upside. And one of the reasons I ventured online in the first place.
This should go without saying, but I'll say it anyway just in case, everything I post within this entry is opinion, none of it is factual and it is based solely on my perspective. I can't speak for others, only myself. I've done polls on shipping Spike, recently in fact, and yet, I feel they are largely inaccurate. Can I really state with any certainty that the majority of Spike Shippers are female and over the age 40? Just because one poll provided that result? No. Polls, all polls, specifically those on the internet provide little truth. Just conjecture.
I can't remember when I started shipping Spike to be honest. At the moment it feels like frigging forever. The character is so ingrained in my psyche. Even before the show aired, I had character tropes similar to him in a book that I'd written. Ambiguous snarky male characters that stepped out of the dark shadows of a noir gothic novel or mystery.
Edgy. Reluctant heroes. Male hookers with hearts of gold.
I do know that when I ventured online to join the Buffy fandom and discuss the show on fan boards - I was shipping the character pretty hard. And back then, as cliquish as fandom was and still is, it was easier to join the public spoiler boards. The character specific boards that were more tightly monitored required networking to get in. I know I remember investigating a few. If you didn't know the posters, you were ignored or pushed to the curb. BAPS and Sunnydale U were definitely like that. The public forums were easier in that regard. But they weren't in another.
It depends on what your purpose was of course. I wanted to analyze the show in detail.
Speculate on future plot arcs. And discuss all the characters arcs, in particular Spike's.
In short, I wanted to read and discuss meta and to a degree fanfic - which was new to me.
My difficulty was - when I jumped fully online in Jan 2002, Spike was a controversial character and his fans...had a reputation that made if difficult to ship him on public boards without people jumping to conclusions. I feared that my meta and essays would not be taken seriously if I let people know up front that I shipped Spike back then. I was right about that. So for a while I posted and discussed everyone but Spike, building up interest and respect from non-Spike fans. I was afraid, and rightly so it turns out, that people would dismiss everything I had to say based solely on the fact that I loved Spike and Spuffy.
The character was volatile. Most if not all of my fights in fandom centered around Spike. I'd been accused on boards for liking him solely for his cheekbones (because other Spike fans squee-ed about them on the boards, so obviously I must feel the same way), people told me I was a rapist-sympathizer (considering I worked prior to law school on a domestic violence project and was involved with a rape crisis center and had written articles in college on date rape..this annoyed me), been compared to women who fall in love with serial killers (I've met serial killers and hitmen in real life - trust me they are nothing like Spike, actually quite a bit like Walt on Breaking Bad to be honest and the drug-dealing characters on The Wire), or told that I was racist because some Spike fan who I'd never met or interacted with saw Spike as metaphor for the dis-enfranchized minority (honestly, I find the idea of a vampire representing a disenfranchized minority deeply offensive and insane, but clearly if one Spike fan thinks it, we all do).
The human tendency to generalize and how faulty that can be - is no more evident than in fandom. Bangle shippers get a bad name because of the fanatic fringe who attacks everyone else, just as Angel shippers often do...the vocal minority can make us all look bad.
Not all Bangle shippers hate Spike or Spuffy. Any more than all Spuffy/Spike shippers hate Angel or Bangle. You can't really generalize, well you can try, but you'd be wrong.
Posts such as this one - " An Educated Fangurl's Guide to the Spike Wars which was written by a long-time Buffy fan who was clearly not a Spike shipper and had issues with people who were, often, and unintentionally, made it hard for me to be a Spike shipper, because I often felt as if I was constantly being categorized and/or judged by the non-Spike shippers or those who did not ship the character, rather it was because they didn't like the character, didn't like specific fans interpretations, didn't like how the character affected their precious fandom base, or were largely ambivalent. I felt that the moment they discovered I was a "Spike Shipper" - they ceased to take anything I said seriously - I was placed in a category in their head. I remember at one point writing a similar post myself, except I was categorizing the detractors, and getting blasted for it. Deservedly so.
This happens with controversial character shipping - we start to build factions, or teams, (Team Spike, Team Angel, etc) and we fight with each other over whose interpretation of the character is the correct one or worse, which one the creator intended. Pulling in writer and actor interviews to support our perspective or interpretation of the text - which is a Doylist analysis and doesn't work for everyone, because at the end of the day a work of art is a bit like a child. You may have raised that child to be this one thing or created that work to express this specific view, but I'm sorry - it's not going to do that. It becomes its own entity and the more people it interacts with, the more it changes its meaning. James Joyce once wrote that he preferred not to reveal his intent, he often forgot what it was anyhow, feeling what the reader found inside his work was what he intended and often far more interesting that what he may have originally intended. Often what we find in a work of art is far more interesting than the creator thought we'd find. Taking that away from someone...as the writer of the Kite Runner expressed, can ruin their enjoyment of the work, kill its appeal. The work can in fact be rendered meaningless or could become something the viewer now hates. Intent is also, murky, writers don't often know, particularly collaborative writers...their intent is mostly to write something that is entertaining, gets good ratings, and provides them with a steady income.
Of course the writers didn't make it easy on me either...they put the character through the ringer. I never knew what they'd do with Spike next, which to be honest was what I liked about him. He felt like the quintessential existentialist. Making his own fate. Trying to change his lot in life. Falling down on the job constantly. Unlike Angel, who appeared to be a Fate's proverbial puppet, his strings pulled by either the PTB or the ancient old Ones, all depending on whether or not he had a soul, Spike seemed determined to be his own man, master of his own body, his own fate. He came into the story obsessed with controlling others...and left obsessed with controlling himself. I could relate to Spike - the social awkwardness, the pit-bull mentality, the god-awful poetry, the bravado, and the snark. And it helped greatly that the actor who played him - played him with rigorous and at times passionate abandon. Never had I seen a performance so raw, so unrestrained, so brave. To this day I'm not sure what it was that pulled me into the character - the actor's performance, the writing, the direction or a combo of all of the above. I'm guessing the latter. I've seen Marsters in other series and films, as well as on stage, but never like he was as Spike. For some reason - he brought a raw emotionality and physicality to this character that he did not choose to bring to any other. Why that is, I'll never know. I want to ask him. But I'm not sure he'll give an answer or even understand the question. It's not the sort of thing you ask a stranger.
Of the writing choices...the hardest one to deal with as a Spike Shipper, was one that I was actually prepared for and the reason I frequented the spoiler boards - because much like Tara's death, I'd guessed they would go down that road the moment Spike and Buffy started boinking each other like bunnies. Of course the writers would have Spike attempt to force Buffy to have sex with him, aka attempted rape. I knew they were going to do that.
Because they had to do something to convince the character to search for a soul or get the chip out - something major. Also they kept hinting at it in all their interviews. I hoped they wouldn't, because it would make life difficult online.
Being highly analytical, the attempted rape scene did not bother me. I could pull it apart rationally, and see it from a legal and psychological perspective. I could separate the raw emotion from what actually happened and break it down bit by bit. But I soon realized after various interactions with fans on and offline that not everyone is analytical. Or thinks that way. Also a lot of people saw what happened through their own lense of experience, experiences that were darker and different from mine. I had a friend online at the time, who had been raped, who had no problems with the scene and was a Spuffy/Spike shipper afterwards. She was a navy nurse. Happily married. While someone I meet in person at a fan board mini-meetup could not handle either Spike or Spuffy after that scene and insisted he raped her and he was a rapist and I was crazy for seeing otherwise. It was difficult for me not to tell the woman she was hair-brained and a bit dim in retaliation. I am happy to say that I merely stated that I saw it differently and changed the conversation to something less volatile. I did that a lot in regards to Spike.
Other problematic episodes included...Lies My Parents Told Me, which I'd also been heavily spoiled for and knew about ahead of time. I lost online friends over that episode. We just perceived it completely differently. I was not a fan of Robin Wood for various reasons, mainly the actor grates on my nerves - he always came across to me, regardless of the role he is playing, like a smug know-it-all ass hole. And I did not perceive Spike as deliberately killing Robin's mother, he killed a slayer - which was decisively different in my brain from how Angelus killed Dru's family, Holtz's family, and intended on killing Buffy's. Spike targeted the slayer, or the main person gunning for him, Angelus went after the family and slowly worked his way up to his target. That was obvious to me from the script, it made no sense that other's didn't perceive the same thing - but they saw it differently. So from my perspective, Spike didn't necessarily owe Robin anything more than he owed anyone else. As he put it - I've killed a lot of people's mothers. And he had. Of those people, Nikki really wasn't a big deal - she could fight, she could kill vampires, she wasn't really a victim. She was another warrior. It was different. I seriously doubt Spike even knew she was a mother at the time. Robin reminded me of Anya and Holtz (who I was more sympathetic towards and found more interesting - possibly because he was better written), he was about vengeance, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth...which rarely solves anything. And I thought the series did a good job of pointing that out. In many respects, Robin felt like Buffy's version of Holtz, except I had more sympathy for Holtz on Angel - Holtz lost everything, Angelus and Darla decimated his family, turned his children into vampires. And it was personal - they'd gone after Holtz' family instead of killing Holtz himself, which smacked of cowardice from my perspective. Spike went after the fighter, ignored Robin the defenseless little boy or her Watcher. I had to admire him a bit for doing that.
So I got into fights with fans over Lies. And was not helped by other factions of the fandoms...one that saw Spike as a metaphor for the disenfranchized minority (mind-boggling to me, I never understood that perspective) and another that was unduly obsessed with the metaphorical significance and redemptive qualities of that damn jacket. (I kept wanting to make them all read Frank Miller's Sin City - which was basically how the writer's viewed the jacket). That episode was controversial on so many levels.
Add to this mix Angel, and the various people who felt the need to compare Angel to Spike as evidence that Spike couldn't be redeemed, wasn't redeemed, or hadn't shown remorse. This of course only works if you perceive Angel as having any of those qualities or being remotely on the road towards redemption. If you, however, perceive Angel as a puppet who wants the approval of the big bully in the sky or the big bully down below, depending on the state of his soul at the moment and will do literally anything to get that approval...this argument won't work. Particularly if you tend to be more of an existentialist than a determinist, or believe strongly in free will and taking responsibility for your own actions and have serious issues with authority figures.
It also won't work if David Boreanze's acting skills feel stiff or wooden to you and you think he's basically phoning it in. If you, like me, are a fan of raw emotional acting, and find reactive or restrained acting on the wooden side...you probably thought Spike was more demonstrative in his remorse than Angel. So the problem with the Angel vs. Spike wars - was people didn't view the characters the same way. I fought with my own brother on it - my brother and I do not perceive the world from the same angle. He loved Titantic (cinematography), thought Ang Lee's The Hulk was the best superhero film, was bored by Hugo...and preferred Angel the Series to Buffy. We think differently and we have the same parents, the same dna makeup and were derived from the same gene pool.
The difficulty with shipping Spike was also to a degree the stupid media and marketing folks at Fox who regrettably catered to the viewers who shipped Buffy/Angel and did not like Spike except as a side-kick to either Buffy or Angel. Angel, curse him, became a problem for many Spike shippers. Except when we shipped Spike with Angel, then not so much, which many people began to do, myself included, because I did technically enjoy both characters. That said there were and still are fans that did not want Spike anywhere near Angel the series or Angel. I remember fighting with fans when Spike joined Angel. Some fans hoped he'd come back ugly, because then Angel wouldn't have any competition in the looks department. (I'm not kidding.) Other's felt Spike would take over Angel's show and ruin it and were requesting a boycott - which annoyed Tim Minear (one of the series writers) to such a degree that he popped up on a fan board and kicked their asses, shocking everyone. From the media and writers perspectives...Spike shippers were often depicted in a less than savory light. Articles in EW and various fan mags, depicted Spike as the perennial bad boy. And perhaps he was. But not everyone saw it that way.
And of course everyone is triggered or turned on by different things, I've learned it's impossible to generalize. There were so many aspects of the character that intrigued me, some of which I know creeped out or triggered others...his obsessive love of Buffy - to the point that it drives him insane. His layered character, you see one thing, peel it back, get the opposite. The bluster. The sexist comments. The banter. The ambiguity.
I liked the fact that I never quite knew which direction Spike would go in or why, neither did the actor who played him half the time - he was a chaotic character, a trickster,
filled with pathos and twisted morality.
Some fans believed he destroyed the series, by muddling the metaphors and making the morality of Buffy far more ambiguous, not to mention Angel's journey. By the end of S7, it was no longer clear if Angel could be redeemed without reconciling with his alter-ego, Angelus. Spike through a monkey wrench in that plot line. Also the line between soul and unsouled got blurred with Spike...who instead of trying to bite and drain Buffy either turning her into a vampire or killing her, attempted merely to fuck her - and when she stopped him, still wounded and vulnerable in her bathroom, horrified he retreats, he doesn't try to kill her or attempt to do it again - he goes in search of a way to ensure he doesn't that he can be worthy of her love.
In one infamous essay, How Spike Ruined Buffy - by yet another fan who despised Spike fans and Spike shippers and especially Spuffy, the writer lays the blame for everything he disliked about the final two seasons of the series at Spike's feet, citing the first three seasons sans Spike to be the best. The essay was often quoted by people who hated post S4 Spike and felt it validated their perspective. Reading it, I remember thinking...at the time, that yes, again this makes it difficult to write meta and be taken seriously. It also made it painful to be in the fandom. The essay, in retrospect, seems fairly silly...and reminds me a little of Gary Marshall's humorous response to fans who stated that Fonzie ruined Happy Days. He didn't. The writers ran out of ideas, Richie Cunningham the heart and soul of the series grew up and moved away. And they had no where to go. Anyone with an analytical bone in their body could figure that out. No more than Spike ruined Buffy - if anything Buffy for many fans became more interesting. And it certainly wasn't just about Buffy and Spike, there were various subplots. And people who have done Buffy by the numbers, literally counting the number of times Spike appears, number of lines, etc vs other characters such as Xander, noted there really is no difference from S4 and S4 and S6 and S7. And Xander, Buffy and Willow have more lines and mentions. Articles such as the one cited above made it difficult to ship Spike online. I lost count of the number of "helpful" souls who felt the need to either quote it or send it to me whenever I attempted to discuss the character on public fanboards or dissect the character's arc. Or when I discussed what did not work for me regarding the series...which granted opens up that door.
Shipping controversial characters in a fandom is always going to lead to friction. You will be attacked. And disappointed. Often feeling as if the writers are against you. Marti Noxon and David Fury made no friends amongst the majority of Spike shippers in S5 and S6 with their constant harping on Spike as the bad boy. Spike fans often wondered if the writers were watching the show they were creating or paying attention. Marti having no filter, stated outlandish and at times insulting things regarding Spike fans...but she paled in comparison to David Fury, who famously stated Spike fans were like women who sent serial killers letters in prison. It won Fury few fans. And as an entertainment writer...you sort of need to worry about that. Which was why Whedon refrained from interacting on forums and was far more careful. Ironically, Fury recanted everything he said on year later...stating he was wrong about Spike. As did Marti. But it was too little, too late.
On the flip side...you ran into a lot of creative people in the fandom, who came from all walks of life. You also had this delicious character that you could tear apart a million different ways. A character that was played with such abandon by the actor. Marsters unlike most of the cast, rarely phoned it in. He was always on. Always emoting. His performances in S6 were so raw they were painful to watch at times, as they were in S5 and S4. The actor took risks, he pushed through barriers, he took whatever the writers threw at him and pushed it to the next level. Other actors looked better and sparked more when they were paired with Spike, they became more interesting. At one point according to
DVD commentary, the other actors were begging the writers to write scenes for them with Spike. The difficulty with the Spuffy relationship is those scenes began to diminish, if anything I felt the show was hurt by less Spike - I wanted Xander/Spike scenes, Dawn/Spike, Willow/Spike and Giles/Spike. I felt short-changed. Being a Spike shipper did influence how I watched the series, if the writer of How Spike Ruined Buffy - saw too much Spike and wanted less, I was the exact opposite, I craved more. The more obsessed I became the more I saw the series through that character, and in a way it became the Spike show for me...Buffy falling into my review mirror.
Being a shipper of a character can do that...it can put blinders on. It becomes difficult to see past that haze. By the same token, I resented people derailing my posts or critiquing them - with the statement - you only see Spike or your blinded by your love of this character or "you obviously adore Spike" - heavily implying that therefore, I can't take anything you write seriously. They'd belittle you for what you loved. Today, someone stated to me...that we aren't defined by our beliefs but by what we love. It's what we love that guides us. And inspires. And makes us wake up each morning. To be told that your views are questionable on a series because you ship a controversial character is beyond annoying. Few things enrage me more than someone telling me how I think or feel, telling me how my feelings affect other things or my views of those items. My immediate response is the last time I checked? You can't see my face. You aren't a telepath. You don't know what I'm feeling or thinking - how dare you assume that you do!
That's possibly the hardest part of shipping a character online, controversial or otherwise...constantly being told how you think, feel, or view things...being belittled for your views - whether intentional or not. Feeling judged. And at times excluded.
Fandom has its factions, its cliques. Any group with people does, it's human nature.
And often that is based on which characters you love. Being part of a diverse fandom and wishing to interact with a diverse group of people can be difficult. Particularly when we all see the characters we adore so differently. Even inside the Spike fandom, I'd struggle.
Some saw him as a poor woobie, others preferred evil Spike, others the snarky ambiguous unsouled character, others the existentialist...the list is endless. Some are Spangle shippers, some Spuffy, some Spander and others Spillow. (Along with a vast array of ships, I have not mentioned.) We fight there too. Not quite agreeing. I, for example, had no problems with the whole quest for a soul bit, while others did. Nor did the fact that he forced himself sexually on Buffy (AR bit) bother me that much...I found the scene itself impossible to watch - they way they shot and filmed that sequence was brutal. I felt sorry for everyone involved. It was almost as if the filmmakers wanted to hurt the audience.
But when I thought about the scene and what actually occurred, I realized how the camera fooled me. But I've fought with people on that scene endlessly, getting nowhere.
Shipping Spike has never been easy. It wasn't in 2002, it isn't now. Different. Not easy.
And ten years later, I'm struck by how similar some of the problems are...demonstrating how little we understand one another or how unwilling we are to do so...so determined to push our own point of view. It's not really about who is wrong or right...so much as
being able to see a view that is different. But as a shipper, you don't want to see the negative view of something you love, you want to continue to love it. You also want to be
respected...for other views related or unrelated to that love. I think anyone who has loved a controversial character in a fandom, regardless of who it is...can most likely relate.
Then of course there's the people who think...why are you still into the character? But I'm not completely...not as invested as I once was. I can see things clearer now. I care less. Time has faded the love bit by bit. But the fact that the character trope was a favorite of mine before he appeared on screen, doesn't surprise me at all that is long after. As a friend stated once upon a time to me..."Spike is your sexual fantasy come to life" and perhaps in some respects he was. There were too many things that hit my kinks hard and still do. And they aren't necessarily what people think. The frustrated poet, philosopher, and psychologist inside me fell for him hard. I loved the duality. I loved how the writers took a romantic villian, a metaphor for lust, and slowly over time turned him into a romantic hero...albeit a deeply flawed one for both Buffy and Angel. He had the best lines, he never did what I expected, and he was sexy. Few characters before or since resonated for me in the same way.
I'm not sure the people on my flist who...saw the character vastly differently than I did will ever understand. Nor will the one's who saw him that way but are either turned off by the things I fell in love with - unless you've read bad poetry to a college audience of 100 people and had people come up to you afterwards and state...great performance, bad poetry - you may never get it. Or for that matter be the brunt of unrequited love, been horribly rejected, and never really experienced someone pursuing you...Spike may make no sense to you. Experience is 90% of it, I think. And if your experiences clash with mine, if you were stalked, had an abusive boyfriend, or hate poetry and think its silly or are an excellent poet - you make look at Spike with derision. And the whole Mommy bit, I know, turns many people off...but it fascinated me...it appealed to the mythologist and frustrated psyche major in my soul and it was such a nice twist away from the annoyingly stale Daddy issues mythos that permeated most tv shows including this one.
But regardless of what you think about Spike or whether you understand my feelings for this character specifically, I think you or rather everyone who comes upon this post probably does understand what it is like to love or ship something others violently dislike. Or don't comprehend. What it is like to be ridiculed for it. To be made fun of. To worry about admitting to it or be outted as a "shipper of XYZ", what it is like to be defensive about your favorite character or season or series, and what it is like to avoid the detractors. To get upset over negative articles by writers of the show about him or her. All fandoms have controversial characters that people adore. We all have read an article similar to How Spike Ruined Buffy in regards to our favorite character (*cough*Connor*cough* or *cough*Dawn*cough*). And, I get, oddly enough, a lot of comfort from that. To love something other's find ugly or stupid or silly or dumb...and find others who understand why you do, get it completely...that is the upside. And one of the reasons I ventured online in the first place.
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Date: 2012-05-28 02:38 am (UTC)He absolutely was. In German the word "holtz" means "wood". This is no accident.
"citing the first three seasons sans Spike to be the best"
Except for all those S2 episodes with Spike in them, I guess. Unless he's going to write off some of the best episodes in the whole show.
I'm a Buffy shipper, I guess, but Spike's one of the great characters in all literature.
Thank you
Date: 2012-05-28 09:30 am (UTC)Yes, the love faded a little - sometimes that makes me a little sad, because that love was like a powerful engine, driving me to write tons of fanfiction. Because that love for the character, the actor, the show, the fandom and my very personal fandom bubble made me feel incredibly alive.
I miss that energy. Sometimes it feels like I'm only living at 80% steam without that show....
oh well...
Very insightful, thank you!
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Date: 2012-05-28 10:11 am (UTC)Things may be a little more muted now, though things like the comics or Mark Watches can stir them up again, but it's astonishing to me how little has changed, even so.
A great character. I feel sorry for the people who don't like him because I feel they're missing so much.
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Date: 2012-05-28 01:07 pm (UTC)Exactly. I have no patience for those who can't see past the AR or Spike's past. Especially if they somehow see Angel (who, as you so correctly pointed out, it at the mercy of whoever is playing with his soul at that time, and not really in charge of his own life) as being the better character. I don't dislike Angel, and thought he got much better when he was given his own show, but he never intrigued me the way Spike does and has. If Joss, et al have issues with how fans feel about Spike, they can only blame themselves for creating such a complex and attractive character and James for giving him life in such a memorable way.
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Date: 2012-05-28 01:19 pm (UTC)Things may be a little more muted now, though things like the comics or Mark Watches can stir them up again, but it's astonishing to me how little has changed, even so.
In some respects, Mark Watches inspired the post. Along with various bits on the comics. Not sure I'll be able to follow Mark much longer...while time has faded the feelings, it still grates on a certain level.
I still love the character to bits and defend him (or rather his involvement in the show) as vigorously as I ever did, (which is not very vigorously, have to say, as I don't hold up well in online brickbat throwing), and still get just as exasperated by seeing the same, tired old arguments trotted out as to why he ruined the show/I shouldn't like him etc etc
Feel much the same way. I find that I no longer have the patience for the brickbat throwing and fights over the character. Sometimes I find them amusing, but usually just tiresome. I want to tell people...we're never going to agree on this point, arguing over it is a waste of time.
A great character. I feel sorry for the people who don't like him because I feel they're missing so much.
So true. Few characters have been explored in quite the way he was or had that good an arc. As mesphisotpheles states above - he's one of the great characters of literature.
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Date: 2012-05-28 01:26 pm (UTC)Too true. I felt the same way. I liked Angel well enough. I was at one point an Angel and Bangle shipper, believe it or not. But Spike was just much more interesting to me. Angel...I'd seen done before, he was, as even Whedon and Greenwalt admit, a well-established character trope that was in most of these tv shows. And it's true - we see similar characters pop up in Moonlight, Vamp Diaries, Being Human, and True Blood. (I don't know about Twilight, since I haven't really read it or seen the films). Spike...is more rare and more complex from my point of view - and I loved how he basically gave the PTB or the Old Ones the finger and made his own choices, constantly ribbing Angel for not admitting he had the power to do the same.
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Date: 2012-05-28 01:36 pm (UTC)Really? I did not know that. That explains so much. As much as I preferred Buffy to Angel the Series, and the characters in Buffy to Angel, although the shows were vastly different entities in some respects...I think Greenwalt and Minear did a better job with Holtz and Holtz's arc than Whedon and Espenson did with Robin Wood, possibly because Holtz was set up as a sort of big bad, and pre-planned. They knew who he was going in. While Espenson pitched Robin Wood as the son of Nikki two episodes before First Date. It came to her in a dream. So there really was no clear build-up and the writer's didn't figure out that they were going to make him Spike's nemesis until half-way through the season. The other reason was of course that it was Buffy's show not Spike's, so Wood was only developed to the degree necessary to affect Buffy's journey. We saw him and the relationship mainly from Wood's and Buffy's points of few for that reason. Even that episode is bracketed or framed in that way - with Buffy talking to Giles (her watcher) - who is telling her how to handle vampires, and Robin taking the advice and training of the watcher who raised him to heart and fighting Spike. It's a fascinating episode.
Except for all those S2 episodes with Spike in them, I guess. Unless he's going to write off some of the best episodes in the whole show.
Oh, he liked S2 Spike. From the essay it's clear he liked evil Spike, and wished he'd stayed evil and/or was used more sparingly - like he was in S2 and S3.
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Date: 2012-05-28 01:52 pm (UTC)I doubt it mattered much, but wow.
I liked some of the Holtz arc on AtS, but no episode there was half as good as LMPTM.
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Date: 2012-05-28 02:07 pm (UTC)Really, they didn't have him as Nikki Woods' son from the outset?
Nope, he was originally supposed to be killed early on. According to the actor, he was planned to be a potential love interest that was killed but they kept him on more because SMG liked him (and I don't really buy that). Then Jane got the idea he was Wood's son.
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Date: 2012-05-28 02:14 pm (UTC)tired old arguments trotted out as to why he ruined the show/I shouldn't like him etc etc.
This, so much.
Spike is an awesome character, but I think Spike (the character) gets lost in the mix when it comes to fandom arguments. That's true of most characters. It's like the US political system where the actual point gets lost in hyperbole.
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Date: 2012-05-28 03:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-28 04:26 pm (UTC)It's true. The amount of resentment out there still confounds me.
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Date: 2012-05-28 04:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-28 04:40 pm (UTC)I didn't get into the online fandom until after "The Gift" and even then I avoided the boards (actually didn't know they existed) and stuck to some Yahoo groups (and later LJ). I first read all the Spuffy fics that I could find but, during the latter half of the 6th season, I felt that Buffy didn't deserve him and turned first to Spangel then Spander. She never apologized for treating him as a punching bag - in fact the only time I think she said thank you for anything he did was in a recent comic and I don't consider them canon.
One of the main themes of literature is the man who learns better; to me, Spike was the vampire who learned better, learned to be caring without that pesky soul unlike Angel. Long ago I fell in love with Spock and like him I will always have a soft spot for Spike even years later.
Shakatany
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Date: 2012-05-28 04:40 pm (UTC)Yep, according to both DVD commentary and backstage gossip and various interviews...they introduced the character with literally no idea what they were going to do with him. Initially Nikki's kid was going to be one of the slayers, but they realized the episode would work better with a guy than a gal going up against Spike - from a thematic perspective.
They also initially planned on a Buffy/Wood relationship - with Wood being killed half-way through the season and returning as the First, but Gellar campaigned heavily against it (this was according to Dochawk who had a pal who was a production assistant on the series - he's the one who spoiled me on Lies and on Cordelia's arc...as well as gave me the backstage gossip on CC and David Greenwalt and why both were more persuaded to leave Angel. I met Doc in person with anom in NYC for brunch and he provided me with all of this info. He's an LA doctor so knows a lot of the people working on the series.)
It wasn't until Jane E came up with Wood as Nikki's son...during First Date - that the whole thing gelled. Whedon really isn't much of a plotter, he just throws stuff at a wall and sees how it looks. Which is amazing, considering how well plotted the series appeared to be...
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Date: 2012-05-28 04:45 pm (UTC)But according to more than one source Gellar campaigned heavily against a Wood/Buffy romance, I don't know why. She also allegedly campaigned heavily for a Xander/Buffy romance. Joss ignored her on the second bit, so doubt she had much say in the matter.
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Date: 2012-05-28 04:49 pm (UTC)Very weird.
Plus the series is more or less over (unless you count the comics, which I don't since no one involved in the original series is really involved with the comics any longer...except possibly peripherially, Whedon appears to have left the building). Interpretation is subjective.
And...if you can't stand the latter seasons? Ignore them. ;-)
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Date: 2012-05-28 05:01 pm (UTC)I remember doing a post once that had something to do with what Whedon meant by "souls" in Buffy...and in one of the comments, someone (I forget who) stated that it bothered them greatly that people had such divergent worldviews and did not agree on basic moral values. My response? "Have you been reading the comments thread? We can't even agree on the definition of a soul - how in the heck are we going to agree on how to define virtue or what basic moral values are? "
I think the biggest problem is people are so certain they are right and everyone else is wrong - a sort "self-righteousness"...which is coming across in our politics at the moment and is also visible in the fandom.
"Of course my moral worldview is the correct, just, and the right one! You are a poor misguided soul that needs to be educated to join the righteous path..."
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Date: 2012-05-28 05:49 pm (UTC)Oh, I think that's what ME might have told Woodside, but like I said, I don't really buy it. Maybe that's how they wanted him to play it, sort of a question mark like in First Date. Jane and Joss have said S7 was going to have Buffy/Spike as the 'romance', however you want to interpret the word, from the beginning, so I don't think he was ever planned for more than an Owen-type arc at best. There's no way I believe they kept him around simply because they got on. Straight up, I think it was probably UPN pressure that kept him on to try to diversify the cast.
I don't remember ever reading Gellar petitioned Joss for Buffy/Xander, just that she thought that's where he'd go since it was part of his original plan in the earlier years. Some of the other writers thought that, too, I guess. She and Brendan asked him if that was in the cards and he said no and that was it. Unless I missed a quote somewhere, it's just one of those things anti-Spuffies and Xanderfen blew up in an attempt to invalidate the ship and "prove" that Joss, ME and the WORLD hates Xander.
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Date: 2012-05-28 08:04 pm (UTC)It becomes not so much about the character and his story, but about moral absolutes.
Exactly. The irony being that in doing so they strip away the complexity of the character, which is what they claim they like about him or her and essentially attempt to turn them into the character they're trying to bash.
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Date: 2012-05-28 08:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-28 08:21 pm (UTC)While I can be sympathetic to that view up to a point (there are moral absolutes - tradition be damned, female genital mutilation is just wrong, for instance) I have no sympathy whatsoever for people trying to point score in such circumstances, especially as it's usually because they want to advance their own agenda, or the characters they prefer.
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Date: 2012-05-28 08:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-28 10:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-28 10:42 pm (UTC)I have certain preconceptions about sports fans, for instance, but I'm usually easily persuaded that there's some value in all kinds of interests, even if I don't share them.
On a certain level I can understand it, as it is impossible to live life without a certain amount of shortcut taking and lumping together of things, but sometimes it's just laziness and closed-mindedness, and that is dangerously close to bigotry. I'm not saying that people who don't like Spike are necessarily lazy and close-minded, but they are missing out on a fantastic, fun character.
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Date: 2012-05-29 01:42 am (UTC)Oh so true. Being a person who adores various types of pulp fiction genres...I keep getting marginalized.
1. If I tell people I love daytime soaps, will they think less of me?
Oh she's one of those silly soap fans? (ugh)
2. If I say that I love super=hero comic books and was a diehard fan of the X-men...
3. If I admit that I actually thought 50 Shades of Grey and other erotica romance novels were a hoot and great fun...
4. If I admit that I loved Travis McGee novels and every thriller and mystery novel out there from Carl Hiassen to John Grisham...
5. If I state I love Robert Heinlein and other sci-fi pulp writers..
The list goes on.
And you're right...I do make the same mistakes myself. Did it a few years back with Twilight fans (until I discovered co-workers and family members loved the series...) and sports fans (ditto).
It's harder to do when you know people who sort of kick the stereotype to the curb. My cousin is a dominant personality, head of her family,
works as a the supervisor of manufacturing company - supervising lots of men, adores sports, and fell in love with the Twilight books, meanwhile my Aunt loved Buffy, Trueblood, and is a smart paralegal,
witty, survivor of domestic abuse, and also fell in love with the Twilight books...couldn't be more different than night and day.
So what I do know?
I'm learning to stop doing that.
Amazing post
Date: 2012-05-29 07:21 am (UTC)Truth is, I barely used the internet (except for school) while the show was airing, so I didn't experience your troubles. I was immersed in my pre-grad studies, and barely had any time for my boyfriend and family. I used to program the VCR to record the show so I could see the new episode when I came home every premiere night. I would watch the new episode once, and then I would replay every Spike scene over and over.
I was entirely lovesick about a fictional character. I shipped James Marsters as I never shipped any celebrity. And I don't think I'm over the obsession, this is a once in a lifetime thing, can't be other way.
So, I don't think I have to tell you why I love Spike, why he is my favorite fictional character ever. And really, I'´m not into vamps. The truth is I was a Spike fan before I became a BTVS fan. I started to see the show just because I enjoyed so much JM's acting. My parents are actors and play writers, so I can recognize an amazing and outstanding actor when I see him. And the character... Oh, God. I think I read somewhere that Joss said Spike is his most developed character. I don't think I know another character that is half as developed as him.
I loved how he was unpredictable, how he struggled against the rules, how he was never content with what he was supposed to be, and always wanted to go a step further. I loved how he dragged Buffy to the dark bottoms and made her show her worst, because that made her more human, and made her character grow. I loved how I hated the AR scene just a bit more than the beating scene in Dead Things. They were both brutal and shocking, sad scenes... and they were necessary to make the characters advance to the next level.
I loved the soul-search, because it wasn't expected, but I didn't expect less from the character... English is my second language, but I think I could write about him for hours.
About the "how Spike ruined Buffy" essays, I have only read one, a few years ago. I was shocked at first, but then I started to see their point: suddenly the show was too Spike-centered for them. Then I thought "well, maybe, but I'm OK with it. In fact I wanted him to take over the show completely, but that's asking to much, so..." Spike made Buffy fall from her self-righteous pedestal and they hated it. Coincidentally, Buffy's "fall" is what gained my respect for the character.
Anyway. I enjoyed Spike so much, and even if I'm not so completely obsessed anymore (just mostly obsessed), I still enjoy him immensely. I'm with you, I also feel sorry for the people that can't, for how much they are loosing.
Also, I get it wasn't easy for you, but I thank you for venturing. Reading people like you makes me feel not-so-lonely in my Spike-induced, blissful craziness.
Best wishes,
R.
no subject
Date: 2012-05-29 11:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-29 09:24 pm (UTC)Now I really wonder how many Spander fans became so due to S6.
I would like to think Spike and Buffy are friends and will remain so as the passions of S6 has died down especially for Spike. I once mused that his waking from the love-declaration dream in "Out of My Mind" was a result of the monks meddling as they wanted a strong vampire to help protect the Key and by the time the series ended it had worn off. His wanting Buffy in AtS was more of a rivalry with Angel as he could've taken off any time after he became corporeal yet he remained in LA.
Given as they are all fictional characters the writers can manipulate them any way they want to and boy are they doing that in the comics:(
Shakatany
no subject
Date: 2012-05-29 10:13 pm (UTC)Even going so far as to stake him.
no subject
Date: 2012-05-29 11:44 pm (UTC)?
"An Educated Fangirl's Guide to the Spike Wars" categorizes everyone in BtVS/AtS fandom (including those who are neutral on Spike.)
And I did not perceive Spike as deliberately killing Robin's mother, he killed a slayer - which was decisively different in my brain from how Angelus killed Dru's family, Holtz's family, and intended on killing Buffy's. Spike targeted the slayer, or the main person gunning for him, Angelus went after the family and slowly worked his way up to his target.
I agree that what Spike did to Nikki Wood was very different from Angel did to Holtz's family, but what Spike did was still very, very, wrong, and he should have taken more responsibility for it. Spike may not have intended to kill the mother of a young child (although I doubt he would have cared, either way), but he must have known that was a possibility when he killed Nikki.
If you, like me, are a fan of raw emotional acting, and find reactive or restrained acting on the wooden side...you probably thought Spike was more demonstrative in his remorse than Angel.
Is it possible to like both? I'm a very expressive person, but that doesn't mean I think people HAVE to be expressive in expressing remorse. (I do think James Marsters is a better actor than David Boreanaz, but that doesn't really affect how I perceive their remorse).
I totally agree that the "How Spike Ruined Buffy" essay is ridiculous.
While I'm certainly not going to defend all of Noxon and Fury's public statement, I would like to remind you that both Noxon and Fury are Spike fans. They weren't insulting Spike fans, simply fans who disagreed with their interpretation of Spike. Insulting fans of any stripe isn't cool, but when people claim that Noxon and Fury were insulting "Spike fans", it makes me feel excluded from being a "Spike fan", because it limits the definition of "Spike fan" to "Spike fan who agrees with a specific interpretation of the character". It makes me feel like I'm being told that because my interpretation of Spike is different, I don't really love Spike.
Re: Amazing post
Date: 2012-05-30 03:17 am (UTC)I enjoy many of the metas and discussions - but I stay away from those who seem to think that there is only one way to see the show, and that is to ignore or dislike (hate) Spike. Mostly I feel sorry for them - and that is far easier to do in a vacuum.
no subject
Date: 2012-05-30 03:30 am (UTC)I also think the point of the story was how the first manipulated both Woods and Giles by doing what it does best - digging down and finding trauma and trying to engineer betrayals. Everyone else in the episode was able to understand and resist this when it happened to them. Giles and Robin chose to do what the First wanted, and both of them betrayed their own side.
I'm not sure how Shadowkat's personal statement about how she personally feels can Make you feel excluded. I like cats but I think hairless cats are ugly. If you like hairless cats, am I Making you feel excluded as a cat lover? BTW - that's rhetorical - I don't want to continue an argument on s journal that isn't mine.
Re: Amazing post
Date: 2012-05-30 06:05 am (UTC)Re: Amazing post
Date: 2012-05-30 06:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-30 07:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-30 09:13 pm (UTC)Shakatany
no subject
Date: 2012-05-31 12:43 am (UTC)