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Flaws in Narrative Structure or how it can fail - as seen in Buffy the Vampire Slayer
As you already know, I have stepped away a bit from the Buffy fandom, but I did read this essay by the writer Foz Meadows - Buffy and the men in her life. Which to be truthful is actually more of a comparison piece of Spuffy vs. all of Buffy's other romantically inclined relationships. I read it mainly because I'm stuck in my apartment with a broken foot and don't feel like getting up and fixing breakfast, which I know I should do. Maybe I'll just combine lunch and breakfast - and that way I only have to get up once.
What is interesting about this meta, although I prefer the word essay for various reasons, is the following paragraph:
[Eh, prior to this paragraph, foz meadows establishes how Riley, Xander, and other characters that are considered good are never really taken to task for their actions nor shown to redeem themselves. In particular Xander. And it occurs to me that this essay should come with an advisory to Xander fans - Foz Meadows clearly doesn't like the character that much. I don't know why this is...but it is rare to find Xander fans who like Spike and vice versa. You will find Xander fans that are ambivalent about Spike or found him interesting on a certain level, and well vice versa. I'm in that category. But fans who "love" both? Or consider both favorite male characters? No.]
This fascinates me as both a writer myself, and a critique of a narrative structure or style quite common with television and comic book writers of my generation. The next generation of writers, I've noticed, is sort of breaking with this pattern. And it is admittedly not all of them. It also underlines something that has been needling me about Mutant Enemy's writing in all of their series, in particular Whedon. This tendency to take it on faith that if a character is "good" - they can do horrible things, but the audience forgives them without requiring the audience to necessarily witness apologies or redemptive acts. Or you can just blame it on the drugs, the booze, or they just weren't themselves. The writer's seem to stop just short of examining why the character did it and the character's actions.
This essay by foz meadows manages to underline why Spike was my favorite - he was in some respects the best written. Fans will often lambast a character for things, and I'll be reminded of Jessica Rabbit's confession..."I'm not bad, I'm just drawn that way". The trick to making characters who do nasty things interesting or relateable is by examining their actions and exploring a broad and often contradictory set of actions. And obviously Whedon did, to an extent, as permitted by the limitations of a 22 episode network tv show that he had to churn out weekly with little prep time. Particularly a low-budget piece done on a second tier broadcast cable channel in the late 1990s for a tween audience. If he'd been a novelist such as George RR Martin, he'd have more time to examine all the pits and valleys and various landscapes of his characters and narrative.
Meadows points out, and this is not just true of Whedon, that narrative requires more exploration of Spike than say, Xander, because the narrative is turning Spike from villain to good guy. Willow is similar in some respects, because the narrative was attempting to turn Willow from a good guy to a villain and then back again - the writers were so enamored of the character/actress that I think that arc sort of fell apart. It is actually harder to turn a good character into an bad character - because you are fighting the audience and the narrative. They had a similar challenge with Angel - they attempted to turn him evil, which actually worked quite well, the problem lay in making him "good" again. And much like Willow, the writers took a short-cut. In Willow's case - it was the magic she utilized that turned her evil, not Willow. Although to be fair, this is never quite clear. It is mentioned on more than one occasion by Willow and Buffy that Willow's choices took her down that road.
But the empathsis is on an external source. Same deal with Angel - he's only evil when he loses his soul. He's automatically good when he gets it back. (Except in his own series, where he is permitted to be a bit more ambiguous in nature and questioned more.) While the narrative does question this with both Willow and Angel, it doesn't quite do it enough. As a result both characters after a while feel a tad flat or binary.
Xander in some respects is better written than Willow and Angel. More well-rounded. But his actions are also handled somewhat flippantly by the writers. Either excused outright (the demon he summons in ONCE MORE WITH FEELING) or shrugged off (the attempted rape in The Pack, which is disturbing). The only times he pays for his actions are : Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered - where he is almost torn asunder by an angry mob of women, or Entropy - when Anya attempts to scorn him for standing her up at the altar and he feels miserable. But in both cases, it's minor and again, shrugged off. Because Xander is considered a good character and protected by the narrative.
This is a flaw not just in Buffy, but in the genre as a whole. I've noticed it in GRRM's A Song of Ice and Fire novels - where certain characters, the quote unquote protagonists, Dany and Jon Snow are to a degree protected by the narrative. Oh they are tortured and abused, but their actions to a degree shrugged off. Same with the Starks.
Part of the reason television series such as Breaking Bad, The Good Wife, Justified, The Wire, Walking Dead, Mad Men, The Sopranoes, are critically acclaimed is the narrative doesn't protect certain characters. Detective McNulty in The Wire does some horrible things and is called to task on them as is Lester Freeman. This is also true of all of the characters in The Good Wife and Justified. The narrative examines their actions fully, and does not do it off-screen. They aren't protected by it. All the characters are given equal billing so to speak.
I remember visiting ACIN News, a spoiler site that pre-dated TWOPY, when S5 of BTVS aired. The commentator stated that the only character with any development whatsoever was Spike. That Spike had received the most development. It's true. Spike was the best written. Even if all we got were small moments. Because the writers felt they needed to show his ambiguity, and why he was doing what he was doing or their plot would fall apart. After all you can't have him sacrifice himself for the heroine, if you don't explain why he would, can you?
Xander - required no explanation in their pov.
Another bit that the writer points out...which she articulates far better than I have been able to is this:
This analysis is interesting. You can look at what is happening with Xander and the Pack more than one way. From one perspective, it appears that the narrative is excusing or rather shrugging off Xander's actions. This may well be indicative of "our rape culture" - where it is not considered a big deal for a boy who has gotten very drunk to force himself on a girl.
"I wasn't myself. I don't remember anything. And oh, by the way, you knocked me out before anything could happen, so no harm, no foul." OTOH...Buffy does push him off and does shrug it off, and does make it clear she's not romantically interested. Diminishing the importance of the act. Which is also a result of our rape culture.
If you look at how they structured the narrative in The Pack and what comes before and after it, you can see that this is deliberate in a way. The series is a horror series. Vampires are used frequently as metaphors for hormonal craziness, a the vampire bite - seduction or rape. Xander is shown up to and including the first section of The Pack, before he is possessed by a Hyena and becomes the leader of the Hyena pack, that he lusts after various things - Buffy, popularity, and a sense of power. Also in Whedon's series, a point is made that the "NICE GUY" as most women know is only "NICE" in his own head. There may well be a monster lurking just below the surface. The Trioka of Season 6 - depicts the nerdy guys at their most frightening and why women are right to be a tad wary. Buffy is a horror series for women, about female fears, and conquering female fears. But it is a horror series depicting female fears and the conquering of them from a decidedly male perspective. Which makes this episode so interesting particularly in contrast to Seeing Red.
The writer clearly identifies with Xander. He sets up a scenario where Xander obtains "power" and loses all his inhibitions ( a metaphor of sorts for alcohol or use of certain substances). Xander under the influence of the hyena, becomes the alpha male stereotype. He's a bully. He brutally tears Willow apart. Bullies his friends. Eats the mascot (a pig).
And attempts to rape Buffy, who he has been lusting after for quite some time now. When he comes to his senses, he does remember everything, but lies. Only Giles, a fellow man, and male authority figure, knows the truth - but Giles stays silent and shrugs off Xander's actions. It's a horrific episode if you examine it closely, and disturbing. More disturbing is that Xander continues to be Buffy's side-kick and trusted confidante. He does save her life at the end. So there's reason for this. And in a way redeems himself at least partially. But the narrative, filming, and way the episode is structured permits the audience to "shrug" off the attempted rape. However, I want to point out, that in a way Xander, the rapist, is the brunt of the joke, not Buffy. Buffy is never once portrayed as a victim in the narrative. No, Xander is the pathetic party. This is also to an extent true of Seeing Red, which is portrayed more realistically than The Pack, in part because the writers were ripping away comforting metaphors. But what both scenes have in common - is Buffy thwarts the attack. She throws them off. Both men are humiliated to a degree after the fact. Xander when he is no longer under the influence of the hyena, and Spike when he is no longer listening to the demon's urges. Spike does it faster than Xander, but in part this is due to the fact that Spike still possessed his faculties. He was just soulless, not possessed.
But in both cases, the pathetic party, the brunt of the joke, is the sexual offender or would-be rapist. Seeing Red, of the two, is oddly the least disturbing...I state oddly, because on the surface it is filmed in a manner that repulses the viewer ( I wanted to fast-forward or leave the room), while The Pack is filmed in a light fluffy manner in comparison. Almost campy. She knocks him out with a desk. But The Pack, if you listen to what both characters say, think about what came before, and what comes after...well my skin crawls when I think about the Pack and I agree with Foz Meadows, it is hard to understand why Buffy stayed friends with Xander. The Narrative protects him with a device, but upon further viewing or much thought, the device feels rather flimsy.
Don't misunderstand me, this isn't really a critique of Whedon per se, so much as the medium he was working in and the surrounding culture. If anything this is a critique of this particular type of narrative structure.
What is interesting about this meta, although I prefer the word essay for various reasons, is the following paragraph:
[Eh, prior to this paragraph, foz meadows establishes how Riley, Xander, and other characters that are considered good are never really taken to task for their actions nor shown to redeem themselves. In particular Xander. And it occurs to me that this essay should come with an advisory to Xander fans - Foz Meadows clearly doesn't like the character that much. I don't know why this is...but it is rare to find Xander fans who like Spike and vice versa. You will find Xander fans that are ambivalent about Spike or found him interesting on a certain level, and well vice versa. I'm in that category. But fans who "love" both? Or consider both favorite male characters? No.]
There is, I suspect, a rather awful reason for this – and, indeed, for why Spike alone of all Buffy’s lovers and love interests accepts responsibility for his actions. It’s all down to narrative impetus: we, the viewers, are meant to sympathise with Xander, just as we’re meant to sympathise with Angel and Riley. At base, we “know” they’re all good guys, and as such, their contrition is implied. We don’t need to see them apologise, because the surrounding story is structured to suggest that they’ve already been forgiven off-camera. But Spike, by contrast, begins as a villain. His developmental arc is the most dramatic and varied in the whole show, culminating in a radical heel face turn at the end of S6. We need to see his redemption, because otherwise, there’s no reason to believe that it’s taken place – and to an extent, this makes sense: if the audience can reasonably infer that something has happened, then it’s a waste of script and wordage to insert it. The problem is that, if the good guys never apologise on screen, then their goodness is called into question – which is why the most fucked up relationship in the whole show is simultaneously the most equitable. Neither Buffy nor the audience can assume anything about Spike’s intentions that we aren’t actually shown, and as a result, he has to work the hardest out of anyone to be seen as good.
This fascinates me as both a writer myself, and a critique of a narrative structure or style quite common with television and comic book writers of my generation. The next generation of writers, I've noticed, is sort of breaking with this pattern. And it is admittedly not all of them. It also underlines something that has been needling me about Mutant Enemy's writing in all of their series, in particular Whedon. This tendency to take it on faith that if a character is "good" - they can do horrible things, but the audience forgives them without requiring the audience to necessarily witness apologies or redemptive acts. Or you can just blame it on the drugs, the booze, or they just weren't themselves. The writer's seem to stop just short of examining why the character did it and the character's actions.
This essay by foz meadows manages to underline why Spike was my favorite - he was in some respects the best written. Fans will often lambast a character for things, and I'll be reminded of Jessica Rabbit's confession..."I'm not bad, I'm just drawn that way". The trick to making characters who do nasty things interesting or relateable is by examining their actions and exploring a broad and often contradictory set of actions. And obviously Whedon did, to an extent, as permitted by the limitations of a 22 episode network tv show that he had to churn out weekly with little prep time. Particularly a low-budget piece done on a second tier broadcast cable channel in the late 1990s for a tween audience. If he'd been a novelist such as George RR Martin, he'd have more time to examine all the pits and valleys and various landscapes of his characters and narrative.
Meadows points out, and this is not just true of Whedon, that narrative requires more exploration of Spike than say, Xander, because the narrative is turning Spike from villain to good guy. Willow is similar in some respects, because the narrative was attempting to turn Willow from a good guy to a villain and then back again - the writers were so enamored of the character/actress that I think that arc sort of fell apart. It is actually harder to turn a good character into an bad character - because you are fighting the audience and the narrative. They had a similar challenge with Angel - they attempted to turn him evil, which actually worked quite well, the problem lay in making him "good" again. And much like Willow, the writers took a short-cut. In Willow's case - it was the magic she utilized that turned her evil, not Willow. Although to be fair, this is never quite clear. It is mentioned on more than one occasion by Willow and Buffy that Willow's choices took her down that road.
But the empathsis is on an external source. Same deal with Angel - he's only evil when he loses his soul. He's automatically good when he gets it back. (Except in his own series, where he is permitted to be a bit more ambiguous in nature and questioned more.) While the narrative does question this with both Willow and Angel, it doesn't quite do it enough. As a result both characters after a while feel a tad flat or binary.
Xander in some respects is better written than Willow and Angel. More well-rounded. But his actions are also handled somewhat flippantly by the writers. Either excused outright (the demon he summons in ONCE MORE WITH FEELING) or shrugged off (the attempted rape in The Pack, which is disturbing). The only times he pays for his actions are : Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered - where he is almost torn asunder by an angry mob of women, or Entropy - when Anya attempts to scorn him for standing her up at the altar and he feels miserable. But in both cases, it's minor and again, shrugged off. Because Xander is considered a good character and protected by the narrative.
This is a flaw not just in Buffy, but in the genre as a whole. I've noticed it in GRRM's A Song of Ice and Fire novels - where certain characters, the quote unquote protagonists, Dany and Jon Snow are to a degree protected by the narrative. Oh they are tortured and abused, but their actions to a degree shrugged off. Same with the Starks.
Part of the reason television series such as Breaking Bad, The Good Wife, Justified, The Wire, Walking Dead, Mad Men, The Sopranoes, are critically acclaimed is the narrative doesn't protect certain characters. Detective McNulty in The Wire does some horrible things and is called to task on them as is Lester Freeman. This is also true of all of the characters in The Good Wife and Justified. The narrative examines their actions fully, and does not do it off-screen. They aren't protected by it. All the characters are given equal billing so to speak.
I remember visiting ACIN News, a spoiler site that pre-dated TWOPY, when S5 of BTVS aired. The commentator stated that the only character with any development whatsoever was Spike. That Spike had received the most development. It's true. Spike was the best written. Even if all we got were small moments. Because the writers felt they needed to show his ambiguity, and why he was doing what he was doing or their plot would fall apart. After all you can't have him sacrifice himself for the heroine, if you don't explain why he would, can you?
Xander - required no explanation in their pov.
Another bit that the writer points out...which she articulates far better than I have been able to is this:
A sidenote here about Xander: I cannot even begin to express how much it bothers me that his rape attempt from S1′s The Pack is never addressed in the narrative. Despite remembering everything he did while under the influence of the hyena spirit, Xander feigns amnesia in order to dodge the consequences of his actions, putting him on the same page as Angel, Parker and Riley. Never mind the fact that, at this point – which is to say, four episodes into the first season – he and Buffy have known each other for all of a month or so, and that realistically, if a guy you’d known for such a short amount of time sexually assaulted you while in an altered state, it ought to make you wary of him afterwards at the very least. But this doesn’t happen, which I take to be an enormous failure on the part of the writers. The fact that Spike’s assault is more forceful then Xander’s doesn’t detract from the vileness of the sentiment – nor, indeed, from the fact that, whereas Spike regains his senses mid-struggle and stops himself, Xander has to be physically incapacitated by Buffy. But despite the difference in their demonic aspects – Xander is possessed by a hyena spirit, while Spike is soulless – the two states nonetheless appear to be rather similar, in that both are guided by primal urges while still retaining their base personalities. It therefore seems a telling sign of Xander’s status as a Nice Guy that, whereas Spike seeks redemption for what he’s done while still soulless, Xander doesn’t so much as apologise even when back to normal. Xander, it seems, has less decency at times than someone who physically lacks a conscience.
This analysis is interesting. You can look at what is happening with Xander and the Pack more than one way. From one perspective, it appears that the narrative is excusing or rather shrugging off Xander's actions. This may well be indicative of "our rape culture" - where it is not considered a big deal for a boy who has gotten very drunk to force himself on a girl.
"I wasn't myself. I don't remember anything. And oh, by the way, you knocked me out before anything could happen, so no harm, no foul." OTOH...Buffy does push him off and does shrug it off, and does make it clear she's not romantically interested. Diminishing the importance of the act. Which is also a result of our rape culture.
If you look at how they structured the narrative in The Pack and what comes before and after it, you can see that this is deliberate in a way. The series is a horror series. Vampires are used frequently as metaphors for hormonal craziness, a the vampire bite - seduction or rape. Xander is shown up to and including the first section of The Pack, before he is possessed by a Hyena and becomes the leader of the Hyena pack, that he lusts after various things - Buffy, popularity, and a sense of power. Also in Whedon's series, a point is made that the "NICE GUY" as most women know is only "NICE" in his own head. There may well be a monster lurking just below the surface. The Trioka of Season 6 - depicts the nerdy guys at their most frightening and why women are right to be a tad wary. Buffy is a horror series for women, about female fears, and conquering female fears. But it is a horror series depicting female fears and the conquering of them from a decidedly male perspective. Which makes this episode so interesting particularly in contrast to Seeing Red.
The writer clearly identifies with Xander. He sets up a scenario where Xander obtains "power" and loses all his inhibitions ( a metaphor of sorts for alcohol or use of certain substances). Xander under the influence of the hyena, becomes the alpha male stereotype. He's a bully. He brutally tears Willow apart. Bullies his friends. Eats the mascot (a pig).
And attempts to rape Buffy, who he has been lusting after for quite some time now. When he comes to his senses, he does remember everything, but lies. Only Giles, a fellow man, and male authority figure, knows the truth - but Giles stays silent and shrugs off Xander's actions. It's a horrific episode if you examine it closely, and disturbing. More disturbing is that Xander continues to be Buffy's side-kick and trusted confidante. He does save her life at the end. So there's reason for this. And in a way redeems himself at least partially. But the narrative, filming, and way the episode is structured permits the audience to "shrug" off the attempted rape. However, I want to point out, that in a way Xander, the rapist, is the brunt of the joke, not Buffy. Buffy is never once portrayed as a victim in the narrative. No, Xander is the pathetic party. This is also to an extent true of Seeing Red, which is portrayed more realistically than The Pack, in part because the writers were ripping away comforting metaphors. But what both scenes have in common - is Buffy thwarts the attack. She throws them off. Both men are humiliated to a degree after the fact. Xander when he is no longer under the influence of the hyena, and Spike when he is no longer listening to the demon's urges. Spike does it faster than Xander, but in part this is due to the fact that Spike still possessed his faculties. He was just soulless, not possessed.
But in both cases, the pathetic party, the brunt of the joke, is the sexual offender or would-be rapist. Seeing Red, of the two, is oddly the least disturbing...I state oddly, because on the surface it is filmed in a manner that repulses the viewer ( I wanted to fast-forward or leave the room), while The Pack is filmed in a light fluffy manner in comparison. Almost campy. She knocks him out with a desk. But The Pack, if you listen to what both characters say, think about what came before, and what comes after...well my skin crawls when I think about the Pack and I agree with Foz Meadows, it is hard to understand why Buffy stayed friends with Xander. The Narrative protects him with a device, but upon further viewing or much thought, the device feels rather flimsy.
Don't misunderstand me, this isn't really a critique of Whedon per se, so much as the medium he was working in and the surrounding culture. If anything this is a critique of this particular type of narrative structure.