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Joss-speak (Lessons Spoiler) -- Anneth, 17:12:17 04/26/03 Sat

I ran into this:

This time it's Xander's turn to burst into the bathroom. He too stops short of falling into the big gaping hole. He's pretty excited about it, sure that it means "contract-y goodness" for his crew. He makes his way to the sink to look for the talisman. I just have to say that the show's practice of adding a "-y" suffix to everything has completely ruined my ability to speak English properly. This summer, when Britboy accused me of beingÖlet's just say "differently correct" about something, I snapped back with an indignant "I'm not errorful! I'm wisdomy!" Since then, it's been a running joke between us. To the point where I'm suspicious of any words ending in "-ful" or "-y." When writing a paper last week, I actually had to spend the better part of a minute puzzling out if "helpful" or "helpy" was correct. And although "helpful" is correct, I still think that "helpy" is funner. Certainly funner than realer words.

at the television without pity recap of Lessons and it made me giggle and giggle, being as about half of what I say these days comes out in Joss. On a scale of evil mutant zombie-things to ice cream and puppies, my language skills since becoming a Buffy-addict rate a wonkiness over all- judgy. *sigh*

[> "Helpy." ===== FOOCL -- VR, 18:40:05 04/26/03 Sat

"Maybe she's lonely." Some thoughts on Darla... -- Ixchel, 19:59:36 04/26/03 Sat

Been mostly lurking lately, but this idea has me and won't let go.

I've been thinking that whoever decided the human Darla was a prostitute (JW, TM?) couldn't have decided a more perfect history for her. This revelation (for me) was brought on by reading a novel called _Slammerkin_ about an 18th century girl who becomes a prostitute, then a murderer, before she is sixteen. (This book has been compared to Margaret Atwood's _Alias Grace_, but _Alias Grace_ is the better of the two, IMHO. And not just because I personally believe Margaret Atwood is a genius. This is not to say _Slammerkin's_ not worth a look, it is.) The erosion of the girl's ability to feel empathy is interesting and (because my mind frequently strays to BtVS and AtS) made me wonder about Darla. When did she become a prostitute and under what circumstances? Did she lack most "softer" human emotions even before she became a vampire? The reason I believe this history is so perfect for her is her behavior even in her earliest appearances on BtVS. While both she and Thomas lure their prey (Jesse and Willow) in WTTH, she seems to take special pride in having hers follow her. Then in B1 her conversation with Liam has a slight commercial air to it. Of course, _he_ doesn't know that she's not interested in his money (or lack thereof). Maybe this is all just my perception now that we know more about Darla, but the fit is good, IMHO.

One small extra note, was anyone else vaguely annoyed by the judgment implied in Wesley's statement about Darla in IO? (Wesley: But at least one of those was to save Darla's life. A mass-murdering, ex-vampire dying of syphilis? A strong "no" is hardly a shock.) The murderer/ex-vampire thing counting against her is fine (though it does contradict any idea that human Darla and vampire Darla are separate). But, the dying of syphilis thing doesn't seem like a reason to not help someone. In fact it's an offensive reason, IMHO.

Thanks for reading the above muddled thoughts. Even though we have new BtVS and AtS coming up, I hope this may spark a little discussion about a character I find more fascinating as time goes on.

Ixchel

[> That line about Darla was semi-opportunistic (spoilers up to AtS "Shiny Happy People") -- Masq, 07:14:22 04/27/03 Sun

The writers needed a line about a time the PTB's refused to step in and help Angel, and they also needed a line to remind us who Darla was (because she would appear in Inside Out) and they also needed a line to remind us about the episode "The Trial", which would come up again in "Shiny Happy People" in the metaphysical explanation for Connor's conception.

Kill three birds with one stone, and you have Wesley talking about the PTB's being unwilling to save Darla in The Trial, and him having to speculate about why. It doesn't end up being very flattering to Darla.

But then Wesley still has some Victorian attitudes towards sex, all things considered from his own roller-coaster sex life.

[> [> I understand and agree that it was necessary... -- Ixchel, 20:43:36 04/27/03 Sun

It still bothers me a bit even so. And really it's mildly unkind to Wesley, making him seem judgmental.

Yes, Wesley has issues (could he be a character on this show without them?). It makes him interesting, even endearing.

Thanks for your response.

Ixchel

[> Re: "Maybe she's lonely." Some thoughts on Darla... -- Dariel, 08:07:45 04/27/03 Sun

The murderer/ex-vampire thing counting against her is fine (though it does contradict any idea that human Darla and vampire Darla are separate).

Yes, but wasn't human Darla working with W & H right up to "The Trial"? At that point, she still wanted desperately to go back to her murdering ways. No wonder the PTB (and Wes) weren't impressed by her human state. Darla only began to show promise when she accepted her impending death as right and just.

I agree about the syphilis; as Masq says, a vestige of Victorianism. Just think of Wes in season 3--that prissy fellow isn't entirely gone!

[> Re: "Maybe she's lonely." Some thoughts on Darla... -- Bronson, 15:03:06 04/27/03 Sun

Finding out that Darla was a prostitute made me more comfortable with her appearance in B1. I thought that her presence should have caused more of a stir than it did (and perhaps raised the suspicions of even the doltish Liam,) for a couple of reasons:

1. Although I haven't had much luck researching this, I'm pretty sure the name "Darla" wasn't in use in Ireland in 1753. Perhaps Liam is distracted by her tracts of land, but he doesn't bat an eyelid at the odd name.
2. Darla's dressed to the nines, apparently travelling by herself, and hanging out in a seedy pub. I know it's dark, but shouldn't she be getting more attention?

But, if Darla is sticking to her pre-vampire ways and posing as (or actually being) a courtesan, her apparent slumming and lack of companions wouldn't seem so out of place, and her name might easily be shrugged off as an exotic, self- promoting pseudonym.

Or possibly I'm overanalyzing. It happens. Also I am still avoiding my Mamet essay.

The ATPo Discussion Board passes the 100,000th post! Yay us!! ... :-) -- OnM, 21:37:38 04/26/03 Sat

The honor goes to:

Date Posted: 16:26:21 04/26/03 Sat
Author: Finn Mac Cool
Subject: But keep in mind (spoilers through "Storyteller")
In reply to: HonorH 's message, "Don't agree." on 16:26:21 04/26/03 Sat

'Tis been a busy week-- Honorificus gets elevated to Seventh, Driz gets engaged, and now another numerical milestone passes by and waves.

And down the road we go...

:-)

[> Re: The ATPo Discussion Board passes the 100,000th post! Yay us!! ... :-) -- Cactus Watcher, 06:29:45 04/27/03 Sun

May the road ahead be long. Congratulations. Masq.

Let every good poster now join in a song.
Vive la compagnie!
Good health to each other and pass it along!
Vive la compagnie!

[> Things to celebrate -- Masq, 07:07:13 04/27/03 Sun

Thanks for the note, OnM, and the well-wishes, CW! Although here is where I say that technically speaking, the voynak monster in its infinite evilness stopped numbering us at 97700 and went back to 0 and numbered us up somewhere in the 500's and then put us back at 97700's again. So 100,000 is really just a number that doesn't even represent itself. Plus, you know, we had a year at the previous board, InsideTheWeb.

Not that there's nothing to celebrate!

We have the bitter-sweet ending to seven years of a fantastic show coming up in May, and in June (the 14th, I think) we have the third anniversary of the board (July 1st is the fourth and a half anniversary of the ATPo site itself).

So in thinking of the "And many more" continuence of this board and the family feeling we have here, I hope people will start thinking of fun activities we can do to keep ourselves out of trouble post-May 20th!

* The newbie DL of course came up with the idea to start talking about BtVS from season 1, episode 1, and other folks developed that into an idea to have a weekly discussion on the board of each episode in sequence, starting with "Welcome to the Hellmouth". It would be a lot like the weekly discussions we have of new episodes. DL suggested we start the week after the June Board Meet, so that would be Monday, June 9th.

* Someone else suggested doing the same for Angel, although personally I'm hoping we won't have to be quite so nostalgic about AtS quite yet. I'm still hoping summer will bring us lots of speculation and (marked) spoilers for next Fall.

* Any other ideas?

[> [> Re: Things to celebrate -- luna, 07:47:58 04/27/03 Sun

There have been some truly brilliant posts that are available only in archives as far as I know. I know this means a lot of work for someone (hopefully not you) but maybe we could do a "best of" and bring back some of those great posts and let us have another go at them in light of what finally happens. I'm thinking of ones like S'kat's above and her Head-Hand-Heart essay from last fall, manwitch's wonderful essay on Buffy and the Chakras, the great Mother's Milk is Red Today by Rahael, Little Bit, and Random. I'm sure there are many similarly great ones from this year and previous years that I missed.

Maybe a way to make them less work would be for the nominators just to find them in the archives and cut and paste them as new posts--being sure to credit the originators of course.

I also think we could continue the annotations by Rob indefinitely.

[> [> Re: Things to celebrate -- CW, 08:11:12 04/27/03 Sun

The anniversary Character threads folks did a couple summers ago could use updating when its all over. Naturally the folks who did the work on each character the first time ought to get the first crack at finishing the job. But, we've had posters drift away, and there are a few new characters that need to be explored, so there ought to be plenty of work for those who want to write essays.

I have an another idea for a series of essays I'll share after I mow the lawn this morning. I always think better on my feet, even if it's while cutting the *&!#%@ grass.

[> [> [> Essays, essays, essays -- Masq, 08:45:26 04/27/03 Sun

I expect lots of essays from our finest essayists!

[> [> [> [> Re: Essays, essays, essays -Topics! Topics! Topics! -- CW, 10:08:03 04/27/03 Sun

When Firefly began last fall, I mentioned on that board that before I joined in here at ATPo, I kept a series of 'writer's' notes on each episode of Buffy. Mostly it was strings of reminders to myself about things similar to "Writer's Journal" I wrote for the Firefly site, and the comments Darby has been making ep by ep on Buffy here. But, also I kept track of a few reoccuring themes that showed up in many episodes. Like Shadowkat's essay on the Fatal throughout both series, I think it would be fun to have essays on those themes in the Buffyverse that just wouldn't go away. Unlike, the character essays where there is a definite goal in sight of covering each important character, it's a little harder to define each and every possible recurring theme in the series. But, with the multiple view points we have, we ought to have an interesting collection.

These are the reoccuring themes I noticed before the fourth season of Buffy with some amendments in parentheses. I think most of them would make fine essay topics. Some of these may sound inflamatory, but remember it's all to get someone interested in writing an essay down the road, not just to debate it now.

Don't make her mad. - Although Buffy is out-going and somewhat stubborn she's had an underlying insecurity and compliant personality (Has this changed in the last few seasons or is she still this way underneath?) It's when she's pushed to anger that she becomes dominant, forceful, and dangerous. Just how strong is Buffy? (emotionally? physically?) How do her friends deal with her when she seems out of control?

Poor lonely Buffy - Buffy's, perfectly normal emotional problems weaken her ability to fight evil. How does she deal with the fact no one really understands her

Oh, grow up, Buffy! - The show has been about growing up. How has Buffy dealt with "rites up passage." Was it better when Giles and her friends helped her, or was it better when she was forced to be more independent?

That's crazy talk, Buffy! - In the beginning Buffy's opinions were frequently ignored, and not simply because she was young. Buffy was smarter than she let on in high school. As a teenager her dumb-blonde act, often helped soften the blow when she was critized for not knowing things she really should have. The bad side is that people who know her well tend to discount her intuition and deductive abilities. (As Giles and Wood do this season.) When she acts contrary to what everyone else is thinking, she rarely gets the benfit of the doubt. Through the series, how does Buffy convince the others she's not crazy, and knows what's she's doing?

What doesn't kill you...(or at least what only kills you a little...) When Buffy is closest to death's door she seems to draw on whole new sources of power. What is the source of this power? What new strengths in Buffy do these powers bring out?

Love hurts - The concerns of soap opera aside, Buffy's love life is painful. So is that of all her friends. How does this affect the way she developed?

No good deed goes unpunished - What happens when Buffy's best intentions and gut feelings lead to bad things?

Some more topics from later seasons

WB Buffy vs UPN Buffy - is there soemthing besides maturity involved in the differences in the characters since the change.

Dawn pro and con - Dawn had a central role in season five, yet since then, she's largely been in the background. Not just repeating the life and times of the character, which belong in the character essays, was it worth the risk to intregrity of the series to introduce a new charcter in such a fashion?

Religion and Joss - Was Joss and ME trying to promote a coherent set of ethics, world view or even religion?

The generation gap - Has anything of any importance been said in the series about the relationship of each generation with ones before it and the ones after?

The Scoobies - Were their lives better for knowing Buffy? Or would it have been better for them to have just cleared out of Sunnydale in the early days?

Normal and supernatural in BtVS - Which was better: to be normal in Buffy's world or to have superpowers. Were the good and powerful in many ways as helpless the weak? Were the victims in Sunnydale any more victimized than those who survived?

[> [> [> [> [> Those sound GREAT, CW! -- WickedBuffy, 10:23:55 04/27/03 Sun

[> [> [> [> [> The rich mine that is BtVS -- Masq, 10:39:45 04/27/03 Sun

I can see my fears about this board dissipating into an empty room when the Jossverse disappears from our screens are unfounded. Both shows are like the Bible or Shakespeare or some other rich literary work--they'll keep us busy for years!

[> [> [> [> [> Dibs on the last one -- KdS, 11:16:47 04/27/03 Sun

I'm still planning out a mega-essay on the portrayal of superpowers, the supernatural in general, and fantasy in general on the Buffyverse, tying it in to some of the more heretical UK and US fantasy in the last few decades. I'm waiting until after 7:22 though, just to make sure I haven't been completely misreading the shows all these years...

[> [> [> [> [> [> I think I'll take "Oh, grow up, Buffy!" - - CW, 12:37:52 04/27/03 Sun

If enough people choose a topic for a thematic essay, we could set up a schedule, like they did two years ago for the character profiles, so they don't all hit the board in the same week. We can worry about timing later, and we don't really want to start till after the meet in Jume. But, if people want to participate they might want to claim topics, now. Remember, I've just made suggestions. There are plenty more possibilities.

[> [> [> I'm not gonna be able to get a tan this summer, am I? ;) -- The Sidereal Coder, 11:29:34 04/27/03 Sun

[> [> another idea!!! -- WickedTongueinCheek, 09:51:44 04/27/03 Sun

We could start talking about the different ATPoBtVS&AtS Discussion Forum posters - starting witht the posts they made from season 1, episode 1.

Or have a weekly indepth discussion on the board of each Forum Poster, in sequence, starting with the oldest to the newest person - psychoanalyzing each post they made, relating their ideas to their persona to classic literature characters and dissecting their personalities according to what they wrote - starting with "Welcome to the Hellmouth" or whatever place in Forum history they began their journey.

It would be a lot like the weekly discussions we have of new episodes. But it would be about us. We ARE all possible characters of a tv show, when you stop to notice.

heh ok, seriously though ... congrats on such a long and exciting run! Some intelligent producer (is that an oxymoron?) could glean years of storylines from all these posts. kudos to all of you who made it happen!! :>

[> [> [> Well, I was the first poster -- Masq, 10:41:42 04/27/03 Sun

And Sol already did a complete psychoanalysis of me!!

; )

[> [> [> [> OK, then, who was second? Put 'em on the table and strap him/her/it down! -- WickedBuffy, 18:41:56 04/27/03 Sun

[> [> [> [> [> The very first thread at ATPoBtVS -- Masq, 20:49:19 04/27/03 Sun

New discussion board
Wednesday, 14-Jun-2000 15:14:59

How to spend your summer vacation while waiting for new BtVS and Angel episodes--talking about:

- "Restless" symbolism,
- Anya's status as human,
- Angel's destiny,
- Buffy's future,
- Cordelia's changes
- etc etc etc

Re: New discussion board
Thursday, 15-Jun-2000 10:48:40

Ahh, you beat me to it. :)

Vox

Re: Re: New discussion board
Thursday, 15-Jun-2000 12:02:40

Vox,

I've always thought my site was less visitor-friendly than yours, and this was partly a response to my "AboveTheLaw"envy. Feel free to chime in,
please!

Masquerade

Re: Wow, thank you
Friday, 16-Jun-2000 15:35:02

I love your site, and am glad you now have an open forum. I'd say it's about bloody time, but that would be churlish.

Thanks for all your good work on the site.

Kuzibah

Re: Re: Wow, thank you
Friday, 16-Jun-2000 20:00:51

Your welcome! And all this chat is neat.

Masquerade

[> [> [> [> [> [> So whatever happened to Vox and Sententia? -- OnM, 22:05:29 04/27/03 Sun

It's been quite a few months since I last visited their site, but when I was there, it didn't seem to have been updated for at least a year. Too tired to go there tonight, just about to log off (been working on the DG review for the last few hours).

I used to visit Vox's site regularly in the 'old days'. Masq, you have any info?

[> [> [> [> [> [> [> My link is out of date -- Masq, 06:35:28 04/28/03 Mon

The site I link to in my links page is 2 years out of date. But if you go here:

http://www.abovethelaw.net/

It is up to date for the UK

Haven't talked to Vox and Sententia for a while now, but they seem to be going strong with the Buffyverse love

[> [> For the less thoughtful, blood thirsty of us... -- JBone, 19:56:31 04/27/03 Sun

I've kind of been working on a more complete tournament (like last year), with a tweak or two or three. I really learned what didn't work last summer. I want to start it earlier, the last week of June at the latest, so that if I take a week off over the summer we can still finish it before Angel premieres in the fall. I'm thinking positive.

I've been working on it a little bit already, but no where near as much as I need to actually commence match madness. And if I can keep enough time cleared up over the summer, I would be honored if this was a sanctioned part of the Third Anniversary Celebration.

For your approval.

[> [> [> Party on, JBone! -- Masquerade, 06:45:35 04/28/03 Mon

[> How about.... essay speculation, no spoilers ;) -- Anneth, 13:39:24 04/27/03 Sun

Posters, individually or in tandem, or three-dem (whatever!) could write 'Season Wrap' essays, analysing the structure, content, and themes of each season.

[> and still another flavor to the Forum -- WickeBuffy, 18:46:50 04/27/03 Sun

or how about....

Posters take on the personna of a character from the episode being discussed and writes about it from their perception.

dibs on Dawn muahahaha

Rob has to be Harmony!

[> [> I get to be Angelus! -- Masq, 06:42:24 04/28/03 Mon

I ALWAYS get to be Angelus

[> [> [> ( ... just watch the hair) -- WickedStylist ::whispering distinctly::, 11:21:30 04/28/03 Mon

[> [> [> [> The Angelus flashback hair never bugged me -- Masq, 12:16:05 04/28/03 Mon

The wigs in Orpheus, on the other hand, (Angel's hair, not Angelus'). Man, was *THAT* bad.

Buffy: Superhero or Ruthless Criminal? (Spoilers through "Dirty Girls") -- Ravenus, 21:58:09 04/26/03 Sat

There has been criticism going on about Buffy recently, given the unsuccessful attack on Caleb during "Dirty Girls", including some saying Buffy is entirely to blame for the two potential slayer deaths and Xander's disfiguring.

Personally, I find it odd that people criticise what was merely a tactical error when Buffy has consistently shown her complete lack of morality or integrity throughout the series.

Ever since the show began, Buffy has done whatever she wants, whether it's good or evil. She has snuck into and out of various buildings, regardless of the privacy she's invading by doing so. She's a horrendous theif, taking whatever she wants to satisfy herself. She even got Xander and Cordelia to steal a rocket launcher from a military camp, which is probably a hanging offense.

And let's not even get into destruction of property. Perhaps most heinously, when the series begins, we hear many references to Buffy having burnt down her old school's gym, and not only is she still supposed to be the hero, we're actually supposed to pity her because not everyone overlooks it. Wel, EXCUSE ME if endangering who knows how many lives in a fire, and destroying a building that probably costs upwards of a hundred grand to rebuild is supposed to be a "girls will be girls" offense. And it wasn't just that one time that Buffy wantonly wreaked destruction. Xander trusted her with a job at his construction site, and she trashed most of the equipment and half-built structures. She's burned down an abandoned vamp whore nest, trashed her mother's and her sister's furniture countless times, and even blew up her second high school (with stolen weapons I might add). People have squandered thousands, perhaps millions, of dollars repairing the damage that Buffy has done.

And then there's violence. Buffy has many times made very direct threats against people (that boy in "Help", the Colonel in "New Moon Rising"). If only that's where it ended. But Buffy has many times carried out her threats, beating and bullying people until they tell her what she wants to hear. Plus, let's not forget all of her murders. She carefully planned and carried out the murder of those two brothers in "Homecoming", slaughtered ten of the Knights of Byzantium, and countless Bringers. She even rammed a sword through Angel, someone she claimed to love, and sent him into Hell, where he was tortured for a hundred years.

Buffy has always been like this. She has willfully committed acts that would land all normal people in prison and all slightly good people with horrendous guilt. Aside from a few moments, Buffy shows no guilt. She just goes on using people and their possessions however she wants, as well as hurting and murdering whoever starts to bug her when she's intent upon something. If the series ends without Buffy dying, I will forever refuse to watch anything with ties to Joss Whedon. What sort of message is it that some girl can get away with anything just because she's stronger than everyone else? Buffy's crimes have gone unpunished, and I greatly fear that ME won't be changing that within the next four episodes.

[> I currently consider Buffy a Ruthless Superhero -- WickedBuffy (Could she use some redemption?), 09:25:31 04/27/03 Sun

I can't even fathom what her emotions are, other than crying about herself when she overheard Xanders fairytale about her big heart. In fact, I don't really know if it's the chararacter Buffy being that way, or if it's a burnt out SMG pushing herself thru the final shows.

But I do agree on her actions and most of what you posted about them.

But I consider her a Ruthless SuperHero right now. She grew into the role, she didn't start out as one. Is she too good for Redemption? Everyone else seems to be getting a pretty fair dose of it lately. What about her? Could that change her enough to be able to see an answer to the First Evil situation?

[> [> Weighing In -- Spike Lover, 10:40:47 04/28/03 Mon

Interesting... Does Buffy herself need redemption? (Yep.)

By the way, I just want to add to your list of 'bad' things Buffy has done a few of my own. Everyone has seen them before. THey regard her sorry treatment of Spike a few seasons ago.

I believe it was season 5 or maybe 4, when he first realized he had a thing for her, and as a prisoner of his feelings, followed her around everywhere. I had to watch her put downs of him, watch the countless beatings at her hands, when he could not fight back without a severe migraine. Next thing you know, she is going back, demanding his help or cooperation. I really hated her.

It was so VERY PAINFUL to me because I have been through the put downs (at least), by guys who I liked but who would not have been caught dead with me. Every episode back then was a scraping off of a scab for me.

When I posted, I got plenty of responses saying that 'Spike was evil and deserved no better.' and 'How dare I criticize perfect Buffy.'

[> [> [> I agree, SpikeLover (vague spoilers @ Buffy 'n'Spike) -- WickedBuffy, 10:57:55 04/28/03 Mon

She treated him like an animal - something she never did with Angel. And something he (Spike) never did to her. Her prejudice and general unbalanced relationship dysfunctions with men seem to be the second biggest drama focus, after destroying evil.

Don't be offended, but if she were gay like Willow, would she have treated him as violently?

and that last part had nothing to do with anything, I'm rambling - and CAN'T SHE EVEN PICK UP A FRIGGIN BOOK ABOUT LOVE to get a CLUE?

[> [> [> [> Re: I agree, SpikeLover (vague spoilers @ Buffy 'n'Spike) -- Angelus, 11:39:39 04/28/03 Mon

I think what you sort of meant was that if Buffy were gay and the person she was abusing like that were a woman, would anyone try to justify it? Or if it were a man abusing a woman like that in a relationship, even if the woman was a vampire without a soul but she had a chip and he kept beating her on the justification that she's just a vampire without a soul, would anyone try to justify it?

[> [> [> [> [> Good Point!! -- Spike Lover, 11:14:32 04/29/03 Tue

[> [> [> [> Yeah, but I blame the writers -- Spike Lover, 11:12:27 04/29/03 Tue

I am not offended (by the way).

What was really, really sick to me was that they started the Spike/Buffy storyline in what? season 4? and at that time, it looked like a S/B pairing would be wonderful...

He was made for her. He could fight by her side, without feeling negated that she was the one in control (See Riley.)

He was a good listener. He had a history of loving relationships with his mother and Dru. He was good with women and he knew what love was. He could understand how she felt. He was tough enough to put up with her bullshit without leaving. Remember, Spike was the ONLY man who never left. (Even Xander walked.) She was finally going to be loved the way she deserved, like every lucky woman deserved.

Then the writers decided that they could not have a vampire quite that interesting/appealing/non-evil, so they brought in the casual relationship with Harmony. I admit that that relationship was borderline abusive,(I think it was suppose to be comedy) but they did write Harmony pretty annoying. After Harmony, they brought in the Buffy bot, who Spike again was VERY GOOD with. He did not, ironically, treat the bot like an object, but like a person. They contrasted this the next season against Warren, the souled villian who tries to turn a girlfriend into a robot, rape her, enslave her, and kill her. This made Spike once again too worthy and too popular with the audience. Then the writers in some sort of 'experiment' (see interviews with Marti N) tried to make Spike a bit darker.

The turning point for me has always been 'Gone'. Where it begins w/ Spike at Buffy's house, trying to do the kind boyfriend thing, and she rebuffs him. She chops her hair off because he likes it. They show her to be the utterly warped one.

Of course, the writers ditched the idea of Spike being the healthy choice for a boyfriend idea, saying that he really needed a soul. Then you got the AR scene which never worked for me. Then at the beginning of this season, Buffy is confronted with the fact that she was so warped last season, that she managed to seriously warp/wound/hurt Spike.

If I am going to say anything about this FINAL season, I would like to point out that the writers apparently are not interested in having Buff work out her inner demons. I doubt she will have any great ephiphany about herself or others around her. (Apparently, there is no ephiphany for Xander either.) They are only focused on the FE.

I like BTVS. It is a great achievement. I have seen every ep. Some several times. But these last few seasons could have been (imo) so much better. So much more gripping. So much richer. I truly blame MN for running it into the ground. I suppose JOss will have lots of time to mull these things over as BTVS ends and Firefly was canceled- and Angel is???

Ok. maybe I am still bitter.
SL

[> [> [> Re: Weighing In -- Angelus, 11:35:52 04/28/03 Mon

I agree with you that Buffy's treatment of Spike in seasons 5 and 6 is in a different category than the silliness that started this thread. Her mistreatment of him is at least a real issue in context.

[> [> [> [> Re: Weighing In -- maddog, 11:50:28 04/28/03 Mon

Thank you...someone admitting that this is complete crap until the ethical treatmenet of Spike topic came up. Yes, Buffy's clueless when it comes to men. And that's definitely something that needed to be addressed had they had more seasons. Of course, no one is perfect. Buffy's one of many people out there that just don't understand relationships.

[> [> Re: I currently consider Buffy a Ruthless Superhero -- maddog, 11:39:12 04/28/03 Mon

Redemption? Redemption is for those that do bad. Buffy saves the world. She's the one that doesn't need redemption. Where did everyone's head go?

[> Re: Buffy: Superhero or Ruthless Criminal? (Spoilers through "Dirty Girls") -- 110v3w1110w, 09:25:35 04/27/03 Sun

i have 2 points 1. if you are stronger than everyone else you can get away with anything that is the way the world is it may not be nice or right in your view but there we are 2. sometimes people in positions of power and responsibility have to make choices that don't come down to right and wrong but us or them and buffy has had to make those choices and has always choosen the course of action that was won it for the side which she was called to fight for

[> [> "Might makes Right" Syndrome? -- WickedBuffy, 09:35:01 04/27/03 Sun

[> [> [> Re: "Might makes Right" Syndrome? -- 110v3w1110w, 09:43:44 04/27/03 Sun

just because you don't like somthing does not make it not untrue. might does make right our societys are based on that if it were not the case we would not need police to enforce the laws and order is only kept if the government keeps the monopoly of power if it didn't we would see scenes like we have in iraq of anarchy

[> [> [> [> .....and just because you like something does not make it true -- WickedPretzelbrain, 10:17:23 04/27/03 Sun

Each side can believe that "might makes right". Are they both right?

Might does NOT make right. Sometimes it's a method, but it is not The Human Slogan cast in stone.

And not to rile you up or anything, but you said:

". ..sometimes people in positions of power and responsibility have to make choices that don't come down to right and wrong but us or them and buffy has had to make those choices and has always choosen the course of action that was won it for the side which she was called to fight for"

She just lost the fight with Caleb this week. Does that mean that Caleb got to wave the banner in front of his fort that says "Might Makes Right"? And it automatically made it right? I really don't so.

But that's what helps keep violent wars going strong - making choices that aren't about what's right or wrong, but making it about "them" or "us".

Maybe that's the chink in Buffys armor. She's made it about them or us.... even though it's been admitted, mentioned and discussed and her mom even reminded her - that theres some of "them" in all of us, too. At what percentage of themness in someone should that someone be considered a "them" and be destroyed? Is Anya on the line? What about Willow - she's really got her share of "them" in her.

... about that society and police stuff - it's too OT and touchy and not directly relevant to this Forum in my idea of this Forums focus, to comment on. We have very different thoughts on these issues.

[> [> [> [> [> Re: .....and just because you like something does not make it true -- 110v3w1110w, 10:48:15 04/27/03 Sun

as far as i know buffy was not called to fight for what is right she was called to fight for humans against vampires and demons so its us against them and somtimes buffy has to do some things that are wrong to enable her side to win. as far as might is right goes you seem to think that when i say right you think i mean what is good in your concept of morality so let me put it another way, the strongest side wins the strongest side creates the laws writes the history and in doing so determins what is right by changing societys so they belive the winners concept of what is right.

[> [> [> [> [> [> ::sigh:: -- WickedBuffy, 18:36:19 04/27/03 Sun

[> [> The Ayn Rand take on Buffy? -- luna, 18:12:01 04/27/03 Sun

[> Corwin hits a homer!!!! -- Corwin of Amber, 11:38:47 04/27/03 Sun

>Ever since the show began, Buffy has done whatever she wants, whether it's good or evil.

What Buffy really wanted, was to be a normal teenage girl, and later, a normal young adult. If that's evil, you've just condemned pretty much the whole of hunmanity.

>She has snuck into and out of various buildings, regardless of the privacy she's invading by doing so.

Yeah, those demons/cultists/vampires or whatever would have let her in if she'd only knocked. Or maybe she should have gone to a judge and gotten a search warrent - probable cuase, a prophecy.

>She's a horrendous theif, taking whatever she wants to satisfy herself.

Examples, please.

>She even got Xander and Cordelia to steal a rocket launcher from a military camp, which is probably a hanging offense.

Necessity. They needed that rocket launcher to prevent a demon from basically destroying the world, and it would have taken too much time to explain that to the military authorities, who would have refused anyways. And if they hadn't taken the rocket launcher, they'd be dead anyways, so why not steal the damn thing?

>And let's not even get into destruction of property.

So why did you? :)

>Perhaps most heinously, when the series begins, we hear many references to Buffy having burnt down her old school's gym...

Well, we'd have to do a cost-benefit analysis...lives vs a school gym. How many lives did she save? Did anyone other than vampires actually get hurt in the school gym fire? If they had, Buffy would be in juvie at the beginning of the series.

>And it wasn't just that one time that Buffy wantonly wreaked destruction. Xander trusted her with a job at his construction site, and she trashed most of the equipment and half-built structures.

She was being hit with the Nerds of Doom hallucinatory raygun at the time. People under the influence of hallucingenic drugs are generally assumed not to be in control of their actions, I'm willing to extend that to Hallucintory Ray Guns.

>She's burned down an abandoned vamp whore nest

Yeah, I feel all this sympathy for the poor vamp ho's.

>trashed her mother's and her sister's furniture countless times

Yeah, demons and vamps had NOTHING to do with that.

>and even blew up her second high school (with stolen weapons I might add).

To destroy a demon that was going to feast on the students anyway, and then bring about an apocalypse. Come on, give me something here!

>People have squandered thousands, perhaps millions, of dollars repairing the damage that Buffy has done.

Squandered? Are you suggesting that people shouldn't rebuild after Buffy saves their lives? Strange phrasing there.

>And then there's violence. Buffy has many times made very direct threats against people (that boy in "Help", the Colonel in "New Moon Rising"). If only that's where it ended. But Buffy has many times carried out her threats, beating and bullying people until they tell her what she wants to hear.

*Choke* Ok, new tactic? How would *YOU* have gotten the necessary information?

>Plus, let's not forget all of her murders. She carefully planned and carried out the murder of those two brothers in "Homecoming", slaughtered ten of the Knights of Byzantium, and countless Bringers.

I dont remember "homecoming" so I can't comment on that. Do we even know if any of the Knights of Byzantium she fought were killed? They were wearing plate armor and had attacked her and her family first, en masse, so I have little sympathy if they did. Buffy DOES have the right of self- defense under the law.

>
She even rammed a sword through Angel, someone she claimed to love, and sent him into Hell, where he was tortured for a hundred years.

I'm not even gonna bother. Those with better logic and rhetorics skills than I have already argued this one into the ground.

(Skipping most of the conclusion of the straw man argument.)

>What sort of message is it that some girl can get away with anything just because she's stronger than everyone else? Buffy's crimes have gone unpunished, and I greatly fear that ME won't be changing that within the next four episodes.

I would argue that Buffy hasn't gotten away with ANYTHING. She's died twice, and she still chooses to protect us ugly- bags-of-mostly water. Did you miss the entire sixth season? Remember her reaction when she thought she'd murdered Katrina?

It's really easy to condemn someone as long as you take no account of the circumstances surrounding their actions. It's also unjust, and evil. And stay away from straw man arguments in the future, I want to have something I can sink my teeth into next time!

(Corwin skips off into the distance, whistling a happy tune.)

[> [> Re: cordelia said it best ! -- 110v3w1110w, 13:05:22 04/27/03 Sun

when she said that angelus had a way of twisting things and lying with the truth. that is exactly what is happening here to

[> [> [> Re: cordelia said it best ! -- lurker!drea, 13:40:31 04/27/03 Sun

What??? What are you saying?? I can't understand you! Learn to type!!

[> [> Woohoo! *clapping loudly* -- HonorH (cheering from the stands), 21:18:04 04/27/03 Sun

[> [> Re: Corwin hits a homer!!!! -- maddog, 12:12:06 04/28/03 Mon

I can remember homecoming...um, it's kill or be killed. They were using her as the hunted...and they weren't the only ones. Do you realize how either stupid or lacking in common sense you are(refering to the original author that is)?

[> Wow! You have no Idea what Context is, do you!? -- Majin Gojira, 12:28:04 04/27/03 Sun

Ahem....

http://www.stardestroyer.net/BoardPics/FlameOn.jpg

"Personally, I find it odd that people criticise what was merely a tactical error when Buffy has consistently shown her complete lack of morality or integrity throughout the series."

Oh, this is going to hurt my brain...

"Ever since the show began, Buffy has done whatever she wants, whether it's good or evil."

Sure, it's not like there were ever consequences for her doing 'evil'. Buffy isn't some stalward Superman who can do no wrong. she's human and makes mistakes. Judgemental you are.

"She has snuck into and out of various buildings, regardless of the privacy she's invading by doing so."

Context--all markable instances were dealing with known threats to other human beings. Is it Immoral for SWAT teams to raid Drug Labs because they are invading someones privacy?

"She's a horrendous theif, taking whatever she wants to satisfy herself."

Back it up with clear, consise examples that are NOT the cause of Spells or nessesary to save the world.

"She even got Xander and Cordelia to steal a rocket launcher from a military camp, which is probably a hanging offense."

Gee-- You Wanted the Judge to win, didn't you? It was a Nessisary "evil".

"And let's not even get into destruction of property."

Yeah, she's a regular uncaring Godzilla. Smashing things wantonly without a care in the world.

You have watched the show, right?

"Perhaps most heinously, when the series begins, we hear many references to Buffy having burnt down her old school's gym, and not only is she still supposed to be the hero, we're actually supposed to pity her because not everyone overlooks it. Wel, EXCUSE ME if endangering who knows how many lives in a fire, and destroying a building that probably costs upwards of a hundred grand to rebuild is supposed to be a "girls will be girls" offense."

1. Defence, not Offence.

2. Completely out of context of the situation...you're proud of doing that, aren't you.

"And it wasn't just that one time that Buffy wantonly wreaked destruction."

We are still talking about Buffy, I'm thinking we're talking about Faith, or Godzilla at this point.

"Xander trusted her with a job at his construction site, and she trashed most of the equipment and half-built structures."

The Legion of Dorkness Summoning Demons for her to fight there just isn't a good enough excuse, is it?

You make it sound like she's Godzilla...I just love that annalogy so I'll abuse it all I want! Thank you very much.

"She's burned down an abandoned vamp whore nest,"

Excuse me if I don't feel your pain.

"trashed her mother's and her sister's furniture countless times,"

Context you ignore, asshat.

"and even blew up her second high school (with stolen weapons I might add)."

1. Bullcrap. it was a homemade fertilizer bomb.

2. SO you'd just let the mayor run around willy nilly, completely destroying the town of SUnnydale and killing thousands? Who's Amoral?

"People have squandered thousands, perhaps millions, of dollars repairing the damage that Buffy has done."

Yeah, all those innocent demons she stopped because of it surely can't make up for that...

"And then there's violence. Buffy has many times made very direct threats against people (that boy in "Help", the Colonel in "New Moon Rising")."

Put yourself in Buffy's shoes. How would you get the information you need?

"If only that's where it ended. But Buffy has many times carried out her threats, beating and bullying people until they tell her what she wants to hear."

Gee, Who ever thought that Interrigation of Known threats to the human race could not be violent. This is possibly your only 'legitimate' point.

"Plus, let's not forget all of her murders. She carefully planned and carried out the murder of those two brothers in "Homecoming","

Wow! You just supported a Terrorist! Who's Amoral?

"slaughtered ten of the Knights of Byzantium,"

Self Defence.

"and countless Bringers."

Who are brainwashed Zealots. What's your point?

"She even rammed a sword through Angel, someone she claimed to love, and sent him into Hell, where he was tortured for a hundred years."

To Save the world. Context is your enemy here.

"Buffy has always been like this. She has willfully committed acts that would land all normal people in prison"

If she did half the things you claim she has to humans, yes she would. But she does it to demons, Big difference.

Leap of Logic.

"and all slightly good people with horrendous guilt."

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?

Buffy and Guilt are like peas in a pod most of the time.

"Aside from a few moments, Buffy shows no guilt."

Strawman

"She just goes on using people and their possessions however she wants, as well as hurting and murdering whoever starts to bug her when she's intent upon something."

HUGE Strawman.

"If the series ends without Buffy dying, I will forever refuse to watch anything with ties to Joss Whedon. What sort of message is it that some girl can get away with anything just because she's stronger than everyone else? Buffy's crimes have gone unpunished, and I greatly fear that ME won't be changing that within the next four episodes."

Damn, that's a lot of Bullcrap you smeared on the web.

You obviously know nothing of the series, its symbolism and its themes. You are a complete idiot-troll-Palm-Lover in the true SD.net Tradition.

And in that tradition I shall Now Link to funny pictures:

http://www.geocities.com/icehawk_2010/foxtroll.txt

http://www.geocities.com/icehawk_2010/B5idiot.txt

http://www3.sympatico.ca/gcircle/Extreme-stupidity.png

yes, I know it's juvinile, but that doesn't make them any less funny.

[> [> Hit the nail on the head, Majin! -- HonorH, 21:16:49 04/27/03 Sun

The original post is just too ludicrous. Glad I don't have to bother with it, as you and Corwin have done a fine job of answering it. The way this guy would have it, Buffy shouldn't so much as stake a vampire without first doing a cost/benefit analysis and consulting Sunnydale city codes to make sure she isn't violating any zoning ordinances, and furthermore, if saving the world requires that Buffy break any laws, well, it's just not worth it then!

[> [> [> Well, if she has to do something unethical/illegal to save the world -- Ravenus, 21:36:53 04/27/03 Sun

Then that's like saying the ends justify the means!

[> [> [> [> I am in Complete Agreement with you, Dear Boy. -- PrimHonor, 23:02:38 04/27/03 Sun

After all, we can't have just anyone saving the world, can we? I'm certain all of Civilized Society would agree that the Law being broken is far worse than any number of deaths. Better all should die, certainly, than that a Shameless Hussy like Buffy should take such extreme measures as Property Destruction and Jaywalking in order to save them.

(Don't worry, I get the joke. Just playing along, Rav.)

[> [> [> [> Newsflash: Sometimes they do. -- Majin Gojira -- Living up to the name, 04:43:26 04/28/03 Mon

If that's the best rebuttle you have, I suggest you take a nice warm cup of STFU. I dare you to find valid proof for anything that you have stated in your original post, or better yet, refute my answers to your misconstrued, distorted statements.

[> [> [> [> Re: Well, if she has to do something unethical/illegal to save the world -- maddog, 12:17:53 04/28/03 Mon

Um, it does. :) Would you rather be dead? :)

[> I must admit, I thought this post was *meant" to be parodic -- KdS, 12:43:18 04/27/03 Sun

[> [> Re: I must admit, I thought this post was *meant" to be parodic -- Bronson, 14:24:13 04/27/03 Sun

That was my reaction as well, but since the original poster has declined to comment, it's hard to say.

...Just goes to show ya that satire relying on sarcasm is a tricky tricky thing, especially in a text-only medium.

Dog my cats. Must get back to Mamet paper & find way to include BtVS...

[> [> [> Re: I must admit, I thought this poster was *meant" to be a parody. -- WickedBuffy I think so, 19:02:26 04/27/03 Sun

[> Is this a joke, a troll, or for real? -- Robert, 19:23:35 04/27/03 Sun

[> [> Did I say anything that wasn't true? -- Ravenus, 19:47:58 04/27/03 Sun

Go ahead, say that I said something that wasn't true in my post. Dare ya.

You can disagree, but you'll just end up making a fool of yourself, because I have the FACTS on my side. You can gloss over Buffy's crimes, but, really, can you offer ANY justification for them? Didn't think so.

[> [> [> Read Majin's or my posts, and refute them, if you're not a troll :) -- Corwin of Amber, 20:06:21 04/27/03 Sun

[> [> [> [> Re: Read Majin's or my posts, and refute them, if you're not a troll :) -- Angelus, 01:15:35 04/28/03 Mon

So far his posts are on a par with the "Buffy is a murderer because she stakes 'innocent' vampires" posts. The real test of whether he's a troll is whether he posts in other threads that shows a real interest in the show or whether he merely posts absurd troll threads like this one (which are fun but silly). I'm too new to the board to know if he posts on other threads.

And yes in a simplistic, completely out of context, omitting overwhelming facts in Buffy's favor in each situation sort of way, the arguments are factual. You just have to ignore motive and context.

[> [> [> I think all those people who aren't dead justify her "crimes" -- Helen, 00:56:39 04/28/03 Mon

We know what Sunnydale would be like (or at least what Sunnydale 1999 would have been like) without Buffy and her various crimes. It was in The Wish and it didn't look fun.

[> [> [> Gotta be a joke. -- HonorH (scratching her head), 07:10:21 04/28/03 Mon

I mean, nobody's *that* benighted that they don't think saving the world is justification for a little B&E. Heck, saving a *single* life is justification enough.

[> [> [> Re: Did I say anything that wasn't true? -- maddog, 12:27:48 04/28/03 Mon

Facts...sure, you have facts. Now think about them logically. All of them were done to save any part or all of Sunnydale...and possibly more people. If you don't think saving the world is justification for doing the things you charged her with then you obviously have no compassion for humanity...and in that case then by all means we'll send you to the fictional town of Sunnydale and remind Buffy that around you she shouldn't pull these stunts. :) We'll see how long you last with vampires. :)

[> Re: Buffy: Superhero or Ruthless Criminal? (Spoilers through "Dirty Girls") -- Angelus, 00:55:02 04/28/03 Mon

Okay I admit I'm torn between wondering if this is tongue in cheek parody or meant to be taken seriously.

Quote: Personally, I find it odd that people criticise what was merely a tactical error when Buffy has consistently shown her complete lack of morality or integrity throughout the series.

Ever since the show began, Buffy has done whatever she wants, whether it's good or evil. She has snuck into and out of various buildings, regardless of the privacy she's invading by doing so. She's a horrendous theif, taking whatever she wants to satisfy herself. She even got Xander and Cordelia to steal a rocket launcher from a military camp, which is probably a hanging offense.

Okay by a twisted Wolfram & Hart presentation of the facts everything here is true and I suppose they could get a conviction. "Excuse me Mr. Military people. I need to borrow a rocket launcher. Why? Oh because a demon is going to murder every single person in a shopping mall followed by everyone in this city followed by everyone in the world unless I stop him. Oh you don't believe me. Okey dokey. Better thousands die than that I break a law."

Quote: And let's not even get into destruction of property. Perhaps most heinously, when the series begins, we hear many references to Buffy having burnt down her old school's gym, and not only is she still supposed to be the hero, we're actually supposed to pity her because not everyone overlooks it. Wel, EXCUSE ME if endangering who knows how many lives in a fire, and destroying a building that probably costs upwards of a hundred grand to rebuild is supposed to be a "girls will be girls" offense.

Uh huh. Of course let's just ignore the vampires and that the fire started when she was saving the countless lives they were trying to take in that school. Let's equally ignore that no one would believe her explanation if she tried to tell them.

Quote: And it wasn't just that one time that Buffy wantonly wreaked destruction. Xander trusted her with a job at his construction site, and she trashed most of the equipment and half-built structures.

Oh yeah that would be when she was attacked and fought back rather than saying, "Oh ok go ahead and kill me. We wouldn't want to be accused of property damage here." Oh yeah she saved the lives of men there too but hey, in your interesting view, that doesn't count.

Quote: She's burned down an abandoned vamp whore nest, trashed her mother's and her sister's furniture countless times, and even blew up her second high school (with stolen weapons I might add). People have squandered thousands, perhaps millions, of dollars repairing the damage that Buffy has done.

You are right. She should have let an ascended super demon win, eat the town and enslave those it didn't eat or feed to the vampires.

Quote: And then there's violence. Buffy has many times made very direct threats against people (that boy in "Help", the Colonel in "New Moon Rising"). If only that's where it ended. But Buffy has many times carried out her threats, beating and bullying people until they tell her what she wants to hear.

Yep like, for instance, beating up Willy rather than letting Angel die.

Quote: Plus, let's not forget all of her murders.

Huh?

Quote: She carefully planned and carried out the murder of those two brothers in "Homecoming",

Oh the ones who killed each other because they thought they were shooting at her?

Quote: slaughtered ten of the Knights of Byzantium,

Oh the ones who were swinging swords at her, impaling Giles and trying to kill Dawn without benefit of trial (since we are dealing in a mere technicalese argument here anyway I thought I would also bring up a legal technicality)?

Quote: and countless Bringers.

Oh those guys going around gutting innocent girls in the service of the ultimate evil who were trying to kill her when she killed them?

Quote: She even rammed a sword through Angel, someone she claimed to love, and sent him into Hell, where he was tortured for a hundred years.

Thus preventing him being thrown into hell anyway with the whole world along for the ride.

Quote: Buffy has always been like this. She has willfully committed acts that would land all normal people in prison and all slightly good people with horrendous guilt. Aside from a few moments, Buffy shows no guilt. She just goes on using people and their possessions however she wants, as well as hurting and murdering whoever starts to bug her when she's intent upon something. If the series ends without Buffy dying, I will forever refuse to watch anything with ties to Joss Whedon. What sort of message is it that some girl can get away with anything just because she's stronger than everyone else? Buffy's crimes have gone unpunished, and I greatly fear that ME won't be changing that within the next four episodes.

Hmm, I know I might get into trouble for saying this but, do you work for Wolfram&Hart? The interesting spin on the facts just reminds me of them in first season Angel.

[> Re: If Buffy hadn't done any of these things, what would we have? Ever see The Wish? -- B, 07:18:47 04/28/03 Mon

[> Re: Buffy: Superhero or Ruthless Criminal? (Spoilers through "Dirty Girls") -- maddog, 11:35:42 04/28/03 Mon

I think you're confusing Buffy with what Faith was like. Buffy, while yes, pulling some selfish stunts, is always thinking of others when she does things. I think people are questioning the attitude behind the tactical error. Buffy's need to get going against EVERYONE's thoughts. She is so worked up about being the great leader they keep saying that she is that she ignored the fact that even leaders listen to others' opinions...especially those of her closest friends.

Are you kidding me? Destruction of property. WOuld you rather have the vampires running around killing people? Ok, fine, we'll send you to Sunnydale and ask Buffy to help everyone but you because you don't want anything around you to get destroyed. Things get damaged in fights...especially fights with that much power involved.

She's bullying bad guys. :) Are you sure this whole thing isn't some sort of joke? Cause I'm losin it here. You act like you're forgetting she's saving the world from danger.

This feels like some late April Fool's joke or something. :(

[> I will not be tweaked by a troll -- pr10n, 12:48:51 04/28/03 Mon

I considered some sort of argument with this twit based on the overuse of adverbs and the bad writing indicated thereby, but I have decided to dismiss the person as a troll -- bah.

Twit: I hope that one fine morning the sun rises over the hillside, and turns you to stone. And that a bird nests in your ear.

Oh, and that you ever get to date, even once.

[> [> Had... had... had... -- pr10n [whacking face with plank], 16:37:25 04/28/03 Mon

[> Ravenus was an experiment -- Finn Mac Cool (he of the trollish alter-ego), 14:39:17 04/28/03 Mon

For a while a point has been adressed on this board: whether the ends justify the means or not, at least in the Buffyverse. What I mostly hear people saying is along the lines of "the ends simply do not justify the means", or "if you think immoral actions are justified if they serve the 'greater good', then you are (or will be) as bad as the evil you hope to fight". Personally, this is a position I have long disagreed with. I was going to write a post trying to refute what seemed to be the all encompassing opinion that the ends don't justify the means, when I got an idea:

I decided to apply the philosophy of "the ends DON'T justify the means" to Buffy's actions throughout the series and post the results on this board under the pseudonym "Ravenus".

I looked at actions like stealing the rocket launcher used to destroy the Judge, or bullying the cult kid in order to save Cassie's life, and took out the reason for why they were done. After all, in "ends don't justify the means" philosophy, it doesn't matter why you do something or what you hope to accomplish by doing it; only the act itself matters. Under this lens of examination, Buffy comes off looking very bad indeed. If you take the good she accomplishes through illegal/immoral acts out of the equation, she appears to be a violent, uncaring criminal.

Now, when I first checked back to see what responses had been made to my post as "Ravenus", I was naturally quite shocked to see the only reply was from someone expressing tentative agreement. However, as time went on, what I expected to happen happened. People refuted Ravenus's argument and justified Buffy's actions. And what was the prevailing argument? That the acts mentioned were taken out of context and were all done to save human lives. That what Buffy did was justified because, in the end, it led to far more good than bad. Which is the essence of the philosophy "the ends justify the means".

OK, I could've just posted something saying "hey, look at Buffy stealing the rocket launcher in "Surprise"! That was wrong, but was justified in order to stop the Judge! The ends CAN justify the means!" And, perhaps given that some people are annoyed by troll-esque posts, that's what I should've done. But, you must remember, I was operating under the impression that something like 95% of the board believed that the "ends don't justify the means" (I'm beginning to doubt that impression now). Given this, I believed that any attempt to say the ends DO justify the means would probably end up being argued against by posters far more eloquent than me. So, I admit, I decided to trick people into using an "ends justify the means" defense in order to back up my argument. That way I could look back and say "Well, you said right then that the ends justified the means, so don't try to argue that they don't!"

Now that I've seen some of the posts, I'm beginning to doubt the wisdom of this method. I created a somewhat negative reaction a while back by posting trollish comments under the name "Bachman" (although those were basically just saying "Buffy sucks!", I like to think the Ravenus pseudonym wasn't quite as bad as that). If I upset/offended anyone, I cry your pardon.

[> [> Ah..What do we mean by The Ends Justify The MEans - - s'kat, 15:27:49 04/28/03 Mon

Interesting Ravenous/Finn. So, KdS and I were right in our initial assumption that your post was meant somewhat satirically. Satire is often used to point out the fallacy of an absolute argument. Jonathan Swift did it best with a Modest Proposal which he wrote in response to the hypocritcal aristocrats who didn't want to help the poor or orphans. He offended quite a few people in the process. So if your post offended? Count yourself in good company. OTOH, I think you may have gotten a better response if you had been a bit more forth-right. There are some people on this board who I'm sure ignored your post that may not have if they knew what you were after. I'm one of them. In fact I was resisting replying to this thread until I saw your explanation above.

For a while a point has been adressed on this board: whether the ends justify the means or not, at least in the Buffyverse. What I mostly hear people saying is along the lines of "the ends simply do not justify the means", or "if you think immoral actions are justified if they serve the 'greater good', then you are (or will be) as bad as the evil you hope to fight". Personally, this is a position I have long disagreed with. I was going to write a post trying to refute what seemed to be the all encompassing opinion that the ends don't justify the means, when I got an idea:

decided to apply the philosophy of "the ends DON'T justify the means" to Buffy's actions throughout the series and post the results on this board under the pseudonym "Ravenus".

End's Justify The Means. Touchy subject.

I think lots of people don't really understand what the philosophy attributed to Machiavelli means, "ends justify the means". I suggest for a more thorough understanding you pick up a book called The Prince. It has been used by Corporate Leaders and Politicians in the past. I remember studying in depth way back in 1985 in high school. So my memories of it are a little sketchy.

The book deals in principal with the actions a Prince is willing to take to solidify his power base and territories.
Some of these actions may seem rather ruthless but effective. Machiavelli for his part, was imprisoned, can't remember why - but always found it ironic.

The moral issue that arises within the ends justify the means doctrine - is how far are you willing to go to obtain your goal? Does it depend on the goal what ends you use?
Are some goals more morally justified than others? There are whole books of philosophy that discuss these points.
Also religions. Then of course there is the other question, are you willing to pay for the consequences of the actions you took in order to reach that goal?

There is no absolute answer to this Finn. It is something that must be decided on a case by case basis, hence the reason you received the reactions you did. It does depend on the context of the act.

If we for example decide that the ends always justify the means - then everything Spike did in What's My Line Part I & II would be justifiable since it was all to heal his lover Drusilla. Now whether curing Dru is a justifiable end or not depends largely on your point of view. In the context of the show, no it's not justifiable, she's an evil vampire. Yet within the context of her vampire lover and the vampires - it's more than justifiable. By the same token Spike's pursuite of and killing of Nikki the Vampire Slayer was justifiable - because hello, Spike is a vampire and Nikki kills vampires. By killing Nikki, Spike has given his kind a reprieve for a while. There's only one slayer supposedly. He's killed the main enemy and killer of his kind. Makes him a hero to vampires.

See? Ends Justify The MEans partly may depend on your point of view.

By the same token, Giles desire to take out Spike and use Wood to do it, seems justifiable. The difference between Giles and Spike though, is: Spike goes after Nikki himself, he does not put any of his kind in danger. Giles puts Wood in danger, knowing full well that the odds are on a chipless Spike to take out Wood. There is no guarantee Giles will get what he wants, best scenerio, Wood kills Spike and is only slightly wounded, worst scenerio? Wood is killed and Spike goes off on a killing spree. In this case the means weren't leading to a foreseeable end. Bad tactical planning. Was Giles right in wanting Spike put down? (shrug) Not clear. On the other point Giles believes Spike should still be chipped - again this isn't straight ends justify the means, since there is no guarantee the chip will stop Spike from killing people. The chip may in fact be allowing the FE access. Also the chip is not much more than a muzzel. Buffy is right doing evil to stop evil doesn't work.

Now compare this to Buffy - buffy works hard not to hurt people when she tries to save the world. Yes they stole the rocket launcher, but of the tools they could have used it caused the least amount of destruction. Bombs would have killed people. It also saved the most people from the judge with little to no collateral damage. The only drawback?
The military's loss of a weapon that they were probably planning on using to kill human enemies anyway. (Although we have no idea.) And I'm sure the military had more. So Buffy's use of the rocket launcher did justify her ends.
It caused the least damage.

So Finn, it's not that the ends NEVER justify the means or that they ALWAYS justify the means, it's that it depends on what the means and ends are. Life isn't absolute. It depends on the situation. Sometimes the ends justify the means, sometimes they don't.

Wes' decision to save Connor from Angel was not justified.
But Fred's decision to shoot Jasmine and Angel with the same bullet, was. See the difference? We have the ability to determine right from wrong, to see the potential consequences of our actions - it is up to us to decide how to handle situations we are in and to solve them in the most moral way possible or ie. causing the least amount of harm. I believe if you look back over Buffy's decisions in past seven seasons you'll find more often than not, her decisions resulted in the least amount of harm to those around her. She has made mistakes, but then don't we all?
And the moral ambiguity of her actions as she gets older does make us think about the moral ambiguity of our own.

I hope that made some sense. I'm no expert on Machiavelli so apologies to any lurking scholars and historians out there that are.

Hopefully all I've done is started off a new discussion.

SK (Excuse the typos and errors...)

[> [> [> Never meant to imply that the ends ALWAYS justified the means -- Finn Mac Cool, 16:45:25 04/28/03 Mon

For example, I once read a fantasy novel that I've long since forgotten the name of, but there was something about it I did remember. In it, the group of heroes is captured by some guys running a slave mining operation. The male characters are thrust into grueling labour with a lot of other slaves, while the woman among them is reserved for rape by the slave drivers. The male characters decide they need to escape (though they make a show of it being largely for their friend who's been made a sex slave), and decide the only way to do it is by distracting the slave drivers with a revolution. So they start to spark discontent among the other slaves, which leads to an uprising. Now, the characters knew full well beforehand that a conflict between the two would lead to many deaths, mainly on the slaves' side, and had about a million in one chance of actual success, but they hid this knowledge from the other slaves. And it was never treated as a moral dilemma. No one showed any remorse for causing a battle where many people died in order to secure their own freedom. This was a case where the ends didn't justify the means, because the means (many deaths) were far more negative then the ends (escape) were positive.

How I always interpreted "ends justify the means" is that, it's OK to commit immoral acts, so long as they lead to an end that does more good than the acts did harm. If one believed that the means were always justified, no matter what the ends, then I can see how that could be viewed as highly immoral.

But, here's the thing: when you come right down to it, in the Buffyverse, what is the biggest moral dilemma they've been able to come up with? Quite easily: do you kill someone to save the world? Usually when I heard people saying the ends didn't justify the means, it was in regards to saying that killing someone in order to stop the world from ending isn't OK. However, in such a situation, I would say that the ends (saving billions of lives) outweighs the means (killing one person). This has always annoyed me, because it seems to assume that passively allowing something very evil to happen is morally better than actively doing a minorly evil act. Hence the desire to write as Ravenus.

There's actually a non-satirical post I'm planning to write on this same issue, comparing "Becoming II", "The Gift", and "Selfless", all episodes dealing with similar moral dilemmas about the ends justify the means philosophy. Guess this was a sort of prelude before I started writing that.

[> [> [> [> Interesting ...Selfless, Grave, Becoming, Gift...& Jasmin(Spoilers to DG) -- s'kat, 20:34:24 04/28/03 Mon

Ah. Now the above was an interesting post.

This is just a suggestion - but would you consider doing a post like the one above - to tackle this issue? I think that might get some interesting responses.

I agree for what it's worth with D'Herbalay's post below, that most of the posters here have not advocated that the ends never justify the means nor that killing someone to save the world is necessarly a bad thing. The show itself has wrestled with this. Actually Angel The Series is also wrestling with it.

And as D'H states, some of this may be a question for ethisicists.

Regarding the Gift, Becoming Part II, and Selfless...I think each issue should be tackled again in context.

In The Gift - I believe Buffy would have let Dawn jump/sacrifice herself if she had not found a better option, jumping herself. Whether you agree on if this was the better option is another issue. To Buffy - Dawn was an innocent life representing all the other innocent human lives, Buffy was the hero with the expiration date, she'd already died once - it was her time not Dawn's. So she jumped. I never saw it as suicide or wrong. And Buffy did consider all the options, it was not an impulsive act.

Giles killing Ben - another issue. Was this a case of ends justifying the means? Were there other options? Did Giles consider them? Or was it impulsive? I have a feeling if this question is not answered this year, it may be answered in the Ripper mini series. But it has been debated to death on this and other boards. I remain on the fence regarding the issue. I do find it to be a highly ironic act. I'm also fascinated by the fact that they cut Giles confession regarding it out of LMPTM and that in the shooting script it's how Buffy comes to the realization Giles is stalling her.

Becoming Part II - again Buffy considered and tried all her options. She did not come to the decision to kill Angel - actually she didn't really kill him, she just sent him to hell, I think he'd have preferred death, but whatever, she did not come to it lightly. She tried to ensoul him, she tried to delay him, she tried any number of avenues. But he'd opened the gate and the only way to close it was through him. Only his blood could. So she took his life to save the world. The ends did justify the means.

Grave - would killing Willow have solved the problem? No.
The best was to get Willow to find her humanity. Now Willow in Grave is an interesting twist on this. She believes killing/destroying the whole world justifies her end which is to end all suffering. Life is hell so let's end it.
Xander forces her to see the good in life, love, compassion.
Grave is in some ways the inverse of Becoming. Death is not always necessary to save the world. Willow believes killing Warren and the power she must engulf to do it is justified to rid the world of Warren. But Warren is not the overwhelming threat she makes him out to be. Killing Warren does nothing except push Willow over the edge.

Selfless - was Buffy justified in deciding to kill Anya? Well she had considered the options. She waited an awful long time. Fully aware of what Anya was up to. And based on the limited info she had available - killing Anya sounded like the only option. OTOH - we know and Willow knew there were other options. So killing Anya was not the best or only solution. By letting Anya live and convincing her to take back her wish - the frat boys survived. But Buffy had no idea anya would do this. Was Buffy's actions in Selfless directed towards Anya going this route? I don't know.

Graduation Day I & II - Buffy's going after Faith to save Angel - was this justified? Was Buffy's own self-sacrifice to save Angel justified? None of the gang besides possibly Buffy believes so. In fact it may be one of the reasons Angel took off at the end.

It really does depend on the context, the options available, and the situation in the series. I think what you may be reacting to is the comments on the board regarding Buffy's assertion in LMPTM to Giles - I realize everyone is expendable, and I am willing to let Dawn die to save the world. What people are reacting negatively to is NOT that we shouldn't kill someone to save the world so much as the comment that people are expendable. I think. I could be wrong here. Because stating people are expendable or Dawn is...is a bit like taking the untrained potentials into the winery in Dirty Girls or Willow deciding to hurt whomever got in her way in Two to Go. Or for that matter JAsmine eating people to heal herself. JAsmine is an excellent example as are Connor and Cordelia.

Is it justifiable to kill an innocent girl to bring a goddess, the messiah into the world? Connor believes it is.
Is it justifiable to eat others to stay alive and spread peace and prosperity? Do Jasmine's ends justify her means?

SK

[> [> [> [> [> Oops spoilers to sacrifice Ats as well. -- sk, 20:35:35 04/28/03 Mon

[> [> [> [> [> [> Ends and means in a Slayer's world -- Valheru, 00:53:50 04/29/03 Tue

I'm not a big fan of "ends justify the means" or "ends don't justify the means" as ethical arguments for or against the perpetrator of said means because so much is tied up in emotion, circumstance, chance, foresight, and intent. There are so many disparate elements that go into any decision that it's nearly impossible to determine whether the choices we make are the ultimate correct ones. In other words, while carrying out the means, it is impossible to know what the final ends will be. The only real determining factor is morality, which is not so much a personal construct as it is a societal one. Which is exactly where Buffy comes in.

In a world of vampires, demons, and the forces of darkness, the human society of the Buffyverse is unable to even acknowledge or comprehend the supernatural. Only a determined few have been able to break free from the miasma of ignorance. Foremost among these is the Watcher's Council. Sometime in the past, the predecessing shamans of the Council took it upon themselves to create a being capable of protecting the unknowing human world from the otherworldly evils. "She is the Slayer."

But does the Slayer exist within the human world? The problem with figuring out the moral and ethical boundaries of the Slayer through Buffy is that Buffy--unique among Slayers--is still entrenched in the dictates of human society. Her codes are influenced by both sides of her life. To Buffy's more human side, it is wrong, wrong, wrong!! to kill a human (even justifiable self- defense reasons for killing are judged harshly), yet to a normal Slayer, it is probably perfectly acceptable to kill a human to save the world. Heck, in "Consequences", Giles even alludes to the idea that Faith's non-world-in-peril killing of Allan Finch is viewed almost off-handedly by the Council--as if they would say, "Well, them's the breaks sometimes. Now off you go back on patrol, Faith."

Because we've been seen so little of Slayers who operated outside of Buffy's hybrid ethics, it is difficult to determine just what is acceptable of the Slayer. But we can glean that the Slayer is almost a law unto herself. She does whatever it takes to do her job; almost anything is acceptable. She only has to answer to the Council, and the Watchers have proven to have a much looser standard even among themselves, much less the Slayer. It is a very rare event that the Slayer does anything that violates the ethics set down by the Council.

So in the case of the Slayers, "ends justify the means" is a more liberal interpretation than it is to the rest of humanity. The Slayers exist in their own ethical universe.

Buffy, however, is not a usual Slayer. Many of Buffy's ethical quandries are beyond the experience of human ethics, yet she tries hard to make them fit. For instance, we have no ethical guidelines for how to deal with a Glory/Ben scenario. How could we? When are we ever going to be faced with an unkillable hellgod? But Buffy still struggled with the question of whether to kill Ben. Thus, Giles had to come in, as the ethical representative of the Watcher's Council (or at least the person who came the closest to sharing the Council's views), and he killed Ben for the good of the world. To our ethical view, both Giles's and Buffy's actions are questionable, but to the view of the Council and Slayer, Giles was right and Buffy was wrong.

The important thing to learn from Buffy, IMO, isn't that she always does the right--the "human"--thing, but that she tries, that she wades through a current of conflicting philosophical systems (the demon system, vampire system, Slayer/Watcher system, and human system) and comes somewhere close to a happy middle ground (well, at least between the Slayer and human systems). Where one says "the ends justify the means," the other says they don't, so Buffy finds the alternate: There are no means, there are no ends, there's only me. I justify myself. Our rules do not apply.

I was going to write more, but it's late so I'll stop for now. I might get into more specific stuff, but this is adequate for now. It's all IMO, of course, so don't bite my head off if I get something wrong here. I'm by no means an expert of ethics, so I'm just glad I was able to write this thing semi-coherently. ;-)

[> [> Finn, you officially have a Super-Evil Alter-Ego. - - HonorH, 15:46:41 04/28/03 Mon

Just be careful with him. Super-Evil Alter-Egos tend to take over one's life when one isn't careful.

Kwitcherbitchen, ya simp.

Could you try, just try, to stay out of my posts occasionally?

Could you try, just try, to stay out of my Sean Astin scheme?

I believe we're at an impasse.

Ladies and Gentlemen (and otherwise), behold my Super-Perceptive Alter-Ego!

Shut *up*, H . . .

[> [> Re: Ravenus was an experiment -- d'Herblay, 16:29:17 04/28/03 Mon

I will admit to taking a certain glee in responding to Bachman. I have at times enjoyed troll attacks -- they give the board a chance to let off some steam, preventing some of us from taking, for example, Rob's pompoms and shoving them down his throat. (Of course, I like Kennedy!) mundusmundi and I used to discuss at great lengths the ethics and methods of responding to trolls. He, while he certainly enjoyed troll-baiting, decided that the pragmatic thing to do was to ignore them; I, however, kept trying to impress on him that the primary purpose of responding to trolls was not to try to win an argument or chase the bastards away, but to keep the board light-hearted and entertained. I think that in this case the attack itself was light-hearted enough to do its own entertaining.

Anyway, I'm afraid I've missed the 95% of the posts here that say that the ends never justify the means. I'm not sure whether they related to Buffy's season 7 demeanor or something more geopolitical. It has already been pointed out by shadowkat (to your pseudonymous self) and Corwin and majin gojira (to your -- what? dysonym?) that context is key, that some ends may well justify some means. Which ends justify which means -- now that is a question for the ethicists.

It is also a question that has been explored, if never fully answered, within the Buffyverse. Buffy herself rejected the "ends justify the means" argument when she refused to countenance the idea of killing Dawn to save the world in "The Gift." On the other hand, she was quite willing to believe that the end of saving Angel justified the means of killing Faith in "Graduation Day, Part One"; however neither Xander nor this viewer (nor, I suspect, the writers) agreed with her. And then there is the question of how sure one is that the means will lead to the intended end: Wesley's plan to release Angelus in order to gain information on how to kill the Beast may have in fact worked, but it sure seemed as if it wasn't the brightest plan at times.

(I'd love to discuss some of the geopolitical expressions of this sort of argument, but we've already had one regular pass as a troll today. Plus, my cold is making me feel quite light-headed.)

It is apparent from your admission that you yourself must be questioning whether or not the ends always justify (or indeed result from) the means. After all, if fostering a discussion of whether or not the ends sometimes justify the means was your intended goal, it seems that being forthright may have been a more efficacious way of achieving that. (I'm referring to being forthright with your identity, that is, and not casting blood upon the waters by appearing to be a troll. Satire has a long and important history on this board; I remember quite fondly Malandanza's Damascan conversion to the wondrousness and righteousness of Spike . . . )

[> [> [> OK, fess up d'Herblay -- Masq, 16:33:45 04/28/03 Mon

Did you remember to check the ISP number to test for possible polynymity of a regular poster re: Ravenus? Because I sure didn't.

Sometimes I just don't deserve my own power.

[> [> [> [> I did indeed! -- d'Herblay, 18:34:25 04/28/03 Mon

But, due to either some sort of glitch in Voy or some weird effect of AOL's caching/proxy servers, Ravenus had the same IP address as not only Finn but aliera, lunasea, Sophist, cjl, Ixchel and very almost (the first three of the four strings) Drizzt as well. I eliminated, perhaps hastily, the possibility that they're all the same person.

[> [> [> [> [> They are all Kosh. -- Doug, 19:31:18 04/28/03 Mon

[> [> [> [> [> That durned AOL -- Masq, 21:02:47 04/28/03 Mon

You just can't ban an AOL troll, or you have to ban all the AOL users. Not that Ravenus was in any danger of banning. I wasn't paying much attention myself.

[> [> [> [> [> Re: I did indeed! -- aliera, 13:58:10 04/29/03 Tue

no...not the same person although I sometimes wish I were seventeen; I don't ever recall wishing to be a male tho' or would that be males? or other females for that matter, although I guess using a nic qualifies as appearing as another female but of course no one would ever confuse me with the (un)real aliera as you can see... here except for the small ancient bit... and perhaps the relationship with or to dragons. :-)

The IP is perhaps a function of aol...I've noticed it on other boards that display IP addresses, although I don't recall ever seeing seeing anyone with my complete IP address and it seemed to me that depending which account I was using I would show up differently, certainly when I post from the office (shhhh) I do. Does Voy display it's entirety? I do remember reading a long long time ago something about aol in an article on PGP referring to it as a good mask...but I admit that's really above me and may have referred to something else entirely, very likely... I use aol because it maintains older smaller versions of it's software and I have a very retro attitude about my home tech or more accurately a minimalistic attitude (I'm also not bright enough or bold enough to use Opera or whatever.) That of course is subject to change as soon as they develop a booksized PC that will allow me to do what I want without leaving my bed. ;-)

[> [> [> [> [> [> I've got to ask... -- Darby, 14:32:12 04/29/03 Tue

6th (and last) try...

(I had pretty much discounted this thread due to its trollish beginnings, but snuck back in at Finn's confessional post.)

I followed the link - what's the significance of the "Kieron" part? It's a somewhat uncommon spelling of a not very common name (but my son's name, "o" and all).

[> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re: Walk through the door.... -- aliera, 15:01:57 04/29/03 Tue

the danger of following a link! Stephen Brust's the author the character's from his Vlad Taltos series... look here...it should be in there somewhere! Hungarian version? Let me know if it's not want you want. I could tell you about Kieron the character but then I'd end droning on a bit (low chuckle) as I am told I'm wont to do ;-)but your son would probably like him if he's anything like Ben.

[> [> [> I just have to say that I jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjllllllllllllllllll - - Rob, choking on a pom-pom ;o), 18:05:05 04/28/03 Mon

[> [> Finn, can you please step a little closer so I can whack you upside the head?!? -- RobAndMurder, 17:59:32 04/28/03 Mon

[> [> [> Okay, all better now. You're forgiven! :o) -- Rob (who really hates your evil alter ego!!), 18:00:36 04/28/03 Mon

[> [> [> [> I prefer Misguided, Morally Ambigous Alter Ego, thank you. -- Ravenus, 18:09:27 04/28/03 Mon

[> [> [> [> [> I think I'm gonna take a tip from Stephen King and give Ravenus a cancer of the pseudonym -- Finn Mac Cool, 18:14:46 04/28/03 Mon

[> [> [> [> [> [> JUST GREAT!! Right when I thought I was FINALLY arguing with someone as senseless as ME! -- WickedBuffy ::always tempted, but never altered::, 19:10:18 04/28/03 Mon

[> [> [> [> [> [> [> Buck up. You can still tussle with Honorificus. -- HonorH (the nice one), 20:55:00 04/28/03 Mon

[> [> [> [> [> [> LOL! Now you're giving my misguided, morally ambiguous alter ego a headache! -- Rob, 20:41:50 04/28/03 Mon

[> [> Actually I find the killing of the Knights morally reprehensible -- Charlemagne, 23:02:31 04/28/03 Mon

It was plain and simple murder performed because Buffy felt that the ends of their deaths were more important than their lives (protecting Dawn).

Like destroying the Urn and thus killing Larry and Harmony by proxy, the Buffy gang's ends are often distorted by the means.

My thoughts at least

[> [> [> Taking issue here. -- HonorH, 23:31:28 04/28/03 Mon

The knights were armed. Buffy was not, initially.

The knights had armor on. Buffy did not. Nor did the Scoobies.

The knights were attacking. Buffy was defending.

The knights had numbers on their side. Buffy did not.

The knights were soldiers. Dawn was an innocent with only a few to protect her. Buffy was her main protector.

Personally, I find it morally reprehensible that a squadron of knights attacked a group of people who were only trying to protect someone they loved, and very nearly killed them all. Buffy didn't seek them out--in fact, she was trying to avoid them. Had they not attacked her, they'd have lived. Buffy had the right to defend herself and those she loved. It wasn't murder; it was self-defense and defense of others. I'd do the same for my family. Call that reprehensible if you want.

[> [> Re: Ravenus was an experiment -- Angelus, 23:35:47 04/28/03 Mon

In regards to the ends justify the means argument, what I would say is simply that if your experiment failed, it failed because of the examples you used. By and large you used legal arguments or so it seemed to me as opposed to ethical arguments. When people argue that the ends doesn't justify the means, they are usually referring to situations that are vastly different from most of the situations you chose.

For instance, who cares if they stole a rocket launcher? To me that's a legal argument. Superman would be guilty of breaking and entering by those standards. You did touch on some ethical arguments but you picked the wrong ones in my opinion. For instance killing the knights when they were actively trying to kill her and her sister at that moment.

To me "the ends doesn't justify the means" requires either that the goal was not worthy or that there was another way. For instance, one could argue that in stabbing Faith, Buffy was letting the ends justify the means because she could have taken the risk herself from the start. Regardless that Faith created the situation, there was another way. Likewise, had the blood of an innocent bystander been required, it would be a different situation.

As I said though, you chose arguments that were all either legal technicality arguments or immediate self-defense. The one exception was probably killing the vampire "whore" and burning down the place before that, arguably creating a situation where the vamps would go back to the old ways of just killing people and she clearly did it for revenge, not because it was her sacred duty.

[> [> [> Re: Ravenus was an experiment -- Finn Mac Cool, 14:16:11 04/29/03 Tue

I do admit, my arguments did come off in a more legal context than I intended. However, with the possible exception of invading privacy, I think all of the things I listed are usually regarded as morally reprehensible. Theft, assault, and murder have commandments against them in most major religions, and destruction of property is viewed very negatively if it's someone else's property.

As for the Knights of Byzantium, think about it this way: as Ravenus, I was operating under very strict "ends don't justify the means" philosophy. Under this, Buffy shouldn't have fought the knights. Yes, they were actively trying to kill Buffy and Dawn, and probably the other Scoobies as well. So Buffy fought and eventually killed them in self- defense and defense of others. But, saying that act was justified is like saying that the ends (saving lives) justified the means (fighting those who would take those lives). Under strict "ends don't justify the means" thinking, Buffy should have allowed herself to die and Dawn as well, rather than commit the act of killing someone.

[> [> [> [> Re: Ravenus was an experiment -- Angelus, 01:08:37 04/30/03 Wed

I think what you are trying to make people see here is that even seemingly absolute arguments like "the ends never justify the means" can only be absolute as slogans. As reality, the situation does matter. I'll use your example and add a qualifier of my own. Buffy has stated emphatically, "We don't kill humans." We don't need to get into a big, philosopical argument on that one. She has killed humans. The statement is wrong. She killed the knights. She killed the two guys in "Homecoming" or tricked them into killing each other in self-defense. Now had she said, "We don't commit premeditated murder" it might have been different. Buffy states an absolute that she doesn't follow. She states that killing humans is wrong. But she killed the knights because she felt the immediate self- defense and defense of Dawn was a justified end. She tried to kill Faith because she deemdd saving Angel from a situation Faith created was a justified end. The bottom line is that you will end up doing gymnastics to rationalize things when you state absolutes which is what I think you wanted people to see. A truly honest person has a set of criteria for what ends is justified by what means.

One of the most interesting takes I have seen on this was in a Superman comic of all places in the late 80s. I'll try to not get into the whole history. The "new" Superman found his way into a remaining fragment of the universe from the old DC Comics, where the old Superman was the guy who could literally move a planet. The old Superman of that reality was dead but three Kryptonian criminals had escaped from the Phantom Zone and destroyed what was left of that reality. They were dozens of times more powerful than the "new" Superman and he couldn't stop them. But he found Kryptonite which did not affect him because it was slightly off from the Kryptonite of his reality but it stopped them. The three criminals bragged that just as they had killed everyone left on that Earth, so they would eventually find their way to his reality and kill everyone. Superman knew that with their powers, all the heroes of his reality combined couldn't stop them and that they would eventually find their way there and carry out their threat. He did something he'd never done before in his life. He exposed them to the Kryptonite and killed them. They couldn't believe it but he knew he'd finally been faced with no other choice, they would destroy the world sooner or later if he didn't. It took maybe a year's worth of issues coping with the guilt for what he had done but he finally accepted that there was an exception to his greatest absolute. he finally found that there was an end (the lives of everyone on Earth) that justified the means of killing.

I just thought it was interesting as Superman is sort of the posterchild for the 'Code against killing'.

[> [> Black and White Fallacy. Buffy is in the large gray area between them. She's human. -- Majin Gojira, 06:10:17 04/29/03 Tue

[> [> Physical versus spiritual warfare -- KdS, 09:18:24 04/29/03 Tue

I think that the reason why so many people on the board (including me) have been recently arguing that "ends don't justify means" lies in our understanding of the rather special circumstances of S7 (we may feel rather differently in relation to earlier acts). In S7 it has been repeatedly pointed out that the Scoobs are fighting the literal embodiment of evil. Now given the previous dilemmas and responses to them that we've seen before in the Buffyverse, I've rather assumed that we're seeing a build-up to a rejection of the "needs justifying means" argument in relation to grossly rather than trivially immoral acts, in particular in relation to a) killing and b) betrayal of trust. The examples which you referred to in your satirical post were so trivial (B & E for instance) or so blatantly decontextualised that I dismissed that post as either a troll or a parody of the "Buffy is an evil bitch" type of troll. By contrast, the issues which we have been attacking on the board relate to Buffy or others murdering a non-evil human being (as in Dawn in The Gift) or a souled vampire. Giles's and Wood's plot in LMPTM struck many of us as uniquely reprehensible not just because it involved the murder of an entity capable of moral judgement who was trying to behave well, but because of the powerful element of betrayal of Buffy's trust. (Spike's trust is less clear, because I don't think he would have trusted Wood as far as Andrew could have thrown him even before the attempted murder).

Returning to the FE issue, I, and I suspect most posters here, have been arguing from the conscious or subconscious assumption that the FE is in some way mystically empowered by "evil" acts, or even that the gross corruption of a core character (say, Buffy killing Spike because she thinks he may murder other people, or Giles killing Buffy because he thinks her survival is the "disturbance" that is empowering the FE [pure spec here, I know nothing]) will act as a mystical "detonator" to bring the FE to some apotheosis. Hence we do not have the luxury of measuring the evil of the means to the good of the ends, because merely making the calculations of what might qualify as a necessary evil will be a victory for the enemy.

I hope this is clear, if not I'll try to clarify later, 'cos it's a key point for me.

[> [> [> Re: Physical versus spiritual warfare -- Tony D, 01:07:46 04/30/03 Wed

I just wanted to comment on the nature of THE FIRST. KdS conjectures that THE FIRST is conducting a kind of spritual warfare wherein mortal's bad deeds constitute victory. If this is true, then THE FIRST is being counterproductive. THE FIRST, in its couple of sketchy statements of purpose, has expressed wishes of "leaving the mortal coil" and ending the dialectic of good v. evil. The Hellmouth wants to rise out of the pit. If THE FIRST fed on "evil deeds" or betrayals it would chill in the HELLMOUTH and soak up the "evil energy" that the conflict between good and evil would generate. In a conflict where there are sides and alliances betrayal is rife. But this is exactly what THE FIRST wants to get rid of. THE FIRST is eternal and omnipresent. It is sort of like transcendentalism's universal animating force. It is concomitant with existence. It lives in every organism and every thought. For instance, in EMPTY SPACES, the evil cops were not possessed. THE FIRST is not a spirit or demon (as expressed in ANGEL). The cops were and are and always will be a part of THE FIRST. The FIRST simply exerted itself more strongly than usually- exacerbating their latent EVIL proclivities. THE FIRST "losing" will not be its death... simply the continuation of the slayer line. No matter which way the FINALE goes, it is sure that THE FIRST will survive it.

[> [> [> Re: Physical versus spiritual warfare -- Tony D, 02:10:22 04/30/03 Wed

I just wanted to comment on the nature of THE FIRST. KdS conjectures that THE FIRST is conducting a kind of spritual warfare wherein mortal's bad deeds constitute victory. If this is true, then THE FIRST is being counterproductive. THE FIRST, in its couple of sketchy statements of purpose, has expressed wishes of "leaving the mortal coil" and ending the dialectic of good v. evil. The Hellmouth wants to rise out of the pit. If THE FIRST fed on "evil deeds" or betrayals it would chill in the HELLMOUTH and soak up the "evil energy" that the conflict between good and evil would generate. In a conflict where there are sides and alliances betrayal is rife. But this is exactly what THE FIRST wants to get rid of. THE FIRST is eternal and omnipresent. It is sort of like transcendentalism's universal animating force. It is concomitant with existence. It lives in every organism and every thought. For instance, in EMPTY SPACES, the evil cops were not possessed. THE FIRST is not a spirit or demon (as expressed in ANGEL). The cops were and are and always will be a part of THE FIRST. The FIRST simply exerted itself more strongly than usually- exacerbating their latent EVIL proclivities. THE FIRST "losing" will not be its death... simply the continuation of the slayer line. No matter which way the FINALE goes, it is sure that THE FIRST will survive it.

[> You're doing this *again, Finn?* -- Arethusa, 10:33:15 04/29/03 Tue

Honestly, you don't need to pretend to be a troll to stir up debate. Just make a blanket statement, usually false or misleading, and insult a favorite character while you're at it. Then sit back and let the fur fly. Here's some potential topics:

Race
Religion ("There is no god" never fails.)
War
Politics
Feminism
Canada-is it only for chocolate lovers?
Horticulture-is it only for the deranged?
Spike-shirtless sex god or evil killer?
Buffy-well, you already know this one.
Angel-hero or anti-hero?
Dawn-old enough to leer at?
Giles-who should he kill/attempt to kill now?

[> [> Arethusa, may I use this at OBAFU? -- HonorH (the wicked mad ficcer), 11:14:53 04/29/03 Tue

I think it'd be perfect for one of Miss H's lectures on fandom. I'd give you credit, of course.

(Oh, just say yes. You know I'll use it anyway.)

[> [> [> Yes, of course! -- Arethusa, 15:29:35 04/29/03 Tue

[> [> Canada - it's not just for chocolate lovers! our new slogan -- ponygirl, 12:12:48 04/29/03 Tue

Our Coca-cola tastes better too! So there.

ponygirl (looking for trouble, and a bit thirsty)

[> We all agree, then. Buffy is a Spoiled SuperBarbie? (no stinkin' spoilers, just da truth) -- Mat el Toizdore, 19:07:22 04/29/03 Tue

Subverting the Traditional Function of The Fatal in Narratives (Spoilers up to FD in Btvs 7) -- shadowkat, 22:01:36 04/26/03 Sat

(Hi, miss me? Well, probably not after seeing this post. Ugh. Seems endless and Iím just writing it. Unlike the other posts Iíve made recently, this really is an essay, complete with Bibliography and references. Yep I actually motivated myself to do some research, arenít you shocked? Itís fairly rough and Iím not sure what, if anything, Iíll do with it. I hope that most of the information in it, while largely my own nutty opinion, is accurate. Comments, questions, corrections and discussion are greatly appreciated. Better be quick about it, since this post will no doubt fade into the archives once the new episodes air and OnM finally posts his review of Dirty Girls, which is as it should be.. Thanks for the indulgence, greatly appreciated. Now letís hope I didnít drop a tag, I am really hating Html right now.;- ))

Subverting the Traditional Function of The Fatal in Narratives (Spoilers up to FD in Btvs 7)

This essay focuses on the roles of the fatal and how the traditional view of the fatal is subverted in the cult television shows Buffy The Vampire Slayer (Btvs) and Angel The Series (Ats). It also deals with the functions of fatales in other popular culture mediums including comic books, pulp fiction, and film noir.

Introduction: What is the fatal and their overall function in the narrative?

French critics of film noire first coined the term ìfatalî to describe the female antagonist/romantic foil in hardboiled 1930s and 1940s films. Later, this term enveloped the male antagonist/romantic foil in gothic fiction and fantasy. Traditionally the fatal is defined as an irresistibly attractive character, who leads the protagonist (hero/heroine) into danger. ( See: The Femme Fatale by William Marling at www.cwru.edu/artsci/engl/marling/hardboiled/FemmeFatale.H tm ) This character is often the protagonistís romantic interest or foil. Foil, in literary character terms not fencing jargon, is defined as one that by contrast enhances the distinctive characteristics of another. (See American Heritage Dictionary, 3rd. Edition ). Traditionally the protagonistís involvement with the fatale may range from mild flirtation to passionate sex, but in the denouement s/he must reject or leave the fatal, for the revealed plot shows the fatale to be one of the causes of the crime or horror. In very few cases does the hero end up with the fatale or share the fataleís fate.

Fatales in popular fiction and cinema have a wide range of roles ñ anything from provider of uncomfortable truths, damsels, romantic foils to unpredictable villains. They can often serve the purpose of being the hero/heroines one true confidante ñ the one person the hero can reveal their sins to without feeling ashamed, because the fatale has often done something far worse. The fatale may also free the hero/heroine to express their best or worst qualities and is often sought out romantically by the hero/heroine when the hero/heroine is at their lowest emotional point.

Examples of famous fatales include: Phyllis ñ the Barbara Stanwyck character in Double Indemnity , Brigid OíShaughnessy in The Maltese Falcon, Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights, and Rita Hayworth in Gilda and The Lady from Shanghai. More recent television fatales, again mostly female, include: Xena from The Hercules Series, Juliette the female vampire and club owner in Forever Knight, and Lilah in Angel The Series. Recent male fatales in genre television would be Ares in Xena Warrior Princess, Spike and Angel respectively in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Without exception all of these characters had at some point engaged in romantic flirtation with the hero, some may have even consummated that in a passionate relationship only to be rejected by the hero and cast off in some manner towards the end.

Fatal as Sex Object

The fatal must be sexually attractive to the hero/heroine and more often than not the writers/filmmaker will focus attention on the blatant sexuality of the fatale. If female ñ weíll see lots of leg, bust, etc. Example in Double Indemnity ñ the filmmaker focused the camera on Phyllisí ankle bracelet. When she enters the first frame, we watch the camera slowly pan up from her ankle to her face, emphasizing that piece of naked flesh which in 1940s cinema was quite risquÈ. Today it would be a naked breast or she would be exposing her bare back. In the Robert Mitchum film classic Out of The Past ñ the camera spent time focused on Janet Greenís bust. We the viewers saw her from the perspective of the hero, in Out of the Past ñ the private dick, Robert Mitchum, in Double Indemnity , the crooked Insurance Salesman, Fred McMurray. In Angel the series , the character of Lilah, a wicked female attorney who continuously is shown tempting Angel, the showís anti-hero detective, into doing nasty deeds ñ is often seen wearing outfits that emphasize her legs. We see her through the eyes of the male protagonists ñ first Angel then his friend and colleague, Wesley. Lilah usually wears a short skirt, an open shirt, or tight slacks, the camera will pan her length emphasizing her curves and physical appeal. In Btvs ñ Spike, a vampire who has fallen in love with a vampire slayer and was once amongst the showís principal villains, is often seen wearing nothing but a silver necklace around his neck. His chest is repeatedly and often blatantly emphasized. Adorning jewelry is often used to heighten the effect or show him as decidedly wicked, just as it is used on Phyllis, the temptress in Double Indemnity, as the camera focuses on her ankle bracelet. When Angel, a vampire, was the fatal in Btvs, he often had his shirt off, an elaborate tattoo emphasized on his shoulder to demonstrate his wickedness and unsuitability for the heroine. Like Spike, Angel was bare-chested whenever Buffy came into his living quarters. In Innocence S2 Btvs, shortly after he has slept with the heroine and lost his soul, we see him with nothing but a sliver chain and black leather pants. His pants were tight, often leather, and the camera repeatedly emphasized how ìhotî he was in comparison to the other male leads. Buffyís other male friends, Xander, OZ, and Giles, humans, seldom if ever had their shirts off or wore jewelry or tattoos. The rare moments that Xander is shown shirtless are for comic effect ñ in Go Fish, where he wears a speedo, in Nightmares, where he finds himself in nothing but boxers in front of his peers, and in First Date where he is hanging above the seal of Danzalthiar. The heroine is not shown lusting after ìgoodî friend Xander, rather sheís shown lusting after the dark twisted vampire fatales.

The fatalís dark sexuality psychologically expresses the protagonistís own fears of sexuality and their need to control or repress it. The more exposed s/he is, the more tempted and repressed the hero. In Season 2, Btvs ñ we see this need to control or repress sexuality in how the fatal literally turns on the heroine after they make love, while in Season 6, the need for control is shown by the brutal sexual acts between the two characters culminating in sexual violence by seasonís end. In Btvsí sixth Season, viewers noted and often complained that Buffy, the heroine, remained fully clothed or covered in her scenes with Spike, while Spike is either nude or bare-chested. The most we saw of Buffy, was her bare shoulders or ankles. Spike, we often saw everything but his rear end and genitalia, which were cleverly obscured by camera angles. In film, the femme fatal is often the nude party while the male is fully clothed. An example is Body Heat , where we glimpse the wicked female, Kathleen Turnerís, breasts and naked form, but very little of the hero, William Hurt. The fatal is shown free in their nakedness, unabashed, seductive, almost as if they are taunting the hero. Asking what the hero is so afraid of.

When the fatal and hero/heroine become sexually involved ñ the fatal is often the seducer, the betraying party and the one who pays for the act. The fatale takes on the sins while the hero remains pure.

Other Traditional Roles/Functions of the fatal: (which may or may not be explored in this essay.)

1. Damsel ñ the fatale makes a fascinating damsel, far more interesting than the sidekick or the best friend or the mentor/authority figure.
2. Informant/Guide to Underworldñ the fatale provides the hero with information that no one else can, usually this information comes with a price and may require the hero to sacrifice something to the fatale. Also by taking information from the fatale, the hero unwittingly draws the fatale closer to them.
3. Provider of Uncomfortable Truths ñ the fatale often uncovers information about the protagonist that the protagonist does NOT want to know. This is usually information regarding something private, close to the protagonistís heart. The information once revealed changes the protagonist in a major way. But it is important to remember that the fatale is an unreliable informant, and often the information the fatal provides are projections. The irony of course is that fatal himself is a projection of the heroineís own fears and uncertainties.
4. Nemesis ñ the fatale will often start out as the hero/heroineís mortal enemy. Throughout the heroineís relationship with the fatale will arise the feeling that they should kill each other. They will at some point in the relationship attempt to kill one another, but fail due to accident or fate. The heroine will on numerous occasions be advised to kill the fatale or vice versa, but something will prevent her. She may even do so at some point ñ but the fatale will come back to life changed or the death of the fatal will forever change the heroine.
5. Romantic Foil ñ the fatale is the protagonistís chief romantic interest, the one that she wants most but canít have. The impossibility of their relationship creates a romantic conflict that can sustain a series for years. The fatal represents to the heroine all the things she subconsciously finds most attractive in a person of the opposite sex, and all the things about her own and others sexuality she feels the need to repress. Her desire to repress or control her sexual urges just makes her attraction to the fatale even more powerful. Once the heroine stops repressing these urges and the fatale becomes a hero in his own right, the chemistry between the two becomes almost non-existent. It dies. Because the source of the chemistry in the narrative structure comes from the attraction of opposites. (Oh they might still be attracted to one another, possibly even love one another, but once the character ceases being a fatale, he/she ceases being the romantic foil.)
6. Shadow self ñ the fatale often serves as the projection of all the things the heroine hates about herself. She basically thrust all of her psychological garbage on to the fatale. This in a way is an extension of the romantic foil function.

Subversion of the Fatalís Role in The Narrative

In Buffy The Vampire Slayer , (Btvs) and Angel The Series (Ats), the writers subvert the idea of the fatal ñ they follow it up to a point then do the opposite from the standard formula. This is in part because BTvs is a satire of the traditional horror and noir genres. Satires by their very nature invert and subvert the rules, simultaneously making fun of and honoring the genre it is based on. Instead of having the fatal die a villain, the writers of Btvs and Ats often attempt to redeem him or her. The fatal may even evolve from fatal to being an anti-hero, as is seen by the character of Angel jumping from fatal status on Btvs to anti-hero status on Ats. A pattern that was previously set by the pop culture series Hercules the Legendary Journeys and Xena Warrior Princess. In those two cult television dramas, the femme fatale left Hercules and started her own series as the hero. Buffy the Vampire Slayer has done this evolution with another character ñ Faith and may be doing it with Spike as well.

Female/Femme Fatal vs. Male/Homme Fatal

Angel The Series (Ats), in keeping with the classic tradition in which it is based (film noir), does not always subvert the fatal. In some ways it has played out both the traditional and subverted versions, updating the genre that it bases itself upon in the process. But as I will explore in the sections that follow, the way it does subvert this classic formula is in the way it rewards the fatal for keeping her power and punishes her when she lets it go. Flipping traditional gender themes and roles in noir films on their head as seen through the development and pathes of the following female characters: Cordelia, Darla, Lilah, Gwen, and Fred.

Buffy The Vampire Slayer (Btvs) plays out the same formula but in regards to the male fatal, which has a somewhat different path in visual narratives than the femme. In Btvs, after the fatal becomes sexually involved with the heroine and turns wicked, instead of killing them, the writers start the process of redeeming the fatale. While the femme fatal is rarely allowed to live or be redeemed, the male fatal not only gets to live, he also gets a second chance with the heroine and the possibility of being redeemed through her acknowledgment of his good deeds. This appears on its surface to be a classic subversion of the traditional role of the fatal ñ but if you look over the maleís role as fatal in classic literature, specifically romantic and gothic works, youíll notice the male fatal often has a more positive fate than the femme fatal of noir fiction. Possibly because the fatal role was in a sense created with the female in mind and as a reaction against female empowerment?

Examples of classic male fatals include Mr. Rochester and Heathcliff of the Bronte Sisters novels. Or the fate of poor Mr. De Winter, the brooding lead and possible murderer, in Dauphne DeMaurierís classic Rebecca. All three men survive and are at some point reunited with their lady loves. The only one that appears to be somewhat doomed is possibly Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights. The film director, Alfred Hitchcock, played around a bit with male fatals as well ñ in Spellbound, we have the amnesia victim, Gregory Peck, who could be a murderer and leading poor Ingrid Bergman astray. We learn later that heís just misunderstood and she helps him get to the root of it, in effect saving him. Or Cary Grantís character in Suspicion, which poor Joan Fontain becomes convinced is trying to kill her. Both characters are redeemed in the end by their lady loves.

This not always the case of course, there are instances in popular culture and literature, especially science fiction, neo female noir, and horror, where the male fatal cannot be redeemed and dooms the female heroine. Some of these arenít true fatals so much as villains and include such characters as the Cardissian villain of Star Trekís DS9, GíKat, who seduces the female heroine Kira as well as the audience, yet remains to his dying day a sadistic if somewhat seductive villain. Others include Count Dracula ñ who seduces the lovely Mina Harker in Bram Stokerís classic. Or David Hanover, a seductive serial rapist, in Lizzie Bordenís Love Crimes.

I hope to explore these themes in greater depth through the characters of Spike and Angel in Part II of this essay. Two characters who are in many ways subversions of the male fatal noir and gothic character arcs mentioned above.

Through exploring the paths of the male and female fatals in Ats and Btvs ñ I hope to examine how the fatal works in the overall narrative structure and what if anything the evolution/subversion of the role implies about our own changing views regarding gender and gender politics. The last part will be more implicit since my knowledge of gender politics outside of purely personal experience can be placed in the space of what amounts to a thimble.

(Due to space considerations and length, the bibliography will be placed at the end of the last section of the essay, the section on Spike.)

TBC...warning it's 34 pp. all together. Sorry. SK

[> Part I. The Subverted Role of Femme Fatal in ATS, A:Darla & Lilah(Spoilers up to Calvary in Ats 4) -- s'kat, 22:04:35 04/26/03 Sat

Part I. The Subverted Role of Femme Fatal in Angel The Series(Spoilers up to Calvary in Ats 4)

A. Darla and Lilah

In Angel the Series , Darla and Lilah also follow similar arcs, moving gradually from the role of antagonist, to sex partner, to informant, to damsel, to death. Their redemption if it comes at all is through their deaths or damsel status. They end the same way as most of the traditional femme fatales do ñeither killed by someone else or by their own hand.

Femme Fatal as Working Class Icon or The Girl Can Take Care of Herself

Lilahís arc is the same as the femme fatales in the classics ñ most notably Jane Greer in the 1930ís Robert Mitchum classic Out of the Past ñ she becomes romantically linked to the hero, but at the same time kills her opponents and threatens his life. Both women are smart, savy, and shown as sexual predators. They donít need men to protect them. Actually someone should probably protect men from these tigers.

Several of Jane Greerís scenes from Out of the Past can be paralleled with Lilahís in Angel the Series. Robert Mitchum, the dark hero, first encounters Jane in a cafÈ just as Angel first encounters Lilah in a lounge area above a gladiator pit (Ats S1) or Wes encounters her in a bar where she seductively whispers in his ear (Ats S3 A New World). In a key scene from Out of The Past, Jane describes a night spot where Robert Mitchum might feel more at home and drops the line ìI sometimes go thereî, just as Lilah is seen doing with Wes in S3, A New World, and early S4, Deep Down - Supersymmetry. Later in Out of the Past, we witness Jane brutally kill two men, just as we witness Lilah brutally kill Linwood in the S4 Angel episode Deep Down. In most of Out of the Past we remain uncertain about Mitchumís fate as we remain uncertain of Wesleyís in the beginning of Season 4 Ats. Will they wind up with the fatal, doomed? Of course not, the femme fatal is doomed to failure. Both Jane Greer and Lilah meet nasty ends.

Lilah is introduced in typical femme fatal fashion, a working woman, high paying job, working for a larger company, and will literally do anything to get what she wants. Sheís the independent woman with power, which in the 1930s and 1940s was looked at with fear and disdain. In noir, working women do not succeed , their jobs and solo enterprises are seen as nefarious. James M. Cainís Mildred Peirce, the single working woman pushes her way through the depression, makes a success of herself, only to find herself back-stabbed by a scheming daughter and ex- lover. Lilah in Angel, is a successful woman who has literally slaughtered her way to the top of the lawyer food chain. Her associates, Lindsey and Gavin, are depicted as relatively tame in comparison, poor deluded saps who either finally see the light and get the heck out of dodge or end up beheaded zombies. Lilah ends up joining the good guys, her law firm slaughtered, her home in ruins, and wounded by the Beast. A somewhat reluctant helper, providing information and unwanted advice, she is eventually murdered by the girl Friday turned fatale, Cordelia. Lilahís end comes in typical fatale fashion, without fan fair and without redemption. In noire neither the hero nor the fatal are redeemed. The most the hero may expect is to get out of the experience alive. Such is the case for Wes and Lilahís romance. Lilah is killed. Wes grieves for her, his grief though appears to be more for his inability to save her than for any real relationship he had with her. She almost brought him to ruin, he pulled out of it and hoped he could pull her out as well. His inability to do so, motivates him to go and try to save others, leaving Lilah a decapitated corpse. The girl who could take care of herself ñ is shown falling victim to that very conceit. Left alone in the Hyperion with the newly evil gal Friday and the newly evil anti-hero, she is quickly and efficiently dispatched by them both.

Lilahís ending is in some ways a commentary on the typical ending of fatales ñ in 1940s and 30s films they often met this type of end. Walter Neff, the Insurance Salesman at the end of Double Indemnity discovers Phyllis isnít the submissive helpless woman she pretended to be ñ and she is justifiably and rather fatally punished. In Ats, Wesely discovers that Lilah is not the strong, man-eating, lawyer she pretends to be and she is justifiably and rather fatally punished by girl-Friday Cordelia. Itís Lilahís momentary weakness and willingness to trust that proves fatal to her in Ats while it is Phyllisí calculating independence that proves fatal in Double Indemnity. One is a commentary on modern audienceís views regarding successful women and one is a commentary on the pre-war audienceís fantasies.

Femme Fatale as Damsel ñ Can I Save Her From Herself?

Dashielle Hamette who created the pulp fiction version of the femme fatale in his works, The Maltese Falcon and That Dain Curse amongst others, had fatales that the hero frantically desired to save from their own worst impulses. ëIf I can just save her, purge her of her demon addiction, perhaps I can save my own soul.í This being noir, it never quite works out that way. Usually the hero ends up on the verge of losing his soul to the fatale and escapes just in the nick of time. In Angel The Series, the vampire Darla, Angelís sire and first lady love, is brought back from the grave as a human being by the evil lawyers, Wolfram & Hart. Angel frantically tries to save the human Darla in the hopes that by doing so, he may somehow redeem himself or his feelings for her. In Btvs, he had killed her to save Buffy, (Angel, S1 Btvs). In Ats, he is faced with the prospect of having her die of syphilis, the disease she had as a human when the Master sired her ages ago. Darla, fearing death, requests that Angel turn her into a vampire and even goes hunting for another vampire to sire her when he refuses. Angel kidnaps her, trying to keep her from giving up her soul for eternal life a second time. In That Dain Curse, Gabrielle Dain belongs to a cult, uses drugs, and has small, pointed ears and teeth. In one scene she actually drinks blood from one of her victims and in another is shown addicted to morphine. The hero kidnaps and imprisons her to cure her of delirium tremens and lust, just like Angel kidnaps and attempts to imprison Darla. Gabrielle Dain has killed numerous people and the hero is desperately attempting to save her from her own worst impulses. Raymond Chandler creates a similar fatale in The Big Sleep , Carmen Sternwood ñ who almost fatally distracts his hero Philip Marlow. In Ats, Darla poses a similar threat to Angelís well being.

After under-going a series of dangerous trials, Angel succeeds in convincing Darla to not become a vampire and this time just die a normal death, her soul intact. Just as Darla decides to do this, Angelís worst crime comes back to haunt him, his immortal daughter Drusilla is brought by Wolfram and Hart to sire Darla in front of Angelís eyes. He can do nothing but watch. Crushed by his failure to save Darla, he spins out of control and in a sense briefly succumbs to Darla and Drusillaís will. He assists them in their revenge on the lawyers that used them. Locking them in a room with their human prey. He also half-rapes, half- seduces a sex-obsessed vampire Darla. Knocking her through a window and engaging her in violent sex, which they both assume will cause him to lose his soul, instead he ends up impregnating her with one. This horrible act ironically frees them both. Unlike Gabrielle Dain or Carmen Sternwood, Darla is in a sense redeemed through her sexual relations with the anti-hero. By succumbing to her charms ñ Angel hits rock bottom, takes Darla with him, and they both eventually break free of their addictive cycle. If Philip Marlow had succumbed to Carmen, heíd have been shot and killed by the end of The Big Sleep. Angel succumbs to Darla and ends up rejoining the world and his friends.(Reprise ñ Epiphany, S2 Ats). Angel leaves Darla, saves his friend Kate from suicide, rejoins his friends, and works to do good again. Darla, several episodes later, discovers herself impossibly pregnant with a human child. (Offspring, Ats S3). Re-ensouled by the child, Darla finds herself back on the path of redemption, slowly breaking her dependency on human blood and showing her remorse for past sins. She eventually stakes herself so that her child can live in the episode Lullaby. Her death or sacrifice unlike Gabrielle Dain or Carmen Sternwoodís signifies her redemption. Yet it is not through her love of the anti-hero that she is redeemed so much as it is through the love of her child. She does not sacrifice herself for Angel nor does she declare her love for him. No, the only thing she admits to ever loving is the unborn child she carries. She sacrifices her life for his and by doing so, is redeemed. This is another clever yet subtle inversion of the theme, the femme fatale is not saved by the hero, nor is she punished for her addictions and sexual perversions, instead she is saved by her love of her child.

In classic noir films ñ the good mother was often the redemptive choice for the anti-hero. At the end of the film, the hero would leave the fatale behind and fall into the arms of the good mother. Or the good mother would be the sunlit maiden that he would contrast with his evil dark seducer. (The Film Noir Reader 2, edited by Alain Silver and James Ursini, 1999). In contrast, the sexual relationship between the fatale and the hero, an impossibility at the beginning of the film, turns into a possibility at the end and the means to mutual destruction. The hero is only saved by the fataleís death and the good motherís acceptance. (Noir Science by James Ursin, Film Noir Reader 2, p. 228)

In Angel the Series ñ the sexual interaction between Darla and Angel ironically leads to both characters salvation ñ with Angel breaking his dark cycle and Darla regaining a soul. The fatal, Darla, literally becomes the good mother, who kills herself in front of Angelís eyes to save their child, handing him a purpose to continue his good works as well as an example on how to pursue them. Love = Sacrifice = Redemption, she seems to say. This is a subversion of the classic noir view, where the fatale views family, children and husbands as a cage, an anathema. She rebels against the concept of the family and remains independent of it, accepting death over that alternative. Darla similarly accepts death over family, but not as a means of remaining independent of it or as a negative view of it ñ but rather as a means of ensuring it, honoring it. If she lived, her child would die. By dying, she honors the families she once devoured as a vampire. In a sense she does the opposite of the classic fatale, she sacrifices her life to ensure children and family. Ironic, since her existence as a vampire was the antithesis of that ñ as a soulless vampire, Darla despised family and marriage and sought to destroy it. Ensouled she chooses the reverse. Or rather her sonís soul enables her to choose the reverse.

TBC...in Part B, Cordy and Fred..SK

[> Part I: B:Cordy and Fred(Spoilers up to Sacrifice Ats S4) -- s'kat, 22:07:53 04/26/03 Sat

B. Cordy and Fred (Spoilers up to Sacrifice Ats S4)

Flipping Fatal and Gal Friday

The character of Cordelia is a major subversion of the femme fatal concept in that she started out as the innocent good girl Friday, whom until fairly recently the hero would never think of sleeping with, and over time slowly became the ìfemme fataleî, evil and wicked, pushing a male hero towards a dark path. It is interesting to note by the way, that it wasnít until Cordy began to move towards this path, that she became sexually alluring to the male characters. Prior to S4 Ats, Cordelia really isnít shown as a sexual entity, oh we have the bikini scene at the start of the Pylea Arc in Season 2 and the relationship with the Grooslaug. But we donít see her having sex with anyone or wearing sexual outfits until she has turned to the dark side. Itís not until Apocalpyse Nowish that Cordy is seen having sex with another character ñ in this case the heroís son, a virgin lad, who appears to be seducing her when it is actually the other way around. Also in Awakenings, we get the first scene of Cordelia and Angel truly making love ñ an act while pure fantasy causes the loss of Angelís soul. Just as her act with Angelís son causes a sizable rift to occur between father and son.

Cordelia starts out her role on Angel the Series as the gal Friday, the charming secretary who keeps the anti-hero in line. Thelma in The Philip Marlow novels. She never sleeps with the hero. He barely acknowledges her existence sexually, way too enthralled with the sexy femme fatales wandering about. She acts in some ways like a perky side- kick. Offering advice, keeping him focused on the mission and saving him from his darker impulses when ever necessary.

Cordelia throughout the first three seasons is compared to the fatales Lilah and Darla.

1. Lilah and Cordelia

Cordy ñ who wishes to be her own independent woman, a working gal, is seen at first envying Lilah then grateful she didnít go down Lilahís path. As she states to Lilah in Billy: ìI used to be you, but with better shoes.î Lilah is everything that Cordelia could have become ñ self-absorbed, financially successful, anything for fame, fortune and the almighty dollar. Lilah in some ways is Cordelia, Btvs Season 1. And completely and utterly alone. Lilah exudes sex appeal while Cordelia seems almost awkward with it in Angel The Series, a major change from Btvs where Cordy flaunted it. Lilah is Cordeliaís foil, her dark side.

By season 4, the dynamic begins to shift slightly, Lilah becomes more and more dependent on the AI team to save her and Cordelia becomes more and more adrift from them. Cordy no longer wants saving, if anything she is starting to take over Lilahís manipulative role. It is now Cordelia who is manipulating the gang and Lilah who is running from the Beast and vampires. The final shift occurs when Cordelia literally murders Lilah and metaphorically takes Lilahís former place in the story. Lilah must die in order for Cordelia to take over her role as the femme fatale ñ the seductive dark female ñ complete in her dark gown and sexual damnation.

By having the Gal Friday take over the Sexy Independent Femme Fatale role, the writers have effectively inverted the classic noir formula. Cordelia is punished not by being independent, resourceful woman, but by buying the heroís mission hook line and sinker. Classic noir - the woman is punished for being independent and resourceful and rewarded for following the hero. Here it is the reverse. By giving up her own life to be part of his. In Season 2 and 3 Ats, Cordelia is given two chances to pursue a life separate from Gal Friday and the Visions. The first is in Pylea where Groo offers to remove her visions and take them on himself. She turns him down, not wishing to give up her role at Angel Investigations. The second is in Birthday, where Cordelia, dying of visions, is given a choice to either pursue her own career path as an actress or become half-demon and keep the visions. She sacrifices herself to the second path as all good gal Fridayís should. In return for this sacrifice ñ she is shaded in white light, glows, elevates and appears to ascend to a higher place. But the audience and the character are misled. The writers have not rewarded her, theyíve punished her for choosing to kow-tow to the hero. By choosing to kow-tow to the heroís mission, giving up her own hopes and dreams ñ Cordelia ends up becoming the very thing she hated, the fatale and her fate is to be engulfed by her own child. All semblance of her former self twisted and gone due to her faithful following of the mission.

The Ats writers donít stop with the independent woman archetype, they continue this theme with the good mother.

2. Darla and Cordelia

Cordelia is shown early on in Season 3 as a better mother than Darla. When she attempts to help Darla, comforts her, Darla goes for Cordyís jugular. (Offspring, Ats 3). After Darla dies for her child, it is Cordelia who changes the child, Connorís diapers and holds him and rocks him. Cordelia becomes his surrogate mother. Connor is kidnapped when Cordelia is away on vacation. And when Connor returns, it is Cordelia who wipes his pain away. She is dressed in white robes and literally glows when he sees her ñ the good mother personified. Holy and nourishing. Darla by contrast is a vampire, dressed in dark clothes, seen in S3 drinking the blood of innocent children, violent. Her child eventually changes her into a better person, one willing to stake herself to save his life. Cordelia starts out wonderful, but once impregnated, becomes the embodiment of evil. Cordeliaís motherhood changes her into a blood drinking, evil monster, who kisses the Beast and desires an innocent girlís blood in order to have her child. Unlike Darla, Cordy doesnít sacrifice herself to have her child ñ she sacrifices someone else.

The irony is that Cordy requests the blood of an innocent to have her child while Darla, a vampire, takes her own life to have hers. The two archetypes are flipped. Cordelia seduces the virginal son, Connor, in order to give birth to a child or god. Angel pseudo-rapes Darla, and accidentally impregnates her ñ to give birth to Connor. Cordelia and Connorís sex is shown as almost romantic, under the sheets, not rough, soft, passionate, while Darla and Angelís sex is rough and violent. Both Darla and Cordelia technically sleep with their surrogate children. Angel is Darlaís vampire child ñ the one she gave birth too ages ago with her blood. Connor is Cordeliaís surrogate child, the one she adopted from Darlaís ashes. By sleeping with their sons, they become impossibly and mystically pregnant. And their pregnancies change them to reflect the souls of their children. Darla becomes the good mother, Cordelia the femme fatale. Cordelia is in a sense punished for wanting to protect her family at all costs while Darla is redeemed for it.

In case the audience doesnít catch the significance of this comparison, the writers bring Darla back to attempt to convince her son Connor to go against Cordeliaís wishes and not sacrifice an innocent life. Darla, the evil vampire who had eaten millions of innocent lives, resurfaces in an attempt to tell her son not to spill innocent blood for his unborn child. His soul ironically made it possible for her to attempt to convey this message to him, just as it is his childís soul that makes it possible for Cordelia to kill the innocent girl when he refuses to do so himself. Cordelia tells him Darla is lying to him and he believes her, he allows himself to succumb to the fatale and by doing so, is punished in classic noir fashion. But the twist is that the fatale was the gal Friday, the good motherÖwhile his vampire mother is the one attempting to save him and in classic good mother/gal Friday fashion ñ fails. (Inside Out, Ats S4).

Damsel/Gal Friday and The Fatal: Fred and Gwen

Winnifred (Fred) is introduced as a fairly self-sufficient heroine in the Pylea arc, quirkily brilliant, she successfully aids Angel in escaping from the Pylean world. Sheís not so much a damsel in that three episode arc and as fellow camarade in arms. Fred risks her life attempting to save Cordy from demon slave holders and Angel risks his in saving Fred. Fred in typical Gal Friday fashion returns the favor by saving Angel. She also forms an odd attachment to him, which starts out as a romantic infatuation and gradually becomes friendship. Her arc with Gunn is quite different, they grow from friends to lovers ñ Gunn sees Fred as the Innocent Girl, the Gal Friday, the Side-kick, who can kick ass by his side. He, also in typical hero fashion, swears to protect her no matter what ñ to the extent of breaking up with her in Double or Nothing to prevent the soul-collector from taking her soul instead of his. Up until Season 4, Ats, Fred like Cordelia fits the typical Gal Friday role model ñ she sneers at the fatal Gwen, who unlike Fred wears spandex and slinks across the screen cat-like in hot red skin tight clothes. Fred wears far less form fitting outfits and her hair is less free-flowing and wild, brown and straight down her back. Gwenís is a dark unruly mass of curls highlighted with neon red.

Gwen in looks and deeds practically screams the fatale archetype. Get too close to me and, zap, you are dead. Sheís a bit like the comic book fatales Catwoman and Electra, lady thieves, who threaten to take the male hero down with them. Cat Woman threatens on numerous occasions to bewitch and destroy the besotted Batman. A lady thief with devilish ways and a black spandex costume, Cat Woman slinks across the Gotham city roof tops in Frank Millerís nourish Batman Year One. Or the lady Electra ñ an assassin who shadows her lover, the anti-hero vigilante, Daredevil, believing wrongly that he killed her industrialist father. Gwen equally has a tragic past, cursed with a talent that makes it impossible for her to touch people without killing them, she lives in an isolated cavernous compound with luxurious works of art that she has stolen. She wears long gloves and engages in witty repartee. But one touch of her hand and she stops your heart.

Gunn learns this the hard way in Ground Stateñ where Gwenís touch literally kills him for ten minutes. It also inevitably brings him back to life. She can stop and jump start his heart as if it were no more than an electrical battery. Fred holds the same power, but in a far more metaphorical sense. Gunnís love for Fred, leads him to stop his heart and kill Professor Seidel ñ an act he comments on several episodes later in Sacrifice ñ about having to turn off his emotions in order to kill for her and how she so easily did it before he even gave thought to it. It is Fred who leads Gunn to commit murder in Supersymmetry. Just as it is Fred who almost leads Gunn to attack and kill his best friend Wes in Soulless. Fred, the gal Friday, has in effect become the traitorous fatale leading Gunn to commit acts heíd prefer not to. Like Walter Neff of Double Indemnity, once he does commit the murder, he becomes persona non grata with his lady love, she stops being the submissive gal Friday he thought he loved.

Gwen in contrast appears on the surface to be leading Gunn astray, but isnít. In the episode Players, we believe Gwen has an ulterior motive regarding Gunn, one that will lead to his downfall. The opposite of what we believed about Fred. But, in fact, Gwen merely wishes to find a way to connect to others. She does set Gunn up in the episode ñ using him as a distraction to steal a valuable electronic device. When he catches her ñ she tells him it is a type of covert mechanism, designed to monitor skin temperature and body waves and being developed by arms dealers to sell to the highest bidder. The owner is using for it evil ends. Her clientís ends, she claims arenít so evil. Gunn, purely by accident, discovers that sheís not stealing the device, called LISA, for another client but for herself. Itís not for money or as a weapon, but as a means to short-circuit and monitor her own powers. To make it possible for her to connect with another human being without killing them. Gwenís nefarious purpose is to keep herself from taking lives ñ Gunn by helping her, inadvertently saves lives as well. Instead of taking the hero down with her, Gwen uplifts him. After the episode, Gunn returns to AI reinvigorated, appreciative of life, no longer feeling lost. While after Supersymmetry, when he killed Seidel for Fred, he is anything but invigorated. Heís lost and feels disconnected from everything.

Fred becomes the fatale leading Gunn to do horrible acts while Gwen becomes the redemptive damsel leading Gunn to re- connect with his humanity. Gwen is the self-sufficient, independent woman with her own gig and own place. Fred is the side-kick who must be part of the group and whose mission is in effect someone elseís. Itís really not until Fred is forced to break away from AI and set her own course ñ that Gunn and Fred end up re-bonding on some level. Their best and most insightful talk may actually be in Sacrifice, where Fred informs Gunn that it is better to feel pain than to be an empty shell and admits to feeling pain with him for killing Seidel. ìIt eats at me inside, too,î she declares. ìWe killed Seidel,î not just you, she tells him. Fred has not taken the path of other fatales completely, she takes responsibility for the crime, she doesnít shirk it off or the pain of remorse that comes with it. She is punished for the crime but not in typical fatale fashion, her fate is not her death, but rather the loss of the love she once had with Gunn. Fredís mistake may in a sense have been the lack of independence in dealing with Seidel ñ the lack of caring for others, instead she uses them and their mission to suite her desires for vengeance ñ an act she pays dearly for with the dissolution of relationships dear to her. Gwen in contrast is rewarded for her actions and her fierce independence, her fate a night of love with Gunn.

Conclusion: Subverting the Noir Structure to Empower the Fatal

In Angel the Series, like most noir series, the femme fatale (always female since the male is the hero) is initially set up as sexually alluring, aggressive, manipulative, anti-family, and her goal appears to drag the male hero into her dark orbit much like a spider. If this were the typical noir film or series, the fatale would be killed after she got the male and her death would free him from his own darkness. She would be punished for her power and the hero would be left atoning for his sin of being with her. But as explored above, Ats cleverly subverts this formula so that it is when the fatal either gives up her independent life and the power of that life, as seen with Lilah in ,Calvary or when the fatal decides to embrace motherhood as seen with Darla in Lullaby that she dies. In the case of Lilah she dies when she loses her power, in the case of Darla she chooses her own fate, staking herself, because of her power.

The writers continue to subvert the fataleís role with the female characterizations of Fred, Cordelia, Lilah, and Gwen. As described in the sections above, Cordelia and Fred start out as ìgirl Fridaysî or ìinnocentî characters ñ representing all that is wholesome about womanhood. They are in essence sidekicks. Lilah and Gwen start out as fatales, the alluring wicked female who if the guy isnít careful could led him to his doom. By mid-season, Fred is depicted as the female who leads the character Gunn into committing murder to save/preserve her innocence. And in fact causes a potentially violent love triangle to erupt between herself, Wes and Gunn. Cordelia is an even better example ñ she comes back from a mystical realm plotting and planning the heroís downfall. Previously the heroís confidante and virtuous love, she manipulates him into losing his soul and sleeps with his son. Meanwhile, we discover the sexy Gwen, the red- spandexed thief in Ats, is just misunderstood ñ all she wants is some sort of connection. She appears to lead Gunn to do a nefarious deed, but in a classic twist merely seduces him into connecting with her and stealing the means to do so. Gunnís actions with Gwen, which entail stealing a potential weapon from nefarious arms dealers and helping a woman whose never been able to connect to actually connect, are far more positive than his actions regarding Fred, which entailed murder and violence. (Supersymmetry and Players S4 Ats.) Same with Lilah, Lilah wishes to let Angelus out of his cage in order to kill the Beast and save the world, Cordelia wishes to let Angelus out of his cage so he will join her in plotting the worldís destruction. When Angelus does get out ñ Lilah fears he will kill them all. Cordelia applauds the idea and kills Lilah, taking her place.(Calvery, Ats S4)

Ats successfully subverts the traditional view of the fatale by turning the fatale into a heroine and the heroine into a fatal. The female empowerment theme gains new life by the subversion, because the fatal survives when she has power, itís when she gives up her power that she is doomed. The reverse of the themes in classic noir films where the fatal is punished because of her power or in spite of it, only being redeemed when she allows herself to either be domesticated by the hero or gives herself up to his power. (See Impulse, starring Theresa Russell as an example.) In Ats, itís when she embraces her own power ñ as Darla does when she stakes herself to save her child or Gwen does when she lives her own independent life and takes action to find a way to connect to others within the structures that she created, that she is redeemed.

TBC...in Part II: The Male Fatal...assuming you made it this far. SK

[> Part II. Intro: The Role of Male/Homme Fatal in Buffy The Vampire Slayer (Spoilers to Grave S6 Btvs -- shadowkat, 22:10:27 04/26/03 Sat

Part II. The Role of Male/Homme Fatal in Buffy The Vampire Slayer (Spoilers to Grave S6 Btvs)

In the world of neo-female noire and gothic fiction, the male becomes the fatal and the female the hero. The difference between Buffy The Vampire Slayer and most neo-female noire is Buffy is not doomed when she falls into the male fataleís embrace instead she somehow helps him redeem himself. (This in some ways is in keeping with classic gothic formulas, where the heroineís main task is to somehow redeem the dark misunderstood brooding male.) That in a way is the Btvs inversion, the female heroine empowers the male fatale to seek his own redemption. If only Angel had that type of power on his show, then instead of pushing up daisies, poor dear Lilah would be fighting alongside the AI gang.

Neo-Female Noire Male/Homme Fatale vs. Gothic Male/Homme Fatale & Comparing Neo-Female Noire Films to Btvs

Neo-female noire is somewhat new to film audiences, not really making its debut until the films of the late 1980s and early 90s with Love Crimes, Impulse, Siesta, Betrayed, The Morning After, Blue Steel, Black Widow, and Lady Beware. In these films the hero is female, she is usually a detective or hard-boiled investigator who comes close to falling for a male fatale villain that could and occasionally does destroy her. The trajectory of these films is similar to the 1940s and 1930s films with the male lead, except that the roles are reversed. Prior to these films, male fatales usually just existed in gothic romance fiction and suspense. Alfred Hitchcock did flirt with them a bit in his films Suspicion, Rebecca, Psycho, and Spellbound, but in most cases, the male fatales we saw were in stories such as Rebecca, Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre. They were either the villain seducing the poor innocent unknowing female as seen in Psycho, Dracula and Wuthering Heights or a misunderstood brooding male with a dark past as seen in Rebecca, Spellbound, Suspicion and Jane Eyre. If sex occurred between the heroine and the gothic fatale, it was dewy-eyed, often chastely depicted, and highly romanticized.

The neo-noire fatal in comparison is usually depicted in a far more naked and realistic manner. No brooding dark hero who mysteriously helps the heroine from the sidelines or hides his own dark past, the neo-noire comes right out and tells her who and what he is. He doesnít brood and he usually isnít hiding behind a fairy tale curse. He may hide his villainy, but sheís more or less aware of its existence and what he is. Unlike the gothic, his redemption is less certain, less of a guarantee. Their romance is usually more sexual than romantic. More raw and far darker. In Neo Noire ñ the sex falls into what Sharon Y. Cobb defines as noire sex in male film noires : ìThe protagonist falls in lust with the femme fatale and becomes obsessed with her. The femme fatale turns up the heat by flirting and luring the protagonist into a sexual relationship. Many New Noir films feature highly erotic ëlove scenesí which leave the main character [and sometimes the audience] wanting more. His professional objectivity becomes increasingly compromised by obsessive thought of what his next sexual encounter will be with the woman of his fantasies.î (See Film Noir Reader 2, Writing the New Noir Film, p. 212). In Female Neo Noir, the roles have flipped and we can have one of three scenerios: the male fatale becomes obsessed with the heroine or the heroine becomes sexually obsessed with the fatal or a combination of both. Btvs in Season 6 went for a combination of both. The similarity between the gothic and neo noir fatals is that if she gives into him, she could and possibly does lose everything. But while one reveals her idealized views of herself and the world, her fantasies, the other reveals her repressed desires. One is the teenage girlís fatale that we often find in gothic romance novels, the misunderstood hero who has a curse that causes him to turn wicked on her otherwise heíd always be at her side, the other is the womanís fatale ñ the wicked romantic foil who she can never quite predict or trust and that she is allured by.

One of the best examples of the male fatale in neo-female noir is David Hanover in Love Crimes, a 1992 film that stars Scean Young (Dana) and Patrick Bergen (David) and was directed by Lizzie Borden. Borden intended the film for adult female audiences, specifically women in their thirties. Love Crimes, a film I have an odd perspective on since my kid brother was an Assistant Director on the studio re-filming of it, is a film about a district attorney investigating a man who poses as a fashion photographer to seduce women. When he, David Hanover, takes photos of these women, he makes them feel sexy and good about themselves. David persuades them into taking off more and more of their clothes, often leading to some sort of physical assault and usually culminating in consensual sex. Dana, the protagonist and ADA, is caught in a legal loophole. She canít prosecute him for his crimes, because even though his victims feel violated, he comforted them and made them feel good at the same time.

I mention Love Crimes, because in some ways this movie reminds of the controversial scenes in Dead Things and Seeing Red (Season 6 Btvs). Like Dead Things and Seeing Red, Love Crimes was controversial. It pissed people off. A little background on this baby from what my bro told me and what the original director, Lizzie Borden, stated in a Cineast Interview. According to my brother the original film was hard-core pornography with some incredibly graphic and violent sexual acts. Lizzie Borden states in her interview the scenes just made some male executives uncomfortable and they couldnít handle it, so the scenes were reshot. My brother tells me that even his girlfriend found these scenes to be incredibly disturbing and anti- female. My brother and his girlfriend are in no way squeamish about film, theyíve watched things that would make most people leave a theatre. On the other hand, they did not like the Buffy/Spike sex and found it a bit too risquÈ for their taste. So to each their own. Iíve seen the film, do not recommend it and not because of the sex scenes, which seemed fairly understated, but because itís incredibly uneven in places and somewhat choppy possibly due to the multiple edit jobs. According to my brother, the new director, Kit Carson redirected some segments, it got sent back to the studio, Lizzie, the old director, was then allowed to re-cut and re-edit her film, and the final result was a hodge-podge of both directorsí visions. If you get the chance to rent the uncut version on video cassette? Iíd recommend trying that one. Assuming you can find it. At any rate in Love Crimes ñ Dana is portrayed as almost androgynous, having no romantic relationships, no close friendships, a loner, who feels cut off and repressed. The male fatal, David Hanover kidnaps Dana and through her captivity forces her to deal with her repressed sexual fantasies. In one scene we see him with scissors cutting off her clothes. Later she begins fantasizing about him.

In his essay Girl Power in Film Noire Reader 2, William Covey comments that Lizzie Bordenís intention behind Love Crimes had been to show someone whoís so unconscious about herself that she puts herself in a dangerous situation. In film noir this is a classic trick ñ having the hero unconsciously place themselves in a dangerous situation, often one due to sexual repression or sexual desire. Just as Buffy does repeatedly with Spike in Season 6, culminating in the infamous bathroom scene in Seeing Red, where Spike attempts to force her into having sex with him again. Oddly enough, as Mr. Covey comments, ìmany female critics feel that when a male jeopardizes a strong female, the resulting film sends out anti-feminist messages.î Lizzie Borden attempted to avoid this pitfall in her film just as the writers of Btvs attempted to avoid it. Unfortunately when Love Crimes was shown to audiences, the feminist crowd could not quite handle the fact that Dana, the heroine, starts to fantasize about David, the fatale/villain who is violating her, this offends them. As a result the film got dismissed. Just as many viewers could not handle the idea that Buffy, the heroine, would enjoy the Bronze Balcony scene with Spike, where he takes from behind. Would they have been as offended if the roles were flipped? The inherent problem of flipping the noir formula to fit the female lead is seen here ñ while we can have the femme fatale attack the male lead, either sexually or physically without being overtly alarmed, to have the male fatale do so, horrifies us. Love Crimes reception by both my brother, who had little problems with neo-noire femme fatale films such as Body Heat or even Basic Instinct, and the audience at large demonstrates how this is a problem in how neo-female noir is viewed. Another film, Blue Steel by Kathryn Bigelow, starring Jamie Lee Curtis and Ron Silver, also deals with this female fantasy but in a far less oft-putting way. Jamie Leeís character, a female cop is romanced by the fatale Eugene who has found her gun and stalks her. Unlike Love Crimes, Curtis remains in a place of power throughout the movie and we never really see her victimized or completely seduced by Eugene. He never compromises her quite in the same way as David compromises Dana in Love Crimes or Spike comes close to compromising Buffy in Seeing Red and Dead Things.

Btvs like Lizzie Bordenís Love Crimes and Kathryn Bigelowís Blue Steel, does in a sense attempt to stretch the envelope on noire. Even the Angel/Buffy relationship, more a representative of the gothic fatal than the neo-noire fatal, pushes at this envelope. Angel in Season 2 Btvs turns evil upon sleeping with innocent virginal Buffy. And is later seen in flashback sequences lusting after prepubescent Buffy in her pig-tails, sucking on a lollipop. (Becoming Part I). The push at the envelope is the prepubescent Buffy sucking on the lollipop. Spike, the neo-female noire fatal, in Season 6 Btvs is shown taking Buffy from behind in the Bronze and later in the infamous bathroom scene attempting to rape her. Both acts are classic noir and if the gender roles had been reversed, the audience may have laughed or not been nearly as horrified. In an ironic twistñ the attempted rape in Seeing Red was based on one of the female writers experiences, where the female writer attempted to force her boyfriend into re- initiating their romance. (See James Marsters Q&A at the Pasadena Convention, also interviews with the writers). In real life the instigator in that scene had been a woman and the victim a man. But as numerous commentators have pointed out ñ the reverse, male on female, does not play nearly as well, if anything it is far harder to maneuver around. Some may even believe the fatale is doomed after such an act. Odd, when you consider these same commentators had no problems with a much earlier scene from the same series, where it was a woman attempting to rape a man. Faith in Consequences, attempts to rape and kill Xander and is only prevented by the intervention of Angel. This scene was far worse than the infamous bathroom scene where Spike does not intend to hurt Buffy so much as to re-initiate their intimacy and loses control, she throws him off of her and he leaves horror-struck at what heís done. Faith is furious at Angel for throwing her off Xander and barely seems repentant. She had intended to hurt him and demonstrates in later scenes that love was never at issue, she wanted to hurt Xander for caring about her, a classic femme fatale response. But if you ask the viewer which scene was worse ñ they would no doubt point to the bathroom scene in Seeing Red. Some may not even recall the Faith scene. The male viewers cannot conceive of a female attacking them in such a matter, regardless of how often you insist this is possible. No more than most female viewers can. But the male attack is all too real to them. Hence the reason Love Crimes got slashed to pieces and other similar neo-female noirs never make it to the cinema- plex.

In order to make the male fatal work in genre fiction ñ the female hero must be more powerful than the male or at least equal to him. Buffy is clearly Spike and Angelís match and they are hers. Being on a level playing field appears to be prerequisite. They are also on opposite sides of the law. Angel and Spike are vampires, Buffy is a vampire slayer. The conflict is obvious at the start. Both sides are caught between the love you or kill you dilemma. Both are in effect sleeping with the enemy. In this case, mortal enemy, since one wrong step and bam, youíre dead. This is a prime ingredient of noire, the possibility of the flip. As Sharon Y. Cobb states in her essay Writing the New Noire Film, ìnot only will the [male or female] protagonist be beguiled and betrayed by the [male or female] character, but violence, in one form or another will be the result of the two characters allianceÖ.Sex and violence collide in the symbiotic co-dependence between [hero] and [homme] fatale.î The violence must be in some way evident at the start. The risk she takes in engaging the fatale as well as the risk he takes in engaging her.

The following two sections will explore the roles/functions Angel and Spike perform as fatales in Btvs. The classic gothic male fatale and the subverted neo-female noire male fatal. When watching Btvs, it is best to remember that it is a female coming of age story. Unlike Angel the Series, which, keeping with the themes and attitudes of classic noir, focuses on the existentialist path of a dark anti-hero and his experiences in the world, Btvs focuses on the coming of age of a girl. As a result, the fatales in Buffy, must reflect that journey. Angel as a fatal is introduced and developed during Buffyís adolescence, her teen years where she deals with teenage hopes and dreams. Spike as a fatal is introduced during that difficult post- teen period when Buffy becomes an adult and deals with the ambiguity of post-teen twenty-something hopes and dreams. The contrast between the two is reflective of the difference between those two stages in psychological development and growing up. It is also reflective of how society views women and male/female roles during those stages.

TBC...in A: Angel, s'kat

[> [> A.Angel: Subverting The Traditional Role of the Gothic Homme Fatale</i> (Spoilers to GDay S3 Btvs) -- s'kat, 22:14:37 04/26/03 Sat

A. Angel: Subverting The Traditional Role of the Gothic Homme Fatale (Spoilers to GDay S3 Btvs)

Angel in Btvs fits the classic definition of the male fatale in gothic fiction and film. Misunderstood, brooding, potentially evil but usually due to a curse, and redeemed through the unconditional love of the heroine. The gothic male fatale populates fairy tales, fantasy and gothic fiction dating as far back as the Bronte Sisters and the Grimm Fairy Tales of early Germany. We also get him in several Alfred Hitchcock films, ranging from Dauphne De Maurierís Rebecca to Suspicion. Max De Winter in Rebecca is portrayed as the potential murderer of his wife, his new wife must uncover whether he is a remorseless killer or a repentant lost soul cursed by an evil dead wife. Jane Eyre follows a similar pattern, the heroine must determine if her boss, Mr. Rochester, is truly an ogre or just misunderstood. In both cases, the men are redeemed by the unfailing love of the heroine/protagonist. Same with the fairy tale Beauty and The Beast where Beauty breaks the Beastís curse by loving him. Angel in some ways is a subversion of this theme, unlike most gothic heroes, his curse is the soul, freed from the curse heís an evil unrepentant monster. Buffy canít save him by loving him that only unleashes the monster within, but her love can empower him to set off on a journey to find his own redemption even if that journey means leaving her forever behind. Unlike the gothic romances and fairy tales, Btvs does not necessarily supply us with a happy ending. And thatís where it crosses over from gothic romance to noir.

When Angel is first introduced in Season 1, he is introduced in the role of mysterious informant and unreliable protector: the classic gothic hero, the man lurking in the shadows, disappearing when it becomes light. Occasionally coming to the rescue. Usually just providing information but in a sketchy suspicious manner. Buffy is not sure what to think of him, they engage in banter, flirt, and he disappears romantically into the night. Occasionally heíll even come to her rescue only to disappear at the last minute. In Welcome to The Hellmouth, Buffy catches him following her. He gives her a cross, informing her sheíll need it, then disappears again. His appearance is partly to remind her of her mission, a mission sheís attempting to forget, itís also partly to reemphasize her own fantasies and the negative side of them.

In the episode Angel, S1, Buffy learns that Angel isnít what he appears to be. Up until this episode, she believed he was a demon hunter like herself, human. When she moves to kiss him, after he warns her not to, he shows her his real face, that of a vampire. In classic gothic fashion, the veil is lifted and a monster is shown beneath the surface. And it happens with a kiss. Instead of the kiss turning the monster into a prince, it turns the prince into a monster, another subversion of the gothic form.

Later in the episode, Buffy sees Angel leaning over Joyceís limp form. She believes that he tried to kill her mother. Itís the traditional mislead ñ in gothic fiction the heroine will often catch the fatal in a horrible act and misinterpret it to mean he is a remorseless villain she should never have trusted. Instead, heís trying to save her mother and has been set up. Buffy in true gothic fashion discovers this when she confronts Angel and he offers her the choice. Explaining the curse to her. Telling her how he hasnít been able to kill a human since he was cursed by Gypsies ninety years earlier. Cursed with a soul. Soulless, he felt no pain in killing, now he does. No he didnít hurt Joyce, that was someone else. But he doesnít expect her to believe him. Kill me or trust me. Up to you. She stares up into the dreamy dark eyes and lean handsome face and drops her weapon, exposing her neck, placing herself, consciously in his power. And the true villain, Darla reveals herself. Angel proves Buffy is right in trusting him when he stakes Darla to save her life then disappears into the shadows. Later, Angel proves himself again by providing information on the Master in the episode Out of Sight, Out of Mind ñ an act echoed by Spike in Weight of The World four seasons later in Season 5, Btvs.

Betrayal of Romantic Love: The Subversion of the Fairy Tale Curse

By the time we reach Season 2, Buffy fully trusts Angel and has metaphorically given him her heart. She believes he could never hurt her or anyone she loves. And continuously finds herself risking everything to save him. He plays the damsel in the first part of the season. As a fatal, he is an interesting damsel since the question keeps arising whether she should save him. Whether he is salvageable. As Kendra states in Whatís My Line Part II, ìheís a vampire, he should die.î Ironically itís not outsiders who kill Angel, but Buffy herself. She dreams in Surprise that Drusilla slays him and is terrified of losing him. Yet, it is in a purely nourish twist Buffy who does so and the way she does it is a subversion of the gothic fairy tale, that subversion, as well as what follows, is when Btvs crosses the line from ìgothic romanceî to science-fantasy noir. It also pinpoints the loss of Buffyís innocence ñ something female noir films often focus on ñ the heroineís realization that the world is not what they wish it to be.

In Surprise, Buffy and Angel make love, unbeknownst to them, this very act, making love, is enough to cure Angelus of the soul. In the classic gothic motif, the act of making love would cure Angel of his evil ways, he would become good. In Btvs, the act of making love turns Angel into an evil monster incapable of feeling love or compassion. So pure of human feeling that the evil Judge canít burn him. As the Judge states ñ he is clean, there is no humanity in him. Cured. The twist is ñ in a fairy tale or gothic romance- it would be the reverse. A ìjudgeî would state that fatale is now cured of his evil ways, the spell has been broken, and he has returned to his natural state, a man no longer an evil beast. This is after all what happens in fairy tales such as Beauty and The Beast, The Frog Prince, and Rose White and Rose Red. But in the world of gothic noir ñ kissing Angel turns him evil. Foreshadowed in Angel, Btvs Season 1, where he literally goes into vamp face after their first kiss. And again in a future episode, where Buffy tells him when she kisses him she wants to die. By giving into her desires for Angel, Buffy feels she has doomed herself and her friends. In her head she believes she has literally slain him and given rise to a demon in his place, that by making love to him ñ she sired the soulless vampire that now walks in his place. She says as much in I Only Have Eyes For You, when her friend Willow suggests she try being impulsive and ask a guy to dance, Willowís last advice to Buffy was to seize the day and sleep with Angel,: ìImpulsive? Do you remember my ex- boyfriend, the vampire? I slept with him, he lost his soul, now my boyfriend's gone forever, and the demon that wears his face is killing my friends.î

In Buffyís head, when a person becomes a vampire and loses their soul ñ that demon is no longer the person. They walk, talk, act and look like the person but itís not them. As a result, she believes that by sleeping with Angel she killed the man she loved. In a way this is a twist on the classic noir motif, the hero wishes to save the femme fatale but by succumbing to her, he destroys them both. This theme is echoed years later in Ats with the Wesley/Lilah relationship, when Wes feels he killed Lilah by bringing her into the Hyperion, instead of saving her as intended, he got her killed. Her feelings and trust in him were what killed her. The hero in noir takes the blame upon themselves. Itís not Angelís fault that he is soulless, it is Buffyís. She broke the curse. Instead of saving him her love turned him into a soulless beast.

The finale of the Season, Becoming Part I & II, continues to play off of these noir themes, here Buffy is faced with yet another decision, do I attempt to save the fatal who has turned all evil on me by re-ensouling him or do I kill him before he destroys the world? This decision in a way is the culmination of the season, where she has either risked everything to save Angel or risked everything to avoid killing him. The desire to save the fatal is present in most classic film noir. The hero/heroine believes if they can save the fatal and live happily ever after with them it will in some way redeem them, empower them, provide meaning in their lives. Unfortunately this is impossible, the only choice is to reject the fatale completely, because any other option leads to the heroine/heroís doom. Philip Marlow in The Big Sleep is faced with a similar choice concerning Carmen Sternwood, if heíd given into her at the end, he would be dead. Same with Debra Wingerís character in Betrayed, she falls in love with a white supremacist leader but must betray him to the Feds or risk losing her own soul and life. Buffy goes down the same road, she attempts to delay killing Angel until he gets re-ensouled only to risk Giles, Willow and Xanderís lives ñ critically injuring Willow, breaking Xanderís arm and placing Giles in danger. Learning from her mistake, the next time she confronts Angel, she decides to kill him. Unfortunately on this occasion, her friends do succeed in cursing him with a soul and Buffy is faced with a dilemma that will continue to haunt her throughout the rest of the series ñ should she kill her lover to save the world? He stands between her and eternal damnation. If she lets him live, everyone is doomed. If she rejects him and stabs him through the heart, the world is saved. She slays him. The fatal dies like he does in all noir films. Except for one thing and hereís where Whedonís inversion comes into play ñ before he is sucked into hell, he becomes cursed with a soul, he wakes up, and embraces his lover. He is also not killed, just sucked out of this dimension into another one ready to return in the next season.

Alter-Egos & The Fatal: Fatal Solving The Heroineís Dilemma

In Season 3, Angel does literally come back from hell and his trajectory changes slightly. This time around, the heroine is uncertain whether she can trust him. Before she trusted him implicitly. Now heís an unknown entity. But her need to save him remains intact. Heís still the gothic fatale. Weíve also added another element to the mix, Faith, who in many ways represents the side of Buffy she represses. Faith is not a fatale character so much as a shadow or foil to the heroine. While it is tempting to see Faith as a fatal, she is really an alter-ego or shadow self, another common motif in neo-female noir. In the film
Black Widow, a female detective, Debra Winger, goes undercover to trap a serial killer played by Theresa Russell. Debra is brunette and Theresa is blond, throughout the film the two characters are compared and contrasted and at one point Debra Wingerís character is faced with the fact that she is not all that different from her alter-ego. All her pain, regrets, passions, and fantasies in some ways are acted out by the alter-ego. A similar motif is used in the science fiction television dramas Smallville with Lex Luther and Clark Kent and Star Trekís DS9 with Gíkat and Sisko.

All the emotions, feelings, desires Buffy canít express are expressed by Faith. Faithís relationship to Angel, the fatal, is representative of the emotions Buffy feels uncomfortable expressing ñ her guilt, anger, desire, fantasies. In Beauty and The Beasts, when Buffy discovers a wild Angel in the woods, it is Faith who tells her all men are beasts who need to be tamed. Earlier in Faith, Hope and Trick, it is Faith who hangs all over Scott Hope, the boy who is pursuing Buffy and asks her out for a date. Faith openly flirts with Scott, while Buffy hangs back uncertain. It is also Faith in Homecoming, who seeks vengeance against Scott for dumping Buffy and bringing another girl to the prom. And it is Faith in Enemies who expresses Buffyís own hidden desires for Angelus ñ what with the bondage and the torture. She even asks Buffy in an earlier episode, Bad Girls, if she hadnít been just a little turned on by big bad Angelus. Faith acknowledges that the turn on is the mixture of darkness and light. Buffy canít quite give voice to this.

Angel likewise can reveal his dark side with Faith. With Faith, he admits that he enjoyed being soulless, that killing without remorse makes one feel like a god. He admits that before he met Buffy, humans seemed to just exist to hurt people. In true fatal fashion, he bonds with Buffyís doppleganger. Faith can see the part of him, the dark half, that Buffy refuses to look at it. The fatal in the gothic tradition often poses this problem for the heroine, she stubbornly refuses to see anything but the good in him and he attempts to comply. Through Buffy, he has realized there is a better way. It is Buffyís unconditional love for him that pushes him to seek out a path towards redemption.

Angel: (smiles) You and me, Faith, (straightens up) we're a lot alike.
Time was, I thought humans existed just to hurt each other. (sits next
to her) But then I came here. And I found out that there are other types of people. People who genuinely wanted to do right. (looks at her) And they make mistakes. And they fall down. You know, but they keep caring. Keep trying. If you can trust us, Faith, this can all change. You don't have to disappear into the darkness. (Consequences, Btvs S3)

This speech is a projection of the fatalís feelings. Angel wants to believe that by striving to do good - he wonít have to disappear into the darkness. That he can eventually step into the light. This is yet another subversion of the form. The fatal in both gothic and noir traditions seldom desires to venture into the light, rather he wishes to drag the heroine into the darkness with him. He doesnít believe he can step into the light, so being a self-centered bastard, attempts to pull her back into the darkness with him. Angel in a way is a subversion of this, in that he both attempts to step into the light and when he discovers he canít do it, decides to leave the heroine for her own good.

Buffy throughout Season 3, struggles with this dilemma. Should she succumb to Angel again, just love him, be in the darkness with him? Or should they break up entirely? Canít they just co-exist as friends? Can she trust him? Heís no longer evil, she tells herself, he has a soul. That evil demon that killed Jenny and hurt her friends wasnít him. Yet, Angel says a few things that make her wonder. In Dopplegangerland, when Buffy tells Willow, not to worry VampWillow isnít her, Angel attempts to correct her, stating actually it sort of is. And in Enemies, Buffy sees first hand how adept Angel is at playing Angelus. So adept, that in some ways, heís almost worse than Angelus was. Noticing this causes her to ask him for a break. He asks if she is still his girl (a classic fatal line by the way) to which she replies after a slight hesitation, always. Eventually, it is Angel who must make the break for them both and he waits until the end of the season to do so.

Angelís decision is another subversion of the classic gothic fatal arc. Instead of the heroine succumbing to the fatal or the fatal being redeemed at the end by her love and living happily ever after at her side, Angel disappears in the mist, not even waving goodbye. He makes his decision to go after she sacrifices herself to save his life. By sacrificing herself, Buffy decides to succumb to Angel, she gives up the world to save him. Angel realizing what she has done, decides he must leave since he canít bear to have her join him in darkness any more even if this is what she herself wants.

The episode arc is an odd one because of how it both subverts and emphasizes gothic and noir themes. At the beginning of the arc, it is Faith who poisons Angel, again acting as Buffyís dark id. When Faithís arrow pierces Angel, Buffy is asking Angel to either leave or stay, telling him that she canít have him in her life while trying to move on at the same time. She desperately needs him to stay, even though she realizes they must part. The dilemma is tearing her apart. Faithís arrow punctuates it. So Buffy goes after the side of herself, the dark slayer, the rogue, who tried to take Angel out of her life. She metaphorically kills that side of herself, when she stabs Faith. Ironically itís not the dark id she kills, itís the rational, slayer portion, the part that has realized Angel must leave her and she must move on. The dark id, the part that loves Angel desperately, more than the world, rushes back to him and forces him to drink from her ñ almost killing herself in the process. This act horrifies Angel even as it saves him. It is this act that Angel sees foreshadowed in his dream where he marries Buffy only to watch her burn in front of his eyes when they walk into the sunlight. (The Prom, Btvs S3) He realizes that by attempting to kill Faith and allowing him to bite her, Buffy has given into her own desires to be with him no matter what. If he stays with her, heíll destroy her and himself.

The twist is that itís not the fatale who sacrifices himself and is redeemed her, itís the heroine who sacrifices herself for the fatal and is almost damned in the process. Almost.
Angel saves Buffy and himself when he rushes her to the hospital as opposed to siring her, and makes the decision to leave Sunnydale for good after they defeat that seasonís big bad. He actually begins his journey towards redemption the very moment he decides he must leave. Instead of the heroine rejecting the fatale, the fatal rejects the heroine. Empowered by the heroineís example, the fatal goes off to seek his own fate, alone and in doing so, develops from a fatal into an anti-hero. Meanwhile, the heroine in classic noir fashion graduates from idealistic teen romantic to cynical adult, realizing that love does not last forever or make everything all right.

TBC in Part B: Spike, now if haven't seen the episodes up to Dirty Girls, 7.18, you can skip this section or just skim to the very end and read the bibliography and my closure. Up to you.
-S'kat

[> [> B. Spike: Subverting the Role of The Noir Fatal (Spoilers DG Btvs7) -- s'kat, 22:24:00 04/26/03 Sat

B. Spike ñ A Subversion of The Neo-Female Noir Homme Fatal (Noir Fatal) (Spoilers to DG S7Btvs & future spec.)

Spike represents the neo-noir fatal in the Btvs. Unlike the romantic gothic male fatal, who is mysterious and may or may not try to harm the heroine, the neo noir fatal has every intent on harming the heroine when heís initially introduced. The ironic twist is not that he appears to be good on the surface but will go for your jugular if crossed, but actually the reverse. Oh heíll go for your jugular but underneath it all, when push comes to shoveÖhe might be the one who helps you save the world when it matters. This a perversion of the standard formula, which is no matter how good you think he is ñ he will kill you if given half the chance.

The interesting thing about Spike, as neo-noir fatal, is as you rip off the layers you discover that underneath it all lies a man who just wants to be loved and accepted. Who would rather love than kill. Another example of male fatals in the neo female noir tradition. Like their counterparts, femme fatales, they are lonely souls who ache for companionship but are unable to reconcile their own darkness to achieve it. As a result they act as wonderful romantic foils to the heroine/hero. Showing the hero/heroine the dark side of love and passion, or their own dark hidden desires.

The Sexual Predator ñ Villain Into Fatale

Spike is introduced in the episode School Hard where his motivations are quickly revealed to both heroine and audience as nefarious. Heís the new big bad. A remorseless killer who preys on women to feed his sick girlfriend, Drusilla. Within the first half of the episode, he stops bad girl Sheila in the alley, kills off her two male companions, and seduces her into following him back to his abode, where he subsequently ties her up, gags her and feeds her to Dru, his lady-love. The scene is reminiscent of scenes in neo- female noir films and gothic films, where the male villain stalks the heroine, takes one of her acquaintances or friends, rapes and/or murders them and taunts the heroine with it. Dracula in Bram Stokerís Dracula does it with Mina Harkerís best friend Lucy. Spike is also revealed as a legendary killer of vampire slayers. A perfect foil for Buffy in Season 2, Btvs, who is a legendary slayer of vampires ñ the chosen one.

When Angel is introduced he appears to helping the heroine, he is a mystery. We donít know what or who Angel is. There appears to be no mystery about Spike, he shows up in vamp face. He states very clearly that he wants to kill Buffy and slayers in general. The mystery oddly enough shows up when his vamp face melts away and he is shown to be a handsome man in love with a pretty child-like somewhat sickly woman. The audience is faced with a classic noir quandary, everything isnít quite as clear as it appears. Spike has what amounts to an achilees heel in Drusilla. One that Buffy uses against him repeatedly. Because of this niche in his armor, over time he develops from villain into fatal.

In Female Noir Film, fatals may develop from villains, they may even start out or be the principal villain of the piece ñ not unlike their counter-parts, femme fatals. In the movie Love Crimes, Hanover is clearly the antagonist, the villain, there is no one else. But the heroine through her involvement with him, discovers heís not completely the villain she anticipated. Heís the fatal that develops from a villain as do most of the fatals in the neo-female noir films. Unlike the gothic homme fatal, the noir homme fatal is not seeking salvation from the heroine when they get involved. The previously mentioned film Love Crimes deals with this type of fatale. When the heroine first encounters him ñ she is seeking him out to either imprison him or kill him. When Buffy first encounters Spike ñ she wants to kill him. In fact she wants to kill Spike pretty much up to and including the moment he loses his ability to physically kill living things. Metaphorically in Seasons 2 through part of 4, Spike represents what Buffy fears most in sexual relationships, both from herself and men. His comments are often projections of these fears as seen in Harsh Light of Day, where he crudely asks her if sheís just easy, did it only take a few kind words to pry apart her dimpled knees? Earlier in School Hard, he teases that weapons make him feel all manly, and heíll make sure itís not painful. Like the female noir films, Lady Beware, Love Crimes, Blue Steel ñ Spike is the sexual predator stalking the heroine, taunting her with her own sexual fears and anxieties. Eventually the heroines in these films turn the tables on the fatales and stalk and destroy them. Just as Buffy eventually turns things around in Btvs, resulting in Spike being in a wheelchair or neutralized by a behavioral modification chip.

Foil, Provider of Uncomfortable Truths

Spike graduates from villain by the end of Season 2, when he surprises everyone and offers to help Buffy save the world from the evil Angelus. Fascinating, the writers have literally flipped the gothic fatal and the villain. In previous episodes, Angel was the one who came through at the last minute, who offered to save the world and usually from Spike. Now, it is Spike, Buffyís nemesis, who steps forward offering to help. And he does so in typical noir fashion, beating up a cop, sitting on the hood of the copís car smoking, giving a nifty speech about saving the world, then reaching over to kill the cop. (Becoming Part II, Btvs S2) He unflinchingly lets her know ñ still evil, but itís in my best interest to help you right now, so take it or leave it, because neither of us can do this alone. Very typical of the Humphrey Bogart noir films of the 1940s. In The Maltese Falcon ñ Bogart sort of teems up with the evil Brigid Shaunessy to find the Falcon. Or in Casablanca, Bogart teems up with the local magistrate to help a friend escape from the Nazis. This theme also occurs in comic books, where the villain and the hero discover thereís something worse out there than the two of them put together and they declare a truce to take care of it.

Later, Spike falls into the role of informant, providing uncomfortable truths to the heroine about herself. Most of these truths, in true fatal fashion, are projections of the fatalís own feelings regarding his own situation. In neo noir film, what the fatal teases the heroine with is often just a projection of his own twisted psyche, but it also serves as a reflection of hers. It is in this manner that he becomes her foil or the psychological representation of her worst fantasies. Everything she represses reveals itself through his actions and taunts.
In Loverís Walk, midway through Season 3 ñ it is Spike who points out to the heroine that she and Angel canít just be friends. In reality, he is probably talking about himself and Dru, who had just told him they can still be friends but the romance is over. But ironically, he has also hit on the problem between Buffy and Angel. He hits on it, because he has been from the get go, Buffyís foil. Her counter.

In School Hard through Whatís My Line, Spikeís actions regarding Drusilla show the dark edge of Buffyís feelings for Angel. Spike clearly will drop everything for Dru, just as Buffy is shown repeatedly dropping everything for Angel. Buffy even states in Whatís My Line ñ you may go after me, but go after my boyfriend and youíre dead. The audience cheers her on. Meanwhile Spike goes after Angel to save Drusilla. Angel is Druís cure and he is willing to risk everything to cure her. Just as in Lie to Me, he gives up a room full of humans and gets locked in a cellar, because Buffy threatened Druís life. He probably would have won the fight against Buffy if heíd been willing to sacrifice Drusilla. Buffy ends up falling somewhat into the same trap with Angel, her love for Angel turns him evil and against her. Spikeís love for Dru makes her powerful yet ends up crippling him. In Becoming, both Spike and Buffy want their lovers back. Spike gives voice to the desires Buffy is suppressing in Becoming, when he states he wants his girlfriend back, he wants to go back to the way things were before Angelus. So does Buffy. And she hits him when he states it. Because it gives voice to a desire that she canít express. Also it is Spike in Becoming who appears to get what he wants ñ he gets Dru back and takes off with her. We are lead to believe that Dru and Spike are back together again. Just as we are lead to believe in the beginning of Season 3 Btvs, that when Angel returns, he and Buffy will be together again. But, as is revealed by Spike in both Loverís Walk and later Harsh Light of Day, this is not the case. There is no going back.

Spikeís ability to force Buffy to face things about herself and others she does not wish to face is used in Season 3, Loverís Walk, and throughout Season 4 and Season 5 Btvs. He is constantly giving voice to things the characters would rather not state, either hidden desires or fears. In Yoko Factor, he manages to instill discontent with a few cleverly placed phrases and words. It is NOT Spike who breaks them up though, that is all their own doing. All Spike has done is aired their grievances aloud. He states their worst fears, gives life to them. This is in keeping with fatals in noir cinema. The fatal in Love Crimes forces Dana through words and deeds to re-experience a blocked memory from her childhood. In Blue Steele, Eugene forces Jamie Lee Curtisí character to confront her own insecurities about class and gender. Spike in Yoko Factor forces Buffy to confront her insecurities about being alone in the fight and the fear that she is drifting away from her friends. Just as he forces her in The I in Team to confront the possibility that every man she dates is evil or will betray her ñ ìYou have the worst taste in men, slayer.î Or in Harsh Light of Day, gives voice to her own fears about the one-night stand with Parker. In each situation the comments work both ways ñ because they also say something about the fatal, about Spike. Thatís why they have power. Itís not so much that he has insight into her, as that he shares some of her insecurities and is projecting them on to her. If anything ñ what he says, says as much if not more about his insecurities and fears as it does about hers.

In Yoko Factor ñ his comments about how friends always drift apart is in a way a statement about his own condition, he has lived over 100 years and he is at that point in time adrift, friendless. The villain, Adam, is able to seduce him a bit with this perception. Spike canít fit in the human world and with the chip, he canít fit in the demon world either. He used to be part of a gang, the leader of a gang, but thatís gone now. He once had a girlfriend, but she left him. Like most male fatales he has no one. He is alone, outside society. Harsh Light of Day also comments on this condition ñ while he teases Buffy, he is also talking about himself, how easy am I? He wonders. I let Drusilla walk all over me. Cheat on me. Buffyís relationships with Parker and Angel, may in some ways reflect his own with Drusilla and Harmony. Except in contrast to Buffy, he takes out his pain with Dru onto Harmony. Buffy attempts to use Parker to assuage hers.

In Season 5, Spike works partly as foil for Buffyís inner issues ñ her relationship with Riley, her fears about her mother, and her uncertainty about her own path. Spike in Into The Woods ñ is the one who reveals literally by pulling back a door, the truth behind Buffyís relationship with Riley to both Riley and Buffy. Their relationship was falling apart regardless of Spikeís involvement, all Spike does is pull back the curtain and show them. In Fool For Love, interestingly enough, it is Spike who sits and comforts Buffy about her mother. We believe heís going to kill her at the time. Sheís just rejected him and he shows up at her house with a rifle. But in a classic reversal, he sees her crying and asks whatís wrong instead. The next morning, heís the one who tells Riley that sheís at the hospital and her motherís sick. Also in Fool for Love ñ it is Spike who reveals to Buffy the similarities between vampires and slayers. This speech is largely a projection of Spikeís own desires, which is the death wish. Itís not the slayers who have a death wish so much as it is Spike. And oddly enough, Mr. Big Bad canít take full credit for killing them ñ instead of telling Buffy that he out- fought them or was a better fighter, he tells her that it was luck. One dropped her weapon and one hesitated. They had a death wish, he states. And youíll be fine because at this point in time you donít. But watch out, because the moment you do, Iíll be there just like that vamp last night was there. This speech functions on two levels ñ it gives voice to the heroineís fears while at the same time voicing the insecurities and desires of the fatal. Buffy does fear these things. She fears that she is both just a killer and has a death wish. But what about Spike, the fatale?

Itís an incredibly odd speech considering that Spike is painted as a bit of a braggart and is so proud of his slayer killings. This is a subversion of the noir fatal formula. In neo Female noir ñ the male fatal never gives the lady the credit, he might blame her for his failings, but not for his successes. She grabs empowerment in the structure but showing him how wrong he is. Here, in Spikeís head, he may very well be telling the truth, or it may be a projection ñ the death wish may be his. His desire to fight slayers is shown in the series to be an odd one, most vampires avoid them like the plague or if they do fight them, do it when the odds are completely in their favor. Spike seeks them out and fights them with one-to-one combat. In a way this desire is a perfect foil for Buffy, who also goes out and fights vampires with one-to-one combat and not with the odds perfectly in her favor. She stalks and hunts them. Just as Spike stalks and hunts her. Both tend to be impatient and impulsive and it leads both of them to failure. Itís only when they take the time to plan that they succeed, like they do when they decide to team up in Becoming Part II. Or like Buffy does in Innocence when she plots to take down the Judge or Spike prevails in curing Dru in Whatís My Line. They reflect each otherís foibles. Thus Spike acts as a perfect foil to Buffyís heroine, often revealing to Buffy her worst fears about herself.

The Neo Noir Fatal as Romantic Foil ñ Noir Sex and The Male Fatal

From Sharon Y. Cobbís essay, Writing the New Noir Film:

ìNot only will the protagonist be beguiled and betrayed by the female [male fatal]character but violence, in one form or another, will be a result of the two characters alliance. ÖBasic Instinct and Body Heat demonstrate the juxtaposition of high sexuality and potential or acted out violence. Sex and violence collide in this symbiotic co-dependence between the Öhero and the femme [male] fatale.î

ì Tension in Noir stories is generated as much by plot twists as it is from anticipated violence. The Usual Suspects is rich with unexpected twists and reversals of expectation. When we think we know whatís really going on, we are deceived againg.î

From William Coveyís essay, Girl Power: Female-Centered Neo- Noir

First excerpt deals with the previously mentioned film Blue Steele where Jamie Lee Curtis plays a cop to Ron Silver, Eugene, villain/fatale.

ìBecause traditional noir criticism privileges men, the use of male/female role reversals place women within general neo- noir discourse. In other words, Blue Steel illustrates that when a woman is the hero of the film and the man is evil, the assumptions that we normally make about detectives and dangerous adversaries no longer match traditional gender assumptions.î P. 321 of the Film Noir Reader 2.

Lizzie Borden, original director of Love Crimes, statement regarding the sex in her films:
ì Iím not a separatist. I hope that men can see my films through eyes colored by female characters they have to identify with ñ just as women have to do in watching flim with male characters.î (quoted on p.321 of Film Noir Reader 2, from Cineast Interview, Redefining Female Sexuality in Cinema: An Interview with Lizzie Borden, Cineaste, 19.2-3 (1992), p.7)

Ah, controversy, gotta love it. There is a reason there arenít as many popular Female Noir films as there are male noir. The male fatal sort of muddies the waters as does the sex. While audiences appear to have no problems with noir sex in the male noir films, most notably Body Heat and Basic Instinct, which literally made stars out of the femme fatales, they do have difficulty with it in female noir. Buffy and Spikeís dark sexual relationship in Season 6 Btvs inspired some of the same reactions in its viewers as did the film Love Crimes. Male viewers wer, to put it mildly, a tad put-off by their relationship. Female viewers mostly turned on by it. The relationship was portrayed in the classic noir style as dark, abusive, gritty ñ a repulsion/attraction type of deal.

What it did was explore the female heroines own dark desires, her own inner psyche. The male fatal as romantic foil often is used for this purpose. Just as the femme fatal is used in the male centric noir films.

The writers in Btvs do not play it safe in S6 with Buffy/Spike as they did with the Buffy/Angel relationship nor do they romanticize it. They show it in real ugly tones as if they were filming a noir film a la Red Rock West, Blood Simple or even Love Crimes. The relationship fits the criteria expressed above by Sharon Y. Cobb ñ it contains violence, there are unexpected twists and turns, and it culminates with the hero unconsciously placing themselves in a dangerous situation. But the fatal is also used as a means of externalizing the heroineís own dark fantasies and sexual fears. In Btvs, Buffyís fear that she is drifting into the darkness, that her desires separate her from everyone while simultaneously placing emphasis on the fact that part of her desires that separation, part of her wants to be taken over by the darkness, to be free to inflict pain, to even feel pleasure from that infliction. The desire to let loose and be wicked. As Xander, Buffyís friend states in Smashed, thereís a time you just want to let loose, let everything go. It can be incredibly seductive, just to give into it. To go wild. Itís also a stage or issue that most young women face when theyíve left the innocent romance of their teens and entered the cold hard reality of their twenties. Freedom. Yet also the overwhelming feeling that comes with it of being cut off, adrift, with no clear guide posts. Iím not saying that all young women go through this stage, but in the noir and horror genres ñ it is the heroineís predicament. The heroine or hero in film noir will often find themselves in this situation.

SPIKE: (O.S.) You see ... you try to be with them... (Spike walks up behind Buffy.)
...but you always end up in the dark ... (whispering in her ear) ...with me.
(He moves up right behind Buffy, looks where she's looking. Shot of the Scoobies from Buffy's POV. ) What would they think of you ... if they found out ... all the things you've done? (He puts his hand on her bare shoulder and strokes slowly down her arm.)
If they knew ... who you really were? (Dead Things, Btvs 6)

Compare this to David Hanoverís seduction of Dana in Love Crimes. While Dana is being held captive in his cabin, David cuts her clothes away from her with scissors. She allows him to pose her in a bathtub naked. She begins to fantasize about what he tells her heíll do with her. Part of her wants it. The other part is simultaneously repulsed by it. Buffy in the scene depicted above allows Spike to lift her skirt, to touch her, to enter her from behind, and gets pleasure from the act, while at the same time wincing at the fact she does so. ìWhy do I let him do these things to me?î She asks her friend Tara. ìHeís everything Iím against, everything Iím supposed to hate?î The ready answer of course is self-hatred or dark night of the soul. But if we analyze it in terms of noir and the function of fatals, weíll note there may be something else going on here. As Joss Whedon noted in an interview posted on slayage.com for sci-fi wire, Spart of her relationship with Spike was giving up the power, being ashamed of it, not wanting it.î Part of the hero- fatal relationship is the tug of war between the two parties. In the film Blue Steele, the fatale, Eugene fantasizes about Megan (played by Jamie Lee Curtis) through her gun. He literally masturbates to the gun sheís lost. He fetishes and fantasizes about phallic women. Spike similarly fantasizes about phallic women. He wants their power. His name may be Spike, but from his point of view, the woman has the power. Like Eugene, he seems to get off on being beaten up, on fantasizing about female authority. Megan, Dana, and Buffy ñ all powerful women in their own right, all sexually repressed in some way, and all taking on traditional male roles ñ want on some level to be dominated, to be seduced, to let go. As Buffy tells Holden Webster, the vamp psychologist in Conversations With Dead People, S7, ìThe things I did to himÖthe things I let him do to meÖI behaved like a monster, but at the same timeÖI almost let him take me over.î

In noir sex ñ there is a power play going on between the two parties. As Sharon Y. Cobb states: ì The protagonist falls in lust with the Öfatale and obsessed with him or her. The fatale turns up the heat by flirting and luring the protagonist into a sexual relationship.î
Spike turns up the heat with Buffy, by appearing nude or shirtless, flaunting his assets. He encourages her to beat him up by teasing her. He comes close to her and pouts his lips, then pulls away, making her want more. ìMany New Noir films feature highly erotic ëlove scenesí which leave the main character wanting more. His[Her] professional objectivity becomes increasingly compromised by obsessive thoughts of when his next sexual encounter will be with the [man] woman of his [her] fantasies.î (Sharon Y. Cobb.)
Body Heat and Basic Instinct are the prime examples of this in male noir, Love Crimes and Blue Steel are amongst the few examples in female noir. In Love Crimes, against her will, Dana begins to fantasize about Hanover. Her fantasies disturb her, but she canít quite shake them. Same with Blue Steel, Megan allows Eugene to romance her.

Btvs does however subvert this formula somewhat, by doing a double flip. In classic noir, the fatal will turn on the hero/heroine once they reject them. In Love Crimes, Dana rejects David and he breaks into her house and tells her: ìWe were close to something. Donít let [your] gun come between us.î And then attempts to engage her in the act theyíd been building towards. Using his camera as a weapon. She ends up ending it by breaking a heavy glass object over his head. Spike similarly confronts Buffy in her bathroom and tells her that they have something. He also tries to reinitiate their relationship and she kicks him across the room. The difference between the two is that after Buffy kicks Spike across the room, he leaves town in search of a soul. If this had been a modern day Female Noir film, Spike would have gotten his chip removed and gone on a killing spree until Buffy in the last reel catches up with him and is forced to stake him. In the subverted form, his violence towards her wakes him up to the reasons why they canít be together and who he truly is, repulsed by this information, he hunts a way to alter it.

Buffy on her part feels betrayed when he attacks her just as she feels betrayed when he sleeps with her friend Anya and when he eventually leaves town. Like all noir heroes, she is struggling with the conceit that she could save him, through his involvement with her, he could somehow be redeemed. The noir hero never quite expects the betrayal when it comes, they are always taken by surprise. Itís not quite the same betrayal that Buffy suffered with Angel. This betrayal is a twist ñ here Buffy is punished for succumbing to her own dark desires, to her own ego. This betrayal Buffy should have seen coming. Angelís ñ there was no way she could have predicted it. To say Buffy never cared for Spike or loved him, is missing the point I think, the fatal/hero relationship isnít really about love so much as sexual power ñ who has it and who is willing to use it. Femme Fatales no matter what their feelings for the hero, will often use their sexual power over the hero to further their own agenda. A prime example is Kathleen Turnerís character in Body Heat, where she seduces William Hurt to help her kill her husband. Or in Love Crimes, where Hanover seduces women into letting him off the hook. Spike uses his power over Buffy, to a) further their relationship and b) do evil on the side, such as selling the demon eggs in the episode As You Were. Heís not successful any more than Hanover is, but the attempt is clear. Same thing with Lilah and Wes ñ Lilah uses her relationship with Wes to manipulate Angel Investigations. The twist in both the Lilah/Wes and Spike/Buffy relationships ñ is the heroes use their power over the fatals as well. Buffy and Wes are shown on both series to have more power in the relationships, since neither have truly committed their hearts, while the fatals are leaning in that direction. Often the fatalís achillees heel is they do fall for the hero, but when they do? Itís almost too late. Buffy realizing Spikeís devotion to her, uses that to elicit information from him, to obtain his help in killing demons and saving the world, and to have sex. She actually appears to get more out of the relationship with Spike than he does. Another twist on the form. It also in some ways empowers the female lead ñ Buffy never loses the power in the relationship, not really. She may appear to a few times, but each time she grabs it back again. In the infamous bathroom scene in Seeing Red ñ Buffy knocks Spike clear across the room, he may have bruised her, but he was not able to violate her. And it is Spike not Buffy who is changed by the experience, who gives up their power. Also oddly enough, by going to get a soul, something he would never have considered when he first met her, Spike has like Angel become empowered by Buffy to change himself for the better. Heís not redeemed by her love, nor is his vampire curse broken by it ñ the show does not fall completely into the fairy tale trend ñ instead he is empowered by her example, by her strength. That empowerment provides him with the wherewithal and strength to endure the trials necessary to receive a soul.

The Fatal Trajectory ñ From Damsel to Saving Oneself

When Spike comes back in Season 7 Btvs, Buffy is faced with a series of tasks revolving around the question : should I save Spike? Should I save the Fatal? The Fatal as damsel poses an interesting dramatic dilemma ñ because you truly donít know if the hero will do it or if she should. Saving best-friends, lovers, and side-kicks? Not a problem. But saving the fatal ñ the ex-villain? As Kendra stated long ago regarding Angel, ìheís a vampire, he should die.î Or as Wood and Giles believe ñ ìwe need to take out Spike for Buffyís own good.î

The first task ñ should I let him help me after he betrayed my trust? Spike is right when he states, ìWeíve been to the end of the world and back a few times. I can help. Use me if you want.î But he attacked her last season and she does not know what he is now, except that he is different. Trusting her gut, she lets him help, and almost regrets it. The double flip again. He appears to turn evil on her, turning back into Mr. Big Bad Demon. ìYep, Iím bad, and I got a thrill watching your face as you tried to figure it out.î Then in a later scene he breaks down completely after heís hurt an innocent human and runs off. Following him ñ she discovers that he has not reverted to the demon who had tried to kill her in Season 2, but rather has regained his human soul. This solidifies her decision to let him help. (Beneath You ñ Same Time Same Place, Btvs S7)

The next task is should I help him get out of the basement thatís driving him crazy? Should I take steps to stop the craziness? It takes her a while to make this decision but after he proves himself a few times helping her save Cassieís life, locating a demon thatís killing people and punishing himself for hurting her, she asks her friend Xander to take him in. (STSP, Help, Selfless and Him, S7 Btvs). Notice she does not at this point take him in herself. She hasnít gotten to that point yet. Sheís still protecting herself and to some extent Dawn from him. Dawn oddly enough is the one who continues to express Buffyís own doubts about the fatal. Just as it is Dawn in Season 5 and 6 who expressed Buffyís hopes about him. In Seeing Red, it is Dawn who tells Spike he hurt Buffy and asks him how he could sleep with Anya when he supposedly loves her sister, a question Buffy is dying to ask but Dawn asks for her. And in Villainís Buffy refuses to tell Dawn about Spikeís attack on her and wants to place Dawn with Spike. Demonstrating on some level Buffyís own denial of Spikeís betrayal. Her desire to forget about it. This desire is broken when Xander informs Dawn and wakes her up to what Spike did. Xander in effect wakes both women up. And now it is Xander that Buffy and Dawn place Spike with. And it is once again Dawn who questions Buffy as to her true reasons for doing this. Is it out of pity? Buffy swears itís not. But she canít quite give voice to her feelings just yet. (Him, Btvs S7)

The third task is do I kill him or find a way to stop the trigger that is causing him to turn people into vampires against his will? Spike believes she should kill him. He sees himself as a liability. Kill me, he pleads at the end of Sleeper and towards the end of Never Leave Me. He accuses her of using him to deal with her own self-hatred. She insists itís not about that. Here he is acting very much in the role of fatal meets romantic foil. In the male noir genre, the femme fatal will often plead with the hero to kill her. Scean Youngís character in the noir sci-fi classic, Blade Runner, at one point requests Deckard just kill her. He refuses. Killing Spike ñ lets them both off the hook, Buffy doesnít have to figure out a way of helping him and Spike doesnít have to live with the pain of what heís done. Or in Blade Runner ñ Deckard can write Scean Young off as a replicant, something to kill, and Scean Young doesnít have to worry about being one. Death is easy, life is hard ñ is the message of the noir world.

After the trigger test ñ we get three more tests for Buffy and Spike ñ will she save him from the First Evil? Even if it means having to fight an uber-vamp to do so? Will she remove his chip against her mentorís advice? Even if it means he can now actively hurt human beings? Will she save him from her boss, Principal Wood, and her mentor, Giles, who have planned to kill him for her own good? And possibly the worldís, since he still appears to be triggered by the first? Of these tasks, the last is most relevant in the world of film noir, because it is the most ambiguous. Saving the fatal from your friends is far more dicey than saving him from your enemies. This is a choice Buffy never really had to make with Angel, unless you count the time she fought Faith and Xander who teamed up to kill Angel for Buffyís own good, when the true villain was Faithís watcher Gwendolyen Post. (Revelations, S3 Btvs). But this task is far murkier than that one was, here Wood has a reason for wanting Spike dead outside of just jealousy or slayers kill vampires. Two reasons actually. Spike has a trigger that Wood has seen activated by a song. Spike killed Woodís mother. Giles also has a reason for wanting Spike dead. Spike has a trigger and has been controlled by the First in the past. Buffy has become way too dependent on Spike for her own good. Buffy is faced with a question here ñ a big one ñ do I let Giles and Wood kill Spike or do I try to save him? She chooses to save him. And hereís the twist, itís unnecessary because Spike saves himself. But the writer doesnít stop there, if this had been a noir film, Spike would have killed Wood and gone off to kill people, horribly betraying the heroine or Spike would have pretended Wood gave him no choice and convinced the heroine to take him in again or Spike would have let Wood live and not told the heroine why ñ let her believe he did it because he turned good, while plotting behind her back the whole time. Instead the writer does something rather interesting.

BUFFY (O.S.)Spike! (Buffy runs into frame, anxious. She sees his wounds, tries to touch his face, check him over. ) Are you okay? (He pushes her hands away. Leave me be. )
What happened? (He turns, pushes open the door behind him. It swings open to reveal Wood, battered and bloody, slumped against the wall. His head rolls as he regains consciousness. Though he's seen better days, he's clearly still alive. )(whispered)
Oh my god...
SPIKE:I gave him a pass. Let him live. On account of the face that I killed his
mother. (She looks at him, begins to figure it out.) But that's all he gets.
He turns, begins to walk away. He so much as looks at me funny
again... I'll kill him. (Buffy watches him go, then turns toward the garage.) (Lies My Parents Tell Me, S7, Btvs)

The fact that Spike says any of this to Buffy is surprising from a noir stand-point. In gothic noir, he wouldnít say it. In neo-female noir, he might allude to it, but itís unlikely. In the Neo Female Noir ñ the fatal is irredeemable, he betrays the heroine at every turn and constantly makes excuses for his actions, a la Spike in Season 6, who apologizes for sleeping with Anya but insists he did it to make himself feel better then attempts to rape Buffy. Spike in this scene, does not apologize for beating up Wood, he does not apologize for himself, he does not tell Buffy that he was right in doing it or wrong. He does not tell her what to think. He does not tell her which side to choose. He does not beg for her love or show jealously regarding her compassion for Wood. He does not make excuses for his actions or state that Wood pursued him or trapped him or any of the above. He merely states where he stands on the issue and why he let Wood live. And he admits to the fact that he let Wood live because Wood had cause for going after him on account of the fact that he killed Woodís mother. He may not tell Wood this. But the fact that he tells Buffy is an interesting twist. Buffy who until this moment did not know Spike was the one who killed Woodís mother. And Spike knows how Buffy felt about losing her own mother. Itís an odd thing for a fatal to do. An odd thing for Spike to do. Something Season 2-Season 6 Spike probably would never have done.

Where Spike is Going and Redemption of The Fatal

The options for Spike are numerous. If we are keeping with the noir formula, Spike should betray Buffy at some point, either consciously or unconsciously, then if the formula is subverted, flip and redeem himself at the last moment by sacrificing his life, or if unsubverted, be killed by the heroine a la Angel in Becoming. Under the noir formula, Spike cannot survive. Buffy, like most noir heroes, will end up being alone in the end, staring off into the distance wondering what fate holds in store. At the end of the film Blue Steele, Megan is found staring off into space in her squad car after Eugene the fatal has been killed. Sheís empowered but alone.

If however, this is meant as a subversion on this theme and is not in strict keeping with the classic noir formula, Spike could sacrifice his life but live. Somehow the sacrifice will either not work or by the very act he will break the vampire curse and in true fairy tale fashion become human. Except for one small thing, he wonít get the heroine. If this is a fairy tale, he would. If this is a noir gothic fairy tale, he wonít, heíll live but he wonít be with the one he loves. Instead, like Angel before him, heíll have to use the heroineís example to find his own way in the universe with few if any guide-posts to lead him.

There are other options of course. Too many for me to list here. And this essay is getting far too long and rambling to really go into it. If this is meant to be a subversion on classic noir and horror themes, then Spike as the fatal should appear to betray the heroine, a la Angel in Season 3 Btvs, Enemies, but in fact be helping her, and should prove himself by attempting to give his life in some way for the cause. Not for the heroine. The cause. And in doing so, break the hold that the villain has on him, break his own curse by himself.

Finally if we consider Spikeís path or trajectory in some ways an inversion of Angelís due to how each fatal reflects a certain stage in Buffyís coming of age journey, then whatever happens to Spike in the finale should be the inverse of what happened to Angel in either Becoming Part I & II or Graduation Day Part I & II, possibly both. (Iím thinking Graduation Day right now, since S6 closely paralleled S2 and Spikeís actions in Grave are more directly related to what happened to Angel in Becoming, just like the Gift seems to be directly related to Prophecy Girl, but hey, I could be wrong, wouldnít be the first time.)

If we look back over the season endings, we could try to figure out how Spikeís acts are an inversion of Angelís in order to predict how they may or may not be in the Season 7 finale. Going back to Grave which I suppose would be the ending that pairs up with either Becoming or Graduation Day ñ Spike goes and gets a soul in order to be a better man for Buffy. The fatal succumbs to the heroineís power over him and that power instead of destroying him ñ empowers him to find his own path, he must first go through hell to do it. Similarly Angel is cursed with a soul right before he is sent to hell by Buffy and ends up coming back crazed, he too must go through hell to find his own path. The inversion is Angel is cursed and sent to hell by Buffy, while Spike goes and does it to himself because of Buffy. Afterwards, both have to deal with the First Evil who claims responsibility for their plight, appearing to torment them because of it. (In Amends S3 the First claims responsibility for getting Angel out of hell and in Bring on The Night/Lessons S7, the First implies it gave Spike a soul or brought him back to Sunnydaleñ although this is never clearly stated.) If Grave is meant to be the inverse of Becoming, then the next inverse should be of Graduation Day? So if in Graduation Day, Buffy sacrifices herself to save Angel convincing him by her action that he must let her go, ie. leave Sunnydale and find his own path, then the inverse would be Spike sacrificing his life to somehow save Buffy thus convincing Buffy, who has asked that he stay for her, that it is time for her to let him go and let him find his own path in the world. By letting him go, Buffy letís go of her attachment to him and metaphorically through him, Angel as well. By letting go of the fatale, she follows the traditional noir heroís path and in a way saves them both.

(Not that you care: But, for what itís worth, my personal hope is that Angel and Spike will walk off into the moonlight together, with Angel quoting that old Humphrey Bogart line from Casablanca, ìI think this may be the start of a beautiful friendship.î

TBC in conclusion and bibliography which I decided to separate from this one due to length and to help those who may have wanted to skip it.

SK

[> [> [> The I in Team -- Rufus, 07:07:05 04/28/03 Mon

Spike: Got to hand it to you goldilocks - you do have bleeding tragic taste in men.

The line is as above...tragic taste in men...wonder if that is a foreshadowing (season four on) of things to come as well as a comment on both characters. Buffy tends to find the men who can't or won't be available...and Spike finds women he tries to save and can't or they don't want to be.

[> [> [> [> Re: The I in Team -- s'kat, 08:42:07 04/28/03 Mon

Spike: Got to hand it to you goldilocks - you do have bleeding tragic taste in men.

The line is as above...tragic taste in men...wonder if that is a foreshadowing (season four on) of things to come as well as a comment on both characters. Buffy tends to find the men who can't or won't be available...and Spike finds women he tries to save and can't or they don't want to be.

I think it is in a way an excellent comment on both characters. They both have tragic taste in partners. He goes after women who he wants to either save or dominate him (his mother) and she goes after men who she wants to either impress, save, or control her (father). Parent issues.

But there's something else going on here as well - it's a line that is cut from Dirty Girls but I saw in the Shooting Script between Faith and Buffy. Where Faith tells Buffy she gets what she sees in Angel and Spike - the dark and light.
I think in a way that's what attracts the two - the reflection of themselves in the other. Often that's what attracts us to people - a reflection of something we like about us in them, it's also what repulses us - a reflection of something we hate in them. And before someone states - aha B and S are self-absorbed - that's not exactly what I'm stating here. It's not a conscious thing. It's more unconscious. We often unconsciously seek out people as mates or companions that we have stuff in common with, that complement us in some way, that understand us. Also in B/S's case they are both unconsciously trying through their relations with the opposite sex to resolve issues with their parents. As I think Darla stated in The Prodigal to Angel - now that you've killed your father and never got his approval - you'll never get past it.

[> [> [> Re: B. Spike: Subverting the Role of The Noir Fatal (Spoilers DG Btvs7) -- Ann Nichols, 08:30:02 04/28/03 Mon

Very interesting! I wish you had discussed Spike in the musical and "Tabula Rasa", because those were the two episodes that convinced me that Spike was actually changing for the good. Sweet forced people and demons to sing out their innermost feelings and Spike sang nothing about a desire to be able to kill humans again. The surprise on his face when he began to sing as he was trying to get Buffy to leave led me to conclude that Spike honestly believed himself to be immune to the spell because he hadn't sung before Buffy came. ALL of Spike's singing has a light or good ending: Spike's head popping up from the grave and asking the fleeing Buffy if she's not staying then, Spike's furious wish that that b*tch dies ends with his acknowledging that he'd better help her out, he sings that he'll save her, then he'll kill her -- but it's Spike's song that keeps Buffy from combusting when neither her sister nor her closest friends can save her, and Spike walks out of the group Song of Uncertain Future and gets a big smooch from the heroine.

Another fan had pointed out first that even though the Scoobies (core & fringe) lost their memories in "Tabula Rasa", their essential characters remained intact. "Randy Giles" was snarky, but not evil. He claimed to hate his supposed father, but participated in an inept male hug with "Dad" before going out to fight. Even when he discovers he's a vampire, he still fights with "Joan".
(Personally, I want to see a revelation that Spike and Giles *are* related and it was William's fate that inspired Giles' grandmother to become a Watcher.)

You didn't mention Spike's realization that Buffy was actually beating up herself when she beat him up in "Dead Things" and his willingness to let her do this. I haven't made a study of film noir. Is this normal for the genre?

You did touch on female sexual violence being taken less seriously than male, but you used Faith & Xander. The episode in which Buffy was turned invisible ("Gone"?) wasn't mentioned although it provided evidence backing you up. As another fan pointed out, Buffy slamming Spike up against the wall and starting to have her way with him, or attempting to seduce him again when Spike ordered her out (because he didn't want to be just her secret sex toy) was played for laughs. Would that have been true had their roles in that episode been reversed?

You quoted Spike from "Dead Things", but not the times Spike wanted Buffy to reveal their relationship to the Scoobies. At the beginning of S6, it's clear that Spike has spent the summer of Buffy's death fighting with the Scoobies and helping to take care of Dawn. Buffy comes back and shares her sad secret with Spike. This and their violent affair seems to have the effect of pushing Spike back into the dark, away from her friends who had at least been Spike's comrades-in-arms. Did this follow or pervert noir tradition?

[> [> [> [> Re: B. Spike: Subverting the Role of The Noir Fatal (Spoilers DG Btvs7) -- s'kat, 11:51:02 04/28/03 Mon

Not sure how to respond to this exactly, because I'm not sure if the criticism is towards my analysis of Spike as a character, which wasn't my intent, or towards my analysis of Spike as a fatal and how Btvs subverts the noir fatal to illustrate positive female empowerment views - which was my intent or at least partially.

So will try to address step by step, assuming voy doesn't eat this, if it does? Oh well.

1. Why I didn't go into Tabula Rasa and OMWF or other episodes.

The essay wasn't meant as an episode by episode analysis. Been there done that. So don't want to do it again. Particularly on S6. Nor was I interested in proving how Spike strictly fits the fatal in all the episodes - that would uhm be an essay in of itself. My intent was to explore noir themes in the series as a whole, picking portions here and there that best demonstrated that. I don't see TR or OMWF as very noirish in theme. Oh there are noir overtones in them. But it requires way too much jockeying around and bending of rules to fit things that occur in those episodes in the genre. Dead Things and Seeing Red are far more noirish in tone as are Smashed, Wrecked. But again I wasn't interested in the episodes so much as Spike's function in the series as a whole.

Fatals aren't good or bad per se, they are by their very nature ambiguous. Male fatals in neo female noir tend to be slanted more towards the dark side. The heroine is also painted pretty dark in noir. Less so in female noir than the hero is in male noir. (We'll get to that in the next point.)

At any rate - you can argue that in TR there are noirish bits and he functions as a fatal. Not as Randy but as Spike.
In TR, Spike enters the episode with Loan Shark on his back.
He leaves Buffy to handle it and goes to Buffy to get her help on it - when we later learn towards the end of the episode, that he never needed her help and could have taken out the guy completely by himself. It's when she saves him in the beginning of the episode, knocks him out of the way and confronts the fiends - that he sees it as something he can work to his advantage. He uses the loan shark to get closer to Buffy. Like Lilah in Habeas Corpus - enjoys the fact Wes saves her, Spike in Tabula Rasa enjoys the fact Buffy saves him. They both use it partly to their advantage.
Spike more so than Lilah. And Spike does succeed in his aim at the end of the episode - Buffy kissing him, not for the reasons he thinks, but then that's part of the whole fatal/hero power struggle.

The whole Randy bit is a bit of a subversion of the fatal, in that when you rip off the facade, you find a guy who just wants to be a man, part of the gang, fighting the good fight. But when he gets the memory back? Not so wonderful.
This is more in keeping with the sci-fi genre of Twelve Monkeys, Dark City, etc - where the illusion is better than the reality - which as cjl states below isn't really noir so much as existential angst in sci-fi. But as I respond to cjl - there is a little noir within that.

The other reason I didn't mention TR is to be honest? I forgot about it. I tend to write what comes to me. And the dang thing seemed to be taking forever, particularly the Spike bit, which I got stuck on twice. I've written far too many essays on Spike. And there's a sense on the net, that people are getting sick of all the obsessive fanwanking of the character, so I thought I'd emphasize the fatal over Spike. My original idea had been to do just an essay on Spike's function as Fatal in Btvs - and if I had I probably would have gone in as much detailed depth as you appear to have desired, but it wouldn't have been as interesting a post except of course to Spike shippers and would not have covered the point I was more interested in addressing. Also as previously mentioned - I've written in depth analysis of Spike in S6 in other essays, and didn't want to repeat myself. See the essays on my site: www.geocities.com/shadowkatbtvs for examples. ;-)
We write what interests us and hope it appeals to others as well.

2.You didn't mention Spike's realization that Buffy was actually beating up herself when she beat him up in "Dead Things" and his willingness to let her do this. I haven't made a study of film noir. Is this normal for the genre?

Very. The protagonist is usually an anti-hero in noir film.
They will often commit horrendous acts against the fatal.
In some male noir films - we'll see the man rape and beat the fatal. In the film Basic Instinct - the male hero spanks a woman and takes her from behind. His increasingly brutal sex acts say as much about him as they do the heroine. In Fatal Attraction - Michael Douglas' character is somewhat abusive to Glenn Close while pursuing her. He's married. Or in Unfaithful - Diane Lane seeks out violent sex with the fatal and tries to break it off, yet at the same time attacks him for seeing other women, even though she's married and has no intent on leaving her husband.

It would not be noir if Buffy NEVER beat up on or hurt Spike, if there wasn't a clear power-play shown between the two.

3.You did touch on female sexual violence being taken less seriously than male, but you used Faith & Xander. The episode in which Buffy was turned invisible ("Gone"?) wasn't mentioned although it provided evidence backing you up. As another fan pointed out, Buffy slamming Spike up against the wall and starting to have her way with him, or attempting to seduce him again when Spike ordered her out (because he didn't want to be just her secret sex toy) was played for laughs. Would that have been true had their roles in that episode been reversed?

Probably didn't mention it because it's been discussed to death already. Found the Xander/Faith scene more interesting to put in there and a better corollary for the point I was trying to make which was - how men react positively to femme fatals on guys but not male fatals on gals. Gone isn't a good example. Why? We didn't see Buffy.
Most everyone on the internet was sickened by it. The male viewers hated it. The female viewers got off on Spike.
So it does make the point that if it had been the other way around everyone may have hated it. (Which was done btw in The Hollow Man - KEvin Bacon Invisible Man horror film- where he goes after a woman when he's invisible.) The fatal, Spike, uses his power over Buffy, his unabashed nudity in the previous episode Wrecked, also when he comes to her house at the beginning of the episode and feels her up and turns her on, only to dash off. She attempts to grab the power back by playing with him. He takes it back again by throwing her out. The back and forth is very demonstrative of noir sex. No subversion or perversion there. Also not a very good corollary to F/X or B/s in SR, since Spike isn't being raped or forced. It's far clearer corollary to what happens in Dead Things - except again Spike is only upset with B's behavior in Gone, because he knows he has no power there, that she isn't with him really, she is only there because she's invisible. But at the same time, he does get off on the fact that she is there. As he states in Wrecked, "You'll crave me like I crave blood."

4.You quoted Spike from "Dead Things", but not the times Spike wanted Buffy to reveal their relationship to the Scoobies. At the beginning of S6, it's clear that Spike has spent the summer of Buffy's death fighting with the Scoobies and helping to take care of Dawn. Buffy comes back and shares her sad secret with Spike. This and their violent affair seems to have the effect of pushing Spike back into the dark, away from her friends who had at least been Spike's comrades-in-arms. Did this follow or pervert noir tradition?

Didn't see them as important to the thesis. Does it follow? Yeah, to a degree. In many noir films, the fatal will appear to be helping the good guys in order to get something. In Btvs it's a bit of a perversion in the sense that he doesn't really - except wait he does get something, he gets to feel less alone and he gets her.

You're assuming he wanted to be part of the SG after he got with her. I don't see that in the show anywhere. In Flooded - he tells her he's not one for crowds. We only see him in Bargaining as fighting alongside them but not with them in any other capacity. Also it is clear in other episodes that he's not really comfortable in their company.

Does he want her to tell them? Not at first. He only does when he realizes it's what's keeping her from him. If she tells them and they reject her, he gets her. So that's power. And he wants to use that. She insists it isn't in Entropy.

What you keep seeing is a complex power tug of war.

The perversion as I stated in the essay is that Buffy has as much if not more power than Spike, she ironically gets more out of the relationship than he does. He helps her to get close to her. He gives her information. Etc. Also her example empowers him to change for the better. This actually when I think about it is only a perversion on the last bit - being empowered to change for the better. The part about Buffy being more powerful in the relationship is in keeping with most neo Female noir films - in Love Crimes, Dana gets more actually from the relationship than David, he ironically helps her deal with why she's sexually repressed by unlocking a painful memory and also giving her the means through him to deal with her own self-hatred and
parental issues. The same with Jamie Lee Curtis in Blue Steel, Eugene gives her character, MEgan, the ability to deal with her own repression and class issues. Both women end up in a better place at the end than the fatals.

I'm sure there are many more episodes and segments I left out of the essays. But hey it was supposed to be an essay, not a novela. ;-)

Hope I answered some of your questions.

Gotta run.

SK

[> [> Conclusion to Part II and Bibliography (no spoilers in this section) -- s'kat, 22:25:44 04/26/03 Sat

Conclusion

Spike and Angel tend to fall in the redeemable category of male fatal and as such have followed similar arcs in Btvs. They both start out in opposition to the heroine, act as unpredictable informants and helpers, act as providers of uncomfortable truths, become sexual partners/love interests that the heroine is either ashamed of or uncomfortable sharing with others, turn on the heroine in some way, come back different after turning on her, become the damsel, eventually save themselves, and become equals in the heroineís mind, worthy of her respect. Through the fatals, the heroine is able to face her fears and anxieties. Coming to terms with who and what she is and letting go of any and all attachments that could hold her back.

In this manner, Btvs and Ats subvert the classic noir formula to demonstrate female empowerment, both sexually and spiritually. The power of the female is no longer something that should be punished, instead it should be appreciated and celebrated. Itís when the female gives up her power and her independence that she is doomed. When she shares that power, appreciates it, that she is rewarded. This is a subversion of the formula, in the old noir films, the female was punished for her power and only rewarded when she willingly handed it over to the male. In the new noir as seen in Love Crimes, Blue Steele, Btvs and Ats, as well as many other newer noir films and series, the woman is rewarded for sharing and keeping her power.

Bibliography ñ Further Reading on Film Noir, etc.

1. The Femme Fatal by William Marling, www.cwru.edu/artsic/engl/marling/hardboiled/FemmeFatale.HTM< BR> 2. Noir and The Femme Fatale, at web.mit.edu/ldaven/www/fataleintro.html
3. High Heels on Wet Pavement: film noir and the femme fatale, by Michael Mills, 1999 at www.moderntimes.com/palace/film_noir/
4. The Femme Fatale as Object by Elizabeth Lee, 1997, The Victorian Web, at http://65.107.211.206/gender/object.html
5. Artistic Portrayals of The Femme Fatal by Elizabeth Lee, 1997, The Victorian Web, at http://65.107.211.206/gender/object.html
6. No Place for a Woman: The Family in Film Noir by John Blazer, 1994-1999, www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/noir/np05ff.html
7. The Film Noir Reader 2, edited by Alain Silver & James Ursini
8. That Dain Curse by Dashielle Hammet
9. The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler
10. Mildred Pierce by James M. Cain
11. The Maltese Falcon by Dashielle Hammet
12. All Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Angel The Series quotes are taken from Psyche Transcripts, copyright is owned by Mutant Enemy and 20th Century Fox

Whew. Thanks for indulging me. Sorry itís so long, maybe if Iím lucky I can sneak it on to the board when no oneís looking, like late late at night. Itís a bit rough in places, been a while since I tried to write an organized essay.

Comments, corrections, discussion, etc is appreciated as always. *One request ñ there are absolutely no future spoilers in this essay, just a bit of speculation. Please donít post any future spoilers in response to it or any hints of future spoilers. I am desperately trying to stay spoiler-free! Thanks.

Shadowkat

[> [> Brilliant! Thanks for putting this together! -- MaeveRigan, 06:59:54 04/27/03 Sun

[> Let me be the first to say... -- Calvin, 23:34:53 04/26/03 Sat

Sweet mother. I have been a constant lurker on this board since the beginning, and I have to tell you that this may be the best post I've see so far. I love film noir more than any other genre, and this analysis is as good as any I've ever read. I will respond in more detail later (mostly because I have a comment about a recent noir film I am interested in hearing your comments about), but let me be the first to say, "Brilliant job. As always."

Calvin

[> You are over on the Trollop board as well....we don't just talk about spoilers....;) -- Rufus, 03:38:47 04/27/03 Sun

[> Re: :-):-):-) -- aliera, more later..., 06:45:34 04/27/03 Sun

[> Brilliant! No surprise! A small comparison -- luna, 07:40:42 04/27/03 Sun

I have printed and skimmed, and hope for time to read well. Not being so knowledgeable about film noir, I was struck by how well your descriptions of the straight (non-subverted) male fatal fit Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter's Jean Claude. I've only read the first four books, so don't know if subversion will come, but he's perfect--appears half-dressed and seductive much of the time, serves as guide and informant (as the Master of the City, sometimes almost the Master of Anita), provider of truths (she can't lie to him, although she tries to lie to herself occasionally), nemesis, romantic foil, and shadow self (he's truly in control, just as she is, completely dangerous, completely sexy, etc). He's even a damsel in the first book (trapped in his coffin by Nicolaos). Seeing this straight parallel really helped me follow your comments on the ways that Angel and Spike are used differently, and why that makes the whole Buffy series so much more psychologically real and compelling.

[> [> No surprise that it's brilliant, I mean -- luna, 07:41:49 04/27/03 Sun

[> [> Vampires in novels vs. Whedonverse: Gothic & Noir - - s'kat, 13:27:41 04/27/03 Sun

Thanks Luna, this is more to keep the thread alive so people who don't check it on weekends can see the essay tomorrow morning, than anything else.

Not being so knowledgeable about film noir, I was struck by how well your descriptions of the straight (non- subverted) male fatal fit Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter's Jean Claude. I've only read the first four books, so don't know if subversion will come, but he's perfect--appears half- dressed and seductive much of the time, serves as guide and informant (as the Master of the City, sometimes almost the Master of Anita), provider of truths (she can't lie to him, although she tries to lie to herself occasionally), nemesis, romantic foil, and shadow self (he's truly in control, just as she is, completely dangerous, completely sexy, etc). He's even a damsel in the first book (trapped in his coffin by Nicolaos).

I have read two Laura K. Hamilton novels: Guilty Pleasures and Obsidian Butterfly. I preferred Obsidian Butterfly and the character of Edward in both for some odd reason. Anyways, Jean-Claude the sexy vampire in Guilty Pleasures does fit the definition of gothic male fatal and holds with the tradition set up first by Stoker and re-characterized by Ann Rice. Vampires in most novels tend to veer from the purely evil - to the romantic, they stay pretty much within the realm of fatal though, since they can never truly be heroic - the whole bloodsucking evil fiend thing.

But the history and range of uses is worth commenting on, particularly since Whedon's vampires are in a sense in reaction to and a subversion of Ann Rice's. He even shouts out to Anne Rice twice in his series - once in Season 2 with Spike and then later in S5 with Dracula. Mocking and satrizing the Anne Rice trend at the same time. Hamilton's vampires fall into the Anne Rice formula more than Stokers, just as Whedon's sort of do, depending on whether they are chipped and ensouled.

Here's a listing of the vampires I've seen in genre tv and fiction, I'm sure there are more...this list is merely my experience of the genre:

1. Bram Stoker's Dracula (possibly based on Dr. Polidor's, the friend of Mary Shelley who wrote the first vampire story as well as a friend of Stoker's who he considered an emotional vampire, described in a recent bio.) This character is the embodiment of pure evil. Absolutely nothing redeemptive about him, except possibly his desire for Mina, but even that is sort of narcissitic and obsessive.

2. Forever Knight - the vampire is far more foggy morally.
Nick Knight is trying to redeem himself by being a cop. His sire is a talk radio personality and his vampire companion, the fatal of the piece, a club owner. The series never makes a clear stance on whether vampires are evil or not, preferring that nifty shade of grey. The series in that sense is more noir than gothic. Gothic tends to go for more fairy tale themes of good vs. evil. Noir goes for that nice shade of grey in between. Or so I think. Gothic has been getting more and more grey as we move forward.

3. Barnabas Collins in Dark Shadows - started out evil, gradually just became cursed and misunderstood, went from fatal to anti-hero. More gothic than noir. Although there were fatals - they were more gothic in nature. Also very romanticized being a soap opera.

4.Kindred - vampires fall into tribes, some are good, some are evil, some are in between. Sort of the Godfather meets Count Dracula meets Dark Shadows. A mix of gothic and noir.

5.Anita Blake Vampire Hunter Series - vampires are ? As the series goes forward its no longer clear if they are completely evil or something in between. The lead character seems conflicted on whether she's amoral herself at times.
Very noir series - as it moves forward becomes more and more like Chandler and less and less like Rice.

6. Buffy the Vampire Slayer - sort of a cross between noir and gothic, as Buffy grows older the series falls more and more into the world of noir - hence a lot of people's problems with it. Gothic for some reason is easier to deal with, noir tends to bring up issues that make people uncomfortable - like you're alone in the universe, there's no such thing as happy ending, redemption is just making it out alive...stuff like that. (See Out of the Past, Love Crimes, Blue Steel, The Big Sleep, Kiss Me Deadly, Dark City, and Blade Runner for examples.) Gothic? Is a little more romantic, there is a god and a devil, you aren't so alone...and there could be a happy ending (See Beauty and the Beast, Dracula, Wuthering Heights, JAne Eyre, Rebecca, and the Anne Rice books for examples.)

7. Angel the Series - used to be more gothic, now is becoming more and more noir, the vampires, demons, humans - all grey.

Not sure if that adds anything...but it might keep the thread alive a bit longer.

SK

[> [> [> Vampires everywhere -- luna, 17:35:20 04/27/03 Sun

(also keeping thread alive)

There's also the strange perversion into the comic with Blacula, etc.

Rice and Stoker are two poles--the sympathetic (1 st person narrator, regret, etc with Rice) and the totally evil. Agreed that Whedon's seem to fall all over the continuum, though I don't think he's ever quite had a real Stoker vamp- -his Dracula was definitely out of Rice, and much like what Laurell Hamilton does with Jean Claude. Whedon's are the only ones I've encountered with a truly human range and diversity, and with the complexity that Angel and Spike have. But I really like how you show his games with the genre. What about Lost Boys, if you saw that? Seem very fatal to me, though (if I remember the plot correctly) it was more a play on peer pressure than sex.

[> [> [> [> Re: Vampires everywhere -- s'kat, 20:32:18 04/27/03 Sun

Agreed that Whedon's seem to fall all over the continuum, though I don't think he's ever quite had a real Stoker vamp- -his Dracula was definitely out of Rice, and much like what Laurell Hamilton does with Jean Claude. Whedon's are the only ones I've encountered with a truly human range and diversity, and with the complexity that Angel and Spike have. But I really like how you show his games with the genre. What about Lost Boys, if you saw that? Seem very fatal to me, though (if I remember the plot correctly) it was more a play on peer pressure than sex.

Actually he did have a Stoker vamp - the Master and the UberVamp are based on Nosterferstru, which in turn is off of the Stoker view. The bat-like creature. The vamps batlike visages remind one partly of Stoker's debilitated Dracula.

Lost Boys is definitely mentioned in Btvs and Ats - with Spike to some degree and Ford- see the whole Lie To Me episode. Spike's look reminds me a lot of Keither Sutherland's character in the Lost Boys. Also of the bikers in Near Dark. I think Whedon and Company sort of combined these films with Sid Vicious to come up with Spike, Dru, and their gang in S2. The whole videos bit and drinking blood from the bottle and the Desoto/Motorcycle is right out of those films. The lure of peer pressure and the romance of it - both themes in Lie To Me in S2 and in Halloween. Lost Boys is also far more gothic than noir.
Near Dark is more noir, rawer, more violent, far darker.

Another film referenced is Vampires - starring James Woods and Daniel Baldwin, which I know ME saw because they literally stole the scene of Willow on the truck pursueing
Xander/Buffy in police car from that movie. This one is actually more noir than gothic - more violent, the bad guy is a bishop/priest who wants immortality and the good guy has given up on god. The good guy also isn't that nice or good, far more grey. And at the end a vampire couple, his former friends, are given 24 hours to get gone before he pursues them. Line is very hazy.

As we move forward in the vampire genre - it gets more noirish and less gothic in places in film.

Lost boys - gothic
Near Dark - noir
Bram Stoker's Dracula starring Gary Oldman - gothic
Vampires with James Woods - noir

Interesting to think about.

SK

[> [> [> [> [> Re: Vampires everywhere -- Rufus, 20:57:01 04/27/03 Sun

I have both The Lost Boys and Near Dark....they were released the same year and Lost Boys was far more popular. I feel that Near Dark holds up far better as a movie in the long run that Lost Boys..I think that Joss has used aspects of both in his shows....

[> [> [> [> [> [> Noir vs. Gothic and Noir in Science Fiction -- s'kat, 21:40:18 04/27/03 Sun

Interesting that Near Dark holds up better. Must go rent that one again. Also interesting that Lost Boys was more popular - it was the lighter of the two, also not really noir so much as gothic - although the two genres can blur together at times.

I think the reason it was more popular is besides the hot young cast and the lack of gore, it was the lighter of the two, less nihilistic, not focusing on the noir themes.
Noir themes can be tough on audiences. Just take a gander on the religion discussions on this board of late as an example. In pure noir - there is often no god, you are alone in the universe, the guide posts are removed, you must make it on your own and there are no guarantees. Noir tends to be very existentialist. It doesn't mock religion. It really has nothing to do with it. What it discusses is how we deal with the idea of being alone in the universe. How we empower ourselves.

Examples of Science Fiction Noir include: Philip K. Dick's novels, especially Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep - far darker than Blade Runner which is based on it.

Dark City - the film

Red Drawf - the series

The Prisoner - the series

Invasion of the Body Snatchers

Invaders from Mars

Metropolis - the movie

Frankenstein

Twelve Monkeys - which in turn is based on La Jetee - the short noir classic by Chris Marker

The X-Files and The Outer Limits

In Writing the New Noir Film, Sharon Y Cobb states:
"In Noir, good and evil are confused and sometimes indistinguishable. Moral ambivalence and complicated discrepancies in character motivation encourage the audience to feel the torment and insecurity of the protagonist."

In another essay, by James Ursini, Noir Science -
He describes how the lead character in Metropolis, Freder fits the noir figure: "a complex protagonist with existential awareness". He goes on to state how Frankenstein really symbolizes this and is both noir and non-noir (gothic). "The existentialist angst in Frankenstein is two fold largely because the focus of Shelley's story was from the beginning shizophrenic, building sympathy for Dr. Frankenstein in his Promethean desire to find the meaning of life by creating it as well as for his Creature in his often violent, yet, at times, tender search for acceptance and identity." (He cites James Whale's Frankenstein movies : Bride of Frankenstein and Frankenstein (1931 and 1935) as examples.

These, I think are tough issues for mainstream or mass audiences to grasp. It's not pleasant. Noir doesn't give us a happy ending or an answer or for that matter a good guy/bad guy or even redeemption. It just provides more questions.

Thanks for the responses.
SK

[> [> [> [> [> [> [> Personal view on Noir -- Finn Mac Cool, 22:23:13 04/27/03 Sun

Noir has a few major flaws that, at least for me personally, make it less enjoyable.

First, like you said, Noir doesn't give us a happy ending or an answer. But that's just the problem: there's not even the possibility of a happy ending. You know pretty much from the beginning that it will end in doom and gloom. I appreciate both happy and sad endings, but find they are usually cheapened if there's no suspense as to which one it will be. A happy ending can really lift you up if you honestly believed everything would end badly. A sad ending can really shock you and make you think if you honestly believed there was hope for the characters. In Noir you're guaranteed a depressing ending, so you don't bother to hope that things might turn out better.

Second, this one may be more specific to me, but I don't see a story built on being alone in the world as too interesting. It's not because I find it too depressing, it's because it's a fact of life for me. I came to a decision a few years ago that whatever powers exist in this world aren't divine helpers of humanity; I also decided that the odds of there being an afterlife to hope for are pretty slim (87% sure that there's nothing after death). And, after I came to these realizations, I didn't feel all sad and depressed. It was actually kind of liberating. I guess I'm what you might call a "happy nihilist". As such, seeing someone constantly overwhelmed by their own aloneness in the universe just isn't something I can identify with.

Third, Noir is firmly part of the Realist literary movement. However, while it shows grit and moral ambiguity that can be found in the real world, not everyone experiences that in their lives. Noir tries to tell you that what it shows you is what the real world is like, but if you live in a nice neighborhood, are well off financially, are contented in your life, and solve your personal dilemmas with very little anguish, than it's hard to accept Noir as Realism. Gothic, on the other hand, doesn't claim to be Realistic. It shows situations that are either unlikely but feasibly possible, or uses impossible situations as exaggerated versions of more common life situations. The key is that Gothic acknowledges itself as being different from real life experience, while Noir doesn't, yet, for many people, at any rate, neither genre bears much resemblance to the lives they lead.

Also, on a different note, I find your definitions of Gothic odd. Namely, that Gothic is lighter and has a tendency towards happy endings. In my mind, Gothic has always been filled with darkness and death, which naturally leads to good chances for unhappy endings. Of course, I might just be thinking of Gothic architecture, which is very dark and menacing.

[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Re: Personal view on Noir -- s'kat, 22:46:01 04/27/03 Sun

Point taken. Depends on the Gothic.

Wuthering Heights? Not so nice.
Jane Eyre? Far cheerier.

The thing to remember in genre fiction like all things is there are no absolutes. I tended to generalize a bit above for the sake of simplicity. But in most cases? These genres blend into each other.

Not all noir is necessarily unhappy or depressing. Blade Runner ends with Rachel and Dekard flying off into the sunset, they have no clue when they'll die, they don't have the answers, but they aren't upset about it. The same with Dark City which ends with the main character taking control of his reality - instead of it being a dark nihilistic world run by aliens, he tunes it and changes it to a sunlight ocean-side beach. The point of noir is NOT that life is a nihilistic existence, nor is that the point of existentialism. The point is we are in control of it, it's up to us what we make of it. We can either enjoy our lives or not. To only enjoy life just because we know there's an afterlife or all the answers or that we aren't alone in the universe is sort of silly isn't it? Shouldn't we enjoy life regardless? That's the point most noir sci-fi makes.

Gothic genre isn't necessarily lighter as just more romantic. It can be very dark, with lots of death. But the death tends to be on the melodramatic/romantic side of things. It is grey. Just very idealized in some ways.
Examples are again Dracula, gothic romance novels, Hunchback of Notre Dame may fall into this category - I'm not positive, Wuthering Heights, Rebecca...Now gothic that blends into the horror genre can be more nihlistic than anything remotely noir.

Genres blend together. Whedon does a good job actually of blending science fiction/fantasy/gothic and noir genres.
For strict noir on television - see Miami Vice, Crime Story, or sci-fi noir - X-Files.

I think you might like noir better than you think you do - its not really that dark. Just because it doesn't provide answers doesn't mean the ending isn't happy. Fargo is a noir film and that ended happily. Depends on what you consider happy.

SK

[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> great essay! Bladerunner, Cronos, Blade2, The Omen, rambles -- MsGiles, 05:55:11 04/28/03 Mon

Sneaking in to add my two-pennyworth. really liked the essay, and especial thanks for the clear spoiler notices, I've been able to read the bits I can and save the rest for later. Loads to take in, but the gothic/noir thing sounds really interesting.

I prefer the 'Directors Cut' of Bladerunner, myself, which has a much more noir ending, implying as it does that Deckard may himself not be human, and giving Rachel no longer a life then any other replicant. I must say, I prefer a dark ending where the film's style makes me expect it - I don't consider this any more or less 'realistic' than a happy ending. There has been, I suppose, a trend for films to signal their 'realism' by having unhappy/downbeat endings, a trend begun perhaps by the 'kitchen sink' genre of the 50's (the L-shaped Room, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, Brighton Rock etc) which wanted to contrast with Hollywood happies, but currently films that use realism as a style (thinking of Irvine Welch/Danny Boyle Trainspotting, Ken Loach perhaps, Mike Leigh, maybe the Dogma people, correct me on this) use both happy and unhappy, or a confusing mix. I think noir uses downbeat endings in a different way to realism: it is to do with the melancholic, the impossibility of resolving personal/cultural dichotomies

I'd be interested to hear your take on Blade2 (can't comment on Blade, haven't seen it yet). Blade 2 is del Toro directing, His stuff (Cronos, Mimic) strikes me as essentially gothic. Cronos is more interesting than Mimic, which is more Hollywood influenced. It includes a device which looks like a mediaeval mechanical insect, which can apparently suck and recirculate blood, prolonging life and creating youth. However it is also in some nebulous way powered by evil, and the un-natural youth it gives can lead only to disaster. There are connections to vampirisim: the blood metaphor, the exchange of the soul (spiritual health?) for increased physical health and longevity. The main characters in Cronos are an old man and his grandson; the grandson is the innocent threatened as the old man becomes addicted to the use of the device, and prey to its dark influences.

Blade2 is mainly SF/gothic; it mixes vampiricism with the action genre, but, like The Crow, retains many gothic elements. The film, like many of the protagonists, avoids daylight and confines itself to the urban night, finishing in tunnels and subterrainea. The characters have the overblown melodrama and visual excess/symbolism of gothic (which has found a natural home in the aesthetics of the graphic novel and in anime). The opening scenes are filmed in Prague, happy home of much gothicness, alchemy connections. Parallels with vampirism and drugs are lightly touched upon. These vampires are social outcasts, anarchist parasites on a bloated and unequal society, but there is none of the greyness of noir - they are evil. All the greyness is concentrated in the person of the central figure, Blade, who is half-vamp, hunts for the human side, and is confronted in this fim with the contradictions inherent in his nature and his allliances, a contradiction symbolically represented by a female love interest, who is both saved and lost in what is essentially an up-beat ending.

An uber-vamp figure features who is different in nature to the visceral street vamps, and who is the Dracula-like figure of ultimate, seductive evil. He visually references Bela Lugosi's Dracula strongly (in his aged, pre-revived form) and has a very European vampiric vibe - as in Stoker's Dracula, there is a theme here of the Old World threatening the New (like Dracula travelling to England from Transylvania to relaunch his career).

I wanted to mention 'The Omen' as well, because it was on TV again recently, and I was reminded of that whole 70's horror genre, most of which I hated at the time (eg Rosemary's Baby, The Exorcist) due to being grossed out by decapitations etc. I find it more interesting in retrospect. The Omen has many gothic aspects - the atmosphere of doom, the threatened innocents, a strong religious theme with priests, nuns, monasteries. What distinguishes it is its bleakness, its lack of visual/romantic appeal. Evil is not seductive here, it doesn't need to bother. Unlike the more noir Bladerunner, which though doom-laden is full of powerfully seductive, rich visuals and lush emotional music, The Omen is visually bleak, mainly set in ugly 70's urbanism. Even the trademark gothic churchyard-at-night seems more brutalist than romantic: desolate, lowkey, broken rathen than ruined. I wonder how much this relates to the cultural crises of the mid C20th: the waning of religious influence and growth of secularism in the west, the move into advanced capitalism, consumer culture, post WW2, the maturing (and start of the collapse) of state communism, and the Cold War, and I wonder if some of this is a source of this bleak vibe?

[> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Really interesting post on films. Thanks Ms G. Blade, Far From Heaven -- s'kat, 08:30:14 04/28/03 Mon

Oh agree on Blade Runner - I own the VHs Director's Cut verison - far better than the other one. Much murkier.
While I haven't seen Blade2 yet, I've seen Blade, sort of the opposite of you. It is very gothic in its representations and not nearly as dark as Blade2 you describe. The vampires are definitely evil. Blade is a grey neutrality. The scenes are shot in relative darkness. And the fact that Blade is halfvamp/halfhuman both empowers and taints him - similar to Angel. In the comic book series - the allusion is to HIV and is far more obviously drawn.

I agree with you on the 1950's faux realist movement - recently satirized and commented on by the 2001 movie Far From Heaven, which is literally shot frame by frame in the same style as the Douglas Sirk films of that era: Written on The Wind, Peyton Place. The 1950s realist movement was far more depressing than the noir films in their endings.
In Far From Heaven, the 50s style housewife played by Julianne Moore gets involved in a psuedo platonic/psuedo sexual relationship with her black gardner played by Dennis Haysbert, after she discovers that her husband is having an affair with another man. The husband eventually divorces her and goes to be with the other man. Julianne Moore ends up alone with her two children. Dennis Haysbert moves away because the town can't handle their involvement. The last shot is of her car driving slowly away from the train station where she said a limp goodbye to Haysbert's character. This realism becomes more gritty in the 70s with the films Five Easy Pieces, Carnal Knowledge, The Deer Hunter, Taxi Driver, Mean Streets, Easy Rider - all of which feature characters that feel disoriented, disconnected from themselves or society. The films are about that disconnect.

70s Noir and Gothic did feature some interesting efforts and favorites of mine. ChinaTown w/ JAck Nicholson and Faye Dunnaway - is an example of the new noir film. Rosemary's Baby is the new gothic by Roman Polanski - the ending is dark in it, and the film builds in suspense and melodrama.
The difference between the two - is Rosemary ends the film a bit nutty, but she does have faith in something. In a way Rosemary's Baby is similar to Cordelia in Ats. A woman who finds herself choosing between good and evil - based on a child. The noirish aspect - may be the psychological horror or realism in the piece, Rosemary spends the film and most of the book it is based on, worrying that someone is out to get her child, that the witches/devil worshippers will steal it from her. When in fact the child is the anti-christ and the devil worshippers are afraid if she discovers this she'll terminate it. Rosemary's rising paranoia is emphasized and is a general theme of most of Polanski's work during this time period as well as other 70s directors. (See The Tenant and Repulsion - as examples)

I think the Omen, Rosemary's Baby are comments on some of the same themes in McCarthy era 1950s films - the idea of everyone being against you, being separate from society.
During both periods - there were fears of Communisim and Nuclear War. In McCarthy era we had the blacklist which influenced many Hollywood filmmakers who watched their friends turn on their friends and if you looked in any way like a Communist - you were blacklisted/prevented from working in film. Hence the sci-fi horror films: Invasion of The Body Snatchers, Invaders From Mars - which both dealt with this theme. In 1970s, we returned to this feeling of paranoia with Watergate and Vietnam and the Cold War starting up again - so we had films like a remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Five Easy Pieces, etc.
Towards the end of the 70s the films got a little more positive with American Graffiti, Star Wars, JAws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind (and yep the same two directors for both.)

Angel the Series comments on the films of the MacArthy era and the 70s with the episode If You Are or Ever Were - which literally has it's title taken from the MacArthy hearings of the era and is based on the idea of paranoia.

Noir, Gothic and Realist films often seem to comment on
the fears and anxieties of the historical time period in which they are created. I think by exploring our fears on screen - we somehow release them. We figure them out.
In 50's they dealt not so much with the fear of Communism as the fear of being labled something and separated. The fear of being one against the mob - alone - is one that is echoed in Angel this season. In the 70s - the fear was also of being alone, but it was also about disillusionment - the loss of hope or a purpose. A reaction, I expect to the realization that a crook could be elected PResident, you don't win every war and some wars are wrong (Vietnam) and
when you get out of college you don't always get the dream job - expectations the younger generation had in the 60s - crushed in the 70s - resulting in a period of gritty realistic cinema.

[> [> [> [> [> [> [> How I bring this to Angel....spoilers for Sacrifice -- Rufus, 01:38:07 04/28/03 Mon

In Writing the New Noir Film, Sharon Y Cobb states:
"In Noir, good and evil are confused and sometimes indistinguishable. Moral ambivalence and complicated discrepancies in character motivation encourage the audience to feel the torment and insecurity of the protagonist."

What a time for a feel-good deity to arrive in LA. wrong is right and right is wrong, but at first it didn't seem that way. Before the euphoria induced loyalty spell kicks in, Jasmine is very, very careful to reach into each mind and find that thing they most wanted, needed to hear. As the spell is stronger and people are less themselves and more Jasmine, she no longer has to be so careful. What I noticed in the big artistic bug that Wes spoke to was his grief over losing Jasmine to this world. It reminded me of how the gang felt when each was relieved of the spell, but not so thankful about it. Jasmine seems to need initial contact to get the ball rolling. I feel that Jasmine was there (bug world) first or they wouldn't have been so busy building the temples/hives. The other, older world is what LA/the world could eventually look like. Jasmine even mentions building temples and the like to Connor, further making me believe that she had been in that other older world.

Jasmine has had an effect on the noir world that gave the gang and Angel hopes that there would be a happy ending. Once the spell was broken, reality and how bleak it can be set in. Bad enough that life can suck, but worse when for just awhile you think you know paradise.....of course all the time the audience taking that same hopeful trip.

[> [> [> [> [> [> [> Gene Wolfe's vampires in Short Sun series (book though, not film) -- luna, 11:49:21 04/28/03 Mon

Gene Wolfe's vampires in On Blue's Water's, In Green's Jungles, and Return to Whorl are some of the strangest I've encountered--and definitely more noir/noire than gothic. Their ability to almost imitate human form reminds me of some of the more sympathetic aspects of Spike and other Whedon vamps: The ironic twist is not that he appears to be good on the surface but will go for your jugular if crossed, but actually the reverse. Oh heíll go for your jugular but underneath it all, when push comes to shoveÖhe might be the one who helps you save the world when it matters. This a perversion of the standard formula, which is no matter how good you think he is ñ he will kill you if given half the chance.(s'kat) In the end, in fact, the Wolfe vamps may be the saviours of the hero, as often happens in Whedon. But itís interesting in Wolfe how the vampireís ability to be almost human seems to emphasize and make even more creepy their essential inhumanity (thatís true of his cyborgs too, though).

[> [> [> I'm an Edward fan as well.....wonder what that says about us...;) -- Rufus, 20:52:32 04/27/03 Sun

Edward is nicknamed "Death" for good reason, he started out killing regular folk but graduated to vampires etc. Humans had become no challenge, so he moved up to the less than human types. I find his character more complex than the demon types. I liked Obsidian Butterfly as well...the latest one was good, but no Edward, so something was missing, besides a flamethrower.

[> [> [> [> Re: I'm an Edward fan as well.....wonder what that says about us...;) -- s'kat, 21:11:21 04/27/03 Sun

I find his character more complex than the demon types.

I think that's the reason we prefer Edward in a nutshell. Either that...or...hmmm. I'm going for that reason. ;-) (There's another Edward like character in Science Fiction that I've found thanks to the wonderful fresne and Ete - Sgt.Bothur in the Lois McMaster Bujold Books. Interesting guy - a cold blooded killer yet at the same time honorable and loyal - the contrast is intriguing.)
Edward is more complex - he also acts as a better foil for the heroine. Not a romantic foil, more of an alter-ego foil, which in some ways I find more interesting. I found Anita's non-sexual relationship with Edward oddly enough more engaging and powerful than the sexual one she had with JEan- Claude in both Guilty Pleasures - where Edward appears and later in Obsidian. I also found Edward's pseudo friend who gets a thing for Anita, creepy and intriguing in a way the demons didn't intrigue. He scared me more than the monsters did. I think because both characters were more ambivalent, less romanticized, greyer and far more noir in aspect. (Oh by the way, just in case there's any confusion - I like these characters ONLY in my "fiction" NOT real life. In real life I prefer men who are more like Rileys, Xanders, and Oz's, thank you very much. ;-))

It's the oddest thing - the older I get, the more I find myself preferring noir villains, heros, fatals to the gothic, which I preferred when I was younger. Maybe I'm just getting more cynical? Naw.

So Edward's not in NArcissis in Chains nor Cerulean Sins?

SK

[> [> [> [> he's noir, for sure! -- luna, 11:58:34 04/28/03 Mon

Also, I notice that Hamilton's writing is much better in the later books (well, I'm just in the middle ones)and some of the characters like Edward seem to be getting much more distinct personalities. Do you think he's of the Spike type of subversion that S'kat mentions--the one who seems evil on the surface but actually comes through as savior at the end?

[> Beautiful! Following up speculations re. Spike (aired- ep spoilers, speculation,) -- Anneth, the tangential and long-winded, 13:22:05 04/27/03 Sun

Shadowkat, that was spectacular!! Your essays consistently bring me to new heights of appreciation for all things Buffy the Vampire Slayer & Angel the Series.

I've been puzzling about what they're going to do with Spike quite a bit, also; trying to suss out clues from the various S7 eps. Your essay gave me a little pause for thought:

If Grave is meant to be the inverse of Becoming, then the next inverse should be of Graduation Day? So if in Graduation Day, Buffy sacrifices herself to save Angel convincing him by her action that he must let her go, ie. leave Sunnydale and find his own path, then the inverse would be Spike sacrificing his life to somehow save Buffy thus convincing Buffy, who has asked that he stay for her, that it is time for her to let him go and let him find his own path in the world. By letting him go, Buffy letís go of her attachment to him and metaphorically through him, Angel as well. By letting go of the fatale, she follows the traditional noir heroís path and in a way saves them both.

This paragraph made me think immediatly of the climax of Him, where Buffy nearly screams at Dawn "No guy is worth your life. Not ever." (Psyche's Him Shooting Script) I remember thinking it significant at the time for a number of reasons; first and foremost because I was looking for clues about the season's, and series', ultimate end. Secondly because, as has been mentioned before, it's an interesting comment for Buffy to make, considering how close she came to sacrificing herself for Angel in GD1. (Your essay made me wonder - was she completely prepared to die for him when she offered herself up to him? did she believe she could cure him with most, but not all, of her blood? Did she believe he'd turn her? Was she even thinking at all, or was she simply going off half-cocked, as is her unfortunate wont?) So, her comment in Him made me wonder, and still makes me wonder, what kind of sacrifice will be involved in the series' finale. Will she sacrifice herself for love, again? For romantic love? Platonic love? Would she put herself in Xander's shoes at the end of DG and take Caleb's act unto herself in his place? Will she wish she could, or had?

Another scene that caught my eye as seemingly significant is the moment when Buffy and Spike lead the first SiTs into a crypt, wail on the resident vampire a little, to rile him up, then drop their weapons and walk away, closing and locking the doors on the potentials behind them. (Potential, I believe.) I've heard that in earlier drafts, the writers left in a quick shot of the two standing outside the crypt, listening to make certain that the only casualty of the training exercise is the vampire - but this was not included in the final cut. This indicates to me that the writers are at least toying with the idea of letting Buffy walk away from the Slayer business - and Spike, too. Of their own free will - free will being such an important theme of this season, on both BtVS and AtS.

Also, veering off tangentially, I wanted to note that Spike's S6 relationship with Buffy seems to have the most humanizing effect upon him of any development thus far, and then ultimately destroys that humanity by realizing it spiritually. And then he rehumanizes himself. (Hang in there; I'll try to explain!) Notice that it's only after Spike begins trying to seduce Buffy that he begins wearing jewelry. After he starts sleeping with her that he begins wearing noticably different clothes (Crush excepted, for obvious reasons.) After he starts sleeping with her that he's shown as somewhat socially active; he's friends with Clem, brings Clem to Buffy's b-day party, and has impliedly discussed aspects of his relationship with Clem. (Seeing Red; "Did she dump you again?") It also seems significant to me that Spike is only ever shown reading, in his "private" lower-level crypt, as opposed to watching tv in his 'public' upper-level crypt-space, in As You Were, the episode where Buffy first destroys Spike's private space, and human trappings (books, record collection, bed, etc.), then breaks up with him.

Okay, so Buffy breaks his toys then dumps him. He reacts in typically human fashion; drunken rebound-sex and then a physical attack. (Please don't misunderstand me! When I say "typically human" I don't mean that average humans react to breakups this way; I mean instead that his reaction is more accurately defined as a human's reaction than a vampire's reaction. Angelus' tormenting in S2 is what I'd define as a more typically vampiric reaction.) As S'kat mentions, Spike is so horrified by the latter reaction that he rushes off in search of his soul.

It's after Spike regains his soul that he loses his humanity. First physically; he returns to Sunnydale and hides in the school basement, a lunatic. He has apparently lost his mind, one of those aspects that makes humans unique in the animal kingdom - the ability to reason. Once he's removeded from the basement, his humanity is not immediatly restored; in fact, he apparently reverts to Evil Bloodsucking Fiend status. It's the most recent few episodes that have him regaining his humanity, and in the least superficial fashions. Rather than starting a new record collection, he has the chip removed. (The way he and Buffy explained it to Giles, it sounded as though they'd discussed it. But that remains open to debate.) Rather than changing clothes more often, (though he does that too) he apparently fights his subconscious and deactivates his trigger.

My question is, how does this fit into the neo-noir homme fatal paradigm? How does it subvert it? It's hard for me to think through these questions because Spike is becoming so fully-realized a character; it's tough to analyze him in terms of Buffy the hero anymore. She's been almost desexualized this season, even in Him. But she has feelings for him; she admits them herself. ME is clearly leading up to something big; I'm completely at a loss to say what, though.

I most like S'kat's idea of a Casablanca-esque ending for 'our boys.'

Again, Shadowkat, thanks for the beautiful, thought- provoking essay. As always!

[> [> A few responses (aired-ep spoilers, speculation,) - - s'kat, 14:16:56 04/27/03 Sun

First, thank you. And here's hoping Joss likes the Casablancish ending as well. It's so noir - that it's perfect.

Speaking of noir:

1. My question is, how does this fit into the neo-noir homme fatal paradigm? How does it subvert it? It's hard for me to think through these questions because Spike is becoming so fully-realized a character; it's tough to analyze him in terms of Buffy the hero anymore. She's been almost desexualized this season, even in Him. But she has feelings for him; she admits them herself. ME is clearly leading up to something big; I'm completely at a loss to say what, though.

Pretty well actually. Spike's attack on Buffy in Seeing Red, humanized as it is - is far more noirish than what happens to Angel in S2. Angel's actions are actually more in keeping with the gothic tradition. Which is highly romantic. For Spike to fit the true noir fatal model he must act in a human way.

1. He wears jewelry, nice clothes to turn on Buffy. He is flirting with her. Seducing her. Notice he is nude more often or his shirt is open more often after they get together. This is also to tantalize her. He doesn't start this until he realizes that it turns her on - that it gives him power over her. Prior to that realization - he doesn't do it, because he would lose power.

I think it's important to remember that in fatal/heroine relationships - the focus is on power. As opposed to the gothic - where the focus is on romance.

2. The drinking, going off to sleep with Anya, basically having the equivalent of a vampire nervous breakdown...
is also in keeping with noir fatals. In Blue Steel, Eugene's character goes nuts when Jamie Lee's rejects him.
Same with David Hanover in Love Crimes. Or to a lesser degree the guy who seduces Diane Lane in Unfaithful - she can't quite get rid of him. In male noir films, we occassionally have the lady go nuts - examples are Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction. She's fine when she's with Michael Douglas, dresses pretty, etc, but the moment he rejects her? She goes insane, drinks, tries to commit suicide, anything to get her power back.

If we had been in the Gothic tradition - Spike would have probably just bitten Buffy or gone and hired some vamps to take her out or joined with the Troika. In Female Noir, the
fatal goes insane and is alone. Also often cheats on his/her lover.

3.The getting of the soul - is well the subversion. That usually isn't what happens. But how he comes back? That is in keeping with the formula. The fatal goes off the deep end. When he loses his power...he becomes almost unhuman or less than human. We see the same thing in a way with Angel in Season 3, except again it's not quite as dark and gritty and hopeless...because it's more gothic than noir, I think.
(No expert...;-) )

Another thing about noir as opposed to gothic, is the villain and/or fatal is more humanized, they tend to even be sympathetic to us. Lonely. In pain. They aren't quite as black and white. Example: The Master - Gothic Villain,
The Troika - Noir Villains. Same with the fatal - again more human, more faults, often more pathetic - fatals in noir film can often seem like losers underneath the surface, male audience members often wonder what the heck the female lead sees in him. While in gothic film, the male fatal is romantically wonderful and rarely if ever humilated and never seems like a loser. Spike's humilations make him more human, more real, and place him in the noir camp. In the Female Neo Noir Tradition the fatal is often humilated, will often seem to be adrift or a loser in some way - it is oddly enough that lonliness, the helpless, vulnerability that he represents which attracts her to him, just as it is her power that attracts him. It also repulses them. Hence the blinding chemistry. In each other they see parts of themselves. The parts they both fear and desire.

2. Regarding Graduation Day and Him

This paragraph made me think immediatly of the climax of Him, where Buffy nearly screams at Dawn "No guy is worth your life. Not ever." (Psyche's Him Shooting Script) I remember thinking it significant at the time for a number of reasons; first and foremost because I was looking for clues about the season's, and series', ultimate end. Secondly because, as has been mentioned before, it's an interesting comment for Buffy to make, considering how close she came to sacrificing herself for Angel in GD1. (Your essay made me wonder - was she completely prepared to die for him when she offered herself up to him? did she believe she could cure him with most, but not all, of her blood? Did she believe he'd turn her? Was she even thinking at all, or was she simply going off half-cocked, as is her unfortunate wont?) So, her comment in Him made me wonder, and still makes me wonder, what kind of sacrifice will be involved in the series' finale. Will she sacrifice herself for love, again? For romantic love? Platonic love? Would she put herself in Xander's shoes at the end of DG and take Caleb's act unto herself in his place? Will she wish she could, or had?

I am wondering the same thing. The more I think about it, the more I wonder if the inversion/subversion/metanarration this year is NOT Becoming but Graduation Day. It makes sense. Since last year really was Becoming, except with Willow and Xander in the inverse roles of Buffy and Angel.
Willow needed to kill Xander in order to open the power of whatshername to destroy the world and free it, Buffy needed to kill Angel in order to close whatshisname and save the world. Willow chooses not to kill Xander. Buffy chooses to kill Angel. Willow leaves to heal in England. Angel goes to hell. Angel gets cursed with a soul by Willow, Giles is tortured by Angel, Spike helps Buffy save the world for Drusilla. Spike gets a soul for Buffy, Giles is tortured by Willow, Anya helps Xander save the world.

Okay, so if last year was Becoming, is this year Graduation Day? If so what does that mean? Exactly?

What happened in GDay I & II?
I've wondered about Buffy. In GDay - Willow tells buffy that Angel needs to "drain" the blood of a slayer to survive. So buffy goes to get Faith, her one major act of evil, to give Angel the blood to drain. Xander and Willow question her on this. So does Wes. Xander says that's not of the good. Buffy doesn't listen. (Shades of Him here.)
She fights Faith to the death and is only prevented from using Faith's blood to heal Angel by Faith falling into a truck and getting away from her. Buffy goes back and forces Angel to drink, he keeps refusing, she literally has to beat a weakened Angel into submission - his demon takes over, he comes incredibly close to draining her dry. If he hadn't rushed her to a hospital for an immediate blood transfusion, she would be dead. Xander, Willow and Giles aren't happy with him. He also puts her in danger - and has to save her from the Mayor. In HIM - Buffy tells Dawn no guy is worth dying for, this is after Spike stops her, not once, but twice, from killing Wood. Ironic? Very. So, has Buffy learned? Have the actions of Xander and Willow this year taught her anything? Selfless is btw a comment on Revelations - except, Buffy is in the Faith role, Xander is in the Buffy role, and Anya is in the Angel role, with D'Hoffryn as Gwen Post. The difference is Anya really did it. It's darker. And it's this episode we discuss Becoming.
Why? Because they are reminding us of something - something discussed in Revelations, but was never resolved.

Other episodes that echo S3: Killer in Me = Dopplegangerland, Storyteller = The Zeppo, Lies My PArents Told Me? =Amends? Dirty Girls = Bad Girls. Also the all authority theme going on.

In a way, what we are seeing in S5, S6, S7 is the more noirish, darker adult view of the romanticized, lighter, gothic stories in S1, S2, S3. Even the way each is shot demonstrates the differences here. It's looking on the same events but with adult eyes and adult consequences.

At least that's my hunch.

Thanks again Anneth, been enjoying your posts on the board as well.

SK

[> [> [> Another GD-Him parallel (spoilers aired eps) -- Anneth, 15:22:49 04/27/03 Sun

Ooo,ooo, also recall that Angel, in GD1, rushes Buffy to the hospital to save her, rather than resorting to the far simpler, more effective, method of 'saving' her - vamping her. He risked her dying on the way to the hospital in order to bring her back to life, rather than taking her soul by siring her. If he'd sired her, then conceiveably (and this might be some serious fan-wanking on my part) they'd be able to end up together; they'd have sex, he'd lose his soul, and it'd be Angelus + VampBuffy 4eva. Or, you know, something like that. In any event, if he'd sired her, she'd still be alive. As opposed to if she'd died on the way to the hospital; she'd have been lost to him forever.

In Him, both Xander and Spike forego the quick fix that RJ's jacket presents; after they rip it off (literally and figuratively!) they bring it to Casa Summers as a (tounge-in- cheek) sacrificial offering rather than using it themselves. Arguably, that jacket would offer either character quick and dirty resolution to his romantic problems. But, of course, neither Xander nor Spike (in a twist that speaks volumes about his recent character development) seem to consider doing anything with the jacket beyond destroying it. Buffy, I believe, gently teases Xander about the temptation he eschewed. Was Spike even present for the jacket-burning scene? Does it even matter? Probably not, other than to cause me to wonder if the characters considered the fact that he 'wasn't tempted' by it either.

Anyway, point being that both Angel and Spike are presented with opportunities to "simple things up" in GD1 and Him, respectively, and both decline the opportunity.

And you're so right about the S1,2,3 Gothic evolving into S5,6,7 noir (emphasis on the S7): (I love title analysis!)

S1 Never Kill a Boy on the First Date becomes S7 First Date. S3 Helpless evolves into S7 Help. S2 Lie to Me evolves into S7 Lies my Parents Told Me. Actually, I can see arguments for Selfless being the noir reflection of The Zeppo; Xander ends with a new-found sense of empowerment and *self* while Anya ends with a new-found sense of loss and selflessness.

Hm. This is a stimulating topic; I think I'll have to go think about it some more and then get back to you with more parallels. Wee!

[> [> [> [> Re: Another GD-Him parallel (spoilers aired eps) -- s'kat, 20:19:34 04/27/03 Sun

Interesting. I would have put the Zeppo with Storyteller, because both deal with a character who sees himself as useless, uninvolved, outside the action and both end with that character becoming somewhat involved and saving the day. One with tears, one with quiet threat.

Selfless - I'd put with Revealations - where one character finds out another is a threat and goes off to kill him/her, while another tries to stop him. In Revealations Xander gets Faith to kill Angle, thinking he's evil again. In Selfless - Xander stops Buffy from killing Anya, except Anya had done an evil deed while Angel hadn't. And Anya felt remorse for it. It's far rawer.

[> An idea, maybe -- ELR, 15:39:53 04/27/03 Sun

S'kat, really like your essay. Please e-mail me. Thanks.

[> [> you got mail -- shadowkat, 21:41:26 04/27/03 Sun

[> A wonderful essay. A couple of comments / questions -- Just George, 16:49:45 04/27/03 Sun

A wonderful essay. I enjoyed reading it. I think I have a couple of movies too look into.

I also have a couple of comments / questions:

shadowkat: In each situation the comments work both ways ñ because they also say something about the fatal, about Spike. Thatís why they have power. Itís not so much that he has insight into her, as that he shares some of her insecurities and is projecting them on to her. If anything ñ what he says, says as much if not more about his insecurities and fears as it does about hers.

I loved this section. I have gotten tired of people calling Spike a "truth teller." His truths always seemed slanted to me. This explanation, that Spike is willing to tell the truth about his own insecurities (which makes what he says powerful) and that Buffy shares some of his insecurities (which makes what Spike says relevant to her) strikes me as a good balance.

I am constantly amazed at how many times ME characters rant about others, when they are actually ranting about themselves. Because violence is one of the ways characters interact in BTVS and ATS, you could also say that a lot of the fights between characters could be the characters fighting with themselves. This has been pretty easy to spot in several of the Buffy/Faith and Buffy/Spike fights. I think it is also an undertone in a lot of the Angel/Conner fights.

------------------------------

shadowkat: As Joss Whedon noted in an interview posted on slayage.com for sci-fi wire, ìpart of her relationship with Spike was giving up the power, being ashamed of it, not wanting it.î

I was wondering if you had a URL that pointed to this interview. I couldn't find it on Google.

------------------------------

shadowkat: Spike has like Angel become empowered by Buffy to change himself for the better. Heís not redeemed by her love, nor is his vampire curse broken by it ñ the show does not fall completely into the fairy tale trend ñ instead he is empowered by her example, by her strength. That empowerment provides him with the wherewithal and strength to endure the trials necessary to receive a soul.

I think that Buffy's greatest achievement (apart from maybe saving the world a few times) is the transformation of those around her. Buffy's continuing heroic examples of sacrifice for the greater good practically forces those who hang around her to find the ability to make heroic sacrifices as well. You pointed out how both Angel and Spike were transformed by her example. We have seen metaphors for what kind of loser Xander could have tuned into if it weren't for his activities in the Scooby Gang (Him). The same can be said for Willow, Dawn, Tara, even Anya and Andrew. I'm not sure about Giles. One wonders what would have happened if Buffy could have taken Amy and Jonathan under her wing.

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Thank you again for the essay. It was a fun ride. I hope the rest of the season completes the story arcs you describe in a matter you find satisfactory.

-JG

[> [> Thank you...that Joss Whedon Interview -- s'kat, 20:09:24 04/27/03 Sun

Thanks. I agree with what you said before. It took me awhile to find a way of explaining what is meant by provider of uncomfortable truths - going to film noir gave me the answer.

When you re-watch the episodes, play this little game,
when each character insults another, treat it as a projection - what are they saying about themselves? I think half the insults Cordy lay on Xander were projections of Cordy's own fears - a perfect example is the zeppo comment in The Zeppo.

Anyways here's the site for the Whedon interview - it was for about.com not sci-fi wire, my bad.

http://actionadventure.about.com/cs/weeklystories/a/aa041903 .htm#b

Here's the snippet I paraphrased:

"How is this season lighter than last? Well, last season was very much about Buffy doubting herself and the concept of power, sort of hating herself and fantasizing about relinquishing power and getting into a really unhealthy relationship because of that. This season is about coming to terms with power and sharing it and enjoying it. So, in that respect itís been lighter."

Thanks again.

SK

[> [> [> Re: Thank you...that Joss Whedon Interview -- Just George, 21:58:04 04/27/03 Sun

shadowkat: When you re-watch the episodes, play this little game, when each character insults another, treat it as a projection - what are they saying about themselves? I think half the insults Cordy lay on Xander were projections of Cordy's own fears - a perfect example is the zeppo comment in The Zeppo.

Thanks. I have played the "projection" game a few times. I'll keep it in mind as I watrch the reruns.

Whedon via shadowkat: "How is this season lighter than last? Well, last season was very much about Buffy doubting herself and the concept of power, sort of hating herself and fantasizing about relinquishing power and getting into a really unhealthy relationship because of that. This season is about coming to terms with power and sharing it and enjoying it. So, in that respect itís been lighter."

I hope this becomes clearer as the season eands. I'm not sure I've seen a lot of characters "...coming to terms with power and sharing it and enjoying it." Faith's presence may be helpful here. She has often been more up front about enjoying her power than just about any character on either show.

-JG

[> [> [> [> Sharing the power (Spoilers up to Dirty Girls) -- s'kat, 22:30:34 04/27/03 Sun

I hope this becomes clearer as the season eands. I'm not sure I've seen a lot of characters "...coming to terms with power and sharing it and enjoying it." Faith's presence may be helpful here. She has often been more up front about enjoying her power than just about any character on either show.

Well, you do have to keep in mind that they have to build up to something - so if they were all sharing the power now - where's the big finish/goal in the thematic arc?
Same with last year and the oh grow up theme. They did it in the finale, more or less.

OTOH - there are several examples of sharing strength and power this season, depending again on how you define power.
Ah-hah a challenge! Let's do it episode by episode, see where and who shared the power, shall we?

1. Lessons - Buffy: she shares the power with her sister in the first scene, teaching her how to kill a vampire. Then she hares it with Xander - asking him to help her save the day and asking his advice. Giles empowers Willow to seek the good within, to feel strong. He also tells her that power can be a good thing.

2. Beneath You - Xander empowers Anya to break the spell and free Ronnie. Buffy empowers Spike to tell her the truth and allows him to help her. Giles empowers Willow to go home.

3. Same Time Same Place - Buffy enlists Spike's help to find the Gnarl, Willow and Anya share power to locate the Gnarl, Buffy shares her power with Willow to heal Willow.

4. Help - Buffy empowers Dawn to become friends with Cassie, she asks for Spike's help and empowers him to get out of the basement to help her - to leave his crazed space.
Cassie shares her power/visions with Buffy and Spike.

5. Selfless - Willow uses her power to help Anya. Xander empowers Anya to make a choice.

6. Him - Xander and Spike share their power to track down the cause of the spell and stop their friends from killing others. Buffy enlists Xander's help in giving Spike a home.
And shares her power with Anya, helping her and asking for Anya's help in return.

Then we have the disconnect - CwDP - The First Evil breaks up the power, makes them doubt it

7. Sleeper - Buffy empowers Spike to seek help. She shares her strength with him.

8. Never Leave Me - buffy empowers Spike again, again shares her strength with him. Anya and Xander share their power to crack through Andrew's facade. Threatened the FE breaks them up again.

Notice a trend here - the FE is threatened when they share and appreciate their power or empower each other.

9. Bring on The Night - FE works really hard on breaking them up. It tortures Spike. Sends the ubervamp after Buffy.
Has blown up the Watcher Council. Buffy at the end though - says they must share their power, come together.

10. Showtime - again FE works overtime in breaking them apart even sends a dead potential to cause dissension.
Buffy empowers them by first the telepathic communication with X/W - sharing power. Enlisting X/W's help in showing the potentials they have the power to defeat the monster.
Saving Spike from the FE.

11. Potential - Dawn empowers Amanda, she gives Amanda the role of slayer. Xander empowers Dawn by telling her she has potential as well and is extraordinary. Dawn returns the compliment to Xander. Spike and Buffy work together to train the potentials.

12. Killer in Me - Kennedy empowers Willow to face her past and see her true self not the self she fears. They share their power through a kiss. Spike and Buffy work together to deal with Spike's chip. X/A/D/Andrew work together and touch Giles to ensure he's human and not FE.

13. First Date - Buffy/Wood/Spike save Xander by working together. Buffy and Wood fight vamps together in alleyway.
(not a lot of power sharing here...)FE at it again...when it comes to Wood who has made a connection to Buffy and works to cause dissension again. It works. Also Lissa causes dissension with Xander.

14. Get it Done - Buffy empowers Willow and Spike to find their power and share it, not to be afraid. She rejects power that will separate her from humanity...so maybe this isn't appreciating it? Or maybe it depends on type of power - very important concept in noir...where it's all grey and confused. At any rate we see negative and postive views of power here. Also Wood shares his mother's legacy with Buffy...but it's not an empowering one, FE at work again?

15. Storyteller - Andrew is empowered to share his tears.
Buffy gets him to feel remorse for Jonathan not to stand outside, apart from things.

16. LMTM - Spike is empowered by Giles/Wood ironically enough to de-trigger himself. He finally begins to appreciate the good his power can do and controls himself.
By the same token the FE succeeds in causing dissension again through Giles and Wood. Very complex episode. So not really sharing power...

17. Dirty Girls - Xander empowers the girls to follow Buffy, but loses an eye. Spike and Faith share their power and remorse. Faith and Buffy share their power. But Buffy doesn't listen, is cut off, the FE has managed to cause dissension big time with it's agent.

Hmmm...so it's like all seasons, the Whedon two-step. Up two steps, back two steps, up two, back two...
Probably have a big pay off a la Graduation Day, Primeval, the Gift, etc.

Hope that made some semblance of sense

SK

[> [> [> [> [> Definitely made sense...Great linkage, sk! -- Rob, 12:09:47 04/28/03 Mon

[> Wonderful job SK. -- Sophist, 17:08:22 04/27/03 Sun

To me, the most thought-provoking point was the comparison of S/B in SR to F/X in Consequences. It is indeed a fascinating point that the same viewer can consider Faith a hero and Spike an irredemable villain, though each committed substantially the same act.

Thanks again for giving all so much to chew on.

[> Yay! -- ponygirl, 19:05:10 04/27/03 Sun

I had been missing you this past week, shadowkat! But this more than made up for your absence. Mucho brilliance on the comparisons especially with Faith/Xander in Consquences (as Sophist noted). I also really do like your Graduation Day spec. We are seeing the same cast assembling as in that episode, except with the souled vamp substitution.

Not much else to add to the kudos right now, but oddly enough I had been reading an article yesterday that discussed the fairy tale The Frog Prince (of course now I can't remember where I read it). The older version of the story does not have the princess overcoming her distaste and freeing the prince with a kiss, instead she grudgingly puts up with him sharing her dinner and room, but when the frog attempts to share her bed she flings him against the wall, thus breaking the spell. Sometimes rage and disgust are what it takes to force a change. Just something I thought was interesting in light of your essay and mention of the story. Once again great work.

[> [> Thanks both ponygirl and Sophist: on Faith, also the Frog Prince -- S'kat, 20:58:45 04/27/03 Sun

Yes...I'd always wondered why no one seemed to take notice of the Faith scene in Consequences. Lot's to analyze right there. Faith is strangling Xander and clearly intended on raping him or killing him when Angel yanks her off him. She never ever apologizes for it - as far as I can remember. (Maybe she does?) And the scene is just as brutal. Also uhm, Faith has a soul, she was not soulless at the time.
At the time people said it was how the two scenes were filmed, one was shorter than the other, one had brighter lighting...uhm sorry don't buy it. I watched both scenes and winced during both. Both led to great discussions after wards: Angel and Faith, Spike and Clem. And those two discussions led to opposite reactions.
Faith went to join the Mayor and destroy Sunnydale, Spike went to get a soul. When SR aired and Marsters was interviewed, he was convinced his character would do the same thing Faith did. The writers shocked him and the audience with him. Yet within the formula of noir, it works beautifully. Faith wasn't a fatal, she was alter-ego/foil - she would do the opposite of Buffy, Spike is the fatal, a romantic foil - his role is also subverted somewhat, in Whedonverse when the fatal hits rock bottom is when he gets empowered to change, in noir - it's when he is doomed.
The reason for the subversion is to empower the heroine, I think.

On the Frog Prince - thanks for this nifty tid-bit:

oddly enough I had been reading an article yesterday that discussed the fairy tale The Frog Prince (of course now I can't remember where I read it). The older version of the story does not have the princess overcoming her distaste and freeing the prince with a kiss, instead she grudgingly puts up with him sharing her dinner and room, but when the frog attempts to share her bed she flings him against the wall, thus breaking the spell. Sometimes rage and disgust are what it takes to force a change.

Interesting. I'd read somewhere that the older versions of the fairy tales were darker with more noirish elements. Apparently the tales got lightened up for younger readers in the Victorian Age.

At any rate this fits with the horror/noir genre where the fatal changes only after he literally hits rock bottom.
Angel - in Reprise and Epiphany - changes. Buffy when she hits rock bottom in Becoming Part I - gets motivated to take action. Anya in Selfless. And Spike in Seeing Red.

Thanks for the responses and the kudos, mucho appreciated.

SK

[> [> [> Re: Thanks both ponygirl and Sophist: on Faith, also the Frog Prince -- ECH, 22:41:23 04/27/03 Sun

They made Spike hit rock bottom over and over again in season 6, in fact they made all the characters hit rock bottom over and over again.

[> [> [> [> Re: Thanks both ponygirl and Sophist: on Faith, also the Frog Prince -- s'kat, 22:53:48 04/27/03 Sun

Depends on your definition of rock bottom. There's rock bottom and there's really rock bottom.

Getting drunk and boinking someone's ex-finance may seem like rock bottom. But you still have half a chance. Attempting to reinitiate your relationship with your ex- lover by forcing the issue ie, the attempted rape? Now that is REALLY rock bottom. You don't hit rock bottom by being happy one day then wham. It's a slow gradual slide...into it.

Again depends on the semantics. For me? Rock bottom is when you've literally lost all hope, everythings gone, you hate yourself, pure self-loathing. See Spike with Clem in SR - now that is rock bottom...then he gets a soul and ends up in the school basement insane being tormented by the FE - yep, rock bottom has been redefined. He hit it in Lessons.
Now we're watching him climb back up again.

Oh...if you don't want to see people hit rock bottom, I recommend not watching horror/noir tv shows...tends to go hand in hand with the genre.

[> [> [> [> Re: Thanks both ponygirl and Sophist: on Faith, also the Frog Prince -- Rufus, 01:42:58 04/28/03 Mon

ECH I see your opinion as largely subjective based upon character preference. I could understand if every other character was at a party and wildly happy while Spike suffered alone, but that simply isn't the case. The thing about suffering there seems to be enough in the Buffyverse to go around...a couple of times and then some....;)

[> [> [> Fairy tales noir -- luna, 12:37:03 04/28/03 Mon

IMHO,the best version of the Grimm fairy tales in all their noir glory is editied by Segal Lore, with illustrations by Maurice Sendak and translation by Randall Jarrell--it's called The Juniper Tree. The wolf gets burned in the fireplace at the end of the Three Little Pigs, the wicked stepmother in Snow White dances herself to death wearing shoes made of red-hot iron...come to think of it, this may be the gothic version! But it's fairly close to the originals, before much softening for Victiorian kids and Disney movies.

[> [> [> [> Re: Fairy tales noir -- ponygirl, 12:59:55 04/28/03 Mon

This is quite funny because I've just started reading the comic book series Fables this weekend. In it the fairy tale characters are in exile and trying to blend into to modern day society. The big bad wolf is a detective, trying to seek redemption for his past crimes :) and Snow White is the tough-talking deputy mayor. It's very film noirish and pretty good so far.

[> [> [> Some possible differences between the scenes -- manwitch, 17:19:34 04/28/03 Mon

There are some differences between the Faith/Xander scene and the Buffy/Spike scene, most obviously being that the latter happens to the protagonist, and by extension us, whereas the former happens to a likable supporting character. So the dramatic impact is significantly different.

Also Faith is, we already are aware, on a path of decent into the abyss, and her interaction with Xander, who we already know is clueless about Faith, reveals something to the characters more than to us. Its Xanders moment to realize, Angel's moment, not ours. We already know. By contrast, Spike takes us largely by surprise. He's supposed to be good, he's supposed to be in love, things are supposed to be getting better as far as his internal character is concerned. So the surprise is to us, not simply in the brutality of the scene, but also in that it really is not what we expect to see.

Also, if I am remebering correctly, and I very likely am not, the Faith scene is scored musically and the Buffy scene is not. This has the effect of making the Faith scene seem like part of a drama, while the Buffy scene becomes upsettingly real.

My point being only that the creators want us to feel differently about these two scenes. Perhaps not intentionally at the outset. But they wanted the Buffy scene to be distinct from all other moments in the show, and they got that.

One could certainly argue that Spike also went on a path of decent after that scene. He got a soul, but it is not Angel's soul. He became the symbol of the Hellmouth, the primary agent of the First Evil. He had to overcome that soul. And he still has to before this is all over. So both became symbolic representatives of that which Buffy must face, only Spike's situation is much darker and more difficult for her. What to do with Faith was distressing, perhaps, but it was a no brainer. What to do with Spike is very difficult indeed.

But then, I think Spike is doomed, and has been since that scene. He will change and he will redeem himself, but he's doomed nevertheless. Just my opinion. He was doomed in Seeing Red, he hit rock bottom when he got his soul.

Which doesn't change your point at all, even if you were to agree.

Lest I seem not to be communicating it, this is one of your best essays, out of a formidable group. I have much to learn from it, and little to offer the subject. I don't think anything I've written here really matters in terms of your piece. I just offer it because I would come down on the side of the scenes being dramatically different.

[> [> [> [> So what else is new? -- Doug, 19:27:56 04/28/03 Mon

Spike was supposed to die after 8 episodes, but his life was extended to the end of the season. Then he was allowed to live past the season ender. Spike has been doomed from day 1. I remember a JM interview were he talked about how Joss had told him he was going to die, just not today (referring to Spike of course). There has been crucifixion imagery being related to the character since "Restless". Spike has been dodging the bullet since his inception, and I suppose it will eventually catch up to him.

I'm not sure that "Seeing Red" changed his eventual fate all that much, but I could be wrong.

[> [> [> [> [> very little -- manwitch, 20:02:24 04/28/03 Mon

No, you're not wrong.

The reason why I see that ep as special for him is because that is where he recognized the end of his relationship with Buffy. And all he wanted to do was love her. So, like Lucifer, rejected for his love of God, Spike went off to become the next season's big bad, the monster of monsters, consumed by the hell of his unrequited love and of his own complicity in his rejection.

He did it in a particularly Jossesque way, by going to get a soul, which one would think would be a positive step, but as we saw by watching the episodes of Season 7, Spike went looney, became the pawn/agent of the first, and became symbolically associated with the Hellmouth and its opening, and with all the binary oppositions that Buffy must overcome. So, unlike his role in all the seasons previous, in Season 7 Spike is himself the obstacle that Buffy most overcome, because he represents all of her notions of Good vs. Bad, right vs. wrong, light vs. dark, male vs. female, vampire vs. human ad infinitum. These are the ideas she must overcome in order to defeat the First, and when she does so, the character that represents these obstacles will be superfluous. In all other seasons, the character that represented the obstacle Buffy needed to overcome died or was sent to a hell dimension by the end of the Season when Buffy overcame the obstacle represented. This year, that character is Spike.

And for my sensibilities, Seeing Red is the episode where that became apparent. So I see him as doomed in a way that he wasn't before.

Just my opinion. I'm wrong more often than not about predictions.

[> [> [> [> Re: Some possible differences between the scenes -- s'kat, 19:53:18 04/28/03 Mon

Hmmm. Thank you. Appreciate it.

Not sure I understand what you are saying about Spike.
It appears from your comment:

One could certainly argue that Spike also went on a path of decent after that scene. He got a soul, but it is not Angel's soul. He became the symbol of the Hellmouth, the primary agent of the First Evil. He had to overcome that soul. And he still has to before this is all over. So both became symbolic representatives of that which Buffy must face, only Spike's situation is much darker and more difficult for her.

But then, I think Spike is doomed, and has been since that scene. He will change and he will redeem himself, but he's doomed nevertheless. Just my opinion. He was doomed in Seeing Red, he hit rock bottom when he got his soul.

Are you saying that because Spike went and got a soul to become a better man after SR - he is doomed? Or that he is doomed for SR?

Also on Angel - is Angel's soul his? Can you claim something that has been inflicted upon you against your will and for the sake of vengeance regardless of the caster, yours? Willow may not intend vengeance but the spell that causes Angel to be "cursed" with a soul is a vengeance spell. Until Angelus chooses it - can it ever truly be Angel's? Doesn't Angel have to overcome his opposition to Angelus and the opposition to the soul for it to be his? I don't know, but it has always been an issue in the story that has bothered me. Spike in contrast chose that soul, not only chose it, fought for it. He overcame his own demonic urges to get a soul. Pretty frigging amazing. Now he has had to overcome the guilt associated with it. He has also had to overcome the temptations. And the trigger - which I don't believe is so much associated with his soul as possibly with the demon and the guilt the soul felt for killing and vamping his mother. Are you saying the FE gave Spike the soul? I'm not sure that's any more true than the FE got Angel out of hell. I'm not sure the First Evil is capable of doing much outside of manipulating others. Suggesting. If you think about it the First Evil convinces people to do things, but it doesn't do things itself. It lies with truth. Caleb killed those girls, not the FE. Wood went after Spike not the FE. Wood manipulated Buffy towards his own ends. Not the FE. The FE is merely pulling the strings but they are letting it. Just as the FE pulled Spike's. Except of the characters - Spike was the only one who really didn't know it at the time.
Spike's a hard one to decipher. Every season he surprises me. I've resigned myself to his death in the finale, although I am unspoiled so don't know if it will happen. I hope it doesn't because it's obvious, somewhat redundant, and fairly cliche and I don't believe does much for the story, but perhaps they'll give us an interesting twist? I'm willing to wait and see. ( I felt the same about the attempted rape - it was very cliche when I saw it...now I've changed my mind about it, the way the story has played out it has made sense.)

Regarding Faith and Spike. Yes, I think they may have intended the two scenes to look different. Partly because of whose pov we are in. But...it does by no means make Faith's act any less than Spike's. And it is interesting that we expected it of Faith but not Spike. Spike who is evil. And really wasn't on the road to redemption at the time nor in any way good. Faith...still had choices. At the time, Buffy believed she could reach Faith. And oddly enough, the gang forgives Faith after her near-rape and stranglation of Xander. In the scene she has his hands around his throat, he is turning blue, she has unbuckled his pants and is jumping up and down on him. It is in her apartment, so it's not his space she has invaded. He came in to help - she tackled him and threw him on the bed.
He would be dead or unconscious if Angel had not saved him.
And certainly violated. Xander couldn't save himself.
A corollary would be if Spike tried to say rape Tara or Dawn or even Anya (assuming not a vengeance demon who could knock him across the room). And his intent unlike Faith's was not to hurt Buffy, or he would not have stopped after she knocked him off her nor would he have looked so horrified. Buffy also is more than capable of killing Spike, she threw him across the room. He NEVER had the power in their relationship. Just as Xander NEVER had the power in his with Faith. Yet - after Faith does this to Xander, after she is taken from Angel, Buffy saves her on the docks and they trust her up until the Enemies episode.
Why? Why didn't they try to give counseling? She killed a man and attacked Xander?

Regarding audience expectations? Hard to say. I was surprised when Faith tried to kill Xander, but not overly so. In SR - I had gotten spoiled, so I knew about it. IF you were online at all prior to SR, you got spoiled - it was impossible not to be. I've managed to do better this year and happy to say am not spoiled. Thank god. I still wonder how I would have reacted to that episode if I hadn't already known everything.

I think you did make a very good point about what the writers intended. And how the scenes were shot. But I don't think the writers ever intended for us to think Spike was becoming a good guy. They were surprised, even shocked by the fact fans thought Spike had already been redeemed. Hence the reason they inserted the attempted rape. The scene was added in order to reiterate their thesis that without a soul - something can not choose to be good. It will always lose to evil. The only way Spike could ever hope to become good was for the ghost of the man he was to somehow overcome the demon.

*(Okay an aside here - in your posts you keep mentioning the need for Spike to overcome the soul, what if it's not the "soul" that needs to be overcome but the "demon"? What if that's what both Spike and Angel must deal with? Overcome the demonic id? Wouldn't that work as a metaphor for addiction? Growing up? And Becoming Your OWn man? Overcoming your dark impulses and desires and choosing your soul? )

Just as the scene where Spike goes to bite the woman in Smashed was meant to reiterate that thesis. And the demon eggs were meant to do so. And the Bronze scene. And the scene in the alley in Dead Things.
Of course by the same token they wanted to keep the ambiguity, show the good and evil in both Spike and Buffy.
Show how negative the relationship could be - a hallmark of noir cinema by the way. Spike in season 6 was a true noir fatal in every way. Buffy was a true anti-hero, more so than ever before. I think that may be one of the reasons I liked Season 6 as much as I did.

At any rate, hope some of the above ramble made sense.
Mind is cluttered tonight. Too much to do, too little time.

Thanks again for both the response and the kudos.

SK

[> Finally! I've been waiting for this one for months. (Some notes on SF-noir) -- cjl, 08:36:45 04/28/03 Mon

Your usual enthralling, thought-provoking response to the bland chit-chat that sometimes passes for discourse on the internet. The sections on the homme fatal on BtVS and the flip on the femme fatale on ANGEL join Slain's Dark Avenger essay as the definitive works on their respective topics.

Your essay also blows away the pallid "feminist noir" essay in "Fear and Trembling in Sunnydale" and stomps the remaining pieces into the ground.

OK, enough gushing. Some brief notes on SF-noir:

1. First off, Red Dwarf is not noir--it's existentialist vaudeville, Waiting for Godot with androids and holograms. (Got my own essay on Buffy and Red Dwarf coming up. Soon.) Christine Kolchanski, the hero's fantasy object, is not a dark seductress, but the symbol of everything he's never achieved.

2. Twelve Monkeys is a fascinating genre anomaly, mainly because both the male and female protagonists (Bruce Willis and Madelaine Stowe) are screwed over by something outside the usual morality plays of noir: time.

Willis' character starts out the movie with the attitude that everybody he sees in the 20th century is already dead from the plague and tries to maintain objectivity; but eventually, he's drawn into the lives of the people around him, and draws a psychiatrist (Stowe) into his amour fou. Unfortunately, the past is irreversible and they're both squashed under by the relentless forward motion of time. Their own flaws as characters really aren't relevant to the outcome. The vast indifference of time (and the immense gap between life and memory) is the real killer.

3. Gul Dukat was set up to be one of the great homme fatals in SF when Rick Berman and Ira Behr swerved 180 degrees and turned him back into the supervillainous couterpart of the male hero (Sisko). Never understood why they couldn't have done BOTH, but they obvious felt Dukat was meant to be the dark to Sisko's light, and they couldn't afford to "grey" him up too much before their confrontation in the finale. But by making him Sisko's opponent rather than Kira's fatal/shadow, they sucked some of the delicious ambiguity out of Dukat's character, and took some of the edge out of Kira's, as well.

Your essay makes me wonder if taking Dukat out of the fatal role was at least part of the reason why Kira almost faded into the background during the latter part of the Dominion War. (Her odd, interspecies relationship with Odo had it's high points, but it was nowhere near as interesting as the sexually charged loathe/hate relationship with Dukat.)

4. Was Dark City true noir? It had noir trappings to be sure, but I found it more of an existential meditation on the power of imagination and the ability to reinvent yourself. The pure joy of release and freedom at the end of the movie seems almost antithetical to noir, which always seems to have a dead end waiting at the end of the road....

Back to work. Once again, brava.

[> [> Re: Finally! I've been waiting for this one for months. (Some notes on SF-noir) -- s'kat, 10:34:55 04/28/03 Mon

(Ugh Voy ate my first response, but I copied most of it so trying again!)

Thank you so much for the kudos.

On the Noir Sci-Fi.

According to an essay I read in Film Noir Reader 2 by James Ursini, Ursini proposes the view that Noir is not limited to the crime-detective genre and it's strict rules, but rather may pervade all genres. Nor is it rooted in what High- Greenberg in HOLLYWOOD IN THE FORTIES proposes - a genre "rooted in the nineteenth century's vein of grim romanticism."

The problem Film Noir has is it has never had much serious critical exploration since French critics Nino Frank and Borde-Chaumeton who wrote A Panorama of Film Noir gave it it's name.

So what Ursini does is in a way similar to what I've done above, explore film noir's sway over various genre's - so we can discover more about noir itself as the conventions of any identified one.

Ursini even mentions that noir has found it's way into Westerns - notably Duel in the Sun and Blood on The Moon.
Duel in The Sun has an odd mix of femme and male fatals in the characters of Jennifer Jones and Gregory Peck with the hero being Jospeh Cotton. We also have a somewhat noirish undertone in the westerns The Searchers, The Wild Bunch.

The noir overtones in Red Drawf aren't fatales so much as the feeling of isolation.(Although what I know about Red Drawf is limited to what I've been told, having never seen it...so will back off of that one.) But in Dark City?
Very noirish. We have the detective in his cloak, the femme fatale in Jennifer Connelly's character with her memory implants and the hero who isn't sure if he's killed anyone.
The film starts as a crime/dectective drama and becomes a sci-fi drama.

The themes it exposes aren't unsimilar to noir.

Here's some of the themes I've managed to grab from Sharon Y Cobb's essay on Writing NEw Noir Film:

1. Plots revolve around betrayal on a personal basis with one character betrayind another; or more extensively when the stakes are raised and betrayal has nationwide or even worldwide consequences

2. Stories symbolize our subconscious fears, our darkest ruminations, our worst nightmares.

3. Good and evil are confused and sometimes indistinguishable. Moral ambivalence and complicated discrepancies in character motivation encourage the audeince to feel the torment and insecurity of the protagonist. [See Twelve Monkeys - Bruce Willis as an example or for the crime genre, Nicolas Cage's character in Red Rock West.]

4. Anti-hero as a protagonist - the hero isn't necessarily great, courageous, and is often a desperate character with little hope of positive change in their lives. They live on the outskirts of normalacy, surviving as best they can in a chaotic world.

5. No clear sense of redemption - unlike other genres, the hero isn't always redemed in noir nor is anyone else for that matter.

6. The protagonist almost always experiences a sense of isolation, either physical and/or psychological, and this isolation and alienation is pronounced.

7. In many Film noir movies the main character's only source of hope may be a female character (male if the hero is a female); the femme (homme) fatale, who is integral to the main plot of the story.

Taken from Film Noir Reader 2, pp. 211-212, (), [], are mine.

The idea of disillusionment. Feeling of being alone. Of not resolving things. Twelve Monkeys deals with the idea of changing history, can we change our fate? So Bruce Willis is sent back through time because of a memory about a man getting shot in an airport and a beautiful woman running to him. Willis doesn't know why this vision traumatized him as a boy. Turns out the reason it did is the man being shot is him. He doesn't change time or history by going back, he merely ensures it.

What Ursini and others propose is instead of necessarily placing something strictly in one category of genre, we should explore how other genres may bleed into it, learning more about the themes expressed in the visual narrative as well as how broadly or narrowly the genre itself should be defined.

Here's what Ursini says about Dark City:
Ursini comments how Murdoch hunts for his real identity and never quite finds it, instead he finds that "partial injection has erased much of his former memories, leaving him unsure of himself or anyone else, including his wife and beloved Uncle Karl who turn out to be but two more guinea pigs with implanted memories. Pursued by a melancholy detective looking much like the classic noir sleuths in trenchcoat, fedora, and suit - who also begins to doubt the reality of his own identity, Murdoch finds he has assimilated some of the powers of the aliens, most notably, their ability to transform reality by 'tuning'.

After Murdoch beats the aliens...

With his victory in hand, Murdoch accepts the unreality of his life and so decides to create a new one. Much like Cole in Twelve Monkeys and Deckard in Blade Runner, Murdoch is haunted by a vision - a dream, possibly even a memory - of a place called Shell Beach where the sun always shines and the colors are vibrant. Utilizing his "tuning" powers, he decides to construct this beach, flooding the city and then causing the ground to thrust up and create a land's end. In the final scense he walks down a pier to his waiting 'wife' who has now become Anna through yet another memory implant. Together they walk off to Shell Beach, a land of illusion but at least a benign one.

The protagonist is not redemed. He beats the aliens, yes, but he does not find out who he is. All he does is take the aliens place and create a new world. It may be benign and it may be nice, but it is an illusion. The ending is like most noir neither happy nor sad...but somewhere in between.
A sort of feeling of making the best of our reality.

So I think an argument can be made that the films and television series mentioned above do contain elements of noir even if they may not strictly fit within the confines of the genre itself.

Thank you again for the kudos. Much appreciated.

SK

[> [> [> Existentialism and noir -- cjl, 11:35:20 04/28/03 Mon

Excellent! Preserving the "seven signifiers of noir" for safekeeping:

1. Plots revolve around betrayal on a personal basis with one character betraying another; or more extensively when the stakes are raised and betrayal has nationwide or even worldwide consequences.

2. Stories symbolize our subconscious fears, our darkest ruminations, our worst nightmares.

3. Good and evil are confused and sometimes indistinguishable. Moral ambivalence and complicated discrepancies in character motivation encourage the audeince to feel the torment and insecurity of the protagonist.

4. Anti-hero as a protagonist - the hero isn't necessarily great, courageous, and is often a desperate character with little hope of positive change in their lives. They live on the outskirts of normalacy, surviving as best they can in a chaotic world.

5. No clear sense of redemption - unlike other genres, the hero isn't always redemed in noir nor is anyone else for that matter.

6. The protagonist almost always experiences a sense of isolation, either physical and/or psychological, and this isolation and alienation is pronounced.

7. In many Film noir movies the main character's only source of hope may be a female character (male if the hero is a female); the femme (homme) fatale, who is integral to the main plot of the story.

Found it interesting that Greenberg grounds noir in 19th century dark romanticism, and (by extension) the gothic tradition. I always thought it was a natural outgrowth of the existentialist movement of the late thirties and early forties. With the exceptions of #1, #2 and #7, the above guideposts could fit in with any existentialist novel or play (is no "No Exit" noir).

[Or did they influence each other? Let's see--Sartre's "Nausea" was 1938. "The Maltese Falcon" was 1941, Camus' "The Stranger" was 1942, and "Double Indemnity" was 1944. We could have an incestuous relationship between the two schools of thought--no comments about Chinatown, please.

The Coen Brothers' 2001 movie "The Man Who Wasn't There" explicitly links the two in a plot that reads like a fusion of "L'Etranger" and "Double Indemnity.") I guess this is why even an existential comedy like Red Dwarf has aspects that can be identified as "noir-ish."]

Do any of your sources mention the links between existentialism and noir?

[> [> [> [> Re: Existentialism and noir -- s'kat, 12:23:39 04/28/03 Mon

James Urisini, one of the editors of Film Noir Reader 2,
does in Noir Science. He links Dark City to the cosmic dilemma put forth by existential writers like Sartre and Camus- "consciousness of the absurdity followed by action".

And here's what Dale E. Ewing Jr. states about noir cinema,
The first critics to analyze motive in noir, Raymond Borde and Etienne Chaumeton in their book-length study PANORAMA DU FILM NOIR AMERICAN 1955 - argued that the gnere was a synthesis of horror (Cat People), gangster movies, and the detective film. All contained the necessary ingredient of alienation and seeds of revolt. Horror added the mise-en- scene element of repulsion and dread. According to these critics: noir or black film expressed deeply pessimistic themes that were related to the aftershock of the Depression and the 1930s gangster era, Americas involvment in WWII and the social upheaval caused by the post-war readjustment to civilian life. You also had the arrival of a large number of German directors such as Fritz Lang (M)
Robert Siodmak and Curtis Bernhardt - all refugess from Hitler. (This is style as content school)

Then we have the 1960s view that the point of noir was to create a world without a single trace of pity or love. Higham and Greenberg's view. Corresponding to Jung's view that "when a man represses his evil side, it causes a shadow to be cast on his unconscious." This was the idea in the 1970s. According to Paul Schrader in 70s - noir consistently undermined traditional plot resolutions.
And was representative of a struggle for freedom within an otherwise repressive film form.

Now here comes the Film Noir: An encyclopedic reference to the American Style by Alain Silver and Elizabeth Ward who state" These films reflect a common ethos: they consistently evoke the dakr side of the American person. The central figures in these films, caught in their double binds, filled with existential bitterness, drowning outside the social mainstream, are America's stylized vision of itself, at true cultural reflection of the mental dysfunction of a nation in uncertain transition."

It's the exitential attitude toward life that Robert Porfirio and Silver and Ward all believe has kept it alive today.

"What keeps film noir alive for us today is something more than a spurious nostalgia. It is the underlying mood of pessimism...This is nothing less than an existential attitude towards life. It places its emphasis on man's contingency in a world where there are no trancendental values or moral absolutes."

So there appears to be a sense that existentialism is at the core of the meanings and themes of noir film or black film.

SK

[> [> [> [> [> "Consciousness of the absurdity followed by action" -- cjl, 12:42:45 04/28/03 Mon

That seems to be a common link between noir heroes/heroines, from Sam Spade to Murdoch (in Dark City): realizing they're in a world of "no transcendental values or moral absolutes" (Silver/Ward) then determining the appropriate course of action (if any).

This essay is an endless source of goodness. (Got to rent Dark City on DVD...)

[> Count Chocula will always be the Vampire Fatale I Existentialisimily Subvert with in the Noir. -- WickedBuffy, 19:20:17 04/28/03 Mon

[> [> what you have problems with Frankenberry? -- s'dog, 19:55:33 04/28/03 Mon

[> [> [> Oh, he's my favorite Reanimated Fatale! :> -- WickedBuffy (BHT added to preserve freshness), 20:18:22 04/28/03 Mon

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