March 2003 posts
Authority Figures in Ats & Btvs : Intro & part 1: Giles (Spoilers to 7.17 Btvs & 4.15 Ats) -- shadowkat, 18:59:06 03/29/03 Sat
Okay I'm writing this as an attempt to break one killer of a writer's block. We'll see if it works. ;-) Hopefully this isn't just a re-tread, I haven't read all the posts on LMPTM, partly due to the fact that I was working on this and partly due to the fact that my server isn't fast enough to read & download everything - so I cherry pick. This also might be a bit of ramble. Apologizing for both in advance. Writer's block, remember. Praying it all makes sense and doesn't require too much tinkering. Thanking you all for your indulgence.;-)
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Authority figures.
Who are our authority figures? When we are children they are usually our teachers, the school Principal, a mentor, our parents, our priest or rabbi or minister. And these figures usually are represented by educational structures such as schools or religious organizations. As we grow up, these figures are gradually replaced by new and less obvious authority figures. Employers. Presidents. Police Officers. Priests. If we think about it throughout our lives, if we choose, we are always bowing down to someone. Whether it be an institution or a person. When they say march, we march. When they say fight, we fight. Often without question. The authority figures impose order and structure on our lives.
Yet, history shows us that it is not always a good thing to strictly follow authority. Questioning, protesting, even rebelling is actually a good thing. Part of growing up actually is rebelling against authority or breaking off from it, which we all do sooner or later in different ways. It may feel safe and comfy staying put, not fighting, not questioning. But you don't grow that way. You become in a word, constipated. Sorry can't think of a better word for it than that one.
So in every child's life there comes a time where they must break away from authority whether that authority be represented by a parent or a time-worn structure. They must learn to think for themselves, to teach themselves, to question what the fussy old mentor tells them. Because like it or not that fussy old mentor isn't always right. They aren't a god, they aren't infallible, and they don't know more than we do. They are human, limited by the very things that make them human - environment, genetics, their own experiences and upbringing. There comes a time in every parent/child and teacher/student relationship that the child becomes the parent and the teacher becomes the student. There comes a time where the student outdistances the teacher.
1. Giles : The father figure/mentor/teacher
I remember the day I realized that my father wasn't as wise or knowledgable as I thought he was. The day he fell off his pedestal and became just a man. Still my father. But no longer the knight in shining armor or wise old sage. It wasn't a melodramatic moment. I don't remember what caused this revelation exactly. I just remember that all of sudden I looked at him and I saw a tired, genuinely caring, but somewhat confused man. A man, who was still my father, but did not know all the answers and could not solve life's problems for me. He wasn't my teacher or my boss any longer; I had somehow gotten past him, just as he had once gotten past his own father.
Giles reminds me of my father. The writers and Anthony Stewart Head (the actor who plays Giles) have perfectly captured the moment my father went from being wise old sage who can answer all my questions to frightened, genuinely caring, at times over-protective, man. And looking back over the series, I started to see how Giles was in fact always that way, he'd never been the wise sage, he'd never been overly effective, he never knew the answers and he never solved the problem. Like my own father and the authority figures I've known, the best that Giles could do was guide, and he didn't always guide in the right places.
Now, just in case, you think I'm projecting - let me state that my father is nothing like Rupert Giles. If I had to choose between the two - I'd pick my Dad any day. The only similarity here - is the turning point - when I realized that I moved past him. And my Dad, being the man he is, did a happy snoopy dance when I figured it out. He didn't try to hold me back in any way. Giles in a way has attempted to let Buffy move past him, yet, can't, not quite, because Giles isn't just or rather never really felt he was Buffy's father, he's felt he was her boss, her guide, her superior. And moving past one's mentor or superior is quite another thing altogether.
What do we know about Giles? What do we know about the Watcher Council for that matter?
I've been thinking about this for a while now. And I ask you, has the Watcher Council ever been shown in a positive light on this series? If they have - how quickly did the writers subvert that image? The more I thought about it, the more the Watcher Council began to remind me of well Wolfram and Hart. Wesely Wyndom-Pryce's comment to Fred in Players regarding Lilah was very telling: "We were fighting the same war just on opposite sides." Fight the war. Being the generals. Actually not the generals so much as the people sending the generals and soliders out to die. If you hate a war, btw, don't blame the people on the field or in the ships fighting the war, blame the nicely suited, clean cut men sitting behind their desks in their comfy offices and war rooms who watch it from a distance, never getting much more than a paper cut. Wolfram and Hart and The Watcher Council NEVER fought on the front lines. They hung back and threw out orders. They manipulated the players. And they justified their acts by claiming a higher power talked to them. A higher power who finally decided to just wipe them off the face of the earth, because they had gotten so comfortable in their nice neat offices that they'd become ineffective and outlived their usefulness.
The best way to test a theory is to trip back through the episodes...
Season 1 - Giles is introduced as Buffy's Watcher. He's pretty ineffectual, if we think about it. Spends most of the first two episodes trying to convince Buffy to fight vampires. He doesn't really know how and makes it clear that he can't do it. She even asks him why he can't and he sort of fussily makes excuses. The information he has on vampires is pulled from a musty old book. He requires Willow's help to operate the computer and determine the whereabouts of the vampire's hideout. In the episodes that follow, it's the kids, Willow/Xander/and Buffy who figure out the problem, Giles often tells them they are wrong. Rarely is it Giles who comes up with the solution or figures it out. And in some instances Giles himself adds to the problem. I wonder, thinking back on it, why I kept thinking Giles helped as much as he did, and I realized something - he did help but not by providing answers or solutions, he was horrible at that, but by providing a structure for locating those answers, by empowering his students to do it. He was their engine, their confident, their counselor. Their, if you like, sounding board. He supported them.
In Witch - it is Buffy who figures out that Amy and Catherine switched places and the witch is Catherine Madison not Amy as Giles suspects. But Giles helps, by supporting Buffy in her analysis and by acting on what she's discovered. They act as a team. He does not act as her boss, so much as a guide. They discuss the problem and solve it.
In The Pack - Giles screws up. He dismisses Buffy and Willow's suspicions that Xander is possessed. He says it's just being a 16 year old boy. Giles, for all his books and magic devices, really doesn't believe in the stuff. It's a clever and somewhat ironic twist - that Giles who knows the hellmouth and all this crap exists, doesn't quite want to believe it does. Every time he realizes he's wrong, he gets the funniest look on his face, sort of a "oh crap, it's not chicanery and balderdash after all" and "what the heck am I doing here? I know zip about this stuff...I wanted to be a fighter pilot or rock star...this is stupid."
I always felt a little sorry for him when he got that look. And he got that look big time, when he discovers that the pig has been eaten, raw. But it's too late, so has Principal Flutie.
In Nightmares - Giles' nightmares are fascinating. They emphasize Giles' own feelings of inferiority or ineffectiveness. In the first two nightmares - Giles gets lost in his own library. (This reminds me of a line in Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade - where Denholm Elliots fussy librarian character was accused of getting lost in his own library.) Then Giles can't read his own books. He can't read anything. The source of his power is in those books. It's through reading. He feels he can contribute nothing without them. Each nightmare seems to build on the metaphor of Giles' fears of being ineffective.
The first - getting lost in his own library, no sense of direction, unable to guide anyone.
The second - losing the ability to read or understand language, remember in Primeval where Giles was the one who had to read Summerian? No one else knew it. That was the power he had. Giles' power of the mind is in his reading. In Tabula Rasa - Anya assumes he can't do it, only she can, until he takes the books away from her and does it and saves the day. And in Buffy vs. Dracula - Giles feels that his contribution is in his books, they don't need him any longer to interpret.
These two nightmares, which seem more humorous than scary lead up to the final one, the nightmare that may in a way explain Giles the most. In Nightmares - there is one nightmare that informs each character - it is the finale, the one the others have been building towards. And for Giles that nightmare is Buffy becoming the monster that Giles has sworn to fight. It's Buffy becoming a vampire. When Giles, Willow and Xander walk into the darkness in this episode, Giles' response to X/W's query: whose nightmare is this, is : "Mine. This is my nightmare." And we think it's finding Buffy dead. Which in a sense it is. But it's more than that. It's finding her part of the undead. If you think long and hard about that scene, Giles reactions to Spike and Angel should not surprise you. (Oh quick aside/tangent: Also in the scene where Buffy rises from the grave - she's still Buffy in vampire form. And as she states to Giles and her friends, they need to hurry, she only has a limited amount of time before she loses herself completely to the darkness. Apparently when a vampire first rises they are still pretty close to the human they once were, the memories, etc, it's after that first kill, after time passes, that the monster truly takes up residence. The monster is built over time. So killing the vampire when it rises from the grave is in a sense, a preemptive strike.)
Something very important to remember about Giles - to Giles the books say it all. The books are the authority.
In Prophecy Girl - Giles believes the books prophecy that Buffy will die. Remember this is his nightmare. He attempts to stop her from going out and sacrificing herself. But Buffy knocks him unconscious. Giles is knocked unconscious a lot in the series, have you ever wondered why? It is not Giles who solves the problems in Prophecy Girl or finds the way out. It is the Buffy/Xander/Angel trio who actually do it.
Thinking back on Season 1, it occurs to me the number of times Buffy has to somehow turn Giles' guidance around like a puzzle to figure something out. It also occurs to me the number of times Giles gets knocked out or suffers some injury to the head. Puppet Show - Giles unknowingly places himself in danger and almost gets scalped. Buffy and gang figure it out in time and save him. Come to think of it, Giles spends many an episode unconscious. When he locates information on something, he's either knocked unconscious before he can communicate it or he doesn't trust what he's discovered. Later examples include - Giles in Once More With Feeling when he figures out it's probably a demon, then immediately dismisses it as "no, something isn't right there." Or Giles in Flooded - noticing someone's about to break into the house and is immediately knocked out. Giles in Doomed who doesn't realize the world is in danger until he literally is hit over the head with the information. In each case, it is Buffy who brings the situation to his attention and bugs him to pay attention. But back to Season 1.
I Robot You Jane - Giles is responsible for having Willow transpose Moloch into the computer. He hates the devices. When Buffy figures it out Giles attempts to somehow solve the problem with Jenny the technowizard. But all they really accomplish is trapping Moloch in the robot form. It's Buffy who figures out how to defeat and destroy Moloch, not Giles.
Giles and The Vampires. In Never Kill A Boy on The First Date (NKBFD) - Giles misunderstands the prophecy, believing the anointed one is a man not a child. And he attempts to fight the vampires - he can't of course and almost gets killed. Throughout the series we are reminded how ineffective Giles is when it comes to slaying vampires. He has to be saved every time. In NKBFD, Buffy/Willow and Xander save him from vamps in the morgue. In Bargaining - Spike saves him from a vampire. In Life Serial, Spike and Buffy save him. In Lies My Parents Told Me, one can't help but wonder how long Giles would have lasted with Richard in that cemetery? Also note the difference between Giles training Buffy, Buffy training Dawn ,and Spike teaching Buffy in Fool for Love? Is it any wonder Buffy picks Spike to help her train the Potentials, not Giles?? Giles' advice to Buffy is the same as in his Restless dream - "Buffy you're dropping your elbow" and of course the vamp, not dangerous, just a cardboard villain not a person. The person is completely gone in Giles head. While Spike's advice to Buffy is - how did I kill them? Well, Lesson the first? Always remember to have your weapon in hand. I already have mine. Lesson the second - don't give up, I'll take any opportunity you give me. And remember who has the power? Use whatever is available and kill quickly.
Giles has a piece of the puzzle but he seldom figures it on his own, it takes time and patience and the help of someone else. Jenny helped him figure out the Prophecy in Prophecy Girl - he'd gotten the whole anointed one thing wrong. In Out of Mind, Out of Sight, Angel helps him figure out first what it means to be invisible - not so much fun and second provides him with the right copy of the prophecy. In Graduation Day, S3 - it's Anya who comes up with what the Ascension amounts to. And in Choices - it's Willow who gets him the necessary information to figure it out what the Mayor is up to. But it is Buffy who comes up with the attack plan, when it comes to strategizing, Giles is, well, ineffectual. It's Buffy who figures out how to make things work. She figures out how to defeat the Master in Prophecy Girl. She figures out how to prevent him from coming back again in When She Was Bad (which is another fascinating episode...come to think of it...). Giles buries the Master, intact, thus ensuring he can come back again. Buffy bashes his bones.
In When She Was Bad - Buffy has a nightmare about Giles attempting to kill her while Willow and Xander do absolutely nothing. The nightmare is instructive since in it Giles unmasked becomes the Master. Giles and the Master. Think about that for a minute or two. Giles the Master. I removed the and. The Master doesn't have a name, he is THE MASTER. And he's the first vampire to bite Buffy, biting her sets him free, Xander brings her back to life not Giles, so newly empowered she can go kill the Master. Giles enables the Master to potentially be brought back to life by the anointed one, by only burying the Master. Hence the reason for Buffy's nightmare. Also Giles misreads the trap, believing Buffy is stepping into it when actually it is Giles that the anointed one wants. (When She Was Bad was also the last time we saw Hank, Buffy's biological father, - not in flashback or in a dream sequence. In the beginning of the episode, Hank is shown complaining to Joyce about Buffy not really talking to him and seeming somewhat removed.)
At the end of season 2, Becoming arc, Buffy is forced to kill Angel, the one person she loved most, to save Giles, the father/mentor, and the world. And it is Giles that provides Angelus with the information to destroy the world, just as the year before it was Angel who provided Giles with the information to save it. And Angelus tortures Giles - as he would a father figure. He goes after Buffy's old man. Interestingly enough Angel's issue is the disapproving father - it's the reason he goes after Giles, because Giles represents Angel's old man. Angelus' torture of Giles metaphorically represents Buffy's own fears and anger regarding her father figure and mentor. Her fear that he disapproves of her and her guilt regarding her relationship with Angel. This fear comes up again and again in later seasons. Note that it is not Buffy who saves Giles, but Xander and Spike who do so. Buffy, partly because of Giles, ends up saving the world by killing her beloved. It is indirectly due to Giles that she is forced to do this. Just as it is indirectly due to Giles in When She was Bad - that she is threatened by The Master again. Giles' failure to figure out the information and convey it to the right parties places them all in danger. This theme is repeated throughout seasons, finally coming to a head in Season 7, where Giles' inability to communicate causes the Scooby Gang to actually believe at one point he is the First Evil. (Killer in Me S7).
Giles and Willow. Another point in Becoming S2 Btvs- Giles goes along with Willow's idea of cursing Angel again - as a means of stopping Angelus - but also because it's what Jenny wanted. Giles does not however have the ability to do the curse himself nor does he seem to understand how it's done. A joke is made of the fact that he uses the orb of thesulah as a paper weight. It's important to note, that Giles lets Willow, a novice, attempt the spell with little to no knowledge of how it works himself. This is by no means the first time he does this. He relies as the seasons progress more and more on Willow to do magics, dark magics, with little to no guidance or instruction. In some ways Jenny was a better mentor on this than Giles is. Giles does not step in and say anything to Willow really until she is so powerful she can literally blast him across the room. Giles' behavior and use of Willow has always been consistent and does NOT, I repeat, does NOT reflect at all favorably upon Giles. He is a pragmaticist as he's been taught to be by the Council. Use any weapon available. To Giles, Willow is a weapon. That is NOT to say that he doesn't love her and care about her. But first and foremost, she is a weapon. Her use of magics serves his purpose. So he turns a blind eye. Don't believe me? Let's trip back through the episodes again shall we?
1. Becoming - Willow doing the curse
2. Faith, Hope and Trick - Willow asking to help and telling Giles how much magic she's done, he ignores her.
3. Gingerbread - Willow is blatantly using magic by now and almost gets burned at the stake for it. Giles does and says nothing.
4. Choices - Giles allows Willow to perform the magics to get the box of gavrok
5. Dopplegangerland - no one asks why Willow performed that spell or attempts to teach her not to do it again
6. Something Blue - Giles goes to Willow to do a truth spell when she's clearly emotionally unstable. He notices this but really appears to be blind to the problem. When she literally causes his blindness and other chaos - he punishes her by having her detail his car. He does not suggest she get proper training or anything else.
7. Giles appears oblivious to the magics that Willow is practicing and experimenting with. Even though - Willow and Tara create the means of switching Faith and Buffy back in Who Are You. And it is Tara not Giles who quickly figures out they switched places. Giles can't see it. Giles doesn't have any problem letting Willow perform the Primeval spell even though he knows how incredibly dangerous it is. In fact he suggests she do it.
8. Giles ignores Willow's magics in Season 5, often making side comments about how dangerous that is. He barely blinks when she separates Xander and Spike telepathically or enters Buffy's mind.
In a nutshell, Giles has not exactly been much of a mentor or teacher to Willow. Perhaps if he had been, DarthRosenberg would never have come into being?? Don't know. Giles' redeems himself a little by coming back and giving Willow the whammy in Grave. But, and a huge but here, it's not his whammy that saves Willow so much as Willow's love for Xander.
Giles and Xander. Everyone assumes that if Giles had been around in Season 6, Xander would have married Anya. Uhm, why??? When has Giles ever supported or helped Xander come to grips with anything? Name the episode. Give up? I'll help. All The Way S6 - Xander announces it to Giles and Giles is less than pleased. So he tells Xander about all the responsibilities he now has - like, are you hunting for a house? Have you figured out what you're going to do next? Are you going to have a family? The next time we see Xander, he is hyperventilating on the porch and Buffy is reassuring him. It's Buffy who supports his decision NOT Giles. In fact in Tabula Rasa, when Giles and Anya think they are an item, Giles seems to be contemplating leaving her. Whenever Xander and Anya kiss in front of Giles, he has a disgusted look on his face and takes off his glasses. At no point in this series has Giles EVER been into the Anya/Xander relationship. At no point does Giles give Xander fatherly advice.
In the Replacement - Giles makes the comment that the two Xander's are a bad influence on each other. In The Initiative, Giles is annoyed but tolerant of Xander's behavior, but certainly not encouraging. Xander and Giles have an odd friendship, they care about each other, but Giles has never played father to Xander or really, mentor. Sometimes he plays confidante. Briefly in The Pack. And occasionally in Season 4.
The reason Giles lets Xander stay involved, is well Buffy. It's Buffy who involves Xander and Willow not Giles. Giles just realizes he can't stop her. So he more or less allows it. Besides they want to help and do, often more effectively than he does.
Giles the pragmatist Giles in Season 5, begins to realize he really can't help Buffy anymore. This realization in part arises from his vague memory of his dream. It's not completely conscious and he's fighting it. Because he does have a father's love for Buffy and he does want to feel important. Catch the gleam in his eye when Buffy asks him to be her Watcher again in Buffy vs. Dracula? He truly didn't want to leave. But does he really help her much in Season 5? Does he provide her with much information? Does the council? All they really tell her is that Glorificus is a hell-god intent on using Dawn to open up hell dimensions. It's the Knight's of The Byzantine who tell her why. Buffy has to figure out how to stop Glory on her own with a little help from Anya and Spike. Spike provides them with the books. Anya with the weapons. All Giles comes up with is that Buffy must kill Dawn. And when Buffy asks Giles to explain the deaths of slayers, he is well speechless. It is Spike who provides her with the information she needs. Just as it is Spike not Giles who helps her get transportation in Spiral, get the information in Weight of The World, provides her with the key to defeating Glory (it's all about Blood - blood is the answer, speech) and it is Spike who attempts to stop Doc from killing Dawn. The only thing Giles does in The Gift is kill a poor defenseless man lying on the concrete, bleeding. And he does it by suffocating this man, blocking all the passageways of Glory's prison. Giles does a preemptive strike and rightly states, Buffy wouldn't do it.
According to David Fury on Bronze Beta - there was a speech in Lies My Parents Told Me, where Giles confesses to Buffy that he killed Ben. They removed it because it made the episode too long and they didn't think fans would care. (sigh. They should know better.) I think Giles' decision is important. Because I truly believe Giles would have killed Dawn. So did Buffy. It is the reason she pulls Spike aside and invites him back into her house - she gives him a mission - protect Dawn at all costs. She knows Spike would not hesitate to kill Giles to protect Dawn. She needs someone to protect her sister, who at this point in time is defenseless and a true damsel, from her mentor who believes that the world comes first no matter the cost. Well, there are some costs that Buffy is no longer willing to take. Giles is willing to sell his soul to save the world. Buffy isn't. And call me crazy, but I agree with Buffy. Hell is the world we get when we start selling our souls to protect it. Willow, Cordelia, and Wesley discovered this lesson very recently. Giles still has to learn it.
Giles' actions in Tabula Rasa...didn't make sense to people. Made a heck of a lot of sense to me. Giles felt ineffective. He felt he was holding Buffy back. He was depressed. So he left. He tells Buffy the reason he did more than once, most notably in LMPTM - the comment that seems to enrage Buffy the most may be: "at least Angel was self-aware enough to realize he had to leave you". Giles probably felt he made the same good decision in S6. Giles, Willow was right in Something Blue - you are a blind fool.
This comment reminded me a great deal of Helpless - an episode that also deals with the ineffectual and manipulative father.
In Helpless - Giles drugs Buffy. He renders her helpless. A girl who can't defend herself.
When she comes to him panicked that she is losing her powers, he states that he has no clue what is causing it and maybe it's temporary or something. He hypnotizes her each time to do it. Taking away her control. The most painful part of the episode is when Buffy comes to Giles to ask him to take her to the ice show. To act as a stand-in for her father. She had just finished telling Angel that she had a date for her birthday - with her Dad, it was an annual thing, he always took her to the ice show. But Dad stands her up. He's busy at work. He can't come. It's Buffy's birthday. So she goes to Giles, somewhat awkwardly, and asks her teacher and mentor, the person she trusts most next to Mom, to take her instead. Watch this scene closely, in it Buffy is stammering, clearly working up the courage to ask the man she has somewhat subconsciously decided is her father to consciously take her father's place in her life. She wants him to celebrate her birthday with her. This scene is probably one of the most painful scenes in the series. Because, instead of giving her an answer, Giles hypnotizes her and drugs her. Making her physically weak and taking control of her mind and spirit to work his will. Giles betrayal of Buffy in this episode comes from the Council, from being a Watcher. It is the Council who ordered Giles to do it. It's not until Giles realizes that the insane vampire Buffy is supposed to defeat has escaped and eaten the Council members who are supposed to be guarding it that he decides to reveal what he's done in order to protect Buffy from the monster. Buffy understandably rejects him. She survives. The monster is defeated. Buffy's defeat of the monster reasserts her mental prowess and capabilities over the nits who insist on controlling her for their own ends.
(Tangent: Helpless, Get it Done and Lies My Parents Tell Me are similar in one way - all involve people attempting through arrogance, false sense of superiority, and emotional manipulation to obtain control over the girl. The poor deluded girl. In each instance the men rely on subterfuge and deceit to accomplish their task. They justify their actions with phrases such as "greater good", "we're fighting a war", "it's in her best interest". When questioned - they state arguments such as can you come up with a better way? Isn't saving the world worth it? We are fighting a war and there must be casualties, everyone is expendable. When I hear words like these, my first thought is, okay I don't see you fighting on the front lines. Buffy however is. She is risking her life on a daily basis. And taking time out to save the butts of the nits who like to make these speeches, speeches she's begun to repeat because they've said them so many times. When Buffy resists or rebels - these men or council members condescend to her much like Professor Walsh does in Season 4 - calling her deluded unmanageable or a blind fool. The irony is this girl through her own initiative, intuition and brain power has time and again defeated the monster. She's 5-0 on the apocalypse meter. While the monster defeats and destroys the men - either by blowing them up (NLM), eating them (Helpless), or destroying them from within (Primevil). End Tangent.)
Back to Helpless, Giles sort of redeems himself by killing a vampire and getting fired by the Council. But it is important to note that Giles did not take action until he realized that he placed innocent lives in danger due to his actions and that the greater good was not being achieved. An insane and powerful vampire was now on the loose and there was no one who could stop it. If Buffy's life had not been in danger, if the Council had not lost control of the vampire, I seriously doubt Giles would have come clean.
Giles' words to Willow in Lessons come back to haunt us. "We are who we are no matter how much we may have appeared to have changed." Giles hasn't changed. Giles is the same man he was when he was first introduced. The only difference is we are now looking at him without the rose colored glasses and layers of metaphor. We are seeing Giles as he is, neither good nor bad, neither black nor white, but rather a muted shade of gray, and through the eyes of the adult. The ineffectual counselor, filled with all sorts of relevant information, but unable to effectively communicate it, partly due to the fact he does not trust the listener and partly due to his own fears and insecurities regarding the interpretation. This fear leads him to make serious mistakes in judgment. It leads to hubris and preemptive strikes that could end up doing more damage over time than good.
SK (end part I, TBC...Watcher's Council)
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II. The Watcher Council - Authority as an Organization (Ats 4'15 & Btvs 7.17spoilers) -- s'kat, 19:02:11 03/29/03 Sat
2. The Watcher Council - Authority as an Organization
The Watcher Council is to Btvs what Wolfram and Hart is to Ats. It is an organization that believes first and foremost in its own acquisition of power, yet ironically has none. So instead it manipulates people with power to accomplish its own ends. And it justifies its actions with the following: we are fighting a war and wars require strenuous measures.
This in a nutshell is Quentin's speech to Giles in Helpless. Quentin's speech to Buffy in Checkpoint. Giles' speech to Buffy in the Gift. Giles speech to Buffy in Grave. Wes' speech to Buffy in Choices when he suggests killing Willow and keeping the box. Wes' speech to Justine, to Lilah, to numerous people in Season 3-4 Angel. Cordelia's speeches to Connor. Have you ever found it odd how often people use the "greater good" or "god's crusade" or "the cause" to justify heinous actions? For some reason people think that as long as it's for the greater good, they can literally do whatever they please. They have a "get out of jail free" card. God's with me on this guys! God wants us to kill and slaughter our neighbors because they are evil and it's hey "greater good"! What is it Lilah sarcastically states to Cordelia about letting Angelus out to kill the Beast - "hey greater good!"
The Watcher's Council. I've been thinking a lot about the Watcher's Council. It occurred to me recently that the Watcher's Council hasn't really been all that helpful. They aren't nice English gentleman or scholars setting up tea time or teaching classes as Tara believes before Giles goes off to talk to them in Triangle S5 Btvs. Nor do they really have much useful information. In fact, I'm willing to go out on a limb to suggest that the Watcher Council has caused more harm than good in their manipulations. Let's look at what they've accomplished according to the television series only.
1. Alienation of Faith. Giles, Wes, Gwendolyn Post (will return to her shortly), the Watcher hit squad all manage to tear down poor Faith's self-esteem and give her every reason in the world to fight them. It is ironically the Watcher's worst enemy, a vampire named Angel, who manages to reach Faith.
2. Attempts on Slayers Lives. The Watcher Council attempts to kill Buffy in Helpless and Faith in Who Are You. It tries to kill them both in Sanctuary in Season 1 Ats. Angel helps save her.
3. Alienation of Buffy. Attempts on her life. Inability to communicate any information and insistence on keeping all information to itself. Rarely shares it.
4. Gwendolyn Post. Does not manage to keep track of the former Watcher or notice that she may be dangerous. If Buffy and Faith hadn't defeated her - the Watchers would have had a serious problem. Gwen Post is a perfect metaphor for hubris and the whole anything for power, ends justify the means view of the world. She manipulates Faith to get what she wants - through much of the same tactics Giles uses on Buffy in LMPTM. She condescends to Faith. Gives Faith a false sense of trust. I think Post may be the first of many statements regarding the Council's questionable practices and teachings. She is by far the worst, actually killing people to obtain absolute power. But if you look closely the line between Gwen and the other Watchers we've come to know and love isn't that thick. Dark Wesely? Quentin Travers? And Bertram Crowley.
5. Bertram Crowley and the Creation of Wood. Wood was 4 years of age when his mother died. How could she be his entire world? At 4 yep. But it didn't have to continue. Think about it, do you remember what happened to you at 4 years of age. Do you know anyone who is 30 years of age that does? I don't. And I know people who experienced traumatic events at that age. (As far as Nikki goes - I still strongly believe based on the information provided, that she committed suicide by vampire as a means of releasing her son from her mission. She didn't have the strength to give him up but also probably had grown tired of trying to do the mission, work , and take care of him at the same time. Nikki reminds me a lot of Buffy in Season 6. I think she truly believed when she died, her son would be spared her life - she'd set him free. This view is echoed in a way by William/Spike's mother who seemed to believe the same thing. As well as Darla who stakes herself to bring Connor into the world.) Crowley made sure that boy remembered. Crowley did to Wood what Holtz did to Connor. Except Connor was fortunate enough to get away from Holtz by the age of 18. Robin doesn't appear to have been so lucky. There's an old saying - you are taught to hate. Carefully carefully taught. Crowley, unable to handle the death of Nikki in the line of duty, threw all his guilt and anger on to her son. Instead of finding the boy a good home and a good mother, which was what his mother may have preferred, Crowley created Principal Robin Wood - the Buffyverse's version of Holtz (or possibly what Connor would have been like if Holtz took him to Utah and raised him to be a 30 year old man.) To take a 4 year old boy and teach him to hate and turn him into your personal weapon of vengeance is an evil and heinous thing. It's what Holtz did with baby Connor and it's what Crowley does with Wood. Bertram Crowley was an emotional vampire. Human yes. But filled to the core with self-righteous hate. He sold his soul for the cause. Worse yet, he sold the soul of a four-year old boy, who loved his mother, tainting and turning that love into something twisted and dark in the process. Spike did not destroy Wood's childhood, Betram Crowley did.
I think Buffy was right in Checkpoint when she took one look at Quentin Travers and stated, you have no power. I do and you don't and that scares you. You want power and the only way you can get it is by manipulating and controlling me. But that only works if I let you. And I don't! Nor do they appear to have much knowledge.
Knowledge. Time and again this season and in the past Buffy has asked the Council and Giles for knowledge, they don't give it to her. We complain about her speeches to the SIT's but the speeches are merely repeats of what the Council and Giles have taught her.
1. In Buffy vs. Dracula, she asks Giles to teach her, but all Giles is able to tell her is she's dropping her elbow. He has no knowledge to really convey. When she asks him in Grave why she's been brought back, he replies you have a sacred duty. He has no clue. We wonder why he doesn't reveal more, why the Council doesn't, are they keeping secrets? Has it occurred to us that they have no clue? That all they have is a bunch of suspicions and clues written down by various people over time?
2. In Fool for Love, Buffy has to go to Spike to understand how a slayer dies, how the vampire kills them. Spike knows more than her Watcher does. He understands that the slayer fights alone and makes her life all about death and the mission. He also understands or seems to understand intuitively something they don't: ie. why the slayer's a girl. Due to his own demons, Spike sees the slayers as the destructive mothers he must defeat. A projection of his own destructive anima. The demon woman inside. Death is her gift. She will either bestow this gift upon him or he will bestow it on her. Thus repeating his traumatic and life-changing battle with his mother that happened over 100 years before. People keep arguing that Spike was lying in this episode, uhm no, remember what Anya said - when she was evil she told the truth all the time. Spike is telling the truth according to Spike and from what I've read of the writer's interviews the truth according to the writers. But that's irrelevant here and really missing the point. What's relevant is that Giles did not have the ability to provide information on this topic nor did any of the other watchers. Because they don't understand. They don't fight vampires day in and day out. They don't know what it's like to be chosen or imbued with dark power. They have no clue.
3. In Checkpoint - Buffy is able to get a very limited amount of information from the Council. They have actually come in force to get information from her. Buffy knows more than they do. She's met Glory. She knows who the key is. All the Council knows is Glory is a hell-god. The rest of the information she has to get from the Knight's of Byzantine, another Buffyverse example of a self-righteous organization that believes in the ends justify the means. To the Watcher the slayer is just a weapon. They don't really get her power, they just try to wield and control it.
4. In Bring on The Night - Giles seems to know next to nothing about the First Evil. And he seems to be confused regarding the whole slayer line. According to Giles - once Buffy dies, a new one is born. Uhm, no. We know that's false. Just look at Bargaining. Is Giles lying or has he forgotten? The Watcher Council which got blown to smithereens in Never Leave Me, also seemed to know next to nothing. And they certainly weren't willing to ask for Buffy's help or provide any information to her regarding it. The lack of communication between the Council and Giles and Buffy is alarming. Giles can barely communicate with the potentials. One of them keeps wondering if he is trying to kill her. And Giles is so disconnected from the rest of the gang that they actually believe he could be the First Evil. At least they've wizened up enough to realize the best way of figuring this out is by physically attacking the suspect.
5. Finally, if we remember Grave, Giles makes a point of telling Buffy that it was the coven not the Council that came up with a means of helping Willow. The Council is "clueless".
Just in case we don't get the point, the writers show us how the council operated in ancient times with the creation of the first slayer. Interesting puppet show. By the way, Wood's favorite toy as a child was playing with the shadow puppets - you know those scary things that show a bunch of men chaining a girl to a rock and letting a demon attack her. Just makes me feel all warm and cuddly towards the guy. And this was the Watcher's emergency kit? A tool that allows a bunch of shadowy figures to metaphorically knock a girl up with demon dust. This was Wood's favorite plaything? (The line is in the beginning of LMPTM - where Nikki states - "why don't you play with those shadow things from my bag that you like so much.") At any rate, Buffy goes through the portal to get knowledge, she mistakenly believes Wood's bag holds knowledge. But Wood is as clueless as the bag. Neither has knowledge. What the bag contains is not weapons as Buffy believes in her dream or tools, but the primal energy that makes her the slayer. And that energy is not something that she chooses nor does it choose her. The shadowmen take the energy, chain her up and force her and the energy to mate. Neither appears to be a willing or cognizant participant. The shadowmen are the only ones who have a choice in this. Buffy repeatedly asks them for knowledge and all they can give her is nightmare images and the promise of sexual violence. She is right when she tells them that they are cowards who had to chain a poor girl up and make her fight their battles for them.
Both Wood and Giles continuously act in the roles of these shadowmen. Neither really help Buffy, instead they sort of judge her, act as her superiors when they are clearly her inferiors in both word and deed. Buffy has learned over time to trust her instincts and the show has time and again proven her right. Each time she trusts them, she wins the day.
In Prophecy Girl - she trusts her instinct to go after the Master after Xander revives her. In Angel she trusts her instinct not to kill Angel. Her ability to put aside her differences with Spike in Becoming and make a truce is part of the reason she wins the day. Just as her ability to trust him in Season 5 after he risks his life for her and Dawn, helps her save the world in the Gift. And now she trusts her instinct to ignore the authority figure and go with her gut. It's what makes her a hero and not just a weapon.
Sk ( TBC...part III Watcher/Slayer relationship, Holtz and Justine..etc.)
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Baby Wood's playthings -- Indri, 00:12:24 03/30/03 Sun
A tool that allows a bunch of shadowy figures to metaphorically knock a girl up with demon dust. This was Wood's favorite plaything? (The line is in the beginning of LMPTM where Nikki states "why don't you play with those shadow things from my bag that you like so much.")
Is this perhaps from the closed captions? I rewatched the ep tonight and Nikki clearly says "spooky doodads" and there's no mention of a bag, so I thought only of the type of strange doohickeys that Crowley was likely to have lying around (you know, like misplaced Orbs of Thessulah or Words of Valios picked up from jumble sales).
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I'm with Indri. -- HonorH, 00:22:31 03/30/03 Sun
The box with the shadow puppets in it was sealed, and Wood said it had never been opened. I don't think little Robin could have jacked the lock himself. My hearing of the line was the same as Indri's, as is my interpretation of it. If the "shadow things" line came from the shooting script, it's pretty obvious why it wouldn't have made it to the final script--huge inconsistency there.
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Re: I'm with Indri. -- Quentin Collins, 02:04:09 03/30/03 Sun
I'm not sure that I believe that Wood never opened it. Surely he could have placed the lock on it after the fact. If this was all that he had to remember his mother, you can bet that he would have found a way to open it at some point.
It is also interesting that it was never passed on to the next slayer. At four years of age, Wood would not have been able to make the decision to withhold it. Crowley probably did. One reason may be that Wood did have an attachment to the stuff and Crowley did not have the heart to take it away from him.
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Re: the emergency kit and the shadow playthings -- aliera, 03:24:01 03/30/03 Sun
I'm glad you brought this up again because it's really bothered me about Wood that he may have withheld something so critical to the Slayer as a momento of his mom. I can understand as a child but as an adult it's disturbing... although not inconsistent.
Just a side note, I had the same take as shadowkat on the playhings... not from the shooting script which I haven't seen but from the ep. This could be that I'm so used to inconsistencies (spackle artist supreme here) or that I just forgot about the "never opened line". I also haven't forgotten the effect the hellmouth had on Wood.
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Hmmm...I remember spooky doodads (Minor spoilers for BtVS LMPTM here and in above posts ) -- Random, 10:22:31 03/30/03 Sun
But my memory may be mistaken. But my fun theory? You wanna hear it? Okay... Wood played with the Shadowpuppet theatre, went back and was himself knocked up with demon dust. The genderbending experience so traumatized him that he became the epitome of a good Slayer -- focused, narrowminded and always in search of the kill. He even gained some Slayer power from aforementioned metaphysical pregnancy...how else could he be so effectual, even to the point of being clearly dominant in the fight with Spike for the first 10 minutes or so?
Not convincing? Sigh...I didn't think so.
~Random
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Re: lol and... Connor! -- aliera, 10:56:56 03/30/03 Sun
demon pregnancies one way or the other! The person your description most reminds me of is Connor; if it weren't for the girls only slayer club rule, I'd say he's a slayer.
I didn't know I could be broken -- Connor
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The Spike/Wood match -- Indri, 11:13:37 03/30/03 Sun
how else could he be so effectual, even to the point of being clearly dominant in the fight with Spike for the first 10 minutes or so?
I think the only reason that Wood had the upper hand at first is because Spike was too busy suffering Giant Flashback Trauma to fight back. Once the GFT had worn off, the fight was definitively in Spike's favour.
Personally, I was surprised that Wood thought he could outfight someone who had killed his Slayer mother, knuckledusters or no.
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Re: The Spike/Wood match -- Dariel, 20:39:26 03/30/03 Sun
Personally, I was surprised that Wood thought he could outfight someone who had killed his Slayer mother, knuckledusters or no.
Wood was too bound up in his rescue fantasy to think clearly.
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I think I saw it in closed captioning -- s'kat, 07:50:05 03/30/03 Sun
I've watched the thing three times now with closed captioning twice. So my memory is that's what I heard and saw. But I will check again.
And what makes you think a)Wood didn't lie? He's lied to Buffy about everything else. Why stop there? I would not be at all surprised if he lied about that bag never being opened, out of embarrassment for opening something he shouldn't have and b)What makes you think Crowley wouldn't have opened that bag and had him play with them? Crowley does not strike me as someone who wouldn't.
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III. Watcher/Slayer Relationships (Spoilers Ats 4.15 and Btvs 7.17) -- s'kat, 19:05:30 03/29/03 Sat
3. The Watcher/Slayer relationships (Ats and Btvs)
A. Holtz/Justine vs. Giles/Buffy
Angel Season 3 remains amongst my favorites primarily for the introduction of Justine and Holtz. The show deliberately set up a subversion of the Watcher/Slayer relationship, demonstrating to the audience just how twisted and dark this relationship truly could be.
If you watch closely, you'll see Buffy and her first watcher playing in that same LA graveyard that Holtz and Justine are playing in. Actually Holtz looks a lot like Donald Sutherland in the movie version of Buffy and Justine in some ways resembles Kristy Swanson. For those of you who missed this relationship - a brief summary: Holtz was a demon hunter/vampire hunter who wanted to destroy Angel, because Angelus murdered his entire family. He recruits Justine - a vampire hunter who has lost her sister to vampires. She is a blond who has no one. He is an enigmatic figure with a goatee and a sort of worldly view.
I experienced an odd sense of deja vue watching Giles and Buffy in the grave-yard during Lies My Parents Tell Me. Because many of the lines seemed oddly similar to Holtz and Justine's so did the actions. Not the same. Similar.
Justine: "You should be thanking me."
Holtz: "For disobeying an order?"
Justine: "For dusting two vamps!"
Holtz: "Two vampires from whom I had told you to walk away." (Provider S3 Ats)
In this scene, Holtz is punishing Justine for dusting the vamps when he told her to wait. In later episodes, we find that Holtz and Justine have chained up vamps and are systematically torturing them.
Now jump to Lies. Buffy asks if she can kill Richard yet. Giles says no. She asks why. He says because I told you not to. You have much to learn. Holtz does somewhat the same thing with Justine.
Holtz: "We are here to determine whether or not - you - have the commitment necessary for the work at hand."
Justine: "At hand? -That's a joke, right?"
Holtz: "Why are you wasting my time?"
Justine: "What do you want from me?"
Holtz: "I just told you: commitment. Something you must now convince me you have."
Giles is also testing Buffy's commitment. Asking her while she's battling the vampire whether she's willing to make necessary sacrifices. Willing, literally, to sell her soul. He never states that explicitly but it is heavily implied by questions regarding whether she is willing to let Dawn and the others die. Holtz does the same thing with Justine and later Wes, asking if they have the commitment necessary. In the scene where he's asking this of Justine - she has a knife stuck through her hand. Holtz stuck it there to see if she could endure the pain. She does prove to be a faithful servant of Holtz's by the way. Even to the extent that she kills him and sets Angel up to take the blame in Connor's eyes. The action taints her soul.
B. Wes/Faith vs. Holtz/Justine
In the Faith arc on Angel the Series, Wes is shown asking Faith to break out of jail, testing her by pulling up in a street full of vampires and insulting her to get her all riled up. The alley scene in Release S4 Ats between Faith and Wesely - where Wes takes Faith, just moments after she broke out of prison, is a clear parallel to Holtz and Justine and to an extent Giles and Buffy in the grave yard in LMPTM. In that scene, Wes asks Faith if she can still do it. She says it's no different than getting back on the biker. Grinning, he tests his theory by stopping the car and she gets yanked out by the vampires running amuck. When the vamps attack Wes, he tells them he's not the one they want, she is. Holtz does somewhat the same thing with Justine - setting her up to fight the vamps, ordering her not to kill them at certain points, testing her prowess.
Holtz's little speech to Justine while she has a knife that he deliberately stuck through her hand to test her commitment is similar to Wes' interrogation of a suspect after Faith decides to go easy on the girl. Wes sticks the knife in the girl's shoulder. Later when Faith questions Wes' tactics, he throws her past torture of him in her face, and tears her apart with words. Very similar to how Holtz tears apart Justine, asking how far she is willing to go for him. If she is really committed enough to do anything - including cut Wes's throat which she does in Sleep Tight. For Wes - Faith's commitment includes her choice to drug herself and let Angelus bite her.
The parallels between the relationships seem to suggest that there is something not quite kosher about the Watcher/Slayer relationship. That maybe the idea of the fussy older gent controlling and training the young girl isn't all for the good? And does he really have anything to teach her or is it just as Giles states in his dream to Buffy: "You have to learn not to think, this is the way it's been between men and women since the beginning..." To which Buffy, being Buffy, merely giggles. (Restless S4 Btvs)
C. Holtz/Justine vs. Wood/Buffy
In Provider through Sleep Tight Ats S3, Holtz encourages Justine to stroke her hate, to use it to fight the vampires. To live in it.
Holtz: " Your life has been ruined. You can't sleep. Instead you wander the streets, making others pay for what happened to your sister. That's where I can help. I see your talent. And I see your hate. And I know that I can shape and hone you into an instrument of vengeance."
Wood to Buffy - . "I went through this whole avenging son phase in my twenties,
but I never found who did it. So now I just dust as many of 'em as I can
find. Figure eventually I'll get him." (First Date)
Both Wood and Holtz live for vengeance, they nurse it. It empowers them. In a sense they use vengeance in much the same way Spike accuses Buffy of using it in Never Leave Me. Accusing her of keeping him alive in order to have enough hate inside to be the slayer. (A telling comment on Spike's own psychosis). He's wrong of course. Buffy doesn't kill out of hate. She even apologizes to the vamp's she kills. It's her mission, her job, not her emotional release and not out of some misguided need for vengeance.
D. Holtz/Wesley vs. Wood/Giles
Both Giles and Wes fall into the same trap and both reap the same reward. Both get shut out. Just as Holtz and Wood reap the same reward - neither are killed by our ensouled vampires. Angel and Spike give them both a pass, but and a huge but here - they also let Holtz and Wood know that if they come after them again - they will kill them.
Holtz: "And was it your hands that held down my beloved Caroline as she was violated and murdered? That wrapped themselves around my son's neck and snapped it like kindling? Where yours hands that clutched at my daughter as she was turned into a creature damned for all eternity? - Angelus is in his nature. The beast will re-emerge. You've seen it. You know it. And that is why you are here. - You're afraid he's going to kill the child. - (Wes looks from Holtz to Aubrey) - And you're right. (Loyalty)
In the above speech, Holtz is questioning Wes' resolve to protect Angel's son Connor. He knows that Wes fears Angel will kill his son because it has been foretold in some Prophecy. But Wes is blaming himself for it and requests that Holtz take him instead of Angel. Holtz cleverly realizes there's more going on underneath Wes' plea and plays on Wes' fears, suggesting that if he continues to let Connor to stay with Angel, Angel will kill him and there is nothing Wes can do. Holtz also within the speech justifies his own actions by reminding Wes of the horrible things Angelus has done to him.
Wood delivers a similar speech to Giles in LMPTM, stating pretty much the same fears. Spike is a liability, he killed my mother, a slayer. He's dangerous to Buffy. You're her Watcher - you should be able to control her, after all I was raised by a Watcher who was able to control my mother. Spike's a vampire, it's his nature, soul or no soul. Give me just a few moments alone with him and I'll kill him. Just stall her.
Wood expertly plays on Giles' fears - which are that Spike will in some way hurt Buffy. Fears that go all the way back to Nightmares (s1 Btvs) and Innocence/Passion (S2 Btvs). Fears that Buffy has once again fallen for the vampire and isn't thinking clearly. So Giles does exactly what Wesley did in Sleep Tight (S3 Ats). He betrays his leader, doesn't confide in her, doesn't give the others a chance to figure stuff out. Both Giles and Wes have the best of intentions, but both foul up, why? Because of their watcher training. Both give in to the tempting schemes of people with vendettas.
SK (TBC in Part IV Following Daddy's Teachings: Holtz/Connor, wood/Crowley)
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IV. Following Daddy's Teachings : Holtz/Connor and Wood (Btvs 7.17 and Ats 4.15 Spoilers) -- shadowkat, 19:09:20 03/29/03 Sat
IV Following Daddy's Teachings : Holtz/Connor vs. Wood/Crowley
(for want of a better title)
A. Wood/Spike and Holtz/Angel
Wood and Holtz have created their own living hells. Instead of remembering their loved ones and living for them, they have made vengeance their mistress and sold their souls. It's interesting how they both struggle with this, because they both face the same dilemma. What do you do when the monster has changed? It would almost be easier on Wood and Holtz if Spike and Angelus had been killed. But no...instead they are ensouled. Damn. Both attempt to dehumanize and demonize these creatures, turn them back into animals. Holtz through the taking of Connor. Wood through the use of the trigger. It's interesting to note that Wood can't attack and kill "Spike" the man who is standing in front of him, he has to trigger him - turn him into the demon, the monster who killed his mother. Once Spike becomes that monster, then Wood can torture him at will. Note Wood does not just stake Spike, no, Wood wants to rail at him, and torture him and make him into an animal. Only one problem...of the two men in the room, Wood has become the monster, Spike has become defenseless tortured and remorseful. Spike is on the ground, not fighting, in tears, in demon face and saying sorry. The "I'm sorry" startles Wood enough that he literally stops his stake in mid-motion. It's that comment that ironically saves Spike's life. And no, the sorry isn't for Wood, nor should it be, Wood's mother was killed while on duty, fighting a battle. Spike should feel no more guilty for that crime than well Buffy should feel for killing Richard or an Iraqui soldier should feel for killing an American Marine or vice versa. Things happen when you battle for your life against someone of equal skill and power. This would be like well a gunfighter feeling guilty for killing fellow gunfighter on the opposite side. "I was a vampire and she was a slayer. It's how the game is played." Not the same as killing a man's entire family, not nearly. But the fact Spike says I'm sorry...is important. Because his remorse is for killing a mother, his own. The conversation starts with Spike stating I've killed a lot of people's mothers...what Wood doesn't realize is he, Spike, does feel remorse for it, the trigger, the slayers, all of it comes from the crime closest to Spike's heart, the crime of destroying his own mother in the hopes of making her life better and having her beside him. The selfish act of turning her...is the one that haunts him. And Spike's insightful comment that Wood is in a way doing the same thing with his mother - is enlightening.
Because Wood, like Spike, has kept his mother alive in demonized form. He's kept the killer not the nuturer alive. He's kept her memory alive through his vengeance. He honors her with hate. Not through the mission - if the mission was what was important to Wood, he would have told Buffy, he would have followed Buffy's lead. But to Wood - what is most important is the vendetta. Just as Holtz believes all must be sacrificed for the vendetta. As Anya states so succinctly - Forgiveness is what makes us human. A former vengeance demon, Anya is finally beginning to get it.
In both the Holtz and Wood stories, the writers emphasize in different ways, how these men have created their own living hells. All they know is vengeance. All they know is the boot, the bat, and the bastinadata. Neither man is capable of love or peace or kindness or even compassion. They both live inside their hate. Until they are able to let go of that hate, neither has a chance. It is too late for Holtz, one can only hope it's not too late for Robin Wood. Perhaps Wood learned something in his shrine? Perhaps not. But what makes me think he has half a chance is the fact that he had to make Spike into a monster again before he attacked him.
B. Holtz/Connor vs. Crowley/Wood
One last comparison on Wood and Holtz. Connor and Betram Crowley. The more I think about it, the more I realize in some ways that Wood is what Connor might have become if he had been raised in Utah to the age of 30 by Holtz. Wood in some ways is a 30 something version of Connor. Both are raised by men who are either vampire hunters or Watchers who teach others to slay vampires. Holtz trained Justine. Crowley trained Nikki. Both lost people dear to them and may have had pseudo-sexual relationships with the female slayer/hunter they controlled. Both played father figures to a child that they both imbued with their desire for vengeance.
Wood and Connor feel the need to demonize Spike and Angel - to see them only as the monster. They refuse to acknowledge that the soul has changed either vampire in any way. You're the real item - Connor tells Angelus, he's just the mask. You're the real one, the monster, Wood rails at the triggered Spike. The souled vampires provide them with a murky puzzle that doesn't jibe with either's world-view. Ie. Vampires are evil murders. We kill them. End of story. Nor can they quite deal with the fact that neither vampire is the same evil being they once knew or were taught to hate. Spike and Angel don't help, they make things even murkier by repeatedly saving Connor and Wood's lives.
In Orpheus S4 Ats, when Connor attempts to kill Angelus, Faith stops him - letting Connor know on more than one occasion: He attempts it? She'll whup his ass or even kill him. In Release, when she realizes he wants to kill Angelus, she tells him to leave or else. "Are you a murderer? I am. And you haven't given me a reason to choose you over Angelus. When push comes to shove? I'm choosing him." Buffy literally states the same thing to Wood in LMPTM. "I'm fighting a war here. I don't have time for vendettas. You are going after a man who no longer exists. He's my strongest and best warrior. If you go after him again, he will kill you. More important? I'll let him." More important, both Faith and Buffy have made it clear to Connor and Wood where their loyalties lie. Not with vengeance, not with vendettas. And in both cases, Angelus and Spike were potential dangers, but in both cases - Spike and Angelus were working for the greater good. Connor and Wood? Not so much.
What's most interesting about Wood and Connor though is that both have in a sense adopted their surrogate father's calling. Wood is not Nikki's son so much as he is Betram Crowley's. Wood like Connor really never knew his mother. Wood's memories of her are fuzzy at best, filled in by her Watcher, Crowley. Connor has no memories of his mother, all he knew was Holtz. Up until he enters Angel's world - he is Holtz's son and follows Holtz's teachings. And like Holtz seeks revenge against Angel. They are creations of the dark father figure, the father of the biblical Old Testament, the eye for an eye, Daddy Vengeance.
Connor and Wood share one more thing in common, both had mothers that may have sacrificed themselves for their welfare. To spare their children, much as Buffy once did for Dawn. Nikki may have committed suicide by vampire, the flashback sequence in Fool for Love can certainly be read that way, and if she did, she may have done it to get her son out of the mission. She couldn't give him up. So perhaps she hoped that by dying, her watcher would be forced to find him a good family? We'll never know for sure. Darla clearly sacrificed herself for Connor, taking her own life to ensure his.
At any rate, one can't help but wonder if Wood will follow Connor's path towards forgiveness, making him human, or follow Holtz's path towards vengeance, making him like Holtz, a monster. Can Wood break away from being Crowley's son and living up to Crowley's image, to become his own man? Or will he just continue to follow the path that Crowley laid out for him?
Sk ( if you're still with me...TBC in The Sick Mother and Maytryed Mom Part V)
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V. Sick Mother and Martyred Mom (7.17 Btvs and 4.15 Ats Spoilers) -- shadowkat, 19:12:45 03/29/03 Sat
5. The Sick Mother and The Martyred Mom (Anne/Joyce, Buffy/Nikki)
Up until now, this essay really has been about the "father" or "patriarchial" authority figures as represented by the Council, Watcher's, Giles, and other individual characters in both Btvs and Ats. How it is important to somehow break away from the father's path and set your own course, to not become your father or live your life for your father's approval.
What about Mom? Doesn't she play a role? Isn't she an authority figure as well? In some senses she could be described as first and last authority. My mother recently told me that no matter where I was in my life, she felt she was standing alongside me. That she felt my pain and my triumphs. That a mother, she said is more than just a friend or a parent to her child, she is always connected. That child was a part of her. Some mothers divorce themselves from their children. But most, in her experience, did not. At least not metaphorically. This reminded me of Joyce Summers in Btvs, who has not divorced her children. Even though she's dead, she still appears to Buffy in her dreams. Joyce is in a sense Buffy's first and last authority - her touch-stone. The counter to Giles and the Watcher Council. So in a way it is fitting to end a four part essay on authority figures with an analysis of the characters' relationships with good old mom.
Btvs and Ats describe at least four sick mothers and three mom's who gave up their lives for their children. These mothers are: A) The sick mothers: Anne (Spike's Mom), Joyce (Buffy's Mom), Kralik the Vampire's mother in Helpless, Lilah's mother who has Altziemer's, B) The Tough Sacrificial One's : Nikki (Wood's mother) Buffy (Dawn's surrogate mom), and Darla/Cordelia (Connor's mom and surrogate).
Before I start: A few quotes - from an old thesis I wrote on Celtic Folklore, that concerns the mother/son relationship in mythology:
J.J. Bachofen states in Urreligion und antike Symbol, Vol. 11, pp. 356-58 : "She comes before the creature (the masculine principle) appearing as cause, the prime creature, but is known in her own right. In a word, the woman first exists as a mother, and the man first exists as a son."
Jung in Man and His Symbols, p.17: "In the Middle Ages long before the physiologists demonstrated that by reason of our glandular structure there are both male and female elements in all of us, it was said that 'every man carries a woman within himself.' It is this female element in every male that I have called the 'anima'. This 'feminine aspect' is essentially a certain inferior kind of relatedness to the surroundings, and particularly to women, which is kept carefully concealed from others as well as from oneself. In other words, though an individual's visible personality may seem quite normal, he may well be concealing from others - or even from himself - the deplorable condition of 'the woman within'."
These quotes describe how one may internalize the sick mother, how she becomes inside the psyche both a creature of light and darkness.
A. The Sick Mother
The sick mother first comes up in the episode Helpless, Season 3 Btvs, written by David Fury. In that episode, the vampire Kralik kidnaps Buffy's mother, Joyce, in order to get Buffy, who has been rendered helpless by Giles, to play a game. The game of course was called the Cruciaturium - a coming of age test devised by the Watcher's Council to test the mental acumen and abilities of the slayer. The idea was to render a slayer physically helpless through drugs, place her in an old house with an insane vampire and see how she defeats him. Of course things go horribly wrong and Kralik gets free, kidnaps Joyce, and starts his own version of the game. Kralik's version is that he sires Buffy so that she will eat her Mom just as he ate his. Kralik apparently had been horribly abused by his mother as a child, as a result became a rapist and murderer of women before being institutionalized. When he was turned into a vampire - he went home and ate Mom, paying her back for all those years of torment. Buffy, in a riff off Little Red Riding Hood, manages to defeat Kralik by tricking him into drinking a glass of holy water to wash down his psychotic medicine. The holy water eats him from within. She saves her mother, whose photographs have been plastered around the house.
Another sick mother figure we hear about but are never introduced to is Lilah's mother in Sleep Tight and Loyalty (Ats S3) The woman with Altzheimers, whom Lilah supports, occasionally talks to, but seldom mentions. Lilah both loves and despises her mother. Her mother was never really supportive of her. And Lilah fears becoming dependent and helpless like her mother, so clings desperately to her career. Staying as far from home as possible. For Lilah - her mother is a burden and a nightmare.
Approximately four years after Helpless, in Season 7 Btvs, we are introduced to another vampire's mother, this time it's Spike's. Spike like Kralik, has serious mother issues. But unlike Kralik, Spike adored his mother. While he was alive, he had been the center of her universe. She feared for his welfare, yet kept him close, partly due her widowed status and partly due to her illness which is TB. TB, a disease that causes the coughing up of blood, has been associated with Vampirism. Apparently it was passed onto relatives through coughing or blood. Drusilla sired William, turning him into the vampire Spike. Not wishing to leave his mother, Anne (according to close captioning), behind or see her die, William sires her. The new vampire isn't all that happy with him. She rails at him. Tells him he's nothing. That she never loved him. That she never wanted him. That she couldn't wait for him to leave the house. And barely tolerated his poetry. Then she attacks him until he is literally forced to destroy her. Once he does, she has the oddest look of peace on her face. For over a hundred years, Spike has internalized his mother's words, believing that she didn't love him, believing the words over the acts. Believing the demon over the mother he once knew. Because Spike the soulless demon, cannot understand why she would rail at him.
As a result Spike internalizes the negative image of his mother, the vampire. Just as Kralik internalized the mother who abused him.
It's not until Spike is forced to relive this memory that he begins to understand it. He begins to understand his mother and realizes that she did love him, her actions prior to her death prove that. The demon's words in no way changed that love. The realization enables him to come to terms with the demon within.
Buffy comes to a similar realization regarding Joyce. Joyce in many ways is similar to Anne (Spike's Mom). She loves Buffy. Buffy until Dawn pops into the picture, is an only child. There is no father figure to compete for Mom's attention. When Dawn does pop into the picture, Buffy resents Dawn. Wants to have that close relationship with her mother again. Then Mom gets sick and Buffy finds out Dawn is the key to the universe. Frightened for both of them, Buffy moves back home. And further away from Riley. Over the course of Season 5, Buffy spends more and more time with Mom. She goes to the hospital with Mom. She neglects slaying duties for Mom. Mom becomes the center of her universe. To the extent that Riley starts seeing vamp trulls in order to feel needed and eventually just leaves town completely. Mom, like Ann, has become sick, she is the invalid. In and out of hospitals. Then she gets all better and Buffy begins to focus on other things. Only to come home and find her mother lying on the couch dead from a brain aneurysm. When Dawn does a spell to bring Joyce back, Buffy chides her at first but then turns all enthusiastic, about to open the door, when Dawn rips the picture, realizing what they've brought back is a monster. Buffy begins to slowly shut down after that, literally going catatonic in Weight of the World. (S5 Btvs)
Both Spike and Buffy are devastated by the loss of their mother. Unlike Kralik and Lilah, neither hated their mother. But there's small graduations in each regarding how they view her mother and she related to them. Of the four, Buffy had the most nurturing and healthy relationship. Joyce did not make Buffy her entire world, she also worked, had friends, went out, dated. Buffy was not the center of Joyce's universe. Nor for that matter was Joyce the center of Buffy's. But of course, Joyce and Ann are separated by 100 years and during the Victorian Age, women were dependent on the male heads of their households. If a woman was widowed and an invalid, she would have been highly dependent on the love and care of her son. Heck, when Joyce got ill she became very dependent on Buffy - going over grocery lists, having Buffy run errands for her, if it weren't for Buffy - Joyce would have had to stay in the hospital longer. So part of the difference is time period. The other part is gender. There is a very different dynamic between mothers and sons and mothers and daughters. I'm not sure how much of this is societal and how much of it is psychological. But it does appear that women do not internalize their relationships with their mothers to the extent that men do. For women, the psychological relationship is with the father. At any rate - in Btvs, I think Spike may be to Joyce and Buffy herself what Angel is to Giles and Hank. Angel represents the father issues. Spike represents the mother issues.
The sick mother represents different things to women and men. For women, she is a burden, an extension of us, and a fear of what we may become. Take Lilah for example, she is terrified of becoming like her mother, the burden of it wears her down, yet she can't quite free herself. To Buffy, the burden is somewhat larger in that when Joyce dies, she must become a mother to Dawn, she must take on Joyce's role - a role she neither wants nor needs. But over time comes to accept like a second skin. Buffy yearns to be like Joyce, yet also fears it, as is expressed in her comments to Principal Wood in both Lessons and later in LMPTM, "I'm not Dawn's mother. What? Do I have Mom hair?" (Lessons) And "normally being compared to someone's mother isn't something a woman wants to hear, but in this case I'll take it as a compliment." (LMPTM). In HIM, Buffy describes herself as Dawn's sister, yet towards the end of the episode, acts like Dawn's mother, when she risks her life to save Dawn. Just as she does in LMPTM, where she tells Giles that yes, she knows Dawn is expendable, yet at the end of the episode, we see her bending over her sister, touching her bandaged forehead with concern.
For men, the sick mother is someone they feel the need to take care of, yet aren't quite sure how. They feel the need to save her. We see this with Connor who wants to save Cordelia. Who feels both a son's and a man's need for her. Also with William who feels the need to protect and take care of his mother. When William becomes a vampire, his dearest wish is to make his mother one too - he sees it as means of saving her both from the illness and from the mortal coil. She won't die, he thinks. He hasn't abandoned her. He hasn't left her. The folk song she sings to him is in a way a plea - don't ever leave me William. Ironically he does, by falling into the arms of Drusilla. Gone for several days, when he returns to his house to see his mother, she's worried sick. "Where have you been, William? It's been days. I've been beside myself." Feeling a tad guilty for abandoning her in her time of need, he comes up with the alternative, I'll turn you into a vampire just like me. Backfires on him of course. Just like Dawn's plan to bring back Joyce backfires. Mom doesn't come back like the mother he loved. Instead she's a pissed off demon who wants no part of him. Not unlike Cordelia, the demon who Connor is reunited with, who he sleeps with and who seduces him to do her bidding. In Connor's life the dark and light maternal figures are Darla and Cordelia, Darla the vampire ironically enough is the light, virginal, nurturer who would give her life for her son, and Cordelia is the dark, devouring monster, who rejects yet draws her son close, wanting to corrupt and potentially destroy him. In Ats they've literally split the two. In Btvs they figuratively have by showing two sides of the same woman. In Ats, Connor is the Oedipal stage, while in Btvs, Spike is in the pre-Oedipal stage. But to grow, both Connor and Spike must eventually separate from their mothers and let go of their guilt regarding them.
While Buffy comes to terms with Joyce and her own mother issues, by in a sense taking on Joyce's role and being a mother herself (ie. Seeing her childhood from the opposite side of the fence), Spike and Connor come to terms with their mother issues by breaking free of her, no longer feeling a)responsible for her fate or b) dependant on her love. Their self-esteem should not be based on whether or not she cared for them. They both need to become their own man, not her devoted son or tool. Some may argue that Spike has already begun to do that, but I'm not so sure. At the end of LMPTM, Spike tells Wood that his mother loved him, that it was the demon talking and now he is no one's tool. What unsettles me is this one phrase: I know my mother loved me. I was the center of her universe. Now that I know that I can go on. Uhm, okay that's great Spike. But why does it matter what she thought? Why do you still place so much importance on it? For all of his bravado, he still appears to place a great deal of his own personal self-worth upon what others say and think of him and that just can't be healthy. Same thing with Connor, for all of his bravado, he still places a great deal of his self-worth on what others say and think. If he didn't, Cordelia would not have as much control over him. Both the FE and Cordelia are able to control their men through their insecurities, their desires to be loved and respected. That is their achillees heel. As M-L Von Franz states in Man & His Symbols, p. 186-187: "Within the soul of every man the negative mother-anima figure endlessly repeats this theme: 'I am nothing. Nothing makes any sense. With others it's different, but for me...I enjoy nothing.' These anima moods cause a sort of dullness, a fear of disease, of impotence, or of accidents. The whole of life takes on a sad and oppressive aspect. Such dark moods can even lure a man to suicide, in which case the anima becomes a death demon." This is what has been happening inside Connor and Spike, their negative mother-anima is eating them alive. Anne and Cordelia act as a type of emotional vampire, feeding on their sons weak points, stroking their egos, pushing their buttons to get them to work their will. When these women reject Connor and Spike, the two sons reel from the rejection, internalize it, and act it out on those around them.Until they are able to come to grips with her, it is unlikely either will break free of the externalized version's grasp completely. And while Spike's definitely made some progress regarding this, I don't think he's nearly as together as he thinks.
B. Tough Love - Dying for My Child
The counter to the sick mother is the martyr or St. Joan. This is the mother who dies for her child. She's not the emotional vampire who keeps the kid by her side with her illness, rather she sacrifices herself for the kid's own good. As Dawn states in HIM S7, by dying, he'll always remember someone loved him enough to die for him, to sacrifice their life for his.
Nikki Wood tells her four old son at the beginning of LMPTM, that it's all about the mission. She loves him, but her mission, her calling comes first. At the time, it is pouring down rain and she has just fought Spike to a standstill. Spike disappears and Nikki with a great deal of relief lets her son reveal himself. Later, jumping to Fool For Love S5, Nikki fights Spike in a subway. She appears to have the upper hand and is about to dust him, but something happens and Spike is suddenly on top, Spike kills Nikki. A twist of fate. Did Spike out-fight Nikki? Was he truly the better fighter here? Or ...did Nikki merely give up? The fight in some ways reminds me of Robin Wood's fight with Spike years later - when he is bashing Spike's face in and Spike is doing nothing to stop him. Barely even putting up a fight. I can understand why Buffy would be worried. There was a point in time, not that long ago, where Spike literally begged her to kill him. (Never Leave Me and Sleeper S7). But unlike Nikki, Spike doesn't give up, he turns the tables and defeats Wood. Yet does not kill Wood. I remain convinced, based on the evidence provided that Nikki committed suicide that night. And it wasn't something she came up with ahead of time. I think it probably just occurred to her in those final moments of the fight - here is my chance to free my son and myself from the mission that is swallowing our lives. If I die, he will be free. He will not be put in danger like he was tonight. The best thing I can do for him is to die for him.
Connor's mother does practically the same thing. Darla. A Vampire. Decides to stake herself so her son can be born, because life cannot be born from something that is dead. Also she fears what will happen once he is gone from her, will the love she feels for him disappear once he is born? Is it his soul that fills her with love? A similar question arises with Spike by the way, could Anne love her son without a soul? Was it Anne's soul that filled her with motherly love? Spike seems to believe this. He appears to believe that soulless his mother could not love him or anyone else. Just as Darla appears to believe that soulless she would not love her son, rather she'd devour him. Is this true? Was it true for Angelus? Did Angelus stop loving Connor when he lost his soul? The writers never quite answer this question. Darla doesn't want to take that risk. She does not want to risk the fact that once Connor is born, she'll want to eat him like some ravenous spider. So she pleads with Angel to ensure Connor has a better existence than they did and does not live a life without love. Her gift to Connor is her death. (Lullaby, S7 Ats).
Buffy also makes this decision in The Gift, S5. Giles tells her if Dawn is bled the only way she can close the portal is by killing her sister. Buffy blatantly refuses to do this. It would in her mind at least be akin to killing her own child. They share the same blood.
It is however what Glorificus the evil mother would do. Glory would kill Dawn to live. And Glory in fact tells Dawn that Buffy will kill her to save the world, because that's the only way Buffy will be able to save the world once the ritual is started. The dimensions won't close until Dawn stops bleeding. But Buffy takes the third option. She sacrifices herself. It's her calling after all not her sister's. If anyone should sacrifice themselves to save the world it should be her. They have the same blood. So Buffy jumps, doing the one thing that would never have occurred to Glory. Glory the evil mother - sacrifices her child to live. Buffy sacrifices herself, so her child can live.
Yet, as Buffy learns in Season 6, it is far harder to live for one's children than to die for them. The day to day tasks of mothering are far more strenuous. So when she returns to the earth, she must take on the duty of teaching Dawn how to live in a difficult world and see the beauty of that world as opposed to protecting her sister/child from the darkness. As great a thing as it is for the mother to sacrifice herself, it is sometimes far more empowering for her to find a way to live. As Buffy states to Dawn in HIM, no one is worth dying for, it's not your death that makes you memorable, it's your life. Or as she tells the Guide in Intervention S5- Death is no gift, my mother recently died and believe me I don't see that as a gift. In a way she's come full circle.
SK (Conclusion to follow...)
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Conclusion to the whole shebang -- shadowkat, 19:14:31 03/29/03 Sat
Conclusion
When we grow up, we begin to pull away from our authority figures. We establish egos and super-egos separate from theirs. No longer do we need them to guide us or tell us how to behave or what to do. The first step is to deal with the parts of our parents we've psychologically internalized and in order to do that we often have to deal with their external representations. Once that step is completed, we may find ourselves taking over their roles. And perhaps, if we are lucky, learning from our parents' mistakes, and placing our own imprint upon those roles.
But our parents aren't our only authority figures; we also have to deal with external role models such as employers, teachers, disciplinarians. Some of whom may be helpful guides, some harmful. The Watcher Council is possibly one of the more harmful ones. It may not have always been that way, although from what I've seen of the shadowmen, I'm tempted to believe it was. Rebuilding it - is not the answer. No more than the answer is to rebuild or copy any authority that leads us down a negative path. Rather taking the portions of it that were positive, assuming you can find any, and melding them with new better methods may be the best route.
The same thing goes for Connor and Wood and how they decide to emulate their authority figures and role models. They can either follow the teachings of their surrogate fathers, or set their own paths. Rebel. Find a new, better way to live. Connor appears to be doing this on Ats, we can only hope Wood will learn to do the same.
I believe questioning authority can sometimes be a good thing. Figuring out when and how to do it is the hard part. It is equally important to figure out which lessons to follow and which to ignore. If we follow all of them, we are merely parrots, automatons, robots. If we follow none of them, then we are rebellious youths, vampires, fools. If we can figure out a middle ground? Then we have matured, we've become our own masters, we've triumphed over our id, developed our own super-ego and we will have our own free will.
Thanks for reading and for your indulgence. Comments appreciated as always.
Shadowkat
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*Clap Clap Clap!* -- HonorH (applauding), 20:10:18 03/29/03 Sat
Wonderful essay, s'kat! I love what you have to say about Nikki's death--that's an interpretation I hadn't thought of, but one that fits all available evidence perfectly. I love the Wood/Connor parallels, too.
As for Giles, even as mad as I am at him right now (*dumb* stunt!), the truth is, he's done the best he could, and with a late start at that. The man never expected to become Buffy's father figure, yet somehow, he managed to guide her into adulthood. I agree with your assessment: Buffy's seeing him with adult eyes now, rather than a child's. I strongly believe that when Buffy saw him at the end of S6, she was subconsciously expecting him to make everything right. He couldn't, of course, just like now, he can't. He hardly knows what to do, and he's relying on her more than he's relying on himself. The disillusionment Buffy's feeling right now will have to be worked through before they can rebuild any kind of relationship.
Terrific work, as always!
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Re: *Clap Clap Clap!* -- s'kat, 20:53:53 03/29/03 Sat
Thanks, HonorH.
I finally got the chance to read your post on Head/Heart in the archives and wholeheartedly agree. I think a lot of posters get stuck on whether Giles was right in theory or not. And that's really not the issue. Because let's face it that's no different than asking if Wes when he decided to take Connor in Sleep Tight was right in theory or not.
Based on the information both had? Which admittedly was limited? Yes, maybe they were. Angel definitely appeared to be a threat to Connor and Spike definitely appeared to be a threat in LMPTM. Of course later we learn Angel isn't and Spike appears to beat the trigger. But that's neither here nor there - how they both went about it was majorerly wrongheaded and made the whole thing much worse.
What did Wes and Giles do wrong? Failure to communicate. For all their book learning and education and languages, you'd think these guys would have figured out how to communicate their views to other people? Over the course of both shows - team work has been emphasized. Communication.
Giles and Wes committed the same carnal sin - they did not trust the others enough to communicate their fears. Instead they patronized them and took action. And as result both get shut out. At least Buffy didn't try to kill Giles the way Angel tried to kill Wes, but then Giles hasn't hurt Dawn, yet. I love them both. They both have the same fatal flaw, and it's one I believe was carefully carefully taught to them by the Watcher's Council.
Again thanks for reading. Much appreciated.
SK
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Bravo! *Clap,Clap! -- luvthislte1, 21:34:19 03/29/03 Sat
....I always enjoy your writing. You always seem to amaze me.
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Writer's block? What writer's block? -- ponygirl, 07:56:16 03/30/03 Sun
A great series of essays shadowkat! I am very impressed. While I don't agree with all of the details I think you have a fabulous take on ME's view of authority. I'm concerned though what happens now that Buffy is the authority? It's one thing to question authority, to rebel, even to pull it down, but now in the absence of any other meaningful structure - the Council destroyed, Wood may be Buffy's boss at work but I think that's pretty meaningless now - what is Buffy creating in its place? She seems profoundly uneasy with her role and what it is doing to her. No wonder with the series' track record of dealing with authority figures. And those beneath Buffy don't seem too happy either. Giles and Wood's actions could be seen as those of authority figures seeking to regain their lost power, but what of Kennedy's constant grumbling, or Anya's snipes? Is this the Scoobies' youthful rebelliousness seen from the other side, or is it leading to something deeper?
I really enjoyed Storyteller, but in some ways I almost wish we could have seen an episode from the perspective of one of the more anonymous SiTs. I wonder what it looks like for them - training exercises that may be meaningless, stuffy speeches, decisions being made in secret meetings... and an occasional ghostly presence who whispers your fears to you, that the grown-ups don't really know what to do, that they don't care about you, and that it might all come down to nothing in the end.
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Writers block and Suffering from a failure to communicate -- s'kat, 09:24:58 03/30/03 Sun
Thanks.
Writer's block for me at least is usually when I stop trusting my facility with words. I feel that I can't communicate what is inside. I also become way too aware of what other people think, to the extent that my fears of their reactions stops me from sharing my own thoughts on the topic. Fear of rejection. Fear of being misunderstood.
Sort of like William the Poet in LMPTM or FFL. Writing an essay and sending it out to the world is a scarey thing. As much as we protect ourselves...by editing out things and placing pseudonymes on the words...we still face the fear of being misunderstood or rejected for them.
What causes misunderstandings or miscommunication words?
A tendency to react emotionally to something. I knew when I wrote this I'd push buttons on Giles. Who btw happens to be the reason I watched the show the first few years. My favorite character for quite some time. But was fascinated by his limitations...still am. At any rate, I was trying to figure out how to communicate that to people. It's not as easy as it sounds, still sort of fell flat on it - apparently.
But the reason I'm stating all this...is to get well to the problem Buffy, Giles and everyone else is having this year on both shows. Suffering from a Failure to Communicate.
They can't quite make each other see where they are coming from.
All year long this has been a problem. And how we read each episode has a lot to do with whose point of view we're in.
But we must realize that the pov we're in may not be reliable.
This goes back in a way to Season 4, Yoko Factor, where Spike manages to break everyone apart by emphasizing their insecurities, fears, and inability to communicate. The FE is doing the same thing this year - sowing dissent by playing on the characters inability to communicate and what lies behind that inability - fear/insecurity.
1. Buffy is afraid of many things. One, admitting her feelings for Spike to her friends, even to herself, because she is afraid they will reject her. Her fears are explained to a degree in CwDP,where she states she feels she is both beneath and above her friends. She is afraid of failure. Of rejection. Buffy's fears are threatening to literally devour her. They are what fuels her speeches.
If you listen carefully - Buffy's first speech is motivated by Buffy overhearing Giles state that she's been defeated and is useless. He does NOT mean that she is useless, but she senses that meaning. She senses that he thinks she failed and it motivates her to stand up and fight.
2. Spike - it takes him two episodes to reveal he has a soul to Buffy, and he goes out of his way to hide it. He is so afraid. And that fear is what enables the FE to trigger him. That fear is what makes it impossible for him to communicate what's going on with him to Buffy or anyone else. The problems in the first few episodes with spike arise out of his inability to tell Buffy about his soul, what it means and how he got it. And his inability to tell her about his insane visions. The problem in Lies is caused by Spike's inability to confide in Giles or the others about his mother or what is going on. He is terrified of their reaction, of the embarrassement. His fear is destroying him.
3. Willow - also terrified. She is so scared, she literally causes herself to be invisible to her friends and for them to be invisible from her. It's not until something more frightening happens that she is able to become visible again. And it takes several episodes before she can communicate her fear of using magic. Notice she never tells Buffy what the FE told her in CwDP. Not quite. And also in Killer in Me, she doesn't want their help. She is embarrassed and terrified. Her fear of the dark power inside of what she is, is also eating her alive.
4. Xander- same thing. Terrified of the demon woman. Of his inability to be anything other than his Dad. The dating loser. Heartless.
5. Dawn - terrified Buffy will reject her or abandon her.
That she has no potential.
6. Giles - terrified that he will lose Buffy. That he can't help. That his knowledge isn't enough. That he is ineffectual. That the SIT's will all die.
The FE is having a field day with the fears and insecurities of these characters. It doesn't have to do much to trigger them. The fears cause the discord, the inability to communicate. The inability to see the others point of view. What is interesting about Lies is that no one is able to really communicate in it. They talk. They throw punches. But they don't grok, understand. Wood doesn't understand Spike - his words are weapons and Spike when he comes out of it returns the weapons punch for punch. Neither really listen or talk to the other one. There were no villains in that room or heros. They both suffered from a failure to communicate - because both were being devoured by their own fears.
Same with Giles and Buffy - they couldn't talk either. They've been struggling for a while now. Because of fear and mixed signals.
As for the SIT's - well, we already had our SIT episode.
Potential. Potential And Showtime were both from their points of view. Not my favorite episodes. (I keep deleting my feelings on SIT's, suffice it to say - they are my least favorite development/plot device this season...I keep hoping they get killed or discarded.)
no...I think Buffy's struggle with being authority figure, is she is copying the worst traits of the authority figures she's known...and not communicating. The SIT's do not understand the whole Spike thing and she has NOT taken the time to explain it. They don't get Willow or Xander or
Anya or Dawn really. Giles just tells them stuff about how vampires are evil and you kill them. They keep getting mixed messages. Because everyone is talking at cross purposes. The heart of the unit...is there but keeping quiet in the background. The spirit of the unit is there but terrified most of the time. The mind is there but somewhat disconnected from the source of information/intuition, and the will is there but...somewhat cut off from the others.
Not sure that made sense. Rambling.
Thanks again for the response.
SK
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Re: Suffering from a failure to communicate -- ponygirl, 10:02:52 03/30/03 Sun
Interesting. Communication and its limitations does seem to be a favourite theme of Joss. There's Hush, where the idea of words actually serving as a barrier to communication is explored. There's OMWF which dealt with different ways of expressing the deeper emotions, and also the problems of what to do when there's nothing left to express. The Body too, seemed to be about our failure to comprehend and explain the nature of death. Even in Storyteller - not your fave, I know ;) - the shooting script had Andrew concluding more definitely, finishing his thought and thanking the viewers for watching before turning off the camera, the aired version, which I suspect was altered by Joss, had him stumbling and failing to express what he was thinking. The gap between thought and expression seems to be something he likes to explore.
Holden in CwDP had said that everyone is alone, and yet we also keep being told that everything is connected. How do people all very much alone, isolated in their own perspective, make any sort of connection? Empathy, compassion and that imaginative leap that's required to see from another's point of view - all these things seem to be in short supply in Sunnydale right now.
Rambling myself, trying to avoid organizing my tax stuff.... bleah. But there is another communication gap that I'm wondering about - Willow's failure to tell Buffy the real reason for her trip to LA. I wonder, especially in light of Giles' deception how Buffy will respond to this latest failure to communicate.
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Excellent analysis! -- Cheryl, 21:28:49 03/29/03 Sat
I always look forward to reading your posts,s'kat, because I know I'm going to learn something - not just about the Buffy universe, but about life and/or myself as well.
Your analysis got me to thinking about a couple of other characters and their parent-figures: 1) Faith and her mom; and 2) Riley and his mother-figures (his real mom and Maggie Walsh) and his father-figure (the military).
Faith's mom was a big influence on her. She learned early on that authority figures couldn't be counted on. This impacted every aspect of her life going forward, especially when that pattern kept being repeated over and over again (Mrs. Post, WC, police). Who was the only authority figure that was actually ever there for her? The mayor. And while he may have really loved her as a daughter, he still used her for his own gain. But she let him, because he was the only parent-figure who had ever shown her love and support.
Riley has a real mom (and a real dad, for that matter, although we never hear about him), but as Adam said, Maggie programmed his basic operating system. And look at how that turned out. And the military became his father-figure of sorts, and what did he learn at the knee of the military? Everything's black and white. But it's not. The government/military doesn't know everything and yet as a soldier Riley was expected to follow every order, even when he knew better. And when he didn't, he was labelled an anarchist.
Sorry I'm not as eloquent as s'kat, but just wanted to get these thoughts down as they came to me.
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thanks! great pts. on Riley and Walsh. -- s'kat, 11:02:28 03/30/03 Sun
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Re: V. Sick Mother and Martyred Mom (7.17 Btvs and 4.15 Ats Spoilers) -- leslie, 23:56:10 03/29/03 Sat
I'm looking both upward and downward here in my responses, s'kat.... first small bit, the Celtic pig stuff (a friend of mine once commented that the difference between P-Celtic, i.e. Welsh, and Q-Celtic, i.e. Irish, is the difference between pigs and cows): Twrch Trwyth is Welsh, and a boar, not a sow. On the other hand, there is Hen Wen ("old White/Sacred"), who travels around Wales and gives birth to a bee (--> honey), a grain of wheat (--> well, wheat), a grain of barley (--> ditto barley), a wolf cub (--> warrior in a good sense), an eagle chick (--> ancient wisdom) and a kitten (--> poker, oops, no, wrong story! The kitten actually grows up to become the Palug Cat, who is a monsterous beast who devours a man every day and two on Sunday until she is killed by Arthur's steward and foster-brother Kai). Anyway, Hen Wen is kind of a cosmogonic pig, giving birth to boons of civilization except for the final item, making her something of a porcine Pandora's Box. I could go on for a long, long time about Welsh pigs, but instead, I'd also make a sideswipe at Greek mythology and note that participants in the Elusinean Mysteries had to sacrifice a piglet as part of the ceremonies leading up to the revelation of the Mystery, which had something to do with life and death and was symbolized by the priestess holding up a sheaf of wheat (--> here we are at wheat again) and everyone who came away from the Mysteries was no longer afraid of death. Which seems to have some relevence to that piglet running around the Seal of Danthazar.
So that was looking downward (from beneath you, it devours pork rinds). Looking upward, mostly to Giles and the Watcher's Council:
On the one hand, I think you have the dynamics nailed pretty well, but I think there is something else going on with Giles, and Wesley as well, to which you have given short shrift, and that is the question of the trickiness of words, especially of prophecy. You've mentioned a couple of times the inability of the Council and its members to communicate their knowledge, but you seem thereby to imply that their knowledge isn't very much use. I'm not so sure of that, and I'm not so sure we can lay all the blame for misunderstanding prophecies on the Council's and the individual Watcher's cluelessness. (And another side note--a "clue" or "clew" was originally a stand of thread or yarn that led one through a labyrinth.)
Giles, and the Council in general, have always struck me as really good examples of What You Can Do With A Doctorate In Folklore. They really are folklorists, but the type who work in archives rather than doing fieldwork. (Also, instead of collecting the folklore of vampires and demons, i.e., folklore about vampires and demons, they collect the folklore of vampires and demons, i.e., the folklore that vampires and demons themselves hold.) The problem with working in archives is that the context of the belief, story, ritual, is largely missing--you can't see what is going on, in order to make note of the aspects that are relevent to your current research; instead, you are dependent upon whatever information the original collector happens to have supplied. Some collectors are better than others, but even with a good collector, if someone was documenting, say, ballads about men killing their girlfriends, and you are doing research on courtship rituals, you're going to get somewhat skewed results if all you look at is that set of ballads. If you're doing research on the performance contexts of ballads, you may be really screwed if all the collector did was write down the words and the tune, but if the collector was working at a time when all anyone cared about was words and tune, you can't fault them for not being foresighted enough to realize that 100 years later, people were suddenly going to go on this whole folklore-as-performance kick. So, to get back to the Watchers, the Council operates primarily as an archive--what they have is BOOKS out the wazoo, and every time Giles goes to them, it's to consult the books. When Wesley first arrives, that's one thing he uses to lord it over Giles, that he has better books, that he's read more books, that he can call up the Council and ask them to check the books and Giles can't. And that is the bit that obviously gets Giles's goat; when Wesley starts in on how he has had such up-to-date training that he has actually encountered a vampire ("under controlled conditions") is when Giles and everyone else knows he's a blowhard and that he hasn't a clue what life "in the field" is. Note again, in Checkpoint, Buffy uses "field time" as the trump card for why Xander is more useful than the Council. Even in the real world, there's animosity between folklorists who do fieldwork and those who do archive work, but the truth is, you really need both.
Watchers, however, are not dealing with just any words, they're dealing with words pertaining to the occult, the supernatural, alternate universes. These words are, in many ways, the ultimate poststructuralist nightmare. Not only is there a gap between the signfier (the marks on the page that make "a word") and the signified (the actual item "the word" denotes), but it isn't even like when I write "cat" and then can point to the enormous furry meatloaf currently glued to my lap: C-A-T --> this physcial object. Watchers' signifers signify things that don't exist according to most forms of consensus reality. They are signifiers completely adrift from their signifieds, and thus require even more interpretation than usual.
Prophecy is the trickiest kind of verbiage possible. First, it refers to events that have not yet taken place, so it is incapable of being referenced to actual experience. Second, they are invariably couched in completely metaphoric, allegoric, poetic terms that appear to be completely straightforward on the surface. The problem is even further exacerbated when you are translating from one language to another; even more so when you are translating from a dead language--always imperfectly understood because it's dead, that's what "dead language" means. This is why Wes got into such trouble with the "the father will kill the son" prophecy, which he never even noticed that Legba translated differently, and once again, for crying out loud, you have a prophecy and you ask a Trickster god for guidance? All of the prophecies in the Buffyverse come true, but they come true in a way that both fulfills the words and subverts them at the same time. The Master does kill Buffy; it's just that the prophecy didn't go on to mention that she would be resuscitated and kill him back. Where Giles and Wesley tend to go astray in interpreting prophecy is in reading them through their own set of unconscious assumptions: the Annointed One is going to be big trouble, therefore he must be an adult, because this is grown-up stuff we're talking about here. The father is going to [do something bad to] the son--this must mean that Angel is going to kill Connor, because a) Angel is a vampire and vampires tend to do that kind of thing, and b) because I (Wesley) am incredibly worried that he will do something bad, and so this prophecy seems to fulfill all my worst fears.
Academics will argue for years with each other about the interpretation of a single word in a text, but when they are faced with a class full of students, they will say "this word means this." If they are teaching a graduate seminar, they will say "this word probably means this, but Prof. X, who as we all knows chews with his mouth open and is rumored to wear the same pair of underpants for six months at a time, says it might mean this other thing. You, of course, are free to make up your own mind." On the one hand, Giles's nightmare of becoming lost in the libaray and unable to read are the normal fears of a scholar whose career depends on the correct interpretation of uninterpretable texts. On the other hand, the Council's arrogance appears to derive from their having lost the memory that Prof. X, whatever his personal habits, even exists. They are secure in their own interpretations of the uninterpretable, and that's what kills them.
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Good points...I'd forgotten that (Spoilers Ats 4.16 and Btvs 7.17) -- s'kat, 08:10:12 03/30/03 Sun
Which I shouldn't have, being one to have misread my own gatherings of folklore.
You're right of course, what is causing Giles and Wes so much trouble is interpretation and communication of the words. We see this in last week's Ats episode, where an inverted serif is said to be able to subvert the entire meaning of a passage. Just one. Giles has the same problem.
And he doesn't even have all his books, just everything he could get his hands on before the Council blew up.
People have made light of Giles' rant at the beginning of the episode about the new school library being all computers and no books. I think the fact that it has no books is telling. When books go into computers - the information changes slightly - it comes to us in a different form. We are at times both limited by the computers program in what the computer chooses to relate and enriched by the fact that the computer can translate what we may not be able to.
They are secure in their own interpretations of the uninterpretable, and that's what kills them.
I think this is true. Giles and Wes forget the books are tools or guides, not fact. And can be interpreted in more than one way. It's not the knowledge itself that is faulty nor necessarily the fact they can't interpret it, but the
fact that they rely far too heavily on their interpretation forgetting their can be more than one.
Just as you proved on the whole pig thing. My interpretation was limited by a paragraph in an old undergraduate essay which in turn was limited by a reading of the Mabinogi. When that is compared to other broader and more in depth analysis, it comes up short. I remember learning ages ago that one of the biggest mistake a folklorist can make is getting too secure in their own interpretation.
Thanks for the reply. You're right - I gave short shrift to the knowledge. It's not the knowledge itself that is lacking, it's the Council's arrogant tendency to rely on their interpretation to the exclusion of other possible views.
SK
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Re: Good points...I'd forgotten that (Spoilers Ats 4.16 and Btvs 7.17) -- aliera, 08:32:27 03/30/03 Sun
...also getting all these references to "seeing", perspective and POV this year and now for some reason I'm thinking of Willow's spell in Something Blue and Giles' blindness.
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Spike and his mother -- Deb, 12:37:52 03/30/03 Sun
You're hot today Skat! I just want to add a little bit regarding why it does/did make a difference to Spike that his mother loved him. I also want to discuss what possible consequences there could be because of the realization that he was loved.
You do not go into what Anne/Vampire actually says to "Willy." It's obvious at this point that he has not taken up the name of Spike, and that would be an interesting essay on why he really chose that name now knowing what we know from "Lies." I digress.
Some of you know I spent some time in a psychiatric hospital after I gave birth to my daugher and soon after almost died from anaphalactic shock. I had a long Near Death Experience in which all my issues came out at once. Kinda like getting a soul all of the sudden I suspect. I had mother issues big time.
When I was growing up my mother told me the very same things Anne/Vampire said to William/Vampire. I was told by my mother that she wished I had never been born. That I was a parasite. That I should have been a boy. That no one could ever love me. And, oddly, that I was the only "planned" child. This stumped me for awhile until I learned I was born to keep my father from going to Vietnam. Back then, if you had two children, you were immune from service. My birth was all I was planned for. Anyway, I believed all these things my mother told me. I internalized them. I tried very hard to make people love me, and when that didn't work, I tried very hard to be the biggest, hated Bitch that ever existed. If no one can love me, and if your mothe doesn't love you you just know no one else can, then you might as well be hated. It's better than being nothing.
The reason that Spike had to know that his mother loved him was because, otherwise, he was nothing and was never loved nor ever would be loved. So here's William, and he's just dusted his mother, out of love I believe, and all he has left is Dru. Dru needs taking care of so if she can't love him, she can at least make him feel like he is something, even something vile, because she needs someone to take care of her. So his concept of love is wrapped up by being whatever Dru needs and wants.
It would be helpful to know more about William's father, but it appears that William took over the head of household role early, because he never has developed his own sense of self or just who exactly he is, which is usually attained during adolescense. He appears to have experienced *identity foreclosure* in that he never had the opportunity to experiement and explore his true nature. He was forced into hoh role and a care taker role early.
I strongly identify with this also. When I was 11 years old, by mother became very ill and was hospitalized for weeks. When she came home, she was bedridden for months. I took over many of her roles around the home, because I was the eldest girl. It was after she got better and was able to resume life that she began her rants at me.
So, it wasn't just the fact that she said the things she said to me, but that she said them after I took care of her, and helped her by doing her "work" around the house that made it seering. When one does something considered *good* for one out of love, and that person turns on them with hateful words and feelings it screws up one's entire concept of who they are, what is *good* and what is *bad* and if there is anyone or thing is the world that cares. It was during this period that I became an atheist and that I started acting out in ways that, looking back with clear vision and ture knowledge of feelings, can only be discribed as suicidal. I even out and out attempted suicide a few times, but I have no idea why I didn't just finish it and be gone.
I know many Spike haters and lovers will not agree, but Spike has been one very suicidal vampire. Right from the beginning he started fights for the rush of not knowing if he would unlive and be dusted. His attraction to slayers is based upon a suicide wish to be killed by a female authority figure. His throwing himself upon a stake was as lame as some of my attempts.
In "Lies" he tells Wood that nothing now anyone has any influence over him any more. I agree that this is rather terrifying and wonderful at the same time. A mixed blessing so to speak. What it says to me, and this is based upon the fact that I have been there in the process of my identity also, is that he now, more than at any time in his life, would be able to kill himself if given a *good* enough cause. It's a "hero" syndrome run amok. If one has spend a whole lifetime finding love, and finds it -- what more is there to live for? Not a suspected outcome, but one that must be dealt with.
Human nature cannot tolerate real "superheros" to live amongst them. At first, they are grateful, but then they become resentful. Why do you think society rewards people in the position of becoming *heros* so poorly? Public service positions and teaching do not pay enough to support a family in the way that Americans believe families should be supported. Heros are supposed to return to Mount Olympus and ride off into the sunset. They can't just go back to being plain ol' Joe or Jane and live amongst the masses. That's way too much pressure on the masses to continue to be grateful. It's scary too. Hero's do things we normal folk can't do. If they live next door, then we feel like fungus. Fungus that is obligated to continue to show gratitude. The Chinese had it right when they said that when one saves another's life, then the saver is obligated to the savee for life. You can't be a hero if you run away from your responsibilities and what normal fungus wants to be responsible for someone's life forever?
I know this is a rather far-flinging rant, but it was an attempt to show why and how Spike needed to know his mother did love him, and to show that that realization has both positive and negative possibilities and potentialities.
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I'd be interested in your take on my William/Anne post below -- leslie, 12:51:04 03/30/03 Sun
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Ah! We were reading each other's posts. -- Deb, 13:47:13 03/30/03 Sun
To be honest, you had a lot to say that I haven't quite completely taken in yet, but you present many good questions that I just didn't have the capability to address yet. I addressed what I felt I could, but I do want to come back to your post.
I'd be interested to hear what insights you have regarding my post.
One thing I think we both can agree on, not that there are not other things, is that "Lies" was a product of two men.
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Re: Spike and his mother -- leslie, 13:57:17 03/30/03 Sun
"In "Lies" he tells Wood that nothing now anyone has any influence over him any more. I agree that this is rather terrifying and wonderful at the same time. A mixed blessing so to speak. What it says to me, and this is based upon the fact that I have been there in the process of my identity also, is that he now, more than at any time in his life, would be able to kill himself if given a *good* enough cause. It's a "hero" syndrome run amok. If one has spend a whole lifetime finding love, and finds it -- what more is there to live for? Not a suspected outcome, but one that must be dealt with."
I think you are entirely right here, and this is in a way also what Buffy was feeling at the end of S5. I also agree with the "written by two men" thing. And also, although I think there is certainly something nascently Marxist in William, I also think that his adoption of his version of a working-class accent and the name "Spike" is an attempt to be just like his darling Dru (just like Angelus takes on a noble persona to please Darla, who ironically was a whore so her "noblewoman" persona is also a persona. Who started this whole chain? The Master?)
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You ring true to me. : ) -- Deb, 14:13:12 03/30/03 Sun
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A clarification. -- Deb, 14:10:20 03/30/03 Sun
Regarding "Hero's Syndrome."
Once a person has the assurance that they are loved, then comes the question of "What is my purpose for living?" We all need to believe we have a purpose. In the early stages of not feeling influenced by anyone, as Spike declares in Lies, that purpose might seem to be a one time thing. A big blowout. If the person dies during the caring out of this purpose, problem of purpose is fixed. But, what if you live? What if you throw yourself into something that is heroric and believe, truly believe, that you will die and then the unexpected happens. You live. Well, crap. What is your purpose now? Now you get down to dealing with the mundane of life. It's really hard to find a purpose for life these days is you live in marginalized society.
So, I'm really interested to see how Spike will attempt to take care of the "purpose" dilemma in one big act, and how he will deal with the fact that he is still alive. Decisions, decisions, decisions. I'm really interested, because this is exactly where I am in my life. My daughter is almost 16. I came back to cover her back and help her. What do I do now?
I really don't see a life of being a professional student, nor a life of posting to boards all day, nor a life of playing the sexist "Civilizations III" game all day as a true purpose. Personally, I would appreciate seeing someone else struggle through this too.
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Re: A clarification. -- pilgrim, 14:59:52 03/30/03 Sun
Interesting. I've been thinking about what Spike will want now, in light of his new understanding that his mother loved him, indeed that he was her world. I also jumped to "hero's death." I couldn't have said why I went there--your posts have helped me understand a bit my own instinct.
If Spike has at least partially come to terms with the rejection of the dark mother, if he can now see himself as loved and worthy of love, then his elemental need to possess and be possessed by Buffy is lessened somewhat. The thing that has been haunting him, the thing that sent him to get a soul--to prove himself worthy of the love of a good woman--has perhaps been at least partially satisfied. So his most fundamental desire may _not_ now be to prove himself to Buffy, to gain for himself her attention/admiration/love.
He says to Wood that slayers fight alone. Does he believe that? I think so. If so, has he perhaps convinced himself that Buffy will never love him, as he defines love--ie, that Buffy will never make Spike the center of her world? If Spike has really come to terms with this, then what is left for him, as far as defining his purpose in life? Will he shift his definition of love to encompass what Buffy may be able to actually give him, and be satisfied with trying to make that relationship work? Or will he need something grander--some purpose that will be "all about Spike." Spike, being the very self-centered character that he is (imo), is in danger of needing the grand gesture, the big finish.
We know that Spike has now reclaimed his warrior role. He is unapologetic about killing Nikki. He reclaims the jacket that is the symbol of his power as a warrior. In his fight with Wood, he is more powerful and in control of himself and the sitution than I, for one, can ever remember seeing him. I think he may find extremely appealing the notion of going out as a hero, being remembered as a warrior who died defeating the BigBad.
I too think it would be intriguing to see Spike attempt the heroic blowout, but have it not work and be forced to deal with life. Not sure there are enough episodes left to allow for this, darn it.
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They already did that with Angel in 'Reprise' -- KdS, 15:02:23 03/30/03 Sun
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Wasn't it Epiphany? -- s'kat, 21:46:03 03/30/03 Sun
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Both -- Tchaikovsky, 02:29:42 03/31/03 Mon
Pilgrim's 'attempted heroic blow-out' comes in the kamikaze elevator ride to Hell, (and we wonder why they don't take us seriously- it's all under the surface) in 'Reprise'. The reaction to his failure to die, his new understanding of his purpose, is explicated in his talk with Kate in 'Epiphany'.
TCH
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Yeah, . . . -- pilgrim, 15:40:42 03/30/03 Sun
I'm not an AtS-watcher (at least not until this season), but imagining a path for Spike that is different from Angel's must be tough. But going on the first seasons of BtVS, it seems to me that the difference in the characters lies more in motive, how and why they act, than in necessarily what they do. Angel's a fighter, Spike's a fighter--but they fight for very different reasons. Angel loves Buffy, Spike loves Buffy--but they bring different emotional baggage to the relationship and express their love in different ways. Angel gets a soul, Spike gets a soul--but their paths to ensouling and their reactions to being ensouled are worlds apart.
Anyway, just exploring Spike's potental motivations, what he might care most about . . . not really trying to predict what the writers will actually do, plot-wise. (Did Angel really effect a hero's sacrific/suicide in order to be remembered as a great warrior? Guess I need to find good summaries of the Angel episodes and read up.)
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Re: Yeah, . . . -- s'kat, 21:44:58 03/30/03 Sun
Angel actually was pursueing the whole hero's journey with the view, he does the big sacrifice and get's shanshued, ie becomes human - which would lead to the regular marginalized life which something tells me he wouldn't like as much as he thinks - see I Will Always Remember You for reasons why. Until well S2 Epiphany, where he realized it's not that simple. Angel's issues are very different than Spike's.
If Spike is the devoted son. Angel is the prodigal son.
Spike is to mothers. What Angel is to fathers.
In Spike - ME examines the sick mother and Buffy's issues about being raised by a single Mom. Angel - Me examines the disapproving father and Buffy's issues about her father leaving her and rejecting her.
I suggest watching Angel and reading some of the summaries.
He is very different than Spike. It's worth looking into.
But only if you promise one thing: do NOT fall into the idiotic trap of pitting the two characters issues against each other. ;-)
Liked your post above...largely agree.
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Interesting post -- s'kat, 21:32:36 03/30/03 Sun
Good post, I agree with many of your points. Not a rant at all...want to see a rant? see my response to poor lakrids, who inadvertently pushed my buttons.
I didn't mean to suggest that it isn't important for Spike to realize his mother loved him. No that was very important and clearly he believed all this time she didn't. Because he was a demon and he loved, so why couldn't she. It's not until he's ensouled that he can actually see the whole thing with a bit of enlightened perspective - sort of like the adult looking back on the child's experience.
What I was trying to get at...is this gut level feeling that Spike still cares way too much about what others think. Although I may be wrong on that. You may actually be closer to the problem here - which is, we have someone who is potentially suicidal, has been suicidal for a while now.
What's kept him going is Buffy's dependence on him. My gut tells me, that if she had told him to leave in First Date or let him go - he would have committed suicide. She keeps pulling him out of it. In Killer in Me - he was resigned to death. More or less. We still don't know how much of that decision to remove the chip was her's and how much was his.
I know many Spike haters and lovers will not agree, but Spike has been one very suicidal vampire. Right from the beginning he started fights for the rush of not knowing if he would unlive and be dusted. His attraction to slayers is based upon a suicide wish to be killed by a female authority figure. His throwing himself upon a stake was as lame as some of my attempts.
Completely agree. I think it's part of the reason he sought her out. I think it was two-fold though. Part of it was a subconscious desire to destroy the hateful mother and part was the desire to have her destroy him. From Spike's pov this was a win/win operation. Part of Angelus/Darla's problem with Spike was his suicidal tendencies. As Angelus states in Fool For Love - this behavior is going to get us all killed or caught. Spike - the only thing better than the fight is getting caught - having one you can't win.
I think Angelus may have become Spike's father figure, which is why I would really like to see those two guys reunite on some level. Spike paled around with Angelus for 20 years that we know of...I think also part of his attraction to Buffy is that she never killed him as well as her relationship with Angel and Angel's with her...
In "Lies" he tells Wood that nothing now anyone has any influence over him any more. I agree that this is rather terrifying and wonderful at the same time. A mixed blessing so to speak. What it says to me, and this is based upon the fact that I have been there in the process of my identity also, is that he now, more than at any time in his life, would be able to kill himself if given a *good* enough cause. It's a "hero" syndrome run amok. If one has spend a whole lifetime finding love, and finds it -- what more is there to live for? Not a suspected outcome, but one that must be dealt with.
Agree very much with this. I think he is still a bit suicidal. He's still plagued with everything he's done.
All those people he's killed and it has to be tearing at him. Plus his feelings for Buffy and the awareness that they will never and should never be returned. Just because he realized his mother loved him, doesn't mean he likes himself. There's still some self-loathing there. But at the same time - it's interesting he didn't let Robin Wood kill him. Which leads me to believe that he's decided to fight on some level. Maybe what he's gunning for is that heroic death - in which case I hope that ME doesn't give it to him because it would be too easy and cancel out everything they said on Angel in Orpheus - about how you have to keep fighting and paying and making it work.
Thanks for response.
SK
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You are on the right track .....(spoiler speculation for season 7) -- Rufus, 20:55:39 03/29/03 Sat
Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade
What does this movie make you think of that you aren't talking about yet?
You may want to rethink the importance of the line about Ben being left out being as important as you think. Sometimes actions that everyone can see, can mean more than the lines left out of "Lies"....that may be why David Fury has said that he didn't think that line was so important.
There were things left out of the end of "Beneath You" left out that had people outraged, where I thought they did the right thing as "Sleeper" wouldn't have had the same impact if we knew how Spike felt about who he had been as a mortal, as well as a vampire.
The Shadowmen....according to Fray they are the ancestors of the modern Watcher. But as there are the Shadowmen there is also Gaea, and she is more powerful than they are and we have heard nothing about her about her, wonder what her relation to the Shadowmen and the First is?
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Re: You are on the right track .....(spoiler speculation for season 7) -- s'kat, 21:37:40 03/29/03 Sat
Ah...you're teasing me again ;-)
Okay I'll play. But don't you dare spoil me!!
1. Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade
What does this movie make you think of that you aren't talking about yet?
Well it's been a while, but it reminds me of the son giving up eternal life. Indiana, Daddy, best friend, and femme
fatale all go on a quest to get the holy grail. Indiana uses the grail to restore his estranged father's life. To do so he must go through several obstacles. Obstacles that by the way are echoed in Angel S4 Awakenings. We have the leap of faith, the word of God in Hebrew, the entry into the hidden cave, pulling the right cup from the platform, the holy grail can't pass a certain barrier - when it does the site falls into the earth, Indiana is saved by Dad, he gives up the immortal cup of life, the power, to be with his father - his friends and they ride off into the sunset together.
Faith. Hope. Tricks. Giving up Power over Life. ??
2. You may want to rethink the importance of the line about Ben being left out being as important as you think. Sometimes actions that everyone can see, can mean more than the lines left out of "Lies"....that may be why David Fury has said that he didn't think that line was so important.
So is it important? Hmmm. I think Giles killing Ben has a great deal of importance in that Glory's power had to go somewhere once Ben was dead. ie. Preemptive strikes may cause greater bangs?? By killing Ben - he set Glory's energy free? Or am I grasping at straws? Not sure. But I do know he stated they cut it because it made the show run twelve pages too long. Dang it. I want to see that shooting script.
There were things left out of the end of "Beneath You" left out that had people outraged, where I thought they did the right thing as "Sleeper" wouldn't have had the same impact if we knew how Spike felt about who he had been as a mortal, as well as a vampire.
I agree. I was actually among the people very happy that they left that stuff out of BY. Much preferred what aired.
But then I don't like to be told everything up front. And you're right Sleeper, NLM and LMPTM would have had far less impact.
Which makes me think the whole Ben/Glory thing will come up again, possibly to bite Giles in the butt?? You can't get away with anything in ME's universe. That's for sure.
The Shadowmen....according to Fray they are the ancestors of the modern Watcher. But as there are the Shadowmen there is also Gaea, and she is more powerful than they are and we have heard nothing about her about her, wonder what her relation to the Shadowmen and the First is?
Yes, am wondering about Gaea as well. The earth. The mother.
Just for you some more quotes from that old thesis I unearthed.
According to Jungian analyst Jolande Jacobi, " rock caves may be symbols of the womb of the Mother Earth, appearing as mysterious caverns in which transformation and rebirth can come about." (p. 348, Man and His Symbols).
Hmmm caves. Awakenings comes to mind and Angelus losing his soul. Also the cave that Spike is tortured in in BoTN.
As Enrich Neumann states, The Origin's and History of the Consciousness, (p.100)" Death is not the end, but a crossing over. It is a fallow period, but also the refuge afforded by the mother. The dying ego does not rejoice when it finds itself "back again" in the mother and no longer in existence; it shoots its life will beyond death and passes through it into the next lap of the journey, into the new."
Death - as in when we die we go back to Gaie the earth. We become re-encompassed by her and our energy is used to start something else to bring forth more life. The recycling.
The pig - Neumann also states that the pig at one time symbolized the female, "the fruitful and receptive womb. As a uterine animal, it belonged to the earth, or the gaping pit..." (Neumann 1973; p.87) In Welsh myth this was represented by Goleuddydd symbolizing the great sow goddess.
In Storyteller and NLM we meet the pig who wanders around the hellmouth. The pig that Andrew can't kill. And Wood prays isn't a student.
Oh in Irish myth - there's a god called Twrch Trwyth who represents the destructive side - with insatiable thirst for blood. She destroyed most of Ireland, Wales and half of King Arthur's men before being driven into the sea. The number of men killed represented the horrifying ritual of the goddess devouring her young.
And yet another quote: Bachofen again: The man cannot be the creator. The feminine has priority. "The mother is earlier than her son. The feminsine has priority, while masculine creativity only appears afterwards as a secondary phenomenon. Woman comes first, but man becomes. The prime datum is the earth, the basic maternal substance. Visible creation proceeds from her womb, and it is only then that the sexes are divided into two, only then does the masculine form come into being." (Neumann 1973, p. 47).
When I did my research I came upon two interesting tales.
One is from the Gwyn Valley: A farmer came upon a black dog which turned into a woman. She was dressed up in black and was a horrible hag. She walked down the hill to a well and pulled her spectators with her like a magnet, when she reached the well, she vanished. They became ill afterwards.
The second story was about a beautiful woman who offers you a kiss. She's called the Glanmorgan Virginia. When you kiss her she turns horribly red and nasty and attacks you. Only attacks virgin boys though. And also disappears into a well.
This took place in the hills around Swansea.
According to Neuman - these mothers gobble up their children and grant them as a reward a passive irresponsible existence without an ego.
In the second story - the well water goes from white to blood red. The water that is white brings forth life while the blood is a sign of the loss of life.
Does this remind you of anything??
SK
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Does this remind you of something? (spoiler speculation) -- Rufus, 22:12:50 03/29/03 Sat
Okay without spoiling you too much. First I've mentioned it before... people tend to overthing stuff and miss the important connections that have been there for a long time. I just posted something called The Hermit, Buffy, and WtP.....it was information based upon a spoilery source at another board, but some of that information is already in the show, or, in some of the books like the Monster Book and Watchers Guides.
It's all connected and you are getting the basic connections but there are more and people aren't even going there. The main one is that Joss is a big ol comic book geek and he may use Greek mythology, but he also uses comic book mythology....one of the comic type characters he has referenced has been Promethea, but there is also another comicbook character he has used....Gaea. If you are paying attention you will notice the constant banter about comics in both Angel and Buffy. Two sources used in the makeup of the Buffyverse are Lovecraft and the Marvel universe. So, if you start checking you will note just how it's all connected.
One thing, people hated Glory but Glory was a god and it has been made clear that there were more than one gods in the Buffyverse.....one other god is Gaea. So, start researching that lead and ask this question ......what is the connection between Gaea and Chthon in the Marvelverse....and Gaea and The First in the Buffyverse?
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Indiana Jones......spoiler speculation for Buffy -- Rufus, 02:29:15 03/30/03 Sun
I guess you could call this a tease. I think of both the first and third Indiana Jones movies when I look at this season.....In Raiders there was a quest for the Lost Ark, the Nazis wanting to use it as an ultimate weapon, in the Last Crusade there was the search for the Grail, some thinking it would give them eternal life...
From Raiders....
http://www.theindyexperience.com/raiders.shtml
Inside the Ark of the Covenant is a preview of the end of
the world. A light so bright, a power so fearsome, a
charge so jolting, that there is nothing in our world to
compare to it. It's as though this magnificent golden
box has been gathering electric energy for three thousand
years, waiting for just this crack of the lid to release
it all in one fast, cleansing explosion of pure force.
From The Last Crusade....
http://www.script-o-rama.com/snazzy/dircut.html
HENRY: Elsa never really believed in the Grail. She thought she'd found a prize.
INDY: What did vou find, Dad?
HENRY: Me?... Illumination.
Buffy went to the Shadowmen for knowledge and all they could offer her was power. So, will Buffy find her illumination? If you read Fray you will already have an idea of where this may go, but only as far as issue six, so what you think you may know may not be quite it. It's all about power, why is the First wanting just about everyone else dead but Buffy? Think season five.
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Re: your latest essays -- spaceclown, 21:11:20 03/29/03 Sat
Woo Hoo! Thanks for writing. I have been looking for your byline since returning to the board recently. And this series of essays is terrific. I enjoyed reading them very much.
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Thanks!! Muchly Appreciated. -- s'kat, 23:04:50 03/30/03 Sun
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Re: Authority Figures -- Celebaelin, 22:58:52 03/29/03 Sat
If that's what you get out of writers block gimme a great big slab of it asap.
Mothers' Day looms and the flowers seem inadequate. sighs
Are any authority figures portrayed in a positive manner in BtVS or AtS? I hope not! I think there is a deliberate and entirely healthy attempt to encourage independent thought. The intimation that this is necessary because no-one else can, or will, provide the answers is slightly unfair to the accumulated wisdom of the ages IMO. Ultimately it's not whether to compromise your principles but what your goals are and what compromises you make to achieve them.
Maybe (and I must say that this is a knee-jerk reaction to a widespread portrayal of Brits as either incompetent or villains or both) the lack of clear information is an indication of the desire to avoid indoctrination into a Slayer 'by the book' approach. Giles wasn't giving Buffy the big E at all, this was a teaching method which he never advocated, I think the line was 'It wouldn't work with you anyway' or some such, the implication being that Buffy could cope without the background whereas Kendra didn't even try to.
Let's not forget that Giles had his own experience of 'dropping some bad magic' back in the seventies and is suitably wary of powerful magics as a result. How much more critical of him would we be if he had actively blocked Willow's progress, or (assuming he could) gone crazy ape bonkers with the whole Saruman groove thing after Angelus killed Jenny Calender?
C
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Good points. -- s'kat, 11:52:57 03/30/03 Sun
I think actually that leslie may have hit the nail on the head regarding the lack of clear information - which is folklorists just aren't infallible. We try. But we can't possibly always interpret it perfectly.
Giles went against the Watchers in not providing Buffy a copy of slayer handbook. The other slayers she runs across clearly knew things she didn't. Both Faith and Kendra seem surprised that Buffy is friends with an ensouled vampire and that her friends know what she does.
Course Faith and Kendra are opposite sides of the spectrum.
Faith is the slayer who decides to "screw the mission" - I'll live the way i want. And also decides to enjoy her power. Kendra is the slayer who makes the mission the sole purpose in her life. Kendra studies the books. Faith doesn't.
Giles is also somewhat multi-faceted in this way. I admit, was a tad harsh on the guy, but right now he's tending to act more on his fears. I think that's the problem. In the past he's been the most effective actually when he's been in a paternal or teacher role, not the watcher role. The Watchers are effective when they try to provide information.
It's when they either in their arrogance trust too much in their own translation or fail to communicate the information that things get hairy. What I find interesting is how dark the Watcher Council has been portrayed in the last few seasons. Almost as if the Council has gotten too arrogant and power-hungry for it's own good. As the FE states it's not about right and wrong or good and evil so much as it's about power and acquiring it.
Not sure that made sense.
Thanks for the response.
SK
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Re: Good points. -- Celebaelin, 12:51:13 03/30/03 Sun
My pleasure.
Could Buffy be indirectly responsible for the destruction of the WC? It seems to me that Buffy's approach to being the slayer, ie the perfectly logical 'I do the Slaying, you tell me how as and when I want the information' without embracing the WC mindset and methodology is a direct challenge to the authority of the WC.
The WC provides Giles, who they probably see as a bit of a renegade himself (however improbable that may seem cf Wesley), in the belief that this Slayer won't last long b/c she's going about it all wrong. They are mistaken and their authority is further undermined. Buffy's 'I'm the star, you're just the band.' attitude, whilst true, and necessary for her to assert herself given her successes, undermines the WC's position even further.
Later, with Faith in prison, Buffy is the 'de facto' Slayer and that situation will not change unless Faith dies. The WC are essentially impotent until that time. The most that they can do is to meekly provide any information requested from them, and the least that they can do is not to (I'm not quite sure about the chronology, is the WC blown up before Faith comes out of prison? I would expect so b/c the WC would then have the Slayer to use as leverage. Given her record, and maybe without it, they're possibly/probably not beyond bumping her off to restore the status quo and start over somewhere else). The damage is done however, the action of Buffy's 'forbidden' powerful Wiccan friends has (in all likelihood) brought about an imbalance (possibly one that she herself feels - re-enforcing her suspicion that something is wrong with her). The FE has started to gain power and an unprecedented chain of events has been set in motion. The WC are now an irrelevance (and an inconvenience as regards the plot) opening the door for Naughty Mr. High Explosive to rear his ugly head. So much for history, what's next? Well, you tell me, preferably without too much in the way of specific spoilery due to my steam powered TV access.
C
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What about Angel? -- lunasea, 19:50:29 03/30/03 Sun
Are any authority figures portrayed in a positive manner in BtVS or AtS?
He orders the AI team around.
I don't think the criticism is of authority, but how that authority is used.
Principle Flutie, an authority figure, was great. Snyder, not so much.
What about the school psychologist, in Beauty and the Beast?
There are the different managers of The DoubleMeat Palace.
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Re: What about Angel? -- Celebaelin, 20:53:58 03/30/03 Sun
I'm OK with authority figures as long as they agree with me. The moment they disagree with me, and are therefore wrong, they cease to be authority figures (no matter what they might think) QED.
What about Angel?
A souled vampires hardly constitutes a conventional authority figure (and he has previously surrendered authority).
Principle Flutie, an authority figure, was great.
Yeah, I really liked him for that whole nanosecond or so of character development before he got eaten.
What about the school psychologist, in Beauty and the Beast?
Huh? The Willow and Oz career choice debacle, yes? Can't say I have a clear memory of her. Don't know whether that makes her cool or just a Gooseberry.
There are the different managers of The DoubleMeat Palace.
And don't ME bury both of them with faint praise. You, like me, can achieve greatness in the fast food industry. If you're real smart in a mere 5 to 10 years you could be doing my job (whoop-de-do, and to think I was going to spend my time worrying about preventing the next apocalypse).
I don't think the criticism is of authority, but how that authority is used.
I absolutely agree, about the intent and about the way the criticism is directed but I think ME have not yet shown, and will not show, an authority figure in a positive light. "My boss is the bestest boss in the whole wide world and I'm not just saying that to make my life easier" yeah, right, whose broom cupboard office are you after following the 'rationalisation'? Fantasy horror is one thing but at least let's try and keep it credible!
C
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Beauty and the Beasts psyche -- s'kat, 22:18:10 03/30/03 Sun
Uhm the school psychiatrist was the guy that the Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde character killed.
Hmmm, I think I see a trend here.
Principal Fluti - eaten
the nice teacher in Teacher's PEt - eaten
the cool psychiatrist in beauty and the beasts - dead
Everyone else? Not so nice, with a few minor exceptions.
Hmmm...ME what are you saying? ;-)
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Re: Beauty and the Beasts -- Celebaelin, 22:48:48 03/30/03 Sun
I remember the line from Oz "Just a thought - Poker, not your game" and Giles taking the tranq. dart, but the psychiatrist? Only very vaguely at best, and I'm not even sure that isn't a 'false memory' sparked by the Rorschach reference. So much for snap answers, and so much for comforting authority figures, except maybe the blue demon that the mayor hired but owed Giles one, now he was really cool.
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Everyone dies -- lunasea, 09:00:27 03/31/03 Mon
And ME hates gays and minorities also.
Try to support your own beliefs and agendas and you will find stuff.
The ultimate authority figures are Buffy and Angel, the two generals. Angel isn't only a souled vampire, but the BOSS over at AI. He signs the checks. We've seen Buffy take control how many times? What about Becoming Buffy or Graduation Day Buffy? Not to mention Checkpoint Buffy or The Gift Buffy? She can do this because she is the Slayer. The Slayer is an authority figure. So is the Champion. These are titles which give our heroes authority.
Any post about authority figures isn't complete without a run down of these two. If anything the other authority figures are written to contrast their styles.
Also missing are all the big bads. The Master and the Mayor are both evil and both authority figures, but they used that power effectively and as authority figures were actually sympathetic (and even caring to their "children"). Spike and Angelus both took their turns as authority figures with their minions, and both contrast with Buffy and how she treats the Scoobies. Professor Maggie was used to contrast with Giles. The Hell God Glory was used to contrast with Buffy.
These "bad" authority figures are used to show how good the good ones are. It is easy to pick apart the shows and pull out one side of the equation. Take Prophecy Girl (I've been really dissecting it lately), we have the Master/Annointed one relationship to contrast with Giles/Buffy as well as Xander/Buffy to contrast with Buffy/Angel. These shows are constructed incredibly well. To just pick them apart misses the forest for the trees.
The story is the forest.
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They surely do, except (mostly) the people we have grown to care about -- Celebaelin, 09:50:59 03/31/03 Mon
Which from a point of view of personal perspective is the opposite of RL given enough tempus having fugited.
I can't accept Buffy or Angel as authority figures, and not because I have a problem with authority figures but because I genuinely think they aren't. If they were they would be working for the FBI or the NSA or somebody and their 'inventive solutions' would be contrary to regulation such and such and they'd get bawled out (or suspended on a regular basis) for it and it would be just revolting. The X-files with vampires. Oh no - Riley spin-off scenario, pick up where true lies leaves off, please no, not that! The public likes their heroes rebellious in the face of beurocracy, institutionalised lies and injustice and it doesn't really work that way (IMHO).
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Giles (Spoilers to 7.17 Btvs & 4.15 Ats) -- Darby, 05:44:55 03/30/03 Sun
I'm going to address just Giles - it's going to take me a while to get through the rest. I have a couple of areas in which I disagree with your impressions, although overall I mostly agree. Keep in mind that Giles' roles in life are somewhat parallel to mine, so I'm maybe a bit too invested in the character.
Nightmares. Becoming a vampire is Buffy's fear, not Giles - he even says as much. His was of not preparing her well enough for her to survive. And the show was about the core characters sharing their nightmares with each other as well as with us, so it makes sense that more than one person's fear would be addressed in the cemetery.
And, if we've been shown anything over the course of the series, it's that rising vamps are more demon than human, and move toward human. That has been modified this season (the single strongest indicator, I think, that someone up there is reading the Board), but not that much. It still is a pre-emptive strike, but the pre-emption was against the move from pure instinct to cunning that vamps go through. Also, in the original imagery, staking vamps was supposed to minimize that appearance that Buffy was killing people. She needed to be killing monsters, so rising vamps, the commonest kill (and often a scene throwaway, a few seconds of air time) were at their most monstrous.
And it's tough to put Early Giles into any set context beyond Exposition Man, the guy with the obscure information who could tell everyone what the weakness of the demon was. All other representations were either momentary (The Dark Age) or layered on later - I'm not disputing most of your claims here, just some of the underlying ideas and possibly how much power each has. I do think that most of the stints of unconsciousness were situations, as you mention, where for one reason (he knew something that the others couldn't know yet) or another (get him out of a fight scene - very common!) he needed to be temporarily out of play. Later, it became an on-set joke, then worked its way into scripts as a joke. I find it difficult to put too much significance on those sorts of practical-narrative decisions.
You've given me an opportunity to address a specific item that gets, I feel, misinterpreted a lot - the Restless dream and "Stop dropping your elbow." The critical detail is that Buffy's attempt to hit the vamp is then successful. Giles has gone from overseer (in early seasons, and as they entered the dream-cemetery) to having to adjust small details in Buffy's performance, and is feeling less and less useful. But this is Giles in the area he has the least experience, Giles as Coach, and it's not true, of course - and I say that as someone who has seen a fencing bout completely change from telling the fencer to turn their hand or keep their back foot underneath them.
Giles is the Teacher, which doesn't make him ineffectual, it just makes him support personnel. And it doesn't really make him a mentor, who is generally someone very skilled in the area they are mentoring - a teacher is a different sort of information representative. He actually is more of a mentor for Willow, because she is dabbling in areas that he has experienced. That's why he is so pissed at her in S6 - not because she has sort of followed his Dark Path, but because he feels responsible, that he empowered her (whether true or not) to do it and didn't recognize that potential in her. I don't see that he used Willow as a weapon consistently, but more that his opinion that meek, gentle, caring Willow (he couldn't see how much of her surface persona matched his) could never become dangerous.
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Liked what you said about 'Nightmares'. -- Finn Mac Cool, 07:40:24 03/30/03 Sun
My interpretation was that, if Buffy fully became a vampire to fit her nightmare, than she would be and/or changed into a demon. It seemed as though demons (while they could be affected by others' nightmares) didn't have their own nightmares come to life (or else the Master being attacked by crosses happened off-screen). Besides, from what we've been shown, vampires are pretty happy with their new state of being, so I'm thinking Buffy's nightmare wouldn't involve becoming a vampire in spirit.
Also, this isn't directly Giles related, but more towards the Watchers' Council as a whole. Everyone seems to assume they're largely ineffectual, doing more harm than good to the Slayer line. This is largely true, with one very big exception. The WC performed a task vital to the world: they told the Slayer who she was. When someone's called to be the Slayer, they get the superpowers, but have no real clue what to do with them. They don't know that there are vampires and demons out there that they have to fight. In this day and age, most would probably grow old and die without ever knowing vampires were real, if it weren't for the Watchers' Council. However beauracratic, ineffectual, and counterproductive they might be, the Watchers performed an invaluable task in letting each new Slayer know of her calling.
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Good points (Spoilers to 7.17 Btvs & 4.15 Ats) -- s'kat, 10:58:37 03/30/03 Sun
I realize I was a little tough on Giles. In fact I deleted a whole introductory section regarding that...(which I won't bore you with)...at any rate, Giles is amongst my favorite characters, and the reason I started watching the show.
While I agree that he isn't as ineffectual as I'd emphasized, he is inefffectual in the role he is playing now. Giles is at his best as the teacher/guide, support. But he isn't trusting his instincts. He's spending way too much time thinking about strategy and tactics - never his strong suite. Giles was the brain not the fighter. But Giles has been reeling from his near scalping and that has in a sense made him disconnected. That and the fact that his source of information blew up.
Also, he did have a major role in the first season - one that wasn't just exposition. He often was the voice of reason or the adult voice, a la Scully to Mulder in X-Files.
He forced the kids to back up their theories and not jump to conclusions.
But right now the part of Giles Buffy is internalizing isn't necessarily the best part. Also we see Giles largely this season through Buffy's eyes. So what we are seeing to some degree is how her own view of him has changed.
Not sure that makes sense it's really hard to convey.
And I did skip over a couple of Giles' better moments - in S4 when he realizes the Initiative is not what it appears and cautions Buffy, also when he realizes that chipped Spike could be helpful and saves him twice. Giles is a convuluted guy who is scared to death. I think his own fears and insecurities may be what is eating him alive at the moment. From beneath you it devours indeed.
Oh - one more point, on the fence about the whole vampires rising from the cemetary thing. It can be read both ways.
Are they just at their weakest at that point? Most animalistic? Or are they closest to what they once were?
Don't know if Buffy becoming a vampire in Nightmares is a good example - since Finn may be right about Buffy being in the dreamscape and the rules applying differently.
On whether it's Giles nightmare? Maybe not at first, but certainly it might be. I think it might be all of the characters nightmares - the ultimate one - Buffy joining the other side. Obviously it is principally Buffy's. Buffy's fear of becoming the demon, and less human, is emphasized throughout the series.
Thanks for the response.
SK
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Internalizations -- cjl, 09:01:47 03/30/03 Sun
Excellent analysis as usual, 'kat, and you've finally clarified for me exactly what happened during "Lies My Parents Told Me."
For Buffy, Spike, and Wood, the external representations of their authority figures, the outside agencies that influenced their thinking and shaped their lives were finally drained of power: Buffy shuts the door on Giles, ending his role as her Watcher; Spike comes to the realization that his mother loved him, ending the hold of the dark mother over his thoughts; and Wood finally comes face to face with the demon who killed his mother, and his quest for vengeance comes to dramatic and unsatsifying end.
But what's fascinating about Fury and Goddard's script is that none of the characters have triumphed--Buffy and Spike included. In fact, one of the reasons I haven't really posted on LMPTM is that, despite the "breakthroughs" in their storylines, I felt more afraid for all of these characters AFTER the episode than I did before the episode, and I couldn't figure out why.
[An aside here--I enjoyed this episode tremendously. Given that it was an echo of "Fool for Love" and "Helpless," two of BtVS' best (and David Fury's own high water mark), I think it holds up as a powerful episode in its own right. What surprised me about the ep was the quality of Fury's direction. The flashback scenes with Spike and his Mom and the Giles/Buffy scenes were remarkably well-done for an amateur director. And I'd be interested to know where Fury's script ended and Goddard's kicked in. But they're a good team. Ultimate Drew's smoothness helps Dr. David's sometimes bitter medecine go down...]
The problem with all three characters in LMPTM is they've INTERNALIZED their authority figures. The hold on them is still there; lessened after the episode, perhaps--but still there.
1. ROBIN -- The schmuck. But I can't help it, I feel bad for the guy. He was trained by Crowley to be an instrument of hate, of vengeance, and he had no idea how badly he betrayed his mother's greatest hope: that he wouldn't get involved with The Mission. Now, he finally gets some perspective about his mother and himself--and ironically, it's Spike who gives him that perspective. After LMPTM, Spike--the focal point of Robin's quest for vengeance--loses his power as a symbol for everything Robin thought was wrong about his life and his relationship with Mom.
But we don't know if Robin's going to learn his lesson, or if he's going to be more subtle the next time he goes after Spike. Just as Connor hasn't thrown off the influence of Holtz, Crowley's influence informs Robin, down to his very bones. Of course, Robin is 30, supposedly an independent adult, and Connor is still a kid--so we'll have to wait and see.
2. SPIKE -- Shadowkat is exactly right. By re-examining his encounter with the Dark Mother through the prism of his new soul, Spike finally shook off its traumatic effects, and disabled the First's trigger.
But Spike's desperate need to be loved--by his mother, by Drusilla, by Buffy--is still there. There is a profound insecurity in Spike that wasn't even touched by LMPTM. In "Fool for Love," William said he was a "bad poet but a good man"--but I wonder how much of the latter he believes. At various points during S7, he calls himself "a bad man" (BY, Help). You'll note: Spike's not the bad man who "hurt the girl"--he says WILLIAM was the bad man.
Although it's difficult to sort out the threads in Spike's tangled psyche, I don't think Spike trusts himself, believes in his intrinsic value as a person. He's always been the actor, the poseur, the chameleon, trying on roles, watching to see which one meets with the most approval. (This may be why he works so well with Willow--neither one is comfortable in his or her own skin.) As long as he has that self-doubt, as long as he needs Buffy to affirm his value, he is vulnerable--and I don't think the First is finished with him yet...
3. BUFFY -- Very interesting. She shuts the door on Giles. She's done with him and his utilitarian outlook on life and The Mission. She's grown beyond him.
Or has she?
He's still there, on the other side of the door. He's not going anywhere. And if anybody in this episode exemplifies the principle of internalization, it's Buffy. She's now everything Giles wanted her to be: the General--tough, ruthless, willing to sacrifice anybody who's going to screw up the mission. She tells Wood if he continues his vendetta against Spike, she's going to let Spike kill him. (You're dispensible, Robin.) In the graveyard, she tells Giles that if she had to do it over, she might reconsider her decision in "The Gift" to save Dawn at all costs. I realize this was just idle talk with Giles, maybe saying what he wanted to hear--and she does go to check on Dawnie at the end of the episode. But that she would even think about sacrificing Dawn, considering all they went through in Season 5, is simply astounding.
But if Buffy really has internalized what Giles has been teaching her, why is she so intent on keeping Spike alive? To quote Spike in S6: "It's complicated." It's more than just "he's our best warrior." If you think about it, what the heck is Spike going to do against an army of Turok-Han? On some level, Buffy knows the battle against the First Evil isn't going to be on the physical plane; the fight against the First is on the battlefield of the mind, of the soul, and right now, Buffy associates Spike with all the best qualities of her own soul: mercy, compassion, forgiveness. (We've seen it all season--the struggle between Field Marshall von Buffy and Counselor Buffy.) Kill Spike, and the battle is lost before it's begun.
Once again, 'kat, great stuff.
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Agree with what you wrote here - a bit on Xander -- s'kat, 09:56:08 03/30/03 Sun
But Spike's desperate need to be loved--by his mother, by Drusilla, by Buffy--is still there. There is a profound insecurity in Spike that wasn't even touched by LMPTM. In "Fool for Love," William said he was a "bad poet but a good man"--but I wonder how much of the latter he believes. At various points during S7, he calls himself "a bad man" (BY, Help). You'll note: Spike's not the bad man who "hurt the girl"--he says WILLIAM was the bad man.
I think is right on. What unnerved me in Lies, is that each character relies way too much on what the "parent"/"authority figure" thinks about them. And they've internalized it.
I honestly think that William has internalized every nasty thing his mother said. Because what the demonmother told him touches on his own deepseated fears. Am I just a schmuck? A worthless man. Bad. Who just wanted to stay with mum forever? Note what he tells Giles and the gang about his dream? "It was a song my mother sang me, when I was a baby." Buffy keeps telling him to calm down. But he can't calm down. He is...not angry. Embarrassed. In HIM, when Lance discusses RJ's attempts at poetry - Spike rolls his eyes, turns an angel stature around and notices that the jacket was handed down. Three images are symbolic of: bad poet, bad man, jacket gives me power - one thing I was good at - made me the legend was the vampire who killed slayers.
How ironic that it was this one thing that he felt he was good at that comes to bite him now. I don't think Spike's feelings towards the whole Nikki thing, the jacket, etc are as resolved as we think.
Another interesting line - Buffy to Spike: "You risked everything to become a better man and you can be, you already are. You may not see it...but I do"
and
"You think you know me? You don't even know you." (Never LEave ME)
I think Buffy is right here. Just as she was right with Angel in Amends. Spike doesn't know himself. He just got that soul. He has no clue. The fact he decided not to kill Wood...still interests me though. The old Spike would have.
2. He's still there, on the other side of the door. He's not going anywhere. And if anybody in this episode exemplifies the principle of internalization, it's Buffy. She's now everything Giles wanted her to be: the General--tough, ruthless, willing to sacrifice anybody who's going to screw up the mission.
Yes, I think she has internalized some of the wrong lessons here. The worst of Giles as opposed to the best. Least we forget, it was Giles who invited Spike into his home in Pangs and advised Buffy not to kill him. Whether that was just to get information or was to show compassion to a now harmless creature? Don't know. Perhaps both. Giles also comes to Spike in The I in Team and asks if maybe the PTB intended Spike to get the chip and join their side. Giles has a caring side. The side that told Buffy he was proud of her and couldn't condemn her in Innocence after she slept with Angel. And the side that decided to help her in Amends.
No person is one thing. Buffy right now is well internalizing the negative - the cold authority figure.
But the counselor as you note is still there.
I think it's fear talking. Gile's fear. And buffy's fear.
Fear that is untempered by heart.
If Spike, like cjl and other's have noted, represents the other side of Xander as the heart - than it makes sense Buffy sees killing him as the last straw - ie. removing the meaning of it from the whole enterprise. Remember it is Xander who stops Buffy from killing Anya in Selfless. It is Xander who tells Buffy Willow didn't do the crimes in STSP, it is Xander who works with Spike in HIM to save the girls.
It is Xander who takes Spike to Lance's house in HIM and warns Spike it could be tough. It is Xander who figures out that Spike has a trigger. And it is Xander who is the third sacrifice over the seal. Xander in some ways has been the face and voice of compassion all season. He seems to be quietly standing in the background now. And of all the characters - what is Xander's greatest fear?? That's right internalizing his parents and becoming them. That was his nightmare in Hell's Bells and the reason he broke of the marriage. He is terrified of doing what Spike, Buffy and Wood have done. Internalizing the authority figures he hated. That was Xander's nightmare in Restless. While the others are going towards something, Xander runs from it.
Runs from being the Watcher, runs from the year of vengeance, runs from the Principal and the heart of darkness, only to come fact to face with Dad on the stairs -who yanks out his heart. Because Xander knows if he becomes a "Harris" or takes Daddy's Place and internalizes Dad - he will literally lose his heart.
Thanks for the response.
SK
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Re: William/Anne -- leslie, 12:29:32 03/30/03 Sun
"But Spike's desperate need to be loved--by his mother, by Drusilla, by Buffy--is still there. There is a profound insecurity in Spike that wasn't even touched by LMPTM. In "Fool for Love," William said he was a "bad poet but a good man"--but I wonder how much of the latter he believes. At various points during S7, he calls himself "a bad man" (BY, Help). You'll note: Spike's not the bad man who "hurt the girl"--he says WILLIAM was the bad man.
I think is right on. What unnerved me in Lies, is that each character relies way too much on what the "parent"/"authority figure" thinks about them. And they've internalized it.
I honestly think that William has internalized every nasty thing his mother said. Because what the demonmother told him touches on his own deepseated fears. Am I just a schmuck? A worthless man. Bad. Who just wanted to stay with mum forever? Note what he tells Giles and the gang about his dream? "It was a song my mother sang me, when I was a baby." "
Okay, there is something that has been disturbing me for a while about the interactions between William and Anne and I think I am beginning to get a finger on it, and I think the problem is that we have been looking at Anne as being entirely innocent, uncomplicit in the darker side of her relationship with her son. When I first saw this episode, what disturbed me the most about Spike's realization of his mother's love was that it placed her back on a pedestal as a nonsexual woman; it reestablished a madonna/whore view of women with his mother as the madonna. What he had rejected in his mother, what drove him to stake her, was her sexual advances toward him and her suggestion that that was what he had wanted all along, and that was what had been haunting him all these years: not the fact that he killed his mother, but the fear that she had been right that he wanted to have sex with her. What he realizes was "the demon talking" is that no, he didn't, his motives had been quite different, and again, it's all about power.
When we first see William and Anne, he is reading his incredibly bad poetry to her. Look at their facial expression throughout this scene. He knows damn well that it's crappy poetry, but Anne insists that no, it's just wonderful. She is doing him no favors here; in fact, what she is really doing is encouraging him to continue with this drivel, which, whatever she may say ("Oh, Cecily is lovely!") is guaranteed to make him a laughing stock among his peers--as indeed it does. (The fact that Cecily is apparently already a vengence demon is beside the point.) Look at the look on her face when William says that he still has hopes of making an addition to the family--there is an instant of something, anger, hostility, something unpleasant, while his back is turned, but she covers it up immediately and when he faces her again, she is beaming. For all her superficial support and love of William, she is very passively-aggressively keeping him tied to her apron strings and undermining his attempts to get free.
After Anne is vamped, she accuses William of wanting to return to the womb, to penetrate her sexually, that this is the way to "finish" what he had started by biting her. But what she is also doing is trying to reclaim him sexually now that he has finally gotten a real sexual partner in Dru. (Tangentially, I never thought that the night Spike killed the Chinese Slayer was the first time he and Dru had sex, but in light of this episode, I could see how she might initially have had sex with him, and then pulled back when she realized how tied he was to his mother, so that he had to re-win her, which he did by killing the Slayer.) There's something going on in terms of class here, too--William comes from a very conventional middle-class or upper-middle class background, but as soon as he is vamped, he is talking about the overthrow of the ruling class with his very working-class girlfriend. I really don't think that that is something that he imbibed along with Dru's blood (especially since she seems entirely uninterested in class matters); it seems to be something he has been keeping repressed as a mortal but which is now coming out in the release of vampirism. Anne was willing to go along with William's infatuation with an upper-class girl, even though she tried to sabotage it, but she is not going to tolerate him hooking up with a crazy Cockney, vampire or not.
William is not trying to return to the womb or to have sex with his mother; what he is trying to do is return to the breast, but with a different axis of power. When he vamps Anne, he sucks and feeds from her body, like a nursing infant, but this time, it is he who will provide (un)life. (I think it's interesting that at the end of the episode, Buffy says very unequivocally "He's alive. Spike is alive." No dancing around with "unlife" or "the undead." He is alive, which is what humans are.) He is usurping his mother's role as nurturer. I think it's also significant that he stakes her with her own cane, a kind of prophylactic phallus that she has been using to dominate him all these years, the symbol of her "infirmity."
I think the sexual desire here is Anne's for William, not William's for Anne, and it was present even before she was vamped; like William's sudden accession of Marxist sentiments in place of his erzatz Romanticism, it was always there, but the demon lets it out. There is something really rather disturbing in that scene of him sitting at her feet while she sings to him--it's both inappropriately childlike for an adult man to be sitting like this with his mother and inappropriately lover-like for an adult woman to be sitting like this with her son. It's a perfect Romantic pastoralist scene of the shepherd sitting at his lover's feet beneath a tree out in the countryside, domesticated by the addition of an embroidery hoop into a perfect Victorian picture of Mother Love and filial obedience.
The problem with breasts is, are they sexual organs or are they nourishing organs? And furthermore, when two people are involved with them, are they both experiencing them in the same way? For the child who is nursing, the breast is purely a source of nourishment, and by extension, an expression of love and connection and support; for the mother, however, the experience can be sexually arousing, in addition to being an expression of love and connection and support. (Though it isn't always so; I have a coworker with six-month-old twins who says that breast-feeding makes her feel literally like a cow, especially if she has to feed both of them at once.) It's a far more complicated experience for the adult woman than for the infant (of either sex). For all that everyone talks about male fixation on women's breasts as sexually desirable objects, women's experiences of their breasts and the sensations that come through them tend to get overlooked. It seems to me that it is Anne who has never gotten beyond the feeling of connection, with sexual overtones, with her son, not him. In order to be free of her, William does have to kill her, literally or psychologically; he does kill her literally, but it takes him much longer to kill her psychologically, because she has implanted this doubt in him of what their feelings had been for each other.
In retrospect, by the way, this whole episode really fits incredibly well with Spike's reactions to the resurrections of both Joyce and Buffy. He understands Dawn's desire to get her mother--her ailing mother--back, and he intervenes to ensure that she does it right--i.e, that she doesn't make the same kind of mistake that he made. But this is in terms of resurrecting the loving, asexual mother (surely significant that Joyce dies just as she is about to begin, but has not actually begun, a potentially sexual relationship). In contrast, Spike is distraught and terrified of the consequences of resurrecting Buffy. He is completely off track when he assumes that the Scoobies left him out of the loop because if Buffy had come back wrong, he wouldn't have allowed them to kill her, but if it had happened, his preventing them from killing her would, in fact, have been an opportunity to "undo" his killing of his own mother, especially since he has been acting as Dawn's "father" all summer in the absence of Buffy as Dawn's surrogate mother. At the same time, Buffy's resurrection parallels his vamping of his mother in that Buffy is a "mother" for whom he does have sexual feelings, and it thereby aroused all kinds of anxiety going back to his confusion over whether or not his feelings for his mother, and her feelings for him, had been sexual rather than filial/maternal. And then, as the season progressed, he was indeed having a sexual relationship with a resurrected mother who treated him like shit and mocked his protestations of love. And that led him, ultimately, to regaining his soul, the loss of which is what had created this unbearable psychological state in the first place by letting all this repressed feeling--on both their parts--burst out.
The trigger worked because it made Spike feel that he did have an incestuous relationship with his mother, which made him "a monster." I'm not quite sure, though, what has been resolved at the end of this episode, and I can't help wondering if part of the reason is because the episode was written by two men. As I said, it seems to end by reestablishing the madonna/whore dichotomy, with Spike realizing that Anne's accusations and advances were "the demon talking." But that realization is at the price of denying sexuality to the mother, making her solely a mother and not a woman; her sexuality is "a demon." Nonetheless, it does deactivate the trigger. Spike ends by exhibiting his own power and self-control to Wood, so I can't help thinking that what he has actually come to realize is something about the power dynamics between his mother and himself. Does he finally realize that what he was trying to do by vamping Anne was to take power in their relationship, to become his mother's "sire," and what the demon was trying to do was, once again, undercut his attempts to be a powerful adult male? Did it suddenly strike him that his mother was actually wrong about his ability to love, given that he proceeded to remain in love with Dru for 120 years, and that therefore maybe she was wrong about other things, too? I can't help wondering if what Spike says is actually a Freudian slip--what deactivates the trigger is not the realization that his mother loved him with all her heart, but that he loved her with all of his. And if that is what he is saying, then what he is telling Wood is that his vengence gig is not being done out of love for his own mother, that Wood does not, did not love Nikki with his whole heart. And that really does seem to accord with the facts: Wood is pursuing vengence not because Spike took Nikki's life away from her, but because he took Nikki's life away from Robin.
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Re: William/Anne -- Deb, 13:38:53 03/30/03 Sun
Agree totally with your summation paragraph regarding Spike's message to Wood, but have observations regarding other points.
I don't see as events falling back into Madonna/Whoredom here. That leaves Hag, which is what she is closest to now, but it is still not a good term. If Spike has been going about all these years believing his mother did not love him, as I believe, then the realization that she did and that he loved her leads to the question of why? I don't believe William knew, on a personal level, how insecure his mother's position was in Victorian London. If he threw her out of *his* house (as opposed to the Anne/vampire version of *her* house) all she had to look forward to was dying in the sreets of east London. She, really, was much more dependent upon William at this point than he, socially, was upon her. So her love was tainted because she was dependent upon him and manipulated him? I don't think William or Spike see it that way. We are all dependent upon people we love at one point or another in life, and it's terrifying. The vampire Anne didn't need William, but I think there is evidence that she loved him.
When William staked her, for a moment we see an approving, almost thankful, expression on her face. She's freed and there is hope for him if he can kill someone he loves, but knows is *wrong*. It was a sign to her that he did have strength. I don't think it was expressed very well by the two male writers, but that's a road I don't want to travel again. I see Fury's name and I hiss like an angered cat.
That's the most power I'll give him.
Anne/Vampire was attempting to shame William. Sex and shame went hand in had in Victorian London just as it does in western society today. If William had not staked her and left the house as she demanded, then I think her accusations of sexual desire would be correct. It was the not loving him and parasite parts that bothered him. It was everything that bothered him. Crap. You love your mother and want to take care of her, and you think she loves you but then she says the cruelest words that can be said?
Oh, and on the breast feeding thing. It's bonding, but it's nothing sexual. For me it was more about keeping my daughter alive.
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Re: William/Anne -- leslie, 13:50:24 03/30/03 Sun
"Oh, and on the breast feeding thing. It's bonding, but it's nothing sexual. For me it was more about keeping my daughter alive."
As I said, it's a different experience for different women. I have heard it both ways; not having been a mother, I can't say from my own experience, but it certainly seems to happen, even if it's not universal.
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Re: William/Anne -- Deb, 14:17:56 03/30/03 Sun
I just wanted to say that it is so nice to actually have a discussion on this board again. It has been so long. Thanks for making me use my brain.
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Re: William/Anne -- Arethusa, 18:41:31 03/30/03 Sun
Mostly the emotion in breastfeeding is relief that you can keep your child alive, as Deb says (as well as stopping the crying!). But I believe there's also other emotions, including pleasure, due to the release of hormones as breastfeeding begins. It makes a lot of sense biologically, since the body would want to reward the mother for breastfeeding, which can actually be very painful with the first child. Perhaps that pleasure might be interpretated as sexual by some people, although that wasn't how I saw it.
When Anne confronts Spike, she sees his love as a demon does-at least, a demon like Angelus. Love is a vile, inexplicable thing. Vampires don't make love, they have sex. So Anne torments Spike with what she thinks he feels-not only does he want to return to the "soft and dark" womb, but he also wants to have sex with her. (Just a theory.) If his mother's love was real, that meant that William wasn't some incestuous mama's boy. William is a good man again, and Spike could stop pretending to be something he's not, which would be a great relief after one hundred years.
William became Spike as a reaction to siring his mother. He became William again as a reaction to almost raping Buffy, which seems to have triggered his trauma with Anne. He is so traumatised by the thought that he really want to rape his mother figure he gets a soul. Maybe now he can choose who he wants to be.
Demons don't have imagination, it seems. That was one of Adam's failings. It takes the human imagination and the demon's violence to create something that even other demons fear. Why was Spike so different when he was sired? Maybe he really was wealthy in spirit and imagination-Druscilla's psychic feelings usually were true, I think.
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I like this very much but... -- s'kat, 21:06:52 03/30/03 Sun
Interesting post. Hmmm...I'm not sure about this. Not sure Spike's quite there yet.
When Anne confronts Spike, she sees his love as a demon does-at least, a demon like Angelus. Love is a vile, inexplicable thing. Vampires don't make love, they have sex.
And here we go...the confusing thing ME keeps throwing at us. Well this comment is consistent. Angelus clearly doesn't love, at any time we see him. Yet Angel does. Holden Webster considers it just sex - I think. Darla? The same. Dru? she certainly considered herself capable of love, says "we can love quite well, just not wisely." Every other vamp? Seems so. Except Harmony? I think she did consider herself in love with Spike. James and Elizabeth in Heartthrob certainly loved.
Did demonAnne not love Spike? Don't know. Can't decide this one. It can be read three ways:
1. She loved him but couldn't handle being a vampire and wanted him to kill her so did the spiel? ugh. God, please no. Somehow I don't think this works. Too fanficy romantic for ME. Also not consistent.
2. She never loved him and was merely pretending because she was dependent on him and the demon unleashed it? No doesn't work either, since she did make him the center of her world and he did care for her. And she'd have to be a marvelous actress to have pulled that off. Also too one note.
3. She loved him. The demon did too - but as you state, the demon sees love a bit differently and wanted sex. All the mothers negative attributes which were repressed got unleashed without the soul? (or if you read Rufus' posts above, Chton now imbued her instead of Gaea?)
4. What you state above.
Tending to go with a little of 3 and what you state above.
So Anne torments Spike with what she thinks he feels-not only does he want to return to the "soft and dark" womb, but he also wants to have sex with her. (Just a theory.) If his mother's love was real, that meant that William wasn't some incestuous mama's boy. William is a good man again, and Spike could stop pretending to be something he's not, which would be a great relief after one hundred years.
This I like very much. But I don't think he's quite there yet. But he may be past the pretending and worrying what Buffy thinks about him all the time and that might be a good thing. Will have to wait and see how they present this.
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A dangerous time -- Celebaelin, 21:39:15 03/30/03 Sun
If Spike thinks, in the light of his new soul, that Buffy will not be able to return his love as he would wish it (and there will doubtless be echoes of the previous physicality which make him cringe) he may well be drawn to a grand gesture. The coupling of proof positive of his love (love, after all IS for poets) and escape from his feelings of guilt could prove irresistible.
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Re: A dangerous time---Spoilers for AtS Orpheus -- Arethusa, 05:14:06 03/31/03 Mon
But if Spike is really able to accept himself now (or will be soon), than he should no longer need to make a grand gesture to prove himself, for Buffy or anyone else. ME tends to show that grand gestures are the easy way out. Faith wasn't permitted to sacrifice herself for Angel, and I tend to think Spike won't be sacrified for Buffy (or the world).
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Re: I like this very much but... -- Arethusa, 09:20:57 03/31/03 Mon
Based on what Darla and Angel repeatedly said, I don't think vampires are capable of experiencing true, healthy love. For Spike, James and Elizabeth, love and obsession are nearly interchangable. Harmony has a Cosmopolitan magazine view of love, and is willing to put up with nearly anything to keep a boyfriend, although even she has limits. Vampire William's love for his mother, while seemingly "tender," as Anne calls it, is selfish and destructive. It is Anne who is leaving William through death, and he turns his mother into a monster, something that surely would have horrified her in life, to keep his doting audience. Again, just a theory.
I agree that Spike still has a long way to go.
Vampire Anne tries to do to Spike exactly what Darla feared she would do to Connor. Most or all her love for him dissipates with the soul, and she tries to kill him.
Two random thoughts:
Did Nikki sign her death warrent when she called Spike limp, the same word Vampire Anne used?
Are the circles on Robin's mouse pad cocentric circles or a spiral, like in the Shadowmen's cave floor?
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Agree with this -- s'kat, 10:32:59 03/31/03 Mon
Based on what Darla and Angel repeatedly said, I don't think vampires are capable of experiencing true, healthy love. For Spike, James and Elizabeth, love and obsession are nearly interchangable. Harmony has a Cosmopolitan magazine view of love, and is willing to put up with nearly anything to keep a boyfriend, although even she has limits. Vampire William's love for his mother, while seemingly "tender," as Anne calls it, is selfish and destructive. It is Anne who is leaving William through death, and he turns his mother into a monster, something that surely would have horrified her in life, to keep his doting audience. Again, just a theory.
Okay that theory makes the most sense to me. I think that's the one that works.The vampire's love is selfish - it's in the blood as Spike states in Lover's Walk. "Not about brains, about blood." But for humans, love is also about brains and soul. Spike doesn't get that until he gets the soul.
And Heartthrob clearly is about the destructiveness of obsessive love. As Cordy tells Angel - dying for love isn't necessarily healthy. A point that is repeated by Buffy in HIM to Dawn.
I think the most telling quote is what Dru remarks " we can love quite well just not wisely".
The vampire equivalent of love is actually very similar to the teenage equivalent or Romeo and Juliet. It's all about passion and is wild and burning and consuming. The arrested adolescent. I'm the center of your universe and you're the center of mine. When I kiss you I want to die. We see it dramatized to an extent in HIM. It's being consumed by feelings. The soul tempers it and expresses it in a truer less self-absorbed way. Compare Spike's interactions with buffy with a soul to his interactions without. Same with Angel. Same with Darla and Angel. It's not that you can only love with a soul, it's how the soul affects the love that's the important point.
I guess in our analysis we have to keep in mind Xander's hammer speech and go for middle ground, staying away from extreems? Thanks you helped me figure this out.
Did Nikki sign her death warrent when she called Spike limp, the same word Vampire Anne used?
Didn't notice that. But yes, maybe she did. Can't decide if she went after him or he went after her. Can be read both ways. I think he initially went after her. And she went after him because of that. Remember she states to Robin - we need to take you to Crowley's now, home isn't safe?
I'm thinking his comment that he'd been hunting her down for quite some time may have unnerved her.
Hmmm come to think of it. I think Spike would have tried to kill her regardless because she represented the dark destructive mother. Not sure. It's interesting to think about.
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Re: Agree with this -- Arethusa, 11:27:31 03/31/03 Mon
I think he initially went after her. And she went after him because of that. Remember she states to Robin - we need to take you to Crowley's now, home isn't safe?
I'm thinking his comment that he'd been hunting her down for quite some time may have unnerved her.
I think you're right. I said something similar in my post to Rahael, explaining why I didn't think Nikki had a death wish. After Spike declares he is trophy hunting she has to kill him, because how does she know he wouldn't go after a slayer's son next?
Oh-"warrant." Don't want to misspell that word in front of a lawyer. :)
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Re: Agree with this and also on your take on Nikki -- s'kat, 11:48:22 03/31/03 Mon
Wouldn't worry about the misspelling. I've made quite a few errors myself.
Actually I agree with your take on Nikki. I've changed my mind on this. I still think what I wrote in my original essay may be valid in a way...but I think she did fight.
She didn't beg. And she didn't really give up. I think she made ironically enough the same mistake that Wood makes in LMPTM. She hesitates.
Let's go back to LMPTM - in that beginning sequence before the credits, Wood is having a problem with a vamp, very similar to Nikki's actually. He's on the ground. He got there because he hesitates. Spike saves him and states:
"A tip mate, have a stake, don't be afraid to use it."
This is the same lesson Buffy gives Dawn in lessons. Remember who has the power and stake him.
I think Nikki had her chance, but like her son, hesitates.
Wood in the battle with Spike makes two mistakes. The first: he doesn't take the advantage he has over Spike, doesn't have a stake in hand. The second: when Spike says I'm sorry, Wood hesitates. Now if Spike didn't have a soul and was the old Spike? Wood would be dead.
So it's not really suicide. It's more the hesitation.
I think she may have accepted death when it came. But she certainly didn't seek it out. Spike's statements that she did in Fool For Love are more about Spike than Nikki.
Note how LMPTM starts and FFL ends? LMPTM starts with William caring for invalid parent (mother)and worried she'll de.
FFL ends with Buffy caring for invalid parent (mother) and worried she'll die. Spike in that moment makes a life-changing decision. Up until that moment - he has killed slayers. He killed the Chinese one who asks him in Chinese to tell her mother she loved her. He kills Nikki, who we later learn was a mother with a four year old son. And he goes to Buffy's with a gun intent to kill her, because she rejected him. But doesn't, stops, and comforts her instead, while she's crying over her mother's illness. The links are fascinating. We have the same trajectory here. And both times, we end up with the question? Will spike kill the person?
He chooses not to shoot Buffy partly b/c of her mom in FFL.
He chooses not to kill Wood on account of the fact he killed his mom.
Thinking about this a bit more impartially, I think that
the writers aren't talking about what Nikki thought when she died, that from their perspective is pretty clear - she fought a vampire and something went wrong and lost - it's dangerous, the slayer doesn't always win as is shown in the beginning of FFL when Buffy gets staked by her own stake.
The writers are more interested in what's going on inside Spike's head. How has Spike dealt with it? Apparently not as well as we think. He's making all sorts of interesting justifications. Then and now. Why did he decide she wanted it back then? Wouldn't it have suited him better if she didn't? He'd be the stronger fighter? And why claim that's how the game was played? I think a lot what Spike says is projection.
Guess we'll have to wait and see how it plays out.
Thanks for both posts. Very good.
SK
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Wonderful post! -- s'kat, 20:48:34 03/30/03 Sun
Okay...posting these essays were worth it, just for these posts that you've written leslie. Yes. We're on the same wave-length here. I've been thinking along the same lines.
Haven't read the other responses yet, want to get this out first.
Some things that unnerve are:
1. I'm not quite sure, though, what has been resolved at the end of this episode, and I can't help wondering if part of the reason is because the episode was written by two men. As I said, it seems to end by reestablishing the madonna/whore dichotomy, with Spike realizing that Anne's accusations and advances were "the demon talking."
The madonna/whore...I'm wondering if this isn't going to come back and bite Spike. I don't think that it has been resolved yet. Remember something else that happens in this episode which is almost parallel to this: Giles/Buffy.
Which door in her house does Buffy close in Giles' face?
Her bedroom door. While it's clear Giles never wanted that relationship...it's interesting that he never wants to be called her father. Buffy, when she's younger and sees Giles with a woman, says gross. But why that door? Also in an earlier episode - Storyteller, when Wood is on the seal, he turns to Buffy and says two things: "Evil is as Evil does"
which reminds me of Tara's redneck father in Family and
"Filthy whore sleeping with a vampire..." Also in Beneath You when Spike goes into demon face in the Bronze, he says some crude things about what he and Buffy did the last time they were on the balcony together (ie. Dead Things). I have a sinking suspicion that ME isn't through with this yet.
2.In contrast, Spike is distraught and terrified of the consequences of resurrecting Buffy. He is completely off track when he assumes that the Scoobies left him out of the loop because if Buffy had come back wrong, he wouldn't have allowed them to kill her, but if it had happened, his preventing them from killing her would, in fact, have been an opportunity to "undo" his killing of his own mother, especially since he has been acting as Dawn's "father" all summer in the absence of Buffy as Dawn's surrogate mother. At the same time, Buffy's resurrection parallels his vamping of his mother in that Buffy is a "mother" for whom he does have sexual feelings, and it thereby aroused all kinds of anxiety going back to his confusion over whether or not his feelings for his mother, and her feelings for him, had been sexual rather than filial/maternal. And then, as the season progressed, he was indeed having a sexual relationship with a resurrected mother who treated him like shit and mocked his protestations of love. And that led him, ultimately, to regaining his soul, the loss of which is what had created this unbearable psychological state in the first place by letting all this repressed feeling--on both their parts--burst out.
I think this may explain why Spike never bit or turned Buffy once he fell in love with her. He is the only vampire that she has been close to that hasn't. Possibly because of what happened to his mother.
3. I can't help wondering if what Spike says is actually a Freudian slip--what deactivates the trigger is not the realization that his mother loved him with all her heart, but that he loved her with all of his. And if that is what he is saying, then what he is telling Wood is that his vengence gig is not being done out of love for his own mother, that Wood does not, did not love Nikki with his whole heart. And that really does seem to accord with the facts: Wood is pursuing vengence not because Spike took Nikki's life away from her, but because he took Nikki's life away from Robin.
Yes. I think you put your finger on what it is about Robin Wood that unnerves me. And why I had more problems with Wood and Anne here than Spike. Wood never really knew Nikki outside of that child at mother's breast. His memories are foggy and I think Crowley may have helped him build a false image of her over time. Not to mention watching other kids with their mothers. Nikki is literally on the same pedestal that Anne is in Spike's head. Actually worse - b/c Wood has put all slayers on that pedestal. Buffy is on it too. What happens when she falls off? I'm a little worried about what Wood's intentions towards Buffy will be now that she has made her stance to him clear. Wood clearly supplanted Nikki with Buffy in his head. In the beginning of the episode, he tells Buffy she reminds him of Nikki. Later he tells Giles, that it's for Buffy's own good that they kill Spike. What's been unnerving me about Wood is his conscious attempts to turn Buffy into a substitute for Nikki. It's never been Spike that I was worried about when it came to Robin Wood - it's been Buffy.
SK
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Re: Wonderful post! -- leslie, 22:00:45 03/30/03 Sun
One of the reasons I wrote this post was in trying to put a finger on why Spike's words to Wood at the end, cruel as they were, rang true to me, but really didn't seem to make any sense in terms of the story we've just seen. The Freudian slip is the best answer I can come up with, because then it does seem to make sense.
This also helps explain Spike's opposing attitudes toward resurrection spells--it's okay for Joyce, it's not for Buffy, which has always bothered me, and I think that that is pretty brilliant plotting to resolve the discrepency in this way.
I'm now thinking, however, that it might not be irrelevant that William is in love with a vengence demon. If it's true that there is something of the vampire or demon in the Slayer, then perhaps we can see William/Spike as being parallel to Xander in yet another way, as a demon magnet--all the women he has loved are or have become demons.
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Re: Wonderful post! -- s'kat, 22:12:47 03/30/03 Sun
I'm now thinking, however, that it might not be irrelevant that William is in love with a vengence demon. If it's true that there is something of the vampire or demon in the Slayer, then perhaps we can see William/Spike as being parallel to Xander in yet another way, as a demon magnet--all the women he has loved are or have become demons.
Yes but do we know this for a fact? I'm not sure. The writers are so vague. And she does play the two roles very differently. OTOH, they do make a tease on it in OAFA - when she says William and he looks incredibly taken aback.
"William?"
"Wait a minute..."
"Do you guys know each other.."
"Noooo..."
Shame ME chose not to explain that further. Evil writers.
Agree on the Wood comment. I've been struggling with that as well. As cruel as it sounded, it rang so true to me that I couldn't really see it as cruel. Freudian slip makes sense. I honestly think a good portion of Spike's speech to Wood was as much about projection as Wood's was to Spike.
It was almost as if the two were treating the other person as their alter-ego, ie the Angelus/Angel fight? Shame Orpheus didn't come after LMPTM as planned.
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'Freudian slip' may not be the right term (Spoilers for LMPTM) -- Sophist, 10:41:42 03/31/03 Mon
I think it's more logical than that. The incident with Anne left Spike uncertain whether he really loved his mother or had an unnatural lust for her. Once he decided it was the demon talking, not Anne, he could be sure that his mother loved him. This, in turn, validated his own love of her; Anne would not have loved him had he lusted for her. Thus, Spike obtains validation of his own love by the very fact of his mother's love for him.
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leslie, you rock! -- ponygirl, 09:26:15 03/31/03 Mon
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Good post, cjl! -- ponygirl, 10:59:59 03/30/03 Sun
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ditto...good post! -- aliera, 11:11:14 03/30/03 Sun
And I wondered where your voice was after the ep aired... I'd gotten used to seeing your posts the morning after. Puts a new spin on Giles:
GILES: Do you want to be punished?
WILLOW: (softly) I wanna be Willow.
GILES: You are. In the end, we all are who we are ... no matter how much we may appear to have changed.
courtesy:pysche
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Good post, minor disagreement -- lakrids, 10:56:18 03/30/03 Sun
S'kat an interesting and intelligent post. Even there were some of yours thoughts I did disagree with, as your portrayal of Giles and Spike. Darby have already covered what I could have said about Giles, and better than I could
I often get the feeling, unfair perhaps, that Spike gets forgiven or his actions rationalised (often the same thing). Because his character is all about love and devotion and his high cheekbones probably doesn't hurt. Some one has said that the ideology of love is the last ideology left in this century that is not tainted. For what can you have against love?. Love can be many things and many of them is not particularly good or healthy for society or the individual, it has been described as mild form of insanity. But still it is something we are searching for and makes stories about and generally idealizes. I think it is because, that we feel that it can validates our existence in the world, by giving us proof that someone wants us in this world.
Spike loves Buffy and all is good and well?. The problem I see with Spike (soul/without) is that I don't see Spike have any ethics than his latest love. He gave up his chance to kill Buffy, to save Dru and later would he have staked Dru to shows his love to Buffy. That he does all deeds out from love, bad and good. Would make me afraid to be with a person that whose behaviour is shaped around another person, what happens the day that Spike doesn't love Buffy?. I am missing to see in Spike some kind of ethics, which would guarantee that he would do the right thing, even if it is inconvenient to himself or the people he loves.
There are reasons to why army built up the way they are and why soldiers follows them. Even if these orders sometimes sacrifice individuals to the greater good, and requires a strict hierarchy for orders. That is not because that soldiers finds these structures fair and empowering, but because it gets the job done with the least figures of casualties among the soldier and gives the greatest chance to winning a war. Giles knows that, Buffy thinks she know that but she will not go all the way.
The end of the season will probably show that the army way is the wrong solution to the problem of the FE, the solution would be something about love and personal sacrifice and corporation. I would find it more interesting if the writers would go for some really hard choices, as for example that Buffy has to kill Dawn to save the world, with no way out.
The text down below, is from a post, that I posted in under It's all about the Mission....or would that be Mother? spoilers for Lies my Parents Told Me by Rufus
I would like to think about myself as a more or less impartial viewer of the BtVS. I didn't dislike any of the main characters. That would be until the episode LMPTM, then I have become to despise Spike.
Why did Spike complain about becoming chained up, when they knew that trigger was still in function?. If there had been any logic in the plot should Spike, have been chained to the wall, when first they figured out that Spike could be controlled with a trigger from the FE. And stayed there until he was cured. .
That Spike doesn't want to apologise for his murder on Woods mom, could I have accepted if Spike has said something like " I am sorry about you mom, but I am not the person that did it, because I got a soul now". Instead he says something like, that she knew what she got into when she began hunting vampires, it was part of the game.
It's and was not a game!, Woods mother was more or less drafted into job of the extermination of vampires. I would more compare her to a cop that is going after serial killers. Sure she could have been staying safe in her house and knowing, that every night people died, that she could have saved. I don't think a serial Cop killer would get reduced sentenced if he told the court, that the cops he killed knew the rules of the game.
Why did Spike keep his? Coat, knowingly it belonged to Woods mom?. Could he not just have urinated on Wood when he lay down and kicked him in the balls, same difference.
I do apologise how I treat the English language, sorry.
lakrids
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Re: Good post, minor disagreement -- sk, 11:38:45 03/30/03 Sun
I find your post hard to respond to since you and I are so diametrically opposed in how we view this show. As a rule I tend to avoid posts that bash or rant about characters I love.
I deleted my own emotional and personal views from the post above. Which included a rant on Wood. I can tear him to smithereens, but have chosen not to, because as much as the character creeps me out, I find him fascinating and think at heart he could be good. Suffice it to say Wood creeps me out in the worst way and it is a testament to DB Woodside's acting that he does. If I was as shallow as you seem to indicate, I would not be creeped out by Wood. The actor is far more attractive physically than Marsters or any other guy in the cast, but he creeps me out. He has creeped me out since well Lessons. Spike treated Wood exactly the way Wood treated Spike.
Wood tortured him, beat him, psychologically and emotionally, after Spike had saved the man's life.
Also since you have such a short term memory - Spike has saved Wood's life six times. Twice from Buffy herself in HIM. Once in this episode. Once in First Date. Once in Get it Done. Once in Storyteller.And Wood has in return tried to kill Spike three times. Spike has helped save the world at least three times.
Wood? 0 From my perspective, Wood owes Spike a bit more than vengeance.
I'm sorry but Spike feels remorse, tons. But not for that.
I wouldn't either. Vampires kill slayers. Slayers kill vampires. Them's the breaks. Angelus did not feel remorse for biting Faith. A slayer isn't an innocent life. And while she may be chosen, she can choose not to fight the battle - Faith chose to go to prison instead, remember? and vampires? Don't exactly have a choice either. Actually they don't have one at all. They are driven to kill. They usually run from slayers - Spike to his credit seeks out his worst enemy. Besides Spike is no longer the same man with a soul. Finally just because Spike said he didn't feel sorry for Wood, doesn't mean he won't. He was just tortured by the guy. You don't feel sorry for someone who tortures you. No one does.
I deliberately ignored your rant below, b/c it brought out the troll in me. As has this one. If you despise Spike? Don't post on him.
I think I was pretty even handed on Wood. And I was even handed on Nikki. I waited to post on them until I could be even handed and not rant at other people and accuse them of liking the character because he's hot. Believe me i could accuse people of liking Wood for the same reasons people accuse others of liking Spike. Wood is actually more physically attractive.
Uhm...have you forgotten something? Spike did NOT kill Wood.
He gave him a pass on account of the fact he killed his mother. Think about that statement. Actions are greater than words. After Wood tortured, abused and betrayed Spike and betrayed Buffy - Spike let him live. Until you have been tortured and abused and betrayed, I don't think you can conceive of what Spike went through.
Sorry, hope this wasn't too much of an emotional knee jerk reaction. This my friends is why I had writers block. ugh.
SK
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I am sorry if it came out insulting to you. Moderator feel free to delete my post -- lakrids, 12:24:31 03/30/03 Sun
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See my posts to Scroll. You just pushed my buttons is all. ;-) -- s'kat, 23:09:49 03/30/03 Sun
Probably should have deleted my post before sending. But since it got that great reply from Rufus below, maybe not a bad thing.
Regarding Spike? I suggest you take a wait and see attitude. The show is a serial not episodic after all.
I promise to do the same on Wood.
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LOL, take deep breaths, s'kat! -- Scroll, 12:51:35 03/30/03 Sun
Deep breaths and think pleasant thoughts, s'kat! :) Let me feed you cyber chocolates (unless you're allergic in which case, have some licorice :).
I really don't think lakrids was accusing you of forgiving Spike's actions just because of JM's physical attributes, I think lakrids was just saying it's one reason that some people do so. I'm sure lakrids wasn't speaking about you specifically.
You know Spike isn't my favourite character, but I don't hate him either. I'm pretty impersonal about him actually, have been since "The Yoko Factor". Still, sometimes I end up inadvertently bashing him (as you may remember!) but I really don't mean to. And as far as I can tell, lakrids wasn't trying to bash Spike either. S/he brought up some good points that I mostly agree with. (Slayer/cop anaolgy being one, but I cut that from this post.)
That Spike doesn't want to apologise for his murder on Woods mom, could I have accepted if Spike has said something like "I am sorry about you mom, but I am not the person that did it, because I got a soul now". Instead he says something like, that she knew what she got into when she began hunting vampires, it was part of the game.
You have a good point that Spike had just been beaten/tortured by Wood and probably felt no obligation to apologise, and that we shouldn't expect him to apologise. And you may very well be right.
But you know what? If Spike had apologised? I would've loved him again. I would've respected him. He would've been the bigger man. (Yes, I know he didn't kill Wood, but I'm not going to give anyone points because they didn't kill somebody! :) That Spike didn't apologise is entirely in character. It's consistent with who he is, and I don't have a problem with that.
To me, Spike is an interesting character, very complex and conflicted. He saw Nikki the Slayer; he refused to see Nikki the Mother. Which is entirely keeping with his revelation that his mom had truly loved him, whereas Vamp!Anne's words stemmed entirely from the demon. (Personally I think he's wrong, and hopefully the writers will address this soon.) But for the simple reason that Spike put back on Wood's dead mother's coat, I can't respect him. Could just be me, though.
Hopefully you won't see my post as bashing Spike, because I truly don't mean to. He's an interesting guy but (IMHO) not a nice one. I don't want him to be another Angel; Spike is more interesting when he's not being all broody and guilty. But doesn't mean I respect or like him as a person.
I had more written, but realised I shouldn't keep going since I haven't actually read your original post yet! Don't have time, got an exam tomorrow I gotta study for :) Good luck with that writer's block!
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ETA: I don't think Wood was right either -- Scroll, 12:57:31 03/30/03 Sun
Just wanted to add that I don't think Wood was right either. I can understand his pain, but vengeance just isn't the way. IMO, nobody was entirely right (or entirely wrong) in this episode. Wood was wrong re vengeance. Giles was wrong in how he deceived Buffy via his actions. Spike was wrong in killing Nikki and taking back the coat.
I think Buffy was the least wrong, but she is still deluding herself to some extent re being a general and her blind spot re Spike. Hopefully the actions of this episode will be addressed soon. I think we all need some resolution.
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Sigh...remind me to kill Jane Espenson for this plot idea;-) -- s'kat, 20:04:58 03/30/03 Sun
Probably need to explain something here, which a few people on the board already know about, I have a huge pet peeve about the Nikki/Wood storyline. I really hate it. It pushes my buttons. I've hated it since I was spoiled to who Wood was in Jan and I didn't like Wood wayyy before Jan.
Nikki was a vampire slayer. She kills vampires. She goes out and hunts them and kills them. All vampires. Without exception. She found Angel in the gutter? Dead. Spike?
Dead. She should have killed him in that subway, he got the upper hand. She's dead. She was not a normal girl.
She may not have chosen this, but she did choose to go after Spike. She did choose to hunt vamps. So sorry honey, you lost. IT happens. (And could they have at least gotten the same actress to play her? The new one looks like a CJI special effect.)
Spike - as a vampire has killed more people than we can count. Just as Angel has. Angel specialized in families. Spike specialized in slayers. But only came across two or three that we know of (including Buffy). Vampires are evil.
They kill. They feed. It's what they do. Yes, it's wrong.
Yes, Buffy should kill them.
When I discovered that Nikki was going to be Wood's mother, I groaned. Dang it. Now we're going to have idiotic debates on the board about how horrible Spike is for killing a vampire slayer. Oxymoron that. Vampire is horrible for killing vampire slayer. Well gee. If I was a vampire I'd kill the slayer, sounds like common sense. No soul. Kill slayer. Actually the Holtz storyline was far more interesting, that was a vampire hunter who'd lost his family to a vampire who did it as part of a game. Much better story. I could empathize with Holtz. And with Angel.
Now Spike has a soul. The idiot he has been saving off and on for months has trapped him in a room full of crosses and is going to kill him and rails at him about what happened.
Uhm, Wood has no clue what happened in that subway. He wasn't there. He was four. He can only guess. At any rate, he doesn't face Spike on equal terms, he triggers him so he can face the monster and makes it so Spike can't escape.
Now I don't believe Spike is redeemed. I think they are attempting to redeem him though, but making him earn it, making him fight for it and not making it easy on the audience also not letting us know if they will or not. Nor do I think he's resolved his issues. But I don't hold what he did to Wood against him. Actually I respect him for NOT killing the two-bit bastard... Did I expect him to apologize to Wood for it? Nope. Would not only be out of character, it would be lame. Why? She was a VAMPIRE SLAYER people. He killed her partly in self-defense. He does feel sorry that she was Wood's mother. He didn't know slayers were mothers. He let's Wood live partly because of that. But to be honest?
I'm not completely sure what Spike feels about this at the moment. I do find it interesting that Spike gave up that jacket in Seeing Red and did not put it on again until Buffy pushed him to.
Now instead of throwing our own morality onto these poor characters and the show, let's take a step back and analyze why what happened happened.
Spike is one mixed up dude. A mythologist/Jungian psychoanalyists dream. Up until a few months ago he was stark raving mad. Completely bonkers. He had given up the coat. Then we he finally got his head together and thought he was past the killing, the FE triggered him and he ended up addicted to blood again. He wanted Buffy to kill him then, he hates himself. He still hates himself. He even says, soul isn't all pennywhistles and moon dust love - it's about self-loathing. He'd like nothing better than to kick it. But he's holding on for somewhat the same reasons good ole Angel hung on in Amends, for Buffy.
That hasn't changed. He probably hates himself more than others hate him. Wood is making a big deal out of one woman's death and a vampire slayer at that. While Spike has in his head the voices of multitudes of victims, guilt for killing them ripping out his insides. He can't make it better. He can't change it. And he does acknowledge he did it. He can barely live with those crimes.
Wood: You killed my mother
Spike: I killed lots of people's mothers.
Spike is not someone who's going to confess his sins to a complete stranger, any more than Angel is. He has confessed to Buffy.
The jacket. I think Spike has a weird view of that jacket.
Remember he gave it up. Then Buffy accused him of being weak and told him she wanted the Spike who tried to kill her way back in S2 back again. So off he goes to get the jacket - because that's what he identifies with that persona. HE picks up the attitude as well. I'll be your fighter. Spike is still way too worried about what others think. Have you ever asked yourself why??
Why do people look outside themselves for approval? A good psychologist once told me that it's because the person often has none themselves.
What does Spike say to Buffy in Help when she finds him in the basement? "William is a bad man." And he hits himself repeatedly. "Because William hurt the girl."
Later he asks her why she lets him live and claims it's because she needs men who hurt her. (NLM)
In Spike's head he has no purpose outside of fighter.
He can become a good man - because Buffy believes it, but I'm not so sure Spike really believes it.
All that got resolved in that episode was Spike broke the trigger, so FE can no longer use that against him. Although the trigger served the FE's purpose, so I doubt it minds.
Spike is not together enough yet to be able to handle wood or that jacket or slayers. He has his own issues on them. What he tells wood is in many ways a projection of his own feelings regarding Buffy and acceptance that she can't and won't ever love him.
Now I'm different than you on Spike, I didn't start getting into the character until well Season 5. But then, if we start playing the blame game with these characters - we won't like any of them. As Anya states, Forgiveness makes us human. Double standard people have regarding Anya and Angel and Spike annoys the hell out of me. As far as i can tell all three haven't shown remorse for everything they've done.I like Buffy's attitude towards this - I judge you on what you do now, not what you did then, can't do a thing about that. And now you have a second chance and hey, fighting a war here. I'm with Buffy. Go Buffy.
SK
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Actually agree with most of your post -- Scroll, 21:48:13 03/30/03 Sun
I'm willing to see how the storyline plays out, cuz I don't think LMPTM is the end of the Wood/Nikki/Spike thing. Didn't realise you hated this storyline! :) I agree with you that Holtz was much more empathetic.
When I discovered that Nikki was going to be Wood's mother, I groaned. Dang it. Now we're going to have idiotic debates on the board about how horrible Spike is for killing a vampire slayer. Oxymoron that. Vampire is horrible for killing vampire slayer. Well gee. If I was a vampire I'd kill the slayer, sounds like common sense. No soul. Kill slayer.
For me at least, it's not that I think how horrible Spike is for killing a vampire slayer. You're right, it's a fair fight and partly self-defence. Doesn't make Nikki any less dead though.
Thing is, I don't see Nikki as just the Slayer. If some random vampire killed Buffy or Faith, would we just say, "Oh, that's the way the cookie crumbles"? No, because Buffy and Faith are more than just the Slayer. Yes, at the end of the day they are Slayers and therefore not the "innocent". But it doesn't make their deaths any less horrific or saddening, I think. I know Kendra's death was quite horrifying for Buffy.
Nikki was a human being and a good person. To me, her death is horrible regardless of her status as Slayer. Us finding out that Spike killed her doesn't make Spike any more or less a bad guy than before we found out. But it does put a human face on the people he's killed.
I agree that the situation is complicated and not cut-and-dried. Especially Spike's view of Nikki's coat. Like I said before, I'm willing to see how it all plays out. I'm sorry you don't like the storyline though, I know how headache-inducing it is to sit through plots that you hate (for me it was A/C's kye-rumption in Season 3!) but hang on. Only 5 more episodes to go :)
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Re: Actually agree with most of your post -- s'kat, 22:06:13 03/30/03 Sun
Well, the storyline has worked out a little better than i expected. I think it was more of the wrestling online match I was anticipating, which wasn't all that horrible. I tend to leave the board when it erupts. Because unlike most posters, I just can't see Nikki's death as being all Spike's fault.
My difficulty is the emphasis on ohhh how horrible he killed Nikki. For me, I found his remorse in Sleeper more touching and how Buffy had to deal with the fact that he killed Holden Webs. That was far more horrific. Nikki?
She just doesn't make me feel sad in the same way. Yes, her death was horrible because she's human but she didn't have to die, she chose it. I see it in her eyes and her fight with Spike in FFL and remember it's what Spike told Buffy - the Chinese one - yeah, he killed her, she dropped her weapon, but the subway slayer? She gave up. She wanted it. That release. So I don't blame Spike for it, I blame Nikki. For me, I see it as not so much a horror as a release for her - she got tired and went out fighting. She found a way to get her son, so she thinks, out of the mission. She embraced death willingly at the end. It wasn't premediatated, I think it was in those seconds when she sat on top of him and stared down at him that she made the decision and he flipped her. The moment she hesitated and didn't stake him. It's how I read the episode. I've seen it ten times and every time plays out the same way.
I've said it once, will say it again - the woman committed suicide by vampire. She was the martyred mom. Spike and Nikki was a suicide dance, both wanted it, one won. I feel sorry for her yes. But I don't hate Spike for it.
Yep there's more story to go. But I fear for Buffy. Methinks Wood may not react kindly to her rejection.
I'm hoping he doesn't turn into the complete creep that I fear he is. But this being a horror show? I wouldn't put it past ME to make Wood pretty nasty. If so, I'd worry about what he's going to do against Buffy.
SK
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Re: Actually agree with most of your post -- Rahael, 00:01:54 03/31/03 Mon
These are great essays SK. Unfortunately the more convincing I find them, the more I start getting horrified about BtVS.
I, actually am physically upset.
LOL! I'm not sure this is the reaction you wanted, but I think it just argues to the power of the essays.
Maybe I should just wait until I see the eps for myself to get my own reaction, or maybe I should just get offline so I can appreciate this last season.
Waaaah!!!
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A promise to the board (Spoilers for aired buffy S7 eps) -- Rahael, 01:49:52 03/31/03 Mon
I decided on the ride to work this morning that I'm not going to talk about Buffy anymore. Not on the board and not in chat.
I had a good think and to be honest, I think SK's interpretation is pretty accurate. I don't want to wait to see the show and get my own because I think I'll just fanwank my way to liking it and I'm starting to feel that would be dishonest. Not if the show is arguing that powerful women deserve to die, and indeed, that we be
entertained and even titillated by it. And I can guess that such a point of view is going to lose me a lot of liking around here, so that's why I'm going to keep my mouth shut from now on. And even if I were to fanwank and give my own interpretation of what I think the show is saying in a positive way to women, I think it wouldn't exactly be welcome around here anymore.
As just a final addendum, I come from a country of young women who volunteer to be walking bombs, to kill as many human beings as they can and die for their cause. My family have had close friends who died because of what these women did. And I never thought they 'deserved to die', even if they had a death wish, nor did I ever not feel pity and sadness for them. Even when they destroyd others lives, and I didn't want to let them off the crime, I felt enormous pity for them. In fact, I felt pity and sadness for who I thought my mother's murderer was until I learnt he was a seasoned, trained assassin, not an ordinary recruit. And then I thought, well, he was just doing his job. Which is why by the way I don't so angry or sad that he was never brought to justice and never will be. I have no real empathy for Wood's search for vengeance because the day I lose my pity for my enemies is the day my heart turns to stone, but I feel sorry for him, just like I felt sorry for Spike and Buffy on viewing the last couple of BtVS eps.
But if being online means the terms of the debate are conducted thus, where having sympathy for any character however unlikable or unsympathetic is de trop - well, it seems clear that BtVS S7 is painting its heroes and villains in a less subtle light than ever before. And it's subtlety was exactly why I was so drawn to it in the first place, and the way it allowed for a multiplicty of interpretations. It seems that that is quite obviously not there any more.
PS - wouldn't it be ironic - if Warren's bullet hadn't missed Buffy and hit Tara, he wouldn't really be all that evil! He'd have been doing Buffy a favour!
And can I say to Darby and Sophist, that if Season 6 had come around again, I would be singing a very different tune re Seeing Red. (but still, an excellently crafted ep, sigh...) Bah! I take back every one of my old posts on Buffy!
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A puzzled plea -- Tchaikovsky, 03:10:14 03/31/03 Mon
Rahael
OK, if you have absolutely decided not to post on Buffy anymore then I respect your decision. But just before I do...
Please, please, please keep posting. Your posts are right up there with the most perceptive posts on this board. I, like you, haven't seen all of Season Seven, but I cannot say that, in being convinced by someone's argument on the board, I do not want to give my reactions when I do see the episodes. My reaction is important to me, and valid posting material for the Board.
But if being online means the terms of the debate are conducted thus, where having sympathy for any character however unlikable or unsympathetic is de trop - well, it seems clear that BtVS S7 is painting its heroes and villains in a less subtle light than ever before. And it's subtlety was exactly why I was so drawn to it in the first place, and the way it allowed for a multiplicty of interpretations. It seems that that is quite obviously not there any more.
I may be misunderstanding this- but don't you think that the whole debate- all the different opinions; the dissent, the new understandings- support the idea that ME's characters are subtly portrayed? I personally find shadowkat's views, personal and theoretical, on Wood interesting, but I don't think they totally undermine everyone else's different perspectives. The fact that these different perspectives exist is a testament to the subtleties of the narrative and the characters, as is shadowkat's immense essay.
In any case, any loss on your posting on the series would be of deep sadness to me- both because you often elucidate ideas I had not considered, and because of your immense knowledge and wisdom on other subjects that crop up as a result of the discussions.
TCH
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Rah, please come back... -- KdS, 03:59:14 03/31/03 Mon
What I think we're seeing in relation to Nikki is a new outbreak of the thoroughly mischevious belief on this board that there is some kind of moral equivalence between vampires and Slayers, so that the outcome of any individual fight between them is as morally meaningful as some kind of sporting contest (especially if the Slayer is barely characterised and the vampire is very charming). I think we're seeing continuing denial of the fact that at root in BtVS vampires are meant to be evil, whatever redeeming features individual ones might have. While the odd one may get off on it a little too much, the only reason why most Slayers are out killing vampires is because of their habit of at best snacking off any random human they come across and at worst trying to wipe out the human race. If vampires were trying to make peace, eat pigs, and coexist, Slayers wouldn't be killing them. If Slayers were trying to make peace and persuade vamps to eat pigs and coexist, vampires would carry on eating people.
We haven't seen the episode yet (and remember how different our moral judgements in relation to Supersymmetry were in comparison to the immediate response on the board) so all I can say is that if, when I do so, I get the impression that Nikki let Spike kill her either out of exhaustion, or in the hope that it would mean that her son would get out of the life, I'll work out what moral is being set then. If either of those possibilities are true, I see it at present as a terrible and tragic decision that I don't see us as being meant to approve of and cheer on. I really doubt given the past seven seasons that ME is really arguing that powerful women need to be extirpated from the world for the good of society. If we do see any such implication at the end of this season (Buffy and Willow dying or suffering eternal torment to save the world and all the guys walking away) I really will see BtVS as going seriously off the rails at the end.
As far as the Seeing Red issue goes, I'm actually finding that the revelations of LMPTM are making me feel more comfortable about the moral significance of the attempted rape than I have for a while. I was one of the people who until Never Leave Me believed that premeditated rape and cruelty were not part of Spike's character, and that his seeking of a soul was a response to crossing some line in his vestigial conscience. After Never Leave Me I shared the worries of other people on the board that ME were arguing the intensely dangerous position that serial sexual predators just need to meet the right woman. However, if Spike had all these conflicts over incestuous feelings, then I can see that the revelation that he had attempted to rape a mother figure would bring all those feelings to the surface, give him a revelation about what's been driving him all these years, and send him running for his soul to make things right (and I hope this can't be taken as suggesting in any way that his personal growth excuses the act or balances the pain he caused to Buffy). It makes it specifically about Spike's relationship with Buffy in a psychologically satisfying way while avoiding the suggestion that Buffy was in any way morally culpable or got what she deserved.
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Oh damn, </i> -- KdS, 04:00:19 03/31/03 Mon
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Oh, and even at end of SK's original post you have this: -- KdS, 04:06:13 03/31/03 Mon
Yet, as Buffy learns in Season 6, it is far harder to live for one's children than to die for them. The day to day tasks of mothering are far more strenuous. So when she returns to the earth, she must take on the duty of teaching Dawn how to live in a difficult world and see the beauty of that world as opposed to protecting her sister/child from the darkness. As great a thing as it is for the mother to sacrifice herself, it is sometimes far more empowering for her to find a way to live. As Buffy states to Dawn in HIM, no one is worth dying for, it's not your death that makes you memorable, it's your life.
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Hey! -- Rahael, 05:17:28 03/31/03 Mon
Nothing is going to stop me discussing this with friends offline you know ;)
And I'm not leaving. I've learnt my lesson! I'm just having a massive, and self indulgent strop at ME!
I have tons to say in response. I'm just going to spare the board, because, they really don't need to hear my bitching.
I pity you and Yaby. Hmmm. Better make this week's cake spectacularly good.
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The 'Death Wish' -- Darby, 05:56:55 03/31/03 Mon
Now that we know a bit more of what happened between Nikki and Spike, his interpretation of her "death wish" may be nothing more than what he thought when she pursued him into the subway. Can't you see him looking up as she comes into the car and saying, "What, Luv, you got a soddin' death wish?" It would fit what we saw of Spike in School Hard and probably would have colored his entire impression of that final fight. Who knows what her last look at him meant? But he knew - he had already made up his mind.
I think we've trusted his insight a bit too much, especially when it seemed to play out accurately in The Gift and Afterlife. One wonders how much it might have influenced Buffy's feelings about her own inner desires as she got more and more hopeless about her chances against Glory.
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Re: The 'Death Wish' -- Dyna, 09:35:04 03/31/03 Mon
I've always thought one of the great things about the alley scene in FFL is the way that Spike's words blur the distinction between himself and Buffy/the slayer. He projects so much of himself onto them--serving, I think, the dual story purposes of revealing more about his own psyche, and subtly raising some questions about the commonality between vampires and slayers. It's one of the most brilliant scenes ever, imo, and one that continues to be significant as the story unfolds.
Anyway, when Spike talks about slayers having a "death wish," it's in the context of a larger story in which it's revealed that he has made a career of seeking out the slayer, looking for the fight that he is least likely to win. Whether or not you accept his belief that the slayer eventually gets tired of fighting and wishes to die, I've always felt that that statement was a little about the slayer and a lot about Spike's own death wish. This interpretation has become so ingrained in my thinking that it didn't even occur to me to examine LMPTM for evidence of Nikking having/not having a death with. I was just a little disappointed that her characterization was not very interesting.
In any case, I don't think it's necessary to go from the idea that a slayer may wind up with a "death wish" (which I think is pretty plausible--who when fighting so hard for so long would never for an instant consider what would happen if she stopped fighting?) to assuming that a slayer's death under such circumstances has to be viewed as a "suicide." I feel like this is just one more of the many ways that being "chosen" as the slayer is tragic for the girl involved--because unlike all other soldiers who can hold onto the hope of the war someday ending, she can have no such hope.
I'm fervently hoping in my unspoiled way that if this season ends with Buffy giving up her powers and surviving, that maybe this will open the way for a future "end" to being the slayer that isn't death--a retirement plan! :)
Dyna
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Agree...a bit more on that and the irony -- s'kat, 11:16:23 03/31/03 Mon
Anyway, when Spike talks about slayers having a "death wish," it's in the context of a larger story in which it's revealed that he has made a career of seeking out the slayer, looking for the fight that he is least likely to win. Whether or not you accept his belief that the slayer eventually gets tired of fighting and wishes to die, I've always felt that that statement was a little about the slayer and a lot about Spike's own death wish. This interpretation has become so ingrained in my thinking that it didn't even occur to me to examine LMPTM for evidence of Nikking having/not having a death with. I was just a little disappointed
Well kudos, you and Random and cjl have managed to change my mind about Nikki. Not that I ever thought it was as black and white as I painted it.
I agree with what you stated above.
Nikki didn't have a death wish. She got tired. She sort of gave up I think in a moment. A second. A milli-second.
And that is enough time - for a powerful, 100 year old vamp to get an advantage. Spike gets the upswing on Buffy remember in School Hard. If it weren't for Joyce, Buffy would have been dead. Just as Spike got the upswing on Buffy in OOMM, if it weren't for the chip - Buffy may have been dead.
I think what happened with Nikki and Spike is far more complex than I stated above. I think you and Random and cjl
have stated it pretty well. And would suggest others read those posts for a good clarification. They are the best
I've seen on Nikki.
Oh one more thing, which was actually the reason I was responding. On Spike. Spike's statement to Buffy is incredibly ironic. Because Spike literally gets his wish.
Buffy sacrifices herself. And he blames himself for it.
"If I had kept my promise, you wouldn't have died." And he literally spends an entire summer reliving the moment of a slayer's death and struggling with it. The incredible irony of Fool for Love and The Gift is NOT so much that Spike was right, but how he was wrong. Buffy actually got her release, but she did NOT commit suicide. She did what she had to. She let go of the world in order to save it. Let go of adolescence and childhood. Spike arrested in adolsence and childhood, immortal. Is devastated. Buffy's death is his worst day. A vampire slayer dies and he has the worste day of his existence. That was the twist. Spike's journey and story if you watch it closely enough is the most ironic story in the show. He has literally done the opposite of everything he says. He believes the things he says, but he is in a sense believing lies.
Think about it. He tells Angel in School HArd - Demons never change and accuses Angel of being an Uncle Tom or traitor. Well who betrays the demons and vampire kind at the end of S2? It was supposed to be Angel. It's not, it's Spike. He tells Buffy in Fool for Love that when she gets tired enough to make that fatal mistake and ask for death, he'll be there and have himself one good day. Uhm no. When she does die and he is there, he has the worst day of his existence. I wouldn't believe anything Spike says right now.
It has a way of flipping on him. In a way, it's better he didn't apologize, since the show isn't over yet and it would probably just be flipped in a future episode. Every thing else he says or does is. HEck, he chides Angel for being soulboy - and goes to get one himself. Methinks half of what Spike says is a projection of his own internal fears and pangs.
SK
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I can't agree with what you said strongly enough -- lunasea, 10:23:34 03/31/03 Mon
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Re: A puzzled plea -- Rahael, 05:07:37 03/31/03 Mon
I think it's unfair for me to participate in these discussions. How can I be objective? How can my heart not go out to Nikki? How can I fail not to be indignant and protective on her behalf when people say that the blame for her death rests squarely with her and no one else? Is it fair that I bring this to the debate? And the answer that has resounded more and more loudly is "no".
It's just unfair and it makes other people feel embarrassed and uncomfortable.
Plus I find SK's essay convincing - this is what ME want me to believe. And I find it compelling and offputting. Even were I to enjoy the forthcoming episodes, if they are well written and tightly dramatised, the thing is, I have watched this woman killed, watched Spike rejoice in the kill and have to understand that she in some senses wanted it. Needed to die at his hands. And I watched it and thus participated in it. Miller's Crossing by the Coen brothers is a brilliant film that is sodden with violence and blood, but which never allows the viewer to be comfortable watching all this. The scene where one character holds a gun to another character's head, even though the gun holder is the person we are meant to sympathise with - they never let us off - I have never seen a scene with guns so accurately reflect the sweatyness, the fear, the humiliation of everyone watching and participating in an act of degradation to another human being so well depicted.
(I have seen people begging for their lives when threatened with violence. I have been that person. Do you know what I wished in my heart? That I could have reacted calmly and bravely like Nikki did. Because that's what you aspire to! Don't let your killer win! Don't beg, because that's the ultimate humiliation - the killer will be even more turned on by it. I practised day after day, maintaining a stoical face that I would show in the face of death. Because I was taught to do that. That you would leave life in a becoming way. My aunt's face was stone-like and set as she was led by prison gaurds through the criminal section of the prison, while the mob bayed at her, saying that they couldn't wait to taste her blood and eat her flesh. My father never ever broke down and talked during torture. Why on earth would Nikki beg a Vampire to save her??? They don't save you if you beg. They shoot you first before anyone else. You're the person they'll laugh about afterward - whereas the brave - they incur a silent respect)
But I don't think ME thought this when they showed it. I think we were meant to be there for Spike. I think this because of the way its being framed now.
I also just made the promise not to post about it because I have heard expressed many times how irritating it is when someone becomes all bitter about a storyline and then spends every post bitching about it and the show. I don't find it particularly irritating actually (depends on how entertainingly they do it!), but I would hate to reduce the enjoyment of others in this its last season. So I'm just going to stop posting about it.
Let's hope there's lots of Angel threads!
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Angel threads it is then -- Tchaikovsky, 05:32:19 03/31/03 Mon
I've still got a couple of 'But...!'s in my mind, like 'But how could Rah possibly reduce anyone's enjoyment of Buffy, even if she was trying to!', and 'But they don't have to read your posts!', and 'But you haven't seen the episode yet!' and 'But I completely disagree with shadowkat and agree with KdS in my perspective of this particular issue, and don't think that one post, however great the writer is sufficient to summarise ME's intentions!', and 'But regardless of ME's intentions, one can still create an entirely different, valid interpretation!'
But ultimately, I guess I'll just have to write more about Angel!
TCH
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Re: Angel threads it is then -- Rahael, 06:18:26 03/31/03 Mon
I love your Angel posts!! So many people have told me how much they look forward to them, and I do too.
I completely take on board the rational viewpoints expressed in this thread, but the manner in which ME have chosen to make ( a very laudable point about the pointlessness of martyrdom, which I completely agree with) is too personally devastating to me.
Nikki - tragic but pointless, creating an embittered, unforgiving child. A footnote in history. Got what she wanted. A woman on a mission who should have stayed at home and not sought danger. All this echoes too too much of what I've had to listen to before, with gritted teeth and polite smiles. I can't even argue that a killer sought her out and forced this upon her, because the argument is that she made herself a target, and therefore deserved it.
It's okay for people to look pityingly on me, for my lack of emotional maturity. It's okay for them to tell me that I have yet to grow as a person, still a prisoner of my past, that I take things personally. However, I find it really difficult to have all the things she did demeaned, in normative asides about a minor character on a tv show made in LA. Pity me, but never pity or patronise her or women all around the world constrained by terrible choices we might never have to face. They are bigger than this. They do heroic things, risky things, quietly, away from the world's eyes that Buffy, a fictional character would not conceive of. They do it without being armed, without defences, without superstrength. Their lives are not fiction, nor made up by scriptwriters to illustrate grand truths about whether it is better to make grand gestures or to give up being the chosen one and be 'normal'. They just live their lives, making the choices they have to. They don't face morally ambiguous vampires seeking to give them what they really really want, they face morally ambiguous humans who won't have a life planned out where they eventually get redeemed or get a soul. Please consider this when making statements about what other human beings should do, and what their motivations are. Confine it to the compass of the tv show where the variables are known to us.
I even know I'm exasperating people by saying that I'm not going to post about this anymore. Why not just stay quiet and not saying anything at all? But you all know how notorious my lack of self-discipline is. I hope by saying it out loud, and getting out of the habit of talking about and discussing BtVS, I really will find it easier to stick to this decision.
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The person addressed in the above post is ME -- Rahael, 06:26:00 03/31/03 Mon
Not any poster here, of course.
I like taking what ME says and viewing life with it, but I just can't do it with this storyline. It disturbs me on a general level because yet again, they are careless the implications. It disturbs me on a deeper level because....well, you know.
And if I don't take it on a deeper level? There's no difference in the way I'll enjoy it and the way I currently enjoy watching Alias.
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But the story isn't done yet... -- ponygirl, 07:46:43 03/31/03 Mon
... and I keep remembering that this season has been about what people see. This long complicated thread is proof of that. We all see with different eyes to construct a picture of Nikki and what ME is saying. From Wood four year old's perspective, his mother chose the mission over him. Well, a four year old is monstrously selfish, and Wood seems frozen at that point. Will he be able to see as Spike does that his mother did love him after all and move on? We don't know yet. And Spike, he speaks some truth, but does he speak the whole truth? Does he speak ME's truth? Again we don't know.
For myself, in the brief scenes that we have of Nikki I see a woman doing her duty both to her Calling and to her son as best she can. We don't know what choices she had to make, and I don't know if we ever will. All we are given is a woman who loves her son, but also realizes that there are larger forces that she has to deal with. I never even considered that she could give up her mission for her son until Spike suggested it. That's not how Slayers work, Spike knows it, but maybe Wood in his heart does not.
As for Nikki, I never got the "suicide by Spike" theory. Even in FFL I saw only rage in Nikki's face. We don't know what happened in the subway. Her hands may have slipped, her arms weakened, she may indeed have been curious for a moment about what would happen if Spike won. As Spike says it's a natural curiousity for a Slayer who makes and shapes death every day of her life. It doesn't mean that she was suicidal. That she looked for death. That again is one perspective.
I wish I had more time to write longer, because it's very interesting the twists this thread has taken. In any case, I would miss your perspective Rahael if you chose not to post.
Take care.
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The Truth and the Fury -- and the edge of despair (spoilers for LMPTM) -- Random, 09:08:45 03/31/03 Mon
The prerequisites of great art, great narratives, include one very powerful device: the ability to multiply complexity through ambiguity. Hence the centuries-old debate on whether Hamlet is mad, acting, or -- as I see it -- a little of both. Hence the realization, almost too late, that Rochester may possibly be as mad is his trapped wife. Hence the fact that another Fury-penned episode arouses such powerful and mixed reactions in the veiwing public when we watch as Spike is consumned with love -- and chains the obect of his love to a wall and threatens her with death.
This is why I love BtVS and AtS. Ambiguity and complexity. ME rarely goes for the simple answer -- much of this board owes its existence to that fact. Gilse feels intense regret at his youthful exploits that end in the death of a friend, yet murders a man to prevent the possibility of a future threat. Did he do it in cold blood? We'll never know the conflict he suffered within, whether he lost a portion of his humanity that night or whether he accepted the necessity in the spirit of a matyr. Angelus killed thousands and Angel spends his existence trying to escape this through atonement. Yet he locks a group of lawyers in a room and leaves them to die horribly at the hands of two vampires. Is his atonement a lie? Has ME deceived us? Are we perhaps standing on the edge of the abyss of pure, unadulterated despair...for if this is the stark truth, that we must ultimately accept that nothing is good or worthy in the end, then we are a half-step into the darkness and already lost beyond redemption.
I cannot accept this. I will not accept this. I watched FFL and it was one of the most powerful hours of TV I've ever seen. I left believing that Spike was wiser than I had given him credit for...and know that his wisdom was deeply flawed. He saw the big picture, understood the very nature of the war -- but missed the complex network of cracks and crevices that threaten to destroy his perception. He missed the point that defined the essential nature of his role on BtVS. He failed to completely understand why he had killed two Slayers and yet Buffy had not only survived his obsession, she had transformed it in ways that would nearly destroy him over the next two seasons.
And so we come to the Spike in LMPTM. We watch as Spike suffers from a delusion that spans more than a century, and watch his epiphany. And damned if I didn't suddenly realize that Spike could very well have been wrong in his epiphany. It was something he needed to believe, that much is true. But he had lived a "lie" for longer than the collective lives of the original four Scoobies and now we know that we cannot merely accept his word at face value. At the crux of the matter is the fact that he can be wrong...and what mattered, when all was said and done, is that he found the right straw to grasp at to emerge from his suffering, the regret that mastered his subconscious so insidiously that the First could consume him. Or maybe Spike was right...but we now know that his word alone cannot be trusted. And if we believe he could be wrong about himself and his own mother for a century, we must believe he could be wrong about Nikki. I believe Spike has suffered, and I applauded the fact that he moved past it. But I don't trust his word merely because he has had some insightful moments. He was a vicious killer just a step below Angelus for decades. He formulated theories that aided and abetted in the kill. The predator must understand its prey to survive. But in the end, when the predator sinks its teeth into the prey's throat, it will never understand just what is truly lost, the hopes and fears and dreams and loves of the prey, the children who have lost a mother, or a father, the friends who will never find comfort or happiness from the victim's company again.
The Mission is what matters.... What is the nature of this mission? We see the parallels between Nikki and Buffy -- ME hammers them in -- and we remember that Buffy hurls down the silver cross in a final rejection of her destiny in PG. And then comes Willow. One girl, a friend for less than a year, and Buffy understands at last what it means for her to be a Slayer. Those we love, those who are lost or helpless: Buffy dies at the Master's hands because a friend in pain taught her her greatest lesson. Nikki fights and kills, risking her life every night. And finally dies alone, on a subway, without the simple dignity of being remembered by anyone except a Watcher, a four year old son and the demon that murdered her. And who is to say that this all wasn't the end result of a simple realization...that the demons and the forces of darkness threaten her son. She cannot simply quit and let somebody else fight -- she must die before a new Slayer is created. And she cannot kill herself to that end. Her son would still be helpless, and would then be alone as well. So perhaps we are witnessing one of the most profound acts of love and simple dignity on the show, an act that finds its parallel in Buffy's decision in PG. Perhaps we are witnessing a mother sacrificing not only her life, but her day-to-day living in the name of love. We will likely never discover the truth...but if we do, it will not be from Spike's lips. Spike offers only theories, insights. He cannot offer truth any more than Wood can, or Buffy, or Giles.
And if Spike accepts that it was a war and we all pay the consequences of our choices, he can do nothing else except accept that his obsession with and killing of the Slayer led to the creation of the man who would try to kill him. It doesn't make him a murderer, nor does it absolve him from that charge. It merely makes him the architect of his own future. He kills the Slayer, and a quarter-century later, that killing comes back to haunt him. If he fails to realize this, he cannot attack Wood for not seeing the big picture without indicting himself. Wood may be love's bitch, but at least he's man enough to admit it too. He knows what's at stake, he knows why he wants to kill Spike. He may have been wrong, and may have been blind to his error, but he isn't guilty of self-deception. He doesn't claim a noble purpose. Just fury, loss and vengeance. Spike's greatest moment comes when he lets Wood live because he was responsible for killing Wood's mother. Perhaps -- and I can think of no other viable alternative interpretation -- perhaps he understood, if only for a minute, that he was dealing with a real human being, a man who suffered by Spike's actions, and understood that war is not merely chess, with marble pawns moved about a board...it is fought by men and women who fight not merely for glory, but for love, for justice, for their own preservation. If Spike's newly-returned soul teaches him nothing else, that would be lesson enough to redeem a whole multitude of his actions as a pure vampire.
~Random
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Very good post. Agree. -- s'kat, 10:43:32 03/31/03 Mon
Eloquently stated as well. And part of what I was attempting to get at, but clearly not very well.
Thank you for stating that.
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Very well done. -- Sophist, 10:51:35 03/31/03 Mon
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Very nice, however... -- Calvin, 11:20:57 03/31/03 Mon
...you scared me with your title. I thought it was going to be a long screed against David Fury. I was all set to be indignant (I really, really liked this episode) and then you go and write what I was thinking. Nice job.
Calvin
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Re: Angel threads it is then -- dream, 10:49:39 03/31/03 Mon
**Got what she wanted. A woman on a mission who should have stayed at home and not sought danger. ...I can't even argue that a killer sought her out and forced this upon her, because the argument is that she made herself a target, and therefore deserved it.***
I just have to say, I am not getting this reading at all. We don't know much about Nikki. We know she had a child, and tried to protect him, and spoke to him with the gentleness and kindness of a good mother. We know she died in a fight with Spike. We know she was extremely committed to a very dangerous job which she was conscripted for - a job which resulted in her saving lives all the time. That's ALL we know. All of that is very good. We also have an extremely unreliable witness who says that she didn't love her child (when we see with our own eyes that she did) and that she had a death-wish (which may or may not be true - and if true, would also be quite understandable in her circumstances of constant, unending battle and danger). Yes, her son came out, well, less than desirable. But she wasn't the one who raised him (and given that she was out saving the world, which happens to have her son in it, I don't think this is blameworthy). I think, given the painful Giles plotline here, we're supposed to be looking at the Watcher who raised Wood, not at Nikki.
I just wanted to say this, because someone mentioned that you haven't seen the episode yet, and I know you're in England, and, well, it's just to easy to read other people's interpretations and assume that they are correct, that they represent what ME has in mind. That said, I know I wouldn't enjoy reading the board if I hadn't seen the episode (and avoid it until I've seen it.) I've also learned that there are certain threads I should avoid because the inevitable arguments frustrate me. And there's even at least one poster (no, I'm not telling) whose view of the show is so completely annoying to me I never read his/her posts. So if the board is interfering with your enjoyment of the show, I understand your wanting to stay away. That said, I would miss your insights.
You are certainly right about Nikki being a tragic figure, though. But not pointless - she saved lives.
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Re: A puzzled plea -- JM, 05:42:39 03/31/03 Mon
Well, I'm motivated to post on "Angel" now. I always look for your posts. No more slacking on my part. New ep this week. Should be plenty to discuss.
Not entirely sure that the interpretation IS the correct one, though could be and SK's essay as always is interesting. I thought that the ep said more about Spike's mindset (including that the soul didn't make him automatically good) than it did about the writers. But respect your decision. Sometimes I have to go off-line too, not for such deeply felt reasons, but too many ideas bumping around in my head.
I hope you are able to enjoy the eps when you get them. I suspect I'm going to have to go back and watch S7 over without interuptions and commentary to form an accurate picture myself.
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Please post, please share -- lunasea, 10:47:24 03/31/03 Mon
I think it's unfair for me to participate in these discussions. How can I be objective? How can my heart not go out to Nikki? How can I fail not to be indignant and protective on her behalf when people say that the blame for her death rests squarely with her and no one else? Is it fair that I bring this to the debate? And the answer that has resounded more and more loudly is "no".
My circumstances are not quite what yours were, but my heart also goes out to Nikki. What mother's doesn't? ME is full of new babies now and they know what feelings children bring out in us. I can't agree that ME doesn't want us to be sympathetic towards Nikki or Robin. The rain was the tears of heaven at the situation.
A slayer was raped. She was forced to be Slayer. She doesn't choose anything. She is chosen. How can I not care about these young women and just dismiss their deaths as part of the war? Spike is an ass.
If this makes people embarased and uncomfortable, good. The world needs that feeling. It keeps us from loosing our humanity.
But I agree on the Angel posts. I hope there are lots and lots, especially as the final 5 show which sets up next season.
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Re: A promise to the board (Spoilers for aired buffy S7 eps) -- aliera, 04:10:47 03/31/03 Mon
Well, I go back and forth too and tend to take breathers.
I'll try to write you more later rahael...but I don't feel that's what ME is saying. I can't quantify it and quote voluminous texty references but if there's death it feels more of a statement about life and the hero's life than a statement about women's lives.
My senses on these types of issues are rather more over developed than not and I'm not getting that here. I'm late again for work so must run but more later.
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Rah, please don't go! (An alternate view of Nikki, the Mission and 'One Good Day') -- cjl, 08:19:54 03/31/03 Mon
Rah, I hope you will reconsider giving up posting on Buffy. Your posts always provide a fresh perspective to often perplexing episodes. But if you feel it's a matter of principle, and you must, then...you must. I'll respect and even admire the stance, if I don't necessarily like the results.
But before I leave this topic, I'd like to take a shot at putting forward my own view of Nikki and the Slayer's life in general. (Don't know if it'll help, but I have to try...)
I don't think Nikki consciously committed suicide. I don't think she sent Robin to Crowley's house, sighed in resignation, then went out to make Spike the instrument of her death. However, I do buy that she was exhausted from the stress of taking care of a young child whose safety had just been compromised (remember, they couldn't "go home" anymore) and the burden of protecting the entire freakin' world from the horrors of the supernatural. That kind of pressure would take its toll on anyone.
You see it on police officers all the time. Having to go out into the streets, day after day, putting their lives in danger to protect a citizenry that barely understands the risks of the profession. Most of the time, the police officer sees only the worst of humanity, the dark side, the demons inside the people they're supposed to protect. Quite often, it is up to their fellow officers, their families and friends to give them balance, access to the positive side of humanity. If there's not enough of that balance, there's the danger of being worn down by the corrosive effects of seeing so much ugliness, and the lingering doubt whispering from the back of the mind gets a bit louder: why am I doing this? What's the point? But, in the large majority of cases, the officer simply puts those doubts aside and goes on with the Mission, protecting the community, protecting those they love.
The Slayer's life is the life of the local cop, magnified to the Nth degree. Instead of the rare life-or-death confrontation, the Slayer constantly puts her life on the line against the demons of the world. And when she has her doubts or her moments of pain and sadness, she may not be lucky enough to have the quiet night on the beat until the moment passes. The slightest hesitation, the slightest distraction, and there's an opening for the implacable enemy to move in for the kill. The vampire has his "one good day."
Nikki was a dedicated Slayer. Nikki loved Robin. I think she went after Spike because she imagined Spike feeding off a young couple in Central Park, or a passenger waiting for the Lexington Avenue subway line at 59th Street. (Maybe an 18 year-old cjl.) Tired and heartsick as she was, she could do no less. She was killed in the line of duty. She should not be judged a failure as a Slayer or a mother or a human being for this.
Stick around, Rah. The community is a better place with you here.
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Sniffle - re Nikki's story -- Rahael, 09:03:48 03/31/03 Mon
Still here - have no intention of going. I need you guys, all of you even when I don't agree with everyone's posts!
I love the clash of debates and arguments and the producing of great posts out of conflict, consensus and communication.
I hate it when the board gets tense and angry. I hate it when I contribute to it being this way. And I am really crappy about not letting it out. I just am so headstrong and I sit too close to a computer at work....LOL!
And I hate pissing people of for quite understandable reasons. So you know, not going to do it. God, you guys were lucky I wasn't posting when Seeing Red aired.
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Re: Sniffle - re Nikki's story -- Celebaelin, 10:46:35 03/31/03 Mon
I'm not entirely sure I'm reading the board or ME the same way as you are at the moment. I'm sorry you're so upset about the current majority stance on Nikki but, when you feel you can, please don't hesitate to post your views, opinions and feelings. Getting another viewpoint is surely what this is about?
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Re: Sniffle - re Nikki's story -- Arethusa, 11:18:24 03/31/03 Mon
You know that I'm highly ambivalent regarding parents and their missions. I can't make moral judgements on them because the pride I feel and the pain I feel don't cancel each other out-they simply exist in tandem. It is just the way things worked out, and I can accept that.
The child in Robin wanted Nikki to put him first, to live for him. An adult knows that a parent does what she must. Nikki didn't show she didn't love Robin by choosing the mission. After all, he had to live in a world filled with vampires and demons too. She was trying to make his world safe the best way she could, the way she was best suited to-by killing demons. We may see it as protecting the world, but I bet Nikki also saw it as protecting her helpless little boy.
Did Nikki want to die? The evidence shows that Nikki fought hard and lost-nothing else. She did not beg for mercy-that was Spike's lie. If it were true, we would have seen it, as Spike is telling the story. We never saw her give up or hesitate. If Spike can convince himself this slayer/mother wanted to die, than maybe he wouldn't have to feel guilty for killing her, like he killed his own mother.
I don't think Nikki really thought she couuld protect her son better by dying, leaving him all one in the world except for her watcher. Watchers aren't known for paternal feelings-it's officially forbidden. Crowley quit to raise Robin, probably very much against CoW's orders. Nikki didn't train Robin to protect himself. Robin turned his head when the trash can fell over, as if he was suprised by the sound. And Nikki praises him for hiding, not for distracting the killer vampire with his presence. She tells Robin that they can't go home, takes him to safety, and goes off to kill the vampire who has declared his intent to stalk her to death. If she dies, how does Nikki know that Spike won't decide to expand his trophy hunting to include the only known child of a slayer?
Death is always a suprise, even when we expect it, as Tara said. Nikki wanted to be with her son and protect him, and died trying. Moral judgements are little more than second guessing a decision very few of us ever have to make.
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ARRRG! What did I start now? The deleted intro. and Nikki fiasco -- s'kat, 10:16:35 03/31/03 Mon
Sigh. Okay that's it, I'm going to give you my deleted intro which goes into writers block and my fears of posting this whole doo-dad. And why I stopped writing essays for a while.
As an aside, you know you've been on the board too long, when you discover someone threatening they'll leave because of something you said. And you wish you didn't post something and think, gee maybe I should be the one leaving the board and should never have posted this?
First off...you misread my post. That's okay. It happens.
I did not mean to state that poor dear Nikki deserved to die. Nor is that what the writers are stating. Nothing close to it. What I tried to state is what cjl points out so eloquently below, but since the whole debate annoys me, I said it wrong. I never meant to state that Spike was blameless, he wasn't. My post was about how we shouldn't follow authority unquestionably. How we should learn from them and judge for ourselves. I think that was the message of LMPTM, how one must empower themselves - not live their lives based on others views or acceptance or opinions or approval. I'm sorry you didn't get that from the essays.
I wrote this to break a killer of a writer's block. What gave me the writer's block? fear. i thought I'd lost the ability to write well. I kept deleting my own thoughts. And I thought I couldn't write any more at all. Everything I wrote, I hated. I thought it was too emotional. Unclear.
I lost faith in the words. And I began to panic.
(Remember when you said how afriad you were to post an essay? Well, so am I.) For days I stopped myself from writing it. I'd write, delete. Until I literally became constipated - writing wise. Couldn't write. Couldn't post. Became incredibly depressed. So Friday, I decided - go ahead and just write, get it all out of your system. Your (me not you) anger at the war. Your anger at authority figures who push us into wars. Your feelings of frustration and futility. Just write. And you don't have to post it. If you do? People may ignore you. Probably will. So I wrote.
Started it with the following two page intro, which I deleted b/c thought it was silly and took away from the essay, but from some of the weird comments and reactions I've gotten, I almost wish I'd kept it. Let's face it writing is not for cowards. Nor is posting to internet posting boards. My friends think I'm certifiable yet incredibly gutsy for doing this. PErhaps they are right. : "This essay is divided into sections, the first is a rant, and it starts below. If you hate rants? Just ignore or better yet don't read this section and skip to the next two. Who knows you might luck out and I won't even post or write the rant, I've deleted the rant five times already. I don't know what the next two sections will entail yet - probably whatever is at the forefront of my brian that I think might free me up writing wise once I spit it out. My guess is it will probably be centered on Giles/Wesely. Wood/Holtz...But that could change. Hopefully only the first section will feel like a rant to people. I do have a piece of unsolicited advice for the readers and watchers out there, one I've borrowed from David Fury of all people, he posted this on the Bronze Beta V.I.P Board.
'If you don't like it? Turn it off!' If you don't like a post? Ignore it. It will disappear. I know this is incredibly difficult for some people - but hey, it's better than looking like a two-bit jerk, which believe me is exactly what you look like when you attack a poster. I've deleted countless responses to posts I didn't like. [And didn't delete a few that I wish I had, ie the one that started this whole thread...to lakrids, should have just ignored it, bad me.] Hmmm that may be the other reason for the writer's block. I've managed to constipate myself. By the way go to the Bronze Beta VIP and read David Fury's post on March 26, it's a wonderful read. He says a few things I completely agree with.
Okay...well dang it, blocked again. I guess I don't have a rant after all. So what to write?
Evil Muse: why don't you write that essay about evil authority figures and structures?
S'Kat: I can't do that, people will hate me. It will cause discord. Remember the whole arguement on Homeland Security and Iraq?
Evil Muse: Give me a break. You aren't writing it becuase you're scared of ranting at the folks who think Giles is being written oddly or out of character and who are too dimwitted to see that he's always been ineffectual war-monger etc..
S'kat: how can you say that about Giles or those posters..
Evil Muse: You're a coward. A mouse. Not a cat. You should change your name - I know shadowmouse.
S'Kat: I resent that. But you may have a point, perhaps I should just write the authority post and see where it leads without deleting anything...maybe it will unblock me. I don't have to post it after all.
Evil Muse: (cackling evilly) : There you go.
S'kat: not sure I can post this first part though...particularly since I stole the concept of evil muse from OnM and HonorH.
Evil Muse: Puhplease. You know as well as I do that that was an idea. There are a) no new ideas and b) ideas aren't copyrightable. There are just new ways of telling them.
S'Kat(sighing): True but I think I stole the format from OnM..and people are going to hate what I have to say about their beloved Giles...
Evil Muse: I doubt OnM would mind, he/she sounds like a cool laid back sort of person and stop dithering, already, i can tell you're stalling and only constipating yourself further. I swear it takes you forever and a day to get to the bloody point!! Write the essay, you're just boring people.
[So much so I deleted all this crap.]
End of pointless discussion with self, now you know how writer's block happens, or rather writer's constipation. That's right - fear and dithering. Okay this might be a bit of a ramble, apologizing for it in advance....
Before I start - a quick note, since some people may think I'm bashing Giles. I'm not. Giles is the reason I started to watch Btvs. He is one of my all time favorite characters. My biggest pet peeve since coming online is the way some fans want to romanticize and glamorize cool characters. For some reason - a character can't be complex with tons of faults and still be a favorite. Heaven forbid they might be evil at times or have some really nasty traits. No some people, like it or not, prefer plain vanilla, mix in a little rocky road and you've ruined things for them. I'm a rocky road and peppermint stick girl myself. Vanilla bores me. My least favorite characters are the plain vanilla ones. In a word? BORING! Oh and if I just pushed your buttons? Just you wait, Henry Higgins, just you wait...we've only just begun...bwahhhahhh!!"
See, aren't you happy I deleted that?
I'm sorry if my essays upset anyone. But I am not sorry for posting them - since I read some wonderful responses that made me think. And that's the point isn't it? To discuss?
I write to figure stuff out. I occassionally change my mind about something in mid-process. I did change my mind about Giles, btw. I think leslie is actually right on this one.
As is Cebelain and Darby.
On the whole Nikki thing? I don't think she meant to die.
She decided pretty much at the last minute, one little hesititation. Remember that's what Spike tells Wood and Buffy at different points. In the alley in LMPTM when he saves Wood's life - he says, a tip mate - have a stake don't be afraid to use it. A lesson Wood doesn't learn btw.
If he had, Spike would be dust. He give Buffy the same lesson in FFL - you can't give up for even a second, or I have my one good day.
I think the whole debate is actually over a minor thing:
should spike feel remorse for killing someone whose job it is to kill him? (It's not: should Spike feel remorse for killing a human being or should Nikki feel remorse for killing vampires or any of that stuff. Of cours on the first and of course not on the second.) I don't see Nikki
as a cop so much as a well solider or fighter against forces of darkness. It's fantasy. The vampires are a plague, she needs to kill them. But my personal emotional take on this is well irrelevant.
This, and I do this for you Rah, is what I believe the writers take is, Joss Whedon ages ago wrote a screenplay he loved for a movie called Suspension. The movie is about an ex-con who went to prison for killing a cop. In the movie he is forced to aid a bunch of cops against terrorists. He doesn't want to, but the only way he can get out of NJ and across the bridge to NY is by doing so. Along the way he changes. What fascinated Whedon is how do the cops deal with him and vice versa. Whedon never got that script filmed. But he's doing that story now with Spike.
Spike - is metaphorically speaking a copkiller. He prided himself on it, like some criminals do. Now he is faced with a) being in love with the equivalent of a cop b) having seen her die, c) dealing with the son of the last cop he killed and d) dealing with the resulting feelings.
Does Spike feel remorse for it? I don't know yet. We have five more episodes. It's a bit too soon to judge either way.
For those who haven't seen it? LMPTM is a cliff-hanger.
Nothing is resolved.
Sorry, I didn't make any of this clear earlier, it might have saved a lot of pain and suffering on the board.
obviously over-react emotionally to some posts myself.
Hope that clarified things. And didn't just make everything worse like my previous post did.
SK
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You owe no apologies S'k. -- Sophist, 11:00:47 03/31/03 Mon
Your posts have been clear and insightful. Regret not.
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You'll note that I liked your essay. My complaints are with ME -- Rahael, 11:27:28 03/31/03 Mon
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Ah...makes me feel better. -- s'kat, 12:02:12 03/31/03 Mon
Can understand that. I've been having my own grudge match with ME over the whole character of Wood and the Wood/Buffy relationship - it pushes my buttons.
I've also been wrestling with what they are saying with the whole N/W/S story - for much of the reasons you stated above. But Areustha, Random, Dyna, and cjl managed to change my mind on that. Read what they stated.
I think they are right. They also all give the most even handed approach to all three players. Those and leslie's
views on the topic are the best I've read on N/S/W debate.
Thanks for the compliment. Glad you're still here.
And really do wait until you see the episode.
SK
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Poor Jane......link to post about redemption -- Rufus, 22:13:41 03/30/03 Sun
I've been going over some of the posts from that WtP person and came upon a post from last May I just had to say something on......it's at the Trollop board and there are no specific spoilers so just read that post
Redemption and WtP
I'm saying something and it's not just about ships but our emotional responses to what people do or don't do.
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Thank you Rufus -- s'kat, 22:40:59 03/30/03 Sun
I am truly loving you today. Not only do you post some amazing stuff on myth and the Marvelverse and Tarot cards, you make me feel a little better by directing me to this great post on your board without spoiling me.
I was beginning to regret my knee-jerk response to poor lakrids. He/she really pushed my buttons. And no it wasn't just the cheekbones comment. It was well what I described above to Scroll.
What frustrates me about so many of the Wood/Spike responses, is people use Nikki's death as means of bashing Spike and demonstrating how he's evil. Sort of like they used the AR attempt. Or people used the whole Jenny Calender's death and the lawyers being locked up and Angel almost killing Wes as proof he's still bad. It's annoying. Instead of focusing on why this is interesting - which is, what is the one thing Spike was the most proud of as a vampire? Killing two vampire slayers. To our knowledge he is the only vampire still alive who has managed this. It made him a legend. And he wears the medals of both - the first gave him his scar. The second his coat. In his first appearence in the series - he introduces himself by bragging about it.
Now he's faced with the fact that one of those slayers had a son. A son who he has saved the life of and now is gunning for him. Very interesting.
I'm not sure if it will continue to play out or not. But that fascinates me. Not these morale pronouncements about characters that exist in a fantasy show.
Hope made sense. Probably doesn't.
Thanks again for link, printed it off.
SK
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Why Spike should have apologized -- lunasea, 09:58:54 03/31/03 Mon
From IOHEFY "To forgive is an act of compassion, Buffy. It's, it's not done because people deserve it. It's done because they need it."
If Spike had apologized it would have been an act of compassion to Wood. It would have allowed Wood to show that compassion to Spike and thus come to terms with what happened. Instead Spike was to put it bluntly an ass.
The Slayer doesn't choose anything. She is Chosen. Spike not only didn't give Wood a way out of his pain, but Spike build his own self esteem on his back. It reminded me of "Lover's Walk." "At least I am man enough to admit it." This time it was your mother didn't love you, but mine did, so nah-nah-nah-nah-nah.
Spike has shown no real growth towards being a human being since getting his soul. It isn't moonbeams and penny whistles and you used me. Duh! How about making it a little easier on our fellow human beings rather than being a prick and hurting them more?
I am still waiting for Spike's scene that will be like Angel's in "Darla" where he saved the missionairies and their baby from the creature that meant the most to him. Until that happens, Spike is still a putz. He had a chance to reach out to a fellow creature in pain and he didn't take it. Everytimes he doesn't, he is less of a man.
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I agree -- huh, 17:08:01 03/30/03 Sun
I didn't see any ranting or bashing in the lakrids's post above or anything that was in the least bit against you, sk.
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I wanted to be wrong -- lunasea, 09:44:30 03/31/03 Mon
I wanted to like Spike or at least hate him. He is still pretty pathetic. That is one emotion I am getting tired of. It works fine in small doses, but it is getting to be a bit much.
But you know what? If Spike had apologised? I would've loved him again. I would've respected him. He would've been the bigger man. (Yes, I know he didn't kill Wood, but I'm not going to give anyone points because they didn't kill somebody! :) That Spike didn't apologise is entirely in character. It's consistent with who he is, and I don't have a problem with that.
To me, Spike is an interesting character, very complex and conflicted. He saw Nikki the Slayer; he refused to see Nikki the Mother. Which is entirely keeping with his revelation that his mom had truly loved him, whereas Vamp!Anne's words stemmed entirely from the demon. (Personally I think he's wrong, and hopefully the writers will address this soon.) But for the simple reason that Spike put back on Wood's dead mother's coat, I can't respect him. Could just be me, though.
I agree completely, so it isn't just you.
I hope all went well on your exam.
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S'k, I think you took lakrids's comments too personally. -- Sophist, 19:53:43 03/30/03 Sun
I don't think he meant that you personally were seduced by the dark side of the cheekbones. Lakrids's basic point -- why didn't Spike simply apologize? -- is very fair. That was my first reaction, and it has taken a great deal of explication by you and leslie (mostly) for me to understand all the nuances of that scene.
And lakrids, no need to ask for your post to be deleted.
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Re: S'k, I think you took lakrids's comments too personally. -- Rufus, 22:17:13 03/30/03 Sun
Lakrids's basic point -- why didn't Spike simply apologize? -- is very fair.
Oh, I can answer that question about an apology....
People don't always do exactly what you think they should at exactly the time you want them to....doesn't mean you write them off cause specially now on BTVS...it ain't over til the final credits run....;)
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In Defense of Giles (spoiler LMPTM) -- lunasea, 17:54:52 03/30/03 Sun
That was pretty harsh. Giles is a human being. He is complex and wonderful. He isn't all moonbeams and penny whistles. One of my favorite episodes is "Prophecy Girl."
It is the first time we see the relationship between Buffy and Giles really form. Before the credits even roll, we see how Buffy is starting to feel about Giles "Three in one night. Giles would be so proud." Also in the intro we have the Master and the Annointed One interacting, much like father/son. After the credits roll, we have a "daughter" who deperately wants her "father's" love "Giles, care? I'm putting my life on the line battling the undead. Look, I broke a nail, okay? I'm wearing a press-on. The least you could do is exhibit some casual interest. You could go, 'hmm'." What is so beautiful is that Buffy doesn't realize the reason Giles' is so distracted is because he does care so much about her.
In "Prophecy Girl" we see the dynamic between Giles/Buffy, father/daughter, the two of them trying to protect the other that will cause them both lots and lots of heartache as the series progresses. Giles doesn't want to have to tell Buffy about Codex, but how she does find out leads to her extreme reaction. When Buffy decides she is going to have to do something, Giles has already decided something, he is going to protect Buffy by facing the Master himself. This means that Buffy goes into not only "protecting kids she doesn't even know" mode, but she has to protect Giles as well. Giles retorts "I'm older and wiser than you, and just... just do what you're told for once! Alright?" What parent hasn't at least thought that (and most of us have said it, even though we promised ourselves we wouldn't). She has to knock Giles out and thus looses a powerful ally in this.
When she gets down to the Master's lair she finds out, "You are not the hunter. You are the lamb." Both she and Giles are so wrapped up in their roles as protectors, that they don't see this coming. "But prophecies are tricky creatures. They don't tell you everything. You're the one that sets me free! If you hadn't come, I couldn't go. Think about that!" When parents only think about protecting their children, they end up not being able to protect them at all and set them up for the fall.
Buffy and Giles relationship is so complicated, just like a real life father/daughter. Recently I figured out that I would never get my father's actual approval. It wasn't that he didn't love me or that we don't get along. It was that he doesn't understand me. He never will. You can't really approve of what you don't understand. My father and I are interested in the same things, but we have a big difference. He uses these things to escape the world and I see them as key to understanding it.
Giles' relationship with Buffy is similar. Giles just can't quite understand where Buffy is coming from. He is proud that she can come from there, as he tells her in Spiral, but that isn't his place. When it comes down to it, because he doesn't understand, when it gets in the way, he does what he has to from his place.
In LMPTM we see the same thing, though now it is Buffy's turn. She can't understand where Giles is coming from. Leaving out the confession about Ben was a big mistake. Giles didn't just do that to protect the world. He did it to protect Buffy in some respects (I loved the symbolism of the dress as Buffy's innocence in "Prophecy Girl"). He did the same thing here. Spike was a danger to Buffy more than anyone else. Giles was neutralizing that danger and protecting Buffy from having to do it. He was willing to face the Master again for her.
It is pretty unfair to lump Giles together with the Watcher's Council. Part of the beauty of his character is that he isn't quite the typical Watcher. He doesn't even give Buffy the Slayer's Handbook. He adapts to her and doesn't try to force her into the Slayer mold. We see what Buffy would have been like if she hadn't come to Sunnydale in "The Wish." Buffy is what she is because 1)she had Giles as a Watcher, 2) she fell in love with Angel and 3)she had Xander and Willow as friends. Giles is every important to the Slayer that Buffy has become.
If you want to hold up how ineffective Giles was season 1, how about how he held Buffy together when Angel lost his soul season 2? "No. I don't believe it is. Do you want me to wag my finger at you and tell you that you acted rashly? You did. A-and I can. I know that you loved him. And... he... has proven more than once that he loved you. You couldn't have known what would happen. The coming months a-are gonna, are gonna be hard... I, I suspect on all of us, but... if it's guilt you're looking for, Buffy, I'm, I'm not your man. All you will get from me is, is my support. And my respect." Also what he says in IOHEFY.
Giles' strength isn't in his brain or his authority. It is in recognizing Buffy's heart. (same thing with Angel)
In LMPTM, Buffy is a child. She can't hold more than one image of her "parent" in her mind at a time. She forgot all about the complex man she knew for 7 years. Instead she is willing to shut the door on the entire package that is Giles. She is making more and more mistakes as the season goes on.
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Sigh...read my post to Darby above. -- s'kat, 22:53:07 03/30/03 Sun
Giles is one of my favorite characters. Actually the reason I watched the show in S1-3. But I think you are missing something important here.
As a father - Giles is wonderful. As a watcher - he is horrible. When he goes with his father instincts, he's great. When he goes with his Watcher instincts not so great - the Watcher ones are the one's I listed above.
And he was wrong in how he went about it. She was right to shut him out of her bedroom. He has no place there.
He did betray her, just as he did in Helpless.
And she was right to knock him out in Prophecy Girl - if she hadn't he'd have died.
I deliberately focused on the negative to make a point.
That Giles while a decent father, is not an effectual leader. And there comes a time, like it or not, that we need to break with our father.
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You can't seperate people into their roles -- lunasea, 08:17:33 03/31/03 Mon
Giles, Nikki, Anne, Buffy, Robin and William were all people, complicated people, which since this is the Buffyverse and the characters are portrayed by wonderful actors, we get to see that complexity.
Was it Giles' Watcher's instinct that made him decide not to give Buffy the Slayer's Handbook? Was it Giles' Watchers instinct that comforted her when Angel lost his soul? Was it Giles' Watchers instinct that allowed him to even accept the help of a vampire, souled or unsouled? All these things contributed to his effectiveness as Buffy's Watcher. Without Giles we get Wishverse Buffy. He was incredibly effective as her Watcher.
It is really easy to label everything "negative" as Watchers instincts. Human's don't operate that way. We have instincts, period.
It is children that seperate people this way. Not one of the parents really lied. It was the children that perceived it that way. The three children involved--Buffy, Robin and William all have incredibly simple and childish views of their parents, still. It isn't about breaking away from their parent. It is about this black and white view the children have that won't allow them to see their parent as anything but this.
I was working on a post about this, but this time of the month, my analytical writing sucks. Spike saw his mother as either the woman who loved and encouraged him or the woman who was burdened by and resented him. Childish Spike can't hold both images in his mind at the same time. Before he held the burdened and resented image. Now he blew that off as a demon that laid into him. His mom loved him. Sure she did, but she also felt everything she did when she was vamped. It doesn't mean she didn't love him. He is confusing unconditional love with unconditional approval, like a small child does. That is Spike's problem. If Buffy approves of anything he does, he thinks she loves him.
(it is the flip side of Liam, who confused his father's disapproval for lack of love)
He takes the same black and white view of Nikki and Robin. Nikki Wood tried to protect her son Robin. They had a tough life. She not only wanted to protect his life, which isn't easy in a world where you not only know what goes bump in the night, but have to face it. She also wanted to protect him against her eventual loss. She had him focus on the mission, so that when the inevitable came, he could handle it. She tried to protect him from her extended absences by getting him to see the mission above all else. She dried his tears, not with encouragement, but pink fluffy fiberglass insulation. That doesn't mean she didn't love him.
Which brings us to Buffy. Giles is the man that has helped keep her heart alive, when Angel has been unable to be there. He built her the training room in the back of his own shop. He is the man that was proud of her in Spiral. Buffy can't hold that image in her mind at the same time as the one that killed Ben and would kill Spike to protect her. Giles wasn't just removing a threat. He wasn't just removing a threat Buffy was unwilling to remove. He was removing a threat to Buffy herself. He was the father trying to protect his child. Buffy just sees it as you are either with me or you are against me.
Things just aren't so black and white in the Buffyverse. Lies my parents told me. What a childish attitude.
Then again, that is just that attitude that Buffy has and ME tends to make us feel what Buffy does. Perhaps they focused on his ineptness this season, so that the audience would. Five episodes left. Will Buffy actually grow up and realize that independence doesn't mean shutting the door on people?
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Thank you Everyone. Nice to know I haven't lost my touch ;-) -- shadowkat, 23:07:14 03/30/03 Sun
Spent two days writing the thing...so good to know it was appreciated.
Thanks muchly.
SK
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