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There's a difference between writing a flawed character and inadvertently revealing something about yourself through writing. Xander, especially in the beginning, is giving off massive 'nice guy' alarm bells.
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Mar 14, 2022 15:06
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sad question posted:There's a difference between writing a flawed character and inadvertently revealing something about yourself through writing. Xander, especially in the beginning, is giving off massive 'nice guy' alarm bells. But, like, that's who he is, and the show knows it. I literally just watched the episode where Halfrek turns up and diagnoses the problem in about five minutes.
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Mar 14, 2022 15:12
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I'm talking S1-3 Xander. They rightfully take him to task later on.
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Mar 14, 2022 15:23
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If this topic was around when I did a rewatch I would be better about providing examples. I just remember frequently feeling that he was a bigger shithead than the show acknowledged. To say something nice, I liked the long arc where he stopped feeling sad about not going to college and slowly built a career for himself. By the end he was most successful of the main cast, at least in this aspect.
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Mar 14, 2022 15:48
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sad question posted:
And then the gang immediately suspects that the new and improved Xander is a doppelganger.
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Mar 14, 2022 19:45
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Then they destroyed his relationship by making him a future [fake] deadbeat husband. They really destroyed half the characters on that show by the end. I do miss shows like Buffy that had 22 episodes per season. For every stand alone stinker theres at least 2-3 per season that are straight up great that you never get anymore with "prestige tv"s 8-10 ep seasons.
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Mar 14, 2022 22:09
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yeah with xander they basically rehabilitate the character into somehow who has been humbled a bit by life and is no longer as judgmental and hostile, then in season 6 they undo all of this with a vengeance. i don't mind him existing, and i don't actually think the show is pushing you to like or agree with him that hard except at certain times when he is at his best. i do think the writers probably thought that his flaws would be more forgivable than they are, seeing as he isn't physically violent unlike most of the cast, and has his 'humour' - which isn't very good, but has a lot of 90's Chandler Bing mannerisms which were popular at the time. In practice most of the time it's just like, man, Xander you are lucky you have the friends you have. in s4 and 5 it's like he realised this and starts working on himself. then in s6 he has an, again, very Chandler Bingish freakout about marriage and snaps back hard. they also give him all the 'buffy how could you, he's disgusting' stuff about her relationship with Spike in s6. they must have wanted someone to externalise that conflict within buffy but giving it to xander, making sure he maintained his hatred of spike when the fanbase had CLEARLY moved on, you're just not gonna win. the hypocrisy alone - he proposed a woman who had killed/tortured thousands of men - before you even get into the possessiveness. roomtone fucked around with this message at 23:32 on Mar 14, 2022 |
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Mar 14, 2022 23:29
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I have finished Season 1. "Prophecy Girl" was a nice 6/10 season finale. Most of that is SMG's acting, although props to Anthony Head (Giles) for also being great. I mentioned earlier Buffy was kind of a last minute time slot filler from what I know and the finale feels like "welp, we did our best to build up this universe and these characters, let's try to resolve everything all in one shot since this might be it." Coredelai continues her last two or three episode of redemption, the Buffy/Willow/Xander "nobody is aware the other is totally in love with them" problem is finally dealt with, and of course Buffy fights the Master. (He was a fun character too, almost entirely due to his own great actor. Mark Metcalf) But for me it all just felt like too much was happening too fast. It was like the Angel episode where he finally makes a move on Buffy, is revealed as a vampire, is revealed as a cursed vampire, etc.. It didn't feel "organic" or whatever you wanna call it, more just like we had plot points we had to move on with and that's how Prophecy Girl also feels. Sort of checking off items on a list. But Season 1 works despite clumsy and rushed efforts like this because of the cast and premise. There was something special here that, given time and more polish, could be so much better. And it was. I'm very eager to start Season 2. Notably the next two or three season finales are two parters, "Becoming Part 2" was the second favorite finale on r/buffy. True, "The Gift" - which came in #1 - is not a two-parter technically but it's basically a follow-up to what's been happening all season. Certainly nothing feels as rushed as it did here because of more episodes, more money, and simply more experience. EDIT: @ Xander discussion I definitely felt uncomfortable with him at times, mostly because I see too much of myself in him. I was also a horny, lonely idiot. That leads to jealousy. This is not an excuse for him, more just that I'm gonna guess a lot of viewers do in fact see themselves in Xander. In fact, I had the strongest impression while rewatching this season that "Xander is totally Ron Weasley." You got the Chosen One, their extremely intelligent friend, and the "normal guy." Not very big on school. the jokester, terribly insecure, insecurities which are amplified by their best friend being so special. I think Ron avoids the more uncomfortable aspects of Xander by HP being a very sexless and chaste series. Ron is not very nice to Hermione at times but the radically different tone, as well as the simple fact HP is told almost entirely from Harry's perspective, makes him look better. But in both cases I feel the intent was the same, he's just supposed to be a normal boy we can relate to. Also isn't Xander's family poor? It's not really focused upon like with the Weasleys but Willow did ask him if his family even owed a stove or something. NikkolasKing fucked around with this message at 00:31 on Mar 15, 2022 |
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Mar 15, 2022 00:17
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I remember on my first watch, I thought Xander was a goofball, nice guy. But boring and ultimately, apart from the yellow crayon speech to Dark Willow pointless, especially when the comics and Season 5 make it so Dawn's entry rewrote the past so SHE gave Buffy CPR in the final episode of Season 1. Now, rewatching it with my fiance, we just can't help but be sickened by Xander. It starts early, with his jealousy of Angel and his near-rape of Buffy as a hyena that he NEVER acknowledges or says sorry for, even though he was in his full faculties about the entire thing at the end (Giles hints at it). It just continues, even with him (season 4 spoiler) telling Buffy, Riley, of all people, was best for her and she should try to get him back, even if he had cheated on her with vampire suck jobs on the side. Or (season 5 spoiler) his fears of growing up to be like his parents ruining his wedding, when if he was feeling nervous, as he showed in Once More With Feeling, he should have been an adult and owned up to it before breaking poor Anya's heart in the middle of a crowd of her loved ones. Which he compounds even more by basically saying with his actions afterwards, "No, I don't want to marry you, but I still want to have sex with you, so please stay with me as a girlfriend." I dunno. Xander almost ruins the show for me. Which makes sense, considering he's based off of Whedon, who also, after allegations have come to light, have also almost ruined the show for me.
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Mar 15, 2022 00:39
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NikkolasKing posted:Also isn't Xander's family poor? It's not really focused upon like with the Weasleys but Willow did ask him if his family even owed a stove or something. I feel like they forgot about this tangent, since Xander's family clearly owns a house with a basement level for him to stay at AND they paid for the wedding.
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Mar 15, 2022 00:41
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Pan Dulce posted:especially when the comics and Season 5 make it so Dawn's entry rewrote the past so SHE gave Buffy CPR in the final episode of Season 1. I never would have even thought of that. I can't say how I will feel about Xander by the end of this but I think once Dawn comes into existence, this works so much better. Also it just makes me think of all the interesting interactions we missed. In post-S5, Dawn was around for Angel and Faith and stuff. If she replaces Xander, she would have been with Angel when they found Buffy. We get tiny hints and interactions, I think Angel calls Dawn at some point in AtS, but mostly it's left a mystery of what they all felt about her and her about them, at least in my memory. It always made me really curious. Then again, I seem to be alone in I've always really liked Dawn as a character
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Mar 15, 2022 00:49
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The introduction of Dawn was one of the great moments of TV of the era. Buffy was at it's best when it was doing weird TV show poo poo that we all came to expect from 80s and 90s TV and playing it straight. Every TV show got a new younger character after a few seasons and tried (mostly unsuccessfully) to integrate them with the rest of the cast. Buffy took that weirdness of an "other" in amongst the group and made it a cool supernatural plot.
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Mar 15, 2022 01:18
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Pan Dulce posted:I dunno. Xander almost ruins the show for me. Which makes sense, considering he's based off of Whedon, who also, after allegations have come to light, have also almost ruined the show for me. I haven't watched Buffy since I did a rewatch around the time Dollhouse came out. I'm not sure how the show would pan out now knowing the behind the scenes stuff. Xander being the Whedon insert and also the prototype for the "nice guy". I also just found out in the comics Xander dates Dawn, and irl Whedon was not allowed to be alone with Dawn due to an incident with her as a minor. Serious ick
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Mar 15, 2022 03:02
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Marenghi posted:I also just found out in the comics Xander dates Dawn, and irl Whedon was not allowed to be alone with Dawn due to an incident with her as a minor. Serious ick Buffy eventually ends Magic and Dawn and Xander move in together. after a series of events where the crew neglect or forget about Dawn, Willow discovers that she's fading from reality as her residual magic fades. she dissappears, and Buffy resets the Magic, allowing Willow to recast the spell that gave Dawn life. But while she retains her memories of her previous life, she comes back at what is basically Emotional Square One and finds out she doesn't care for Xander anymore.
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Mar 15, 2022 03:29
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Xander isn't really a Whedon stand in especially from s4 on since the whole reason he stuffed him in the basement storyline was revenge for the actor getting buff between seasons and upsetting Joss. He really dislikes when his actors change anything about their appearance (see also Emma Caulfield)
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Mar 15, 2022 04:38
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banned from Starbucks posted:Xander isn't really a Whedon stand in especially from s4 on since the whole reason he stuffed him in the basement storyline was revenge for the actor getting buff between seasons and upsetting Joss. He really dislikes when his actors change anything about their appearance (see also Emma Caulfield) This is why I can't rewatch those shows, Joss was so gross about crossing his (also gross) personal and professional lines that there's no reasonable separation of art and artist possible here. And even if I did, I just don't want to give such a craven abusive manipulative rear end in a top hat any more rent-free space in my head.
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Mar 15, 2022 05:19
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McSpanky posted:This is why I can't rewatch those shows, Joss was so gross about crossing his (also gross) personal and professional lines that there's no reasonable separation of art and artist possible here. And even if I did, I just don't want to give such a craven abusive manipulative rear end in a top hat any more rent-free space in my head. I mean fair enough but I think Buffy is an example of somewhere that you can separate art from artist because, outside of a probably accurate read on Xander's general presence being due to Joss Whedon liking that kind of person, there's very little directly in the text of the show which reads as 'being an abusive dickhead is cool!'. There's plenty saying the opposite. Even with Xander, he DOES get told off for it most of the time by the other characters like Willow and Buffy, he doesn't win in the end when he acts like this. Also, the particular story you're referring to is, I'm pretty sure, made up. I have read that Joss Whedon made some kind of comment about how in shape Nicolas Brendan was in the early seasons, because Xander wasn't supposed to be physically imposing and a contrast to the jocks of school. That's not season 4, nothing to do with the basement storyline, and I don't think is even necessarily an abuse of power depending on how that info was communicated. Part of being an actor is looking the part. I don't like Joss Whedon and I never have, his claims to feminism with this show always felt false and self-congratulatory to me even when I was like 15 years old. I don't doubt he was abusive to Charisma Carpenter because she's gone on at length about it, and other cast members and his later productions have problems with him. However, reading and honestly half the time, misreading, some exerpts from baiting articles about long passed events doesn't mean you've peeked through the curtain to the truth. It's third hand info, often misremembered by other people who only had third hand info. I do get being put off of shows when you hear about things happening behind the scenes - this is why i basically don't read behind the scenes info anymore. Not even just the horrible stuff, I don't like hearing the most mundane thoughts of people behind creative things which fascinate me because it lessens them. I just don't want to know, it doesn't help anybody that I know. All that's really happened is now I enjoy something less, because of a really vague impression I have about people I will never know not being very good people. If it's not present in the work, it's not my business. There IS stuff in Buffy which I think is hosed up over the run of the series, and Xander's part of it, but I don't assume deep knowledge of the real people involved to form that opinion. It's in the show, we've got all the facts about what the show has to say for itself. roomtone fucked around with this message at 08:15 on Mar 15, 2022 |
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Mar 15, 2022 07:49
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FilthyImp posted:The comics are so, so gross about Dawn since she's subjected to a series of Body Horror-sequence plots where she is a Giant, then a Centaur, then a Living Doll. As she bonds with Xander we find out it's because she (gasp) cheated on a Demon with his roommate in college and was cursed. Dawn and the Demon have a talk and she basically says the relationship was too serious and she acted out in self-sabotage, and she's cured. If you know the comics, can you explain what happens with Buffy and Spike? All I know is it went from Buffy having sex with Angel after being shanshued into Twilight, to somehow being in a relationship with Spike and apparently they break up?
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Mar 15, 2022 07:57
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NikkolasKing posted:I never would have even thought of that. I can't say how I will feel about Xander by the end of this but I think once Dawn comes into existence, this works so much better. Man, I remember going to Comic Con San Diego and watching Once More With Feeling and almost the whole audience just booed and hissed and heckled whenever Dawn came out. It got so bad they had to pause it and tell people to loving cool it with the hate. It's just the casting that's odd. The writing for Dawn in her first season is kind of like a 10 year old, which is what the writers' envisioned casting, but the actress is older and playing 13-15 I think. She's written realistically as a bratty younger sister, but drat does she expect a lot of Buffy especially when she's depressed from being ripped out of Heaven. No slack cut, just straight to WHY WON'T ANYONE PAY ATTENTION TO ME! /shoplifts. I kind of never forgave Dawn for kicking Buffy out of her own house during that last season. Christ Dawn, you're not even a real Summers unless Buffy acknowledges you as a sister and you go and betray her like that. It wasn't her place.
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Mar 15, 2022 08:06
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I encourage more comics posting because they sound fascinatingly terrible. I remember being tempted by the Angel one because it looked like it went through what season 6 could have been but seems like I dodged a bullet.
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Mar 15, 2022 08:21
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roomtone posted:Also, the particular story you're referring to is, I'm pretty sure, made up. I have read that Joss Whedon made some kind of comment about how in shape Nicolas Brendan was in the early seasons, because Xander wasn't supposed to be physically imposing and a contrast to the jocks of school. That's not season 4, nothing to do with the basement storyline, and I don't think is even necessarily an abuse of power depending on how that info was communicated. Part of being an actor is looking the part. He was average in 1-3 then buffed up significantly in 4. Around season 5 the actor said he was told to stop working out then in 6-7 he gets kinda flabby. Its kinda hosed up to think a male actor should change his body type for a part in the era of 30 yr olds playing highschoolers. Imagine telling Alyson Hannigan "Actually youre just kind of a frumpy dork in high school maybe ugly yourself up a bit and put some pounds on to look the part"
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Mar 15, 2022 08:26
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Pan Dulce posted:Man, I remember going to Comic Con San Diego and watching Once More With Feeling and almost the whole audience just booed and hissed and heckled whenever Dawn came out. It got so bad they had to pause it and tell people to loving cool it with the hate. Oh poo poo Buffy being kicked out of her own house... My memories of S6 and how much I hated it are stronger but maybe that's just because I've plain forgotten a lot of what pissed me off about 7. Stuff like that. I think literally everyone on the planet thinks this whole thing was stupid. I'm looking at old posts of mine on a Buffy forum about this and they are admittedly super cringe and hyperbolic. But I sand by what I said back then - the Potentials are the most ungrateful and unlikable characters in the show. As for Dawn, I guess I'm just kinda contrarian sometimes. I always liked Connor too and he's basically the Dawn of AtS. Oddly, folks really hate the kid character in these shows where at least one of them is about kids. Maybe Dawn's immaturity will be more obvious to me now than it was way back when. NikkolasKing fucked around with this message at 08:33 on Mar 15, 2022 |
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Mar 15, 2022 08:30
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NikkolasKing posted:Oh poo poo Buffy being kicked out of her own house... My memories of S6 and how much I hated it are stronger but maybe that's just because I've plain forgotten a lot of what pissed me off about 7. Stuff like that. I think literally everyone on the planet thinks this whole thing was stupid. The Potentials... the frumpier they were, the nicer they were to tolerate. The one played by Felicia Day, Violet, was pretty cool. So was Amanda. Lamentably, I don't know if the writers just had no minorities or they hated them, but Rona and Kennedy were the most ungrateful, mean-spirited girls and it broke my heart, since they were the black and Mexican girls. Also, Chao-Ahn had some real hosed up jokes set up for her just due to language barrier, which also seems a little racist to me.
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Mar 15, 2022 08:40
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Pan Dulce posted:The Potentials... the frumpier they were, the nicer they were to tolerate. The one played by Felicia Day, Violet, was pretty cool. So was Amanda. Lamentably, I don't know if the writers just had no minorities or they hated them, but Rona and Kennedy were the most ungrateful, mean-spirited girls and it broke my heart, since they were the black and Mexican girls. Also, Chao-Ahn had some real hosed up jokes set up for her just due to language barrier, which also seems a little racist to me. Funny you bring them up, they are the two I quote in my 2010 tirade. Rona: Ding dong the witch is dead. Kennedy (to Willow): Why are you always standing up for [Buffy]? This is after her life or deaths struggle with the Turok-Han to earn their trust and respect. And Kennedy demanding this from Willow is even more insulting in a way. Didn't remember any of this till now but it's all coming back to me. I don't think I knew who Felicia Day was at the time I saw S7 so that's cool.
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Mar 15, 2022 08:53
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banned from Starbucks posted:He was average in 1-3 then buffed up significantly in 4. Around season 5 the actor said he was told to stop working out then in 6-7 he gets kinda flabby. Looked it up when you posted and there are some things around referencing a similar story to the one you gave, so fair enough. Couldn't see anything about the basement storyline being an actor punishment, but maybe you saw it in a clip somewhere. My point about dismissing entertainment and/or prioritising behind the scenes stuff is really what I wanted to say, individual stories aside.
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Mar 15, 2022 09:01
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I will say, I don't know how long it takes to film an episode or anything and I know actors are humans and allowed to change their appearance, but drat there's one season where Emma Caulfield changes her hair practically every episode and as a woman, that's an easy thing to catch and kinda takes you out of the episode, wondering, "How did this ex-vengeance demon afford to go to the salon to switch up the tone of blonde on her hair and get it cut or permed EVERY day?"
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Mar 15, 2022 09:09
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The early Xander stuff when he is in love with Buffy is kinda cringy, but I think late Xander is an interesting character, and his episodes are some of my favorites. I also think many fans miss some of the less obvious part of his character work, for example leaving Anya at the altar makes perfect sense for a guy with semi-abusive parents who is deadly afraid to repeat their mistakes.
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Mar 15, 2022 09:19
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roomtone posted:yeah with xander they basically rehabilitate the character into somehow who has been humbled a bit by life and is no longer as judgmental and hostile, then in season 6 they undo all of this with a vengeance. That's interesting you mention Chandler so much, since he was also originally supposed to be gay, and sort of written as lightly gay coded at times. I never really forgave Xander for how he treated Anya re: The Wedding, but I never thought of it in the light of a highly closeted gay man who suddenly panics for no good reason when faced with marrying a woman. To be clear, I don't think Xander was MEANT to be secretly closeted/in denial gay, but I do think it's an interesting way to read him. It doesn't fully work of course, but I'd rather see him that way than as a total gross, selfish jerk. Like, for instance, it shifts what Pan Dulce was saying where instead of Xander wanting to keep Anya around after the wedding to use her for sex, instead he's a closeted gay man who wants to keep Anya around to use for emotional support and as a beard for social status. Which is equally lovely, but way more compelling, at least to me.
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Mar 15, 2022 09:20
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Also, Restless is the best episode of Buffy.
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Mar 15, 2022 09:24
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Dawn's introduction led to interesting things but it always felt frustrating to me that it meant that characters remembered all events up to that point differently than the viewers  But as long as we are naming best things about the show I will mention that Armin Shimerman as Principal Snyder owns. Very funny character and performance.
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Mar 15, 2022 12:17
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Spike has entered the series. Honestly, I'm of two minds on the character. For one, I think of Spike more as an antihero than a villain. It's actually kind of a long nerd debate about who the "Big Bad" of S2 is, him or Angelus. At the same time, I adore him ad Dru. Juliet Landau was an amazing addition to the cast that kinda gets overshadowed in the fandom and the show itself by Marsters/Spike. Not that the character of Spike or his actor were bad, Spike and Dru works great because of both of them. I just feel like Dru gets neglected after a point. Her character has no real resolution in this or Angel and she's demoted to Spike's old fling in some later reason to drive home the Spike/Buffy romance. But here, she's way more of an intimidating villain than Spike - Spike is trying way too hard. And in this season she is treated as s serious threat in her own right but that is all forgotten later. Season 2 of Buffy really is like the "repilot" of X-Files. Sure you should watch Season 1 to see how Mulder and Scully met, or how the Scoobies met, but the acting and chemistry is so much better in the second season. Giles has basically done nothing but he's been a standout just by patting Cordelia condescendingly on the back or distractedly saying "Corpses...evil...very good." And it only gets better from here. sad question posted:Dawn's introduction led to interesting things but it always felt frustrating to me that it meant that characters remembered all events up to that point differently than the viewers Very much this. Snyder takes his first step from "jerk principal" to actual villain in the Spike intro ep when he gets that guy killed and then lies about it. I think everyone cheered when he got eaten which I guess is a mark of a job well done.
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Mar 15, 2022 12:26
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It's a somewhat ham handed character but the poo poo that comes out of his mouth is amazing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcgKHs-RBkU Spoilers for his eventual fate.
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Mar 15, 2022 12:52
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When I was a teenager I liked season 6 the best because it was the darkest and most serialized, but when I rewatched the show a few years ago I hated how much every character gets driven into the mud. It felt like the whole show was depressed (also the hooked on magic / magic drug dealer subplot is the dumbest thing that ever happened in the show.) As an adult I liked 3 the best. The Mayor's great, the comedy's on point, and Spike works best as a recurring villain. Also you get a lot more Buffy and the core trio in the show in the early seasons and Sarah Michelle Gellar was always the best at delivering the sarcastic quips.
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Mar 15, 2022 19:39
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NikkolasKing posted:Spike has entered the series. Yeah, I see him as an antihero too. The best summary of his character was given by Tara in Season 5 when they were discussing Quasimodo. "WILLOW: I just don't see why he couldn't end up with Esmerelda. They could have the wedding right there. Beneath the very bell-tower where he labored thanklessly for all those years. TARA: No, see, it can't, it can't end like that, 'cause all of Quasimodo's actions were selfishly motivated. He had no moral compass, no understanding of right. Everything he did, he did out of love for a woman who would never be able to love him back. Also, you can tell it's not gonna have a happy ending when the main guy's all bumpy." sad question posted:It's a somewhat ham handed character but the poo poo that comes out of his mouth is amazing I love this video so much. drat, Snyder was a beast. I loved him in Band Candy; we finally saw him as a teen instead of hating teens. Randallteal posted:When I was a teenager I liked season 6 the best because it was the darkest and most serialized, but when I rewatched the show a few years ago I hated how much every character gets driven into the mud. It felt like the whole show was depressed (also the hooked on magic / magic drug dealer subplot is the dumbest thing that ever happened in the show.) At my first watch of Buffy, when I was younger, I liked Season 6 the best because at the time, I was suffering from depression and really understood the depths of sadness in SMG's acting. It was good. Not to mention Spike's my favorite character after Buffy and the sexcapades between them were choice. Now, as an adult, I like 5 the best. Not only do you get the development of Spike as a character, but you see what I think should have been the true conclusion of BtVS.
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Mar 15, 2022 20:07
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boquiabierta posted:^^hi jabby! I’ve wondered what happened to you in the healthcare stories thread, nice to see you again! Thanks  I've taken a bit of a break from the healthcare chat outside of working hours, the pandemic has been a bit gruelling.
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Mar 16, 2022 00:38
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NikkolasKing posted:I think of Spike more as an antihero than a villain. Pan Dulce posted:Yeah, I see him as an antihero too. I dunno, I've just watched Dead Things with a friend, and even if I didn't know how this season ended for Spike he's way over the line in this one. Isolating his girlfriend from her friends, encouraging her to engage in destructive behaviour, attempting to make her dependent on her through ~*shared trauma*~ (actually emotional blackmail). Spike 1.0 is very much a villain. 2.0 is pretty much a straight up hero, but he's basically a completely different character, like Angelus / Angel.
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Mar 16, 2022 13:58
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Open Source Idiom posted:I dunno, I've just watched Dead Things with a friend, and even if I didn't know how this season ended for Spike he's way over the line in this one. Isolating his girlfriend from her friends, encouraging her to engage in destructive behaviour, attempting to make her dependent on her through ~*shared trauma*~ (actually emotional blackmail). A straight-up hero doesn't have the difficulties being a hero that Spike does, namely the trigger from the First causing some deaths AND Robin's almost death in that cross-filled cabin. A Straight-up hero also does things for unselfish motivations. Spike's never been good to be good. His last season he's still good just for Buffy. I'd argue on Angel he's good to be good.
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Mar 16, 2022 15:08
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Pan Dulce posted:A straight-up hero doesn't have the difficulties being a hero that Spike does, namely the trigger from the First causing some deaths AND Robin's almost death in that cross-filled cabin. A Straight-up hero also does things for unselfish motivations. Spike's never been good to be good. His last season he's still good just for Buffy. I'd argue on Angel he's good to be good. You're saying that being mind controlled makes you a bad person? He's selflessly helping people as early as the third episode of season seven, he's a hero.
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Mar 16, 2022 15:12
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Spike's arc is a bit messy due to season 6 being messy. At the end of S5 and start of S6, he's sort of elevated Buffy into an idea he aspires to live up to. Yeah he's in love with her, but it continues during the period when she's dead. He's just trying to live up to her memory, the idea of her he has, at that point, by protecting Dawn and the town all summer. He's still only concerned with how he feels about things, but everything he's doing is good. I'd say at the opening of S6 and the first few episodes, he is essentially heroic. When she shows him romantic feelings for the first time though, he backslides into wanting to be with her at any cost and starts doing all the manipulating and undercutting. It doesn't work because Buffy is smarter than he is. She isn't actually being affected by his attempts to drag her to a dark corner, imo, she went there of her own choice because of how she felt anyway, and left when she started to feel ready to move on. He tries to accept that but then gives up on the whole idea and tries to rape her, then runs away. All that stuff is a bit messy because it is a little bit the plot leading the character rather than the other way around. Spike is kind of shoehorned into the role of abusive boyfriend right after they did a lot to rehabilitate him. He was seen being abusive to Harmony, so it's not unprecedented, but they are backwalking a lot of character development to put him there. I suppose it depends on how genuine you thought his attitude was in early S6, or how much you believe someone can oscillate between being decent and awful in a short span of time. It just about fits together for me but it's a fraught balance. Then comes the soul thing to rehabilitate him, this time for real. It's different than it is with Angel, because he and Angelus are always portrayed as basically different people even if the details are murky. Spike is the same guy on either side, the only difference is afterwards he has a bit of a decency injection, so he wouldn't do the really bad stuff he did/tried to do before and does things more explicitly for others. It's more like an actual abuser who reforms over a period of their life, just supernaturally compressed. Spike's basically never 'evil' on the show the way other villains are, at least not since mid S2 when they realised they weren't killing him off. It's more that he is just only interested in how he feels, and acts accordingly. How he feels can either be good or bad for other people. Him getting the soul just gives him the ability to look beyond himself for a second and realise okay maybe how I feel about this isn't the only or even relevant thing. You need to sort of ignore the usual vampire rules when thinking about Spike and just think about him as a person for a lot of it to work. roomtone fucked around with this message at 15:46 on Mar 16, 2022 |
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Mar 16, 2022 15:32
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| # ? Apr 27, 2024 11:30 |
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No wonder Whedon was so frustrated with Spike. It totally ruins the whole "vampire = evil" thing he had running. Even if you're not being evil for selfish motivations, like you loving someone and wanting to please them, it's still being good. Then doing it in their memory when you have nothing to gain from it takes away the selfishness and makes that summer Buffy's gone and he's taking care of Dawn and the Scoobies good simply for the sake of it. Personally, I think Noxon and the writing gang wrote in the Seeing Red attempted rape as the big "See, he's EVIL, no matter what, you can't be good without a soul."
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Mar 16, 2022 15:49
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