You Learn New Things Every Day...

[shipperx]

sueworld2003 is running a poll about the final BtVS episode "Chosen".

In the comments to the poll, moscow_watcher referred to a section of the script that I don't think I've ever paid much attention to.

It feels a little strange that I never noted it, because I was...um... 'around' when the script pages made their way to the web prior to "Chosen's" airing (::waves to the spoiler cabal::). I suppose I was too busy frothing with outrage, disgusted by so much stupidity illogic wimping out like a wussy, wussy thing in the script with reacting, to look at the script in detail. Anyway, moscow_watcher pointed out in her comments that there's an indication in the script that as Spike went all glowy he was taking on the pain of the Slayers (the potentials and Buffy). That did not come across on screen for me, but I'm quite intrigued by the concept. There is a bit of poetry in Spike the "slayer killer" taking on the pain of the Slayers. Isn't absorbing the Slayers' pain more important than any old coat?

Still, if that was the intention (and not something eliminated between drafts) it was not sufficiently communicated on screen. However, it did make me wonder if this was the root of Buffy's sudden ability to tough out that itchy mortal wound (that she just hopped up from before later 'fleeing' to catch a bus) was due to the pain of the wound being absorbed by Spike.(?)

I don't know that the concept of that would have made me at all happy at the time, but I am intrigued by the concept. This isn't something I had considered before. It doesn't change the essential problem of faux feminism in the finale, as victory is still tied to an amulet and a man (sorry, but I'm unconvinced by other interpretations), but it does make for an interesting incident in Spike's evolutionary arc.