Mutant Enemy... dumber than rocks
Sep. 5th, 2003 09:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shipperxSigh. Read the summary of Ep 4. Sigh.
I swear to freaking god, Mutant Enemy are dumber than rocks. I've come to the conclusion that they have no understanding of character development. They don't tell stories, they tell fables. Characters don't live. They don't accumulate experience. They exist as a set "type" or pigeonhole. Oh, Wes, might slip through but not far. I'm sure we'll just see poor Wes be Giles v2.0. But by and large ME finds a pigeonhole and leaves a character there. Their actions happen in a vacuum. It doesn't matter what they do, what matters is the neon sign ME has labelled them with. That's who they are and all they are. Ignore what they do, that doesn't play into it.
Buffy beats her lover. Is hateful to her sister. Terrorizes a social worker, but nah! That's okay. She's just in a bad place. It's not like her using someone all the way to their death makes her any less admirable. Bwad pwace!
Angel can serve up lawyer buffets, try to smother Wes, do black magic spells that get innocent bystanders killed, but don't censure him for those actions. Listen to Fury say that Angel is "unambiguous." He's pure hero.
And so we come to Spike--designated "selfish"/"loser" of the Whedonverse. They have a pigeonhole for Spike and don't think that dying to save the WORLD would allow him to crawl out of it. Don't think they'll cook up a new story. Nah. They don't do that. They tell the same fable over and over again. No accumulation of experience. Spike is still playing Intervention... THREE YEARS LATER and on another show and network.
First he's "just playing" Fred. Then, oh, villain comes along. Said villain then tortures Spike, humiliates Spike, and strips him naked while the bulk of the rest of the characters insist on repeating all of Spike's flaws and say he's worthless. Spike then is left to make a choice between his own needs and the welfare of someone else and he chooses someone else over himself.
The first time I saw this plot I cheered. I loved Intervention. I loved the step forward Spike made into selfless behavior. I loved that he showed that there is more to him than what others thought. I loved that he grew.
The thing is in Season 5 it was progression. Spike had gone from the person who did Crush and the Buffybot, to someone who would stand up against Glory and choose Dawn and Buffy's safety. It was edifying to see Spike make that choice. It was...well... glorious to see that progression of the character to go from one thing to the other. It was validation as a Spike fan.
FF three years later.
No, it no longer surprises me that Spike suffers and suffers and SUFFERS and then puts someone else's welfare above his own because, unlike the idiots at Mutant Enemy, I DO have a memory. I've SEEN Spike do this again, and again, and again now. Intervention was good because it was character progression. But where having characters insult Spike and his actions in Season 5 was tolerable because there was reason for it, worked. I didn't resent it so much. Calling Spike selfish back when he was is one thing.
BUT...
We've SEEN Spike suffer at Glory's hands in order to protect Dawn and Buffy. We've SEEN Spike stick around and help the Scoobs when Buffy was dead. I remember in Season 5 desperately wanting to see Spike save a Scoob's life-- Xander or Giles because it would mean something that Spike would do that. At that point Spike doing such a thing was NEW. Since then we've seen Spike save Giles's ungrateful ass many times. We've seen Spike save Xander so many times I've lost count. We've seen Spike stripped naked, insulted, demeaned, and freaking CRUCIFIED on BtVS and turn away from evil. We've SEEN IT ALREADY, Mutant Enemy! So now, when characters walk around insulting Spike saying he's worthless, saying he belongs in hell it doesn't PLAY any more. Not for those of us who, unlike ME, pay attention to the show. Where it was acceptable in Season 5, now it's just become demeaning to both the character and the fans. How many times can they play the same freaking plot? Can't they move on already? We know Spike can endure torture. We know he can put someone (even someone who treats him like complete crap) over himself because... hell, the reason he's a goddamned ghost in the first place is that he died for a whole freaking group of people who treated him worse than crap. But, hey, why let the memory of that intrude on the repetition of the same old, tired plot. Play it one more time that Spike suffers, gives up his own wants, and does it all for someone else. It doesn't MEAN anything anymore because we've learned by now that NO ONE will remember the next time ME pulls out this stale old plot. Spike's actions (like every other character's) happen in a vacuum. They only mean something for the moment, and then it's forgotten. The label hanging over his head never changes.
131st verse same as the first.
I'm so sick and tired of the "torture Spike, will he go evil, oh, he rises to the challenge" rinse and repeat plot because in the end he's never given credit for it. The fact that he died for the world and they are STILL playing this rotting old corpse of a plot proves it.
ME is dumber than a bag of rocks because they... and their characters... have the memories of gnats. None of them EVER learn.
I swear to freaking god, Mutant Enemy are dumber than rocks. I've come to the conclusion that they have no understanding of character development. They don't tell stories, they tell fables. Characters don't live. They don't accumulate experience. They exist as a set "type" or pigeonhole. Oh, Wes, might slip through but not far. I'm sure we'll just see poor Wes be Giles v2.0. But by and large ME finds a pigeonhole and leaves a character there. Their actions happen in a vacuum. It doesn't matter what they do, what matters is the neon sign ME has labelled them with. That's who they are and all they are. Ignore what they do, that doesn't play into it.
Buffy beats her lover. Is hateful to her sister. Terrorizes a social worker, but nah! That's okay. She's just in a bad place. It's not like her using someone all the way to their death makes her any less admirable. Bwad pwace!
Angel can serve up lawyer buffets, try to smother Wes, do black magic spells that get innocent bystanders killed, but don't censure him for those actions. Listen to Fury say that Angel is "unambiguous." He's pure hero.
And so we come to Spike--designated "selfish"/"loser" of the Whedonverse. They have a pigeonhole for Spike and don't think that dying to save the WORLD would allow him to crawl out of it. Don't think they'll cook up a new story. Nah. They don't do that. They tell the same fable over and over again. No accumulation of experience. Spike is still playing Intervention... THREE YEARS LATER and on another show and network.
First he's "just playing" Fred. Then, oh, villain comes along. Said villain then tortures Spike, humiliates Spike, and strips him naked while the bulk of the rest of the characters insist on repeating all of Spike's flaws and say he's worthless. Spike then is left to make a choice between his own needs and the welfare of someone else and he chooses someone else over himself.
The first time I saw this plot I cheered. I loved Intervention. I loved the step forward Spike made into selfless behavior. I loved that he showed that there is more to him than what others thought. I loved that he grew.
The thing is in Season 5 it was progression. Spike had gone from the person who did Crush and the Buffybot, to someone who would stand up against Glory and choose Dawn and Buffy's safety. It was edifying to see Spike make that choice. It was...well... glorious to see that progression of the character to go from one thing to the other. It was validation as a Spike fan.
FF three years later.
No, it no longer surprises me that Spike suffers and suffers and SUFFERS and then puts someone else's welfare above his own because, unlike the idiots at Mutant Enemy, I DO have a memory. I've SEEN Spike do this again, and again, and again now. Intervention was good because it was character progression. But where having characters insult Spike and his actions in Season 5 was tolerable because there was reason for it, worked. I didn't resent it so much. Calling Spike selfish back when he was is one thing.
BUT...
We've SEEN Spike suffer at Glory's hands in order to protect Dawn and Buffy. We've SEEN Spike stick around and help the Scoobs when Buffy was dead. I remember in Season 5 desperately wanting to see Spike save a Scoob's life-- Xander or Giles because it would mean something that Spike would do that. At that point Spike doing such a thing was NEW. Since then we've seen Spike save Giles's ungrateful ass many times. We've seen Spike save Xander so many times I've lost count. We've seen Spike stripped naked, insulted, demeaned, and freaking CRUCIFIED on BtVS and turn away from evil. We've SEEN IT ALREADY, Mutant Enemy! So now, when characters walk around insulting Spike saying he's worthless, saying he belongs in hell it doesn't PLAY any more. Not for those of us who, unlike ME, pay attention to the show. Where it was acceptable in Season 5, now it's just become demeaning to both the character and the fans. How many times can they play the same freaking plot? Can't they move on already? We know Spike can endure torture. We know he can put someone (even someone who treats him like complete crap) over himself because... hell, the reason he's a goddamned ghost in the first place is that he died for a whole freaking group of people who treated him worse than crap. But, hey, why let the memory of that intrude on the repetition of the same old, tired plot. Play it one more time that Spike suffers, gives up his own wants, and does it all for someone else. It doesn't MEAN anything anymore because we've learned by now that NO ONE will remember the next time ME pulls out this stale old plot. Spike's actions (like every other character's) happen in a vacuum. They only mean something for the moment, and then it's forgotten. The label hanging over his head never changes.
131st verse same as the first.
I'm so sick and tired of the "torture Spike, will he go evil, oh, he rises to the challenge" rinse and repeat plot because in the end he's never given credit for it. The fact that he died for the world and they are STILL playing this rotting old corpse of a plot proves it.
ME is dumber than a bag of rocks because they... and their characters... have the memories of gnats. None of them EVER learn.
