Eric Northman Reveals Why Fool For Love Was Awesome

[shipperx]

In my Bloodsucker Poll, rahirah's comment led me to respond with a few of my issues with Eric Northman (Am I the only one who laughs a little at Northman = Viking? Just me? *crickets*) Anyway, my issues with True Blood's Eric Northman, let me show you them...

I don't know him, and I don't understand him.

Really, it's just that simple. The actor is good looking. Eric is the anti-Bill Compton which, more often than not, is a really good thing. Eric is a Viking which is totally cool. Eric is hot. But, and here's the thing, Eric is an alien to me.

What do I mean by that? Well, first off, let me say that I haven't read the books. Perhaps this problem doesn't exist in the books. I'm just talking about the TV show and what has been shown to date. Up until now, Eric is opaque. I have no clue what makes him tick: not what he cares about, not what drives him, not what he loves or what he hates. I don't know why he deals 'V' or how he feels about being sheriff. The only thing I know with any certainty is that he cared about his sire. But, other than that, he's kind of a blank slate we can project anything onto. We don't know him well at all. Now, there's nothing particularly wrong with that in the framework of the show. I can easily see having a vampire be an enigmatic, detached character that views humans such as Sookie with the interest of an entomologist studying ants (which is the vibe I get when he stares so intently at her. I don't see love. I don't even see lust. I see an image of meditative 'Hmmmm...' as he looks at something completely foreign to him. Honestly, it's a bit of the same feeling I get when Spike stares at Buffy on the dance floor in School Hard. 'A slayer with friends...' that wasn't in the manual). At any rate, I'm just not going to be particularly fannish about a character that I don't really understand in an emotional way where I cannot figure out their motivation. I tend to become fannish about characters that I can endlessly dissect, ones who give me fodder to figure out why they do what they do, ones who behave according to emotions that I can comprehend... which led me to think of the BtVS episode Fool for Love and to appreciate anew why that episode is truly awesome.


Every now and then you see posters claim to have loved "Season 2" Spike, bemoaning his woobification or the retconning of Spike in Season 5 (which I don't believe was a retcon. Dude, the "Love's Bitch" aspect was part of the character from the moment Drusilla walked in the door in School Hard) I honestly don't understand those POVs. (People are free to have the views. I just don't understand them).

Well, that's not precisely true. I can understand that POV if the utmost desire is to reserve humanity for other characters. Prior to "Fool for Love" Spike is just a better realized version of Eric Northman, a hot and/or cool mostly distant alien-figure (and being enigmatic is a necessary ingredient to preserve an image of uber-cool. To humanize and texturize a character is to show flaws and emotion, to give us access to their inner selves and to allow us to understand and empathize. To humanize a character is to knock off some of the 'cool.')

Fool for Love is the episode that literally humanizes Spike. Prior to FFL we have no clue to Spike's origins. That isn't saying that we had no clues at all to Spike. We knew various details such as his love of 80s punk music, the accent, and the whole "I may be love's bitch..." behavior. And we knew that there were chinks in his armor. We even knew that 'cool' meant something to him when he was so very, very bothered about being forced to wear a Hawaiian shirt. The thing that we didn't have was context. By revealing William, FFL finally provides a unifying context.

Going back to Eric Northman for a minute, one of my complaints with Eric is that I keep feeling that little that I see of him is real. It's image. I always come away feeling that he's deliberately affecting an image. Frankly, my thought when first seeing him sitting on a throne in Fangtasia with his long blond hair draped 'just so' was 'what a poseur!' I was looking for what is real in the character beyond the image he projects, and I still don't know!

The wonderful thing about FFL (and in the format that it used) is that we're shown what is undeniably true about Spike. IT's not 'is this or is this not the real deal?' It is. We know that because there's no filter in it.

There are a few layers in the way that FFL works to reveal Spike.

First, we are shown William. The slight, dreamy, geeky, bullied, poetic William is real. We know that because we are shown that this is not the story that Spike tells about himself. This is a truth that Spike keeps to himself. Because of that, the audience can place faith in it. He isn't pulling one over on us. It's not him massaging the truth. It's who he was, and it's painful to him.

Second, we see Spike lying about William. This is actually something that makes FFL brilliant in humanizing Spike. It's his denial of his past that strangely validates it. We know that what we see isn't the way Spike likes see himself. In fact, he hates it. It embarrasses him. The fact that it's a truth that he'll lie to hide, doesn't just tell us that it's the truth. It tells us that it's a truth that cuts him, that means something to him... still. It must hurt. If it didn't, he wouldn't go to such lengths to re-write it.

So, we are shown Spike in a way that invites both empathy and sympathy. We see William being harassed, rejected, and bullied. Everyone has had moments where we've felt that way, so we can feel a moment of connection with him, of empathy for how he feels. We're invited to spend a moment in his shoes, to be him, to connect with that bit of humanity. This in turn makes makes it possible to sympathize with Spike's urge to fictionalize his past regardless of what we think of his doing so.

Third, because of the way that FFL plays out, we are vividly shown the way that those old -- very human -- hurts still inform Spike's present choices and actions. It gives us an understanding of what motivates him. We are shown not only what motivated him to create the Spike persona, this cool-punk-Slayer-killer image but also why that cool image is important to him. Additionally, we're shown that this continues to actively influence actions that he takes in the present.

Truly, it's a great, nifty piece of characterization. We are given context for this character. In one series of flashbacks juxtaposed against his fictionalizing them and his presently reacting to echoes of them, we are given a roadmap to the inner workings of this character. We know where the character came from. We learn his real social class (both economically and sociologically). We know how these things led him to rebel against them (we see William go from being within a class to hearing him denounce that class as 'toffs'. We know that he was a geek who now tries to project a polar opposite image...even if it requires rewriting himself). We know not only who he was, but who he would like to be... in all its very human contradictions. ("If you could only see me..." "I may be a bad poet, but I'm a good man..." "I see a man, surrounded by fools who cannot see his strength, his vision, his glory...", a guy lying about his past to make himself sound more cool, going out to pursue the Everest of vampires by actively seeking slayers with a goal of becoming the 'coolest' of vamps by being the bad-ass slayer of slayers... which is only part of the truth.) More, with FFL we are given to know where the old hurts lay hidden and how close they are to the surface. And we know how these experiences still do and will continue to influence his reactions, (the pain to fury reaction to Buffy echoing "You're beneath me..." as well as the William-esque reaction to seeing the girl in mournful tears.)

The brilliance of FFL isn't that it gave Spike a back story. It's that it gave Spike a context. It elucidated his psychology. Given knowledge of what drives his need for a certain image, we can look back at his entrance in School Hard and understand his motives in behaving in such a dramatic fashion and why he transformed so quickly to human indulgence the moment Drusilla walked through the door. We understand better why he so dramatically despaired when he was reduced to living in Xander's mother's basement and wearing a geek outfit. We were given not only the who, but the real, private truth, an understanding of the why and a way to anticipate what he might do in the future under certain circumstances. FFL takes a character that has been held at a certain distance and to the side, one we only knew through observations of the exterior, and gave us the inner story. We have both history and motivation. We have context and his internal emotional landscape. This is now a humanized, identifiable, specific character well beyond just an achetype, a nemesis, and an image. We can understand what drives him, why it drives him, what it means to him, how it influences him, and how he rebels against it. This is a three-dimensional character.

I'll never understand the argument that he was somehow 'better' when we only understood him from a distance, from observing the outermost shell (as that was close to all we're given in, say, Season 2.) Sure, there were many things of interest about him in the early going. He was entertaining. And we did have his reactions and thus could create fanwanks from the things that he did. But we were we limited to only observation of the present and what was happening on the outside. We didn't know his context or his emotional construct. We didn't know his personal truth, his regrets, his pains, his history, or his secrets. This isn't a matter of good or bad or woobie or bad-ass. It's about knowing what makes a character tick, of having access to that character such that we know not only what he projects for his exterior but what he hides... and why he does so.

FFL works so well because it shows us what is true about the character of Spike and how that causes him to act and to react -- both in the positive (such as the porch scene) and the negative (his deciding to 'kill the bitch' over an insult). FFL is what gives us a way to actually understand who Spike is beyond where he fits into Buffy's story (which, honestly, given the All About Buffy nature of BtVS, is a rare gift). FFL is really where we're at last given the tools with which to dissect Spike and to understand. Until then we were fanwanking half-blind.

Comments

[fenchurche.livejournal.com]

That is probably the best summation of why FFL is so wonderful and why Spike is such an interesting and layered character that I have ever read!

[elisi]

Oh this is absolutely excellent!

am I the only one who laughs a little at Northman = Viking? Just me?
Oh no! But I don't watch the show, so don't feel qualified to point out that it's... a bit of a silly name. (Surely if he was a viking it'd be 'Nordman', but...)

[eilowyn.livejournal.com]

I've often told people that FFL is one of the best character-centric episodes of television I've ever seen, mostly because it changes the way you think about a character without changing the character himself (yes, the Love's Bitch was there from the beginning, and people who bemoan the loss of S2 Spike are usually looking at him through "Angel has to be the only vampire with good qualities" glasses, because Spike generally turns everything Angel's ever said about vampire behavior and the soul (based on his experience as Angelus) on its head.

There's a reason why FFL ranked so high on that list of best sci-fi flashback episodes - it's so damn good at fleshing out an already layered character. Angel's flashback episodes? Well, other than the ones that are really about Darla, all we learn is that Liam was an even bigger ass than how IDW currently sees Spike (Mariah's recent avowel of such opinions notwithstanding). Do Bangels ever write Buffy/Liam fic? I wouldn't think so, because Angel at his most-human core is essentially a frat boy in the most unflattering sense of the term, and who wants to pair Buffy up with that, even if he is the human version of her "tru wuv." You look at the plethora of Buffy/William fic out there, and you realize that every single layer of Spike is fascinating, and FFL just confirms why the character fascinates us so.

As for Eric Northman, I did find the season 2 Godric arc to be very humanizing (in the literary, not literal, sense of the word), and I kinda like his enigmatic standoffishness. Then again, anything is better than Bill Compton.

[flake-sake.livejournal.com]

Oooh, brilliant stuff.

I don't fully agree about Eric, but that's because I read the books, where he does get a lot more backstory.

But I do agree about FFL, the brilliance of the episode is that it never feels like a recon to me. Because it is not contradicting Spike's character, it is finally explaining it. Starting with lover's walk there are X occasions, where Spike proves to be extremely sensitive to other folks emotions, though for the most part that's something he doesn't seem to be proud of. Like you wrote starting in school hard, Spike's demeanour is outed as an act to a certain extent. You always know, he's hiding something and in FFL you learn what it is.

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

Agreed both on the excellence of the post and:

(Surely if he was a viking it'd be 'Nordman', but...)

Yes. (And "Erik".) It's a bit like having Spike's full name be "William Limey."

[elisi]

LOL! (And can't believe I overlooked 'Eric' - 'twas early and I wasn't awake...)

[sueworld2003.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, I so, so agree with you on all levels. You've made some simply superb observations here.

[ubi4soft.livejournal.com]

Nothing more or significant to add, but I'll add your post to my memories.

[penny-lane-42.livejournal.com]

Wow. I am so in love with this post that I don't even know how to express it.

You've exactly hit on why I find Eric an enjoyable enough character, but why I couldn't ever be passionate about him. I need that context that we aren't given. Perhaps we'll see more of it in the future? One can only hope.

But really this post is all about my very favorite episode of television ever, and we are on exactly the same page when it comes to how and why this episode is so powerful. You've verbalized--quite brilliantly--things I've always profoundly believed but haven't been able to communicate this clearly. You've also summed up exactly why I find the whole, "He was better in S2!" arguments so frustrating, and why I don't understand them at all.

(which I don't believe was a retcon. Dude, the "Love's Bitch" aspect was part of the character from the moment Drusilla walked in the door in School Hard) How many times have I said some variation on precisely this thing? I really don't understand those who can't see the connection.

Well, that's not precisely true. I can understand that POV if the utmost desire is to reserve humanity for other characters. Exactly.

Thank you so much for this brilliant and insightful meta. I'm going to put it in my memories, and I'll probably link the hell out of it whenever I run up against those who say his character was "ruined" later in the series. Thank you!

[penny-lane-42.livejournal.com]

mostly because it changes the way you think about a character without changing the character himself

This. Right here. Sums it all up. You are awesome!

[next_to_normal]

Agree 100%.

I'll never understand the argument that he was somehow 'better' when we only understood him from a distance, from observing the outermost shell

I think the problem for those people is that they hoped the cool exterior was the truth. That it was more than just an exterior; that Spike actually was badass right down to his bones. It's not that we dug in and found out what makes Spike tick that is so terrible. It's the fact that what makes Spike tick is the opposite of what they thought it was and wanted it to be.

Now, personally, I prefer a character who's a mess of contradictions, who has layers, who hides his true self even as it informs everything he does. But I guess other people don't. They seem to want a simple character who is exactly as he appears to be. (To which I say, maybe you're watching the wrong show?)

[ladypeyton.livejournal.com]

About Eric, You're absolutely right. It takes us a long time to see behind the curtain WRT Eric. IIRC it doesn't happen until book 4, but at the same time, book 4 is the Sookieverse's FFL. It's an excellent story where all we see is what's behind the curtain because the curtain has been torn away.

I'm living on tenterhooks until season 4 of True Blood and I'm stronbly hoping that AB doesn't mess with it too much to preserve some sort of artificial Sookie/Bill/Twu Wuv 4Eva/soulmate crap.

[rebcake.livejournal.com]

You are so very right. FFL always felt organic to me. The only retcon-ish thing that I can kind of buy is that Dru, rather than Angelus, sired William. I'm sure people who had written great stuff based on that felt Joss'ed, so my sympathies go out to them. However, it makes so much more sense that he would fall prey to an ethereal femme fatale. (I suppose a case could be make for Angelus having a propensity to sire small men, though.)

But yes, the Spike's character was always there, we just get the treat of juicy, detailed, reliable insight. I like an unreliable narrator, because they always reveal more about themselves than they succeed in hiding, but this is the best of both worlds.

Wonderful post.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

What do I mean by that? Well, first off, let me say that I haven't read the books. Perhaps this problem doesn't exist in the books.

Oh, it's worse in the books. We are given very little on Eric. I don't think we're told who sired him until the eighth book if that. I wouldn't know, I gave up around the fourth or fifth one.

He's preferable to Bill in the books as well...but only marginally. Harris really doesn't develop her male characters at all. And the female characters...barely.

Skip the books and watch the series? You aren't missing a thing. The series is actually much much better written.

[jamalov29.livejournal.com]

::in awe of your eloquence::
Wonderfully put.

[bloodypoetry.livejournal.com]

Very awesomely put. FFL confirmed for me the 'difference' in Spike that I saw from other vampires and gave me the context to understand it. It was an amazing episode, and always in my top ten of all time.

I told ya before, I have read the True Blood books (where we didn't get any Eric backstory before like, book 7). But we got way more insight to the character because of the media. I am hoping they will go beyond just making Eric the 'other' vampire, but so far, you are right, they haven't. They tried with the Godrick thing. Just didn't pull it off entirely. (Also, the vamp blood dealing didn't happen in the books, and his relationship with Layfette didn't exist because Layfette was dead by then (OMG THANKS FOR NOT DOING THAT HBO HE ROCKS))

But yeah. I am hoping. I will likely be disappointed. But because I have that context (from the books) I do enjoy the heck out of the character.

[seapealsh.livejournal.com]

That was a brilliant post. Sums up everything. And it's why I love Spike so - he's such a multidimensional character.

[terendel.livejournal.com]

I saw an interview with James Marsters somewhere where he pointed out that for vampires, feeding is all about sex. Which is why (he says) male vampires only bite women and vice verse. They weren't totally consistent with that, but they were close. So with that context, it only makes sense for Dru to have sired him.

Unless Angel really was the "poof" Spike continuously called him. ;)

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Yes, a wonderfully complex and layered character. :)

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Oh no! But I don't watch the show, so don't feel qualified to point out that it's... a bit of a silly name

And when he had long, silky blond Viking hair it was sillier. Then again, when he dismembered that guy with his bare hands... it sort of dented the silly. *Yikes!*

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

There's a reason why FFL ranked so high on that list of best sci-fi flashback episodes - it's so damn good at fleshing out an already layered character. Angel's flashback episodes? Well, other than the ones that are really about Darla, all we learn is that Liam was an even bigger ass than how IDW currently sees Spike

FFL really is a great episode. And, other than the WTF of Darla being in Puritan Jamestown, "Darla" on AtS was a good ep too. Liam's on the other hand, well... he does seem to be a bit of an overgrown brat. Still, I suppose if we're to think of Angel as the brooding hero, discovering that he was just a self-indulgent frat boy gives him internal contrast.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I've tried reading the books, but I just haven't managed to make it through one of them yet. I may try again when vacation comes around in a few weeks.

And FFL still rocks after all these years.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

mostly because it changes the way you think about a character without changing the character himself

A wonderful way to state it.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Glad you liked it.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Glad you liked it. Thanks!

"He was better in S2!" arguments so frustrating, and why I don't understand them at all.


I don't either. I aways feel like asking whether they seriously prefer a character with fewer layers.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I think the problem for those people is that they hoped the cool exterior was the truth

But the thing is, that it never is the truth. It's like Rita Hayworth saying that men fell in love with Gilda and were always disappointed when they woke up with her. Or Cary Grant saying that not even he could be Cary Grant. He was actually Archibald Leach. Few people are actually 'cool' before their morning coffee and brushing their teeth.

I think that's how I'm always baffled by preferring the less realized character. I tend to prefer them full of layers and contradictions.

And, yeah, sometimes it is clear that people must've watched an entirely different show. :)

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I'm trying to read Book 4. I haven't gotten very far into it, though. Perhaps when I'm on vacation in a few weeks.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I like an unreliable narrator, because they always reveal more about themselves than they succeed in hiding, but this is the best of both worlds.

Yep. Exactly. We get the real past, and we get Spike narrating it quite unreliably, so we get not only the truth but the way it inspires him to embroider it.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I've tried to read the books. I just cannot seem to develop much interest in them. And the show, I can enjoy as camp. (Although, honestly, they could make the show about Jason and Andy foolishly going out to play heroes in the most ridiculous ways possible and I might actually enjoy the show better).

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Yes, he's great in all his layers.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

FFL confirmed for me the 'difference' in Spike that I saw from other vampires and gave me the context to understand it

Exactly. It's a great episode.

And I knew that Lafayette was killed in the books, and I'm so, so glad they didn't in the show. He's awesome.

[next_to_normal]

Well, just like people are looking for Gilda or Cary Grant, I think some just want the fantasy of cool Spike. I don't agree with them, obviously, but there's a reason those personas are so popular, you know?

[thedeadlyhook.livejournal.com]

God, yes. This is perfect.

Nothing much to add...

[wenchsenior.livejournal.com]

...but thanks for such a great post summming up a great ep about a fantastic character.

[gabrielleabelle.livejournal.com]

*loves*

This is why FFL remains my favorite BtVS episode, even above Restless. It's just the best, most concentrated, most brilliant 45 minutes of character exploration. It reveals so much, puts so much in context. I can't even see it as a retcon because it's not "changing" anything that had happened before. It's showing us why it all happened. Why Spike's insistent on being the Big Bad. Why Angelus' return in S2 threatened him. Why losing Drusilla left him shattered. It just makes sense.

And that's not even going into the Slayer aspects of the episode, Spike's attraction to Slayers, the death wish, the connection between Buffy and Spike.

Crap, I didn't mean to gush. FFL just does that to me. :)