Meandering Musings

Sometimes (thanks to time, distance, and the ignore feature on message boards) you forget some of the irrationality of some people's views of the BtVS character of Spike.  Occasionally, though, you run across a bit and after the 'whu...?' you shake your head and think, "typical."

I was reading a review of the last issue of the Angel & Faith comic and there was OTT whinging in the comments claiming that Spike continuing to remember Dawn after Angel & Faith forgot her was an 'irritating' development and claiming that the comic was irrationally saying that Spike was  'closer to Dawn than anyone ever' (stated with what looked like quite a bit of bitterness.  After all, we 'know' Spike didn't actually give a shit about Dawn, right?  [/sarcasm]) Clearly, the A&F comic is all about propping Spike. (*snort* [eyeroll] *laughter.*  I read the previous two issues.)

Er...uh...guys?  I think some Spike bitterness / pigeon-holing myopia might be getting in the way of a rational read of the comic.  Nothing anywhere in it indicates that Spike is 'closer to Dawn' than  'anyone' much less 'ever.'  Seriously? Overreact much?

At last glance, Buffy, Xander, Willow, and Andrew also remember Dawn.  Andrew, people.   Andrew!

Someone reading such a Spike-resentful interpretation into the Angel & Faith comic requires quite a bit of determination (and, in this instance, unwarranted Spike negativity).  Nothing in either comic indicates that Buffy or Xander are not substantially more important to Dawn than Spike.  What the Angel & Faith comic does is highlight that Spike's relationship with Dawn is more real than Angel's and more substantial than Faith's ... which should be eniterly uncontroversial (and is for most).

Spike's relationship with Dawn was more real than Angel's.

Angel never even met the real Dawn on either show.  Then, in the comics, his sole interaction with her was as Twilight.  (Remember?  It was his masked villain/martyr/toga phase.)  The sum of Angel's relationship with Dawn is the spell and a one-off incidental use of her as a pawn while playing supervillain.  That's it.  That's all.   Spike remembering Dawn after Angel forgets her makes perfect sense (in a comic that isn't known for great sums of it).  All it took to remove Angel's memory is for the spell to fade. There was no there there.  Spike has real memories (and unresolved issues) with Dawn, so -- DUH!

Faith, on the other hand, never had a relationship with Dawn beyond brief aquaintance.  Her reaction in the comic was to blend Dawn into the sea of Slayers/ "Potentials"... which, again, makes perfect sense in the context in which Faith knew Dawn.  Once the spell fades, easy enough for her Dawn memories to merge with the memory of the sea of faces of other girls Faith briefly knew in Buffy's overcrowded house.  (Even during 8, Faith was most often in a different location from any Scoobs other than Giles.)

Again, Spike had an actual one-on-one relationship with Dawn.  He felt a lingering sense of failure in the summer post 5 for not protecting Dawn adequately enough so that Buffy didn't have to die (remember his "every night I save you?"  What exactly in that string of events could he have changed?  *Hint* It's Dawn-related.)  Even if someone wants to piss all over the Spike/Dawn relationship by making it entirely about Buffy, this was still an incident that he angsted over for quite some time.)  Then he kept his 'promise to a lady' by babysitting Dawn for substantial periods of time while Buffy was an ex-Buffy.)  There actually was a frame of time where these two were close.  Then came the second half of 6 and they... weren't.  Then came 7 and they really weren't.   But, where the Spike bitter/pigeon-holer-types take that as an indication that Spike didn't give a shit about Dawn, I took it as 1) an indication that the writers didn't give a shit about the characters' relationship. 2) That given what Spike was thinking and feeling while being crazed in the basement, that Spike took Dawn's threat to torch him as an indication that Dawn was really, really pissed with him and his comprehending that Dawn had every right to be really, really pissed with him.  She did have every right to feel pissed and to feel disillusioned by him.  And he respected the gravity of that by not pressing the issue with her (and it carried some gravity because otherwise he would snark.  Spike naturally snarks about most things.  That he never has about the impasse means that Dawn's fury carried weight).

And, to be fair that there was weakness involved, it was easier to let sleeping dogs lie.  There was no way to have that conversation without it being really painful and really incomplete (because there was no way for Spike to relate the labyrinthine issues that Spike/Buffy had.  Hell, most viewers who watched it --and Buffy and Spike themselves -- can't easily explain all of it. The simple part, Dawn has got.  She knows what Spike did. And I cannot imagine that the ones most predisposed to griping about anything Spike-related would take kindly to any efforts a writer would make to expand these topics.  It would only muddle and/or add complexity, depending on one's point of view (because the status quo is Dawn having  the gist of the truly bad stuff, leaving Spike responsible for SR in an unambiguous way.)

Beyond that, how in the hell would one explain the rest of Season 6's Spike/Buffy to a teenaged Dawn in a way that didn't oversimplify it or tread into some decidedly ...er...thorny(?) TMI?  It's not like it was just Spike who couldn't explain the messy interdynamics.  Buffy never really managed to explain it to Dawn either.)

Yes, it would have been brave and honest to bring the issues out into the open.   It would have been helpful and more healthy for Spike to address it in the light rather than avoid.   But it would also be painful and extremely difficult, and Dawn had a right to be pissed. It makes sense for Spike to step back, respect her righteous anger, and just let the situation go unchanged.  That doesn't mean that he did not care.  That means that he reacted in a comprehensible -- and humanly flawed -- way.

As a viewer and fan, though, it was hella unsatisfying that the whole realtionship was never again addressed.  In a sea of Dawn haters (Spike isn't the only character who people sometimes take a negative -- and only negative ever -- attitude towards) there actually were some Spike fans who valued Spike/Dawn interaction.  Honestly, I think the pair deserved some sort of follow-up that Mutant Enemy never found time for (though, we sure as hell got a lot of pointless Potentials).  The lack of resolution in that relationship -- leaving it perpetually unaddressed -- was a loss of a dramatic beat that was...well... a loss.

Now, I remain unchanged in thinking that these comics mostly suck.  But if they'll give any sort of follow-up to the Spike/Dawn situation, I'd like to see it (I'm not expecting much.  But, hey, anything would be a tiny improvement)

Still, it makes perfect damn sense that Spike would remember Dawn after Angel and Faith.

Unlike the bitterista-ing overstatement on this, Spike remembering after those two is not an indication that he is more 'special' or 'closer than anyone else ever.'  He was, however, closer to Dawn than either Angel or Faith. His memories were actual, substantive memories.  If the spell is being undone, of course his real memories are substantially more difficult to undo than Angel's 99.5% fake ones and Faith's insignificant, incidental ones.  That shouldn't be controversial, making the bitter comments a decidedly unconvincing source for carping.  It rather comes off as "it's something that Spike fans like -- I hate that!")

Read it. Liked it.

But, as a caveat, I've also been a fan of Red Dwarf and Farscape...which is my admission that I'm somewhat amenable to these types of stories.
( Read more... )

* I read "Mark Watches..." I Will Remember You recap which brings to mind memories...

Okay, the truth is, I don't remember what I thought about the episode the first time I watched it when it aired. I was still riding the Bangel train (yes, there was a time), so I probably went with the flow. (I jumped off during the episode Sanctuary. That was where it became perfectly clear to me that Buffy and Angel not only did not know what made each other tick... they didn't actually want to understand what made each other tick).

Anyway, I don't think "I Will Remember You" is a particularly good episode. ( Read more... )


* Obvious observation is obvious...

A week or two ago I was listening to The Modern Scholar series "History of Ancient Israel", a lecture series given by the same professor who did a series on "Archaeology and the Illiad". I think he did a somewhat better job with Troy and the Illiad, because he was willing to discuss it a bit more frankly. The history of Israel (even the ancient history of it) is more controversial because it's still in contention today and because while it's uncontroversial to call the Illiad "mythology," there are people that are dead serious about Old Testament being absolute, unquestionable (and it's a sin to question any bit of it) history. The professor is very, very tactful about all of it and stresses time and again that "absence of evidence doesn't mean that something didn't happen." Anyway, generally, I think it's a pretty good lecture and actually a rather good addition to his previous lecture on the Illiad (and also to the Modern Scholar Series on the Ancient History of Anatolia(Turkey) that was up for download earlier this year although it was done by a different professor).

Why do I bring all of this up? The part of the lecture discussing the Essenes (the Jewish religious sect who were the ones to hide the Dead Sea Scrolls) quoted some of their more apocalytic passages, and I swear they sound exactly like some of the incantations and prayers for the god R'hollor in G R R Martin's "Song of Ice and Fire" series. I know that to a certain extent, all apocalyptic cults have some similarities. But the whole "god of light" bit is really, really similar. Similar enough that I wonder if the Dead Sea Scrolls weren't an influence.

In some interview/quote I read of Martin's recently he said something about how his Game of Thrones series came about because the problem with historical fiction is that you go into reading it knowing how things turned out. He thought it would be interesting to have historical fiction where... you don't know what will happen. And, admittedly, that is one of the interesting thing in the series, finding historical parallels that may have influenced something.

I believe Martin when he says that there are no direct parallels. It seems to draw inspirations from events but never direct parallels. So you can point to Henry VIII and King Robert Baratheon in some aspects... but King Robert isn't Henry VIII and really... there's some Henry VIII in King Stannis Baratheon as well (just an entirely different aspect than King Roberts.) Margeary's situation also reminds me some of Queen Isabella she-wolf of France as told in Alison Weir's biography. Not a direct parallel.... but there's some inspiration. For that matter, it's possible to see some bits of Princess (later Queen) Elizabeth I in some of Sansa's story, even though she's definitely not Queen Elizabeth. And so on. There are historical bits that sort of serve and "see! Some of this sort of thing actually happened!" in ASOIAF, but none of it is exactly the same and no character/story seems to be a direct retelling of a historical story, but there are tantalizingly similar moments occasionally.

Anyway, my "obvious observation is obvious" is that Stannis is a theocrat. ( Read more... )

And now I'm really tired and not sure that anything I wrote made sense (although it made sense to me when it originally struck me). Hopefully it made some sense to someone that isn't me, but who knows.

Since it's come up in the comments for the web comic, I thought I would post the end of the Lynch Spike Comic. ( Pages behind the cut )

Text version of the end.:

Took on the Vegas mission because I was sick of playing second banana. Sick of being along for the ride. I wanted to steer the coaster...

... but no one steers the coaster. No one is in control of anything.

Innocents become dangerous. Heroes can turn on a dime. Sometimes evil can do an about face and want to help.

People come into your life. People leave. Everything is changing. Everything is always changing.

Bottom line -- the only thing any one of us is in charge of... is ourselves.

---

As to how Spike got the bug ship, ( below the cut )

Since it's come up in the comments for the web comic, I thought I would post the end of the Lynch Spike Comic. ( Pages behind the cut )

Text version of the end.:

Took on the Vegas mission because I was sick of playing second banana. Sick of being along for the ride. I wanted to steer the coaster...

... but no one steers the coaster. No one is in control of anything.

Innocents become dangerous. Heroes can turn on a dime. Sometimes evil can do an about face and want to help.

People come into your life. People leave. Everything is changing. Everything is always changing.

Bottom line -- the only thing any one of us is in charge of... is ourselves.

---

As to how Spike got the bug ship, ( below the cut )

I'm not sure what it is that make certain storylines 'work' for me, why they're something that intrigues me and makes me want to think and talk about them.  At any rate the three that interest me most at the moment (in no particular order).

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Being Human

I'm really enjoying this plot.  It's chewy.  Those who watched last season know that Mitchell did something horrible.  I've really enjoyed how they have not let that slide, and how they have used that to reinforce their metaphors. 

Being Human has always had that underlying subtext that vampirism is addiction (and far more clearly than BtVS/AtS ever did, because, honestly, I don't think BtVS/AtS ever did work that way... beyond lip service.  AtS might say that it was a metaphor for addiction, but it was never shown in a convincing light.  There might be 'falling off the wagon'- like  dialog occasionally, but there weren't cravings, etc. 

BtVS worked on the concept of demons representing Buffy's 'demons' (her inner demons, demons she had to face) and Angel and Spike were created and born in that context.  Angel and Spike's journeys weren't their own until further down the line.  And, quite frankly, there's always been something almost  Calvanist in the Whedonverse with all it's dependence on the Chosen/Elect and the damned (and everyone else) ...with the occasional boon given to free will. 

Vampirism in the Whedonverse always seemed to be far more about those concepts to me (and even some odd parallel to the concept of Original Sin).  Vampirism in BtVS/AtS is a curse, an edict, or a judgement.  It was more about falling prey to ones demons or subsuming (or  Spike/Angel case an effort at) overcoming some  'fate' and  fixed destiny.  Whedonverse vampirism was completely bound up in the concept of souls and curses and whether or not vampires had any choice but evil.  Were they even allowed to have free will?  {Go team Spike free will!} Basically, in the Whedonverse it always seemed to me to be more of a dialog about the struggle of free will versus a somewhat Calvanist doctrine of fate, destiny, and inevitability, thus the emphasis on souls, being "Chosen", prophecy, etc.... which was always amusing to me because Whedon is an atheist). 

Being Human's vampirism is very, very much a metaphor for addiction.  The rationalization, the backsliding, the struggle.  It's so easy to see Mitchell as some heroine addict and all that would entail.  He fits far too well the sort of thing you see when you watch "Intervention" on A&E (as well as the problems of a drug addict that grew up down the street from me who was a nice guy when sober and yet could never overcome addiction and who in the end became a very real-life monster before his suicide).   The aftermath of last year's story is being played out with this years and we see the way that Mitchell explains and avoids those things and how that is all very much a part of not only who he is but who he has always been and how that has very much informed his whole vampiric existence.  And the story has worked very much in Annie's metaphor as well.  Annie, the ghost.  Annie who denied to herself that she was in an abusive relationship, painting a happy face on it, eplaining it away, even as it killed her, leaving her trapped in that place.  She was a victim, invisible to many and unable to actualize herself.  She has a history of falling into destructive relationships, of living vicariously through others, being the kind of 'giver' that doesn't understand that she needs to stand up for herself.  Ah Mitchell/Annie your weaknesses were bound to...er... bind you.   I've liked the way this story has gone and the way it's been quite subversive about its vampire romance trope.

---

Big Love  

Yeah, last season was teh crazy, and this season is much the same.  However, I really enjoy just how freaking screwed up these people are. (I've even gotten my mom into loving this show.  Bill Hendrickson amuses the hell out of her).  Bill is such a self-serving douche.  He really, really is. Oh, he's so goooooood.  So righteous.  He goes on and on about serving God and begging God "why are you testing me so?" while he is so, so, so oblivious that he's a douchebag!  Dude, it's not "God" directing you to do a host of self-serving things.  It's your collosal, oversized ego!  Oh, and your penis!  "God" doesn't tell him to pick fights with wacked out cult leader Alby.  'God" didn't tell Bill to build a casino.  "God" didn't tell him to run for the Utah State Senate.  Nope.  That was all  Bill.  He totally overlooks what he inflicts on the people around him with what he does, especially his cult-o-sister-wives and for his long suffering business partner.  How much shit has he made them all take and eat?  Because he thinks he's their 'priesthood holder.'  Bill is a piece of work.  So 'good', so 'righteous' ...such a self-serving douche. 

And I've really enjoyed all the massively screwed-up sister-wives and their own dysfunctions that have led them into this life with Bill. ( Read more... )All these people are so very, very screwed up (and so very righteous and 'godly' about it.  "God" tells them to do all these things. 'God' really really wants them to be rich and powerful and smite all their enemies too.  And when things don't work it's because 'God' is testing their faith so they double down) . I can't help it.  It's a trainwreck that I cannot help but watch.

---

Fringe
Mmm.  Yummy sci-fi that hits so many kinks. 

I love Olivia as a heroine.  She's smart, competent, brave, and she tries so very, very hard.  And, her life has been such shit.  Her mother died.  Her step-father abused her.  She was used as a medical guinea pig in shocking horrific medical experiments as a kid that damaged her in ways she can't really explain but which also gave her and eidetic memory and the ability to walk between parallel universes. She has such a difficult, difficult time forming relationships, but her heart does love deeply.  And things just never quite seem to work out for her.  Yet she tries so hard to be fair and adult about it.  She breaks my heart.  I want her to be happy, damnit!  (It hurt seeing her happy last night.  It's so rare to see her happy, and we the audience know... something... is going to come down on her like  a ton of bricks soon.  So, even as she's glowing with new found happiness, I'm going "Poor Olivia"...)

At its big, red, throbbing heart, the show tells the story of a love so powerful, it crosses universes: When Peter was seven, he died. His brilliant-scientist father, Walter, having discovered that there was a parallel universe containing doubles of everyone here, transported himself to that Other Side and brought back that universe’s Peter, to love and to cherish. In doing so, he created not just a rift in the universes (which are now dangerously, explosively out of balance), but also a rift between father and son (when Peter discovered who he really was, and grappled with the idea that he belonged to another Walter, a “Walternate”).

And you've got that Olivia/Peter thing that  is oh-so-starcrossed... and on a ticking time clock of an apocalypse where their relationship is pivotal.. and which may require Peter's death.   This year so many of the episodes are clues to what is important to the mytharc (even if they're MOTW) or metaphors for the dynamics of the entwined relationships of Olivia/Peter/Walter... as well as things concerning the alternative_universe dopplegangers of both themselves and their friends.  

Throw in some zeplins, an intact World Trade Center, an alternative-history (MLK asn't assassinated, Nixon was never impeached, Kennedy is still alive.  An Alternative Olivia, an Alternative_Walter, an Alternative_Fringe {but no FBI...})  in the same but subtly different alternative universe, and pop me some popcorn while I sit in front of a television because I'm a sucker for this stuff.

Let me see:

The world can't handle there being more than one empowered woman (possibly two) in it. Such a thing  throws the balance of the entire universe so out of whack that a sentient universe convinces a man to think for the poor little woman, lying to and manipulating her,  while the universe places her in what looks a lot like heat so as to 'birth' an apocalypse that has extreme mommy-issues. 

And the only way to stop this apocalypse is to strip another set of women of their magical powers.

What's wrong with this picture?

Let me see:

The world can't handle there being more than one empowered woman (possibly two) in it. Such a thing  throws the balance of the entire universe so out of whack that a sentient universe convinces a man to think for the poor little woman, lying to and manipulating her,  while the universe places her in what looks a lot like heat so as to 'birth' an apocalypse that has extreme mommy-issues. 

And the only way to stop this apocalypse is to strip another set of women of their magical powers.

What's wrong with this picture?

green_maia  was asking about BtVS meta and that brought to mind the old fan-project "Spike Thesis" based on the Watcher named Lydia announcing  "I wrote my thesis on Spike."  At the time, several of us got together and wrote the thesis for her.  Alas, both of the links where it was stored are now defunct.  So I thought I'd poke around yahoogroups and I see that the group is still there, and the files are still there (though I'm not sure whether they were the final product).  I'm wondering whether I should contact Klytemnestra, who I know is still around LJ, and ask if she has the final copy anywhere or whether it's okay to snag the old files.  It seems a shame for all of that to simply evaporate.

And Rahirah has provided the link:  www.scribd.com/doc/16266234/Spike-Thesis  (wonder if I should download and save that somewhere just in case it goes missing).

:
So, I'm trying to understand the various Allie and Jeanty Q&A's:
So, let me sum up Twangel's 'character arc' of Season 8:

Angel didn't know anything.   He didn't do anything.  And anything he did do or it looks like he did, he's not actually responsible for except for the 'helping' stuff that we didn't see.  But he's gonna feel really bad about... something (not that he did anything, knew anything, or was actually responsible for anything) so feel really bad for the guy, okay? 

Great character arc, huh.


( I give you Peggy... )