Am I really still obsessing about Seeing Red?
You know, this meta on why the AR in SR (g) doesn't work really makes me think that good writing depends on avoiding the generic. ME didn't avoid the generic in Seeing Red. Yes, I know Marti was supposedly modeling this on something that she did herself, but that in itself shows that it's not based on SPIKE and Buffy and what has happened in their relationship and their journeys. It's like ME was just deciding "Spike needs a reason to get a soul" and cast about for something, anything. And since this is a man and a woman, ta-da! Rape! Of course, as hello_spikey shows, that doesn't make any sense to this particular man and woman, and undercuts everything painstakingly established about them. But that's what they got for distrusting what they had created.
Grrrr. I remember thinking at the time that this was a sop to those who thought Buffy should be with Angel (as was End of Days). I guess it can't be helped when a story is developing AS it's being watched-- the reactions might actually influence the development. And Joss doesn't help when he keeps trying to "split the difference" -- as he did in End of Days. Who is Buffy? Who would she choose? It's not a democracy here, to misquote Spike! We don't actually get a vote, and Joss should go back to the character, not to polling of fans.
I think the AR (and the End of Days Angel reunion-- come on, Angel had just killed his own son and signed a contract that just about eliminated his whole team's personal freedom, and he's going to personally drive to Sunnydale to give her a file and a necklace, and then almost immediately leave? it doesn't make any sense on the Angel angle, and actually undercuts the power of the end of S4 AtS) was just a desperate, tacked on attempt to go back to a simpler "theology", where if you were evil, you couldn't help but do evil, and if you were good, you were sort of weak, and the only sympathy comes from "victimization", and, well, the Buffy really shouldn't love someone without a soul because, uh, because a soul makes you good, even if Willow's about to destroy the world with a soul and... That is, the complexity ME had created (well, a few of the writers and a couple great actors) was too much, and they reverted to something simpler and stupider. And of course it made no sense, because it was meant (subconsciously, I think) to actually deny what had happened before-- no, we can't have it that the most romantic lover of the whole series didn't have a soul, and no, we can't have it that you can be good without a soul, and no, we can't have it that you can actually find love through sex, and no, we can't have it that a woman is stronger than a man (take that, Joss the feminist:), and no, we can't have it that Buffy might be actually getting over that sad adoration of Angel. Can we? Okay, so let's do something that means none of that ever happened!
Too bad that JM's acting in that scene is so sensitive and nuanced that Spike, at least, doesn't come across just as a generic plot tool. Spike didn't understand what he was doing, because it didn't make any character sense, and JM actually used that confusion to TRY and make the scene work on some level.
I can't help but come back to the thought that ME couldn't trust what it had created-- a complicated adult romantic couple, a truly conflicted and ambiguous hero, and an intense thematic puzzle-- and so went back to some earlier, simpler reduction of issues. Vampire bad. Girl weak. Sex bad too.
A lesson to us all-- Know your characters, and then trust your characterization.
Grrrr. I remember thinking at the time that this was a sop to those who thought Buffy should be with Angel (as was End of Days). I guess it can't be helped when a story is developing AS it's being watched-- the reactions might actually influence the development. And Joss doesn't help when he keeps trying to "split the difference" -- as he did in End of Days. Who is Buffy? Who would she choose? It's not a democracy here, to misquote Spike! We don't actually get a vote, and Joss should go back to the character, not to polling of fans.
I think the AR (and the End of Days Angel reunion-- come on, Angel had just killed his own son and signed a contract that just about eliminated his whole team's personal freedom, and he's going to personally drive to Sunnydale to give her a file and a necklace, and then almost immediately leave? it doesn't make any sense on the Angel angle, and actually undercuts the power of the end of S4 AtS) was just a desperate, tacked on attempt to go back to a simpler "theology", where if you were evil, you couldn't help but do evil, and if you were good, you were sort of weak, and the only sympathy comes from "victimization", and, well, the Buffy really shouldn't love someone without a soul because, uh, because a soul makes you good, even if Willow's about to destroy the world with a soul and... That is, the complexity ME had created (well, a few of the writers and a couple great actors) was too much, and they reverted to something simpler and stupider. And of course it made no sense, because it was meant (subconsciously, I think) to actually deny what had happened before-- no, we can't have it that the most romantic lover of the whole series didn't have a soul, and no, we can't have it that you can be good without a soul, and no, we can't have it that you can actually find love through sex, and no, we can't have it that a woman is stronger than a man (take that, Joss the feminist:), and no, we can't have it that Buffy might be actually getting over that sad adoration of Angel. Can we? Okay, so let's do something that means none of that ever happened!
Too bad that JM's acting in that scene is so sensitive and nuanced that Spike, at least, doesn't come across just as a generic plot tool. Spike didn't understand what he was doing, because it didn't make any character sense, and JM actually used that confusion to TRY and make the scene work on some level.
I can't help but come back to the thought that ME couldn't trust what it had created-- a complicated adult romantic couple, a truly conflicted and ambiguous hero, and an intense thematic puzzle-- and so went back to some earlier, simpler reduction of issues. Vampire bad. Girl weak. Sex bad too.
A lesson to us all-- Know your characters, and then trust your characterization.