I think Lilah herself isn't difficult. She's a woman in a man's world and has to work twice as hard as a result, but that's not exactly uncommon. She's honest, and has a degree of openess in relationship that probably makes her uncomfortable that's she's making herself too vulnerable. She's Evil, but honest.
And that is the problem for Wes pre her death. He's been brought up on a diet of watcher utilitarianism combined with a black and white moral model of the world. It's the same one watchers pass on to their slayers. And like the parallel couple of Buffy (Wes)and Spike (Lilah) the relationship is broken when the hero 'Good' guy decides to make a stand on the black-white thing and leaves the Evil lover in the shit/blasted tomb. They then never have non-deniable sex again and the only contact has to be 'pure' hand- holding and contract burning aimed at giving the Evil character 'Rest'.
Which takes us to where both Lilah and Spike really are difficult. It's to certain of the main writers of the Jossverse and the moral structure they're comfortable with. Some of them just are not comfortable with grey, with complexly motivated characters, with adults, with 'difficult'.
In a way, Lilah's gender made it easier for the writers, as they had a Noir woman trope to rest on. She could be the Bad Girl that our scruffy hero plays with before moving onto the Good Girl. The writers could certainly be more comfortable playing with such a familiar model. Spike was more of a problem as they'd reversed the gender roles so effectively in that relationship that the attempt to manipulate audience sympathy resulted in a lot of the audience not reacting as they wanted, and the writers puppet strings showing so badly it pretty much broke the story. But, nevertheless, in both Lilah and Spike's case, they had been fleshed out into real three-dimensional characters. And they were Evil, but human, relatable and accordingly arousing questions in part of the audience about how they were treated by the 'heroes' and threatening the moral structure of the Jossverse.
Now, that structure had been bending and coming under pressure ever since the MOTWs started turning into longer lasting villians we could get to know and in some cases love. But the more developed those characters became the more they became difficult to the writers assumption that the audience would always accept the 'heroes' actions. Once we got to Angel locking the lawyers, catering staff, and not helping a bitten Mrs Manners, and Buffy beating the shit out of Spike for saying something Giles had said to her in S3 re the Deputy Mayor and not even flinching with guilt when called on it, some of the writers (Joss, Noxon, and Fury esp) had a problem. To be fair this was also a problem for some of the audience - especially those wedded to a worldview that didn't favour character change and development and an increased complexity of the world model.
Some of the writers didn't have that problem. Minear and SDK seemed to thrive on the questions and story possibilities of grey, of complex, of difficult. But they weren't in charge (or were on FF) when the calls were made. Spike was forced away from his organic story of soulless redemption (to avoid the consequent Buffy killing redeemable sentients/why didn't Angelus get his soul back if he loved Buffy/fix it so he wouldn't be dangerous to her) and Lilah was killed off. RL issues affected both casting decisions, but the end result was the same for the Jossverse.
The difficult characters had been dealt with. One dead, the other now stamped with the Jossverse soul of fitting the model. S5 was morally dumbed down compared to what it could and should have been under a Minear complexity lover. It sucks. I like the difficult characters - of both genders.
And that is the problem for Wes pre her death. He's been brought up on a diet of watcher utilitarianism combined with a black and white moral model of the world. It's the same one watchers pass on to their slayers. And like the parallel couple of Buffy (Wes)and Spike (Lilah) the relationship is broken when the hero 'Good' guy decides to make a stand on the black-white thing and leaves the Evil lover in the shit/blasted tomb. They then never have non-deniable sex again and the only contact has to be 'pure' hand- holding and contract burning aimed at giving the Evil character 'Rest'.
Which takes us to where both Lilah and Spike really are difficult. It's to certain of the main writers of the Jossverse and the moral structure they're comfortable with. Some of them just are not comfortable with grey, with complexly motivated characters, with adults, with 'difficult'.
In a way, Lilah's gender made it easier for the writers, as they had a Noir woman trope to rest on. She could be the Bad Girl that our scruffy hero plays with before moving onto the Good Girl. The writers could certainly be more comfortable playing with such a familiar model. Spike was more of a problem as they'd reversed the gender roles so effectively in that relationship that the attempt to manipulate audience sympathy resulted in a lot of the audience not reacting as they wanted, and the writers puppet strings showing so badly it pretty much broke the story. But, nevertheless, in both Lilah and Spike's case, they had been fleshed out into real three-dimensional characters. And they were Evil, but human, relatable and accordingly arousing questions in part of the audience about how they were treated by the 'heroes' and threatening the moral structure of the Jossverse.
Now, that structure had been bending and coming under pressure ever since the MOTWs started turning into longer lasting villians we could get to know and in some cases love. But the more developed those characters became the more they became difficult to the writers assumption that the audience would always accept the 'heroes' actions. Once we got to Angel locking the lawyers, catering staff, and not helping a bitten Mrs Manners, and Buffy beating the shit out of Spike for saying something Giles had said to her in S3 re the Deputy Mayor and not even flinching with guilt when called on it, some of the writers (Joss, Noxon, and Fury esp) had a problem. To be fair this was also a problem for some of the audience - especially those wedded to a worldview that didn't favour character change and development and an increased complexity of the world model.
Some of the writers didn't have that problem. Minear and SDK seemed to thrive on the questions and story possibilities of grey, of complex, of difficult. But they weren't in charge (or were on FF) when the calls were made. Spike was forced away from his organic story of soulless redemption (to avoid the consequent Buffy killing redeemable sentients/why didn't Angelus get his soul back if he loved Buffy/fix it so he wouldn't be dangerous to her) and Lilah was killed off. RL issues affected both casting decisions, but the end result was the same for the Jossverse.
The difficult characters had been dealt with. One dead, the other now stamped with the Jossverse soul of fitting the model. S5 was morally dumbed down compared to what it could and should have been under a Minear complexity lover. It sucks. I like the difficult characters - of both genders.
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