Tis' the season to feel crappy...
So this was supposed to be my essay on season six, except that is a terribly broad topic. I will say this though-I don’t think the theme was “life is the big bad” so much as humanity being the big bad. I mean, that is where all of the “big badness” of the season stemmed from.
Well, here are a few quick thoughts before I venture into something more specific-
Once upon a time, several years ago when I was younger, watching season six as it aired, I found it...
O.D.ing on angst.
Titillating and kind of sexy.
Kept me on the edge of my seat.
Making me hope for...something more.
Several years later and I feel...
Repulsed.
Disgusted.
Hope shriveled up and died, not that hope mattered cause if that's all I had, then I didn't have a pot to piss in or a leg to stand on anyway, and would therefore, rather not have it at all. My hope beforehand had been fruitless.
But season six...I find it repulsive. I think it's an important season, but for all the wrong reasons. It was like the writers were trying to be all "Look ya'll-we're so deep!" when really, they were taking themselves too seriously. I have a lot of issues with it (some that go beyond what was on screen, but pertains to behind the scenes as well). Most of it makes me cringe. I don't like it, and it made me stop liking the heroine. You want to bring the lead down to the very bottom? Fine. Have her drag down your favorite character with her? Fine. That’s all forgivable. But to have her take the elevator instead of the stairs on the way back up like everyone else-to not have her work for forgiveness? That I cannot forgive.
I can deal with pain and angst, but that wasn't the good kind; the fulfilling kind cause it meant something at the end. It didn't truly make it out of the darkness, so much as swept it under the carpet (for Buffy, anyway, who didn’t learn much of anything. Someone keeps mentioning “Teflon epiphanies,” but I’ve forgotten who). It was hypocritical, and full of holes (no wait--that was season seven) and not wholly consistent of what we've seen from Buffy's character before, and I'd have to be an insanely, hyped on feel good drugs in order to watch it from start to finish again in one sitting (certain eps on their own--OMWF or "Tabula Rasa"--cool. Other stuff? Not so much).
However, it did lead to some canon friendly one shots that I'm quite proud of--there is that.
Anyway.
But this essay is about being average and normal, or what’s typical behavior…Okay, not summing that up well, so let’s just get right to the meat potatoes, mmkay?
All slayers are exactly the same.
I mean really, it was as if Buffy and Faith were separated at birth. They did everything exactly the same-slayed the same way, dressed the same, dated the same kind of guys...
Yeah, only they didn't.
I bring this up because for some reason, it appears that vampires have the same personality with the same wants and desires (e.g. enjoying/desiring rough and violent sex). Including Spike. Yep, he is mos def the epitome of the average vampire, right? Yeah, not so much. Honestly, I can’t believe I have to even point that out. Vampires are as different and diverse as humans can be, and just because Angelus was a big pervert, doesn't mean that all vampires are.
Season six has clearly been on my mind, and relationships, and normal v. not so normal...
BUFFY: Let's face it: none of us are ever gonna have a happy, normal relationship.
This was stated all the way back in season one. What I find interesting (now) is that for Buffy, "happy" and "normal" somehow go hand in hand in her mind. Though that's not how it works.
Here's a quick rundown of some of the not so normal relationships in Sunnydale, but were fairly happy ones throughout their duration: dating witches, werewolves, the popular hot chick at school when you're one of the social lepers (come on-that isn’t exactly a typical scenario), dating someone the same sex as you (not that I view it as abnormal, but in little, suburban Sunnydale? The other Scoobies didn't exactly take that bit of news in stride), vampires, demons and ex-demons. The "abnormal" relationships outweigh that of the "normal" relationships by far.
Normal's clearly overrated.
For someone like Buffy, normal isn't even feasible. She herself does not lead a normal lifestyle just by existing. Normal does not default to "happy." And she knows this, or she should know it, by the time season six rolls around. When she tried to have normal in her life, normal went packing because normal didn't feel as if he measured up. And to be perfectly honest? He didn't. Not because he was normal, but because that whole being normal thing opened up all kinds of insecurities that he could not deal with. He didn’t think it (to be only Joe Normal) was good enough. But to be fair to him, he was also treated as if he weren’t.
{C}
{C}
“The best predictor you have of how people will treat you is how they have treated those that came before you.”
~Dawn Summers
So in season six, we have Spike as the leading man. Or Spike who tried to be. Kind of hard to lead when you’re relegated to the shadows. And he was in fact put there-he was willing to go out into the light. He was already more than amicable with her friends. Hell, he was part of the team.
So, referencing the above quote, I do think that’s a good indicator of what Spike’s nature truly is-what type of man he is. What had be been doing the several months before Buffy came back? Doing Buffy’s job of slaying with her friends, and taking care of her little sister. Yes, that has evil and darkness written all over it. Even Giles, who loved Buffy just as much (but in a very different way), didn’t stick around Sunnydale, but Spike did. And Buffy knows this.
And what Buffy didn’t know or didn’t see, we the audience did. Besides one offhand comment from Spike in “Lovers Walk,” where he mentions tying Dru up and torturing her until she likes him again (which really, sounds like something she’d previously enjoyed “Daddy” doing, and not Spike, but we know he was willing to do anything for the woman that he loves, but the flashbacks don’t exactly point to that happening. Point is, we didn’t see it, and it doesn’t fit the Spike/Dru dynamic we saw on screen), not that the comment even referenced a sex act anyway, when do we ever see Spike have rough or violent sex prior to season six? We don’t.
Spike’s Previous Sex Partners
Yes, Drusilla was ill in season two, and we only have that one scene where we see the preview to their sex scene (where Angel’s tied up and forced to watch), but in the flashback of FFL? Yeah, Dru wasn’t sporting any bruises. Hell, her hair wasn’t even unkempt afterwards.
Then there’s Harmony. Season five of Ats aside, they were always shown having sex in bed, usually under the covers. The lair or the crypt was never in disarray post it either. True, Spike had a fantasy of fighting Buffy in one of those instances, but his movements were still slow and careful-furious fucking clearly had not been happening in that scene (I forget the name of the season five ep, but Hamrony calls him her “little lamb” and pets his head afterwards).
And let’s not forget the Buffy Bot-he spends his time performing oral on her, making love to her, and dear god, spooning. Playful bites here and there, and play fights-he doesn’t beat the bot up, slap her around, or anything like that. And he could have. In fact, you’d think after all that time with the chip, he’d be itching to slap around the likeness of Buffy with the bot. Get all of his dark, eevil sex kinks out of the way, right? Except that didn’t happen. That isn’t what Spike wanted out of sex or a relationship. The fact that he has sex with and spoons a robot aside (which was more pathetic than anything), we had not seen anything remotely perverse or gross or obscene with Spike and his lovers. Not a thing. So I am confused when I hear stuff like “Spike brought Buffy down into his darkness with kinky sex” thing. And he wanted to be in the light with her and her friends. If he wanted to see Buffy or spend time with her, he didn’t have to dash to her house or the Magic Box during daylight hours to do it. If she’d wanted a relationship in the sun (or indirect sunlight as it were), she could have had it. He never physically takes her to his crypt-she is the one who prefers to see him there (if her heading over there all the time was any indication).
Chains and Pain
The only chains we see him use are handcuffs. But hey-Ripper and Wesley are into that too. Wesley actually owns a pair. So maybe it isn’t a vampire thing, but a British man thing in the Jossverse. No wait-Xander laments Spike’s chains not being in the basement when he and Anya had sex down there. And those were actual shackles-not fun and easily accessible handcuffs. So that’s clearly not a vampire thing.
The “Dead Things” Balcony Scene
Fantasies. Everyone has at least one. So what’s Buffy’s? I think Faith had her pegged here:
I've seen it, B. You've got the lust. And I'm not just talking about screwing vampires. It was good, wasn't it? The sex? The danger?
So we have Buffy, willingly walking away from her friends and their lame dancing, and heads up to the balcony. Enter Spike, sexily rumbling away about how she should be in his eevil darkness with him and blah blah blah, and he comes up behind her, cast partially in shadow. Buffy doesn’t move, doesn’t walk away, doesn’t even turn around. She lets him, cause she wanted it. She may have even been waiting for him up there. Cause she doesn’t have just vamp tinglies, but Spike tinglies (e.g. “No Place Like Home,” where Buffy felt Spike behind the tree. She frowns and just pulls him out-if she had suspected it was someone else, she wouldn’t have been so nonchalant, I’m sure). So was this Spike’s eevil seduction into the dark (where she was already standing, by the way), or was it just plain seduction? Surely Spike should know by then how to get Buffy off best.
And no, while I can’t prove that’s what the intent was, it can’t really be disproved either. In fact, my theory works. Well, it does. Spike has a habit of being the type of man the woman he is in love with wants him to be. And Buffy so desperately wanted him to be the “bad guy.” And he doesn’t want to hurt her. So why purposely say all that during sex if he thought it’d make her unhappy or turn her off? Perhaps it was a game that struck too close to the bone, and he didn’t realize it? At any rate, she still got her orgasm.
So, keeping in mind all that we know for certain about the character of Spike, he is more than willing to make tremendous changes with himself, be it interior or exterior, for the one who has his heart in her clutches. Which isn’t a good thing-because I think it’s important for him to be his own man (which is why I love him so very much in season five of Ats), but the point is, he was being who Buffy wanted him to be. The “bad guy.”
Only not.
If she’d wanted him to ditch the black wardrobe, pick her up, take her to a movie or a restaurant, flowers, hold doors, offer his coat if she was chilled, hold hands (and he is a hand holder), snuggle, cuddle, spoon, be showered with gifts etc., you can bet your ass that’s exactly what she would have gotten. In fact, we’ve seen that from him before. But Buffy didn’t want that. She couldn’t even stand a simple pet name of “Goldilocks,” hacking off all of her hair just to spite him. So yeah, I have no doubt that the balcony scene was nothing more than her fantasy played out. There was a Buffy bot in season five, but there was also unfortunately another sex bot in season six, who was put away in storage when he wasn’t needed or wanted.
Okay, it’s late, and while I’d love to work my way to that alley scene, I’m pooped. Sides, this is long enough as it is. So, in the meantime, I’ll leave you with a quote that I feel pertains to season six:
Out of the crooked timber of humanity, nothing entirely straight can be built.
-Kant
Well, here are a few quick thoughts before I venture into something more specific-
Once upon a time, several years ago when I was younger, watching season six as it aired, I found it...
O.D.ing on angst.
Titillating and kind of sexy.
Kept me on the edge of my seat.
Making me hope for...something more.
Several years later and I feel...
Repulsed.
Disgusted.
Hope shriveled up and died, not that hope mattered cause if that's all I had, then I didn't have a pot to piss in or a leg to stand on anyway, and would therefore, rather not have it at all. My hope beforehand had been fruitless.
But season six...I find it repulsive. I think it's an important season, but for all the wrong reasons. It was like the writers were trying to be all "Look ya'll-we're so deep!" when really, they were taking themselves too seriously. I have a lot of issues with it (some that go beyond what was on screen, but pertains to behind the scenes as well). Most of it makes me cringe. I don't like it, and it made me stop liking the heroine. You want to bring the lead down to the very bottom? Fine. Have her drag down your favorite character with her? Fine. That’s all forgivable. But to have her take the elevator instead of the stairs on the way back up like everyone else-to not have her work for forgiveness? That I cannot forgive.
I can deal with pain and angst, but that wasn't the good kind; the fulfilling kind cause it meant something at the end. It didn't truly make it out of the darkness, so much as swept it under the carpet (for Buffy, anyway, who didn’t learn much of anything. Someone keeps mentioning “Teflon epiphanies,” but I’ve forgotten who). It was hypocritical, and full of holes (no wait--that was season seven) and not wholly consistent of what we've seen from Buffy's character before, and I'd have to be an insanely, hyped on feel good drugs in order to watch it from start to finish again in one sitting (certain eps on their own--OMWF or "Tabula Rasa"--cool. Other stuff? Not so much).
However, it did lead to some canon friendly one shots that I'm quite proud of--there is that.
Anyway.
But this essay is about being average and normal, or what’s typical behavior…Okay, not summing that up well, so let’s just get right to the meat potatoes, mmkay?
All slayers are exactly the same.
I mean really, it was as if Buffy and Faith were separated at birth. They did everything exactly the same-slayed the same way, dressed the same, dated the same kind of guys...
Yeah, only they didn't.
I bring this up because for some reason, it appears that vampires have the same personality with the same wants and desires (e.g. enjoying/desiring rough and violent sex). Including Spike. Yep, he is mos def the epitome of the average vampire, right? Yeah, not so much. Honestly, I can’t believe I have to even point that out. Vampires are as different and diverse as humans can be, and just because Angelus was a big pervert, doesn't mean that all vampires are.
Season six has clearly been on my mind, and relationships, and normal v. not so normal...
BUFFY: Let's face it: none of us are ever gonna have a happy, normal relationship.
This was stated all the way back in season one. What I find interesting (now) is that for Buffy, "happy" and "normal" somehow go hand in hand in her mind. Though that's not how it works.
Here's a quick rundown of some of the not so normal relationships in Sunnydale, but were fairly happy ones throughout their duration: dating witches, werewolves, the popular hot chick at school when you're one of the social lepers (come on-that isn’t exactly a typical scenario), dating someone the same sex as you (not that I view it as abnormal, but in little, suburban Sunnydale? The other Scoobies didn't exactly take that bit of news in stride), vampires, demons and ex-demons. The "abnormal" relationships outweigh that of the "normal" relationships by far.
Normal's clearly overrated.
For someone like Buffy, normal isn't even feasible. She herself does not lead a normal lifestyle just by existing. Normal does not default to "happy." And she knows this, or she should know it, by the time season six rolls around. When she tried to have normal in her life, normal went packing because normal didn't feel as if he measured up. And to be perfectly honest? He didn't. Not because he was normal, but because that whole being normal thing opened up all kinds of insecurities that he could not deal with. He didn’t think it (to be only Joe Normal) was good enough. But to be fair to him, he was also treated as if he weren’t.
{C}
{C}
“The best predictor you have of how people will treat you is how they have treated those that came before you.”
~Dawn Summers
So in season six, we have Spike as the leading man. Or Spike who tried to be. Kind of hard to lead when you’re relegated to the shadows. And he was in fact put there-he was willing to go out into the light. He was already more than amicable with her friends. Hell, he was part of the team.
So, referencing the above quote, I do think that’s a good indicator of what Spike’s nature truly is-what type of man he is. What had be been doing the several months before Buffy came back? Doing Buffy’s job of slaying with her friends, and taking care of her little sister. Yes, that has evil and darkness written all over it. Even Giles, who loved Buffy just as much (but in a very different way), didn’t stick around Sunnydale, but Spike did. And Buffy knows this.
And what Buffy didn’t know or didn’t see, we the audience did. Besides one offhand comment from Spike in “Lovers Walk,” where he mentions tying Dru up and torturing her until she likes him again (which really, sounds like something she’d previously enjoyed “Daddy” doing, and not Spike, but we know he was willing to do anything for the woman that he loves, but the flashbacks don’t exactly point to that happening. Point is, we didn’t see it, and it doesn’t fit the Spike/Dru dynamic we saw on screen), not that the comment even referenced a sex act anyway, when do we ever see Spike have rough or violent sex prior to season six? We don’t.
Spike’s Previous Sex Partners
Yes, Drusilla was ill in season two, and we only have that one scene where we see the preview to their sex scene (where Angel’s tied up and forced to watch), but in the flashback of FFL? Yeah, Dru wasn’t sporting any bruises. Hell, her hair wasn’t even unkempt afterwards.
Then there’s Harmony. Season five of Ats aside, they were always shown having sex in bed, usually under the covers. The lair or the crypt was never in disarray post it either. True, Spike had a fantasy of fighting Buffy in one of those instances, but his movements were still slow and careful-furious fucking clearly had not been happening in that scene (I forget the name of the season five ep, but Hamrony calls him her “little lamb” and pets his head afterwards).
And let’s not forget the Buffy Bot-he spends his time performing oral on her, making love to her, and dear god, spooning. Playful bites here and there, and play fights-he doesn’t beat the bot up, slap her around, or anything like that. And he could have. In fact, you’d think after all that time with the chip, he’d be itching to slap around the likeness of Buffy with the bot. Get all of his dark, eevil sex kinks out of the way, right? Except that didn’t happen. That isn’t what Spike wanted out of sex or a relationship. The fact that he has sex with and spoons a robot aside (which was more pathetic than anything), we had not seen anything remotely perverse or gross or obscene with Spike and his lovers. Not a thing. So I am confused when I hear stuff like “Spike brought Buffy down into his darkness with kinky sex” thing. And he wanted to be in the light with her and her friends. If he wanted to see Buffy or spend time with her, he didn’t have to dash to her house or the Magic Box during daylight hours to do it. If she’d wanted a relationship in the sun (or indirect sunlight as it were), she could have had it. He never physically takes her to his crypt-she is the one who prefers to see him there (if her heading over there all the time was any indication).
Chains and Pain
The only chains we see him use are handcuffs. But hey-Ripper and Wesley are into that too. Wesley actually owns a pair. So maybe it isn’t a vampire thing, but a British man thing in the Jossverse. No wait-Xander laments Spike’s chains not being in the basement when he and Anya had sex down there. And those were actual shackles-not fun and easily accessible handcuffs. So that’s clearly not a vampire thing.
The “Dead Things” Balcony Scene
Fantasies. Everyone has at least one. So what’s Buffy’s? I think Faith had her pegged here:
I've seen it, B. You've got the lust. And I'm not just talking about screwing vampires. It was good, wasn't it? The sex? The danger?
So we have Buffy, willingly walking away from her friends and their lame dancing, and heads up to the balcony. Enter Spike, sexily rumbling away about how she should be in his eevil darkness with him and blah blah blah, and he comes up behind her, cast partially in shadow. Buffy doesn’t move, doesn’t walk away, doesn’t even turn around. She lets him, cause she wanted it. She may have even been waiting for him up there. Cause she doesn’t have just vamp tinglies, but Spike tinglies (e.g. “No Place Like Home,” where Buffy felt Spike behind the tree. She frowns and just pulls him out-if she had suspected it was someone else, she wouldn’t have been so nonchalant, I’m sure). So was this Spike’s eevil seduction into the dark (where she was already standing, by the way), or was it just plain seduction? Surely Spike should know by then how to get Buffy off best.
And no, while I can’t prove that’s what the intent was, it can’t really be disproved either. In fact, my theory works. Well, it does. Spike has a habit of being the type of man the woman he is in love with wants him to be. And Buffy so desperately wanted him to be the “bad guy.” And he doesn’t want to hurt her. So why purposely say all that during sex if he thought it’d make her unhappy or turn her off? Perhaps it was a game that struck too close to the bone, and he didn’t realize it? At any rate, she still got her orgasm.
So, keeping in mind all that we know for certain about the character of Spike, he is more than willing to make tremendous changes with himself, be it interior or exterior, for the one who has his heart in her clutches. Which isn’t a good thing-because I think it’s important for him to be his own man (which is why I love him so very much in season five of Ats), but the point is, he was being who Buffy wanted him to be. The “bad guy.”
Only not.
If she’d wanted him to ditch the black wardrobe, pick her up, take her to a movie or a restaurant, flowers, hold doors, offer his coat if she was chilled, hold hands (and he is a hand holder), snuggle, cuddle, spoon, be showered with gifts etc., you can bet your ass that’s exactly what she would have gotten. In fact, we’ve seen that from him before. But Buffy didn’t want that. She couldn’t even stand a simple pet name of “Goldilocks,” hacking off all of her hair just to spite him. So yeah, I have no doubt that the balcony scene was nothing more than her fantasy played out. There was a Buffy bot in season five, but there was also unfortunately another sex bot in season six, who was put away in storage when he wasn’t needed or wanted.
Okay, it’s late, and while I’d love to work my way to that alley scene, I’m pooped. Sides, this is long enough as it is. So, in the meantime, I’ll leave you with a quote that I feel pertains to season six:
Out of the crooked timber of humanity, nothing entirely straight can be built.
-Kant