Vague comics musings (no spoilers)
I've been reading a lot of the responses to Buffy Season 10 Issue 16. On the whole, Spuffy shippers seemed to like the issue, even if there have been some complaints reported about there being too much focus on Spike's insecurity.* I don't know if they're from Spuffy shippers who are annoyed that the relationship isn't moving more quickly, or from people who would be annoyed about any focus on Spike. But all in all, the reactions I've seen from the Spuffy side of the force have been favorable.
Reaction on the Bangel side has, understandably, been more mixed. You've got the people who are outraged that Spuffy is happening at all. You've got the people who are grudgingly resigned to it. Among the latter, there's another divide between those who think it's real, but Buffy is obviously just marking time until she can get back together with Angel, and those who think that Spike (wittingly or unwittingly) somehow magicked Buffy into falling for him via the wish-granting Vampyr book, and sooner or later that will be exposed.
What I find interesting is the attitude both camps have towards their ships. Spuffy shippers, especially those of us who've been around for awhile, tend to assume that the relationship won't last (if for no other reason than that this is a Joss Whedon production). Some of us are still stunned that it's happening at all. If our ship goes smash, well, it's not like it hasn't happened before. All we can do is enjoy it while it does last.
On the other hand, many of the Bangel posts I've seen on the subject express outrage and betrayal - B/A is sacrosanct, and how dare Dark Horse and/or Joss even hint that it might not be endgame for the characters? There's a lot of talk about "implicit promise" (a term taken from a Jennifer Crusie essay about the narrative conventions of genre romance novels and how they relate to audience expectations), the thrust of the argument being that Joss made an implicit promise in BtVS season 1 that Buffy and Angel would get a happy ending, and any deviation from that is bad writing and a betrayal of the audience. (To be fair, they've been saying this since Season 3; it's not a new thing.)
Honestly, I think that applying an essay about genre romance novels to BtVS is an exercise doomed to disappointment, because 1) BtVS is not a genre romance; it's a cross between gothic horror and coming-of-age which relies heavily on romance tropes, but which subverts them as often as not; and 2) The narrative conventions of serial media are completely different from those of self-contained novels.
Particularly now that BtVS is a comic, and no one need worry about actors getting older, there is no endgame. This is a prospect that does not thrill me, but the likely hood is that if Buffy the Comic continues, there will be an endless series of make-ups, break-ups, retcons, and reboots, in which every possible combination of characters will eventually get together, because that's just the way US comic series roll. In fact, eventually the time gap between the show, which is firmly rooted in the late 90s and early 2000s, and the comics, which take place in a nebulous and ever-shifting "now," will grow so great as to make it difficult to impossible to consider them part of the same canon. Indeed, I'd say that's on the verge of happening now.
In the meantime, I'm going to collect gifs of Spike and Buffy cuddling kittens in bed while the collecting is good.
*To which I'd say, while yes, Buffy has been very clear that she wants to be in a relationship with Spike, there's a large potential gap between what she wants and what he wants out of that relationship. I think Spike is very much aware of that. He's madly in love with her and wants a permanent, happily ever after relationship - or as close to permanent as a mortal and an immortal can manage. Buffy, on the other hand, values Spike greatly as a friend and finds him sexually attractive, but she's dodged the question of whether she's in love with him in a romantic sense. They've never talked about what happened in the Hellmouth - did she mean that ILY, or was it, as Spike said at the time, simply an expression of comfort and pity on her part?
On the other hand, Buffy's been open and frank on several post-Chosen occasions about the fact that she loves Angel in that romantic sense, and even after the Twilight mind-control wore off, she was referring to him as the man she loved and wanted to spend her life with. So I don't think it's wildly out of line for Spike to feel insecure, however irritating it may be.
Rants Talk to me
Reaction on the Bangel side has, understandably, been more mixed. You've got the people who are outraged that Spuffy is happening at all. You've got the people who are grudgingly resigned to it. Among the latter, there's another divide between those who think it's real, but Buffy is obviously just marking time until she can get back together with Angel, and those who think that Spike (wittingly or unwittingly) somehow magicked Buffy into falling for him via the wish-granting Vampyr book, and sooner or later that will be exposed.
What I find interesting is the attitude both camps have towards their ships. Spuffy shippers, especially those of us who've been around for awhile, tend to assume that the relationship won't last (if for no other reason than that this is a Joss Whedon production). Some of us are still stunned that it's happening at all. If our ship goes smash, well, it's not like it hasn't happened before. All we can do is enjoy it while it does last.
On the other hand, many of the Bangel posts I've seen on the subject express outrage and betrayal - B/A is sacrosanct, and how dare Dark Horse and/or Joss even hint that it might not be endgame for the characters? There's a lot of talk about "implicit promise" (a term taken from a Jennifer Crusie essay about the narrative conventions of genre romance novels and how they relate to audience expectations), the thrust of the argument being that Joss made an implicit promise in BtVS season 1 that Buffy and Angel would get a happy ending, and any deviation from that is bad writing and a betrayal of the audience. (To be fair, they've been saying this since Season 3; it's not a new thing.)
Honestly, I think that applying an essay about genre romance novels to BtVS is an exercise doomed to disappointment, because 1) BtVS is not a genre romance; it's a cross between gothic horror and coming-of-age which relies heavily on romance tropes, but which subverts them as often as not; and 2) The narrative conventions of serial media are completely different from those of self-contained novels.
Particularly now that BtVS is a comic, and no one need worry about actors getting older, there is no endgame. This is a prospect that does not thrill me, but the likely hood is that if Buffy the Comic continues, there will be an endless series of make-ups, break-ups, retcons, and reboots, in which every possible combination of characters will eventually get together, because that's just the way US comic series roll. In fact, eventually the time gap between the show, which is firmly rooted in the late 90s and early 2000s, and the comics, which take place in a nebulous and ever-shifting "now," will grow so great as to make it difficult to impossible to consider them part of the same canon. Indeed, I'd say that's on the verge of happening now.
In the meantime, I'm going to collect gifs of Spike and Buffy cuddling kittens in bed while the collecting is good.
*To which I'd say, while yes, Buffy has been very clear that she wants to be in a relationship with Spike, there's a large potential gap between what she wants and what he wants out of that relationship. I think Spike is very much aware of that. He's madly in love with her and wants a permanent, happily ever after relationship - or as close to permanent as a mortal and an immortal can manage. Buffy, on the other hand, values Spike greatly as a friend and finds him sexually attractive, but she's dodged the question of whether she's in love with him in a romantic sense. They've never talked about what happened in the Hellmouth - did she mean that ILY, or was it, as Spike said at the time, simply an expression of comfort and pity on her part?
On the other hand, Buffy's been open and frank on several post-Chosen occasions about the fact that she loves Angel in that romantic sense, and even after the Twilight mind-control wore off, she was referring to him as the man she loved and wanted to spend her life with. So I don't think it's wildly out of line for Spike to feel insecure, however irritating it may be.
Rants Talk to me