Random collection of thoughts about Buffy S10 Issue 17
On the one hand, I like knowing for certain what the characters *cough*Buffy*cough* think, after four interminable seasons of ambiguity and mixed messages. On the other hand, it seems to me that there could be a happy medium between the last four seasons and talking everything to death, you know? The characters talk a lot during this issue, and occasionally fight things, but the fights are all very perfunctory. It all leads up to a big confrontation with Archaeus, who's a snoozefest of a villain, and a cliffhanger which isn't really a cliffhanger if you think about it. Ho hum, Angel and/or Spike is being mind-controlled again. I do not for a minute think that Angel's going to prove incapable of fighting off Archaeus's influence, so...
- Anyway, bullet points for good:
- Angel finally remembers he has a son, and even talks about him! Yay!
- Characters who don't usually get to talk, get to talk! Yay!
- Dawn, Andrew, and Xander contribute to the fights in a meaningful way! Yay!
- There are several genuinely funny moments, notably in Angel's conversation with Willow.
- There's some Buffy/Spike fight choreography in the climactic fight that's kind of cool.
- Bullet points for meh:
- The character interactions are sometimes weird. Like Dawn getting all huggy with Angel. I can buy she has fake memories of having a crush on him when she was twelve, but that seemed a bit OTT.
- Xander's takeaway from his conversation with Angel makes total sense for the character, but in light of recent real-world events with Nick Brendan, I think it would be pretty tacky of the writers to go there. This issue was almost certainly in the can long before said events, but if they were planning on going there, I hope they make a sharp left at Albequerque.
- Spike, Spike, Spike. You are determined to shoot your own foot off, aren't you? (This is why I sigh heavily every time Spuffy fandom gets up in arms about Spike not being ~sensitive~ enough: the writers overcompensate and take him way too far in the other direction, and we get this limp, mopey, defeatist whiner. I swear, if that's our only two choices, at least Jerk!Spike is fun to watch.)
- The characters conversations likewise seem to be... slightly to one side of the point in many cases.
So anyway, let's talk about Spike and Buffy! As you know, Bob, I never expected we'd ever get a real Spuffy relationship in the comics at all, so despite my bitching above, I'm desperately devouring each issue for hints they'll stay together please Joss I know you're a cruel god but for once in your life have mercy! moderately interested in how all of this will turn out. One question that's brought up in this issue is the difficulty of a relationship between a mortal and an immortal. Honestly, this is the one serious obstacle to a long term relationship with either Angel or Spike. On a superficial level, it's about one person growing old while the other doesn't. But that really is just a superficial reading; that would be hard to deal with, but not impossible.
The real issue is that mortals change in ways that immortals usually don't. And the way Willow and Angel talk about it dodges the meat of the difference between Angel and Spike. Willow says that Spike got his soul more recently. But the important thing here isn't when Angel and Spike got their souls, it's why. Angel's was forced upon him, and Spike's was freely chosen - and THAT is the real rebuttal to Willow's argument that immortals can't change. Getting a soul is a change, sure, but it was Spike's willingness to get it that shows he's capable of changing. (You know, it would be super ironic [I'm using the word 'ironic' a lot in this post, get used to it] if it were the demon part of Spike that was capable of change, and now that's he's got a soul, he's just as static as Angel. Ironic and depressing.)
Buffy and Andrew, on the other hand, talk about seizing the day, something Buffy's rather gun-shy about, and not without reason. If this were any other story and set of characters, I'd say this was leading up to Buffy taking the plunge and telling Spike that she loves him, and making it stick this time. But I still can't quite bring myself to believe we're gonna get that.
The other looming disaster in this issue is Spike's insecurity about his relationship with Buffy. He's convinced that it's only a matter of time before she dumps him, and he also seems pretty glum about his own self-worth in general. Annoying as it is, his reactions here have some pretty solid roots. Despite the fact that Buffy's being very supportive now, let's look at their past:
The two women Spike loved best have both loved Angel more. In S6, Buffy constantly told him that she didn't love him and he wasn't worth being loved. And yeah, he didn't have a soul then, but I imagine that sort of thing tends to stick with one. Spike's stubborn belief that she did love him deep down and he only had to convince her to admit it explodes spectacularly at the end of the season. Tellingly, Spike is never confident of her feelings for him again.
In S7, we see some evidence that maybe, ironically, Spike was right about her deepest feelings in S6 (that "Why does everyone think I'm still in love with Spike?"line, which prompted the squee heard round the world when it aired.) But Spike doesn't know that. From his POV, Buffy ended up smooching Angel right after telling Spike that their night together meant something. She was only able to say "I love you" as he was dying, in circumstances that cast doubt on what exactly she meant by "love."
In S8, Spike does the big fraidy runaway and avoids letting Buffy know he's back from the dead for a loooong time. We really don't know what (if anything) Buffy is thinking about Spike while he's missing. She has the occasional sexual fantasy about him, but he does not show up in her memory cube at all, and she never mentions him. (He's sort of alluded to in a conversation with Satsu, but that's it.) When Andrew mentions him, she just goes blank and says nothing. We do get one indication in the semi-canonical IDW Spike miniseries that Buffy did search for him once she found out he'd come back from the dead, but that series is only semi-canonical. (Indeed, Willow seems much more sold on the Buffy/Spike romance than either Spike or Buffy are.) When Spike finally shows up, she's more annoyed than anything else, and is much more interested in playing smoochy face with Angel.
So does that mean Spike's unimportant to her? Or that she's repressing? Or that she was terribly hurt by his refusal to contact her, and is lashing out? Who knows? Spike sure as hell doesn't. When S8 came out I saw a lot of meta by Buffy fans to the effect that "Well, of course Spike HAS to know she loves him!" and, uh, yeah, no, he doesn't.
In S9, Buffy alternates between leaning on Spike for emotional support, and insulting him and telling him to go away. (Sometimes her insults appear to be inadvertent, but they still hit a nerve.) When Spike does go away, she seems cranky about him leaving, but once he's gone, aside from an offhand comment about how awkward it would be if they met again, she doesn't appear to miss him in the slightest or regret his absence. Spike, on the other hand, goes off and in the course of a rather boring and pointless miniseries, learns that he's putting too much emotional pressure on Buffy by letting her know he still loves her, and he should... uh... go back to hang around Buffy while suppressing his inconvenient feelings. Honestly, I have no idea what that was all about. But not before banging Harmony to make himself feel better. When Spike returns to help Dawn, Buffy is grateful for his assistance.
And then in S10... all of a sudden, in a bit of characterization whiplash, Buffy and Spike are best friends, and hang out together all the time, and here we are. Now, I'm not complaining in the slightest about that, because it is awesome with kitten sauce, but it's just really hard to see how it follows. I guess we're supposed to believe that Spike not putting any pressure on Buffy allowed her the space to come to terms with her own feelings? Except that up until S10, there really wasn't any hard evidence that those feelings existed. And Spike's behavior in S10 isn't that different from his behavior in S8 or 9, barring the one issue in S9 where he said he was sick of her treating him as her dark place, and he either wanted a real relationship, or he'd get out of her life and stop bothering her. HOW UNREASONABLE OF HIM.
Now, of course, the real reason Buffy suddenly likes Spike, when before she seemed to barely tolerate his presence, is that a new creative team took over and decided to take the story in a different direction. This happens in comics. It will probably happen again, unless the book gets cancelled. So in some respects trying to reconcile this stuff is an exercise in futility. But what the hell.
I think it probably makes the most sense to assume that in S8, Buffy was seriously hurt and angry about Spike's failure to contact her, and I can't blame her for that. It was a dick move on Spike's part. But in true Buffy fashion, instead of expressing her feelings honestly, she bottles them up until they distill into venom, which Spike then gets the brunt of for the next season. Helping with Dawn, though, gets him off the hook. I have a feeling that Spike playing hard to get, so to speak, played some part in why she suddenly started finding him attractive as a potential boyfriend. If Spike's not around, she can ignore him. If Spike's around but not falling at her feet every five seconds, then...
And here we get more irony: Spike's attractive to Buffy as long as he seems confident and happy in his new life, and doesn't seem to be pursuing her. As soon as he gets her, he turns insecure, unconfident, and clingy, and is rapidly making himself unattractive again. It does seem from the promo stuff that's come out that Spike and Buffy are still together several issues from now, so it's anyone's guess how this will resolve. Though I feel for the guy, I hope that Sad Sack Spike takes a hike pretty soon.
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