BtVS S9 #7 - The relationship part

[rebcake]

If you're not interested in parsing the comics, I don't blame you a bit, and this is probably not going to be your thing.

People who do read the comics seem fairly happy with one point in this issue: Spike came clean about his feelings for Buffy. To her face, even! Possibly.

Comments

[boot_the_grime]

I don't think either of them really wants "normal". I certainly don't think Buffy does anymore, if she ever did. She sure wasn't drawn to Spike because he was "normal dude" in training. She thinks she fails at all things ordinary, but I don't think she even wants those things. I think she was coming to that realization and trying to tell Spike that she isn't trying to have a normal life or looking for normalcy in him.

The idea that he might want to be "normal"? I don't think it was something she thought of. And really, it's not like Spike has been showing any signs of trying to be "normal"? He chooses to live on a bug ship, tells people at the party that he's a vampire living on a bug ship, goes to a meeting in a bug ship... I don't know what "normal" life he thinks he wants, but it doesn't seem to be one defined by usual standards of "normalcy".

I don't want Spike to be "normal". I don't want Buffy to be "normal". I want the comic to stop romanticizing the idea of "normalcy" as something awesome and desirable that everyone should aspire to conform to. But I think it's probably doing it just to subvert it. Spike lives on a bug ship, Buffy is a bot. Spike is a vampire, Buffy is a Slayer. The resolution to X-Men is never going to be that the mutants should assimilate and become "normal people", that would be wrong on so many levels, and I'm sure Joss knows that.