Because I can do better than the snotty post I made on Tumblr.

[eilowyn]

Today, I made this post on Tumblr in response to a confession on the Buffy Confessions blog. I often do this to confessions I have feelings about. This one started with the snarky response, "Isn't it nice how people disregard season 7 in order to self-righteously get their Spike/Spuffy hate on?" but I expanded it. That post on Tumblr came from the

Comments

[kwritten]

I needed Dawn and Spike to be reconciled, and Willow and Spike commiserate about being killers

MY HEART! MY POOR BROKEN HEART AND THOSE ASSHOLES AND YES.

I just don't think straight when it comes to Dawnie/Spike...

It could have been different.

But it wasn’t.

It wasn't. And what it is - is problematic and has a lot of flaws and there are glaring issues. And nothing is neat and shiny. And any other way would have been just as messy - representation isn't perfect.

But it is what it is.

And we are fans because it is messy, no?
And we are aca-fans because it is messy, yes?

If representation wasn't messy and flawed - there'd be no need for it. AND THEN WHAT WOULD I DO WITH MY LIFE?

[eilowyn]

AND THEN WHAT WOULD I DO WITH MY LIFE?

I could see you as an architect. I don't know why, but I can easily imagine you at a drafting table.

And there is a Spike/Dawn hole in my heart that Joss hasn't been kind enough to fill yet.

[kwritten]

I could see you as an architect. I don't know why, but I can easily imagine you at a drafting table.

OMG I GIGGLED SO HARD.

And there is a Spike/Dawn hole in my heart that Joss hasn't been kind enough to fill yet.

Joss won't. He's a bastard that way. ((Anyway - when I'm feeling ~schmoopy this is all I do with my life!))

[rahirah]

I always thought that if the writers needed to keep Angel's special snowflake status intact, then a great way to avoid the AR and still send Spike off for a soul would have been A) for the chip to go out, and for Spike to have killed Alley Woman, and then B) for Buffy and Spike to have a real relationship after Wrecked, and everything's peachy for several episodes, but Spike is killing people on the sly - and maybe he's not enjoying it as much as he thinks he ought to, and is sort of conflicted about it, but at least a few people end up dead anyway. And then Buffy finds out, and the shit hits the fan, but she can't kill him any more than she could kill Angelus right off the bat, and she's devastated and betrayed and Spike's genuinely angry and confused because he was only killing people she doesn't know and it was only a few of them anyway and there's a big fight and it ends up with both of them standing there totally unable to actually kill one another and Buffy tells Spike to leave and never come back and Spike says he'll do

[tennyo_elf]

A) for the chip to go out, and for Spike to have killed Alley Woman, and then B) for Buffy and Spike to have a real relationship after Wrecked, and everything's peachy for several episodes, but Spike is killing people on the sly - and maybe he's not enjoying it as much as he thinks he ought to, and is sort of conflicted about it, but at least a few people end up dead anyway. And then Buffy finds out, and the shit hits the fan, but she can't kill him any more than she could kill Angelus right off the bat, and she's devastated and betrayed and Spike's genuinely angry and confused because he was only killing people she doesn't know and it was only a few of them anyway and there's a big fight and it ends up with both of them standing there totally unable to actually kill one another and Buffy tells Spike to leave and never come back and Spike says he'll do anything for another chance and Buffy says she can't, she can never trust him without a soul, blah blah and Spike leaves and goes to get a soul and goes through way more interesting

[samsom]

And then Buffy finds out, and the shit hits the fan, but she can't kill him any more than she could kill Angelus right off the bat,

I would have preferred almost anything over a retread of Angel's story (with Spike as the souled vampire), so I kind of like your idea a lot. However, Buffy wasn't the same girl at 20 than at 17. I'm not so sure she wouldn't stake Spike if she found out he was killing innocent people again. The price otherwise got too high the last time. She told Giles that to save the world, she'd sacrifice Dawn in s7, so I think by s6 she's sufficiently hard enough to do what she needed to do.

Maybe if he was killing morally ambiguous people and when she confronted him, he could say "I was only killing the bad ones, Buffy - doesn't that satisfy you? Christ, what do you *want* from me?!"

"To be a man!" She'd cry back. "Not a monster!"

*cue the angst and running off for a soul*

[rahirah]

I'm of two minds about that. S6 and S7 have two canon instances of someone in Buffy's circle killing people, and Buffy reacts very differently. She's all gung ho to kill Anya, but she's equally gung ho to save Willow. Now, maybe the difference is that Willow is human and Anya isn't, and I'm sure that's how Buffy herself would justify her actions. But I can't help noticing that Buffy just flat out doesn't like Anya much. At best, she tolerates her. While Willow is her best friend (or at least, Buffy still thinks of her that way, even though in reality they've drifted apart and don't know each other very well any longer

[tennyo_elf]

The AR could have been left out. It could have been something different. I agree with you on that. I hate that it came to it and that I think it shouldn't have been done. Oddly enough though, I think the AR does make sense if you think about Spike's skewed morals at that point and the sexual relationship he had been in with Buffy. That sounds like rape apology but I don't mean it in that sense, just that it can be viewed as an organic come to point (which is pretty disgusting, because even though Spike did the AR I felt so much sympathy for both him and Buffy and then I felt ugly for having sympathy for Spike...but maybe that is what they wanted because so many fans liked Spike when they weren't supposed to or some such :rolls eyes:). Do I think it's good? Hell no, I think it was a really stupid thing to do while also filming it the way they did

[kwritten]

YOU.

[eilowyn]

which is pretty disgusting, because even though Spike did the AR I felt so much sympathy for both him and Buffy and then I felt ugly for having sympathy for Spike...but maybe that is what they wanted because so many fans liked Spike when they weren't supposed to or some such :rolls eyes:

Which is one of the major problems I have with the AR. We sympathize with Spike. It's all too forgivable because of his state of mind at the time. Lesson learned? It's okay to rape if you're having a mental breakdown, because whether or not we were *supposed* to like Spike, so many fans did, and would be approaching the AR from Spike's perspective, where it's easy to understand where he's coming from.

She kills vampires nightly and if they all could possibly be good her moral stance is darkened. Yes, she kills or slays vampires, but it's because they are evil. She is destroying the dark parts of human nature, which I find a better message (empowering me to do good even when life throws you lemons), than her being a killer of demons that could have

[tennyo_elf]

Which is one of the major problems I have with the AR. We sympathize with Spike. It's all too forgivable because of his state of mind at the time. Lesson learned? It's okay to rape if you're having a mental breakdown, because whether or not we were *supposed* to like Spike, so many fans did, and would be approaching the AR from Spike's perspective, where it's easy to understand where he's coming from.

This is why I think the AR was something that really lacked foresight. They wanted people to view soulless Spike as evil and unlikable. But people loved his character already. You can't force feed your audience your will. You tell a story and hopefully the messages get across, but some people are going to see it completely different than how you intended.

Spike could continue to be soulless but specialI really don't like this personally. I hate the special snowflake mentality. Because who really in life is special? No one. No one is special, no one is different. We are all unique individuals with strengths and weaknesses. And that

[angelic_amy]

Very well said.

[eilowyn]

Thank you! And welcome back!

[angelic_amy]

Thanks! Very happy to back. I've missed LJ something fierce.

[mcjulie]

Obviously this is going to come up when I get to Seeing Red in the polls, but I actually think the AR is a rare example of how fiction can get it right. First, it isn't trivialized -- it is in the story because it is the absolute worst thing either character can imagine Spike doing. Second, it doesn't engage in victim-blaming -- there isn't any sense that Buffy "asked for it" or was complicit somehow. Third, it shows the issue very clearly as one of consent. Spike knows she is not consenting and has decided for the moment to ignore that. He pushes it to the point where she has to use Slayer-strength to stop him.

Still, I think it's a very disturbing scene, so I can see why many viewers wish they hadn't done it.

[eilowyn]

See, I take the exact opposite view of the scene. Whether they were supposed to or not, many fans were sympathetic to Spike and were approaching the scene from his perspective, where he was in the middle of a mental breakdown and wasn't in his right mind. The fact that there's hardly any emotional fallout from the AR in season 7 also shows that they weren't taking it seriously - if they were, we would have seen some change in Buffy's behavior and interactions with Spike. I also have read several different readings of season 6, and many of them see Spike as almost too sympathetic, possibly because of James Marsters' acting. Several essays (look under the essays heading - I couldn't get a direct link) explored how ME failed to paint Spike as the Bad Guy they wanted the audience to see. David Fury even compared Spike's fans to the women who write to serial killers in prison - the writers (except for Jane Espenson, more than likely) wanted Spike to be seen as bad. Anything good he did was selfishly motivated, we were told time and again,