Commentary for Lotophagi
Because this fic kinda requires it, here's a commentary for Lotophagi. I also owe luciousxander commentary on Lingering...and I still have to do a post for pennydrdful. I haven't forgotten! Just...you know...easily distracted...
Comments in red.
"They started at once, and went about among the Lotus-eaters, who did them no hurt, but gave them to eat of the lotus, which was so delicious that those who ate of it left off caring about home, and did not even want to go back and say what had happened to them, but were for staying and munching lotus with the Lotus-eater without thinking further of their return..."
- The Odyssey, Chapter IX
Okay, I'm a Greek mythology nut. I have been since elementary school. Though I will admit that the initial draw was being able to look at the illustrations of topless women in the books for it...but it did turn into a genuine love and fascination, and I moved on to reading books that had no pictures at all!
Anyway, The Odyssey is a favorite tale of mine. As this was being written, the original plan was to have Buffy just go back to Heaven and have it be no big thing. However, then I realized, "Hey, she's gonna be in Heaven, pining and worried about Spike...is that allowed in Heaven?" My immediate thought was of the lotus-eaters from Homer's story. Their apathy caused by the lotus plants, and the perceived perfection they think they're in would be a great twist for Heaven in this story.
And so it happened.
The joint pops and tendons snap as brutal forces rip the arm from its place. The girl shrieks with pain and terror. His visage is animal, but his laugh is all human. It's Spike's laugh. He garners amusement from the girl's tears as he sinks his fangs into her throat, shaking his head from side to side to cause her further panic.
I never make this explicit, but in my head, this is the little girl from the coal bin that Spike was telling Dawn about in Crush.
Drusilla stands behind the pair, watching and idly licking her lips. A gurgle rises from the girl's mouth as she's drained.
"Spike, don't kill her yet. Let me play with her!" Drusilla bounces.
Dru had to be there, even though he doesn't mention her in Crush, because I always picture Spike as taking out his victims fairly quickly. He makes mention several times that he's not "into the preshow". Though this is partially contradicted by his later statements to Buffy in Never Leave Me, I still see him, more often than not, enjoying the kill but not going out of his way to torture them.
But I wanted this to be torture. And Spike would gladly let Dru have a little girl to play with.
His head snaps up, revealing bloodied teeth beneath lips curled in a snarl. The girl's breath quickens in overwhelming fright as Spike roughly shoves her toward his lover.
The shudders won't stop. I want to look away, but I know they won't let me. They want me to see.
This story is in first-person, present tense. This was a conscious choice on my part because I wanted the immediacy and intimacy that those convey.
So I watch until the ugly scene comes to an end. I watch as the little girl is torn to pieces and her flesh and blood are consumed with the viciousness of animals.
"Slayer." The representative of The Powers sounds bored. "This is the creature you're attempting to defend. This is the demon that you want with you in Heaven."
And here's the premise. It's another "Buffy tries to get Spike out of Hell" fic.
As I noted in the Author's Notes, this was prompted by a debate I had with someone who had a negative opinion on Spike's character. The debate, itself, didn't go anywhere due to poor arguing tactics on the other person's part, but it left me really trying to see "the other side's" point of view, because that's something I always strive to do when arguing with someone. And, I'll admit, I have trouble with it.
Buffy does not represent me in this fic. She's Buffy. She's not very good at effective arguing strategies. She'd probably be more comfortable engaging in a physical fight to get Spike out of Hell. And, frankly, her arguments are weak and overly emotional. It's not the best defense of Spike.
The representative (who I picture as female because that's the default for me, but I never make reference to their gender so you're free to picture them as you please) doesn't so much represent "the other side", but does argue the other side's point of view. They have the logical upper hand. However, the characterization of the representative as detached and unsympathetic isn't really meant to be a commentary on the anti-Spike side (though it does work to my advantage at a few points). That's in-story characterization as that's how I picture the Powers.
I shake my head. "But...that isn't him. He's changed. He got a soul. He saved the world - "
The soul's the thing.
The pro-Spike side is a varied beast (as is the anti-Spike side), but there is one belief that I think holds true for most in that we believe in the power to change. That's the essence of Spike's story. Like Buffy, we understand that he did horrible things in his past. But that's not the point. The point is that he willingly changed himself to be Good.
"He spent 122 years without a soul, beholden to his demon, engaging in countless acts of savagery. You're asking us to excuse that on the basis of three years on the straight and narrow?"
Fair point. I have heard it compared to a serial killer in jail who "changes his ways" and starts being Good in the years leading up to his execution. Is this sufficient repentance to save him?
It's not the best comparison, though. In fact, it's rather flawed for one reason: the soul. The soul in the Buffyverse has already been established as a very significant factor in a being's moral nature (Angel). By getting his soul in S7, Spike does effectively start a new chapter of his life. Does it change anything he did? Of course not. But, and here's the Angel comparison that I purposely kept out of the fic, if Angel's past sins are overlooked upon his soul being returned to him (both the first time and at the end of S2), then, logically, the same should hold for Spike.
And, yes, this includes everything from his being turned to the end of S6 where he attempted to rape Buffy - all actions done while soulless.
Yes. Yes, I am. I have to. My eternity in Heaven isn't paradise if he's not by my side as he had been for the past year. Things had been perfect.
"Do you wish to see another scene?"
"No!" I don't ever want to see him like that again. "Listen, he's a vampire. He...that's what vampires do and it's bad. Bad, very very bad. Wrong. But...he got his soul..."
Okay, now this part is taken from what I've seen of debates with anti-Spike fans, and from a few of my own experiences. Where I'm constantly having to agree that, yes, Spike did bad things. There's no disputing that. There does appear to be the perception that Spuffy fans don't know that. When, from what I can tell, we do.
The only thing Buffy can offer is that he got his soul, which, in of itself, is an extraordinary deed. But, as it continues, the Powers will be unimpressed with it and continue to focus on his past crimes.
"Would that comfort that small child you saw him brutalize? Or her parents?"
"He was trying to be good..."
"He was trying to secure a place in your affections." The stone-faced judge pauses. "And it worked."
Oh yay. The good old, "He did it to get in Buffy's pants" argument.
I'm honestly not sure why changing oneself for love is regarded as a bad thing by some people. I mean, hell, don't we sing about the greatness and power of love all the time? Don't we write great stories about how love trumps all? When did love become a negative motivation for anything?
The representative's line there, "And it worked," really is a dismissal of Buffy and her arguments as the judge senses her arguing out of pure, irrational emotion. This does mirror similar dismissals I've seen of Spuffy and Spike fans. That we're, apparently, too caught up in our fangirling (because we are all presumed to be female) to recognize the TRUTH of the situation or that we would forgive Spike for anything because we are just mindless groupies or that we're like those women who marry serial killers...
You know, I don't think writing this helped much on understanding their point of view, to be completely honest.
"He doesn't deserve to be in Hell."
"His past crimes suggest otherwise."
"What are you doing?" The young man looks confused. His face bears the distinctive traits of Down's Syndrome.
Oh, this is awful. I was trying to think of the most callous, horrendous murder Spike could commit and...this was very painful to write, really.
"Just turn your head, mate. You'll feel a bit of a pinch."
"I said I don't want to see this!" I protest.
"And yet you don't seem to understand his past."
I often find when discussing Spike's character with anti-Spike fans that they are insistent on listing out all of Spike's misdeeds to me...even after I recognize that, yes, Spike was bad. That's rather far from the point, though.
Spike strikes. The man cries out, struggling in vain.
"Please...stop!"
The man succeeds in kicking Spike's shins. Spike draws back, face contorted in annoyance as blood drips down his chin. He punches the man hard enough to send his head back, snapping against the brick wall behind him.
"Be a good meal and stop kicking," Spike orders as he grabs his victim by the hair, yanking his head to the side again to expose his neck more fully.
The man sobs quietly as Spike feeds.
"Okay, yes, he was bad. He did bad things. But he changed. He became good," I say. My stomach feels upside-down after watching those scenes. My hands are shaking so I ball them into fists to try to stop the tremors.
I don't explain how they're watching these scenes. In fact, there's not much scene-setting at all because the focus is on the argument. I do picture it as a wooshy mind-thing that makes Buffy feel like she's right there while Spike's doing this stuff. It would be very distressing.
"Getting his soul - "
"No!" I interrupt. "Not just getting his soul. Before that. He did good after he got chipped." I ordinarily don't think about it, because it was a time when I rejected every good thing he did. But I have no other way of convincing the Powers. Surely, they had to understand the magnitude of a vampire withstanding torture and taking care of young girls with no expectation of a reward. That had to count for something in persuading them that he was worthy.
And here's the topic that's always difficult to discuss, in that pro-Spike fans try to emphasize the good things Spike was doing before he got a soul. And, yes, he did some good things, whatever the motivation behind them. And, like Buffy said, a vampire willingly going through torture with no expectation of reward (at that point, Buffy and the Scoobies had vehemently turned their backs on him) should be noteworthy.
The representative doesn't look impressed, though. "After he was implanted with the government chip? He assisted the creature, Adam, in his chaotic plans. He kidnapped a doctor and forced him to perform an operation, putting Riley Finn's life in danger to do so. With his ex-lover's assistance, he killed and fed off a couple in your city. He also chained you up and threatened to feed you to his ex-lover - "
It often isn't, though. Because the anti-Spike fans minimize the good Spike managed to do against his nature, and instead focus on the bad he did. Which...honestly...seems a little backwards to me.
Spike's a vampire. He's expected to do bad things. There should be no great surprise when he does so. However, he's not expected to do good things. So, when he does...that really does deserve some kudos. Not necessarily from the characters in-show, because they're coming from a different context. But, as viewers, the good things Spike does are signals to us that he's capable of changing and defying his nature, something we've never seen a vampire do. That is significant.
I close my eyes against the onslaught. "Right, right. Okay! All bad things." I look up to the light shining through the high windows into the vast chamber. "But he tried to be good."
*Puts on really pretentious hat*
Er...the sentence about Buffy looking up to the light is an intended bit of symbolism. She's in purgatory, arguing to save Spike from Hell. She's looking up, appealing to Heaven, looking up to the light while she's thinking of Spike trying to be good. The light's high above her, though. She can't reach it. She knows she's losing the argument.
"He tried to 'win' you. His soul was earned through purely selfish motives."
I laugh without humor. "A vampire voluntarily getting a soul is enough to make me take notice."
Again, two very different points of views reflecting the two different points of views you're likely to find between these two "sides".
And it has the benefit of being true for Buffy. Spike getting his soul did make Buffy take notice.
"Another perversion. He contaminates the soul by exposing it to his demon. It's an abomination of the natural order of things to taint a soul with the evil yearnings of a demon."
Now this is something I've only seen argued once, but it intrigues me. And I thought I was being all original, but, while this was out for beta, I read another "Spike's in Hell!" fic that used the same concept of the soul being tainted by the demon. So...oh well.
Anyway, the point here is that Spike is an abomination to the Powers. Not only as a vampire, but he's an abomination because he's a vampire who got a soul. Spike hints at this in Beneath You, that putting a soul in a demon is against the natural order of things. Getting a soul, then, isn't seen as a positive thing, but as just something else Spike did WRONG.
"Don't Slayers also have a demon or some demonic power in them?"
Ooooo! You go, Buffy!
"But Slayers are good."
Dammit! You ever feel like you're hitting a brick wall?
There's something wrong with that argument, but my mind is too exhausted to figure it out. Everything I say gets shot down anyway. I think I'm losing. Losing the fight. Losing him.
The point of the line about Slayers being good (and I almost capitalized it, "Good") is actually to show the Powers' bias. They believe that Slayers are Good, and Vampires are Evil. This does reflect the view I've seen in parts of fandom, and it's a very rigid view that doesn't allow any exceptions.
Of course there's something wrong with that argument. There's Faith, the Slayer who was decidedly not good, and Buffy, herself, has skirted the line of badness at times. While Slayers may be Chosen to be good, individual Slayers may stray from that path. Likewise, vampires are, by nature, evil, but individual vampires do seem able to stray from that path. Allowance needs to be made for this.
"Spike died fighting beside me," I say. "He died fighting to save the world. I know he's done bad things - been bad. I know. But...does that mean he could never be good? That there's no coming back if you fall off the path of righteousness? I don't know about his 'motivations' in pretty much anything he did. But loving me, trying to be good because of that love...I can't see that as a bad thing." Isn't love all you need? I look into the representative's unsympathetic eyes. "Please?"
This is Buffy's last attempt. She's basically dismissing the past, dismissing the motivations, and looking at what Spike did. And that's change. He changed. And he changed for love which, as Buffy says, isn't really a bad thing.
The purgatory waits in silence.
"Is that all you have to say in his defense?"
Oog. Not the answer you want to hear. The Powers are unimpressed.
What else is there to say? I nod.
"Very well. We shall confer with each other and review Spike's judgment. We will give your words the weight they deserve, as a Slayer. In the meantime, we will return you to Heaven. You will be informed if we decide to honor him with an eternity beside you. If not...well...you'll be in Heaven. You will forget your grievance, as is customary in the land of lotus-eaters. It is your reward."
And the twist.
As I noted way at the beginning, I was just gonna have Buffy going back to Heaven, and leave the ending ambiguous as to what the Powers' decision would be. And the decision is still ambiguous (though it's likely that Spike will stay in Hell). However, that's a rather lackluster ending, and I needed something a bit more powerful.
So I decided to play around with the idea of Heaven as an undesirable place from the outside. It gives you paradise, but it takes away your mental freedom to do so.
"No! No, let me stay here while you do the review! Don't leave me waiting in Heaven!" Heaven is an enforced paradise. And it can't be paradise when you long for your loved ones. So they will make me forget or not care or...just not think about him. The very thought makes me panic. Waiting without knowing about it. Missing him without remembering him. The sullied bliss of ignorance. "Please," I implore. "Don't make me forget - "
Oh, this ending took forever to work out. Buffy doesn't want to wait in Heaven, because, in doing so, she'll not remember Spike. She'll be left in her blissed out state, not even realizing that she's waiting for judgment.
Further, she'll not remember her love for Spike (because if she does, she'll want him with her, and that would ruin Heaven). Buffy wants to stay in purgatory for the duration of the review just so she'll be able to have that awareness of what happens. The Powers sending Buffy back to Heaven when she's clearly refusing almost seems like a punishment (Thus, the irony in their previous statement that it's her reward).
This paragraph does remind me of I Will Remember You when Buffy's getting panicky at the day being erased.
Heaven takes me. It doesn't matter anymore.
This fic needed to end on a tragic note, because that's what it is. And, being written in first-person, present tense, I was able to explicitly convey that Buffy was in Heaven and had gotten to that blissed out state of apathy and not remembering.
"Heaven takes me" was purposely constructed to make Heaven the active subject (instead of "I'm in Heaven"). It makes Heaven seem like it's own entity. It has the power to "take" someone. It's a place that Buffy fears going to because she wants to retain full mental faculties until she can get Spike with her.
And the idea of Heaven as a place to fear amuses me.
If you want to picture a happy ending for this fic, pretend that the Powers were swayed by Buffy's arguments and that they eventually moved Spike to Heaven, so Buffy and Spike are happily together there.
...though that's not what happened, but hey. Whatever makes you happy. :)
Comments in red.
"They started at once, and went about among the Lotus-eaters, who did them no hurt, but gave them to eat of the lotus, which was so delicious that those who ate of it left off caring about home, and did not even want to go back and say what had happened to them, but were for staying and munching lotus with the Lotus-eater without thinking further of their return..."
- The Odyssey, Chapter IX
Okay, I'm a Greek mythology nut. I have been since elementary school. Though I will admit that the initial draw was being able to look at the illustrations of topless women in the books for it...but it did turn into a genuine love and fascination, and I moved on to reading books that had no pictures at all!
Anyway, The Odyssey is a favorite tale of mine. As this was being written, the original plan was to have Buffy just go back to Heaven and have it be no big thing. However, then I realized, "Hey, she's gonna be in Heaven, pining and worried about Spike...is that allowed in Heaven?" My immediate thought was of the lotus-eaters from Homer's story. Their apathy caused by the lotus plants, and the perceived perfection they think they're in would be a great twist for Heaven in this story.
And so it happened.
The joint pops and tendons snap as brutal forces rip the arm from its place. The girl shrieks with pain and terror. His visage is animal, but his laugh is all human. It's Spike's laugh. He garners amusement from the girl's tears as he sinks his fangs into her throat, shaking his head from side to side to cause her further panic.
I never make this explicit, but in my head, this is the little girl from the coal bin that Spike was telling Dawn about in Crush.
Drusilla stands behind the pair, watching and idly licking her lips. A gurgle rises from the girl's mouth as she's drained.
"Spike, don't kill her yet. Let me play with her!" Drusilla bounces.
Dru had to be there, even though he doesn't mention her in Crush, because I always picture Spike as taking out his victims fairly quickly. He makes mention several times that he's not "into the preshow". Though this is partially contradicted by his later statements to Buffy in Never Leave Me, I still see him, more often than not, enjoying the kill but not going out of his way to torture them.
But I wanted this to be torture. And Spike would gladly let Dru have a little girl to play with.
His head snaps up, revealing bloodied teeth beneath lips curled in a snarl. The girl's breath quickens in overwhelming fright as Spike roughly shoves her toward his lover.
The shudders won't stop. I want to look away, but I know they won't let me. They want me to see.
This story is in first-person, present tense. This was a conscious choice on my part because I wanted the immediacy and intimacy that those convey.
So I watch until the ugly scene comes to an end. I watch as the little girl is torn to pieces and her flesh and blood are consumed with the viciousness of animals.
"Slayer." The representative of The Powers sounds bored. "This is the creature you're attempting to defend. This is the demon that you want with you in Heaven."
And here's the premise. It's another "Buffy tries to get Spike out of Hell" fic.
As I noted in the Author's Notes, this was prompted by a debate I had with someone who had a negative opinion on Spike's character. The debate, itself, didn't go anywhere due to poor arguing tactics on the other person's part, but it left me really trying to see "the other side's" point of view, because that's something I always strive to do when arguing with someone. And, I'll admit, I have trouble with it.
Buffy does not represent me in this fic. She's Buffy. She's not very good at effective arguing strategies. She'd probably be more comfortable engaging in a physical fight to get Spike out of Hell. And, frankly, her arguments are weak and overly emotional. It's not the best defense of Spike.
The representative (who I picture as female because that's the default for me, but I never make reference to their gender so you're free to picture them as you please) doesn't so much represent "the other side", but does argue the other side's point of view. They have the logical upper hand. However, the characterization of the representative as detached and unsympathetic isn't really meant to be a commentary on the anti-Spike side (though it does work to my advantage at a few points). That's in-story characterization as that's how I picture the Powers.
I shake my head. "But...that isn't him. He's changed. He got a soul. He saved the world - "
The soul's the thing.
The pro-Spike side is a varied beast (as is the anti-Spike side), but there is one belief that I think holds true for most in that we believe in the power to change. That's the essence of Spike's story. Like Buffy, we understand that he did horrible things in his past. But that's not the point. The point is that he willingly changed himself to be Good.
"He spent 122 years without a soul, beholden to his demon, engaging in countless acts of savagery. You're asking us to excuse that on the basis of three years on the straight and narrow?"
Fair point. I have heard it compared to a serial killer in jail who "changes his ways" and starts being Good in the years leading up to his execution. Is this sufficient repentance to save him?
It's not the best comparison, though. In fact, it's rather flawed for one reason: the soul. The soul in the Buffyverse has already been established as a very significant factor in a being's moral nature (Angel). By getting his soul in S7, Spike does effectively start a new chapter of his life. Does it change anything he did? Of course not. But, and here's the Angel comparison that I purposely kept out of the fic, if Angel's past sins are overlooked upon his soul being returned to him (both the first time and at the end of S2), then, logically, the same should hold for Spike.
And, yes, this includes everything from his being turned to the end of S6 where he attempted to rape Buffy - all actions done while soulless.
Yes. Yes, I am. I have to. My eternity in Heaven isn't paradise if he's not by my side as he had been for the past year. Things had been perfect.
"Do you wish to see another scene?"
"No!" I don't ever want to see him like that again. "Listen, he's a vampire. He...that's what vampires do and it's bad. Bad, very very bad. Wrong. But...he got his soul..."
Okay, now this part is taken from what I've seen of debates with anti-Spike fans, and from a few of my own experiences. Where I'm constantly having to agree that, yes, Spike did bad things. There's no disputing that. There does appear to be the perception that Spuffy fans don't know that. When, from what I can tell, we do.
The only thing Buffy can offer is that he got his soul, which, in of itself, is an extraordinary deed. But, as it continues, the Powers will be unimpressed with it and continue to focus on his past crimes.
"Would that comfort that small child you saw him brutalize? Or her parents?"
"He was trying to be good..."
"He was trying to secure a place in your affections." The stone-faced judge pauses. "And it worked."
Oh yay. The good old, "He did it to get in Buffy's pants" argument.
I'm honestly not sure why changing oneself for love is regarded as a bad thing by some people. I mean, hell, don't we sing about the greatness and power of love all the time? Don't we write great stories about how love trumps all? When did love become a negative motivation for anything?
The representative's line there, "And it worked," really is a dismissal of Buffy and her arguments as the judge senses her arguing out of pure, irrational emotion. This does mirror similar dismissals I've seen of Spuffy and Spike fans. That we're, apparently, too caught up in our fangirling (because we are all presumed to be female) to recognize the TRUTH of the situation or that we would forgive Spike for anything because we are just mindless groupies or that we're like those women who marry serial killers...
You know, I don't think writing this helped much on understanding their point of view, to be completely honest.
"He doesn't deserve to be in Hell."
"His past crimes suggest otherwise."
"What are you doing?" The young man looks confused. His face bears the distinctive traits of Down's Syndrome.
Oh, this is awful. I was trying to think of the most callous, horrendous murder Spike could commit and...this was very painful to write, really.
"Just turn your head, mate. You'll feel a bit of a pinch."
"I said I don't want to see this!" I protest.
"And yet you don't seem to understand his past."
I often find when discussing Spike's character with anti-Spike fans that they are insistent on listing out all of Spike's misdeeds to me...even after I recognize that, yes, Spike was bad. That's rather far from the point, though.
Spike strikes. The man cries out, struggling in vain.
"Please...stop!"
The man succeeds in kicking Spike's shins. Spike draws back, face contorted in annoyance as blood drips down his chin. He punches the man hard enough to send his head back, snapping against the brick wall behind him.
"Be a good meal and stop kicking," Spike orders as he grabs his victim by the hair, yanking his head to the side again to expose his neck more fully.
The man sobs quietly as Spike feeds.
"Okay, yes, he was bad. He did bad things. But he changed. He became good," I say. My stomach feels upside-down after watching those scenes. My hands are shaking so I ball them into fists to try to stop the tremors.
I don't explain how they're watching these scenes. In fact, there's not much scene-setting at all because the focus is on the argument. I do picture it as a wooshy mind-thing that makes Buffy feel like she's right there while Spike's doing this stuff. It would be very distressing.
"Getting his soul - "
"No!" I interrupt. "Not just getting his soul. Before that. He did good after he got chipped." I ordinarily don't think about it, because it was a time when I rejected every good thing he did. But I have no other way of convincing the Powers. Surely, they had to understand the magnitude of a vampire withstanding torture and taking care of young girls with no expectation of a reward. That had to count for something in persuading them that he was worthy.
And here's the topic that's always difficult to discuss, in that pro-Spike fans try to emphasize the good things Spike was doing before he got a soul. And, yes, he did some good things, whatever the motivation behind them. And, like Buffy said, a vampire willingly going through torture with no expectation of reward (at that point, Buffy and the Scoobies had vehemently turned their backs on him) should be noteworthy.
The representative doesn't look impressed, though. "After he was implanted with the government chip? He assisted the creature, Adam, in his chaotic plans. He kidnapped a doctor and forced him to perform an operation, putting Riley Finn's life in danger to do so. With his ex-lover's assistance, he killed and fed off a couple in your city. He also chained you up and threatened to feed you to his ex-lover - "
It often isn't, though. Because the anti-Spike fans minimize the good Spike managed to do against his nature, and instead focus on the bad he did. Which...honestly...seems a little backwards to me.
Spike's a vampire. He's expected to do bad things. There should be no great surprise when he does so. However, he's not expected to do good things. So, when he does...that really does deserve some kudos. Not necessarily from the characters in-show, because they're coming from a different context. But, as viewers, the good things Spike does are signals to us that he's capable of changing and defying his nature, something we've never seen a vampire do. That is significant.
I close my eyes against the onslaught. "Right, right. Okay! All bad things." I look up to the light shining through the high windows into the vast chamber. "But he tried to be good."
*Puts on really pretentious hat*
Er...the sentence about Buffy looking up to the light is an intended bit of symbolism. She's in purgatory, arguing to save Spike from Hell. She's looking up, appealing to Heaven, looking up to the light while she's thinking of Spike trying to be good. The light's high above her, though. She can't reach it. She knows she's losing the argument.
"He tried to 'win' you. His soul was earned through purely selfish motives."
I laugh without humor. "A vampire voluntarily getting a soul is enough to make me take notice."
Again, two very different points of views reflecting the two different points of views you're likely to find between these two "sides".
And it has the benefit of being true for Buffy. Spike getting his soul did make Buffy take notice.
"Another perversion. He contaminates the soul by exposing it to his demon. It's an abomination of the natural order of things to taint a soul with the evil yearnings of a demon."
Now this is something I've only seen argued once, but it intrigues me. And I thought I was being all original, but, while this was out for beta, I read another "Spike's in Hell!" fic that used the same concept of the soul being tainted by the demon. So...oh well.
Anyway, the point here is that Spike is an abomination to the Powers. Not only as a vampire, but he's an abomination because he's a vampire who got a soul. Spike hints at this in Beneath You, that putting a soul in a demon is against the natural order of things. Getting a soul, then, isn't seen as a positive thing, but as just something else Spike did WRONG.
"Don't Slayers also have a demon or some demonic power in them?"
Ooooo! You go, Buffy!
"But Slayers are good."
Dammit! You ever feel like you're hitting a brick wall?
There's something wrong with that argument, but my mind is too exhausted to figure it out. Everything I say gets shot down anyway. I think I'm losing. Losing the fight. Losing him.
The point of the line about Slayers being good (and I almost capitalized it, "Good") is actually to show the Powers' bias. They believe that Slayers are Good, and Vampires are Evil. This does reflect the view I've seen in parts of fandom, and it's a very rigid view that doesn't allow any exceptions.
Of course there's something wrong with that argument. There's Faith, the Slayer who was decidedly not good, and Buffy, herself, has skirted the line of badness at times. While Slayers may be Chosen to be good, individual Slayers may stray from that path. Likewise, vampires are, by nature, evil, but individual vampires do seem able to stray from that path. Allowance needs to be made for this.
"Spike died fighting beside me," I say. "He died fighting to save the world. I know he's done bad things - been bad. I know. But...does that mean he could never be good? That there's no coming back if you fall off the path of righteousness? I don't know about his 'motivations' in pretty much anything he did. But loving me, trying to be good because of that love...I can't see that as a bad thing." Isn't love all you need? I look into the representative's unsympathetic eyes. "Please?"
This is Buffy's last attempt. She's basically dismissing the past, dismissing the motivations, and looking at what Spike did. And that's change. He changed. And he changed for love which, as Buffy says, isn't really a bad thing.
The purgatory waits in silence.
"Is that all you have to say in his defense?"
Oog. Not the answer you want to hear. The Powers are unimpressed.
What else is there to say? I nod.
"Very well. We shall confer with each other and review Spike's judgment. We will give your words the weight they deserve, as a Slayer. In the meantime, we will return you to Heaven. You will be informed if we decide to honor him with an eternity beside you. If not...well...you'll be in Heaven. You will forget your grievance, as is customary in the land of lotus-eaters. It is your reward."
And the twist.
As I noted way at the beginning, I was just gonna have Buffy going back to Heaven, and leave the ending ambiguous as to what the Powers' decision would be. And the decision is still ambiguous (though it's likely that Spike will stay in Hell). However, that's a rather lackluster ending, and I needed something a bit more powerful.
So I decided to play around with the idea of Heaven as an undesirable place from the outside. It gives you paradise, but it takes away your mental freedom to do so.
"No! No, let me stay here while you do the review! Don't leave me waiting in Heaven!" Heaven is an enforced paradise. And it can't be paradise when you long for your loved ones. So they will make me forget or not care or...just not think about him. The very thought makes me panic. Waiting without knowing about it. Missing him without remembering him. The sullied bliss of ignorance. "Please," I implore. "Don't make me forget - "
Oh, this ending took forever to work out. Buffy doesn't want to wait in Heaven, because, in doing so, she'll not remember Spike. She'll be left in her blissed out state, not even realizing that she's waiting for judgment.
Further, she'll not remember her love for Spike (because if she does, she'll want him with her, and that would ruin Heaven). Buffy wants to stay in purgatory for the duration of the review just so she'll be able to have that awareness of what happens. The Powers sending Buffy back to Heaven when she's clearly refusing almost seems like a punishment (Thus, the irony in their previous statement that it's her reward).
This paragraph does remind me of I Will Remember You when Buffy's getting panicky at the day being erased.
Heaven takes me. It doesn't matter anymore.
This fic needed to end on a tragic note, because that's what it is. And, being written in first-person, present tense, I was able to explicitly convey that Buffy was in Heaven and had gotten to that blissed out state of apathy and not remembering.
"Heaven takes me" was purposely constructed to make Heaven the active subject (instead of "I'm in Heaven"). It makes Heaven seem like it's own entity. It has the power to "take" someone. It's a place that Buffy fears going to because she wants to retain full mental faculties until she can get Spike with her.
And the idea of Heaven as a place to fear amuses me.
If you want to picture a happy ending for this fic, pretend that the Powers were swayed by Buffy's arguments and that they eventually moved Spike to Heaven, so Buffy and Spike are happily together there.
...though that's not what happened, but hey. Whatever makes you happy. :)