Hero With A Thousand Subplots
I was browsing randomly through some new-to-me authors the other day, and I started to wonder about something: do other pairings or characters have an ur-story?
What I mean is this: in Spike/Buffy circles, there’s a Story. When fanfic is involved, there will, of course, be lots of stories that center around certain points in canon - for S/B, there’s the Season 2 Story, the post-Becoming II Story, the post-Lover’s Walk Story, the post-Something Blue story, the Season 5 story, the post-Gift Story, the Season 6 Story, the post-Grave Story, the Season 7 Story, the post-Chosen Story, and the post-NFA Story. Stories which fit into or branch off from canon at these points will have certain commonalities of theme and certain commonalities of plot. i.e. the post-Gift fic must deal with Buffy’s return from the dead, while the post-Becoming fic must deal with Buffy having run away from Sunnydale, and the post-Grave fic must deal with Spike having run off to Africa to get a soul.
However, there’s a story which recurs again and again, regardless of the time period in which it’s set. It doesn’t have anything to do with the show’s canon; in fact, it contradicts that canon in several particulars. In one guise or another, it shows up in everything from Lynn’s S2 Chains series to post-Chosen fic written last week. In its basic form, the ur-B/S story goes something like this: A spell or prophecy requires that a Slayer and a vampire have sex, either to avert or produce some mystic event. The sex produces a spiritual bond between the two and grants them some kind of additional powers. A miraculous pregnancy results, with the child possessing mystical abilities which exceed those of its parents. The child then goes on to fulfill some great destiny.
There are all kinds of variations on this basic plotline. Sometimes the mystical child is adopted. Sometimes the story only goes as far as the mystic sex-bond (cf. all those claiming stories.) Sometimes elements of the story blend fairly seamlessly into canon (e.g. a story in which Spike shanshus, and he and Buffy have an ordinary human child.) Rarely, a reversal of this ur-story occurs (Buffy can't deal with being a single mom, fears the miracle child is evil, and aborts it) but I’ve only seen this done once, and it was in a story which was intended to show that Buffy was a horrible, horrible person for rejecting the miracle baby and its father. And as with any plotline, how well or poorly the story turns out depends upon the skill of the author - let me make clear that while some stories that follow this archetype are pretty dreadful, some of them are very well-written indeed.
This ur-story is a combination of three very popular fannish clichés: A Spell Made Them Do It, Soulbonding, and the Miracle Baby, so in some ways that explains its popularity - but why, I wonder, is this particular combination of tropes so strongly associated with this particular pairing? Or is it? Does this particular plot archetype show up just as often in, say, B/A stories? Or in other fandoms? Is there a particular type of pairing it’s more apt to be associated with? Just off the top of my head, I would imagine it’s most commonly found with UC het pairings (particularly those which are composed of two characters who are enemies or rivals in canon.) Are there other archetypical plots which are strongly associated with other types of pairing?
It is an unquestioned assumption in the majority of these stories is that Buffy is obligated to bear a child that she didn't want and could have avoided having, by someone whom she may, at least at the beginning of the story, despise. This is something that I find extremely problematic, even if one assumes that Buffy wants to be a mother some day (and while that's by no means a slam-dunk, I think there's a reasonable amount of subtext in her conversation with Robin Wood about Nikki to support the idea.) If she rebels against or resents her fate, she's often presented as a bad person and an unwomanly woman, but she almost invariably accepts it joyfully. Which, let's face it, isn't very Buffyish - she is Slayer, hear her kvetch.
I've attempted to deal with the aspects of the ur-story which trouble me in my own fic by carefully establishing differences: my Buffy and Spike have already been together for several reasonably happy and functional years before the spectre of child-rearing raises its diaper-covered ass; there's no prophecy involved; within the logic of established Buffyverse magical canon, the pregnancy is not a miracle; the kids don't have special powers beyond what one would expect given their parentage and aren't destined for anything in particular; and so on. And my Buffy still isn't exactly overjoyed with the whole idea at first.
And yet...
The prevalence of this ur-story presents challenges for anyone who wants to write about Buffy and Spike having a family: even if one goes to great lengths to establish differences, does one necessarily participate in the ur-story even when attempting to subvert it? It all feels so Joseph Campbell.
What I mean is this: in Spike/Buffy circles, there’s a Story. When fanfic is involved, there will, of course, be lots of stories that center around certain points in canon - for S/B, there’s the Season 2 Story, the post-Becoming II Story, the post-Lover’s Walk Story, the post-Something Blue story, the Season 5 story, the post-Gift Story, the Season 6 Story, the post-Grave Story, the Season 7 Story, the post-Chosen Story, and the post-NFA Story. Stories which fit into or branch off from canon at these points will have certain commonalities of theme and certain commonalities of plot. i.e. the post-Gift fic must deal with Buffy’s return from the dead, while the post-Becoming fic must deal with Buffy having run away from Sunnydale, and the post-Grave fic must deal with Spike having run off to Africa to get a soul.
However, there’s a story which recurs again and again, regardless of the time period in which it’s set. It doesn’t have anything to do with the show’s canon; in fact, it contradicts that canon in several particulars. In one guise or another, it shows up in everything from Lynn’s S2 Chains series to post-Chosen fic written last week. In its basic form, the ur-B/S story goes something like this: A spell or prophecy requires that a Slayer and a vampire have sex, either to avert or produce some mystic event. The sex produces a spiritual bond between the two and grants them some kind of additional powers. A miraculous pregnancy results, with the child possessing mystical abilities which exceed those of its parents. The child then goes on to fulfill some great destiny.
There are all kinds of variations on this basic plotline. Sometimes the mystical child is adopted. Sometimes the story only goes as far as the mystic sex-bond (cf. all those claiming stories.) Sometimes elements of the story blend fairly seamlessly into canon (e.g. a story in which Spike shanshus, and he and Buffy have an ordinary human child.) Rarely, a reversal of this ur-story occurs (Buffy can't deal with being a single mom, fears the miracle child is evil, and aborts it) but I’ve only seen this done once, and it was in a story which was intended to show that Buffy was a horrible, horrible person for rejecting the miracle baby and its father. And as with any plotline, how well or poorly the story turns out depends upon the skill of the author - let me make clear that while some stories that follow this archetype are pretty dreadful, some of them are very well-written indeed.
This ur-story is a combination of three very popular fannish clichés: A Spell Made Them Do It, Soulbonding, and the Miracle Baby, so in some ways that explains its popularity - but why, I wonder, is this particular combination of tropes so strongly associated with this particular pairing? Or is it? Does this particular plot archetype show up just as often in, say, B/A stories? Or in other fandoms? Is there a particular type of pairing it’s more apt to be associated with? Just off the top of my head, I would imagine it’s most commonly found with UC het pairings (particularly those which are composed of two characters who are enemies or rivals in canon.) Are there other archetypical plots which are strongly associated with other types of pairing?
It is an unquestioned assumption in the majority of these stories is that Buffy is obligated to bear a child that she didn't want and could have avoided having, by someone whom she may, at least at the beginning of the story, despise. This is something that I find extremely problematic, even if one assumes that Buffy wants to be a mother some day (and while that's by no means a slam-dunk, I think there's a reasonable amount of subtext in her conversation with Robin Wood about Nikki to support the idea.) If she rebels against or resents her fate, she's often presented as a bad person and an unwomanly woman, but she almost invariably accepts it joyfully. Which, let's face it, isn't very Buffyish - she is Slayer, hear her kvetch.
I've attempted to deal with the aspects of the ur-story which trouble me in my own fic by carefully establishing differences: my Buffy and Spike have already been together for several reasonably happy and functional years before the spectre of child-rearing raises its diaper-covered ass; there's no prophecy involved; within the logic of established Buffyverse magical canon, the pregnancy is not a miracle; the kids don't have special powers beyond what one would expect given their parentage and aren't destined for anything in particular; and so on. And my Buffy still isn't exactly overjoyed with the whole idea at first.
And yet...
The prevalence of this ur-story presents challenges for anyone who wants to write about Buffy and Spike having a family: even if one goes to great lengths to establish differences, does one necessarily participate in the ur-story even when attempting to subvert it? It all feels so Joseph Campbell.