AOQ Review 7-2: "Beneath You"
Arbitrar Of Quality
threads.
BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER
Season Seven, Episode 2: "Beneath You"
(or "It seems you really love Christ." "Yes, we sure do."
"Eh, no, but... it appears you are actually... in love with
Christ.")
Writer: Douglas Petrie
Director: Nick Marck
Like "Lessons," "Beneath You" has a few mini-plots that don't
intersect with the main ones but whose existence starts to be
explained. First and perhaps ultimately foremost, there's the very
cool-looking German chick getting hunted down by the ominous types.
Still no idea where this is going (my first impulse would be to say
Buffy getting visions of other Slayers' deaths by Teh Recurring Evol,
but a few things don't match up there). In any case, now it's
clear that it'll be a long-term storyline independent for the time
being of the Sunnydale stories. The show gets another chance to do a
slow build in the background, reminiscent of what they did with the
Initiative. The show's good at slow builds, I think. Even the one
in S4 was quite nice - easy to forget that considering how lame the
story being unraveled turned out to be.
Isolated story #2 shows Buffy settling into her new job, with another
funny S1 reference and not much else happening. I'll spare you the
fiancée's endless questions about how she could be hired with so few
qualifications, since there's actually a scene which says "hey
viewer, don't think too hard about this. Wonder about Wood's
motivations instead, or something." And #3 is Willow being sent
home, and making it clear that she hasn't really talked to her
friends since the Dark Age. So, seeing her reintegration hasn't been
cancelled entirely, just deferred.
Speaking of our beloved new principal, he's the show's first
vegetarian that I can remember. Now they'd really better not kill
him or make him evil, or I'll take it personally. Seems this is a
full-time gig, and she's no longer working at the DmP.
The main plot of "Beneath You" involves Spike, as the title
suggests, but the nominal central monster is a giant worm that may or
may not tie into the cryptic prophecies floating around. I was sure
Nancy was a goner when first introduced, but instead she sticks around
to be a representative Sunnydalian, who can be made aware that there
are strange things going on when they happen to her. She's not the
most fascinating character, but not too bad either, and the episode
does okay with the little stuff, like getting Xander's hopes up of
dating again after finding someone who can be protected and who'll
laugh at his jokes. Actually, during the "abusive bastard" speech,
I was wondering if she was a refugee from an _Angel_ script.
Front and center again, Spike is as hard to figure out as ever. I
think I'm going to have to fess up to one of my personal biases as a
viewer, which is that I tend to feel ill at ease when dealing with
character motivations that're intentionally hard to figure out. For
most of BY, we're kept out of Spike's head and left to ponder what
the hell his deal is. Some may find it fascinating, but in large
chunks, I tend to get frustrated. That's simply how I roll. He says
he just wants to help Buffy however he can, because, just for a change,
something big is going on in Sunnydale. He acts repentant and
strikingly ego-less, except for the moments in which he's not that
way at all, which become increasingly frequent. "Why is he suddenly
no longer crazy?," the first-time viewer wonders, and I still don't
get the rules behind how long he can fake sanity under what conditions.
He's also *very* anxious to make sure his trip to AfricaLand remains
secret, for whatever reason. Some of my misgivings are simply that
I'm wary of any idea of rekindling the B/S relationship right now,
which I have the sinking feeling that we're leaning towards. But the
episode may know what it's doing, considering the scene in which
Buffy's pounding on Spike and he's loudly trying to play (and
believe?) that nothing's changed at all, that he's still evil at
heart. It's hard not to get chills at lines like "hey, I guess
this would be first contact since, uh, you know when. Ooh, up for
another round up on the balcony, then?" in the post-"Seeing Red"
era. The writers have never shied away from addressing how disturbing
an individual Spike is and can be, so I'll do my best to give them a
chance to play this arc right.
Buffy continuing to not talk about Peroxide Boy to Xander and Dawn,
after having said that she was wrong to hide their torrid affair, seems
like it could be a significant plot point again. Dawn's indignation
at being clueless about the rape attempt came up in "Grave," but
there was a lot going on at the time. There's a lot going on here
too, but she seems angrier. One gets the sense that their patience
with this could wear thin very quickly.
Anya had been looking like the odd character out as of late, but
she's reintegrated into the show pretty well here. Were those of you
who were talking about the lack of control involved in being a Justice
Demon thinking ahead to this? It's getting rather abundantly clear
that Anya's neither back in her groove nor is she enjoying being an
agent of pain when she used to have a life that she was enjoying. Of
course, if the show ever wants her to question her lifestyle, she'll
have to start thinking about the kinds of uncomfortable qualms that she
was able to avoid addressing when her powers were forcibly taken away.
Perhaps the best line of the episode is Xander's response to her
blaming him: "sooner or later, Anya, that excuse just stops
working." She's the trigger for the nicely mixed comedy/angst-fest
of errors that leads to practically the whole main cast getting hit in
the face at least once, and makes the Scoobie Gang look so inaccessible
to someone like Nancy. And in the end, Anya chooses them over her
calling...
And then there's that ending scene. As artistically important as
I'm sure it is to see James Marsters bare-chested again, does this
part last forever or what? I can deal with seeing the insanity
reemerge after stabbing a person (interesting that he grabs his head,
chip-style, afterward; I'm not clear on whether or not that thing is
still working or if this is all soul). Or the way his "it's what you
wanted, right?" is staged so that it could be directed either at
Buffy or at the God William presumably believed in. Or even the
cross-humping at the end, which although I make light of, is a good
image to leave the viewer wondering what'll happen next. But
basically, cryptic rambling works a lot better in smaller doses than
what we have here. It could all make perfect sense now or at some
point later in the season, but I won't remember much about what Spike
babbles about here, since there's so much of it, and it just keeps
going on and on and on and on. Before the church, I was glad to be
realizing that the episode wasn't over, that there'd be another
Buffy/Spike exchange. Afterward, well, I've never been so glad to
see the Executive Producer screen finally come up.
This Is Really Stupid But I Laughed Anyway moment(s):
- "I heard screaming. "That was you." "There was a girl."
"That would be me."
- "I'm Command Central, so everybody check in with me. OK, I'll be
here doing my homework, but the other one sounded cooler."
- "Oh, penis!"
- The X/S reaction shots after "is there anyone here who hasn't
slept together?"
So...
One-sentence summary: Has a purpose and is worth a look, dragginess
notwithstanding.
AOQ rating: Decent
[Season Seven so far:
1) "Lessons" - Good
2) "Beneath You" - Decent]
Don Sample
"Arbitrar Of Quality" <tsm...@wildmail.com> wrote:
> A reminder: Please avoid spoilers for later episodes in these review
> threads.
>
>
> BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER
> Season Seven, Episode 2: "Beneath You"
> (or "It seems you really love Christ." "Yes, we sure do."
> "Eh, no, but... it appears you are actually... in love with
> Christ.")
> Writer: Douglas Petrie
> Director: Nick Marck
>
> Like "Lessons," "Beneath You" has a few mini-plots that don't
> intersect with the main ones but whose existence starts to be
> explained. First and perhaps ultimately foremost, there's the very
> cool-looking German chick getting hunted down by the ominous types.
> Still no idea where this is going
Someone commented on the girl in Istanbul being an "Alias" homage, but
this one is much more so. Also a "Run Lola Run" homage.
>
> Speaking of our beloved new principal, he's the show's first
> vegetarian that I can remember.
So he shouldn't have had any problem with the DmP's menu.
> Buffy continuing to not talk about Peroxide Boy to Xander and Dawn,
> after having said that she was wrong to hide their torrid affair, seems
> like it could be a significant plot point again. Dawn's indignation
> at being clueless about the rape attempt came up in "Grave," but
> there was a lot going on at the time. There's a lot going on here
> too, but she seems angrier. One gets the sense that their patience
> with this could wear thin very quickly.
I liked Dawn's warning to Spike, and Spike's later "And when exactly did
your sister get unbelievably scary?"
>
> And then there's that ending scene. As artistically important as
> I'm sure it is to see James Marsters bare-chested again, does this
> part last forever or what? I can deal with seeing the insanity
> reemerge after stabbing a person (interesting that he grabs his head,
> chip-style, afterward; I'm not clear on whether or not that thing is
> still working or if this is all soul). Or the way his "it's what you
> wanted, right?" is staged so that it could be directed either at
> Buffy or at the God William presumably believed in. Or even the
> cross-humping at the end, which although I make light of, is a good
> image to leave the viewer wondering what'll happen next. But
> basically, cryptic rambling works a lot better in smaller doses than
> what we have here. It could all make perfect sense now or at some
> point later in the season, but I won't remember much about what Spike
> babbles about here, since there's so much of it, and it just keeps
> going on and on and on and on. Before the church, I was glad to be
> realizing that the episode wasn't over, that there'd be another
> Buffy/Spike exchange. Afterward, well, I've never been so glad to
> see the Executive Producer screen finally come up.
That was a scene that Joss completely rewrote from the version in the
original script.
> This Is Really Stupid But I Laughed Anyway moment(s):
> - "I heard screaming. "That was you." "There was a girl."
> "That would be me."
> - "I'm Command Central, so everybody check in with me. OK, I'll be
> here doing my homework, but the other one sounded cooler."
> - "Oh, penis!"
> - The X/S reaction shots after "is there anyone here who hasn't
> slept together?"
Yeah, the Spander shippers really got off on that one.
--
Quando omni flunkus moritati
Visit the Buffy Body Count at <http://homepage.mac.com/dsample/>
MBangel10 (Melissa)
> A reminder: Please avoid spoilers for later episodes in these review
> threads.
>
>
> BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER
> Season Seven, Episode 2: "Beneath You"
> (or "It seems you really love Christ." "Yes, we sure do."
> "Eh, no, but... it appears you are actually... in love with
> Christ.")
> Writer: Douglas Petrie
> Director: Nick Marck
>
> Like "Lessons," "Beneath You" has a few mini-plots that don't
> intersect with the main ones but whose existence starts to be
> explained. First and perhaps ultimately foremost, there's the very
> cool-looking German chick getting hunted down by the ominous types.
> Still no idea where this is going (my first impulse would be to say
> Buffy getting visions of other Slayers' deaths by Teh Recurring Evol,
> but a few things don't match up there). In any case, now it's
> clear that it'll be a long-term storyline independent for the time
> being of the Sunnydale stories. The show gets another chance to do a
> slow build in the background, reminiscent of what they did with the
> Initiative. The show's good at slow builds, I think. Even the one
> in S4 was quite nice - easy to forget that considering how lame the
> story being unraveled turned out to be.
The show does do the slow build quite well, and this is no exception.
>
> Isolated story #2 shows Buffy settling into her new job, with another
> funny S1 reference and not much else happening. I'll spare you the
> fiancée's endless questions about how she could be hired with so few
> qualifications, since there's actually a scene which says "hey
> viewer, don't think too hard about this. Wonder about Wood's
> motivations instead, or something." And #3 is Willow being sent
> home, and making it clear that she hasn't really talked to her
> friends since the Dark Age. So, seeing her reintegration hasn't been
> cancelled entirely, just deferred.
>
> Speaking of our beloved new principal, he's the show's first
> vegetarian that I can remember. Now they'd really better not kill
> him or make him evil, or I'll take it personally. Seems this is a
> full-time gig, and she's no longer working at the DmP.
I kept wondering myself how Buffy could be qualified to get a job as a
school counselor but this is the Hellmouth, crazier things have happened.
>
> The main plot of "Beneath You" involves Spike, as the title
> suggests, but the nominal central monster is a giant worm that may or
> may not tie into the cryptic prophecies floating around. I was sure
> Nancy was a goner when first introduced, but instead she sticks around
> to be a representative Sunnydalian, who can be made aware that there
> are strange things going on when they happen to her. She's not the
> most fascinating character, but not too bad either, and the episode
> does okay with the little stuff, like getting Xander's hopes up of
> dating again after finding someone who can be protected and who'll
> laugh at his jokes. Actually, during the "abusive bastard" speech,
> I was wondering if she was a refugee from an _Angel_ script.
She's 100% human, no ex demon in her, of course it would never work with
Xander. LOL
>
> Front and center again, Spike is as hard to figure out as ever. I
> think I'm going to have to fess up to one of my personal biases as a
> viewer, which is that I tend to feel ill at ease when dealing with
> character motivations that're intentionally hard to figure out. For
> most of BY, we're kept out of Spike's head and left to ponder what
> the hell his deal is. Some may find it fascinating, but in large
> chunks, I tend to get frustrated. That's simply how I roll. He says
> he just wants to help Buffy however he can, because, just for a change,
> something big is going on in Sunnydale. He acts repentant and
> strikingly ego-less, except for the moments in which he's not that
> way at all, which become increasingly frequent. "Why is he suddenly
> no longer crazy?," the first-time viewer wonders, and I still don't
> get the rules behind how long he can fake sanity under what conditions.
He stepped out of the basement to clear his head. It seemed to work, for
a while.
> He's also *very* anxious to make sure his trip to AfricaLand remains
> secret, for whatever reason. Some of my misgivings are simply that
> I'm wary of any idea of rekindling the B/S relationship right now,
> which I have the sinking feeling that we're leaning towards. But the
> episode may know what it's doing, considering the scene in which
> Buffy's pounding on Spike and he's loudly trying to play (and
> believe?) that nothing's changed at all, that he's still evil at
> heart. It's hard not to get chills at lines like "hey, I guess
> this would be first contact since, uh, you know when. Ooh, up for
> another round up on the balcony, then?" in the post-"Seeing Red"
> era. The writers have never shied away from addressing how disturbing
> an individual Spike is and can be, so I'll do my best to give them a
> chance to play this arc right.
He didn't want the news to come from Anya, and there seems to be
something around him, pulling his strings a bit as well.
SPIKE
"It's what you wanted, right? (looking at the ceiling) It's what you
wanted, right?
(presses his fingers to his temples, looks down, and walks toward the
altar).
And—and now everybody's in here, talking. Everything I did...everyone I—
*and him...
and it... the other, the thing beneath—beneath you. It's here too.*
Everybody.
They all just tell me go... go... (looks back over his shoulder to
Buffy) to hell."
>
> Buffy continuing to not talk about Peroxide Boy to Xander and Dawn,
> after having said that she was wrong to hide their torrid affair, seems
> like it could be a significant plot point again. Dawn's indignation
> at being clueless about the rape attempt came up in "Grave," but
> there was a lot going on at the time. There's a lot going on here
> too, but she seems angrier. One gets the sense that their patience
> with this could wear thin very quickly.
She was kind of scary when she threatened to set Spike on fire.
Although, he definitely deserved the threat.
>
> Anya had been looking like the odd character out as of late, but
> she's reintegrated into the show pretty well here. Were those of you
> who were talking about the lack of control involved in being a Justice
> Demon thinking ahead to this? It's getting rather abundantly clear
> that Anya's neither back in her groove nor is she enjoying being an
> agent of pain when she used to have a life that she was enjoying. Of
> course, if the show ever wants her to question her lifestyle, she'll
> have to start thinking about the kinds of uncomfortable qualms that she
> was able to avoid addressing when her powers were forcibly taken away.
> Perhaps the best line of the episode is Xander's response to her
> blaming him: "sooner or later, Anya, that excuse just stops
> working." She's the trigger for the nicely mixed comedy/angst-fest
> of errors that leads to practically the whole main cast getting hit in
> the face at least once, and makes the Scoobie Gang look so inaccessible
> to someone like Nancy. And in the end, Anya chooses them over her
> calling...
You mentioned that this episode seemed to focus on Spike but it was
focusing on Anya just as much. No, she doesn't appear to be all "go
vengeance" like she used to be but she's not seeming very guilty about
her actions though.
(P.S. This response is taking forever because I keep running back and
forth between the Manning Brothers Battle on NBC and this review... damn
that football game! :)
>
> And then there's that ending scene. As artistically important as
> I'm sure it is to see James Marsters bare-chested again, does this
> part last forever or what? I can deal with seeing the insanity
> reemerge after stabbing a person (interesting that he grabs his head,
> chip-style, afterward; I'm not clear on whether or not that thing is
> still working or if this is all soul). Or the way his "it's what you
> wanted, right?" is staged so that it could be directed either at
> Buffy or at the God William presumably believed in.
A bit of both actually - and this scene really did bring a tear to my
eye the first time I watched it.
Or even the
> cross-humping at the end, which although I make light of, is a good
> image to leave the viewer wondering what'll happen next.
He's begging forgiveness and for much more than what he did to Buffy -
he's begging forgiveness for ALL of it, every horrible thing he's
done... it's an important moment.
But
> basically, cryptic rambling works a lot better in smaller doses than
> what we have here. It could all make perfect sense now or at some
> point later in the season, but I won't remember much about what Spike
> babbles about here, since there's so much of it, and it just keeps
> going on and on and on and on. Before the church, I was glad to be
> realizing that the episode wasn't over, that there'd be another
> Buffy/Spike exchange. Afterward, well, I've never been so glad to
> see the Executive Producer screen finally come up.
It's not so much rambling - Spike is saying a lot in that monologue -
Even through the craziness he's realized that Buffy WAS just using him,
that he was just flesh to her and that she could never love him without
the 'spark'.
Of course, all the 'spark' does is burn, it's his guilt. It's
overwhelming and it's filling his head "are we in a soddin' engine?"
He makes mention of Angel putting on a good show, but now he knows the
torment that comes with the soul. No more guilt free life for Spike,
it's all about the pain now.
He mentioned the shirt being a costume, his act at the Bronze was a
costume meant to hide what he wasn't ready for Buffy to see.
But the show leaves us with a great big question besides what's going on
with Spike.
Who's the headliner?
SPIKE
The real headliner's coming, and when that band hits the stage, all of
this...
(stands up and gestures to the buildings around them) all this... will
come tumbling
in death and screaming, horror and bloodshed. (points to Ronnie)
From beneath you, it devours. From beneath... (starts to cry, and looks
away)
Poor Rocky.
and then of course, this little moment -
XANDER
You reversed the spell. It took guts. I know this is bad, but it could
be worse.
ANYA
Oh, it will be.
>
> This Is Really Stupid But I Laughed Anyway moment(s):
> - "I heard screaming. "That was you." "There was a girl."
> "That would be me."
> - "I'm Command Central, so everybody check in with me. OK, I'll be
> here doing my homework, but the other one sounded cooler."
> - "Oh, penis!"
> - The X/S reaction shots after "is there anyone here who hasn't
> slept together?"
>
>
> So...
>
> One-sentence summary: Has a purpose and is worth a look, dragginess
> notwithstanding.
>
> AOQ rating: Decent
I give this episode a good - decent for the Tremors homage and excellent
for the ending.
Malsperanza
Arbitrar Of Quality wrote:
> A reminder: Please avoid spoilers for later episodes in these review
> threads.
>
>
> BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER
> Season Seven, Episode 2: "Beneath You"
> (or "It seems you really love Christ." "Yes, we sure do."
> "Eh, no, but... it appears you are actually... in love with
> Christ.")
> Writer: Douglas Petrie
> Director: Nick Marck
>
> Like "Lessons," "Beneath You" has a few mini-plots that don't
> intersect with the main ones but whose existence starts to be
> explained. First and perhaps ultimately foremost, there's the very
> cool-looking German chick getting hunted down by the ominous types.
The red hair and German location are either a nice tip of the hat to
Run Lola Run or a snide swipe at copycate Alias, which had its
superheroine dress in a red wig (probably also as a nod to Lola) around
this time.
> Still no idea where this is going (my first impulse would be to say
> Buffy getting visions of other Slayers' deaths by Teh Recurring Evol,
> but a few things don't match up there). In any case, now it's
> clear that it'll be a long-term storyline independent for the time
> being of the Sunnydale stories.
I think the intro, repeating the previous episode intro, is a fairly
direct signal that this season is going to have a longer story line,
crossing from episode to episode more often, and cautioning viewers to
be patient with unanswered questions. Whether it works or is merely
jarring, I'm not sure.
> Speaking of our beloved new principal, he's the show's first
> vegetarian that I can remember.
Except for the regulars at the Doublemeat Palace, not counting
Penis-snake-head Lady, of course.
> The main plot of "Beneath You" involves Spike, as the title
> suggests
Perhaps the most interesting element of this episode to me is the
variety of different riffs it runs on the idea of "beneathness," from
Spike's traumatic memories of his two beloveds both telling him that he
is beneath them socially or morally or both to his literal beneathness,
hiding in the basement of the school (I think in a section of the old
sunken library?) to the Hellmouth beneath the principal's office, to at
least a hint of something sexual. None of it is explored too
thoroughly, but a lot is laid out for future consideration.
In that scene, I get the feeling that Spike is deliberately trying to
make himself look as bad as possible to Buffy, to piss her off as much
as he can. I'm not sure why, unless it's to distract her from the
information Anya has been about to reveal--that he's got his soul on
again.
> Buffy continuing to not talk about Peroxide Boy to Xander and Dawn,
> after having said that she was wrong to hide their torrid affair, seems
> like it could be a significant plot point again. Dawn's indignation
> at being clueless about the rape attempt came up in "Grave," but
> there was a lot going on at the time. There's a lot going on here
> too, but she seems angrier. One gets the sense that their patience
> with this could wear thin very quickly.
I do enjoy Dawn's moment of threatening Spike. It's practically the
only time we've seen her speak authoritatively and with some expression
of empowerment, and it comes as a relief. Iike that Spike is genuinely
unnerved by her.
>
> Anya had been looking like the odd character out as of late, but
> she's reintegrated into the show pretty well here.
I like the fact that she alone of the Scoobies can "see" Spike's soul,
which is a kind of objective confirmation that he really does have one,
and also suggests a few things about her own state of mind, or state of
being. And I enjoy his embarrassment about it--whatever else Spike may
be at this stage, he has lost some of his, um, cocksureness. Even when
not stark raving mad, he is not so self-confident as he once was. Which
makes him a more interesting character, and interesting in how he
reflects and/or contrasts with Buffy.
> And then there's that ending scene. As artistically important as
> I'm sure it is to see James Marsters bare-chested again, does this
> part last forever or what? I can deal with seeing the insanity
> reemerge after stabbing a person (interesting that he grabs his head,
> chip-style, afterward; I'm not clear on whether or not that thing is
> still working or if this is all soul). Or the way his "it's what you
> wanted, right?" is staged so that it could be directed either at
> Buffy or at the God William presumably believed in.
Aside from the Gratuitous Shirtlessness, I think the scene is fairly
strong--although yes, it does go on too long. Putting Spike's great
quasi-religious confession in a church, draped over a cross, is -- to
say the least -- heavy-handed, but it's hard to get away from that
image of him leaning on the cross, smoking, in a gesture that could
either be that of a Christian supplicant or that of a suicidal vampire.
Or both, of course.
Overall, once again, there's a fine line between what Spike is hiding
from Buffy and what the writers are hiding from the audience. Unlike in
the Lurky Demon scene, though, here we are offered the possibility of
interpreting information through various pov's, as Spike is sometimes
speaking to Buffy and sometimes to an unseen other or others (perhaps
God), or to himself, and as you say, we are left to try to sort all
that out.
We're mostly more or less in Buffy's pov in the church scene, so we get
about as much information as she does--except that we also were present
in Lurky Demon's cave, and she was not, so we can put the facts
together a little better. Still, she gets it pretty fast, with his
line, "They put the spark in me ... and now all it does is burn," which
I take as a sort of reprise of Buffy and Spike's duet in OMWF. I love
that line, but some of Spike's speechifying does seem to be designed to
settle the debates over whether his original purpose in visiting Africa
was to be dechipped or ensouled--and is therefore not meant to be
important for the future. ("I wanted to give you what you deserve. And
I got it. They put the spark in me... and now all it does is burn.")
Still, there's one passage just before that in which Spike manages to
provide new ambiguities for further audience debate:
SPIKE: I dreamed of killing you. I think they were dreams. So weak. Did
you make me weak? Thinking of you, holding myself and spilling useless
buckets of salt over your ending.
Which can either be a description of Evil!Spike masturbating as he
thinks of killing the Slayer, or Redemptive!Spike weeping as he thinks
of losing or killing the Slayer. Either way, it suggests that he
imagines that his attempt to rape her in SR might well have ended in
her murder. I don't think one needs to commit these snippets to
memory--their importance is in the revelation they give Buffy at the
moment, regardless of whether they will turn up again later or not.
> - The X/S reaction shots after "is there anyone here who hasn't
> slept together?"
Priceless.
~Mal
Malsperanza
MBangel10 (Melissa) wrote:
> > He's also *very* anxious to make sure his trip to AfricaLand remains
> > secret, for whatever reason. Some of my misgivings are simply that
> > I'm wary of any idea of rekindling the B/S relationship right now,
> > which I have the sinking feeling that we're leaning towards. But the
> > episode may know what it's doing, considering the scene in which
> > Buffy's pounding on Spike and he's loudly trying to play (and
> > believe?) that nothing's changed at all, that he's still evil at
> > heart. It's hard not to get chills at lines like "hey, I guess
> > this would be first contact since, uh, you know when. Ooh, up for
> > another round up on the balcony, then?" in the post-"Seeing Red"
> > era. The writers have never shied away from addressing how disturbing
> > an individual Spike is and can be, so I'll do my best to give them a
> > chance to play this arc right.
>
> He didn't want the news to come from Anya, and there seems to be
> something around him, pulling his strings a bit as well.
I got the feeling he wasn't sure at this point that he wanted Buffy to
know at all--not sure why. But I see what you mean about something
driving him to get his demon on as well.
~Mal
Rincewind
>threads.
>
>
>BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER
>Season Seven, Episode 2: "Beneath You"
>
>vegetarian that I can remember. Now they'd really better not kill
>him or make him evil, or I'll take it personally.
Well, with the lesbians they did both: one killed and the other turned evil,
and yet everybody thinks that lesbian fans shouldn't take it personally....
> ... But the
>episode may know what it's doing, considering the scene in which
>Buffy's pounding on Spike and he's loudly trying to play (and
>believe?) that nothing's changed at all, that he's still evil at
>heart. It's hard not to get chills at lines like "hey, I guess
>this would be first contact since, uh, you know when. Ooh, up for
>another round up on the balcony, then?" in the post-"Seeing Red"
>era.
>The writers have never shied away from addressing how disturbing
>an individual Spike is and can be, ...
I hope it will not be considered spoilery if I say that an even chillier
line will be heard in a later episode in one of the most important Spike
scenes of the season. The writers are certainly not trying to show souled
Spike as a fluffy bunny.
> ...so I'll do my best to give them a
>chance to play this arc right.
I think you won't be disappointed. There are a lot of flaws in this season,
but in my opinion the Spike arc is handled very well.
>Buffy continuing to not talk about Peroxide Boy to Xander and Dawn,
>after having said that she was wrong to hide their torrid affair, seems
>like it could be a significant plot point again. Dawn's indignation
>at being clueless about the rape attempt came up in "Grave," but
>there was a lot going on at the time. There's a lot going on here
>too, but she seems angrier. One gets the sense that their patience
>with this could wear thin very quickly.
I loved Dawn's "you're going to wake up on fire." speech.
>And then there's that ending scene. As artistically important as
>I'm sure it is to see James Marsters bare-chested again, does this
>part last forever or what?
Yes, it lasts forever...
In my opinion one of the biggest flaws of the first half of the season is
too much screen time taken by Spike. A few scenes are actually important but
would be a lot better if they were 50 percent shorter. Many others are just
filler and could be eliminated without affecting the story in any way.
>This Is Really Stupid But I Laughed Anyway moment(s):
SPIKE: I don't fancy sticking my head in there.
BUFFY: But if something bites it off, that'd be a clue.
>One-sentence summary: Has a purpose and is worth a look, dragginess
>notwithstanding.
>
>AOQ rating: Decent
Yes, I give it a Decent too.
Rincewind.
--
Lines you'll never hear on Buffy:
SPIKE: I went all the way to bloody Africa for this. I endured the torture
trials and combat rituals and sodding bugs crawled up my arse. And you're
saying getting a soul isn't good enough for you?
GILES: Okay, you convinced me. Let's shag.
MBangel10 (Melissa)
want Anya to blurt it out or if he wasn't sure he wanted Buffy to know
at all. He did everything he possibly could, including royally pissing
Buffy off to do so you may be on to something there.
But yeah, those voices in Spike's head are making him act completely
wonky, and getting his demon on is something I include in that.
lili...@gmail.com
The Spike part of this episode is probably my favorite Bit of Buffy
ever, long as I ignore the boring Xander part of the ep, I can rewatch
this ep again and again.
(in fact, long as I just focus on the Spike bits I'd say this ep is
excellent and probably the third best episode of Buffy ever*g*)
I like to paste in a part of a review that came up on scoopme right
after. I don't usually remember this review, but what can I say... it's
my fave review I've ever read of a Buffy ep*g*
This is from a repost of the reviews since the original board it was
posted on is down:
http://www.smgboard.com/forums/lofiversion/index.php/t513.html
Beneath You: Watch What You Wish For
by Hunter Maxin
10/1/2002
Spike is back. SPIKE IS BACK! Back, I tell you! Back!
(easy...easy)
And in a big way, which doesn't surprise me at all. What did surprise
me was how many steps we went through in such a short period of time.
The transition from Almond Joy Spike (sometimes you feel like a nut...)
to Mounds Spike and back again...well, I didn't see that one coming.
I had William penciled in as somewhat bonkers until at least after
Columbus Day.
In fact, when "costumed" sane Spike showed up in the Summer's foyer,
I was tempted to write him off as, first, a figment of Buffy's
imagination (until after the commercial break), and, later, some form
of the big bad in disguise (until Anya looked into his eyes). So this
is how Spike has decided to wrestle with his demons: he's spliced
himself into halves.
On one side, we have William...tortured by the things he's done. Soft
at heart. Weak and misguided. Living in the past. Tormented. Unkempt
hair.
On the other, we have Spike. Neutered Spike, yes, but still Spike.
British cool. Devious, yet charming. Misplaced. Misguided. In love with
Buffy.
Last week, I was sure that Spike's reference to "just the three of
us" meant Buffy, himself, and the big evil lurking in the shadows. Now,
I'm not so certain. Now, I think it might just be Spike, William, and
Buffy.
And how much more interesting is that?
In the end, however, I think the two came together. Maybe not for the
first time, but the first for us. In the end, Spike met William half
way and became something not entirely not unlike...a man.
Flawed and lost. Strong and with purpose. Confused about who he is in
relation to what he wants. Vulnerable and pathetic, and all the more
worthy of our love...if only because he is real.
The evolution was fast and furious, however, and I spent much of the
last half of the night wondering what, exactly, I had witnessed. Then
came the last five minutes...five of the coolest minutes of BtVS I have
ever seen.
For starters, JM has gotten so good that...what? What can you actually
say about him? He transcends, now. At this point, more than any other
slight the show has received, his lack of recognition borders on
criminal. We watched him swing, quickly back and forth, from William to
Spike, arguing with himself, pleading with God, helpless to hopeless to
threatening...with the smoothest of transitions and subtle, subtle
power.
The performance itself left me confused. As if I could possibly write
about something else. Because tonight I felt I saw JM truly come into
being. And I was somewhat awed.
And why? And how? The truth came out. The deep truth, the real truth.
We were off the scent. Put there by Joss who prodded us to believe that
Spike left for surgery. To have a chip removed, thank you very much, to
free himself to kill Buffy. To rid himself of her. To give her what she
deserved.
But no! How could that be? He loves her. Spike knew, deep down inside,
he was searching for his soul all along. It's what he was asking for
in Africa, even if the words never came out of his mouth.
To give Buffy what she deserved.
And then those five minutes. I don't do...I won't ever do this
again...but tonight I have to. I have to actually have the words in
front of us, to see them. To be sure of what we heard. To see it for
ourselves.
Buffy: Spike, have you completely lost your mind?
Spike: Well, yes, where have you been all night?
Buffy: You thought you would just come back here, and be with me?
Spike: Well, first time for everything.
Buffy: This is all you get...I'm listening. Tell me what happened.
Spike: I tried to find it, of course.
Buffy: Find what?
Spike: The spark. The missing...the piece, that fit...that'll make me
fit. Because you didn't want...I can't. Not with you looking. (Gets
up and walks into the shadows.) I dreamed of killing you. (Buffy picks
up a stake.) I think they were dreams. So weak. Did you make me weak?
Thinking of you? Holding myself and spilling useless buckets of salt
over your...ending. Angel, he should have warned me...it's here. In
me. All the time. The spark. I wanted to give you...what you deserve.
And I got it. They put the spark in me and now all it does is burn.
Buffy: Your soul.
Spike: Bit worse for lack of use.
Buffy: You got your soul back. How?
Spike: It's what you wanted, right? (Looking to heavens and raising
his voice) It's what you wanted, right? And now everybody's in
here...talking. Everything I did. Everyone I...and him. And it. The
other. The thing...beneath. Beneath you. It's here too. Everybody
failed to tell me. Go. Go. To hell.
Buffy: Why? Why would you do...
Spike: Buffy, shame on you. Why would a man do what he musn't? For
her. To be hers. To be the kind of man who would never...to be a kind
of man. And she shall look on him with forgiveness and everybody will
forgive and love. And he would be loved. So everything's okay, right.
(Leans on cross and starts to smolder) Can we rest now? Buffy...can we
rest?
Honestly, what can you say after that? What can you write? My friend,
Jack Blair, who was watching with me, said it best - Spike has become
the greatest vampire in all of movies and television. His character is
so evolved, so complex, so, for lack of a better word, real, that to
dissect him...to say that this is what he means and this is what he is
offends.
People - real people - can't be explained so easily. Only
characters can.
Angel is a character. A beloved one, to be sure, but limited and
confined by his motivations. I am a vampire with a soul. I atone for my
past transgressions. The memories haunt me everyday. I brood therefore
I am.
But not Spike. Not anymore. He is William and he is Spike, that which
is beneath Buffy. But unlike Angel, in which Angelus was just a
variation on a theme, this Spike, this current William, they are
different. At opposites. And in the middle is just this...man.
A tired, tired man who just wants someone to explain to him what it's
all for. What it all means? Who is he here? Who is he now? And he
suspects the only person who can tell him is this woman who doesn't
even really know who she is.
Forgive me.
As to what it will all mean...for us, for the future...that we can
discuss. At length. In the days to come. But this is all I have now,
and I didn't even say it first.
Tonight, Spike became a kind of man. It's exactly what Buffy
deserves, and that might be the most dangerous thing of all.
Lore
MBangel10 (Melissa)
One Bit Shy
news:1157937971.9...@b28g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
> BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER
> Season Seven, Episode 2: "Beneath You"
This may be an episode to grow on you over time. I understand the somewhat
confusing aspects. For example, when I first saw this I didn't understand
Spike's madness at all. I think I was more confused when it was done than
when it started.
In any case, I've come to like the episode a great deal. It's now one of my
favorites of the season. And an early Excellent rating from me.
> First and perhaps ultimately foremost, there's the very
> cool-looking German chick getting hunted down by the ominous types.
> Still no idea where this is going (my first impulse would be to say
> Buffy getting visions of other Slayers' deaths by Teh Recurring Evol,
> but a few things don't match up there). In any case, now it's
> clear that it'll be a long-term storyline independent for the time
> being of the Sunnydale stories. The show gets another chance to do a
> slow build in the background, reminiscent of what they did with the
> Initiative. The show's good at slow builds, I think. Even the one
> in S4 was quite nice - easy to forget that considering how lame the
> story being unraveled turned out to be.
An Alias homage. It was a lot of fun - and before it gets too carried away
with the derivative aspect, it switches to the slayer dream message, which I
thought was pretty cool. About time for a slayer dream too. Was the Dead
Things dream the only one in S6?
It's actually possible to figure most of this out by now. (Even in the
first episode.) But believe me, I didn't when I first saw this. I just
know Buffy is dreaming of girl's being killed - and not in the Cordelia PTB
warning kind of way.
Spike appears to know (in a madman's way) something about this too. Having
him repeat Buffy's dream message has got to be disturbing to her.
> Isolated story #2 shows Buffy settling into her new job, with another
> funny S1 reference and not much else happening. I'll spare you the
> fiancée's endless questions about how she could be hired with so few
> qualifications, since there's actually a scene which says "hey
> viewer, don't think too hard about this. Wonder about Wood's
> motivations instead, or something."
Knowing what a bastinada is seems to establish her creds. And she's mighty
eager to hand out detention. I think Buffy will fit in just fine.
> And #3 is Willow being sent
> home, and making it clear that she hasn't really talked to her
> friends since the Dark Age. So, seeing her reintegration hasn't been
> cancelled entirely, just deferred.
Giles is mighty well dressed in their scene.
> The main plot of "Beneath You" involves Spike, as the title
> suggests,
I actually hadn't noticed that until you mentioned it. I always connected
the title to the, "From beneath you, it devours." message. But the Spike
connection is quite valid too.
> but the nominal central monster is a giant worm that may or
> may not tie into the cryptic prophecies floating around. I was sure
> Nancy was a goner when first introduced, but instead she sticks around
> to be a representative Sunnydalian, who can be made aware that there
> are strange things going on when they happen to her. She's not the
> most fascinating character, but not too bad either, and the episode
> does okay with the little stuff, like getting Xander's hopes up of
> dating again after finding someone who can be protected and who'll
> laugh at his jokes. Actually, during the "abusive bastard" speech,
> I was wondering if she was a refugee from an _Angel_ script.
Nancy is part of the first big thing I like about the episode. Not her
personally, though she's fine and plenty cute enough for Xander. It's the
general interaction going on between Buffy, Xander, Dawn, Spike & Anya that
I like. I think the dialog in their several group scenes is quite sharp,
and well displays the state of their various relationships as it's naturally
applied to the situation at hand. What Nancy brings to the party is simply
a pair of outsider's eyes, seeing the bonds and tensions from a non-involved
standpoint that neither the characters nor the audience would come by on
their own. I really enjoyed how, on the one hand, I was thinking how well
adjusted Buffy, Xander & Dawn had become since the end of S6, and on the
other hand, Nancy was gradually coming to realize she'd fallen in with a
bunch of freaks! No, I don't think she's going to be calling Xander anytime
soon.
Anyway, the scenes at Buffy's house and in the Bronze are some of my
favorite group scenes in BtVS simply by showing naturally and believably how
well they all know each other.
I also liked the monster, even if it was stolen from Dune. And even if it
wasn't quite the massacre I promised, we do get that dog tragedy...
> Front and center again, Spike is as hard to figure out as ever. I
> think I'm going to have to fess up to one of my personal biases as a
> viewer, which is that I tend to feel ill at ease when dealing with
> character motivations that're intentionally hard to figure out. For
> most of BY, we're kept out of Spike's head and left to ponder what
> the hell his deal is. Some may find it fascinating, but in large
> chunks, I tend to get frustrated.
I think I understand. I was extremely uncertain about what was going on
with Spike when I watched this the first time, and had trouble following the
personality changes. I'm not going to try to explain them now - too easy to
get into spoiler territory. A lot *could* be figured out now, but I think
it comes naturally in time anyway.
I will say that I initially took Spike trying to keep secret the soul quest
as primarily aimed at keeping it secret from Buffy. (I really liked how
Anya could see the soul in Spike. Nice way to confirm that it's really
there and add some confusing tension to the moment.) And my first take on
why was that he was embarrassed by it on several levels.
Lastly, I really like Spike's first scene in the basement - before he gets
all sane for a bit. The words might help some of your confusion - if you
can decipher them. I wouldn't count on it. But it's stalking the rat that
I appreciate. Shades of Angel in the New York alley. A parallel to a guy
Spike never much wanted to be compared too.
> Buffy continuing to not talk about Peroxide Boy to Xander and Dawn,
> after having said that she was wrong to hide their torrid affair, seems
> like it could be a significant plot point again. Dawn's indignation
> at being clueless about the rape attempt came up in "Grave," but
> there was a lot going on at the time. There's a lot going on here
> too, but she seems angrier. One gets the sense that their patience
> with this could wear thin very quickly.
That's possible. But I also observe that the word was out after only one
brief encounter and Dawn made her feelings pretty damned clear. So maybe
there's hope.
> Anya had been looking like the odd character out as of late, but
> she's reintegrated into the show pretty well here. Were those of you
> who were talking about the lack of control involved in being a Justice
> Demon thinking ahead to this? It's getting rather abundantly clear
> that Anya's neither back in her groove nor is she enjoying being an
> agent of pain when she used to have a life that she was enjoying. Of
> course, if the show ever wants her to question her lifestyle, she'll
> have to start thinking about the kinds of uncomfortable qualms that she
> was able to avoid addressing when her powers were forcibly taken away.
> Perhaps the best line of the episode is Xander's response to her
> blaming him: "sooner or later, Anya, that excuse just stops
> working."
That's a good line indeed. But I think the most interesting line was
hearing Anya speak of the friends she had before - referring to Xander and
the Scoobies. We, of course, already know that she's struggling in her
demon role. But here she essentially admits to Xander that she misses her
old friends and that the vengeance demon gig isn't going well.
> She's the trigger for the nicely mixed comedy/angst-fest
> of errors that leads to practically the whole main cast getting hit in
> the face at least once, and makes the Scoobie Gang look so inaccessible
> to someone like Nancy. And in the end, Anya chooses them over her
> calling...
I don't know what you meant about "lack of control" as a justice demon, but
I do observe that Anya seems a little scared of the consequences of
releasing her spell.
> And then there's that ending scene. As artistically important as
> I'm sure it is to see James Marsters bare-chested again,
Heh. Well, the line about the costume is OK. Should at least partly
explain his sane period.
> does this
> part last forever or what? I can deal with seeing the insanity
> reemerge after stabbing a person (interesting that he grabs his head,
> chip-style, afterward; I'm not clear on whether or not that thing is
> still working or if this is all soul). Or the way his "it's what you
> wanted, right?" is staged so that it could be directed either at
> Buffy or at the God William presumably believed in. Or even the
> cross-humping at the end, which although I make light of, is a good
> image to leave the viewer wondering what'll happen next. But
> basically, cryptic rambling works a lot better in smaller doses than
> what we have here. It could all make perfect sense now or at some
> point later in the season, but I won't remember much about what Spike
> babbles about here, since there's so much of it, and it just keeps
> going on and on and on and on. Before the church, I was glad to be
> realizing that the episode wasn't over, that there'd be another
> Buffy/Spike exchange. Afterward, well, I've never been so glad to
> see the Executive Producer screen finally come up.
Yeah, again, I appreciate where you're coming from. Aside from the
confusing stuff, the scene really does run on. I'm also not especially fond
of the way he obliquely speaks of the "spark" instead of the soul and forces
Buffy to figure it out. The drama of it is ok, as is the analogy of the
spark inside him. But the language - much as in S6's infamous closing
misdirect - is just peculiar. I'm too conscious of the hand of the writer
rather than the naturalistic play of the scene.
Be that as it may, Spike's story this episode, and especially this ending is
the second really big thing I like about the episode. Again, I'm not going
to try to explain the content - perhaps next time it will play better for
you.
But it is at least notable that Buffy now knows about the soul. And the
final lines and imagery are killer.
BUFFY: Why? Why would you do that-
SPIKE: Buffy, shame on you. Why does a man do what he mustn't? For her. To
be hers. To be the kind of man who would nev- to be a kind of man.... She
shall look on him with forgiveness, and everybody will forgive and love. He
will be loved.
I love the image of Spike draped on the cross - burning - the smoke rising.
All kinds of allusions to draw from that.
But the big emotion for me is simply seeing Buffy crying. You do get why
she's crying, right? Spike did it for her.
And they say a gal can never change her man.
> So...
> One-sentence summary: Has a purpose and is worth a look, dragginess
> notwithstanding.
> AOQ rating: Decent
One of my favorite episodes in S7. It's not a big action episode, though
the monster part is fine and fun. It's a character episode that really
delivers for me. Even the little bit with Willow and Giles was nicely done
that way. And the Xander/Anya stuff is excellent. But it's the group
scenes and Spike's story that makes it really excel for me. I rate it an
Excellent.
OBS
One Bit Shy
news:dsample-84241B...@news.giganews.com...
> In article <1157937971.9...@b28g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>,
> "Arbitrar Of Quality" <tsm...@wildmail.com> wrote:
>> Speaking of our beloved new principal, he's the show's first
>> vegetarian that I can remember.
>
> So he shouldn't have had any problem with the DmP's menu.
Well, except for the secret ingredient.
OBS
Rowan Hawthorn
> A reminder: Please avoid spoilers for later episodes in these review
> threads.
>
>
> BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER
> Season Seven, Episode 2: "Beneath You"
> (or "It seems you really love Christ." "Yes, we sure do."
> "Eh, no, but... it appears you are actually... in love with
> Christ.")
> Writer: Douglas Petrie
> Director: Nick Marck
>
>
> after having said that she was wrong to hide their torrid affair, seems
> like it could be a significant plot point again. Dawn's indignation
> at being clueless about the rape attempt came up in "Grave," but
> there was a lot going on at the time. There's a lot going on here
> too, but she seems angrier. One gets the sense that their patience
> with this could wear thin very quickly.
DAWN: Spike?
He stops and turns to her.
DAWN: You sleep, right? (off his look) You, vampires… you sleep?
SPIKE: Yeah, what’s your point, niblet?
DAWN: Well, I can’t take you in a fight or anything, even with a chip in
your head. But you do sleep. If you hurt my sister at all... touch
her... you’re going to wake up on fire.
No histrionics this time. Dawn's *not* kidding.
--
Rowan Hawthorn
"Occasionally, I'm callous and strange." - Willow Rosenberg, "Buffy the
Vampire Slayer"
One Bit Shy
news:1157941665.2...@e3g2000cwe.googlegroups.com...
> Still, there's one passage just before that in which Spike manages to
> provide new ambiguities for further audience debate:
>
> SPIKE: I dreamed of killing you. I think they were dreams. So weak. Did
> you make me weak? Thinking of you, holding myself and spilling useless
> buckets of salt over your ending.
>
> Which can either be a description of Evil!Spike masturbating as he
> thinks of killing the Slayer, or Redemptive!Spike weeping as he thinks
> of losing or killing the Slayer. Either way, it suggests that he
> imagines that his attempt to rape her in SR might well have ended in
> her murder. I don't think one needs to commit these snippets to
> memory--their importance is in the revelation they give Buffy at the
> moment, regardless of whether they will turn up again later or not.
He might also be overlaying memories from the end of The Gift when he really
did cry over a dead Buffy.
It's not the easiest thing to make sense of.
OBS
mariposas rand mair fheal greykitten tomys des anges
> story being unraveled turned out to be.
then i supposed you dont want to know this season ends with a climatic battle
between buffy and a one legged leprachaun at the site of margaret meads grave
(the famous leprachaun of the mead episode)
where he beats buffy with xanders detached arm
saying leprachauns are real leprachauns are real
over and over and over again
> him or make him evil, or I'll take it personally. Seems this is a
> full-time gig, and she's no longer working at the DmP.
reportedly the show got away with sex and violence and thrusting hips
in its 8pm family hour time slot
but it was only making fun of fast food that really irritated the sponsors
> way at all, which become increasingly frequent. "Why is he suddenly
> no longer crazy?," the first-time viewer wonders, and I still don't
> get the rules behind how long he can fake sanity under what conditions.
strange thing about real guilt
is that its people are not always looking for instant atonement
and instead will drive away comforters
in amends angel runs away buffy to greet the sun
in part because he doesnt feel he does not deserves her forgiveness or comfort
similar was buffy on balcony who needed her friends
and felt to ashamed to be with them
> what we have here. It could all make perfect sense now or at some
> point later in the season, but I won't remember much about what Spike
> babbles about here, since there's so much of it, and it just keeps
also the comment about angel not warning him
makes it clear that it was a soul spike wanted
and that he was not tricked at the end
meow arf meow - they are performing horrible experiments in space
major grubert is watching you - beware the bakalite
there can only be one or two - the airtight garage has you neo
George W Harris
wrote:
:> First and perhaps ultimately foremost, there's the very
:> cool-looking German chick getting hunted down by the ominous types.
:> Still no idea where this is going (my first impulse would be to say
:> Buffy getting visions of other Slayers' deaths by Teh Recurring Evol,
:> but a few things don't match up there). In any case, now it's
:> clear that it'll be a long-term storyline independent for the time
:> being of the Sunnydale stories. The show gets another chance to do a
:> slow build in the background, reminiscent of what they did with the
:> Initiative. The show's good at slow builds, I think. Even the one
:> in S4 was quite nice - easy to forget that considering how lame the
:> story being unraveled turned out to be.
:
:An Alias homage. It was a lot of fun - and before it gets too carried away
:with the derivative aspect, it switches to the slayer dream message, which I
:thought was pretty cool. About time for a slayer dream too. Was the Dead
:Things dream the only one in S6?
:
:It's actually possible to figure most of this out by now. (Even in the
:first episode.) But believe me, I didn't when I first saw this. I just
:know Buffy is dreaming of girl's being killed - and not in the Cordelia PTB
:warning kind of way.
I was able to work it out at this point; ng yrnfg
gung gur tveyf jrer cbffvoyr shgher fynlref naq fbzrbar
unq svtherq bhg ubj gb vqragvsl gurz naq jnf uhagvat
gurz qbja.
--
Doesn't the fact that there are *exactly* 50 states seem a little suspicious?
George W. Harris For actual email address, replace each 'u' with an 'i'
George W Harris
wrote:
:
:I also liked the monster, even if it was stolen from Dune. And even if it
:wasn't quite the massacre I promised, we do
No! It was stolen from Tremors. Excellent goofy
horror with Fred Ward and Kevin Bacon.
--
I'm not an actor, but I play one on TV!
Kermit
mariposas rand mair fheal greykitten tomys des anges
its people?
Elisi
> A reminder: Please avoid spoilers for later episodes in these review
> threads.
>
>
> BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER
> Season Seven, Episode 2: "Beneath You"
I'll be back later with my own throughts, but until then here are two
excellent reviews (no spoilers):
This one made me love the worm monster, and is also funny and
insightful:
http://www.sadgeezer.com/buffy/episodes/episode7-02.htm
This one focusses on the church scene and is one of the best things
I've ever read about it. Lots of wild speculation, but it was written
back when the ep first aired:
http://www.smgboard.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=513
Enjoy!
Paul Hyett
:
>
>BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER
>Season Seven, Episode 2: "Beneath You"
>
>intersect with the main ones but whose existence starts to be
>explained. First and perhaps ultimately foremost, there's the very
>cool-looking German chick getting hunted down by the ominous types.
>Still no idea where this is going (my first impulse would be to say
>Buffy getting visions of other Slayers' deaths by Teh Recurring Evol,
>but a few things don't match up there).
V thrff vg jbhyq pbhag nf n fcbvyre bs fbegf vs V ersreerq onpx gb n
cerivbhf rcvfbqr jurer gurl znqr na nccrnenapr.
--
Paul 'Charts Fan' Hyett
Don Sample
"Arbitrar Of Quality" <tsm...@wildmail.com> wrote:
> A reminder: Please avoid spoilers for later episodes in these review
> threads.
>
>
> BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER
> Season Seven, Episode 2: "Beneath You"
> (or "It seems you really love Christ." "Yes, we sure do."
> "Eh, no, but... it appears you are actually... in love with
> Christ.")
> This Is Really Stupid But I Laughed Anyway moment(s):
Buffy: "Spike, have you completely lost your mind?"
Spike: "Well, yes, where have you been all night?"
--
Apteryx
news:1157937971.9...@b28g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
>A reminder: Please avoid spoilers for later episodes in these review
>threads.
>Like "Lessons," "Beneath You" has a few mini-plots that don't
>intersect with the main ones but whose existence starts to be
>explained. First and perhaps ultimately foremost, there's the very
>cool-looking German chick getting hunted down by the ominous types.
I know nothing of this "Alias" to which others compare this scene, but to me
this clearly is ripped from Run Lola Run
>Still no idea where this is going (my first impulse would be to say
>Buffy getting visions of other Slayers' deaths by Teh Recurring Evol,
>but a few things don't match up there). In any case, now it's
>clear that it'll be a long-term storyline independent for the time
>being of the Sunnydale stories.
Abg ybat rabhtu sbe zr - gur frnfba jbhyq unir orra orggre vs gur Oevatref
unq znantrq gb xabpx bss n srj zber cbgragvnyf - Xraarql ng yrnfg :)
>The show gets another chance to do a
>slow build in the background, reminiscent of what they did with the
>Initiative. The show's good at slow builds, I think. Even the one
>in S4 was quite nice - easy to forget that considering how lame the
>story being unraveled turned out to be.
Interesting comparison ...
>Front and center again, Spike is as hard to figure out as ever. I
>think I'm going to have to fess up to one of my personal biases as a
>viewer, which is that I tend to feel ill at ease when dealing with
>character motivations that're intentionally hard to figure out. For
>most of BY, we're kept out of Spike's head and left to ponder what
>the hell his deal is. Some may find it fascinating, but in large
>chunks, I tend to get frustrated. That's simply how I roll.
Me too. Even when I know where they are going with it, I still don't like it
>way at all, which become increasingly frequent. "Why is he suddenly
>no longer crazy?," the first-time viewer wonders,
Don't look a gift horse in the mouth
>And then there's that ending scene. As artistically important as
>I'm sure it is to see James Marsters bare-chested again, does this
>part last forever or what? I can deal with seeing the insanity
>reemerge after stabbing a person (interesting that he grabs his head,
>chip-style, afterward; I'm not clear on whether or not that thing is
>still working or if this is all soul). Or the way his "it's what you
>wanted, right?" is staged so that it could be directed either at
>Buffy or at the God William presumably believed in. Or even the
>cross-humping at the end, which although I make light of, is a good
>image to leave the viewer wondering what'll happen next. But
>basically, cryptic rambling works a lot better in smaller doses than
>what we have here. It could all make perfect sense now or at some
>point later in the season, but I won't remember much about what Spike
>babbles about here, since there's so much of it, and it just keeps
>going on and on and on and on. Before the church, I was glad to be
>realizing that the episode wasn't over, that there'd be another
>Buffy/Spike exchange. Afterward, well, I've never been so glad to
>see the Executive Producer screen finally come up.
Kind of agree about the babbling, but in fact this is one of the few "mad
Spike" scenes I do like. The cross humping works for me, and even more so,
Buffy's reaction to the babbling.
>One-sentence summary: Has a purpose and is worth a look, dragginess
>notwithstanding.
>AOQ rating: Decent
Again I disagree with you on the rating, but again not by much. Lessons just
missed being Good for me, Beneath You just makes it. It's doing the same
sort of tension building job, but I rate it higher because the worm story
works better than the angry ghosts story. It's my 76th favourite BtVS
episode, 8th best in season 7
Apteryx
Don Sample
"Arbitrar Of Quality" <tsm...@wildmail.com> wrote:
> Isolated story #2 shows Buffy settling into her new job, with another
> funny S1 reference and not much else happening. I'll spare you the
> fiancée's endless questions about how she could be hired with so few
> qualifications, since there's actually a scene which says "hey
> viewer, don't think too hard about this. Wonder about Wood's
> motivations instead, or something."
One thing that occurred to some of us the first time this aired:
It was someone at the School Board who recommended that Wood take a look
at Buffy's file. Back in season 3, it was the School Board that
overruled Snyder, and insisted that Buffy be let back into the school.
The Mayor may be gone, but many of the people that used to work for him
might still hold their old jobs. Maybe someone in the School Board
knows about the Hellmouth, and Buffy being the Slayer, and thinks it's a
good idea to keep Buffy close to the school.
burt...@hotmail.com
storyline for Spike.
Now, I don't believe that Spike was genuinely on the path to redemption
before he got his soul back, and I don't believe that's what he went to
Africa in search of, despite what he claims here.
But let's say I did buy that interpretation that Joss tried to shove
down our throats this season.
What does that mean for Buffy? Simply put, if a vampire *without* a
soul can genuinely change and seek redemption and try to become
something more than a supernaturally strong killing machine, then what
the hell is Buffy doing staking them as they rise from their graves? If
vampires are capable of more than pure evil, then isn't Buffy nothing
more than a serial killer?
Spike's post-chip storyline calls the entire moral foundation of the
Buffyverse into question, and I really don't think it was meant to. I
think that Joss just didn't think through the ramifications of it. And,
in my opinion, it really drags the whole series down.
burt...@hotmail.com
> But the big emotion for me is simply seeing Buffy crying. You do get why
> she's crying, right? Spike did it for her.
>
> And they say a gal can never change her man.
So - if Spike had gotten the chip out and started killing people again,
that would have been Buffy's fault? She didn't love him enough?
If you'll excuse me, I think I'm going to be sick.
Elisi
> BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER
> Season Seven, Episode 2: "Beneath You"
People have said pretty much everything already, so I'm going to focus
on the title. Part of the reason I love this episode so much, is
because of the title. It does what Buffy often does very well - in a
few words it manages to draw several connotations and almost tell a
whole story in itself.
1) Firstly there's of course the 'From Beneath You it devours', a theme
we're seeing repeated and something to do with the Big Bad. Too early
to say much more.
2) Spike. And here those two words almost make up an entire essay on
their own. 'You're beneath me' said Cecily, sending him out into the
London streets to meet Drusilla. And he thought he'd solved the problem
now - he was a vampire, stronger and better than mere mortals, who were
now 'beneath _him_ - nothing more than food. Happy meals on legs. Even
Slayers - the chosen warriors of the human race - were killed by him.
He was beneath no one anymore. But then came Buffy - and Buffy repeated
those devastating words, and she meant them. Suddenly he was back where
he started with the woman he loved looking down on him.
SPIKE: Beneath me... I'll show her.
He takes out a double-barreled shotgun, cracks the breech and loads two
rounds.
SPIKE: Put her six bloody feet beneath me. Hasn't got a death wish?
Bitch won't need one.
But - oh he doesn't kill her, does he? He doesn't put her beneath him
then. Instead he tries to reach up - offers her companionship. And she
accepts.
After that he keeps trying to be better - so she won't think him
beneath her. He tries to prove his dedication in 'Crush' with
catastrophic results. Inadvertedly he tries again in 'Intervention' and
this time it works. In 'The Gift' he acknowledges that he's beneath
her, but is grateful that she doesn't treat him as such.
But then comes S6... and for a little while things are OK, but then
they backslide and yet again Buffy is telling him that he's beneath her
("You're not a man! You're a thing!") - and he discovers that maybe
she's not as far above him as he thought. He can pull her down.
("Nothing wrong with me. Something wrong with her.")
The thing is - it doesn't work, and in the end, Spike proves that he
well and truly is beneath her. And what can he do? Be a monster again
(which would only put him yet further down in Buffy's eyes)? Or - get
his soul back, become someone _not_ beneath her:
DEMON: Something about a woman. The slayer.
SPIKE: Thinks she's better than me.
He thinks that getting his soul back will out them on equal footing,
just like he thought after the chip didn't work on her in 'Smashed',
only this time he's the one changing. The problem is of course that
there's a terrible catch-22 in getting his soul. He understands that
she will not love him without it (because she thinks he's beneath her),
but once he has it, he finally understands just how far beneath her he
really is.
"And-and now everybody's in here, talking. Everything I
did...everyone I- and him... and it... the other, the thing
beneath-beneath you. It's here too. Everybody. They all just tell me
go... go... to hell."
And that's what the title says to me. Sorry for rambling, but it's how
my brain works - I love my show. :)
Elisi
Buffy blamed herself for Angel losing his soul, even though she didn't
have a clue what would happen.
Here's a bucket.
Ken from Chicago
"Arbitrar Of Quality" <tsm...@wildmail.com> wrote in message
news:1157937971.9...@b28g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
A reminder: Please avoid spoilers for later episodes in these review
threads.
BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER
Season Seven, Episode 2: "Beneath You"
(or "It seems you really love Christ." "Yes, we sure do."
"Eh, no, but... it appears you are actually... in love with
Christ.")
Writer: Douglas Petrie
Director: Nick Marck
Like "Lessons," "Beneath You" has a few mini-plots that don't
intersect with the main ones but whose existence starts to be
explained. First and perhaps ultimately foremost, there's the very
cool-looking German chick getting hunted down by the ominous types.
Still no idea where this is going (my first impulse would be to say
Buffy getting visions of other Slayers' deaths by Teh Recurring Evol,
but a few things don't match up there). In any case, now it's
clear that it'll be a long-term storyline independent for the time
being of the Sunnydale stories. The show gets another chance to do a
slow build in the background, reminiscent of what they did with the
Initiative. The show's good at slow builds, I think. Even the one
in S4 was quite nice - easy to forget that considering how lame the
story being unraveled turned out to be.
Isolated story #2 shows Buffy settling into her new job, with another
funny S1 reference and not much else happening. I'll spare you the
fiancée's endless questions about how she could be hired with so few
qualifications, since there's actually a scene which says "hey
viewer, don't think too hard about this. Wonder about Wood's
motivations instead, or something." And #3 is Willow being sent
home, and making it clear that she hasn't really talked to her
friends since the Dark Age. So, seeing her reintegration hasn't been
cancelled entirely, just deferred.
Speaking of our beloved new principal, he's the show's first
vegetarian that I can remember. Now they'd really better not kill
him or make him evil, or I'll take it personally. Seems this is a
full-time gig, and she's no longer working at the DmP.
The main plot of "Beneath You" involves Spike, as the title
suggests, but the nominal central monster is a giant worm that may or
may not tie into the cryptic prophecies floating around. I was sure
Nancy was a goner when first introduced, but instead she sticks around
to be a representative Sunnydalian, who can be made aware that there
*** REPLY SEPARATOR ***
You mixed up "Smallvillian" with "Sunnydalite".
*** REPLY SEPARATOR ***
are strange things going on when they happen to her. She's not the
most fascinating character, but not too bad either, and the episode
does okay with the little stuff, like getting Xander's hopes up of
dating again after finding someone who can be protected and who'll
laugh at his jokes. Actually, during the "abusive bastard" speech,
I was wondering if she was a refugee from an _Angel_ script.
Front and center again, Spike is as hard to figure out as ever. I
think I'm going to have to fess up to one of my personal biases as a
viewer, which is that I tend to feel ill at ease when dealing with
character motivations that're intentionally hard to figure out. For
most of BY, we're kept out of Spike's head and left to ponder what
the hell his deal is. Some may find it fascinating, but in large
chunks, I tend to get frustrated. That's simply how I roll. He says
*** REPLY SEPARATOR ***
They have to make up for "Lessons".
*** REPLY SEPARATOR ***
he just wants to help Buffy however he can, because, just for a change,
something big is going on in Sunnydale. He acts repentant and
strikingly ego-less, except for the moments in which he's not that
way at all, which become increasingly frequent. "Why is he suddenly
no longer crazy?," the first-time viewer wonders, and I still don't
get the rules behind how long he can fake sanity under what conditions.
*** REPLY SEPARATOR ***
A lot of people with mental illnesses have "good days" and "bad days".
Insanity can vary from violent criminal insanity to compulsion to wash
hands, touch objects or count things, etc. Spike is acting in a classic
manic-depressive manner from high highs (very excitable) to low lows (very
despondent), tho he had a period of medium stability.
*** REPLY SEPARATOR ***
He's also *very* anxious to make sure his trip to AfricaLand remains
secret, for whatever reason. Some of my misgivings are simply that
I'm wary of any idea of rekindling the B/S relationship right now,
which I have the sinking feeling that we're leaning towards. But the
episode may know what it's doing, considering the scene in which
Buffy's pounding on Spike and he's loudly trying to play (and
believe?) that nothing's changed at all, that he's still evil at
heart. It's hard not to get chills at lines like "hey, I guess
this would be first contact since, uh, you know when. Ooh, up for
another round up on the balcony, then?" in the post-"Seeing Red"
era. The writers have never shied away from addressing how disturbing
an individual Spike is and can be, so I'll do my best to give them a
chance to play this arc right.
*** REPLY SEPARATOR ***
"Hello! Vampire! I'm SUPPOSED to be treading on the dark side."
*** REPLY SEPARATOR ***
Buffy continuing to not talk about Peroxide Boy to Xander and Dawn,
after having said that she was wrong to hide their torrid affair, seems
*** REPLY SEPARATOR ***
Lack of communication = Ultimate Big Bad of the BTVS series.
*** REPLY SEPARATOR ***
like it could be a significant plot point again. Dawn's indignation
at being clueless about the rape attempt came up in "Grave," but
there was a lot going on at the time. There's a lot going on here
too, but she seems angrier. One gets the sense that their patience
with this could wear thin very quickly.
*** REPLY SEPARATOR ***
It's a Pikachu or a cute lil kitty cat getting all huffy and angry. Aw, so
cute!
*** REPLY SEPARATOR ***
Anya had been looking like the odd character out as of late, but
she's reintegrated into the show pretty well here. Were those of you
who were talking about the lack of control involved in being a Justice
Demon thinking ahead to this? It's getting rather abundantly clear
that Anya's neither back in her groove nor is she enjoying being an
agent of pain when she used to have a life that she was enjoying. Of
course, if the show ever wants her to question her lifestyle, she'll
have to start thinking about the kinds of uncomfortable qualms that she
was able to avoid addressing when her powers were forcibly taken away.
Perhaps the best line of the episode is Xander's response to her
blaming him: "sooner or later, Anya, that excuse just stops
working." She's the trigger for the nicely mixed comedy/angst-fest
of errors that leads to practically the whole main cast getting hit in
the face at least once, and makes the Scoobie Gang look so inaccessible
to someone like Nancy. And in the end, Anya chooses them over her
calling...
And then there's that ending scene. As artistically important as
I'm sure it is to see James Marsters bare-chested again, does this
part last forever or what? I can deal with seeing the insanity
reemerge after stabbing a person (interesting that he grabs his head,
chip-style, afterward; I'm not clear on whether or not that thing is
still working or if this is all soul). Or the way his "it's what you
wanted, right?" is staged so that it could be directed either at
Buffy or at the God William presumably believed in. Or even the
cross-humping at the end, which although I make light of, is a good
*** REPLY SEPARATOR ***
Mrs. A, could you explain to your other half there was no humping?
*** REPLY SEPARATOR ***
image to leave the viewer wondering what'll happen next. But
basically, cryptic rambling works a lot better in smaller doses than
what we have here. It could all make perfect sense now or at some
point later in the season, but I won't remember much about what Spike
babbles about here, since there's so much of it, and it just keeps
going on and on and on and on. Before the church, I was glad to be
realizing that the episode wasn't over, that there'd be another
Buffy/Spike exchange. Afterward, well, I've never been so glad to
see the Executive Producer screen finally come up.
This Is Really Stupid But I Laughed Anyway moment(s):
- "I heard screaming. "That was you." "There was a girl."
"That would be me."
- "I'm Command Central, so everybody check in with me. OK, I'll be
here doing my homework, but the other one sounded cooler."
- "Oh, penis!"
- The X/S reaction shots after "is there anyone here who hasn't
slept together?"
*** REPLY SEPARATOR ***
Pert near universal reaction to the last quote was the same.
*** REPLY SEPARATOR ***
So...
One-sentence summary: Has a purpose and is worth a look, dragginess
notwithstanding.
AOQ rating: Decent
[Season Seven so far:
1) "Lessons" - Good
2) "Beneath You" - Decent]
*** REPLY SEPARATOR ***
-- Ken from Chicago (who hates when OE's quotes fail)
Ken from Chicago
"Rowan Hawthorn" <rowan_h...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:7vydnUkN-I-yRpnY...@giganews.com...
And about as ineffective as VP 2004 candidate John Edwards, or former VP Dan
Quayle threatening some dictator or terrorist. Dude, come on, eeeewwww, I'm
sooooo scared. Yeah, right.
-- Ken from Chicago
lili...@gmail.com
burt...@hotmail.com schreef:
I think I already gave the explanation for this a while back, and
here's the link for the post I made about it on my livejournal:
http://liliaeth.livejournal.com/208155.html
And in my opinion, pulling the entire moral foundation of the
Buffyverse into question is what makes it a great show. You can go
watch Charmed with its cookiecutter bad guys and good guys, but I
rather watch a show about a hero who has to deal with serious moral
implications of her actions.
Lore
jil...@hotmail.com
murdered.
This, though, reminded me of my theory about souls in this story. I
shall tell it again.
To me, the soul is innocent. A "normal" human with a soul doing evil
things deadens himself to the soul's promptings. Eventually he (or
she) is evil despite having a soul. But the Mayor sold his soul...
why? Possibly because it was too hard to watch his wife age and die
otherwise. Or more likely that wasn't a factor and happened much later
in his life. But to do evil at the level he planned, create a town
whose youth were constantly to be used as demonic sacrifices... perhaps
he had to have no soul so it would not be something he had to endure,
but something that would just slide off him.
Spike and Angel suffer from the same problem. Their souls come back to
them, and they have decades of evil, slaughter and mayhem in their
memories. Each of these things is brand new to the souls, which react
every time those memories cross their minds as if it's a first. To
deaden their souls again, they would have to start doing bad things
anew.
(and there was NO humping of the cross! Mostly there was falling
against it)
Juuuuuust you wait... you'll have so much more to complain about and
perhaps also to praise.
One Bit Shy
news:1157962632....@q16g2000cwq.googlegroups.com...
Your own fantasies make you sick? Yeah, that's fitting.
It didn't happen that way. Your hypothetical doesn't follow from my
observation. But if you're really so interested in that kind of story, go
watch S2 again and see Buffy blame herself for Angelus.
OBS
One Bit Shy
news:1157961880.3...@p79g2000cwp.googlegroups.com...
The existence of Angel didn't bring that into question for you before?
Anybody *might* be redeemed. That doesn't mean forsaking self protection
while you wait for the possibility.
OBS
Rowan Hawthorn
I'd rethink that; even a child could pour a can of gasoline around
someone's bedroom and drop a match...
One Bit Shy
news:isn9g2d1l9lm7l28q...@4ax.com...
> On Sun, 10 Sep 2006 23:29:15 -0400, "One Bit Shy" <O...@nomail.sorry>
> wrote:
>
> :
> :I also liked the monster, even if it was stolen from Dune. And even if
> it
> :wasn't quite the massacre I promised, we do
>
> No! It was stolen from Tremors. Excellent goofy
> horror with Fred Ward and Kevin Bacon.
The worm moving underground sure seems to come from Tremors, but the worm
itself doesn't much look like anything from Tremors. On reflection, it
doesn't look a whole lot like David Lynch's sandworm either. I think I was
remembering an old book cover version of Dune's sandworm - mainly the
circular mouth and rings of teeth.
OBS
burt...@hotmail.com
Buffy blaming herself for something doesn't mean she actually is to
blame by any objective standard. Haven't you heard of the concept of
the unreliable narrator before?
burt...@hotmail.com
> <burt...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:1157962632....@q16g2000cwq.googlegroups.com...
> > One Bit Shy wrote:
> >> But the big emotion for me is simply seeing Buffy crying. You do get why
> >> she's crying, right? Spike did it for her.
> >>
> >> And they say a gal can never change her man.
> >
> > So - if Spike had gotten the chip out and started killing people again,
> > that would have been Buffy's fault? She didn't love him enough?
> >
> > If you'll excuse me, I think I'm going to be sick.
>
> Your own fantasies make you sick? Yeah, that's fitting.
I'm just going by what you said.
> It didn't happen that way. Your hypothetical doesn't follow from my
> observation.
Logic dictates that if Buffy gets the credit for Spike changing in a
positive way, she should also have gotten the blame if he'd changed in
a negative way.
Elisi
You seem unable to grasp the central message - he did it *for* her. It
had nothing to do with her - just as little as the people that Angelus
killed. Neither was 'her fault', because how can she be responsible for
other people's feelings or actions? That's what's so breathtaking - he
did it for her, like a knight slaying a dragon for his lady, except the
dragon he slayed was his own demon. That's one hell of a gesture.
If someone you love buys you a present, are you not pleased?
burt...@hotmail.com
I grasp the message just fine. I still don't think Spike went for the
soul, but if we grant the premise that he did for the moment, it wasn't
a case of Buffy changing Spike, it was a case of him changing himself.
But not according to OBS, who said:
"And they say a gal can never change her man."
That statement puts all the responisibility on Buffy. So therefore, if
Buffy is responsible for Spike changing for the better, she also would
have been responisible if he'd changed for the worse. QED.
burt...@hotmail.com
Except that she never had to deal with them. The show kept on with its
nonsensical vampire double standard and no one batted an eye over it.
If Buffy had sat down with her friends and said "Hey guys, Spike proves
that a vampire without a soul can change for the better, so maybe we
shouldn't be staking them right out of the ground," and they'd debated
the pros and cons of that idea, or done something else, made some
attempt to address the moral questions posed by Spike's post-chip
behavior, then we would have had the makings of an interesting
storyline rife with conflict and moral dilemma.
But this never happened. So I'm forced to conclude that either Joss
didn't realize that he'd destroyed the moral center of his show, or he
just simply didn't care. Either way, it's bad storytelling.
burt...@hotmail.com
Angel had a soul, which made him different from all the other vampires.
> Anybody *might* be redeemed. That doesn't mean forsaking self protection
> while you wait for the possibility.
And yet this is exactly what they did with Spike, who proved himself a
danger on multiple occasions even after being chipped.
Elisi
And I'd say you took a humorous throw-away comment in the most literal
way possible (except saying that Buffy physically re-arranged Spike's
limbs), and twisted it into something it was never meant to be.
And according to your way of thinking, Xander was gay. Just one example
of many:
Xander: I totally get it now. Can I have sex with Riley too?
(Goodbye Iowa)
QED.
BTR1701
"One Bit Shy" <O...@nomail.sorry> wrote:
No, because Angel had his soul restored by a magickal force outside of
his control-- and indeed, against his will at the time. By the time he
became a White Hat, he was quantifiably different than every other
vampire in existence. Up until Spike, we'd never seen a vampire that OF
HIS OWN VOLITION could decide to stop being evil and work to do good,
even without a soul.
Ari
> You seem unable to grasp the central message - he did it *for* her. It
> had nothing to do with her - just as little as the people that Angelus
> killed. Neither was 'her fault', because how can she be responsible for
> other people's feelings or actions? That's what's so breathtaking - he
> did it for her, like a knight slaying a dragon for his lady, except the
> dragon he slayed was his own demon. That's one hell of a gesture.
>
> If someone you love buys you a present, are you not pleased?
I think I just puked in my mouth a little. LOL. I seriously hated those
late S5 essays about Spike and Buffy's courtly love -- he was her
lovelorn Knight, and she his fair lady. *groan* Thank God their story
took a turn for the wacky.
As much as he did it for her, I think he did it for himself too.
Elisi
Heh. I was trying to get as far away as possible from what he was
implying. And I think a great deal of Spike's motivation was to show
Buffy that he could damn well be good enough ("Bitch thinks she's
better than me!").
lili...@gmail.com
Actually the one thing that did ruin it for me is that nobody, not even
a single person discussed the meaning of a vampire voluntarily
regaining his soul. The way they reacted to it, as if it was something
that happened everyday, that's the thing that's giving you a problem.
(not that I think you'd realize that)
See, if they wanted to keep happy joking Buffy with no complexity to
her staking vampires, then they should have made a huge deal out of
Spike getting a soul, with it being unique. It's the fact that they
acted as if it were business like usual that devalues them and their
fight against vampires.
I was seriously dissapointed with both Giles and Wesley for their lack
of reaction, because it lowered their impact as scholars that neither
seemed to even show a hint of interest.
Lore
lili...@gmail.com
lilia...@gmail.com schreef:
Ok, me being stupid, I accidentally left a spoiler in the above, really
rally sorry about that.
Lore
Ken from Chicago
But vamps have hyperhearing and supersmelling senses. Now that he's been
warned ....
-- Ken from Chicago
burt...@hotmail.com
> to the heart of the way a lot of people see the Buffy/Spike
> relationship in specific and the whole good girl/bad boy dynamic in
> general. "Only her (or my, if we're talking about women in real
> relationships here) love brings out the tiny shred of goodness and
> nobility in him, so she has (or I have) to love him so that he'll bloom
> into the wonderful and loving woobie I know he can be."
>
> It's really selfish and self-serving when you think about it, because
> it's not about redemption for the bad boy, it's about how great and how
> wonderful the good girl is for loving the bad boy out of the cesspit of
> violence/evil/whatever he got himself into.
>
> And that's one of the big reasons I didn't like the resoultion to
> Spike/Buffy relationship. I never saw it as anything other than
> wish-fulfillment fantasy for fans of the good girl/bad boy dynamic.
> "Look! Spike was the baddest of bad boys! And Buffy changed him! Wow!"
> No thanks. Buffy isn't responsible for Spike's actions, no matter what
> they might be.
Sorry, that was me - a friend of mine forgot to log out.
Ari
Also I got the sense he was fed up with feeling trapped and useless:
"It won't let me be a monster. And I can't be a man. I'm nothing." He
chose man because anything's better than being nothing AND of course
there's also the added perk that having a soul might give him another
chance with Buffy.
One Bit Shy
news:1157990178.0...@d34g2000cwd.googlegroups.com...
> One Bit Shy wrote:
>> <burt...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>> news:1157962632....@q16g2000cwq.googlegroups.com...
>> > One Bit Shy wrote:
>> >> But the big emotion for me is simply seeing Buffy crying. You do get
>> >> why
>> >> she's crying, right? Spike did it for her.
>> >>
>> >> And they say a gal can never change her man.
>> >
>> > So - if Spike had gotten the chip out and started killing people again,
>> > that would have been Buffy's fault? She didn't love him enough?
>> >
>> > If you'll excuse me, I think I'm going to be sick.
>>
>> Your own fantasies make you sick? Yeah, that's fitting.
>
> I'm just going by what you said.
No, you're going by whatever way you can twist something to suit your
bitching. I never said anything like that.
>> It didn't happen that way. Your hypothetical doesn't follow from my
>> observation.
>
> Logic dictates that if Buffy gets the credit for Spike changing in a
> positive way, she should also have gotten the blame if he'd changed in
> a negative way.
No. It doesn't. Speaking just abstractly, if A can influence B positively,
that does not mean that any negative result in B is caused by A.
Essentially, you are using the fallacious reasoning that if A has any
influence on B then it must be the only influence.
Back to the actual posting, I really thought normal people would recognize,
"And they say a gal can never change her man," as a flip comment not to be
taken entirely seriously. Obviously Spike is the one who took the action,
and to the extent that credit is earned, would presumably deserve the bulk
of it. Just as he would earn most of the blame if he failed.
But to the extent that Buffy provided an influence, which did matter, it was
by virtue of being a role model for Spike and directly instructing Spike on
the attributes of a decent man - most notably being the existence of a soul.
Buffy showed Spike what it would take. It was then up to Spike whether to
pursue that. Buffy didn't instruct Spike on how to be evil, nor provide a
role model for that. Spike already knew as much about that as anybody and
had himself as a role model. If had chosen to go that direction it would
only mean being the vampire he had been for over 100 years - hardly anything
that Buffy created.
Buffy was an agent of change for Spike - from vampire to man. Not a
guarantee - Spike had to do the heavy lifting for it to work. But she
wasn't an agent of change for the reverse. Spike was already a vampire.
All a chipectomy would represent is Spike giving up on trying to change.
Meanwhile, of course, you're dumping on the sad beauty of the moment. Buffy
coming to realize that Spike has done an incredible thing - just for her. A
personal gesture that exceeds anything that Angel or Riley ever did. And
one that finally truly shows the depth of Spike's devotion to her. Back in
Crush, Spike offered to make the greatest sacrifice that he then thought
possible - killing Dru - to prove his love. But it backfired. The very
nature of the offer was repulsive - contrary to what Buffy would consider
love. It took a long time for Spike to figure out the true path - though I
doubt he really understood it beyond recognizing that it was there - and
sacrificed his very self in order to make him into the kind of man Buffy
could love. It's an amazing act that even Buffy could not fail to
appreciate. And she does appreciate it. That someone could do such a thing
just for her.... Yet, terribly sad too. For she surely knows at the same
time that she still can't give Spike what he desires. Spike has so much
further yet to go. And that just to be a (still undead) man who may not
(probably won't) be the man for Buffy.
OBS
Elisi
invis...@gmail.com wrote:
> It didn't read like a humorous aside to me. But even if it was, it cuts
> to the heart of the way a lot of people see the Buffy/Spike
> relationship in specific and the whole good girl/bad boy dynamic in
> general. "Only her (or my, if we're talking about women in real
> relationships here) love brings out the tiny shred of goodness and
> nobility in him, so she has (or I have) to love him so that he'll bloom
> into the wonderful and loving woobie I know he can be."
>
> It's really selfish and self-serving when you think about it, because
> it's not about redemption for the bad boy, it's about how great and how
> wonderful the good girl is for loving the bad boy out of the cesspit of
> violence/evil/whatever he got himself into.
>
> And that's one of the big reasons I didn't like the resoultion to
> Spike/Buffy relationship. I never saw it as anything other than
> wish-fulfillment fantasy for fans of the good girl/bad boy dynamic.
> "Look! Spike was the baddest of bad boys! And Buffy changed him! Wow!"
> No thanks. Buffy isn't responsible for Spike's actions, no matter what
> they might be.
That's just... odd. I don't have time to comment properly now, but
that's not how I see it _at all_! And I'm as Spuffy as they come. ;)
But quickly - Spike was changed through his contact with Buffy, yes,
but it was his own work. It was his love for her that changed him - in
S6 esp. she didn't love him at all (any feelings she might have had
were hidden so far down that no one could see them), and treated him
abysmally. His change came about in defiance of what everyone
(particularly Buffy) though he could do.
One Bit Shy
news:1157992571.6...@m73g2000cwd.googlegroups.com...
> One Bit Shy wrote:
>> <burt...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>> news:1157961880.3...@p79g2000cwp.googlegroups.com...
>> > And here we come to the biggest problem I had with the entire post-chip
>> > storyline for Spike.
>> >
>> > Now, I don't believe that Spike was genuinely on the path to redemption
>> > before he got his soul back, and I don't believe that's what he went to
>> > Africa in search of, despite what he claims here.
>> >
>> > But let's say I did buy that interpretation that Joss tried to shove
>> > down our throats this season.
>> >
>> > What does that mean for Buffy? Simply put, if a vampire *without* a
>> > soul can genuinely change and seek redemption and try to become
>> > something more than a supernaturally strong killing machine, then what
>> > the hell is Buffy doing staking them as they rise from their graves? If
>> > vampires are capable of more than pure evil, then isn't Buffy nothing
>> > more than a serial killer?
>> >
>> > Spike's post-chip storyline calls the entire moral foundation of the
>> > Buffyverse into question, and I really don't think it was meant to. I
>> > think that Joss just didn't think through the ramifications of it. And,
>> > in my opinion, it really drags the whole series down.
>>
>> The existence of Angel didn't bring that into question for you before?
>
> Angel had a soul, which made him different from all the other vampires.
And now Spike has a soul, making two. The soul *is* the crux of this isn't
it?
>> Anybody *might* be redeemed. That doesn't mean forsaking self protection
>> while you wait for the possibility.
>
> And yet this is exactly what they did with Spike, who proved himself a
> danger on multiple occasions even after being chipped.
And what they did with Angel even though the real risk of Angelus was well
demonstrated.
Both cases were unusual in that special unique circumstances existed to make
the risk manageable. The judgment made with each could both be argued, but
it was not a judgment that could be made with other vampires who had neither
a soul nor a chip, nor a reasonable prospect for either.
OBS
Ari
>It was his love for her that changed him - in
> S6 esp. she didn't love him at all (any feelings she might have had
> were hidden so far down that no one could see them), and treated him
> abysmally. His change came about in defiance of what everyone
> (particularly Buffy) though he could do.
I wonder about that line "You always hurt the one you love." What was
that about then if the writers weren't trying to imply that maybe she
did love him and more so, she knew it? No really, these feelings you
speak of, it didn't seem that hidden to me, or Willow, or Dawn.
burt...@hotmail.com
That's fine. I disagree with the premise that Spike went for his soul,
but beyond that, I have no problem with what you wrote there. Though I
would say "all" instead of "most of."
But the second you credit Buffy with the power to change Spike, you're
also assigning her the responsibility for what he changes into. With
power comes responsibility, after all. If Buffy has the power to change
Spike for the better (not just make him want to change, mind you, but
actually change him), and she doesn't use it, then if Spike starts
killing people again, it's her fault. Not through action, but through
inaction.
Me, I don't believe anyone has that kind of power over another person.
People can change, but they change themselves. Other people don't do it
for them.
Elisi
Oh I'm sure she had feelings - she admitted as much herself in SR. But
she would not allow herself to let them flower in any way (which is
what I meant - it's not easy being lucid when you've been kept up half
the night by a baby with a cold), so saying that Spike 'was changed
through a good woman's love' would be wrong. (So far anyway, but then
he isn't evil anymore so the argument is void)
Anyway, Spike/Buffy is too complex for any sort of simple analogies.
burt...@hotmail.com
Well, if I accepted your premises there, that's how I'd see it too. Not
a case of Buffy changing Spike - a case of Spike changing Spike.
We can argue all day about what Spike's motivation for going to Africa
was, but it was the "someone has the power (and thus the
responsibility) to change someone else for the better" comment that I
really objected to. That's an idea that has ramifications way beyond
fictional characters from a TV series.
One Bit Shy
news:btr1702-CAC84F...@news.giganews.com...
That's nice. So what? It's two different paths to a soul, and it's the
ensouled vampire that *might* bring into question the morality of The
Slayer's calling. But both paths are extraordinary with little to no
prospect of being repeated. And in the meantime Buffy is perfectly
justified in keeping people alive by slaying the remaining ordinary vampires
with their hardwired evil bloodlust.
I know Angel and Spike are different. Thank heavens. That's what makes
their stories interesting instead of rehashing. But in some ways they're
alike - as in now having a soul - and the distinction between them doesn't
matter to the issue at hand. Singular events caused each to acquire their
soul. So singular that there is no reason to expect the same from any other
vampire - especially not to sit around waiting for such an improbably
occurrence as the freshly risen go off on their own killing sprees. Hell,
they're not even good cases for doing that even if you could predict such a
thing down the road, for they both killed untold numbers of people before a
soul came their way.
This is a non-issue to me.
OBS
burt...@hotmail.com
Well, yes. Now that Spike has a soul, he can try to do "good" things
without damaging the mythology of the show. However, I was referring to
the idea of Spike changing and becoming more than just a supernaturally
strong killing machine while *unsouled.*
> >> Anybody *might* be redeemed. That doesn't mean forsaking self protection
> >> while you wait for the possibility.
> >
> > And yet this is exactly what they did with Spike, who proved himself a
> > danger on multiple occasions even after being chipped.
>
> And what they did with Angel even though the real risk of Angelus was well
> demonstrated.
>
> Both cases were unusual in that special unique circumstances existed to make
> the risk manageable. The judgment made with each could both be argued, but
> it was not a judgment that could be made with other vampires who had neither
> a soul nor a chip, nor a reasonable prospect for either.
Well, if a chip is enough to make the risk manageable, then the
Initiative was right after all, and capturing and chipping vampires is
the way to go. All they needed was cells with doors that would stay
closed when the power went out. Capture the vampires, implant the
chips, then let them loose. Since soulless vampires apparentely can
change, now that the risk is manageable, you can sit back and watch
them for a while. Some of the vampires will change for the better, and
as for the ones that don't, they can't harm humans directly, and if the
Slayer catches them trying to do something indirectly, she can stake
them.
Of course, this opens a whole new can of worms, since if vampires can
change, you're forcing an unwanted surgical procedure not on an evil
creature that you'd otherwise just kill, but on a being that can change
and possibly even become a force for good and the betterment of society.
One Bit Shy
news:1157991913....@q16g2000cwq.googlegroups.com...
"Spike did it for her." That was me who wrote that. And, as Elisi said,
the central message. Glad to know you grasp it. Too bad you're so
determined to let it go.
> I still don't think Spike went for the
> soul, but if we grant the premise that he did for the moment, it wasn't
> a case of Buffy changing Spike, it was a case of him changing himself.
> But not according to OBS, who said:
>
> "And they say a gal can never change her man."
>
> That statement puts all the responisibility on Buffy. So therefore, if
> Buffy is responsible for Spike changing for the better, she also would
> have been responisible if he'd changed for the worse. QED.
All the responsibility? Why couldn't it mean that Buffy got Spike to change
that awful hair back to blond? Oh, wait. *All* the responsibility. I
guess it must mean that and everything else Spike does. Mustn't dilute an
absolute.
And god forbid anybody take it as a wisecrack.
OBS
Rowan Hawthorn
Yeah, that's why he keeps getting caught lurking, because he's so
observant <snicker>
From "Wrecked"
Spike is asleep. A large candle smacks him in the belly and he sits up,
startled to find Buffy standing at the foot of the bed.
BUFFY: God, do you sleep through anything? I was like yelling and
nothing.
Vamps also have enhanced strength, stamina, and recuperative abilities,
so his "I’m a bit knackered. Had a long night." sounds like a wee bit of
a lame excuse...
Elisi
You also need to make them fall in love with the Slayer...
One Bit Shy
news:1157996492.6...@m73g2000cwd.googlegroups.com...
> to the heart of the way a lot of people see the Buffy/Spike
> relationship in specific and the whole good girl/bad boy dynamic in
> general. "Only her (or my, if we're talking about women in real
> relationships here) love brings out the tiny shred of goodness and
> nobility in him, so she has (or I have) to love him so that he'll bloom
> into the wonderful and loving woobie I know he can be."
>
> It's really selfish and self-serving when you think about it, because
> it's not about redemption for the bad boy, it's about how great and how
> wonderful the good girl is for loving the bad boy out of the cesspit of
> violence/evil/whatever he got himself into.
>
> And that's one of the big reasons I didn't like the resoultion to
> Spike/Buffy relationship. I never saw it as anything other than
> wish-fulfillment fantasy for fans of the good girl/bad boy dynamic.
> "Look! Spike was the baddest of bad boys! And Buffy changed him! Wow!"
> No thanks. Buffy isn't responsible for Spike's actions, no matter what
> they might be.
Buffy didn't love Spike that way. It's kind of part of the story - as in a
pretty big motivation for Spike to go on his soul quest.
The remark was definitely meant to be funny. But as with many such asides,
it's intended also to contain *some* truth. Buffy did influence Spike's
behavior and his decisions. S5's part of Spike's journey established his
love for Buffy, but ultimately became about earning her respect - being
treated like a man. In that season in particular, Spike adapted his ways to
fit as best as he could what he understood to be Buffy's ideals. He used
her as a role model, and responded to her approval and disapproval as if
they were instructions to him on how to behave. In the end he was genuinely
grateful for the respect he received from her, and found himself feeling
like he'd never felt before. Even heroic, which he earned to his own
surprise by withstanding Glory's torture to protect Dawn.
What he learned from Buffy in S6 was much harder - in large part showing
S5's progress to have been illusory. But Buffy made it quite clear to him
that he never could be a man in her eyes without a soul. And when he
finally saw the implication of the monster in him in Seeing Red, he knew
what she said was true.
So, yes, Buffy had an enormous influence on him. Without her, it's highly
unlikely that Spike would have gone on that soul quest.
By the same token, it couldn't happen with just any old vampire either. It
took Spike's own unique combination of passions, will and perception to find
the path to a soul. (That's certainly not anything Buffy ever considered
possible.) Buffy inspired Spike. But Spike found the way on his own
against enormous odds. Spike's journey is intrinsically linked to Buffy for
sure. But it remains ultimately Spike's journey on his own. He does the
real work. He makes the choices. Nobody can redeem him except himself.
(And he's still not there.)
This isn't a one or the other proposition. Their paths cross to an
astounding effect. Spike has an effect on Buffy too. They have each
depended on the other for something. But for whatever they have gotten out
of their relationship it always remains up to the individual what to do with
it.
OBS
One Bit Shy
news:1158000628.5...@m73g2000cwd.googlegroups.com...
It's conceivable that such an approach could be fruitful. Though
considering what Spike went through to get to his soul quest and then carry
it through, I wouldn't expect such a result to be usual. I'm also not sure
that it's manageable in any volume. Spike is just one vampire in regular
close contact with a slayer. You can't do that with every vampire.
The larger problem is that wasn't the Initiative's objective. Spike's chip
was only part of a greater experiment to create some kind of super
demon/human/machine warrior under the Initiative's control. That failed
spectacularly with the conclusion that they couldn't control demons in the
way they wanted. So the whole thing got shut down without exploring the
more modest objective of leashing vampires.
All of which is completely out of Buffy's league. She's a front-line
warrior, not a behavior modification scientist in a while lab coat. And her
personal experience with the government is now pretty bad. So even if that
could be a plausible alternative, it's not one available to Buffy.
Buffy
rrh...@acme.com
Rincewind wrote:
> The writers are certainly not trying to show souled
> Spike as a fluffy bunny.
Well, of course not. Otherwise Anya would be afraid of him.
peachy ashie passion
> And then there's that ending scene. As artistically important as
> I'm sure it is to see James Marsters bare-chested again, does this
> part last forever or what? I can deal with seeing the insanity
BTR is now your #1 fan.
Scott Lurndal
><burt...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>news:1158000628.5...@m73g2000cwd.googlegroups.com...
>It's conceivable that such an approach could be fruitful. Though
>considering what Spike went through to get to his soul quest and then carry
>it through, I wouldn't expect such a result to be usual. I'm also not sure
>that it's manageable in any volume. Spike is just one vampire in regular
>close contact with a slayer. You can't do that with every vampire.
So find a powerful Wicca and cast a world-wide ensoulment spell.
scott
Ken from Chicago
> Ken from Chicago wrote:
<snip>
>> But vamps have hyperhearing and supersmelling senses. Now that he's been
>> warned ....
>>
>
> Yeah, that's why he keeps getting caught lurking, because he's so
> observant <snicker>
>
> From "Wrecked"
>
> Spike is asleep. A large candle smacks him in the belly and he sits up,
> startled to find Buffy standing at the foot of the bed.
> BUFFY: God, do you sleep through anything? I was like yelling and
> nothing.
>
> Vamps also have enhanced strength, stamina, and recuperative abilities, so
> his "I’m a bit knackered. Had a long night." sounds like a wee bit of a
> lame excuse...
>
> --
> Rowan Hawthorn
>
> "Occasionally, I'm callous and strange." - Willow Rosenberg, "Buffy the
> Vampire Slayer"
Slayers are more powerful than vamps.
Plus he hadn't been warned of impending kid sis death.
-- Ken from Chicago
Stephen Tempest
>>It's conceivable that such an approach could be fruitful. Though
>>considering what Spike went through to get to his soul quest and then carry
>>it through, I wouldn't expect such a result to be usual. I'm also not sure
>>that it's manageable in any volume. Spike is just one vampire in regular
>>close contact with a slayer. You can't do that with every vampire.
>
>So find a powerful Wicca and cast a world-wide ensoulment spell.
We've already found the most powerful Wicca in the Western Hemisphere,
and until recently she was very much into the "magic solves all
problems" mode... and yet she never tried your idea. Which suggests
it's probably not possible.
Stephen
Malsperanza
Ari wrote:
> Elisi wrote:
> > You seem unable to grasp the central message - he did it *for* her. It
> > had nothing to do with her - just as little as the people that Angelus
> > killed. Neither was 'her fault', because how can she be responsible for
> > other people's feelings or actions? That's what's so breathtaking - he
> > did it for her, like a knight slaying a dragon for his lady, except the
> > dragon he slayed was his own demon. That's one hell of a gesture.
> >
>
> I think I just puked in my mouth a little. LOL. I seriously hated those
> late S5 essays about Spike and Buffy's courtly love -- he was her
> lovelorn Knight, and she his fair lady. *groan* Thank God their story
> took a turn for the wacky.
>
> As much as he did it for her, I think he did it for himself too.
FWIW, the original medieval courtly romances were nothing like modern
treacly romances. They were allegories of the soul's search for grace.
In them, romantic love is a metaphor for a higher kind of
love--literally, God's love that redeems the soul. The Roman de la
Rose, Malory's tales of King Arthur and his knights--these aren't
sickly "Camelot" stories, but rather muscular, dark tales in which a
fair number of the loving wooing knights and ladies end up dead, or in
convents, or otherwise unfulfilled and uncoupled.
I think Whedon, like Tolkien, knows his myths and traditions pretty
well--up to and including dragons. I missed all the essays on s5 as an
allegory of courtly love, and perhaps some of them were gooey and
silly. But the show itself makes such clear, obvious references to that
literary tradition that it would be equally silly to ignore it
completely.
To me, the most interesting thing about the hero's quest in s5 - s6 -
s7 is that both Spike and Buffy are heroes; both are on separate quests
(up to and including classic descents into the Underworld, death and
rebirth, loss of soul, and quests for love). The biggest question is:
will their quests intersect? Is there a competition between them to see
which one is *the* hero? How will Whedon handle the question of who
comes out, er, on top?
~Mal
Malsperanza
One Bit Shy wrote:
[snippage]
> But to the extent that Buffy provided an influence, which did matter, it was
> by virtue of being a role model for Spike and directly instructing Spike on
> the attributes of a decent man - most notably being the existence of a soul.
> Buffy showed Spike what it would take. It was then up to Spike whether to
> pursue that. Buffy didn't instruct Spike on how to be evil, nor provide a
> role model for that. Spike already knew as much about that as anybody and
> had himself as a role model. If had chosen to go that direction it would
> only mean being the vampire he had been for over 100 years - hardly anything
> that Buffy created.
>
> Buffy was an agent of change for Spike - from vampire to man. Not a
> guarantee - Spike had to do the heavy lifting for it to work. But she
> wasn't an agent of change for the reverse. Spike was already a vampire.
> All a chipectomy would represent is Spike giving up on trying to change.
>
> Meanwhile, of course, you're dumping on the sad beauty of the moment. Buffy
> coming to realize that Spike has done an incredible thing - just for her. A
> personal gesture that exceeds anything that Angel or Riley ever did. And
> one that finally truly shows the depth of Spike's devotion to her. Back in
> Crush, Spike offered to make the greatest sacrifice that he then thought
> possible - killing Dru - to prove his love. But it backfired. The very
> nature of the offer was repulsive - contrary to what Buffy would consider
> love. It took a long time for Spike to figure out the true path - though I
> doubt he really understood it beyond recognizing that it was there
Well-said. Part of what makes his achievement so unusual and dramatic
is that he wnt blind into the decision -- except in that he did know it
was bound to be bad, worse than anything he had yet experienced. That
is, he seem to have had some memory of what it meant to have a soul,
but not much. He only knew what he saw in Angel, which was inexplicable
depths of remorse and suffering, and what he recalled of his own life.
It's possible that Spike remembered perfectly well what he was like
pre-vampire--but it's also possible--hinted at--that only in the
process of regaining his soul does a vampire recover the details of his
human memory.
The question is: what drove him mad? Was it the shock of confronting
all the terrible things he had done? Was it hiding in the Hellmouth
basement, too near the Unnamed Thing that Is Brewing Down There? Was it
the discovery that having a soul would not automatically make him a
good man, but only a man, and perhaps a very bad one at that? Was it
the discovery that having a soul would not necessarily win him Buffy?
He seems, in "Beneath You," to be almost convinced that he has
definitively lost Buffy. Now that he has a soul and can see what and
who Spike/William really is, he can understand fully why Buffy would
reject him. I think that contributes to his disorientation.
> - and
> sacrificed his very self in order to make him into the kind of man Buffy
> could love. It's an amazing act that even Buffy could not fail to
> appreciate. And she does appreciate it. That someone could do such a thing
> just for her.... Yet, terribly sad too. For she surely knows at the same
> time that she still can't give Spike what he desires. Spike has so much
> further yet to go. And that just to be a (still undead) man who may not
> (probably won't) be the man for Buffy.
>
> OBS
In short, what Spike still has to learn is the thing Burt wants for
him: that he should want his soul for his own sake, not just in order
to please Buffy. Hard for him to do at this moment, when the only thing
he's getting out of it is misery, guilt, horror, and possibly sexual
impotence.
~Mal
One Bit Shy
news:9ltbg29nisc5kccf2...@4ax.com...
I'm not sure that it's ever been certain that she can perform Angel's spell
on anybody else. The circumstances of her getting that spell suggest that
she didn't understand its workings and performed it by rote. The spell
might have been crafted uniquely for Angel without an obvious or certain way
of directing it elsewhere.
Even if she could, I'm not sure about the ethics of using it. There's the
little problem of the curse that, aside from not guaranteeing that the soul
will stay put, leaves the recipient living life with a sword over their
head. And, if Angel is a fair example, the misery of guilt could consume
individuals indefinitely. Not every vampire is going to get the aid of a
helpful demon, nor have a pretty slayer to inspire them.
Also, just where is the soul coming from? The assumption seems to be that
it is the actual human soul from their living human life. If so, might the
spell be pulling that soul out of heaven?
I'm not convinced that this is magic that should be used on a broad scale.
OBS
BTR1701
So it was in direct response to your previous post as to why that was
never brought into question before. Burt pointed out that this had never
happened on the show before and you said, what about Angel. I clarified
as to why Angel isn't relevant.
> This is a non-issue to me.
That's fine. But don't act like just because *you* don't care about it,
that makes it objectively irrelevant.
BTR1701
Stephen Tempest <ste...@stempest.demon.co.uk> wrote:
Or the writers pulled a page from the various "Star Trek" series and
ignored powers which might be inconvenient to the story.
Malsperanza
burt...@hotmail.com wrote:
> lili...@gmail.com wrote:
> > burt...@hotmail.com schreef:
> >
> > > And here we come to the biggest problem I had with the entire post-chip
> > > storyline for Spike.
> > >
> > > Now, I don't believe that Spike was genuinely on the path to redemption
> > > before he got his soul back, and I don't believe that's what he went to
> > > Africa in search of, despite what he claims here.
> > >
> > > But let's say I did buy that interpretation that Joss tried to shove
> > > down our throats this season.
> > >
> > > What does that mean for Buffy? Simply put, if a vampire *without* a
> > > soul can genuinely change and seek redemption and try to become
> > > something more than a supernaturally strong killing machine, then what
> > > the hell is Buffy doing staking them as they rise from their graves? If
> > > vampires are capable of more than pure evil, then isn't Buffy nothing
> > > more than a serial killer?
> > >
> > > Spike's post-chip storyline calls the entire moral foundation of the
> > > Buffyverse into question, and I really don't think it was meant to. I
> > > think that Joss just didn't think through the ramifications of it. And,
> > > in my opinion, it really drags the whole series down.
> >
> >
> > here's the link for the post I made about it on my livejournal:
> > http://liliaeth.livejournal.com/208155.html
> >
> > And in my opinion, pulling the entire moral foundation of the
> > Buffyverse into question is what makes it a great show. You can go
> > watch Charmed with its cookiecutter bad guys and good guys, but I
> > rather watch a show about a hero who has to deal with serious moral
> > implications of her actions.
>
> Except that she never had to deal with them. The show kept on with its
> nonsensical vampire double standard and no one batted an eye over it.
> If Buffy had sat down with her friends and said "Hey guys, Spike proves
> that a vampire without a soul can change for the better, so maybe we
> shouldn't be staking them right out of the ground," and they'd debated
> the pros and cons of that idea, or done something else, made some
> attempt to address the moral questions posed by Spike's post-chip
> behavior, then we would have had the makings of an interesting
> storyline rife with conflict and moral dilemma.
>
> But this never happened. So I'm forced to conclude that either Joss
> didn't realize that he'd destroyed the moral center of his show, or he
> just simply didn't care. Either way, it's bad storytelling.
There is certainly the risk of a huge plothole here, though surely that
problem had already arisen back in s1 with Angel/Angelus, and Spike's
story just repeated the problem?
But I think two arguments mitigate it:
1) Throughout s5 and s6 we have met cemetary vampires who were genial,
witty, and even helpful. Some of them were former friends of Buffy's.
She dusts them all without a flinch, even after we have been given
ample time to get to know them and like them. The vampire who was
sincerely attracted to and interested in Dawn in s6 is a good example.
So the audience is already--I hope--questioning the absolute moral
clarity of Buffy's position. Whether or not that problem is resolved at
the end of the series is something we'll have to wait to discuss. But
in the meantime, let's keep an eye on some of those vampires who offer
genuine contributions to society by helping Buffy and/or her friends.
Also several demons--not to mention Anya, Halfrek, and D'Hoffryn.
2) Both Spike and Angel are presented as extremely anomalous; Spike
perhaps even more than Angel. Of course, there are also demons like
Clem and Anya. And there are humans who are so utterly vile that they
might as well be demons--and sometimes actually become monsters (e.g.,
Wilkins). So on the one hand, we are more or less asked by the show to
accept the premise that Angel and Spike are not repeatable--they are so
unique and remarkable that no other vampires can or ever will do what
they have done. Whether you think the show makes a good case for this
idea or not is a matter of personal pov, I think. OTOH, we are also
reminded that the dividing line between people with souls and people
with none is permeable--not a clear division, in either direction.
The Slayer operates as a one-woman legal system when it comes to
vampires and demons; that's her job, and like 007 she has a license to
dust the baddies. Her license is absolute and not open to debate,
sanctioned by the ages. It's a black-and-white system of judgment and
sentence, in a world where the distinctions between Evol!Badguys
(paranormal) and normal baddies (human muggers and murderers and so on)
is not so black-and-white. So Buffy is continually caught in an
impossible role. No wonder she feels isolated. In some ways, she's more
morally compromised than Spike, and she knows it. Hence her desperation
and despair in s6.
~Mal
Malsperanza
I got the impression that the Initiative was presented as morally
extremely dubious for exactly this reason. We are invited almost to
sympathize with the monsters in the cells because they are being
tortured. The problem is never fully explored because the Walsh and her
team go so completely off the deep end into Evolness that it becomes a
morally easy decision to shut the whole place down. More interesting
would have been a proper debate about what the "normal" members of the
Initiative were doing--torturing and vivisecting captive monsters,
performing medical experiments on them that are presented to us as
being faintly reminiscent of Mengele.
~Mal
One Bit Shy
news:1158020236.5...@h48g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
Sexual impotence? Spike did offer to service Buffy. (One of the odder and
creepier moments in the scene. Buffy has lots of reasons to fear what's
going on with Spike even as she's impressed by the effort.) But, yeah, he's
going to have to get through the madness to figure out more. And good
observation about likely believing that he's lost Buffy. I doubt he feels
he's worthy - which likely has a lot to do with trying to hide the fact of
the soul.
OBS
Malsperanza
Elisi wrote:
> Arbitrar Of Quality wrote:
>
> > BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER
> > Season Seven, Episode 2: "Beneath You"
>
> on the title. Part of the reason I love this episode so much, is
> because of the title. It does what Buffy often does very well - in a
> few words it manages to draw several connotations and almost tell a
> whole story in itself.
>
> 1) Firstly there's of course the 'From Beneath You it devours', a theme
> we're seeing repeated and something to do with the Big Bad. Too early
> to say much more.
>
> 2) Spike. And here those two words almost make up an entire essay on
> their own. 'You're beneath me' said Cecily, sending him out into the
> London streets to meet Drusilla. And he thought he'd solved the problem
> now - he was a vampire, stronger and better than mere mortals, who were
> now 'beneath _him_ - nothing more than food. Happy meals on legs. Even
> Slayers - the chosen warriors of the human race - were killed by him.
> He was beneath no one anymore. But then came Buffy - and Buffy repeated
> those devastating words, and she meant them. Suddenly he was back where
> he started with the woman he loved looking down on him.
>
> SPIKE: Beneath me... I'll show her.
> He takes out a double-barreled shotgun, cracks the breech and loads two
> rounds.
> SPIKE: Put her six bloody feet beneath me. Hasn't got a death wish?
> Bitch won't need one.
>
> But - oh he doesn't kill her, does he? He doesn't put her beneath him
> then. Instead he tries to reach up - offers her companionship. And she
> accepts.
>
> After that he keeps trying to be better - so she won't think him
> beneath her. He tries to prove his dedication in 'Crush' with
> catastrophic results. Inadvertedly he tries again in 'Intervention' and
> this time it works. In 'The Gift' he acknowledges that he's beneath
> her, but is grateful that she doesn't treat him as such.
>
> But then comes S6... and for a little while things are OK, but then
> they backslide and yet again Buffy is telling him that he's beneath her
> ("You're not a man! You're a thing!") - and he discovers that maybe
> she's not as far above him as he thought. He can pull her down.
> ("Nothing wrong with me. Something wrong with her.")
>
> The thing is - it doesn't work, and in the end, Spike proves that he
> well and truly is beneath her. And what can he do? Be a monster again
> (which would only put him yet further down in Buffy's eyes)? Or - get
> his soul back, become someone _not_ beneath her:
>
> DEMON: Something about a woman. The slayer.
> SPIKE: Thinks she's better than me.
>
> He thinks that getting his soul back will out them on equal footing,
> just like he thought after the chip didn't work on her in 'Smashed',
> only this time he's the one changing. The problem is of course that
> there's a terrible catch-22 in getting his soul. He understands that
> she will not love him without it (because she thinks he's beneath her),
> but once he has it, he finally understands just how far beneath her he
> really is.
>
> "And-and now everybody's in here, talking. Everything I
> did...everyone I- and him... and it... the other, the thing
> beneath-beneath you. It's here too. Everybody. They all just tell me
> go... go... to hell."
>
>
> And that's what the title says to me. Sorry for rambling, but it's how
> my brain works - I love my show. :)
I also especially like this title and its many layers of meaning. I'd
add to your list the following (some of which can best be discussed
after a few more episodes):
~Beneath You in the ranking of heroes and/or villains
~Beneath You literally, as in: living in the cellar
~Beneath You in sexual terms. We have had a lot of sly references
throughout BtVS to dominance and submissiveness in sexual behavior
among many of the characters--not just s6 Spuffy. Who's on top, who's
in charge, who has The Power--this is an issue for the personal
relationships of most of the couples in the show, and also a neat
metaphor for the larger Power struggle that we have been oh-so-subtly
signaled to think of as the main theme of s7.
~Mal
mariposas rand mair fheal greykitten tomys des anges
or she ran out of orbs of thesulahs
meow arf meow - they are performing horrible experiments in space
major grubert is watching you - beware the bakalite
there can only be one or two - the airtight garage has you neo
Mark Jones
> <burt...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> > Angel had a soul, which made him different from all the other vampires.
>
> And now Spike has a soul, making two. The soul *is* the crux of this
> isn't it?
Are you being deliberately obtuse? Angel had a soul imposed upon him, and
only _after_ acquiring a soul did he eventually become one of the good guys.
Spike apparently decided to forego being evil and seek out a soul (like
Burt, I don't believe that, but for argument's sake...) before acquiring
said soul (obviously). Two very different events.
Angel's situation doesn't bring the "vampires are inherently evil" theory
into question--until he was given a soul, he remained evil.
Spike's does.
One Bit Shy
Yeah, sure, if you just chop off the objective basis for my saying it's a
non-issue. My argument was that the foundation of the moral issue is the
potential for acquiring a soul, that it is a highly improbable event, that
the only incident of it happening occurred after many years of vampire
slaughter, and that the fact of volition doesn't alter any of those
elements. Consequently, for the purpose of evaluating the significance of
the moral issue, Spike's circumstances are analogous to Angel's
circumstances, and an improbable indiscernible potential does not negate the
appropriateness of staking vampires before they kill humans. Hence, a
non-issue.
Disagree with the logic if you wish, but please don't act like no foundation
was offered.
OBS
Malsperanza
> > him: that he should want his soul for his own sake, not just in order
> > to please Buffy. Hard for him to do at this moment, when the only thing
> > he's getting out of it is misery, guilt, horror, and possibly sexual
> > impotence.
>
> Sexual impotence? Spike did offer to service Buffy. (One of the odder and
> creepier moments in the scene. Buffy has lots of reasons to fear what's
> going on with Spike even as she's impressed by the effort.)
Very creepy, and also embarrassing. But yeah, I think there's a riff
going on about Spike the Boy Toy being pretty well neutered at the
moment. But easier to discuss in a couple more episodes. For now, I
just wanted to toss it into the mix.
~Mal
Malsperanza
I also was initially confused by this, but now I understand the
objection, I think. for you and Burt, the problem isn't with Spike
getting a soul, or even with his wanting to get a soul. The problem is
with his having fought on the goodguys' side against evil in s6, when
he still did not have a soul--and even before he knew he wanted one.
And then, also, you object to his ever wanting a soul.
But isn't that where the chip comes in? It prevented him from pursuing
his preferred hobby--doing evil--and over time it cleared a space in
which his personal desires and hungers (all selfish) drove him in new
directions. Once he identified his selfish personal desire as being
Buffy, he set out to do whatever would get him Buffy, without really
having a clue why she wanted him to behave in one way & not another. In
other words, Buffy can blithely continue to kill any and all vampires
who are chipless, because none of them will be capable of behaving like
s6 Spike. And in fact we do not see her kill any other monster with a
chip in its head, IIRC.
Or, to put it another way: some characters in BtVS describe the chip as
a "leash" that prevents Spike from killing humans. But they are wrong
to describe it that way, because it does more than that. It stymies
Spike's natural vampire instincts, so that he is forced to channel them
in new directions, and that in turn creates an emotional (or moral)
environment in which he can simulate or mimic human decency. Which in
turn begins to have a good effect on his stunted, crippled moral sense.
All of these things are so extremely unusual that one can safely
describe Spike's condition as unique and unrepeatable. Certainly the
vampires Buffy kills in the cemetary and on the street are not chipped,
which makes the possibility of their having any innate dormant sense of
virtue about zero.
Or, at any rate, that's the argument the show presents, I think.
~Mal
One Bit Shy
news:gemini.j5ggsz008...@pacifier.com...
I rather thought that the point of Seeing Red was that Spike couldn't rid
the monster in him by simply pretending it wasn't there.
In other words, the inherent evil was still there. Spike couldn't really be
one of the good guys without a soul either.
There's a distinction in how and why they got their souls, but not as to the
nature of vampires.
Don't you understand that Spike's attempt to be good without a soul failed?
OBS
One Bit Shy
Okey dokey. It's been some time since I watched this season, so a lot of it
is coming across pretty fresh to me.
Scott Lurndal
Vs Jvyybj pna hfr gur Fplgur gb znxr nyy gur cbgragvnyf jbeyqjvqr
vagb fynlref, fur fubhyq or noyr gb hfr na rdhnyyl cbjreshy negvsnpg
gb rafbhy gur inzcverf.
Not that I think it would be a _good_ idea.
scott
BTR1701
It wasn't objective. It was your personal preference as to which issues
you feel are important.
> My argument was that the foundation of the moral issue is the
> potential for acquiring a soul, that it is a highly improbable event, that
> the only incident of it happening occurred after many years of vampire
> slaughter, and that the fact of volition doesn't alter any of those
> elements.
Which is what you've chosen to see as important. Not everyone
necessarily feels the same way and their views as to what is important
about the show are just as valid as yours. It's subjective art, after
all.
Mark Jones
No, I guess not. For one thing, I wasn't really paying attention to the
series by that point (most of what I know about what happened I've learned
from reading about it). For another, even _wanting_ to change strikes me as
a major step, and just as revealing in its own way. That a creature which
we've been told from Day One is utterly evil by nature could even _want_ to
be good (or seen as good for purely pragmatic reasons) says a lot.
Mark Jones
> Mark Jones wrote:
> > Angel's situation doesn't bring the "vampires are inherently evil"
> > theory into question--until he was given a soul, he remained evil.
> >
> > Spike's does.
>
>
> I also was initially confused by this, but now I understand the objection,
> I think. for you and Burt, the problem isn't with Spike getting a soul, or
> even with his wanting to get a soul. The problem is with his having fought
> on the goodguys' side against evil in s6, when he still did not have a
> soul--and even before he knew he wanted one. And then, also, you object to
> his ever wanting a soul.
Well, closer.
I didn't ever _object_ to Spike wanting a soul. I simply never found the
"ambiguous" storyline at all ambiguous. It appeared to me then (and still
does) that Spike went to Africa to get the chip out, not get a soul. That's
the story I saw them tell. (I think the writers got so caught up in their
own "cleverness" that they badly overplayed their hand and instead an "aha!"
moment, they presented me with a "you've got to be kidding me!" moment.)
But granting that he did, in fact, want to acquire a soul, that brings me to
the story problem I see.
The thing is, for Spike to want a soul at all strikes me as very similar to
the Lion, the Tinman and the Scarecrow wanting courage, a heart and a brain
respectively. The quest to acquire these things was proof that they had
them already. If Spike is _already_ capable of discriminating between good
and evil and choosing good, or even _wanting_ to choose good, means he
already HAS the moral complexity a soul would provide.
Which is not how vampires were presented. And it calls into question the
idea that staking them the moment they rise is the right and proper thing to
do.
> Or, to put it another way: some characters in BtVS describe the chip as a
> "leash" that prevents Spike from killing humans. But they are wrong to
> describe it that way, because it does more than that. It stymies Spike's
> natural vampire instincts, so that he is forced to channel them in new
> directions, and that in turn creates an emotional (or moral) environment
> in which he can simulate or mimic human decency. Which in turn begins to
> have a good effect on his stunted, crippled moral sense. All of these
> things are so extremely unusual that one can safely describe Spike's
> condition as unique and unrepeatable. Certainly the vampires Buffy kills
> in the cemetary and on the street are not chipped, which makes the
> possibility of their having any innate dormant sense of virtue about zero.
>
> Or, at any rate, that's the argument the show presents, I think.
I'm skeptical of this. I'd think that a chip which inflicts crippling pain
when Spike tries to harm a human being would, yes, quickly condition him not
to try that. I don't see that it would cause him to channel those instincts
into positive actions. He can always get his jollies indirectly, by
dominating non-humans and using them, if necessary, inflict suffering on
humans for his vicarious entertainment.
Ian Galbraith
[snip]
> What does that mean for Buffy? Simply put, if a vampire *without* a
> soul can genuinely change and seek redemption and try to become
> something more than a supernaturally strong killing machine, then what
> the hell is Buffy doing staking them as they rise from their graves? If
> vampires are capable of more than pure evil, then isn't Buffy nothing
> more than a serial killer?
In the show that you watched, where vampires have a choice about
attacking humans, of course they are murderers, it doesn't take this
instance to do it.
In the show that everyone else watched if it takes as much effort to get
every vampire a soul as it took Spike then it's impractical, ludicrously
so. What do you expect them to do capture all vampires, put chips in
them, and make them fall in love with someone.
[snip]
--
You can't stop the signal
Ian Galbraith
[snip]
> Well, if a chip is enough to make the risk manageable, then the
> Initiative was right after all, and capturing and chipping vampires is
> the way to go.
All you've proved here is that you completely misunderstand what happened
to Spike. It wasn't just the chip, it was the chip combined with falling
in love with Buffy combined with hanging around the scoobies that all
acted to change his behavioural patterns.
Don Sample
sc...@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) wrote:
>
> Vs Jvyybj pna hfr gur Fplgur gb znxr nyy gur cbgragvnyf jbeyqjvqr
> vagb fynlref, fur fubhyq or noyr gb hfr na rdhnyyl cbjreshy negvsnpg
> gb rafbhy gur inzcverf.
Gung qbrfa'g sbyybj. Gurl ner gjb irel qvssrerag guvatf.
--
Quando omni flunkus moritati
Visit the Buffy Body Count at <http://homepage.mac.com/dsample/>
mariposas rand mair fheal greykitten tomys des anges
Don Sample <dsa...@synapse.net> wrote:
> In article <NEoNg.304$6S3...@newssvr25.news.prodigy.net>,
> sc...@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) wrote:
>
> >
> > Vs Jvyybj pna hfr gur Fplgur gb znxr nyy gur cbgragvnyf jbeyqjvqr
> > vagb fynlref, fur fubhyq or noyr gb hfr na rdhnyyl cbjreshy negvsnpg
> > gb rafbhy gur inzcverf.
>
> Gung qbrfa'g sbyybj. Gurl ner gjb irel qvssrerag guvatf.
or maybe not
its not like whedon ever wrote out a d-and-d manual
with hit points and charm properties and all that
there remains an ad hocness to the magic
znlor fur jrag gb gur uvznynlnf gb yrnea ubj gb qb guvf
> --
> Quando omni flunkus moritati
> Dhnaqb bzav syhaxhf zbevgngv
rot-13 doesnt seem to help
Malsperanza
I can see that. Of course, in The Wizard of Oz, the whole message is
that one doesn't need to go on a quest to find oneself, because that
quest is internal: look inside yourself and discover your heart,
courage, mind, self. It presumes that even a Tin Man is essentially
human and therefore has these things in himself, even if he doubts
himself. But in Buffyverse, there are people who truly are hollow
inside, who lack heart, mind, self--and these we call monsters,
vampires, demons. I think the show asks a different question than The W
of Oz. It asks: What are we to think of people who know the difference
between right and wrong (which is to say, all rational people, except
those who are severely disturbed or brain damaged) and still choose to
do wrong? There's no qualitative difference between Mayor Wilkins, who
chooses to become evil, and a vampire who chooses to be evil. Indeed,
in some ways, Wilkins is worse than a Spike or an Angelus, because
Wilkins chooses to destroy his humanity, whereas Spike and Angel were
both turned into vampires without their prior consent or understanding
of what it meant. All the evil they committed thereafter was a
consequence of having lost the ability to know *why* evil deeds are not
OK.
But Spike does have an objective sense of what's right and wrong,
rather like Mayor Wilkins in reverse. He's evil, and chooses to remain
so for a long time. But he can identify good much as we can identify
the difference between a red triangle and a blue square in a perception
test. If you were asked which one is red, you could answer correctly.
If you were asked why one shape was morally ok and the other bad, you
would only be able to choose by observing that everyone you admired (or
the person you loved) with loved red triangles and was repulsed by blue
squares.
A feeble analogy, but the point is that the chip doesn't cause Spike to
want to do good. It prevents him from doing evil, and leaves a blank
space instead. That blank space leaves him frustrated, confused, and
angry, but it also provides room for the love he feels for Buffy
(however impaired that love is) to grow.
> > Or, to put it another way: some characters in BtVS describe the chip as a
> > "leash" that prevents Spike from killing humans. But they are wrong to
> > describe it that way, because it does more than that. It stymies Spike's
> > natural vampire instincts, so that he is forced to channel them in new
> > directions, and that in turn creates an emotional (or moral) environment
> > in which he can simulate or mimic human decency. Which in turn begins to
> > have a good effect on his stunted, crippled moral sense. All of these
> > things are so extremely unusual that one can safely describe Spike's
> > condition as unique and unrepeatable. Certainly the vampires Buffy kills
> > in the cemetary and on the street are not chipped, which makes the
> > possibility of their having any innate dormant sense of virtue about zero.
> >
> > Or, at any rate, that's the argument the show presents, I think.
>
> I'm skeptical of this. I'd think that a chip which inflicts crippling pain
> when Spike tries to harm a human being would, yes, quickly condition him not
> to try that. I don't see that it would cause him to channel those instincts
> into positive actions. He can always get his jollies indirectly, by
> dominating non-humans and using them, if necessary, inflict suffering on
> humans for his vicarious entertainment.
It doesn't cause him to seek out good behavior. It merely allows good
behavior an opportunity to occur. Think of it as being a little like
the way evolution works: giraffe species don't choose to grow longer
necks; the ones with longer necks merely have an opportunistically
greater survival rate because they can eat the tops of tall trees.
If the Initiative had had that as a goal, they might have succeeded
with more than just one vampire. But as others have said in this
thread, Spike benefited from a very unusual set of circumstances that
allowed him to "evolve" when he had the chip in him: He had the model
of Buffy (unique among Slayers for her unusual tolerance and insight
and her great empathic capacity); he was thrown together with the
Scoobies, and learned a great deal from them about how friendship and
family work to support virtue and control our worser instincts; he had
never quite lost the ability to love (probably because of the kind of
man he had been before he was vamped) -- had indeed been remarkably
faithful to Dru for a very long time; and he was smarter and more
observant than most people -- despite occasional lapses into truly
idiotic stupidity.
I think there is ... not a flaw in the moral structure of the
Buffyverse, but perhaps a failure to follow through on all the
implications of Spike's story. As someone else pointed out in this
thread, the Scoobies react to s6 and s7 Spike with such kneejerk
suspicion and hostility that they never pause to consider what it means
for a vampire to step outside of his Evilness and seek Goodness -- and
even more than Goodness, Free Will. If they did think about that, all
the Goodguys might have to reevaluate their roles and their own
behavior. We see in s7 that Willow is trying to do that. So is Anya
(following Spike's new model, I think). The others? Hard to say...
~Mal
Arbitrar Of Quality
> > Speaking of our beloved new principal, he's the show's first
> > vegetarian that I can remember.
>
> So he shouldn't have had any problem with the DmP's menu.
But Buffy's second manager says that the vegetable stuff is "blended
with large amounts of rendered beef fat for flavor."
-AOQ
Arbitrar Of Quality
> This may be an episode to grow on you over time. I understand the somewhat
> confusing aspects. For example, when I first saw this I didn't understand
> Spike's madness at all. I think I was more confused when it was done than
> when it started.
I appreciate the understanding. We were all new viewers not knowing
where things were going, once.
-AOQ
Arbitrar Of Quality
burt...@hotmail.com wrote:
> And here we come to the biggest problem I had with the entire post-chip
> storyline for Spike.
>
> soul can genuinely change and seek redemption and try to become
> something more than a supernaturally strong killing machine, then what
> the hell is Buffy doing staking them as they rise from their graves? If
> vampires are capable of more than pure evil, then isn't Buffy nothing
> more than a serial killer?
>
> Buffyverse into question, and I really don't think it was meant to. I
> think that Joss just didn't think through the ramifications of it. And,
> in my opinion, it really drags the whole series down.
Everyone else has already said everything far better than I could. But
my short answer is: it's a valid complaint in the sense that Joss
indeed probably didn't mean this story as a modification of the moral
foundation of the Buffyverse. I just also agree with the five hundred
or so people who've pointed out how incredibly unique Spike's situation
is, resting on an exact combination of his pre-existing personality
(both as a human and as a vampire), the Initiative's chip, and Buffy
(not just "falling in love with a Slayer" - Buffy in particular. She's
not like other amagcal girls). So it doesn't bother me overmuch.
-AOQ
burt...@hotmail.com
> burt...@hotmail.com wrote:
> > Well, if a chip is enough to make the risk manageable, then the
> > Initiative was right after all, and capturing and chipping vampires is
> > closed when the power went out. Capture the vampires, implant the
> > chips, then let them loose. Since soulless vampires apparentely can
> > change, now that the risk is manageable, you can sit back and watch
> > them for a while. Some of the vampires will change for the better, and
> > as for the ones that don't, they can't harm humans directly, and if the
> > Slayer catches them trying to do something indirectly, she can stake
> > them.
> >
> > Of course, this opens a whole new can of worms, since if vampires can
> > change, you're forcing an unwanted surgical procedure not on an evil
> > creature that you'd otherwise just kill, but on a being that can change
> > and possibly even become a force for good and the betterment of society.
>
Or find some other trigger that would work just as well for that
particular vampire. The Slayer wouldn't even have to be involved.
Say you have a man with a son who gets turned. Given that you accept
the premise that Spike loved Buffy and that love made him want to
change, who's to say that this hypothetical newly-turned vampire's love
for his son couldn't make him want to change too? And how can it
possibly be considered "good" for Buffy to stake him before giving him
that opportunity?