I find the idea of her dying gradually piece by piece more emotionally involving than gore. Oh it's not about gore. And really there is less in 'Asylum' at that point - no scalpel ever touches Spike's face. And yes I agree that this is a great moment:
'What you're seeing is possibility. Thoughts, courses of action, pieces of what you could be. Ending.'
(Although it again makes me wish that they had found a better artist. The concepts this part plays with are wonderful. But they should be *gorgeous*.)
Anyway, yes, it's great and very affecting - as is her terror beforehand. Agree 100% there. I can even appreciate the surety of belief when Buffy arrives. It's just... then there's nothing. Willow is better - just like that. Big smile, no worries. And I wonder - what was the point? I can appreciate the plotting behind it - showing that Buffy and Willow are still best friends, using Willow's capture as a way of getting Buffy to the right place to face General Voll. But - what about Willow? She was just tortured to within an inch of her life by the skinless remains of the man she murdered... and the effect upon her is apparently exactly zero. So why bother? Maybe it shows that she's on her way down a dark path ("It'll fade"), maybe it shows that she's just totally awesome, who knows?
In 'Asylum' Spike ends up killing the leader of the asylum (Mah Zinn), to stop him. He doesn't want to. He feels guilty about it, even though Mah Zinn was trying to mutilate him and was viciously torturing Beck (and every other inmate). I can feel and understand Spike's pain and confusion and anger.
And that is what it comes down to - Spike is emotionally accessible to me. Willow is at the beginning, and then becomes less and less so, ending up as a complete blank. And I find it hard to care about a blank.
I'd thought he gained his legendary warrior status by a combination of killing Slayers and more massacre than thou. Oh yes. But by Asylum he's been killing demons exclusively for at least 5 years. And before that - well there's a great line in 'Shadow Puppets' that illustrates it wonderfully:
'I've got a mate in Tokyo. Little One-Eyed Turk, he'll look into it for me. (Hope he's still not upset about at me for the eye-gouging. He's gotta understand by now, bloke shouldn't have looked at my cards.)'
You mess with Spike, he'll not take it easily.
Yes and it's his *idea* of Angel that differs from my idea of his idea of Angel. Which is really what a lot of this hinges on. *Everyone's* idea of the characters is different. Heck there are giant swathes of fandom who think that Spike would jump Xander in a heartbeat, the idea of which is so alien to me that it is probably the only pairing I could never read. And also this is why I don't have much of a problem with the comics. I see them as fic, informed by the author's view. If his view differs too much from mine, I'll just walk away like I would a fic. Which (again) is why these things just don't work as canon. On TV the writer's vision was filtered through so many screens that they just don't compare...
Comic: Writer + artist = finished product. TV: Writer + fellow writers + actors + director + set designer, props people etc + time contraints + last minute changes + improvisation + other things I'm forgetting = finished product.
I like Lynch's Spike, and I like the way Urru draws him. There might be niggles, but the overall story is good enough to make them inconsequential. With S8 the niggles (the artwork in particular) are pretty much outweighing the good parts. The story might yet overcome that, we'll have to see...
no subject
Oh it's not about gore. And really there is less in 'Asylum' at that point - no scalpel ever touches Spike's face. And yes I agree that this is a great moment:
'What you're seeing is possibility. Thoughts, courses of action, pieces of what you could be. Ending.'
(Although it again makes me wish that they had found a better artist. The concepts this part plays with are wonderful. But they should be *gorgeous*.)
Anyway, yes, it's great and very affecting - as is her terror beforehand. Agree 100% there. I can even appreciate the surety of belief when Buffy arrives. It's just... then there's nothing. Willow is better - just like that. Big smile, no worries. And I wonder - what was the point? I can appreciate the plotting behind it - showing that Buffy and Willow are still best friends, using Willow's capture as a way of getting Buffy to the right place to face General Voll. But - what about Willow? She was just tortured to within an inch of her life by the skinless remains of the man she murdered... and the effect upon her is apparently exactly zero. So why bother? Maybe it shows that she's on her way down a dark path ("It'll fade"), maybe it shows that she's just totally awesome, who knows?
In 'Asylum' Spike ends up killing the leader of the asylum (Mah Zinn), to stop him. He doesn't want to. He feels guilty about it, even though Mah Zinn was trying to mutilate him and was viciously torturing Beck (and every other inmate). I can feel and understand Spike's pain and confusion and anger.
And that is what it comes down to - Spike is emotionally accessible to me. Willow is at the beginning, and then becomes less and less so, ending up as a complete blank. And I find it hard to care about a blank.
I'd thought he gained his legendary warrior status by a combination of killing Slayers and more massacre than thou.
Oh yes. But by Asylum he's been killing demons exclusively for at least 5 years. And before that - well there's a great line in 'Shadow Puppets' that illustrates it wonderfully:
'I've got a mate in Tokyo. Little One-Eyed Turk, he'll look into it for me. (Hope he's still not upset about at me for the eye-gouging. He's gotta understand by now, bloke shouldn't have looked at my cards.)'
You mess with Spike, he'll not take it easily.
Yes and it's his *idea* of Angel that differs from my idea of his idea of Angel.
Which is really what a lot of this hinges on. *Everyone's* idea of the characters is different. Heck there are giant swathes of fandom who think that Spike would jump Xander in a heartbeat, the idea of which is so alien to me that it is probably the only pairing I could never read. And also this is why I don't have much of a problem with the comics. I see them as fic, informed by the author's view. If his view differs too much from mine, I'll just walk away like I would a fic. Which (again) is why these things just don't work as canon. On TV the writer's vision was filtered through so many screens that they just don't compare...
Comic: Writer + artist = finished product.
TV: Writer + fellow writers + actors + director + set designer, props people etc + time contraints + last minute changes + improvisation + other things I'm forgetting = finished product.
I like Lynch's Spike, and I like the way Urru draws him. There might be niggles, but the overall story is good enough to make them inconsequential. With S8 the niggles (the artwork in particular) are pretty much outweighing the good parts. The story might yet overcome that, we'll have to see...