But I find it very hard to credit that the writers could put in scenes like the "every night I save you" one and Spike saving Buffy from dancing to death and then pretend surprise when a goodly portion of the audience drew the conclusion that there was some legitimate emotional connection between the two characters.
Now, I am someone who ultimately feels that Spike needed his soul back for HIM to feel complete, not just to make everything okay in Buffy's eyes, but I also saw him definitely on the road to redemption *before* getting the soul--precisely because of his actions in "Intervention" and "The Gift" and that speech in "Afterlife", among many others. And I think the thing that upsets me the most is exactly what you've said. The writers each went off on their own ideas of what the S/B relationship meant, they essentially gave Spike a pre-soul and then expected us to buy that he was "evil" all along by having him make speeches about pulling Buffy into the dark and hatching demon eggs and attempting to rape her--and then being "shocked" not only that we were upset with the anvil reminders, but that we could ever have thought Spike was even close to being redeemed without a soul. And JM going around saying how he was responsible for playing Spike with "too much soul" definitely doesn't help.
Sorry. Went all tangenty-ranty there.
Buffy never did the one thing which would have redeemed her completely for me: accept responsibility for her own actions. She came close in CWDP, but immediately backed off and threw the responsibility back on Spike.
That was what I had to get past in order to start liking Buffy again. And I had to fanwank to do it.
It's nice that Joss says Buffy loved Spike at the end, but he shouldn't have had to say it. Joss never had to explain to the audience that Buffy loved Angel.
no subject
But I find it very hard to credit that the writers could put in scenes like the "every night I save you" one and Spike saving Buffy from dancing to death and then pretend surprise when a goodly portion of the audience drew the conclusion that there was some legitimate emotional connection between the two characters.
Now, I am someone who ultimately feels that Spike needed his soul back for HIM to feel complete, not just to make everything okay in Buffy's eyes, but I also saw him definitely on the road to redemption *before* getting the soul--precisely because of his actions in "Intervention" and "The Gift" and that speech in "Afterlife", among many others. And I think the thing that upsets me the most is exactly what you've said. The writers each went off on their own ideas of what the S/B relationship meant, they essentially gave Spike a pre-soul and then expected us to buy that he was "evil" all along by having him make speeches about pulling Buffy into the dark and hatching demon eggs and attempting to rape her--and then being "shocked" not only that we were upset with the anvil reminders, but that we could ever have thought Spike was even close to being redeemed without a soul. And JM going around saying how he was responsible for playing Spike with "too much soul" definitely doesn't help.
Sorry. Went all tangenty-ranty there.
Buffy never did the one thing which would have redeemed her completely for me: accept responsibility for her own actions. She came close in CWDP, but immediately backed off and threw the responsibility back on Spike.
That was what I had to get past in order to start liking Buffy again. And I had to fanwank to do it.
It's nice that Joss says Buffy loved Spike at the end, but he shouldn't have had to say it. Joss never had to explain to the audience that Buffy loved Angel.
Excellent point.