elisi | Buffy s8 #36. (The one where I couldn't keep a straight face.)

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(i was paid to read) s8

Buffy s8 #36. (The one where I couldn't keep a straight face.)

You know, Doctor Who has the perfect quote for everything. Although I'm not sure I'm going to do much poking... More pointing and laughing.

Right. Well. So I had mentally prepared myself for the worst, and then the story was... *flails* No seriously, just look at this:

"You gave me superpowers and tantric sex in space and ~PERFECTION~ and then you nobly gave it all up for me (*tear*) - let's move in together in my lovely castle and live happily ever after!"

I don't even know where to begin. "Bestest day of her life"??? REALLY? I mean, it's somewhere beyond ridiculous and way, way out there in the wild yonder where the maps say 'Here be dragons'. Oh and this made me laugh:

And then the whole 'You can't blame them for being a little pissed off' and Angel's noble 'I don't'...

Is that it? 'Oh, you naughty, naughty Angel, killing people and destroying the world! Bad boy, go stand in the corner. And you'll get no dessert!'

Actually Angel's characterisation was the only thing that got me actually cross what with 'I don't trust him' re. Spike, which was just so blatantly *wrong* on all levels that I wanted to kick something. But clearly Angel's been turned into a 12 year old permanently, so whatever. It's not like any other part of his personality makes sense anymore. Ditto Buffy. I'd like to think that this is all the glow, and that the rampant OOCness indicates the fact that they're not themselves, but considering the rest of s8 (remember Dracula and Xander being BFFs? That was played completely straight!) I'm not jumping to any conclusions.

And then Spike. Oh Spike. Spike who obviously went away somewhere, for some reason, and returned with a steampunk ship and a bug crew who call him 'Your Majesty' (this never got old!). And then proceeded to be smart and resourceful and dig out all the facts (unlike Angel who just wandered around with some kind of higher power talking at him and following blindly), so he'd know what to do to stop it all. And I'm sorry, but competence is my biggest kink of all, so I've got no complaints. Plus, this Spike strikes me as very close to Brian Lynch's Spike, which is not a bad thing. Oh and did I mention? Bugs that call him 'Your Majesty'!!!! *dies laughing again* Spike is ALWAYS best when he has friends/minions. (Well he's best when he's a Fool For Love, but Joss will never ever go there, so I'm just pleased to have competent!Spike around - esp when contrasted with brainwashed!moron!Angel and clueless!comic!Buffy.)

Also, this whole thing about universes/realities being sentient is just fabulous crack. I'm really looking forward to seeing Twilight throwing a tantrum!

Oh, and then they have to go find THE SEED OF WONDER! Which is all RED and GLOWY and guarded by The Master who has been dead dead since the start of S2. What next? Daleks? Sorry, wrong show. Um... Illyria? Oh wait, AtS never happened. Oh I know - Glory! And maybe also the Mayor. BigSnake!Mayor, obviously, since THEY CAN DO WHATEVER THEY LIKE!

And in conclusion another gif...

(Here it is on youtube with music, in case you're not familiar.)

Oh and you should also read this post by

rahirah (there's food metaphors!) and

shipperx's Vid Post Remedy for Season 8. ETA: Also THIS POST by

knifeedgefic about The Trouble with Comic Book Continuations.

ETA: RyallTime has posted a preview of Lynch and Urru's Spike comic. It is so gorgeous (in every way) that it HURTS! *grabby hands* (That last page? THAT is what comics can do!)

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BRILLIANT. You just proved why Buffy/Angel are possessed by equating it to Xander/Dracula.

(Which I don't you meant to, but...!!!)

Xander and Dracula start off and really aren't BFFs. Xander is flatout terrified at the suggestion he has to go see Dracula because of thrall. He spends an entire issue being OTT BFF with Dracula because of thrall and having Renee trying to shake him out of it. Then Renee dies--Xander completely shakes off the thrall and becomes his own man. Dracula tries to reclaim him as his manservant when Dracula wishes to leave Tokyo and Xander says he'll kill him if ht calls him that name again.

Buffy glow = Xander thrall.

FREE WILL IS A THEME.

Buffy glow = Xander thrall.
Could be. It's a good theory, absolutely, but I am impossibly cynical at this point, so until it's text I won't believe it. Anyway, I'm happy to have helped you. :)

And Dracula is sitting there a brooding old man before Xander comes calling. He 'helps' but is still quite evil. The more I read the comics the more thoroughly is it clear that Joss is 100% dead serious when he says he likes Spike better, etc. etc. I'm thinking I'm going to succumb and write more meta before today is over.

Remember how Dracula said he sold his very soul to get his powers and all of fandom went "what? Dracula had a soul?"

Which I know probably suggests that he got his powers while still human. But isn't that the only time soul has been brought up this season and it's by the only prominent vampire in the first half of the season who isn't Spike or Angel.

Tenuous connection, but still strikes me as interesting.

I was always sure Dracula was standing in for one or the other of Buffy's vampiric boyfriends. Drac is a lot like pre-souled Spike. Helping for love, but still evil. But the soul thing and the brooding thing is all Angel. In general Bangel is getting pushed into season 6 Spuffy mode -- which is interesting because Angel doesn't have the excuse of being soulless. Joss isn't kidding when he says he likes Spike better and thinks he's more evolved.

Which to me is such a welcome contrast to what IDW is putting in their SPIKE series with that evolution chart. I really enjoyed that preview (for the art alone even! The colorist is the one I worshipped from AtF! FABIO MANTOVANI!) until I got to that page where he put Angel ahead as noble.

What Lynch doesn't seem to realize is that Spike doesn't think Angel is overly noble, but a selfish bastard who acts holier than thou. But then Lynch seems to have missed the boat on Angel being a bastard when he feels he has to save the world or his actions are for the greater good.

I didn't mind that graph so much, because of the text with it. The graph isn't fact, it's Spike's pov. Spike's always sort of looked up to Angel, even though he loves to insult him. It's a pov thing, if it had been written from a third person omniscient pov, showing that graph as a fact, it'd be a problem. But since it's from Spike's pov it's ok, because it shows Spike's lack of confidence in his heroicness.

Well, as I said above, I don't believe that's actually Spike's POV. Spike hates how Angel acts holier-than-thou, not that Angel really is because again Spike still thinks Angel can be as ruthless as Angelus.

Must disagree on Spike, and that page. 'Ten being so noble it's coma inducing' is perfect Spike POV re. Angel. First of all, 'coma inducing' is hardly a ringing endorsement, it's totally poking fun. Because Spike knows that Angel aspires to be a ten on the noble scale. Angel has a *need* to be the great hero, to sacrifice himself, to be the one who saves the day. It's part of who he is, and the same reason that he strived to be the worst when he was evil, talking about 'art' whilst Spike rolled his eyes. I'm reminded of a line from Spike: Asylum when Spike reflects on how he saved the day:

“This isn’t what Angel would have done. He would have gone down fighting. But, truth be told... I’m not Angel. And you know what? That’s OK.”

Spike doesn't see Angel 'nobility' as something he himself needs. Spike cares about saving the day, not about whether it's himself or someone else, whereas with Angel it's always ANGEL at the centre of things. (Mostly I'm thinking of Anna's review of Damage which spells out their differences beautifully.

Anyway - Spike likes tearing Angel down. But he also looks up to him - how can he not? Angel is, after all, his father figure. (Read

romanyg's Spangel Manifesto for deeper thoughts on this.) What I mean it, Spike's bonds to Angel run very, very deep. Like with Buffy, he's seen the best and the worst of him, he's family, and they're the only two souled vampires in the world. They understand each other, much like Faith and Buffy do. (And indeed, Buffy/Faith is v. similar in dynamic to Angel/Spike - the bonds, the understanding, the jealousy.) So yes, Spike knows that Angel can be a selfish bastard, but he also knows *why*. And remember, he's the first to raise his hand when Angel asks them all to fight with him.

(I could go on like this, sorry 'bout the rambling. But Spike/Angel is as much my ship as Spike/Buffy, and they're being treated far, far worse - except for 'Always Darkest' when they were a joke.)

Just to reiterate, I believe Spike sees Angel as aspiring to be noble and acting like he's noble--but not really being noble.

Spike is the guy who sees the truth behind the facade. Angel on AtS is ANYTHING but noble on a scale of 10. Lynch apparently sees Angel this way. Lynch is, imo, so totally wrong. Angel in NFA is not noble, but a dark anti-hero who murders people to save the world. Road to hell and good intentions, mate.

And Spike sees this. He sees Angel's darkness because Spike has that darkness inside himself. Look at Destiny. "You made me a monster!" Spike doesn't delude himself that Angel is noble to the scale of 10, but rather that Angel hypocritically acts and believes he's more noble than Spike. And Spike resents him for it and denies the truth of it.

That's why they're so brilliant together. Spike SEES Angel for what he really is. They're brothers in arms who know each other so well because they're so alike. And Spike understands that mask Angel wears because Spike constructs his own mask, that of the badass devil-may-care warrior to protect the overly sensitive inner poet's heart. Angel is somewhat of a bastard (with an adorable dorkishness) who wears the mask of noble champion.

Angel is not the most evolved character (I agree with Whedon on this). And Spike's too damned insightful to think it. Spike resents Angel because Angel thinks he's more noble than Spike, not because Spike thinks that. Which is why I think the evolution chart is bad writing--Lynch is writing Spike from Angel's POV when he should be writing him from Spike's POV.

Edited 2010-09-04 10:11 (UTC)

OK, waaaaaaay late with this, but.

Spike resents Angel because Angel thinks he's more noble than Spike, not because Spike thinks that. Which is why I think the evolution chart is bad writing--Lynch is writing Spike from Angel's POV when he should be writing him from Spike's POV.
I have to disagree with this. First of all 'So noble it's coma inducing' is hardly a ringing endorsement. I can totally hear Spike say it, and Angel would know instantly that he was taking the piss and tell him to shut up. Secondly Angel has a *need* to be noble that Spike doesn't. To quote Anna:

[Angel] only sees the soul, the soul that is all that keeps him on the side of the good. It's a terrible paradox. If he accepts the guilt of his past, he makes a mockery of guilt, of repentance, because he feels it only because he is crippled with a soul. If he denies it, he denies the truth.

So he won't look within. He'll look without. He'll focus on destiny, on redemption, on the eternal balance between good and evil.

So he fights to be the best, to be the noblest, just like he was once the worst. Spike doesn't need that at all - Spike fights the good fight, because it's the right things to do ('It's not about me at all.'), but - because he's very perceptive - he understands Angel. And I don't think he resents him. Well he did, but (and this is why I love it) over the course of AtS S5 they both came to accept each other. So Spike will happily let Angel be #1 Noble Souled Vampire, because he knows the pain and insecurities that underpin that need, and also how shaky that mask really is. Oh, and I do think that Angel is noble, btw. He's my Big Damn Hero and I love him. ♥

LOL! When we have comment conversations it's like Buffy and Spike are gazing at each other in our icons.

Be careful, people might start talking...

Speaking of icons, that panel of Spike's eye when he talked about 'ditched at birth' really got to me.

The more I read the comics the more thoroughly is it clear that Joss is 100% dead serious when he says he likes Spike better, etc. etc.
And that he never 'got' Angel?

Meta would be lovely, but I still won't believe a word of anything until the 'season' is finished! We're *way* too good at projecting meaning where there probably is none... (But don't be put off! I'd LOVE it if you were right!)

Did you see my piece on a Spuffy reading of season 8? It all fell into place last night and I'm on a meta high. Sorry for squeeing all over the place.

Not got that far yet. RL is busy, sadly...

If you get a chance, I'd be curious about what you think.

Was out most of the day, but managed to read your piece. And it's very clever. It might even be what Joss is going for, what with the way he loves subverting stuff.

However, I think it might be my least favourite reading of s8, because having Buffy be stuck in one place, emotionally, since she was 17, unable to move on and projecting perfection onto Angel a la Bella is... horrific to me. Especially the idea that after everything she went through with Riley and Spike she *reverted* to that childish fantasy. (It's a way of magnifying all my issues with s8, with no positive spin at all...)

I'm really sorry, and I don't want to rain on your parade, but that's just how I feel. Being raped by the universe is a far more appealing prospect.

Thanks for reading!

We have different tastes. For me, I like it. The notion that we slay our monsters and leave them behind is more storytelling than truth. Truth is that we slay the monsters, feel like we've left them behind, and then come back next fall and find that the bones are still there, still threatening, and that we have issues. So I don't see this as a story of regression.

Buffy has been moving towards risking the pain, being open to intimacy. But she's conflicted about it. She's formed with a view of herself and the world, and those don't shake off easily. Also, insofar as the world is really scary, our early strategies for coping are always going to seem attractive, and safe. I think that's just true. There's part of her that can move on to Spike, and think about Xander. But there's a part that just wants to run and hide in Angel.

Don't forget, also, that what we're seeing isn't what Buffy would do if she were free from the Twilight juice. Somebody knows her very well and is playing her. Angel was brought back *to* play this role for her. The story is giving her one more chance to smash those bones to powder.

If my experience in life is any guide, it still won't fully take. Maturity isn't getting rid of weaknesses. At the end of the day maturity is learning to live with and work around the weaknesses that are part of the hand we were dealt. That means we get repeated challenges revisiting the same themes -- hopefully in spirals rather than in futile circles. That Joss knows this is one of my favorite things about the guy.

Well it all ties in with my initial problem with s8: Buffy lives in a castle in Scotland, and is all cut off from everything. (Xander with Dracula, Willow on mystical walk-abouts, Dawn in college until she becomes a giant, Faith in Cleveland, Andrew in Italy, Giles all around the place...) I can see *why* she'd close herself off, in a situation like that. What I can't understand is why she's there in the first place.

According to show canon she's in Rome, living with her sister, and dating the Immortal. And sure, her choice of boyfriend is an indicator of a certain inability to let go of her 'type' (and I think she *needs* someone like that btw), but it's a variation on a theme, not an encore. I like Buffy in Rome, it makes sense. It's poetic, even, and ties in with previous canon (Darla loved Rome).

Buffy in Scotland never made any sense, and has never been explained. I can see why the castle ties in with the fairytale thing, but that only gives it sense in a meta-sense, not a logical one.

Aaaand I better stop. It's never going to work for me, and the sooner it's over, the better!

I love this parallel! Give me more! Ahhh I'm all excited after reading all these wonderful reviews!

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Buffy s8 #36. (The one where I couldn't keep a straight face.)

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