beccaelizabeth (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
beccaelizabeth) wrote2015-08-23 09:18 pm
beccaelizabeth) wrote2015-08-23 09:18 pm
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Buffy the Vampire Slayer season 7 Lessons & Beneath You
Too tired to write up much, and I still need to do thinking on season 6, but
I remember now why I joined the Soulful Spike Society.
James Marsters is spectacular. The way he shades his performance into all those varieties of Spike-not-Spike. I just want to draw little hearts around his picture again.
... um, the feeling isn't new, I don't think I did the actual hearts thing.
... though I do have many of his picture.
I mean I've been following him around conventions long enough that its kind of its own reason, like, hey, I could see him again, cool. But reasons to be a fan?
<3 <3 <3
Spike so very needs a hug.
And yeah, he still did the bad things, but by the end of this episode when he's draped himself over a cross babbling about forgiveness?
See this is what Spike and Anya were lacking up until here. Repentance. Any demonstrated understanding that what they'd done was wrong, or would be wrong to do again. Not just 'I'm the big bad' wrong but actually feeling wrong. Willow also had some deficits in this area when she didn't seem to be sorry she did a spell on her girlfriend just sorry it made bad feelings. And Warren had an utter lack of remorse right up until the end, was all 'deserved it'. Jonathan got it, Andrew was a mess, Warren was deliberately and unrepentantly evil. But now, Anya and Spike both, and Willow in her way, they've got a journey going on. Different levels of bad done. But arriving at this same feeling, guilt, remorse, repentance.
Spike understood enough to know he'd done wrong, when he left Buffy in the bathroom. Can't be a monster, can't be a man. The fake out (played entirely too strong) was that he was going to get the chip removed and be a monster. Made it look like the soul was a surprise. But here he explains, he knew he needed the spark, to be what she deserved. He knew he needed to get it back, to be the man who would never...
So this is the thing amazing about Spike's journey. He starts out the big bad, he gets a selfish reason to save the world (cause all his stuff is here, plus happy meals on legs), then he gets this selfish obsession that's the very best he can manage by way of love. But from there he realises he needs to change, so he goes to get his soul back.
And religions tend to be pretty clear that soul having beings are just one religiously motivated journey away from redemption or enlightenment or whatever the equivalent is.
He tried being bad, it wasn't enough, so he went and got the parts he'd need to be good.
But then there's karma, cause and effect, because now he understands what he did, he understands how wrong it was. He was kind of coping up until he hurt a human, and it wasn't a headache that felt the worst about that. So now he's suffering, because he gets it. That makes it hell. Nothing the cross can do to him can touch what he's feeling, when he realises what he's done.
There was a lot of argue about this whole bit with the soul. Spike was doing his best before, so why wasn't that enough? To do good, that should be plenty, right?
But without the basic empathy, the feeling that would understand what his victims felt, he's crunching around trying to copy in the dark. In universe, that's the best he can do, without a soul. But in universe he realises that and decides to go get his own personal guiding light back.
Writer level, they'd done what they could with a soulless Spike, so this is a way to ring the changes.
Just... if what they think is necessary is him feeling really bad, I've got to disagree. Feeling really bad and staying in the bad feeling isn't any use, for enlightenment or redemption paradigms. And I have some issues with the idea of monsters having a bit missing in the first place, because humans can monster plenty well with all their parts in place.
But a Spike who refers to Drusilla as his salvation? Who wants to dance with Buffy, like he danced with two Slayers before? That's a guy who can only get so far. He's changed his targets, not his ethics.
If the rules of the 'verse stayed like they were with Angel I'd have increasingly less time with it. Morality as a plug in, removed by demon or installed by curse? Blergh. If what Spike said about demons not changing had stayed true, I'd have got annoyed with this story. But here, with the soul quest, the one Spike willingly engaged in when he hit the limits of his former state? Everything changes. Because now that's the nature of vampires, of demons: they can choose to be different. If they see the need, they can choose.
It just comes with glowy light effects there.
So I like it.
Mostly.
On balance.
And I am very much enamoured of James Marsters' performance.
I remember now why I joined the Soulful Spike Society.
James Marsters is spectacular. The way he shades his performance into all those varieties of Spike-not-Spike. I just want to draw little hearts around his picture again.
... um, the feeling isn't new, I don't think I did the actual hearts thing.
... though I do have many of his picture.
I mean I've been following him around conventions long enough that its kind of its own reason, like, hey, I could see him again, cool. But reasons to be a fan?
<3 <3 <3
Spike so very needs a hug.
And yeah, he still did the bad things, but by the end of this episode when he's draped himself over a cross babbling about forgiveness?
See this is what Spike and Anya were lacking up until here. Repentance. Any demonstrated understanding that what they'd done was wrong, or would be wrong to do again. Not just 'I'm the big bad' wrong but actually feeling wrong. Willow also had some deficits in this area when she didn't seem to be sorry she did a spell on her girlfriend just sorry it made bad feelings. And Warren had an utter lack of remorse right up until the end, was all 'deserved it'. Jonathan got it, Andrew was a mess, Warren was deliberately and unrepentantly evil. But now, Anya and Spike both, and Willow in her way, they've got a journey going on. Different levels of bad done. But arriving at this same feeling, guilt, remorse, repentance.
Spike understood enough to know he'd done wrong, when he left Buffy in the bathroom. Can't be a monster, can't be a man. The fake out (played entirely too strong) was that he was going to get the chip removed and be a monster. Made it look like the soul was a surprise. But here he explains, he knew he needed the spark, to be what she deserved. He knew he needed to get it back, to be the man who would never...
So this is the thing amazing about Spike's journey. He starts out the big bad, he gets a selfish reason to save the world (cause all his stuff is here, plus happy meals on legs), then he gets this selfish obsession that's the very best he can manage by way of love. But from there he realises he needs to change, so he goes to get his soul back.
And religions tend to be pretty clear that soul having beings are just one religiously motivated journey away from redemption or enlightenment or whatever the equivalent is.
He tried being bad, it wasn't enough, so he went and got the parts he'd need to be good.
But then there's karma, cause and effect, because now he understands what he did, he understands how wrong it was. He was kind of coping up until he hurt a human, and it wasn't a headache that felt the worst about that. So now he's suffering, because he gets it. That makes it hell. Nothing the cross can do to him can touch what he's feeling, when he realises what he's done.
There was a lot of argue about this whole bit with the soul. Spike was doing his best before, so why wasn't that enough? To do good, that should be plenty, right?
But without the basic empathy, the feeling that would understand what his victims felt, he's crunching around trying to copy in the dark. In universe, that's the best he can do, without a soul. But in universe he realises that and decides to go get his own personal guiding light back.
Writer level, they'd done what they could with a soulless Spike, so this is a way to ring the changes.
Just... if what they think is necessary is him feeling really bad, I've got to disagree. Feeling really bad and staying in the bad feeling isn't any use, for enlightenment or redemption paradigms. And I have some issues with the idea of monsters having a bit missing in the first place, because humans can monster plenty well with all their parts in place.
But a Spike who refers to Drusilla as his salvation? Who wants to dance with Buffy, like he danced with two Slayers before? That's a guy who can only get so far. He's changed his targets, not his ethics.
If the rules of the 'verse stayed like they were with Angel I'd have increasingly less time with it. Morality as a plug in, removed by demon or installed by curse? Blergh. If what Spike said about demons not changing had stayed true, I'd have got annoyed with this story. But here, with the soul quest, the one Spike willingly engaged in when he hit the limits of his former state? Everything changes. Because now that's the nature of vampires, of demons: they can choose to be different. If they see the need, they can choose.
It just comes with glowy light effects there.
So I like it.
Mostly.
On balance.
And I am very much enamoured of James Marsters' performance.