There is no home for me in canon

[botias]

OK so you got this guy.  And you treated him really bad, and then he did something REALLY awful to you, ‘cause, well, he is bad.  But then he felt bad, and went to get his soul.

And you forgive him, and you help him out, save his life really, defend him to your family and friends, stand with him against overwhelming evidence, you let him know that he’s your hero, and Wind Beneath My Wings is playing in your head the whole time.  Finally you fricken hold hands with him even though he’s fricken on fire and standing in a fricken collapsing mouth of hell and, what the heck, you go ahead and say it out loud besides.  You love him.

And then he doesn’t call.  He doesn’t write.  Oh, but he has plenty of time for a nooner with his ex.  And so the verdict is in.  Now that he’s gotten his soul, made the changes, Spike is no longer ‘Hillside Strangler meets Hells Angel’ on the boyfriend scale.  The arrow is moving, it’s moving…  Ding, ding, ding!  Congratulations!  You’re now the ‘Guy That Doesn’t Call’.  Hello Parker!Spike.  Vast improvement I have to say.

  Now many folks contend that Spike was being self-sacrificing, not troubling Buffy with his bad self .  Or that he didn’t think she cared much one way or the other (when he was frickin on fire dammit.)  I’m fine with him not getting on the boat, so far as that goes.  But to not call or write? 

Setting aside the whole ‘I love you’ thing, if Spike could really look back on everything Buffy did for him in S7, going above and beyond and even against the call of her duty to give him a chance at a good life, and still think that it wasn’t extremely important to Buffy whether he was alive or dead, than that gives gives him the emotional intelligence of a one-celled organism.  I just can’t want Paramecium!Spike or Parker!Spike for Buffy.  To my mind… Spike’s wedding tackle shrunk 3 sizes that day.  And given Buffy’s trust issues, it’s hard for me to imagine her ever letting him in again.

I know the non-contact thing was largely dictated by external realities.  It’s pretty impossible to assume that if Spike wrote or called, that Buffy wouldn’t show up.  The Angel writers could have gone to the trouble of having them meet off-screen, but I doubt that the issue of whether Buffy, a non-character, would ever trust Spike, a secondary character, again was a big priority for them.

And so I just write off canon after Chosen.  And for post NFA fics?  I just suspend belief I guess.

Comments

[botias.livejournal.com]

she believes or has convinced herself that he is a thing, incapable of real feelings. She cannot really hurt him; there is no real person in there to be hurt.

I think you have a good point, but I don't know how the break-up scene could be read this way. What would motivate Buffy to go to the effort to break up with, and apologize to, and address by their 'real person' name, something that she thought had no more real feeling than a dildo?

That "I'm sure they're real... for you" speech

I felt that line like a knife. Ouch! But I'm not sure if I would have been much more tactful in Buffy's shoes, assuming the depression, the months of stalking, her self-loathing about being involved in the relationship. There really was something (s) important missing from Spike's love, as they chose to portray it in the show.

[rahirah]

Taken by itself, yeah, calling him William does seem to indicate that Buffy thinks of Spike as a person. Yet...it's one isolated incident in an entire season--how much weight can one hang on it?

I admit I hold Buffy to a higher standard, because she does have a soul, and that should make a difference. I don't mind characters screwing up and doing terrible things. It's just that when that happens, I like to have some indication that the writers know that the characters are coming off badly, and are doing it on purpose. In this case, I'm never entirely sure.

[botias.livejournal.com]

I'm wracking my brain to see if I can think of anything else. (Oh no! I might have to rewatch the season!) Buffy saves his life three different times that season, once at some small risk to her own life and once after she was 'done' with him. If she just sees him as an evil worthless thing, ought she not be neutral or pleased about his misadventures bringing him to a dusty end? And that is in fact the position of the other Scoobies on the matter.

It's very interesting, it's really the show from a Buffy sympathetic position vs. from a Spike sympathetic position. :)

[rahirah]

Yup. And what's quite sad is that I started out as a Buffy person. It takes an awful lot to put me off a character, but ME managed it.

[botias.livejournal.com]

Well, they managed it with me too if you recall. I used to be all Spike sympathetic. My big thought when I saw the AR was 'Oh no, he ain't comin' back from that... *#*$@' not 'Poor Buffy'. Spike finally pushed the wrong button with me in AtS S5 when he didn't contact Buffy.

If only Jane Espenson had been in charge. I really like what I've seen of her, I think I would make her leader of the free world. She could hardly do worse...