There is no home for me in canon
May. 17th, 2006 10:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
botiasOK 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.
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.
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Re: as if that reply wasn't long enough...
Date: 2006-05-25 08:10 pm (UTC)Really there was no one on Angel for him to be sensitive and vulnerable around, except maybe Fred. Who else did he show that to but Buffy? Not that I'm a big fan of flayed!Spike or anything.
I agree that Spike was more or less content throwing in with the good guys, but I don't think he was ever put in a place where he had to reexamine his position of 'The only reason I'm not Big Bad is because of the chip, that's what I really want to be.' I think he got a start on it when he thought his chip was broken, but then it showed itself to be working and that was the end of that. I don't doubt he was relieved to set all that ambiguity aside for another day, preferably one that will never come. So he never committed himself to making a place among the white hats.
It seemed like his efforts were in encouraging Buffy to distance herself, to dwell in limbo with him, not in making himself a reasonable facsimile. I think in his assistance to the Scoobies, he at least told himself that he was just honoring his promise to Buffy, not trying to befriend them, and it didn't seem like he was putting himself forward that way at all. In all his scenes he's walking out on their requests for help, or insulting them, or making it clear he's only offering the minimum of assistance.
His disappointment when they kept him out of the loop might have told him otherwise. Maybe he would have tried if he had ever been in a place where he thought his Big Bad days were never going to come again, or if he tried to be Big Bad and realized that's not what he wanted anymore.
I'm guessing his chip being out would have ended in tragedy. I think he would have found his old ways too seductive still, at that point.
Re: as if that reply wasn't long enough...
Date: 2006-05-25 11:34 pm (UTC)Another facsinating bit was a comment in an inverview with Drew Z. Greenberg (the guy who wrote Smashed) to the effect that if the chip really hadn't been working, Spike would have killed Alley Woman "and then probably felt bad about it afterwards." No offense to Alley Woman, but I really wish they'd gone in that direction. Had Spike kill her, and have him realize that he does feel bad, and freak out. And then have Buffy find out he'd killed someone. That would have made for a glorious tangle of moral dilemmas all around.