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Post by William the Bloody on Jun 6, 2003 3:58:20 GMT -5
Let the discussion begin!
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Post by Spaced Out Looney on Oct 11, 2004 3:24:40 GMT -5
Not only does Spike make this oft quoted observation, but his comment “The last time I looked in on you two, you were fighting to the death. Now you're back making googly-eyes at each other like nothing happened” is also particularly apt. Spike’s always so good at saying the things no one else is willing to mention. Like, yeah Buffy, Angel did try to kill you and end the world, what do you think about that? It's clearly not something Buffy has spent time thinking about.
Point of Speculation: Spike mentions the truce with Buffy to Willow; Willow is of course terrified at the time, but her reaction makes me wonder how much Buffy told the gang about Spike’s involvement in stopping the Acathla Apocalypse.
Angel’s subtle interaction in the episode with Spike is interesting. He seems willing to kill him if Spike is directly hurting somebody, but clearly doesn’t want to see him dust otherwise. And when Spike goes on and on about how Buffy and Angel are responsible for the break-up, Angel never speaks up but its clear that feels some guilt for the way he behaved with the pair in Season 2, while reminding Spike all the while, “well, she is rather fickle.”
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Post by SpringSummers on Oct 11, 2004 7:54:58 GMT -5
Not only does Spike make this oft quoted observation, but his comment “The last time I looked in on you two, you were fighting to the death. Now you're back making googly-eyes at each other like nothing happened” is also particularly apt. Spike’s always so good at saying the things no one else is willing to mention. Like, yeah Buffy, Angel did try to kill you and end the world, what do you think about that? It's clearly not something Buffy has spent time thinking about. The others do call Buffy on her "back with Angel so quick" attitude, especially Giles. And Xander. But when we get to Lovers Walk the gang is trying to accept Angel again because well - my feeling is that they know if they try to force Buffy to choose between them and Angel, they won't be the victors. So Spike is saying what the rest of them are no longer saying. But more than that, he is pretty consistently the expression of Buffy's underlying feelings, whatever they might be. His metaphoric role as her . . . basest desires, her dark side, her unconscious . . . it is very literal sometimes, in the things he says. He says what Buffy is feeling and often doesn't even know (or won't say) she's feeling. I personally think that, underneath it all, Angel has enormous guilt about Spike - much as he does with Dru.
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Post by Spaced Out Looney on Oct 11, 2004 15:35:22 GMT -5
The others do call Buffy on her "back with Angel so quick" attitude, especially Giles. And Xander. But when we get to Lovers Walk the gang is trying to accept Angel again because well - my feeling is that they know if they try to force Buffy to choose between them and Angel, they won't be the victors. So Spike is saying what the rest of them are no longer saying. But more than that, he is pretty consistently the expression of Buffy's underlying feelings, whatever they might be. His metaphoric role as her . . . basest desires, her dark side, her unconscious . . . it is very literal sometimes, in the things he says. He says what Buffy is feeling and often doesn't even know (or won't say) she's feeling. All true, Spring, I guess I thought it was interesting how succinctly Spike put it; unlike Giles and Xander, he doesn't beat around the bush. Definitely acting as her shadow here as you say.
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Post by tatiana on Feb 19, 2006 12:52:40 GMT -5
Hi you all! I've just read Lover's Walk commentary, and when I was with "The harsh light of day"'s one, I realized that there is a little datail, which I love, that hadn't been mentioned yet. At least, I've not read about it.
As Spring Summers say:
**************** Spike gets an introduction whenever he first enters the scene in Sunnydale. In Season 2’s SchoolHard, Xander did the honors with, “Maybe this time, it’ll be different.” Enter our strutting, and very different, anti-hero. In Season 3’s Lovers Walk, it was Cordelia: “What kind of moron would want to come back here?” Enter our drunken moron. In Season 4’s The Harsh Light of Day, it is Buffy herself: “A guy dating Harmony dead. Must be, like, the most tolerant guy in the world.” Enter the most tolerant guy in the world.
*****************
But part of this introduction is the fall of the "Welcome to Sunnydale" poster attached to each of Spike's arrivals to Sunnydale ( School Hard and Lovers Walk) and Spike's farewell (last scene in Chosen).
The fall of that tiny poster ment to me as the final farewell to a glorious warrior. It made me smile among a huge sadness.
Don't you think it was beautiful detail from Joss? Tat
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Post by SpringSummers on Feb 19, 2006 14:06:18 GMT -5
Hi you all! I've just read Lover's Walk commentary, and when I was with "The harsh light of day"'s one, I realized that there is a little datail, which I love, that hadn't been mentioned yet. At least, I've not read about it. As Spring Summers say: **************** Spike gets an introduction whenever he first enters the scene in Sunnydale. In Season 2’s SchoolHard, Xander did the honors with, “Maybe this time, it’ll be different.” Enter our strutting, and very different, anti-hero. In Season 3’s Lovers Walk, it was Cordelia: “What kind of moron would want to come back here?” Enter our drunken moron. In Season 4’s The Harsh Light of Day, it is Buffy herself: “A guy dating Harmony dead. Must be, like, the most tolerant guy in the world.” Enter the most tolerant guy in the world. ***************** But part of this introduction is the fall of the "Welcome to Sunnydale" poster attached to each of Spike's arrivals to Sunnydale ( School Hard and Lovers Walk) and Spike's farewell (last scene in Chosen). The fall of that tiny poster ment to me as the final farewell to a glorious warrior. It made me smile among a huge sadness. Don't you think it was beautiful detail from Joss? Tat Yes - I did love that little detail. Spike knocks the Sunnydale sign down one last time.
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Post by baunger1 on Sept 23, 2010 11:56:02 GMT -5
Hi Spring! I'm doing another re-watch, and just re-read your wonderful analysis of this episode. I wanted to comment on the quote from your "harsh light of day" analysis regarding Spike's introduction in this episode and in "school hard," which was discussed above. In "school hard," when Spike is "welcomed to Sunnydale," he's cocky, he's macho, and he's clearly a demon -- he's in vamp face. But in "Lovers Walk," he's broken and broken-hearted -- and in human face. We're clearly seeing a more human side of him. And integrating these to parts of himself will be his struggle from here on out. And on the same subject, Buffy calls Spike "a shell of a loser." I think this is pretty apt. Up until this point, we've been told that a vampire is a demon walking around in a human shell. But here we really see something of Spike's human self -- someone he certainly sees as a loser -- walking around in his demon shell. Amazing how early the ground work for his monster vs. man problem is laid.
As you say, the episode is so much fun. I grin from ear to ear every time I watch it. And it's the episode that really sent me over the edge re: Spike love.
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Post by SpringSummers on Sept 26, 2010 12:35:02 GMT -5
Hi Spring! I'm doing another re-watch, and just re-read your wonderful analysis of this episode. I wanted to comment on the quote from your "harsh light of day" analysis regarding Spike's introduction in this episode and in "school hard," which was discussed above. In "school hard," when Spike is "welcomed to Sunnydale," he's cocky, he's macho, and he's clearly a demon -- he's in vamp face. But in "Lovers Walk," he's broken and broken-hearted -- and in human face. We're clearly seeing a more human side of him. And integrating these to parts of himself will be his struggle from here on out. And on the same subject, Buffy calls Spike "a shell of a loser." I think this is pretty apt. Up until this point, we've been told that a vampire is a demon walking around in a human shell. But here we really see something of Spike's human self -- someone he certainly sees as a loser -- walking around in his demon shell. Amazing how early the ground work for his monster vs. man problem is laid. As you say, the episode is so much fun. I grin from ear to ear every time I watch it. And it's the episode that really sent me over the edge re: Spike love. Yes, I think I see what you are getting at - Spike is walking around in the "shell of a loser" - i.e. a reference to William, though we haven't met him yet. I think this ep sent me over the edge on the Spike-love, too. He was just so much fun to watch. And pretty.
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Post by williamtheb on Mar 6, 2011 3:54:13 GMT -5
Hi Spring!
I just rewatched Lovers Walk and reread your analysis. Lovely work as always. It's a dense episode, as well as a fun one--I think I've read Joss saying, somewhere, that he did heavy rewrites on this one, and his touch is there. So funny throughout, too. The scene with Joyce just kills me. “You’re a very bad man!” “She sounds very unreasonable.” And the: “You’ll never see the witch again!” “Willow’s a witch?” “And Xander?” “Him too.” “Xander’s a witch?” exchange. And Willow and Spike’s scene…which is lovely to compare/contrast with their scene in The Initiative….
The compare/contrast between the two foursomes is my favourite observation. The two stories do really move in parallel throughout, down to the details. What's interesting is that while you use it to show that Willow/Xander indirectly foreshadows Buffy/Spike, Willow/Xander's more obvious connection over these early season three episodes seems to be to Buffy/Angel. The two start kissing shortly after Angel’s arrival and the mild safety net that Buffy had in Scott Hope leaves her. And their dirty little secret is part of the motivation for Xander to be as angry at her when he found out about Angel’s return as he was (though he had real reason to be angry, too). Willow explicitly drew a comparison to it, in Revelations, as well, when she was asking Buffy if secrets were sexy. And so it’s interesting to consider Spike’s “You’ll never be friends!” speech in terms of W/X. Because as much as it’s arguably true of Buffy and Angel that they can’t (especially not in season three) be “just friends,” it’s Willow and Xander who follow their blood screaming inside them to work their will…and ultimately, they are friends. They used to be just friends and they are just friends again, and while there’s, I think, a little bit of regret on both sides that they never got together, years down the road, for the most part the kissing is the aberration and the friendship is the rule. So not only do they show us in crystal clear form that Spike’s attitude can be very selfish and devastating, but that it’s not always true at all. Being just friends is the worst thing in the world for Spike, who needs to be Everything to someone in order not to be Nothing, to hear; and it was something Willow hated hearing from Xander, implicitly, for years. But Willow and Xander make it as friends after all, and are stronger for it.
I’ve been discussing the Willow/Xander kissing lately with a few friends, and while I know you might not have watched these episodes in a long time I’d be interested in hearing your thoughts. I think there is something interesting going on…the W/X romance scenes in these episodes seem to combine a kind of childlike innocence with an adult lust and thrill from rule-breaking behaviour. It seems just a touch unhealthy, the way the two are combining their childhood friendship with adult needs and sexuality—and I think the slight perversity here gets amped up to 11 when we see them together, stuck eternally in high school, as vampires in The Wish. I think the two should stay friends forever, and it takes someone who’s known Willow all her life to reach her when she goes apocalyptic, but there’s something a tiny bit almost incestuous about the two, who were nearly each other’s entire world growing up, to act on sexual feelings. (That they are together as vampires maps onto all the vamp relationships really well there, since Spike/Dru, Angel/Dru and Angel/Darla all have an incestuous element.) Xander as a boyfriend was a fantasy Willow needed to get over, and I think on some level Xander recognized that it would be better to date someone other than Willow, because it might not be healthy for the two to be each other’s sole support system and lovers.
These episodes are around when Xander and Cordelia, and Willow and Oz are ostensibly moving into serious territory and the prospect of sex is on the horizon, and so I think a lot of what’s fueling their attraction into overdrive to each other is fear of where their actual relationships will lead. Indeed, Xander’s attraction to Willow mostly evaporates (though not 100%) once Cordelia is out of the picture, and I don’t think that’s entirely out of guilt. And so the parallel to Buffy/Angel and Spike/Dru is interesting, because in those cases as well, the actual pairings are sort of keeping people stuck. Willow and Xander had already gotten over each other and started lives romantically with other people, but they’re retreating; Buffy and Angel were trying to get over each other, and certainly couldn’t have an adult (sexual) relationship anymore, most obviously because of the curse but also because of the wide range of abuses that happened there; and Spike is making zero conscious effort to try to get over Dru, but Dru is keeping him stuck as the evil nothing he used to be rather than the hero he’s going to become. It’s interesting then that the love spells Willow and Spike want to perform are opposite (so often on opposite trajectories, those two!) where Willow is trying to make herself move on faster, and Spike is trying to ensure he never has to move on. Lucky for him (and the world!) he has to!
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Post by SpringSummers on Mar 6, 2011 15:14:16 GMT -5
Hi! Yes - we are deliberately reminded of this Lovers Walk scene in The Initiative, when Spike mentions her fuzzy sweater and such. I didn't give it a lot of thought as far as compare/contrast, though I remember wondering if the writers were playing it fast and loose with Spike and Willow's contention that Spike had been playing it cool - or if we were meant to think that they were both revising history a bit, to fit the moment and their perceptions of themselves and each other. Oh, definitely - there are a lot of things going on with the "foursome" comparisons. When it comes to the "just friends" stuff, we are comparing Willow & Xander to Buffy & Angel, I agree. At the same time, we are getting some Cordy & Xander/Angel & Buffy comparisons . . . and of course the Willow/Spike love spell comparisons . . . and all that means, when you extend the comparison out to think about what eventually happens between Buffy & Spike. Yes - the big difference here is that Willow and Xander have a long-standing relationship built on so much more than infatuation. They were friends first, they really, really know each other, and they love each other independently of any sexual chemistry. Buffy & Angel's love is all about the infatuation and the sexual chemistry. Part of the reason they will "never be friends" is that they have never been friends . . . if there is no infatuation and sexual desire, there is nothing left. Agree. On the surface, the ep seems to be about proving Spike and his "it's blood" speech correct, but in fact, the message of this ep is not: "Follow your heart at all costs, absolutely nothing else matters." I have always thought the reason the attraction heats up between Willow and Xander once they are in relationships with Oz and Cordy is exactly what you say: Rule-breaking. Good girl Willow is attracted to being bad (we'll see that over and over). For Xander, it seems to be more about wanting what he can't have. Willow and Xander do have a sister/brother vibe going on, and you're right about the pervy feel to the vamp relationship, so I see where you are coming from. But to me - there is nothing wrong with friends who aren't actually related having sexual feelings and acting on them. In fact, it sounds a lot healthier than relative strangers doing the same. But Willow & Xander are sort of the flip-side of Buffy & Angel. Buffy & Angel are all deep infatuation and desire, with the friendship being a shallow and unsustainable construct; Willow & Xander are all deep friendship with the desire being shallow and unsustainable. I think Xander knew that deep down, neither one had the right kind of feelings for each other, to sustain a romantic relationship, and that trying to do that would ruin their friendship. They're not lovers and they'll never be lovers. They'll be friends till the day they die. They'll fight, they'll make up, they'll sometimes hate each other - but they'll be there for each other even if it kills them both. (And you know, it almost does.) Interesting thought - I mean that the Willow/Xander attraction is in part due to both parties fearing how serious their relationships are getting with Cordy/Oz. I loved the line from the shop owner about the love and anti-love spells: "The supplies are basically the same." I thought that line was all about asking us to realize that though what Willow and Spike are doing seems opposite, there are some very important similarities. Willow and Spike are often compared and contrasted, and they pass each other as Spike moves up toward the light and Willow moves down toward the darkness. You, your friend that you write with, and I need to write a book together. But who would want to read the 10,000 page tome?
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Post by Sue on Mar 6, 2011 20:51:46 GMT -5
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Post by williamtheb on Mar 7, 2011 17:32:25 GMT -5
Yes - we are deliberately reminded of this Lovers Walk scene in The Initiative, when Spike mentions her fuzzy sweater and such. I didn't give it a lot of thought as far as compare/contrast, though I remember wondering if the writers were playing it fast and loose with Spike and Willow's contention that Spike had been playing it cool - or if we were meant to think that they were both revising history a bit, to fit the moment and their perceptions of themselves and each other. What is interesting is the way Willow reacts differently in the two scenes…in both cases, her life is threatened. But here, while she comforts Spike quickly (“there, there”), she mostly acts in self-preservation. In The Initative, because she’s so…despondent over Oz’ departure, she is more willing to play the victim (and encourage Spike to try again) because she’s looking for any sign at all that she’s attractive. (And there’s a hint of her Buffy-jealousy there too… “You came for Buffy, and you settled.”) And Spike for his part, is actually considerate for Willow’s feelings in The Initiative. He wants to kill her, but he also wants to reassure her, whereas in the Lovers Walk scene he really cared only about himself. It’s pre-chip, pre-anything really…but he’s already showing some progress. It’s probably just that he’s further away from Dru…. It’s true though that the scene kind of rewrites history by suggesting that neither remembered that Spike was pretty obvious about his desire to “have” Willow. I hadn’t thought about that so much, but I like the idea that they’re rewriting history a bit. Willow and Spike both do that type of thing; Willow would definitely let any hint that someone’s attracted to her slip from her mind, since she’s convinced she’s unattractive, and Spike would definitely rewrite history to make himself seem more cool and together than he actually was. Yeah, absolutely about the Xander & Cordelia/Buffy & Angel comparisons, and Willow & Spike. It’s interesting the way the mirrors keep flipping around. And that does lead to Buffy & Spike feeling on some level that they are cheating on their “forever loves” of Angel and Drusilla, respectively, when they develop feelings for each other. Great way to put it. Of course Buffy and Angel will never be friends. This makes me think, in terms of Buffy/Spike comparisons, how Buffy and Spike, in season seven, (foreshadowed) are somewhere in between Willow/Xander and Buffy/Angel as a couple…they have elements of friendship, and of course they have passion. In season six it's mostly (not all) passion. Since you mentioned Xander/Cordelia as a parallel to Buffy/Angel, they’re another couple who mostly get swept up by a grand passion but don’t know how to relate to each other as friends…but they are closer, I think, to knowing each other for who they are than Buffy and Angel are. Definitely, she's attracted to being bad. But it's not...just that though, that she and Xander develop feelings at this particular time. I think that's why she continues with the affair over these episodes, but not that initial kiss. Maybe it's just that the "clothes fluke" was the first time kissing Xander seemed like a real possibility. Absolutely though Xander is attracted to what he can't have, over and over again. I do agree with this in general, and I don’t want to overstate the case when it comes to W/X. My best relationship was with someone who was a friend for years before any passion sprang up. (Personal aside: our first kiss didn’t go well—she said it reminded her of Cordelia and Wesley in season three! But the passion did come after that.) I think if, a few years down the line, Xander and Willow tried out a relationship, it wouldn’t be a bad thing. What I am trying to articulate here is that there is this sort of…idealized sweetness and childlike infatuation in their scenes. The scene in Band Candy where they are playing footsies under the lab bench really comes to mind. The passion seems less “grown-up” than their relationships with Oz and Cordelia are, so I feel like there’s a bit of a hint that right now, at this stage in their lives, getting together, and the way they are getting together, would mean regressing, and in particular regressing to a time where their world was just them. It’s less that they shouldn’t ever act on sexual feelings, and more the particular context where they’re retreating from adult relationships combined with trying to be a “bad girl” thing to do. I don’t really think it’s that bad or unhealthy—it’s just that there’s a slight hint of something off or wrong about their pairing and the way they go about it that I think The Wish moves from subtext to text. But that wrongness might really be about something else…about the way they are hurting Cordelia, obviously, if nothing else. I might be caught up in some subtext that isn't actually there. This just says it all! Perfect. Yeah...I think it's especially in character for Xander to sabotage his relationship once it starts to get serious. With Anya, I think he fights the urge to sabotage a lot harder, both because he's older and feels like he needs Anya even more. But sabotage he still does. With Willow, she's said a few times in early season three that dating a werewolf is scary. That ‘the supplies are basically the same” line is just great. Both about the thin line between love and hate (especially if you're going with a Spike-type definition of passion, which doesn't distinguish between love and hate at all), and between Willow and Spike. I really like the Willow/Spike parallels that run through the show…along with Buffy I think they are my favourite characters. And it’s interesting that to a degree their paths are both brought out by Buffy…it’s Buffy who inspires Willow to seek out power (and indirectly the darkness that that leads to) and who inspires Spike to seek out goodness. What I like is that season seven sort of brings them into the same direction, where they have to find a way to access both the light and the dark…in Get it Done Buffy tells both of them that they’re useless if they aren’t willing to access a bit of their dark powers, and in Chosen because of Buffy’s plan they both end up saving the world, bathed in light. Willow has been brought from light to dark and Spike from dark to light, and season seven (and Buffy, particularly) sort of says to both: now take the past six years, and be the best of both that you can be. I like Sue's idea of self-publishing. Maybe we could just have 1000 page instalments! For the record, friend (and her brother) and I up to Band Candy--hence my being in season three on the rewatch!
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Post by baunger1 on Mar 8, 2011 13:41:58 GMT -5
Really enjoying this discussion about an episode I really love.
I am fascinated by the Spike/Willow parallel, and how their interaction in this episode and in The Initiative illustrate it.
As pointed out, Spike and Willow travel the same path -- light to dark, and back to light -- but intersect when each is at a different place on that path. In this episode, Spike's journey away from darkness has already begun, but Willow's journey toward darkness is at its start. And here, that darkness is represented by their shared desire to use magic selfishly and inappropriately -- for personal gain at the expense of affecting the mind of a loved one without the loved one's knowledge or consent. What's interesting is that the idea of using magic in this way is Willow's, not Spike's. Sure, Spike seizes on Willow's plan in an effort to hold on to Dru -- the person who facilitated his becoming evil, and who has inspired his aspirations to Big Badness -- thereby holding on to the evil identity he's developed for over a century. But the chipping away at that identity has already begun -- he's already becoming "not demon enough." Willow, on the other hand, is only just opening the door to a place where good and evil intentions get muddled -- where "the supplies are basically the same." So they're together in a place where they each want to use magic for similar (bad) reasons, but their paths intersect here as they move in opposite directions.
The difference between Spike's behavior in Lovers Walk and The Initiative is also really interesting. In both cases, Spike accidentally stumbles upon Willow, and she only becomes his prey opportunistically; in both cases, he fails to "have" her; and in both cases, Spike seeks sympathy about his emotional crisis from the most innappropriate of listeners -- the person he's threatening with violence and/or death. As noted above, in Lovers Walk, Spike has no awareness of, or, at the very least, is indifferent to, Willow's feelings. This is also shown in this episode when he abruptly cuts off Joyce as she tries to commiserate with him about his romantic woes. He cannot accept that their experiences may be similar, because he lacks empathy, or, at least, the ability or willingness to access empathy.
But in The Initiative, Spike's response is very different. His "failure to perform" strikes directly at his own insecurity and sense of inadequacy; it threatens his notion of himself as evil, masculine, sexual (in the same way that losing Dru did). Similarly, the "failure to perform" strikes at Willow's insecurity and sense of inadequacy about her femininity and sexual desirability. And because their insecurity and sense of inadequacy have such similar roots -- rejection by peers, by their first loves, by their first long-term partners -- Spike recognizes her pain. Not only that, he stops bemoaning his own situation and he puts his own pain aside in order to comfort and reassure her. His chip-created inability to channel emotion into harmful violence against another allows him to feel empathy -- to momentarily see another person's pain as something other than entertainment. I know there's a lot of debate about when we first see how the chip alters Spike on an emotional/psychological level rather than simply on a behavioral level. I think it happens right here.
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Post by SpringSummers on Mar 8, 2011 20:34:53 GMT -5
Yes - we are deliberately reminded of this Lovers Walk scene in The Initiative, when Spike mentions her fuzzy sweater and such. I didn't give it a lot of thought as far as compare/contrast, though I remember wondering if the writers were playing it fast and loose with Spike and Willow's contention that Spike had been playing it cool - or if we were meant to think that they were both revising history a bit, to fit the moment and their perceptions of themselves and each other. What is interesting is the way Willow reacts differently in the two scenes…in both cases, her life is threatened. But here, while she comforts Spike quickly (“there, there”), she mostly acts in self-preservation. In The Initative, because she’s so…despondent over Oz’ departure, she is more willing to play the victim (and encourage Spike to try again) because she’s looking for any sign at all that she’s attractive. (And there’s a hint of her Buffy-jealousy there too… “You came for Buffy, and you settled.”) And Spike for his part, is actually considerate for Willow’s feelings in The Initiative. He wants to kill her, but he also wants to reassure her, whereas in the Lovers Walk scene he really cared only about himself. It’s pre-chip, pre-anything really…but he’s already showing some progress. It’s probably just that he’s further away from Dru…. It’s true though that the scene kind of rewrites history by suggesting that neither remembered that Spike was pretty obvious about his desire to “have” Willow. I hadn’t thought about that so much, but I like the idea that they’re rewriting history a bit. Willow and Spike both do that type of thing; Willow would definitely let any hint that someone’s attracted to her slip from her mind, since she’s convinced she’s unattractive, and Spike would definitely rewrite history to make himself seem more cool and together than he actually was. The more I think about it, the more I buy the idea that the writers deliberately had the characters "rewrite history" to suit and support the way they were feeling about themselves at that moment. I mean, the writers must have reviewed the Lovers Walk scene, when writing The Initiative scene. So they knew full well that Spike had not been "playing it cool," etc. By season six, Buffy and Spike have known each other for quite some time, been through quite a lot together, and already have a friendship -well, alright, some seething hatred is in there also . Their relationship builds up. Cordy and Xander are being paralleled with B/A, but yeah - they have known each other since childhood, and they have gone to the same schools, grown up in the same town, known the same people, are the same age . . . very different in that way, from B/A. B/A was grand passion, but (almost) only grand passion. Buffy and Angel did have some things in common - mostly about that overdrive for perfection and control, that is ultimately so counterproductive, when it comes to getting anywhere near perfection or control. Hmmm. There is a bit of "wrongness" being broadcast there . . . I remember reading that Joss had considered, early on, having Xander or Willow turn out to be gay. So maybe there's a bit of that being set up, here. Though, honestly, as much as I love Joss and love how "emotionally honest" his portrayals are, Willow's gayness was one area where I thought the whole thing felt a bit "shoe-horned" in. I was never sure what we were meant to make of her Xander and Oz relationships. But I confess I have not paid close attention to these things. Maybe Joss laid more groundwork, and it isn't as "shoe-horned" as it seemed to me. There sure is a lot of stuff to write about. Some episodes I found myself struggling with "what to write," but some of them, I found myself struggling to cut down on the amount I was writing.
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Post by SpringSummers on Mar 8, 2011 20:42:23 GMT -5
Really enjoying this discussion about an episode I really love. Glad you joined us! So true! Had not really thought about that. Nice thinking. I had never given any thought to when we see the "first clear indication of the chip affecting Spike's behavior," but I think you are right. In the past, he would have succeeded in biting Willow, and would have had no opportunity, desire, or reason to reflect on anything. So already, the chip is starting to give "William" a chance to peek out.
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