Re: ::BuffyWantsWillow:: Lessons--SPOILERS

[danspector@xxxxxxxxx]

An excellent concept, CA! And bonus props for still putting in the
Spoiler Space down below, since we need to keep the Spoiler content away
from those who read our non-Spoiler spec.

Xanya is certainly tactically useful for B/W, but I'd like to have a
better reason than that. Anya has lost her appeal for me since the
third season, and I've never really been convinced that Xander loves
her. (Yeah, Marti gave him the big speech in "Into the Woods", but that
was telling, not showing. And anyway, he seemed more emotionally
attached to singing Riley's praises than Anya's...)

And then there's the little fact that she tried to murder him about a
dozen times in "Entropy". I think that's pretty much a relationship
killer, even if we then hadn't had to listen to Anya spend the rest of
the year screeching that **he** was emotionally immature. Personally,
seeing Xander crawl back to her would be very unappealing. I'd rather
see Willow fight off B/X subtext to win Buffy's heart than have to watch
Xander fall for an actual demon. (And doesn't Xander accepting
Anyanka's demonic nature and deciding that he loves her anyway sound
like an enormous endorsement of Spuffy, btw? I'll pass on that,
thanks.)
 
Just like I wouldn't accept B/S as the price of Willow/Xander (my second
favorite 'ship, and fave canon pairing), I don't want Xander to suffer
just to facilitate B/W. I like the guy too much.

And, since B/W is still kind of low in practical terms (although, even
after everything, I am not without hope), I rather like having Xan
footloose and ready for B/X as my alternate Spuffy-stopping plan. Like
a large, large portion of the male audience, that was my original 'ship,
after all.

Besides, I don't think everybody has to be paired up at the end. I'm
opposed to SingleBuffy (which many seem to like) because I see the show
as (at least in part) an examination of life through Buffy's heroic
journey, and since Romance has been part of that journey, I think ending
with "ah, well, I guess I don't need to find love" would be a little
negative, at least for me.

OTOH, not everyone has to find their soulmate by the age of 22. I'm
perfectly fine with Xander getting his life together and waiting for
whatever comes in **his** future. The question "Can Xander find love?"
is nowhere near a central theme, to my mind.

And there are plenty of other pairings for him that won't disturb B/W.
He could hook up with a post-jail Faith, or wait a few years for Dawn.
Personally, I think it would be hilariously clever foreshadowing if
Buffy's mistaken impression that Xander's "I'm going to marry that girl"
line in "All the Way" was about Dawnie turned out to be the truth, after
all. (And hey, Buffy's looking at Anya and Dawn when he says it--why
should she think Xander's talking about Dawn, and not his girlfriend?
Unless she's been picking up a vibe... [or she wants Dawn for
herself...])

And while it might be too late in the series to introduce a new love for
Buffy, I don't think it would be that hard for Xander to pair up with a
new character.

But my favorite scenario for Xander is him going to "Angel" after this
series ends and stealing Cordy away from the Big Brood. Ah, revenge! :)

Okay, now a brief (ha!) rebuttal to your B/W "problems":

1) Little SMG is far less likely to inspire Butch-o-phobia than Lucy
Lawless (and Xena/Gab never did leave Planet Subtext, so Joss would
still be doing something new). Besides, somehow I think "I knew it all
along!" would not be the audience's main objection to this plot ;)

2) I can't see that having a lead gay couple excludes straights from
the show (still four het regulars, after all) any more than having a
lead black couple is "biased" against whites. One show with gay leads
is a mere droplet in a stream of shows with straight leads--even if it
keeps the het female content down on this show, it increases diversity
in the wider television world.

Heck, Buffy and Willow could hook up and Dawn would still probably hog
all the screentime, so I doubt there's anything to worry about on that
score.

3) While I personally can argue that Buffy (who never loved a human
male, and had exactly one sexual encounter with the only man she ever
thought she loved) is gay but Willow (who loved Xander, and felt sexual
attraction to Giles, Oz, and Dracula even after Tara said "I am, you
know...Yours") is bi, I'm pretty sure that Buffy's long line of
relationships would still allow the viewers to think of her as bi, even
if she proclaimed her gayness from every rooftop. Do you see Spike
accepting B/W, rather than deciding it's just another way for Buffy to
deny her love for him? I don't. I think giving Buffy a same-sex
partner increases the relationship dynamics, rather than decreases them.  

And anyway, we want B/W to stay together, right? So even if we lost all
the subtext between Buffy and guys, explain to me why that's a **bad**
thing <G>

Oh, and of course there's a ton of B/D subtext--they stole Willow's
role in Buffy's life and gave it to Dawnie, so the subtext went with it.
(Just another reason to be bitter, right?) Heck, you could argue that
this shows Joss was aware of how strong the B/W subtext was--that's why
he tried to transform it into "familial" rather than "romantic" love, by
making the focus of Buffy's life her sister, rather than her peer.

Oh, and speaking of Gilmore Girls and incestuous subtext, let me tell
you what you missed by not being in the U.S. That full-page color
newspaper ad that they ran for the premiere ( a pic of Lorelai smiling
shyly and Rory with her head cocked and smirking sexily at her as they
walked side-by-side) was waaaaay too slash-tastic for me considering
that that's an actual mother and child (as opposed to B/D)...

(not to mention the "a lot can happen over a summer" tag line...yikes!) 

And

now

at

last

the 

long-

awaited

spoiler

space

for 

"Lessons"


I don't like what they did to Willow's magic at all, but now that the
damage is done, I would really just rather see it dropped. I would like
Willow's story to be about Willow, not the careful and proper use of
magic in the Buffyverse. But I'm probably repeating myself here.

Yes, Spike's role in the main plot was very sloppily handled. IMO, that
fit into a larger pattern of not doing a Season Premiere's job of
"checking in" with the characters. Last year, we got a nice and simple
update on what had been happening: Willow and Tara moved into the
house, Spike is mourning by being hyper-protective of Dawn, Xander
hasn't announced the engagement which is freaking out Anya, and Giles is
depressed (and probably drunk) and going home. This way, when the main
plot happened (Willow wants to resurrect Buffy), we knew where the
characters' reactions were coming from.

Contrast this with all the information we don't have now: How do Buffy
and Dawn feel about Willow? Has anyone from Sunnydale been in touch
with her? Do they expect her back soon? What is the state of Xander and
Anya's relationship? Is Anya still running the Magic Box, and if not,
what is she still doing in Sunnydale? What is Buffy doing for cash
these days, since she seems to be Doublemeat-free and can take
non-paying "outreach" jobs? Does Willow know that Spike tried to rape
Buffy? Does Giles know? Does Spike know **anything** that Willow did?
(Does he even know that Warren's dead, for that matter?) Did Buffy and
Dawn ever talk about Spike attacking her? Does Buffy know that Xander
told Dawn about this? There are big "people see Spike" and "Willow
comes back" and "Xander and Anya meet" scenes upcoming (not spoilers,
just logic) and we're lacking vital information for all of them.

(The Anya sitch is the most annoying--Halfrek was giving her a
scolding, the perfect means to clue us in, and the only specific info
she gave the audience was that Anyanka hadn't killed anyone. [And of
course, the fact that they go out of their way to keep the **Vengeance
Demon's** hands cleaner than Willow's annoys me no end.])

Now, it's okay to keep Spike's motives a mystery, since he's been off
becoming something different, but I was disappointed to learn that he's
**still** AllAboutBuffy. Not only should William have a different take
on the relationship than Spike did, but with all he's been through,
you'd think there would be greater causes to his upset than his
inability to properly deliver the "speech" he had to tell her.

That said, I still like what Marsters did with the line. I've figured
out what I didn't like about his acting last year--the smugness.
Spike's always been a cocksure [pun intentional] bastard, which was fun
when he was evil, but grates in a protagonist. Even when he was
petulantly angry that Buffy wouldn't admit her "love" or confused by his
actions, he still had the Spike 'tude going--I'm right and I know it
and I'm the coolest mutha in the house. It was Buffy's fault or the
chip's or Buffy's stupid friends or whatever. By the end of last year,
I felt that Marsters's acting had calcified into this veneer of attitude
mixed in with smirks and other tics (head-tilt anyone?)--I don't know
where to place it between SMG's no-show and Amber Benson's inability to
make a coherent Tara out of the mixed bag she was given or Michelle's
sinking into one-note territory, but I didn't enjoy it, that's for sure.

But now he's free...I'm enjoying it.

And it's not that vllains "always lie", it's that when they predict the
hero's defeat (and Spike is definitely cast as the hero in that scene),
they are pretty much always wrong. Yeah, the Mayor scored a
psychological point on Buffy and Angel, but he also said it was moot
because he was going to kill them. Think again, Dickie.

For me, the "Master" telling Spike "you'll find out that you're a
pathetic schmuck" seems rather like Angel telling Buffy "take that all
away, and what's left?" It's the gloat before the fall. Spike,
unfortunately, seems primed to rise from his ashes.

Yes, the inclusion of Buffy in the Bad-A-Thon could simply be a way of
picking up on proto-Adam's implication that the Slayer Power comes from
the same place as the demons', but really, so what? Does a slayer's
biological heritage invalidate all the heroism she's done? No matter
the body, she still has her soul, "her urge to do what's right". If
Buffy is "dosed with demon DNA" that just seems to make me think that
the power is just like any other weapon--capable of being used for
either good or evil, depending on who's wielding it.

(And didn't Faith's arc already make this point? That being a slayer is
no guarantee of goodness?)

There are only two possibilities I see where this could go, and they
both tend to suck. Either Buffy's "demonic heritage" is revealed, but
she can control it, which is used to give her something in common with
SouledSpike , or alternatively, she can't control it, is inevitably
corrupted, goes evil and gets killed. (Or at least depowered...)
Blecch and bleccher, for my money.

Dan