From: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org (stillpt-digest) To: stillpt-digest@smoe.org Subject: stillpt-digest V3 #28 Reply-To: stillpt@smoe.org Sender: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk stillpt-digest Wednesday, February 21 2001 Volume 03 : Number 028 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: b/crush2 ["David S. Bratman" ] RE: b/crush! [allenw ] Re: b/crush2 [allenw ] Re: b/crush2 [allenw ] Dawn and a little OT ["Hilary L. Hertzoff" ] b/i was made to love you [meredith ] b/robotgirl ["Donald G. Keller" ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2001 08:25:54 -0800 From: "David S. Bratman" Subject: Re: b/crush2 At 04:10 PM 2/17/2001 -0500, Donald wrote: >David: I've stopped trying to predict whether you'll love or hate a >specific episode (it seldom seems to fall in between!), but I'm glad >to see you liked this one so much. What do you mean? I like the good ones. >(Especially since another friend >of mine, to my consternation, was disappointed by it: "all that >buildup for nothing" in re Buffy and Spike.) Tell said friend: it ain't over yet. >You've also come more quickly than I have to an appreciation of the >excellence of the script, by which I mean I recognize your >assessment as accurate in advance of my own assessment. However, as usual, yours is more extensive and subtle. >That was indeed a terrific opening scene in the Bronze: not only the >dialog between Spike and Buffy (the first sounding-note of a major >motif of the episode, Buffy's absolute intransigence towards Spike), >but also between Spike and Xander (and note that Xander originally >used the epithet "Dead Boy" for Angel, towards whom =he= was >completely intransigent; Buffy and Xander are of one mind concerning >Spike--against everyone else, who seem to have at least a "crumb" of >sympathy for him--while Buffy's and Xander's attitudes towards >Angel were always diametrically opposed). (I'll return to the >Spike/Angel parallels). Good point: and what I see, looking through these, is that Xander's attitude is consistent: he doesn't trust "good" vampires. It's Buffy's attitude, not his, that needs to be explained, and she seems to be having a remarkably hard time doing so. >(Take special note, too, in our discussion of what Dawn may or may not >remember, that Ben looked very confused--like there was stuff =he= didn't >remember--when Buffy thanked him for taking care of Dawn.) Although a first glance at the morph scene might suggest that Ben and Glory are the same person in some way, I don't think so, as Ben's survival unharmed shows. (I think Glory is dead, btw.) But if, then, Glory somehow just replaced and removed him at that moment, he has a much better excuse than Dawn does for not remembering what happened. No desire to go over this all point by point, but I still hold to my preferred explanations for Dawn's behavior: that she's holding facts back or was just bewildered by this very unexpected sight. To attribute it to something magical - and thus not yet discussed in this context - would be a cop-out. Though this show has a record of being able to pull things out of hats without their being complete cop-outs, so I'm willing to wait and see. As for why Dawn hasn't said anything to Buffy: if she's bewildered there's nothing to say. If she knows the whole story she may realize that Ben isn't Glory. She has very good reason, in her own mind, to hold things back from Buffy: to wit, her own relationship with Spike, until Buffy discovered it. And this show has a very long history of allowing even the most critical plot twists to hang fire for an episode or two while other things are sorted out. >To Dawn and Spike, there's a similar "civilizing" (let's call it) effect >between Angel's soul and Spike's chip; Spike seems genuinely convinced >that he can change, that love can convince him to "turn [his] back on >evil," as he says. Buffy, however, makes a downright diametric distinction >between the two, and her simile to Spike--he's "like a serial killer in >jail"--is quite trenchant; Where Buffy is right here - and which is incomprehensible to Dawn, who sees just surface behavior - is in the motivations of the two. Spike, even if he converts (which Buffy doesn't believe, and I think his behavior with Dru proves Buffy is right about that), is still good because he has to be. The ensouled Angel is good because he wants to be. (Though what is going on with Angel now?) Someone will have to tell me if there was a period early on when Buffy knew that Angel was a vampire, and a good one, before she fell in love with him. Did she feel repulsed at that time? Or did she fall in love with Angel first, and find out afterwards? There's potentially a smell of ex post facto justification to Buffy's self-defense. But speaking of smells - in much vampire literature, a vampire is easily detected as an animated dead body, smelling of decay and, when engorged, of fresh blood. Not a creature you'd want to imagine romance with. Although BTVS vampire mythology seems to minimize this, Buffy seems repulsed by that aspect as much as by Spike personally. So why is Angel an exception? Even with a soul he must drink blood, though he doesn't take it from live humans - - and neither does Spike. (Angel had a soul; Spike has a chip. Same diff.) That's what Buffy has not explained: what perhaps she can't explain. That's part of where she's self-delusional about the situation, so long as she's without an explanation. She's also ignoring something else - even more important to everyone else, if not to her. She says Spike is "like a serial killer in jail." But so is Angel. His serial killer is Angelus, and as Xander will point out if I don't, that serial killer has been known to escape from time to time. Angel may be more appealing than Spike, but he is not safer. >note that given the opportunity (Drusilla >passing him a dead human) he had no qualm about drinking blood from >someone he couldn't hurt (and thus wouldn't activate the chip). I didn't realize this human was already dead. OK, that explains a lot. Spike already claimed earlier that the chip does nothing worse than give him a splitting headache. I'd thought he'd managed to put up with this. >And note >that he wasn't too "good" to resist contemplating killing not only >Drusilla, but Buffy as well, when thwarted. Now that, I think, has nothing to do with being a vampire. That's just Spike being an abusive macho idiot of a kind well-known among real humans. As you note, "he's got love and violence well confused in his head." Only the tools are specific to vampirism, and tools aren't the point. This behavior - not limited to that one occasion - is a good reason for Buffy to be repelled by Spike for his own sake, and which doesn't apply at all to Angel. But this is not a point Buffy has succeeded in making. Which is an interesting omission, because, as you note, Buffy's hatred of Spike is longstanding and passes beyond her ordinary disdain for vampires. >The major discussion point about the episode is what seems to me to be the >romantic (or Romantic) notion that Buffy really =does= harbor some "crumb" >of feeling for Spike, and that she's in denial about it. (My daughter was >really peeved at Buffy's attitude, acknowledging that if she, Deirdre, >were still 14 she'd probably feel about Spike the same way Dawn does.) But Deirdre is, in fact, just about Buffy's age. So how does she feel about Spike now, and why are those feelings different from Buffy's, as I gather they are? >So my reading of the parallel between the two scenes is that in both cases >Buffy is essentially saying "you're history--my sympathy is at an end." >(So =even if=, maybe maybe, Buffy had some "feelings" for Spike--though I >still doubt it--they're gone now.)> > >Why hasn't Buffy staked Spike? I'm with Karen on this point, I think: >Buffy has ethics about whom she kills and whom she doesn't, and I really >do think it's Spike's "chips ahoy" helplessness that is preventing her; >her extreme annoyance, even disgust, with him is not in her eyes grounds >for the death penalty. She wants him to =go away= (as she said); that way >she wouldn't have to deal with him any more. If your point about the parallel is true - that Buffy really hates Spike as much as she hated Angel after he killed Jenny - then your reason for her non-staking of Spike might also be true. But Spike has done so much in merely being threatening for which she would have staked any other vampire, no matter how helpless - the possibility of still-remaining feelings that Buffy won't admit to herself - and never has - cannot be ruled out. Even her feelings for Angel only went into abeyance when he went bad. They were back in full force as soon as he was back: without which her sending him to hell wouldn't have been anywhere near so traumatic for her. Unfortunately, the real reason for the non-staking of Spike - he's too valuable a character to the show to kill off - is so overwhelming that the absence of an established subcreational reason becomes a flaw. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2001 12:47:52 -0600 (CST) From: allenw Subject: RE: b/crush! On Sat, 17 Feb 2001, Hilary L. Hertzoff wrote: > Well for me this is the first time around, so I'm still finding it mildly > interesting. However, Byron must die. > > Am I the only person in the world who likes both B5 and ST:DS9? Not hardly. I thought DS9 was the best Trek to date (and quite good in its own right), and I really liked B5 as well. I thought they both got a bit creaky in their old age, though. Allen W. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2001 13:01:47 -0600 (CST) From: allenw Subject: Re: b/crush2 On Sat, 17 Feb 2001, Donald G. Keller wrote: > (What I meant when I said this was an interesting plot development > was that there is, to put it mildly, an unusual relationship between > Ben and Glory, perhaps--in some now-indeterminant way--really close. > If Buffy and Ben get involved--in some way--this closeness to Glory > could make things very sticky and complicated for Buffy and her > long-term necessity to thwart Glory.) > And what if he/she changes during an... intimate... moment? ;-) > To Dawn and Spike, there's a similar "civilizing" (let's call it) effect > between Angel's soul and Spike's chip; Spike seems genuinely convinced > that he can change, that love can convince him to "turn [his] back on > evil," as he says. Buffy, however, makes a downright diametric distinction > between the two, and her simile to Spike--he's "like a serial killer in > jail"--is quite trenchant; note that given the opportunity (Drusilla > passing him a dead human) he had no qualm about drinking blood from > someone he couldn't hurt (and thus wouldn't activate the chip). > I've seem several people mention this, and I don't agree. Spike may, or may not, have known just what Drusilla had in mind for the couple at the Bronze, but when actually presented with the dead girl's neck, I saw signs of a serious internal struggle, rather like an recovering alcholic might go through when offered a drink. Yes, Spike fell off the wagon, but he had qualms, IMHO. allen w. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2001 13:12:48 -0600 (CST) From: allenw Subject: Re: b/crush2 On Tue, 20 Feb 2001, David S. Bratman wrote: > Although a first glance at the morph scene might suggest that Ben and Glory > are the same person in some way, I don't think so, as Ben's survival > unharmed shows. (I think Glory is dead, btw.) But if, then, Glory somehow > just replaced and removed him at that moment, he has a much better excuse > than Dawn does for not remembering what happened. David, Why do you think Glory's dead? That doesn't make much sense to me, both for in-show reasons (a god is going to be killed by falling?) and meta-show reasons (the writers are going to kill off the Big Bad 2/3 of the way into the season, before we even learn her background, and not even through Buffy's actions?) Allen W. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2001 18:24:46 -0500 (EST) From: "Hilary L. Hertzoff" Subject: Dawn and a little OT I find it fascinating that so many of the members of this list were so quick to agree with me about DS9 and B5. Regarding Dawn's memory lapse, I'm trying to work out a thought I had that related this to the point that the monks made her "innocent" and there are certain things that she can't "see" about her own existence yet, but I can't get it to jell. Maybe tying this in to the thought that except for the last bit with Glory, she seems to have trouble seeing danger or that she's in danger - inviting Harmony in, baiting Glory, talking to Spike, etc. Of course, this might also be the "my sister's the slayer, and she'll save me if I get into trouble" factor. And perhaps part of the fear that Glory inspired was the thought that Buffy might not save her this time. Hilary Hilary L. Hertzoff From here to there, Mamaroneck Public Library a bunny goes where a bunny must. Mamaroneck, NY hhertzof@wls.lib.ny.us Little Bunny on the Move hhertzof@panix.com by Peter McCarty ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2001 21:22:18 -0500 From: meredith Subject: b/i was made to love you Hi! Spoilers ahoy!!! Well, now we know why Joss & co. allowed next week's TV Guide blurb to happen. Holy @!*#. What a completely unfair way to end an episode. But up until then, a lot of laughs, and an unexpectedly large amount of plot furthering wrapped up in a deceptively fluffy package. Great stuff. Next week is going to be harrowing, I fear... +==========================================================================+ | Meredith Tarr meth@smoe.org | | New Haven, CT USA http://www.smoe.org/~meth | +==========================================================================+ | "things are more beautiful when they're obscure" -- veda hille | | *** TRAJECTORY, the Veda Hille mailing list: *** | | *** http://www.smoe.org/meth/trajectory.html *** | +==========================================================================+ ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2001 23:34:55 -0500 (EST) From: "Donald G. Keller" Subject: b/robotgirl Yeah, I know the real title of the episode is "I Was Made to Love You," but it was too long for a pithy subject line. So do we know the major spoiler now? Can I go buy my =TV Guide=? For whatever reason, I got a really good tape this time around. I guess I could still give it a cleaning... And that Is just About enough SPOILER SPACE I was thinking partway through that this was a "light" episode (rather than a "dumb" episode like the troll one), and that the writing was especially good. The robot girl at first was merely amusing in her perky persistence; then not quite so amusing when she turned violent; and finally, in that last conversation with Buffy, quite sad. And then the big kick in the head at the end. Anybody notice how long the "Previously on..." segment was? (The one on =Angel= too.) I was wondering for a minute if they were actually bringing Riley back, but I think now it was merely to make sure we understood the quite extensive subtext (some text, even) about how Buffy must still be feeling about Riley's leaving. Most interesting development in the Spike subplot. After his threatening behavior towards Buffy, everybody (even Dawn!) has turned against him; is this robot thing going to continue to be a subplot? Is Spike taking the other side of the conflict again, like he did last year? I'm amused that the preview had us on: =of course= we assumed that it was Buffy who threw Spike through the window. A conversation between Tara and Anya! Anya the online trader! Also amusing was Tara's comment on depressing online spelling (proofreaders unite!). Anya's comment about April (the robot)'s manner of speaking was hilariously apropos for herself as well, as Xander's answering comment acknowledged. Two lovely comments by Xander to Buffy (near beginning and near end) about her worth as a person. She needed that from a loyal friend. So now we're surer that Ben and Glory are closer to being one entity than two. Glory wasn't gone very far very long, then, because Ben was back on stage not too long after Glory was transported. And for the moment Buffy has unwittingly dodged the possible complication of being involved with Ben. (It occurred to me when they were talking that he knows she's the Slayer...and she doesn't know he knows. And she also doesn't know he's not just an intern.) Re =Angel=...I really didn't get the whole elevator-to-hell sequence. "Why, this is hell, nor are we out of it"?? I was very unclear on Angel's motivation from that point on. Also odd that they didn't say "To be continued" at the end. Well, enough for a first assay at the week. And more next week! ------------------------------ End of stillpt-digest V3 #28 ****************************