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liliaeth(if only the response bit allows more characters in a post
anyway, her post can be found at http://www.livejournal.com/users/dlgood/2318.html?view=18702 )
Ah, so you find it a good positive message to show that it's okay for a woman to rape, abuse and destroy a man. Cause hey when a woman does it it's a sign of empowerment?
Nice message to show to young boys and men around the world... if your girlfriend beats you up and abuses you, it's ok, and normal, cause it makes her a strong and empowered woman?
I'm a spuffy, unashamedly so, because unlike Angel, Spike 'chose' his punishment. It's not the soul that's important, it's the fact that he realized he was wrong and went to get his soul out of 'free choice' because he wanted to be 'the kind of man that would never...'
Spike realized he did the one thing he could never forgive himself for and 'chose' to change.
Something Angel nor Xander did after their rapes or in Xander's case, attempted rape(see the Pack)
Remember how in gone Buffy raped Spike, or tried to?
I'm not so much talking about the throwing him to a wall and starting to have sex with him before he could even realize it was her. I'm talking about after he said a clear "NO" and she still continued, despite her greater physical strenght.
And he had to throw her out of his crypt, the sanctity of his own home? Remember how she pouted about how he'd had the guts to throw her out. Not even the slightest realization of what she'd just done. And compare that to Spike's reaction in Seeing Red...
For that alone I'd be willing to forgive him because at least Spike understood what he did wrong and tried to 'change' to become a better person who'd never harm her again.
I believe Joss handled the post-rape situation pretty decently, though the mistake he made was not handling Buffy's past as an abuser. She was never forced to deal with her crimes, never confronted by anyone to how she did wrong.
And yes she did.
You said that rape's about power...
Not in Seeing Red...
Spike's actions weren't premeditated, they weren't to give him power. Hell the entire 'relationship' that Buffy forced them into proved that Buffy held all the cards, all the power.
If the relationship stayed in the dark, that's cause Buffy wanted it so.
You wonder about Buffy's individual wishes to love or not love Spike? What about Spike's individual wishes and desires? Cause those were ignored all through season six and seven.
Rape is a serious situation, and I believe that Spike was capable of it in the past, but so's Angel...
(remember Drusilla, Holtz's wife, the gypsy girl whom Angel had the guts to call stupid (sorry, just watched 'Angel' and still furious with him over that)...)
But unlike Angel, Spike realized what he did was wrong in Seeing Red. Spike started a voluntary change, because once Buffy kicked him back, the humanity in him was strong enough to make him come to his senses and realize what he was doing and stop.
Yes stop. If Buffy was supposedly so weakened at that point, then Spike could have tried again. If that had been Angelus in the room, he would have gone on, no matter how Buffy tried to fight. Spike on the other hand hated himself almost the second he hit the wall and started having flashbacks to his own actions. Feeling guilt. Something a soulless vampire is supposed to be incapable of.
The trials of the ensoulment aren't important, they're not what mattered which is why we were shown so little of them. It's the choice that mattered.
A choice Angel has never been capable of making.
Then compare post ensoulment. Spike nearly destroys himself in his guilt over what he did to Buffy and others...
When he finally finds himself killing again, he begs Buffy to slay him as not to do it again.
Compare this to Angel who continued killing criminals after he got his soul. And tried to rejoin Darla.
After ensoulment, Spike may have leaned on Buffy for a while, but he understood her free choice and stopped trying untill she showed him mixed signals. Look at First Date, it hurts him, but he's willing to leave her be happy with someone else. It's only because she asks him to stay, that he does.
(something Angel never bothers with, to Angel apparantly Buffy's free will isn't important enough to give her a say in anything he does)
In touched, Spike is willing to leave the house and leave Buffy to her peace. Then when she asks him to stay (again), he's willing to sleep on the couch. She once again says no and asks him to sleep next to her and hold her. It's only then that he lays down next to her.
All of Season seven is overblown with showing how much guilt Spike shows towards what he did to Buffy. I can't see him showing any more restraint than he does.
(he sure showed more genuine guilt that Angel ever did. And I'm not talking over Angel's bouts of self pity. )
Compare this to Angel's behavior in Forever where he can't even stay with Buffy for more than a few minutes out of fear that he'll want to have sex with her.
When I think of what should keep Buffy and Spike apart, I'm not thinking about Spike's actions. I'm thinking about Buffy and how she never coughs up to her friends about her abuse, her rape of Spike, her beating him up, her neglect, her.... About how she angs on to an idealized dreamimage of a relationship she had in the past and refuses herself to love anyone else.
I'm a Buffy fan, up till season five she was the person I admired most. But in season six she's the abuser, the criminal, the wrong doer. Spike had an excuse, Buffy didn't. And she NEVER admitted this to anyone other than a vamp she was gonna stake anyway.
I may forgive Spike for his actions, because he showed guilt over them, I was not all that willing to do the same for Buffy untill she officially admitted her wrongs. CWDP with her admitting was a nice start, but it shouldn't have been the end of it.
But then to ME it's an example of a strong woman to say that a woman is allowed to use a man who loves her for sex. For ME it's ok for a woman like Willow to rape her girlfriend, cause hey it's just a woman right? For ME it's ok for Xander to try and overpower and rape Buffy cause hey, he's a scooby, and if he wants to forget all about it, that's ok.
Look at the gender issues in season six... Try and reverse them, and then see who was the victim,... You'll easily find it was Spike. Not Buffy, no matter how much the writers later on try and make her into one.
anyway, her post can be found at http://www.livejournal.com/users/dlgood/2318.html?view=18702 )
Ah, so you find it a good positive message to show that it's okay for a woman to rape, abuse and destroy a man. Cause hey when a woman does it it's a sign of empowerment?
Nice message to show to young boys and men around the world... if your girlfriend beats you up and abuses you, it's ok, and normal, cause it makes her a strong and empowered woman?
I'm a spuffy, unashamedly so, because unlike Angel, Spike 'chose' his punishment. It's not the soul that's important, it's the fact that he realized he was wrong and went to get his soul out of 'free choice' because he wanted to be 'the kind of man that would never...'
Spike realized he did the one thing he could never forgive himself for and 'chose' to change.
Something Angel nor Xander did after their rapes or in Xander's case, attempted rape(see the Pack)
Remember how in gone Buffy raped Spike, or tried to?
I'm not so much talking about the throwing him to a wall and starting to have sex with him before he could even realize it was her. I'm talking about after he said a clear "NO" and she still continued, despite her greater physical strenght.
And he had to throw her out of his crypt, the sanctity of his own home? Remember how she pouted about how he'd had the guts to throw her out. Not even the slightest realization of what she'd just done. And compare that to Spike's reaction in Seeing Red...
For that alone I'd be willing to forgive him because at least Spike understood what he did wrong and tried to 'change' to become a better person who'd never harm her again.
I believe Joss handled the post-rape situation pretty decently, though the mistake he made was not handling Buffy's past as an abuser. She was never forced to deal with her crimes, never confronted by anyone to how she did wrong.
And yes she did.
You said that rape's about power...
Not in Seeing Red...
Spike's actions weren't premeditated, they weren't to give him power. Hell the entire 'relationship' that Buffy forced them into proved that Buffy held all the cards, all the power.
If the relationship stayed in the dark, that's cause Buffy wanted it so.
You wonder about Buffy's individual wishes to love or not love Spike? What about Spike's individual wishes and desires? Cause those were ignored all through season six and seven.
Rape is a serious situation, and I believe that Spike was capable of it in the past, but so's Angel...
(remember Drusilla, Holtz's wife, the gypsy girl whom Angel had the guts to call stupid (sorry, just watched 'Angel' and still furious with him over that)...)
But unlike Angel, Spike realized what he did was wrong in Seeing Red. Spike started a voluntary change, because once Buffy kicked him back, the humanity in him was strong enough to make him come to his senses and realize what he was doing and stop.
Yes stop. If Buffy was supposedly so weakened at that point, then Spike could have tried again. If that had been Angelus in the room, he would have gone on, no matter how Buffy tried to fight. Spike on the other hand hated himself almost the second he hit the wall and started having flashbacks to his own actions. Feeling guilt. Something a soulless vampire is supposed to be incapable of.
The trials of the ensoulment aren't important, they're not what mattered which is why we were shown so little of them. It's the choice that mattered.
A choice Angel has never been capable of making.
Then compare post ensoulment. Spike nearly destroys himself in his guilt over what he did to Buffy and others...
When he finally finds himself killing again, he begs Buffy to slay him as not to do it again.
Compare this to Angel who continued killing criminals after he got his soul. And tried to rejoin Darla.
After ensoulment, Spike may have leaned on Buffy for a while, but he understood her free choice and stopped trying untill she showed him mixed signals. Look at First Date, it hurts him, but he's willing to leave her be happy with someone else. It's only because she asks him to stay, that he does.
(something Angel never bothers with, to Angel apparantly Buffy's free will isn't important enough to give her a say in anything he does)
In touched, Spike is willing to leave the house and leave Buffy to her peace. Then when she asks him to stay (again), he's willing to sleep on the couch. She once again says no and asks him to sleep next to her and hold her. It's only then that he lays down next to her.
All of Season seven is overblown with showing how much guilt Spike shows towards what he did to Buffy. I can't see him showing any more restraint than he does.
(he sure showed more genuine guilt that Angel ever did. And I'm not talking over Angel's bouts of self pity. )
Compare this to Angel's behavior in Forever where he can't even stay with Buffy for more than a few minutes out of fear that he'll want to have sex with her.
When I think of what should keep Buffy and Spike apart, I'm not thinking about Spike's actions. I'm thinking about Buffy and how she never coughs up to her friends about her abuse, her rape of Spike, her beating him up, her neglect, her.... About how she angs on to an idealized dreamimage of a relationship she had in the past and refuses herself to love anyone else.
I'm a Buffy fan, up till season five she was the person I admired most. But in season six she's the abuser, the criminal, the wrong doer. Spike had an excuse, Buffy didn't. And she NEVER admitted this to anyone other than a vamp she was gonna stake anyway.
I may forgive Spike for his actions, because he showed guilt over them, I was not all that willing to do the same for Buffy untill she officially admitted her wrongs. CWDP with her admitting was a nice start, but it shouldn't have been the end of it.
But then to ME it's an example of a strong woman to say that a woman is allowed to use a man who loves her for sex. For ME it's ok for a woman like Willow to rape her girlfriend, cause hey it's just a woman right? For ME it's ok for Xander to try and overpower and rape Buffy cause hey, he's a scooby, and if he wants to forget all about it, that's ok.
Look at the gender issues in season six... Try and reverse them, and then see who was the victim,... You'll easily find it was Spike. Not Buffy, no matter how much the writers later on try and make her into one.
Re: Narcissist Spike?
Date: 2003-08-31 01:42 am (UTC)----->
Sorry, but this is just to ridiculous to take serious...
Are you confusing Angel and Spike?
Spike's not the one who believes he's a champion, or the one with the great destiny... In all accounts, he rarely if ever takes himself serious. Even his boasting about being the Big Bad is just a facade that he hides himself behind.
Hell when Spike talks about himself, he'll call himself just a guy, love's bitch... all demeaning terms, even when he calls himself attractive, it's more a joke than something he seriously believes...
Stop focussing Angel's clear faults on Spike and you might start seeing Spike for who he really is.
Angel is the one obsessed with his own mirror image and importance. The one who thinks he's unmissable. The second he gets a chance to see it in Pylea he can't stop looking at himself. Angel's the one that calls himself the Champion, that sees his life as so big and important... Spike never did. Even after getting the soul.
Re: Narcissist Spike?
Date: 2003-08-31 12:06 pm (UTC)Even his boasting about being the Big Bad is just a facade that he hides himself behind.
Textbook. Exaggerating self-importance without commensurate achievement. Maintaining that facade, and quite seriously believing in it, for over a century.
he'll call himself just a guy, love's bitch... all demeaning terms, even when he calls himself attractive, it's more a joke than something he seriously believes...
Naricissim and self-deprecation are by no means mutually exclusive. Woody Allen, anyone? And I think Spike very seriously wants to believe what he says about himself.
Calling himself "Love's Bitch" may seem a demeaning term, but it also indicates a preoccupation with idealized love and an exaggeration of his grandness as the "unrequited lover" of romantic tradition. Spike does not see himself as "just a guy" and has never wanted to.
Stop focussing Angel's clear faults on Spike and you might start seeing Spike for who he really is.
Angel is the one obsessed with his own mirror image and importance.
I don't see why you feel like Angel is so necessary to an analysis of Spike's traits. As if Angel being vain means that Spike cannot also be vain.
The issue was Spike's sense of self-importance.
Because, Spike desperately wants to be more than just convenient. He wants to matter, to be Important, special and grand. It's part of what makes him an interesting and attractive character to look at. The idea that he might really just be regular, average, mediocre, or banal - that he's not as Special and Important as he'd like to believe - is something he's deeply afraid of. And something that he was prone to reacting dramatically and violently about.
Please re-read the descriptions of narcissism. It very much fits. It doesn't make him good or bad - it just makes him a narcissist. If you have trouble accepting that aspect of the character, if you can't see Spike for who he really is (narcissistic tendencies and all) and still like him, that's not my problem.
Re: Narcissist Spike?
Date: 2003-08-31 01:20 pm (UTC)Did you even read the descriptions of NPD before rejecting it out of hand?
----->
Nope I read them before I discarded them since they fit Angel a lot better than they did Spike.
Even his boasting about being the Big Bad is just a facade that he hides himself behind.
Textbook. Exaggerating self-importance without commensurate achievement. Maintaining that facade, and quite seriously believing in it, for over a century.
------>
-Achieving a reputation big enough that the watchers were worried about him for the sake of prooving to Dru that he was at least as evil as Angelus...(The fact that he failed at prooving as more evil than Angelus is hardly his fault.)
-Being able to walk into a powerful vampire's lair and taking it over in less than a week.
-Being able to beat two slayers in less than a century.
Spike has NEVER bragged about anything that he didn't actually achieve. The closest he's ever come to bragging was in his 'first date' with Buffy in 'Fool for love' when he pretended he was more evil and more important in Angelus' gang than he really was. But is one incident really proof of him exaggerating his self importance?
I may be a redemptionista, but I have watched season two and three. Spike was dangerous, he was powerful. That's something the scoobies might have either ignored or forgotten in season four, but he never had to exagerate anything. Other than the fact that he had more human in him than he was ever willing to admit.
And look at season five, six and seven. Spike has every chance to grandize those things that he did to get Buffy's interest. He could go on about doing good things which he knows Buffy might like. Yet he doesn't.
After season six, he mentions his helping the scoobies during the summer, exactly once... to Xander who already knows about it.
He never brags about letting Glory torture him and staying silent, even though he has the right to do so, since it probably saved Dawn's life.
He doesn't brag about sleeping with Buffy. All he insinuates is that he's good and that's more in reaction to Buffy's words than anything else. Look at Dead Things, when not being insulted, he's more interested in telling Buffy how good she is.
He could brag about getting his soul, willingly. Yet he doesn't. He considers it something private and is bothered that Buffy doesn't seem to see it the same way.
Spike may posture a lot, and he may pretend to be more dangerous than he is, but he never makes himself out to be more important than he is.
All he does is try and conform to the image that he thinks the woman he loves wants him to be.
If Dru wants him to be a dangerous, wild and sadistic killer then he strives to become that.
If Buffy wants a good guy to protect her sister, keep her friends safe and watch her back, then he'll be that.
If Buffy wants someone to have sex with, he'll be that as well and conform to what he thinks she wants of him.
Spike never thought of himself as important, if he did, he wouldn't be so willing to change the moment the woman he loves wants him to.
Re: Narcissist Spike?
Date: 2003-08-31 01:21 pm (UTC)-------->
Well who doesn't want to matter and to be more than convenient?
The thing is, Spike doesn't just pretend to be something he isn't, he actually tries to achieve it through actions.
Spike and Xander are a lot alike on those counts.
They both want to matter, but neither of them is an alpha male and they know it.
The thing is, both Spike and Xander are much more important and more valuable being what they are than they ever gave themselves credit for. They're both good men and heroes.
And because they don't see themselves as the big heroes, they're willing to let Buffy take the lead without feeling of themselves as less when she's doing so. Unlike Riley, Spike doesn't mind that Buffy's stronger than him, he actually loves her for it.
Spike to me is the every man. The one like us, striving to be something more than he's supposed to be and if that's narcistic, then colour me narcistic.