The Spike Strike

[rabid1st]

Dear Fellow Spike Fans;

As some of you know, I am staging a boycott of Angel this season. Many of my fellow fans have already stopped watching. But I didn't want my boycott to work against James. I wanted it to be an expression of my unhappiness over S/B. So I sent postcards to WB and Fox and Joss explaining my position and my intent to boycott at episode 8 (next week). I have instead decided to walk at episode 5.11. Without resorting to spoilers, I strongly suggest that would be a good time for every Spike fan (even those who no longer support S/B) to walk out with me. If you must see every Spike-centric episode (and believe me I do understand the compulsion), a 5.12 walk out will work, too.

What is the point of a walk out? Well, it's just like a strike of any other kind. It shows the powers that be where the power might be. Of course, if you are happy with our story so far, by all means, ignore me. But if indeed you ARE unhappy with what has been happening, I would suggest that you flex your fanbase muscle and join me for one or two episodes. Start watching again with 5.13 if you must but let the voice of your clicker be heard by the network.

Rae
who honestly believes an organized B/A fanbase was behind the (to me) horrid ending of BtVS.

Comments

See? That's the kind of BAD Joss hating fan I am...

[rabid1st.livejournal.com]

...I make people watch that have NO INTENTION of watching. I am working on Carrie too...who stopped like Caia after being ROYALLY pissed after CHOSEN. I work in a library and through constantly recommending BtVS and purchasing the tapes and books and leading discussions on the show...I converted a good 200 people to Buffy and Angel in the last 7 years. And then there was my fic...which gets a bit of readership.

But...I cannot support what I consider inferior storytelling. And by that I mean...storytelling that takes a sharp left turn after what amounts to six years. The B/S storyline started in Season 2...and lasted to S7...that isn't an insignificant part of the whole. At anytime in Season 7, JW could have backed off S/B...he had the PERFECT excuse (the Attempted Rape)...and he had underused characters to boot. Xander or Willow or Dawn or Giles could have championed Spike instead of Buffy. We would have easily forgiven her for being skittish...she had a great excuse.

Buffy could have been talked around eventually...to tolerate Spike because they needed him and finally forgive him because he really HAD changed. And Spike could have died...and accepted the lack of love...and gone on to someone on ANGEL. But that ISN'T the story JOSS told. Moreover I don't think Joss ever had ANY intention of telling that story before SMG said she was leaving. In S7 Joss told us about a person with deep confused feeling for the person who nearly raped her...feelings so strong they allowed her to overlook his killing spree...something she didn't overlook for Anya or Angel. Feelings that filled her heart and made her a stronger and better person. She believed in him when she had no reason to do so...and they juxtaposed that belief with her stuggle to assert herself with the rest of the gang. S/B were growing CLOSER not futher apart. SO WHAT FEELINGS COULD SHE HAVE HAD FOR HIM BESIDES LOVE? Seriously! Is there anyone who watched all seven season that would have been SHOCKED to learn that Buffy loved Spike if the show ended with TOUCHED?

Rae
a storyteller with a serious...THEY STOLE MY VID-CLIPS SIZE chip on her shoulder about lame, last minute, James will give Angel a Ratings Boost and keep it from being cancelled plot twists that invalidate years of my show.

just to play devil's advocate for a minute...

[thisficklemob.livejournal.com]

I always thought it was pretty clear that Spike bore pretty much no blame for killing under the influence of the First, because he was so far out of control that he didn't even remember. It's possible the First was able to get to him by making him forget (his kills, his mother), although I was never clear on how it brainwashed him at all.

Not that this invalidates Giles' or Dawn's trepidation at having him around, because good intentions count for jack if a person literally has no control. Still, one could argue that Anya's murder of the frat boys was different, even as Andrew's murder of Jonathan was different, in that while pressure may have been exerted on them to kill, they still made that choice themselves.

But yeah, I do agree with you about the direction the story went in S7. Over and over she put her faith in him – the chip, the trigger, Touched, the amulet. In retrospect, I feel like some of her defense of Spike to Giles could have been rooted in remorse – "he can be a good man, but he's never gonna get there if we don't give him a chance." Spike had been saying since S5 that he could be good, even if he didn't have any idea what that meant. I'm not saying she should have believed him back in "Crush." But once she knew he chose a soul – and did the Scoobies even know he got a soul on purpose? – all her rhetoric about how he was nothing, and dead, and evil, even if it was aimed at herself in "Dead Things", could have come back to haunt her.

I, of course, loathed the AR beyond coherent speech, and I didn't think they could or even should ever put Buffy and Spike together after that. But they changed my mind in S7. I have this persistent problem with ME it seems – I wasn't even a S/B partisan until early S6. They made me believe in that ship, with her confiding in him, his devotion to her, their incredible chemistry. And I spent much of the second half of the season wondering if I was being punished for buying what they'd been selling, (that Spike could love and Buffy was drawn to him as a person), even before the AR, when I became convinced of it. In S7, it happened again, only this time they dismissed more than 10 or so episodes.

IMHO, YMMV, etc.

caia