#rewatchablefeedback

Mitch and His Amy Love: This week’s episode was a blast to listen to. Mitch’s excitement and joy over the Amy plot line and the Amy Rap were just fantastic, and his happiness was so contagious. I was waiting so long for you guys to get to this episode specifically for Mitch’s reaction, so I was so, so pleased that he was on this week. It should be noted that another one of Mitch’s predictions from way back in Season Four is going to be coming true this season and I can’t wait until you guys get to that episode as well. I remember listening to it back in Season Four and my mind being blown by how accurate it was.

“Restless” Foreshadowing and New Meanings: Speaking of Season Four, while there were some mentions of foreshadowing in “Restless” for events in Season Six (specifically in “Tabula Rasa”), a few were looked over/forgotten:

- In “Restless,” during the same sequence that had the references to Spike in the tweed suit and Giles being Spike’s “father,” there is this exchange:

Xander (to Buffy in the sandbox) : “Gotta keep moving forward.” Buffy: “Like a shark.” Xander; “Like a shark with feet and much less fins.” Spike: “And on land!” Giles (to Spike): “Very good.”

Foreshadowing of the Loan Shark! :D

Many moments and comments from Willow’s dream in “Restless” also take on a double meaning now. Back then it was very easy to relate everything to Willow discovering her sexuality and still trying to build up her confidence. But all the way back in Season 3 we saw Willow relying on magic to try and “fix” unwanted emotions and unpleasant situations. This gets worse in Season 4 with the My Will Be Done spell in “Something Blue” and what makes it worse is the fact that Willow tries to pretend that everything is okay by baking cookies. She knows that what she did was wrong, but she is able to sneak her way out of it. I think by Season 4 Willow was subconsciously aware of the power hunger that resided inside of her, but she still tried to keep up an innocent front. This acting becomes more and more prevalent in Seasons 5 and 6. So the “acting” aspect of Willow’s dream takes on new meanings, as does this line by Buffy (to Willow): “Your costume is perfect.” (Whispers) “Nobody’s gonna know the truth. You know, about you.” There are a few other lines that take on this new double meaning as well.

Also in “Restless” we saw foreshadowing for Giles feelings towards Buffy and his role as a father figure towards her in this season. In the dream, Buffy came off as extremely childish and clinging, with Giles being frustrated by this and Olivia telling him to humor her and such. This shows that Giles was already starting to subconsciously view Buffy as being too dependent on him in a fatherly way (since, in the dream, the dynamic was more like a family at a summer carnival than a Watcher with his Slayer). When Giles enters Spike’s crypt we see Olivia crying in the corner with a baby carriage overturned, which shows that he has given up on/rejected the idea of fatherhood and having a family. He has devoted himself to Buffy and her slayer duties. So, when Buffy dies and that duty ends, I think Giles wanted to find himself again and be a little selfish in that sense. It’s a harsh love, but I think Giles does believe that his leaving is what is best for Buffy right now (and honestly, I agree with him).

Spuffy and Unintentional Foreshadowing…Especially in Season Two: As for the discussion about feeling conflicted over shipping Spuffy because it is very obviously unhealthy, I get that. I ship Spuffy, but the way I see it, as long as you acknowledge and understand the problematic aspects of an unhealthy ship or OTP then there is nothing wrong with that. You can enjoy a ship on a storytelling and/or entertainment level without necessarily viewing it as a “Relationship Goals OTP!”

As for me, personally, I just love the journey that this relationship has gone through thus far. The Spuffy relationship came about very organically in the series. It wasn’t planned from the beginning because, as we know, Spike was planned to be killed off back in “What’s My Line?”, but we still have some amazing unintentional foreshadowing for the pairing:

In “School Hard,” Spike first sees Buffy while she is dancing. James Marsters has stated that he, himself, decided to act out that scene with Spike being attracted to Buffy. That was a personal decision of his. The song that was playing then was “Stupid Thing” by Nickel. It is a song about a dysfunctional/unhealthy relationship with some lines like:

        “I did a stupid thing last night, I called you. A moment of weakness. No, not a moment, more like three months of weakness. I’m one step away from falling to my knees. I’m one step away from spilling my guts to you” and “You see, there’s this huge chunk of me missing. It’s gone. And I can’t feel it, I can’t feel it, I can’t feel” and “I called you. It’s the last time, and maybe tomorrow night, will be the last time…”

This song really reflects the type of unhealthy relationship that Buffy and Spike are spiraling into right now.

Also in “School Hard” when Buffy and Spike get ready to fight each other for the first time, they have this exchange:

        Spike: “[…] I’ll make it quick. It won’t hurt a bit.”         Buffy: “No, Spike. It’s gonna hurt a lot.”

This was meant to be in reference to their fight, but also had a very obvious second meaning of a sexual nature. It is in “School Hard” that we first start seeing the theme of Buffy’s sexual maturity that spans throughout the rest of Season Two. Concerning the quote above, Buffy ends up being right. Their first time together in “Smashed” ends up being very violent and Buffy using Spike is something painful both for her and Spike on an emotional level.

    - In Innocence Angelus tells Spike “To kill this girl…you have to love her,” a statement that I imagine probably haunted Spike during the time period that Buffy was dead. It likely added onto his survivor’s guilt.

    - In Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered we get this exchange between Angelus and Spike (about Buffy) :

        Spike: “Why don’t you rip her lungs out? It might make an impression.”         Angelus: “Lacks…poetry.”         Spike: “It doesn’t have to. What rhymes with lungs?”

    That last bit ends up being called back in Fool for Love where we see William asking, “What’s another word for ‘gleaming’? It’s a perfectly perfect word as many words go, but nothing rhymes, you see.” It also ties in with “Rest in Peace,” where Spike uses a ton of corny rhymes that just make me enjoy the song even more. So there is this added layer of cohesiveness to Spike’s history and backstory, even without his character having been planned for the long run so early on.

    - In Becoming Part Two when Buffy states that she is in a band, Spike states that Buffy plays the triangle, while Buffy says that she plays the drums. He corrects himself to try to keep up the (pathetic) lie and then answers that he sings. Once Spike falls in love with Buffy, we see that he ends up marching to the beat of Buffy’s drum. We also see that they ended up fighting together extremely well in Becoming Part Two. They communicated nothing verbally to each other when that vamp attacked Joyce, yet they moved perfectly together as a unit and got rid of it quickly. The little conversation that they have is about the vamp afterwards, is a very quick back and forth that shows that their thoughts are on the same wavelength.

    - In Lovers Walk Buffy and Spike end up falling right back into that banter that we saw glimmers of back in Season 2, and we see that Buffy was able to read Spike pretty well with her line that he likely had Willow and Xander at the old factory, which he did. Spike was able to read Buffy very well here too, as Buffy notes when she states that she can’t lie to herself anymore “Or Spike, for some reason,” about her change in relationship status with Angel.

    - Then in Season 4 we see a ton of UST between the two: Buffy teasing Spike with her neck in Something Blue, the fact that Willow states that Buffy and Spike should just get married, but make absolutely no mention of them needing to fall in love or make out. And this is also when we start to see Spike subconsciously acknowledging aspects of Buffy that he finds attractive, specifically her hair. He calls her Goldilocks in one episode and is shown touching her hair once or twice throughout the season (one time in Superstar). Buffy also says this to Willow in Season 4 “But I can't help thinking, isn't that where the fire comes from? Can a nice, safe relationship be that intense? I know it's nuts, but part of me believes that real love and passion have to go hand in hand with pain and fighting. (Stakes a vampire) I wonder where I get that from?” – something which is certainly present in her and Spike’s current relationship and which mirrors Spike’s own take on relationships in his Love’s Bitch speech.

    - When Season 5 rolls around the subtext starts becoming text when Spike realizes he is in love with Buffy. A lot of the elements from the earlier seasons carry over (they still fight well together, Spike is falling in line to the beat of Buffy’s drum, etc.) but now we have the romantic feelings in the forefront. We learn in this season that violence for Spike is similar to “third base,” thus showing that he also enjoys violence in his romantic and sexual experiences, something which was hinted at with his relationship with Drusilla. We see Spike starting to figure out what true love is all about and we see Buffy starting to notice his changing and starting to trust him in this season. In The Gift, the last time Buffy and Spike talk, she is ascending the stairs and looks down on him as he speaks. She is ascending to her room on a physical level, but on a symbolic level it can be seen that she is ascending to heaven/a heavenly dimension. In After Life, the first time Buffy and Spike speak to each other post-resurrection, the conversation doesn’t start until Buffy has fully descended the stairs and is on level ground with Spike. She has returned back to earth, which in this case, can be viewed as a hell dimension. This shows that now sees herself on the same level as Spike, which is something we are seeing pop up in this relationship. Also, that parallel and symbolism was not spotted by me, but rather someone on Tumblr (as were many of the Season 2 moments of foreshadowing).

We have been told and now are being shown the violence that both Buffy and Spike associate with love and sex. It definitely is a kink of theirs, but it squarely falls into abuse rather than a healthy BDSM relationship because we aren’t shown Buffy and Spike communicating at all with each other before engaging in violent sexual acts, which is a big “no-no” in these types of relationships.

Buffy and Spike’s relationship is certainly problematic and unhealthy – even downright abusive, but it is also extremely compelling storytelling. Their relationship has been a slow burn, which I personally like over instant/love at first sight type of romances, and we are being shown their relationship changes, rather than being told it. I personally could never get into the Bangel relationship because I felt that we were just being told of their relationship changes, rather than seeing these changes. It left me confused and disconnected whenever Buffy and Angel said they loved each other, because I just never saw the “falling in love” part happen. With Spuffy there has always been a constant forward movement and a constant change that I could see unfolding and that just appeals to me more.

Willow and Tara and Engaging in Sex After the Mind-Wipe: Trying to ship an unproblematic relationship in Buffy (BTVS specifically, not necessarily in the Buffyverse as a whole) is pretty much impossible to do anyway. All the major relationships in the series have some unhealthy or problematic aspect to them. Right now, Willow and Tara’s relationship is toxic and abusive. Willow was gaslighting Tara and we also had Willow engaging in sex with Tara after using magic to erase Tara’s memory of the fight that they were still kinda in the middle of. There is some debate within the fandom if that can be viewed as not only a mind rape, but also physical rape.

Personally, I view it as such, seeing it as similar to someone purposefully giving someone else alcohol or a drug of some kind and then engaging in sex. Rape is about power and control, after all, and in that moment Willow was taking control over Tara in the sense that she was wiping away a memory that, if it had not been erased, would have resulted in absolutely no sex. By wiping Tara’s memory, Willow is making Tara more compliant and willing, and that definitely feels like a form of rape to me. Some fans view it as more like sexual assault or dubious consent and still others see nothing wrong with the situation (since Willow didn’t have the specific intent to engage in sex with Tara after wiping her memory). What do you guys think?

BTVS Characters and Hogwarts Houses: Moving away from such a heavy, heavy topic as that though (and wanting to end this massive essay on a lighter note), let’s talk about the BTVS characters and Hogwarts Houses! In the Rewatchable episode for Smashed the hosts discussed what Hogwarts House each of the ATS characters would be in. I want to do that for BTVS now (Angel, Cordelia, and Wesley were already done, so I won’t include them here, but I will include Oz). For me:

    Gryffindor: Buffy and Spike

    Ravenclaw: Giles and Dawn

    Hufflepuff: Oz, Tara, and Xander (Gryffindor could be argued for Xander, some may argue Ravenclaw for Oz)

    Slytherin: Anya and Willow (Arguments could be made for Ravenclaw for Willow)   

I based their houses off of what the characters are shown to value as well as what their behaviors reflect. A lot of fans will put Spike in Slytherin, but I feel they do that because of the whole false dichotomy that Slytherin = evil/bad/morally ambiguous characters (and many fans will put all of the Scoobies in Gryffindor automatically because of the false dichotomy that Gryffindor = good/morally righteous and sound characters). Really, Spike doesn’t value ambition or power. He likes women who are physically powerful (but not power itself, he is fine with handing that over to people that he respects, especially in combat) and he does wish to prove himself, but the way he goes about it shows that he values courage over either power or ambition. He tries to prove himself through risk taking. He is a thrill seeker who is an open book and wears his heart on his sleeve. Nothing about him really conveys Slytherin in that sense. I can see Spike being a Hufflepuff or even a Ravenclaw over a Slytherin.

As for Xander, he certainly wasn’t loyal to Cordelia when he cheated on her with Willow, but he demonstrates his love for loyalty when it comes to his friends over all, which works as a double-edged sword for his character in some ways. And while he wasn’t hard working in high school, he does value hard work once he finds a job that fits him and he values it when he sees it in others.

I placed Willow in Slytherin rather than Ravenclaw because I always viewed her desire to learn and master things coming from the power trip that comes with it. She values the ambition behind learning and having knowledge, rather than the things being learned and the knowledge itself, this is what makes her differ from Giles, who gets genuinely excited to simply learn new things. Giles is more of the stereotypical Ravenclaw, the one that fans tend to think of first and foremost. Dawn is definitely more of the Luna Lovegood weird type of Ravenclaw though. She has been shown to be naturally curious about things and will take initiative to learn about things that interest her. She is also very experimental…at least with her food, haha.

I feel like Buffy, Tara, Oz, and Anya’s placements are all pretty self-explanatory and probably wouldn’t be viewed as overly debatable.

Ending Notes: If you made it all the way through this e-mail, then I congratulate you! This turned out way more massive than I had planned, but I just feel like there is so much that can be talked about and discussed in the later seasons of Buffy. I’m a big fan of Seasons 4-7 (as well as the comics…for the most part, some comic seasons I view more favorably than others), so I am happy to see that the newbies have been enjoying Season 6 so far.  

Thank you so much for this, Jessica!  You’ve made a lot of interesting points here and I see this sparking quite a bit of debate in the future - and I’m not just talking about Hogwarts Houses ;) Seriously, your points about Spike and Buffy’s slow burn came as a very nice reminder to this superfan, as I keep forgetting that like Darla, Spike wasn’t actually meant to stick around. Disagree on Giles leaving being a good thing, but I dig your style. Now, I think this is long enough without me writing a response, but really. This was amazing.