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blackfrancineSo, no! I didn't give up on the 30 Days of Buffy meme! I finally got my software all sorted out and my computer firing on all cylinders. And I've spent the last 3 days working on the picspam that is hiding below the cut. Oooh. Suspenseful.
Now, my Photoshopping skills are what you might generously call rudimentary. But this, you guys, is my Mona Lisa. My Sistine Chapel. My... Still Life with Woodpecker?
Anyway. It came out almost how I wanted it to. So, I'm pleased. So without further ado, I give you Day 13: My favorite character arc.
SPIKE
I've actually been putting off working on this meme not just because my software was messed up, but also because I just didn't know what to say here. Every time I thought about it, I'd get overwhelmed and start looking at shoes online in an effort to block out my utter failure at waxing philosophic about Spike.
So, I'm just going to blab off the cuff and hope that it makes sense.
Let's take this chronologically, from Spike's POV. We meet William: a dork, surely, but oddly unashamed of his dorkiness. Unashamed of his poetry, unashamed of his feelings, and unashamed of his love of beauty and sense and lushness. He's a Romantic through and through--full of desire and awake to the world around him. But we find him--this Romantic-- somewhat aptly on the cusp of the Modern age. (I'm just going to apologize here--because I'm a Modernism nerd--so I can't pass up the possibility to talk about it.)
Modernism really picks up steam about 10 years after we meet William in 1880--but early incarnations are already sneaking around in Gerard Manly Hopkins and some early Joseph Conrad and Yeats--and frankly, you can even argue Matthew Arnold as a proto-Modernist. But, what's interesting about that is that the Modernist movement in literature was one of skepticism and pessimism--it was the ultimate destruction of the romanticism and optimism of the Romantics and Aestheticists, and it was absolutely the death knell of the propriety and precision of form of the Victorians. It was annihilation. And it coincides almost exactly with William's first attempt to annihilate himself. To free himself from the limbo he existed in as William--walking along the edge of Victorian sobriety and Romantic emotional inebriation.
After the humiliation of having his words, his work, his feelings mocked--after having the object of his desire--of his love and admiration--cast him down in the most cruel and humiliating way imaginable--William is devastated. And he's offered an opportunity by a dark, beautiful stranger--an opportunity for effulgence.
But the effulgence Drusilla offers William is the flash of a nuclear bomb. What she's offering him is a chance to burn everything that he was down to the ground. And it's the perfect offer for poor, weepy William. He wants to destroy himself, to destroy everything at that moment--because he loved it all. He loved the world and all its beauty--but the world didn't love him back. So, destroy it all, he figures.
And so he does. He embraces the darkness within himself and sets out to destroy what William was--makes himself hard, not soft. Makes himself into a warrior, not a poet. Makes himself a success with women (or woman), not a rebuffed dork.
But, before he gets to the point of remaking his image, William tries to take the one person who loved him along for the ride. He tries to vamp his mother--save her from the mortal coil and have her beside him forever. But that doesn't turn out how he thought it would. She rejects him. Once she's unbound from propriety, the one person who ever cared for William, who ever accepted him, spews vitriol at him and shunts him away.
All William has now is the darkness leftover from a lifetime of rejection and pain. That, and his love for Drusilla--the one person who chose him. The one person who has ever freely selected him. The one person who accepted him.
So he makes himself into the chaos that he knows that she loves. He makes himself into everything that William wasn't... Or. That's not quite true. He makes himself into the darkest version of what William was. He thinks he's destroying William, but really, he's just painting William’s every urge black. Spike, as he's now called, is still the Romantic--drunk on feeling, eyes open to the beauty all around him. Only now, beauty comes in shades of red. But while Drusilla’s love fuels Spike’s recklessness and destruction, it also keeps alive the tiniest flicker of pure tenderness. Keeps that lighter, gentler version of William from being completely lost in the darkness. Keeps him still clinging to a little bit of love for the world on which he wreaks havoc.
But when Drusilla leaves him shortly after he wisks her unconscious body away to South America, Spike melts down. And slowly, all the trappings of his persona start turning brittle and crumbling to dust. Some of these changes are catalyzed by outside forces (the Initiative chipping him), but some were internal—the natural shifts that result from Drusilla--his center of gravity, his sun--disappearing.
After a brief bout of violence and purposelessness, Spike decides to remake himself for love once again. Only this time—he has to remake himself as a good guy: gallant, brave, loyal, and true. Because somewhere along the line, as Spike lost control of the image he had crafted for the last century, his burning hatred for the Slayer turns into burning passion.
So Spike seeks out the Scoobies. He tries to fit in with them. Maybe it's not an exact fit, he figures. Maybe he'd have to remake himself--annihilate his identity once again--to gain their acceptance. But it’s a small price to pay for belonging. One that he’d already paid once. After all--he just wants to BELONG (with her; to her). And he just wanted to be loved (by her). And here. Here was a girl who accepted the dorks, who accepted the werewolves and the freaks. Who accepted his grandsire. Hers is a ragtag band: witches and demons and geeks, oh my. And he had every reason to think they just might one day accept him. That she might one day accept him. So he tries.
But it too ends in destruction. As William, he burns himself down and erects Spike—William the Bloody, Slayer of Slayers. As Spike, he tries to save the world, and the flicker of love he had left for the world lost him the center of his world. Lost him his reason for being Spike. So he tries to be someone else, someone better, someone like… Angel. But. That version of Spike crumbles as well. Time and time again, Spike tries—pursues acceptance, creates an identity that will get others to accept him—and time and time again, he ends up destroying himself and others.
But finally, he gets it right. On accident, mind you—but right nonetheless. In a last-ditch effort to be the person Buffy could love, to be a person that she could accept, he gets his soul back. And slowly, 100 years worth of experiences click into place. Spike comes to accept what he’s done—who he is. First it’s the more personal crimes he’s ready to accept—hurting Buffy, betraying her and Dawn’s trust. Then it’s the countless heinous impersonal destruction and pain and death. Then, it’s the person he was. The man who he destroyed in an alley in 1880. He sees that he was worthy of love back then. He sees that Andrew--the dork, the hapless murderer--is worthy of redemption and acceptance and—yes—love now. And he sees that Buffy, with all her darkness and brittleness and wrongdoings, is worthy of love and esteem and tenderness.
I love the last several pictures of the picspam above. I love Buffy and Spike staring at each other in Never Leave Me, staring at each other in Show Time, staring at each other in Touched. Because it’s as if they’re each looking into a mirror, and for the first time, realizing that they can love that person. When Spike looks at Buffy, he sees his own humanity and his own desire to strive for goodness. When Buffy looks at Spike, she sees her own darkness—but the goodness that exists in that darkness; she sees her own ability become a better person, to follow her inner compass. They are teaching each other to love themselves through their love for each other.
So, after getting his soul, Spike starts to accept himself. And as he accepts himself, he finds unconditional acceptance from Buffy as well.
His arc isn’t a simple “Spike was bad and became good” story. No. Spike has been circling the same territory over and over—remaking himself, then destroying that new incarnation again and again. Always looking to create someone that the world would accept—someone that he could accept. And in the end, he found that person. Like Dorothy, he had the way home all along. Every incarnation of himself was acceptable and loveable (well, aside from the murder and whatnot). And when he learned to love himself, he became a Champion for humanity. He found something good and right within himself, within his soul. He found something... effulgent.
And now I will sing “The Greatest Love of All” by Whitney Houston: I believe children are our future. Teach them well, and let them lead the way…
Now, my Photoshopping skills are what you might generously call rudimentary. But this, you guys, is my Mona Lisa. My Sistine Chapel. My... Still Life with Woodpecker?
Anyway. It came out almost how I wanted it to. So, I'm pleased. So without further ado, I give you Day 13: My favorite character arc.
SPIKE
I've actually been putting off working on this meme not just because my software was messed up, but also because I just didn't know what to say here. Every time I thought about it, I'd get overwhelmed and start looking at shoes online in an effort to block out my utter failure at waxing philosophic about Spike.
So, I'm just going to blab off the cuff and hope that it makes sense.
Let's take this chronologically, from Spike's POV. We meet William: a dork, surely, but oddly unashamed of his dorkiness. Unashamed of his poetry, unashamed of his feelings, and unashamed of his love of beauty and sense and lushness. He's a Romantic through and through--full of desire and awake to the world around him. But we find him--this Romantic-- somewhat aptly on the cusp of the Modern age. (I'm just going to apologize here--because I'm a Modernism nerd--so I can't pass up the possibility to talk about it.)
Modernism really picks up steam about 10 years after we meet William in 1880--but early incarnations are already sneaking around in Gerard Manly Hopkins and some early Joseph Conrad and Yeats--and frankly, you can even argue Matthew Arnold as a proto-Modernist. But, what's interesting about that is that the Modernist movement in literature was one of skepticism and pessimism--it was the ultimate destruction of the romanticism and optimism of the Romantics and Aestheticists, and it was absolutely the death knell of the propriety and precision of form of the Victorians. It was annihilation. And it coincides almost exactly with William's first attempt to annihilate himself. To free himself from the limbo he existed in as William--walking along the edge of Victorian sobriety and Romantic emotional inebriation.
After the humiliation of having his words, his work, his feelings mocked--after having the object of his desire--of his love and admiration--cast him down in the most cruel and humiliating way imaginable--William is devastated. And he's offered an opportunity by a dark, beautiful stranger--an opportunity for effulgence.
But the effulgence Drusilla offers William is the flash of a nuclear bomb. What she's offering him is a chance to burn everything that he was down to the ground. And it's the perfect offer for poor, weepy William. He wants to destroy himself, to destroy everything at that moment--because he loved it all. He loved the world and all its beauty--but the world didn't love him back. So, destroy it all, he figures.
And so he does. He embraces the darkness within himself and sets out to destroy what William was--makes himself hard, not soft. Makes himself into a warrior, not a poet. Makes himself a success with women (or woman), not a rebuffed dork.
But, before he gets to the point of remaking his image, William tries to take the one person who loved him along for the ride. He tries to vamp his mother--save her from the mortal coil and have her beside him forever. But that doesn't turn out how he thought it would. She rejects him. Once she's unbound from propriety, the one person who ever cared for William, who ever accepted him, spews vitriol at him and shunts him away.
All William has now is the darkness leftover from a lifetime of rejection and pain. That, and his love for Drusilla--the one person who chose him. The one person who has ever freely selected him. The one person who accepted him.
So he makes himself into the chaos that he knows that she loves. He makes himself into everything that William wasn't... Or. That's not quite true. He makes himself into the darkest version of what William was. He thinks he's destroying William, but really, he's just painting William’s every urge black. Spike, as he's now called, is still the Romantic--drunk on feeling, eyes open to the beauty all around him. Only now, beauty comes in shades of red. But while Drusilla’s love fuels Spike’s recklessness and destruction, it also keeps alive the tiniest flicker of pure tenderness. Keeps that lighter, gentler version of William from being completely lost in the darkness. Keeps him still clinging to a little bit of love for the world on which he wreaks havoc.
But when Drusilla leaves him shortly after he wisks her unconscious body away to South America, Spike melts down. And slowly, all the trappings of his persona start turning brittle and crumbling to dust. Some of these changes are catalyzed by outside forces (the Initiative chipping him), but some were internal—the natural shifts that result from Drusilla--his center of gravity, his sun--disappearing.
After a brief bout of violence and purposelessness, Spike decides to remake himself for love once again. Only this time—he has to remake himself as a good guy: gallant, brave, loyal, and true. Because somewhere along the line, as Spike lost control of the image he had crafted for the last century, his burning hatred for the Slayer turns into burning passion.
So Spike seeks out the Scoobies. He tries to fit in with them. Maybe it's not an exact fit, he figures. Maybe he'd have to remake himself--annihilate his identity once again--to gain their acceptance. But it’s a small price to pay for belonging. One that he’d already paid once. After all--he just wants to BELONG (with her; to her). And he just wanted to be loved (by her). And here. Here was a girl who accepted the dorks, who accepted the werewolves and the freaks. Who accepted his grandsire. Hers is a ragtag band: witches and demons and geeks, oh my. And he had every reason to think they just might one day accept him. That she might one day accept him. So he tries.
But it too ends in destruction. As William, he burns himself down and erects Spike—William the Bloody, Slayer of Slayers. As Spike, he tries to save the world, and the flicker of love he had left for the world lost him the center of his world. Lost him his reason for being Spike. So he tries to be someone else, someone better, someone like… Angel. But. That version of Spike crumbles as well. Time and time again, Spike tries—pursues acceptance, creates an identity that will get others to accept him—and time and time again, he ends up destroying himself and others.
But finally, he gets it right. On accident, mind you—but right nonetheless. In a last-ditch effort to be the person Buffy could love, to be a person that she could accept, he gets his soul back. And slowly, 100 years worth of experiences click into place. Spike comes to accept what he’s done—who he is. First it’s the more personal crimes he’s ready to accept—hurting Buffy, betraying her and Dawn’s trust. Then it’s the countless heinous impersonal destruction and pain and death. Then, it’s the person he was. The man who he destroyed in an alley in 1880. He sees that he was worthy of love back then. He sees that Andrew--the dork, the hapless murderer--is worthy of redemption and acceptance and—yes—love now. And he sees that Buffy, with all her darkness and brittleness and wrongdoings, is worthy of love and esteem and tenderness.
I love the last several pictures of the picspam above. I love Buffy and Spike staring at each other in Never Leave Me, staring at each other in Show Time, staring at each other in Touched. Because it’s as if they’re each looking into a mirror, and for the first time, realizing that they can love that person. When Spike looks at Buffy, he sees his own humanity and his own desire to strive for goodness. When Buffy looks at Spike, she sees her own darkness—but the goodness that exists in that darkness; she sees her own ability become a better person, to follow her inner compass. They are teaching each other to love themselves through their love for each other.
So, after getting his soul, Spike starts to accept himself. And as he accepts himself, he finds unconditional acceptance from Buffy as well.
His arc isn’t a simple “Spike was bad and became good” story. No. Spike has been circling the same territory over and over—remaking himself, then destroying that new incarnation again and again. Always looking to create someone that the world would accept—someone that he could accept. And in the end, he found that person. Like Dorothy, he had the way home all along. Every incarnation of himself was acceptable and loveable (well, aside from the murder and whatnot). And when he learned to love himself, he became a Champion for humanity. He found something good and right within himself, within his soul. He found something... effulgent.
And now I will sing “The Greatest Love of All” by Whitney Houston: I believe children are our future. Teach them well, and let them lead the way…
