lirazel | Annoyance of the day:

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Annoyance of the day:

People who flat-out say that Buffy didn't love Spike despite the fact that she said she did.

She said she did. The only reason we have to believe that she didn't is one thing Spike said, and since when do people believe anything that comes out of Spike's mouth? Boy can speak the truth that no one else will, but he also says a ton of b.s., and everyone knows it.

I just hatehatehatehatehatehate all of these people sitting around telling a woman (and it would be a woman--if a man said, it I think a lot less people would disagree with her) who finds it nearly impossible to say the words "I love you" even to people she regards as family (remember "Intervention"? That's canon) that she doesn't love someone when she said she did.

I don't have a problem with people quibbling over the nature of her love. You can argue that she didn't love him romantically or as much as she did Angel or whatever (I would disagree with the first one and re: the second, I would remind you that, as

the_royal_anna says, we don't love in amounts. We love in ways). That's legit. But to say, flat-out, that she didn't love him even though she says she did takes agency away from Buffy in a way that I am entirely uncomfortable with and that DRIVES ME CRAZY, OKAY. If she had said she loved Riley (she didn't, did she?), I would be pissed at people saying she didn't love him, either. Uuuugh why does this annoy me so much?

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It means that you make the choice to trust them, to sacrifice for them, to be loyal to them, etc. And Buffy clearly does make those choices

All true. But we can also make those same choices for friends who are not our lovers. It in and of itself is not necessarily a litmus test proving romantic love or romantic interest.

Saying the words at that point is just icing on the cake.
But perhaps necessary in a relationship that has been plagued with miscommunication and misunderstanding. Certainly, it's not an unreasonable desire to want the words.

Also, I think you're conflating two different things here when you talk about Spike.
I'm not entirely sure what you mean here. I'm saying that this is what Spike believes and why he believes it. I'm not saying he's necessarily correct, just that there are real reasons why Spike has the point of view that he has.

As for an unambiguous moment, I guess you must have a different standard
This is most likely true. And a lot of people have a myriad of responses and viewpoints. I do think though, if it were completely unambiguous it wouldn't be the source of so many debates so many years after the airing of the episode. And I don't think the ambiguity was unintentional. I think Joss specifically wrote the ambiguity there because he was deliberately trying to serve more than one ship in the episode, and that muddles things.

But we can also make those same choices for friends who are not our lovers. It in and of itself is not necessarily a litmus test proving romantic love or romantic interest.

I never said it was. To quote from

penny_lane_42's original post: "I don't have a problem with people quibbling over the nature of her love. You can argue that she didn't love him romantically" but that not she didn't love him at all.

I'm not saying he's necessarily correct, just that there are real reasons why Spike has the point of view that he has.

We weren't really talking about Spike, though, we were talking about the fans' reaction, so I took it as you equating the two - i.e. if Spike doesn't believe her, why should we?

To be perfectly honest, I never felt perfectly certain. Season 6 didn't just damage Buffy or Spike. As a viewer I had interpreted things such as Buffy turning to Spike in AfterLife, and Flooded and all the lovely gracenotes of early Season 6 as signs that she did indeed care. Then we had Spike say that it was just "whispering in a deadman's ear" and I was confused. What? Really? No. Surely, surely it meant something. Gestures like that? They had to. But I kept being told that it was just Buffy being depressed and using Spike and using Spike as a way of punishing herself and I didn't want to believe that. But after that looooong season, at some point I had to give in that the story they were saying they were telling was indeed the story that they were trying to tell. So, much like Spike, i ceased trusting my read of Buffy-gestures. I don't know for sure. I needed clarity that wasn't provided. So at the end of the day, I hoped that Buffy meant it. I wanted to believe in the things that I saw, but I had believed in what I had seen before and that turned out to be a mirage. So while I hope that she meant it and hope that it was true, I can't say that I was wholly confident (and I can't say that the comics haven't undermined even that). I always had room for doubt even as I chose to believe. But I can't say that belief came with confident certainty on my part. It never did.

Crap. That was me. I don't know why my computer does this on the first post every night.

That... doesn't make sense to me.

You were disappointed that the story you saw in S6 wasn't the story they were telling (which is fair, I've had the same experience at times), based on what the writers said outside the text. So in S7 you don't trust your instincts about Buffy... even though Joss has confirmed your instincts in the commentary and said that Buffy did love Spike?

I mean, either accept authorial intent or ignore it, it's up to you, but why accept it one season and then ignore it the next? Especially when the author AGREES with you, lol.

Maybe that works if you watch the whole thing on DVDs after the fact. I didn't. I watched it during its first run and commentaries came way late. And the sheer fact that Jane E of all people reacted with surprise that Joss had said that in commentaries showed that this was far less than clear in the writing room.

And, no, I don't necessarily place great weight in writer commentaries because anyone who reads very many of Joss's can come away with a sneaking suspicion that he tailors his answer to the questioner. And I'm not basing my Season 6 purely on commentary (though god knows we were given an earfull of it) but on the way what was said influenced subsequent writing. People were surprised at first when Spike came up in OMWF that Buffy was just using him because "whisper in a dead man's ear doesn't make it real" because, hey, were we nuts to think her behavior was genuine? Except that the story went on to reinforce this concept exactly as the writers proclaimed it would. She was using him as her secret, as confirmation that something was "wrong" with her. When people protested that it wasn't all dark and destructive, the writers felt the need to illustrate that fact, so we "Dead Things" and "Seeing Red" where Marti Noxon does a post interview of "See! I told you so!!" And after reading Marti's "I proved my point!" the desire grows to say, "I'm not second guessing the text again." You may adopt "I'll believe the text, the text, and only the text. AMEN." And the text? Is ambiguous. If it weren't people wouldn't have come away firmly believing entirely different things. Writers of the actual show wouldn't react with surprise to Jossian commentaries.

And it's REALLY difficult to take Joss saying "Oh, I left this blank spot in Chosen for you to imagine whatever you want because I won't write it, but feel free to fill in the blanks if you wish." Or the fact that he now writes a comic scene where Buffy tells Angel that Spike is "beneath him," that Spike is only "convenient" because, as Joss penned "he has a ship"... yeah. I'm not feeling so positive about Joss's view of things (and if he wants to convince me otherwise he has a hell of a lot of work).

I realize that a lot of people have very firm feelings about what they think Buffy feels. Those with the strongest convictions feel a strong connection to Buffy. I don't really feel that I have a strong connection to Buffy. In fanfic, I feel that I get her. But when I see her on screen... well, she's often enigmatic. And it's not that I can't take subtle or restrained performances. I adore Gilian Anderson, Claudia Black, and even Anna Torv's portrayal of restrained women. But I feel that I can read those actress, I don't have the same ease with SMG. I have even less ease in the case of Buffy where every writer out of the box had often polar opposite interpretations of what they thought was going on. So it isn't clear to me. I don't know how clear it was to the people involved. Certainly the writers have given every kind of answer and so have the actors. So I don't feel it's unambiguous. And I don't feel that I can just look at Buffy and know. And I don't really buy "they couldn't really clarify it in the text" because they had no issues with clarifing "You're beneath me" multiple times. Of for Joss to just recently write Buffy flinging herself into Angel's arms proclaiming "You're the guy I'd spend the rest of my life with."

So I don't pick and choose which version is the 'right' one. It honestly isn't clear to me. I can see a multiplicity of views for what's on screen. And no matter who insists that I should be certain can make me actually feel certain. The dye was cast long ago. Before there were DVD commentaries but when there was still a lot of contradictory statements floating around.

Frankly, I'm proud of myself for having now reached the point that I'm fairly sanguine with it because I used to not be. I've written my share of incendiary screeds. This is my generous interpretation. Trust me, in the bad old days, it was worse. :)

I'm not saying you should accept authorial intent at all if you don't want to. (Frankly, I think trying to figure out what the hell Joss really intended is an excellent way to drive yourself completely mad. You're absolutely right - he contradicts himself all the time.) It just seemed weird to me that you'd assume your interpretation of S6 is wrong because it's contradicted by what the writers said, but when Joss actually agrees with you in S7, you discount it. But clearly we're talking past each other to some extent, because you're incorporating the comics, whereas they have absolutely no bearing on my interpretation of the TV show.

Personally, I don't give a fig what Joss intended. If the comics have done anything for me, they've proven that the story I want to see is not the story Joss is interested in telling. That doesn't mean the story I'm seeing isn't there, and if something he says or does outside the text contradicts what I see on screen, I'm gonna ignore him.

they've proven that the story I want to see is not the story Joss is interested in telling

Yeah, unfortunately, I reached that conclusion long ago.

And it really isn't a matter of picking and choosing commentaries it's that what we were told foretold what happened. As you watch it in a cause and effect sequence rather than explanation after the fact, it takes on a slightly different perspective.

all the lovely gracenotes of early Season 6 as signs that she did indeed care.

But I kept being told that it was just Buffy being depressed and using Spike and using Spike as a way of punishing herself and I didn't want to believe that.

I don't think these two are mutually exclusive, by any means...

Buffy said herself in Seeing Red that she had feelings for Spike. She said it wasn't love, then, but that's the foundation from which her feelings for him in S7 developed.

Yeah, well, Mutant Enemy hammered home pretty well what they thought they meant and it wasn't what I had thought I was seeing. And it permanently undermined my confidence that what I see is necessarily what anyone involved with the project might intend. Hence, I do need the reassurance at pivotal points of actual text with clarity.

Some couples can survive on subtext (Mulder and Scully are great examples of this) but the miscommunication and confusion around events in Spuffy removed them from that category than me. I need more than my own feelings to go on.

...but Buffy saying she has feelings for Spike in S6 is text. As is Buffy telling Spike she loved him in Chosen. Like, literally-it-was-said-explicitly-on-screen text.

And I'd call Buffy/Spike in S7 ambiguous, but I definitely wouldn't call it subtext.

But they were also quite careful to always leave their options open. There was always plausible deniability involved.

I came away disappointed because what I had wanted was just one unambiguous moment, and we never actually got that IMHO. I know others are far more certain of what I saw, but I never had that degree of certainty.

Well, yes. As I said, S7 left things ambiguous. But you specifically denounced it all as "subtext", which is incorrect.

Also, I wouldn't call Buffy's confession that she has feelings for Spike in S6 ambiguous, and I initially responded to your comment about Buffy's feelings towards Spike in S6 (which set up a false dichotomy between "Buffy using him" and "Buffy having feelings for him").

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