When I watched the rape, I thought "No, the Spike in my head still would do evil things -- just not that one, not now, not here." But, I figured, if they wanted him well tarnished, that's a quick and easy way.

But they didn't, and I think they overshot the gravity, especially when I heard them talk in interviews.

I don't know if I'm speaking from a prevalent frame of reference, but I thought rape was the wrong scale. To get past that, to get to feelings that ME seemed to want from me, I had to pretend the attempt hadn't happened. I couldn't integrate it in how he was presented later, with the reactions they seemed to be reaching for.

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When I watched the rape, I thought "No, the Spike in my head still would do evil things -- just not that one, not now, not here." But, I figured, if they wanted him well tarnished, that's a quick and easy way.

Yup. The fact that it was also one of the worst-directed scenes the show's ever had didn't help either.

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To get past that, to get to feelings that ME seemed to want from me, I had to pretend the attempt hadn't happened. I couldn't integrate it in how he was presented later, with the reactions they seemed to be reaching for.

This I would agree with. I would also say they kept wanting to use "Soul Now!" to excuse it, without really saying what "Soul Now!" means.

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That meant "I don't feel like fighting about this, so whatever." But I've thought about it now, and ... I do feel like fighting about it. Just a little. Sorry.

Hee. Okay. We have cable, but there's nothing on it, so we have to make our own fun. I wasn't asking to pick. I was only asking because I couldn't parse what your "it" was--if it was standing in for the lj entry, or for the situation with Spike, or what.

You know what? I do think the writers made Spike do it, and if that makes me a bad fan or a stupid fan or a blinded-by-Marsters'-cheekbones redemptionista, so be it.

Of course they did. They made him do all the other stuff, too, though. I think we were supposed to be sympathetic to Spike most of the time. He was written and played very sympathetically. Even in S3--we just watched Lover's Walk the other night, Spike is a sympathetic thing--an evil, obsessive thing, but sympathetic all the time. There's an essay on Slayage (I think) about Spike as anti-hero I want to tie in here, but it's been too long since I read it. My objection to the lj entry was essentially that it was another "Buffy stopped wanting Spike because Buffy's a bitch" essay, this time with bitch=sexless or dyke.

I wanted Spike redeemed. I am even glad he was redeemed. I wish his motive for it had been executed a bit differently, and I think after the fact, the writers did, too.

And then Marti Noxon, or whoever, decided we weren't supposed to feel that way, that Spike was Still Bad. And to prove it, they made him do something unforgivable. I can't throw it out as part of the show's canon, but I can say that I feel it was out of character for Spike at that point in the series.

Well, if we're talking artistic choices, I remember Marti stating in an interview they were going to have Spike do something very bad to get across he was still an evil, souless thing. I don't think they intended it to be unforgiveable. I think they just intended it to serve as a motivation for a soul quest. He hurt the one human he didn't want to hurt, and said he wouldn't hurt. I think they just didn't think beforehand about how it might play out to have the hero in the arms of her would-be rapist, until after, and then they didn't know what to do with him. But I don't think it was OoC for him to do it, either, but I can understand what people see, who do see it that way.

To get past that, to get to feelings that ME seemed to want from me, I had to pretend the attempt hadn't happened. I couldn't integrate it in how he was presented later, with the reactions they seemed to be reaching for.

I stopped composing this reponse in the middle, to put the kids to bed and do a bunch of stuff. I'm glad I refreshed, because--yeah. There are future storyline consequences to using a rape attempt as motivation, especially when you're telling a hero's story, even more so when your hero exists to take back the night for the little blond in the alley getting et by monsters, and particularly when the character who attempts the rape is supposed to be the romantic lead.

(edited long after the fact, to correct the season I'd listed above, because I realized after I left that I'd noted the wrong season, and thought about it all night, and isn't that crazy?)

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There are future storyline consequences to using a rape attempt as motivation, especially when you're telling a hero's story, even more so when your hero exists to take back the night for the little blond in the alley getting et by monsters, and particularly when the character who attempts the rape is supposed to be the romantic lead.

Didn't this scenario actually work for General Hospital, with Luke and Laura? It was so long ago that I disremember.

Also? I gotta say this. The end of Gone with the Wind, when Rhett hauls Scarlett's ass up that grand sweeping flight of stairs? She doesn't appear in any way to be consenting. IJS.

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And to prove it, they made him do something unforgiveable. I can't throw it out as part of the show's canon, but I can say that I feel it was out of character for Spike at that point in the series.

Again, I think they made a mistake cutting the (and I'm using this term more to describe what I think they had in mind for Spike's mindset, and not to smooth over or forgive the obvious intent) forced seduction set up scene.

It didn't feel out of character to me, but it still makes the S7 relationship a bitter, nasty pill of WTF were they THINKING? I mean, how many brain cells does it take to map the so-common-it's-a-Lifetime-staple cry of "But he's changed!" to "It's different. He has a soul now!"

Also, thanks to the heat and this discussion, the Spike in my head is now played by Tony Geary. I curse you all.

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Didn't this scenario actually work for General Hospital, with Luke and Laura? It was so long ago that I disremember.

Sort of. At the time it was sort of a bad romance novel thing. But, more recently there were serious consequences with both their relationship and their relationships with their son.

The end of Gone with the Wind, when Rhett hauls Scarlett's ass up that grand sweeping flight of stairs? She doesn't appear in any way to be consenting. IJS.

Not the end, more like near the endish of the middle. The end was her deciding that she wanted Rhett and him not giving a damn. But you're absolutely right about him raping her.

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Didn't this scenario actually work for General Hospital, with Luke and Laura? It was so long ago that I disremember.

Yes, but mostly, GH retconned the rape (and it wasn't a rape attempt, it was a rape, with her hiding it from her husband and crying, and saying no, and her sobbing in the part after) later, as a "seduction". But Laura Webber Baldwin Spencer was never supposed to take back the night in the first place. She is a typical soap perpetual victim, with shiny shiny hair. Even when Laura is strong and right (actually, I haven't watched in years, but for the first 15-20 years of the character that I saw, this was the case). It's a different story to have perpetual victim end up with her rapist.

Again, I think they made a mistake cutting the (and I'm using this term more to describe what I think they had in mind for Spike's mindset, and not to smooth over or forgive the obvious intent) forced seduction set up scene.

Yes. I agree.

It didn't feel out of character to me, but it still makes the S7 relationship a bitter, nasty pill of WTF were they THINKING? I mean, how many brain cells does it take to map the so-common-it's-a-Lifetime-staple cry of "But he's changed!" to "It's different. He has a soul now!"

Yep.

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If I'm not mistaken Laura went crazy and might have tried to kill Skye, though not askye which I keep trying to type

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I would also say they kept wanting to use "Soul Now!" to excuse it, without really saying what "Soul Now!" means.

Yes. This is one of things I mean't when I talked about how Soul was a bad choice for McGuffin. This is fundmental in judging a character. To what extent is Soul!Spike responsible for NotSoul!Spikes actions. Ditto Soul!Angel for Angelus. You will note that on Angel the show finally had to come to a conclusion about the nature of souls - that Angel was responsible and probably even to blame for what Angelus did - that Spike with the Soul had to carry the weight of what Spike without the Soul had done. Joss kept that ambiguous way to long. On this Minear was the better story teller - he saw that while lots of questions about the nature of the Buffyverse soul could be left unresolved, that one could not. And Cindy did some brilliant wanking on the subject - but on that aspect wanking should not have been needed.

Luke and Laura and GWTW:
Both reflect a world view that I think we've moved beyond. It is like appreciating the Merchant of Venice. The MOV is brilliant, but in spite of attempts at other interpertation also anti-Semitic. But no one sensible says that Shakespear lacked a 20th century world view, so we can't enjoy Merchant of Venice, Shylock and all. And no one sensible would write that kind of anti-semetic stereotype today - at least not without dealing with the fact that it was an anti-semetic stereotype. You could not write the Merchant of Venice today (at least not with a Jewish sterotype. I'll bet you could get away with a gay or Muslim sterotype.)

Similarly, the "Happy Rape" is an old trope - Sabine Women, or a famous verse in Orlando Furioso for example. Don't think you could write Luke and Laura or GWTW today (GWTW for reasons besides the rape scene ending). Don't think we are poorer for that.

I'm kind of blind in the Soap range. Never really appreciated GWTW or most of the soaps. But I'll take peoples word for it that they have merit. And if the culture has opened its eyes to stuff they were blind to, that merit does not disapear.

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