As much as I think Seeing Red as an episode worked, the reasons I think it worked are the same reasons I think that their efforts to get past it in S7 failed like a failing thing that skipped finals. In that light, I wish they'd gone with attempted vamping.

Ah well.

Water. Bridge. Bad writing.

It's also made me think the writing staff is very disorganised and shortsighted.

Yes, this.

I think the difference for me is what he did next. And what he is. He's been saying she's like him, he tries to make her like him, and then goes and makes himself more like her. He's addressing his vampirism -- adding a soul instead of removing hers. I find that more consistent.

With this, ita has converted me. Somebody send her and appliance or something.

With this, ita has converted me. Somebody send her and appliance or something.

I think for the rape/sire theory of season six and seven, all one gets is a mellon baller.

Attempted vamping rather than attempted rape would have been MUCH better IMHO, because you have that added level of removal. I think the reason BtVS worked so well in seasons 1-3 was that they used supernatural metaphors for very heavy problems. This got diluted by Season 5 - possibly because the metaphorless death of Joyce was so effective. In any event, using the supernatural distanced the viewer from what was going on and also made the ethical issues much easier to shape, because Joss et al were creating their own reality & it's perfectly acceptable to create a morality that fits that.

I have this theory that ME considered having Spike vamp Buffy, but opted not to because they'd used that as a date rape metaphor earlier in the season (in All The Way) and didn't want to repeat themselves.

Maybe it's because humans with souls rape.

Cindy: Sorry which post are you refering to?

I think I was tossing out a reason why I think an attempted siring would have worked better than the attempted rape (for me) since they were going to have Buffy continue to have an emotional attachment to Spike, and continue to call him a hottie.

It might have been in response to the following, but I'm not sure now.

But aren't you left with the same problem? If it's a metaphor for rape, how can Buffy forgive him? Or is it a metaphor for something else? Or is it just better to dress the rape up as something else?

Given that the all-nat-sound attempted rape was in the same episode as Warren-with-a-gun, I think they were really pushing the "not all monsters are demons" message in SR. I doubt if attempted vamping even occured to them.

I think they'd mostly dumped the idea of metaphor by S6 - heck, I think they'd mostly dumped it by the end of S4. Party of Five with monsters, yada yada.

all-nat-sound

What does this bit mean, Jess?

(I agree with the rest of your post, but it's sad it didn't occur to them.)

nat = natural. No music or sfx. (I mean, there probably were some effects, but they were mixed to sound as natural and dogme-esque as possible.)

[edit: Like The Body]

Okay. I should have gotten that from the context. Sorry. Now what's dogme-esque - or at least dogme.

Hmmm... Now I want a hotdog. Dogme.