I mean, c'mon, didn't Joss have all this planned out on a big chart in his room when he was 15
Of course he did. I'm gonna go finish all my veggies and wait for Santa Claus
Which really sounds snarky which I *really* don't mean. I want to believe that it is all planned out and there is a big reason and that if I am very good, Joss will make everything allright...
Um, going back to lurking here for a while...
I will note that I can't see an attemped vamping by Spike as having any resonance or being in character for Spike, for mostly the reasons Ken discussed.
I'd like to go back a ways and thank Hec for this agreement, but I can't claim this as an original thought - I think it was Betsy who first articulated that Spike wasn't interested in Vampire interactions in SR back when it first premiered.
I can also say that I agree with Hec on most of what he says on season 6, but I'm not sure I can go along with anyone on season 7 because, 1) I NEVER saw Spike remotely trying to rekindle he romance with Buffy on any intentional level and, 2) while she may have kept defending him on the whole "he's got a soul issue", she never fell into the making out sessions she kept falling into with Angel using the same criteria. And quite honestly, in Buffy's book of who's fucked her over, Angelus and Faith are WAY ahead of Spike in that contest, mainly because while she slept with him, I don't think she had any illusions that Spike was really a "good" guy.
While she may have gotten support from him, and he may have gotten a perfect moment from her trust, I never got anything along the lines of "you want your boyfriend back" from Buffy w/r/t Spike. Which certainly WAS the case with Angel. She may have said she loved Spike (and actually, I believe that she did LOVE him, just that she NEVER, EVER was IN LOVE with him, ever), but I also believe Spike went to his date with destiny believing what he told her - "No you don't" - and, more to the point, he was OK with that.
Over on TVtome.com they say that originally, Joss was going to have all of the scoobies sacrifice themselves to save the world in "Chosen"; they would all end up in the Hellmouth, which sounds to me like the void mentioned in Fray. I'll bet that's what that referred to. Joss later decided that killing everyone would be too sad for an ending.
Killing everyone would have been Joss.
I see him as the "killing almost everyone" type. We need to feel really really bad for someone.
After 7 years I think Joss could have found a way to make us feel sympathy for the school bus.
Right, like even in Shakespearean tragedy, doesn't someone usually live to tell the tale?
Sassy: Yeah, the standard ending for a Shakespearean tragedy sees all the main characters lying around dead except one, who restores order and gets to be the next king or something. I was expecting the season to end w/ Buffy dying yet again and then going to heaven, and maybe w/ a bunch of other characters dying; I thought Faith might also die redeeming herself and then a new slayer would be called.
Gleebo: Andrew and Dawn the survivors! What are you crazy? (actually I do kinda like them, but I'd be quite cross if they were the ones left alive and the Core Four, Spike, and Anya were all on the floor dead)
I seriously doubt Joss intended on killing the core four.
Unless it was the brakes going out on the bus as they went through a moutain pass after the finale and Willow was knocked out, so couldn't save them with magic.
And the only survivor is Faith, on Spike's motorcycle, who sees it all.
Then in the sequal series, Spike is sent back by TPTB, shows up to be her watcher....and get his bike.