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sb_fag_ends2013-03-25 07:52 pm
brutti-ma-buoni.livejournal.com) wrote in sb_fag_ends2013-03-25 07:52 pm
Entry tags:
META: Through a Glass, Darkly?
Wow, these chickens are driving me out of my comfort zone. Meta! I do not meta. Even less than I fanmix. Except for this. The tweed-clad Giles!chicken must be propitiated. (Though if the next challenge is poetry, we're all in trouble.)
She asked me to write about: Reflection or Distortion: Spike as Buffy's mirror. So I have.
Does Spike mirror Buffy? Well, it's a nicely ironic choice of verb, isn't it?
Let's see them rising/falling in inverse proportion. See Spike rocking into Sunnydale in season 2, when Buffy's a little set back on her heels. See him broken in the centre of the season, as Buffy finds her strength. And see Spike, arms around Dru, riding into the sunrise his way, while Buffy gets the Bus of Grey Despair off to nowhere in particular.
Season four, where Spike gets alienated from every other demon in the world, and Buffy ends the season more integrated into her friends than ever before? See Buffy and Spike, ending season 5, with a big rise for him, and a big fall for her. She ends up dead. He's dead but alive. A study in contrasts.
Need I go into season 6? There's Buffy, glowy and complete, Spike broken and bereft, till Buffy rises (compulsorily) and her mood sinks. Spike's elated (if perturbed), and spends his energies on trying to get her to enjoy life. One way or another. Just as Buffy starts to find her purpose again, Spike loses his. Badly.
And then there's season seven: Buffy content, Spike in pieces. By the end, Buffy's surrounded by loved ones, looking to a new life, and Spike's a fading spark in a big hole in the ground.
Nuff said.
But then, you could make a perfectly adequate case for Buffy and Spike rising and falling together, couldn't you?
Season two looked at another way? Watch Angelus wreck them both. He takes Spike's lover and destroys Buffy's love. The way the season ends, both Spike and Buffy have lost so much, including their certainty about themselves. Buffy sacrifices Angel, an 'innocent' (depending on how one thinks about Angel vs Angelus). Spike, ffs, ends up saving the world. Okay, for selfish reasons. But still, what kind of demon is he, anyway?
Season four, Spike and Buffy are out of place. Uncomfortable. Buffy's world looks big and unfamiliar and scary. Spike's lost the comfort of his minions, his vampiric place in the world. They're in new relationships, and those relationships have plenty of points of tension. They both really, really don't like the Initiative. And, once again, they end the season as allies. Uneasily, perhaps, but still allies. (Which, if you look at things, is pretty much what happens every season.)
Season five shows them both finding their role, and their certainty. Till the end of the world. To defend Dawn. To love and mourn Joyce. To trust each other. I'm not saying they feel exactly as strongly on all these things, but they're going down the same path, to the same destination. And either of them would have died to save Dawn. They both hit the ground under the tower, dead. It just happened to be Buffy who didn't get up and walk.
Season six, they're darkness wound around each other, pulling each other down, taking each other further into the dark. Till they hit bottom, hurting each other badly (I'm not suggesting their offences are equivalent, please note, but by the end, they're taking chunks out of each other – and other people). And then, finally, they recognize what they have become, and they start to crawl upwards, fighting into the light. And that carries them through to the end of BtVS, I think. They wobble, they go to dark and difficult places, but they find themselves with strength and self-belief at the core. The scythe, the amulet – they're just props, powered by the strength of Spike's soul – which he fought for – and Buffy's unique more-than-a-Slayer heart.
Spike's strong. Buffy's stronger. They fight like they were matched to. The hair is not 100% natural blonde in either case. Spike's dead. Buffy's alive (a fair amount of the time). Spike kills Slayers, Buffy makes 'em. Spike dies a hero. Yeah, I think we know how that goes with Buffy.
All of which means, I suppose, that my conclusion must be: it depends on what you mean by mirror. And that's a classic essay mistake. Should've defined my terms at the start. Let me finish by concluding that yes, Buffy and Spike mirror one another. In some ways.
Kind of like a funhouse mirror.
:P
She asked me to write about: Reflection or Distortion: Spike as Buffy's mirror. So I have.
Does Spike mirror Buffy? Well, it's a nicely ironic choice of verb, isn't it?
Let's see them rising/falling in inverse proportion. See Spike rocking into Sunnydale in season 2, when Buffy's a little set back on her heels. See him broken in the centre of the season, as Buffy finds her strength. And see Spike, arms around Dru, riding into the sunrise his way, while Buffy gets the Bus of Grey Despair off to nowhere in particular.
Season four, where Spike gets alienated from every other demon in the world, and Buffy ends the season more integrated into her friends than ever before? See Buffy and Spike, ending season 5, with a big rise for him, and a big fall for her. She ends up dead. He's dead but alive. A study in contrasts.
Need I go into season 6? There's Buffy, glowy and complete, Spike broken and bereft, till Buffy rises (compulsorily) and her mood sinks. Spike's elated (if perturbed), and spends his energies on trying to get her to enjoy life. One way or another. Just as Buffy starts to find her purpose again, Spike loses his. Badly.
And then there's season seven: Buffy content, Spike in pieces. By the end, Buffy's surrounded by loved ones, looking to a new life, and Spike's a fading spark in a big hole in the ground.
Nuff said.
But then, you could make a perfectly adequate case for Buffy and Spike rising and falling together, couldn't you?
Season two looked at another way? Watch Angelus wreck them both. He takes Spike's lover and destroys Buffy's love. The way the season ends, both Spike and Buffy have lost so much, including their certainty about themselves. Buffy sacrifices Angel, an 'innocent' (depending on how one thinks about Angel vs Angelus). Spike, ffs, ends up saving the world. Okay, for selfish reasons. But still, what kind of demon is he, anyway?
Season four, Spike and Buffy are out of place. Uncomfortable. Buffy's world looks big and unfamiliar and scary. Spike's lost the comfort of his minions, his vampiric place in the world. They're in new relationships, and those relationships have plenty of points of tension. They both really, really don't like the Initiative. And, once again, they end the season as allies. Uneasily, perhaps, but still allies. (Which, if you look at things, is pretty much what happens every season.)
Season five shows them both finding their role, and their certainty. Till the end of the world. To defend Dawn. To love and mourn Joyce. To trust each other. I'm not saying they feel exactly as strongly on all these things, but they're going down the same path, to the same destination. And either of them would have died to save Dawn. They both hit the ground under the tower, dead. It just happened to be Buffy who didn't get up and walk.
Season six, they're darkness wound around each other, pulling each other down, taking each other further into the dark. Till they hit bottom, hurting each other badly (I'm not suggesting their offences are equivalent, please note, but by the end, they're taking chunks out of each other – and other people). And then, finally, they recognize what they have become, and they start to crawl upwards, fighting into the light. And that carries them through to the end of BtVS, I think. They wobble, they go to dark and difficult places, but they find themselves with strength and self-belief at the core. The scythe, the amulet – they're just props, powered by the strength of Spike's soul – which he fought for – and Buffy's unique more-than-a-Slayer heart.
Spike's strong. Buffy's stronger. They fight like they were matched to. The hair is not 100% natural blonde in either case. Spike's dead. Buffy's alive (a fair amount of the time). Spike kills Slayers, Buffy makes 'em. Spike dies a hero. Yeah, I think we know how that goes with Buffy.
All of which means, I suppose, that my conclusion must be: it depends on what you mean by mirror. And that's a classic essay mistake. Should've defined my terms at the start. Let me finish by concluding that yes, Buffy and Spike mirror one another. In some ways.
Kind of like a funhouse mirror.
:P
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I'm enjoying this game. Totally prepared to help out if you're stuck, too. All hands to the pumps and all that.
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wastingspending a lot of time exploring everything else that looked like it could remotely fit) I need to be, but the link isn't a link (for me anyway), so I can't get to the chicken. This is just not my cup of tea. I'm not that much of a gamer. My mind apparently doesn't work as it needs to and I'm too stubborn to cheat.But I am thoroughly enjoying what everyone else is doing. :)
(And like I said, if it's meta and/or fanmixes she wants....)
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(Where did you get stuck?)
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I found the Words with a Mummy, and went to the right archive, but it isn't a link. And the Tarot cards and crystal didn't get me anywhere useful either. For the first chicken, once I knew to check all the years (hadn't noticed them on the bottom of the page) on the polls and prompts, not just the one the link opened to, I had no trouble finding the right prompt, going to that page in the archive and finding the link. Which was clearly a link and took me right to the next chicken. This time, I get nothing. So, either this one is more complicated than I care to bother with, or it isn't working on my machine (unlikely), I'm done.
ETA: Either this is designed to require a lot of research effort (which, even if it was my thing, would be wearing thin about now... considering how often I have gone over those prompt pages) or it's more intuitive than someone who has to see, touch, work out the problem is going to be able to handle.
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A FUNHOUSE MIRROR INDEED. Should rename the comm. that IMO.
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May possibly be biased here. *But still.*
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I don't want to read a well-structured, organized, planned-out essay. That's what I get paid to do during the day, and it's the last thing I want to do when I come home. :)