Rules of Engagement: Violence and Hyperreality in the Buffyverse

[lostboy_lj]

rebcake recently posted a poll regarding the onset of Buffy and Spike's sexual relationship in the BtVS episode "Smashed."  I answered "neither" and began to post a comment to explain, but it started to get long-ish, so I thought I'd just do a long-ish blog post instead.  What I wrote turned out to be somewhat off-topic in terms of her poll, and more

Comments

[twilightofmagic]

Here by way of mention by sueworld2003. Terrific post. Your analysis is dead on. Fans who dismiss or hate Spike because of episodes like Smashed and Seeing Red almost invariably conflate fiction with real life and then illegitimately deploy horror stories and confessions of real life victimhood to prove how despicable he is. In the terms of the show, he's despicable, violent, depraved, untrustworthy, all the elements that go with being a vampire. But he's also made into a romantic hero in the byronic sense, flawed, broken, dark past, but desperately in love and fighting to be better, even though that effort is undermined by his fallen nature. He's an artifact of the writers' imagination, fusing archetypal characters into the punk vampire of the show, not a realistic character drawn from real life. That fact gets lost or deliberately ignored in the overheated arguments among fans about his role. I do think the writers lost sight of that too in Seeing Red where suddenly the scene is rendered in real life terms. Buffy becomes the vulnerable woman

[boot_the_grime]

That fact gets lost or deliberately ignored in the overheated arguments among fans about his role. I do think the writers lost sight of that too in Seeing Red where suddenly the scene is rendered in real life terms. Buffy becomes the vulnerable woman trying to fight off a powerful male. That reversal breaks the most basic law of her characterization, that she's extremely powerful and even when wounded is capable of killing any attacker.I don't think so - if they forgot that Buffy had superstrength, she would never have been able to kick him off. It makes perfect sense to me that she couldn't act the way she would if it were some random vampire attacking her. Best-trained and strongest people can get paralyzed in a situation where they're attacked by someone they know, especially someone they've been intimate with and have complicated feelings with - not to mention that the situation starts similar to many of their earlier sexual encounters. And as I think aycheb pointed out once, Buffy gets herself together and fights back only when

[twilightofmagic]

That doesn't negate my point that (imo) the writing and the directing slant the interpretation of her reaction to her being a rape victim, but for the last minute throwing him off with her slayer strength. Afterwards Xander and Giles treat the event as a rape attempt though I suppose as they hate Spike, they would be inclined toward that interpretation. I can't remember at that point whether they know of her relations with Spike, though I think they don't yet. However, we know they have been engaged in an extremely violent, sexualized relationship in which she has been the aggressor many times. I simply think that the writing/direction in this scene slants toward a real life set of meanings rather than the fictional ones they had been engaging up to this point.

[boot_the_grime]

Afterwards Xander and Giles treat the event as a rape attempt though I suppose as they hate Spike, they would be inclined toward that interpretation. I can't remember at that point whether they know of her relations with Spike, though I think they don't yet. However, we know they have been engaged in an extremely violent, sexualized relationship in which she has been the aggressor many times.

Xander knew about Buffy's affair with Spike since the end of Entropy, and he had given her a judgmental lecture about it in Seeing Red, before the rape attempt. Giles learned about Buffy sleeping with Spike in Grave, when she told him; I don't know when or even if he learned about the AR - though I suppose he probably did based on his line "after what he did to you" in LMPTM.

I don't see how that changes anything? They treat it as a rape attempt because it was a rape attempt. Buffy reacts as a rape victim because she was a victim of an attempted rape. How does their sexual past make any difference? An attempted rape or rape is no less so if the

[boot_the_grime]

Great essay!

After he reveals this to Buffy, he tries to demonstrate it, which leads Buffy to respond in kind. Amidst the sideshow of typical Sunnydale violence, they exchange half-true insights about each other, and reveal that each of them is in a bit of denial. It's true that Spike enjoys the fact that Buffy can hurt him, because it makes him feel a little more human. It's true that Buffy feels like an outsider, and that she fears she is incapable of love, because trusting lovers has burned her in the past. They're both projecting a lot during that scene; pretty much everything they say about each other feels like 'pot calling kettle black' - which they actually point out to each other. Spike is also lost and feels as an outsider and is undergoing a massive identity crisis - has been since season 4, in fact (a crisis that reaches the climax in Seeing Red and gets resolved in Grave). Buffy is, in many ways, in love with pain - she admits something to that effect back in Something Blue; the ending of this scene hints that pretty

[lostboy_lj]

Thanks!

They're both projecting a lot during that scene; pretty much everything they say about each other feels like 'pot calling kettle black'

Yeah, it's so totally true. And it never really stops over the course of the season; they keep obviously monologue-ing about themselves by talking about each other (like a couple of Xanders!)

I think when this is really brought to the biggest boil is in the alley of Dead Things, when Buffy proceeds to physically and verbally beat the ever-loving shit out of herself in the form of Spike. ("You can't feel anything real!"). It's really quite sad by the end of the season. People enjoy talking about how "dark" this season is, but I think they sometimes miss how truly sad it was, and how completely broken they had all become.

[lostboy_lj]

The moment she's left at the altar, Anya decides to go back to being a vengeance demon, and spends most of Entropy trying to get Xander killed in most horrible ways - and when she realizes her own wish doesn't work, she tries to get Xander's friends into having him wish-killed in gruesome ways.

Originally I just typed "only Tara". Maybe I should have left it that way. I guess it's true that she touches it briefly, but it's purely reactive and over soon after it starts. In fact, in a sign of how quickly she regains her senses, she is the one who tries to talk Willow out of seeking vengeance in "Seeing Red", only two episodes removed from her jilting at the end of "Hell's Bells." I see it as a moment of fury that quickly subsides (although I agree that while it lasts it is quite dark).

[boot_the_grime]

Yeah, but viewers aren't nearly as forgiving of Spike's or Buffy's brief violent moments of fury/emotional breakdown, are they?

Excellent.

[treadingthedark]

Excellent excellent essay. You nailed it.

Re: Excellent.

[lostboy_lj]

Thank you.

[lostboy_lj]

Thanks!

[infinitewhale]

Always sort of had the opinion that complaints about the violence in that scene 9 times out of 10 were attempts to politicize the poster's opinion. It can't be just "it turned me off, I didn't like it" (valid enough an opinion). No, it has to be a greater wrong.

[bone_dry1013]

So, so very true.