"Arbitrar Of Quality" <tsmtsm@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
news:3e828a99-18ad-40d8-bcb4-76d9640e5216@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> On Jan 25, 4:40 pm, "One Bit Shy" <O...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>> "Arbitrar Of Quality" <tsm...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in
>>
messagenews:26ffbcd7-aeb3-488b-9c47-dfda2be1862c@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> How is the viewer to know that this time we
> really mean that they're done sleeping together?
Because the expression is honest this time. She's dropped her own denial
(which all of the prior rejections were expressions of) and faced up to
her
feelings.
> (That itself is part
> of the story - Spike doesn't think that this rejection will be more
> permanent than the others - but it also weakens some of what the end
> of AYW is trying to accomplish.)
I think Spike *does* recognize the difference this time. His behavior in
Hells Bells, for example, isn't his normal reaction to Buffy's many
rejections. But now its his turn to go into denial, so it doesn't last.
> You have issues with all the times
> Buffy and Angel try to break up in S3, and I have them here - sure,
> some of the details are different on this occasion, so there's some
> possibility that they might really mean it, but that was true last
> time too.
Yeah, I get that. I think the long goodbye of both stories is intended to
be a parallel. And, while, the details certainly are different, they both
go to being in denial about the impossibility of the pairing.
I'm not certain why Angel's breakup works for you and this doesn't. For
me,
I think the difference is that I was never all that fond of the Angel
relationship to begin with, so I was just waiting for it to get over
already. That romance worked best for me way back in S1's Angel - and
maybe
in the wistful what if of IWRY. It's best feature for me was the dream
like
quality of adolescent imagining of romance. So momentary florid moments
like, "When you kiss me I wanna die," work too. But mostly it collapses
for
the shallowness of it all. (Excepting Angelus of course, but part of the
perverse joy of that is the way it beats up on the goopy stuff.)
The Spike affair seems to strike something more basic and true within
Buffy.
Indeed, part of the story is about letting go of illusion. It feels that
way to me anyway. I'm very caught up in the emotions of it and feel the
swings between rejection and acceptance as dancing on a precipice. An
awful
thrill. Or, to use a different metaphor, saying a roller coaster is
repetitious going up and down doesn't adequately describe the
experience....
Unless, that is, it's really not a thrill for you. Then it's dead on.
OBS
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