Day 17: Why did Spike and Joyce get on so well and do you think she'd be supportive of Spuffy in S6 or 7?
Mmm...do you mean is she cheering them on from her vantage point in heaven? I find questions like this so difficult to answer - primarily because S6 wouldn't have panned out as it did if Joyce had been alive. Presuming it did, who put Joyce in the picture about Spike and Buffy - and how much detail did he/she go into? Aargh...I'm hoping it wasn't Tara - I'm also hoping she didn't see the recording in the shop. There's such a thing as "too much information". If it was Xander - Spike's dead.
😱 I can't compare Angel's experience with Joyce because my mind appears to have blocked everything pre S4.
🙁 I think
@Spuffy freak is right when she says he would have been there for the Summers women after Buffy's death and this would have endeared him to Joyce* but I'm equally sure she'd have needed the soul before she offered support in 7. Would she have been persuaded by Giles or would she have had a "sixth sense" as Spuffy freak suggests? It's an interesting turn of phrase because it's something similar to the mind-set her daughter develops in S7. Part of what intrigues me about S7 is the implicit use of art references (particularly important, I think, in the point of anamprphosis and the idea of looking at something from a different perspective). I also think the art-works in the house are telling us more than we realise (
@Priceless 's "door pictures" being the obvious example) and Joyce was probably responsible for them. I'm fairly sure they're intimating something "different" about Joyce - maybe something that's the antithesis of the First Evil Joyce or the Joyce we're familiar with?
*The implication being he cares for women throughout their life span.
As for why they got on so well, I don't think it's coincidence that there's a physical similarity between Buffy/Joyce and Anne - I'm also guessing there are personality traits shared between the three. We don't know enough about Anne to assess her character but I'm presuming it was strong.
That aside - I'm really not in the mood for discussing mothers, having just taken my own Christmas food shopping (7 carrier bags of food - all for Christmas evening - for 4 people!). Sample conversation:
Her: I don't think I've got room in the fridge for the turkey.
Me: That's because you've filled it with eight different sorts of bloody cheese.
Her: I don't know when I'll have time to get the salad.
Me: Just get it now and put it straight in the bin. Saves finding room for it in the bloody fridge and it's the fate of all salad bought for Christmas.
Don't get me started on my mother, the dangers of slippery pavements or how much sticky tape/paper is required for present wrapping!