Question Would Buffy have had an affair with Spike if she hadn't died, not been through resurrection & depression/trauma?

Joan the Vampire Slayer said:
One of the writer's cleared that confusion up actually, and confirmed that Spike did intend to get his soul. Here's what David Fury had to say about it:

"Spike's quest was, and ALWAYS WAS, to get his soul restored for Buffy, despite any misleading leaks we may have put out that you fell for."

Source
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Regardless my personal opinion is that was not his intent, and I don't really care what even the writers say. Whedon himself has stated to believe in 'death of the author' meaning once a piece of work is put out there fans can, have and will see it however they are going to. Quite honestly nothing short of Spike saying on screen that that was his intent (and that's not gonna happen after all of this time since I'm not sure JM would want to be ageless vampire Spike all of this time later) will change that.

Not that any of that is relevant in the long run, what's done is done.
 
VampireSlayer07 said:
Whedon himself has stated to believe in 'death of the author' meaning once a piece of work is put out there fans can, have and will see it however they are going to.
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It's far more complicated than that. Have you actually read Barthes' essay "Death of the Author" (in conjunction with Pleasure of the Text and (possibly) Camera Lucida)?
 
I don't believe they would have had an affair without her dying, as I saw her dying and him being the only one in her vicinity able to relate to that experience (while all her friends just expected her to be happy and grateful for being back) as the deciding factor of why it happened.

Sure, Spike had found Buffy's gratitude and respect before that, by proving himself to her. But he knew his place and would never have tried anything because of that and she would not have built that connection with him.

And it't that connection they both felt that also pushed Spike to push his boundaries with Buffy.
 
Extraflamey737 said:
I would think , no, even though there was always a vibe between them from the get go. But she would have never acted on it.

Any of you disagree? Curious....

EDIT
They bonded at the stairs outside in S 5 though when joyce returned from the hospital though and she opened up
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Well.....the only times B.S. gets together is when Buffy is miserable and alone.

A pretty strong indicator of where any "realtionship" is going to end.
 
I think so because there was no where else to go with the relationship
 
garfan said:
I think so because there was no where else to go with the relationship
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I don't get that reasonimg. Whedon killed off any relationship for any reason at all. A very small faction of the total audience was screaming for the coupling while everyone else was against it or didnt care enough to pay attention.

There were lots of different ways to keep a main character Spike in the spotlight. From character & narrative standpoints, Spike's overwhelming problem was the lack of a soul, not the lack of a bed buddy.
 
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NoShip said:
I don't get that reasonimg. Whedon killed off any relationship for any reason at all. A very small faction of the total audience was screaming for the coupling while everyone else was against it or didnt care enough to pay attention.

There were lots of different ways to keep a main character Spike in the spotlight. From character & narrative standpoints, Spike's overwhelming problem was the lack of a soul, not the lack of a bed buddy.
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he didn't kill them off before anything happened though
 
TriBel said:
It's far more complicated than that. Have you actually read Barthes' essay "Death of the Author" (in conjunction with Pleasure of the Text and (possibly) Camera Lucida)?
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Yes, I have read Death of the Author and Barthe does make complicated arguments that are rather hard to follow. But, Barthe does conclude (a greatly simplified summary) that, once public, the audience determines what a work means not the author. Of course, the chances of everyone agreeing on one meaning are rediculously close to zero.

I think the actual problem is that Whedon & Co did an incompetent job. Watching Spike, from Seeing Red to Grave, and it is mind-blowingly hard to see any indication of Spike seeking his soul, and no indication he is doing anything for Buffy is shown.

This is just one of innumerable examples of Whedon & Co being TV writers not good writers.
 
NoShip said:
Yes, I have read Death of the Author and Barthe does make complicated arguments that are rather hard to follow. But, Barthe does conclude (a greatly simplified summary) that, once public, the audience determines what a work means not the author. Of course, the chances of everyone agreeing on one meaning are rediculously close to zero.

I think the actual problem is that Whedon & Co did an incompetent job. Watching Spike, from Seeing Red to Grave, and it is mind-blowingly hard to see any indication of Spike seeking his soul, and no indication he is doing anything for Buffy is shown.

This is just one of innumerable examples of Whedon & Co being TV writers not good writers.
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the trick there is if it's part of an ongoing story, even if the audience decides that part 1 of the story means something different than the author, the author is still going to write part 2 as if the meaning of part 1 was what he said. And sometimes your view of part 1 can no longer fit after you see part 2
 
garfan said:
the trick there is if it's part of an ongoing story, even if the audience decides that part 1 of the story means something different than the author, the author is still going to write part 2 as if the meaning of part 1 was what he said. And sometimes your view of part 1 can no longer fit after you see part 2
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True. And the audience is able to change its collective mind based on what it perceives in part 2. The audience may follow the author's meaning or reject the author's meaning or something in between.

I believe that the author creates and the audience concludes. Audience conclusions may change over time.

For myself, watching Buffy on my whatever'th rewatch, is an extremely different experience and I take away very different meanings then I did when I watched between 1997 & 2003.
 
Joan the Vampire Slayer said:
One of the writer's cleared that confusion up actually, and confirmed that Spike did intend to get his soul. Here's what David Fury had to say about it:

"Spike's quest was, and ALWAYS WAS, to get his soul restored for Buffy, despite any misleading leaks we may have put out that you fell for."
Click to expand...

Given what was shown between Seeing Red and Grave, why should we care what a writer intended? Their intent was shown in the episodes. They had every possible opportunity to write the story they wanted. Having to "correct" what the eps show just proves that Whedon & Fury & Espenson are bad writers.
 
Joan the Vampire Slayer
Joan the Vampire Slayer
Sure, some times it can be left up to interpretation, but I'm always going to go with what was actually written, and thus intended.
NoShip said:
Given what was shown between Seeing Red and Grave, why should we care what a writer intended? Their intent was shown in the episodes. They had every possible opportunity to write the story they wanted. Having to "correct" what the eps show just proves that Whedon & Fury & Espenson are bad writers.
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Given that all I had to go on was the show itself, "misleading leaks"were not a factor, for me it was writing and showing one thing and then going "Oh no, what you saw wasn't what happened. What actually happened was something completely different." And that was after finishing watching; I never saw anything in the show that had Spike actually wanting a soul. This is misuse of Word of God where you have to explain that what you wrote is not what you meant. If it's the case where they have shown one thing and claimed another, how can anything be believed? They could just as easily go "Faith? No, she never betrayed Buffy and the others. She was infiltrating the Mayor's organisation to get information. Sure, she never said that and we never showed it, but trust us, that's what happened." It calls into question everything in the show, once you start writing one thing and then claiming it means something different. The writing equivalent of gaslighting.
 
NoShip said:
Given what was shown between Seeing Red and Grave, why should we care what a writer intended? Their intent was shown in the episodes. They had every possible opportunity to write the story they wanted. Having to "correct" what the eps show just proves that Whedon & Fury & Espenson are bad writers.
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the story they wanted included ambiguity, unfortunately. To in love with the twist
 
garfan said:
the story they wanted included ambiguity, unfortunately. To in love with the twist
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Agreed. But, why should we care what a writer intended when they had the opportunity to show us in the eps. Ambiguity is not hard to write into a TV script.

Whedon & Co always showed a moronic willingness to sacrifice plot & character development for a joke or twist.
 
Probably not, the relationship relied on the fact that Buffy needed loads of therapy. Like yes, eventually I feel like something would have happened between them, but it was just so unstable and Spike was too.
 
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