a hit, a palpable hit!
(spoilers for Lies My Parents Told Me)

I was thinking about this on the way to work, because I'm tragic that way.

In Reading the Vampire Slayer Dave West argues that the fight scenes in Buffy, whilst often having a subtextual meaning (e.g. the ineffectual anger Buffy displays in Innocence's fight with Angel is the emotion of one hurt rejected puppy), do not use the grammar of the HK action movie in which the style of fighting encodes a specific narrative meaning.

Which made me think of Spike. In the big fight scene with Wood at the end of Lies, Spike suddenly displays a new fight move. He is able to push Wood across the room with a open-palmed slap to the sternum which is very
different to his old fist and fangs approach. On the most obvious level, each physical blow to Wood's heart is accompanied by a verbal blow but, and this is where it gets interesting for me...the blow used is very similar to the one inch palm (minimal physical expenditure, maximum effect). Now you can talk about that purely in terms of how the blow is physically achieved but it also has a large spiritual element as it is a chi based move.

I've commented on the possible yin/yang elements of Spike and Angel before, even down to the hair colour ;-). And let's not get started on Angel and his tai-chi. In essence, and to go all Yoda on us, it refers to the "balance of the force". If the yin (female, heart, moon) and yang (male, mind, sun) are fighting, then the person is weak and their energy wasted on internal battles. The aim of tai-chi is to balance the two elements - make them complementary instead of conflicting. Chi is the energy released when this balance is achieved.

It could be said that Lies is when Spike finally balances everything - the demon and the soul working in harmony, even if the soul isn't particularly nice. And I've been muttering about how surely the series has to go for a balance at the end with all the different parallel characters reaching equilibriums (hence the return of F - she and Buffy were one of the first dichotomies set up). In light of which, Spike suddenly and very effectively using a chi-based move is not merely a neat visual effect and an immediate metaphor for his ability to strike Wood to the heart verbally but also a narrative metaphor for his own internal struggle having been resolved.

I did say I was tragically over-analysing this....

---

[1] Well, OK, looking at a packet of crisps can make me think of Spike but anyway...
[2] with a small 'h', obviously