...just updated the links section...

Quick thoughts on William/Spike and Angel/Angelus:

In seasons 5 & 6 we got the significance of Spike being called 'William' realigned. Prior to that, it had been used as a put-down by Angel/Angelus ("William, my boy"). It's Fool for Love which makes it clear that William was, in fact, his name before he was turned, and that Spike was a self-chosen vampire name (unlike Darla, Angelus and Dru who are all named by their Sires). William is his human self, in other words and something he wants to get away from. In season 6, especially, it is used to indicate his more human side: not only with Halfrek's entertaining double-take but most significantly, when Buffy finally breaks things off in As You Were. So "Spike aka William the Bloody" has become divided into two different signifiers: Spike, his self-created vampire image, and William, the human Bloody Awful Poet. After Angelus became Angel again, the characters immediately went back to using the 'human' name for him. In season 7, Buffy is - up till today because I'm not getting Never Leave Me until Thursday - still calling him Spike despite his ensoulment.

Other specualtion is about the different reactions to their ensoulment. As Spike points out, he did it to himself. This might be why, unlike Angel, who pretty quickly crawled back to Darla and went back to killing humans again*, Spike is initially so revolted when he realises he has been feeding off humans. Unlike Angel, who could feel he was a victim, Spike thought he was doing something that would make him "some kind of a man". Angel thought killing humans would bring him back his love, Spike knows it won't.

*although, as Darla points out, he only fed on "Rapists and murderers, thieves and scoundrels"

I should have posted my thoughts on Spike before Sleepers because I was sort of right but there’s no fun in being sort of right if no-one knows it. But, for the record, I had theorised there were two Spikes. I just had them in the same body in a whole Ben/Glory deal, assuming that Buffy would be faced with a repeat of her previous dilemmas.

The point of the season seems to be to present the characters with situations they’ve been through before and see if they’ve learnt the lessons of the past. It would be fitting, then, to present Buff with the problem of Evil being contained in the body of an innocent, especially one she has feelings for: she killed Angel, she let Ben live. Faced with the problem of killing a good person to destroy the evil within, will she discover a third way? I still think this could happen.

However, the reason I thought Spike was doing the killings was because everything suggested he now has two distinct states:

• When in human form, he suffers the guilt, the remorse etc. The chip works (not only in Beneath You but also Help and Sleeper). His voice is posher, closer to that of William the Bloody Awful Poet but less whiney. He uses words like ‘fetching’!


• When in vamp form, he is season 2’s “plain dealing villain”. The chip doesn’t work (and Sleeper doesn’t resolve this). He’s all south-of-the-river rough trade, even down to still having that habit of wiping his bottom lip with his thumb when he has fed. (should I be worried that I recognise that as a habit?)

Add to that details such as him saying, when Buffy first sees him in Lessons, ”no one comes down here, there’s just the three of us” and talking about himself in the third person. I thought the Big Morphic Evil was somehow triggering the emergence of the demonic Spike, for whatever its nefarious purposes are i.e. it really was Spike killing/turning people.

OK, so I was slightly out in that when Spike said ”the three of us” he was talking about Morphic Spike but I’d like points for thinking Spike was the killer and not going into de Nile…

Now, all this soulboy/demon business leads to inevitable comparisons between William/Spike and Angel/Angelus. I got more theory there…but I’ll post that later (albeit before the next episode of Buffy so I can dance about and say “yay me!” if I’m right).

"have you googled her yet?"
"willow! she's 17!"

Just in case there is any Buffy fan who isn't already aware of it, Cassie Newton's page is still online.

So. Now I'm up to date on Buffy season 7, and sugar-rushing to boot, I've got to ramble.

I think there are several key elements to weave together so far:
- the use of the Gaia theory
- who put the talisman in the school?
- the ritual murders of the girls in pre-credit sequences
- the idea that we are going 'back to the beginning'

The idea of Gaia - as both a scientific theory and a mystical belief system - posits the idea that the earth is a single, infinitely complex living entity ("I'm learning about magic, all about energy and Gaia and root systems."). By calling the entity 'Gaia', it is also given a gender (gaia = Earth Goddess, Greek). This ties with Buffy's talk of power in the opening scenes of Lessons, as well as the Morphic Entity during its oh-so-handy-telling-of-plans moment at the end of the episode (has it never seen a Bond movie?), Anya's rejection of her powers and Dawn's sudden ability to exorcise spirits. Morphic's speech also harks on the genderising of power, with it saying Of course she won't understand, Sparky. I'm beyond her understanding. She's a girl. Sugar and spice and everything...useless. Unless you're baking. I'm more than that."

...and that's before we get onto Willow's vision of the earth as a vagina dentante:
WILLOW: I felt the earth. It's all connected, it is. But it's not all
good and pure and rootsy. There's deep...deep black. I saw... I saw
the earth, Giles. I saw its teeth.
GILES: The Hellmouth
WILLOW: It's going to open. It's going to swallow us all.

Then we have the question of the talisman. Whoever put that in the school is an agent for Morphic. So far, we've seen Morphic manifest four times: in the speech to Spike; to Andrew as Warren; to Willow as Cassie; to Dawn as some kind of poltergeist activity. We have no evidence that Morphic has any physical presence: the avatars (Warren and Cassie) gode/lure their chosen character into taking action but we don't see them touch anything, move anything: they lack physical form. The polt is capable of physically interacting with reality but does not manifest as a form: it is etheral. So, who put the talisman in the school? The manifest spirits are physical, corporeal. They are controlled by a physical object. Neither of which fits with Morphic's powers as yet displayed but the talisman suggests Morphic has a physical agent. Until shown otherwise, we're going to have to assume it's Spike (but I have whole other acres of theory about Spike). I suspect that the ritual sacrifice of Jonathan will allow Morphic to achieve a physical form in some way.

Which brings me to the ritual murders of the girls - of which we have seen two so far (and I did love the alias spoof element of the one in Beneath You). My first thought was these were Slayers-in-waiting (a way of letting the Slayer line die out?). But Jonathan's murder changes that, specifically that he was ritually killed over a seal (I need to go back and check if the knife Andrew uses is the same style as the ones used to kill the girls). See Ron's review of Conversations with Dead People for a ton of stuff about the Seal.

And now I go a bit OTT with the religious symbolism. We're told we're going 'back to the beginning'. "Right back to the beginning. Not the Bang, not the Word. The true beginning." (Lessons), back before what? creation? Way back in The Harvest,Giles tells us:
This world is older than any of you know. Contrary to popular
mythology, it did not begin as a paradise. For untold eons demons
walked the Earth. They made it their home, their. . . their Hell. But
in time they lost their purchase on this reality. The way was made for
mortal animals, for, for man. All that remains of the old ones are
vestiges, certain magicks, certain creatures. . .

Whilst Halfrek, when talking of what is rising, says: Something's rising... something older than the Old Ones.

So, are we facing not an apocalypse but the Apocalypse? Complete with four horsemen, seven broken Seals. The Final Battle? This would even tie with Fray:

FRAY: Why don't you tell me what happened to the last one?
WATCHER: Because I don't know. It was some hundreds of years ago, in
the twenty-first century. What we know is this -- there was a battle.
A Slayer, possibly with some mystical allies, faced an apocalyptic
army of demons. And when it was done...they were gone. All demons.
All magicks, banished from this earthly dimension.

The introduction of the earth as a living organism - one which Gaian theory suggests is capable of self-regulating - suggests that what is rising is the spirit of the earth itself. Manifested as Cassie, it says "Fact is, the whole good-versus-evil, balancing the scales thing - I'm over it. I'm done with the mortal coil. But believe me, I'm going for a big finish."

Anyway, that's my ramble so far. I'm off to consider Spike. From a plot point-of-view, obviously.

I just got the first seven episodes of Buffy season 7. Watched them all. Twice. In the space of 24 hours.

I have a headache.

There's a ton of stuff whizzing and humming in my head, as I try to work out WTF is going on. It's got me intrigued. Anyway, this is the first test blog for my site, so I'm not getting too chatty just yet.