re: BtVS 4.08 Pangs, written Jane Espenson, directed Michael Lange

[this one is exegesis. all quotation is from Buffy Dialogue dataBase, so thank you, vrya]

Pangs is an interesting title to apply to a story with an Irish (hero?) at one end of the triangulation. I don't see much imagery, or wordage, that points it up within the story, which is notably light on the Angel end, but still i think it's just too close a match not to be operating as an invisible frame on the story. Loosely enfolded into the very early epic called the Tain Bo Cuailnge is the tale of the Pangs of Ulster, the bane of heroes, incapacitated for nine days by an affliction. Those nine days, there we see the roots of that story showing, because that's got to do with winter interregnum periods: the time when the old king dies, and the new one comes, fruitful, to ensure the new year's harvest. Tanist vs true king, is how that old story goes. So in this version, Macha (yep) in labour curses the men of Ulster, who will not acknowledge her but use her badly, and as a result they are regularly seized with birth pangs across nine generations: all the men of Ulster but not (explicitly) the boys, or the women, or the hero Cuchulainn. So these Pangs represent a changing of the guard, a kind of breathing space for ritual between the reign of kings (a ritual period still remembered today in the language that addresses the new king for the first time by saying 'The king is dead. Long live the king.'). i can't really see any overt sign in the text that they've used that, except that there they are, up on the screen, the three of them, unusually, together, engaged in ritual, with Buffy presiding, the new king crossing the threshold, and the old king outside in the dark.

this is only the first threshold, child.

so many little deaths await you.

Well, as Sylvia might say, whew!, and other than that i mean to leave that one alone.

Once more, we find Spike at the center of the story in these early days, okay suffering the slings and arrows of misfortune, yah, tied up good and proper, but nevertheless sitting right up at the damn family table at feastday with Buffy the Mother and Giles the Patriarch and the children – all it lacks is for him to be seated opposite Buffy and then we could call him Dad, which might be fun (the bad Daddy's half-good but self-stuck outside). And although before he gets to the door of the Universal Mother it's Spike in the so-pathetic he's bathetic, once he gets ensconced (hey! watch the heart!) it's also Spike saying the only smart things, making him an UberScoobie with fangs rather than a bad puppy. And, in the story arc, his story ties in but does not reflect either Buffy's story or that of the Scoobs: it's his own story, seen through that lens. Okay, I'm not waiting for Hush, i'm gonna call it now: Pangs pretty much announces the fact that there are three protags now ranging the 'verse, one in the kitchen, one in the bushes, one in the livingroom entertaining company <snicker>. Spike is going down. So not.

And it's about family ties. What it is in Buffy, who is not noticeably a Nurturer by inclination or training, that makes her choose to Gather, especially in times of trouble, even when her mother's only away for the holiday. And who she gathers when she decides to do so. How she deals when the Gathering and the Mission collide. And what it is in Spike that makes him choose, still evil, to be gathered, to come in from the cold, to the door of his worst enemy, and make himself to her completely vulnerable, whatever it costs him. And what it is in Angel that he cannot yet quite commit to leaving her even though he much prefers to keep his distance, living in the dark.

Why is Angel there? For a long time i took this as a sign of poor writing, and i'll do that critique right here, even though it's review rather than exegesis, in order to meet it headon, because i'm gonna level it (hopefully) this time round by reference to the text. Ready? Going in: okay, so skulking's Angel's thing, and the contrast to Spike (inside) works out well, but still it looks like they booked DB and then had no storyline for him being there. Not to mention that the lame excuses for not telling Buffy are really quite incomprehensible; though Angel is certainly Secretive Guy by preference, i can't imagine why all the Scoobs have here elected to just go along with it at Buffy's expense. Not exactly so very Our Fearless Leader of them, is it, and since when did they line up behind the big Poofter without a tussle anyway? So it reads to me like a jerkaround plot device that doesn't really serve the story. I mean, lurking in Giles' bedroom?: let's at least try to remember that Giles is never ever gonna accept him as a valued colleague, in the wake of Passion and Becoming. Not really so hard to think of better reasons why the Slayer might go looking for him in His City in the second half of the crossover, AtS 1.08 I Will Remember You, now is it, hmm? Plus: massive wasted opportunity for doing a confrontation between Angel and Spike at this particular juncture in their separate journeys. Okay, now i've said all of that and down below i'm gonna print the answer, turvy topsy, upside down.

Second bit of complaint, same story governs. Going in: The indigenous races metaphor has always made me uneasy, and that leads the characters into some inconsistencies of both talk and action that didn't have to be if they weren't using that particular dumb metaphor. You can fill in the argument here, on that review. Today i'm gonna switch sides on myself, and argue both assertions the other way on the grounds of the text. So once more check for answer down below, in upside down. So now you know why this silly thing has been fighting me for four days straight, because i finally figured out that neither of my big review complaints will hold up to a study of the text.

So here we are at the front door of the episode, in the middle of the oneStory that is BtVS, the story that ends in 7.22 Chosen. And around the table (not going for a linear account here) in Pangs we find the same characters exactly that eventually go down the Hellmouth together to the Final Battle: Buffy and Spike, Willow and Xander, Anya and Giles: four of them human and two with demon roots. So the state current in Pangs, which highlights some fairly uneasy and seemingly ephemeral alliances between the humans and the demons, these are the core alliances here that Buffy protects and makes by gathering them in on this her first chosen Thanksgiving Day. And those alliances will hold in spite of everything to take them all together down that Hellmouth, fighting on the side of Light, to a Final Battle from which two of them will not return. At the same time we see here Angel specifically depicted outside this circle, self-isolated, excluded; just as we will see him in Chosen bring the bauble expecting to fight beside Buffy at the End of Days, and being turned away when she chooses to call Spike her Champion. So this particular lineup, at this ritual of Giving Thanks, is not random. It is out of this stuff here that Chosen will eventually be made. Pangs is the interregnum, sidereal end of the old year/king, beginning of the new year/king, and at the other end of the ritual, Chosen will be the harvest.

And at the same time we can note that here we are at the beginning of that other piece of Story, AtS, which has now in our time arrived at 4.22, that so-dark episode called Home, where we learn what kind of home Angel(us) makes of the family that he will choose to Gather. What we are looking at, in Pangs, so early on, before there is so much Damage to them all, is an important core meditation on what it means to all of them who are and are not chosen here in Buffy's Gathering, that abstract concept Home that cannot be explained but only Known/unknown, depending on who and what they are, and choose to Become. The Dream they choose to share, called by Buffy's first Gathering, that meditates on shelter, safety, love, and on Belonging.

B:Looking for me?
Vamp: Holy--what do you want?
(Buffy punches him. The guy looks startled, then vamps out.)
Vampire: Uhh! Hey!
B: Look who's home?

Home in her skin. Still sheltered, still centered. Still hopeful. Before her mother dies, before she jumps. Before Xander and Dawn each tell her in Bargaining 2, "you're home", as she returns from the dead to a world of the dead, so dark, fires burning. Before she comes down the stairs with Axcalibur to Spike, at  the End of Days, who says to her "Honey, you're home".

Vampire: A slayer. Why don't you just go back where you came from? Things were great before you came.
(Buffy fights him. Stakes him.)
B: And they say one person can't make a difference.

Let's look at this. We usually don't, you know. From the vamp's PoV, i mean. To be a vampire, on the Hellmouth, demon's idea of heaven - only to find the Slayer in office, Destructo Girl, it's like a cheat, isn't it? The inverse of Buffy later in Bargaining 2, walking on earth again in the post-apocalyptic, after knowing heaven. What is she made of? What is she there for? Thing is, in Pangs she knows the answer, and so does the nameless vamp. Whom she stakes, with malice aforethought and quippage at the ready. It doesn't give her pause. She's not conflicted. She has her net worth tallied up, her self intact. In spite of the vamp's assessment, she knows she is where she belongs. She is still Home.

The demons, however, aren't generally giving thanks for that. Fact is, the demons got there first; that's even Watcher canon. So really they've got the better ground to call it home, what Darla called this horrible world. Indigenous races, hmm. Don't get to call it yours unless you're winning. Here Buffy's still winning. It's not like Razor in Bargaining 2, with his "welcome home, Slayer" just before he gives the bot the traditional traitor's death (drawn and quartered). She hasn't been pulled apart, yet, after all. Still, Anya manages to express the value of the feastday from a demonic perspective:

Anya:Well, I think that's a shame. I love a ritual sacrifice.
B: It's not really one of those.
Anya: To commemorate a past event, you kill and eat an animal. It's a ritual sacrifice, with pie.

And that's a clue. We're asked to look at this, for once, from a demon's point of view. Present: one souled vampire, one unsouled vamp with chip, one who claims to be an ex-demon (because she's mortal now). To a normal vamp, the Slayer's just a killer, and they're the intended sacrifice. She thanks them prettily for the entertainment, wipes the dust off her duds, and goes home to (be) mom. To celebrate Thanksgiving. This works for her. Except when it's Angel, whom she mostly couldn't kill (in 1.07 Angel, in 2.14 Innocence, in 3.04 Beauty and the Beasts), unless he got the ritual going himself and left it to her to do the cleanup (Becoming 2).

The Slayer's beginning to think past goldfish now, past her family of generation to her family of pro-creation, the one she is choosing to make:

B: It's so not fair. I mean, they all get a family holiday just because they can go home to their families.
W: Hmm, it's a turvy-topsy world.
B: You know what? I should have my own Thanksgiving. I can cook the meal, just like my mom does, have all you guys over. It'll be great.
W: Buffy, earlier you agreed with me about Thanksgiving. It's a sham. It's all about death.
B: It is a sham, but it's a sham with yams. It's a yam sham.
W: You're not gonna jokey-rhyme your way out of this one.
B: I know... But I want it: It's like professor Walsh was saying about sense memory. I smell a roasting turkey, and I'm 8 years old. I liked having that to look forward to. Everything's different now.
W: Well, I suppose there could be slight yams.
B: I mean, we could definitely use a little comfort food.

Sense memory. Comfort. Even the Slayer, a predator born, remembers the smell of safety. And knows - down to Joyce, that one - Home. And so she chooses who she gathers in. Willow, and Giles, and Xander, and even Anya. They've scattered, this first year of college, but she knows she needs them. So she insists on holding them together. "Everything's different now". But she doesn't yet want to let go of her human ties. "It's all about death". But still she's choosing communion and community. A Slayer's version of love, keeping her family fed, patrolling the borders of the sheepfold.

B: I bet Giles doesn't have any plans. And Xander always tries to avoid all of his family gatherings.
W: Ooh. We could not invite Anya.
B: I don't know. She and Xander seem pretty tight lately. Look, pilgrims aside, isn't that the whole point of Thanksgiving-- Everybody has a place to go?

And there it is, a place to go. Even for Anya. Belonging. In predator terms, she's marking them as hers. Building her fort. Is that human, then? No. The indigenous race in the Slayer's world, among the Aurelians at least, it does the same.

G: Tell me again why we're not doing this at your house.
B : Giles, if you would like to get by in american society, then you are going to have to follow our traditions. You're the patriarch. You have to host the festivities, or it's all meaningless.
G : And this is in no way an elaborate scheme to stick me with the cleanup?
It's Buffy who gathers, supplies the food, and then presides. She names him hers, to love and protect. She gives him pride of place. His authority, though, is vested in her. Nurture is hers to give or withhold.
G: I'm glad that you're watching out for her, but I feel I should remind you that she's not helpless and it's not your job to keep her safe.
A: It's not yours anymore, either. Are you going to walk away?
G: All right. But I feel we should tell her. I don't like keeping this secret.
A: No. If she knew I was here, it would distract her. It could get her hurt. I don't want to get in the way.

Surreal to see Giles and Angel discuss Buffy's safety. As if. Doubly surreal to see Angel challenging Giles not to walk away. Material for a whole season in those two lines. What does he want, then, Angel? He's just getting in the way. He left his mark on her. Angelus the Patriarch. He is responsible for her now, in predator terms, and she is his. One small Blond girl, Maiden and Slayer/Crone, trying out Mother, in the kitchen baking. Two once-anointed patriarchs tussling over precedence, and no-boundaries Spike about to pass the threshold. Right. Welcome to Pangs, then. It's the interregnum. There's a ritual sacrifice. The Queen is the author of the Gathering. She is making choices now, doing her own claiming. Building her fortress inside Home. The wounded King has lost the battle, but he's not going gracefully. He's getting in the way.

G: Where are you going?
A: To watch her.
G: It's not fair. You know that's what she'd say. You can see her, but she can't see you?
A: Believe me, I'm not getting the good half of this deal. To be on the outside looking in at what I can't... Well, I'd forgotten how bad it feels."

"To be on the outside looking in." And later, Riley. Still later, Spike. Who had the better deal? Angel is written into this episode for the express purpose of standing outside. His connection severed. He is without home. By choice, by covenant. It is for her alone to wield, that power. His mark of ownership is useless, because he is impotent to use it, and because the Slayer and the girl both have power of their own. So always they will lose her, in the instant that they claim her. There is no king, during the interregnum. The king is the ritual sacrifice, with or without the pie. And all their authority belongs to her, and they are nothing outside that belonging.

This particular segment is, not coincidentally, followed by the wordless 'Happy Families' segment with the so pitiful score: Spike the outcast in his ragged blanket peering through the window at the vampire family, the sire encouraging the vampiric child(e) to drink. The world from which still-evil Spike, now wounded by the chip and therefore useless within the demon world, has been shut out. "The chip won't let me be a monster. And I can't be a man. I'm nothing." (Seeing Red) And where is Spike's de facto sire, his grandsire the demon Angelus, in this his time of trouble? Trying to protect the Slayer instead of offering sanctuary to his own child. Family ties. Father and Son unholy, those two, rivals from the beginning till the end, follow one another serially here into the Hall of the Patriarch.

W: Oh! Angel-- evil! You're all evil again.
A: I'm not evil. I'm here to help Buffy.
W: What's going on?
A: My friend had a vision. Buffy's in danger.
W: So tell her. Help her.
A: If she sees me, it'll be worse.
W: See, I don't get that, all this "leaving for her own good" garbage. Because that's what it is. You can't just give up because there's obstacles. What kind--
A: (Interupting her tirade.) Willow.
W: Sorry. My stuff.
A: You know how I feel about her. If there was any way...
W: Yeah. I know.
A: It's just...Everything's different now.

Willow, of course, is right, in the one tirade in Pangs she decides to apologize for. It's the essential difference between them, the real source of their very different colouring. Did Spike give up, because there were obstacles? He changed instead, beyond the telling of it, and never walked away. This is, for what it's worth, without contact, all we ever get of a flatout physical contrast between the two of them for the purposes of the triangulation, one powerful but cursed and already gone, one powerless but now about to choose to come in out of the dark. "Everything's different now." Time and space between them gone, in the interregnum.

A: Willow, I'm here to protect Buffy. I don't have a whole lot of time for personal stuff.
W: Right. Well, how can I help?
A: Well, if you can just tell me... (Looking out the window. He sees Buffy and Riley chatting.) Who's that guy?

No time for personal stuff? Honestly, that Angel, what a card. The unexamined unlife is not worth living. Plus he's immortal. It's just this sort of thing that always gave DB on BtVS far too many opportunities to practice his whole repertoire of constipated expressions.

B: Well, have fun at the homestead.
R: Always do. What's the line? Home's the place that, when you have to go there...
B: They have to take you in.

And that's where we're going. To that line. Buffy is getting the pillows, to make a fort. Angel has left Home, wouldn't let them take him in. Spike, on the other hand, is desperately engaged in trying to position himself so somebody has to.

S:See? I knew you'd end up welcoming me back. With open...Arms.
Harm: No. I'm powerful, and I'm beautiful, and I don't need you to complete me. (pulls a stake from beneath the mattress) And you're mean.
S: (Backpedaling, then falling off the bed.) You had that in our bed? Do you know how dangerous that is?
Harm: Let's find out.
S: You wouldn't do it.

Harm: You did it to me, remember?
S: All right. All right, I'll go. Just-- (He falls.)
Harm: What?
S: Can I have someone to eat?
(She goes to stake him and he runs off.)

Great scene. JM does that backwards scrabbling off the bed just perfectly. Not to mention the whine. How are the mighty fallen. Spike Rampant in The Harsh Light of Day is completely gone. Poor Spike, so pitiful. Can't feed, can't bond. Can't rest, can't protect himself. Can't even snow Harmony any more. Big Bad has sunk as low as it is possible to go (see soundtrack for conclusive proof <g>).

Hus: Yaugh! (They fall and he is on top of her, wielding a knife.) I am vengeance. I am my people's cry. They call for Hus, for the avenging spirit to carve out justice.
B: They tell you to start an ear collection?
Hus: You slaughtered my people. Now you kill their spirit. This is a great day for you.

Yep, that's B, every day, out there slaughtering the indigenous race. Killing their spirit, then celebrating. One girl in all the world. For she is The Slayer. They're playing the archetype, up in the meta. From the demonic PoV. Nope, they don't do this much. It's fascinating.

B: And the thing is, I like my evil like I like my men-- evil. You know, "straight up, black hat, "Tied to the train tracks, soon my electro-ray will destroy metropolis" bad. Not all mixed up with guilt and the destruction of an indigenous culture.
G: This spirit warrior-- Hus, you called him-- Has killed innocent people.... Did you catch the part about the innocent people?
B: Yes. Ok? And I do want to stop him. I'd just like to find a non-slayee way to do it.

It's getting tricky, isn't it? Around mid-point of the oneStory. Angel was the exception that proved the rule. Souled, good. But once Angelus came, he lived in the same body and killed. Then it was harder to kill either one. Now Spike is evil, but she knows him. Buffy made a pact with him to save the world. Invited him in and sat him down with her mother while she went to change. They set out to kill each other often, but they somehow never do. And all those nameless vamps in cemeteries, rising, kill the innocent, but are they sinned against or sinning at the moment when they rise? It's humans vs demons, there's no halfway here, but there's no high ground either, and the Slayer does her duty on an endless killing ground. She's still living the Watcher rules although she knows it isn't like that in the field. And Faith will say, after three years away, they all need signs so she can figure out which ones to kill.

G: He's recreating all the wrongs done to his people. And it's up to us to stop him.
B: Yes, but after dinner, right?
W: Are you sure we shouldn't be helping him?
G: No, I think perhaps we won't help the angry spirit with his rape and pillage and murder.
W: Well, ok, no, but we should be helping him redress his wrongs. Bring the atrocities to light.
G: If the history books are full of them, I'd say they already are.
W: Giving his land back.
G: It's not exactly ours to give.
W: I don't think you wanna help. I think you just wanna slay the demon, then go-- La la la
G: And I think your sympathy for his plight has blinded you to certain urgent facts. We have to stop this thing.
W: Ok, unfeeling guy.
G: Willow, that's not fair.
B: (Running to the kitchen.) I have to baste.

The Slayer, in the field, has got a fraction of a second to decide who gets to live, who gets to die. To further justice but not vengeance. To protect the human world. And to do that, is actively engaged in wiping out the indigenous culture. Well, some are cultured. The Aurelian line, for instance. Still, they're mostly evil. Willow's method, that's gonna get them all killed. But who is right?

B: This is no good! It needs more condensed milk.
G: Buffy, Xander's in real danger. Are you sure the solution is pie?
B: (Adding more condensed milk.) Over bickering and confusion, I'll take pie. We will find a solution. And we will have a nice dinner, ok? Both. End of story. I'm having Thanksgiving, and it'll be perfect.

Both. She still wants both. She means to have them, be the Slayer and the girl, protect and slay. She wants her already eccentric family unit of choice to get along. But all of them get entangled in the argument. Xander takes his usual stance, made extra-righteous by the fact that he's the one who got the funny syphilis. The ritual sacrifice that comes with pie. But there are demons, and then there are demons. Anya becomes offended when he lumps them all together. Buffy becomes more determined to have a Nice Dinner at Any Cost. General Buffy's quite good at marshalling forces to that particular end, and she avoids the speeches. Confronted with untenable choices (in the end, you're all you've got), she goes to baste.

G: Hus won't stop. Vengeance is never sated, Buffy. Hatred is a cycle. All he will do is kill.
(There's a knock at the door. Buffy goes to answer it and Spike is standing there, cowering below a smoking blanket.)

So here we are. Here comes Spike, in the pitiful. Still evil, but currently suffering from an inability to perform. Throwing himself on the mercy of his dearest enemy. If he was free to choose, "all he will do is kill". Except he's helpless now. Enemy Mine. So should she kill him? She's tempted.

: Help me. (Buffy shoves him back and he goes tumbling.) Ohh! What part of help me do you not understand?
B: The part where I help you.
S: Come on, I'm parboiling out here.
B: Want me to help make it quicker?
S: Invite me in.
G: No. It's fairly unlikely.
S: Oh, damn it! look, I'm safe. I can't bite anyone. Willow, tell' em what I did.
W: You said you were gonna kill me, then Buffy.
S: Yes, bad, but let's skip that part and get to the part where I couldn't bite you.
W: It's true. He had trouble performing.
S: Yeah, well, it looks like they've done me for good. Um...
B: What are you saying?
S: I'm saying that Spike had a little trip to the vet and now he doesn't chase the other puppies anymore. I can't bite anything. I can't even hit people.
B: So you haven't murdered anybody lately? Let's be best pals.
S: I've got information. About the soldier boys you were fighting. Got the inside scoop. Come on, what have you got to be afraid of?

He's exasperating. She knows he's worthless for the purpose he proposes. She doesn't trust him. He's still dangerous, most likely. It's inconceivable that he would come to her, considering her duty, and his nature. She doesn't want to, it's against her better judgment, but in the end she invites him in. Over the threshold. Inside the line.

S: Grrr. Bloody hell, woman. You're cuttin' off my circulation.
B: You don't have any circulation.
S: Well, it pinches.
B: Get used to it. I have more important things to worry about.
S: I came to you in friendship. (Buffy gives him a look.) Well, all right, seething hatred, but I've got useful information, and I feel I'm being mistreated.
B: So tell me everything you know.
S: I'm too hungry to remember everything.
B: Then sit.

And when he immediately fails to keep his bargain, she still doesn't stake him. She's focussed carefully on dinner. No Final Solutions here. Duty is even more confusing than usual today. Tied up in his chair, damn near terminally annoying, inconvenient, treacherous, he has become a guest. The laws of hospitality now apply.

B: Will, anything in those books about how to stop a native american spirit guy? Some nice, non-judgmental way to, you know, kill him?
W: I'm not gonna help you kill him. I'm not on board.
B: What choice do we have?
W: Buffy, this isn't a western. We're not at a fort...Giles with the cavalry coming to save us. It's one lonely guy. Oppressed warrior guy who's just trying to...
B: Kill a lot of people?
W: I didn't say he was right.
B: Will, you know how bad I feel about this. It's eating me up-- (To Anya.) 1/4 Cup of brandy and let it simmer-- (To Willow.) But even though it's hard, we have to end this. Yes, he's been wronged, And I personally would be ready to apologize--

So there's the fort she hasn't made. No pillows yet. Spike as a lonely guy, in the metaphor (pretty funny in itself). In from the cold, by his own volition. Alive/unalive by the grace of the Slayer. A breathtaking gamble on his part, and also on hers. Nobody questions her decision in this arena. Inadvertently, unwillingly, this killer has been gathered. None of them think it through to the question of whether Spike, the Slayer of Slayers, has ever been wronged. But he survives again. A footnote, undeclared, to the argument about indigenous races.

S: Oh, someone put a stake in me.
X: You got a lot of volunteers in here.
S: I just can't take all this mamby-pamby boo-hooing about the bloody indians.
B: Uh, the preferred term--
S: You won. All right? You came in and you killed them and you took their land. That's what conquering nations do. It's what Caesar did, and he's not going around saying, "I came, I conquered, I felt really bad about it." The history of the world isn't people making friends. You had better weapons, and you massacred them. End of story.
B: Well, I think the spaniards actually did a lot of-- Not that I don't like spaniards.
S: Listen to you. How you gonna fight anyone with that attitude?
W: We don't wanna fight anyone.
B: I just wanna have thanksgiving.
S: Heh heh. Yeah...Good luck.
W: If we could talk to him--
S: You exterminated his race. What could you possibly say that would make him feel better? It's kill or be killed here. Take your bloody pick.
X: Maybe it's the syphilis talking, but... Some of that made sense.
G: I made these points earlier, but fine, no one listens to me.

The funny part is, of course, that Spike is having none of the argument that's just prevented him for going up in flames (one tug on that blanket, and poof). He identifies only with winning and losing. In the demon world, he's really pathetic. But in the human world, he's just won the fight. Immediately he recovers his sacred snark, and uses it to accidentally give them good advice. Would any other demon ever have been so mad in those circumstances as to throw himself on the mercy of the Slayer? Mortal enemies. "It's kill or be killed here. Take your bloody pick." And she lets him in.

S: Hey, when do I get fed?
B: Later. I hope the others are ok.
S: You know what happens to vampires who don't get to feed?
B: I always wondered that. Giles, plates.
S: Living skeletons, mate. Like famine pictures from those dusty countries, only not half as funny.
B: You can have gravy. That has blood in it, right?
S: Do you know what else has blood in it? Blood.
B: Do I have to gag you? Because I am not gonna listen to you whine all the way through my dinner. It's gonna be a nice, quiet, civilized--

And he proceeds immediately to make himself at home. The Rituals of Dinner. Spike has joined, remarkably, the human world. Assimilated cultures? Not on his watch. He remains, irrepressibly, himself.

W: We think he's going after someone in charge. A leader?
A: He's a warrior. To a warrior, the leader means the strongest fighter.
W: Buffy.

And maybe that's why he does it, chooses to move, still a demon, still evil, across that threshold. The warrior in him, that would fight if he could, submitting to the leader, the strongest fighter, on either side of the invisible, uncrossable line. His nemesis, the Slayer he could not kill. Nature trumping nurture trumping nature, if you see what i mean. The warrior part is closer to his central identity than the demon part. So he uses that to choose, rejected by the demon world, to cross the forbidden threshold back into the (fringes of) the human world again, to submit to the Slayer, his strongest enemy, and hope she chooses to use him rather than kill him. Nothing in what he knows of her suggests that he might survive the gamble. But Spike is the one who might be caught, but will never be hunted. And the real result is that Spike, unlike Angel, ends up inside Buffy's line of family on that first Thanksgiving Day.

S: What happened? Did we win?

And there, right there, that's the moment when he switches loyalties. He'd kill them in a heartbeat if he could. Maybe. He'll never tell them in the turning he was wronged. He'll never know himself a monster till he falls in love. He'll never win till he's completely full of losing. But over time, they'll leave their marks on him.

W: I feel lousy.
G: Turkey came out rather splendidly.
B: Oh, it was yummy.
W: It's just...Did you see me? 2 Seconds of conflict with an indigenous person, and I turned into general custer.
G: Violence does that. Instinct takes over.
S: Yeah, that's the fun.
B: Nobody asked you.
S: Oh, lay off. You all had a fine meal.
W: But me...An entire siege.
S: You'd think one of you would bleed a little.
G: Good work, Buffy... On both counts.
B: Thanks.
G: Well, you know, you should be very pleased.
B: Wasn't exactly a perfect Thanksgiving.
W: I don't know. Seemed kinda right to me. A bunch of anticipation, a big fight, and now we're all sleepy. And we did all survive.
B: I guess that much is true. First thanksgiving on my own, and we all got through it.
X: (Patting Anya on the shoulder.) And you know what? I think my syphilis is clearing right up.
B: And they say romance is dead. Or maybe they just wish it.
W: Well, maybe we started a new tradition this year. (She gets a look from everyone.) Maybe not. But at least we all worked together. It was like old times.
X: Yeah, especially with Angel being here and everything.
(Everyone looks at Buffy.)

Family conversations. Spike has come to the table. It's always been Spike, there for the biggest moments. Looking at him with Joyce, with Dawn, I always think he simply understood home when he met with it again, even as a demon. And home is the place where, when you go there, they have to take you in. Unlike his grandsire sire, he did not claim her, but instead in Pangs he asks her, mortal enemy, to claim him. Predator logic. Warrior mores. No longer always outside, in the dark.

Preparation for harvest.

macha

macha@ntl.sympatico.ca

written 24-26 Aug 2003
written for Tea at the Ford with macha