thatotherperv (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
thatotherperv) wrote2007-08-30 08:54 am
thatotherperv) wrote2007-08-30 08:54 am
Entry tags:
Aurelius: the Order of Irreverence
[A/N: ok, I posted this a while back, actually, but it was totally dead that day and when, after 5 hours, no one had commented, I chickened out and yanked it down, haha. Which was stupid, but sometimes I’m silly. And then ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
icemink told me to put it back up and I’m just now getting around to that.
I’d also like to note that since I wrote this, I’ve readpeasant_’s essay on the Master which is actually along very similar lines to the points I made here about him, but far more thorough. It’s a good one to check out.]
It’s a pretty universally-accepted concept in fanon that Spike is the renegade of the Aurelius family. It’s sort of secondarily accepted that Angelus was a renegade too, when folks look past his comparison to Spike and remember his conduct with the Master—many times, he’s characterized as the stuffy, traditional one. But I was thinking about the rest of the main Aurelius line (the Master, Darla, Angelus, Dru, Spike), and I was thinking about how they were all irreverent in their own way.
The ironic thing is that in each case, the pattern repeats itself: younger rejecting some doctrine of the elder, and the elder thinking he/she is a fool for doing so. The tension’s more obvious between the males (Angelus to the Master, Spike to Angelus). I think it’s kind of funny that in creating a feminist show, Joss made the female vampires in many ways subs to the males. Not just with Aurelius but in general (Harmony, anyone?). Darla is a strong woman, and I’d argue that Dru is too, in her own way, but they both seem to enjoy submitting to the men in their lives—Darla to the Master and Angelus, and Dru to Angelus and Spike. So most of the generational culture clash is among the men.
But even with the clash between generations, there’s a respect paid to their protégés (when they’re out of earshot). Our first impression of Spike through Angel’s eyes in School Hard is that he’s a ruthless killer that will stop at nothing until he’s accomplished his goals. Similarly, in Bs1 Angel, the Master (who we come to believe in As2 Darla does not have a high opinion of Angelus) says that Angel was “the most vicious creature he ever met” and that even though Darla was his favorite for 400 years, it was *Angel* that “was to have sat at his right hand, come the day.” Interesting. Maybe rebel recognizes rebel after all.
What’s that? the Master is not a rebel? Well….
The Master
In fic, the Master is often the gold standard for the stuffy, traditionalist vampire elite. He appears at first glance rather rigid in terms of tradition, and he likes the pomp and circumstance. Everyone we have to compare him to in terms of defined vampire personalities seems like a free spirit by comparison.
But I was rewatching season 1 recently, and The Wish, and I was thinking about how the Master is actually a rather innovative guy. It’s just that we don’t have a predecessing vampire to compare him to in order to illustrate the point.
It seems pretty ballsy and radical to me that when we meet the Master, he’s plotting to overthrow the contemporary human-centered order of the world. Okay, yes, he’s following prophecy, and going about his anarchy in a very structured fashion, but he is essentially rejecting everything it meant to be a vampire for thousands of years to remake the world as he preferred.
Then in Bs3 The Wish, we see him utilizing the concept of mass production in order to replace the hunt—again overthrowing Business As Usual. I think it seems kind of boring or the opposite of rebellious to us that he is creating a system wherein he removes himself from the blood and guts of his natural existence (especially when you compare him to someone like Spike, who relishes that), but after half a millenia or so, snapping necks and sucking humans dry can get a little yawn-worthy. And for a guy as old as he is, a hundred-year-old concept like mass production is staying on the cutting edge, I’m sure ;)
His anti-establishment intentions are actually really clear in the little speech he makes to the crowd at the grand opening.
Behold the technical wonder, which is about to alter the very fabric of our society. Some have argued that such an advancement goes against our nature. They claim that death is our art. I say to them... Well, I don't say anything to them because I kill them. Undeniably we are the world's superior race. Yet we have always been too parochial, too bound by the mindless routine of the predator. Hunt and kill, hunt and kill. Titillating? Yes. Practical? Hardly. Meanwhile, the humans, with their plebeian minds, have brought us a truly demonic concept: mass production!
This is a guy who is basically calling slavery to tradition foolish.
The final thing I think is interesting about the Master is his language. Most of his language seems formalized, when you compare it to the quips of Angelus and Spike, but he clearly has a handle on wit and sarcasm, has the market cornered on flippancy, and the way he taunts Buffy is pretty reminiscent of our boys, actually. For a guy who claims to reject everything human and live apart from the ‘human pestilence,’ he seems comfortable enough throwing in the odd pop culture reference for emphasis, when he *chooses*. I’m thinking in Prophecy Girl of his reaction to the earthquake (“Whaddaya think? 5.1?”) or his parting remark to dead Buffy (“By the way, I like your dress.”) He knows more about human culture than he lets on.
I think he’s more of a forerunner of Angelus and Spike than he’s usually credited for.
Darla
Darla likes opulence. She likes the human world, and high society, and a room with a view. It’s clear that she has no respect for human emotion, as opposed to say…Spike, but she likes the trappings, and she sees no reason to hold herself apart from human society.
In doing so, she’s directly (and consciously) rejecting the Master’s doctrine, even if she does feel the need to hide it from him. And she goes one step further: she creates a companion for herself that will love those worldly things too.
As far as I can tell, Darla is the only Aurelian vampire who essentially rejects her sire in favor of her childe. Sure, she paid her due to the Master from time to time, but she doesn’t really return to him until Angelus is gone, cursed with a soul.
She’s also the only one, by my reckoning, who purposefully chooses to turn a human that has the clear potential to dominate her.
It usually goes the other way. The Master, I’m sure, was confident that Darla would remain under his control (he seems very surprised when she rejects him for Angelus). Angelus certainly only turns those who are weaker, and often takes measures to make them *more* dependent on him. And Dru, although she turned William as a companion, seems in Destiny and LMPTM to regard him as a plaything more than a playmate (“It’s called Willy” [emphasis mine]). When he tries to get all toppy with her, she sort of laughs at him.
But Darla knew what she wanted in a long-time companion, and she took it, regardless of convention (official or unofficial). In turning Liam, she was a rebel three times over.
Angelus
When thinking about the one concept that might encapsulate all the ways Angelus rebelled against the Order, one word came to mind: excess. Angelus took the vices of the Aurelian vampires and the vices of his human life and lived them to the extreme…which I guess is unsurprising considering that his human years were spent drinking and whoring and generally living the party life.
If the Master and Darla were arrogant, he made them look humble by comparison. As Lindsey said, Angel in all incarnations had big brass balls, and he whipped them out at pretty much every opportunity. (*snickers*)
He took their aestheticism (Darla’s love of society life, the Master’s love of ritual) to the extreme. Killing and torture became art, and the breaking of a human being, a masterpiece. He took Darla’s enjoyment of society’s trappings and learned not just how to blend in, but how to use that ability to completely mind-fuck his victims.
We saw the pattern of excess literally from the moment he came out of the ground. He wanted to take the village. He took the apparent notoriety of the order’s name among demons and elevated it to terrifying legend in the human world. He flaunted his work, refusing to keep it “underground.”
And he spread the Aurelius seed, so to speak, more than any of them as well. Darla is only ever shown turning Angelus, Dru only turns William. Spike never turns anyone (to our knowledge). The Master obviously turned a variety of individuals over the years, but I think he did it for a purpose…to build an army, to strengthen the family, to have minions. Angelus’ choices seem to be for the hell of it, and to no purpose at all. Penn, Dru…arguably Spike (in spirit—Angelus told Dru to make a playmate, knowing full well he’d be the one to train it). Lawson, though there was a reason he was turned. Maybe James and Elizabeth? I have a sense that there were others, before the soul, that sort of scattered to the wind. They seemed to be revealing one a season there for a while. He was a real Johnny Appleseed.
Dru
At first glance, Dru doesn’t exactly scream ‘rebel.’ She tries very hard to be a good girl for Daddy *g* But I would argue that the ‘human touch’ that the Judge senses in Spike and Dru is rooted in her desire for family and her rather obstinate refusal to let go of a certain human style of affection.
She is the first one of the Fanged Four, as far as I can remember, to refer to Aurelius in family terms. Darla, for sure, rejects such terminology, and she is irritated by Dru’s labeling of her as “grandmother.” (Interestingly, the Master *did* accept this metaphor. Several times in Bs1 he refers to the order several times as “family” and “children.” Apparently the metaphor skipped a few generations.)
But Dru clings to the family concept—Angelus is Daddy, and she’s quite keen on Darla being Granny in the bad old days and her own little girl in As2…although later that season, we also see her lean on Darla for comfort like a mother.
It’s very telling that Darla, of all people, obliges her with some soft affection during that season, whenever she starts acting like a child. Dru’s hunger for love and family shapes the Fanged Four, I think. Angelus may have turned her as an experiment in grotesque suffering, but 20 years later, we see him treating her with paternalistic affection as they walk down the street together in London. There’s the pop psych notion of teaching people how to treat you, and I think there was a bit of that going on here…Dru’s behavior was childlike, and it demanded a certain type of response. I think it’s true that Angelus is prone to family-building anyway, and prone to paternalism, but Dru is the first one of his offspring that we see that type of soft behavior with. They do say that having a little girl changes a man ;)
I wonder, too, what might have happened if William really had been turned by Angelus, rather than by Dru…as we were originally led to believe. Maybe all of the humanity would have been beaten out of him, like Penn. Maybe not. But I do feel confident that Dru’s influence encouraged him to hold on to the softer, more romantic aspects of his human personality, even as Angelus shaped him into a killer.
Spike
And finally, our little Spike. He broke the mold, didn’t he? Spike is such a contradiction that he breaks convention every which way. I’m not going to talk about him, really, because we all know how he’s a rebel and I got nothin new. This meta was mostly about how Spike wasn’t the only one…that he inherited a tradition of rebellion.
I can’t really think of any ways he rebelled against *Dru*, just as I can’t think of any specific ways that Angelus really rebelled against *Darla*. It was all about railing over the patriarch. And Spike did so with both his chaotic baseness and his human-like tenderness. There were two ways he could go to break away from Angelus, and he chose both.
Ironically, he made the most important decisions of his life in *obedience* to Angelus, but that’s another story for another day ;)
icemink told me to put it back up and I’m just now getting around to that. I’d also like to note that since I wrote this, I’ve read
peasant_’s essay on the Master which is actually along very similar lines to the points I made here about him, but far more thorough. It’s a good one to check out.]It’s a pretty universally-accepted concept in fanon that Spike is the renegade of the Aurelius family. It’s sort of secondarily accepted that Angelus was a renegade too, when folks look past his comparison to Spike and remember his conduct with the Master—many times, he’s characterized as the stuffy, traditional one. But I was thinking about the rest of the main Aurelius line (the Master, Darla, Angelus, Dru, Spike), and I was thinking about how they were all irreverent in their own way.
The ironic thing is that in each case, the pattern repeats itself: younger rejecting some doctrine of the elder, and the elder thinking he/she is a fool for doing so. The tension’s more obvious between the males (Angelus to the Master, Spike to Angelus). I think it’s kind of funny that in creating a feminist show, Joss made the female vampires in many ways subs to the males. Not just with Aurelius but in general (Harmony, anyone?). Darla is a strong woman, and I’d argue that Dru is too, in her own way, but they both seem to enjoy submitting to the men in their lives—Darla to the Master and Angelus, and Dru to Angelus and Spike. So most of the generational culture clash is among the men.
But even with the clash between generations, there’s a respect paid to their protégés (when they’re out of earshot). Our first impression of Spike through Angel’s eyes in School Hard is that he’s a ruthless killer that will stop at nothing until he’s accomplished his goals. Similarly, in Bs1 Angel, the Master (who we come to believe in As2 Darla does not have a high opinion of Angelus) says that Angel was “the most vicious creature he ever met” and that even though Darla was his favorite for 400 years, it was *Angel* that “was to have sat at his right hand, come the day.” Interesting. Maybe rebel recognizes rebel after all.
What’s that? the Master is not a rebel? Well….
The Master
In fic, the Master is often the gold standard for the stuffy, traditionalist vampire elite. He appears at first glance rather rigid in terms of tradition, and he likes the pomp and circumstance. Everyone we have to compare him to in terms of defined vampire personalities seems like a free spirit by comparison.
But I was rewatching season 1 recently, and The Wish, and I was thinking about how the Master is actually a rather innovative guy. It’s just that we don’t have a predecessing vampire to compare him to in order to illustrate the point.
It seems pretty ballsy and radical to me that when we meet the Master, he’s plotting to overthrow the contemporary human-centered order of the world. Okay, yes, he’s following prophecy, and going about his anarchy in a very structured fashion, but he is essentially rejecting everything it meant to be a vampire for thousands of years to remake the world as he preferred.
Then in Bs3 The Wish, we see him utilizing the concept of mass production in order to replace the hunt—again overthrowing Business As Usual. I think it seems kind of boring or the opposite of rebellious to us that he is creating a system wherein he removes himself from the blood and guts of his natural existence (especially when you compare him to someone like Spike, who relishes that), but after half a millenia or so, snapping necks and sucking humans dry can get a little yawn-worthy. And for a guy as old as he is, a hundred-year-old concept like mass production is staying on the cutting edge, I’m sure ;)
His anti-establishment intentions are actually really clear in the little speech he makes to the crowd at the grand opening.
Behold the technical wonder, which is about to alter the very fabric of our society. Some have argued that such an advancement goes against our nature. They claim that death is our art. I say to them... Well, I don't say anything to them because I kill them. Undeniably we are the world's superior race. Yet we have always been too parochial, too bound by the mindless routine of the predator. Hunt and kill, hunt and kill. Titillating? Yes. Practical? Hardly. Meanwhile, the humans, with their plebeian minds, have brought us a truly demonic concept: mass production!
This is a guy who is basically calling slavery to tradition foolish.
The final thing I think is interesting about the Master is his language. Most of his language seems formalized, when you compare it to the quips of Angelus and Spike, but he clearly has a handle on wit and sarcasm, has the market cornered on flippancy, and the way he taunts Buffy is pretty reminiscent of our boys, actually. For a guy who claims to reject everything human and live apart from the ‘human pestilence,’ he seems comfortable enough throwing in the odd pop culture reference for emphasis, when he *chooses*. I’m thinking in Prophecy Girl of his reaction to the earthquake (“Whaddaya think? 5.1?”) or his parting remark to dead Buffy (“By the way, I like your dress.”) He knows more about human culture than he lets on.
I think he’s more of a forerunner of Angelus and Spike than he’s usually credited for.
Darla
Darla likes opulence. She likes the human world, and high society, and a room with a view. It’s clear that she has no respect for human emotion, as opposed to say…Spike, but she likes the trappings, and she sees no reason to hold herself apart from human society.
In doing so, she’s directly (and consciously) rejecting the Master’s doctrine, even if she does feel the need to hide it from him. And she goes one step further: she creates a companion for herself that will love those worldly things too.
As far as I can tell, Darla is the only Aurelian vampire who essentially rejects her sire in favor of her childe. Sure, she paid her due to the Master from time to time, but she doesn’t really return to him until Angelus is gone, cursed with a soul.
She’s also the only one, by my reckoning, who purposefully chooses to turn a human that has the clear potential to dominate her.
It usually goes the other way. The Master, I’m sure, was confident that Darla would remain under his control (he seems very surprised when she rejects him for Angelus). Angelus certainly only turns those who are weaker, and often takes measures to make them *more* dependent on him. And Dru, although she turned William as a companion, seems in Destiny and LMPTM to regard him as a plaything more than a playmate (“It’s called Willy” [emphasis mine]). When he tries to get all toppy with her, she sort of laughs at him.
But Darla knew what she wanted in a long-time companion, and she took it, regardless of convention (official or unofficial). In turning Liam, she was a rebel three times over.
Angelus
When thinking about the one concept that might encapsulate all the ways Angelus rebelled against the Order, one word came to mind: excess. Angelus took the vices of the Aurelian vampires and the vices of his human life and lived them to the extreme…which I guess is unsurprising considering that his human years were spent drinking and whoring and generally living the party life.
If the Master and Darla were arrogant, he made them look humble by comparison. As Lindsey said, Angel in all incarnations had big brass balls, and he whipped them out at pretty much every opportunity. (*snickers*)
He took their aestheticism (Darla’s love of society life, the Master’s love of ritual) to the extreme. Killing and torture became art, and the breaking of a human being, a masterpiece. He took Darla’s enjoyment of society’s trappings and learned not just how to blend in, but how to use that ability to completely mind-fuck his victims.
We saw the pattern of excess literally from the moment he came out of the ground. He wanted to take the village. He took the apparent notoriety of the order’s name among demons and elevated it to terrifying legend in the human world. He flaunted his work, refusing to keep it “underground.”
And he spread the Aurelius seed, so to speak, more than any of them as well. Darla is only ever shown turning Angelus, Dru only turns William. Spike never turns anyone (to our knowledge). The Master obviously turned a variety of individuals over the years, but I think he did it for a purpose…to build an army, to strengthen the family, to have minions. Angelus’ choices seem to be for the hell of it, and to no purpose at all. Penn, Dru…arguably Spike (in spirit—Angelus told Dru to make a playmate, knowing full well he’d be the one to train it). Lawson, though there was a reason he was turned. Maybe James and Elizabeth? I have a sense that there were others, before the soul, that sort of scattered to the wind. They seemed to be revealing one a season there for a while. He was a real Johnny Appleseed.
Dru
At first glance, Dru doesn’t exactly scream ‘rebel.’ She tries very hard to be a good girl for Daddy *g* But I would argue that the ‘human touch’ that the Judge senses in Spike and Dru is rooted in her desire for family and her rather obstinate refusal to let go of a certain human style of affection.
She is the first one of the Fanged Four, as far as I can remember, to refer to Aurelius in family terms. Darla, for sure, rejects such terminology, and she is irritated by Dru’s labeling of her as “grandmother.” (Interestingly, the Master *did* accept this metaphor. Several times in Bs1 he refers to the order several times as “family” and “children.” Apparently the metaphor skipped a few generations.)
But Dru clings to the family concept—Angelus is Daddy, and she’s quite keen on Darla being Granny in the bad old days and her own little girl in As2…although later that season, we also see her lean on Darla for comfort like a mother.
It’s very telling that Darla, of all people, obliges her with some soft affection during that season, whenever she starts acting like a child. Dru’s hunger for love and family shapes the Fanged Four, I think. Angelus may have turned her as an experiment in grotesque suffering, but 20 years later, we see him treating her with paternalistic affection as they walk down the street together in London. There’s the pop psych notion of teaching people how to treat you, and I think there was a bit of that going on here…Dru’s behavior was childlike, and it demanded a certain type of response. I think it’s true that Angelus is prone to family-building anyway, and prone to paternalism, but Dru is the first one of his offspring that we see that type of soft behavior with. They do say that having a little girl changes a man ;)
I wonder, too, what might have happened if William really had been turned by Angelus, rather than by Dru…as we were originally led to believe. Maybe all of the humanity would have been beaten out of him, like Penn. Maybe not. But I do feel confident that Dru’s influence encouraged him to hold on to the softer, more romantic aspects of his human personality, even as Angelus shaped him into a killer.
Spike
And finally, our little Spike. He broke the mold, didn’t he? Spike is such a contradiction that he breaks convention every which way. I’m not going to talk about him, really, because we all know how he’s a rebel and I got nothin new. This meta was mostly about how Spike wasn’t the only one…that he inherited a tradition of rebellion.
I can’t really think of any ways he rebelled against *Dru*, just as I can’t think of any specific ways that Angelus really rebelled against *Darla*. It was all about railing over the patriarch. And Spike did so with both his chaotic baseness and his human-like tenderness. There were two ways he could go to break away from Angelus, and he chose both.
Ironically, he made the most important decisions of his life in *obedience* to Angelus, but that’s another story for another day ;)
no subject
As for it being odd that Buffyverse vampire culture appears to be so paternalistic in a feminist show, I suppose one could say, well, they're evil so they're bound to keep to tradtions not approved of by Joss. Or something?
Had always thought the notion of family among the Fanged Four came more from Dru than from anyone.
As for Spike rebelling against Dru, I suppose you could cite his utter rejection of her in Crush - the woman he's adored for 100 years and he spurns her - actually knocks her flying - in favour of the Slayer. If that doesn't make him a rebel against his sire I don't know what does.
no subject
ha! good point :) by that token, Angel rebelled against Darla as well. what with staking her for the slayer, and then his rather rude behavior towards the vampire her in As2-3 ;)
peasant's essay really is something to check out if you liked the bit about the Master. she did it much better :)
As for it being odd that Buffyverse vampire culture appears to be so paternalistic in a feminist show, I suppose one could say, well, they're evil so they're bound to keep to tradtions not approved of by Joss. Or something?
annd another excellent thought :) they just ended up being more "human" and sympathetic than he anticipated, I guess.
no subject
Oh, yes. Definitely - and I kind of hate the way he treated Vampire Darla in seasons 2&3. It wasn't nice at all. Didn't like what Lorne said about her either (something to do with haven't we all woken up one morning, looked at what's lying next to us and thought, what's that doing there?).
I'm sure Joss never meant to make the vampires so sympathetic. It's sort of contradictory to the spirit of the show where BtVS is concerned. However, if all Buffy had fought were interchangeable monsters, where would the inner conflict have come from?
no subject
no subject
no subject
I always thought of Drusilla's turning as a way of rebellion - Darla wasn't too keen on it. And then there's the bit where Angel staked her...
I miss my Dead Gay Show :(
no subject
and thanks! yeah, I probably misspoke with the no-rebelling-against-female-sires thing. but it usually came after the females had rejected them first. and it wasn't the same sort of prolonged, vehement deliberate rebellion as they had against the patriarch.
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
Wonderful points all, particularly the sections about Darla and Dru!
no subject
I think the point of Buffy was that she wasn't your classic female role model. he was trying to portray the empowerment of a kind of girl that is typically written off as being stupid and worthless, I think. like--see, this kind of woman can kick ass too. I dunno, not that I think girls need any encouragement acting overly cute and a little dim to impress boys, but I know when I was younger, I was written off sometimes as being stupid when really, I was just acting silly and lighthearted with friends. guys don't get that leap of judgement as easily. it's a bit annoying.
but yeah...I dunno where I got off-topic. um. thanks! hahaha.
no subject
i love your insight into darla. that's a very complicated idea, i think, and you've explained it well. her choice of liam and what that would mean for her has like, layers to it.
and i've always dug the anachronisms in the master. i love that he's all old and into prophecies, but then he throws out these asides that seem really in touch with the present day. his clothes and his speech patterns show him to be more in touch with the modern world than maybe he realizes.
i'd be interested to hear your thoughts on how spike made the most important decisions in his life in obedience to angelus. i guess that calls up, for me, what are his important decisions?
getting a soul seems to top the list. also... changing his name and image. showing up in sunnydale... *thinks some more* i don't know. what's your take on them?
no subject
I love the Master, really. he doesn't get enough credit for being a badass character. though I'm still convinced he should be older than 1000 if he's all "so old and stuck in batface"
i'd be interested to hear your thoughts on how spike made the most important decisions in his life in obedience to angelus. i guess that calls up, for me, what are his important decisions?
yeah, maybe "important" is the wrong word...it's more like, the decisions that defined him...that he *chose* to define himself by. the name change, the image change, the obsession with slayers. always approval-seeking from daddy *pets him*
no subject
Oh, absolutely. I just re-watched "Hell Bound" and Spike to me sounds hurt as well as annoyed when he responds to Angel's assumption that he's attacking the psychic - "come on, I got a bloody soul, stop assuming I'm doing the evil stuff!"
This is a great piece of meta, incidentally. Drusilla as rebel I'd never considered, but it's very true that she changes the vampires around her instead of changing for them. And thanks for the link to Peasant's essay.
no subject
and yeah, nobody can really convince me that Spike isn't really daddy's boy under it all.
peasant is brilliant :) glad to point you her way
no subject
I'm not so sure the women are quite as submissive as all that, though - especially Drusilla. She tends to be manipulative and passive-aggressive rather than assertive, but there's never any doubt that she's the one in charge when it comes to Spike.
As for Darla, in the early days she seems more like Angelus' mentor and teacher; once the little ones come along, she shifts more into a materfamilias role. It's noteworthy that she's capable of walking out on any man at any time - the Master, even Angelus himself (when Holtz is hunting them), Lindsey. It seems to me dhe wasnts stability but hates dependency - which would reflect on her pre-turning lifestyle, come to think of it.
no subject
oh, no, I don't think they're entirely submissive at all. but they *do* seem to enjoy letting the men in their lives take that dominant, care-taking role. they like...top from the bottom, haha, which is really part of what it means to be a submissive...they're usually the ones really calling the shots. and yeah, Darla *chooses* to cast herself in that role, because it gets her pampered in the way she likes. maybe because she spent her whole life serving men, and this way they serve her.
As for Darla, in the early days she seems more like Angelus' mentor and teacher; once the little ones come along, she shifts more into a materfamilias role.
yes! absolutely true.
no subject
And I think you raise an interesting point about the patriarchal society that Joss created. Although I would suppose this could be argued for a more feminism, as Buffy fights them and wins, destorying the Master weakened the vampires and left Buffy at the top of things to fear (ie School Hard just before Spike's swagger in). Likewsie, when Buffy smashed his bones to stop the vampires from bringing the Master back. she was stomping her little, stylish yet affordable boots over the idea of patriarchdom. *grin*
And I would also suggest that Spike rebelled against Dru as well as Angel when he made his deal with Buffy in Season 2 and knocked Dru out to take her away...maybe that was why she had such a hard time trying to forgive him. But then, he always was a contrary little sod *loves him* I mean, she may have made him as a companion, but it isn't until Angel tries to take her away from Spike and taunts Spike about being her destiny that I think Dru truly saw him as her....*throws up hands in despair looking for a good definition* er... boyfriend? I think until that moment she had assumed that the family would share and play together - not sure if Spike introducing romantic ideals was a "rebellion" or just a 'persuasion"
Great thinking points
no subject
very good points about the role of feminism in the patriarchy of vampires. stylish yet affordable boots...hee!
I think until that moment she had assumed that the family would share and play together
that makes so much sense to me, actually. that makes a lot of sense of that "are we?" that I could never get a handle on whether she was serious or just fucking with him.
no subject
I suspect Dru herself wouldn't be sure of the answer to that...
But it seems to me she was already a complete romantic: talking about finding "the wisest and bravest knight in all the land" to be her playmate. Having found him, the idea that they should become sexually faithful lovers didn't even occur to her - why should it? She's a vampire, after all - but once it was suggested, she thought it was a wonderful idea that fit straight into her Pre-Raphealite fantasy life. She became Spike's lover because it was a role that she enjoyed playing.
no subject
no subject
Aurelius: the Order of Irreverence
I wonder too if Darla's rejection of family terms had to do with not wanting to seem responsible for Dru. She certainly had grown accustomed to her but in the pre L.A. days seemed to have a fair amount of contempt for her as well.
no subject
I never got the feeling that Darla had submitted to Angelus. In fact, it seemed to me that she was the one who truly led the Fanged Four. And I also got the feeling that it was Dru who controlled Spike.
no subject
Really? I definitely did (although she chose it). After all, she's an unabashed masochist and Angelus is a sadist, their sexual relations almost certainly put him in charge. However, a submissive is still in charge; she chose Angelus, knowing he could dominate her, and had she chosen to take charge I'm positive he would have given way. I definitely agree Dru controlled Spike.
no subject