Of Holtz and Wood: A Story Twice Told

[selenak]

The debate caused by the vid Origin Stories reminded me of a post I kept meaning to write and postponed, a compare and contrast of Daniel Holtz and Robin Wood on Angel and Buffy respectively, their function in the stories and the way the narrative handles them. Incidentally, said thoughts do not focus on race; if you want more intelligent discussion of the way Robin Wood's arc and his mother's backstory are handled in the very white Buffyverse, check out the posts linked here. No, what I want to focus on are some other aspects.



Their very names are a pun; Holz, spelled without a t, means "Wood" in German. (And even with a t is the most unlikely name ever for a 18th century Yorkshire man, if you ask me, but that's neither here nor there.) The similarities between Daniel Holtz and Robin Wood are immediately obvious. In both cases, you have a human who lost his family to a vampire, who when confronted with said vampire in the present has to deal with the fact the vampire has by now gained a soul, which by the metaphysical rules of the universe he's in is supposed to be an existential difference, who decides that the creature in question is still responsible for the murdered family and should pay accordingly.

The differences are even more glaring. For starters, Holtz is the seasonal antagonist and definitely in the villain department on AtS. He gets his vengeance in a way that has tremendous long term implications on the show, its protagonist and several of the other regulars, despite Holtz' death by the end of the season he showed up in. Principal Wood, on the other hand, is one of the good guys and remains one despite temporal opposition to the lead character, participates in the final battle and survives - but he doesn't get his revenge, and his story has no long-term implications for either the main character or the show. (Okay, the later is a tricky point, considering this was BTVS' last season, whereas AtS still had two more after Holtz died, and no, I'm not counting the comics for long term implications. On screen canon only. Also, I have to wait for the trade. Anyway, I think it's a reasonably safe speculation that even had BTVS had an eighth on screen season, or a movie, Robin Wood would not have made an on screen come-back, though he might have gotten a quick verbal reference, nor would we have gotten a plot based on his presence in season 7.) The difference in impetus is partly due to the fact that Holtz has his backstory with Angel, the main character; it's Angel his revenge is directed against, and though it affects other regulars such as Wesley and by the later results (to wit: teenage Connor) Cordelia in a deep, life-changing manner, they are not is primary objective. This makes for a straightforward protagonist-antagonist dynamic. It is made narratively interesting by the fact Holtz' reason for hating Angel is not a villainous one (as opposed to Angel's more regular opponents, Wolfram and Hart). The narrative takes great care to establish this backstory. Holtz first gets mentioned (but not seen) as a vampire hunter by Darla and Angelus in the season 2 episode The Trial. He first shows up in person, again in a flashback, in the season 3 opening episode, in a confrontation with Angelus who is at his most callous when making a joke about having raped Holtz' wife before he killed her. Mid-season, Holtz shows up in person in the present, and we get more flashbacks emphasizing his determination to hunt Angel(us) and Darla down in the past for the death of his family, but the actual event is not shown until Lullaby, where it is effectively juxtaposed with the present day story of Darla's last day/night and her suicide in order to let her son live. The Lullaby flashbacks, by contrast, are Darla and Angel at their most monstrous, killing Holtz' family because they can and because it's funny to them, and adding one additional bit of cruelty which the narrative hasn't disclosed until now: the fact they turned one of Holtz' children into a vampire instead of "simply" killing the girl, and that Holtz spend the night singing to his undead daughter before exposing her to the sunlight, and thus killing her for good, in the next morning. It's this action, the narrative implies, that turned Holtz into who he became afterwards, and the emotional horror of the flashbacks is so huge that you can understand why.

Robin Wood's backstory, on the other hand, is with Spike, who despite increasing importance in BTVS' later seasons is not the main character; I'd say the comparable person among the AtS regulars in terms of screentime and narrative attention wold be Wesley, but that still makes Robin a part of a subplot from the get-go. The fact he is the son of a Slayer does give him a connection to Buffy, but it is not an antagonistic one, a la Holtz and Angel, or for that matter a romantic one, despite the fact he occasionally flirts with her early in the season (more about that later). So he only gets one flashback episode, and very brief flashbacks they are by comparison to the many flashbacks Holtz gets. They do accomplish the job they're meant to (and also are helped by the fact we already know Nikki Wood via her final fight and death as shown in season 5's Fool For Love), showing Nikki and Robin as mother and son (and Nikki talking - she was silent all through the fight scene from Fool For Love), and incidentally establishing that Spike has stalked Nikki for some time before the subway encounter. Spike isn't shown as monstrous as Darla and Angelus in Holtz' flashbacks - we don't see him kill children or make jokes about rape - but that's a matter of degrees: he's is still a monster (in game face) playing with killing Robin's mother and eventually going through with it. But brief as the Nikki-and-Robin flashbacks are, they intermingle this matter with another by letting Nikki tell Robin that "the mission comes first". This in turn leads to one of the most controversial and debated elements of Lies My Parents Told Me: Spike taunting Robin by claiming his mother, like all Slayers, put the mission first and thus did not love her child. The controversy was less about Spike saying this, since it's ic for Spike to make such a taunt during a fight - a comparable example would be him telling Buffy that Angel said to him Buffy wasn't "worth another go" in Harsh Light of Day, but whether or not we were supposed to think he made an accurate claim here, i.e. did the narrative support this statement? The AtS episode Damage, written by the same scriptwriters as Lies my parents told me, somewhat settled this, because when deranged Slayer Dana accesses the memories of dead Slayers and channels Nikki, Nikki speaks of her love and concern for Robin and wish to live, to return to her son, which basically means Spike's death wish/mission analysis was bullshit. But within Lies my parents told me and information available for the viewers at that time, the accuracy or lack of same of Spike's taunt was debatable. If this was problematic, the follow-up was even more so.

Before I get there, let me point out the parallel to Holtz' first confrontation with Angel in the present, in Quickening. Both Holtz and Robin capture Angel and Spike respectively. (In the Hyperion and in Robin's basement.) Both don't just want the vampire who took their family to die, but to experience pain before. In both cases, the vampire in question in the end gets himself out of the situation. But at no point does Angel imply Holtz doesn't have every right to hate him to begin with, or that what he did to Holtz' family wasn't monstrous. Even in their last confrontation, after Holtz has committed his own share of crimes, including the taking of Connor, Angel acknowledges he committed the initial wrong:

ANGEL: You stole my son.

HOLTZ: I kept your son alive. You murdered mine.

(After a beat Angel slowly backs off and withdraws his hand from Holtz' throat.)

ANGEL: I was different then.

HOLTZ: Yes. So was I. - You feel remorse. You feel remorse yet you can't express it.

ANGEL: You want me to say I'm sorry? How can I? It wouldn't mean a thing.

HOLTZ: It would mean a little. Not much, but it would be something.

ANGEL: Then I'm sorry. For whatever little it might mean. It's all I've got.

By contrast, in Lies my parents told me, we get this:

SPIKE: I'm sorry.

(Cut to past. William/Spike stakes his mother; back to present)

PRINCIPAL WOOD: Sorry? You think sorry's gonna make everything right?

SPIKE: I wasn't talking to you. (Spike starts fighting, and from now he has the upper hand) I don't give a piss about your mum. She was a slayer. I was a vampire. That's the way the game is played.

Which still could be seen as more of a difference between Angel and Spike as individuals than by the way the two stories deal with the human/vampire/revenge plot, were it not for the aftermath and the exchange between Buffy and Robin Wood. As opposed to Spike, Buffy is the protagonist. Neither Buffy nor Angel are always meant to be right in their shows (are they ever - see various plots depending on them being in the wrong), but their word still carries more weight than that of other regulars, more often than not. Consequently, one can postulate the narrative, while not agreeing with Spike, definitely agrees with Buffy's conclusion here:


BUFFY: I lost my mom a couple years ago. I came home and found her dead on the couch.

ROBIN WOOD: I'm sorry.

BUFFY: I understand what you tried to do, but she's dead.

ROBIN WOOD: Because he murdered her.

BUFFY: I'm preparing to fight a war, and you're looking for revenge on a man that doesn't exist anymore.

ROBIN WOOD: Buffy, don't delude yourself... That man still exists.

BUFFY: Spike is the strongest warrior we have. We are gonna need him if we're gonna come out of this thing alive. You try anything again, he'll kill you. More importantly, I'll let him. I have a mission to win this war, to save the world. I don't have time for vendettas. (walks away) The mission is what matters.


While revenge is never a good thing on either show, no matter who wants it, and in this particular situation there is indeed a question of priorities, it's still noticable that Holtz' reason for wishing revenge is getting acknowledged as valid right till the end, no matter how wrong his methods of achieving it are, while Robin's is not. Which grates to this very day. At a guess, at least one reason for this is because neither of the three options available at this point, if the death of Nikki Wood had gotten the same treatment as the deaths of the Holtz family received, could be taken, to wit: Robin Wood could either have continued in his attempts to kill Spike and/or gone other to the First Evil, which would have made him into a villain and as opposed to Daniel Holtz a one dimensional one, or he could have been killed (but that would have made the newly resouled Spike into a murderer again, about five minutes before his redemptive death), or he could have come, on his own, to a point where he was willing to if not forgive than accept Spike's presence in the world. Which in order to be credible would have needed far more narrative attention and space than was available for a subplot, so Buffy's reaction was used for a narrative shortcut. (As this is indeed the end of Robin Wood's vengeance quest.) Which still makes for character subordinate to plot storytelling, and unfortunately, it shows.

But things are never so simple as to be just one thing or the other: i.e. Robin Wood as the victim of the narrative. Let's go back to him and Holtz again, and their similarities. Both men are coded to resemble Watchers. In the second half of season 3, Holtz starts his complicated and in the end horribly effective revenge by finding and training Justine, another character who lost family to vampires. Their initial encounters are deliberately staged and written in a way to parallel Buffy being sought out by her first watcher in both the movie and in the Becoming flashbacks substituting for the movie, and Holtz' training methods for Justine are ones Quentin Travers would approve. (There is also a resemblance to the way Wesley acts towards Faith in s4, but the way Wesley is imprinted by his Watcher heritage is another essay.) Moreover, they illustrate something that the first half of the season, with Holtz' backstory slowly unfolding, had not yet shown; present day Holtz is as manipulative as hell. (Which both Wesley and Giles can be; Travers probably could but is too high-handed to try.) He makes first Justine and then Connor into his weapons, and the way he trains them, the strict focus on the mission, the black and white world view is all downright textbook. Except that killing demons has long ceased to be Holtz' primary objective; it's all about destroying Angel, and his final act, making Justine kill him to ensure Connor would hate Angel for good, is among other things a strict rejection of everything else that used to be important to him and of his own last chance for redemption.

Manipulation isn't alien to Robin Wood, either. His story in season 7 doesn't start and end with the son denied his vengeance on his mother's murderer. It starts with his encountering Buffy in the season opener, with him offering her a job he doesn't regard her as qualified for so he can keep an eye on her while she keeps on on the hellmouth, all without telling her he knows exactly who she is. Robin Wood might be Nikki's heritage, but he's also that of the Watcher who raised him, and it shows. Let's not forget this while discussing the problems in Lies my parents told me: Principal Wood is no saint, and his behaviour towards Buffy is somewhat dodgy in ways that have nothing to do with Spike. They both kept the truth from each other, but while Buffy had no reason to believe the new principal of Sunnydale High should be immediately informed she is the Slayer, Robin knew she was and could have told her who he was. (Just as a reminder, at this point, Spike was skulking in the Sunnydale High basement, not living chez Summers, and busy being driven insane by the First Evil; Robin didn't see him with Buffy until First Date, more than half a season later, so Spike can in no way count as an excuse.) Instead, he kept his secrets, lies to her and manipulates her.

BUFFY: I was, uh, just curious, you know, uh--not that I'm not grateful or anything. But, uh, I guess I was wondering why I--

ROBIN WOOD: Have this job?

BUFFY: I still haven't finished college.

ROBIN WOOD: I know.

BUFFY: Was it my sparkling personality? Or maybe you enjoyed my work at the Doublemeat Palace?

ROBIN WOOD: I'm a vegetarian. These students need someone around here who understands them, and I need someone who understands these students.

When he does come clean, he does so in a somewhat patronizing way:

BUFFY: Right. OK, um, so I'm guessing that you don't work in an office 15 feet above the hell mouth because you enjoy educational administration?

ROBIN WOOD: Well, I actually do enjoy the work, but yeah. Yeah, you're right. I maneuvered myself into that school, that office, just like I maneuvered you there. The hell mouth draws the bad things in close, and now we're headed for something big, Buffy. Really big, and I need to be here when it happens. I want to help.

BUFFY: So, y-you didn't hire me for my counseling skills?

ROBIN WOOD: (laughs, then sees Buffy's hurt look) They're valuable too.

"Like I maneuvred you there." For two thirds of the season, he's Buffy's employer - which makes their occasional semi-flirtation a bit questionable, but he never takes it further than banter -, and again, does not tell her the truth until she finds out. When he then realizes who Spike is, it's Giles he confides in, not Buffy. The arrangement for Spike's death he makes with Giles behind Buffy's back might be motivated by completely understandable reasons, but I'd say it definitely marks Robin as someone comfortable with the traditional Watcher type of behaviour that sees Slayers as the soldiers, not the generals, as it were, to be manoeuvred around and manipulated. (The way he acts with Faith in the finale could be classified as manipulative, too, but in that case I'd say it's more a case of equality; if he knows which buttons to push, it's in return to her own behaviour, and Faith is quite the button pusher as well if she wants to be.) Understand - none of this makes Robin Wood into a villain. It makes him into a three dimensional character who is allied with the patriarchy as well as the victims and the heroes and can't be easily labeled. In the end, when push comes to shove, Robin Wood is able to do what Daniel Holtz did not choose to do: put the mission first, as his mother has done. He's there in Sunnydale High to fight. He doesn't make people who love him into killers, he doesn't make anyone kill for him, he offers his own life as part of the fight instead. And he survives to exit the narrative with the word "surprise".

What all of this leaves me with is the conclusion that Holtz' story was far better written, but also that it was far simpler structured. Robin Wood's story, while worse written, offered a more complicated character. You know what an antagonist is around for in the story; to make the main character's life miserable. An ally, on the other hand, who carries legacies (literary as well as metaphorically) of discarded and often hostile authority (the Watchers) and the wronged past (the Slayers)? He has no such easily defined role, and perhaps this, too, is why the debate about what his story signifies in the overall narrative goes on.

Comments

[kattahj.livejournal.com]

I have nothing intelligent to say, except that you're very smart and that I love both these characters dearly.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Thanks! And considering the general lack of interest for either man (there is some, but very few people write either Holtz or Wood), I'm glad to hear it.

[kattahj.livejournal.com]

My Faith/Robin fic remains to this day the longest I've written (not counting sequalized stories), so I'm always glad to see more of him. I've only written Holtz once, as a villain, but I loved him too. Of course, that might have been the low scary voice. *g*

[violaswamp.livejournal.com]

Understand - none of this makes Robin Wood into a villain. It makes him into a three dimensional character who is allied with the patriarchy as well as the victims and the heroes and can't be easily labeled. In the end, when push comes to shove, Robin Wood is able to do what Daniel Holtz did not choose to do: put the mission first, as his mother has done. He's there in Sunnydale High to fight. He doesn't make people who love him into killers, he doesn't make anyone kill for him, he offers his own life as part of the fight instead. And he survives to exit the narrative with the word "surprise".

I could appreciate all of this much better if Spike, our newly redeemed hero who literally goes out in a blaze of glory, didn't mock and dismiss Nikki's death--and if Buffy and the other Scooby characters were more respectful of just what was being demanded of Robin in asking him to put aside his vendetta. Even if they'd just said something like "Kill him AFTER we use him to save the world, not before" or "What would your mother have wanted?" or something else that showed respect and desire to accommodate Robin in some way. It wouldn't have required lots of screentime or anything.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Oh, I agree that this is one of various scenes in LMPTM that should have been rewritten in just such a way - i.e. let Buffy acknowledge just how much she's asking from Robin. (Unless they wanted him to fire her the next episode, but I don't see how that was an important plot point, it's not like anything else would have happened differently if he hadn't.)

Re: Spike about Nikki's death - well, you know, there is a reason why that was the last section of my story. Mind you, the story doesn't end there, and by the time Damage came along he probably wouldn't have done it, see below in my reply to Elisi, but the fact of the matter is he did it in this episode, and that still ticks me off on a massive scale, too.

[violaswamp.livejournal.com]

the story doesn't end there, and by the time Damage came along he probably wouldn't have done it

True, though this does get into the issue of Buffy and Angel being two different shows--the story continues, but by that point it's a different story.

[elisi]

Lovely meta. Sets out all the issues *very* nicely.

I think the only thing that could possibly be added is the different places Spike & Angel are at. Angel, when Holtz finds him, has had his soul for a century and has had a long time trying to come to terms with what he is, and to work out what his role is - or can be. Spike has had his for less than a year, has been tormented and made to kill by the First and is still trying to work out what on earth he is doing, and what it means to be a vampire with a soul. Which is where Buffy comes in - it is Buffy who gets him to 'be dangerous' again, who (in desperation) forces him to bring out the old Spike. I'm not saying that this in any way excuses Spike's words to Wood, but it does make a lot of sense out of Buffy's behaviour and stance - in a way she takes responsibility for Spike's actions, because she was the one who made him that way.

Does any of that make sense? (It is more complicated than that of course, but Spike's actions are the product of a very specific story, and if presented with the same scenario earlier or later his response might have been different.)

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Spike is at a different point than Angel, that's true (and I agree about Buffy's motivation); I think when we hear him acknowledge in Damage that it doesn't matter he wasn't the one to torment Dana, because he had done it to so many others, we're meant to see this as character progress and an important breakthrough. (Also when Dana is channelling Nikki calling for her son Robin he's anything but glib in return.) However, this does not change that in LMPTM, Spike says what he does, and the narrative does not offer any counterweight at that particular point. Plus, as Viola says above, it would have helped to let Buffy (and/or the Scoobies) acknowledge just how much they're asking of Robin.

[zandra-x.livejournal.com]

I so enjoyed reading this; Holtz is one of my favorite characters.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Despite season 3 being, imo, the weakest of AtS, he still gets my vote for best overall antagonist of the show.

[ticketsonmyself.livejournal.com]

Their very names are a pun; Holz, spelled without a t, means "Wood" in German. (And even with a t is the most unlikely name ever for a 18th century Yorkshire man, if you ask me, but that's neither here nor there.) This... is ace. And hilarious! Something I didn't know.

The AtS episode Damage, written by the same scriptwriters as Lies my parents told me, somewhat settled this, because when deranged Slayer Dana accesses the memories of dead Slayers and channels Nikki, Nikki speaks of her love and concern for Robin and wish to live, to return to her son, which basically means Spike's death wish/mission analysis was bullshit. But within Lies my parents told me and information available for the viewers at that time, the accuracy or lack of same of Spike's taunt was debatable. If this was problematic, the follow-up was even more so. I did not know that "Damage" and "Lies My Parents Told Me" had the same writers! Although I felt very strongly even at the time (S7 was my first exposure to the Buffyverse, and I still retain a special affection for it, not least because of Robin's presence) that Spike's "Slayer death wish" was self-justifying bull. And that's the season I was feeling my strongest affection for Spike, a character I still sometimes enjoy.

Which still could be seen as more of a difference between Angel and Spike as individuals than by the way the two stories deal with the human/vampire/revenge plot, were it not for the aftermath and the exchange between Buffy and Robin Wood. As opposed to Spike, Buffy is the protagonist. Neither Buffy nor Angel are always meant to be right in their shows (are they ever - see various plots depending on them being in the wrong), but their word still carries more weight than that of other regulars, more often than not. Consequently, one can postulate the narrative, while not agreeing with Spike, definitely agrees with Buffy's conclusion

I felt the BtVS narrative did give tacit acceptance of Spike's "She was a slayer. I was a vampire. That's the way the game is played." After all, Joyce's death was of natural causes; I can't help but see a parallel being drawn there via Buffy's words. Civilians can die premature and sudden deaths from disease, but a Slayer's "natural" death is by vampire (and it's a fact that they don't often make it out of their teens), according to one prevailing theory throughout BtVS. When she died, Joyce was a whole lot older than Nikki; Buffy has a lot more memories of Joyce than Robin does of Nikki. Spike robbed both Nikki and Robin of her life and the time they would have shared. Is the parallel a false one? Throughout BtVS, it's generally voiced by (a) Spike or (b) Watchers, which would support the implication that it's an idea that props up patriarchal authority. In fact, it ties in pretty well to "the mission is what matters," which aycheb and I discussed in her rec post for "Origin Stories" (at, er, considerable length, so I'm just posting one quote from her): At that point in the story all of them Buffy, Robin, Giles, Nikki herself are in thrall to the patriarchal injunction that it’s the mission that matters. We're both still uncomfortable with that, and as I said over at aycheb's lj, I'm not sure BtVS ever completely resolves that problem of conflicting values: the value of the individual vs. the value of the mission. Actually, that reminds me of what I said about "Chosen" in light of Dana's story:

When the spell gives all the Potentials in the world the chance to be Slayers (and I think the question of whether or not they're actually given a choice is important with respect to this discussion and also to Dana), in one sense the empowerment of all of those disparate individuals is an affirmation of their value as individuals. And almost all of the new worldwide Slayers we see are white. On the other hand, it only happens because that spell is the last hope of Buffy's army, which has to fulfill the mission or evil wins (i.e. no individual will be safe, etc.). From one perspective, it's a question of whether or not that spell gives those girls across the world a chance or just "enlists" them like the Shadowmen did the First Slayer; of course, the vid makes that connection between the Shadowmen and Dana's story.

[ticketsonmyself.livejournal.com]

Looking at Buffy's closing line in that exchange, it reminds me of how much I liked this bit from honorh's Robin fic: One night, on a subway, his mother lost a fight. Tonight, in a garage, Robin lost another with the same vampire who killed her. The vampire who took her leather coat not once, but twice. And now, apparently, he's got to either work with that vampire or get gone, because Buffy won't back Robin up if it comes to a fight.

He suspects she was exaggerating. After all, if Spike killed him, Buffy would be not only out one warrior but, in all likelihood, two. Robin's not sure, but he thinks that a Spike who kills humans just because they piss him off might finally lose Buffy's trust. As he can't say for certain that's the case, though, he'll keep quiet. He'll bite his tongue, and he'll work with what she's given him.


They both kept the truth from each other, but while Buffy had no reason to believe the new principal of Sunnydale High should be immediately informed she is the Slayer, Robin knew she was and could have told her who he was. (Just as a reminder, at this point, Spike was skulking in the Sunnydale High basement, not living chez Summers, and busy being driven insane by the First Evil; Robin didn't see him with Buffy until First Date, more than half a season later, so Spike can in no way count as an excuse.) Instead, he kept his secrets, lies to her and manipulates her. Excellent points. Also, stronger evidence for Robin's Council-thinking-with-patriarchal-overtones than his alliance with Giles in LMPTM, really. As I said over at aycheb's lj, in choosing Spike time and again, Buffy does weigh him in the balance against the threat of future victims - possibly the Potentials - and still values him over them. The Potentials, while not completely expendable, must be valued in accordance with their use as soldiers in her army, given that she allows Spike to live even after his murders post-soul (and subsequently reiterates it for Robin's benefit) because Spike's the best fighter. It ties back to the patriarchal/authoritarian overtones in "the mission is what matters."

In the end, when push comes to shove, Robin Wood is able to do what Daniel Holtz did not choose to do: put the mission first, as his mother has done. He's there in Sunnydale High to fight. He doesn't make people who love him into killers, he doesn't make anyone kill for him, he offers his own life as part of the fight instead. And he survives to exit the narrative with the word "surprise". I really like your comparison of Holtz and Wood here, especially "He doesn't make people who love him into killers, he doesn't make anyone kill for him, he offers his own life as part of the fight instead." Aww, Robin. You made it, buddy, even if Spike is coming back later still wearing Nikki's coat. Which he never sheds for long. I was delighted with Robin Wood's final scene, not least because it's an oddly tender and funny moment with Faith. And triumphant, as you've pointed out here. Although I have to say the real surprise was that he survived the battle, as deadbrowalking's profile (http://community.livejournal.com/deadbrowalking/profile/) points out.

I really like your concluding paragraph, in particular "An ally, on the other hand, who carries legacies (literary as well as metaphorically) of discarded and often hostile authority (the Watchers) and the wronged past (the Slayers)? He has no such easily defined role, and perhaps this, too, is why the debate about what his story signifies in the overall narrative goes on." I hope people keep on thinking about Robin Wood and what he means for the Buffyverse; he's a minor character but a significant one. Your comparison of Holtz with Wood helps shed more light on both of them.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

This... is ace. And hilarious! Something I didn't know.

Being German sometimes comes in handy.*g* (When we got the revelation that Robin was Nikki's son, I thought, hang on, doesn't "Wood" mean...)

The Joyce and Nikki comparison: I think it was probably just supposed to mean "I know what it's like to lose your mother, and that you never heal from it", and Buffy repeating basically what Tara tried to do for her in The Body (remember, Tara started also with "my mother died when I was 18"), but both Tara's and Buffy's mothers died non violently and when their daughters were basically grown up, and Nikki most assuredly did not, so what works in The Body completely does not work in this episode. Plus, yes, from a Watsonian perspective it equates the death-by-vampire - for a Slayer - with natural causes. Otoh, this is also the episode which shows us Spike didn't just happent to cross Nikki's path that day/night in the subway, he deliberately stalked and hunted her.

Whether or not Spike's words are meant to be taken as truths is always a tricky thing on this show. Obviously sometimes they are, as in his "you'll never be friends" speech in Lover's Walk, or when he points out to Buffy that Willow is going to go after Glory in Tough Love (or indeed an earlier Willow diagnosis of his in Something Blue). Just as obviously, sometimes they aren't - he's lying when taunting Buffy about Angel in Harsh Lights of Day, he's shown to be wrong in his assessment of how she feels about him in both Crush and Seeing Red, and when he and Buffy have their crucial conversation in Never Leave Me, he's also shown to be one year behind in his diagnosis of Buffy. (I.e. when he says that since he know understands what self-hatred feels like, he gets that she sees him as a self-punishment device, and she replies that she doesn't hate herself like that anymore, which I think is true - it was a main reason for their affair in s6, but not in s7.) In flashback episodes in particular, you get textbook illustrations of Spike as the unreliable narrator. In Fool For Love, we start with him saying to Buffy "I always was a rebel" and cut to meek William composing his poetry (many fans forget that the story Buffy hears is not at all the one we are seeing), then we get "I got myself a gang" and see Spike as the youngest in the picking order of the Fanged Four, chewed out by Angel, and in Lies my parents told me, his "my mother loved me" comes directly after the flashback in which Anne-the-vampire told him how much she despises him.

[timeofchange.livejournal.com]

I enjoyed this post and the dialog in comments that followed. Wonderful insights, all.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[ticketsonmyself.livejournal.com]

Selena - I'm linking this post at halfamoon. Thanks to all for your insightful thoughts!

[selenak.livejournal.com]

And thank you for the good discussion! It's been a while since I wrote meta on either show, but if you're interested in some of my older posts regarding female characters, here are some:


Buffy and Faith in canon and fanon (http://selenak.livejournal.com/45753.html)


Rooting for the Underdog: Regarding Marti Noxon (http://selenak.livejournal.com/5462.html) not a character, but arguably as important a creative part in the Buffyverse as Joss.

Life Serial and Dead Things (http://selenak.livejournal.com/24153.html) - a compare and contrast especially in regards to Buffy's overall season storyline and what the Trio symbolizes

Fanged Four Dynamics Revisited (http://selenak.livejournal.com/265080.html) - about the subversion to the traditional vampire mythos they present in terms of gender

Wither Cordelia? (http://selenak.livejournal.com/228591.html) - just why Cordelia's arc derailed so badly, and when it started.

Lastly, I don't know whether you're reading Astonishing X-Men, but if you do, since this is also Joss Whedon's writing analyzed:

Her Story: Emma Frost (http://selenak.livejournal.com/253911.html)

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

Their very names are a pun; Holz, spelled without a t, means "Wood" in German.
I think I remember Jane Espensen saying that they didn’t get the idea of Robin being Nikki’s son until about halfway through the season, which makes the whole thing even more serendipitous.

BUFFY: Spike is the strongest warrior we have. We are gonna need him if we're gonna come out of this thing alive. You try anything again, he'll kill you. More importantly, I'll let him. I have a mission to win this war, to save the world. I don't have time for vendettas. (walks away) The mission is what matters.

I sometimes feel that what they were going for here wasn’t so much to align Buffy with Spike against Robin (although that was how it came across) but with Nikki. Not just with the Slayer who said “The mission is what matters” but with the mother who wanted her son to live and who praised him for staying down and keeping safe. I’m not sure that risking his life to avenge her is what she would have wanted. Clearly this interpretation is severely undercut by Buffy’s threat to withdraw her protection if Robin were to continue to seek vengeance but I think it is notable that on leaving him she doesn’t go after Spike but to watch over a sleeping Dawn.

This in turn leads to one of the most controversial and debated elements of Lies My Parents Told Me: Spike taunting Robin by claiming his mother, like all Slayers, put the mission first and thus did not love her child. The controversy was less about Spike saying this, since it's ic for Spike to make such a taunt during a fight - a comparable example would be him telling Buffy that Angel said to him Buffy wasn't "worth another go" in Harsh Light of Day, but whether or not we were supposed to think he made an accurate claim here, i.e. did the narrative support this statement?

That idea that Spike was right about Nikki not loving Robin used to drive me batty. I mean just look at baby Robin in his yellow boots and the way she is with him in the flashback. That was a child who was loved and who Spike didn’t even realize was there. Spike probably was right about Robin being insecure about that love, whether he had it, whether he deserved it. There's no mother in the world could give a four year old boy all the attention he thinks he needs and children do have a tendency to blame themselves for what happens to their parents. Spike does have that predator's instinct for other people's weaknesses but that doesn't mean he has insight into whether those weaknesses are based on reality.

As for him being right about his own mother I think that was a rather partial truth. Human Ann might have loved him but that wouldn’t preclude her resenting him and his idiocies at the same time. Vampire Ann despised him but may also have loved him after her fashion. She did want to have sex with him after all.

He's there in Sunnydale High to fight. He doesn't make people who love him into killers, he doesn't make anyone kill for him, he offers his own life as part of the fight instead. And he survives to exit the narrative with the word "surprise".

Yes to all this.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Clearly this interpretation is severely undercut by Buffy’s threat to withdraw her protection if Robin were to continue to seek vengeance but I think it is notable that on leaving him she doesn’t go after Spike but to watch over a sleeping Dawn.

That is a very good point and something I hadn't noticed before. Of course, much of s7 is about Buffy having to take up the mantle of authority, take over the parent role. She can't be the rebel daughter figure anymore, because her parent figures are all gone (and when Giles comes back, he puts the responsibility for the Potentials on her, he doesn't, as in early s6, take some responsibility from her), and so is the Watcher's Council whom she rejected anyway; as Selfless puts it, there is no one else.

I mean just look at baby Robin in his yellow boots and the way she is with him in the flashback. That was a child who was loved and who Spike didn’t even realize was there.

No. And this reminds me: he doesn't understand the last words of the Chinese Slayer, which are about her mother, either. And yes, he's talking based on instinctively recognizing an insecurity of Robin's, not because he knows anything at all about what Nikki felt for her child.

Human Ann might have loved him but that wouldn’t preclude her resenting him and his idiocies at the same time. Vampire Ann despised him but may also have loved him after her fashion. She did want to have sex with him after all.

True enough, and I agree Ann probably felt a mixture of emotions, with the demon bring out all the resentment human Ann repressed.

[ticketsonmyself.livejournal.com]

I think I remember Jane Espensen saying that they didn’t get the idea of Robin being Nikki’s son until about halfway through the season, which makes the whole thing even more serendipitous. Something else I did not know! I guess I'm glad they did, then, given that (a) we got to have a speaking scene with Nikki talking to Robin and (b) Robin was saved from being Unilaterally Evil and Then (Probably) Dead, considering his early appearance as Menacing Guy with Shovel. The deadbrowalking community was originally established specifically as a deathwatch for the poor guy, heh.

[callmesandy.livejournal.com]

Oooooooooooh, I loved reading and thank you for the rec. I'm a Robin Wood fan, heh, which is why I keep inserting him into every story I can think of a good way to do so. Also, for some reason, I tend to love characters fandom is less fond of. :)

But I mostly wanted to say, I think Holtz and Robin as characters are aided by having really smashingly effective and charismatic actors playing them. I feel like Robin makes sense in my head sometimes despite the writing because DB Woodside commanded it so.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Point about the actors. The casting in the Jossverse is usually good, with the occasional glitches, but here they really lucked out. I believed Woodside whether Robin was displaying a dry sense of humour, building up silent rage inside or bonding with Faith, and he had the mysterious thing going early in the season when it was needed, too.

Here from buffyversetop5

[yourlibrarian]

This is such an intriguing topic!

I wonder too if some of the differences in terms of consequence between the two don't also have to do with the people who died. We saw virtually nothing of Holtz's family, but his tie to Angel (and Darla) is quite clear. So it is that relationship which is important. Robin, perhaps by virtue of his age when Nikki died, was of importance primarily because of her. Many fans were intrigued by Nikki herself long before Robin appeared. So his primary relationship was to her rather than to Spike (or Buffy). It's also curious that the importance of the tie is masculine in Angel, feminine in Buffy.

In your parallels about the reaction of the lead to Holtz and Wood though, I think the issue is who got killed. In Holtz'c case they were children, and civilians. In Robin's case, his mother was a soldier in an ongoing war. Had Spike killed Robin, and it was Nikki who was seeking revenge, the stories would have been more closely paralleled.

The discussion of the two as Watchers brings out some great points, especially about Holtz and his team. I wonder how Robin's story might have played out differently had a woman been cast as the producers had been considering? Presumably the storylines with Buffy and Faith would have been altered but not necessarily the ones with Spike and Giles.

Re: Here from buffyversetop5

[lakrids404.livejournal.com]

In Robin's case, his mother was a soldier in an ongoing war
Some of us see it more like, that his was mother was killed by vicious mass murder, or perhaps in the best case defeated by a deadly plague, that she was trying eradicate.

I hope that my comment does not come out as ranting, but "Lies my parents told me" is one of a few, tv episodes, that can make me want to argue with people on the Internet, of its interpretation.

[spikendru.livejournal.com]

Extremely interesting essay. I was always fascinated with both Holtz and Robin Wood as characters, and I enjoyed seeing the revenge motive looked at from very different angles.

While revenge is never a good thing on either show, no matter who wants it, and in this particular situation there is indeed a question of priorities, it's still noticable that Holtz' reason for wishing revenge is getting acknowledged as valid right till the end, no matter how wrong his methods of achieving it are, while Robin's is not. Which grates to this very day.

I always saw the main difference as being one of roles. Holtz's family were innocents. Nikki Wood was a Slayer. She was trained to fight and kill vampires and went out every night and did so. I won't argue that the attitude of the Council to the Slayers was callous, cruel, and dehumanizing, but when doing her job, she knew she could be killed at any time. She chose to work the mission, rather than simply refusing to be the Slayer because she had a son who was dependent upon her. Holtz's family had no skills at all to prevent Darla and Angelus from killing them. I feel the desire for revenge would only be analogous if Darla and Angelus had killed Holtz and his wife wanted revenge, or if Spike had killed Robin and Nikki wanted revenge.

Very thought-provoking meta, and I'm thrilled it was recced in buffyversetop5 because I must have missed it when you originally posted!