She finally cuts the apron strings?

There was a discussion on Tag, but I'll just say my thoughts, anyone else is (clearly) welcome to add whatever they wish.

I personally felt that the demon made Anne say those horrible, filthy things to William.  However, I thought that the reason was because she knew that was the only way to get him to let her go.

I'm sure you're all aware of how much William loved his mother- as a man, and as a vampire.  What do you suppose it would have taken for him to want to be rid of her?

As a human, Anne was much too kind to tell her son who she loved so much to move on, and that it would be okay for him to leave her.  But as a demon, that flies out of the window.  But I don't think it changed her desire for him to be happy finally, and the fact that she was still holding him back from that happiness.  I don't think she necessarily wanted to be dusted, but she needed William to walk away.  There wasn't a chance in hell he would've done so--not even for Drusilla.  Even she looks at him funny when he suggests turning her, so that they could be together forever.

Anne made him leave.  It was sick, and twisted, but she accomplished what she set out to do, which is why I think she gives him that loving smile as she turns to ash.  I could see Joss (or whoever directed the ep) saying this: "Love him when he *frees* you, and himself."

Perhaps, that's just me...

Is it?

Oh, and of course, there's the whole aspect that William was beyond too young to sire someone else, and it screwed up her demon...

Well, the first thing we have to realize in the context of 1880, is that William wouldn't just be leaving Anne with an empty nest. By society's conventions, he'd be seen as a horrible son if he abandoned her, *he* owned the house, and Anne *couldn't* say many things to her son and still be considered a "polite, upstanding woman". It just wasn't *done*. Even though she's his mother, she's a second class citizen because of being a woman. She could encourage him to find a bride, but that was the limit of what she was *allowed* to do. Now, because of who William is, she can speak more freely with him than many other mothers could with their sons, but she's a genteel lady, raised as a *lady*, and many things just wouldn't occur to her to say them out loud.

Now, by that standard, the demon saying those awful things was the *only* way William would have separated from her. She reviles him so much, that he acts, instead of carrying on with his familial duty of tending her all of her days.

CM

Wow....I just got this mental image of the other direction that scene could have taken...if instead of staking her, Spike had managed to just leave the scene...storming out, fleeing her advances, whatever....

...and suddenly, Anne's demeanor changes completely...goes from leering and mocking to a soft smile, half-sad, half-relieved, as she realizes that she's accomplished her purpose and driven him from her side, where she never could have convinced him to do so for his own good.

I can almost hear her whisper, once he's too far gone to hear her, "Goodbye...my William."

Wow!!

I never thought of it in that light before, but that makes perfect sense. I think from here on out that I'm going to see it that way; she didn't really mean those things even as a vampire, just wanted him to feel the freedom to move on.

DoS

Well, well... It's good to see this cheese *isn't* standing alone :-P

Great point...we tend to forget that womens rights are relatively recent.  A woman had no ownership of property ordinarily.  William would have had the care of his mother even if she had not been critically ill (another reason he was tied so close).

I never saw him as a "mamma's boy" at all!  A mamma's boy is taken care of BY his mother like a child....William took care of his mother.  He was tender and loving about it but it was the way things were done.  A woman went from her father's home to her husband's and finally her children's (if she were fortunate enough to have any).  A sick woman needed even more attention than a well one.

I think Anne WANTED to goad Spike into staking her as she had no desire to be a vampire...the look of love and gratitude she gave him at the end showed that IMHO.  She let the demon loose to goad him.

Kathleen

Oooo... another issue!  If William HAD taken a bride and brought her into the home he would be exposing the wife to his mother's highly contageous and deadly disease and that would prevent his doing so until his mother had passed on at the very least.

Kathleen

/quote/ Spike had managed to just leave the scene...storming out, fleeing her advances, whatever....

...and suddenly, Anne's demeanor changes completely...goes from leering and mocking to a soft smile, half-sad, half-relieved, as she realizes that she's accomplished her purpose and driven him from her side /quote/

Actually i do believe we would have seen her smile maliciously and mockingly, triumfant in causing delicious pain. We shuldnt give Anne such credit just because she was a sweet woman and love her William, we know far to little about her Deamon and how she would integrate with it.

Yes she loved william, but one has to question just how sanctemonius she truly was, how far and deep it went. I believe like anyone else she would have thoughts of malice towards William. And i believe the deamon takes away any shame in anyones body and you act totally on impulse and feed off of fear and causing pain.

//edit back from a walk and i was thinking. Joss being Joss in all likelyhood would not have intended her to be another william, in Joss spirit i believe he would have intended her as another reminder of Angelus and evil. Us as fans, tend to Romanticise too much.

Jo.

 I believe like anyone else she would have thoughts of malice towards William. And i believe the deamon takes away any shame in anyones body and you act totally on impulse and feed off of fear and causing pain.

Malice is a terribly strong word...why would she feel such a way?  There was nothing to indicate that she felt that way in any degree towards her son.  His peers were nasty to him, yes, but not his mother.  Also, if the demon causes one to totally act on impulse and feed off of fear to cause pain, then why did William treat his mother with TLC, wanting to make her well as a vampire?

Grrr... thwarted by my crappy internet. I thought I'd posted this earlier, but guess not. I'll try to remember what I said.

It seems like that theory (that Anne was goading William into staking her for his own good) relies on two contradictory premises:

First, Anne, as a vampire, must have retained enough love and compassion for her son that she would want what's best for him. She would willingly sacrifice her life (or unlife, as it were) so that he wouldn't be tied to her forever.

But Anne (or the demon) also has to be evil enough to say all the cruel, sick things she said to him. And my problem is, I just don't see her being both of those things at the same time.

CM brought up a good point about the social norms of the time. William didn't leave his mother (or kick her out), not because he was a "mama's boy," but because that would leave her homeless and penniless. He was obligated to care for her, since she no longer had a husband to do so. Even if he'd gotten married, Anne still would've lived with him and his wife. There really was no way to "cut the apron strings."

BUT, as a vampire, she's no longer bound to William. She doesn't need money, she can kill for food, and she doesn't even need to live in William's house - she can kill someone and take their house if she wants. Finally, she has the freedom to leave William if she wants to, live on her own for the first time. She could just disappear, go where William couldn't find her. Forcing him to stake her wasn't her ONLY option.

If she were compassionate enough to want what's best for him, she wouldn't be cruel enough to say those things. She didn't have to go there with the incest. The fact that she DID implies that she didn't care about William's feelings, and certainly wouldn't be selfless enough to die so that he could be free of her.

What i meant was, we all have inner thoughts and feelings about the people surrounding us, family members.. lovers.. even children. We can have really evil thoughts *if im to be honest* and feel those really strongly, recentment is a powerful emotion and i believe as any person in her shoes, would have buckets towards the young the healthy even towards William for all thats good in him and for all his failures and areas where he might have disappointed.  I do believe she loved him and was a lot more accepting of him then perhaps any other would have been. 

I cant say she wouldnt have feelt recentment towards him, because im sure she did, even if it was in her "private space" and a place she did not visit often. But back then, i do believe even though maybe he wasnt a "momas boy" he most likely would have been seen as a dissapointment in sertain areas, and a source of great worry. I could imagine a great desperation in there somewhere, within Anne. I think she was resigned to that William was "special" and sensitive maybe due to having such a loving doting mother, the loss of a strong father figure. The angst she must have feelt knowing she was slipping away and worrying not without cause, that he would wither away without her. I believe she would have had flashes of spite and recentment towards him, its human, and i believe the deamon having everything stored away in there would have minted gold from that. I dont believe she believed she had raised a self sufficiant person, a man who knew who he was beyond his role as loving son and caretaker. I believe this played  part in why he Sired her. 

Why William treated her with such TLC id put down to him being Special, to him being THE exception to the rule. Spike was never normal to any standards. Remember the Judge , and how he smellt a humanity in Dru and Spike, something Angelus was devoid of, i believe Dru made Spike special she chose him because she kenw he would become something extraordinary, someone who would be suitable to her, like her, with the ability to love without a soul. Williams eternal curse, that above and beyond ability to love, for good and bad.

I dont believe for a second Joss intended Anne to be as special, that wouldnt fit in with the Joss we know at all. That would have made things too peachy, and we know Joss would never have let it come to that.

E- I never said she wanted to be staked, only that she wasn't sorry it came to that.  I know a lot of people try to block out that scene cause of its awfulness, but remember- she does yell for him to get out, but he doesn't, and the "fight" ensues.

And I didn't say William was a mama's boy.  However, William didn't just have his mother there, he says to her that she's the "lady in his life."  That surpasses merely caring for her out of obligation, and because she'd be homeless/penniless without him.  Andjust because she has to live with him, does that really require him to spend most of his free time with her?  No, it does not, but however, he did.  Because he wanted it.  Not many men, in that time or the present, sit around dear old mom while she knits, singing songs to her son as he sits at her feet (not that there's anything wrong with that), but that just shows how much he was with her, and needed to be with her.  Lady or not, Anne knew this, and wanted her son to pursue women more, I don't know, with more zest perhaps, as opposed to staying home with her, admiring from a distance, and writing poems.

In death, Anne was still aware of that, and while true the demon freed her of her inhibitions, made her cruel, it still doesn't change the fact that she wanted her son to move on.  How she went about it was wrong, but the result was still the same.

Jo- Joss also tends to put a lot of "read between the lines" moments, and I think Anne was one of them.  For Anne to say all those things just because she was simply "horribly evil" would be too simple of answer in the Jossverse, where there's always another answer or ulterior motive...

And i reckon that "moment before they die"  reactions are much like the ones reported to happen in real life all the time, how you have a last moment of clarity, people waking from long term comas, blind retaining some vision, or virtually dead bodys jerking upright before passing. Thats how i saw her smile, a bit of the true woman shining through.

Im sure she still as a vamp retained the instinctive maybe first thought Anne would have about William, trying to make him become more self sufficiant to distance him from her. But i believed the deamon couldnt resist the jibes the inuendo and that was its downfall. It was young and had ammo that would create delicious pain in a weak individual, sire/son or not. Jossverse is full of reading inbetween the lines yes, but i dont believe Anne was such at all. I believe she was a revisit to evil and what a Vampire is in case we forgot, a point in way of proving just how diffrent william/spike was already back when he was newly sired. Unique controll/co-existence with the deamon. And that was the subtext

In death, Anne was still aware of that, and while true the demon freed her of her inhibitions, made her cruel, it still doesn't change the fact that she wanted her son to move on.  How she went about it was wrong, but the result was still the same.

I think the difference here is the motivation. We both agree that she said what she did to get rid of him. You think she did it because it was best for William. I think she did it because she (as a demon) just couldn't stand him.

For Anne to say all those things just because she was simply "horribly evil" would be too simple of answer in the Jossverse, where there's always another answer or ulterior motive...

Also, note that Joss didn't write this episode. While I'm sure he had some input in it, there's no way to know how much of Anne's reaction came from Joss.

It was the demon talking, I agree.  The reason is why, and IMHO think it was because he had a mother who loved him.  Anne wasn't too keen on partying with her son- painting the town red and so forth.  We see that with some moms, and that usually never ends well.  So, with the aid of her demon, she made him get rid of her.

And I just meant in the Jossverse, where everything isn't written or directed by him, but it's still the Jossverse, there's always something more, or something not overt.  It doesn't have to be done by him specifically in order to get accomplished. There was a code, or guideline some of the time for parts of the story not to be obvious.

Oh, and as for reminding us about how vampires are supposed to be... the first vampire that we see in the Jossverse is Darla, who wasn't just inherently evil.  She had loyalty, a sense of betrayal in regards to Angel, etc.  She wasn't just a bloodthirsty monster.  Then there's the Master, who mourns the death of Darla at the hands of Angel.  He was supposed to be the King of Evil in regards to vampires in season one, but he reacts- he cared.  He yells in outrage once he knows/feels her death (and does he cry a bit?  I think there was sniffling).  I don't think there is a list written in stone in the Jossverse as to how a vampire should be, because they're all different.

Anne wasn't too keen on partying with her son- painting the town red and so forth.

Uh... before or after she died? I mean, she was dying of consumption... that tends to put a damper on your social life. :) Plus, it wouldn't have been proper for the time period. As for after, I don't think it had anything to do with "partying" - it's not just that she doesn't want to go dancing with him. She doesn't want to be around him at all. And I think it's because she now sees him exactly as she describes - a limp, sentimental fool who writes witless poetry and clings too tightly to his mother. (Mind you, I don't think that's how Anne saw him when she was alive, but it's how she sees him as a vampire.) I think she is trying to get rid of him - not because she loved him, but because she couldn't stand him.

There was a code, or guideline some of the time for parts of the story not to be obvious.

Not necessarily. I've heard writers quoted who said they didn't intentionally create the symbolism and foreshadowing and double meanings. They were just trying to "spin a corker of a tale," in the words of Tim Minear: "It's almost all I can ever do just to make a story track and not be boring."

I don't think there is a list written in stone in the Jossverse as to how a vampire should be, because they're all different.

I agree with you. I think there is as much variety in the demons that inhabit vampires as there is in the non-vampire demons that we see. There are nice ones, there are evil ones, there are non-sentient animalistic ones, there are smart ones, there are stupid ones. And the kind of demon you get affects the kind of vampire you'll be. From the way Spike talks (and you figure he would know), the vampire his mother became was one that bore very little resemblance to the person Anne was in life.