There is no home for me in canon

[botias]

OK so you got this guy.  And you treated him really bad, and then he did something REALLY awful to you, ‘cause, well, he is bad.  But then he felt bad, and went to get his soul.

And you forgive him, and you help him out, save his life really, defend him to your family and friends, stand with him against overwhelming evidence, you let him know that he’s your hero, and Wind Beneath My Wings is playing in your head the whole time.  Finally you fricken hold hands with him even though he’s fricken on fire and standing in a fricken collapsing mouth of hell and, what the heck, you go ahead and say it out loud besides.  You love him.

And then he doesn’t call.  He doesn’t write.  Oh, but he has plenty of time for a nooner with his ex.  And so the verdict is in.  Now that he’s gotten his soul, made the changes, Spike is no longer ‘Hillside Strangler meets Hells Angel’ on the boyfriend scale.  The arrow is moving, it’s moving…  Ding, ding, ding!  Congratulations!  You’re now the ‘Guy That Doesn’t Call’.  Hello Parker!Spike.  Vast improvement I have to say.

  Now many folks contend that Spike was being self-sacrificing, not troubling Buffy with his bad self .  Or that he didn’t think she cared much one way or the other (when he was frickin on fire dammit.)  I’m fine with him not getting on the boat, so far as that goes.  But to not call or write? 

Setting aside the whole ‘I love you’ thing, if Spike could really look back on everything Buffy did for him in S7, going above and beyond and even against the call of her duty to give him a chance at a good life, and still think that it wasn’t extremely important to Buffy whether he was alive or dead, than that gives gives him the emotional intelligence of a one-celled organism.  I just can’t want Paramecium!Spike or Parker!Spike for Buffy.  To my mind… Spike’s wedding tackle shrunk 3 sizes that day.  And given Buffy’s trust issues, it’s hard for me to imagine her ever letting him in again.

I know the non-contact thing was largely dictated by external realities.  It’s pretty impossible to assume that if Spike wrote or called, that Buffy wouldn’t show up.  The Angel writers could have gone to the trouble of having them meet off-screen, but I doubt that the issue of whether Buffy, a non-character, would ever trust Spike, a secondary character, again was a big priority for them.

And so I just write off canon after Chosen.  And for post NFA fics?  I just suspend belief I guess.

Comments

[owenthurman.livejournal.com]

Very nice post. Also a factor in my Stupid Vampire (http://owenthurman.livejournal.com) story.

[botias.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

Buffy is my hero. In my fantasy world, when canon Buffy finds out how lame Spike is she does some sort of hip-hoppy snapping thing with her fingers, cries on Willow's shoulder, and then gets her revenge by having the best life EVAR.

[sweet-ali.livejournal.com]

I've seen all the arguments as to why Spike didn't call or contact her in some way. And for me what it comes down to is that the vampire was fucking terrified.

I don't buy the whole idea that he didn't think she cared. If that were so, he wouldn't have cared if Andrew told her that he saw him alive. And I always felt his excuse in saying she was better off and he couldn't top his exit reeked of vulnerability and fear.

I'm not saying it's a good reason or even all that excusable and I do love the post-NFA fics where Buffy hits first and screws him into the ground later, but... I see it in Spike, despite the swagger, that he was just terrified and he allowed everything that was going on with Angel and co. become his new mission, to be who he was. But i always felt that was still there for him.

[botias.livejournal.com]

I think the terror thing is an excellent possibility. But BtVS Spike was love's bitch not terror's bitch and I think a lot of us love that most about him. I think the writers had a role for AtS Spike and it just wasn't Buffy's romantic interest. *gives Spangel shippers a quelling look* I think that's the crux of it right there. There's a home for me, it's just not in canon.

[ladypeyton.livejournal.com]

I agree that he must have been terrified. He continually put himself out there and begged for a crumb of returned feeling up until the night before he died and she continually refused to give him that crumb up to the point where she kissed the ex she always maintained he was a sad replacement for right after she maintained that she was there with him when he professed unconditional love (and asked him if her being there had to *mean* anything).

I don't blame him at all for not believing her when she said she loved him (I didn't believe her) and I don't blame him for not chasing after the pain.

[botias.livejournal.com]

Wasn't that kiss just terrible? But there were no tongues...

I can't really blame Buffy for being conflicted about the whole 'with Spike' thing though. I don't think Spike believed Buffy when she said ILY, but I've decided that I do. Whatever she said or didn't say, her actions really spoke to me of faith and love. I think she did a lot more for him than she would have done for just anyone in peril. Especially the way she had faith in him when he was killing, more faith than he had in himself. And the look on her face when she told him? The teary? I saw no reservation there.

I can't blame him for not chasing the pain. I would fully support Spike not pursuing any sort of relationship with Buffy. But sending a letter, a postcard? I think he owed her that much even if all they were to each other were comrades in arms.

[rahirah]

Well... I think you have to take into account that Spike totally ceased to trust his ability to read Buffy's emotional state after the attempted rape. He based everything on his assumption that she really did love him, and everything would be fine if he could only get her to admit it. And he was catastrophically, disastrously wrong. So I don't necessarily think Spike felt certain of what Buffy was thinking or feeling in S7. Of course she helped him. She's a hero. That's what heroes do. Beyond that...?

I think two things contributed to Spike not calling. One, he would rather preserve the fantasy that maybe she did love him than talk to her and confirm his fear that she didn't. Two, I think he was afraid that if he got in contact with her again, he'd end up in more or less the same situation he was in in S7, hanging around on her coat-tails, hoping for crumbs of attention, feeling hopelessly jealous of her boyfriends...and not even needed as muscle because there are ten billion slayers now.

That really odd conversation with Harmony about why he didn't get on the boat gives us a clue. Buffy will be happy enough to see him, Spike thinks, but to really impress her he would have to make a spectacular entrance. Spike thinks Buffy values him for what he can do for her, not for who he is. He took her speeches about how she needed him around because he was her best fighter literally--given how badly his last attempt to read between her lines went, he dares not do anything else. Buffy has thousands of Slayer-class fighters now. And so while she might be happy to see him, just as she would be happy(ish) to see a resurrected Anya or Amanda, she would have no real use for him.

He DOES owe her a phone call or a letter, absolutely, and he's a schmuck for avoiding her. But you know, I can understand why he's a schmuck. I think Spike had all kinds of good intentions for contacting Buffy and telling her he was alive. But he kept waiting for the perfect time, or trying to think of a better way to say it. And the longer he waited, the harder it got, and the madder she was going to be...

To give Spike some credit, when he thinks she's in danger in TGIQ he has no hesitation in going to see her. Possibly you could wank that as evidence that some time between Damage and TGIQ, he did call, had the requisite uncomfortable "Hi, Buffy, I'm alive." "Oh. That's...nice." conversation. I actually think it's quite possible Buffy wouldn't have gone to see him, especially if you consider that she seems to have cut Angel off ruthlessly for working at W&H. Combine the delay in calling her with Spike helping Angel, and I could easily see her being angry enough not to want to see him--or demanding that he come see her, and Spike refusing, and the whole thing blowing up into an argument.

And of course there's always the option that while she did care for Spike, the ILY was something Buffy said in the heat of the moment, and the idea of having to make good on it terrifies her--Spike assuring her that he was fine in L.A. and she didn't need to make a big deal of his return might well have been a huge relief. I don't deny that Spike's the last one in line in the 'your fault!' game, but some of Buffy's previous moves were pretty boneheaded, too.

[botias.livejournal.com]

Of course she helped him. She's a hero. That's what heroes do. Beyond that...?

It's difficult to say. I want to think she did, so I'll point to the fact that she didn't just rescue him, she had faith in him beyond what he had in himself, gave him her trust, accepted comfort from him, a big thing for Buffy, and was, well, romantic with him. A good comparison might be Andrew. She's got a duty to rescue him and keep an eye on him, same as Spike, but she doesn't room with Andrew, comfort him when he's hating himself, look for the hero in him even when it's pretty darned hard to see. I think it's entirely possible that if the Bringers had nabbed Andrew, she might have agreed with the rest of her household that it didn't make much sense to risk life and limb trying to get him back when he was likely either already dead or turned to the dark side. I think she rescued Spike from the First because she loved him whether she was ready to admit it or not.

He DOES owe her a phone call or a letter, absolutely, and he's a schmuck for avoiding her. But you know, I can understand why he's a schmuck.

I can understand shmuckery too and the human weaknesses from whence it springs, but like Parker!Spike and paramecium!Spike, shmuck!Spike is not someone I want to ship. To return to her and look her in the eye and try and do what he could to make right after he tried to rape her, that took the kind of courage of which I am in awe. That he didn't even try to make mileage out of getting his soul, or expect anything of her... especially forgiveness... I want to have that Spike's fangy little babies. That's the guy I ship, not the one that's too chicken to send her a postcard or call in case she might be mad. Are these even the same guy?

I actually think it's quite possible Buffy wouldn't have gone to see him, especially if you consider that she seems to have cut Angel off ruthlessly for working at W&H.

I don't know or like AtS Buffy much better than AtS Spike. I think it's external factors again. It's hard for me to believe that Buffy would write Angel off as evil when her last contact with him, less than a year before, had him giving her part of what she needed to avert the apocalypse and offering her the other part in himself. And it seems like the girl who risked death to spend a few more seconds with Spike and offer him comfort/declare her love would probably want to visit.

And of course there's always the option that while she did care for Spike, the ILY was something Buffy said in the heat of the moment, and the idea of having to make good on it terrifies her.

Very possible.

[rahirah]

I think she rescued Spike from the First because she loved him whether she was ready to admit it or not.

Whether Buffy really loved him or not was irrelevant, I think, because Spike viewed everything she did through She Doesn't Love Me goggles. I know exactly how that works, because to an extent I did the same thing. After season 6, if Joss wanted me to believe Buffy loved Spike, he would have had to have her spell it out with pom-poms, and even then I'd have demanded she do it again to make sure she was spelling it right. And I think that's exactly what Spike was doing.

Are these even the same guy?

Sure. The thing is, anyone can hit heights of heroism, courage, or selflessness. Some hit them more often than others. But no one can live on those heights indefinitely. Sooner or later we all slide off and get small and petty and scared and tired again. Sometimes even as we ascend another slope somewhere else.

[botias.livejournal.com]

Whether Buffy really loved him or not was irrelevant, I think, because Spike viewed everything she did through She Doesn't Love Me goggles.

You're absolutely right. We can't fault Spike for not thinking that she loved him. I went through periods where I thought she didn't, but now I think that her love and admiration for him was pretty obvious in the last episodes, though I wouldn't bet a donut either way on whether she would want a relationship with him. So I take back what I said about paramecium!Spike. No, I still think he's paramecium!Spike and in no fit state for a relationship with anyone, but I withdraw any scorn I may have attached to it.

Sooner or later we all slide off and get small and petty and scared and tired again.

You humble me, you are exactly right. Thank you for taking the time to respond to my posts.

[botias.livejournal.com]

have her spell it out with pom-poms, and even then I'd have demanded she do it again to make sure she was spelling it right.

Tell me about it. When he tried to rape her I buried all hope. I was shocked and pathetically grateful for the Spuffy they did give me in S7, as Spike must have been. But as time went on I forgot my gratitude...

Wouldn't the pom-pom thing be nice to see? Not literally, but...

[rahirah]

Ah, well, I am a bad rude woman. I'm not in any way saying Buffy deserved to be attacked, or that Spike was justified in attacking her, but I was not as sympathetic to Buffy as I'm sure the writers wanted me to be, because I saw the attempted rape as equivalent to Buffy beating Spike bloody in the alley--both of them were crimes of passion committed under extreme emotional stress. If anything, I was more willing to forgive Spike, because Buffy had a soul at the time, and Spike, without one, immediately realized he'd done something horrible and just as immediately set out to make amends, whereas Buffy repressed and denied. (Yes, there was the breakdown with Tara, but...see below.)

I believe Buffy felt bad about the events of S6, but I have never been able to entirely convince myself that she feels bad for the reasons I think she ought to feel bad--i.e does she feel bad because using someone as a punching bag-cum-dildo is wrong no matter how evil that someone is? Or does she feel bad because she lowered herself to have sex with a soulless thing? If the broken vampire she'd found in the basement had not had a soul, thus forcing her to consider it a person, would she have felt any remorse or obligation at all?

I just don't know.

I wish I could be as generous towards Buffy as I am towards Spike.

[botias.livejournal.com]

When I first watched S6 I was horrified by the AR. I was really disappointed that ME chose to make Spike fundamentally incapable of adhering to his chosen moral code of not hurting Buffy. It dominated my memory of S6 such that by the time I started looking at fan stuff on the internet I was freaked to discover that there were fans that defended Spike's actions or even thought Buffy somehow deserved what he did, I presumed because she wouldn't lay down for him like they wanted her to.

Then I watched S6 again, and I might very well have skipped Seeing Red, but I saw the forgotten alley scene. I had no less horror about the AR, but I saw that Buffy's behavior had also been awful. I had pretty much no sympathy for her and kinda wondered when Buffy was going to go to Africa to get a soul.

Then I watched it a third time. And I did watch that episode, and I was shocked to hear Spike ask himself after the AR both what have I done? and why did I stop? Apparently an equal or perhaps larger part of him still thought what he had done was justified or OK, just as he had thought that chaining her up and threatening to feed her to his ex was perfectly OK and would be an effective courting technique. He was a monster breaking his heart in a futile attempt to love a woman. I don't think he would have stopped himself. I think he was upset by the fact that he had hurt and disgusted Buffy, and driven her yet farther from him, but I don't think the concept of rape bothered him one little bit.

In contrast, I don't think Buffy ever believed what she was doing was OK. She fought herself and him every step of the way. In the alley, the horror on her face when she realized what she had done was as clear as Spike's. And she stopped herself even though Spike made no resistance or discouragement. I think he wanted her to be monstrous with him. I'm certain she felt at that point that she deserved to be punished and immediately tried to turn herself in. But, unlike Faith she can't be locked away, she's the title character, and indeed she wasn't. Duty called. In Season 7 she says, with tears in her eyes, that she feels she behaved like a monster, which I interpret to mean that she thinks the punching bag dildo thing was wrong.

At this point, I'm thinking they were pretty much even up behavior-wise, but that Spike was not capable of doing or knowing better, and Buffy was and finally did. I've come to have a lot of sympathy for Buffy though I didn't always. In Buffy's shoes, I would have trouble resisting Spike. I admire her for giving up something that was giving her a desperately needed escape, at least partly because she knew it was wrong to use him that way. Certainly I think ME, with the whole Anya thing and the AR, caused Buffy to suffer dearly for her sins.

[rahirah]

Well, I could (and have) write entire essays on S6 and the whole good/evil soul/no soul question, so I'll try not to do that here. *g* But I should make it clear that I've never believed that Spike could achieve a fully human moral sense without a soul; without one, he would always remain a monster, and require both guidance and restraint to live successfully among humans. I don’t think Spike had a grasp of ‘rape is bad’ any more than he had a grasp of ‘murder is bad’ or ‘cheating at poker is bad.’ That is, I think he understood on an intellectual level, but ‘murder is bad’ held no more moral or emotional force for him than ‘the sky is blue.’ On the other hand, he definitely grasped 'hurting people I love is bad,' even though it was in direct conflict with 'As a vampire, I should enjoy hurting Buffy.'

Which was fine by me, because it seemed to me to present the widest range of story options, the most fertile opportunity for examing Buffyverse moral issues, and to provide a built-in source of internal conflict for Spike and external conflict for the other characters. Spike getting a soul is unquestionably for the best so far as his moral development goes, and makes him a better and safer person to be around. Purely from a writing standpoint, however, I've never been convinced it was the best option, because A) it removes those handy sources of conflict, B) makes Spike's role largely a duplicate of Angel's, and C) worst of all, allowed the writers to shove all the uncomfortable questions that S6 raised under the carpet with a hand-wave and a "He's got a soooooul now!"

The argument that Spike enjoyed Buffy beating the crap out of him...well, while I agree he was more than willing to let her do it if it would keep her from turning herself in, it didn't look to me like he was enjoying himself, then or later at the party. Spike definitely thought Buffy would be better off acknowledging her dark side, and was often cruel in trying to goad her to do so--but if he really wanted her to be a monster, he had plenty of opportunity to turn her into a vampire.

You’re right in pointing out that Buffy feels bad about treating Spike badly now. I suppose my problem is that during S6 she justified her behavior towards Spike on the grounds that he had no soul—as you put it, she treated him badly because he was a bad person, and she thought it was ok for her to take out on him the resentment and anger she dared not vent on her friends. I’m never entirely sure that in S7, she doesn’t just reverse that: now he has a soul, so now she feels guilty and it's ok to help him.

If Spike didn’t have a soul, would Buffy still feel bad about what she did to him? That’s a question that’s never going to be answered. I think it's a question that the writers never even considered, and they would be astonished to find that anyone thought it important--after all, he has a soul now, and that makes him a person in Buffy's eyes. And wasn't that what we all wanted?

To which I can only reply, No, not quite.

[botias.livejournal.com]

worst of all, allowed the writers to shove all the uncomfortable questions that S6 raised under the carpet with a hand-wave and a "He's got a soooooul now!"

I agree with everything you said here except this.  I think ME made it clear in S6 that using Spike was wrong and that Buffy knew it (but was too weak to resist the temptation that was Spike).  I'm not certain why you brush aside Buffy's talk with Tara in which Tara assumes that Buffy's only problem with having sex with Spike is that he is soulless and evil and tries to comfort her on those grounds.  But Tara is wrong.  In response, Buffy incredulously asks her if Spike loving her somehow makes using him OK.  And I'm pretty sure that when Buffy breaks it off, that is THE reason she offers Spike, that she's only using him and that's wrong and that's killing her (Spike: Not complaining here!).  That she broke it off with him face to face and didn't just stop coming around, that she gave him an explanation, that she called him by his human name... I've never considered it before, mostly because Spike's pain steals the scene in no uncertain terms and I was too busy wanting to crush him to my breasts, but Buffy's actions speak eloquently of her considering him a person and deserving of the same consideration she would give a human lover.  It says a lot about Buffy's strength and decency and her regard for Spike that she doesn't do a Parker. 

It's funny(?), I think a lot of people, myself included, thought it was just brutal of her to blow up his home and then dump him.  But her crime was not in breaking it off, or even in insensitive timing.  It was in allowing him to put her in a position of trust in the first place, given that almost inevitably her sacred duty would be to destroy him (and/or his record collection) so long as he was still amoral.  She actually deserves kudos for breaking it off as soon as she realized that.  I'll even award her some Spuffy points, if not kudos, for not staking him as a continued threat to human safety.  ME are evil geniuses of tragedy.  Too bad they couldn't come up with a more believable catalyst for Buffy's realization than making Spike an international arms dealer...

The argument that Spike enjoyed Buffy beating the crap out of him...

By 'with him' I did mean like him rather than to him, it was poor phrasing, I never meant to imply that he enjoyed it.  Though, he is kinda twisted...  I do think there is some evidence that he sees abuse as I sign of love i.e. the classic domestic abuse cliche:  'She wouldn't hit me if she didn't love me so much.'  I find it really interesting that he doesn't think turning her would be a great idea, that he actually loves her as she is (well maybe a shade or ten darker would be nice).  I also never intended to express the idea that Buffy treats him badly because he is bad, presumably as some sort of justified punishment.  I can't fault her for finding him evil and disgusting, but her nasty behavior always came across to me as springing from self-loathing, both for using someone who loves her and for screwing someone so patently evil, which she then, wrongly, takes out on him.  Spike doesn't suddenly become more evil and disgusting somehow, but she doesn't start pouring on the abuse until she falls from her own standards and starts using him, kissing good-bye their pre-sex relationship that I liked so much.  :(

[rahirah]

A lot of my take on s6 is not a entirely rational response to the way the show's writers reacted to fan response to Spike and Buffy at the time. I don't know if you were involved in online fandom at the time, or if you're someone who tracks down every writer interview ever or avoids them like plague, but I was, at the time, reading every interview I could lay hands on and hanging out whith a couple of different groups of hard-core spoiler whores--people who have contacts on-set and were often able to get copies of writer's notes and even whole copies of scripts weeks before air date.

And the lot of us who were doing this realized, as the season went on, that we were watching a completely different show than the writers were writing. The writers never expected Spike and Buffy to be as popular as they were, and they were stunned and appalled that a lot of fans thought that Buffy was the one treating Spike badly. An interviewer brought up the domestic abuse angle, and Marti Noxon was horrified that he thought of Buffy beating on Spike as abuse, and saw Buffy as the abuser rather than someone who was just in a bad place and making a poor decision as to who she slept with.

Eventually this writer/viewer discontinuity culminated in Marti (with Joss's approval) inserting the attempted rape scene into the seasonal arc, over the objections of some of the other writers, particularly Jane Espenson, who accurately predicted that this was something the character could not come back from. However, Marti was determined to 'prove' to the fans that Spike was evil, evil, evil. (This she said straight out in the "I think we proved our point" interview; I think it's also possible that they felt that making Buffy a victim would regain her some of the sympathy she'd lost over the course of the season. It's a tried and true old soap opera plot to have unpopular female characters raped in order to make them more sympathetic.)

Noxon apparently based the incident on a true story from her own life where she tried to force an unwilling ex-boyfriend to have sex, and completely failed to realize how much more harshly it would play with the sexes reversed. According to Jane Espenson, Joss and Marti were also, at that time, convinced it wouldn't be a big deal and they could always get the characters together again later because "look at Luke and Laura!"

Of course it was a big deal and drew a firestorm of criticism from everyone, and Spike as a character never does really recover; sure, he gets a soul, but so far as Buffy is concerned he will be forever tainted and unworthy of her, because Joss does not have any intention of ever letting his feminist icon get groiny with the guy who tried to rape her. He says as much on the DVD commentary for Chosen and then has the colossal and hypocritical gall to add that if viewers want to imagine they had sex in the fade to black scene, that's OK. Golly gee, Joss. Thanks for nothing. If you really think that there should be no physical romance, then make them completely platonic from the get-go, don't try to have your cake and eat ours too.

The unfortunate thing is that in S6 the writers were as deeply divided over whether Buffy actually loved Spike as the fans were. Espenson was for it, Fury was passionately against the idea, the rest were strung out in the middle. And Joss, who could have ended the wrangle with a word, never seems to have ruled on the matter, being far too interested in playing with his shiny new toy Firefly to care what was going on back in Buffyland. Add to this the complete wreck of the season arc when Joss couldn't bear to kill Tara off on schedule (originally "Normal Again" was episode 9 or 10 and Tara was supposed to die mid-season, making Evil Willow the real Big Bad of the season) or to make Willow too unsympathetic (hence the magic crack rather than the overweening pride) and you've got a mess.

[botias.livejournal.com]

I came late to the game, but I love writer interviews. I track down as many as I can. Your synopsis here is yummy stuff for me. I can almost see how the writers would be surprised. I mean, Buffy slays vampires, it's what she does, so what's a little beating and emotional abuse? Duh, it's beating and emotional abuse, people. Slaying is supposed to be to protect human safety, period.

I can tolerate a certain amount of vampire abuse from Buffy because she knows that every vampire she goes up against wants to kill her and maybe rape her. But her behavior in S6 was far too far. I don't know how they couldn't see that. Especially since it was made clear that the vampire in question would never intentionally harm or kill Buffy given how he mourned her death and suffered so that she would not.

OMG when I heard reference to the relevant incident of Marti's I assumed that she'd tried on some exciting bad boy in her youth who turned out to be, well, bad, an abuser or date rapist. It astounds me that they didn't see what an impact reversing the sexes would make, or how much farther that scene went than Spike just being Mr. Bad Touch. And they went there on purpose. Buffy is stronger than Spike, about as a man is to a woman, so for Spike to make unwelcome sexual advances to her would be a similar scenario to Marti's. But they went out of their way to make Buffy unable to stop him.

They should have stuck with the original arc, it sounds like the two things I disliked the most, the AR and the 'magic crack' were deviations. They made a mess of my beautiful Spike. :( I wish I could say that the AR was not believable to me, but for them to make him incapable of doing something like that to Buffy would have been believable too. Grrr.

[rahirah]

I never found the AR unbelievable; I mean, there are plenty of fucked-up human guys who might make a similar bad call if they'd been drinking too much. For a demon whose ethical brake lines have been cut, the astonishing thing is really that it took that much to make him snap. (And that's another thing the writers can't agree on; Espenson thinks it happened because the demon made Spike do it; DeKnight says it was a human failing, because Spike's self-worth was entirely bound up in making Buffy see him... I tend to interpret it as some of both, myself.)

And they really did go out of their way to victimize Buffy, and show her whimpering and crying instead of, say, reacting the way she reacted to Hyena!Xander. Which I find, in a way, even more revolting.

[botias.livejournal.com]

Espenson thinks it happened because the demon made Spike do it; DeKnight says it was a human failing...

I do notice that they had him in human face the whole time, which may or may not mean anything. I love Espenson! I read that at a convention she said that she thought Darla was Angel's big love... which leaves Buffy for Spike. :) Spike always seemed very much an amalgam of demon and human to me. He is capable of love, but does so in a fierce, obsessive, ammoral way.

Her reaction didn't seem out of character. Buffy seemed like she might start whimpering and crying if she dropped her shampoo bottle at the point in her life, but you're right, they were definitely making the whole thing as awful as they could.

[quietpoet.livejournal.com]

i read a fanfic somewhere (blanking on the name or where I read it) that made the AR the Powers That Be behind the reins of Spike as a test for Buffy.

I tend to agree with you, that it was a mixture of human and demon parts of Spike. I think he was also going on the mentality that sex was the only way to reach Buffy, so in a way he was only doing what he knew worked, up until this point. I hated that they made Buffy the victim because she was hurt, but not so badly that she couldn't take Spike, tears and all. Sigh. Wanks a-plenty, years later.

[rahirah]

Because there was no writerly concensus on whether Buffy 'really' loved Spike or not, ambiguity reigned and everything in season 6 can be read two ways:

1. While Buffy does use Spike, she is also genuinely attracted to him. She can't reconcile her feelings with the fact that he was evil, and this exacerbated her post-heaven malaise and her conviction that if she felt like this for someone evil that must make her bad too. On some level she knows she is hurting him as much or more as she's hurting herself. If she really believed he was a thing, she wouldn't feel so bad about using him.

Or 2: Buffy is using Spike to feel, pure and simple. She is not ashamed of the fact that she is hurting him; she believes or has convinced herself that he is a thing, incapable of real feelings. She cannot really hurt him; there is no real person in there to be hurt. This is the whole reason she's using him and not some human guy. Nevertheless she is ashamed of the fact that she consorting with an evil creature to get herself through the day. That is what's killing her. When she tells Tara that it's killing her, she's telling the truth, but it never occurs to her that it's killing Spike too.

Either way, she would think that it was wrong to use Spike. Either way, breaking up with him would be the right thing to do.

Because the writers spent so much time and effort beating me over the head with the fact that Spike and Buffy together were WRONG and Buffy couldn't possibly love an evil disgusting thing, I decided I'd take them at their word. I went into season seven convinced that Buffy never felt anything for Spike but lust and a bizarre kind of possessiveness. Ironically, in accepting that Buffy did not have any feelings for Spike, I was forced into a far worse intepretation of her behavior than I imagine the writers would have liked. And I remained sourly unwilling to accept the Spuffy crumbs they tossed me for the rest of the season. I was willing to believe that Buffy regretted her actions and was doing her best to help Spike out of guilt and responsibility, but love? Uh uh.

And even if she did love him by the end of the season, the sad truth is I just don't care as much. Souled Spike is a nice enough guy. But he's not my Spike--not my fabulous quixotic monster who reached for an unreachable star. He's just another guilt-ridden, subdued guy with a tragic past to atone for. In a very real way, the Spike I loved died in a cave in Africa.

I have never been a proponent of "Buffy is a bitch for not loving Spike." No one is ever obliged to love anyone else; love cannot be forced. But I do think that Buffy did have one obligation to Spike: to remember that what he did for her and Dawn was real, and never to forget that. In telling Spike that he was a thing with nothing good about him, a thing who could never change, she broke that promise--and that broken promise, not her failure to love him, is what I find it very hard to forgive her. Even after she broke up with Spike, she continued to dismiss his feelings as not just unreciprocated, but unreal. That "I'm sure they're real... for you" speech was the thing that made me wash my hands of Buffy when I originally watched season six--not the alley beating, not her breaking up with Spike, but her casual dismissal of his feelings (and therefore him) as unreal--that and her absolutely loathsome cowardice in allowing Xander to slag off Anya rather than reveal her own dirty little secret.

Buffy's behavior towards Spike is the model of the 'straight-acting' queer who takes out their internalized self-hatred on their more 'out' brethern. It's a very emotional and unpleasant archetype for me. Tt's not a perfect analogy because vampires really are evil--but it's a metaphor the writers were playing with before deciding to reduce the whole thing to Buffy Good and Right, Spike Bad and Wrong.

I can understand why Buffy does all the things she does, and I can pity her. I can appreciate how hard it was for her to help Spike, and she deserves all the credit in the world for what she did in S7. But the things she did in S6 press every hot button I've got, and I've never gotten back to liking her again.

[botias.livejournal.com]

she believes or has convinced herself that he is a thing, incapable of real feelings. She cannot really hurt him; there is no real person in there to be hurt.

I think you have a good point, but I don't know how the break-up scene could be read this way. What would motivate Buffy to go to the effort to break up with, and apologize to, and address by their 'real person' name, something that she thought had no more real feeling than a dildo?

That "I'm sure they're real... for you" speech

I felt that line like a knife. Ouch! But I'm not sure if I would have been much more tactful in Buffy's shoes, assuming the depression, the months of stalking, her self-loathing about being involved in the relationship. There really was something (s) important missing from Spike's love, as they chose to portray it in the show.

[rahirah]

Taken by itself, yeah, calling him William does seem to indicate that Buffy thinks of Spike as a person. Yet...it's one isolated incident in an entire season--how much weight can one hang on it?

I admit I hold Buffy to a higher standard, because she does have a soul, and that should make a difference. I don't mind characters screwing up and doing terrible things. It's just that when that happens, I like to have some indication that the writers know that the characters are coming off badly, and are doing it on purpose. In this case, I'm never entirely sure.

[botias.livejournal.com]

I'm wracking my brain to see if I can think of anything else. (Oh no! I might have to rewatch the season!) Buffy saves his life three different times that season, once at some small risk to her own life and once after she was 'done' with him. If she just sees him as an evil worthless thing, ought she not be neutral or pleased about his misadventures bringing him to a dusty end? And that is in fact the position of the other Scoobies on the matter.

It's very interesting, it's really the show from a Buffy sympathetic position vs. from a Spike sympathetic position. :)

[rahirah]

Yup. And what's quite sad is that I started out as a Buffy person. It takes an awful lot to put me off a character, but ME managed it.

[botias.livejournal.com]

Well, they managed it with me too if you recall. I used to be all Spike sympathetic. My big thought when I saw the AR was 'Oh no, he ain't comin' back from that... *#*$@' not 'Poor Buffy'. Spike finally pushed the wrong button with me in AtS S5 when he didn't contact Buffy.

If only Jane Espenson had been in charge. I really like what I've seen of her, I think I would make her leader of the free world. She could hardly do worse...

[botias.livejournal.com]

it's a metaphor the writers were playing with before deciding to reduce the whole thing to Buffy Good and Right, Spike Bad and Wrong.

:P Dorky writers. I think this would have been a really cool and apt thing to address.

as if that reply wasn't long enough...

[botias.livejournal.com]

I do think Buffy would have to approach sainthood to be completely dispassionate about vampires.  I read a rape fic once, set in S4 where Spike bags his third slayer.  He wins a fight with Buffy, bites her, rapes her once she's weak with blood loss, and, inadvertently as it happens, drains her and kills her.  It was as believable as it was horrible, and it made me realize what Buffy faces every time she fights with a vampire.

It's easy to think of the broken Spike of early S7 being Buffy's fault.  But he seemed quite spry when he went off to get his soul as a grand gesture, incapable of appreciating what it would do to him.  It was actually his soul and the accompanying torment that broke him, not his painful affair with Buffy.  It's creepy to think of that actually being the case.  Of Buffy faced with this broken being that's her fault, one that she could never restore to goodness or health...

Love this discussion by the way, it's really interesting to me.  :)

Re: as if that reply wasn't long enough...

[rahirah]

I always thought it was fairly obvious that the First Evil was what broke Spike; he sanes up pretty quickly when removed from the basement. The soul-breakage is less obvious but far more long-term and devastating. I've never quite understood the people who love S7 Spike best, because to me the guy's obviously suffering from post-traumatic shock of a kind, and I wouldn't wish that kind of emotional state on my worst enemy forever.

Re: as if that reply wasn't long enough...

[botias.livejournal.com]

I like S7 Spike's increased maturity, self-awareness and self-control. S6 Spike demonstrated time and again that he was fuzzy on the right/wrong thing, not a turn-on for me, though I do believe that he could have learned, in the way that autistic people can learn to conciously read and mimic emotional responses. I don't know if he was ever ready throw in with the good guys to that extent though. Certainly all his efforts were to get Buffy to join him in the (dark) grey zone, and not to make himself more able to function among the white hats. Of course, Anya never did learn to play well with others in spite of Xander's coaching.

Re: as if that reply wasn't long enough...

[rahirah]

Well, yeah, obviously S7 was a great improvement morally speaking--that goes without saying. But a great many people who like S7 Spike cite sensitivity and vulnerabilty amongst the reasons, and feel that AtS Spike was a huge step backwards in that respect. Whereas it seemed to me that the main reason that Spike was so sensitive and vulnerable in S7 was that he was one huge throbbing mass of unshelled emotional pain for the better part of the season.

I actually think Spike was reasonably content to throw in with the good guys, up until the point that the good guys cut him out of the resurrection plot. He seemed genuinely hurt when he confronted Xander about that, and that was the end of him working closely with them, although he still seems willing to help when asked. Of course once the affair started, Buffy made it clear that the only way he could have her was if none of her friends knew anything about it, which puts Spike in a position of "them or me."

For someone attempting to lure Buffy into the dark, Spike does a piss-poor job of it. After the initial debacle, he tries to be supportive boyfriend guy with the social worker. He kicks Buffy out when he realizes she's using him to escape her responsibilities--unfortunately, he isn't able to maintain that resolve. He consistently urges Buffy to tell her friends about them, even though he is aware that if it does come down to a choice, Buffy will almost certainly choose them. He very seldom does any actual luring--even in Dead Things, she's the one who leaves the others and goes up onto the balcony. Spike merely points out to her that this is what she keeps doing. In Doublemeat Palace, he's the only one who seems to notice or care that Buffy's new job is making her miserable. (And if his urging her to walk out on it is evil, then what are we to make of Riley asking her to do the exact same thing a few episodes later, and Buffy complying without a second thought?) He never attempts to use his position as her lover to get away with anything--he's obviously aware that she would be unhappy about the demon eggs.

Whatever the writers were aiming for, it doesn't come off to me so much that Spike wants Buffy dark as that Buffy IS dark, and Spike's willing to let her act that way because without a soul, he doesn't understand how it hurts her.

Re: as if that reply wasn't long enough...

[botias.livejournal.com]

But a great many people who like S7 Spike cite sensitivity and vulnerabilty amongst the reasons

Really there was no one on Angel for him to be sensitive and vulnerable around, except maybe Fred. Who else did he show that to but Buffy? Not that I'm a big fan of flayed!Spike or anything.

I agree that Spike was more or less content throwing in with the good guys, but I don't think he was ever put in a place where he had to reexamine his position of 'The only reason I'm not Big Bad is because of the chip, that's what I really want to be.' I think he got a start on it when he thought his chip was broken, but then it showed itself to be working and that was the end of that. I don't doubt he was relieved to set all that ambiguity aside for another day, preferably one that will never come. So he never committed himself to making a place among the white hats.

It seemed like his efforts were in encouraging Buffy to distance herself, to dwell in limbo with him, not in making himself a reasonable facsimile. I think in his assistance to the Scoobies, he at least told himself that he was just honoring his promise to Buffy, not trying to befriend them, and it didn't seem like he was putting himself forward that way at all. In all his scenes he's walking out on their requests for help, or insulting them, or making it clear he's only offering the minimum of assistance.

His disappointment when they kept him out of the loop might have told him otherwise. Maybe he would have tried if he had ever been in a place where he thought his Big Bad days were never going to come again, or if he tried to be Big Bad and realized that's not what he wanted anymore.

I'm guessing his chip being out would have ended in tragedy. I think he would have found his old ways too seductive still, at that point.

Re: as if that reply wasn't long enough...

[rahirah]

I always thought it was a real pity that they seemed to consider Tabula Rasa a throwaway bit of fluff. Stripped of his memory, Spike immediately assumes that he's one of the good guys, and when prestented with evidence that he's a bad guy, immediately rationalizes his way back to being one of the good guys. Of course, there's no saying what might have happened if he'd gotten really hungry, but stilll...that's pretty stunning.

Another facsinating bit was a comment in an inverview with Drew Z. Greenberg (the guy who wrote Smashed) to the effect that if the chip really hadn't been working, Spike would have killed Alley Woman "and then probably felt bad about it afterwards." No offense to Alley Woman, but I really wish they'd gone in that direction. Had Spike kill her, and have him realize that he does feel bad, and freak out. And then have Buffy find out he'd killed someone. That would have made for a glorious tangle of moral dilemmas all around.

Re: as if that reply wasn't long enough...

[botias.livejournal.com]

I thought he kicked her out because he realized that she had only come to him because she was invisible and no one could see her with him, even herself really. There's a blow to the ego. He realizes that she's brought him only her lust, and tells her if he can't have all of her than she should just get out.

He seemed blind to her responsibilities to me. Not surprising given that vampires don't really have any. He encourages her to neglect Dawn after their first night together, and when he entreats her to 'come outside', and when he tries to get her to walk away from her job, and when he has sex with her on her break, you can bet that would have gotten her fired if she'd gotten caught.

I noticed the parallel, but leaving your job because you don't like it, presumably to make a living trafficing demon eggs and mugging people vs. to save lives by slaying demons, however enjoyable, is not really the same.

What's really sad about Spike's luring, such as it is, is that he can't lure her to the dark side. He's not there himself. The scourge of Europe is now only the scourge of kittens, and people who wander around at night carrying cash.

Re: as if that reply wasn't long enough...

[rahirah]

I don't think Spike agreed with Buffy's priorities, which was not always a good thing. But he spent a hundred years taking care of Drusilla, so I think he understands responsibility in a general sense. Spike's not happy about Buffy only coming to him because she's invisible, but she specifically says that being invisibible makes her free of rules and reports, free of her life. Spike replies caustically that there's another word for that--dead. And it's only after that that he tells her to get out, because he doesn't want her if he can't have all of her. He's well aware that she's running away from her life with the invisibility, and does not consider it a good thing. After all, he wants one of them to be living.

He does encourage her to stay with him on several occasions, and Buffy always uses Dawn as an excuse for leaving. In the case of Wrecked, I think Buffy's in the right; she's been out all night without calling. In later instances, though, it's hard to tell whether Dawn isn't just a convenient "left the chillun on the stove" excuse. Dawn certainly doesn't say anything about Buffy being late, or feeling neglected, in AYW; she just seems disappointed that it's Doublemeat again.

Buffy creates a dichotomy in her own mind: I can spend time with Spike or I can spend time with Dawn. But the dichotomy is false. There's nothing preventing her from saying "No, I can't have sex with you now. But you can come in and watch us eat our crappy Doublemeat dinner if you want." Except, of course, for her desire to keep Spike cordoned off from the rest of her life, which in turn puts Spike into competition with her friends and family for her time.

Buffy would have gotten fired if they'd caught her having sex on her break. (But let's note there is no luring on Spike's part there, either, unless one counts just strolling past as lureful.) But she also would have gotten fired for walking out mid-shift with no warning. At least, if she weren't blackmailing them into letting her work there to begin with. Both Spike and Riley encourage Buffy to walk out on her job--Riley because he wanted her help, Spike because he wanted to help her. I don't remember Riley expressing any worry about Buffy losing her only source of income because of him; Spike offers to help her out.

Now, it's perfectly true that Spike's idea of financial aid was dubious at best, and Buffy's quite within her rights to tell him that she can't accept stolen money. However, I can't see Spike's motives as being selfish here. He doesn't bring sex into it. He just tells her that this job will hurt her, that she's better than this. To all appearences, he's really concerned about her wellbeing.

Buffy may decide that "I don't like it" is a less worthy reason for leaving her job than "Riley needs me!" She may well be right. But that's a seperate issue from Spike's and Riley's motives for asking her to leave, and in this case, I don't think that Spike's reasons are any less worthy than Riley's--it's a case of apples and oranges.

[owenthurman.livejournal.com]

believe that Buffy would write Angel off as evil

Remember that the evidence for this is an off-hand remark from Andrew — who has a whole episode's A-plot on BtVS to celebrate his unreliability as a narrator — when Angel is trying to face him down. Not much to go on.

don't know or like AtS Buffy

We don't really know her at all. She no longer has any of the stresses or connections or responsibilities or close friends or context we knew her in. She could be anybody now.

And we see her for only two seconds. From behind.

[botias.livejournal.com]

Quite all right. All hail Spuffy!

100% correct

[surfal666.livejournal.com]

that it was a storyline driven by external issues.

The only good treatments I've seen of it are the ones where Angel and Giles conspire to filter information and make sure that separation is maintained... because they of course know what is best for Buffy.

In canon, it made no sense at all.

And in case, you were wondering why I friended you - it was for discussions like this.

Re: 100% correct

[botias.livejournal.com]

Cool and welcome, watch this space for a comparison of fic!Spike and canon!Spike on Monday.

I have to wonder how you found me and if you've read my fic; satisfy my curiosity or not, it's all cool. :)

Re: 100% correct

[surfal666.livejournal.com]

Hrm - don't recall how I ended up in your journal. I've been sifting through old entries in various btvs communities (darker_buffy, darker_spike, spikedawn, etc) so it might've been from something there...

Your fics are in my 'To Be Read' list at the moment. Sometimes RL is such a timesuck that I don't get a chance to do the really important things. :)

-love- the penguins.