I have a tendency to get long-winded

[lirazel]

Okay!

So anythingbutgrey asked me for some Spike/Buffy perspective, and my answer got long. Uh...realllllly long. So I'm moving it to this post instead of a reply because that just wasn't going to happen.

All of this is very, very stream-of-conciousness for me, so all of y'all feel free to jump in when I miss something (as I invariably will).

Here was her question:

also, i have been learning all about spuffy! and am now going to totally hijack the discussion on this post. i am well drenched in meta and discussion. also my own brain. which is starting to realize that there are more than a few parallels between spuffy and c/a, but still can't make the jump. i have established a list of blocks in this regard, and would like your assistance:

1. i don't really have an opinion on spike. spuffy is very much about spike. from my perspective.
2. i don't really like dark and twisty ships? i know, wes/lilah otp but i don't see them as as dark as most people do?
3. i just need buffy's perspective on this. when i think spuffy i think spike fans who hate buffy. i know you love buffy. tell me about youuuu.
4. i should probably rewatch s5-7, but oh look there are my ats dvds.

And here are some of my off-the-cuff thoughts!

1. I can see how this would be a hangup, certainly. I, on the other hand, have nothing but opinions about him. He's the character I most identify with--like, I am Spike, okay? If I were a Victorian gentleman turned into a vampire, I would totally be Spike. Or if he was a 20-something Southern girl, he would be me. So I love him, even when he's an ass. Which is often. I looooove him.

2. See, and I don't think it's necessarily dark and twisty. Certainly it is in S6, and I enjoy the hell out of that for what it is because I find it endlessly fascinating. But I really ship them in S7, where they're quiet and comfortable together. I like that their love then is really understated. It's like they went through all this horrible horrible pain, hurting each other in every way possible, and then S7 is about forgiveness and about how you can't just sit around and brood over your past misdeeds (coughangelcough) but you just have to keep moving forward. And they grow to depend on each other and strengthen each other and it's love: love through action, through being there for each other, through little looks and touches. It's not flashy or showy: it's steady and sure and strong. And unspoken. Which reels me in. I love that they go through hell to get there, to be grownups who are honest with each other, and then they finally do. *happy sigh*

3. Ha! There are certainly fans out there who are like that. But we've been talking a lot and we think the pendulum has swung--now it's a more Buffy-centric fandom. Most of the people on my flist worship Buffy, too (maybe not as much as I do, except for angearia who loves her even more) but certainly a lot.

Anyways! Spike and Buffy have this instant connection. Watch them interact in "School Hard"--they're so unrelentingly aware of each other, it's fascinating. But Spike is the very last kind of guy to catch Buffy's eye. She sees him as a dangerous annoyance and then there's the chip and he's just a plain annoyance. And then he falls in love with her and she's all OMGWTFBBQ about it. And grossed out. Because even if he wasn't evil and a vampire, he's this punky Billy Idol type, all energy and over-the-top statements and sarcasm. Buffy likes the strong and silently manly football player type.

But! He tells her he's going to change for her and then he starts to. The first time she really sees him and what he's capable of is when he withstands Glory's torture. And she sees that there's more to him than flash and sarcasm: he can do something real. And so she sort of starts to respect him and trust him to take care of Dawn. She still believes (because of Angel(us)) that he can't really love, but she knows he can feel and keep his promises and she knows he cares about Dawn and will fight for her.

Then she dies. And when she comes back, everything's hard and HELLO CLINICAL DEPRESSION. And everyone wants her to be okay all the time but they don't want to help her and it's so exhausting. And Spike's just there and he doesn't demand anything and he listens. And for a while all is sweet and lovely. And they start to be friends. After all, they've been through a lot together and when he's not being an ass (which is often) or she's not being a bitch (which is often), they actually get along.

And then she kisses him and everything is downhill from there. Because they were learning to be friends, but that kiss gives Spike hope for something more. And so he starts pushing. And Buffy starts using him. He thinks that this means she's coming around, that she might love him and he gets greedy. Buffy, on the other hand, isn't capable of being in any kind of healthy relationship, but she craves both death and life, and Spike represents both of those. He is dead and knows what clawing out of his grave is like--and she yearns for that. But at the same time, Spike's always been so vivid and vibrant and alive, and she craves that, too. And no one in her life is paying her attention--Giles is gone and Willow and Xander are both caught up in their own drama. And Spike is there. Plus, the sex is really fantastic. Like, really, really, really fantastic.

And it becomes a power play, pulling and pushing, both of them hurting each other (and themselves) to get what they want. Buffy breaks up with him and he just can't handle it and he has the breakdown in the bathroom and tries to rape her (though he never would have thought about it in those terms).

Cue identity crisis of the highest order. He's always sworn to himself that he'd never hurt her, but now he has. He tried to be good for her for a while, but that didn't work, and the whole sex thing did for a while, but then she rejected that, too. And now he sees that his nature is in conflict with what he aspires to be, and he's all WHAT TO DO?

snickfic puts it like this:

The AR triggers Spike's soul quest because he disappoints and shocks himself by breaking his own ironclad rule, which says that he never hurts Buffy, not really. We may see his verbal jabs and his nagging for sex as harmful, but he doesn't. It's not until the AR that he so shocks himself with the results of his own behavior that he's willing to get a soul to make it right.

I think that epiphany is key to his journey: the realization that even he is dissatisfied with his evil nature....he is upset to find that his two impulses - to be devastated and to not care - are in contradiction. He's said all along that he can be evil and love at the same time, those two things are pointing him in opposite directions, and he's just now having to deal with the fact.

But back to Buffy!

So a lot of this is in the interpretation from here on out, because she doesn't say much about her emotional state. From S5 on, she's very much held everything inside and rarely talks about her emotions. So there's room for disagreement here. But this is how I see it.

Buffy's very shaken by the AR. Because even though she told herself she didn't trust Spike...she did. She may not have trusted him not to go out and do evil things, but she trusted him not to hurt her. (And to protect Dawn. One of the most interesting things to me is that right after Spike hurts her, she still tries to take Dawn to him to look after her. Clearly, the AR doesn't change her belief that he still cares about Dawn and would never hurt her.)

So one the one hand, she's obviously hurt. On the other hand, it offers her confirmation that she was right all along--this guy is evil and he can't be more than that. Because Angelus wasn't. If he's capable of more, that destroys her worldview, and we can't have that. So she puts it from her mind and carries on, because she is Buffy Summers, and that is what she does.

But then he comes back. AND HE HAS A SOUL.

Let me take this opportunity to quote from the GREATEST SPUFFY META WRITER EVER, the_royal_anna:

Buffy talks a lot in Season 7 about the fact that Spike has a soul. Of course it matters to her. It is everything to her, because she is the one who lost Angel his soul. That is who she is. That is what she is worth. She is the destruction of what is good and the end of hope, and she can save the world a thousand times but that will still hang over her. Until now. Because suddenly this is how much she is worth – she is worth a soul. She is worth a vampire going out and getting a soul for her, all for her, and yes, it matters to her. She is the Slayer and she can do anything and everything but she cannot earn back that soul, that damn soul that was lost at her hands and regained only for her to destroy it again, sending it to straight to Hell. But this time, this vampire takes it out of her hands. She cannot earn back that soul but he can. And what Buffy is only just starting to understand is what he can do for her is as much hers as what she can do for herself, that this gift of a soul is part of who he is, and who she is, and who they are.

I think what I love most about Season 7 is that over the course of it, Buffy and Spike become stronger and more dependent.

In a world that loves to tell us we should all be strong and independent there's something very extraordinary about that.

So he comes back and she's very shaken, because there's these two conflicting ideas in her head:

UM HE REALLY HURT ME

UM HE GOT HIS SOUL.

So she doesn't do a lot for a while, trying to recover, but eventually she starts to try to pull him out of the pit he's in.

It all comes down to "Sleeper" and "Never Leave Me." Spike's been killing. BAD BAD BAD. But when he asks her to kill him in "Sleeper," she realizes that he doesn't want to, that he wants to be more, that he really did want his soul and that he wants to be a kind of man. So she takes him home and patches him up and tells him she'll fix it and then gives him the MOST BEAUTIFUL SPEECH EVER.

Here's a reminder:

BUFFY
Listen to me. You're not alive because of hate or pain. You're alive because I saw you change. Because I saw your penance.

SPIKE
(lunges violently at her, but chains hold him back) Window dressing.

BUFFY
Be easier, wouldn't it, it if were an act, but it's not. (walks toward him) You faced the monster inside of you and you fought back. You risked everything to be a better man.

SPIKE
Buffy...

BUFFY
(in his face) And you can be. You are. You may not see it, but I do. I do. I believe in you, Spike.

She sees what he can be. No one else has ever transformed themself for the better the way he has, and she totally believes that he can be more. It's a huge moment.

So she sees him as a person. As a good man.

From there, the rest of the season is about her falling in love with him and him learning to love her in a way that isn't grasping and greedy.

Now, as to why she's attracted to him now, there are a couple of things.

A.) THE SOUL. UM, HUGE DEAL. HUGE HUGE HUGE. Nothing could be bigger to her.
B.) All they've been through together. One of my favorite quotes is "Love is what you've been through with someone." And whoa have these two been through a lot.
C.) Most importantly:

Buffy's personality has drastically changed. Despite enjoying some early!season!Spuffy!fic, I don't think preS5/6 Buffy would ever be attracted to him. But as she gets older, she pulls into herself more. She becomes more and more introverted, more and more self-contained. And she becomes the kind of person who can love him. For the past year or two, she's grown apart from her friends as well: they never really understood what she was going through, how alone she was, and boy does she ever feel alone. She and Xander start to mend their relationship (S7 is pretty much the only time I like Xander, because he finally grew out of his Nice Guy, I'm-Such-an-Oppressed-Geek-though-I'm-ridiculously-privileged! routine), but still. There's a distance.

Enter Spike. Their dynamic shifts back to what it was in early!S6: he doesn't demand anything of her, she doesn't have to be peppy!Buffy or strong!Buffy or anything else with him. He really has seen the best and the worst of her (I'm not such a huge fan of the "Touched" speech, but that line? DEAD ON) and he still thinks she's wonderful. I think she's reached the point where she's given of herself for so very, very long that she feels that she has nothing--is nothing--left. And yet he thinks she's warm and beautiful and kind and all of these things that she wants to be but can't because she has to make herself hard and apart in order to take care of everyone else ALL THE TIME AND SAVE THE WORLD DO IT BY HERSELF POOR GIRL LET ME HUG HER.

So just as she sees what he can be (and tells him so), he sees what she is. And here's this guy who would go to the ends of the earth to become better and who she can joke around with and who will sit there in the quiet with her and let her be herself. They become a great team, dependant upon each other and all the stronger for it. She's feeling such huuuuuuge amounts of pressure to take care of these girls and save the world, and she's petrified of getting close the Potentials because she knows that some of them will die, and she's having to play general which is not a role she ever wanted, but she keeps getting up and carrying on and he's always, always there for her.

He's the kind of man who will get a soul. He's the kind of man who would die for her and the world and the mission. Of course she falls in love with him.

I'm not sure at what point, though, she figures that out. Because I think she expects love to be like it was with Angel: DRAMATIC! FORBIDDEN! WHEN YOU KISS ME I WANT TO DIE GAG ME WITH A BEARCLAW! But with Spike it's just quiet and steady and everyday but at the same time it burns deep and true enough that their hands ~SPONTANEOUSLY BURST INTO FLAME while she stares at him completely in love with him and he tells her to go live her life. But she knows at that moment. What she feels for him is love, and it's different than it was when she was seventeen, but it's no less real or precious.

She stands on the edge of the hellmouth, the crater that's taken the place of the burden she lugged around for years like a ball and chain, and she has a future and hope for a real life and a chance to heal, and she has that because Spike gave it to her, because of who he was and who she is and who they were together. And because of the crazy journey they went on that started out enemies and then became reluctant allies and then annoyances and then people who respected each other and then unrequited love and then friends and then self-destructive twisted passion and then forgiveness and love and peace and did I mention love?

And so she smiles.

Okay, now I've made myself all teary-eyed.

4. OMG ELYSSA STOP REWTACHING ATS EVERY FIVE MINUTES!!! ;D

Gah. I'm such a loser. Oh well. At least I have something to start with for my het_reccers manifesto!

Comments

[eleusis-walks.livejournal.com]

Personally my problem with a lot of Spuffy meta (and I like Spuffy, overall) is that I just. Don't believe that Spike got his soul on purpose. I know that's what they intended, but it doesn't read in the text for me. I can believe it's what he wanted subconsciously, but none of his dialogue from "Seeing Red" through "Grave" suggests that he wants anything but the chip out. I know they were going for obfuscation but they ended up with a twist that, imo, doesn't work in the slightest. So for me, textually, it always seems like Spike is lying when he says that his soul is what he went to Africa to get.

Buffy talks a lot in Season 7 about the fact that Spike has a soul. Of course it matters to her. It is everything to her, because she is the one who lost Angel his soul. That is who she is. That is what she is worth. She is the destruction of what is good and the end of hope, and she can save the world a thousand times but that will still hang over her. Until now. Because suddenly this is how much she is worth – she is worth a soul.

This is genius though. I have never thought of this, and I taught a class on this goddamn show. I have so many problems with the Angel's soul arc in S2 and how it treats female sexuality, but this is a really interesting way of seeing S7 as a subversion.

[angearia.livejournal.com]

one of his dialogue from "Seeing Red" through "Grave" suggests that he wants anything but the chip out.

The reason this doesn't make sense to me is that he goes to Africa and a mystical demon to get the chip out. What he really needs is an Initiative doctor--and I think he knows this. Just as Giles warned that the medical and the mystical shouldn't cross over, I think Spike would know that something that was done to him, a piece of metal that was put into him, well... it's probably best he get it out through scientific means, since that's how it was brought in.

Plus, Spike getting his chip out, the way the text teases at it, this theory hinges on the idea that he wants the chip out so he can go kill Buffy and get his cojones back. But he can already hurt her since the chip doesn't work around Buffy. So I don't think it makes sense. Spike only ever cares about Buffy seeing him as a powerful equal and ever since the chip stopped working against her, that's been the case. He can still beat up a bunch of demons, get himself a gang and order them to burn people out of their houses. He can still fight the Slayer to the death if he really wanted to be evil.

If he wanted to be evil, he didn't need to get the chip out because the greatest obstacle the chip presented--not being able to defend himself against the Slayer--had been nullified.

And really, it's not the chip that's really changed him. It's his love for Buffy. He can't burn that away and become the man he once was. Let's say he did get the chip out and came back to Sunnydale--he'd still be in love with her. So how would that have worked? I think he realized he was love's bitch, Spike's always acknowledged this, and he was angry about having to defy his nature because, well, he's still evil. And he resented his being the one who had to change, but he was also embracing it.

Tbh, his going to a mystical demon to only get the chip out doesn't jive for me with his motives and characterization then. His pain came from how he'd hurt Buffy when it's the last thing he wanted--that's where his existential crisis is born. How does his removing the chip resolve this conflict? Because his motive is that he loves Buffy and yet he's still hurt her horribly. That's the essential impetus.

Truly, the only way for him to change if he weren't going to get a soul would be to burn out all the love in his heart. It's not the chip that's keeping him from doing evil. It's his love for Buffy and his desire to be worthy in her eyes.

[eleusis-walks.livejournal.com]

Yeah I mean I'm not suggesting that either interpretation necessarily makes sense. I think it's colossally bad writing.

I tend to read Spike as being basically in shock and not thinking it through. What you are saying about "burning out all the love", I think that's a valid reading also. I mean, only one episode prior ("Entropy") he goes to the Magic Box to try to get a spell to do just that.

Spike in all his dialogue seems to be angling to be S2 Spike again, as though he wants to turn back time. The idea that he wants to be WILLIAM again doesn't jive at all with the dialogue. It just... doesn't.

And while he doesn't need the chip out to hurt Buffy herself, he -would- need the chip out to 'return to his former self.' S7 Spike is -not- a 'former self', it's an entirely new being. That's like saying Angel = Liam of Galway, when in fact Angel is Angelus + a soul.

[angearia.livejournal.com]

A big problem is that James Marsters didn't even know he was getting his soul back. Like, the writers said they'd intended this all along and were doing the fakeout so it was be a huge surprise. But they didn't even tell the actor, so he couldn't play up the nuance at all. It was just a really poorly executed plan.

I think Spike had given up trying to burn out the love because he'd already tried that and oh look, Buffy got hurt again. He tries to apologize to her for going to see Anya and sleeping with one of her friends and, oh look, he's hurt Buffy again. He keeps on trying to make amends but because he's evil, he keeps hurting her. I really don't think he's trying to make his feelings die down anymore. And likewise, his getting out the chip doesn't actually resolve anything.

So there's only two ways to make him change: a) destroy the love he feels for Buffy which means he could theoretically regress to his more evil self or b) change his evil nature so he'd stop hurting Buffy, something he can only do by getting a soul.

Recall the line "Bitch is gonna see a change." Spike returning as his evil, S2 self wouldn't prove her wrong. Nope, he'd just be fulfilling Buffy's low expectations. That he's always evil, that he's a thing that cannot love. Why would he want to live down to her low expectations? Recall his tone is defiant. Spike wants to defy the fate Buffy has laid out for him. His returning as a evil, soulless thing (as she's called him) wouldn't be about defiance.

And that's Spike's essence. Tell him he can't and he'll want to prove you wrong. His going to get his chip out, destroying the love in his heart, and returning as an evil, soulless thing wouldn't be a victory for him. He'd just be giving Buffy exactly what she expected. He'd be proving her right, when he wants to prove her wrong and prove to himself he can be more.

[eleusis-walks.livejournal.com]

God, what the hell is that. Joss does shit like that all the time. He didn't tell Charisma what was up with Cordelia in early AtS S4, either. Just was like 'now you have a love scene with Connor' and she was like WTF.

See I think "bitch is gonna see a change" could also be interpreted though as 'she thinks i'm weak and i'll show her', a la the "you're beneath me" alleyway sequence in "Fool For Love".

The other thing is like, the way that the demon delivers the line about the soul. It's like he's surprising Spike. The actor delivers the line as a GOTCHA! and then Spike does this :O face and it all comes across as something he didn't expect. Like the demon has tricked him. So basically if the direction was meant to imply that Spike knows he's earning his soul, it's terrible direction on top of terrible writing.

I don't know. I have complicated feelings on this. Part of it is that I have no use for S7 soul-Spike. I find him incredibly tedious, and it all feels forced. Like the writers thought Spike needed a soul to justify his relationship with Buffy and his heroism, and I find his arc pre-ensoulment so much more interesting.

[gabrielleabelle.livejournal.com]

I also had a lot of trouble reconciling Spike's lines at the end of S6 with his seeking a soul. Then I read stormwreath's meta on Spike's soulquest and things kinda clicked into place there. The delivery is, obviously, off because JM was intentionally misinformed as to what was going on. But the lines, themselves, read well as Spike having an existential crisis due to the tragic combo of chip + loving the Slayer = what the hell type of vampire is he?

[eleusis-walks.livejournal.com]

Oh, thank you, I'll take some time to read that this weekend (I am so busy during the weeeeeek). Because really, this is a major stumbling block for me wrt Spike's character arc.

[gabrielleabelle.livejournal.com]

You're welcome. Hey, I still have your Cordy meta queued up to read. I'm no stranger to the lack of time phenomenon. :)

[eleusis-walks.livejournal.com]

Ha! So true. I just started a new job so I am beyond busy. :P

Well, do leave a comment when you get through it, I'd love to know what you think!