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Warning: and now I will be schmoopy
Okay, I should know better than to read any post that is aimed at the general BtVS fandom public and asks whether Buffy was really in love with Spike. Like, Lauren, why would you do that? You know it's just going to depress you!
But I don't think I could have anticipated just how much it would depress me. Because just about everyone there is of one of two opinions: A) no, she never loved him, even if she cared about him, or B) she only loved him in the moment when he was dying for her.
WHAT. Are we even watching the same show? I mean, I understand all about room for interpretation and since 90% of Buffy's emotional communication in S7 is wordless, there's more room for disagreement than if there was lots of explicit, "OMG SPIKE I JUST LUUUUURV YOU SO MUUUUUCH! WHEN I KISS YOU I WANT TO DIIIIIIIIIE." In case you haven't figured it out, the "When I kiss you I want to die" line is possibly my least favorite line ever. I find it quite literally the opposite of a healthy romance. I rag on it a lot. I get that. But I can't help but feel like the people who feel that way just don't understand Buffy in S7.
And hey, a lot of people would admit they don't. S7!Buffy is personally my favorite Buffy, but I know a ton of people feel a distance from her.
So. Here is a hint for understanding Buffy in S7, people: Watch her body language. Watch the actions she takes. Forget what's coming out of her mouth; it doesn't matter. I...just...look at this. Look at it! And then look at this!
I just don't understand. You don't have to like that Buffy loves him, but seriously? From the moment he confesses about his soul in the church until the moment she saves him from the First in "Showtime," she is falling in love with him. And then when she looks up at him in "Showtime"? Her eyes swimming with tears and her whole heart just right there in the way she looks at him? GAH. That is love, y'all. From then on, I don't doubt whether she loves him.
One of my favorite moments in S7 is when one of the Potentials (Kennedy? Rona? One of the two) is all like, "What is with you and this Spike person! Get over it! We don't want to hear you talk about him anymore!" (Actual quote appreciated.) Why is this one of my favorite moments, you may ask? This seems strange. The answer is that it just underlines how much Buffy is thinking about him. How much she talks about him. How very much he is in in her heart.
Which is a lot. When![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
gabrielleabelle finally gets to S7 in her line percentage county thing (which I love you forever for doing, Gabs!) I kind of wish she'd count up the percentages of who Buffy talks about. The First would probably be number one. But Spike is number two. She talks about him a ton. About how he has a soul. About how he's their strongest fighter. About how she has to save him. He is always on her mind. (Some would say to the detriment of other things, but honestly? I just feel sorry for the girl: falling in love in S7 is like the least convenient thing ever. The First and the Potentials and everything? When does she really have time to fall in love?) She's trying to say, "Hey, this guy is important to me. I know you don't understand that and you'll probably attack me for it because y'all are always trying to tell me what to do in my personal life and I listen to you a little too much. But I'm trying to get you to see who he is and what he's given me and how important he is so you'll just leave me alone about him and not tell me that you want 'more' for me or whatever!" That's what she's trying to say.
But anyways, I said don't listen to what she says. Think about how she brings Spike into her home. Think about how she feeds him from that bag of blood (that scene gives me chills. This is the girl-turned-woman who wrinkled her nose when handing Spike a mug full of blood back in S4, and now she doesn't flinch when he's all vamped out and it's just that gross bag!). Think about how she nearly dies fighting the ubervamp to get to him. Think about how she keeps him near her. Think about how she touches him again and again and again. (Who else does she touch that season? Not many people.) Think about how she runs to him and lets him hold her. Think about how she touches his cheek. Think about how she only seems relaxed and herself when she's with him.
I think part of the issue is that people are judging Buffy-in-love by the way she was with Angel. Which, frankly, is silly. She was a teenager! It was her first love! And it was the typical, dramatic, over-the-top love of a girl trying to figure out how to be a woman. And she was so young, then. So heartbreakingly open with her emotions. So trusting. She had no problem saying that she loved.
But then life happened. S5 happened, with Glory and Dawn being in danger. S6 happened, with life after death and then depression. S7 happened, with a whole 'nother load of responsibilities and no one really to help her carry them.
The key for me to understanding Buffy in the later seasons is the scene where she talks to Giles about feeling as though she's losing the ability to love. (OMG why is "Intervention" so amazing? I adore it so!)
She can't say it. And this is in S5! This is before dying and S6 and depression and everything else! She's only going to fill this way more as time goes by!
By the time S7 rolls around, Buffy is no longer the trusting, open little girl. She's died and struggled through clinical depression. She's a full-grown woman with the kind of responsibilities a lot of adults can't handle. And she has had to learn to love a different way. She keeps it tightly inside her and only really shows it through her actions. But it's still there. Listen to the First Slayer:
It's a different way of loving. And yes, it's a sadder way. A little more jaded. But Buffy is the queen of self-sacrifice, and love has always been about sacrifice. Look at everything she gives up during the last several seasons of the show. That is love.
At this point Buffy is so incredibly closed off that I don't even think she tells Dawn she loves her in S7! (Which I wish she would have. Buffy-and-Dawn is easily my second-favorite Buffy relationship of any kind and is honestly the one I think is most important to her. Sort of like I will CUT YOU if you think anyone is more important to Angel than Connor.) She has a couple of nice friendly moments with Xander and that really nice one at the end of "Same Time, Same Place" with Willow (which, again: is wordless and beautiful).
So if you're looking for the big, flashy dramatics of the Buffy/Angel pairing, thinking that's how Buffy always acts when she's in love (instead of that just being how she acts when she's 17 and young and in love), then yes, you probably won't see just how much she loves Spike in S7. Because her love of Spike looks so very, very different.
In S7? They have a marriage. I mean, that's always the way it's felt to me. (Although, asgreen_maia points out, Buffy is the husband and Spike is the wife. Which makes me giggle: these two have always been about the gender-role-swapping.) They're partners, they keep their relationship only to themselves (I call S7, "The Season of Buffy and Spike's Beautiful, Private Love" for a reason), and it makes them stronger and more dependent upon each other. It's committed and they don't have to talk about it endlessly or analyze: they live it.
Yes, it's fragile. And they both seem too scared that if they breathe on it, it'll shatter. (They're wrong. They're so much stronger together. But they've been through so much that it's understandable they feel that way.) It's so, so private and personal that they don't want to share it with anyone else (ohwaluvusbab and I have talked at length about how much we love and adore how private their relationship is and how much it makes us flail with joy). It definitely hasn't reached its full potential yet: it hasn't reached that final, ultimate stage of easiness where they've both moved past their insecurities.
But it could. The foundation is all there. That's why I never get tired of writing post-NFA fic, because I really believe that they have all they need to have a full, healthy, adult, mature relationship. I do. And I never stop believing that.
Now. What is debatable to me is at which point she realized that she loved him. I could believe you if you argued that she didn't know until he was dying and standing there all beautiful, shining in the light of his soul and his sacrifice and his journey. Buffy's so out of touch with herself, so scared of her own emotions, that I could imagine her not having any clue to the depth of her feelings until that moment. But that depth? Is bottomless. I think it would terrify her if she really realized how much she has to give and how much she wants to give him. I bounce back and forth about whether he believed her or not. On my more hopeful days, I believe that he did. Those are happy days.
I'm going to make kind of a controversial statement: I think S7 might be my favorite season. Now wait! I'm not saying that it's the best--it's clearly not. There are so many things wrong with it that I could write a list a mile long. But it's the season of that gives me Buffy and Spike learning to love each other in all the right ways. After all the pain they've put each other through, they choose to love and give and forgive. Gah. This season is about grace. What more could I want than that?
A sidenote: I know that when I initially watched the show, I identified with Spike so closely that I saw everything through his eyes. I was like the stereotypical Spuffy fan, then: the romance was important because it was important to him. (Though I never hated Buffy, as a lot of the stereotypical Spuffy fans do.) I wonder when things changed for me. I still identify with Spike. He's still one of my favorite characters ever, the character it's always easy for me to love and understand. But somewhere along the line Buffy's perspective on this romance became possibly more important to me. And I feel likeangearia and I are some of the few who see it that way. Weird.
This isn't an "Argue with me!" post. You can say, "I disagree," all you want, but I just really wanted to get my feelings down on paper and wallow in my own love for these two.angearia and I were talking just last night about how much we love them--more all the time--the kind of love that just makes you feel like your heart is going to explode. And even though I said a lot of what I just said in my manifesto, I needed to say it again for my own sake. So...don't argue with me, okay? Expressing disagreement is fine, but this is a happy post. 'Kay? Kay.
But I don't think I could have anticipated just how much it would depress me. Because just about everyone there is of one of two opinions: A) no, she never loved him, even if she cared about him, or B) she only loved him in the moment when he was dying for her.
WHAT. Are we even watching the same show? I mean, I understand all about room for interpretation and since 90% of Buffy's emotional communication in S7 is wordless, there's more room for disagreement than if there was lots of explicit, "OMG SPIKE I JUST LUUUUURV YOU SO MUUUUUCH! WHEN I KISS YOU I WANT TO DIIIIIIIIIE." In case you haven't figured it out, the "When I kiss you I want to die" line is possibly my least favorite line ever. I find it quite literally the opposite of a healthy romance. I rag on it a lot. I get that. But I can't help but feel like the people who feel that way just don't understand Buffy in S7.
And hey, a lot of people would admit they don't. S7!Buffy is personally my favorite Buffy, but I know a ton of people feel a distance from her.
So. Here is a hint for understanding Buffy in S7, people: Watch her body language. Watch the actions she takes. Forget what's coming out of her mouth; it doesn't matter. I...just...look at this. Look at it! And then look at this!
I just don't understand. You don't have to like that Buffy loves him, but seriously? From the moment he confesses about his soul in the church until the moment she saves him from the First in "Showtime," she is falling in love with him. And then when she looks up at him in "Showtime"? Her eyes swimming with tears and her whole heart just right there in the way she looks at him? GAH. That is love, y'all. From then on, I don't doubt whether she loves him.
One of my favorite moments in S7 is when one of the Potentials (Kennedy? Rona? One of the two) is all like, "What is with you and this Spike person! Get over it! We don't want to hear you talk about him anymore!" (Actual quote appreciated.) Why is this one of my favorite moments, you may ask? This seems strange. The answer is that it just underlines how much Buffy is thinking about him. How much she talks about him. How very much he is in in her heart.
Which is a lot. When
gabrielleabelle finally gets to S7 in her line percentage county thing (which I love you forever for doing, Gabs!) I kind of wish she'd count up the percentages of who Buffy talks about. The First would probably be number one. But Spike is number two. She talks about him a ton. About how he has a soul. About how he's their strongest fighter. About how she has to save him. He is always on her mind. (Some would say to the detriment of other things, but honestly? I just feel sorry for the girl: falling in love in S7 is like the least convenient thing ever. The First and the Potentials and everything? When does she really have time to fall in love?) She's trying to say, "Hey, this guy is important to me. I know you don't understand that and you'll probably attack me for it because y'all are always trying to tell me what to do in my personal life and I listen to you a little too much. But I'm trying to get you to see who he is and what he's given me and how important he is so you'll just leave me alone about him and not tell me that you want 'more' for me or whatever!" That's what she's trying to say.But anyways, I said don't listen to what she says. Think about how she brings Spike into her home. Think about how she feeds him from that bag of blood (that scene gives me chills. This is the girl-turned-woman who wrinkled her nose when handing Spike a mug full of blood back in S4, and now she doesn't flinch when he's all vamped out and it's just that gross bag!). Think about how she nearly dies fighting the ubervamp to get to him. Think about how she keeps him near her. Think about how she touches him again and again and again. (Who else does she touch that season? Not many people.) Think about how she runs to him and lets him hold her. Think about how she touches his cheek. Think about how she only seems relaxed and herself when she's with him.
I think part of the issue is that people are judging Buffy-in-love by the way she was with Angel. Which, frankly, is silly. She was a teenager! It was her first love! And it was the typical, dramatic, over-the-top love of a girl trying to figure out how to be a woman. And she was so young, then. So heartbreakingly open with her emotions. So trusting. She had no problem saying that she loved.
But then life happened. S5 happened, with Glory and Dawn being in danger. S6 happened, with life after death and then depression. S7 happened, with a whole 'nother load of responsibilities and no one really to help her carry them.
The key for me to understanding Buffy in the later seasons is the scene where she talks to Giles about feeling as though she's losing the ability to love. (OMG why is "Intervention" so amazing? I adore it so!)
BUFFY: I'm just ... starting to feel ... uneasy about stuff.
GILES: Stuff?
BUFFY: Training. Slaying. All of it. It's just ... I mean ... I can beat up the demons until the cows come home. And then I can beat up the cows ... but I'm not sure I like what it's doing to me.
GILES: But you've mastered so much. I mean, your strength and resilience alone-
BUFFY: Yeah. Strength, resilience ... those are all words for hardness. (pause) I'm starting to feel like ... being the Slayer is turning me into stone.
GILES: Turning you into stone? Buffy-
BUFFY: Just ... think about it. (gets up, paces) I was never there for Riley, not like I was for Angel. I was terrible to Dawn.
GILES: At a time like this-
BUFFY: No.
GILES: You're bound to feel emotionally numb.
BUFFY: Before that. Riley left because I was shut down. He's gone. And now my mom is gone ... and I loved her more than anything ... and ... I don't know if she knew.
GILES: Oh, she knew. (gets up, puts his hand on Buffy's shoulder) Always.
BUFFY: I don't know. To slay, to kill ... i-it means being hard on the inside. Maybe being the perfect Slayer means being too hard to love at all. I already feel like I can hardly say the words.
GILES: Buffy...
BUFFY: Giles ... I love you. Love ... love, love, love, love, Giles, it feels strange.
GILES: Well, I shouldn't wonder. (frowns, sits on the coffee table) How serious are you about this?
BUFFY: (walks past him, sits on sofa) Ten. I'm serious to the amount of ten.
She can't say it. And this is in S5! This is before dying and S6 and depression and everything else! She's only going to fill this way more as time goes by!
By the time S7 rolls around, Buffy is no longer the trusting, open little girl. She's died and struggled through clinical depression. She's a full-grown woman with the kind of responsibilities a lot of adults can't handle. And she has had to learn to love a different way. She keeps it tightly inside her and only really shows it through her actions. But it's still there. Listen to the First Slayer:
BUFFY: I have a few questions ... about being the Slayer. What about ... love? Not just boyfriend love.
FIRST SLAYER: You think you're losing your ability to love.
BUFFY: I-I didn't say that. (sighs) Yeah.
FIRST SLAYER: You're afraid that being the Slayer means losing your humanity.
BUFFY: Does it?
FIRST SLAYER: You are full of love. You love with all of your soul. It's brighter than the fire ... blinding. That's why you pull away from it.
BUFFY: (surprised) I'm full of love? I'm not losing it?
FIRST SLAYER: Only if you reject it. Love is pain, and the Slayer forges strength from pain. Love ... give ... forgive. Risk the pain. It is your nature. Love will bring you to your gift.
It's a different way of loving. And yes, it's a sadder way. A little more jaded. But Buffy is the queen of self-sacrifice, and love has always been about sacrifice. Look at everything she gives up during the last several seasons of the show. That is love.
At this point Buffy is so incredibly closed off that I don't even think she tells Dawn she loves her in S7! (Which I wish she would have. Buffy-and-Dawn is easily my second-favorite Buffy relationship of any kind and is honestly the one I think is most important to her. Sort of like I will CUT YOU if you think anyone is more important to Angel than Connor.) She has a couple of nice friendly moments with Xander and that really nice one at the end of "Same Time, Same Place" with Willow (which, again: is wordless and beautiful).
So if you're looking for the big, flashy dramatics of the Buffy/Angel pairing, thinking that's how Buffy always acts when she's in love (instead of that just being how she acts when she's 17 and young and in love), then yes, you probably won't see just how much she loves Spike in S7. Because her love of Spike looks so very, very different.
In S7? They have a marriage. I mean, that's always the way it's felt to me. (Although, as
green_maia points out, Buffy is the husband and Spike is the wife. Which makes me giggle: these two have always been about the gender-role-swapping.) They're partners, they keep their relationship only to themselves (I call S7, "The Season of Buffy and Spike's Beautiful, Private Love" for a reason), and it makes them stronger and more dependent upon each other. It's committed and they don't have to talk about it endlessly or analyze: they live it.Yes, it's fragile. And they both seem too scared that if they breathe on it, it'll shatter. (They're wrong. They're so much stronger together. But they've been through so much that it's understandable they feel that way.) It's so, so private and personal that they don't want to share it with anyone else (
ohwaluvusbab and I have talked at length about how much we love and adore how private their relationship is and how much it makes us flail with joy). It definitely hasn't reached its full potential yet: it hasn't reached that final, ultimate stage of easiness where they've both moved past their insecurities.But it could. The foundation is all there. That's why I never get tired of writing post-NFA fic, because I really believe that they have all they need to have a full, healthy, adult, mature relationship. I do. And I never stop believing that.
Now. What is debatable to me is at which point she realized that she loved him. I could believe you if you argued that she didn't know until he was dying and standing there all beautiful, shining in the light of his soul and his sacrifice and his journey. Buffy's so out of touch with herself, so scared of her own emotions, that I could imagine her not having any clue to the depth of her feelings until that moment. But that depth? Is bottomless. I think it would terrify her if she really realized how much she has to give and how much she wants to give him. I bounce back and forth about whether he believed her or not. On my more hopeful days, I believe that he did. Those are happy days.
I'm going to make kind of a controversial statement: I think S7 might be my favorite season. Now wait! I'm not saying that it's the best--it's clearly not. There are so many things wrong with it that I could write a list a mile long. But it's the season of that gives me Buffy and Spike learning to love each other in all the right ways. After all the pain they've put each other through, they choose to love and give and forgive. Gah. This season is about grace. What more could I want than that?
A sidenote: I know that when I initially watched the show, I identified with Spike so closely that I saw everything through his eyes. I was like the stereotypical Spuffy fan, then: the romance was important because it was important to him. (Though I never hated Buffy, as a lot of the stereotypical Spuffy fans do.) I wonder when things changed for me. I still identify with Spike. He's still one of my favorite characters ever, the character it's always easy for me to love and understand. But somewhere along the line Buffy's perspective on this romance became possibly more important to me. And I feel like
angearia and I are some of the few who see it that way. Weird.This isn't an "Argue with me!" post. You can say, "I disagree," all you want, but I just really wanted to get my feelings down on paper and wallow in my own love for these two.
angearia and I were talking just last night about how much we love them--more all the time--the kind of love that just makes you feel like your heart is going to explode. And even though I said a lot of what I just said in my manifesto, I needed to say it again for my own sake. So...don't argue with me, okay? Expressing disagreement is fine, but this is a happy post. 'Kay? Kay.
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