on why spike absolutely and truly loved buffy in season five:
people often attempt to point to one concise moment that proves spike did love buffy pre-soul, and a lot are compelling. his commitment to keeping dawn safe after buffy is dead is pretty clear. his willingness to let glory kill him because he couldn’t live seeing buffy in the pain that losing dawn would cause her is too.
“is there something i can do?,” the quiet space he makes for her, “every night i save you,” the way he shows himself only to her, “you glow,” the numerous times he plainly and honestly tells her he loves her… the journey to his soul. all of these do say love. they’re lovely moments.
for me, one thing stands above them all, the moment i can point to and say, definitively, spike is in love with buffy. it isn’t lovely. it’s terrible. it’s heartbreaking. it’s when spike’s heart broke.
first of all, this is one of the most perfect marriages of page and performance in the series. the words alone are so evocative, you can feel exactly how he does with just that brief phrase. but we’re blessed with it being a script, so we get to see it acted out, and it’s done perfectly.
spike walks up after the others, he’s been injured a lot over the last few days, including being stabbed and brutally thrown off the tower in the final fight. he’s limping, holding himself, hiding from the sun that’s already risen, but seeing her body knocks him down more than all of that.
collapsing in wretched sobs. there’s no delicacy and no modesty. he doesn’t care if anyone sees it or what they think. only he and buffy’s dead body exist right now anyway. it’s the worst thing he’s ever seen, and he covers his face from it.
collapsing in wretched sobs at his failure. he knew what would happen if he didn’t save dawn, but nothing could prepare him for seeing buffy. he feels personally and entirely responsible.
collapsing in wretched sobs at his failure, at the death of his love. his love. buffy. his love has died.
it’s true that in the past james marsters played spike more sympathetic than he was written. he admits it. he says he always played him like he had a soul. he was always a little more enamored with dru, and a little less annoyed with her. he cheated, because the spike role was temporary and so he didn’t have job security. he wanted spike to be adored by the fans, to be complex and layered, and to stay around.
but that was season two. season five spike is a series regular. his acting has already influenced the writing and direction they’d taken the character in, for two full seasons. he isn’t going anywhere. this isn’t james marsters being sneaky and pretending spike is in love with buffy. this is him playing spike as he’s written, in love.
we previously saw spike sad that drusilla left him. he was drunk, and he was pathetic because he knew nothing outside of her. he cried and he hurled himself back and forth between rage and melancholy. he was desperate to have her back and resigned himself to make that happen. he was miserable, but he didn’t mourn.
but now, because buffy is gone, spike is heartbroken.
there is no intellectually honest way you can read this scene, these facial expressions, these sobs, as someone who only had a sick infatuation and is upset he won’t have a chance at having sex with the girl he’s obsessed with now because she went and died. this is a man feeling very real grief, because his love is dead, and because he failed at preventing it.
the vampire, the soulless monster, the slayer of slayers, is heartbroken.
“it seems to me, that if we love, we grieve. that’s the deal. that’s the pact. grief and love are forever intertwined. grief is the terrible reminder of the depths of our love and, like love, grief is non-negotiable.” - nick cave
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