I just finished "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and immediately went on tmbr to look for some metas, as one does, but for some reason almost no one mentions my favorite part of Buffy/Spike dynamic. This quote:
I feel like this is the most important part of Spike's character. Everyone knows that he's a loverboy, but damn! Usually loverboys want her to be theirs, but not Spike! He's a knight, a poet.
William is shown as not particularly masculine person. He's sensitive, he has some deep mommy issues, but
Anyway, his wish to be hers, not the over way around, is, I think, the reason Spike is such a fan favorite. Sadly, it's rare to see characters written like this
rewatching buffy the vampire slayer made me realize that spike wasn't as much of an anomaly as i thought.
the judge tells drusilla, spike and that random scholar vampire that they all reek of humanity so it tells us that monsters can be human too. i feel like a lot of fans just go with what the council says about demons, without realizing that it's straight up propaganda to keep slayers in check.
we see harmony barely change once she's turned. darla seemed to have genuine love for angelus, as twisted as it was. we meet a vampire who's basically buffy's therapist for an entire episode. spike doesn't just feel love, he has empathy, especially for buffy and dawn. we meet two brothers who still care about each other despite the soullessness.
but the council has to make that shortcut and tell those girls that all vampires are pure evil. if they're not, then slayers are hunting people. if the council acknowledges that, then their soldiers have to bear the moral weight of being executioners. it's a necessary lie for the cause.
it's very interesting that a lot of viewers actually fall into the trap and think spike broke the lore when he IS the lore. simplifying it takes away a lot of what makes slaying an interesting moral dilemma and does a disservice to the show imo.
i think a lot of this boils down to a general confusion about what soullessness actually means. for some fans, it appears that soullessness implies a total absence of emotions when it's actually more complicated than that.
the soul gives a vampire objective morality. it doesn't make them good: it only gives them the ability to feel the weight of their choices based on a universal moral compass. but a lack of soul doesn't mean that one can't accomplish things that are deemed "good" for personal reasons.
subjective morality is still possible since they CAN have humanity. spike can do objectively good things despite the lack of soul (protecting dawn from glory, helping buffy save the world in becoming pt2, etc.), because he's got a whole lot of humanity.
his personal moral compass (which points a lot towards buffy) and desires can align with what is objectively moral. for spike to get his soul back, he NEEDS to have a pre-existing sense of morality, as primitive as it was. it wouldn't make any sense if he didn't. he didn't have the hardware necessary for a conscience but his own humanity prompted him to change, to make sense of his own self and reconcile his feelings (guilt, love, devotion) with an objective moral framework.
but angelus can't because he is the exception to the rule. while spike is unique in how heightened his humanity and sensitivity are, angelus IS a self-serving monster stripped of any sense of humanity. he can't be morally grey: there's nothing in him that isn't demonic. he's a purely evil shell of liam the man. he's the prototype of what the council uses to keep the girls in line but not the norm.
saying that spike is the exception also makes no sense in the grand scheme of things: in s6, we're introduced to the trio, all very souled and all very evil. the show makes a point to tell you that you need both your humanity AND soul to be complete. a soul can't save a rotten human like warren. a soul isn't enough for real change and true integration of the selves: liam's humanity was never strong enough so angel always carries his soul like a burden.
humanity is the heart of a person and the soul only serves as a magnifier.
it’s honestly insane to me that we never learn the name of the romani girl that Angel murdered. She is the starting point his entire arc both on Buffy and on his own shown yet we know nothing about her. she becomes just another nameless victim
this isn’t necessarily a critique about angel as a character but rather the writers. from a story standpoint it makes sense that angelus never learned her name — he most likely didn’t care. but there were so many opportunities to get to know her name. jenny calendar comes to mind as a member of the girl’s family. she could have given her a name and told us about her. about why her death caused a whole family to dedicate themselves to vengeance for generations. that would have given so much more weight both to jenny as a character and to angels guilt, but more importantly humanised the romani characters, making them something more than just a trite and offensive fantasy trope
another opportunity would have been in the first season of ats when doyle tells angel that he shouldn’t keep himself separated for humans. that could have allowed angel to think about his victims not just as victims but also as individual people with hopes and dreams. maybe he could have tried to find out her name. maybe he would have been unsuccessful, but at least some level of individuality — some thought — would have been given to her
but of course, the writers never saw her as a person, only as an aspect of angel’s backstory. which isn’t great considering how they treat romani people on the show in general
One of my big problems with Spike getting a soul from BtVS is that it means no character has to grapple with the fact that...everyone was kinda a huge dick to Spike in a horrid way for AT LEAST one whole season. Maybe more.
I'm rewatching Buffy with my gf who's never seen the show before. And by the time we got to 6x18 and Xander loudly shouting about 'that soulless thing' my gf turned to me and was like. 'this is no longer funny haha or even making a point, everyone is just being mean to the guy who regularly saves their lives and tries to help them and has done nothing but continuously try to get better'.
And it's true! Giles tells Spike at one point towards the end of season 5 that he isn't in the group, that being nice to them or helping isn't a way to Buffy. And definitely there's this sentiment online that spike is 'made soft by the love of a woman' and that 'hes a bad boy that only Buffy could change'. But that's...not really true? That's certainly a motivating factor in season 5. But by the end...
Well. In the gap between season 5 and season 6 buffy is DEAD. his supposed 'only motivator' for being a good person? Gone. And he DOES NOT KNOW that anyone is trying to bring her back. He FULLY BELIEVES SHE WILL NEVER COME BACK AND HE WILL NEVER SEE HER AGAIN. he is not trying to win any brownie points with a future version of Buffy he is hoping to date. And he still fights side by side with the Scoobies. He still protects Dawn and seemingly hangs out with her in a babysitting capacity regularly. He is in on keeping the vamp/demon population low to protect the town and regularly patroling. He's...essentially one of the gang? So much so that he's genuinely betrayed that they didn't tell him their plan?
And then Buffy comes back and it's like we, the viewer, are supposed to forget the whole past 6 months of Spike helping everyone and forming bonds with everyone. The show for the next 9 episodes will not be able to decide whether or not Spike is a good guy or not. A goofy guy? A love interest? But oh boy will people continue to make snide comments and be mean to him.
Midway through season 6, Spike discovers that the chip 'isnt working'. My partner was telling me how for a very brief moment they were SUPER intrigued by this storyline. Spike has kissed Buffy twice at the point he finds this out, but they're hardly together and she is consistently being rude to him because she is mad about said kisses. My partner was like ohhhhh we are going to get a whole plot now about whether or not Spike IS good or not without the chip, and this will lead to eventually Spuffy when Spike proves that he's really truly changed. And that will stop Xander and everyone being mean to him because everyone will have to examine the fact that oh. It's not just the chip. It's him. Spike would thus essentially become no different to Anya - perhaps the show would even draw that parrellel as Xander overcame his whole thing about Spike being The Worst.
But instead, they leave THAT plotline until season 7 when Spike already has a soul so it's no longer particualrly relevant. Instead, he can only hurt Buffy. And from here on out, they're sleeping together. Now, I do find it compelling that Spike spends the next few episodes thinking that his only way to be with Buffy is to show her that she's dark 'like him'. For a while this seems to be setting up a question of not just is Buffy dark and scary but...is spike? He believes he is, but we the viewer have seen proof he's not really. The worst he's done all season is gambling?? So...okay. perhaps we could get an arch about Spike realising he doesnt have to drag Buffy to the dark - she can drag him to the light (what ends up happening anyway by season 7s conclusion).
But then we have my least favourite, Buffy-bashing episode of season 6. As You Were. Buffy gets to know just how bad her life is compared to Joss Whedons favourite love interest Riley Finn. And turns out Spike has been the evil and incompetent bad guy Riley has been tracking all along!! Gasp. Hey look audience, remember, spike is soooo bad and so much worse than this previous love interest who now has a cool wife and a cool life. Not only that, but spike is also stupid! Hes bad at being a bad guy (despite the fact that we KNOW spike is incredibly competent at being a bad guy, because he's killed two slayers in the past single handed, a feat so scary he's the only bad guy in the show to ever be described as managing to kill more than one).
So spikes character development kinda goes down the drain. Buffy breaks up with him which again could have spurred...something interesting! Perhaps spike grapples with what he is without her. but instead we get what we got which is Xander and Riley and all the others being vindicated by a very very OOC SA scene that everyone universally hated. TRY AND LIKE HIM NOW you can practically hear Joss Whedon laughing at your face throughout that entire scene. How dare the women in my audience actually care about this guy??? Well. Female audience who liked this guy enough to bump the ratings and make him a main character, we're gonna drag you through the dirt and make you feel awful about that, in the most violent way possible. But hey! At the end of this spike can have a soul! Ain't that super and great!
And that just. Removes any nuance? People were mean to this guy for a whole season, and he never got to actually have much of an arch or prove they were wrong despite us, the viewer, seeing that they were wrong on multiple occasions and that he does indeed have a good side without a soul. Xander and Riley are vindicated and so is everyone who ever said a mean word about Spike. Buffy is punished again for her sexual choices (a theme from season 2 onwards) and is basically told she's a bad little girl who should have known better than to sleep with this guy in the first place because of course it would end up this way. He's evil. Ontologically. Because he has no soul.
And it's just...so mean spirited. The whole thing. There was a point where the meanness from the Scoobies towards spike was justified (season 4 into season 5), but that meanness just serves nothing in season 6 beyond trying to remind the audience this guy who's been slowly becoming good is actually evil and bad because he...doesn't have a soul? He's just ontologically evil. What a fucking sad thing to reinforce by giving him a soul and saying that was the only way for him to ever get better or be loved.
Idk man. I know people enjoy that spike goes and improves himself for Buffy via his own initiative by getting a soul, but I just find it reductive of a much more interesting dynamic they almost had. The choice to be good via soul would have been much more interesting if it was just...the choice to be good. And I find spikes treatment in season 6 overall by the Scoobies to do nothing but make the Scoobies look like dicks. And the way you can feel contempt for a female audience in the things they do to turn you against him in season six is just...sad. and a big yikes.
Spike is the only partner Buffy had that didn’t force her to shrink herself for his comfort. Who didn’t condition his commitment on her being small.
Their relationship is openly violent and destructive because the power struggle is text rather than subtext, as it was in her relationship with Angel, Riley, and even Parker.
The violent power struggle that exists openly in their relationship existed unspoken and unconscious in all of her past relationships. The undercurrent was always there, but was suppressed.
Angel and Riley enjoyed the fruits of Buffy’s power, strength, and her relationship to violence when it suited them and resented it or avoided it when it did not.
When Spike tells Buffy in Dead Things to “lay it all on me” and allows her to beat him to a bloody pulp without resisting, he is absorbing years of suppressed violence and pain that Buffy was not allowed to express freely in any of her other relationships. This same dynamic applies to her sexuality, and it is not a coincidence that these two things are interwoven in her relationship with Spike.
Spike is the only person who can bear the entirety of Buffy and not flinch.
Isn’t it fascinating how Joyce was not afraid of Spike like at all in ‘Lover’s Walk”?
I mean the only other times she saw him were in school when he was very close to killing Buffy and when Buffy had him over for the truce - such different experiences
But I guess the second one was way more memorable to make Joyce feel so relaxed around him, like she never felt around Angel
Talking to him about Drusilla, making hot cocoa for him, looking for marshmallows?
And when she spots Angel, Joyce is actually actively shielding Spike from him. She’s afraid of Angel but is brave enough to stand between him and another person in the room, and that just happens to be Spike
Speaks volumes about how she actually treated him like a person even if unconsciously, for some reason it just happened naturally
I think Joyce made herself a mental note after he was over for the truce with Buffy that he can be trusted, and by the time he appears again, there was no reason for her to think otherwise
“Oh Spike only changed because of the chip, he was forced into it”
You know, The Yoko Factor actually showed us that Spike was fully capable of being a villain even with the chip. You don’t need to rip out throats to be evil, there are plenty of options for committing nefarious acts sans violence. And even the violence can be outsourced to accomplices (like Drusilla serving up a kill in Crush).
Spike just wanted to belong, he succumbed to the desire for love and friendship without any encouragement. Giles floated the idea of him as a white hat ONCE, right after Spike moved into his crypt, but that was it, he was only really invited back in when Buffy asked him to drive the getaway Winnebago car.
He wasn’t encouraged to change or offered much kindness or a real place with the Scoobies. But he wanted it, he wanted to be able to be in Buffy’s life, he cared about Joyce and Dawn, and he changed because of those feelings. Not because of an electrical muzzle in his head. The chip just paved the way for all of his more human desires and qualities to take the reins.
