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I was just wondering around LJ season 6/7 discussions, and someone was saying they still cannot reconcile the caring Spike from Afterlife with the jerk for the morning after from Wrecked. And I know people were saying the same thing on the SMG board. It got me thinking. Run now while there's still time *g*

Spike was in a pattern of reinventing himself for the women in his life. With Dru he tortures her to get her back, because we know she really prefers Angelus and that's the behaviour she likes.

With Buffy in season 5, "I can be good" from the Crush. Spike didn't handle himself brilliantly in that episode, but it's clear he does get what Buffy is looking for in a man. Then in The Gift he thanks her for treating him like a man, not a monster. On the surface that's a really odd thing for a vampire to want to aspire too, especially a vampire who glorified in the evil he once committed with Dru, "I'm the big bad". And that's because he lacks an identity of his own, he has always reinvented himself to please the women in his life. So he's acknowledging that what's important to Buffy are morally good people with souls, and that's who he now wants to be.

Then when you get to season 6, Buffy rejects the illusion of the souled man that Spike is attempting to create for her, "You're not a man. You're a thing, an evil disgusting thing". Buffy could only let herself sleep with Spike if he was the demon lover that we see in later season 6 episodes, so that's exactly what he becomes. Spike acknowledges in Beneath You that without a soul he was simply flesh in Buffy's eyes.

Spike was adrift because in season 5 he had been relying on Buffy's light and moral purity to follow. After her death he still follows that memory in his heart, but then a Buffy returns that both Spike and Buffy suspect has lost her humanity, and they pull one another deeper into the darkness because without a soul Spike had no internal light to offer Buffy. And that's why he needed to go find the spark.

The Spike from DT and Wrecked etc is calling Buffy an animal and urging her into the darkness with him, because he was lacking his own identity, and being what he thought his lady would want him to be. A pattern he had always followed. If Buffy had responded to the tender Spike, and they "made love", we would never have seen the morning after scene from Wrecked that we got. But on the show Buffy responds to Spike in Smashed when he smacks her around, previously he had just been trying to get her to talk and was getting nowhere. But fighting and being an arsehole in Smashed, now that turns this new and unknown Buffy on. Light-switch moment for Spike...

In other words of course Spike became "the bad boyfriend" in scenes like the balcony scene, the demonic lover, because he thought that was what Buffy wanted from him. And subconsciously she did, she was sleeping with Spike to punish herself. She admits as much in CWDP, "I didn't want to be loved".

Season 7, once he is souled, is when Spike first starts thinking about the man he wants to be for himself. Soulful Spike from episodes like Afterlife did switch personalities fast, but was that not making a point about the fragility of that persona in the first place? To my mind that's ME telling us that Spike needed a soul for genuine lasting change.

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All very good points. You give much to think on here. My brain's not functioning for real response but I do like your essay.

Thanks :)

Interesting "take" on S6 Spike, and I think you may be onto something.

I recall in S2, School Hard, Sheila asks Spike, "Who are you?". His answer: "Who would you like me to be?"

Thanks :) I've seen several people now comment on Spike's radical change between Afterlife and Smashed/Wrecked. But he was a vampire in the first place, so really his "soulful behaviour" wasn't likely to stick. Look at the Spike of seasons 2 and 3, with the threat to stick a broken bottle in Willow's face, and compare him Spike to the oddly noble Spike from The Gift who thanks Buffy for not treating him like a monster.

Spike's trademark was to switch personalities fast and reinvent himself. He would have preferred to be devoted to Dru and taking care of her, instead he has to prove he's demon enough for her and torture her. That's Spike trying to be Angelus for Dru.

I recall in S2, School Hard, Sheila asks Spike, "Who are you?". His answer: "Who would you like me to be?"

Great point!

Makes sense to me. Very good essay! It got me thinking too...

Cool :D

Hot damn. Good analysis.

Thanks!

Soulful Spike from episodes like Afterlife did switch personalities fast, but was that not making a point about the fragility of that persona in the first place? To my mind that's ME telling us that Spike needed a soul for genuine lasting change. Yes, I totally agree with you. He always became what the woman in his life wanted him to be not what he wanted to be.
If you think about it that's why he became Spike, to be the complete opposite of what his demonic Mother told him he was.

If you think about it that's why he became Spike, to be the complete opposite of what his demonic Mother told him he was.

Yep. The vampire Spike was always a carefully created persona, not who he really was. Once he was a vampire, his mother openly mocked him and wasn't impressed with the soft-hearted fool he had been. That was no longer good enough to impress the women he loved in this new vampire life he had been thrust into. Drusilla wanted Spike to be as close to daddy as possible. And that's what he tried to aim for.

So why should viewers assume that the lovestruck Spike from Afterlife etc was now the real Spike? It wasn't. It was there because he thought that's what Buffy wanted from him. OMWF expresses his frustration at the state of affairs. But neither was the Spike from the latter part of season 6 truly him either. It's easy to assume he was returning to his true demonic self, but we know that he isn't satisfied with the sex. He wants love and tenderness, but again is giving Buffy what he thinks she wants.

He didn't form a real identity until he found the soul, and could be his own man.

Yes. This makes so much sense. I'm saving this post in my memories.

I do agree that Spike is the original character in search of an identity and may well have been even when he was William. I think that’s a very good point. But I’m not sure you can tag the bad boyfriend persona as entirely Buffy’s doing. He was expressing the urge to kill her and wishing the bitch was dead in OMWF already. So I suspect that anger would have surfaced at some point in their relationship whatever Buffy did. We saw it with Drusilla. I think Spike does have a distinctive personality, a self. He’s not completely malleable clay. But he just doesn’t know who that self is or, until he gets his soul, that he needs to find out instead of picking a persona up ‘off the shelf’ as it were.

Spike's demon is definitely also a factor. But just looking at Spike in Afterlife, and comparing him to Wrecked Spike, I think you can see that he was trying to be the bad bf. You're right that it wasn't all about "what would Buffy want". It does come across that he was pleased in Smashed when he discovered that Buffy might have come back wrong. It was an opportunity for him to drag Buffy into the dark and he seized on that. But neither do I think it's a case of post-Smashed Spike being the true Spike and having the relationship with Buffy go the way he wanted it too. I don't think that was the true Spike any more than the extra good soulful Spike of Afterlife was who he really was.

So I suspect that anger would have surfaced at some point in their relationship whatever Buffy did.

I would agree he would always have had some repressed anger and frustration. But if for instance Buffy had approached him in AYW and wanted to make love and be tender, I think Spike would have been all for that. IMO the relationship would have progressed very differently depending on what Spike thought Buffy wanted from him, because he was incredibly co-dependent.

It's not until Buffy approaches him sexually that he starts changing his behavioral mode around her. So I think the catalyst to change his behaviour was in Smashed once he believed Buffy had come back wrong. Just as Buffy also believes she is less than human and starts slipping at the same time.

I suspect it's true that Spike may have let his anger out anyway. Sooner or later Spike may well have slipped and had another event to help him realise he needed the soul, and if the ME writers were doing it that way, that's probably what they would have done. But I think it's equally viable that he would have stayed the soft-hearted supportive man if he thought Buffy wanted that from him.

Not AYW, I meant All The Way. I always get those titles confused :p Just around that early season 6 period, before sex had happened.

Faceplams. I just noticed that in your reply to the post above you said much of what I intended. I do agree the Spike we see after Smashed is just as much a construct as the the one in Afterlife. Still if his staying in Afterlife were totally dependent on Buffy being the perfect girlfriend that's an awful responsibility to bear and not I think sustainable. So yeah, like you say, in the long term he does need that soul.

Still if his staying in Afterlife were totally dependent on Buffy being the perfect girlfriend that's an awful responsibility to bear and not I think sustainable.

We are in agreement :D I definitely think that season 6's character arc for Spike was all about leading up to his need for a soul. So whatever change he tries to make, we have Buffy telling the audience that it's not good enough, he still lacks a soul. As far back as Crush we get Buffy calling Spike a serial killer in prison and denying he has really changed. To change for himself he would need "the spark, the piece that would make me fit".

I wouldn't argue that Spike was good enough in early season 6 to not need a soul, and if only Buffy had treated him nicer all along, things would have been okay. I think that's ignoring the fact that in the Buffyverse lacking a soul is a big deal as without it Spike couldn't be his own man and make true moral choices. He was like a child or teenager doing what he thought Dru, and then Buffy, wanted from him. And it was an impossible burden for Buffy, and it wouldn't have worked. When he gets the soul, that's in effect when he grows up from the arrested development that he had been trapped in as a vampire.

Sorry for filling up your inbox, LJ won't let me edit typos and they bug me :p

And Buffy was depressed, she could not be his moral compass. This essay kicks ass, Frelling.

Thank you :)

How can you not love this show, so many meaty issues to explore *g*

Hugs show..

I think you are very correct in that Spike wanted to "re-create" himself for whomever he wanted to be with. But that does not work. People have to love you for what you are and not what you try to be.

In the beginning he as doing everything for Dru and I agree that goes back to his jealousy of Angelus.

And when he became obsessed with Buffy he tried to be what he thought she wanted. He even tainted Riley with the fact Riley could never be what she wanted.

But Spike tried to become that. But re-inventing oneself for another is not going to work. But Spike never stopped trying.

He tried to be Angelus to win Dru and he tried to be Angel to win Buffy.

But I do not think he started to find out who Spike was until he was alone. Alone in LA. He was no longer pretending to be someone he wasn't. He was himself.

And who is Spike? Spike is snarky. Spike is insecure. Spike is not Angel. Spike is not Angelus. Spike does not give a piss about atonement. But that does not make him bad, it just makes him his own man. Atonement is Angel's gig.

So in my opinion the only times we saw the "true" Spike is BTVS early season 4 and ATS season 5. And you can see a strong similarity between them both.

Does that mean Spike is evil? No. It means he is just "Spike".

And until he learns to be himself and love himself, he will never find love.

So in my opinion the only times we saw the "true" Spike is BTVS early season 4 and ATS season 5. And you can see a strong similarity between them both.

I think that season 7 Spike was still basing a lot of his actions on love, but with his own identity behind them. If that makes sense.

He had been trying to build the identity he thought the women in his life wanted for him. But I think the main reason for that was because a lack of soul did not give him the opportunity to make moral choices and think about what he wanted to be for himself.

With season 4 Spike and Ats season 5 Spike you seem to be leaning towards the view that it's about Spike needing to be his own man away from the females he wants to impress. And while I think that can be seen as a factor, IMO it was the lack of a soul that was his biggest problem in his search for self.

It was without the soul, when he really was emotionally stunted and had no hope of true change.

I disagree, I think we definitely saw the real souled Spike in season seven BTVS. I think act showed up when he was forced to be around Angel again. After Fred died, he put the bad ass/I don't care posturing behind him, and became more of the Spike we saw in season seven.

Season four Spike and early season five ATS spike were rather two dimensional, IMO. He showed what he wanted to show, we got a small glimpse in GOODBYE IOWA of Spike's incredible loneliness/feelings of being an outcast in season four, but then it was back to the snarky act.

I definitely think that it's the soul that Spike needs to be his own man. IMO his recreating himself for Dru and Buffy was a symptom of the lack of soul, so season 7 Bts is when I see him as starting to be his own man, regardless of whether he's still devoted to Buffy. It's not him loving Buffy or Dru that's the problem, it was the fact that he lacked a soul and couldn't decide for himself who he wanted to be. Not without the soul to guide him.

And Ats Spike, well I've not so keen on him, although he does get better later granted. But all the swagger with Angel, I don't know that it's any more a true reflection of his personality. The important thing in my eyes is that the soul allows him to take steps towards forming an identity for himself, and that's why he needed one in the Buffyverse.

Unsouled Spike needed to "belong" and played the part, whether it was being the bad ass slayer killer to impress Drusilla/fanged four, or killing Demons with scoobies so he wouldn't starve to death. He was a survivor but he was also an actor. Again, in GOODBYE IOWA we get the small glimpse of the toll it is taking on him.

Souled Spike was a different story. He told Buffy he was going to leave because of the trigger (Season seven) but she asked him to stay and he complied because she needed him there, not because he was in love with her. (which he was) Also, with the gang, he seemed to feel that they needed him there more than anything. (which was true) It didn't seem that he wanted to hang out with Angel, in fact the opposite.

Also, I loved Gishlane's post on CDS about this. I do think Buffy's feelings weren't just "I hate myself and I'm going to use him". There was so much more than this going on with her. She literally needed him to feel anything, and she wondered why she kept letting him in. So, although their relationship was mutually abusive because of Buffy's depression and Spike's lack of soul, there were also some deep feelings involved there that you simply can't dismiss.

I loved reading this post for Spike was just trying to give Buffy what she wanted and talking wasn't getting him anywhere so he did the only other thing that he knew to do.

Happy Birthday spikeylover1 from CDS sent me here.

Thank you :)

Intresting. And very good points made to....

Thanks :)

This is fantastic. I'm putting it in my memories.

Cool, I'm glad my rambling thoughts made sense to you ;)

Those are some very deep thoughts and you made some very good points. Admittedly, I have left the BTVS fandom a while ago (I only post at Crumbling Walls from time to time-as "nadine") but the Spuffy ship is still dear to me.

You are right, Buffy did want to be treated badly and Spike gave her what he wanted, although it hurt him that much. Actually, it hurt them both a lot. However, in S7 they managed to be partly honest with each other and Spike finally understood what really was to be a man. And Buffy fell in love with that particular man.

Sorry, if this sounds silly. I am just getting caught up in nostalgia.

I somehow can't believe that are people both there who bash both Buffy and Spike. Or say that the relationship wasn't a meaningful one. Well, I keep out if it because you can't change everyone's opinions.

Thanks for sharing your opinions.

I somehow can't believe that are people both there who bash both Buffy and Spike.

It's strange to me too. I've just been watching a season 7 video which is like a character study of Buffy. And I'm sat there thinking how can anyone not love this girl, how can people not consider season 7 great tv? Different strokes I guess :p

not on you're friends list I got the url for this from somebody, I've added it to my memories, Great essay it makes sence, it got me thinking, he does change himself for the woman he loves, he is a fool for love afterall.

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