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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.
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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(no subject)
Date: 2005-05-09 10:47 pm (UTC)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.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-05-09 11:04 pm (UTC)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.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-05-10 12:15 am (UTC)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.