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BSV Forum - General - The Bloodshedpub
The change in Spike
Guest
I was reading some fics in the week, and see a thing bother me…
The thing I love most about Spike is that he never had anything easy. Never, like human, vampire unsoiled or souled. He always had to prove himself to be worthy –of evil or good-. And, when It seems there were times where Spike wanted to give up, he never did. Spike did want to be a better man because he loved Buffy. But what I don't agree with is where a lot of fics do. Is that they make it seem like it was Buffy's doing. Buffy didn't try to change Spike; she believed that he couldn't be changed, and so she treated him like dirt. Spike changed himself; sure, it was because he loved her, but it had nothing to do with anything she actually did. She was the one going around saying "You can never change; you're a thing, not a man." The scoobies treated Spike badly but when they needed help who did they go to. Buffy did that as well.
I don’t understand why give the credit to Buffy…
Guest
Guest
Judy - I don't think it's 'giving Buffy credit' per se. It was a contributing factor. Buffy didn't do anything directly but she was Spike's focus to change. I don't think most fics do this. I think the message trying to be conveyed is this: Buffy was a factor in Spike moving forward. She didn't change him. Just her presence to him helped him in the direction by himself.
I think a lot of writers have this pretty clear as far as I can tell. Some just play on this to fit their plot? I like to think that Spike improved himself because of what he saw of Buffy. Although, in my very very heated opinion, he did it actually all for himself because the Scoobies and Buffy - uh not so good on the actual incouragement (and why does that word look wrong? Lol) - not that he asked, but still. Buffy played a part, yes, but albeit small one. I think his transition started even when he was human to the point of Buffy then Angel. Being a vamp gave him a freedom not much of us would embark on...Unless your a murderer. But that's not what I mean - it's more what he felt of himself rather than how he was as a human. He had no boundaries I guess is what I'm striving for. Not saying what he did as a vamp was right, it was wrong and evil, but it was like a part of him became more alive rather than when he was human. This is what I got from just the few snippets of him with his mother. He seems more alive as a vamp and so recluse and rigid as a human - but a romantic poet's heart. I think his potential wasn't seen clearly on canon because if I'm not mistaken Spike was kinda a run with it character. There are some good and bad things that I love canon wise about Spike, but overall I am very satisfied with his growth...Probably why I was so pissed (even though I am a Spuffy fan) that they had the "Girl in Question" episode on Angel....UH HELLO STUPID MUCH????
Though Angel and Spike were rather funny in this one (well besides the puppet episode lmao)
Anyway...
I have read a many fics and the thing I noticed A LOT was placing Spike in a role of tortured or even stepping back and not making it about the soul. Love the latter. Honestly, I have Buffy issues and I prefer her tortured and learning more because I really really couldn't stand her self righteous attitude. I would have liked to see her go down a noch or two.
When I first started reading some fics I saw the same conclusion too until after a while of re-reading everything it doesn't seem this way at all. Example I love Holly's It Came Upon a midnight clear - she expresses it perfectly how a vampire wanting a soul didn't need one to become a better man. I didn't feel it was about changing for the person...It seems like it at first, but then it became Spike's own journey. I honestly saw Chosen as a Spike themed episode not so much the potentials being Chosen.
So went off on a tangent, I think, lol. Bottom line - some do and some don't. I LOVE JackofSpike's story A Penny for... because in this story he simply goes because he chose to fight for the right side. The underline is yes it's because of his love for Buffy, but not actually her doing. Another one you could check out too is Paradox. He still chooses. God even Niamh, Nautibitz, Maryperk, CallmeKitten, and I could go on (just to name a few at the top of my head - if I missed you I'm sorry ,oh and, Slaymesoftly does some amazing one's too!)... do an amazing job with soulless Spike. Those kinds of stories make me love Spike even more. Keep in mind it's his love for Buffy that helps him push himself to be good in her eyes that ultimately leads him down his own path...Could be with or without her...
;) sorry for the tangent and rambling...I just wish work would end already lol
Guest
Something I never understood was Spike's line to Buffy in the Gift. "I know that I'm a monster, but you treat me like a man." NO SHE DOESN'T!! Just because in the last few episodes she ignores him, and his pain from the recent torture, instead of insulting and stepping on him, and expects to use him to fight on her side when, again, he'd just been tortured, does not mean she's treating him like a man! She's not even acknowleding that his feelings are real, just that she trusts he'll do what she asks of him (protecting Dawn) and ignoring him and his feelings or reasons. For Spike being the one who sees the real Buffy where others put her on a pedestal, Spike himself sure seems to read way too much goodness into Buffy's actions and words or whatever.
Guest
"Although, in my very very heated opinion, he did it actually all for himself because the Scoobies and Buffy - uh not so good on the actual incouragement"
This is the thing that most bother me, yes, Spike is a soulless demon, but he try change, without help from the good guy specially from Buffy.
But, them used him anyway...
I hate in Intervention when Buffy tell him: What you did for me and Dawn... that was real. I won't forget it. Because she forget it, in every moment, I remember in Smashed when Spike said: a man can change, and she reply: You're not a man. you're a thing.
"Something I never understood was Spike's line to Buffy in the Gift. "I know that I'm a monster, but you treat me like a man." NO SHE DOESN'T!!"
Yeah, I never understood this line, and tragic, when Buffy is back she forget this too.
Buffy, even with all her horrible treatment, did act as his first guide on his journey - but Spike had the inner strength to stay and go through all the pain.
"I know that I'm a monster, but you treat me like a man." - to me it seemed that Spike's perspective was that as a vampire, and especially after Angel/Angelus, Buffy would simply not engage on any level with vampires other than as predators to be killed.
Michael Tomasello is co-director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
Guest
I know the soul issue has been talked over a lot, but I'm not trying to get into that. I only have a simple thing to say.
Angelus was cursed with a soul. In canon, we learn that he went back to the vicious, murderous vampires he'd been living with a year or two later, in China. He wouldn't kill humans who weren't criminals, but he let the other vampires slaughter innocents. I don't remember, but I think he leaves the baby Darla brings him to eat with her, where she's sure to kill it.
Buffy and the Scoobies kept telling Spike that he was evil, would always be evil, no matter how much good he did, because being good was more important than doing good. So was Angel good? With his curse, it seems to me he never decided to be good. Killing a human made him feel terrible and wracked with guilt, so to selfishly save himself pain, he wouldn't kill. It's not like he believed humans were worth protecting or that it was wrong to take a life, it was to spare himself pain and guilt. After his own show started, Angel started to make decisions trying to become a champion and be good, making a lot of mistakes on the way, and trying to be good.
Some of the problems with trying to understand this character is that he was so deeply formed by the continuous conflict between his enforced via curse soul state and his human and Angelus vamp state. Are not the same conditions at work with his curse and the guilt and conscience that are forced on him by his souled state the same as Spike's chip. Both conditions force changed behavior on them. And a big event that is part of Angel's conduct is, as you state, he does feed from humans, even with the soul. Spike is also forced to change, but he does not kill humans - he could have others kill for him but does not.
Michael Tomasello is co-director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
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Why we fight was the funniest for me. Seeing Spike dressed as a Nazi inspired me!
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"I know that I'm a monster, but you treat me like a man."
I think he says that because he was treated like less than he deserves all his life, so when Buffy suddenly becomes mildly nice he thinks she's some kind of saint for it.
Maybe also because he has too little perspective on how a man is to be treated. He obviously was treated like shit by girls when he was human and Dru-- God knows she was probably just an energy sucking vampire (no pun intended) and used him up dry and made him think he needed her.
So I think it's basically because he doesn't have much to relate to in that area. sept his mom.... lol
- If you want to win a war, you must serve no master but your own ambition..
-The greatest pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.- A religious war is like children fighting over who has the strongest imaginary friend.
Guest
SPIKE: (skeptical) Yeah... the thing about the Slayer is... she is a whiny little thing, but when it comes to the fighting, she does have a slight tendency to win.
ADAM: Then I guess you should be on her side.
Spike doesn't respond directly, but tries to get Adam to confirm that he's going to get his chip out. Also, Buffy is Spike's kind of fighter. She will take on fights that she knows she can't win. He admires that. So maybe Spike is partly motivated by his admiration for Buffy as a fighter and her ability to win against bad odds.
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You treat me like a man - Buffy can't afford to treat Spike like a man, really. His journey to being a good guy is very uneven. In Crushed - he tells her he's changed and confuses having a chip with change, then after professing love for her and saying he's willing to give up the whole bad boy thing, runs out and at Drusilla's prodding goes out hunting. When Buffy shows up at his crypt, he has blood on his mouth. She asks him what happened (thinks he's been in a fight and hurt himself?) If you look at her actions from the time she chats with Willow and her mom until Drusilla zaps her with the taser, Buffy is treating Spike pretty kindly and wants to let him down easy. She is prepared to acknowledge on some level that he has feelings (no matter what she thinks about the nature of those feelings) and that she owes him the courtesy of saying that she doesn't want a love relationship with him. His response is to let Drusilla shock her into unconsciousness and tie the two of them up. Spike simply can't be trusted. Really, she should have dusted him right then and would have if she'd known what he and Drusilla had been up to. By S5, things are shifting, but Buffy can't really be expected to keep up with Spike's day to day thinking, can she? Ultimately, Buffy can't give Spike the benefit of the doubt because if she does, she's going to have to question the morality of dusting any vampires.
The treat me like a man line is not so off base. By by letting Spike back into her house (her heart as a friend?) she is acknowledging that he is no longer the person who chained her up in his basement and that he deserves to be forgiven for that and other past transgressions. In S5, after Intervention and the Buffybot incident, she defended him to her friends (insists that he's going to be coming with them when they try to run away from Sunnydale), going to him for help, and bringing him into the group. It really has to be her encouraging him to show up at the Scooby meetings when they make their plans. No one else would go get him and ask him to show up, except maybe Dawn, yet he's frequently there. I'm sure a lot of people feel that Spike deserved even better treatment, but Buffy wasn't totally ignoring him either.
Moderator
I am upper management.
Yes. For the point in which Spike makes that statement, it's true.
I agree with Guest (Judy?)--Spike's love for Buffy helped to make him change, and not Buffy herself. However, I think that Spike's love for Buffy was a catalyst for something that could have been inevitable. Spike always saw the big picture and didn't play by the set rules. Or, if not Buffy, it could have been some other woman or something that would make him want to change. But I think the important thing to keep in mind about Spike is that he was always constantly propelling forward, like a shark. Any number of circumstances could have made him change.
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What are some of the pivotal moments when Buffy and Spike take steps forward together on their journey of transformation – I say together, because I feel they took the ultimate journey together?
Some of these pivotal moments take both big heroic actions and are also subtle – like when Buffy is resurrected and goes out drinking with Spike and she tells him that he was suppose to help her "fix her life." While it was said in the context of "light comedy" to me this was an important statement on her emotional state, but also how she does see Spike in her unconscious state. Another of the less spectacular, but good Buffy-Spike moments is in "All the Way" – in their last scene when she complements him on doing good fight and helping save Dawn. This scene to me is like one "could have been" had Buffy not been so screwed over by her emotional trauma in her normal everyday Slayer life mode.
Michael Tomasello is co-director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
Spike's love for Buffy was a catalyst for something that could have been inevitable - Not so sure it was inevitable - the chip brings Spike's career as a badass to a screeching halt, but he's still wicked (and yummy fun). It's his love for Buffy and Dawn and Joyce that brings him back to the good side. In fact, it may have been that first chat over hot chocolate with Joyce. :)
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