by Field, Mark
The stake out was an obvious sham. Letting Dru tase Buffy and then tying Buffy up and threatening to kill her isn’t exactly a turn on.
His offer to stake Dru in return for Buffy’s agreement to “give him a crumb” is more interesting. In S1, Angel proved himself to Buffy by staking Darla. That differed in two important ways from what Spike did here. First, Angel didn’t demand anything in return. Second, Angel didn’t threaten to let Darla go free and have her way with Buffy.
If Spike isn’t doing anything in Crush to make himself attractive to Buffy (or any sane woman), why then is Buffy so concerned that there’s something in *her* that made her attractive to Spike? Obviously she’s insecure because Riley just left town, as did Angel before him. But there’s more: consider that Spike’s long-time girlfriend was Drusilla, an insane, cold-blooded killer (both parts of which are rubbed in our faces during this episode). Buffy’s concern must be in part based on a fear that Spike sees similar qualities in her: maybe she herself is becoming cold and predatory. Remember this dialogue from Buffy v. Dracula:
BUFFY: (gestures helplessly, gets up to pace) And then this whole thing with Dracula ... it made me face up to some stuff. (Giles looks concerned) Ever since we did that spell where we called on the first slayer ... I've been going out a lot. (Giles looks surprised) Every night.
GILES: Patrolling?
BUFFY: Hunting. That's ... what Dracula called it. (pacing) And he was right. He understood my power better than I do. He saw darkness in it.
I think there’s even more to this point, but that would take us into spoiler territory so I’ll leave it for Intervention.
Buffy also has serious Angel issues. She certainly doesn’t want a repeat of her experience with Angelus. For Buffy, the distinction between a soul and a chip is crucial even if Dawn doesn’t think so:
BUFFY: He's a killer, Dawn. You cannot have a crush on something that is ... dead, and, and evil, and a vampire.
DAWN: Right, that's why you were never with Angel for three years.
BUFFY: (quietly) Angel's different. He has a soul.
DAWN: Spike has a chip. Same diff.
Buffy has to believe in the difference. It would be impossible for her to go out every night and slay vampires if they weren’t inherently evil (see my long discussion of this point in my post on Amends). Worse yet, it would raise the question why Spike could choose to love her but Angelus couldn’t. I doubt she wants to face that possibility; that’s why she crushes Spike’s hopes at the end.
Enough of romance for now. Let’s talk about Spike more generally. I don’t want to leave the impression that only shippers were involved in the controversies about Spike. That may seem like I’m implicitly limiting Spike’s fan base to them or even dismissing them, when I’m not. For many of Spike’s fans, what was important was not that Spike was succeeding with Buffy, but that he was trying.
If you see Spike as Alex from A Clockwork Orange, then at this point it’s an open question which way the show will go. It could be the chip will enable his redemption, that he’ll gradually learn human behavior from his inability to give reign to his demon instincts. That, remember, was the idea behind the operant conditioning Alex received in the novel. Alternatively, it could be that the “soul canon” remains in effect, meaning that Spike can’t be redeemed without one, as Buffy suggests in her rebuke of Dawn.
The arguments about Spike’s path generated enormous controversy on the Buffy discussion boards. In fact, it’s not possible to overstate just how much controversy there was. I’ll give some very early, and relatively tame, contemporary examples across the spectrum of this debate:
“Maybe I'm a hopeless romantic but I'd like to believe that if he wants he can change. It doesn't have to be easy. … I always thought that Spike has the intelligence and imagination to be able to control his own actions. i.e.: Cogito ergo sum. I think I am good therefore I am good.”
“As much as I love the character I personally love him for his role as a villain and an Id without inhibition. … To me the chip does not equate with a soul a la Angel and I don't believe that the gang is at all being too hard on Spike.
… Spike wants Buffy in my opinion because of his unlife-long obsession with Slayers and his doing her favors like watching Dawn and her mother or battling at her side are driven by the motivation to attain her love not by the motivation to do good. What alternative does he have? With that chip in his head he can't be the predator he was and he doesn't have the core group he once had with Darla Dru and Angelus. I believe that the Buffy lust stems from him needing something once again to save him from another mediocrity: life without evil. … What's changed is that he can't do the killing he'd normally be performing.”
“Spike is more than just an enemy. He is a brutal, mass murderer. Instead of visualizing Spike or some other vampire prostrating himself before you and confessing his love, visualize Jeffrey Dahmer confessing his love to you. Now ask yourself how you would feel about Jeffrey Dahmer. Would the idea that he loves you entice or repel you? Would it make your feel good about
yourself that a cannibalistic murderer finds you attractive?
To me, the question is not "Why isn't Buffy nicer to Spike?", it's "Why didn't Buffy stake Spike a long time ago?"
To get a sense of David Fury’s view, and to have some fun with multiple levels of irony (some of which I’ll have to explain later), let’s return to the dialogue between Willow and Tara discussing the plot of The Hunchback of Notre Dame:
WILLOW VOICEOVER: I just don't see why he couldn't end up with Esmerelda.
WILLOW: They could have the wedding right there. Beneath the very bell-tower where he labored thanklessly for all those years.
“TARA: No, see, it can't, it can't end like that, 'cause all of Quasimodo's actions were selfishly motivated. He had no moral compass, no understanding of right. Everything he did, he did out of love for a woman who would never be able to love him back. Also, you can tell it's not gonna have a happy ending when the main guy's all bumpy.”
The problem is, Tara’s description is totally wrong. Fury later admitted that he completely screwed up the message of the book in that dialogue. He wanted to make a point about Spike and his unsuitability for Buffy in order to set the tone for the episode, but the actual message of the story of Quasimodo is that his love redeems him. As Harmony would say, Oops.
There will be more fuel to this fire very soon. The Great Internet Spike Wars were just beginning.
Trivia notes: (1) When Xander called Spike “Evil Dead”, that refers to the movie and comic book series of that name. (2) Buffy’s general cluelessness during the conversation about Quasimodo prefigures her shock when Dawn tells her that Spike has a crush on her. (3) Charles Laughton starred in the 1939 movie version of Hunchback. (4) Buffy’s mention of the singing gargoyles refers to the 1996 movie. (5) Joyce ended up with two shipments of Greek amphorae, which were large storage containers used by the Greeks for olive oil and wine. (6) While waiting in the car with Buffy, Spike began to sing “I want to be sedated” by the Ramones. (7) Spike’s conversation with Dru summarizing her recent activities refers to 3 AtS episodes: To Shanshu in LA, The Trial, and Redefinition. (8) Harmony’s description of Dru as “Queen of the Damned” refers to the Anne Rice novel of that title and the movie made from it. (9) Harmony also referred to Dru as Morticia, from the 1960s TV show The Addams Family. (10) Buffy’s description of beating Spike up as “like third base” is American sexual slang. (11) Joyce’s recommendation to Buffy to “nip this in the bud” is an American idiom meaning “stop it before it gets too far”. (12) When Dru accuses Spike of taking her chair before the music stopped, she’s referring to the children’s game Musical Chairs. (13) He may have screwed up with Hunchback, but Fury does get one of the best of the show’s many Shakespeare references: “We can love quite well. If not wisely.” (Othello, Act V, sc. 2.) (14) During the fight in Spike’s basement, Dru grabbed Buffy’s face and looked into her eyes, apparently intending to h
ypnotize her like she did Kendra in Becoming 2.
I Was Made To Love You
Pygmalion, or I Was Made To Love You:
This has never been one of my favorite episodes, mostly because I’ve always found the metaphor somewhat confusing. While listening to her friends talk in the Magic Shop, Buffy seems to identify herself with Warren:
“ANYA: Why would anyone do that [make a robot] if they could have a real live person? WILLOW: Maybe he couldn't. Find a real person. BUFFY: Oh, come on. The guy's just a big wedge of sleaze, don't make excuses for him. WILLOW: I'm not, I'm just saying, people get lonely, and maybe having someone around, even someone you made up ... maybe it's easier. (Shot of Buffy looking pensive.) TARA: But it's so weird. I mean, everyone wants a nice normal person to share with, but this guy, if he couldn't find that, I guess it's ... kinda sad. (Shot of Buffy staring at her hands.)”
Writer Jane Espenson confirms this when she says “When Buffy’s talking with Warren about his break-up with April, she’s actually identifying with him, because she did a lot of the same stuff with Riley that he did with April.” I think that’s a really weird interpretation of both the Buffy/Riley relationship and the Buffy/Warren conversation, so let’s look more closely at what Buffy says in her conversations with Warren and April.
When Buffy’s talking to Warren in the house, I interpret her words to mean that she sees herself as April and Warren as Riley:
WARREN: Okay, I didn't really dump her, as much as I, uh, went out, and, uh, didn't come back. (Buffy stares) I left her, I ... left her in my dorm room.
BUFFY: (angry) You left her in your dorm room?!
WARREN: Well, I figured I could just kinda get away until her batteries gave out. Which should have been days ago.
BUFFY: Did you even tell her? I mean, did you even give her a chance to fix what was wrong?
JE apparently believes Buffy was the one who failed to give Riley a chance to fix things, but that’s a pretty odd reading of the events leading up to Into the Woods. The salient feature of Warren’s behavior, which Buffy expressly calls him on, was that he left April in his room and skipped town. As I read it, Warren maps to Riley because both left town without giving their respective girlfriends a chance to fix the problems. Buffy maps to April because neither one was told there was a problem that needed to be fixed (or was told only at the last minute in Buffy’s case).
Now we get to Buffy and April:
APRIL: I rechecked everything. I did everything I was supposed to do. I was a good girlfriend.
BUFFY: I'm sure you were.
APRIL: I'm only supposed to love him. If I can't do that, what am I for? What do I exist for?
BUFFY: I don't know. (shakes head) It isn't fair. He wasn't fair to you.
Buffy correctly tells April it was Warren’s fault that he left her. Buffy can’t be identifying with Warren because he was the one who left town and Buffy didn’t do that. Besides, Warren was kind of a sad human being and perhaps a sleaze, which Buffy most definitely is not, so I can’t see how we’re supposed to compare her to him. In addition, in Blood Ties Buffy was blaming herself for Riley’s departure; to keep the equivalence she’d have to blame April for Warren’s departure. That would make no sense, and she’s doing the opposite of that in the dialogue above.
Buffy also seems to identify with April in the episode generally. She first decides she needs to be a better girlfriend. Then she sees the result of that with April and realizes that’s the wrong route; hence she cancels her date with Ben.
Given the discrepancy between JE’s comments and what I consider the natural reading of this episode in light of Into the Woods, the whole metaphor seems clumsy to me. Anyway, since I get confused on the metaphor, I’m not wild about the episode overall.
In comments, aaron and State of Siege convinced me that there’s a more charitable reading. I’ll give their take, slightly edited:
Aaron: “I think whether Buffy identifies with Warren or April (or Katrina, even) is less important than that she's sort of trying to identify with all of them (or at least parts of all of them). She's still not over Riley and she still doesn't quite get what her relationship future will be like. She's questioning a lot of things about herself, about men, about her romantic outlook, etc.
In a normal life (and especially a normal TV life), one would hope that Buffy would use this time to figure things out about herself, to grow a bit. But hers is not a normal life, and with the interruption that is to come, she has to put those questions on hold.
In that sense, I think the episode is kind of fascinating. It's as if the writers (intentionally or not) set up a typical TV situation (young woman gets her head on straight, re: boys), and then structurally interrupt that situation with the many tragedies to follow….
State of Siege: IWMtLY exemplifies one of the things I like best about the BtVS as a whole: it is willing to show its heroine confused without adding that additional layer, so common in most television, that tells us what she should—and thus eventually will—be feeling and how we should interpret, indeed judge, her. I have always found that layer condescending to both character and reader, and its absence has been one of the signs of respect Joss accords his characters and viewers.
Aaron: This, right here, is what I was getting at and you put it so well. I think that lack of telegraphing is part of what makes the episode confusing at first. And what I really love (as I guess I've already mentioned) is, not only do they not tell us how we should feel about Buffy, but with the coming episodes, they cut off her path to understanding in a way that delays her understanding and our ability to decide how to feel about it for many many episodes to come.”
However you see the Buffy/Riley/Warren/April comparisons, there’s the whole issue of whether we’re supposed to see Spike’s obsession with Buffy as in some way comparable to April’s obsession with Warren. There seems to be a comparison. Giles and the SG rather forcefully, one might even say cruelly, reject Spike’s attempt to get to Buffy through them. The scene then cuts immediately to the boys at the café cruelly deceiving April about Warren. I can’t tell if we’re supposed to see a comparison there.
Perhaps we’re supposed to compare Spike’s obsession with Buffy to Warren’s not-so-healthy attitude towards women. I’m not sure about this either, but if we assume it’s true then it raises some issues. Was it morally wrong for Warren to have built April? Perhaps we shouldn’t care since she wasn’t technically sentient and he doesn’t seem to have infringed on any person in building her. He also said that he expected to love her, so his intentions at least weren’t evil. Then again, he designed her to be submissive to him, and that’s not so healthy. Spike’s robot order is different, since he’s using things he stole from Buffy and the robot will presumably be similar to her. That’s more invasive, even if no person is actually harmed.
Other aspects of the Buffy/Spike situation are also interesting. Following up on my post on Crush, where I suggested that Buffy was concerned that something about her made her attractive to Spike, she expressly states this in the teaser:
BUFFY: (punches) Spike! (more punches) Spike wants me, how obscene is that?
GILES: Well, it is very strange. I can't imagine what he's thinking. (stands) Uh, not, not that you're not, uh, attractive...
BUFFY: (stops punching) I feel gross, you know, like, like, dirty.
She resumes punching.
GILES: That's ridiculous, you can't be responsible for what Spike thinks or, feels.
BUFFY: (stops punching) Well, aren't I responsible? I mean, something about me had to make him feel that, right? Something that made him say, "woof, that's the one for me!" …
BUFFY: That's my secret to attracting men. You know, it's simple really, you slap 'em around a bit, you torture 'em, you make their lives a living hell-
XANDER: Buff...
BUFFY: ...and sure, the nice guys, they'll run away, but every now and then you'll meet a real prince of a guy like Spike who gets off on it.
> OTOH, did you notice the look on Buffy’s face when Spike went up to April at the party? He clearly did it to make her jealous, and Buffy’s face suggested there might be something to that, her words notwithstanding. As I said in my last post, the dynamic here is fascinating.
Since I was very critical of Xander’s behavior in Into the Woods, I should make a point of his reaction to Buffy’s concern about Spike’s attraction to her:
BUFFY: It's just ... I just wanna know that there's gonna be another good one. One that I won't chase away.
XANDER: There will be. Promise. He's out there, he could come along any minute.
BUFFY: Yeah, and the minute after that I can terrify him with my alarming strength and remarkable self-involvement.
XANDER: What? I don't think you're like that.
BUFFY: Maybe I could change. You know, I could, I could work harder. I could spend less time slaying, I could laugh at his jokes, I mean, men like that, right, the, the joke-laughing-at?
XANDER: Or maybe you could just be Buffy, he'll see your amazing heart, and he'll fall in love with you.
Getting back to Warren, I said that he was kind of a sleaze, but he’s not completely without sympathy. Building a sexbot isn’t high on the list of noble efforts, but he’s kind of sad in being so lonely that he felt he had to do that, as Tara suggested in the quote above. Here’s how Adam Busch (Warren) described his character: “I don’t see Warren as a villain. I don’t see him as a typically evil person, that’s what’s so great about him. I think he’s a human being. He has flaws and he has positives and he’s always given the chance for redemption and he’s always given that moment where he can do the right thing that he never ever does because he is flawed and he does have a lot of issues and an inability to communicate or talk to anyone or really explain what it is that he wants.”