Buffy’s Dance with the Vamps: Why Spike’s Soul Matters

[maggie2]

In response to some comments on my previous post, here's a four-page essay on the role Spike's soul plays in Buffy's story. 

 

In the comments to my last post on multiple motivations, there was a lot of discussion about whether Spike’s soul matters, and if so how. The conversations are mostly about how Spike’s soul fits in with his own journey, but the dilemma comes with trying to figure out what the “soul” means in the ‘verse as a whole. I’ve tried for a long time to come up with one theory of the soul, but I can’t find one that does justice to both Angel’s story and to Spike’s. This is not to say that the individual stories aren’t compelling and insightful. But the “soul” seemed to shift around to fit the demands of the story at the moment. Sidebar: and let’s just get one thing off the table for good:  whatever it is that “soul” means in the ‘verse, it has nothing to do with what a Christian would call a soul. But that’s a topic for another day.

 

 

candleanfeather observes in a comment that there are often ambiguities and tensions that crop up when we try to reconcile the multiple stories being told in the ‘verse.  I agree with her, and would argue that it’s a feature and not a bug. Sidebar: another story for another day.   But while I don’t think there’s one unifying principle that picks up all the details for all the stories in a way that is coherent, I do think there’s one primary story which actually does make sense, which drives the plotting involved with souls. And that’s the story of what the vampires with souls mean to Buffy and her journey. Cause as Joss has said, the question you always have to start with is “what’s the Buffy of it”.

 

The Buffy of the Vampire with Souls: The Basic Theory

 

Buffy is a human being who has been endowed with special powers that are at least associated with the demonic. One of her central projects in BtVS is coming to terms with the two sides of herself, finding a way to reconcile them. One way to dramatize Buffy’s internal struggle to reconcile the demonic with the human is to involve her in romances with creatures that have similar struggles. And what could serve that purpose better than a vampire with a soul, a demon who struggles with his humanity the way Buffy struggles with her demonic power? Enter Angel.

 

In falling in love with Angel, Buffy is falling in love with the singular creature in her acquaintance who has both demonic and human forces within him. His soul tames the demon and allows her to enter into a relationship with the demonic, which is a vehicle for coming to terms with the demonic within her. The demonic here is often understood as purely evil, but it’s clear that a domesticated version of it is good: it’s a source of strength and power and sheer exuberance. Sidebar: Angel is the antithesis of exuberant, of course; but check out Angelus!. When Buffy attempts an actual union with Angel, however, things fall apart in a devastating way. It turns out that for Angel, the price of loving Buffy is losing his own soul.   Buffy’s first experience with trying to be in relationship with the demonic is traumatic and deeply scarring. After a yearlong coda wherein Buffy and Angel try to pretend that they can be together without being together, they separate, and Buffy retreats from the demonic side of herself. (Bad experiences with Faith are a part of this movement).

 

Buffy’s next move is to ignore the demonic side of herself by entering into a romantic relationship with Riley. Riley’s synthetic superpower makes this possible, I think, but the relationship is never fully satisfying to Buffy who needs to make peace with the genuine demonic within her. Two things happen that spell an end to Buffy’s relationship with Riley. First, the big spell at the end of season 4 unleashes the primitive slayer basically forcing Buffy to reengage with the project of coming to terms with the demonic origins of her own power. Second, Riley loses the synthetic power-up and ceases to be able to engage that side of Buffy in any way. Buffy has to stop pretending that she’s just a human, and that means she has to risk going into the dark, a journey which begins not remotely coincidentally in an episode called Into the Woods. Her refusal to engage and reconcile herself with her demonic side, which is the source of her power, but also a potential source of exuberance, is a big part of her growing death wish, I think.

 

But Buffy is not yet out of options. Spike is there, waiting for her in the dark. Now, Spike does NOT have a soul and is therefore NOT a fit companion for Buffy. What he does have, though, is some impulse towards the human in his demon. The judge remarked on that back in Surprise; it has been given room to grow by virtue of the chip which hindered Spike’s unfettered expression of his demonic self; and it has now manifested itself in the form of Spike’s love for Buffy. But though the demon in Spike is inclining towards the human, the absence of the soul still means he can’t mirror Buffy properly. It’s not unlike the way that Riley’s synthetic demonic powers were insufficient to mirror Buffy’s genuinely demonic side. Buffy is nonetheless drawn to Spike, but the result is that she is drawn further towards the demonic in herself, and risks losing her human side altogether.   But where Angel’s love for Buffy cost him his soul, it turns out that Spike’s love for Buffy ultimately drives him to seek a soul.  

 

This is huge. Where Buffy’s first effort to enter into her necessary dance with the dark ended in disaster, her second (reluctantly entered into) dance with the dark ends up with her having inspired a vampire to the unprecedented act of seeking a soul.   Painful and ugly as their relationship often  was, Spike’s quest for the soul turns Buffy’s dangerous dance with the dark into something quite beautiful. As a result of it, she now has a partner who can be the perfect mirror for her. He’s a vampire with a soul, but unlike Angel he’s the vampire who wanted the soul.   Buffy’s reconciliation with Spike over the course of season seven reflects her own internal reconciliation with her own power.  By the end, she and Spike have become very close, and she has become very confident and sure of herself as a human who can exercise demonic powers without being overwhelmed by them. It is only at this stage in her journey that Buffy can think about sharing her powers with others, and it’s no coincidence that Buffy comes to possess the scythe which is the vehicle for spreading her powers with the aid of the strength Spike gave her (End of Days).   Spike’s quest for the soul is an essential moment in Buffy’s story.

 

Some Further Thoughts

 

1. Notice that Angel, the vampire who was cursed with a soul that his demonic self utterly loathes, serves as Buffy’s mirror during a stage in her journey when she regards her own calling as a slayer as a curse. In addition to the fact that she literally cannot be united with Angel without unleashing evil upon the world, Buffy needs to transcend Angel if she is ever to get to a stage where she can regard her slayer calling as a gift and not a curse or a burden. Bangel just is not a possible long run outcome on this account. Not without something earth shattering that would induce Angelus to actually seek a soul himself. Angel’s true story, which is now (appropriately) distinct from Buffy’s is about how one comes to terms with being human when one’s deepest nature is in rebellion against that project.   Whether this is even possible remains an open question.

 

2. Spike’s acquisition of the soul is in service to Buffy’s story. But in terms of his own story it is also a good thing. As I argued above, there was always an inclination to the human present in Spike, and with the soul he steps into the full realization of that yearning.  At the end of season 5, we see that Spike has come to see, even without the soul, that he aspires to be at least treated like a man. The acquisition of a soul which allows him to enter into an even deeper relationship with the human side of himself is just a fulfillment of that aspiration.

 

3.  Because Spike has been such an essential part of Buffy’s story, we need to know how this relationship resolved in order to understand where Buffy is at.   Does she still think that she loves Angel more? If so, she hasn’t embraced her demonic side as well as she might have, because this would represent a yearning to be with someone who has a big rift between his demonic side and his human side.  Or does the apparent lack of peace Buffy is currently suffering reflect the way things finally resolved between them when Spike returned from the dead?   The Buffy we saw at the end of The Chosen could have been done with this part of her journey. The Buffy we see now is not nearly so obviously done with that part of her journey. So what happened? We need to know. This is the second biggest reason why I think it would be strange if Joss didn’t tell us more about Spike in season 8. Sidebar: the first biggest reason is that he’d have closed out the story in a few bubbles if it were really over in his mind.

 

4. As should be obvious, Spike’s acquisition of the soul is NOT a weak echo of Angel’s story, but rather is the story redone in the right key. Buffy doesn’t need a demon cursed with a soul; she needs a demon who fought for one.  

 

5. A good deal of the angst of Spuffy in season five and especially season six is because in the context of this framework things couldn’t work between Buffy and Spike until Spike had a soul. But it’s also the case that there’s an extra helping of angst because Buffy is working out her trauma with Angel in the context of her relationship with Spike.   It would take a lot of space to elaborate on this, but a lot of the abuse Buffy heaps upon Spike strikes me as a projection of her anger at Angel onto Spike. I think that’s part of why emotionally, Buffy’s reconciliation with Spike serves also to heal her long-standing wounds from the debacle with Angel. Spike has given Buffy a great deal, including absorbing a lot of the suffering that was really due to Angel and not him. I think that’s intentional. Spike has made a huge gift to Buffy, sacrificing his whole self. Joss’s choice to let him die apparently in the full belief that his love was not returned (despite the fact that he’s absorbed the anger and pain caused by Angel) just underscores the gratuitous nature of what Spike has done for Buffy.   Spike is a big hero here. Indeed, instead of complaining that Spike has been given short shrift by Whedon, the more live concern strikes me as being whether or not Spike’s role ends up outshining Buffy’s to the detriment of whatever feminist message the show is supposed to be conveying. 

 

6. The standard story that we get from interviews with Whedon, other writers, and Marsters is that Spike was supposed to be killed off in season 2; was brought back in season 4 to take up the snarky truth-telling position vacated by Cordelia; and then (presumably because of the character’s popularity) got sucked into the role of being Buffy’s major romantic partner. That might well be true. But if you take this story that I’ve just told and read through from the very beginning you’ll find a shocking amount of supporting detail. Angelus as having no humanity in contrast to Spike’s humanity is established early on. Buffy’s insight into this is established as early as Lie to Me. There’s a long-standing sexual tension between the two, both in how the actors respond to one another and in things like their mutual expression of preference when it comes to who they want to fight (What’s My Line). [I’ve read recently that for years Jane Espenson had a note taped to her wall that said that Buffy has sex dreams about Spike.] In season four, there is an awful lot of detail that could be marshaled in support of the argument that Riley was always going to be an inadequate solution to Buffy’s problem and that Spike was going to end up being the answer no matter how unlikely that seemed to be on the surface. One example of many is Something Blue when it is exactly Buffy’s fear of being attracted to the dark Spike that moves her from utterly indifferent to Riley to thinking that’s a direction she wants to go. I’m not going to say that this story was planned from the get go. But I am saying that you can read the whole show as if it was planned from the get go. However that came about, the results are pretty cool.  And if this is how Joss treats a character he doesn’t like, then I’m really glad that he didn’t like Spike.

Comments

[speakr2customrs.livejournal.com]

Very insightful.

[2maggie2.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

[ms-scarletibis.livejournal.com]

[I’ve read recently that for years Jane Espenson had a note taped to her wall that said that Buffy has sex dreams about Spike.]
That makes a lot of sense, and adds to the whole "protesting too much" we get in s4 and s5.

One example of many is Something Blue when it is exactly Buffy’s fear of being attracted to the dark Spike that moves her from utterly indifferent to Riley to thinking that’s a direction she wants to go.
This too feeds into the "protesting too much--flee in the opposite direction out of desperation" deal.

Also, I don't remember where I read it, but for a show that didn't know what they were doing with Spike in s4, it's pretty interesting that we got "I Will Remember You" and "Something Blue" on the same night, where Angel has oodles of sex with Buffy and rejects that reality, and Spike gets the deep romantic love in SB and embraces it fully (an inverse of the two actual relationships--Angel got one night and a near three year romantic love, and Spike got one night of "being close" and oodles of sex). Another inverse upon many that was established early on.

Great insights.

[next_to_normal]

we got "I Will Remember You" and "Something Blue" on the same night

Not quite. They aired close to one another, but "I Will Remember You" was the week before "Something Blue" (which makes sense if you think about it, since in SB, Buffy is talking about having just seen Angel. That wouldn't be possible if the episodes were shown back to back, as BtVS came on first).

[2maggie2.livejournal.com]

Macha (can be found at Tea at the Ford) has meta about the three episodes: Pangs-IWRY-Something Blue. In Pangs, Spike wants in, but Angel hanging around outside NOT asking to come in. In IWRY, Angel doubles down on wanting to stay outside (however nobly you read his intentions). In Something Blue, Spike doubles down (in a magically induced way) on his desire to really come in, thereby setting up the contrast with Angel.

If it's an accident, it's a pretty accident.

[gabrielleabelle.livejournal.com]

You speak pretty words.

*Bookmarked for safe-keeping*

[2maggie2.livejournal.com]

Ooh, thanks!!

[annegables.livejournal.com]

I really like the insights you show here and the comparison of her relationships. I have always felt that each of her relationships were showing a different need in her that had to be filled until she could move on.

I do not believe that she could never have a relationship with Angel again. They would actually have a lot more in common now than they ever had before. It would, however, be a hugely different relationship than the one they had previously. But, the same would apply to Spike, so there we go.

[ms-scarletibis.livejournal.com]

I do not believe that she could never have a relationship with Angel again. They would actually have a lot more in common now than they ever had before.

Yeah, but it'd be quite the downer, wouldn't it? One huge angst fest. They never made each other happy or joked around. The only incident where they do is in "Chosen," and that's cause Angel's talking about Spike. There's no balance with Buffy and Angel.

[2maggie2.livejournal.com]

On this reading she really can't be with Angel. He's cursed with the soul and at odds with himself. Unless Angelus can be made to get on board with the soul; or maybe if Buffy comes apart enough that she's divided between the human and her demonic powers within herself.

Of course, there are other readings possible, and it could well be that on those readings Angel and Buffy belong together. I'm attached to this one though, so I'd be pretty squicked. But that certainly doesn't mean that other people have to be in the same boat as me!!

[next_to_normal]

Very interesting analysis. I actually don't think it's all that hard to reconcile Angel's and Spike's soul stories, but that's a whole separate discussion. Regardless, it makes a lot of sense when you tie it to Buffy's character development, and I can see how, based on this analysis, you expect Spike to show up in season 8 to complete Buffy's arc. I still don't think it's going to happen, though.

But since you've included Riley in your analysis, I'm curious what you think of Buffy's relationship with Satsu, and how that fits into her acceptance (or lack thereof) of her demonic side. Here is someone who is not just a mirror, but actually in the same situation as Buffy. Does that show further acceptance, or is it a step backwards?

[2maggie2.livejournal.com]

Good question about Satsu, and I'll have to think about it to see if I can come up with anything major. My only observations so far are that they do drop in a fair number of small comparisons between her and Spike (rude girl/punkish; she's the devoted one as was Spike; her best co-warrior; one other thing that I forget right now). We don't yet know where it's going. And I don't know what to do with the fact that Buffy really is just dabbling here. She was much more invested in Spike even when she hated him. Is that because of differences between Satsu and Spike; a change in where Buffy's at; or just a reflection of the fact that Buffy just isn't gay? No clue.

I'm out on a limb in the prediction about season 8 and Spike. We'll see what happens! (If I'm wrong, I'll try to be gracious in defeat.)

[menomegirl.livejournal.com]

Very insightful meta, even if I do disagree with you some on the Riley thing. In any given discussion on Buffy, he always gets dismissed too easily.

[2maggie2.livejournal.com]

Thanks! In this framework, Riley can only be a transition figure. That doesn't mean there can't be other readings which give his story a brighter spin.

[lynnenne]

Buffy’s reconciliation with Spike over the course of season seven reflects her own internal reconciliation with her own power.

I agree, and I've always read Spike as a sort of shadow-self for Buffy (in the same way that Faith was in S3).

I'm suspicious of the party line that Spike was intended to be killed off. I think the writing staff adopted that line at the beginning, in case Marsters didn't work out or the fans hated him, and then just ran with it. But I suspect that Joss always intended for Spike to turn into a shadow-self for Buffy. I mean, he named the character Spike. It's an obvious phallic reference, intended to highlight the character's role as the embodiment of masculine violence - the same way that Buffy is the embodiment of feminine strength. (Also, eerily similar to the name "Pike," Buffy's cohort and presumed romantic interest in the movie.)

Angel’s true story, which is now (appropriately) distinct from Buffy’s is about how one comes to terms with being human when one’s deepest nature is in rebellion against that project.

I think "Not Fade Away" illustrates that Angel has reconciled the two sides of his nature. The episode begins with him signing away his once-coveted humanity; it ends with him using his vampiric nature to drink from Hamilton, steal his power and win the fight against him. It also ends with a not-so-subtle declaration that Connor, not the Shanshu, is where Angel's humanity and future really lies:

CONNOR: "They'll destroy you."
ANGEL: "As long as you're okay, they can't."

One of the many, many things I love about the end of Angel is that it shows Angel embracing both his demon and his human sides. One helps him win the fight; the other gives him something worth fighting for.

Interesting thoughts. Thanks for posting.

[2maggie2.livejournal.com]

Oh, it's great to meet someone who's suspicious of that party line! Because when I watch season 2 it's hard to think they didn't have some idea about the role Spike was ultimately going to play in her life.

I think you can argue that Angel's human side has embraced the demon side in NFA. But I've seen no hint at all that Angelus would want the soul back if Angel ever got unensouled. So the demon is emphatically not down with the human part, and that's what I was talking about.

[speakr2customrs.livejournal.com]

How is Buffy's name the embodiment of feminine strength? Surely she's simply named after Buffy St. Marie in the same way as the central characters in 'Clueless' are named after Cher and Dionne Warwick, and the idea is to define her as a product of the same environment and time as those characters.

[kseenaa.livejournal.com]

Wow. That was very interesting. :-)

[2maggie2.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

[shapinglight]

Very interesting, Maggie, and can I also say that after yesterday, it's good to read a piece of meta that doesn't leave me feeling shaken and upset. (It was stupid of me to get so upset, I know, but there it is).

I've never thought Joss hated Spike, btw. I don't think he 'hates' any of the characters he creates/co-creates. That would be incredibly counter-productive. However, though I've often felt that one way to view the Spike/Buffy relationship in season 7 was to see it as Buffy being healed of the trauma her relationship with Angel had caused her (which is not, as you say, to say she couldn't have an entirely different, and better, relationship down the road with Angel now, because she's healed and all), I'm not convinced that's how Joss saw it, or that he saw Spike's relationship with Buffy as being nearly as important to her as it was to him (Spike, I mean). I don't know.

I would be better able to accept your reading if the story had emphatically ended in Chosen, but since Joss has chosen to continue it in some fashion, all the questions remain open. If Spike is never referenced again in season 8, then I fear I must conclude that Joss has already compartmentalised Spike/Buffy as being something that Buffy is 'over' and that no longer has any relevance for her.

I do definitely agree with you, though, that Buffy could never settle down (or however you want to put it) with a 'normal' human partner. It just wouldn't work. We've seen that over and over.

Sorry this isn't very insightful, and with far too much emphasis on the 'shipping element of your post (its smallest component) and not enough of the very interesting exposition on Buffy's nature and character.

[2maggie2.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

Funny how arguments can bother, even when they're weak. (I've often had that reaction). But this argument really is weak. Notice, for example, the way his original argument places a lot of weight on two quotes from the scene. It turns out that neither quote fits into the sequence as he would have you believe and as he needs to make the argument work. It's the telltale sign of someone who is working very hard to convince themselves that an unpleasant fact is false. For him, the unpleasant fact is that Buffy and the Slayerettes did not route the ubervamps themselves. Too bad, though. They didn't.

If Joss doesn't mention Spike in season 8, then not only is my theory completely wrong; it's also the case that Joss has abandoned his most basic principles about story-telling, namely that histories matter and that events permanently mark his characters. Moreover, he's portraying his protagonist as the sort of shallow bitch who went through all of that with Spike, but who hasn't been affected by him in any way (to the extent that we don't need to know what the final chapter was there in order to understand her). I just can't believe that's where Joss is at. And if he is, then I'll just have to believe that BtVS is sort of the equivalent of a bunch of monkeys typing and accidentally producing Hamlet. Which, you know, is possible, but not very likely.

[enisy.livejournal.com]

As you know, I love your reading best of all, Maggie, even though I'm not convinced that Joss had all these parallels and reversals in mind while writing the story. (There's another quote that might back up your theory, though, besides Jane Espenson's note about the sex dreams. James Marsters said in a Harsh Light of Day Q&A, back in 2006, that he'd once asked Joss whether he'd subconsciously written the Riley/Buffy relationship in such a way that it left things really open for Spike, and Joss had replied in a sarcastic tone that maybe he had "unconsciously" -- implying that it had been quite conscious on his part. :P *shrugs*)

[2maggie2.livejournal.com]

I was watching the first half of season 4 a while back and I was just shocked at how many times there were details that foreshadowed that Buffy was going to end up with Spike, or that suggested that we should view Spike and Riley as rivals. It's very hard for me to watch season 4 and believe that Joss didn't have big plans for Spike -- massive cognitive dissonance.

Thanks for the tidbit of supporting evidence. Someday I'll put up a post with all those things that caught my eye, but it probably won't be too soon.

In any case, if it really was an accident, we are still entitled to read the text we have, and that text supports my reading!

[jamalov29.livejournal.com]

Great post. Here via sueworld2003. Thank you for the much interesting thoughts.I really enjoyed your analysis. And here :
But where Angel’s love for Buffy cost him his soul, it turns out that Spike’s love for Buffy ultimately drives him to seek a soul. Nods contentedly. This difference always struck me as something meaningful in the spuffy relationship.

[2maggie2.livejournal.com]

Thanks! Yeah, for me the getting of the soul makes all the difference. It was nice to see the bit of interview with Joss floating around where he says as much.

[moscow-watcher.livejournal.com]

Great essay!

Joss told recently that as soon as he met James Marsters he started to shape the Spike we know:

http://icafreak.livejournal.com/267794.html

Yet even in the script of School Hard, written before the auditions started, there are surprizing tidbits that suggest that Spike was doomed to become a major player and Buffy's mirror. "Home, sweet home". "Do we really need weapons for this?" Indeed. :)

Also, Buffy and Spike wear "Spuffy red marks" in this episode.



Sometimes I wonder if it was karmic. I mean - rewatch School Hard. As soon as Dru tries to "see" the slayer, her face changes. She says she can't see her. But with in hindsight it looks like she saw Spike "covered with the slayer" but lied to him.

[2maggie2.livejournal.com]

And Buffy's line "No, Spike, it's going to hurt a lot"? Sends chills down my spine every time I hear it.

Angel telling us that Spike's primary trait is that he doesn't give up.

The first thing we learn about Spike is that he's an unsouled demon who can love. Contrasts with the Angelus we're going to meet in mid-season.

And all the stuff you say.

And that's just School Hard.

Skip ahead to Becoming: How is it not total foreshadowing of my theory that Spike is the one who helps Buffy stop the apocalypse that Angel started? And there's plenty between those two episodes. And that's just season two.

But my official position is just that however it came about the text can be read as though this were intended -- not that it was actually intended.

[angearia.livejournal.com]

Fantastic meta, Maggie. I'm with you on this again and in the hope that Spike's importance to Buffy is addressed in Season 8. Should we form a club? Have any ideas for a good name? 'Too hopeful for their own good', perhaps?

[2maggie2.livejournal.com]

Thanks! Good idea about the club. I'll ponder good names, but "too hopeful for their own good" might have to be it.

Though actually (and she gets out a stick to beat that dead horse one. more. time.), I still just can't even begin to wrap my brain around the idea that Joss doesn't think he needs to say something about Spike. It makes no sense, and it would be out of character for Joss to think that it didn't matter. Yet, I obviously hold the minority view on this around here. Maybe it's the "not so cynical club". Or the "we still think Joss has at least the slightest clue about how to tell a story club".

[candleanfeather.livejournal.com]

A very interesting piece of meta which shows how the coherence of the show lies not in the technicality of the world JW created but rather in its mythological depths. Now are all the parallels we see in the story intentionnally there, I don't think so, but a big part of them is: after all JW's world is a world of metaphors and symbols. Parallels, mirror plays, doubles are an integral part of that writing arsenal and the writers sometimes pushed very far in that direction, if you want to look at how they used the costumes from time to time. About Spike, I doubt they had an idea of what they would do with him as soon as season 2, but what's interesting in JW's recent interview is how this character attracted his attention from the beginning (and somehow I think that's what permitted him to stay in the show rather than his single popularity) and how, as the show progressed they discovered new layers and new possibilities for him. How did they elaborated his story to give it such a coherence? Probably in several ways: planning in advance,sometimes using ideas that had previously cropped up during their work but hadn't been developped at the time being, always keeping a vey clear view of where the character was at the end of a season. In regard to Spike's development and how the writers worked, I think Restless is an important episode. There's a little piece of meta about it in my LJ if it interests you.

[2maggie2.livejournal.com]

I'll check out your piece on Restless. I think what we got is a mix of what they (vaguely) intended for the character and the way they wove an unanticipated but organic development into the fabric of what they'd already laid down. Which is just to say that I agree with you.

[sarian71]

Hi! What a great piece of meta! I just want you to know that I immensely enjoyed reading it and the discussions following it. I'm putting this to my memories, together with your excellent 'Spike and Season 8' post!