did buffy mean it?

do you think buffy meant it when she told spike she loved him?

  • Yes

    Votes: 33 47.1%

  • No

    Votes: 11 15.7%

  • in some ways

    Votes: 32 45.7%

  • she said it because he was dying and she felt sorry for him

    Votes: 9 12.9%
  • Total voters
    70
I said yes because I don't think Buffy would have said it if she didn't mean it. She had obviously developed feelings for Spike but she didn't owe him anything. I mean, yeah he was dying to save them, but it was kind of like his destiny.
 
I don't think that she loved Spike on the same level that she loved Angel or Riley. She definitely loved him, but not in a "Spend all eternity with this person, do anything for them" type of way. I guess you could say she was fond of him. Also, he was dying at the time. Sacrificing himself so that everyone else would live. In return, she said she loved him, as a parting gift.
 
Honestly I think that she did love him. You could see in the previous episodes that she had an attraction to him and that she did care for him. I think that when she said that she loved him, she meant it.
 
this discussion inspired me to write a essay which i've posted on my own website here if you're interested. let me know what you think....
 
I Voted Yes And I Agree With What You 100% Tranquillity But I Still Hate That He Said "No, You Dont but Thanks For Saying It" That Gets to Me Everytime
 
me too it's like my god spike you've been trying to get her to say it for over 2 years why did you reject it when she said it?
 
I think that she meant it in some ways, she was obviously appreciative for what Spike did, but i don't think that she was IN love with him, so i think that it was maybe a friendship/admiration love.
 
She loved him just like she loved Anya. In no way was she ever truly in love with Spike. But she felt comfort with him. A sort of security blanket, if you will. He was always there for her since before she came back from heaven. In Season 6, her "love" for him was lust. Something that she could feel. Hurt, pain, passion, etc. But in season 7, it became a love of that of a really good friend and confidant. She trusted him. And by saying "i love you" it meant to show how much she appreciated him, and still wanted her in her life, even though she knew he couldn't.
 
I think her love for him was true, but...different. maybe not the all encompassing great romantic love but she did atleast love him for who he was and what he had done for her. I think she saw him as a man, truly. but im not sure it was this deep seated IN love sort of thing... i don't know. It also depends on the day how i feel about it lol.
 
Yes!

She DEFINITELY meant it.

Some may argue that she doesn't really mean it because Spike says "No you don't, but thanks for saying it" after she says she loves him and because of the guilt you can see in her eyes afterward. The reason for this guilt is because she's been telling him for the past 2 years over and over again that she'll never love him, she just kept beating it into him (sometimes literally lol). She said it so often, he started to believe it and has more or less gives up on her ever loving him once season 7 rolls around. The real reason for the guilt in Buffy's eyes at the end of "Chosen" was because she was feeling guilty for having made Spike truly believe that she could and would never love him, no matter what he did, even if she meant it when she said it.

I think that the reasons she doesn't say anything after this exchange is because she's, one, dealing with this guilt of what she's ultimately caused Spike to believe (both about her and himself; that he wasn't good enough for her and never would be, etc) and, two, because Spike's about to explode and the cave is caving in...not much time for an argument at that point. lol.

So yeah, in short, she did mean it when she said she loved Spike. And nothing anyone says will ever make me think otherwise! :happy06:

(I'm new, btw, if that means anything. XD)
 
She loved him. she probably wouldn't throw off her pants and sleep with him again for a long time (after the rape thing it just wouldn;t be right, whether he had a soul at the time or not. but, there is a trust in the relationship and a love for one another that makes their relationship an incredibly adult relationship and one I have always enjoyed watching and reading about. Even without his soul, she felt a love connection too him. Yes she was using him for sex and connection as she admitted but she did care when she hurt him and cared when he got hurt.
 
I think the 'No you don't' was more about Spike's insecurity. He never really got over being 'beneath Buffy'. Unfortunately Spike is astute and he realised that Buffy considered him 'beneath her' during most of their relationship. What Spike didn't realise is that this wasn't personal. He made the same mistake in Season 7 when he thought that Buffy liked men who hurt her but that was more to do with her periodic self loathing.

Did she love him. Probably, she just never got the chance to reaffirm it like she did with Angel.
 
"Love" is such a loaded word that it is really difficult to say whether she "meant" it or not. We all have different ideas and connotations that we attach to "love" that may or may not have existed in Buffy's mind and meaning. I think a lot of people have decided that Buffy didn't love Spike because she didn't treat him the way they would treat someone they love. The difficulty is understanding exactly what was going on in Buffy's head, which we can't do because we're not her. Even talking to the writers won't give us a complete picture because the writers aren't her, either, and therefore can't know everything about her. Writers do know a lot more about their characters that ever makes it onto the page (believe me, I know), but I don't think it's possible to know the character in the intimate way that you know yourself.

With this in mind, I do think that she loved him, but everything was so complicated that they'd need a lot more time to figure out exactly what was between them and what could survive everything they'd been through--time they never got. And I'm not sure what I think about Spike's rejoinder or what he was thinking that prompted him to say it.
 
S
Spirit_Of_Fred
i agree that how people define love can definetely play a part in whether they believe she meant it or not. maybe she meant it by some definitions of love, but not by others.
palabravampiress
palabravampiress
Astute observation.
I can't even entertain the idea that she didn't. After 7 seasons of Buffy's personal growth (and death, and back to life, and death again and back to life again...), not to mention everything she and Spike had been through, the idea that she'd say those words 'cause she thought she should, or was supposed to, or the occasion may have possibly called for it, nope.
I got pretty choked up with their hands in flames and her saying it. But Spike's response is what shoved the tears out of my eyes.
He had already told her he loved her the night before with the holding her and watching her sleep, "...that was the best night of my life" = "i love you" (well, for me it does).
If anything, I don't believe he didn't believe her.
I think that response was in the Spike way - dealing with not only hearing what he'd been wanting to hear for 3 seasons but knowing that good and bad, they created a history that again, to me, made it true. If he would have responded with "and i love you" etc, I would have felt like leftover Velveeta. And on the Velveeta note, I'd been waiting for the story to arc that way and for her to say it to Spike since the episode "Help" (S:7.04), when Cassie told Spike "she'll tell you one day" or something like that. And even though the hand-holding and flames scene itself spoke volumes to me - more than any dialog could have - "Help" popped in my mind during that and I thought, omg... she's gonna say it... and it was bittersweet.

To clarify, I don't think her love for Spike was anywhere near her love for Angel. If Buffy love were a book, Spike and Angel would be different chapters.
 
She could have just said it because she knew it was somethig he had always wanted to hear, and being that he was going to die, it was the perfect opportunity.
 
In some ways of course

But just because someone says 'I love you' on a tv show or in a film, that doesn't mean it's a fairytale and it will just work because that's what love does.
 
We're having this debate in the Buffy character thread, too. Here was my response. This and this came after.

Basically, I think she meant it. First, I don't think there's anything in her character to suggest that "I love you" is something that is easy for her to say when she does feel it, let alone when she's lying. She doesn't just go around saying that word! Not anymore. Then, there were her actions. Her actions were pretty much consistent with the idea of love. Finally, there's the first love thing. People like to act like Buffy is chained to her first love and that she can never really love anyone else. But that's not how love works. The fact that she has residual warm-and-fuzzies for Angel does not mean she must have lied to Spike. I'm in the "she meant it" category.

Buffy is many things, but she's not usually a liar. Let's give her some credit.

I also argued that we can't use Spike's interpretation of Buffy's words as proof of what Buffy felt. They're her words and her emotions. Not his.

Last, I compared them to another TV couple that proved that a passionate, intense, and sometimes even deadly relationship can be just as powerful and enduring as a more traditionally romantic one (at least on TV). The things that make their relationship different from the Angel/Buffy relationship don't automatically make it less real.

So yeah, I think she meant it. Spike's response, I'm still puzzling over.
 
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