Did Spike want his soul?

[Ripper666]

I was just wondering wether Spike wanted his soul or not! I didn't get that part. As it seemed to me he wanted to loose his feelings for Buffy, not a soul. I was tired when I saw the episode so may I missunderstood the hole thing. What do you think!

 

[Gum Gnome33]

Yes, Spike went to Africa to get his soul. There's not much room for doubt, but here are some examples of dialogue that prove it, anyway!

1.Spike: I tried to find it, of course.
Buffy: Find what?
Spike: The spark. The missing... the piece that fit. That would make me fit.

Spike: The spark. I wanted to give you what you deserve, and I got it.

Spike: It's what you wanted, right?

Spike: Why does a man do what he mustn't? For her. To be hers. To be the kind of man who would nev"” (looks away) to be a kind of man.

2.My favorite:Spike: Not the chip, dammit. You honestly think I'd go to the end of the underworld and back to get my soul and then"” (sighs, shakes head) Buffy, I can barely live with what I did. It haunts me. All of it.

3.Buffy: How did you do it? How'd you get your soul back?
Spike: Saw a man about a girl. I went to seek a legend out. Traveled to the other side of the world, made a deal with a demon.
Buffy: Just like that?
Spike: No, not just like that. There was a price. There were trials, torture, pain and suffering... of sorts.

4.And here's a little something extra: 🙂

"Spike looked into his soul at that moment [the attempted rape], and saw the demon in him, and that's what made him want to go get a soul .... We did a big ole mislead on you all, where we wanted you to think he gonna go get the chip out. We knew, the whole time, from the very beginning he was gonna go get a soul. And when he says I want Buffy to have what she deserves, he means a lover with a soul." - Jane Espenson, Buffy writer
Radio interview on the Succubus Club, 5/22/02

 

[Ripper666]

[MENTION=11014]Gum Gnome33[/MENTION]. Yeah I see your arguments. In the end I think that he wanted his soul too. But I am confused about this dialog:

VOICE: You have endured the required trials.

SPIKE: (weakly) Bloody right I have. So, you give me what I want. Make me what I was... so Buffy can get what she deserves.

VOICE: Very well. We will return your soul.

(Spike screams in agony)

Wanted Spike a soul? Or did he wanted to become the vampire he was once. Cruel and without feelings for the Slayer?

 

[Appelsapientje]

When I watched season six for the first time, I actually thought that Spike just wanted to let his chip be removed, in order to be able to hurt Buffy again... Because he kept saying that Buffy should get what she deserved.. All the times he said that, it sounded agressive to me. Wait, now I come to think of it, that would be totally unneccesary, since Spike was already able to hurt Buffy. When I watched season 7 I realized that Spike actually did want his soul.

 

[Ripper666]

Joss has said somewhere that that an intentional mis-direct, to try to add more interest.

Yeah.

All the times he said that, it sounded agressive to me. Wait, now I come to think of it, that would be totally unneccesary, since Spike was already able to hurt Buffy.

That's right. And I think he didn't want to hurt her physical. He wanted to become a cruel, animaly vampire as he was before he had feelings for Buffy. So he damage her phsychical. With Buffy he has just troubles and he wished he could repeat the time before he met Buffy. Then he get a soul and of course he had the feelings again, maybe stronger than before. But he accepted them. Or that's just the way I explained the hole history to me!

 

[Gum Gnome33]

[MENTION=11014]Gum Gnome33[/MENTION]. Yeah I see your arguments. In the end I think that he wanted his soul too. But I am confused about this dialog:

VOICE: You have endured the required trials.

SPIKE: (weakly) Bloody right I have. So, you give me what I want. Make me what I was... so Buffy can get what she deserves.

VOICE: Very well. We will return your soul.

(Spike screams in agony)

Wanted Spike a soul? Or did he wanted to become the vampire he was once. Cruel and without feelings for the Slayer?

When he says "make me what I was," he means, when he was William. The reason it's phrased that way is so that the writers could trick the audience into thinking otherwise. Here's a quote about it from David Fury, (writer):
"Spike's quest was, and ALWAYS WAS, to get his soul restored for Buffy, despite any misleading leaks we may have put out that you fell for." - David Fury

There ya go 😀

Of course I understand what you're saying, though. It would definitely make sense that Spike would want to feel nothing for Buffy, as a means of "fixing" his situation. But that's what's so incredible about Spike; instead of doing that--taking the easy way out--he got his soul. So that he could love her even more, and even better. Cool, huh?

 

[Ripper666]

So I think this thread is out! Thanks for your thoughts, now I understand all this!

😀

 

[white avenger]

I just can't see this arc on the show or even hear it discussed that it doesn't get my imagination going full speed. There just HAS to be a great story there that we only saw a few brief moments of. I can't help but believe that Spike's quest for a soul had to be something that he had been investigating for some time. Certainly, what happened in "Seeing Red" was the catalyst that brought his whole plan to fruition, but the whole thing was just too complicated to have been a spur of the moment decision. Just arranging transportation to and from Africa would have almost certainly required weeks, if not months to arrange. Then there would be the problem of getting to the actual demon habitation, which I'm relatively certain wouldn't have been located within walking distance of an airport.

I toyed with the idea that Wolfram & Hart could have had a hand in the process, but by that time Angel would have been in charge there, and, even if he were willing to help Spike in any way, he would have known the results well before returning to Sunnydale at the end of Season 7.

We might assume that the First Evil had some hand in exploiting the situation to its own advantage afterwards, getting the delirious and barely sane newly ensouled Spike back from there to Sunnydale, but I just can't see the it setting up the whole round trip for him on the chance that he might survive the trials, regain his soul, and then be of use against Buffy back at the hellmouth.

ANYHOW...in answer to the original question, yes, I believed at the time that Spike would end up with a soul by the end of Season 6, so it wasn't any real shock to me when it happened. It was, in fact, a quite common topic on the Buffy forum that I frequented at the time, and the general consensus from the beginning of Season 6 was that Joss would find some way for it to happen. Even the Bangels there weren't surprised when it happened.

 

[Skytteflickan88]

As said above, but both fans and the actor (I have no source for this, I read it somewhere) were suppose to think that he wanted his chip gone. I vaugely recall that JM didn't know this until the scene where he actually got the soul, which explains his acting. I think his behaviour would have made much more sense if JM had known, because I imagine he would have played Spike with a bit of fear and uncertainty, like he feared getting his soul again.

 

[ladydorotea]

I never had a doubt that Spike wanted his soul. The questions that should be asked though is not 'what ' he wanted but 'why' he wanted it. I took it as an act of ultimate masochism ( and here JM's acting and not knowing what he is acting actually worked rather well )- sure he did it for Buffy but more or less in a gesture of 'cutting off a nose to spite the face', or if you like a virtual demonic suicide. I could never see it as an act of self-improvement for that reason - but rather as an act of Stokholm syndrome sufferer ultimate surrender to his fate. That chip did not help - it was like watching the final act of the Clock Work Orange being played out... dark and disturbing.

 

[Gum Gnome33]

The "why" was always very clear to me, thanks to that ever-frustrating plot device bathroom incident. Had Spike's quest for a soul occurred after any ordinary day it might not have been so obvious. But here, again, let Jane Espenson sum it up:
"Spike looked into his soul at that moment [the attempted rape], and saw the demon in him, and that's what made him want to go get a soul...And when he says I want Buffy to have what she deserves, he means a lover with a soul."

I mean as far as the "why" goes I don't think it can really get clearer than that. Spike tells Buffy himself, why:
"For her. To be hers. To be the kind of man who would nev— (looks away) to be a kind of man."
Unless you think that his entire reason for wanting to be the kind of man who would never hurt her is merely the result of Stokholm syndrome and not a genuine integrity of character, and I don't really know how to argue with that! I mean we can also say that everything he ever says is a lie. But when the evidence on the screen and explanation from the writers indicate that he genuinely wanted to do something out of love for Buffy, not merely because his perception of things was warped or because he was masochistic, I lean in that direction!

 

[ladydorotea]

A vampire 'without a soul' cannot look 'into it'. Period. As much as I appreciate Espenson she ( and whoever planned this particular twist) were clearly wanking here. I mentioned Clock Work Orange ( the book) part three as my clearest parallel with Spike gettin a soul quest because it is what it is - conditioning a killer with a chip for three years making him reflectively fear violence and embrace the giver of pain, until finally the Slayer becomes more desirable than freedom. ( If we assume that soulless kind can feel a need for a soul than they already don't need it. ) As for doing it 'for Buffy', I never doubted him doing it to get her to have sex with him again - that was after he tried and failed to get her back the way he used to get Dru back - by forcing her. From that perspective getting a soul ('so the bitch would get what she deserved') after Seeing Red was truly Jossean twist. And Spike realizing that the soul is so much more than surrender 'after' getting it and finally getting it that they were never 'in love' but simply rutting - because you can neither truly love nor understand what it is until you get it - was a pure twist of genius.

 

[RogueDemonHunter]

Spike did not want a soul in my opinion, and that is all i have to say

 

[Gum Gnome33]

A vampire 'without a soul' cannot look 'into it'. Period.

Right, of course he couldn't look into what he didn't have; she meant that he looked within himself and realized that there was nothing there to offset his demon--that it wasn't enough. In any case, it's not wanking. It's what they wrote.

conditioning a killer with a chip for three years making him reflectively fear violence and embrace the giver of pain, until finally the Slayer becomes more desirable than freedom. (

Spike loved Buffy long before those "three years." Long before he desired a soul. When he realized it, (beginning of season 5), he wasn't conditioned at all. He had just barely started living with his chip and was in no position to start "embracing pain" from Buffy.

If we assume that soulless kind can feel a need for a soul than they already don't need it.

Spike realized that feeling wasn't enough to be in control of his demon all of the time; the point of the "attempted rape" scene was to illustrate that. Hence, he went to get his soul.

As for doing it 'for Buffy', I never doubted him doing it to get her to have sex with him again

So you really believe he'd go through all of that torture and pain simply to have sex with Buffy again? (Or even that he'd be certain enough that she would, in the first place, to bank on it?) Do you think that sex is all he ever wanted from her? Why would he bother keeping his word to her after she'd died? Honestly, I don't understand at all where this is coming from. Do you think he thought he couldn't ever find anyone else to simply have sex with? And if in fact it had to be her, and only her, that sounds a whole lot like love to me.

 

[ladydorotea]

Spike loved Buffy long before those "three years." Long before he desired a soul. When he realized it, (beginning of season 5), he wasn't conditioned at all. He had just barely started living with his chip and was in no position to start "embracing pain" from Buffy.

Define 'love'. His kind of 'love' in the pre-souled state was the one that triggered sex role-playing games with Harmony, building a sex-toy shaped like Buffy and programmed to basically be his sex slave - and using it, as well as kidnapping and chaining Buffy to the wall in front of Drusilla and trying to blackmail her into playing the same weird games with him. If this is a kind of infatuation you are calling 'love' then sure he 'loved' her. I have different standards and so I call it what it is - lust and kinky weird deviation.( In my definition 'adult' relationship does not necessarily mean XXX-rated.) Yeah, he had other moments - but all of the above negate 'love' for me , same as thinking that 'woman he loves' deserves to be with a rapist ( even a failed one) negates his 'love' in S6. Sure a kidnapper and rapist might claim to 'love' the subject of their attention. It does not make it any less toxic.

Spike realized that feeling wasn't enough to be in control of his demon all of the time; the point of the "attempted rape" scene was to illustrate that. Hence, he went to get his soul.

I would remove the quotes here - AR is AR and there is nothing so-called about it.

So you really believe he'd go through all of that torture and pain simply to have sex with Buffy again?

He enjoyed pain a lot it seemed - as every other vampire. Especially when with her. ( Never been with such an animal. Hurt in all the right places. Etc.) I can also recall all his interactions with Dru and memories of Dru loving pain. Not such a big deal making a step from enjoying pain during the kinky sex to actually subjecting oneself to more pain to get the BDSM relationship back 'on track'.

(Or even that he'd be certain enough that she would, in the first place, to bank on it?) Do you think that sex is all he ever wanted from her?

Oh, but that was not just 'any sex'. Particularly painful and humiliating sex - plus pride of being with none other but current Slayer, etc etc. He basically wanted her to become 'like him' , want to stay on the dark and enjoy the dark. It is a very special kind of surrender especially between a demon in a vampire and a demon in Slayer. But yes, I don't define these kind of dark desires as 'love'. A man in love , once again, would not think of the object of his love 'deserving' her rapist.

Love is sacrifice - and Spike got to that point - 'after' he got a soul.

Why would he bother keeping his word to her after she'd died?

See above - Buffy is a very special kind of girl, not just anybody. Keeping his word was one of a few links he had to her.

 

[Summerlilly]

It never occured to me that Spike didn't want his soul back so Buffy would love him......

 

[Gum Gnome33]

Define 'love'. His kind of 'love' in the pre-souled state was the one that triggered sex role-playing games with Harmony,

People who love each other role-play all of the time. But to the point: he didn't love Harmony, so this isn't an example of how he showed love, in any case.

building a sex-toy shaped like Buffy and programmed to basically be his sex slave -

Again, this in no way negates his love for her or proves that he doesn't love her. It was inappropriate, yes, but has nothing to do with love, especially because he didn't understand that it would be upsetting to her. Once she told him so, he didn't make any attempts to retrieve the robot, or create any other likeness of Buffy that he could do the same to. After she died, he didn't attempt to have sex with the 'bot. Once he learned how she felt about the robot, he respected her wishes and he was done with it. That is in fact an example of something one might do when he is in love.

as well as kidnapping and chaining Buffy to the wall in front of Drusilla and trying to blackmail her into playing the same weird games with him.

He tried to get her to profess love for him. Inappropriate and dangerous? Yes. Par for a vampire? Yes. That's why eventually he realized he needed a soul, in order to not do things like this; in order to understand how to relate to her the way a man does, not a demon. But he wasn't ready to accept that yet. He had to evolve more, had to learn more about what it meant to be a man, and how far he could be pushed by his demon, before he was finally ready to do something about it, a season later.

Yeah, he had other moments - but all of the above negate 'love' for me

As I stated, in my opinion the first two examples do not negate love, and the third is a display of how a vampire expresses his feelings. So none, IMO, mean he does not love Buffy. More importantly, all of that was the very beginning of the discovery of his feelings and their subsequent evolution. Lust and infatuation turned into respect and love. Respect and love from a soulless vampire may look a lot different than when they come from a human, (and please don't imply that a soulless Spike's standards are the same as mine just because I can understand his), but that does not mean that he did not feel what he felt, or that he loved any less.

same as thinking that 'woman he loves' deserves to be with a rapist ( even a failed one)

I'm sorry, and no offense, but it really bothers me when someone who did not actually rape is called a rapist. Especially when the reason for not raping her was because he realized what he was doing and did not continue further. In other words: he chose of his own will not to rape her, he doesn't deserve that title in this context.

He enjoyed pain a lot it seemed - as every other vampire. Especially when with her. ( Never been with such an animal. Hurt in all the right places. Etc.) I can also recall all his interactions with Dru and memories of Dru loving pain. Not such a big deal making a step from enjoying pain during the kinky sex to actually subjecting oneself to more pain to get the BDSM relationship back 'on track'.

Though he found certain pain pleasurable, it's clear that he did not find pleasurable or desirable in any way the (self described) torture he endured in order to win his soul. If he can admit that he likes certain kinds of pain, (and refer to pain in such a context as "right,")why did he describe the trials as "torture and suffering?" Don't you think he'd have thrown in a "but I liked it," or "it was fun" as he does when he refers to your above-noted encounters?

Oh, but that was not just 'any sex'. Particularly painful and humiliating sex - plus pride of being with none other but current Slayer, etc etc. He basically wanted her to become 'like him' , want to stay on the dark and enjoy the dark. It is a very special kind of surrender especially between a demon in a vampire and a demon in Slayer. But yes, I don't define these kind of dark desires as 'love'.

Look, people in the real world love each other very much and relate to each other in the same ways as you've described above. You and I may not want to participate or be involved with these people, but what they do is between them and does not negate their love for one another. If Spike were willfully hurting Buffy in any of the aforementioned acts, that would be an indication that he didn't love her. But that was not the case. Canonically speaking, she is stronger than he. Their consensual sex acts were not harmful to either one of them. They do not negate his love for her.
And as I stated above, with regard to the bathroom scene, as soon as he got a hold of himself, (after she kicked him), he realized that he was hurting her which gave him such shock and horror that he ran away--to Africa. He'd never meant to hurt her and he couldn't deal with the fact that he had.

A man in love , once again, would not think of the object of his love 'deserving' her rapist.

Choice of words notwithstanding, I agree, and so does Spike. That's why he got a soul. So that he'd no longer be that guy. "To be the kind of man who would nev— (looks away) to be a kind of man." That's the whole point. He got the soul to give her what she deserved; not the Spike who could almost rape her, but William.

Buffy is a very special kind of girl, not just anybody. Keeping his word was one of a few links he had to her.

And I wonder why he'd care about keeping any links to her? Maybe because he loved her...

 

[ladydorotea]

I think from our above exchange it is quite clear that we define love differently. I cannot comprehend love mixed with pain, enslavement, and humiliation - on both sides. It is quite clear to me that Spike had nothing to love in Buffy until S7 - she was using him first as, basically, prisoner of war turned follower and servant whom they paid with blood and cash, later for for loveless sex, hurting him with impunity -- all the time treating him like a dog, and in her turn enjoyed the 'things he would do to her' while at the same time hating herself for that. I cannot call this kind of a relationship 'love'; I call it addiction to misery a.k.a. masochism. You clearly are of a different opinion. Same way, I cannot understand how people can call role-playing sex games a kind of 'love' - for me it is just another kind of a drug that sex-addicts tends to romanticize. Kudos for you though for elevating Spike's relationship with Harmony to 'love' - I would have never called it so. Same applies to obtaining the soul. You clearly think he wanted soul out of 'love'. I interpret it as an act of ultimate surrender and humiliation by the conditioned with a chip and desperately addicted (to painful sex and humiliation) demon, who goes for one last gambit after all else fails to get him back the drug that he wanted most - his Slayer.

PS
It always puzzled me how so many people would not see that making an attempted rape a trigger that would change the would-be rapist into a 'better man' would be such a disturbingly wrong message. It is like saying : if at first you don't succeed - try harder. She would love you, eventually, and it will make you want to change for the better.

I don't see why we should continue this discussion.

 

[wickedtiger86]

Though the above discussion was a seriously interesting read, let's try to get back to the topic here. 🙂


After watching the series twice there is no doubt for me that Spike wanted his soul back. All he wanted was to be something good for Buffy, because he loved her. He wanted to completely change himself to make himself fit into a relationship with her. A real one, and not what they'd been engaging in before . It's one of the really beautiful things about Spuffy for me.

Also, I totally fell for that dumb misdirect on my first watch. 😛

 

[Gum Gnome33]

I don't see why we should continue this discussion.

Ok, you don't have to respond further, but I can still defend my points!

I think from our above exchange it is quite clear that we define love differently. I cannot comprehend love mixed with pain, enslavement, and humiliation - on both sides.

Please don't imply that this is my own personal definition of love, as I never claimed that it was. I said that some people can love each other even though the ways in which they exhibit this love seems foreign to us, and as long as these types of acts are consensual and don't hurt anyone, that is their business and it's not up to us to decide that they aren't in love. But more to the point, vampires almost certainly fall into that category, (Spike and Dru for example). So it's not a stretch to believe that Spike loved Buffy.

Kudos for you though for elevating Spike's relationship with Harmony to 'love'

Er, ok. Spike didn't love Harmony at all, never said he did. Here's what I wrote:

But to the point: he didn't love Harmony, so this isn't an example of how he showed love, in any case.

As for the rest: not much for me to say, except that you're entitled to your interpretation of course!

Back to the subject!
[MENTION=9037]wickedtiger86[/MENTION], I've been going nuts trying to remember whether I fell for it our not! I think I sort of did but the whole time I was thinking "please let him be getting his soul! That'd be so cool!" I know my jaw was definitely hanging open!