Do you peeps think Buffy was mean to Spike at the Season?

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Librarian Giles

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Been a while since i watched it, but even after she realized Spike got a soul, it still seemed like she was a bit mean to him. The way she spoke to him it kinda seemed like in a scalding way and harsh. I remember in the episode "Sleeper", when Spike was crouched in that basement and was just talking to himself, Buffy came up to him and said in a harsh way "Get up..". Anyone else think Buffy was maybe being a little too harsh towards Spike? OR do i need to re watch the season again lol.
 
You've got to be cruel to be kind as the saying goes. Spike confuses Buffy - she has him pegged as one thing and then he goes and blows her expectations apart. Her experience with a Souled Vampire is Angel and he doesn't sit around being all crazy and helpless all the time and this effects her expectations of Spike after he gets a soul - she has no patience with him, her logic is that the soul should make him a better person not a more useless one. Spike is lucky that Buffy prodded him out of his (for want of a better word) depression. With Buffy's insistence he gets up and starts acting useful again (eventually). Poor Angel was not so lucky - It took him 100 years to get to grips with his soul on his own. I have no problem with Buffy's reaction.
 
I'm working my way through 7 now, and I hear what you are saying. I suspect it's a protective move on her part, and also the writer's blatant way of showing us they are not going "there" again.

But yeah, Buffy is sort of weirdly mean to him. I mean, he came back to town, didn't contact her, but when he walks in she starts in on how he shouldn't try to apologize (cause it won't work) when he wasn't acting like he wished to start anything up, etc. But again, I suppose she is dealing with her own issues, not really dealing with Spike himself.

Then a few minutes later she chooses to patrol with him...we could assume it's out of a sense of protection for the others, but that's not how it's played. Then she's all squirmy when he hand her the flashlight...I don't know. I felt like the writer's were playing us as well. Like they were trying to set clear parameters on one hand, but then proceeded to ignore their own boundaries in the next few episodes.

So far, practically none of Buffy's behavior regarding Spike in S7 makes a lot of sense, except that her own self is still really twisted about how she feels about him.

In the church, her reaction when he goes to undo his pants is pretty harsh, but can you blame him, given their history and his awful condition for thinking that is all she wants of him?

Then when he's tied to the chair in her room, and explaining how now he understands how she used him, she's sarcastic with him. The guy went to the other side of the planet, got tortured to get his soul back, had been going through hell since, and she's nasty with him when he says he understands (and implies that his understanding means he doesn't expect any intimacy with her now)

It feels, so far, like she's still playing him, but not sexually. One minute telling him he's awful and the next saying she'll save him...He was right in S6...she should have let Xander kill him, or she should have killed him in the basement of corpses he'd buried, or, if he'd had any sense, Sunnydale should have been the last place he came to after he got his soul. It should have helped him see how pointless it was, for him personally (even if he does end up saving the world later)
 
I think that at first Buffy was a bit apprehensive about Spike and his shiny new soul. The difference between Angel and Angelus had left her with the impression that the soul would bring about a very drastic change in personality, and, aside from the initial guilt driven insanity, she was dealing with pretty much the same old Spike. As a result, she was a bit reluctant to trust him fully. Who Buffy doesn't trust, she isn't particularly polite to. Once she accepted the fact that the soul was indeed genuine, however, and what his motives in getting it were, I think that the last of her distrust quickly vanished, hence the "I believe in yiu, Spike," speech and her support and defense of him throughout the rest of the season, even in the face of protests from her closest friends.
 
No not really. I believe that was one of her first encounters with Spike after he attempted to rape her. How do you expect her to react to him? With loving arms? Soul or no soul its not that easy to forget what almost happened to her.
 
Why should Buffy have changed the way she speaks to him all of a sudden ? Even when shes sleeping with him shes really quite nasty , she was merely using Spike like she always does. So yes she is quite mean to him but hes not done anything to change her mind about him apart from being off his rocker in a basement. Buffy does speak nice to him when she realises hes on her side and that he has a soul and has changed .
 
Actually I think she was meaner to him in fifth season. Season seven was a big step up the ladder for the Spuffy ship.
 
I think it's perfectly in keeping with how Buffy should speak to someone she was barely able to stop from raping her just a couple of months before. Soul or not.
 
^What? Soul or not? WHOA! You are totally missing the big picture. The soul is what makes the biggest different.
 
pernilleborup said:
^What? Soul or not? WHOA! You are totally missing the big picture. The soul is what makes the biggest different.
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No, I'm not. Buffy, as a person, can't just shut the fact that this individual recently tried to rape her. Yes, he's changed admirably since then, and that's awesome. But when reacting to his less than sane actions even since getting his could, anyone would a) not just forget all the bad things he did prior to his change, and b) assume the fact that he's got a soul means he couldn't possibly be dangerous. People with souls do crappy things all the time in the Buffyverse. She's right to keep her guard up around him.

Later on in the season when she gets a better sense of who he is with a soul, she begins to treat him better.

I think it was excellent writing, very in tuned with how the characters should react to each other in their particular circumstances.
 
Librarian Giles said:
Been a while since i watched it, but even after she realized Spike got a soul, it still seemed like she was a bit mean to him. The way she spoke to him it kinda seemed like in a scalding way and harsh. I remember in the episode "Sleeper", when Spike was crouched in that basement and was just talking to himself, Buffy came up to him and said in a harsh way "Get up..". Anyone else think Buffy was maybe being a little too harsh towards Spike? OR do i need to re watch the season again lol.
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Tranquillity said:
You've got to be cruel to be kind as the saying goes. Spike confuses Buffy - she has him pegged as one thing and then he goes and blows her expectations apart. Her experience with a Souled Vampire is Angel and he doesn't sit around being all crazy and helpless all the time and this effects her expectations of Spike after he gets a soul - she has no patience with him, her logic is that the soul should make him a better person not a more useless one. Spike is lucky that Buffy prodded him out of his (for want of a better word) depression. With Buffy's insistence he gets up and starts acting useful again (eventually). Poor Angel was not so lucky - It took him 100 years to get to grips with his soul on his own. I have no problem with Buffy's reaction.
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Very good point. Very well said. 🙂
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Great post, Cryptwarmer. 🙂
I too, am often frustrated with the way Buffy treats Spike throughout the series.

It always surprises me, every time I re-watch "Beneath Me", that look Buffy has one her face when she realizes Spike got his soul back. It's like she's discusted, like it's a bad taste in her mouth. She asks "Why"? She doesn't seem to see in the first place how incredible it is that he got his soul again and what he had to go through to get it - all she can think about is why he would do this, why he would put himself in so much pain for her...she still can't see it. His love for her. It blinds her.

I think it's great Spike rebukes her and says, “Buffy, shame on you. Why does a man do what he mustn’t? For her. To be hers." He explains it right there, in crystal clear Spike logic. And as usual, she still can't see it.

Yet, Buff doesn't see this as something he's done forher she sees it as almost an inconvenience, like "Oh great, Spike's crazy now..what now?"

Fact of he matter is, they are both very complex characters - and if they treated eachother as we expected or as we wanted, it wouldn't be as interesting to talk about 🙂
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pernilleborup said:
Actually I think she was meaner to him in fifth season. Season seven was a big step up the ladder for the Spuffy ship.
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Well yeah, very true.

I just watched "Becoming" part 1 and 2 last night, and I just find it funny that, despire how much she hates him, and even at that time knowing what he was - she was still willing to ally with him, and to trust him in taking down Angelus. I wonder why she trusted him then? It always puzzles me.
 
No, I don't think she was mean to him at all, considering where they left off in Season 6, and it's funny to me that Spike fans criticise her for not being nice enough to him, while Scooby fans criticise her for being too nice. The poor girl can't catch a break.

LifeIsJustThis said:
It always surprises me, every time I re-watch "Beneath Me", that look Buffy has one her face when she realizes Spike got his soul back. It's like she's discusted, like it's a bad taste in her mouth.
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I think there was some revulsion there, and I can't blame her -- it must seem a bit sick, what he did to himself for her. The metaphysical equivalent of self-mutilation.

She didn't trust him in Becoming, by the way. It boils down to:

"I hate you."
"And I'm all you've got."

She only completely, undeniably trusted him in Season 7, which is why she could then allow herself to love him. (Since that was presented as their main issue in Season 6: "I could never trust you enough for it to be love.")
 
Tranquillity
Tranquillity
nicely said
Ya Buffy had no choice but to trust Spike in Becoming. She couldnt take on Dru and Angelus by herself.

And as for Buffys look when she found out he got a soul, she was probably thinking "you got a soul just to be forgiven? ya...no"

But I have never understood why Spike fans think Buffy should be nice to him. Once someone tries to kill you, niceness goes out the window.
 
Primal Slayer said:
And as for Buffys look when she found out he got a soul, she was probably thinking "you got a soul just to be forgiven? ya...no"
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Disagree. I don't think she could think past the sheer magnitude of the event at that moment.

But I have never understood why Spike fans think Buffy should be nice to him. Once someone tries to kill you, niceness goes out the window.
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Um. Angel tried to kill her, and she was more than nice to him in Season 3. (And she was quite nice to Spike in Season 7, too, so no complaints from me.)
 
Angel and Angelus were 2 very different people and she knew that. A lot of SPike fans think she treated him so badly during S4-6 when he was still soulless. And think she treated him bad at the beginning of S7. Sure she was nice to him the rest of the season and I dont mind that much but its more of the "she treated him like crap during S4-6 and beginning of 7" that I dont get.
 
Enisy said:
Soulless Spike and souled Spike are as "different" or as "alike" as soulless Angel and souled Angel, according to the mythology of the 'verse.
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They seemed the same to me. But Buffy was nicer to Spike come middle half of S7.
 
Enisy said:
Soulless Spike and souled Spike are as "different" or as "alike" as soulless Angel and souled Angel, according to the mythology of the 'verse.
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Well, in theory. But having a soul and not having a soul has gradations of goodness and badness in different people and demons within the 'verse. Amy has a soul throughout, and she does some nasty stuff. And Anya had some trouble doing nasty things even after she lost her soul when she returned to being a vengeance demon. So it stands to reason that two beings who are both exceptionally evil and violent *without* souls (like Angel and Spike) aren't necessarily equally evil (I'd argue that Angelus was more evil than Spike was, without a soul), and that they wouldn't be equally good, either (I think Angel was a "better" souled vampire than Spike was, so far as doing good deeds and all).

Anyhow, my point is that they aren't equally similar or dissimilar in either state.

Example, to explain myself better because I never know if I'm conveying what I mean: Look at a soul like a kind of infection. You and I could be identically healthy, but subjected to the same bacteria or virus we could easily react differently to it. I could get a really extreme manifestation of the infection, you might get the sniffles. Angel got a wicked bad case of soul-itis. Spike got a mild flu-soul.
 
Primal Slayer said:
They seemed the same to me. But Buffy was nicer to Spike come middle half of S7.
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Personality wise yes Spike soul or no soul is the same.

However, Spike with a soul is different that Spike without a soul.

Spike also fought to change despite the chip.
 
Primal Slayer said:
And as for Buffys look when she found out he got a soul, she was probably thinking "you got a soul just to be forgiven? ya...no"

But I have never understood why Spike fans think Buffy should be nice to him. Once someone tries to kill you, niceness goes out the window.
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I think Spike had made it clear, that he hadn't returned to SD to get things roaring with Buffy again. That might have been his purpose when he left, to get a soul and get the girl. But once he had the soul he felt things that made him understand all that had gone before and he lost that expectation.

I mean, he came back and did NOT contact Buffy. He hid in the basement. She found HIM, he didn't go looking for her.

Then, the first thing he assures her when he goes to her house is that he has not come to apologize, and that if she doesn't want his help, he's gone and she wont see him again.

Then he goes out of his way to keep her from knowing he has a soul.

This is not the behavior of someone who expects to be welcomed back into the fold like nothing ever happened.

He feels horrible for what he did, and he also feels horrible for what she did to him, the way she used him, and the fact that she hated herself, in a way that he couldn't pre-soul. He never once tried to defend his behavior. Not a single time.

Buffy horribly, emotionally abused Spike during 6. He repeatedly asked her to stay away if she didn't return his feelings, and she kept showing up. So yeah, he believed that somewhere under all that raunchy sex, she did care for him. Because he couldn't believe that Buffy was bad enough to just totally use him when she knew how he felt. He was sure that she must have feelings she didn't want to admit to. And she beat him up pretty badly, there was physical abuse as well. After Riley caught them in bed together she punched Spike in the face for calling her "love".

Now, we are supposed to understand how Buffy is still upset over the potential "rape", OK, I'll give that to her, but how come we aren't supposed to have any sympathy for the one she abused physically, sexually, and emotionally for months?

I'm not making apologies for anyone's bad behavior. Not Spike or Buffy's.

But as far as I've gotten in S7, she's treating him pretty shabbily, and he's not done one thing to her.

He's invited her to kill him, and meant it, and she refused. So it's hard to understand her continuing snarkiness with him.
 
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