"Every Night I Save You" article

[StarSlayer]

I've been wanting to read this article for some time now and I finally got around to reading it. 🙂 I've always been extremely interested in the light v. dark metaphors and symbolisms in the show and this article is one such example that explores those ideas.

The title is "Every Night I Save": Buffy, Spike, Sex, and Redemption" by Rhonda V. Wilcox and it's from slayage online. Here's the full article: http://slayageonline.com/essays/slayage5/wilcox.htm

Some of things that really stood out for me were these quotes:

As for Buffy herself, as Spike notes, "The sun sets, and she appears." The Slayer, who fights the forces of darkness, is, like the vampires, a liminal character, on the edge between light and dark. To fight for the light, she must move through the darkness; and, after her dream encounter with the first of all Slayers and her actual encounter with Dracula, she agrees that, as they say, her "power is rooted in darkness" ("Buffy vs. Dracula," 5001)—i.e., her connection to the unconscious. In the context of the musical episode in which Spike says "the sun sets, and she appears," we are also aware of the fact that he means she has come to him again (though at this point their relationship is not actively sexual); in her unhappy state after her own return from death, she is drawn to his darkness. In sum, at this stage Buffy's desire for Spike and her desire for death are equivalent.

What are we to make, then, of the last epigraph—Spike's declaration that "Every night I save you"? It contains at least two thematically important points. The most literal and obvious, paradoxically, contradicts the direct statement, because Spike does not save Buffy. The context is this: He makes the statement in "After Life," the third hour of the sixth season. At the end of the fifth season, Buffy had sacrificed her life to save the world and her sister in particular. In spite of the efforts of her friends the Scooby Gang (including Spike), a wound has been opened in the world, which Buffy has healed with her own body. Her sister Dawn (another of the significantly named characters) has been chained to the top of a giant tower (Is there a Freudian in the house?) at which the opening is located, and into which Buffy flings herself. Despite Dawn's offer, Buffy will not allow her fourteen-year-old sister to take that plunge. The only other member of the Scooby Gang we ever see at the top of that tower is Spike, who has promised to protect Dawn and is flung down hundreds of feet to the ground, the fall of the white-haired vampire recalling the fall of Lucifer. The entire scene, with the tower and the glowing opening, can be seen as a Freudian representation of sexual joining. And Spike does come close to joining Buffy there, but he is not quite ready, not quite worthy; when she falls, she falls into the light; when he falls, he falls into the earth (literally, almost into the cracks of earthquake, though he pulls himself back just in time).

In fact, as many viewers know, she began her existence as a reversal of the stereotype of the little woman in need of saving. It is thematically positive that Spike does not literally save Buffy. But listen again to his words: "Every night I save you." For this line's second thematically important point, we must return to the underlying pattern of Buffy's relation to the night, the unconscious, the id, the shadow, or the animus. The hero must embrace this darkness to become truly strong—to save herself; and as the sixth season proceeds, Buffy embraces Spike.

As the Spirit Guide says, Buffy does need to forgive; she needs to forgive herself; she needs to forgive Spike, and the side of herself represented by him; as the Guide says, she needs to "risk the pain." In "Hell's Bells" (6016), the episode of Xander and Anya's failed wedding, a meddling demon comments, "Sometimes two people—all they bring each other is pain," just as we cut to a scene of Buffy and Spike meeting. In the preceding episode, she has broken off their torrid affair with the words, "I'm sorry, William"; with the use of his human name, there is an implicit (and rare) acknowledgment of that other self in him. At the wedding, both of them are pained by their meeting; but the two are so genuinely kind to each other that there is as much caritas as eros in the scene. "Not just boyfriend love," indeed.

The change may be indicated in part by the metaphor of light and dark in the series. Just as coming to know the night within herself may help to save Buffy, so too Spike may need to come into the light of day. In "After Life," just before she confesses to Spike (and only to Spike) that she thinks she has been in heaven, Buffy comments with surprise on his being out in the "daylight" yet, as he says, "not on fire? Sun's low enough; it's shady enough here." Along with this serious scene, there are many comedic instances (beginning as early as the fifth season) when Spike bundles himself up under a blanket in order to be near Buffy--and hence in the daylight. "Normal Again" (6017) provides another serious moment illuminated by light imagery: As Spike advises Buffy to "Let yourself live, already" and announces that he will tell her friends about them if she does not, he steps towards her but flinches and physically recoils: he has moved directly into the sunlight, and that is something he is not able to withstand. The expression on his face recalls his reaction to pain from the chip. He says that if her friends won't accept her having a relationship with him, Buffy can join him in the dark. However, the room in which he stands is actually lighter than the place he occupies in "After Life." As Buffy rests in the sunlight, he is unable to reach her, but he has tried--and it seems he is closer than he once would have been. Not only such imagery, but words and actions in other scenes also suggest some degree of change. In "Hell's Bell's," when Buffy tells him that it hurts to see him with a woman they both know he has brought to the wedding solely to make Buffy jealous, his first, unthinking response is to say "I'm sorry"; then corrects himself to say "or—good." When (in "Smashed," 6009) he believes his chip has completely stopped working (before discovering that it has stopped reacting to Buffy alone among humans, he goes hunting for a human to eat; but when he chooses one, he seems to have to talk himself into the vampiric act, with a diatribe of some length in front of the intended victim. With remarks like, "Just 'cause [Buffy's] confused about where she fits in, I'm supposed to be too? 'Cause I'm not," he seems to protest too much. He appears intent on convincing himself that "I'm evil," yet he also delays the vampiric attack: "I know what I am. I'm dangerous. I'm evil. [. . .] I am a killer. That's what I do. I kill. And yeah—maybe it's been a long time. But it's not like you forget how. You just do it. And now I can again—all right? So here goes." In the end, he almost apologizes to the intended victim: "This might hurt a little." In the next episode, "Wrecked" (6010), he goes with Buffy to locate the floating hideout of a master of dark magic, Rack, to which Will has taken Dawn. Rack's place, Spike explains, can only be sensed by witches, vampires, and others "into the Big Bad." Interestingly enough, Spike never finds the hideout; he complains that Buffy is interrupting him too much; and after searching for some time, they simply hear Dawn scream. Why is it so hard for Spike to find Rack's place? Could it be that Buffy is affecting him—that he is no longer so deeply "into the Big Bad"?

It is also worth noting that Buffy and Spike do not make love until they discover that he can physically harm her—and though they do engage in their usual violent "dance" ("That's all we've ever done," he tells her in "Fool for Love"), he never really hurts her. One might certainly argue that she is drawn to him all the more powerfully because of the literal danger of death; "Every Slayer has a death wish." But one might also suggest that that there is an unacknowledged trust between them (as indeed Spike argues in "Tabula Rasa," though Buffy denies the idea in "Dead Things"). In any case, these two characters, who could have killed each other and have each literally died, die in each other's arms only metaphorically.

Buffy and Spike, who have each physically died, have access to the unconscious, and their love-making is powerful—but sex and death are not enough. Spike tells Buffy that he knows her, that she is like him—and he is right; he knows her dark side in both its strengths and weaknesses. But he does not know all of her; and even more significantly, he does not know all of himself, any more than she knows all of him or of herself. Whether or not there is backsliding or a slow, straight climb up, I expect to see more from both Spike and Buffy. The quest for self-knowledge is part of life and growth; as Joss Whedon says, "I think of Buffy as life [. . .] Life doesn't stop [. . .] We're always changing and growing" (Kaveney cover). And as Ursula K. Le Guin says, "the shadow is the guide [. . .] of the journey of self-knowledge, to adulthood, to the light. 'Lucifer' means the one who carries the light" (61). To the degree that we can live with the failure, face the darkness, and risk the pain, then we can find hope, faith, and maybe even love in the words, "Every night I save you."

I apologize it's that's a lot, but I found the article to be a very fascinating read, and I'd recommend reading the full article. I really liked the idea that Buffy has to go through the darkness in order to become stronger and Spike represents that darkness. "You are my dark place, Spike." I'd love to hear anyone's thoughts. 🙂

 

[SlayerFae]

I'm going to have to really take a while to read through the whole thing, but I did bookmark it. I skimmed through the massive quotes you put in. This article seems amazing and in depth in ways I always wanted to get from a look at Buffy. Thanks so much for posting this. I promise I'll get back to you when I get through the whole thing 🙂

 

[prophecygrrl]

OMG, I love you for posting this! I've heard about this but I haven't taken the time to read it yet, and the passages you quoted were fantastic! I love this analysis of their Season 6 relationship SO much. :heart: I'll definitely be reading the rest of this article.

 

[Blondie Bear]

I love Rhonda Wilcox. She's only the sweetest person ever and BRILLIANT when it comes to Buffy. I got to meet her at the Slayage Conference and I admit I fangirled a bit, which she took in stride. I used this article rather extensively in my discussion of Jung and Buffy in my Master's thesis. 🙂 It was nice to revisit it; thanks for posting!

 

[sisterofmercy]

Very interesting article.

 

[TaylorSwift]

It was quite interesting...they picked up many things and I mostly agree with what they said..Thanks for posting, I really enjoyed reading this.

 

[caitaintdead]

Thanks for posting! I have read the quotes through and absolutely loved it!

I do love Rhonda Wilcox, I think she is really quite brilliant!

 

[Litheran]

Good quick read; I like it when people don't over fill their metas/essays with medical jargon. Overuse of clinical terms tends to come off as pompous.