The Spuffy Question

I just thought I'd pop by with my opinion. Just tell me to go away if I am being a nuisance.

I don't think Spike repents death or drugs. I think he represent life. Death is painless, but life is pain. At least, that is how a Buddhist or a Protestant would see it. Spike is someone who faces that pain head on. By embracing life, you expose yourself to all kinds of dangers, such as violence and ultimately and inevitably death.

At the beginning of the season, Spike represents a positive side to life. He welcomes her back to life and he stops her suicide attempt in OMWF. Throughout the seasons, we see Buffy being overpowered by life. She struggles to regain control of things. At the same time, Spike becomes more dangerous, possessive and violent. In Dead Things, Dawn accuses Buffy of using prison as another attempt at escaping life. Spike sees it the same way, so once again he stops her, but this time he does it much more violently than in Gone and OMWF.

Ultimately, Buffy regains control of her life by rejecting her death wish, stopping Spike in Seeing Red and reconnecting properly with Xander and Dawn. She has regained some of her centre and life is no longer as chaotic and overpowering as it has seemed for the rest of the season.
 
WillowFromBuffy said:
I don't think Spike repents death or drugs. I think he represent life. Death is painless, but life is pain. At least, that is how a Buddhist or a Protestant would see it. Spike is someone who faces that pain head on. By embracing life, you expose yourself to all kinds of dangers, such as violence and ultimately and inevitably death.
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I don’t think Spike represents life because life IS pain. Spike represents pain. Full stop. He is represents (as was said upstream) the knife you use when you self harm. Buffy feels numb. Spike is the tool with which she feels. Because life can be painful but Buffy has always said that even if it’s hard and everyday you fight, you live. But after her resurrection she seems to lose that mentality. She doesn’t have someone talking her down off the hill, she has someone telling her to come to the darkness.

Buffy had it tougher than Angel did in Amends because no one was encouraging her to fight her depression and be strong. Instead she had someone telling her to give in to the sadness to live in the darkness that was consuming her. Which is ... sad.

Edit; I guess you could argue the first was encouraging Angel to give in, but And you clearly knew it was an entity and it wasn’t somebody he was being intimate with which I think makes a difference
 
I thought Dawn represented life to Buffy and that’s why fighting alongside her in Grave was so powerful for her and represented the moment she realized why she wanted to live?

I don’t think it’s coincidental that she started getting better after he left sunnydale. I think he was bringing her down more than lifting her up and as such, I can’t see him as representing life. That would be too pessimistic for me.
 
dcai0830 said:
I don’t think Spike represents life because life IS pain. Spike represents pain. Full stop. He is represents (as was said upstream) the knife you use when you self harm. Buffy feels numb. Spike is the tool with which she feels. Because life can be painful but Buffy has always said that even if it’s hard and everyday you fight, you live. But after her resurrection she seems to lose that mentality. She doesn’t have someone talking her down off the hill, she has someone telling her to come to the darkness.

Buffy had it tougher than Angel did in Amends because no one was encouraging her to fight her depression and be strong. Instead she had someone telling her to give in to the sadness to live in the darkness that was consuming her. Which is ... sad.

Edit; I guess you could argue the first was encouraging Angel to give in, but And you clearly knew it was an entity and it wasn’t somebody he was being intimate with which I think makes a difference
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Well, life is pain AND joy, but death is neither. Spike is miserable 90 % of the time, but that does not deter him from embracing life in every way. It suggests Spike knows something about survival. I am not saying Buffy should aspire to be like Spike, because Spike has surrendered to life in a way that Buffy should not do. Buffy always had control and agency, but in her fight against Glory, she started to feel powerless.
Mylie said:
I thought Dawn represented life to Buffy and that’s why Grave fighting alongside her in Grave was so powerful for her and represented the moment she realized why she wanted to live?
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Yes, I agree that connecting with Xander and Dawn and speaking honestly with them was the breakthrough.

When I say that Spike represents life, I don't mean in a positive way ... or at least not in an unambiguously positive way. Spike's attitude to life is reckless, uninhibited and chaotic, but he is very much about embracing life. When Buffy came back from Heaven, she wanted to reject life completely.
 
WillowFromBuffy said:
Well, life is pain AND joy, but death is neither. Spike is miserable 90 % of the time, but that does not deter him from embracing life in every way. It suggests Spike knows something about survival. I am not saying Buffy should aspire to be like Spike, because Spike has surrendered to life in a way that Buffy should not do. Buffy always had control and agency, but in her fight against Glory, she started to feel powerless.

Yes, I agree that connecting with Xander and Dawn and speaking honestly with them was the breakthrough.

When I say that Spike represents life, I don't mean in a positive way ... or at least not in an unambiguously positive way. Spike's attitude to life is reckless, uninhibited and chaotic, but he is very much about embracing life. When Buffy came back from Heaven, she wanted to reject life completely.
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I see what you mean and would agree with you except that I don’t see Buffy entering a relationship with Spike as a step towards embracing life, quite the contrary. Despite Spike being all about embracing life, I don’t think that’s how Buffy sees him. But I guess I’d have to rewatch season 6 and admittedly I am less knowledgeable than you are when it comes to the later seasons.
 
After re-watching S6 I was trying to see what symbolic representation Spike had. I used to think 'death' but that's a bit simplistic (although the imagery surrounding it is suggestive) and life doesn't really capture his role at all. Even though I think their relationship has some symbolic/metaphorical value, unlike their S7 one.

But...am I being really simple but does Spike have to symbolize anything? Did Angel? Did Riley? Buffy's love interests aren't symbolic in and of themselves (like the Scoobies, Cordelia and Faith) but their relationships with Buffy are. It's the relationship that's the thing.

So Spuffy is a symptom; Buffy simply trying to cope with life and to escape from it. She only beings to recover from her depression when she ends her toxic dependency on Spike.
The episode immediately after Hell's Belle's sees Buffy happier than she's been all season.
And the message- that Buffy is going to find meaning in life again through her friends and family- starts in that episode and slowly develops right on through to 'Graves'.
 
thetopher said:
But...am I being really simple but does Spike have to symbolize anything? Did Angel? Did Riley?
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I do think Riley, himself, is symbolic of a 'systems' guy. A soldier who follows rules and regulations and orders etc. And I think he provides a good mirror to Buffy's breaking the mold/ outside of the system/ not following the watcher's council. He is the good little soldier in a way that Buffy is not (which is what makes her special - unique etc). And Buffy tries on his world only to find it out isn't for her. Then the question becomes can Riley fit into her world. Can he really be a (snort laugh) anarchist? We learn through end of s4 and early s5 the answer is he doesn't fit in very well in Buffy's world.

Angel is to some extent a symbolic representation of Buffy's dual nature. He too straddles two different worlds. But I'm not sure how much of that is symbolic/mirror as much as common ground and compatibility. Buffy and Angel's relationship is the bigger symbolic structure, especially in s2.
 
Much like magic is Willow's addiction, I'd say that Spike is Buffy's addiction in Season 6; and as addictions go, eventually the addict begins to lose control over their addiction. Both Willow and Buffy try to stop their addiction and it seems to work for a little while but eventually it comes back to bite them before they can kick it properly. And unlike actual addictions, both Buffy and Willow are able to dabble in their addictions at a later date without any consequences.

Both Willow and Buffy's storylines in Season 6 are interlinked. They start off entwined with Willow bringing back Buffy before diverging slightly and running parallel before eventually coming back together at the end.
 
Mrs Gordo said:
I do think Riley, himself, is symbolic of a 'systems' guy. A soldier who follows rules and regulations and orders etc. And I think he provides a good mirror to Buffy's breaking the mold/ outside of the system/ not following the watcher's council.
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I see this less as symbolic and more of a defining character trait/archetype. It's not like Riley embodies 'the system' in S4 like Giles is supposed to embody 'The WC' in S7. Riley's role was 'the nice, sensible guy' that would contrast to Buffy's previous.

Mrs Gordo said:
Angel is to some extent a symbolic representation of Buffy's dual nature. He too straddles two different worlds. But I'm not sure how much of that is symbolic/mirror as much as common ground and compatibility.
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Obviously there is a symmetry there but I don't think of it as necessarily symbolic. It's more there to show why Angel would have a unique understanding of Buffy's loneliness in those early days. It's a connection they share.
 
It's very much a self harm allegory with the same purpose behind. Depression is about numbness and when you're self harming you feel something even if it's pain and disgust with yourself.

I can't help thinking that it was toxic and damaging maybe it's something that helped her through a stage to where she could start to recover. Sometimes you just need to find a way of keeping moving even if the methods you use aren't ideal by any stretch maybe it's something they both had to go through to get better.
 
I'd heard this theroy about Spike being Buffy's shadow self before, and I completely agree. She confirms this when she calls him her "dark place."

But this doesn't mean what I think many fans think it means. Buffy doesn't mean that Spike makes her "go dark." Rather, I think she means that she feels comfortable enough with him to be dark around him, if that makes sense? To be herself, the Slayer.
 
Joan the Vampire Slayer said:
I'd heard this theroy about Spike being Buffy's shadow self before, and I completely agree. She confirms this when she calls him her "dark place."
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But these aren't remotely the same thing.
A shadow self reflects parts of Buffy that are evident in her; Buffy is made up of woman and slayer. Spike is neither.
Spike's darkness may have some similarities to Buffy's- although I think this is a pretty superficial reading- but he is no dark reflection.
 
Miss Muffet
Miss Muffet
I think that would be S3 Faith.
Joan the Vampire Slayer said:
I'd heard this theroy about Spike being Buffy's shadow self before, and I completely agree. She confirms this when she calls him her "dark place."

But this doesn't mean what I think many fans think it means. Buffy doesn't mean that Spike makes her "go dark." Rather, I think she means that she feels comfortable enough with him to be dark around him, if that makes sense? To be herself, the Slayer.
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That literally doesn't make any sense. Human darkness and demonic darkness are fundamentally different. Spike used to be 100% demonic darkness because he was a soulles vampire. Buffy's darkness had nothing to do with the slayer demon in her. It was all about her human (soulful) reaction to the tragedies she went through. And as @thetopher mentioned, shadow self would indicate something that is already evident in Buffy. But there literally can't be due to the different nature of their darkness. If Buffy ever had a shadow self, it was early Faith. I'm sure Buffy, like all humans, had that desire to cut lose. Faith showed us that this desire is in Buffy. It's just that Buffy rejected it eventually because that's not who she is. Faith hit on certain things that Buffy might think or feel deep down.

Spike however, not so much. His darkness is different and he literally can't grasp where she is coming from. He injects his own image of who he thinks Buffy is and mixes it with his own desires and understanding of the world. That's projection of something you want to be true because you desire a certain outcome. That doesn't mean it's true or the actual reality of Buffy's situation.

I guess 'dark place' could be interpreted differently but I always saw it as an insult, especially since it followed 'stalky the clown'. Buffy literally had no use for Spike when she was doing ok. She only turned to him when things fell apart, when she went to her dark place because life was dark. It follows the pattern of their S6 and S7 dynamic. Buffy using him when life is dark.
 
RomanticSoul said:
Human darkness and demonic darkness are fundamentally different. Spike used to be 100% demonic darkness because he was a soulless vampire.
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The similarities between 'slayer darkness' and vampire darkness are really superficial and basically boil down to 'need to hunt' and 'getting off on the kill'. There is no blood-lust, no real sadism in the actions of the slayer because the slayer is balanced out by her humanity.

Buffy's humanity is numbed- to a certain extent- in S6, which is why Spike is able to get inside her head and say things like 'you're a creature of the dark, like me'. Whereas in reality Buffy has always been a person straddling two worlds, the normal and the supernatural. She wants that connection to humanity, in that respect Buffy has always been more like Angel (who needs those connections to the world) or Faith (who wants to belong and have friends) than Spike.

Even when souled Spike acts closer to his demonic nature than Buffy or Faith ever did.

RomanticSoul said:
If Buffy ever had a shadow self, it was early Faith. I'm sure Buffy, like all humans, had that desire to cut lose. Faith showed us that this desire is in Buffy. It's just that Buffy rejected it eventually because that's not who she is. Faith hit on certain things that Buffy might think or feel deep down.
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Yep. That was absolutely the intent, as is shown in episodes like 'F,H&T', 'Bad Girls' and 'Graduation Day', Faith was Buffy's shadow self reflecting the darker parts of that slayer nature. Just as Cordelia could be seen as a parallel of 'normal, non-slayer Buffy who wants normality.

Symbolic characters on the show like the core scoobies and such have always been written to obviously have a symbolic aspect.

RomanticSoul said:
I guess 'dark place' could be interpreted differently but I always saw it as an insult, especially since it followed 'stalky the clown'. Buffy literally had no use for Spike when she was doing ok.
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I agree. That's what a dark place is, a place where you can hide from your responsibilities and the pressures when life gets too much. It's a crutch, nothing more.
 
I would be careful of using literary symbolism or psychobabble as the key to understanding a character. Symbolism does not make anything true - some people might say the colour of your skin is the colour of your soul and that passes the test of symbolism but is completely invalid. The trio of Faith, Buffy and Kendra were supposed to highlight Buffy as the Goldilocks choice, not too dogmatic to use initiative and make changes when necessary and not so undisciplined as to live an criminal life. I don't see Faith as a shadow side of Buffy nor do I see Spike as a shadow side of Buffy.

Buffy believes she is partly a creature of darkness because Dracula told her so but also for a more obvious reason - that's when vampires come out, when the sun is down, and that's when Buffy does most of her hunting. Buffy's adventure into the past with the three shadow men showed that demonic essence is in her but that does not make her similar in any way to Spike. Spike is a demon who took over the body of William and has all his memories. Buffy does not become any sort of demon from being resurrected, she is simply traumatized. Her friends are to blame for her status in Season 6 and she cannot talk to them about it because they believe they have done something good and reality might destroy their friendship. But she can talk to Spike about it because he had no part in it and she knows he will not tell anyone. This ends when she sings that she was in heaven and the scoobies all find out. Just because you can talk to someone without having to lie to avoid hurting their feelings and you have a demonic influence inside you does not make you a shadow self of the other. There are too many differences in origin, purpose, personality, character and just about every possible metric to say they are shadow selves.

Buffy's original deviation from normal slayer practice was when she agreed with Spike to help find Giles and defeat Angelus and Acathla in exchange for letting him and Drusilla escape without interference. I doubt in the history of slayers that any such agreement has ever happened before. He kept his word for a while about disappearing but eventually came back but he did what he said and did not double-cross Buffy. This gave Buffy some sense of reliability and willingness to work hand-in-glove to make something happen. And I am sticking to my idea that the spell in "Something Blue" never actually wore off.
 
FaithLehane16 said:
If there's anyone on the show who is Buffy's shadow self, it would be Faith.
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How do you figure that? I don't think there are any attributes that Faith has which Buffy keeps hidden, or dislikes, in herself. Faith represented the freedom that Buffy wished she had; Faith was her opposite but I never saw her as Buffy's shadow.

Why do you think she was her shadow self?
 
Spanky said:
How do you figure that? I don't think there are any attributes that Faith has which Buffy keeps hidden, or dislikes, in herself. Faith represented the freedom that Buffy wished she had; Faith was her opposite but I never saw her as Buffy's shadow.

Why do you think she was her shadow self?
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Buffy uses that freedom though. She breaks into other peoples offices and homes without permission. By S7 she's literally chucking people out of there own said homes.
She tries to murder Faith and didn't exactly hand herself in to the law for attempted murder over that.
Everything she (the writers) say Faith does wrong Buffy does herself albiet with character shields
 
To those who say Spike isn't a shadow self because he's make check out an article called 'Love's Bitch But Man Enough to Admit it'
 
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