The fact that Spike returned to Sunnydale is surely enough. It's the one place that Spike knows that Buffy would be. He travelled from Africa to get there so why wouldn't it be for Buffy?
it's not enough though if we don't se him going after Buffy. And Sunnydale was also the one place Spike had last been, the one place where he felt 'at home', where he knew somebody (Clem for example). It's understandable that in his confused, freshly souled state he would go there.
Or he could have been influenced by the First (like Jonathan and Andrew) to return to Sunnydale, which would make even more sense
No, because he went crazy because of the First.
This is pure speculation. We don't know how long Spike had been in that basement and when exactly the First started playing with him, but you are basically saying that Spike was in his right mind while travelling from Africa, that he made this sly plot to go to Sunnydale, hide in the basement of the old school (and I will say later why this alone has no sense) and then he hasn't the time to go to Buffy because the moment he puts his foot in the basement in the space of a second the First makes him go crazy?
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But when he sees her again he snaps of out it to go visit her.
but he didn't snap out of it until much later, when Wood and Giles plotted to kill him and he was free from the First's trigger
And lets not pretend that hiding in the school was some sort of accident. Spike could've slunk off to a crypt or abandoned warehouse but no, he choses the new high school to hide in.
you call it pretending, I call it using my brain to think. Buffy is a vampire slayer, crypts are her natural playground and if Spike wanted to casually bump into Buffy that would have been the most logical choice. Surely not the basement of the new high school, that btw had been since then an abandoned building and where Buffy had no reason to be or to go. Or you are saying that Spike somehow already knew that the school was reopening and that the new principal was going to offer Buffy a job?
Sure, he wants to be back with Buffy and the best way to do that is to offer to help her. Nothing more to it.
See, it's the fact that he never makes a move in that direction that tells me that you are wrong (it can be true about Angel, though). As I said "He never asks anything in return and never tries to restore their physical relationship". He does absolutely nothing to try to go back with Buffy, not even when Buffy flirts with him, therefore there is no evidence that this is his motivation to help and imo this lack of evidence is evidence that his motivation to help it's very simply what's shown: the desire to help. Which btw is furtherly proved by his actions at the end of s7, all through ats s5 and all through the comics. There is a lot of evidence that Spike does good because he is good and selfless. Which doesn't mean that he is always selfless, he can be selfish sometimes but what seems obvious to me is that Spike's choice to be good and do the right things has nothing to do with Buffy and his love for her. He does it because in his soul he is a good man
I think Spike knew that Buffy wouldn't stake him, and even if she tried he could always fall back on the 'I've got a soul now' thing, but it came up a different way.
He still took a risk, not only with Buffy but also and mostly with the others, especially Xander who had already tried to kill him.
I never said physical relationship, but he wanted things from her- forgiveness, a reckoning, credit for what he did? 'You used me!/I got a soul for you!/I love you!'- seems to me that Spike wants lots of things from Buffy, and he gets them.
You said just a few lines above that Spike wanted to be back with Buffy. I read it as restoring their relationship, which was physical, so it looks like you are contradicting yourself?
But yeah I agree, Spike wants Buffy's forgiveness, and that's normal because he feels the guilt, but he never asks for it. The wanting the credit is just something you see, but I don't.
He 'arrives' in the nick of time in S8- he does exactly what he said he'd do in Angel S5
Sorry, what are you talking about?
- turn up when Buffy really needed him with some vital info (obviously her screwing Twilight!Angel was a bit of a shock to him and took the shine of their reunion).
we are debating about Spike and Angel selfishness, and you bring up Angel basically raping Buffy while killing hundreds of people with the sole purpose of creating a heaven for the two of them? this is what I call a kamikaze move
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So he arrives in his ship with some vital plot stuff he's figured out all those weeks before and starts flirting with Buffy from the off.
Then he pretty much stalks her for months in S9 and then 'returns' to her in S10 proclaimed that he's over her and yet isn't. He won't leave her alone.
uh this is so very different from the comics I've read that I have to ask you to give me something to support what you're saying, because what I remember is Buffy day dreaming of having sex with Spike, Buffy flirting with Spike and then being mean with him because he didn't pick her hints, Buffy asking him if he still loves her, Buffy saying that she had thought of raising her child with him. On the other hand what Spike did was encourage Dowling to have a relationship with her, help Dawn, ask Willow to keep silent about his losing his soul and being perfectly good even without it and then asking to be souled again, be there for Buffy AND the scoobies for just the good reasons. Did he love her? Yes, but he never pushed her to restore their relationship so in my book this makes him even more selfless because surely it's hard to be near the one you love knowing you can't have her imo
I see Angel as desperately trying to fill a hole inside himself, but unable to do so. But I don't see any indication that he even cared about humans in general, or bonded with any human. Even Judy, who he tried to help, who he knew was under the influence of a demon, he left to be devoured by that demon.
I never saw that he cared as well. For a 100 years he goes on showing no guilt, no remorse, no care. And 100 years are a lifetime or two for human standards
I still don't see where souled Spike is more selfish than souled Angel.
because he isn't. As I already said all motivation are in a way selfish but love is without doubt the less selfish of all. Well, it is to me at least
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I don't think Angel changing when he met Buffy was selfish, because it didn't have anything to do with wanting to be with her or impress her--more he was inspired by her, and realized that he could be a hero too. I think he felt empathy with her isolation as a Slayer, and wished to help and protect her. He wasn't trying to tap that yet 😉.
Whereas Spike's reason for getting a soul was entirely about Buffy--he wanted to get back with her and be forgiven, he didn't care about being a hero or a good person.
I was going to say (not to you specifically) that this comparison is pretty unfair because we are talking of moments where Spike was unsouled while Angel had his soul (and had had it for a hundred years), but I see that you point this out later and that's good
Anyway souled or not, I still don't understand why love is considered a selfish motivation to do something good (and I think that's the point of the thread, am I right,
@bespangeled?). Also, you assume that Angel wasn't selfish because he didn't change for love but for other reasons, such as wanting to be a hero. But isn't this an even more selfish motivation than love? I mean doing good not for the sake of doing good or because you are good, but just to be called a 'hero' seems a VERY selfish and shallow motivation to me
He wasn't trying to tap that yet 😉.
oh was definitely trying to tap that
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I don't think that Spike or Angel behaved selfishly while they had a soul.
Well, if we want to broaden the thread and cover both souled vampires' actions from the start till now I'll have to disagree. There are several instances where Angel has made morally questionable decisions for selfish reasons, turning Lawson, taking the deal with W&H, trying to kill Wesley, making Lorne kill Lindsay, the Twilight mess... Uh actually I would define most of this actions as being plainly evil but surely evil is also selfish?
but in the next (non-au) episode he's begging her to let him die - laying it all on her to save him instead of leaving and dying. The one after that, he is giving her a book of romantic poetry, and then they're sparring 3 episodes later. Sparring in the sense that it almost gets groiny. He stays to help Buffy, and he's a lot more physically intimate than is safe, even though he knows the cost. What he did to her friends should have gotten him on a bus to LA long before they broke up in the sewer. He loves her, and he can't give her up even though he knows it's the best thing for her. I think that's a big part of his guilt in Amends. But that isn't unselfish love.
I couldn't agree more. Angel has been pushing to have a sexual relationship with Buffy from the start and at this point it's not only about their differences and doing what's best for her, it's about the danger of his loosing his soul. If he wasn't selfish Angel should have never started their romance in the first place, but when he comes back in s3 his staying around and his trying to go back with Buffy is beyond selfish. It's dangerous and wrong
