What always astounds me is the amnesia that surrounds this sentence:
BUFFY: Why does everybody in this house think I'm still in love with Spike?
Why (adverb "For what reason") does (third-person singular simple present indicative form of do. "Do" used with another verb (in this case, "to think") to form questions) everybody (pronoun "all the people in a group") in (preposition "enclosed") this (determiner - identifies a specific thing being indicated) house (noun "a building for human habitation") think (verb "have a particular belief or idea") I'm (contraction - I - pronoun used as the subject of the verb to refer to the person speaking: am - first person singular of the verb be) still (adverb "up to and including the present or the time mentioned") in (adverb? describing a relationship between people) love (noun "a strong feeling of affection") with (preposition "what person or thing you have a particular feeling towards) Spike (noun - proper name)?
I may have made some errors but I've persuaded myself it's definitely in English. It's not the most profound sentence I've ever read but nor is it the most complicated. In fact, I'd say it was fairly straightforward. I know it's not in the shooting script and rumour has it SMG added the "still" but other small changes were made, which makes me think they wanted it transmitted this way. You can debate the meaning of the term "love" but you can't deny she said it. "Still" doesn't make much sense to me if you consider the "love" began in S7. In fact, the only way I can make sense of her actions (including taking Dawn to Spike after the AR) is to see a continuum from S6 (at least) with a hiatus for the AR (although the "can't love you" here bothers me). There's also this from Lovers Walk: "Buffy:...I can fool Giles, and I can fool my friends, but I can't fool myself. (shakes her head) Or Spike, for some reason". I think there's a difference between what she consciously admits to and her unconscious feelings. I'd argue throughout 6 she's making a conscious effort not to love him but, as she says, she's not fooling herself and she's not fooling him. It's the only way I can accommodate her contradictory behaviour in the season. I'd argue in 6 she loves "William" or the "man" but can't (her favourite word) love his monster.
When he began to love her is difficult to establish. He had an obsession with Slayers from the moment he knew of their existence. There was an obsession with the Buffy the Vampire Slayer from the moment he saw her. However, IMO, the obsession was different because unconsciously she reminded him of Anne. I know Marsters was only meant to last a season so it must have been "fortuitous" that his first lines are "Home, sweet home" (somewhere new but strangely familiar). I'm not a great believer in coincidence but it enabled them to retroactively figure the significance of his mother. It's no coincidence that both Slayers he kills are "foreigners" (one Chinese, one black - not familiar) or the first mentions her mother, the second is a mother. I've said all this before so I'm not dwelling on it except to say this obsession takes the form of simultaneous love/hate.
I don't think he was consciously aware he loved Buffy (as opposed to his love/hate for the Slayer) until Out of My Mind (it was out of his mind until the dream - dreams are the "royal road to the unconscious"). Resolving conflict (his man/monster dichotomy and reconciling his love for Buffy with her role of slayer was, IMO, the reason he went to Africa). This doesn't annul his claim he went to restore his soul - I just think, at this point, he was unaware the soul would be the vehicle that enabled it. So - at various stages in the series - both love the human part of each other - it's not until S7 they begin to love the demon in each other (and this involves loving the demon in themselves).
So many insightful posts here that I find myself nodding at them all.
I have to say I was blindsided by the above "still", as until then much as I really wanted to see signs of love on Buffy's part, at most I saw desire, affection that she didn't want to admit to, and the start of respect in S7. Having said that I was delighted and felt vindicated in my hopes for it to be true.
I do think Spike was strongly attracted to her from the very start, but to quote Natalie Imbruglia illusion never changed into something real until (IMO) FFL. I genuinely believe that until he saw her in tears over her Mum, he didn't see her as a person. He saw her as a gorgeous, bitchy, whiny adversary. I also think that he really didn't see himself until then as anything other than her equal, certainly in terms of yin and yang, opposing warriors. He had a rude awakening from her that night. But I saw two real changes come in his attitude - the first was that whilst on the one hand he saw her as more human, the other was that he put her on a pedestal. But you do have to see someone as a proper person before anything real can happen, don't you.
First he stopped referring to Dawn as brat kid sister and started referring to her in softer terms. But the shrine we see in Crush still shows his yearning for Buffy as unattainable, the lady fair whom the knight has to show himself worthy for. So she still is the romantic ideal. Gradually as many here have said he comes to place her wellbeing above his own, and so in Intervention we do see the start of the real relationship between them.
Spike always works harder at this than Buffy, through the steamy affair of S6, the terrible events of latter S6 and then regaining his soul, whilst Buffy remains isolated in her depression and is ashamed even to acknowledge his love. It's much more than his being her bit of rough, or as the Scots would say "lumber". Spike has more to prove. And he does because once he regains his soul he gains self- awareness and the ability to empathise even more. So his understanding of her deepens into the solid foundation for everything he does after then.
As for Buffy, I do recall she got very flustered when Parker asked if the English guy was an old boyfriend. And once when she told Finn if she wanted someone with super powers she would have been dating Spike. I know it's all played for laughs but if it's even mentioned then she clearly has something in mind. Physical attraction counts for a great deal, n'est-ce pas? Why else would the two of them taunt eachother about their disastrous love lives?
Now that I have got to S11 (which yet again gotta say I LOVE) I can put it all in perspective and see a progression.
I think Buffy starts to allow herself to love Spike in S10. She has a slip of the tongue after that mind trip when she says she fell in love with the same guy twice but she never answers Spike when he asks her about it. As to them never giving things a chance in S6, well she has changed to the extent that she now (to quote Spike from NA) knows a good thing when she sees it. And I found it quite telling that she was the one who wanted to work through the bad patch when he wanted to jack it in. I think it was at that point that she was truly in love with him but didn't realise the extent of it until much later.
And that's my tuppence worth for now. I must away to fulfill my domestic goddess role but I suspect the well has not run dry on this subject. I hope!
🙂)
