Who used who? Spike and Buffy

fly on the wall said:
(If there's already a similar topic, I apologize in advance.)

I often see people discussing how Buffy used Spike in Season Six, and how horrible it was, etc etc. It's obvious that throughout S6, Buffy feels some extreme guilt over the fact that she's been using Spike. But I've always felt the opposite...like Spike used HER more than she used him. She was depressed, and confused, and couldn't be honest about any of it to her friends at first. She took comfort in Spike because it was safe; she could tell him things (like the fact that she'd been ripped out of heaven) that she couldn't tell anybody else. She began a physical relationship with him in order to feel something other than emptiness and sadness. And I've always sort of felt like Spike manipulated that and used it to his benefit. Sure, he was in love with her, but you'd think if he TRULY cared about her, he'd see what their relationship was doing to her emotionally and would put an end to it. I love Spike, but I see him as very selfishly motivated this season.

So, what's your opinion? Who used who more? Or, did they use each other equally? Or, did they not use each other at all? Discuss. 🙂
Click to expand...

Well. This is a toughie. If blame has to be involved, I'd put most of it on Buffy. She came on to him initially. After she found out he could hurrt her, she realized that turned her on. And you can see how shocked Spike is when she comes onto him in "Smashed". After all, she was using him for sex completely and she did not love him. Spike, on the other hand, did claim to love her so he was not using her as blatantly I believe. I got more of a feeling he was trying to please her (while obviously enjoying it himself.) Don't forget he tried to break it off in "Gone". He said he didn't want her like that. I think both used the other. There can't be any blame. It just happened and both allowed and enjoyed it. Buffy felt shame about it and that's why she broke it off. And she also knew it was wrong to use him in that way, knowing he loved her and wanted more.
 
For those saying that Buffy came to Spike initially...well, of course she did! If Spike had tried to initiate anything physical, I think the attempted rape scene would have been far earlier in the season.
Still, it takes two to tango. A sexual encounter can't be blamed on one person just because the other person says, "Well, they started it!" In the end, they were both seeking out some sort of comfort, and neither were very ethical about it. Of course it's difficult to put all the blame on one person...I don't think we can, because both played their part. And, when you think about, both Buffy's and Spike's judgment was very clouded. Buffy's because of her depressed state, Spike's because of his infatuation with her.

I believe Buffy knew what she was doing. She knew Spike loved her, and she knew she was using that unfairly. We see the guilt she suffers from that time and time again...like, for instance, when she comes clean about everything to Tara. As someone else said, Spike's intentions are more ambiguous. Does he feel guilty? Or does he only feel wronged and hard-done-by? That's my issue here I guess. I feel the guilt should be shouldered by both of them. Until the attempted rape, I don't recall an instance where Spike was feeling guilty.

My opinion stems from my belief that it's worse to take advantage of an emotionally unstable person, than a person in love. Both are bad, of course. I wouldn't condone what Buffy did. But I feel, pre-attempted-rape, Spike gets no blame. Or at least, not enough. Maybe it's because his intentions--to be with the person he loves--are "purer" than Buffy's--to hurt herself, to feel something.

Oh, and I don't think him urging her to tell her friends about their relationship is a way to ease her out of the darkness. I think it's more about wanting the relationship to be real to her. Wanting her to face up to the fact that they ARE involved in something. Wanting her to love him.
 
I actually find Spike much easier to read throughout their relationship, because he's the most vocal about it. He was never really one to hide his emotions, so all along I knew what the relationship was doing to him. Buffy, in my opinion, was more difficult to figure out, because I just had no idea what was going on in her head. She was so far removed from pre-Death Buffy that I didn't really know her character anymore.

As for expressing guilt, I don't think Spike ever expressed guilt. Maybe he should have, but from his point of view, she was the one constantly making and breaking the rules of their relationship. One minute she was saying, "We have nothing but sex between us," and then she was asking him to tell her he loved her. One of my favorite quotes from him concerning this is when he shouted at her in As You Were: "That's all you've ever done is play me! You keep playing with rules you make up as you like!"

On Buffy expressing guilt, though, I don't think it was about what she was doing to Spike so much as the fact that she was using Spike at all. What she said to Tara showed that she understood she was wrong in using him, but I feel her real problem was the fact that she wanted a soulless vampire. That was what was destroying her, not the fact that she was hurting Spike. Otherwise she would have said she didn't want to hurt him anymore when she broke up with him. But instead, she just said, "I'm using you, and it's killing me."


Oh, and I don't think him urging her to tell her friends about their relationship is a way to ease her out of the darkness. I think it's more about wanting the relationship to be real to her. Wanting her to face up to the fact that they ARE involved in something. Wanting her to love him.
Click to expand...

I disagree. That was part of it, I'll concede, but I think by then even he had realized how twisted their relationship was. By telling her friends and getting it out in the open, he knew it would at least get better one way or another. This quote convinces me of it:

"See I figured it out, luv. You can't help yourself. You're not drawn to the dark like I thought. You're addicted to the misery. That's why you won't tell your pals about us. Might actually have to be happy if you did. They'd either understand and help you, God forbid, or drive you out where you could finally be at peace, in the dark, with me. Either way, you'd be better off for it, but you're too twisted for that. Let yourself live, already.... You either tell your friends about us, or I will."
 
I think it's very hard to say who used who the most, since they were both hurting and knowingly hurting each other. Spike on one hand cared about her and wanted to be with her, while she just needed to use him. On the other hand, he's a killer, so I'm on her side.

But after seeing Spike's beaten puppy look a few times, I start wavering.

But I do expect people to blame Buffy more. Spike's being a killer or not, the act of willingly (but hey, she was depressed) hurting another person isn't something we want to see a hero do. I'm fine with it, but understand why people want Buffy to be perfect and therefore blame her.

And of course, there's the old sexist prejudice that is hard to get over, because feminism and equality is a new thing;

"It's okay for a man to use girls and sleep around but girls are suppose to be nice."

Add that thought that's society whispers in our ears to the fact that Buffy's the hero of the show, and people are going to be disapointed in a lot of her actions, no matter how excusable. With Spike, we have less expectations. Hell, I'm just glad and surprised that he didn't try to rape her sooner.
 
Kelsey said:
They'd either understand and help you, God forbid, or drive you out where you could finally be at peace, in the dark, with me.
Click to expand...
Does that really sound like someone who wants Buffy to tell her friends so she can be "in the light" again, so to speak?
"They'd either understand and help you, God forbid..." Doesn't sound like he WANTS Buffy to get this "help", does he? It actually sounds very much like he wants her "in the dark, with him." Maybe as a vampire, he just can't see that for a human to be "in the dark" is a bad thing. All along, Buffy believes that Spike is infatuated with her because he likes pain, he likes misery, and he's hardly disagreed because he is a vampire, after all...and maybe he honestly believes that it's normal, and that for Buffy to seek out the same things is okay...but I don't know if I buy that. He didn't fall in love with depressed, misery-seeking Buffy. He can't be so blind that he doesn't see what being with him is doing to her.

I agree that the fact that Buffy was having sex with a soulless vampire was upsetting her. But I disagree that's why she claimed "It's killing me." Her confession to Tara in "Dead Things" is extremely telling.
Buffy: This can't be me. Why do I feel like this? Why do I let Spike do those things to me?
Tara: You mean...hit you? (pause) Oh. Oh...really.
Buffy: He's everything I hate. He's everything I'm supposed to be against. But the only time that I ever feel anything is when...Don't tell anyone, please.
Tara: I won't.
....
Buffy: Why can't I stop? Why do I keep letting him in?
Tara: Do you love him? (pause) It's okay if you do. He's done a lot of good, and he does love you. And Buffy, it's okay if you don't. You're going through a really hard time, and you're...
Buffy: What? Using him? What's okay about that?
Tara: It's not that simple.
Buffy: It is. It's wrong. I'm wrong. Tell me that I'm wrong. Please. Please, don't forgive me, please.
Click to expand...

Now, I know people will read into this scene (and, in fact, this episode) as they like. But when I watch that confession, here's what I see...when Tara asks if Buffy loves him, she looks away. She's ashamed that despite the good he's done, and the fact that he loves her, she's only using him. When Tara says it's okay if she doesn't love him, she looks up again, more upset than ever. In Buffy's opinion, it's NOT okay to use Spike. It's wrong. It's making her wrong, and bad, and evil. It's killing her.

Since I'm talking about this episode, I might as well mention what happens earlier, when Buffy beats up Spike. I think we can all agree that when she's beating him up, she's actually beating up the part of herself--the depressed part that she can't understand. She starts by attacking the soulless Spike in front of her; he's decked out in vamp face and everything. And she stops when he's back to his human face, when he's swollen and bloody, and she looks appalled that she inflicted that much damage on him. Not on a soulless vampire. But on Spike. Someone who cares about her very much.

Notice when she breaks up with him, she breaks up with "William." Not the soulless vampire. But William, the sensitive, human, kind and intelligent poet. To me, her guilt has little to do with Spike's not having a soul...although that aspect certainly confuses her. (How often did she defend her relationship with Angel by explaining that he had a soul? I think the fact that Buffy, a Slayer, can have relations with a vampire at all causes her a lot of turmoil, but that's probably best for a different thread.) To me, her guilt has much more to do with the fact that she's using someone who loves her.

Anyway, this was longer than I intended it to be.
I do believe the relationship with Spike, S6, was killing her. And yes, she initiated a lot of it, and yes, she was using him. But IMO, he was not helping her. Emotionally, before the relationship turned physical, he helped. He was there for her, she shared secrets with him, etc. I think, had the relationship stayed that way, he could have helped...he could have become a trusted friend and ally sooner than what he became S7. But by bringing a romantic aspect to it, I feel like everything snowballed for her. She kept feeling worse and worse. So did Spike. And I guess I just sympathize more with Buffy.
 
Skytteflickan88 said:
And of course, there's the old sexist prejudice that is hard to get over, because feminism and equality is a new thing;

"It's okay for a man to use girls and sleep around but girls are suppose to be nice."
Click to expand...

That's not the reason Buffy's blamed, in my opinion. She's blamed because, as you said, she willingly hurt someone. That can't be reduced because he was a "killer"--he was someone who loved her. The show has never portrayed that it's okay to use women; Parker is a great example. He used Buffy, the hero of our story, and he was a colossal jerk for it.

Spike was also a pretty terrible person for using Harmony, and that relationship is actually a great parallel to Buffy and Spike's. Buffy essentially became what she hates in treating Spike the same way he treated Harmony.
 
Primal Slayer said:
Buffy told Spike that she was using him and he was completely fine with it.
Click to expand...

Not the impression I got at all. When he said, "No complaints here love," I always took that as a particularly desperate, but not altogether truthful statement. I believe he didn't want to let go of the relationship because he didn't want to lose what little they had (which is the part where he used her), but I don't believe he was ever completely fine with it.

Fly on the wall: It really is all about interpretation, because I see that scene with Tara differently. I feel bad for Buffy, don't get me wrong; I always get teary-eyed. But I found the first half of it to hold more significance than the last:

Buffy: This can't be me. Why do I feel like this? Why do I let Spike do those things to me?
Tara: You mean...hit you? (pause) Oh. Oh...really.
Buffy: He's everything I hate. He's everything I'm supposed to be against. But the only time that I ever feel anything is when...
Click to expand...

I think that was killing her, in the end. Her friends and family couldn't make her feel, but a vampire could. I'm not saying it's wrong; she's the Slayer, she'll obviously have problems with desiring the demon she's supposed to kill, but I still think that ultimately is what bothered her. But of course, that's just my opinion.

Similarly, I view the quote I gave for Spike above differently, too. When he says "God forbid," I took it as sarcasm. Like, God forbid your friends actually understand that you're having a terrible time of it and want to help you. However, it's been a long time since I've seen the actual episode (freaks me out too much!) so I might be missing something in the delivery. But that's still the basic impression I get.
 
Joan the Vampire Slayer
Joan the Vampire Slayer
cute banner. love that scene.
I agree with Cangel. Except "I don't judge her for, though, looking at the circumstnces (being ripped out of Heaven) it was very understandable."
 
white avenger said:
As much as some of us wish to the contrary, the Buffy/Spike relationship in Season 6, though it began with really great potential, was never anything but animal lust and mutual abuse. I do think that Buffy was more to blame for the way it developed toward the end, but the truth is that it became a mutual use/abuse relationship.
Click to expand...

I disagree, that it was ALL lust and abuse, there was much more to it on both sides. The bad doesn't negate the good, nor vice versa. But the relationship was way more complex than two sickos getting their rocks off.
 
Didn't read all of the replies so I apologize if someone has said this before, but personally, I'm entirely on Buffy's side. Pre-soul Spike is a monster, and however entertaining a monster he might be, does not deserve the viewer's sympathy. The fact is he used Buffy as much as she used him, except she didn't deserve that treatment. He did, as he was simply a blood-sucking rapist monster, held in check only by a chip in his head.
 
Revolver said:
Didn't read all of the replies so I apologize if someone has said this before, but personally, I'm entirely on Buffy's side. Pre-soul Spike is a monster, and however entertaining a monster he might be, does not deserve the viewer's sympathy. The fact is he used Buffy as much as she used him, except she didn't deserve that treatment. He did, as he was simply a blood-sucking rapist monster, held in check only by a chip in his head.
Click to expand...

I don't know; one of the questions that the Initiative in general and Spike's chip in particular brings up is what kind of treatment demons deserve. The Buffyverse and Buffy, herself, seem to be of the view that demons should be eradicated for the safety of humankind because it is in demons' nature to kill humankind, but not that humans should abuse, torture, or harm demons for pleasure, knowledge, or simply because they can. The Buffyverse seemed to argue that demons should be treated humanely and that Buffy was out-of-line with Spike because, despite being human and having the capacity to treat him humanely, she used and abused him as a thing.
 
Did Spike use Buffy or did Buffy use Spike? If they used each other are they lust bunnies or lovers?

ALTERNATIVELY AND SORT OF OFF-TOPIC
Oh, well there you go, I got the wrong end of the stick again ( said Buffy smiling ).
AND
I thought Buffy had got a grant from the college, to find out if vampires could get randy if one was to whisper used sweet promises to them ( empty sugar bags ).
 
I just re-watched S5's "Intervention" the other day, and I realized that it's not so much the audience's response to the S6 Spuffy relationship that bothers me so much as Buffy's friends' response to the relationship.

In "Intervention," when Buffy's friends think she's been having sex with Spike, Xander confronts him aggressively. He specifically tells Spike off for "taking advantage of" Buffy after the death of her mother. Yet, in "Entropy," when Xander discovers that Buffy has actually been having sex with Spike, he reacts totally differently. Buffy's mental state is more depraved, I feel, in S6 than it was after her mom died in S5...if for any less reason than being pulled out of heaven was stacked on top of losing her mother. Yet Xander gives no mention of Spike taking advantage of Buffy. He seems to blame Buffy entirely, and reacts with anger. (Xander infuriates and disgusts me in this scene, but that's probably for a different thread.) Yes, his reaction may be because he was already so upset about seeing Spike and Anya together, but I'm not so convinced. I feel Xander would have reacted angrily either way, and it's just not consistent with his reaction in S5, when he actually WITNESSED the Buffybot with Spike.

I just feel so bad for Buffy this season (and for Spike, too) and Xander's opinion of the Buffy/Spike relationship embodies what annoys me so much about it: that Buffy gets all the blame and all the guilt and the title of a "user," but Spike gets little if any.
 
^ I would disagree that Spike gets little if any blame. The events of Seeing Red sort of shifted the majority of the blame his way. What Spike did in that episode was worse than anything Buffy did during the entirety of their relationship. Furthermore, some scenes (like Spike's "you belong in the dark" bit of dialogue in Dead Things) pretty clearly indicate that Spike is not a mere helpless victim; he does his fair share of manipulating. I think it is possible that Buffy gets more blame because we hold her to a higher standard. After all, she's not evil and she's the heroine. I just don't think Spike gets little or any blame.
 
palabravampiress said:
^ I would disagree that Spike gets little if any blame. The events of Seeing Red sort of shifted the majority of the blame his way. What Spike did in that episode was worse than anything Buffy did during the entirety of their relationship. Furthermore, some scenes (like Spike's "you belong in the dark" bit of dialogue in Dead Things) pretty clearly indicate that Spike is not a mere helpless victim; he does his fair share of manipulating. I think it is possible that Buffy gets more blame because we hold her to a higher standard. After all, she's not evil and she's the heroine. I just don't think Spike gets little or any blame.
Click to expand...

I think the writers threw these tidbits in to put some of the blame on him, yes. But even with all the horrible things he's done, he's STILL cherished beyond measure by fans...his mistakes are charming and sexy rather than frowned upon...and while the attempted rape is deplorable by anyone's standards (that was the point) I believe I read somewhere that the writers had thrown that in to remind us, hey, he doesn't have a soul, and STILL the fans could not be swayed from their opinion of him. They were surprised, I believe, at how devoutly the fans still defended Spike after this episode.

I love Spike, I'm not saying that I don't. But you'd think that since Buffy is, as you said, not evil and the heroine, the audience would have more sympathy towards her and less towards Spike. Or, at least, equal sympathy. And I do think Spike gets little blame. Not for the attempted rape, I think most fans blame him for that, but for all that happened before this episode.
 
fly on the wall: Why did you say "couldn't"? She could have told her friends the truth. She chose not to. Her bad. For the self-deceiving rationale, her need for isolation, owing to her anger, became their need to be protected. I otherwise suppose that the differing view is owing to how we assign blame, or how we judge. Is it in isolation or is it a him versus her matter? In isolation, both leave much to be desired. But him versus her, and he wins. He had always been manipulative, so he's in character. She's not.

One of my all-time series moments otherwise came in Entropy when the two souls who sought solace in the chemically-induced pleasurable moment found out together that their chosen means was an exercise in self-destruction [and if Beer Bad means drink beer and become Neandertals, then Entropy means drink harder and you'll find yourself sleeping with one of neither breath nor pulse (something the Neandertals never managed to accomplish)].

Lastly, and by the way, why are some justifying her depression? Who says that it had to be that way? Tell me, do we think that if all knew that there was a God or gods and life after death, that things might be different owing to that certainty? So, fine, sorry that some presumed more than too much and brought you back, but shouldn't you be back with a vengence, knowing to a certainty that there's a heaven? And never mind that part of that certainty is knowing that your mom is in the heaven that you were yanked from, and so at least you know her good and certain fate. So back with a vengence...
 
No, I suppose that physically, she could have told her friends.
But we all saw Xander's reaction in Entropy. We all saw how ashamed and guilty Buffy felt for having sex with a soulless vampire, for using that vampire solely for sex. Who can blame her, really, for not telling?

I justify her depression because I feel that her depression was justified.
Do I think she should have sat around and wallowed? No. And she didn't. She still accomplished her Slayer duties, she was "going through the motions" trying to be normal. She sought solace and comfort in Spike. Her friends, I feel, didn't pick up the slack and help her the way she needed to be helped. Spike didn't help her the way she needed to be helped. And that makes me feel horrible for Buffy.
The fact that there's a heaven would comfort you, I'd imagine, unless you were pulled from it. For the first time ever, Buffy felt safe and certain. She felt finished where she was, a feeling that none of us can really grasp. And then she was pulled out from that feeling, which must have been extremely traumatizing. She was tossed back into a world that now felt like hell compared to where she'd been, and she was expected, by her friends, to be as grateful and happy as they were. Her depression WAS completely justified. People have been more depressed for lesser events happening in their lives.
 
^ Yeah. I don't think you can blame Buffy for her Depression, either. You can blame her for certain things that she did in order to cope with her feelings (like using Spike), but you can't blame her for having the emotional reaction that she had due to the highly traumatic circumstances of dying, going to Heaven, being ripped out of Heaven, and crawling out of her grave. That's pretty heavy stuff right there.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom