BlueWolf

I want to focus on this point, sorry to cut of your fantastic post that i enjoyed as usual when it comes to your posts.

Spikes Redemption is one of the most interesting aspects about the show because it goes against the norm the show established.
It goes against the very nature of it, which makes it something incredible.

I understand people who dont see it, who dont like Spike and therefore done put the same focus on the little details as those who like him.
I get why people try to downplay his redemption by saying he just wanted to get into Buffys pants...even though season 7 had made it unmistakenly clear that he not once expected or hoped for anything more.

The show sadly never gave us Spikes perspective when it came to the chip, his love for Buffy or the soul...otherwise it would be even more clear.
Spike and Buffy are essentially Kindred Spirits...its the word many people use when it comes to two people who seem to be made for each other.
And that is the case for those two, they simply have this connection.
That is why Spikes redemption or the idea of redemption started before the chip.
The chip made him stop in his tracks and opened the possibility for him fall in love with Buffy.
It opened up the chance for him to realize that he rather was a "weak" man than the Big Bad.

Spike wanting to be good for Buffy is not a bad thing...i know many anti shippers for all kinds of ships want to make it look like that.
Its weak when someone wants to change just for another person...but that is not true.
Wanting to change out of love is something strong and good.
For Spike this wish was stronger than the Demon that was inside of him for hundred years.
We cant even begin to understand this because the show didnt put too much focus on how the Demon inside one works...but it takes more then Lust or wanting to "get into buffys pants again" to ignore the raging Demon and fight for a soul.

Spike only knew Love in a Destructive manner, in a manner that caused nothing but pain...but even without a Soul he understood that true love is not like this and he was willing to do Everything to make sure that he would never be the one again who shows Buffy this Destructive Love.

-Alicia-

I love for for these long posts

I couldn’t have said it better.

Jaime Bee

Great post but one thing.

How did we not see Spike's perspective?

I thought that was a lot to do with what the BY ending was about his talk about fighting for his soul in Sleeper & NLM.

I love the phrase kindred spirits.

I've always thought Joss could have easily had Spike come back Season 4 already in love with Buffy without the chip.


He is love's bitch & wouldn't kill b/c it would hurt her.

I don't think wanting to change out of love is a bad thing but can't be the only thing IMO.

I think it was Buffy's love that was more inspiration to change b/c she brought out the humanity left in him that the Judge said he had even way back in Season 2.

William the bloody awful poet was still there & was attracted to the goodness in Buffy.

It's why unlike Angel Spike could change & choose to be good or evil without a soul & choose to fight for one as well.


Spike to Buffy: You treat me like a man & that's...


This is in Season 5. He wants to be good but still has his demon that he is at war with even with the chip.

This is why he had to have his soul back in the narrative to become a better man.

Buffy: You faced the monster inside & you fought back. You risked everything to be a better man. You can be. You are. You may not see it but I do. I do. I believe in you, Spike.

Joss could have written the narrative diff. & Spike be able to truly be good without a soul but that wasn't the story he wanted to write. I've seen it written well over & over in fanfic.

I just feel it wasn't just all for Buffy there was his humanity inside of him want to be a good man & not hurt Buffy or anyone again being evil at all.

Permanent 99

Can I be added please?

BlueWolf

Sleeper is as far as i remember really the only episode that focused more on spikes perspective, but even then mainly on the "Why" of the Trigger.
Occasionally through season 7 we got tiny bits of insight on Spike...but nothing to the
Extent i would call his perspective.

We never really got his perspective on his falling in love with Buffy, it was more told from an outside view and not his.
How it utterly confused him and how his thought process was.
We never got more insight on everything after 5x18 and how he realized that the Love he knew and the love that he felt with buffy were two different things.
That his perception of love was not working.
Nobody can tell me that the Spike who saw buffy the first time in season 6 doesnt understand Love in its very core.

We never saw how this understanding turned back to the destructive kind of Love later on.
We literally gone from one extreme to the other in one episode without giving anybodys perspective.
You had this rather soft relationship build up until the musical episode, then it goes down into the destructive kind without any warning.
We never saw Season 6 from spikes perspective and how this push and pull affected him.
Buffy beating him up in the Alley was told from Buffys perspective and never spoken off.
We never saw Spikes perspective after Seeing Red, we got left with the missdirection until the very last moments of season 6.

And this continued with season 7 where we never saw Spikes perspective on the soul and all that.
I can understand it in season 7 however because you simply had too many plots to work with.
But honestly i would have been happy if we got a second Spike centric episode instead of the one with Andrew or Willow for example.

Most change that starts with love turns into more very fast, i know out of first hand experience.
I wanted to change the kind of person i was for the woman i fell in love with, but very fast i realized that i also wanted to be a better man myself.
So i think one leads to another in the end.

I never understood why they didnt gone into a real direction with the possibility that Drusilla didnt turn him "right" or that something else was "wrong" that left Spike with obviously humanity left.
They brushed that off with "spike is just different" but that had so much potential.

Charmed Slayer Angel

Added

Permanent 99

Thanks

Jaime Bee

Sorry for not replying sooner but I didn't feel like posting much last night & went to bed early. I had a major headache.




I admit I haven't watched full episodes of Buffy in years. So I can only go by my memory & Spuffy fanvids.

I've always seen some fans mostly haters say we got Spike's POV but not enough of Buffy's POV.

So I guess that's where thinking we did get Spike's POV really came from honestly.

I think it's most important that Joss didn't sweep it under the rug & made it clear what Spike did was wrong.

He earned Buffy's forgiveness. It's not like Buffy didn't bring it up either. She did in BY & Him. The show could have dealt with it more but it was enough for me.

Well unlike shows today have actual rape & other terrible things happen all the time but pretend they didn't & the couple get together.

I wouldn't still be able to ship Spuffy ever again if Spike had raped Buffy though.

I can understand being able to get over the trauma of someone almost raping you to be with them but seeing as I've never been in the situation to really know though. That's just where I stand on the issue.

I do believe a man can have a clean slate with another woman & find redemption though in this way.

I like the idea of Spike being turned wrong.

Joss just says Spike is unique.

I think in one my earlier posts I explained why Spike couldn't have a healthy relationship with Buffy without his soul. Spike could love but it just couldn't always be in a selfless way. Buffy was lost & So was Spike b/c he let her guide him about what was right or wrong mostly. Like a soul would actually.

I think Spike's demon loved Buffy in the selfish way & he had it still there all the time without any kind of restraint except the chip before he won his soul back or knowing this is wrong b/c it would hurt Buffy or she wouldn't approve of this or that. Then at the same time he has his humanity that is trying to fight the Demon in him b/c he wants to be a good man again for Buffy & himself.

BlueWolf

Its okay, i hope you feel better.

Nothing wrong with that since the Spuffy fanvideos are a work of art.

Hm, i need to look this up but i cant really see how we have seen Spikes Pov in any of this really.
Yeah it was not sweeped under the rug but that is why i would have liked to see Spikes POV especially after the soul.
It sounds mean probably but i would have liked to see the soul causing him more pain to really show how wrong it was what he tried to do.
You have him as demon run away to get the soul so it would have been helpfull to get more insight on how exactly the soul is punishing him and how strong he felt he deserved the pain.

Which makes Buffy in turn one of the strongest characters.
That she still took it onto her to Help Spike, that she saw more in him and was ready to accept him in her life...it takes a incredible amount of strength.

I absolutly despise it when Rape gets used in any kind of entertainment...its a awful thing and shouldnt be used for narrative or character purpose.
So im absolutly sure i wouldnt be here if they would have gone through with it in Buffy.
I would absolutly despise Spike even with the Soul so im glad that they didnt go through with it fully.
Seeing Red is a episode i cant stomach often and i will never excuse Spike on this.
There was only the soul that could have saved him for me, either getting the soul or die trying.
I wouldnt have accepted anything less.
There are still days where me being a Spuffy shipper is not easy because of Seeing Red and the fact that the show imo didnt do enough to work through the situation afterwards.
We have now all the insight on it but i can only imagine how bad it must have been for Spuffy shippers back in the day.
Even after all this years its a rough topic and therefore i can understand people who simply cant ship them.
I do because i see the context the how, why and so on.
It is something that never should be excused or swept under the rug...its something that always will be with the characters...thankfully season 10 dealt with it in manner that helps.
Whenever people go on their rant against Spuffy and the topic, i throw season 10 at them because those comics did a ton of good stuff for Spuffy.


Saying Spike is simply unique is a good direction too.
It adds to the possibility that he and Buffy were meant to be and gives Spike even more character.
Its a interesting topic when it comes to Spike with or without a soul.

I think he and Buffy could work without him having a soul...when it is well written.
When his Love is so to speak the compensation for his soul.

Its why a huge part of me would have loved to see season 6 continue with how they built up their relationship since the end of season 5.
Could have been cool to focus on Spikes struggle with his demon, his love for Buffy, his growing understanding that love as he knew was wrong.
That would have been interesting and ended with him leaving to get his soul because despite his understanding and so on, he realizes that he wants to be more because he liked what he became when his humanity won the struggle.
You could have done it like this without Seeing Red and the attempted Rape.

-Alicia-

I agree with everything yall are saying.

I think Seeing Red will always hang over Spuffy shipper’s Head. It’s the one thing antis have any kind of leverage on and they’ll hold on to that until the end of time. But that’s okay because the show did a lot of work, and while I would have liked for more conversation about it in s7, I think they did a really good job of not sweeping it under the rug. And while antis will try to hold that over our heads we have a lot more ground work to throw back in their faces

I agree though that if Spike has actually gone through with it I would have been done. I probably wouldn’t have even been able to continue watching Buffy.

Jaime Bee

Welcome to the thread Permanent 99.

Thanks.

I was thinking of other things that alluded to the almost rape like when Spike touches Buffy's arm in Him & flinches.

Spike in the basement hitting himself & saying he hurt the girl & would pay.

I'm sure there were other times off screen. I bet Spuffy talked more about the almost rape off screen as well.

I have such a long list of things that were actually off screen we know happened. Maybe I will talk about that in another post.

I think that's kind of scene you were wanting but at least we got that one.

I look forward doing a rewatch to see what I think now about BTVS in gen. & what I think about Spike's & Buffy's POVs during the show.

Why couldn't Spike have decided to get his soul back after he slept with Anya b/c he felt he hurt Buffy so much then?

He thought that it was the evil inside him & that was the only way he could truly change & be a better man. Spike still always will have his vamp instincts but the chip & his love for Buffy weren't enough.

I think that would have been plausible.

I think even Spike's demon loved Buffy in a way that was where the selfish love came from & why he wanted to have any way he could Season 6. Things would have been very diff. if Spike did have his soul back already. We saw this with his selfless love Season 7.

I hope this doesn't sound like I'm trying to justify the almost rape but to me his intent matters & I think it was obvious that wasn't his intent from the start. It wasn't something he did deliberately. He wasn't taunting Buffy or anything like that about how much he was going to enjoy having her whether she wanted him or not. It was more Spike lost control b/c you could tell when he realized what he did he was so horrified.



I think Buffy realized all this & it helped her be able to forgive him.

Spike if he really wanted to rape her wouldn't have let that stop him. I think the fact that the most he really did was pin her down makes a diff. to me b/c he didn't get inside her at all.

I'm hope that doesn't sound like I'm trying to justify anything. It's just how I think it all played out & why partly I could forgive Spike like Buffy. I'm not saying it wasn't traumatic for her but I'm sure those things mattered to her in the scheme of things. She remembers how he has even recently not wanted to ever hurt her truthfully in HB about being sorry it hurt seeing him with another woman. The idea that he had cameras b/c of Xander's idea of it around her house. Plus sleep with Anya of course.

Spike: I don't hurt you.

Buffy: I know.

These moments looking back really foreshadow all of it even Spike & Anya sleeping together.

I could write such another long post about the convo Spuffy had in the bathroom. Maybe I will later.

I think Spike winning his soul back through trials that could have killed him is huge for many reasons.

For Buffy & himself fig. out he wanted to be a good man again. This was the only way.

Well most of the time that the almost rape bothers me really now is when the haters are posting like in the Spuffy tag on Tumblr.

I think if Buffy hadn't died that Spuffy wouldn't have had such a dark relationship since she wouldn't be dealing with depression but there still would be angst just not as dark.

Spike could have or not in the narrative decided he wanted his soul back. I think Buffy still would have many of the same issues & most likely though with the soul thing just a tip of the iceberg.

Spike would realize to be with Buffy & really a better man he had to have his soul back. I can see Spuffy patrolling together every night & growing closer but the attraction would mess up their tentative friendship eventually like in the show. The attraction had been there since the start. That's almost 6 years of UST building up between them. No wonder they brought down a house with their passion for each other.

I do hate too anything about rape used on TV/Movies but also 2 of my other big ships deal with the man raping another woman but one finding redemption with a good woman changing from that bad man.

Jack/Jennifer Days

The potential for this with their daughter ironically Abby wth EJ.

I must really have a kink for redemption in my ships.

I hope this made sense.


Agreed we do have a lot of things that makes the bad worth it in the end b/c Spuffy overcame all of it to be have the most beautiful love/connection. Plus in general helped each other be better people. It was all worth it b/c they have everything it takes for a lasting relationship. I mean seriously with everything Season 6 & the fact they both still cared about each other speaks volumes about the connection they already shared even early Season 7.

Buffy was actually worried about his wounds when she saw him again & expected him to help her find Dawn.

Before at the end of Season 6 even after almost raping Buffy still wanted Spike to protect Dawn & was sad he left & even wanting to know when he would be back.

Clem lived in Spike crypt & Buffy was buddies with him we saw Season 7. The only ex. is that Buffy would go there hoping Spike came back a lot for her to bond with Clem.

Buffy missed & still trusted Spike are big things.

-Alicia-

Ive known you long enough Jaime to know you’re not, and never have justified that scene

To me, I really felt Spike’s remorse in the basement and especially in the Cross Scene in Beneath you.

Jaime Bee

Thanks & I agree.

Spike: What does a man to what he mustn't to be her? To be hers. To be the kind of man that would never... He just can't say what he really means as his voice cracks with tears.

Spike was going to say rape a woman.

Spike didn't want be a monster anymore & be a good man again like he started out human. He didn't want to do anything evil ever again. He saw the soul was the only way finally.

That's why he chose to fight for his soul & not get the chip out.

Spike on the cross me my brother & mom always said Spike is gonna die saving the world. It was foreshadowing this for sure.

BlueWolf

There are some very subtle scenes yeah...but my personal preference would have been something more "on your nose".
In 7x09(Never leave me) when they talk about the Soul, they could have tackled a lot more and deeper things or later in the Basement.
There are many moments on screen where they could have done more, but what they did works too.

Yeah, they could have easily done it there.
I will never be okay with them deciding that Seeing Red was absolutly neccessary to be the last straw because it wasnt.
It was done for the shock.

Its a fine line Spuffy shippers have to walk, whenever we try to talk about Seeing Red it often gets treated as if we defend it...when nothing could be farther from the truth.
I have never seen a Spuffy shipper defend the attempted rape at all, not for one second.
But we do talk about what lead to it and the aftermath in a way that Explains it.
What Spike did was in no way or form okay and i dont know any spuffy shipper of Spike fan who excuses it.
He lost it because he like every character in season 6 was struggling and came to a breaking point.
The simple fact that without a Soul he was horrified what happened, says enough about how much he was struggling.
The Moment he realized what almost happened, was the moment his hundred years old demon drenched in blood and violence broke.
Thinking about this fact makes me again so upset that the show never focused on this more.
The very same demon that loved to cause pain and death and torment for hundred years, was shattered under the weight of this.

Absolutly.
I can only imagine how this would have turned out when i look at late season 5 and early season 6.
Those soft and tender scenes...
The season very well could have ended with Spike going and seek his soul because of a much lighter reason.
The character was always one who had a thing for love so i could have seen him going because of that.
Because he wanted to find a way to experience love on stronger level or because he wanted to make sure that he had something that could prove that he wants to stay with Buffy and therefore wants to get the soul.
What could have been...
[/QUOTE]

Jaime Bee

Great post with lots of good points.

I'm not sure what to add.

I don't know if Joss realized how much backlash there would be for the almost rape since Spike didn't rape Buffy.

He prob. thought it would be easily forgiven by the fans at the same time a way to show Spike still had evil in him & needed the soul to be good.

I have been told many times I must want to to raped or even must have a disease over the years shipping Spuffy since BTVS was on air.



You either have to accept it happened & still ship Spuffy or not if you can't accept it.

I'm pretty much happy with how everything turned out in the end even without the comics.

Season 7 really amazing for Spuffy & show how the bad was worth it b/c of the strongest love/connection that I've ever seen formed.

Spike going to Buffy at the end of ATS was inevitable.

We got an open ending.

Joss loves Spuffy more than the other ships.

That's as close to endgame as you can get.