Crush

[Updated May 1, 2013}

At some point in time between Fool For Love and Crush, Spike began to acquire a very strong following among fans. He’d always been a popular, but secondary, character. Now many fans became fascinated by his story such that he became as important to them as, say, Willow and Xander were. Some fans were beginning to ship him with Buffy (Spuffy). Writer David Fury pissed off a lot of Spike’s fans by ridiculing the idea of Spuffy in public and with Buffy’s line in Crush about Spike being a “serial killer in prison”. Since Crush is so Spike-centric, it’s a good episode to examine in order to see what it tells us about him. I’ll start by discussing his role as the (other) vampire in love with a Slayer.

It’s an interesting dynamic. Buffy told Spike she never needed him in Checkpoint, only to take Joyce and Dawn to his crypt because, it turned out, she did need him to protect them from Glory. In Blood Ties we saw (1) Spike protect Dawn; but (2) help her break into the Magic Shop; for which (3) Buffy blamed him; only to realize that (4) it was really her fault that she hadn’t told Dawn; and (5) she then asked Spike to help her look for Dawn. Now, at the start of Crush, Buffy tells him to get lost again:

BUFFY: (frowns) What are you doing?
SPIKE: (frowns) Wha, what do you mean what am ... I ...
BUFFY: Here? At this table? Talking to me. Like we're some kind of talking buddies.
SPIKE: Well, I saw you ... sitting here alone. Thought, I don't know, you could, maybe do with a bit of, uh, you know, company.

Buffy raises her eyebrows at him. Spike frowns.

SPIKE: Suit yourself!

 

Given these apparent mixed signals, it’s not surprising that Spike’s confused. He’s incapable of understanding the context, namely that when Buffy asks for his help she’s not expressing romantic interest, she’s doing her job. If you want to say she’s using him, I probably wouldn’t argue. But because he’s a vampire, Buffy doesn’t see him as a suitable partner regardless of how her behavior might appear to him (see dialogue with Dawn quoted below). 

He doesn’t help matters by his actions in Crush. While there’s no denying the chemistry between JM and SMG, Spike’s behavior is hardly the stuff of romance. Although Buffy doesn’t know it, Spike was treating Harmony like crap. Well, ok, it’s just Harmony, but still. More significantly, and equally unknown to Buffy, he also went along with Dru when she killed the 2 people in the Bronze and he fed from one victim himself. This seems to have been part of his plan to make Dru trust him in order to get to Buffy, but letting 2 people be killed for that purpose further emphasizes to the viewers the difference between soul and chip. Spike can’t act on his demon instincts, but that doesn’t mean he can understand human ones.

The stake out was an obvious sham. Letting Dru tase Buffy and then tying Buffy up and threatening to kill her isn’t exactly a turn on.

His offer to stake Dru in return for Buffy’s agreement to “give him a crumb” is more interesting. In S1, Angel proved himself to Buffy by staking Darla. That differed in two important ways from what Spike did here. First, Angel didn’t demand anything in return. Second, Angel didn’t threaten to let Darla go free and have her way with Buffy.

If Spike isn’t doing anything in Crush to make himself attractive to Buffy (or any sane woman), why then is Buffy so concerned that there’s something in *her* that made her attractive to Spike? Obviously she’s insecure because Riley just left town, as did Angel before him. But there’s more: consider that Spike’s long-time girlfriend was Drusilla, an insane, cold-blooded killer (both parts of which are rubbed in our faces during this episode). Buffy’s concern must be in part based on a fear that Spike sees similar qualities in her: maybe she herself is becoming cold and predatory. Remember this dialogue from Buffy v. Dracula:

BUFFY: (gestures helplessly, gets up to pace) And then this whole thing with Dracula ... it made me face up to some stuff. (Giles looks concerned) Ever since we did that spell where we called on the first slayer ... I've been going out a lot. (Giles looks surprised) Every night.
GILES: Patrolling?
BUFFY: Hunting. That's ... what Dracula called it. (pacing) And he was right. He understood my power better than I do. He saw darkness in it.

I think there’s even more to this point, but that would take us into spoiler territory so I’ll leave it for Intervention.

Buffy also has serious Angel issues. She certainly doesn’t want a repeat of her experience with Angelus. For Buffy, the distinction between a soul and a chip is crucial even if Dawn doesn’t think so:

BUFFY: He's a killer, Dawn. You cannot have a crush on something that is ... dead, and, and evil, and a vampire.
DAWN: Right, that's why you were never with Angel for three years.
BUFFY: (quietly) Angel's different. He has a soul.
DAWN: Spike has a chip. Same diff.

Buffy has to believe in the difference. It would be impossible for her to go out every night and slay vampires if they weren’t inherently evil (see my long discussion of this point in my post on Amends). Worse yet, it would raise the question why Spike could choose to love her but Angelus couldn’t. I doubt she wants to face that possibility; that’s why she crushes Spike’s hopes at the end.

Enough of romance for now. Let’s talk about Spike more generally. I don’t want to leave the impression that only shippers were involved in the controversies about Spike. That may seem like I’m implicitly limiting Spike’s fan base to them or even dismissing them, when I’m not. For many of Spike’s fans, what was important was not that Spike was succeeding with Buffy, but that he was trying.

If you see Spike as Alex from A Clockwork Orange, then at this point it’s an open question which way the show will go. It could be the chip will enable his redemption, that he’ll gradually learn human behavior from his inability to give rein to his demon instincts. That, remember, was the idea behind the operant conditioning Alex received in the novel. Alternatively, it could be that the “soul canon” remains in effect, meaning that Spike can’t be redeemed without one, as Buffy suggests in her rebuke of Dawn.

The arguments about Spike’s path generated enormous controversy on the Buffy discussion boards. In fact, it’s not possible to overstate just how much controversy there was. I’ll give some very early, and relatively tame, contemporary examples across the spectrum of this debate:

“Maybe I'm a hopeless romantic but I'd like to believe that if he wants he can change. It doesn't have to be easy. … I always thought that Spike has the intelligence and imagination to be able to control his own actions. i.e.: Cogito ergo sum. I think I am good therefore I am good.”

“As much as I love the character I personally love him for his role as a villain and an Id without inhibition. … To me the chip does not equate with a soul a la Angel and I don't believe that the gang is at all being too hard on Spike. 

… Spike wants Buffy in my opinion because of his unlife-long obsession with Slayers and his doing her favors like watching Dawn and her mother or battling at her side are driven by the motivation to attain her love not by the motivation to do good. What alternative does he have? With that chip in his head he can't be the predator he was and he doesn't have the core group he once had with Darla Dru and Angelus. I believe that the Buffy lust stems from him needing something once again to save him from another mediocrity: life without evil. … What's changed is that he can't do the killing he'd normally be performing.”

“Spike is more than just an enemy. He is a brutal, mass murderer. Instead of visualizing Spike or some other vampire prostrating himself before you and confessing his love, visualize Jeffrey Dahmer confessing his love to you. Now ask yourself how you would feel about Jeffrey Dahmer. Would the idea that he loves you entice or repel you? Would it make your feel good about yourself that a cannibalistic murderer finds you attractive?

To me, the question is not "Why isn't Buffy nicer to Spike?", it's "Why didn't Buffy stake Spike a long time ago?"

To get a sense of David Fury’s view, and to have some fun with multiple levels of irony (some of which I’ll have to explain later), let’s return to the dialogue between Willow and Tara discussing the plot of The Hunchback of Notre Dame:

WILLOW VOICEOVER: I just don't see why he couldn't end up with Esmerelda.

WILLOW: They could have the wedding right there. Beneath the very bell-tower where he labored thanklessly for all those years.

“TARA:  No, see, it can't, it can't end like that, 'cause all of Quasimodo's actions were selfishly motivated. He had no moral compass, no understanding of right. Everything he did, he did out of love for a woman who would never be able to love him back. Also, you can tell it's not gonna have a happy ending when the main guy's all bumpy.”

 

The problem is, Tara’s description is totally wrong. Fury later admitted that he completely screwed up the message of the book in that dialogue. He wanted to make a point about Spike and his unsuitability for Buffy in order to set the tone for the episode, but the actual message of the story of Quasimodo is that his love redeems him. As Harmony would say, Oops.

There will be more fuel to this fire very soon. The Great Internet Spike Wars were just beginning.

Trivia notes: (1) When Xander called Spike “Evil Dead”, that refers to the movie and comic book series of that name. (2) Buffy’s general cluelessness during the conversation about Quasimodo prefigures her shock when Dawn tells her that Spike has a crush on her. (3) Charles Laughton starred in the 1939 movie version of Hunchback. (4) Buffy’s mention of the singing gargoyles refers to the 1996 movie. (5) Joyce ended up with two shipments of Greek amphorae, which were large storage containers used by the Greeks for olive oil and wine. (6) While waiting in the car with Buffy, Spike began to sing “I want to be sedated” by the Ramones. (7) Spike’s conversation with Dru summarizing her recent activities refers to 3 AtS episodes: To Shanshu in LA, The Trial, and Redefinition. (8) Harmony’s description of Dru as “Queen of the Damned” refers to the Anne Rice novel of that title and the movie made from it. (9) Harmony also referred to Dru as Morticia, from the 1960s TV show The Addams Family. (10) Buffy’s description of beating Spike up as “like third base” is American sexual slang. (11) Joyce’s recommendation to Buffy to “nip this in the bud” is an American idiom meaning “stop it before it gets too far”. (12) When Dru accuses Spike of taking her chair before the music stopped, she’s referring to the children’s game Musical Chairs. (13) He may have screwed up with Hunchback, but Fury does get one of the best of the show’s many Shakespeare references: “We can love quite well. If not wisely.” (Othello, Act V, sc. 2.) (14) During the fight in Spike’s basement, Dru grabbed Buffy’s face and looked into her eyes, apparently intending to hypnotize her like she did Kendra in Becoming 2.