Why does Spike love Buffy?

[shipperx]

I finally figured out one of the hold-ups on finishing the fanfic I'm currently working on.  I've worked out many elements in the story and try to think through character motivations (even if all of them may not be explained within the story), but I have a tendency to accept "Spike loves Buffy" as a given.  I don't think this works best storywise.  I need more.  I want more.  I need (just for myself) some concept of why.  

After much pondering I think I have found an answer to what makes the Spike within this story continue to love Buffy or (perhaps) he's falling for her again (I don't feel the need to make a distinction between the two.)  But I did find it to be an interesting question to ponder.

I know how I mentally framed his falling for Buffy the first time, but -- for me at least -- those reasons have fallen away and wouldn't be valid in a post-NFA world (especially 20 years post-NFA).  Why he fell the first time made sense at that point in time, but through the arc of the show what first drew him to Buffy wouldn't be what would draw him again  (and it is post-NFA I'm talking about)

... Or would it?  

Dunno. 

It seemed to me that a great deal of Season 7 was Spike learning to let go of Buffy and of the dream of her ever loving him in return.  So much so, in fact,  that when she finally said the words, he was beyond believing them.  So it's a quandry for me.  What about Buffy that he loved would draw him again?  I figure that he will always love her (just as he will always love Dru), but I had thought that he went beyond the place of simply being in love with her.  In my head, he fell and, after a great deal of effort, he got back up again.  

Anyway, I think I may have found the answer I need for this particular story (and I'm fair. Buffy's feelings for Spike cannot be taken as a given either.  I need more than 'just cause.' ) It's just that, with Spuffy, I tend to work towards making Buffy fall for Spike while "Spike loves Buffy" seems pretty much written in stone.  So, just out of curiousity, I thought I'd pose a question at large  -- why did Spike love Buffy?  

Having been around the fandom for a while, I know that there are as many answers to this question as there are posters, but I'm curious.  Why do you think he fell for her or thought he fell for her?  What about her was so compelling to him that it became integral to who he was?  Inquiring minds want to know.

Comments

[ladypeyton.livejournal.com]

It was the pedestal. From way back in his William days, Spike always fell for the woman most out of reach.

The poet in Spike has always sought out glory and "The Heroine" so that he could see himself as the Hero (or anti-Hero) of the piece. That's why, IMO, he chose to die in the Hellmouth instead of leaving with Buffy when she asked. Not only did he spend the past year letting go of the idea of Buffy ever being able to love him, I agree with you there, but no woman can compare to the glory of giving your life to save the world.

And boy was he ever disappointed in AtS S5 when he realized that, really, there WAS no glory. He wanted to see how it ended and it ended as a ghost in W&H.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I suppose that I always factor in the "pedestal" aspect of his admiration for Buffy. It did, in its way, factor into my interpretation of Spuffy, but I tend to shy away from it as a primary motivation (probably simply due to personal preferences). More often than not, I find myself harkening back to pre-Season 6 days thinking he fell for a person that he ended up not actually being involved with. Maybe it has to do with his words in "Touched" where the woman he describes is less the woman sitting in front of him than the girl from earlier seasons.

I suppose I always attributed some bit of sympatico to Season 2 where both he and Buffy were being "cheated" upon with Angelus and Dru. And the fact that Buffy continued to love Angel through all of it. When Spike arrived in Season 3, Buffy had ostensibly "forgiven" Angel everything while Dru had pushed Spike away. William was big on the concept of unconditional love, and I have tended to think that the unconditional love that Buffy displayed toward others (who were not named Spike) is part of what inspired Spike's adoration. The girl that Buffy had been was as big into 'overthetop, loyal beyond bearing, are you effing nuts to still love this person' as William had been and part of Spike connected to that and loved her for it (even if he wouldn't acknowledge it until a later time).

The problem, of course, is that that this wasn't the woman who was involved with Spike. That woman was haunted and largely broken, someone who had this sort of hope burned out of her by death and disappointment.

Maybe he gave that gift back to her at the end, in giving her back "the fire", I don't know. I doubt it, but I'm not entirely sure Joss didn't try to bury that thought (somewhat unsuccessfully) somwhere in there. But I tend to think where Spike's love is most heartbreaking is that he saw the girl still somewhere inside the woman and he loved her for it, even though little was left of that girl but the ashes.

But... none of that helps my story. In fact, it sort of works against it so I'm 'lalalalalalalala' ignoring that bit. >:)

[grave-tidings.livejournal.com]

Don't ask me... when I write them together, I have to change Buffy's personality. I never got why he was so stuck on her, except perhaps a streak of masochism and wanting what was out of reach a la the William in him. (Ducks and runs for cover for that blasphemy.)

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

No need to duck and cover. There's certainly a great deal of masochism in Seasons 6 and 7.

One line that always rang particularly true to me was one in "Never Leave Me" where Spike tells Buffy that before the soul, he hadn't understood her actions because he hadn't fully understood self-loathing. I don't think Spike saw the masochism in his own actions until sometime in Season 7. As for Buffy in Season 7, I don't know that I will ever figure her out. She remains an enigma.

[bluekaty.livejournal.com]

Because she is his counterpart in the world of light, she completes him, they are two halves of the same thing, only in different dimensions. To me they are so similar that if it wasn't for the clear erotic attraction between them they could be twins. This is one of the reasons why Spike understands Buffy so well, can't help loving her and will do so for the rest of his un-life. The sad thing in all this is Buffy in-ability to understand this, although in Season 7 she was slowly getting there. I've never seen two people belonging to each other more than them, and it'll always be a mystery to me how people cannot see this and how they'd celebrate her romance with Angel which pales in comparison for how conventional it is. I'm not sure I've answered to your question but just last night I was watching again scenes from "Showtime" and "Touched" and there's such an intensity of love there to burn the screen.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I do tend to see more balance and partnership with S/B. There is something there where they are both alike and polar opposites in a way that augments one another... or would if it was allowed.

[thedeadlyhook.livejournal.com]

You know, I don't know if I've ever seen anybody ask this question before! Maybe at the time, everybody had their own theory to the point where it just seemed obvious, or else never thought about it at all. But you're right; it needs asking, especially post-NFA.

I agree with a lot of what bluekaty says - I've always found Spike and Buffy to be very tempermentally similar, especially in regards to love: if you go back to the early seasons, it's neat to try viewing Buffy through the lens of obsessed love for Angel, and it's not at all unlike Spike's later love for Buffy (the one with the Sadie Hawins dance, "I Only Have Eyes For You," is a good one to watch for this). This similarity doesn't last, of course, because Buffy gets burned by love in a number of ways after Angel and is so very devoted to DUTY, so she ends up losing this ability for raw, no-holds-barred emotional devotion.

Spike, though... arrested development. No "duty" to drag him into practicality, no morals, so he's still able, after 100 years, to be obsessive and I-only-have-eyes-for-you. When he falls in love with Buffy, it's almost like she's being pursued by her own younger self, the one that didn't care so much about rules... only now she does.

But as to why Spike loves her? It really seems to me that he's drawn to her strength (it's probably true that there's a little bit of masochism in the guy), confidence, and star-like aura; even Cecily, in "Fool For Love," struck me as a sort of Buffy-like choice, a queen bee well out of his league (in this regard, you could also say William had a lot in common with Xander). Post soul, I think Spike responded more to Buffy's innate goodness and kindness, how hard she tries, etc., which is more an admiring kind of love than the original passion. That their relationship ended on a chivalric note - him as the knight, her as the queen - made sense to me in this context; he wouldn't expect the queen to step down, and condescend to love him, not at this point.

I've pondered a lot about what it would take to bring these two back together post-NFA, and my solutions always ended up being about the high/low status issue: she has to show that she wants him in a way that doesn't feel like a step "down," and he has to feel worthy of her without continuing to demand that he climb "up." They have to return to that almost-twins state, of being equals. IMHO. But then, that would require both of them to reconnect with their more-passionate natures, and somewhat unlearn the dutiful devotion, and is that possible, after everything...?

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I don't know that you can recapture that youthful view. How do you unknow what you know? I think this may be why I've been siding with a tentative ending rather than a definitive one (ship-wise that is). I do agree that parity between them is a must. The power differential between them in Season 7 was vast, too vast for me to embrace the ship with enthusiasm at that point.

I also agree that part of what first attracted, fascinated, and obsessed Spike was Buffy's ability to be just as blindly, stubbornly in love as William was. That's part of what I've always believed and what I meant when saying that what first drew Spike to her pretty much ceased to exist over the course of her story in the show. That makes it difficult to find again some compelling force drawing him to her. . . that they're both disillusioned doesn't seem particularly inspiring.

I always like the sympatico and the partnership and I think for me to find my way back to the ship again, there has to be a way to develop that again. I grant that part of Buffy's attraction was that she was beyond his reach, but if that's the only attraction then I don't embrace it. For me to be satisfied there needs to be more. And post-NFA Spike masochism isn't a satisfactory answer either.

I think you hit on something with her heroism though. I actually have leaned toward having a moment where he sort of falls again and the way that moment happens is his watching her save someone else, someone who most people --probably even her -- don't consider worth saving. I think this choice may be because this particularly the aspect of Buffy is the one that I consider to be most worthy of love because by and large she's a very flawed individual.

[bluekaty.livejournal.com]

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Thanks, I'm glad you managed to make sense of my over-emphatic post , I'm afraid Spuffy has that effect on me :)

[buffymonmon.livejournal.com]

well, why wouldn´t he fall in love with her? She´s pretty amazing after all. She is the Slayer, she´s strong, brave, asertive and she´s very pretty.

What´s not to love?

I have always liked the idea that a major part of Spike´s attraction to Buffy is based on her strenght (psycical as well as fysical). No doubt Spike prefers strong women, a quality that is very symphatetic indeed. This is crusial for my view of the Spuffy relationship.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

She is the Slayer, she´s strong, brave, asertive and she´s very pretty.

True. But I think when writing, it's hard to go with the wholistic view. It ends up having Spike either seeming to hero worship or having her come off as a bit of a Mary Sue.

I think there are many possible choices, all valid, which can be made and each can be tailored to different stories with different themes.

But reaching for everything at once exceeds my limited capabilities as a writer. :)

[quinara]

I had a crisis about this a while ago - I was writing a fic and then, for the life of me, couldn't work out why the hell Spike would love Buffy in the first second place.

I still haven't worked out a definitive answer for myself, but I'll have a go at rambling.

When I think of them together, I mostly think in terms of 'they kick a lot of arse and have a lot of fun doing it', which makes them integral to one another (once Buffy realises that she can't be making that many quips and not be having fun) on a day to day basis. Angel and Angelus, for me, never seem to enjoy the fight so much as the result (either the saving people etc. or the kill). On a non day to day basis, Buffy and Spike also share the same sort of values (loyalty, determination etc.), which they admire in each other and which also make them compatible when it comes to the world-saveage. (Spike firmly believes in the idea of 'being a hero' and putting everything aside until the job's done. He's just not as good at it as Buffy until S7 and onwards. That's why it might piss him off that Buffy won't talk to him, but he still admires her for it and doesn't turn against her.)

There's more I want to say, but I can't work out what it is...

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I had a crisis about this a while ago - I was writing a fic and then, for the life of me, couldn't work out why the hell Spike would love Buffy in the first second place.

It takes a crisis like that to interest me enough to try to write. I think that's one of the reasons that Spuffy continues to fascinate me. Joss left so much blank space to play in, so many unanswered emotional questions, and so many loose threads. It's like a loose thread on a sweater. You pull one and see what happens, see where it leads.

There's more I want to say, but I can't work out what it is...

I feel that way most of the time.

[moscow-watcher.livejournal.com]

For me, Buffy and Spike are two sides of the same coin. Reluctant heroes. Rebels. Fools for love. Subversive elements. It's fun to watch School Hard in retrospect and compare their stories in this episode: they are experiencing the same problems and the deal with them the same way (well, sort of :)))

They both love what they can't have. For Spike, Buffy's love is the most unattainable dream. For Buffy, Spike becomes unattainable since he gets his soul. When\if they meet post-NFA, they have to overcome the most difficult barrier - their availability to each other. Is it possible? Are they too afraid of closeness? It's a rich psychological study, a delight for the author.

They both see love as compassion, as caring and protecting those whom they love. Spike realises that he falls in love with Buffy in season 5 when she is in a desperate situation with her mom dying and Glory going after her sister. Buffy realises that she falls for Spike in season 7 when he's half-mad and miserable and tortured by The First.

So - could they be together again after NFA? My answer is yes - if the obstacles will seem insurmountable and they both will suffer a lot. I can't imagine Spike approaching Buffy-the-boss, but I can see him finding an utterly miserable Buffy - failed, rejected, probably injured, angry at the whole world - and staying by her side.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

When\if they meet post-NFA, they have to overcome the most difficult barrier - their availability to each other. Is it possible? Are they too afraid of closeness

I agree that there's definitely that dance. The show left it on such a question mark. It's a loose thread that we never saw pulled.

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

I think Spike expresses a lot of it in Touched. He's been around in some capacity ever since Buffy was a young fairly carefree slayer, he's seen her change over the years, and yet remain "A hell of a woman. You're the woman, Buffy".

[kellyhk.livejournal.com]

I have to agree with Frelling. He's seen her grown, and somewhere along the way, he grew as well. The Spike we see in Touched loves her unconditionally and not just because she unattainable any more. He has gotten past the glamorous candy coating and is no longer just infatuated with her. He loves her, but is starting to steel himself to let her go (and does so in Chosen.)

The Spike we see in AtS still loves her, but is in a place where he has finally let her go, and though it hurts, is okay with it?

what would bring them back together? The idea of a clean slate is what's going to bring them back together. The were two very fractured people in season six and neither had any place trying to be a part of a whole in season seven. They needed that season seven to discover themselves. They never "courted" if I may use an old fashioned term.

I see the future about getting to the other better. Taking that love that started when they were broken and focusing on something positive.

[queenofattolia.livejournal.com]

I think he fell for her when he had the kissing dream, and the best answer I can come up with as to why loved her is: it was completely ineffable. The whole "in my gut, in my throat" thing was telling. Spike's love was visceral and triggered by something wholly unrelated to reality -- the reality in which Buffy was cruel, dismissive and condescending to him.

Hm. Re-reading that seems to give credence to all those yahoos who kept yammering about how Spike was obsessed with Buffy and loved her shoddy treatment of him because he was a masochist, yadda yadda, but I've gotta say: as someone who has also fallen for another person in an almost entirely instinctive, visceral way, I understand how he felt completely. I think it's why I fell so madly in love with him myself. It was total identification and recognition.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I think it's one of those things which are so different to me that I have a hard time feeling that I have a good grasp of it. It's rather enigmatic and I have this constant urge to deconstruct and analyze. :)

[rahirah]

I've always thought that he started out respecting her courage and determination as a fighter, but even more than that, her ability to think outside the box. In S2 he obviously admires her skill at improvisation and her willingness to step outside the usual role of a Slayer, to the point that he finally comes to her and offers her an alliance that most Slayers would have rejected out of hand. In her way, Buffy's a little bit of a rebel (though in other ways, she's very much a conformist) and Spike admires rebels.

I think he also saw her incredible capacity for loyalty and love for Angel even after Angel lost his soul, and though Spike claims to despise both of them for it, I think that really hit home for him, especially considering that Dru was in one of her fickle phases at the time. Spike is a stone romantic, and whatever you think of B/A, they oozed capital-R Romanticism.

And I think he really enjoyed the verbal battles they had, as well as the physical ones.

Probably nothing would have come of any of this if not for the chip, which forced Spike to throw his lot in with humans if he wanted to survive. And even that might not have been enough, but then "Something Blue" happened. I don't think the spell had any lingering effect in and of itself, but it did rip the lid off of Spike's latent attraction to Buffy. And he had fun. For all their arguing, Buffy and Spike in that episode seem to get an incredible kick out of each other. Spike may have slammed the lid right back on the moment the spell broke. But his encounter with Faith later in the season hints strongly that he hasn't forgotten about it. All of this just gradually built up, I think, until his dream in OOMM.

As for post NFA stuff... honestly, I think that Spike falling back in love with Buffy would depend almost completely on Buffy. She still has all those qualities he fel in love with the first time, but she's a lot more chary about displaying them. The most believable scenarios for their reunion for me would be

1. Buffy being hurt and angry that Spike wouldn't believe her and then didn't tell her he was alive, and Spike getting defensive and snarky, and they have a fight and split up immediately.

2. Buffy's glad to see him alive, but she can't offer him any more than what he got in Chosen: he gets to be her emotional support, and she won't commit to it meaning anything. Spike may or may not fall into this pattern again for awhile, but either way, he'll eventually find it unsatisfying and leave.

I don't think that other outcomes are impossible, but a writer needs to show me how and why the characters are able to get past their pasts.

What a great question to ask!

[selinde2.livejournal.com]

This is a terrific discussion, just what I need to kick-start my brain. So, my two-cents' worth - what happens to Buffy after Spike dies a hero's death. That has to be a huge change - she isn't rare any more, she's just the senior slayer. Dawn will be gaining in independence. B isn't tied to the hellmouth and gains some global experience, perhaps some interests more demanding than shopping. Once the world isn't revolving around her any more, she will have a chance to reflect on who she is and how she got that way. Perhaps she suffers from survivor's guilt - it's pretty common - and maybe, just maybe, she can ask for help and find someone to talk to and trust. Buffy was so frozen, so angry, during Season 7 that I found it hard to watch - and still she was being challenged to consider Spike - as someone she was responsible for, as a danger to her other charges, as a partner (in fighting and training the potentials), and always relying on his love, his physical support. The poor girl was being stretched six ways from Sunday, and she never had a minute to sit down and think. I think she loved Spike, she just wasn't able to recognise the lifetime love when it happened to her, because she was still expecting candlelight and roses. (No wait, they did the candles...:~)So, why did Spike love Buffy? Because she was the best - he has to admire her physical prowess, and they clearly love fighting one another and fighting together. So, earlier posters are quite right, he admires her. And William the treasured son of his mother's house cannot bestow his heart on anything less than the best - he loved and pitied Dru all those years, and admired her dark deadliness, but when she took to the Chaos demon he couldn't admire her any longer - perhaps her behaviour with Angelus began to loosen his affections first. She was not worthy of him any longer. Perhaps, like Buffy with the vampire psychiatrist, Spike has a superiority complex, but an inferiority complex about his superiority complex, complicated by a cheap soul bought dear. So, like Angelus, (who fell in love at first sight) he has to love her because she is the best thing he can love. And he can see she needs him, whether she will admit it or not.
So, post NFA, Buffy has learned a few things about herself. And Spike has found himself a place, friends, a job, a need for atonement. If they have to work together on something, they'll find their friendship - the rest should follow, shouldn't it? Gee what a ramble. Sorry to go on so, but I was having fun.

[redeem147.livejournal.com]

I don't think he ever stopped loving her. I think he just gave up the idea of being with her, because he believed she didn't love him.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I don't think he ever stopped loving her. I don't think he ever stopped loving Dru. I don't think he's trapped forever pining for her as I think he has an expansive view of love where there's room for one more. But, yeah, I think on some level... heck, many levels, he would continue to love her always.

[empresspatti.livejournal.com]

Good question!!

I always thought it was a combo of things that made him love her. Earlier seasons it looked more like obsession to me. Then I thought it morphed into a desperate longing/sexual/dysfunctional mess. But after the soul, I think more William (less kill, more suffering) came out. He was always kind of guy that just loves regardless of consequence, no matter how long the odds that the feeling would be returned. (I always thought some Robert Parker novels show a lot of that type of love).

I also think that he always admired her, maybe at first just as a worthy adversary, but later both as a Slayer and as someone who always struggled to do the right thing, even when it made her miserable or broke her heart.

Oddly enough, I also think that when she handed him responsibility, like protecting her Mom and/or Dawn, that really meant something to him. An acknowledgment of trust and respect. Spike was always hungry for approval (IMHO) even at his most evil.

They took a long emotional journey together and it marked them both.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Oddly enough, I also think that when she handed him responsibility, like protecting her Mom and/or Dawn, that really meant something to him.

I always thought that meant a great deal to him. He also tended to keep his word, thus his willingness to keep his promise to a lady. And I think it was his violation of his spoken intent to 'never hurt her' only to do so that sent him on the soul quest.

[lynnalso.livejournal.com]

For me its always been that they are mythic, like all the great love stories: they are not human in the sense the rest of us are. That is, the arc is that it is fated, they belong together. Anything that makes them ordinary spoils it for me; therefore no matter how far in the future, they are or should be together. Within this there can be many stories, like the King Arthur's Roundtable for example. Or just see Rahirah's future Spike & Buffy. It works. They are inevitable.

[rahirah]

Well, to be fair, my version branches off of canon after S5, and while they certainly have their problems, they don't go through the morass of S6. Emotionally speaking, both of them are in a very, very different place from the canon characters, and are dealing with very different issues.

[evilawyer.livejournal.com]

But did he really love her pre-soul (at least on the series --- fanfic happily says yes)? And because I started to expound and realized I was taking up way, way too much space in your journal, I think I'll post my thoughts on this over at mine. The upshot is, though, I think that an argument can be made that Spike came to love Buffy in S7, and that everything before that was something else ---- attraction, admiration, fanatical devotion, hero-worship. Not bad, but not necessarily love.

[rahirah]

Buffy thought he did, in his sick soulless way. Which may not seem like much of an endorsement, but coming from Buffy, who spent a whole year denying that anything Spike felt could be real, it's a moderately startling admission.

(For what it's worth, Joss has said Spike loved Buffy pre-soul, too, though not all the writers agreed with him.)

[lynnalso.livejournal.com]

Here again - can't resist. Moscow Watcher reminded me that there was that feeling of twinship in School Hard, and Spring Summers noted that Buffy has a red streak of poster paint in the same spot as Spike has a red streak of blood: emphasizing the connection even then. Of course Rahira was right, her version does not include the horrors of Season 6 and 7, but if you accept the premise that they are "meant" from the beginning in a mythic way, all these different versions still work - as do the Roman & Greeks myths of heroes which have different versions. As long as I can recognize Buffyness and Spikeness they work for me. I enjoyed all these comments, and I hope they help writers with post Chosen stories, but for me Spike will always be there, watching her back. (sniff). And BTW, I have experienced almost instant love that has lasted all my life, so it does happen.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

If there wasn't something fascinating about them and their situation, we wouldn't keep discussing it or trying to find ways to write about it. :)

[lokifan]

Very late comment, but this is such an interesting discussion!

Plenty of reasons mentioned here seem credible to me, but I think a big part of why he fell in love with Buffy was the pedestal. But it's not just about hero worship. I think he missed an awful lot about being human, and probably parts of William - however much he wanted to be a badass you can't crush a part of you and never miss it. The William parts of him that remained are clearly shown in NFA, after all.

Buffy is part of his world, but also part of the world he lost, and I think that would make her very compelling for him. He's such a dreamer, as other commenters have said, and I think that's part of it too. I always thought it was such a telling detail that in the dream sequence, when she enters, she brings the sunlight with her and he stands in it. He associates her with the good human things he still values (especially love) that other vampires, particularly the other members of the Fanged Four, clearly don't value.