So after the wonderfully Buffy-filled weekend I had with Jen at the Comic Con, I was inspired to write a post about Spike and the various relationships he has had with the women in his life (and unlife). It's not just because James Marsters is very attractive that I love Spike so much. I find his character arc from season 2 through season 7 (and a little bit into season 5 of Angel) fascinating. Even as an evil soulless bloodsucker, he had certain ideas about gender interaction that ultimately led to the point where he became a decent soul-having guy. So without further adieu, here we go! And special thanks to Jen for some awesome advice while writing this.
There are many women in Spike’s existence that inform his general relationships with the opposite sex. Perhaps the two to begin with are the Chinese Slayer (name not given) in 1900 and Nikki Wood, the Slayer in New York in 1977. Both of these women meet their demise at Spike’s hands but not before having a profound effect on how Spike sees the lineage of the Slayer. They shared a unique quality that attracted Spike to them; defiance. They were strong and powerful women in their respective times that challenged Spike to confront what he felt to be a perceived weakness in how he interacted with the opposite sex. In a way, by taking them out, Spike is able to take out his unexpressed feelings of scorn and disappointment towards women. By the end of the series, his perspective on the Slayer line has changed to a far more positive view.
In 1900, Spike, egged on by Angelus, confronts the unnamed Slayer in the hopes of showing his comrades that he is indeed badass. He’s intrigued by what she stands for: a woman, powerful and agile, sworn to destroy everything he is. In a way, her death defines who Spike sees himself as for nearly a century: the slayer of the Slayer (“Fool for Love”). This is what drives him in 1977 to seek out Nikki in New York and take her out. But, unlike in 1900, he taunts Nikki, draws her out. They meet first in a park one rainy night (“Lies My Parents Told Me”) and he says he’ll be seeing her again. He’s excited to discover she’s the one he’s after and he takes pleasure in ending her life (“Fool for Love”). Both of these women will ultimately lead him to Sunnydale to seek out one Buffy Summers whom he has loved, lost and ultimately died for.
Loved
There are many women in Spike’s life that he’s loved; his mother, Cecily, Drusilla and perhaps most importantly, Buffy. Each of these women has molded him into the man we see by the end of Buffy season 7.
Until season 7, little is known about Spike’s family before he was sired. The events of “Fool for Love” seem to conveniently leave out any mention of his mother. It’s only in the season 7 episodes “Lies My Parents Told Me” that we finally meet the first woman he loved. His mother is an ailing woman whom Spike (or more accurately William) adores. He cares deeply for her, both on a physical and emotional level. While it’s not outwardly shown, I think Spike fears being with any other woman because he doesn’t want to lose the sole companion he’s had his whole life. She lavishes him with affection, even though his poetry is drivel. She understands that her son needs her to support him if he is to have any sort of successful relationship with a woman besides herself. In hindsight, it may have been ill-placed motherly affection, given how William met his demise. Still, she shows him what love can look like, at least in a parent-child scenario.
We meet Cecily, a high brow British aristocrat, in “Fool for Love”. She’s the first woman William had romantic feelings towards. Interestingly, she is the reason William becomes Spike. She is what love shouldn’t look like. His advances (as well-intentioned as they may be) are spurned when she realizes the poetry he’s written is always about her. She can’t love him because he’s beneath her (something Buffy says to Spike at the end of “Fool for Love”). William was a bit of a dandy and pushover but at his core; he was and remained very dedicated to the notion of romance. It was that little bit of humanity that couldn’t be squashed by the demon inside that propelled him into the other relationships in his unlife.
Drusilla is the woman that Spike latches on to at a very dark time in his life. He’s just been rejected by Cecily and he happens upon Drusilla, a strange woman who seems to understand him. Her allure is enough to keep him from questioning when she sires him. Thus begins their 120+ year love affair. And honestly, since Spike had his heart broken just before he met Drusilla, it’s a really long rebound relationship. Perhaps that’s why in the end they don’t work out. Spike devotes himself entirely to Drusilla, claiming she is his destiny and they’re meant to be together forever (“Destiny”). At first glance, it would appear that Drusilla’s insanity would keep her from returning his affections. However, in her own special way, she understands and reciprocates the affection he was never able to obtain from Cecily. For a long time she is his world, pillaging and destroying life wherever they went. He loved her for so long and he only ever loved her. It says something profound about the part of William that survived that he would be so monogamous in a relationship. Never did you see Spike cheating on the woman he had feelings for. But everything changed the day he first saw Buffy.
In the progression of Spike’s loves, Buffy is the most instrumental. Without her, he would not have become a better man and regained the part of him that made him such a good person in life: his soul. While some would argue it wasn’t love at first sight, I would say that from the moment Spike saw Buffy dancing in the club (“School Hard”), he knew there was something more to her. She wasn’t just another Slayer to kill and put a notch in his belt. Even while he was having his troubles with Drusilla, he was drawn back to Sunnydale and to Buffy to seek help and comfort. It wasn’t until season 4 and the Initiative showed up and shoved a chip in Spike’s brain to keep him from harming people that things really started to take shape. For a long time Buffy let Spike hang around because he was neutered and couldn’t hurt her or her friends. She didn’t realize, and perhaps neither did Spike, that allowing him to spend time around her influenced him in a positive way. He was able to fight demons (get the thrill of the kill) (“Doomed”), and by season 5 Buffy began to rely on Spike for information. It wasn’t until he really started to think about her (hallucinate and dream about having sex with her) that he realized just how deeply he loved her. Drusilla and Spike’s love affair may have been dark but it was a light shade of gray in comparison to Buffy and Spike’s love. Buffy allowed herself to give in to her darker urges and be with Spike in season 6, so the pain and violence associated with their sexual relationship wasn’t just on Spike’s end. Still, Spike’s previous relationship which revolved around equating sex and violence informed his relationship with Buffy to the detriment of the relationship. They were so wrapped up in using each other to satisfy their own desires, neither stopped to consider whether they could have had a strong, positive relationship while Spike still lacked a soul. His love for Buffy ran so deep that he changed who he was to have a chance at being with her and earning her love the right way; without the violence and self-loathing.
Lost
Inevitably, given the fact that he’s lived so long, Spike lost all of the women he loved in one way or another. He also had some platonic relationships that I believe he lost in some way as well throughout the course of his development on Buffy.
Of all the women Spike lost throughout his existence, I find his mother to be particularly tragic. In an attempt to extend his love for her, he sires her (“Lies My Parents Told Me”). What he wasn’t counting on was the demon that took up residence in her body. As he explained to Robin near the end of the episode, she said some nasty things to him in the end that tore him up. But he now realizes that it wasn’t really her. Still, knowing that he was the sole reason for losing his mother ate at him for over a century. She was the first casualty of his love.
William lost Cecily probably even before he had her. He pined for her from afar through his poetry and she rejected him the moment she realized that his poetry was about her. As I said before, it was this loss in his life that lead to William becoming Spike and starting down a rather dark and destructive path of love. They would cross paths one last time before the end of Buffy once Cecily had become a vengeance demon (“Older and Far Away”). It provides an awkward little moment that makes you giggle and gives some closure to that almost-relationship.
It’s rather unfortunate that every romantic relationship Spike enters into ends with the woman leaving him. First, Cecily rejects him for being too low status and then Drusilla abandons him in Brazil for a Chaos demon (“Lover’s Walk”) because his head is too full of the Slayer. This is only the first time Spike loses Drusilla. After the events of “Lover’s Walk”, he goes off to try and reunite with her. It’s unsuccessful again because the third time he returns to Sunnydale he’s got Harmony attached at the hip (a convenient shag if nothing else). Even as Spike moves towards loving Buffy entirely, he’s more than willing to fall back into Drusilla’s arms when she returns (“Crush”). He allows her to make him think he can beat the chip the Initiative put in his head and take out Buffy. Ultimately he loses Drusilla for the last time when he says he’ll kill her to prove his love to Buffy. Dru may be a crazy nut job but she could see that she’d lost Spike’s heart long ago. While I prefer Buffy to Drusilla, I think Spike losing Drusilla was an important step in his evolution to the man we see at the end of the series. It gave him the freedom to pursue Buffy without feeling as though he were betraying Drusilla.
While his mother’s death was certainly tragic, Spike’s heart broke too many times with his love for Buffy. First, he failed to keep her from death’s door in “The Gift”. We see him literally broken and bleeding watching as Buffy’s body lies lifeless on the ground. He sobs openly at his loss as the sun comes up, ignoring the fact that he could burn to ash any second. The best part of his life has been wrenched away and there is absolutely nothing he could do to change it. You would think he’d be happy when Willow, Xander, Tara and Anya resurrect Buffy in “Bargaining Parts 1 and 2”. He’s miserable. He knows that if the spell had gone wrong, and any part of whatever came back was Buffy; he wouldn’t let them get rid of it. He would be willing to fight the people she cares the most about to protect her. He loses her again by the end of season 6. An old love of Buffy’s returns and in the end, she breaks up with Spike. She can’t be with him anymore because it’s killing her (“As You Were”). She hadn’t been truthful with her friends about their relationship and now she realizes that she can’t be happy if she’s with him. She doesn’t want the violence in her life anymore. But that’s not the worst of it. In his grief, Spike makes the worst decision he can, an attempted rape (“Seeing Red”). He knows it’s wrong but violence is the only thing he’s ever equated with intimacy. It is these two losses that drive him to change and seek out his soul. Losing Buffy sends him on the path to redemption.
One of the more tragic relationships Spike had during his time on Buffy was with Joyce. Their first real meeting (excluding “School Hard”) in “Becoming Part 1” was hilarious and you could see how Spike wanted to impress Joyce. Even after Drusilla dumped him, he ends up sitting at the kitchen table in the Summers house being consoled by Joyce. He may have found a love (however twisted) in Drusilla but he’d desperately been seeking a mother figure ever since he killed his own mother. He found it briefly in Joyce. Especially in season 5 (“Crush”), she enjoyed his presence, let him into her home. He was devastated when she died. Not being allowed to pay his respects (“Forever”) really cut deep into him. Spike needed to grieve the loss of another mother figure in his life, and even though this time it wasn’t his fault, he couldn’t help but feel somewhat responsible. He even helps Dawn try to resurrect Joyce (“Forever”) in an effort to reconnect the second mother he lost.
Spike’s interactions with Willow, especially in seasons 3 and 4, show the first real platonic relationship he’s had with a woman. Certainly, he kidnapped Willow (“Lover’s Walk”) with the intention of killing her, but she turned out to be a great listener. Even in her fear, she managed to console him a little, and he latched onto that feeling. He sought comfort from her again (“The Initiative”) when he escaped from the Initiative. He knew he couldn’t go to Buffy. She’d just stake him, but Willow would be a more willing listener (even if he did try to eat her again). I think Spike’s tendency to attack the one woman he didn’t have feelings for speaks to the fact that he never had a model on which to base such a relationship. Perhaps it was the time in which he lived that had an effect on his ability to form a meaningful platonic relationship, but he ends up losing Willow as well. It may have been Spike’s attempt to break apart the gang that drove him and Willow apart or the simple fact that by that point in time they were both wrapped up in their own problems, but she was yet another woman he lost.
Dawn’s loss came slowly over the final three seasons of Buffy. In season 5, it was obvious she had a crush on him (“Crush”). She wanted to hang out with him because he was dangerous and had a cool coat and hair. Spike, having some sense of right and wrong (and probably because of his love for Buffy), never returned her affections. He looked out for her and tried to do what he could to keep her safe (“Blood Ties”, “Bargaining Parts 1 and 2”). He even swore to protect her until he died so as to stop Glory (“The Gift”). In season 6 he takes on more of a big brother/little sister relationship even as he moves into a sexual relationship with Buffy. But by the end of season 6 and beginning of season 7 he’s lost Dawn through his actions (“Seeing Red”, “Grave” and “Beneath You”). One might think this isn’t that big a loss for Spike, but it really is. In a way he counted on having Dawn on his side. If Buffy were to trust him, he’d need Dawn’s support. Losing her pushed him farther from Buffy in season 7 to the point where he paid the ultimate price; death.
Died For
Most importantly in Spike’s evolution is the fact that in the end, he sacrificed himself to save the world and make it a better place for the women with whom he’s shared the last 130 years. He couldn’t have done that if he hadn’t loved and lost all of these important female figures.
The scene at the end of “Chosen” where Buffy finally tells Spike she loves him always makes me cry. They’ve come to a place in their relationship where they are both able to acknowledge their deep feelings for one another, even if there is nothing sexual about that relationship. Buffy begs Spike to stop, but he can’t. He needs to finish what he started and that means giving up his life so Buffy can enjoy hers. It is a powerful scene because even though Spike tells Buffy she doesn’t mean it when she says she loves him, he is expressing the fact that he will always love her. His love for her edged him closer to taking the final step to becoming a better person. Losing her pushed him over the last hurdle to his soul. But getting her back in the very end is what built him up to be a better man, one willing to give so much of himself and asking nothing in return. Buffy believed he could change and it was this belief that refueled their love after so much darkness and destruction. In his rebirth of having a soul, she showed him what it meant to have a real love. Much like his mother showed him the true nature of love between parent and child, Buffy showed him what a real love between two people could look like. She gave him the hope that even as he gave up his existence, he would be capable of loving, respecting his partner. Perhaps the strongest example of this came in “Touched” when he confessed that he didn’t love her because he couldn’t have her but because of what she stood for to him. She was strength and power and beauty. All the good things about life. It was this acknowledgement on his part that gave him the strength to die for Buffy.
Certainly Willow and Spike grew apart after season 4 but it doesn’t mean she wasn’t still affected by his sacrifice. At the end of season 2, Angelus wanted to both awaken the demon Acathla to destroy the world and kill Buffy. Spike remarks that Angelus will get both things because Buffy is in the world. To me, there is a similar principle at work in Spike’s death in “Chosen”. Simply by being in the world, Spike burning in the hellmouth saved Willow’s life and thus he died for her. It was really a combination of Willow magic and Spike’s soul that kept the First from winning and I think that makes his death touch her life in a special way.
Similarly to Willow, Spike died for Dawn because she was in the world. I think, however, that her situation was a little different. The key difference is that Dawn is a part of Buffy, a part she was willing to sacrifice herself for (“The Gift”). By saving Dawn’s life, Spike is in a way saving Buffy twice (perhaps once for each time he lost her). He is giving Buffy the ultimate gift of life, both for herself and for those she cares about.
As any “Buffy” fan knows, Spike didn’t stay dead long. He returned in the final season of Angel. I find it interesting that once Spike regained corporeal form, he didn’t rush off to be with the woman he’s given so much of himself to. Instead he stayed in Los Angeles and fought side by side with the guy he spent a good deal of his past hating (Angel made him a monster) (“Destiny”) to continue saving the world. I’d like to think that Buffy and Spike have a future together some day. But he needs to save the world a few more times before he’s ready to try another shot at love.
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