So did Buffy REALLY love Spike?(Spoilers)

[anywherebuthere]

In "Chosen" Buffy tells Spike she loves him, he does not believe her.

What do you reckon?

I think she did at the moment.

And I never felt the Buffy X Angel releastionship to be "Real"

[Miss. Rogueh]

This has been brought up and discussed at great length in many threads on this site...

I think that in that moment Buffy loved what Spike was. How he stood by her when others wouldn't, how he trusted her with everything he was, how he would protect her. Most of the time I think she loved that he loved her.

[anywherebuthere]

Yeah, I felt Angel/Buffy realationship forced, as with Oz/Willow.


It took time/experience for Buffy/Spike to actually like eachother,Trust eachother.

[The Night Lord]

I like to think that Buffy really did love Spike, but if I was to look at it realistically (which I sadly do a lot), I think she liked him a lot, but not love him, ie she loved Angel a hell of a lot more and I think that Buffy loves Angel way more and will always choose him over Spike. I don't think we'll ever see Buffy choosing Spike over Angel sadly. And I'm a Spuffy person

[Tea - Total]

I think Buffy loved him.
Spikes much closer to Buffy in temperament, Spike can relate to her friends and sister, and Buffy has shown a willingness to trust him even after he's hurt her badly: after the attempted rape, she still took Dawn to him for protection.. So I think She loved him.

[Inappropriate Starches]

I think she loved him. I get that I'm a Spuffy shipper so I'm a little biased, but whether you think he's the right guy for her or even if you think she loves Angel more, I still think she did love Spike. If for no other reason than that Buffy clearly doesn't throw that word around all willy-nilly. On top of which I think they really came to a place of comfort and trust (the whole "I could never trust you enough for it to be love" thing). Well now she can and does trust him not to mention wants him around, relies on him and does have a lot in common with him... and he's doing this incredibly noble thing for her and the world, I think of course she loves him, wouldn't you?

[Darth Rosie]

No, I don't think she loved him. Spike was right when he said she didn't.
Buffy was in a place where she was not ready to love. She was thankful, and that's why she said it.

[Red]

I agree with Darth Rosie to an extent. By the time her and Spike's relationship began to form, Buffy wasn't the same person compared to when she fell in love with Angel, or even Riley. After going through so much she had a different perspective on the world and took heed to responsibility a lot better. There isn't a doubt that Spike held a place in Buffy's heart, and I may even dare to say that she did love him in some way, but it wasn't the love that most shippers can deny to.

[Skytteflickan88]

Joss said that Buffy was in love with Spike as/when their hands clasped.

He said this at a convention, so I could probably find a good source.

He didn't say for how long, or if it was the kind of love that laster more than a moment. but since he said "in love" not "love" I figure it's serious. Since Joss says it was love, I have to believe it.

It had been mentioned earlier in the season as well.

From First date:

"BUFFY: You know what? Yeah, I mean I think I like him. And he'd be good for me.

WILLOW: Right. Help you move on.

BUFFY: (defensively) Why does everybody in this house think I'm still in love with Spike?

WILLOW: No, I-I meant move on from this imposed super-self-reliance. Let somebody get close."

Buffy(to Willow when folding laundry):

It's horrible, letting the fans know that way. Did the writer of that line not consider that it had never been mentioned before? It seems like Willow and Buffy had talked about this before, and it was a old subject, but I'm like WTF??? I want to tell myself that the writer didn't think it through, but it's there now, it's canon. Buffy loved Spike once (and might have been during that scene too, if she was in denial before that episode. Seems like it could have been during season 6.

I suppose I could tell myself that she was lying to herself and used the world "love" either as a unserious love, or she told herself she had been in love. Would be much cooler if she had fallen in love in that episode, or during season 7 and realized it in Chosen.

[Hellbound Hyperion]

Buffy loved Spike, Angel, and Riley. It was characterized differently for each man (as each man is different from the other in several ways, particularly in relation to Buffy), but I believe that she loved all three of them (perhaps still loves them, even).

Beyond that... well, that's shipper territory, and I'm rather undecided in that arena.

[drusillacakes]

I have to agree with HH on this one--- I think she loved them all differently, but to answer your question, I think she did love Spike.

I think it was a love that she couldn't yet verbalize, and by the time she said the words, it was kind of like, do it now or live with regret kind of situation. I actually think this makes it more genuine. If the apocalypse is here, there's no time to mince words and not tell the truth. I don't know if she'd pick Spike over Angel though... but I hope she will. I think she can grow more with Spike. Her relationship with Angel felt stagnant to me.

[afterthebattle]

I don't think Spike and Buffy "being in love" is the most important part of this topic, because "to love someone" and "to be in love with someone" is clearly not the same thing. As others before me pointed out: In season 7 Buffy admits that she was in love with Spike at some point of the series. And as Whedon himself said: "Buffy was in love with Spike the moment their hands clasped."

As to the matter of love between Buffy and Spike ... I believe that Buffy truly did love Spike in season 7. Spike understood her like no one else did, he stood up for her and was there for her when her friends abandoned her. Although she doesn't tell him until "Chosen" you can see it in her eyes, especially when she rescues him in "Showtime" (I know this is a matter of interpretation, but that's what I see). There is a great amount of trust and understanding between them all the time and they help each other become better people. I also think that "he is in my heart" is such a beautiful statement, because it shows that the love that Spike and Buffy share goes beyond such terms as "boyfriend/girlfriend". Their love is romantic and physical, but not sexual (guess they've had their share of that already, am I right xD?), which I also believe Whedon himself stated.
So, yes, Buffy did love Spike. I watched Chosen with writer commentary the other day and Joss Whedon said: "What I basically told them was "Play the romance, Be proud of him, Love him when you say you love him, Love her when you say she doesn't loves you, forget about the crumbling world around you, for that period of time it doesn't exist." How much more proof do you need?

I see a lot of people here mention Angel. The "Spike or Angel" thing doesn't really make any sense to me. Buffy clearly loved both Angel and Spike (and maybe Riley, I'm not so sure of that one), it's just a matter of preference who you want her to be with. I ship Spuffy, because of the journey, I love watching how their relationship develops over the seasons and how they come to understand and love each other in the end.

[Scarygothgirl]

I think she loved him, but wasn't in love with him.

[leyki]

I think, what they wanted us to see, is how much people can grow up and change through relationships and during all the difficulties that one has in his lifetime.

We see 2 mortal enemies, who hate each other, becoming lovers with great passion, and falling in love at the end.
Love and hate, 2 different sides of the same coin.

Buffy had feelings for Spike, otherwise she would have never slept with him, but she wasn't in love....not until Spike got his soul back.

Her pity, that we see in the beginning of season 7, grows and becomes trust and love.
She told him, that she was there with him, at the most important night of his life, she told him that he gave her strength, she told him how much important was that night to her as well.

You don't choose to spend your last night on earth, with somebody that you are not in love with, especially when a past lover who cares for you deeply and you care for him as well, offers to stand by your side.
No, she sent away Angel, and prefered to spend her last night in the arms of Spike, because she was in love with, he was the one in her life, he was the one she wanted.

I think they wanted to show us the way that their relationship and love blossomed, but they were running out of time, since they wanted to give us the story of the potentials as well.
And Joss didn't write the episodes of season 7, i wish he have had, well, never mind, life goes on.

But, at the end, Buffy Did love Spike, and she was in love with him as well.

[foxchyck]

A bit of thread necro-ing here, but I just rewatched seasons 6 and 7, and I needed to babble my thoughts on this to someone.

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I think it's fairly obvious that she found him physically attractive. Heck, she was probably aware of that since they met, but she's always surrounded by beautiful people anyways, so it means diddly, specially when he's an "It".

As he started slowly helping the scoobies he started becoming familiar, to the point that her perspective of him probably occasionally shifted from "It" to "him". Moments where she thought of him as Spike, before he'd do something evil/annoying and she'd ask herself why she hadn't staked him yet.

Towards the end of season 5 I think "him" was pretty much established. She didn't understand why she had the loyalty of an evil bloodsucking fiend, but she had evidence that she did, so she was OK with "treating him like a man". He wasn't a Scooby, but for the moment he was "one of hers", so she probably felt some loyalty and the small whisperings of friendliness.

Come season 6, that friendliness became "this is one of the few people I can stand to be around...WTF?!" Friendliness started to become borderline "friend", and occasionally "my friend is hot, oh GODS WHY AM I THINKING THAT ABOUT SPIKE?!".

Then he saves her at a time when she's feeling pretty low and they kiss. And then she's depressed and they kiss a second time. Next thing you know her hot-almost-a-friend-but-he's-evil companion has become annoyed and starts punching her around (because he's all "WHEE my chip lets me hit the bint who is the cause of my angst!") and we get the violent conflict that turns into The Sex. Not just any sex, but rough, delicious sex that the demon in a slayer probably loves. It's like a kid tasting ice cream for the first time...they'll do a faceplant if you let 'em.

OK, so far, so good. She was somewhat friendly toward him, and had tentative loyalty, but nothing approaching love. In the overwhelming experience that is The (Rather Rough) Sex, what gentler, friendlier feelings she has get swamped and buried. And, well, he's evil, so she's feeling guilty and ashamed and so treats him pretty badly.

But here's the sneaky thing about The Sex. I don't know if the writers really were thinking about this, but people who have lots of good sex do form attachments to the other person in question (google "oxytocin" and "sex" if you aren't familiar with the phenomenon).

And I do see that sort of behavior in Buffy. As their sexual relations continue, I noticed signs that her earlier friendliness is now becoming fondness. Trying to keep his cigarette lighter. The way she hovers by his door in Dead Things before scurrying away. Having a dream about him in that same episode that has their interaction being much more like making love than their actual intercourse.

I think...she does like him. Not "sometimes" as she tells him, but more often than not. And even as early as season 6 a part of her does start to slide towards that thing we called love.

Obvious thing is, she doesn't trust him. And for every good reason. So she keeps restraining herself from loving him. (And I think Spike does sniff this out, but until after the rape scene, I really don't think he understands why she won't let herself love him. It took him doing that for him to finally get that he could no more trust himself not to harm someone he loved than she could. He realized he was too amoral to even know when he was betraying someone.

That awful rape scene is the one that actually gave me a lot of the clues.

Spike: You should've let him kill me.
Buffy: I couldn't do that.
Spike: Why?
Buffy: You know why
Spike: Because you love me.
Buffy: No, I don't.
Spike: Why do you keep lying to yourself?
Buffy: How many times- I have feelings for you, I do. But it's not love. I could never trust you enough for it to be love.
Spike: Trust is for old married's, Buffy. Great love is wild and passionate and dangerous. It burns and consumes.
Buffy: Until there's nothing left. Love like that doesn't last.

Maybe she was just getting caught up in the argument, but it was interesting to me that she doesn't say, in so many words, "dude, I don't even feel that for you...it's just horniness".

Then, of course, after the attempted rape, she says:

Buffy: Ask me again why I could never love you!


Watching the attempted rape, I couldn't help but wonder if part of her grief and trauma about it isn't the fear of getting raped (because, hello, I don't care how injured she feels, she's Buffy...she can easily kick his ass), but grief that someone that part of her wants to love is betraying her trust. She wants him to, somehow, prove her distrust wrong. Instead he's validating all her reasons for pushing him away.

So, yeah, I think even that early a part of her is a little smitten/fond/gleeful-when-he's-near about Spike...and the rest of her is saying "This is not like Angel. SPIKE IS EVIL YOU TWIT!".

And I think it's also possible that that conflict is part of why she was so much meaner to him once they started having sex, because she was trying to keep a focus on not being able to trust him. (That, and she was just going through a post-heaven rough patch.)

And then we get the soul and she spends a lot of season 7 trying to figure out whether the evil bits of Spike were indeed the demon. Once she sorted out that part, snuggling up to Captain Peroxide felt like a very pleasant prospect after all. Even if he can still annoy the piss out of her at times.

As far as how her love for him compares to her love for other guys...well, it's funny, but despite what Spike says about Great Love vs. Old Marrieds...those two do seems so much more like an old married couple than anyone else she's been with. *snicker* It's adorable.

Aaaaand that was wordy.

[midwesternwatcher]

Which makes for the more interesting story?

Buffy loves him, of course.

If you don't believe me, ask Cassie. Surprised nobody mentioned her in this thread before. Cassie knows absolutely, with a certainty only supernatural powers can bestow, that Buffy absolutely loves Spike. And she says so. Who wants to argue with he?

[joxerlives]

Much as I'm a Bangeler, yes she did

[iigreenii]

foxchyck that was so well put. You pretty much summed up everything I wanted to say.

[Randi Giles]

Okay karma to foxchyck.

One thing that I always thought was weird was how Buffy quoted Spike in Dead Things. "You always hurt the ones you love." Though they were talking about Warren and Katrina she had a certain look that I still just couldn't decipher. Was she admitting to herself that there may have been love there even though she didn't want it? Do anybody have any thoughts on that line? Plus in the scene when Spike first said it is when she immediately stopped beating him. Now I'm getting confused. It's time for a re-watch.

[drusillacakes]

Oct 1, 2010 18:41:14 GMT -5 Randi Giles said:

One thing that I always thought was weird was how Buffy quoted Spike in Dead Things. "You always hurt the ones you love." Though they were talking about Warren and Katrina she had a certain look that I still just couldn't decipher.

To me, she could have been thinking about her own actions towards Spike, or vice versa. Do you ever talk aloud when you're trying to figure something out, or when a thought dawns on you but you don't fully grasp its meaning yet? I believe that's what Buffy was doing. I could be reading too much into it, but the look on her face convinces me.

Sept 30, 2010 14:48:58 GMT -5 foxchyck said:

Aaaaand that was wordy.

...but awesome.