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Date Posted: 18:43:27 05/08/11 Sun
Author: Angel's Watcher
Author Host/IP: c-71-201-144-231.hsd1.il.comcast.net / 71.201.144.231
Subject: BTVS Rewatch Fool For Love

Buffy wants to know how Spike killed two slayers, so she goes right to the source.

I enjoy this ep. I think Spike lied in School Hard though...unless I missed it, Nikki didn't beg.

The other half of the Boxer Rebellion scene is in 'Darla' I think. While Spike killed the slayer, Darla tried to get Angel to kill the baby. Then they join up for the slow-mo walk at the end of the scene.

At the end, Spike still wants to sleep with Buffy, and gets turned down.

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[> And it's so not like Spike to lie!!! :-) -- Gachnar, 11:58:20 05/09/11 Mon (NoHost/216.186.54.124)


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[> Re: BTVS Rewatch Fool For Love -- chuckit25, 12:41:31 05/09/11 Mon (cpe-76-84-141-68.neb.res.rr.com/76.84.141.68)

At the end, Spike still wants to sleep with Buffy, and gets turned down. Angel Watcher

Really?

Spike is fighting his obsession with Buffy, I agree, but I don't get the sleeping with her angle. The obsession is why Dru left him. He even can't kill her. Her humanity--he thinks is her weakness, but he finds out that he has the torment of remembering it and how his compassion was in the care of his mother. He needs her to appreciate him, want him, and that is his entire version of "love" before he got the soul and discovered humanity HURTS.

He remembers, as William, the FEAR of losing his own mother, despite being "kept close" to home and actually naive in finding a bride. He thinks this context will make her love him because he remembers that fear and loss and pain. That is why he didn't kill her with the shotgun. He thinks this basis will make her swoon into his arms and he will, for once, hold the power.

Dru doesn't like him getting in touch with his humanity and rejects his "fugue" with Buffy.

That he wants to sleep with her is so subconcious I think it's near unconcious--I'm not seeing it at this point--it took despair, darkness, even violence to "turn him on." That was the whole deal with Harmony.

Or maybe I don't get Spike's VAMPIRE story contrasting with his "stain of humanity" story, especially issues surrounding the Mother--both eventually knowing they loved and are loved by their respective mothers. "The father" issues of abandonment and betrayal are in commmon with Buffy and Angel.

Be well
chuckit25

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[> [> Re: BTVS Rewatch Fool For Love -- kim, 07:26:45 05/11/11 Wed (adsl-71-129-43-6.dsl.irvnca.pacbell.net/71.129.43.6)

Spike's always been driven by love, or rather the desperate need for it. He stayed close to his mother and turned her because she was the only woman in the world that loved him. Then Dru sees him, plucks what William wants more than anything out of his head - to be acknowledged and loved and given a chance to be something greater. Angelus gives him extra motivation to be a monster, and it pleases Dru, but he's loyal to Dru for a full century - because he loves her. He never fully lost his humanity, as the Judge pointed out.

Then along comes Buffy, and she's a different kind of Slayer. Spike loves a challenge, so of course he goes after *this* Slayer, only she has friends and a mother and a Watcher who loves her like a father - and it therefore harder to kill. Every time Spike has a chance, he's interrupted! And then......then the chip forces him to see humans, or at least a select few, as something other than food, and he's irresistibly drawn to Buffy. At the end of "Out of My Mind", he realizes it's love.

OoMM comes before FFL, so yeah, he tries to kiss her at the end, and is hurt when she says "You're beneath me" - the same words Cecily used to break William's heart the first time - and that hurt turns to anger and a desperate need to end this one way or another, only he can't kill a crying Buffy, and since it's about Joyce, he comforts her, instead. (He liked Joyce, anyway, because she wasn't mean like the Scoobies.)

The title of the ep is apt - whether William the Bloody is human or vampire, he's driven by the same things.

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[> Re: BTVS Rewatch Fool For Love -- Lewis H., 19:55:38 05/09/11 Mon (adsl-98-85-41-117.mco.bellsouth.net/98.85.41.117)

Much like the White Court vampires in the Dresden files, William loves while the demon "Spike" just wants. Despair
made William turn into Spike and let the demon drive for centuries but the need for love brought him back and made hime want to fight for his soul.

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[> Re: BTVS Rewatch Fool For Love -- chuckit25, 11:42:36 05/11/11 Wed (cpe-76-84-141-68.neb.res.rr.com/76.84.141.68)

But doesn't his want override what Joss presents as love?

There are many who believe love is as varied as there are people, but the selfless, sacrifice seems to be what Joss allows for love--which means considering what THE OTHER PERSON wants and even needs more than the desire or neediness within Spike. Spike wants Buffy to love him because he needs to win love, and he doesn't really care that Buffy is NOT in love with him. This stain of humanity of remembered love was tied to the care of a sick woman who needed him and to the pain of rejection of what he wanted with Cecily--he even offered himself as a good man, as if that should be sufficient for Cecily to swoon into his arms and marry him.

I can't accept love from a soulless vampire, but then I like the obsessive, purple of Spike and Dru, not to mention the same dynamic is in play between Spike and Dru. He continues to want her to choose him over Angelus because he wants what he wants--and it seems to follow him even after the soul. So much so that he doesn't even believe Buffy when she said she loves him.

There is a comic and ensouled Spike actually lends Dru his soul, only to find that such pain is just cruel to her--this is a guy who considers THE OTHER PERSON over his own needs and wants.

The chip, BTW, was merely a brake on his behavior--he still very much wanted to be a monster (and after the initiative's torture, who could blame him, as the people were being shown as the real monsters).

Thanks for your thoughts; I truly see the sympathy for pain within the fans and it really feels like anthropomorphism. I just think love as a many splendored thing makes for good soap, but not an illumination on what Joss very simply considers love, as I see it.

Be well
chuckit25

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