From: "macha" To: Sent: Friday, November 29, 2002 10:53 PM Subject: motives for the soul, the bathroom scene, and moral absolutism in the buffyverse moral absolutism is not a good in the buffyverse, and i think myself it must be very hard to be happy watching either show if that's the stance you've chosen. BtVS entered a grey world in episode 7, when Buffy looks at Angel and put down the crossbow, and never looks back. although Buffy herself is certainly intended to be seen as a force for good, she has ever since been navigating a world that is explicitly not black and white, and wishing (or pontificating) isnt gonna change that. the early episode that specifically examines these issues is Lie to Me: B: Nothing's ever simple anymore. I'm constantly trying to work it out. Who to love or hate. Who to trust. It's just, like, the more I know, the more confused I get. G: I believe that's called growing up. B: I'd like to stop then, okay? G: I know the feeling. B: Does it ever get easy? (casually stakes Ford who rises from a grave behind her) G: You mean life? B: Yeah. Does it get easy? G: What do you want me to say? B: Lie to me. G: Yes, it's terribly simple. The good guys are always stalwart and true, the bad guys are easily distinguished by their pointy horns or black hats, and, uh, we always defeat them and save the day. No one ever dies, and everybody lives happily ever after. B: Liar. (BtVS 2.07 Lie to Me, written by Joss Whedon) in the same episode, Buffy also tells Angel she loves him but isnt sure she trusts him, bringing up the same issue on which her and Spike founder before he goes to get the soul. she also can be said to kill a human (for the first time, i think), when she knowingly locks her old friend Ford inside with Spike and the other vampires: it's as close as she ever gets to Angel and Darla's fifteen body memo to Wolfram & Hart. Giles' position of moral relativism, learned in the field, is a long way from the tenets and pronouncements of the Council of Watchers, but the Slayers' Handbook is not useful in the world they actually inhabit. And we see later that the rigid CoW significantly makes no distinction between souled and unsouled vampires, when they refuse to give Wesley the antidote to Faith's poisoned arrow in order to save Angel. the show itself, interestingly, does not make any distinction as to the relative worth of the two motives: to be a better man or to win Buffy: G: In my experience, there are.... two types of monster. The first, uh, can be redeemed, or more importantly, wants to be redeemed. B: And the second type? G: The second is void of humanity, cannot respond to reason... or love. (BtVS 3.04 Beauty and the Beasts, written Marti Noxon) reason covers Angel, and not only love but also reason (the desire to be a better man) covers Spike. Angelus is explicitly not covered, which is one of the things making Angel's road to redemption a rocky path. both Spike's motives are acceptable, because they both yield a desirable, admirable, result. and i don't actually think it matters which motive we choose to cite. when Spike set out to get that soul, he did so from a vantage point directly, inescapably, traceable to one single sticking point. by 6.18 Entropy Buffy and Spike can agree on only one bedrock understanding: that Spike would never hurt her: S: You think i could do that. B: Yeah, righteous indignation is absolutely the way to go here, cause you dont kill or lie or steal or manipulate.... S (quiet): I. Don't. Hurt. You. B: I know. (BtVS 6.18 Entropy, written be Drew Greenberg) then two events destroy that fragile truce. first Spike has sex with Anya and Buffy sees it. it's not his fault the camera was there, and he did nothing wrong by either Anya and Buffy, but still he did hurt her. so, after Spike's conversation with Dawn, he goes to apologize. things go very wrong, and we get the bathroom scene, an unmitigated disaster. as a result, he heads for Africa. the trouble with the bathroom scene is that nobody can bear to watch it. and the language used to talk about it, online at least, is regrettably inexact. this is to my mind a recipe for misunderstanding, and the scene is way too pivotal to ignore. the huge bathroom set was built just for that scene, a clear sign that ME knew they were engaged in an exceedingly risky piece of business to try to pull off in the middle of a redemption arc, but i think ME by any standards did darned well at making the scene as unambiguous as possible. as this scene begins, Spike is quite clear that he wants to make the apology even though he understands that there's nothing in it for him, Buffy-wise: S: (soft, sincere) I'm sorry. Not that it matters anymore. But I needed you to know that. B: Why? S: 'cause I care about you. (BtVS 6.19 Seeing Red, written by Steven DeKnight) (cont below) "not that it matters anymore." i don't see how we can interpret this any other way except to say that he knows the affair is over and further understands that no benefit will accrue from the apology. therefore his apology is made because he genuinely regrets hurting her, i.e. not because he's been caught out but because he has failed the truth they agreed on, the one where he wouldnt hurt her. it isnt his fault the camera was there, but it's still true that he hasnt lived up to the spirit of the understanding. so his attempt to make amends for the failure of trust that has already occurred ironically segues into the massive failure that is about to occur. after he makes his apology, he talks to her about feeling, the unbearable pain of feeling: B:Then you might want to try the not sleeping with my friends. S: I didn't go to Anya for that. I was looking for a spell. B: You were going to use a spell on me? S: It wasn't for you! *I* wanted something -- anything to make this feeling stop. I just wanted it to stop! (a beat, soft) You should have let him kill me. B: I couldn't do that. S: Why? B: You know why. S: Because you love me. B: No! I don't. S: Why do you keep lying to yourself? B: 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. S: (scoffing) Trust is for old marrieds, Buffy! Great love is wild and passionate and dangerous. It burns and consumes. B: Until there's nothing left. Love like that doesn't last. (cont below) she says she couldnt let Xander kill him, but she avoids saying why. he tries to get her to admit she has some feelings for him, and finally she admits she does. then she tries to explain to him the difference between what she calls love and what he calls love, his kind of lovers walk. the difference, she says, honest and clear for once, is trust. but he, soulless, doesnt get it. to him, the passion he knows she felt, even if she cannot admit it, IS love. he believes if he could just get past her defences to the feeling he knows is there.... and at that point he loses control. so there follows the utter disaster of the almost-rape. i hate the AR shorthand description used for this scene, because it's way too fuzzy. it applies to both those who characterize it as an Almost Rape, and those who characterize it as an Attempted Rape, and i think the distinction is critical. like everyone else, i can hardly bear watching this scene, but i have watched it maybe 6 or 7 times now and i have to say that IMHO the scene reads very, very clearly. he almost does it, but he never at any point means to do it. so it is Almost, but it is never Attempted. it's an important distinction. nor is it ever in danger of actually happening. Buffy, it's important to remember (Spike certainly knows it well enough), is stronger than him. physically, she has the power to throw him off. therefore an argument from RL just doesnt apply. Buffy is sore, but not really disabled. and to everyone's credit there's no margin for misinterpreting the scene by eroticizing it in Luke and Laura fashion: the gutwrenching brutality of what actually happens is relentlessly shot. S: I know you feel like I do. You don't have to hide it anymore. B: Spike, please, stop this -- S: Let yourself feel it... B: No... S: You love me... B: Oh, no, stop it! Spike, stop. Ow! What are you doing? Ow! S: Let it go... Let yourself love me... Buffy, Buffy... B: (over) Spike, no, ow, I'm hurt, stop! (commercial) but she is slow to react. she can't quite believe it's happening. however much she denies him access to her feelings, she still believes in the now-bruised understanding that he will not hurt her. until he doesn't stop. and then she acts, to throw him across the bathroom: S: I know you felt it... When I was inside you... B: Don't... please, please Spike, please don't do this, please don't do this... S: You'll feel it again, Buffy... I'm gonna make you feel it... B: STOP! (sends him flying) she is not in danger, she is the Slayer. but now the understanding they have is irretrievably shattered. what they both thought they knew has been proven false, to both of them, beyond remedy. in her eyes, there is anger, some fear, and also i think sorrow. maybe she is crying a little for him as well as for herself. in his eyes, in JM's incredibly eloquent performance, there is, completely unmistakably, absolute horror as he comes to himself and realizes what he has done: B: Ask me again why I could never love you! S: Buffy, my god, I didn't -- B: Because I stopped you. Something I should have done a long time ago. it is clearly Spike's inability to meet the terms of the original understanding that he would never hurt Buffy, first inadvertently with Anya, and second decisively, catastrophically in the bathroom, that sends him soul-ward. both Buffy and Spike now understand that this is what it means to be a monster, and that she can never be made safe with him in spite of all his good intentions. he cannot, soulless, be a man: Can't hunt. Can't hurt. Can't kill.... I don't believe in science. All those bits and molecules no one's ever seen. I trust eyes and heart alone.... Little bits of plastic spiderwebbing out nasty blue shocks - and every one is a lie. Electricity lies, Spike. It tells you you're not a bad dog. But you are. (Drusilla to Spike, talking about the chip, BtVS 5.14 Crush, written by David Fury) This isn't the way it's supposed to be. It's the chip. Steel and wires and silicon. It won't let me be a monster. And I can't be a man. I'm nothing. (Spike to Clem, BtVS 6.19 Seeing Red) both speakers here are soulless demons. they think they're talking about the chip. but in the mythos of the buffyverse, it is the soul that makes that kind of difference. its interesting that Angel always talked about the soul in terms of remorse, as if it was a kind of chip, a sort of moral instead of physical governor that kicked in and zapped you if you chose to get up to no good: punishment. but his soul was in fact installed as punishment, a curse. Spike, on the other hand, sought his. he did it to fulfill what he saw as a promise broken, being at heart, man or monster, the kind of person who meant at least to keep his promises (and we know that for sure because of the one he kept for 146 days without her there to hold him to it, without hope for brownie points from the scoobies much less any kind of eternal or worldly reward). it isnt hope he needed, having none. but at this juncture he meant to keep her safe, and had learned to his own horror that he couldnt be trusted, not even just that far, in spite of his heart: B: Why? Why would you do that- S: Buffy, shame on you. Why does a man do what he mustn't? For her. To be hers. To be the kind of man who would nev- (chokes up) to be a kind of man. (approaching the altar & a giant cross) She shall look on him with forgiveness, and everybody will forgive and love. He will be loved. So everything's OK, right? (rests on the cross, his flesh starts to smoke) Can-can we rest now? Buffy...can we rest? (church scene written by Joss Whedon, part of BtVS 7.02 Beneath You) did he hope to become the kind of man she could love? yes, he did. did he hope if he could fix the problem, she might forgive him? yes: but notice the hope for forgiveness is higher up the list than the hope for love. did he utterly mistake the effect the soul would have on him? yes, but then it had been rather a long time since he'd had one. did he realize, after getting it, that all these hopes were dust? yes, for at this point he is already draped over that cross (in his first crucifixion of this season), and he only wants her to give him permission to rest. but notice the main reason he did it: not so that everybody (not just Buffy, but everybody, mind) will forgive and love, but this before all of that: "To be the kind of man who would nev--" unequivocally, he did it in order to be the kind of man who would never enact anything like that scene in the bathroom, ever again. to make her safe. to fulfill his original understanding with her (their mutual faith that was shattered). and in context, i think we can even go so far as to state: to make them all safe, not just Buffy but "everybody", a soulless demon chose to seek the impossible, and endure all these trials, in order "to be a kind of man." and ultimately i have to say that it's incomprehensible to me, in the context of the buffyverse, for the 'moral absolutist' crowd to respond to all that incontrovertible evidence by belittling his good intentions. macha macha@ntl.sympatico.ca mostly, the direct quotes are taken from the Buffy DB, unless they're taken from my own transcriptions.