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shadowkatBeen thinking about power a lot lately - and for some reason many of the things I've read or seen online and off seem to be about the topic. Not surprising when I think about it, since power lies at the center of most human interaction and conflict. An old creative writing prof once told me that dialogue or conversation was about power, about people jockeying for position and control - to have power over the ebb and flow of the conversation. I remember at the time being a bit flummoxed by the concept. Now it seems rather obvious.
Before I write more on this topic, I want to explain why I am going to put it all under an lj-cut, outside of length considerations of course. A lot of people have a trigger regarding discussions about sex as power in relationships. The trigger exists for valid personal reasons and in deference to those reasons, which I am sympathetic to - I am cutting this post up a bit. If you found the Buffy/Spike relationship in Season 6 to be offensive or a trigger you may want to skip. This post is mostly about the power dynamic between them, the sexual dance - I am not really discussing the sexual violence or at least I don't believe I am, but your mileage may differ on that score. I'm not really discussing the story beyond Smashed, Wrecked and Gone by the way - with the exception of Conversations with Dead People - for purposes of explaining Buffy's frame of mind. I'm also discussing Xander, Willow, Dawn, and Anya in this meta.
It's not about right. It's not about wrong. It's about Power!
The First Evil in Lessons.
As a bit of preamble - I came into the Buffy fandom after Wrecked and before Gone aired. It was not necessarily the best time in the world to enter an online fandom and most of the people in my own life or that I'd met who actually watched Buffy did not like what was happening. Nor did they get my fascination with the characters. That's why I hunted the fanboards and started posting.
What fascinated me was the power dynamics going on. Specifically between Spike and Buffy, and Buffy and Willow. Not to mention several other characters - such as Xander, Anya, Dawn, and the Trioka, as well as Tara. Season 6 in some respects is all about power, who has it, who wants it, how they try to take it.
Buffy and Spike
Sex is often used in our society to obtain power over another person. In stories, specifically noir tales featuring detectives like Philip Marlow - the femme fatal seduces the detective with a promise of sex. If you do this for me, you will be "sexually"awarded. Most notably we see this type of exchange between Barbara Stanwyk and Fred McMurray in the noir classic Double Indemnity - where Stanwyck gets Fred McMurray to kill her husband and steal money to have her. It is also shown in the film and book of the same name - The Postman Always Rings Twice. And of course - Body Heat, where Kathleen Turner seduces William Hurt into killing her husband.
In fairy tales, particularly the older versions, Sleeping Beauty was woken by having a child. And in some tales, the beast prince is changed into a handsome prince by love or sex. We also see sex used to obtain power over another in the old boddice ripper romance novels - or even Dracula, where he seduces Mina and Lucy.
Up until Smashed, actually up until Once More With Feeling - Spike is sexually frustrated.
He feels powerless. Buffy has all the cards. She controls the relationship. He is at her mercy. A pavolian dog if you will begging for scraps. OR as he might put it, the slayer's lap dog. She wants nothing from him. If he left, she wouldn't mind. He is trying desperately to change that. To make her dependent on him, to make her need him. To make her love him. A scrap, anything. I'm not saying he doesn't love her - I think he does. But it is not tempered. And it is not wise. And it is painful. He has no power.
Then she kisses him and things start to change. He sees an opening, a possibility.
But, he's not certain. And he'll do anything for it to become more. He knows he can't become part of her world, but he thinks maybe he can persuade her to become part of his. He is a bit like Veruca in Wild at Heart - he wants Buffy, he sees a kindred spirit in her, he wants to possess her, to own her, to make her his. It's why he creates the Buffybot and it is what he says to the Bot - "you're mine, Buffy". But it is no more than a fantasy.
Then Smashed happens. Spike discovers in Smashed three things:
1. He can hurt her. She can't just tease him any longer, or beat him any longer without him being able to beat and hurt her back. But this gift is double-edged sword. The one person he doesn't want to hurt or cause pain to, is the only one he can hurt. He can't hurt anyone else. Because as we learned in Intervention - Buffy being in pain or caused to feel pain at his hands is something he can't quite deal with. It's a dilemma. Because part of Spike really wants to kick her, and the other part can't bear it. You see this echoed in his song in Once More With Feeling - "First he'll kill her, then I'll save her, no I 'll save her then I'll kill her." OR - "This torch I bear is killing me, Buffy's laughing I've no doubt, If she's dead, I'm free...I better help her out." He doesn't understand why he can hurt her - so he leaps to the conclusion that she came back wrong.
From Buffy's perspective - letting Spike hurt her or Spike being able to hurt her - provides her with a means of feeling. To feel the fire. To feel something. It also acts as a punishment, a way of hurting herself.
2.Buffy came back wrong? If she came back wrong this would justify his desire to bring her into the dark with him. If she's wrong...then the rules have changed. He can go after her, he can seduce her, he won't be hurting her if he's doing that - he'd be saving her. It's what he says to Xander in Afterlife - "You didn't tell me because Willow knew, she knew there was a chance that Buffy could come back wrong...and if she did, Willow knew that something would have to be done about it, but I wouldn't let her, I wouldn't let her because if that's Buffy, I don't care how she comes back..." And later in Smashed, to himself, "This is about the rules having changed, there's nothing wrong with me, there's something wrong with her". He's justifying in his head her actions and his reactions.
Again from Buffy's perspective - if she came back wrong that it is okay for her to want Spike to hurt her, okay to give in to Spike. It excuses the way she feels towards him and everyone else. Why he's the only one she can stand to be with right now. Why she feels empty and disconnected. She gives him power over her - by agreeing with his assessment.
She abdicates to him. But she is at the same time struggling with that.
3. The other thing that happens in Smashed is Spike discovers that he's not imagining things, Buffy does want him, she does lust after him, he does turn her on, he does make her hot.
This, he believes being a soulless vampire, gives him leverage, it changes the power dynamic between them. That's what he means when he says, I got my rocks back or things have changed, I'm no longer your whipping boy. He believes he has the upper hand now - she wants him, so he can control her through her sexual desire for him. Much like the femme fatals do in those old Raymond Chandler novels or in Double Indemity. He can seduce her.
The line between sex and violence is blurred for vampires - as Spike tells Buffy on more than one occassion. Sex is also power from the vampire perspective. It's how they seduce their victims. It's how Spike got Sheila in the alley in School Hard and how he gets the women in Season 7 while under the First's spell. It's also how Angel seduced his victims. Spike also confuses sexual desire with love. He does not understand Buffy's reaction to him. Nor why she wants him.
What he believes is that now that she wants him sexually - he finally has power over her. That she might not love him now, but she will. It's what he tells her in Wrecked.
Spike: "I admit it, you got me by the short hairs. I love you, you know it. But I got my rocks back. You felt something last night."
Buffy: Not love.
Spike: Not yet. But You are going to start craving me the way I crave blood. And if you don't stop acting like such a bitch, I may just bite you the next time you come by."
Buffy: That's it, I want you out of this town, out of my life, out of my work..
Spike: Too late for that. You already invited me in. And as for your work? You need me. Tonight for instance. You going to put your little sis in danger just to spite me?
He's wrong about the last part. She finds Dawn pretty much without his help and he does not really aid her that much the rest of the season. If anything he causes her problems. But he doesn't see it that way. From his point of view - he is helping. And when he discovers that she wants him sexually. That he sexually turns her on and she can't resist him. He plays that to his advantage.
Spike:"I know where you live now slayer. I tasted it. Didn't I?"
or...
Buffy: Last night was the most degrading night of my life.
Spike with a sly grin: Mine too.
Buffy: That's not me...
Spike: No it's your calling. You gave me a run for my money, slayer.
His power from his point of view is her attraction to him. She feels something for him when he is inside her. He makes her come.
Buffy: Your bent.
Spike: It made you scream didn't it? Admit it, you never had it as good as me!
While they are having sex - she loves and wants him - from his point of view. He's in power. He has control. He can handcuff her. He can have his way with her.
Buffy: Don't call me love.
Spike: Didn't seem to mind me calling you that last night and all the other nasties we called each other.
But Buffy doesn't see it that way. His power is an illusion. It's not real. In Gone - Buffy has the power. She's invisible, not even present. But she's the one in control. Not Spike. When he shows up at her house in broad daylight and feels her up, tries to turn her on, she successfully kicks him out. Furious he leaves. Later, she visits him, invisible. He can't see her. And she coaxes him into having sex with her and he, helpless caves. She demonstrates that he's the one who will do whatever she wants, that she's still in control. He is as he states himself in Once More With Feeling - her willing sex slave. They would still be having sex if it weren't for Xander's interruption and Spike's realization that he's still Buffy's dirty little secret. That he doesn't have her. That she might as well not even be there. He throws her out when he realizes that he's her plaything, her excuse, her distraction. He's not pulling her into his world, she's merely using him to escape from her world for a bit, to escape from life entirely. To be free from life. And that's not what he wants. She's still the one in control. He wants all of her, not a cast off. So he throws her out. But Buffy is clearly the one in the drivers seat.
Spike's frustration with Buffy and inablity to get what he wants from her, to obtain power over her...drives him this season. He is literally trying everything he can think of to get that power back. To be the one driving the relationship, controlling it.
Buffy for her part - has power, but she doesn't want the power, that's the irony. She's ambivalent about it. Or just plain hates it. She wants, at times, to abdicate to Spike.
Buffy to Holden Webster in Conversations with Dead People: I was a monster to him yet at the same time, I almost let him take me over completely.
Her power seems pointless to her somehow. Dirty. Depraved. Useless. A burden. She is the slayer. But appears to have nothing else. Part of her would like to give her power to Spike to let him take her over, to fade away in his embrace...to disappear entirely, just give in, relax, the other part realizes how wrong that is and fights against it. Her desire for Spike is in part a desire to be free, for release.
Spike:You're loving this aren't you?
Buffy:Well yes, I'm finally free. Free of cares, free of responsibility, free to do what I want...free of life..
Spike:Free of life? Got another word for that, dead.
Buffy is in a catch-22, she is full of power, but feels powerless, empty. While Spike is equally feel of power, but the only person he can unleash it on - is the one person he can't quite bear to hurt. He aches to take possession, to have himself one good day, yet, he can't. He wants all of her. If she's dead, he won't have that. He can't live with her in pain, yet he craves to hurt her. He can't handle to have her dead, yet he craves to have her gone.
Buffy: I thought this is what you wanted?
Spike: If I can't have all of you. I don't want you. Get out.
Their relationship from Once More With Feeling, possibly even before that...is one long power play or dance. He is constantly trying to get power, to take control. In Season 6 - he is deluded into thinking he has a chance that he can take her over, possess her. It's worth noting that from the moment Spike met Buffy he has in some way been trying to take sexual possession of her - all they do in Season 6 is drop the metaphor. In School Hard, Halloween, Harsh Light of Day, The Initiative, and notably Out of My Mind, Spike attempts to rape Buffy.It is disquised as a vampire trying to bite a slayer, but the positions and how he lunges, plus the dialogue denotes something else. In fact after the Initiative, in Pangs, Spike compares his defanging or inability to bite people to being neutered. And Buffy in Something Blue - compares it to being impotent or flaccid. Then in Who Are You and Superstar - we get Buffy (or Faith as Buffy) playing Spike sexually - catching that she turns him, and in Superstar - Spike hitting on Buffy. The sexual tension between the two characters is raised to a fever pitch by the time Once More With Feeling airs. He wants her, she knows it, plays with it, and he feels powerless, because she makes it clear she does not want him - he could only have her if she was unconscious. Then suddenly in Smashed, she demonstrates she does want him - that it is mutual and he sees the way in. He becomes the sex object, seducing her, playing her, attempting to get her into his world. When she refuses, finally backs away, and cuts things off - he unravels and resorts to old behavior patterns. But the back and forth is about power. It's not love. It's power. Buffy has the power in the relationship and Spike is desperately trying to take it from her, he wants to be the master and her the slave.
Willow/Spike and Buffy
We have a similar situation with Willow. From Season 1 until roughly Season 4, Willow is the damsel. She's less of one in Season 3 - when she starts getting better with the magic. Buffy is the superhero. Willow states in Fear, Itself - dressed as Joan of Arc - that she is not Buffy's sidekick, that she's a hero too.
In Wrecked, when Buffy visits Willow - Willow explains why she went to Rack's why she did what she did..."without the magic, I'm just an ordinary girl. I'm no one. You remember what I was like."
Buffy doesn't get it though. And she misunderstands what Willow is stating. Buffy sees it as an addiction, something that can be tackled by removing the parpherniala. Just as she sees her craving for Spike as an addiction. In Buffy's pov - Willow and Buffy are addicted to a substance and if you just avoide the substance or do away with it, everything will be okay. It's an unreliable point of view. In Gone, she's mislead into believing that Willow is better by suppresing and ignoring the magic. She believes if she ignores and represses Spike this will work as well. Spike in some respects represents Buffy's own power, her own darker impulses, the part of her she is afraid of. He resides beneath the ground, in the earth. He's dead. He's a demon.
Buffy in Gone:He threw me out? He's always saying that he understands me. Birds of a bloody feather...
He like Dracula sees the dark power inside her, kindred to the vampire. A strength equal to theirs, with equal fighting skills. Buffy is afraid of that power, afraid of what it is doing to her. Willow is the opposite - Willow likes the power, wants more of it, seeks it out. Willow is afraid of who she is without it.
Willow would rather be the big bad witch than the ordinary girl. She's seeking the darkness out, embracing it, giving in - until she hurts Dawn and risks losing everything. Upset she goes off it cold turkey. Buffy seeing this play out, acts in kind - puts up garlic, and crosses, and tries to go cold turkey. But it doesn't work...he doesn't leave her alone. Her power is always there. Just as Willow's is.
Willow is in love with the power. But the power is controlling her, it takes over. Spike also loves the power and wants Buffy to embrace hers. But at the same time, he struggles with it, with the darker impulses.
In Gone - we have a bit of a mislead, we see Willow going back to her old self, going through withdrawl...becoming the damsel that Buffy has to save - because she gets caught by Warren and company. But, is Willow okay?
Xander and Anya
Anya has almost no power in this relationship. Xander holds all the cards. Throughout these three episodes, Anya is shown meticulously and obsessively planning her wedding to Xander. She can't quite focus on anything else. And Xander is obsessively eating. Or trying to distract her or distract himself. He's panicing, you can see him do it. Clearly terrified. Anya also appears to have no sense of self outside of her job and being Xander's girlfriend.
They are almost oblivious to everything else. Xander visits Spike in his crypt and ignores all the signs that Buffy is obviously there, choosing not to see what is happening beneath his nose.
Xander in Tabula Rasa: Me like Buffy. Buffy is my friend. Buffy is back. Me happy. I'm not worrying beyond that.
And he doesn't. Nor does he do anything about or really handle Willow's magic problem. Except somewhat indirectly accuse her of turning Buffy blinvisible. Nor is he all that helpful regarding Buffy's blinvisibility. Xander is shirking his power. Ignoring what is happening. If he ignores it, he may think it will go away on its own. He makes snarky comments about the wedding, but avoids dealing with it or his fear regarding it or his family directly.
Dawn
Dawn is struggling for attention. To be noticed. By anyone. Like most teens, Dawn feels like she has no power at all. Before Buffy returned, people seemed to care more. Now that Buffy is back, she seems to barely matter. Buffy overlooks her. She tries to heal the Tara and Willow rift - but Buffy and Willow's actions manage to thwart that attempt. Instead, all that happens is Tara and Willow drift even further apart.
What she does, what she thinks, her existence seems to not matter now that Glory is gone and she is technically no longer the key.
She has no power. What we see in Wrecked, Gone, and Smashed is how completely stripped of power Dawn truly is. Dawn is pulling Buffy away from Spike and the darkness, but losing or appearing to. And Dawn is trying to pull Willow away from Amy and back towards Tara, and losing.
By Gone, she's given up. She walks out on Buffy. Ignores Doris. She doesn't care who has custody of her. She feels as if she is powerless to make Buffy happy, to keep her family together, or control her own life in any way. Buffy has the power. Dawn is at Buffy's beck and call. What Buffy does or doesn't do - affects Dawn and Dawn can't do a thing about it.
The Trioka
Warren, Andrew, and Jonathan - three of the most powerless characters in the series. Warren who couldn't get a girl to like him so made a robot girlfriend, then found a real girlfriend only to lose her because of the robot. Jonathan who did a spell to make himself a superstar, an augmenting spell - to give himself power, yet the power created a monster - a deal with the devil and he had to give it up. His power - he took from Buffy, and he had to give it back to her. And of course Andrew - who is so powerless that he is almost a non-intentity, described continuously as Tucker's Brother.
They want to take down Buffy - because Buffy has the power.
As Buffy states in Checkpoint: I figured it out. I have something everyone else wants. Power.
She is the slayer. The force to be reckoned with in the town, what the demons are afraid of.
Everyone wants Buffy's power, except apparently Buffy. Willow wants it, is envious of it.
Spike wants power over Buffy, wants to be inside her, to possess her, to be a part of her and have her be a part of him. To own her. Actually that may be the best way to describe what Spike wants - he wants to possess and own Buffy, to make her his. And the Troika also want it, they want to assert their power over Buffy, they want to rule the town, and in order to do that they need to get rid of her. To be fair, only Warren wants her dead, Andrew and Jonathan just want her to stand aside and let them play.
Power from the Troika's point of view - means they can do whatever they want. Just as Buffy states to Spike in Gone - I'm free of responsibility. I can do whatever I want. No one can stop me. I can fuck you if I want to. I can tease Dawn, Anya, Xander and Doris. I can misbehave. No rules. No boundaries.
But Spike counters, and it is odd coming from Spike - that's free of life or dead. That's not power.
As Willow envies Buffy's dark power, her superpower skills. Spike appears to envy her life. She makes him feel alive. And the Troika seems to envy, via their own twisted perception, her power over the demon world and town, her position.
In the real world, I've read a lot of posts about power. There was a news article recently about a man who felt so disconnected from society, so lonely, so powerless, that he picked up a gun, walked into a woman's aerobics class, opened fire, killed four women, and then himself. He felt the only power he had was over life and death.
And that's the power Buffy has - the power to kill. It's the power Spike has - to kill, he can kill and make new killers or vampires - the vampire power to kill and bring back from the dead. And Willow - had the power to bring Buffy back to life from the dead. But Buffy has the power to save lives. She saved Dawn by sacrificing herself. And it is her blood that brought Dawn into being. Her blood that saved the world. The blood of the woman who brings life into this world.
When we have power - we don't want to lose it. Priveleged people - either due to class, social standing, ethnicity, color of skin, gender or sexual orientation and career - do not wish to give up their power. Some people take power from others. As does Warren and Rack - who tells Willow, first I want a taste of your power, to take a little tour. Others attempt to use their power to change or persuade someone, to make someone do something they don't want to do, or is wrong - Spike in his seduction of Buffy, using her desire for him to manipulate her, change her, seduce her. While still others forsake their personal power, try to ignore it, think they have none, no choices - such as Anya, Xander or Dawn. Or in Buffy's case - those who feel burdened by their power, afraid of it, and struggle with how to deal with it on a daily basis.
Okay this is long enough, off to make dinner.
Before I write more on this topic, I want to explain why I am going to put it all under an lj-cut, outside of length considerations of course. A lot of people have a trigger regarding discussions about sex as power in relationships. The trigger exists for valid personal reasons and in deference to those reasons, which I am sympathetic to - I am cutting this post up a bit. If you found the Buffy/Spike relationship in Season 6 to be offensive or a trigger you may want to skip. This post is mostly about the power dynamic between them, the sexual dance - I am not really discussing the sexual violence or at least I don't believe I am, but your mileage may differ on that score. I'm not really discussing the story beyond Smashed, Wrecked and Gone by the way - with the exception of Conversations with Dead People - for purposes of explaining Buffy's frame of mind. I'm also discussing Xander, Willow, Dawn, and Anya in this meta.
It's not about right. It's not about wrong. It's about Power!
The First Evil in Lessons.
As a bit of preamble - I came into the Buffy fandom after Wrecked and before Gone aired. It was not necessarily the best time in the world to enter an online fandom and most of the people in my own life or that I'd met who actually watched Buffy did not like what was happening. Nor did they get my fascination with the characters. That's why I hunted the fanboards and started posting.
What fascinated me was the power dynamics going on. Specifically between Spike and Buffy, and Buffy and Willow. Not to mention several other characters - such as Xander, Anya, Dawn, and the Trioka, as well as Tara. Season 6 in some respects is all about power, who has it, who wants it, how they try to take it.
Buffy and Spike
Sex is often used in our society to obtain power over another person. In stories, specifically noir tales featuring detectives like Philip Marlow - the femme fatal seduces the detective with a promise of sex. If you do this for me, you will be "sexually"awarded. Most notably we see this type of exchange between Barbara Stanwyk and Fred McMurray in the noir classic Double Indemnity - where Stanwyck gets Fred McMurray to kill her husband and steal money to have her. It is also shown in the film and book of the same name - The Postman Always Rings Twice. And of course - Body Heat, where Kathleen Turner seduces William Hurt into killing her husband.
In fairy tales, particularly the older versions, Sleeping Beauty was woken by having a child. And in some tales, the beast prince is changed into a handsome prince by love or sex. We also see sex used to obtain power over another in the old boddice ripper romance novels - or even Dracula, where he seduces Mina and Lucy.
Up until Smashed, actually up until Once More With Feeling - Spike is sexually frustrated.
He feels powerless. Buffy has all the cards. She controls the relationship. He is at her mercy. A pavolian dog if you will begging for scraps. OR as he might put it, the slayer's lap dog. She wants nothing from him. If he left, she wouldn't mind. He is trying desperately to change that. To make her dependent on him, to make her need him. To make her love him. A scrap, anything. I'm not saying he doesn't love her - I think he does. But it is not tempered. And it is not wise. And it is painful. He has no power.
Then she kisses him and things start to change. He sees an opening, a possibility.
But, he's not certain. And he'll do anything for it to become more. He knows he can't become part of her world, but he thinks maybe he can persuade her to become part of his. He is a bit like Veruca in Wild at Heart - he wants Buffy, he sees a kindred spirit in her, he wants to possess her, to own her, to make her his. It's why he creates the Buffybot and it is what he says to the Bot - "you're mine, Buffy". But it is no more than a fantasy.
Then Smashed happens. Spike discovers in Smashed three things:
1. He can hurt her. She can't just tease him any longer, or beat him any longer without him being able to beat and hurt her back. But this gift is double-edged sword. The one person he doesn't want to hurt or cause pain to, is the only one he can hurt. He can't hurt anyone else. Because as we learned in Intervention - Buffy being in pain or caused to feel pain at his hands is something he can't quite deal with. It's a dilemma. Because part of Spike really wants to kick her, and the other part can't bear it. You see this echoed in his song in Once More With Feeling - "First he'll kill her, then I'll save her, no I 'll save her then I'll kill her." OR - "This torch I bear is killing me, Buffy's laughing I've no doubt, If she's dead, I'm free...I better help her out." He doesn't understand why he can hurt her - so he leaps to the conclusion that she came back wrong.
From Buffy's perspective - letting Spike hurt her or Spike being able to hurt her - provides her with a means of feeling. To feel the fire. To feel something. It also acts as a punishment, a way of hurting herself.
2.Buffy came back wrong? If she came back wrong this would justify his desire to bring her into the dark with him. If she's wrong...then the rules have changed. He can go after her, he can seduce her, he won't be hurting her if he's doing that - he'd be saving her. It's what he says to Xander in Afterlife - "You didn't tell me because Willow knew, she knew there was a chance that Buffy could come back wrong...and if she did, Willow knew that something would have to be done about it, but I wouldn't let her, I wouldn't let her because if that's Buffy, I don't care how she comes back..." And later in Smashed, to himself, "This is about the rules having changed, there's nothing wrong with me, there's something wrong with her". He's justifying in his head her actions and his reactions.
Again from Buffy's perspective - if she came back wrong that it is okay for her to want Spike to hurt her, okay to give in to Spike. It excuses the way she feels towards him and everyone else. Why he's the only one she can stand to be with right now. Why she feels empty and disconnected. She gives him power over her - by agreeing with his assessment.
She abdicates to him. But she is at the same time struggling with that.
3. The other thing that happens in Smashed is Spike discovers that he's not imagining things, Buffy does want him, she does lust after him, he does turn her on, he does make her hot.
This, he believes being a soulless vampire, gives him leverage, it changes the power dynamic between them. That's what he means when he says, I got my rocks back or things have changed, I'm no longer your whipping boy. He believes he has the upper hand now - she wants him, so he can control her through her sexual desire for him. Much like the femme fatals do in those old Raymond Chandler novels or in Double Indemity. He can seduce her.
The line between sex and violence is blurred for vampires - as Spike tells Buffy on more than one occassion. Sex is also power from the vampire perspective. It's how they seduce their victims. It's how Spike got Sheila in the alley in School Hard and how he gets the women in Season 7 while under the First's spell. It's also how Angel seduced his victims. Spike also confuses sexual desire with love. He does not understand Buffy's reaction to him. Nor why she wants him.
What he believes is that now that she wants him sexually - he finally has power over her. That she might not love him now, but she will. It's what he tells her in Wrecked.
Spike: "I admit it, you got me by the short hairs. I love you, you know it. But I got my rocks back. You felt something last night."
Buffy: Not love.
Spike: Not yet. But You are going to start craving me the way I crave blood. And if you don't stop acting like such a bitch, I may just bite you the next time you come by."
Buffy: That's it, I want you out of this town, out of my life, out of my work..
Spike: Too late for that. You already invited me in. And as for your work? You need me. Tonight for instance. You going to put your little sis in danger just to spite me?
He's wrong about the last part. She finds Dawn pretty much without his help and he does not really aid her that much the rest of the season. If anything he causes her problems. But he doesn't see it that way. From his point of view - he is helping. And when he discovers that she wants him sexually. That he sexually turns her on and she can't resist him. He plays that to his advantage.
Spike:"I know where you live now slayer. I tasted it. Didn't I?"
or...
Buffy: Last night was the most degrading night of my life.
Spike with a sly grin: Mine too.
Buffy: That's not me...
Spike: No it's your calling. You gave me a run for my money, slayer.
His power from his point of view is her attraction to him. She feels something for him when he is inside her. He makes her come.
Buffy: Your bent.
Spike: It made you scream didn't it? Admit it, you never had it as good as me!
While they are having sex - she loves and wants him - from his point of view. He's in power. He has control. He can handcuff her. He can have his way with her.
Buffy: Don't call me love.
Spike: Didn't seem to mind me calling you that last night and all the other nasties we called each other.
But Buffy doesn't see it that way. His power is an illusion. It's not real. In Gone - Buffy has the power. She's invisible, not even present. But she's the one in control. Not Spike. When he shows up at her house in broad daylight and feels her up, tries to turn her on, she successfully kicks him out. Furious he leaves. Later, she visits him, invisible. He can't see her. And she coaxes him into having sex with her and he, helpless caves. She demonstrates that he's the one who will do whatever she wants, that she's still in control. He is as he states himself in Once More With Feeling - her willing sex slave. They would still be having sex if it weren't for Xander's interruption and Spike's realization that he's still Buffy's dirty little secret. That he doesn't have her. That she might as well not even be there. He throws her out when he realizes that he's her plaything, her excuse, her distraction. He's not pulling her into his world, she's merely using him to escape from her world for a bit, to escape from life entirely. To be free from life. And that's not what he wants. She's still the one in control. He wants all of her, not a cast off. So he throws her out. But Buffy is clearly the one in the drivers seat.
Spike's frustration with Buffy and inablity to get what he wants from her, to obtain power over her...drives him this season. He is literally trying everything he can think of to get that power back. To be the one driving the relationship, controlling it.
Buffy for her part - has power, but she doesn't want the power, that's the irony. She's ambivalent about it. Or just plain hates it. She wants, at times, to abdicate to Spike.
Buffy to Holden Webster in Conversations with Dead People: I was a monster to him yet at the same time, I almost let him take me over completely.
Her power seems pointless to her somehow. Dirty. Depraved. Useless. A burden. She is the slayer. But appears to have nothing else. Part of her would like to give her power to Spike to let him take her over, to fade away in his embrace...to disappear entirely, just give in, relax, the other part realizes how wrong that is and fights against it. Her desire for Spike is in part a desire to be free, for release.
Spike:You're loving this aren't you?
Buffy:Well yes, I'm finally free. Free of cares, free of responsibility, free to do what I want...free of life..
Spike:Free of life? Got another word for that, dead.
Buffy is in a catch-22, she is full of power, but feels powerless, empty. While Spike is equally feel of power, but the only person he can unleash it on - is the one person he can't quite bear to hurt. He aches to take possession, to have himself one good day, yet, he can't. He wants all of her. If she's dead, he won't have that. He can't live with her in pain, yet he craves to hurt her. He can't handle to have her dead, yet he craves to have her gone.
Buffy: I thought this is what you wanted?
Spike: If I can't have all of you. I don't want you. Get out.
Their relationship from Once More With Feeling, possibly even before that...is one long power play or dance. He is constantly trying to get power, to take control. In Season 6 - he is deluded into thinking he has a chance that he can take her over, possess her. It's worth noting that from the moment Spike met Buffy he has in some way been trying to take sexual possession of her - all they do in Season 6 is drop the metaphor. In School Hard, Halloween, Harsh Light of Day, The Initiative, and notably Out of My Mind, Spike attempts to rape Buffy.It is disquised as a vampire trying to bite a slayer, but the positions and how he lunges, plus the dialogue denotes something else. In fact after the Initiative, in Pangs, Spike compares his defanging or inability to bite people to being neutered. And Buffy in Something Blue - compares it to being impotent or flaccid. Then in Who Are You and Superstar - we get Buffy (or Faith as Buffy) playing Spike sexually - catching that she turns him, and in Superstar - Spike hitting on Buffy. The sexual tension between the two characters is raised to a fever pitch by the time Once More With Feeling airs. He wants her, she knows it, plays with it, and he feels powerless, because she makes it clear she does not want him - he could only have her if she was unconscious. Then suddenly in Smashed, she demonstrates she does want him - that it is mutual and he sees the way in. He becomes the sex object, seducing her, playing her, attempting to get her into his world. When she refuses, finally backs away, and cuts things off - he unravels and resorts to old behavior patterns. But the back and forth is about power. It's not love. It's power. Buffy has the power in the relationship and Spike is desperately trying to take it from her, he wants to be the master and her the slave.
Willow/Spike and Buffy
We have a similar situation with Willow. From Season 1 until roughly Season 4, Willow is the damsel. She's less of one in Season 3 - when she starts getting better with the magic. Buffy is the superhero. Willow states in Fear, Itself - dressed as Joan of Arc - that she is not Buffy's sidekick, that she's a hero too.
In Wrecked, when Buffy visits Willow - Willow explains why she went to Rack's why she did what she did..."without the magic, I'm just an ordinary girl. I'm no one. You remember what I was like."
Buffy doesn't get it though. And she misunderstands what Willow is stating. Buffy sees it as an addiction, something that can be tackled by removing the parpherniala. Just as she sees her craving for Spike as an addiction. In Buffy's pov - Willow and Buffy are addicted to a substance and if you just avoide the substance or do away with it, everything will be okay. It's an unreliable point of view. In Gone, she's mislead into believing that Willow is better by suppresing and ignoring the magic. She believes if she ignores and represses Spike this will work as well. Spike in some respects represents Buffy's own power, her own darker impulses, the part of her she is afraid of. He resides beneath the ground, in the earth. He's dead. He's a demon.
Buffy in Gone:He threw me out? He's always saying that he understands me. Birds of a bloody feather...
He like Dracula sees the dark power inside her, kindred to the vampire. A strength equal to theirs, with equal fighting skills. Buffy is afraid of that power, afraid of what it is doing to her. Willow is the opposite - Willow likes the power, wants more of it, seeks it out. Willow is afraid of who she is without it.
Willow would rather be the big bad witch than the ordinary girl. She's seeking the darkness out, embracing it, giving in - until she hurts Dawn and risks losing everything. Upset she goes off it cold turkey. Buffy seeing this play out, acts in kind - puts up garlic, and crosses, and tries to go cold turkey. But it doesn't work...he doesn't leave her alone. Her power is always there. Just as Willow's is.
Willow is in love with the power. But the power is controlling her, it takes over. Spike also loves the power and wants Buffy to embrace hers. But at the same time, he struggles with it, with the darker impulses.
In Gone - we have a bit of a mislead, we see Willow going back to her old self, going through withdrawl...becoming the damsel that Buffy has to save - because she gets caught by Warren and company. But, is Willow okay?
Xander and Anya
Anya has almost no power in this relationship. Xander holds all the cards. Throughout these three episodes, Anya is shown meticulously and obsessively planning her wedding to Xander. She can't quite focus on anything else. And Xander is obsessively eating. Or trying to distract her or distract himself. He's panicing, you can see him do it. Clearly terrified. Anya also appears to have no sense of self outside of her job and being Xander's girlfriend.
They are almost oblivious to everything else. Xander visits Spike in his crypt and ignores all the signs that Buffy is obviously there, choosing not to see what is happening beneath his nose.
Xander in Tabula Rasa: Me like Buffy. Buffy is my friend. Buffy is back. Me happy. I'm not worrying beyond that.
And he doesn't. Nor does he do anything about or really handle Willow's magic problem. Except somewhat indirectly accuse her of turning Buffy blinvisible. Nor is he all that helpful regarding Buffy's blinvisibility. Xander is shirking his power. Ignoring what is happening. If he ignores it, he may think it will go away on its own. He makes snarky comments about the wedding, but avoids dealing with it or his fear regarding it or his family directly.
Dawn
Dawn is struggling for attention. To be noticed. By anyone. Like most teens, Dawn feels like she has no power at all. Before Buffy returned, people seemed to care more. Now that Buffy is back, she seems to barely matter. Buffy overlooks her. She tries to heal the Tara and Willow rift - but Buffy and Willow's actions manage to thwart that attempt. Instead, all that happens is Tara and Willow drift even further apart.
What she does, what she thinks, her existence seems to not matter now that Glory is gone and she is technically no longer the key.
She has no power. What we see in Wrecked, Gone, and Smashed is how completely stripped of power Dawn truly is. Dawn is pulling Buffy away from Spike and the darkness, but losing or appearing to. And Dawn is trying to pull Willow away from Amy and back towards Tara, and losing.
By Gone, she's given up. She walks out on Buffy. Ignores Doris. She doesn't care who has custody of her. She feels as if she is powerless to make Buffy happy, to keep her family together, or control her own life in any way. Buffy has the power. Dawn is at Buffy's beck and call. What Buffy does or doesn't do - affects Dawn and Dawn can't do a thing about it.
The Trioka
Warren, Andrew, and Jonathan - three of the most powerless characters in the series. Warren who couldn't get a girl to like him so made a robot girlfriend, then found a real girlfriend only to lose her because of the robot. Jonathan who did a spell to make himself a superstar, an augmenting spell - to give himself power, yet the power created a monster - a deal with the devil and he had to give it up. His power - he took from Buffy, and he had to give it back to her. And of course Andrew - who is so powerless that he is almost a non-intentity, described continuously as Tucker's Brother.
They want to take down Buffy - because Buffy has the power.
As Buffy states in Checkpoint: I figured it out. I have something everyone else wants. Power.
She is the slayer. The force to be reckoned with in the town, what the demons are afraid of.
Everyone wants Buffy's power, except apparently Buffy. Willow wants it, is envious of it.
Spike wants power over Buffy, wants to be inside her, to possess her, to be a part of her and have her be a part of him. To own her. Actually that may be the best way to describe what Spike wants - he wants to possess and own Buffy, to make her his. And the Troika also want it, they want to assert their power over Buffy, they want to rule the town, and in order to do that they need to get rid of her. To be fair, only Warren wants her dead, Andrew and Jonathan just want her to stand aside and let them play.
Power from the Troika's point of view - means they can do whatever they want. Just as Buffy states to Spike in Gone - I'm free of responsibility. I can do whatever I want. No one can stop me. I can fuck you if I want to. I can tease Dawn, Anya, Xander and Doris. I can misbehave. No rules. No boundaries.
But Spike counters, and it is odd coming from Spike - that's free of life or dead. That's not power.
As Willow envies Buffy's dark power, her superpower skills. Spike appears to envy her life. She makes him feel alive. And the Troika seems to envy, via their own twisted perception, her power over the demon world and town, her position.
In the real world, I've read a lot of posts about power. There was a news article recently about a man who felt so disconnected from society, so lonely, so powerless, that he picked up a gun, walked into a woman's aerobics class, opened fire, killed four women, and then himself. He felt the only power he had was over life and death.
And that's the power Buffy has - the power to kill. It's the power Spike has - to kill, he can kill and make new killers or vampires - the vampire power to kill and bring back from the dead. And Willow - had the power to bring Buffy back to life from the dead. But Buffy has the power to save lives. She saved Dawn by sacrificing herself. And it is her blood that brought Dawn into being. Her blood that saved the world. The blood of the woman who brings life into this world.
When we have power - we don't want to lose it. Priveleged people - either due to class, social standing, ethnicity, color of skin, gender or sexual orientation and career - do not wish to give up their power. Some people take power from others. As does Warren and Rack - who tells Willow, first I want a taste of your power, to take a little tour. Others attempt to use their power to change or persuade someone, to make someone do something they don't want to do, or is wrong - Spike in his seduction of Buffy, using her desire for him to manipulate her, change her, seduce her. While still others forsake their personal power, try to ignore it, think they have none, no choices - such as Anya, Xander or Dawn. Or in Buffy's case - those who feel burdened by their power, afraid of it, and struggle with how to deal with it on a daily basis.
Okay this is long enough, off to make dinner.
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no subject
Date: 2009-08-16 10:31 pm (UTC)This is probably one of the most well thought out analysis of Buffy and Spike’s season six relationship and really their relationship in general. What really spoke to me is how their behavior towards one another in season six was equally bad – they both share blame or responsibility (depending on how you look at it). I think this is absolutely true. You definitely got to the heart of the reasons why they were together in season six and why they could never have an actual, “real” relationship at that point in time.
I love the idea of the push and pull because that is a perfect description of Buffy and Spike’s relationship up through, I think, the end of season seven when they find a balance between them. Reading this I feel like you put a lot of my thoughts into words.
Also, excellent analysis of comparing how Buffy sees power to Willow and Spike. Very spot on analysis of Willow and how power is not something you can just be rid of, as Buffy and Willow tried to do when they went to quite cold turkey from their “addictions.” This is something only briefly addressed by Giles (I believe) at the beginning of season seven when he is counseling Willow, but something I wish the show had taken further, especially in regards to Willow. While the Scoobie gang may have seen Willow’s problem as an addiction in season six, it really wasn’t. It went so beyond the concept of an addiction to something deeper within Willow, as you stated.
A couple comments in particular that you wrote really struck me:
Spike wants power over Buffy, wants to be inside her, to possess her, to be a part of her and have her be a part of him. To own her.
Yes, that is so very true. His idea of love is possession because as a vampire that is all he has ever known. It is what he wanted with Drucilla – to possess and to be possessed. It is the Angelus-Drucilla relationship that Spike was always trying to overcome.
And that's the power Buffy has - the power to kill. It's the power Spike has - to kill, he can kill and make new killers or vampires - the vampire power to kill and bring back from the dead. And Willow - had the power to bring Buffy back to life from the dead. But Buffy has the power to save lives. She saved Dawn by sacrificing herself. And it is her blood that brought Dawn into being. Her blood that saved the world. The blood of the woman who brings life into this world.
Great point about Buffy’s power – hers really is about a balance between life and death. While she is required to kill, it is in order to save or preserve life. Spike (pre-soul) and power-tripping Willow don’t understand that and it is such an important distinction between them and Buffy, as the slayer and her power.
Overall, wonderful analysis and I really enjoyed reading it.
no subject
Date: 2009-08-16 10:50 pm (UTC)I agree with all of your comments, particularly after re-watching Doublemeat Palace through AYW.
Good point regarding Spike and Dru. I think that may be what Spike means when he tells Buffy in End of Days, that he never felt close to anyone even with all the stuff they did and his hundred year love affair with Dru - like he did with her last night, when all he did was watch her sleep and hold her. It's also what he means when he gives her the speech in Touched, which is similar to Riley's in AYW but different somehow, it seems almost more genuine, not smug and somewhat patronizing. Not sure why.
May be how it was written? Or the situation? (shrugs)
And what he means when he tells her in Chosen, when she says I love you, and he states - no you don't but thanks for saying it. It's almost as if he is saying - I love you enough to not want anything in return, to not wish you to die with me, to be a part of me, or to own you. I love you because you are who you are, your own person. It's a hard concept to get across I think.
The idea of having power, but not exerting it over someone else or using it to control others, rather to use it to enable and strengthen others help them, motivate them. In S7 - we see Buffy doing that a lot - using her power to motivate and strengthen others.
It's what she did before in prior seasons. In S6 she shut down...and treated power as a bad thing, something ugly, and bad. To not use. OR was just about killing. In S7...I think she begins to see that it can be used in positive ways.