An Inconvenient Truth

I like Spike.

I don't mean like. I mean love. And I don't mean love the way all those other fools do who say, "Oh, Spike is so hot!" "He and Buffy belong together!" "Spike is hilarious!" To them I say, "NO." Convinced of my own superiority, I submit that my love for Spike is love in its purest form. From the moment his white-haired dome drove into Sunnydale in "School Hard," I was intrigued. Even at his most evil I am a fan. During Season 2 I wasn't pulling for him to beat Buffy, but I was pulling for him to take down Angel. When Spike made that tenuous alliance with the Buffster in "Becoming, Part 1," I understood this to be the beginning of a beautiful relationship.

Some of you may protest that this isn't fair. After all, we all know that Angel was Buffy's first and true love, and that during the end of Season 2 he couldn't help his supreme villainy. That's true. And I get that Spike was set up beginning in Season 4 to be the only character who doesn't frustrate the daylights out of the audience and who doesn't require loud outbursts of shouting at the TV screen to make them behave (I'm talking to you, Willow).

What I'm trying to say is that Spike was on a journey. All of the characters were; that's one of the reasons Buffy was such a great show. But, at least to me, Spike's journey was the most fulfilling and satisfying. To me, Spike is the only man who could be with Buffy.

I know, I know. Angel, right? We could go back and forth all day about this (and in a future post, I probably will). But let's observe the facts, shall we? Angel was tortured (man vs. himself and all) by the crimes he perpetrated as a vampire. For decades. Buffy saved him. And he loved her with a fierce passion. BUT THEN HE LEFT, and consequently got his own--and ultimately disappointing--show. All this was necessary because of that durn curse.

Spike was also tortured when he (SPOILER alert [Question: can it really be a spoiler 8 years after the show went off the air? Answer: YES.]) got back his soul. But he pulled it together after only a couple months. He also willingly fought for his soul so that he could be the man Buffy needed him to be. And in the end, he gave the ultimate sacrifice, fulfilling his destiny and thereby saving the woman he had grown to love.

Really, the main similarity between Spike and Angel (besides being the only two vampires with souls) is that Buffy saved both of them from themselves.

Maybe I should have prefaced this post with the fact that I never prefer the normal, hot guy you are supposed to like in movies and TV shows. Growing up, my sister was in love with Christian Bale in Newsies, but I always liked that nerdy David kid better. And I liked Robert Sean Leonard in Swing Kids, while my sister, again, preferred the bold and virile Christian Bale. (Maybe I just didn't like Christian Bale.) I know that we are meant to love Angel so much that no one can ever take the place of him, but that just isn't so. Spike may not have that intense, soul-searching stare that Angel does, but he's so FIESTY. Whatever.

In a perfect world, i.e., there was no Angel TV show and no Season 8 comic (I'm a Buffy purist), at the end of it all, Buffy would walk away from Sunnydale forever, never see Angel again (what's the point?), and Spike would be dead. The sadness of that is very satisfying because it's just the way things are.

This post kinda got away from me. But now that I've opened this portal, many, MANY more Spike posts will surely come forth.

But seriously SPUFFY 4EVA!!