Poll Time! What's it all about, Buffy? redux

[rebcake]

Perhaps I'm beating a dead horse, but here goes.

I was fascinated by the huge differences in how people perceive the way Buffy and Spike start their "relationship". I'm trying to find the crux of the divergence, and here is one possibility that came to mind:

Poll I give up! (The Buffy Edition)
Yes, yes, we know it was a combination of factors. But which was the primary motivator for

Comments

[baudown]

Yes, she desires is to feel something in order to combat the feeling of numbness and deadness that makes up her grief. She wants to be punished for her anger towards her friends for bringing her back. To be punished for being"wrong." She desires to experience fully her own darkness -- something she's been seeking for a long, long time, and which Spike has long represented to her. And she's of course seeking sexual gratification. I think she and Spike have been attracted to each other from the first moments of their acquaintance, although neither of them knew it at the time. Just watch their interaction s in School Hard -- Spike stalking her in a very sexual way, Buffy proposing hand to hand combat rather than weapons -- it's there from the start.

But Spike being able to hurt her is essential to her giving in to desire. It's part and parcel of her desire itself -- to be hurt, to be punished. And she can permit herself to have it only when she knows he can truly give that to her, and that he isn't physically defenseless to her (although she ignores that fact that his emotional defenses to her are nearly non-existent).

[rebcake]

Interesting points. It might be a minority opinion, but I too think that the attraction has been there on both sides for a long time. ;-)

It does not look like she's giving a lot of thought to what Spike might want here. I'm pretty sure she thought "he's a big boy" once she found out he wasn't defenseless, and figured he'd take care of himself. And really, she's already got a lot of responsibilities that she's failing at, so why would she add Spike's feelings to her to-do list? It's probably a relief to have someone she doesn't have to take care of. (She thinks.)