(All Btvs quotes are taken from Psyche transcripts..)
WARNING SPOILERS UP NORMAL AGAIN!
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"Welcome to the real world. Lot of fun to be had on the outside. You'll see." (Xander to Buffy in Tough Love, Btvs Season 5, after Buffy just dropped out of USC Sunnydale.)
How many times have we heard this phrase? You leave school and get a job, maybe not your first and Mom and Dad say: "Welcome to the real world." My first reaction upon hearing these words was: "Where the heck was I, in a fake world?"
Buffy is beginning to wonder the same thing. Was the last five years the fake world? If so, what is real? She's been in heaven, she's been in hell, and she's been in Sunnydale, which is real? Is her relationship with Spike, real? Are her friendships' real? Is her sister real? Is the nerdy villain real? She preferred the mystical demon villains of old, the mythic villains. She preferred her idealized romance with Angel and the perfect, dependable solider, Riley. Spike is messy and embarrassing and a royal pain in the you-know-what. (And she hates the fact she needs him.) She preferred the world of Mom and Giles, to a world where she has to work and be the sole support of her bratty kid sister.
In Normal Again (Season 6 Btvs), when Dawn tries to convince Buffy that Sunnydale is the real world and the asylum isn't, Buffy states: " Sure it is... 'Cause what's more real? A sick girl in an institution? Or some type of. . . supergirl. Chosen to fight demons and save
the world? Girl that sleeps with the vampire she hates. Yeah. 'Cause that makes
sense." So does the real world always make sense? From the events of 2001, I think we can agree it doesn't, in fact most of the time it's hard to tell what is real.
What is real appears to be an ongoing theme in Btvs. For Buffy and the audience - there are two characters that qualify as decidedly "unreal". Two characters who would very much like to be thought of as real. In fact, they've sort of bonded over this desire. In CRUSH, Dawn visits Spike in his crypt and they have the following discussion:
DAWN: (stops smiling) I'm not a child. (goes to lean against a pillar) I'm not even human. Not originally.
SPIKE: (sighs) Yeah, well, originally I was. I got over it. (Sits on the edge of a coffin) Doesn't seem to me it matters very much how you start out.
Spike and Dawn both want to be "real". Dawn screams throughout Season 6 - that she is real and should be noticed. When that doesn't work, she leaves. Spike does the same thing, he tries to talk to Buffy, tries to assert his presence, and when that doesn't work, he too leaves. (See Normal Again. Season 6. Btvs)
In Once More With Feeling, Spike and Dawn are both the first of the Scooby Gang to interact with the wooden demon henchman. Dawn dances with them. Spike actually manhandles one, stating: "Strong, someday he'll be a real boy." Something I think Spike would like to be at least to Buffy - who still thinks of him as "dead" or "unreal". After all, at the end of the episode, just before Buffy engages Spike in a passionate kiss, she sings: "I know this isn't real, but I just want to feel." Spike would like it to be real. He wants his relationship with Buffy to be more than just sex but it's not, not to her. Because he in effect is not real - so how can it be? To her he is nothing but a thing. Just as Dawn would like to be real as she states way back in Season 5, Bloodties: "I'm nothing! I'm just a thing the monks made so Glory couldn't find me. I'm not real." And then later in Normal Again while Buffy is attacking her: "STOP!! I'M REAL!!! BUFFY!!!" They believe they are real, but are they if the other characters, specifically Buffy don't acknowledge it?
In the story Pinnochio by Carlo Collodi, a wooden boy goes on a perilous journey to become real so he can obtain his father's love. (The wooden boy in some ways resembles the wooden henchman in Once More With Feeling.) This theme is also reflected in a recent film, called A. I. by Steven Speilberg, which chronicles a robot boy's journey to become real in order to obtain a mother's love. In both stories the fake boys believe they can only receive love if they are real. They themselves are capable of feeling love, but the objects of their affection cannot acknowledge their love as long as they remain inhuman or unreal. Spike has the same problem not only is Buffy incapable of acknowledging his capacity for "real" love, but so are members of the Scooby Gang, specifically Xander.
In the episode CRUSH, where Spike confesses his love for Buffy, Xander and Buffy both state how his feelings are not real.
BUFFY (referring to the concept Spike could love her): It's creepy.
XANDER: No. Not creepy. 'Cause it's not real! I mean, how upset can you really get over one of Spike's ... fevered daydreams that's not gonna happen?
Later, after Spike confesses his love for her:
SPIKE: Something's happening to me. I can't stop thinking about you.
BUFFY: Uhh. (turns away)
SPIKE: And if that means turning my back on the whole evil thing-
BUFFY: (turns back) You don't know what you mean! You don't know what feelings are!
In A.I, a little robot boy has been imprinted with program that now gives him the ability to love. He has a scene with his "real" brother, who lets him know that even if he does feel something for their mother, she can never love him in return, because he's not real, he doesn't know what real feelings are. Spike's feelings are acknowledged in a similar manner by Buffy and Xander - they aren't real, Spike doesn't know what real feelings are, they are nothing but fevered daydreams. As Buffy puts it to Spike: "whatever you think you're feeling, it's not love. You can't love without a soul." To which Drusilla sadly responds: "Oh, we can, you know. We can love quite well. If not wisely."
Buffy doesn't acknowledge Drusilla's retort, because after all it is coming from Drusilla, a fellow vampire, who also can't love, right? If she were to believe they could, what does that say about Angelus/Angel? Buffy is living by flawed childish logic, living if you will the fairy tale: Angel loved her when he had a soul, when he lost his soul he didn't love her, Angelus was a soulless vampire who could only love Buffy with his soul, Spike is a soulless vampire too, hence he can't love Buffy because he doesn't have a soul. It reminds me of kid who says - okay Bobby hit me because he likes me, Bobby is a boy, so all boys hit girls when they like them. Poor Buffy has yet to see the inherent flaw in the argument - she emotionally has to believe it. Buffy can't deal with the simple fact that the soul Angel is cursed with may have capabilities that the demon Angelus does not. It's actually rather simple - Angelus just happened to be a demon that could not love, he was too obsessed with himself and his cause to care about anyone else. Angel knows demons can love, after all he's known at least two soulless vampire couples who were desperately devoted to one another and whose immortal love was as real and lasting as anyone else's. (See Ats Season 3, 1st episode, and Ats Season 2, Darla, and What's My Line Part I & II, and Lie to Me, Btvs Season 2.) Buffy is only beginning to realize this and it is a painful realization, particularly since it may mean that Spike's feelings for her are real, even if she can never return them.
So what is real? This season we have our first "real world" villain in Warren. But Warren does not want to live in the "real" world. He wants to live in the world in his head; he wants to be Lex Luther in the comic books, except in his head Lex Luthor wins. He doesn't consider what he does to his ex-girlfriend, Katrinia, in Dead Things, as real. And since it's not real - it's not wrong. This isn't really rape - we're just playing. Last season in I WAS MADE TO LOVE YOU, he created a robot to fall in love with him. Warren does not see the ethical dilemma in creating something to love him to which he cannot return the love.
WARREN: I didn't make a toy. I made a girlfriend.
BUFFY: A girlfriend. Are you saying ... are you in love with her?
WARREN: I really thought I would be.
APRIL(the robot): I'm only supposed to love him. If I can't do that, what am I for? What do I exist for?
BUFFY: I don't know. (shakes head) It isn't fair. He wasn't fair to you.
This episode ironically takes place right after CRUSH, in which it is made clear by both Buffy and Xander that Spike's feelings should not be acknowledged, because they aren't real. They can't be because of what he is. So what about April's? Is the same true for her? What constitutes real feelings? Or real love? How do we know that Spike or Pinocchio or April or even Dawn can't love? How do we know their feelings aren't real? Can Warren love? (When we compare Warren to Spike, which Kellyne did in an amazing essay a while back on B C&S board, Spike's feelings of love are more real, more human, and far less selfishly motivated than Warren's. In most cases - Spike gets very little from his demonstrations of love for Buffy. He gets sex, but it's not really what he wants, even he acknowledges this on more than one occasion. (See Wrecked, Gone, and Dead Things in which he states - "If I can't have all of you?" or "What I want is?" or asks, "What is this thing to you?"). Warren on the other hand demands love in return for very little. All of Warren's actions are selfishly motivated. And Warren is human with a soul.)
In Season 6, part of the reason Buffy has sex with Spike is she does not consider it real. Or at least at first, she doesn't. He makes her feel good and he's just a soulless empty vessel, so what's the harm? It's not like she's hurting anyone who has feelings worth acknowledging. She even calls their intimate exchange a "freakshow" in Wrecked. In Gone, she plays with him, while invisible, in front of Xander, thinking - it's not real, I'm invisible, and Xander won't notice, because after all - he doesn't believe it can be real either, he said as much. She doesn't realize that she's hurting Spike or degrading him while she's doing this, because he's not real, so his feelings don't matter. He's a soulless evil thing - remember? Not unlike Warren's robot. It's not until she beats him up in Dead Things and she sees the all too human face of "William" beneath her, that she begins to realize this is a "real" person she is shagging and beating up, that they have a "real" relationship and oh, does the guilt set in.
Real. Both Buffy and Warren appear to be struggling with this concept. Warren doesn't see Katrina as real, he sees her as an object he can play with. Katrinia doesn't have feelings, she can't get hurt. Even when she dies, he barely registers it. She is an object for his pleasure.
Scene from Dead Things, between Katrina and Warren:
WARREN: Tell me you love me.
KATRINA: I love you, Master.
WARREN: Again.
KATRINA: I love you, Master.
Now here's the scene from As You Were, when Buffy comes to the Spike. The difference between the two scenes is Spike does love Buffy and is a willing participant, Buffy still refusing to completely acknowledge his love, uses it in a similar fashion to Warren using Katrina. In her ears what Spike says is like a comfortable recording she plays whenever she's feeling bad about herself. And "it" doesn't appear to demand anything in return. Spike isn't real to Buffy. She wants to feel loved, she wants unconditional love with no strings, no risks, no pain and Spike gives it to her.
BUFFY: (quietly) Tell me you love me.
SPIKE: (surprised) I love you. You know I do..
BUFFY: Tell me you want me.
SPIKE: (whispers) I always want you. In point of fact-
BUFFY: Shut up.
Does Buffy love Spike? I don't know. I'm not sure she does. At this point she is merely using him to make herself feel good. Does Warren love Katrina? Probably not, but he thinks he does. That's the difference: Buffy does not "think" she can love Spike, Warren "thinks" he can and does love Katrina. (We know Warren is wrong, but what if Buffy is too? Now, that would be ironic.) Warren doesn't know what real love is. Warren hasn't entered the real world. In Warren's world he can escape the consequences of his actions. "Nothing here is real." Buffy on the other hand may feel "nothing here is real" as she sings in Once More With Feeling, but she has not gone as far as Warren. She is trying to deal with the "real" world and all it implies.
So what is the real world? It is the world beyond the looking glass, beyond the fairy tales of youth. In the real world - the good guys aren't stalwart and true and the bad guys don't have pointy horns or wield mystical powers, they are sometimes just geeks from high school who rape and kill innocent people. In the real world - the guy you get involved with is not a beautiful soulful father-like figure who loses his soul the moment you sleep with him. He sticks around the next morning plaguing you with questions about where the heck this relationship is going. And if you continue treating him like dirt, he might just bite you. Your sister is not a mystical key that will be bled to open hell dimensions - she's a whiney brat you would like to slap silly. In the real world, you have to work at a menial job to make ends meet. Is it any wonder Buffy wants to go back through the looking glass? Is it any wonder that we do as well?
Growing up is facing what is real and handling it on a day to day basis without guarantees or short-cuts. Pinocchio learns this during his journey - he learns that he can't horse around, miss school and be a bad boy:
"Oh, I am sick of being a puppet!" cried Pinocchio, giving himself a slap. "It is time that I became man...."
"And you will become one, if you know how to deserve it...." says the blue fairy.
"Not really? And what can I do to deserve it?"
"A very easy thing: by learning to be a good boy. Good boys like to learn
and to work, and you..."
"And I instead lead an idle vagabond life the year through." (Pinocchio by Claudio Collodi, English Translation by M. A. Murrey, 1883).
It's what Xander means when he tells Buffy, Welcome to the Real World - he means taking a job, making a living, taking responsibility for your life. To become real, our characters need to take responsibility for their lives; deal with the day to day, without shortcuts or escapes. To become real - Spike needs to stop putting up with Buffy's abuse, he needs to create his own life, be his own man and regain his self-respect. Spike needs to deal with the fact that Buffy may not be able to love him that their relationship may not be real to her. Dawn needs to find herself, be the good girl, go to school, not be Buffy's bratty thieving sister like Pinocchio is the lying wooden boy. And Buffy needs to realize that she is not defined by "the slayer" or who she was in high-school or who she sleeps with. She does not need a guy to be whole. They need to face the real world.
Thanks again for reading. Looking forward to responses as always?
;- ) shadowkat
