I’m a little surprised at how many people seem to think “Seeing Red” makes Spike worse. As has been posted, he’s evil. His previous relationship was with Drusilla, for gods’ sake. He probably patched up any number of arguments with her over the years in that exact same way. Am I saying what he did was acceptable? No. Not in the least. But how is it in any way inconsistent with who he was before this week? For the life of his quote-relationship-endquote with Buffy, he has (with exactly two exceptions*) always done only those things that either A) got him closer to Buffy or B) he could hide from Buffy. That’s it. In his sick domestic-violence way, he probably did honestly think that his actions would fulfill condition A.
Well, in Spike’s defense for his actions tonight (and I told you you Spike-Bashers would have a field day with this), their sex life has always been violent, on BOTH sides, I don’t think anyone can deny that. Why should he think it was any different tonight? Buffy has always told him no and then fu**ed his brains out after exchanging blows (which she usually starts).
He did feel remorse after he realised it was different. It was more than remorse, he was ashamed of himself when he realised that Buffy was serious this time and that it wasn’t like their usual ‘foreplay’.
This is probably my last post in this thread, I think it’s kind of silly to get into such a heated debate over fiction. I thought the character of Spike was hot before he was neutered, and I still think he’s hot after tonight’s episode. That’s all that matters to me.
It was most certainly rape. If a woman says NO, and if the man demands sex anyway, then it’s still rape. Unless she actually consents to the sex, it is rape.
Stoid, I think that you REALLY need to take off your blinders when it comes to Spike.
I think you need to clarify this statement Stoid. In what way was this not a rape attempt? I’m not going to offer my rebuttal until I know what you’re talking about.
Stoid, how is this not attempted rape? Woman breaks up with her boyfriend. Ex-boyfriend sneaks into woman’s house and attacks her. Woman says “no” repeatedly. Woman struggles to get away. Ex-boyfriend stops only when woman physically throws him across the room. This is attempted rape. Whether or not woman and ex-boyfriend have had sex in the past, even rough sex, is irrelevant.
No, Spike didn’t intend to rape Buffy. He ment to have sex with her. She didn’t want to have sex with him. A struggle commenced. That, as far as I know, is attempted rape.
I’ll give you that Spike didn’t want to rape her, but I don’t think that negates the attempted rape.
Actually I take back my previous statement. I think Spike intentionally tried to rape her. Remember he said something about Buffy remembering to love her when he was inside her. Spike was going to force himself on her to try to make Buffy love him.
Oh god, that was ENTIRELY to close to Mike Tyson and his “F$#K you till you love me”.
I said Dru was hot. However, I have NEVER attempted to excuse her actions. She is a sociopath who has had a severe psychotic break from reality. She gleefully kills innocent bystanders, small animals and in at least one episode is about to murder a child.
However, having a thing for Malkavian women, she drives me wild.
If someone were to say that Spike is evil, but they find him hot. I would have no problem with that. It is the attempts to excuse Spike’s actions and claim that he isn’t really evil that I have a problem with.
RE-Last Night’s Episode
IIRC (and I may not) previous Spike and Buffy foreplay was violent but not in a sexual manner. EG Buffy and Spike literally throw each other through walls. Punches, and kicks were exchanged. Last night, however, Spike attempted to rip off Buffy’s clothing and pin her to the floor. It looked like attempted rape to me.
Spike did not intend to rape Buffy. Rape is an act of power and violence. Spike believed that she wanted it, and wanted to break down what he believed was basically false resistence. He was an insensitive idiot, but he was not interested in making Buffy do what she didn’t want to (have sex with him) he was interested in helping her do what she really did want to do (have sex with him).
It was bad behavior on his part, but it wasn’t an ** evil ** act. It was a stupid, selfish, dumbass act. Big difference.
Motives do count, especially when:
a) He didn’t succeed
b) She’s stronger than him and he knows it, so he believes, rightly, that he was never going to succeed at making her do anything she didn’t really want to do.
c) They have used violence as foreplay since Day One.
It is completely unreasonable to suddenly expect that Spike would be completely clear on what the boundaries are and when they are being crossed, that’s not how they played the game.
With all due respect to people’s various experiences in real life, I think some people are taking this scene WAY WAY WAY too seriously. Good heavens, she’s the SLAYER, nothing even close to a normal woman.
No, Spikey wasn’t being very nice or very sensitive, but he also wasn’t being some monstrous rapist. He was a misguided (emotionally tortured) male a little slow on the uptake. Lots of those around. He finally realized she was serious in precisely the way he would have expected to. No need to string him up by his genitals.
stoid
(I am no advocate of rape, but I do believe that as a society we have gone to the other end of the spectrum and become a little over-the-top in our expectations/reactions to males in sexual situations, but that’s another thread…)
Again, so? A lot of rapists think that the woman really wants it as well. Do the words “You’re saying ‘no,’ but your eyes say ‘yes’” sound at all familiar?
Regardless of what Spike’s intention was, it was indeed RAPE, pure and simple.
Stoid, no offense, but I really, REALLY hope you don’t regard real-world relationships through the same rose-colored glasses with which you view Spike. I’m not be facetious or sarcastic here, Stoid. I’m really, really concerned about the things you’ve been saying. They sound to me like the prime ingredients for an abusive relationship.
Now it could very well be that your own relationships are hearty and healthy, but I’d be deeply concerned about any woman who said the things you’ve been saying.
You’re ignoring everything else. Spike, unlike your run of the mill rapist, had GOOD REASON to believe it was ok. She had repeatedly said no and then her body said yes!
No rape occured. We are debating the attempt.
Oy gavalt :rolleyes: Because I’m not towing the PC line that says the slightest lack of enthusiasm on the part of a female followed by any pressure from the male is the lowest form of behavior on earth? Sorry, I’ve lived too long to buy that one.
And what does any of this have to do with abusive relationships? My mommy taught me all I ever needed to know about abusive relationships. Any man who hits me once never gets a second chance, period. It’s worked for me.
I was convinced Spike was on a path of redemption. This is a huge setback. The beatings were a part of B&S sexplay all along. This time it was wrong, only because B could barely fight back. Wassup wit dat?
Sooner or later (this season?) he’ll lose the chip and then we’ll see what we’ll see. When he thought the chip was defunct, he went for a quick kill. But he seemed unsure about it.
Never, ever believe what a character says, especially when they’re talking about themselves. Yeah, Spike says he’s evil. He says it at every possible opportunity. He says it when he’s all alone. Who exactly is he trying to convince, hmm?
That said, I think Spike is evil. But he’s not entirely evil, and he may be shading toward good. I think he did try and rape Buffy, although I don’t think he was doing it with the intention of hurting her (as in “I’ll make her pay for dumping me.”) but out of a desperate need that made him completely lose control. I think he was desperately guilty afterwards, which is why he kept insisting on how evil he is: he was trying to talk himself out of his guilt. I’m interested to see where he goes from here, although I think that if he either becomes all good or all evil they’ll lose most of what makes him interesting as a character.
Stoid-I think you are missing something. Spike and Buffy had been broken up for a few episodes. If he was confused about that, I would agree with you. He wasn’t. He was trying to rape her, because he felt she would then love her.
Well, Stoid, your opinion was pretty much what I expected. Let’s take your objections one at a time.
That’s why I am using the phrase “attempted rape”. His lack of success only adds the first word and does not change the second word at all. It has not suddenly become a discussion of attempted bookkeeping or attempted backgammon.
Besides, I fail to see how his lack of success relates to a discussion of his moral status. The attempted rapist is not less evil that the actual rapist, only less competent or successful or strong. He is not better because he lost the struggle or because he didn’t actually kill lots of people with the sale of the demon eggs. He’s evil because he fully intended to go through with these things.
So, that’s our defense now? “Well Officer, I didn’t really think I could get away with it. But I thought I’d try.” Like I said, success is not a benchmark. And even if he didn’t think he could do it, it doesn’t give him the right to try. It is not for him to decide what Buffy really wants, nor is it up to him to “help” her realise what she “really wants”.
I don’t think he gave any thought to who could stop who anyway. He decided - on his own - that he was going to have sex with her - despite her objections - and that this would make her love him. A pretty standard viewpoint for a rapist. He was so obsessed with his own viewpoint that he paid no attention to what she said or did. Not exactly a sign he loves or respects her.
Finally, I think it says something that she did have to kick him across the room. I’m certain he wouldn’t have stopped on his own.
Oh, please. There’s a difference between rough consentual sex and what happened here. Check out the transcript for “Smashed”. The two stop punching each other as soon as they start kissing. There’s a little knocking into walls, but as long as Buffy is kissing Spike and grinding into him, it’s pretty safe to say that consent is present. When he needs to pin her to the bathroom floor and he talks about putting himself inside her while she’s saying “No” and trying to get away … well, call me crazy, but I think consent isn’t present here. And Spike would have to be pretty stupid to think that it was. Or too wrapped up in himself to notice or care, which, like I said, is a pretty typical for a rapist.
Finally, I think it was clear that the writers intended it to be an attempted rape. We got a pretty good shot of Buffy’s bruised upper thigh, usually a rape indicator (for purposes of TV drama). Why include that if not to make the point that it was a rape attempt? To piss of Xander? He already hates Spike anyway.
Ok, I think inspite of The Scene, there is still some how for Spike.
I want to be absolutely clear that I don’t deny what he did was absolutely inappropriate and wrong. I have my own problems with the scene that has nothing to do with Spike or Buffy, but I’ll check them at the door and take the scene at face value.
Again, I am not trying to justify Spike’s actions, I’m just stating what I think may be a bit of hope.
He’s not wearing his game face. This leads me to believe he didn’t attack her out of anger. We’ve seen Spike put his face on for much less than this. He attacked her out of obession and passion, which is scary in and of itself, but not out of anger. (Instead of “you love me” he could have said "You’ll pay for hurting me bitch!) I repeat, I’m not saying he was OK since he didn’t attack her out of anger.
He didn’t try to attack her again. If he was completely evil, he would have tried again. We know this because he rarely flees a fight with Buffy. If he truly meant to hurt her, and if he was truly evil, I believe he would have attacked her again until she either beat the shit out of him or until he “won”. (Again, this doesn’t excuse the first time he attacked her.)
The look of almost horror on his face after he kicked her. Like he couldn’t believe what he had done.
When he goes back to his crypt, he blames the chip for some pain he feels. But of course, the chip doesn’t hurt him when he attacks Buffy. Before he blamed the chip however, he had “flashbacks”. To me this indicates remorse/shock (as in when Angel had his flashbacks). So, what type of pain was he feeling if not from the chip? Could it have been pangs of guilt?
Again, feeling guilty does not excuse him. However, evil vampire aren’t suppose to feel guilty. The fact that he apparently does seems to point to the fact that he could still be redeemed.
When he left, he didn’t sound very convincing. Every other time he tried to tell everybody how evil he is, he growls it, with a glare. We are meant to see and hear how evil he is. But when he left, I personally wasn’t convinced he was going to come as evil. The more I watch the line, the more ambiguous it seems to me.
I think when he comes back, he’ll be “good” somehow.
We’re not sure. I think it was in the “Dead Things” episode, Buffy went to Tara and asked her to research the spell that brought Buffy back from the dead. Tara checks it out, and says that while Buffy has been changed at a deep level, it’s like a sunburn. It makes Buffy just different enough that Spike can hurt her.
I’ve been wondering about this. Sunburns heal. I’m wondering when/if Buffy will begin to register as a human on Spike’s chip. I’ve also been wondering if Tara was lying and there really is something deeply non-human about Buffy since her return. Nothing I’ve seen in Tara’s behavior seems to indicate she was lying however.