The Crazy!Spike Interpreter

Have you watched an early episode of Season 7 BTVS and wondered to yourself, "What the heck is Spike talking about?" Well, here's where you can come to seek enlightenment, grasshopper. I'll give you my perspective on Crazy!Spike's ramblings, when I think I have something to offer.

Ep. 7.01 ("Lessons")

"I dropped my board in the water, and the chalk all ran." — In the nineteenth century (when Spike was human), students did not use pens and paper, but rather wrote their assignments with chalk on slates (what we now call "chalkboards"). As anyone who has ever erased a chalkboard can tell you, chalk can be removed from a slate very easily ... thereby undoing all a student's hard work. Basically, Spike is talking about losing his homework, or his work being for nothing. If you want to interpret that pretty broadly, it could easily be related to all the work he did with the Scoobies in the past couple years, all the effort he put into regaining his soul, all the effort he put into helping Buffy, etc.

"Sure to be caned." — In the Victorian era, British children were "caned" when they misbehaved, often by their schoolmasters. (For an example from Wales, you can check out the historical teachers' logs on this website.) Each blow from the "cane" (often actually a long stick or switch) was referred to as a "cut," and minor misbehavior would merit one or two cuts upon the hands, while more serious infractions would lead to multiple cuts upon the child's back or rear-end. This method of punishment was generally accepted and assumed to be effective, and not considered cruel.

"I had a speech ... I learned it all." — Children in Victorian England often were required to memorize speeches or poems to recite before their class, as memorization was considered a useful method of improving a child's ability to learn and remember other material. Rather than simply reading aloud from a book report, for example, as a child today might do while standing at the front of the class, William as a child would have been expected to memorize the entire thing and recite it from memory. Here, Spike is clearly applying that same ideology from his childhood to his anxiety about seeing Buffy again, implying that he had prepared a speech for their first meeting, which he did not end up using. Also, Spike's homework mutterings may be an oblique reference to the episode title, since the word "homework" was not used in Victorian England; instead of doing homework, children did "their lessons."

Ep. 7.02 ("Beneath You")

"Make use of me if you want." — That, of course, is all Buffy has done since Spike got his chip. It's what he's come to expect from her, and he seems to feel that it is all he has to offer: to be a tool which she can use as needed. This has double meaning, as it refers both to Buffy's longtime use of him in fighting evil, and also to Buffy's use of him as an undead sex toy through half of Season 6. Spike isn't in his "bug-shaggin' crazy" persona when he says this, but I still thought it was worth a mention.

"From beneath you, it devours. From beneath ..." — While this obviously echoes Buffy's dream from the beginning of the episode, it also echoes Ep. 5.07 ("Fool For Love"), when both Cecily (in 1880) and Buffy (in the modern day) told William/Spike, "You're beneath me." I think this is why Spike trails off, grimacing with pain and turning away, and does not finish the sentence.

"Poor Rocky." (This is the last thing Spike says before running away to the church, after stabbing Ronnie.) — Rocky was Nancy's dog, who was eaten by Ronnie-the-worm at the beginning of the episode. Spike's brief lament here echoes Anya's grief for the "puppy" at The Bronze. So we see that Spike is not only sensitive to humans now (as in his apology to Ronnie), but also to animals.

"Am I flesh to you? ... Nothing else. Not a spark. Okay, fine. Flesh, then. Solid through. Get it hard, service the girl." — Here, Spike — with his obedient, conciliatory body language — seems to be referring to Buffy's sexual use of him in Season 6. He has learned quite well that Buffy sees him only as a piece of flesh or meat, useful only to satisfy her own needs. At first, he seems indignant and hurt, then merely resigned, hoping to please Buffy the only way he knows how, the only way she has ever permitted: with sex.

"The missing ... the piece ... that fit ... that would make me fit. Because you didn't want ..." — Here, Spike is clearly referring to his soul. The missing piece that would make him fit into the little box Buffy had defined as "lovable."

"I dreamed of killing you." — Notice Spike doesn't say these were good dreams. When he left Sunnydale after nearly raping Buffy in "Seeing Red" (Ep. 6.19), Spike was tortured by thoughts of how he might hurt Buffy again if he didn't do something to prevent it. So he may be referring here to hopeful dreams of killing Buffy (before he fell in love with her), or he may be referring to more recent nightmares of what he might be capable of. This line also echoes their conversation in Ep. 6.03 ("After Life"), when Spike told Buffy that he dreamt of her every night ... that he dreamt of saving her (as opposed to killing her).

"Why does a man do what he mustn't? For her. To be hers. To be the kind of man who would never ..." — Spike trails off here and does not finish this sentence, but he no doubt is thinking of the near-rape in "Seeing Red" (Ep. 6.19), since it was that event which spurred him to seek the soul in the first place. (For more of my thoughts on this, check out the essay I wrote during the summer about Spike's soul: "Joss and Marti Pull A Fast One.")

Ep. 7.03 ("Same Time, Same Place")

"You go off, and you try to wall up the bad parts, and put your heart back in where it fell out, and you call yourself finished. But you're not. You're worse off than ever, you are." — Spike says this to Willow when they first encounter each other again. He seems to be referring to himself as well as to her, since they both left Sunnydale at the end of last season to seek significant change in ridding themselves of their "bad parts" and to heal their broken hearts. (For more of my analysis of this particular line, check out my ramble about this episode.)

"I should hide. Hide from you. Hide my face. You know what I did." — This clearly refers to the bathroom scene in "Seeing Red," though it could also be interpreted as referring to all of the evil things Spike has done in his past. Spike seems to be saying this primarily to Xander, who does in fact know that Spike nearly raped Buffy, though Spike had already left by the time he showed up. So Spike really has no way of knowing that Xander knows anything about what happened in the bathroom in Ep. 6.19 ("Seeing Red"), unless he overheard what Xander whispered to Buffy in the livingroom in Ep. 7.02 ("Beneath You"), when Xander argued that Buffy should not spend time alone with Spike because he had tried to rape her. (For more of my analysis of this particular line, check out my ramble about this episode.)

"Look at you ... glowin'. What's a word means 'glowing'? S'gotta rhyme." — This clearly hearkens back to the Spike flashback episode "Fool For Love" (Ep. 5.07) in which we saw the human William working on a poem and muttering to himself. When a waiter approached him to offer him an hors d'oevre, William asked, "Oh, quickly! I'm the very spirit of vexation. What's another word for 'gleaming'? It's a perfectly perfect word as many words go, but the bother is nothing rhymes, you see." This also refers back to the brief talk between Spike and Buffy at Anya and Xander's wedding (in Ep. 6.16, "Hell's Bells"), when Spike told Buffy she glows when she's happy.

"Button, button, who's got the button? My money's on ... the witch." — "Button, button, who's got the button" is a reference to a nineteenth-century (i.e. 1800s, when William was a child) children's game, in which a button was passed from person to person and the players had to guess who had it. Spike was just guessing who was responsible for the confusion, and used this old game chant because it had lingered in William's memory. Sort of like someone saying "Eenie, meenie, miney, mo" when making a choice. (For a bit more info on the game of "Button, button, who's got the button?", check out Virginia Mescher's webpage or Ravenstone Press's account of the same game when it had spread to the United States by the 1880s.)

"William's a good boy. Carries the water. Carries the sin. It's supposed to get easier, innit? S'supposed to help to help. But it doesn't. It's still so heavy." (when leading the Scoobies to Gnarl's cave) — Here, Spike muses on the fact that helping the good guys should make his past sins easier to bear, but it doesn't. After the crucifiction imagery in "Beneath You" (Ep. 7.02), this has obvious Christian undertones along the lines of "my cross to bear."

Ep. 7.04 ("Help")

Amazingly enough, I didn't find any of Spike's dialogue especially mysterious in this episode. He mostly just talked a lot about "Don't hurt the girl" and "I hurt the girl" ... but those seemed pretty clear to me as references to his near rape of Buffy in Ep. 6.19 ("Seeing Red"). If you found any of his dialogue in this episode puzzling, let me know and I'll try to explicate it here.