Why, you may ask, did I choose the title "Nothing Like the Sun" for my "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" fan site? Well, it all began about four hundred years ago ...

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress when she walks treads on the ground.
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.

Some of you may recognize the poem above as Shakespeare's Sonnet 130. If so, I'm very impressed! Now, I'm not claiming to be a great scholar of Shakespeare's work, but my own interpretation of this sonnet reminds me of Spike's love for Buffy. The sonnet details the love of a man for a woman, but love with an honest eye and an honest tongue. This lover will not simper and fawn and flatter (as, for example, Spike/William did when human, in his poems to Cecily) ... he tells it like it is. But he insists in the final two lines that this honesty does not make his love any less true.

In fact, I believe the primary point of the poem is that an honest love is even more true, even more rare, than one expressed by exaggerated flattery.

Spike — like the lover in this sonnet — tells it like it is. He doesn't flatter Buffy, or try to win her over with sugary lies. He tells her what he really feels, what he really thinks, how he really sees her and her actions. Spike often lies if he has something to gain, but in his love for Buffy he goes against that pattern. He tells her the truth, even when she doesn't want to hear it and would rather hear pretty lies. His love is better than that. Truer. More rare.

The other work of art that inspired my choice of name for this website was Sting's song "Sister Moon," particularly the lines (obviously inspired by Shakespeare's sonnet)

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun ...
My hunger for her explains everything I've done.

Here, too, I am reminded of Spike, as he has been driven — by his love for Buffy — to grow and change in amazing ways. Even those who do not believe that Spike has grown or changed cannot deny that he has behaved differently. And I would argue that his hunger for Buffy explains everything he's done.

Spike gets only the most fleeting glimpses of the true sun, the celestial body around which our planet orbits. Because of his vampire nature, the sun is denied him. Because of his vampire nature, it is beyond his reach. Just as, in his heart of hearts, Spike believes that Buffy is beyond his reach.

And that is my third and final inspiration for my choice of title for this website. Because I do not believe that Buffy need be denied to Spike because of his vampire nature. I do not believe that she is beyond his reach. I do not believe, in the final analysis, that she is like the sun ... that she is above him.

What I do believe is that they are both flawed creatures doing the best they can. Creatures who have heroic moments, and horrific moments, and messy emotions, and physical needs, and everything else that comes with existing in this complicated world.

Buffy is not like the sun. She's not some unreachable, untouchable hero. She makes mistakes just like we all do. Just like Spike does. But I do not think Spike will ever be able to have a real relationship with her until he realizes that he is just as "good" as she is. And that she is no more like the sun than he.

— Kimberly A, 25 June 2002