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Anya = Spike
Oct. 25th, 2002 01:01 amThis is something I'd just put up in a post at CW. It's why Anay's & Spike's lives have become parallels.
Selfless really brought to light a strong mirroring of Spike and Anya's characters that we'd not seen before in the show, at lest, not outright. Earlier in the series, their situations had always been treated as different by the other Scoobies because Anya progressed all the way to human, whereas Spike only seemed to go less than halfway. The SG chose to collectively forget that it was forced on Anya as much as it was on Spike, and that for a long time she was just as resistant to it.
However, in hindsight, it's easy to see how similar their personal journeys really are. In fact, for Anya it was just less than a year, between becoming human, and seriously dating Xander. In that time between, she had no love for humans or her situation, and didn't care about anyone but herself when the world was going to end y the Mayor. Likewise, for Spike, it was less than a full year between getting the chip, and finding out he was in love with Buffy. In the mean time he also went through an apocalypse-situation where he only cared about imself--Adam. Soon after that, he realized he loved Buffy. Just like how it was soon after Graduation that Anay started dating Xander.
Like Anya's relationship/love for Xander, Spike's love for Buffy is what cause him to change his opinions about human emotions, and loving as a human does. Think of Anya's words in the Gift-- I don't remember the exact quote, but she talked about how she SHOULD want to just run away and save herself, but she CAN'T, because now she has these intense feelings for Xander, and she doesn't feel she can leave him. Like Spike, loved changed self-interest into a willingness to sacrifice oneself for the love of another: Spike suffered Glory's torture; Anya pushed Xander out of the way of falling bricks.
Thier storylines are catching up... now Anya's in the same place as Spike. They've both chosen to be 'good' rather than 'evil', after events & their own actions made them both realize they had to choose a side, and choose permantently.
Anya bought her human soul & her human life at the price of Halfrek's existence, believing her own existence would be the cost.
Spike challenged for his right to a soul, with his own existence as the bet, and achieved his soul.
Whereas before both characters were "neutered" and "forced" into non-violence, and both characters were offered the chance to go back (demon, losing chip) now both characters have willfully chosen the human/living path, the path of right over the path of wrong, and did so--this is important-- with a human's perspective of what 'right' and 'wrong' is. Spike and Anya eventually began to think like humans, after they were handicapped, eventually so much so that they chose to make themselves human --each in the only way they knew how-- so that they would "fit" (from:BY) in the human world.
Now neither really knows who they are, only who they were for other people, in other times. Both have a great innate desire to a) be loved & accepted, and b) contribute to the people/situations around them, to feel 'useful', like what they do means something in the end.
See how similar they are? It's amazing once you think about it. And I don't think we were really able to realize it before, because Anya's history in 'Selfless' does the same thing that Spike's history in 'FFL' did-- it clarifies already known information, yet gives out new knowledge that, while supporting the canon, does so in such a way that it changes how you view the character, and brings dramatic points to light without actually changing anything we knew before.
Selfless really brought to light a strong mirroring of Spike and Anya's characters that we'd not seen before in the show, at lest, not outright. Earlier in the series, their situations had always been treated as different by the other Scoobies because Anya progressed all the way to human, whereas Spike only seemed to go less than halfway. The SG chose to collectively forget that it was forced on Anya as much as it was on Spike, and that for a long time she was just as resistant to it.
However, in hindsight, it's easy to see how similar their personal journeys really are. In fact, for Anya it was just less than a year, between becoming human, and seriously dating Xander. In that time between, she had no love for humans or her situation, and didn't care about anyone but herself when the world was going to end y the Mayor. Likewise, for Spike, it was less than a full year between getting the chip, and finding out he was in love with Buffy. In the mean time he also went through an apocalypse-situation where he only cared about imself--Adam. Soon after that, he realized he loved Buffy. Just like how it was soon after Graduation that Anay started dating Xander.
Like Anya's relationship/love for Xander, Spike's love for Buffy is what cause him to change his opinions about human emotions, and loving as a human does. Think of Anya's words in the Gift-- I don't remember the exact quote, but she talked about how she SHOULD want to just run away and save herself, but she CAN'T, because now she has these intense feelings for Xander, and she doesn't feel she can leave him. Like Spike, loved changed self-interest into a willingness to sacrifice oneself for the love of another: Spike suffered Glory's torture; Anya pushed Xander out of the way of falling bricks.
Thier storylines are catching up... now Anya's in the same place as Spike. They've both chosen to be 'good' rather than 'evil', after events & their own actions made them both realize they had to choose a side, and choose permantently.
Anya bought her human soul & her human life at the price of Halfrek's existence, believing her own existence would be the cost.
Spike challenged for his right to a soul, with his own existence as the bet, and achieved his soul.
Whereas before both characters were "neutered" and "forced" into non-violence, and both characters were offered the chance to go back (demon, losing chip) now both characters have willfully chosen the human/living path, the path of right over the path of wrong, and did so--this is important-- with a human's perspective of what 'right' and 'wrong' is. Spike and Anya eventually began to think like humans, after they were handicapped, eventually so much so that they chose to make themselves human --each in the only way they knew how-- so that they would "fit" (from:BY) in the human world.
Now neither really knows who they are, only who they were for other people, in other times. Both have a great innate desire to a) be loved & accepted, and b) contribute to the people/situations around them, to feel 'useful', like what they do means something in the end.
See how similar they are? It's amazing once you think about it. And I don't think we were really able to realize it before, because Anya's history in 'Selfless' does the same thing that Spike's history in 'FFL' did-- it clarifies already known information, yet gives out new knowledge that, while supporting the canon, does so in such a way that it changes how you view the character, and brings dramatic points to light without actually changing anything we knew before.
