Margaret
Bates, Emily M. Gustafson, Bryan C. Porterfield, Lawrence B. Rosenfeld
“When Exactly Did Your Sister Get Unbelievably Scary?”
Outsider Status and Dawn and Spike’s Relationship
We would like to thank Mark Gileau, Vivian Burr, Elizabeth Rambo and two anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments and helpful suggestions. Address correspondence to the fourth author at: Department of Communication Studies, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, 27599-3285 (email: lbr@unc.edu).
(1) We argue in this paper that Dawn and Spike’s supportive relationship was based on their shared Outsider status and, while their bond was real and valuable at the time that their relationship flourished, it was only temporary, ending (in some ways but not others) when Dawn became an accepted member of the Scooby gang, making her an Insider. The concept of Outsider, used to describe individuals excluded from the mainstream society, includes the notions of liminality, marginality, and Othering.
Outsiders and Insiders: Dawn and Spike as Outsiders
(2) The concept of Outsider is not based on a simple dichotomy of either being in or out of a group. Being on the inside or outside of a group is situational and fluctuates depending upon the social, political, and cultural values of a given social context; therefore, an individual can occupy the insider position at one moment and the outsider position the next (Kusow, 2003). Being an Outsider is a malleable title that can be changed to Insider based on the situation in which the two different groups are interacting. Additionally, it is possible to be both an Insider in one group and an Outsider to another at the same time (Vergehese, 1995).
(3) For example, Elizabeth Atkinson (2001) writes about manipulating her status as Insider or Outsider depending on the situation she is in and whether being a member of a particular group would be useful. She is many things all at once: a heterosexual woman who in her later years became a lesbian, a professor who taught while earning her graduate degree (making her both teacher and student), and a mother who was also a salaried professional. In regard to her identity as a lesbian, she writes about concealing or revealing this aspect of her identity based on when it would be most advantageous to her.
(4) In Spike and Dawn’s case, their outsider status is not nearly as simple to manipulate as Atkinson’s. The group both are trying to infiltrate or join, the Scoobies, know them intimately or, at least, know what they are. So, Spike cannot pass for human and Dawn cannot pass for human, older or more mature than she is.
(5) This flexibility in Insider-Outsider status accounts for why sometimes even a Scooby finds himself or herself excluded from the gang. For example, in “The Zeppo” (3013), the one excluded is Xander; in several episodes (e.g., “Where the Wild Things Are,” 4018, and “Hell’s Bells,” 6016 through to “Selfless,” 7005) it is Anya, mostly because of her return to vengeance demon status; and Buffy herself is excluded from the group in many episodes, such as “When She Was Bad” (2001), “Anne” (3001), “Dead Man’s Party” (3002), “Dead Things” (6013), and “Bargaining, pt. 2” (6002). The most obvious of all Buffy’s exclusions takes place in “Empty Places” (7019), in which she is voted off Revello Drive.
(6) Achieving Insider status means having privileged access to important information, to people at the center of things, and to power (Page, 1999; Stamper & Masterson, 2002). In the case of the Scoobies, this power is two-fold. First, it is the more obvious power that they have in regard to saving the world. For example, in “Out of Mind, Out of Sight” (1011), Cordelia begrudgingly comes to Buffy for protection: Buffy and her gang may not be Cordelia’s social peers (yet), but they are the ones she knows can keep her safe. Similarly, in “Doomed” (4011), Riley is understandably upset by the prospect of the end of the world while, in contrast, the Scoobies all respond to Giles’s warning with a bored, “Again?”
(7) The power the Scoobies have to save the world is simultaneously an integral part of their identity and the most important power a resident of Sunnydale can possess. Therefore, it is not surprising when the Scoobies show their one-up status as evil fighters in comparison to the Initiative in “Primeval” (4021). Buffy points out to one of the protesting officers that, “This isn’t your business. It’s mine. You, the Initiative, the suits in the Pentagon . . . you’re all messing with primeval forces you can’t begin to understand. I’m the Slayer. And you’re playing on my turf.” And, with Scoobies in tow and aiding her with the enjoining spell, Buffy defeats Adam.
(8) Unfortunately, the power to save the world is unrelated to social acceptability (especially in high school where Willow and Xander, for example, were targets of derision from the Cordettes and others), so the second source of power a Scoobie Insider has access to is social support and friendship. This is something envied by many Outsiders, such as Faith. In “End of Days” (7021), Faith tries to explain her envy to Buffy:
FAITH: So, here's the laugh riot. My whole life I've been a loner.
BUFFY: That's the funny part? Did I miss something? . . .
FAITH: OK. The point. Me, by myself all the time. I'm looking at you, everything you have, and, I don't know, jealous. . . .
BUFFY: I love my friends. I'm very grateful for them. . . .
(9) Spike and Dawn are both trying to become Scooby Insiders. In Spike’s case, the original reason was not so much to be part of the Scoobies and their social network as it was to become intimate with Buffy. Both, however, eventually want to be part of the Scoobies, socially and as equal partners in their plans. Spike, except in Season 7, did not have a vested interest in the world-saving part of Scooby society—defending Dawn against Glory, for instance, was done out of affection for both her and Buffy and his desire to do anything to keep Buffy from being hurt (“Intervention,” 5018). He is, however, upset—feeling perhaps betrayed—in “Afterlife” (6003) by being excluded from the Scoobies’ resurrection plans:
SPIKE:
You didn't tell me. You brought her back and you didn't tell me.
XANDER: Well, now you know.
SPIKE: I worked beside you all summer.
XANDER: We didn't tell you. It was just . . . we didn't, okay?
(10) Dawn—from her arrival in “Buffy vs. Dracula” (5001) until “Grave” (6022)—is not considered a part of the Scooby gang, even with its greatly expanded membership which, according to Riess (2004), includes eight members in Season 5, counting Spike (which is certainly arguable—and with which we disagree). Viewed as a chore, as someone to be protected, she is forbidden from participating in the central Scooby activities of research and patrolling. “When can I go patrolling?” she asks her sister in “Fool for Love” (5007), and Buffy pointedly responds, “Not until you are . . . never.” This exclusion persists until Buffy allows Dawn to help her sword fight in “Grave.” Of course, by the end of Season 6, Anya and Willow had defected and Tara had been murdered, so there no longer was a cohesive Scooby gang from which to exclude Dawn.
(11) Dawn’s exclusion also extended to personal matters. Although a high school student (the monks created her as a ninth grader), the Scoobies insist that she is too young to hear anything controversial, whether about her true origin or about sex (e.g., in “Once More with Feeling,” 6007, Buffy chastises Xander for alluding to Willow and Tara’s Sapphic intentions in front of her sister). Excluded from shared activities and “adult” discussions, Dawn feels isolated and lonely. In “Older and Far Away” (6014), she complains to her sister, “You don’t know! You have this thing you do. You have all these friends. You have no idea what it’s like [being alone].” Similarly, in “Once More with Feeling” (6007), she laments—in a song that lasts only a few seconds and consists of just two lines—”Does anybody even notice? Does anybody even care?”
(12) Despite Dawn’s exclusion, she is precious to the Scoobies. She is allowed to hang out with them at the Magic Box, even if she is forbidden to help with their research, and she is invited to most Scooby social functions, such as Buffy’s and Tara’s birthday parties. In contrast, Spike is generally despised by the Scoobies and is rarely seen in their company; most of his interactions involve following Buffy along on paired patrols. Even during their intimate relationship in Season 6, Buffy does not allow him to become a part of her social circle. His status as Outsider is so firmly established that he is not invited to Buffy’s birthday party and is forced to crash it. Even after his voluntary ensoulment, he is distrusted by the Scoobies, so much so that Giles, in Season 7, tries to have him killed. Thus, though both Dawn and Spike are Outsiders, the degree to which they are excluded from the Insider Scoobies varies.
(13) The term marginality was first introduced by sociologist Everett Stonequist (1937) to describe individuals separate from the dominant group, the dominant culture, because of their gender, race, class, or other characteristics (Miller, 1991). (Stonequist studied marginalization as it applied to different ethnic groups trying to acculturate to a predominately white, Christian, American society.) Marginality does not mean the same thing as minority, a term that refers to numbers; marginality has to do with power and control, with those who are marginalized excluded from both (e.g., women in the U.S. are a majority, but in many ways are marginalized from the dominant male culture).
(14) A marginalized individual, aware that he or she is a member of an “other” group, undergoes a crisis in which his or her identity is destroyed and then reconstructed. If this reconstruction is successful, the marginalized individual may be accepted into the dominant culture. The ability to transcend the barrier between accepted culture and the margins depends on several factors, including the individual’s age at the onset of crisis, the degree of cultural difference between individual and dominant culture, the amount of prejudice encountered by the individual, and the chances she or he receives to be included in the dominant culture. Those who successfully make the transition may abandon the beliefs of their old culture in favor of the beliefs held by the members of the dominant culture (Berry, 1993; Neto, 2001). Those who are unsuccessful may cycle between the two cultures throughout their lives or never be accepted by the dominant group.
(15) Marginalized individuals feel torn between two identities and struggle to decide whether to follow the traditions of their own group or those of the dominant group. This conflict leads to ambivalence, and it is likely that they will adopt a behavioral system that is an incongruous mixture of the two cultures between which they are torn. Typically, marginalized individuals become psychologically maladjusted, engaging in delinquent behavior and feeling a strong sense of hatred towards themselves and their group. However, they also are often perceptive introverts who show a preference for writing and a conscientiousness that leads them to be bluntly honest with one another and with members of the dominant culture.
(16) While their degree of separation from the Insiders varies, Dawn and Spike are both marginalized beings. Unlike Stonequist’s (1937) examples, the two are members of a rare minority: the non-human group. Spike, a vampire, and Dawn, a mystical being called the Key, are both trying to integrate into human society represented by the Scoobies. As a result, they display three of the characteristics of Stonequist’s marginalized individual.
(17) First, both act ambivalently towards the two societies to which they belong, vacillating between rejecting human culture and rejecting demon/vampire culture. For example, when Dawn first discovers her true nature, she rejects the comfort of the Scoobies and instead seeks out Spike, a fellow non-human, for comfort. In “Crush” (5014), she confides in him that she “feel[s] safe” with him, while at the same time she feels separated from her former companions, the Scoobies. After discovering her role as the Key, she alternates between periods of assisting the Scoobies and engaging in delinquent behavior with Spike (e.g., breaking into the Magic Box).
(18) Spike not only rejects the company of demons and vampires, but goes so far as to kill his own kind. He is torn between doing evil and good (or at least less evil) deeds. In “Family” (5006), he originally goes to the Magic Box to watch Buffy be killed by Glory’s demons, but, eventually, rushes to her aid. Throughout the series he alternates between helping Buffy and hurting her. The clearest expression of this is in the song, “Walk Through the Fire,” in “Once More with Feeling," when he sings, “I hope she fries/I’m free if that bitch dies/I’d better help her out” and then later in the same song, sings, “First I’ll kill her, then I’ll save her,” followed a moment later by, “No, I’ll save her, then I’ll kill her.”
(19) Second, marginalized individuals often exhibit delinquent or self-destructive behavior when caught in the crisis of acculturation (Stonequist, 1937). Dawn, especially during Season 6, exhibits a host of delinquent behaviors: she shoplifts, lies, skips school, and fails classes. Both she and Spike engage in self-destructive behaviors. In “Blood Ties” (5013), for example, after learning she is the Key, Dawn mutilates her arm with a kitchen knife, and Spike, upon his return from Africa, claws at his chest in hopes of removing “the spark.” Additionally, Spike’s primary coping mechanism, drinking, is another example of his self-destructive, self-loathing behavior.
(20) Third, both Spike and Dawn are highly self-conscious and perceptive. Like other people of marginal status, they are writers—William wrote poetry and Dawn throughout Season 5 keeps a journal—and a perceptive Dawn is the first to realize (or at least verbalize) that Spike has a crush on Buffy: “Oh come on. You didn’t notice? Buffy, Spike is completely in love with you” (“Crush,” 5014). Spike is equally perceptive; for example, he understands slayer nature better than Buffy does (Riess, 2004). In “Fool for Love,” he explains to Buffy, “Every slayer . . . has a death wish. . . . The only reason you’ve lasted as long as you have is you’ve got ties to the world.”
(21) Marginalized people inhabit a liminal space that Ortner (1996) calls the “borderlands,” a term which describes “the construction of complex, hybridized identities for those who must live within, yet are excluded from, the dominant cultural order” (p. 181). Limen comes from the Latin for threshold and liminality implies a transition across a threshold and across boundaries (Couldry, 2003).
(22) Turner (1974) viewed liminality as more than just a phase or transition period. There exist individuals, groups, or social categories for which the liminal moment becomes the permanent position. One could become stuck in the liminal location between the “two worlds,” unable to move forward to the “new” or retreat to the “old” (Higgot & Nossal, 1997). The deeper and more irreconcilable the contradictions between the two worlds, the more likely the person in a liminal location will be fixed there: having changed identity sufficiently to sample the new, albeit across a threshold, there is no turning back. The contradictions between the two worlds, however, can prevent a full threshold crossing.
(23) In Spike’s case, his degree of difference from the Scoobies is great enough to prevent him from ever successfully crossing the threshold into their world. For instance, in “Family," he helps to save Buffy and the Scoobies from Glory’s demons after Tara’s spell backfires. He has helped the Scoobies before, but almost always for money or other incentives. This is the first time he does it voluntarily. By helping out at opportune times, refraining from killing the Slayer, and by socializing with the Scoobies (e.g., playing pool and commiserating with Xander about women in “Triangle,” 5011, and inviting himself to Scooby social events like Buffy’s birthday party in “Older and Far Away,” 6014), he separates himself from other vampires (see “Fool for Love,” 5007, “Listening to Fear,” 5009, and “Triangle,” 5011). He, however, does not become a full-fledged Scooby. Moreover, he only becomes acceptable to Buffy after he gets a soul. He recognizes his trapped, liminal status when he laments to Clem in “Seeing Red” (6019):
SPIKE: You know, everything used to be so clear. Slayer. Vampire. Vampire kills Slayer, sucks her dry, picks his teeth with her bones. It's always been that way. I've tasted the life of two Slayers. But with Buffy . . . [grimacing in anguish] It isn't supposed to be this way! [He grabs a piece of furniture and shoves it over, with accompanying crashing noises.] (angrily) It's the chip! Steel and wires and silicon. (sighs) It won't let me be a monster. (quietly) And I can't be a man. I'm nothing.
(24) When and if someone in a liminal space completes his or her rite of passage, he or she is the first one to recognize it. Granted, true passage through the liminal location does require an acceptance back into society as a whole. At the same time, however, a person in a liminal space reaches the point of “I am enough” (Quashie, 2004). He or she recognizes his or her progress and strives to complete his or her rite of passage not because of what the rest of society believes he or she should or should not do, but because the transition and the process are important to how he or she views self. The person reaches a point where pleasing others, showing off to them, or gaining their approval are unimportant.
(25) Dawn has several moments of “I am enough” in Season 7. In “Potential” (7012), for example, she has accepted her place in the Scoobies and, more importantly, her relation to her sister. The episode ends with her researching quietly at the living room table, while Buffy has taken the real Potentials out for training. Having renounced her claim to be a Potential without complaint, she settles back into the role of Watcher Junior. Similarly, in “Chosen” (7022), she returns to Sunnydale and confronts her sister and makes her own decision and effort to be present against the First. She fights whether or not the Scoobies (in their overprotective zeal) approve.
(26) Similarly, in “Chosen," Spike has his own “I am enough” moment. Had he been wearing the necklace merely as a way to curry Buffy’s favor or to make her love him, he would have taken it off and left the Hellmouth with her after she told him she loved him. Instead, he stays to finish what he started, recognizing that he has “got to do this.” Again, like Dawn, the action is not for someone else’s approval but because it is something he needs to do as a rite of passage.
(27) Liminality is more than just a process of transgressing boundaries: it is a process of uncovering one’s true nature (Juschka, 2003; Quahsie, 2004). After shedding one’s previous identity while in the liminal location, one is able to uncover her or his social self. This social self is a self that is unfettered by history, gender, race, or class, and that is the self that becomes evident in the communitas (Juschka, 2003). Reaching a new stage or position in society after passing through the liminal stage (if one can successfully transcend this stage at all) is not a process of creation. Instead, it is based on reconnecting with and uncovering one’s true nature. It is a process of shedding old identity trappings and surrendering the markers of social identity and status (Quashie, 2004).1
(28) The third component of Outsider status includes the notion of the Other (Canales, 2000; Rose, 2002; Sartre, 1965). Othering, or “differing,” refers to an ideology that sanctifies the dominant culture while devaluing those individuals who do not fit the definition of the dominant group. Othering is a perceptual and philosophical process in which the Other can only be defined by what it is not: the Self (Riggins, 1997; Sartre, 1965), that is, the Other is “not me.” The Other exists as a distorted reflection of the Self, and it is from this contrast that the Self learns about its own character. Othering is a way of securing one’s own identity through the stigmatization of an Other, creating categories of “us” and “them,” which, in the Buffyverse, usually means “humans” and “non-humans.”
(29) Othering, as a process, reinforces power relationships. Constructing an Other means having something from which one can distance oneself—a something that is inferior and fundamentally unlike the Self—something abhorrent and/or in need of protection (Weis, 2003). Othering, therefore, is a process intended to reinforce and reproduce positions of subordination and domination (Johnson et al., 2004). It is a concept that reflects spheres of power relationships in which one of the two interactants is always perceived as more powerful than the inferior Other (Krumer-Nevo, 2002). When an individual is relegated to Other status, she or he is relegated to the position of being an object: subjectivity is stripped away and she or he is cast aside to the fringes of society as a way to prevent her or him from challenging the social order (Maccallum, 2002).
(30) As is the case with the Insider-Outsider relationship, the Self-Other relationship is an active process that is relational, interactive, co-constructed, and based upon the interaction of two reciprocal social images (Krumer-Nevo, 2002; Quashie, 2004; Weis, 2003). Everyone, at some time, has been cast as the Other (Quashie, 2004)—it is a universal experience, a moment of vulnerability we all encounter. For example, each member of the Scoobies has been considered Other in relation to someone else’s idea of Self, whether concerning Willow’s sexuality, Buffy’s position as the Slayer, Xander’s lack of popularity or higher education, or Giles’s age and country of origin.
(31) In this analysis, we are looking at an Othering that sets both Spike and Dawn apart from the Scooby society as a whole and, as a result, draws the two together in friendship. In this self-other relationship, Spike and Dawn are positioned as inferior to the Scoobies. Spike is inferior because he is a monster and evil and thus merits the abhorrence of the Scoobies. He is objectified by his nature. Perhaps the most blatant abuse of his reduced, object status is during his and Buffy’s affair in Season 6. However, he is used by the Scoobies for a variety of purposes throughout the series. In Season 4, he is kept alive (though bound and as a hostage or “guestage,” as Andrew would say) because the Scoobies need his information about the Initiative. He is an object to them, something that can be used; not an individual. (Though, in this example, it is important to recognize the symbiotic relationship, since Spike needs the blood the Scoobies provide him to survive and he needs the Slayer’s protection from the soldiers.) During the summer after “The Gift” (5022) and into the fall (as seen in “Bargaining, pt 1,” 6001), the Scoobies again abuse and take advantage of Other Spike. He is the muscle. He is no more a part of their society or their team than the Buffybot. He is, once again, merely tolerated because his strength can be substituted for the late Slayer’s.
(32) Dawn’s Otherness, her rendering as object, is different. Except for the open hostility and mistrust by Buffy in “No Place Like Home” (5005)—the episode in which Buffy, using a spell that allows her to perceive Dawn’s true nature as the Key, accosts Dawn, demanding “What are you?”—Dawn is not treated with abhorrence by either her sister, her mother, or by the Scooby Gang, although there is an undercurrent of awkwardness between Dawn and the Scoobies once they are told of her origin (“Blood Ties,” 5013). She is, however, treated as an object that must be protected. This is seen most often in her relation to Buffy throughout Seasons 5 and 6. For example, in “Real Me” (5002), Dawn must close her eyes so she doesn’t witness any slaying; in “Blood Ties,” Buffy and Giles conspire to keep her real identity a secret from her until she and Spike uncover it; and in “Villains” (6020), she is sent away to stay with Clem instead of being allowed to stay and try and help Willow. In “Entropy” (5018) she questions this treatment:
DAWN: (smiling) No, you're not, it's not that, it's just . . . what if, instead of you hanging out with me? Maybe I could hang out with you.
[Buffy stares blankly, not getting it.]
DAWN: Why don't I come patrolling with you tonight?
BUFFY: Oh. And then? Maybe we can invite over some strangers and ask them to feed you candy.
DAWN: Well, you guys went out patrolling every night when you were my age.
BUFFY: True . . . but technically, you're one-and-a-half.
[Dawn gives her patented adolescent exasperated look.]
BUFFY: See, I thought a little levity might . . . but okay, also no.
DAWN: I just . . .I just think I could help.
BUFFY: I'm sure you could. But it's a little more dangerous than I had in mind.
DAWN: But . . . .
BUFFY: Dawn, I work very hard to keep you away from that stuff. Okay, I don't want you around dangerous things that can kill you.
(33) Buffy is not the only one protecting Dawn. In “Real Me,” Anya tries to prevent Dawn from heading out of the house because of the danger Harmony’s minions present. In that same episode, Anya treats Dawn condescendingly when she and Xander baby-sit, especially in regard to their board game choices. In “Forever” (5017), Tara and Willow treat Dawn condescendingly at first when they are put in charge of caring for her after Joyce’s funeral. When she wants to do magic, Willow offers to teach her something childish, such as, “making a stuffed animal float.” To their credit, especially Tara’s, the witches do explain to her why they cannot resurrect Joyce. Dawn does not get a “just because” reason but, instead, is informed that witches are not allowed to play around with life and death. She is still protected from the knowledge she seeks and eventually finds her own way around Tara’s warning (with Willow’s nudge).
(34) Othering is intimately related to our notion of who and what we are. The Other helps us to define ourselves, since we understand ourselves in relation to what we are not. By reducing the Other’s humanity, we emphasize our own (Maccallum, 2002). Buffy sets herself apart from Spike by pushing him away and by casting him into the role of Other. She tells him, “You don’t . . . have a soul! There is nothing good or clean in you. You are dead inside! You can’t feel anything real! I could never be your girl!” (“Dead Things,” 6013). He is fake, an inferior thing not worth her time or affection. And although her life is intimately tied to death and dying, as Spike points out to her (“Forever,” 5017), she does not view death the way vampires do (“Dead Things” 6013):
SPIKE: You are not throwing your life away over this.
BUFFY: It's not your choice.
SPIKE: Why are you doing this to yourself?
BUFFY: (tearful) A girl is dead because of me.
SPIKE: And how many people are alive because of you? How many have you saved? One dead girl doesn't tip the scale.
BUFFY: That's all it is to you, isn't it? Just another body!
(I can’t get this to single space, but all the previous blocked quotes have been single spaced.)
(35) Like Buffy, Xander goes to great lengths to separate himself from Spike and to dehumanize him. Many of his nicknames for Spike emphasize his Other status: Dead Boy, Jr., Blood Breath, and Willy Wannabite. In “Entropy” (6018), he confronts Anya and Spike outside the Magic Box:
XANDER: (still yelling at Anya) Oh, oh, oh, okay! You had to do it. Because he was there. Like Mt. Everest. (upset) Like I used to be.
ANYA: (angry) And then you weren't. You left me, Xander. At the altar. (yelling) I don't owe you anything.
XANDER: So you go out and bang the first body you can find? Dead or alive?
ANYA: Where do you get off judging me?!
XANDER: When this is your solution to our problems. I hurt you, and you hit me back? Very mature.
ANYA: No, the mature solution is for you to spend your whole life telling stupid, pointless jokes, so that no one will notice that you are just a scared, insecure little boy!
XANDER: (bitterly) I'm not joking now. You let that evil, soulless thing touch you. (pointing at Spike)
(Shouldn’t be so much space between this quote and the rest of the paragraph, but I can’t get rid of it.)Casting Spike as Other is crucial to Xander’s sense of identity. The woman he loves, his should-have-been-wife, has chosen the Other, the monster, over him. Xander degrades Spike in an effort to set his own world right again, a world in which he is the good, the virtuous, the human, and only Spike, the Other, does the hurtful things.
Dawn and Spike’s Relationship: A Community of Outsiders
Relationship Development
(36) Spike and Dawn form a relationship based on their shared status as Outsiders, and although each one is an Other for the other, their Othering of each other is more sympathetic and tolerant than the Scoobies’ Othering of them. The result is a bond that empowers them both and allows them “to utilize the power within the relationship for transformation and coalition building” (Canales, 2000, p. 6). An example of this process is Spike and Dawn’s joint mission to discover the means to resurrect Joyce. Spike attempts to understand Dawn’s perspective, and this helps to bridge the gap between his Self point of view and Dawn’s (at least to him) Other perspective. They join forces to hunt down the central ingredient for the resurrection spell and defeat the Ghora demon. Dawn emerges empowered from their partnership, no longer a teenage girl playing with dirt in a graveyard, but a “bitty Buffy” who fights at Spike’s side against the huge, three-headed demon.
(37) From Dawn’s perspective, she is the Self that is, to some degree, part of the overall Self-group of the Scoobies, the dominant society that segregates itself purposely from the inferior Others, the non-humans. She is partially accepted by that culture and understands that Self-perspective enough to reject its fundamental bigotry and accept Spike. As a result, she is the one most responsible for including Spike and “bringing him into Buffy’s family circle” (Lorrah, 2003, p. 170).
(38) Within the construct of “communitas,” Dawn and Spike’s unexpected exchanges of a variety of types of social support gain a new foundation (e.g., they provide each other with emotional support, reality confirmation support, personal support, and emotional challenge support—see Richman, Rosenfeld, & Hardy, 1993, for a description of eight types of social support). Set apart from the dominant culture as not-quite-evil non-humans, they engage each other as equals and openly share themselves. Their shared understanding goes so deep that they are unable to deceive one another; for example, when Dawn tries to hide her plan to resurrect Joyce from Spike he tells her: “I know good and well what you’re up to” (“Forever,” 5017). Surprisingly, Spike does not dismiss as childish her desire to bring back her mother; instead, he honors her wishes and treats her with an equal’s respect: “I’m not gonna tell, Little Bit. I’m gonna help.”
(39) As marginalized beings, they are honest in their interactions, especially those with one another. In “Seeing Red,” Dawn confronts Spike at his crypt after learning about his affairs with Anya and her sister. She speaks candidly with him and asks him bluntly if “it [the one night stand] was worth it.” He wants to continue moping, but Dawn insists on confronting him with his cowardice and selfishness: “Do you love her [Buffy]…Then how could you do that to her?” She is the one who reveals the truth to Spike about how deeply his selfish actions have hurt her sister. She is the force that holds him accountable for his indiscretions and prompts him to return to Revello Drive to apologize.
(40) Like other marginalized beings, Spike and Dawn suffer a loss of identity, losses that in Season 5 allow them to relate to each other on an intimate level and to offer each other valuable social support. This aspect of their relationship parallels medical cases of professional women suffering from Traumatic Brain Injury: their coinciding trauma over identity loss was mitigated by the formation of relationships with fellow disabled women (Mukherjee, Reis, & Heller, 2003). These marginalized women formed a new community, one in which they gained a new sense of pride and empowerment from their interactions with people similarly afflicted. They also achieved breakthroughs in consciousness and, most importantly, regained the self-esteem lost by having an identity crisis.
(41) Similarly, Spike and Dawn help each other rebuild their identities, defining and discovering who they are through their joint interactions. Racked with guilt over Tara’s being attacked by Glory, Dawn questions her nature to Spike and reveals her fear that she is an evil being. He tells her, confidently, “I know somethin’ about evil. You’re not evil” (“Tough Love,” 5019). While Spike reassures Dawn of her identity, her unconditional acceptance of him helps him form a new identity. Rather than reacting to Spike with disgust and condescension like the Scoobies, she professes to Buffy: “I don’t think Spike’s icky . . . he’s got cool hair, and he wears cool leather coats and stuff.” Significantly, she adds: “And he doesn’t treat me like an alien” (“Crush,” 5014). Her acceptance helps Spike assume the “good guy” persona he uses when helping to protect Dawn and the Scoobies.
(42) Dawn and Spike understand and appreciate each other’s marginality, which allows them to offer each other social support unavailable from relationships with those who do not share their particular Outsider status and liminal location. While it may be argued that each has ulterior motives (e.g., Spike’s desire to impress Buffy), their instances of social support are offered without an expectation of reciprocation. In “Forever," when Spike’s offer to help Dawn resurrect Joyce is met with skepticism and the assumption that he is trying to impress Buffy, he replies:
SPIKE: (firmly) Buffy never hears about this, okay? Found out what I was doing, she’d drive a redwood through my chest.
DAWN: Then, if you don’t want credit, why are you helping me?
SPIKE: (quietly) I just don’t like to see Summers women take it so hard on the chin, is all. (angrily) And I’m dead serious. You breathe a word of this to Buffy, I’ll see to it that you end up in the ground. Got it?
DAWN: Yeah. Got it.
(No spaces between these lines of quotes.)
His motive is to help Dawn in her grief, however perilous the end result may be. His concern is for Dawn’s well-being, with no expectation for a reward: theirs is a communal friendship.
Relationship Disintegration
(43) Spike and Dawn’s mutually supportive dyadic relationship ends (although their relationship itself does not end but evolves, especially in Season 7) as Dawn’s status as Outsider changes, as she joins the fold of the Scooby gang (Riess, 2004, lists Dawn as a member of the Scooby gang in her summaries of Seasons 6 and 7). During the episode “Grave," Buffy realizes that Dawn is growing up and that she already is caught up in all of the Scoobies’ problems. Rather than excluding her for being both non-human and too young to defend herself, Buffy realizes, “I got it so wrong. I don’t want to protect you from the world. I want to show it to you. There’s so much I want to show you.” Dawn’s status as Outsider essentially ends, enabling her finally to be accepted by the Insiders, Buffy and her friends.
(44) But Dawn’s transition out of her liminal location does not come without a price: her friendship with Spike. Spike’s return from Africa is not welcomed by his former “Niblet.” Instead, Dawn folds her arms and confronts him in “Beneath You” (7002), speaking to him with a “serious and cold stare”:
DAWN: Spike. You sleep, right? You. Vampires. You sleep.
SPIKE: Yeah. What’s your point, Niblet?
DAWN: Well, I can’t take you in a fight or anything, even with a chip in your head. But you do sleep. If you hurt my sister at all . . . touch her . . . you’re gonna wake up on fire.
(No spaces.)
(45) Support and understanding have been replaced with threats. In the next scene, Spike asks Buffy: “When exactly did your sister get unbelievably scary?”
(46) Dawn understood clearly what Spike was before: a vampire without a soul (he remains soulless until the end of Season 6), and a brutal killer restrained from murdering her and those she knows by a penny-sized plate of silicon and a vampire-slaying ex-cheerleader. Why, then, does she suddenly abandon her pro-Spike stance after he, unsurprisingly, does something morally unacceptable? While it is possible that the major impetus for her shift in attitude is Spike’s assault on her sister, part of her Season 7 anti-Spike stance comes from her becoming a member of the Insider group: her assimilation into the Scooby gang spells the end of her and Spike’s supportive dyadic relationship.
(47) When adjusting to the cultural norms of a dominant society (i.e., acculturation), an individual has four options: separation (maintaining one’s original cultural identity and group and withdrawing from the dominant society), integration (maintaining one’s cultural identity while moving to become a part of the dominant society), assimilation (relinquishing one’s original cultural identity and moving into the dominant society), and marginalization (losing the essential features of one’s original culture, but not replacing them as a result of entering the dominant society) (Berry, 1993; Neto, 2001). Dawn’s strategy is assimilation, leading her to accept the morality of the dominant culture: things without souls are evil, unacceptable, and need to be left outside the group. While it may be possible that Others are harmless (e.g., Clem and Spike with the chip), they are to be kept segregated and only consulted when one is either in desperate need of assistance or in a killing mood. Dawn has no place for Spike due to her newfound human-centric morality that has allowed her to be accepted into the circle of Scoobies. In her threat to Spike (“If you hurt my sister . . . you’re gonna wake up on fire”), she verbally separates herself from her former friend by emphasizing his standing with his vampire brethren. The “you” here is plural (as in, “you vampires”), casting him into the role of Other and further removing him from the human majority of which she now considers herself a member.
(48) The ability of an individual to successfully reintegrate into society often is dependent on the duration of her or his liminal status (Turner, 1974). Spike spent 120 years outside of human society, whereas Dawn (the teenage girl, not the Key) spent little more than a year excluded. Additionally, the reasons for their exclusion differed: Dawn was an innocent segregated from Scooby society both for her innocence and her non-human status; in contrast, Spike was a murderer who had tried multiple times to kill Buffy and her companions. Acceptance into the Insider, dominant society amounts to being “forgiven” (Turner, 1974, p. 260). As an innocent, it is easier for the Scoobies to “forgive” Dawn and integrate her into their culture and belief system than it is to “forgive” the Big Bad.
(49) Spike is always an Outsider; also, he is always available to form supportive dyadic relationships with others when they, too, are Outsiders. For example, Buffy and Spike’s first alliance in “Becoming, pt. 2” (2022) was the result of Buffy losing all her allies: Giles’s abduction, Kendra’s death, Xander and Willow’s injuries, and her own trouble with the police. She goes to Spike in Season 6, at first as a confidant (“Bargaining, pt. 2,” 6002, “Afterlife,” 6003, and “Life Serial,” 6005) because she cannot confide in her friends anymore. In “Touched” (7020), he is the only one to seek out Buffy and comfort her after her expulsion from Revello Drive (“Empty Places,” 7019). Similarly when Anya has Outsider status, she forms a supportive relationship with Spike, as seen in “Where the Wild Things Are” (4018) and “Entropy.” The first time, the two meet each other outside the Bronze: he is an Outsider not only to the Scoobies but to demon society since he can no longer kill humans, and she has had a disagreement with Xander and was not invited to go along with him to the frat party. The two sit together and commiserate about the “good old days” when they could kill humans and dole out vengeance, respectively. In “Entropy," the jilted vampire and the jilted demon find solace (through drunken sex) with one another.
(50) Although Spike’s dyadic relationships with others may signify their shared Outsider status, his Outsider status does not stop him from being a productive partner in dyadic relationships and, in the end, saving the world.
(51) On the other hand, in becoming a Scooby, Dawn’s strong ties to the dominant culture (filled with its variety of different, fully human members) integrate her into a new social network, thus rendering Spike’s social support less valued upon his return to her in “Beneath You." Dawn’s status as an Outsider is rescinded, while Spike’s Outsider status remains intact. She can no longer feel the same appreciation for his situation. After being absorbed into the dominant group, she no longer needs the social support Spike provided in their once shared Outsiderhood.
(52) When exactly does Dawn become so unbelievably scary? It happens when she transcends the status boundary from Outsider to Insider.
Note
1 The idea that liminality only comes through a reduction of sorts, a divorce from one’s former life or role before continuing onto a new role, reinforces our perspective of marginality. Thus, Quashie (2004) and Juschka’s (2003) interpretation of the liminal applies to the marginalized as well. Perez Firmat (1986), on the other hand, blurs the line between the liminal and the marginal and categorizes them as variations of the same concept. To him, the liminal entity is the same as the one who exists in the “ragged margin” or the “margin of mess,” the one stripped of a role at the center of society and thus forced to remain, at least for a time, on the periphery of society.
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