Thief

Analysing the relationship of Spike and Faye within Cowboy Bebop

Faye Valentine as a love interest was a feminist statement way ahead of its time (and maybe still ahead of this time). In Bebop, some of the most thoughtful and introspective sessions are written by her directly including Asteroid Blues, Honky Tonk Women, Sympathy for the Devil, both parts of Jupiter Jazz, My Funny Valentine and the two-part finale. The much more sensitive and emotionally heavy Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door is again written by her. For me, one of the key themes in Bebop which, in line with her writing of female characters in other works, is a satire on how women are viewed by society. She created two characters, one appearing as the typical demure and “respectable” woman and the other an archetype of the “cheap and easy” woman and then flipped the tables on both. Appearances and narrow mindsets can be deceiving, seems to be the message. What is the commonly believed version of the story seemed too simplistic, too base, too…macho. When Spike talks about his “other half” it is very easy for us to imagine the uber-feminine Julia as the counterpart to this man who oozes “masculinity” and charm. That’s what wives are supposed to look like, dressed in aprons, smiling, and singing for you. The image of Faye Valentine is not a ready fit and most people still struggle with the idea because that is simply not how they view women. How can a woman who dresses in tiny bits of clothing, who is assertive and difficult, who is very flawed in ways real women usually are be anyone’s “other half,” much less that of a guy they look up to? The idea here was not to shame anyone for being feminine or glorify the opposite, but call out the general societal tendency to put labels, boxes, and irrational expectations on women.

In Bebop, neither Spike nor Jet are ever, at any single point in the entire series, seen commenting on Faye’s body, calling her out on the way she dresses, leering after her, or “slut-shaming” her. Other men are seen doing these kind of things but they are always treated by the series with ridicule and contempt, never respect. The crew call each other out on their idiosyncrasies and bad behaviour but never do anything uncomfortable. Faye never feels the need to “use her body” with the boys, something she has had to build her entire personality around because of how the men in the rest of the world are. She is just one of the crew as far as they are concerned.

Ed, a thirteen year old girl, is completely safe around both of these men. Jet, an ex-cop and a very “typically masculine” character does all the domestic work without every making a big deal out of it. When Spike flashes back on Julia he thinks back on both her in the “homely” attire, which she happened to be wearing during those memories, and also her “Syndicate” avatar in the black leather. Spike understands mid-way through the series that Julia made a different choice and chooses to accept that choice and move on. He does not take it on his ego and hunt her down to make her pay. It is only when she has to play against him in the end at Vicious’ behest that he gets back involved with her but never vengefully. He cradles her head and reassures her life is just a bad dream when hers is slipping away from her.

He gets irritated by Faye’s behaviour and bickers with her but begins watching out for her from fairly early on. When she needs emotional support while facing up to Whitney, he hangs around to be there for her but does not make a big deal out of it. Through these characters, Bebop tries to show us how men should be toward the women in their lives. Neither of the men are perfect but they try in the ways they each can. And that is why, for Spike, how Faye chooses to dress is depicted to not matter since he loves her regardless. That is her choice and irrelevant. He falls in love with the woman, not with what she wears or how she possesses flaws every human being will have. And that is why it is important to understand that his feelings for her begin before he gets to know about her past. They are not strong and he does not act on them because there is already someone else in his life, even if currently absent and ambiguous. He does not fall for Faye only after learning about her past, indicating that she was sweet and homely once. That just happens to be the point where he is no longer emotionally encumbered and committed to Julia, and can allow himself to get invested with her.

So how does Spike end up here? Hopelessly smitten, aware of it, and filled with a life-wish for the first time ever? The movie is set right after Session 22, so this goes back to the episodes post Jupiter Jazz. We know he liked Faye on some level already and then the realisation about Julia strikes, allowing him to let go of things finally, or at least begin to. Spike probably takes an emotional breather, needs some time to reset.

Going back to their motif of “entwined journeys,” from ‘My Funny Valentine’ the second half of the show builds Spike as the one to get a peek into Faye’s past and secrets. By accident, he ends up hearing her real story, waking up after 50 years to a new world and no memory, saddled with debt, and scammed by someone she liked. Bebop has this habit of covering up extremely poignant moments with humour and so he is shown saying idiotic things like her story needs editing and Whitney is probably crying in the afterlife, rather than sympathising with her.

But honestly, if it was really too long and he didn’t care at-all, he actually didn’t need to stay stuck in the bathroom eavesdropping till she finished it.

The story he hears causes him to feel pain on her behalf. While he is brushing it all under calling her out on not paying Whitney’s debt and the story being yet another fake past, when she tells him this is her actual story, we are shown a certain expression on his face, again like he feels pain or concern over what she has gone through. He belongs to a troubled and difficult background himself so it would not be a stretch of the imagination for him to comprehend what it takes to go from a woman who trusted the first guy she met to someone who trusts no one. This is where his emotional wheels begin to move I believe, since he gets to see behind her tough exterior for the first time to understand who she really is.

As the episode progresses and Faye runs away with Whitney to try and get some answers, Spike ends up going after her. Whitney is Jet’s bounty and the episode again goes out of its way to establish this is a small fry Spike would never be interested in. Even if Faye ran away with him, Jet could have very well gone after her but Spike makes it a point to, resulting in what can only be described as a lovers’ quarrel executed through a dog fight.

He knows she is hurting, lost, and confused. She is alone and feels she has no one at her back. He perhaps also begins guessing now at exactly how vulnerable and untethered she is. I get the sense from that scene that he goes out to make sure she is ok, especially because he knows how difficult it is to confront your past. He distracts her, engages her, does not let her fall prey to something irrational. There is also a chance Whitney could harm her, distraught as she is at the moment, and I feel Spike wants to ensure he is in the vicinity to prevent that from happening. The pattern continues with him making it to the police station, waiting for her outside, albeit under the guise of cashing in the bounty. He makes sure she is ok and not going through all of this alone. She is sad about not knowing her past but he gently points out she has a future and that’s what’s important. It’s very uncharacteristic of his interactions with her, much more caring, and tender.

The next couple of episodes deal with other subjects but Mushroom Samba is significant in what both Spike and Faye experience while high. He sees an unending staircase and she sees herself drowning in water way over her head. The episode draws another parallel between the journey and current situation of these two characters.

'Speak like a Child’ shows things no one is expecting. It’s a beautifully over-the-top episode with the Bebop boys risking hell and high water (quite literally) to watch one tape which has nothing to do with either one of them. Spike launches into his “doing things for no reason” mode, the one he takes up when pretending to do something weird with the actual intention of helping Faye. This time he does so by acting like he has no brain cells left alive. Just as Jet is talking of returning the tape, he opens the parcel so he can’t.

From the moment they walk into the pawn shop, Spike starts doing things which will irritate the owner and will get them thrown out so the sale of the tape will not go through. He finally succeeds when the tape player begins eating the tape and he smashes it to pieces, kicking it unnecessarily hard till it breaks and getting them chucked out from the shop. A man so skilled in Jeet Kune Do would know when to stop kicking. Over here, I also wonder what Jet knows about Faye’s past (he was an ex-cop and could have found details about her cryo situation) since he walks the unnecessary extra miles with Spike to get the Beta player. Of course they get the wrong one and of course, once the correct one finally arrives, Spike immediately proceeds to open it up before Jet can return it.

We know what the last few scenes of the episode are like and the series deliberately cuts to Spike as the younger version of Faye is wondering if there is a wonderful person next to her.

I feel the theme of Spike understanding Faye’s overwhelming circumstances comes to a head here as he sees the young girl she once was on screen. Again the reactions shown on both his and Jet’s faces speak volumes. It would break anyone’s heart but I feel the protective streak Spike has anyway been harbouring for her so far reaches a critical point post this.

The episode Wild Horses sets up a hilarious reminder of how similar Spike and Faye are as individuals when they both cannot comprehend the computer jargon and then decide to shoot both purple penguin delivery trucks, unanimously agreeing it is a good idea without even considering that both might be real. Spike also comments how he is not one for delicate operations, reminder of similar statements Faye has made earlier in the series.

The truth is both of them are actually very similar. Spike’s ‘whatever happens, happens’ philosophy is mentioned by Faye as a life philosophy as well in Mish Mash Blues, though using different words to describe the same idea. Both characters are tough as nails and have managed to survive in impossible circumstances. Both are emotionally stunted due to their trauma but also capable of intense emotion and care.

Faye is the very embodiment of the survival spirit. The circumstances she was set up with three years ago, she should not have been alive now. I feel that is what begins to awaken the will to keep living in Spike somewhere around this point. He has seen what she was like in her earlier life and the contrast is stark. He’s been wrapped up in his misery but then sees someone who has had it equally bad, if not worse, but hasn’t given up. Likely a sense of bonding and affinity emerges from the realisation.

This also goes back to the idea of seeing a woman who was “truly alive” which I spoke about in the last piece. He loved Julia who, despite all her strength, could not find the courage to break away and walk the line with him. She stayed shackled to what she had always known and abandoned him when he needed her most. Then he sees Faye who found herself in a situation she knew nothing about but was courageous enough to adapt and keep going. She is shoulder to shoulder with him, never giving in.

It likely also comes both from knowing how incredibly difficult things have been for her but she has kept going and from realising she has no one else but the people on the Bebop to take care of her. I feel he begins feeling the fear of death because if he dies he does not know if she will be well and cared for or not. Even though they are not in a relationship and multiple factors may be preventing him from taking that step with her yet, perhaps he realises eventually that he wants to live so he can be there for her.

That’s also reflected in what we see him do during Pierrot Le Fou. After Spike has received a solid beating up and is lying mummified on the Bebop couch, Faye makes fun of his recklessness and leaves an orange peal on his head, feigning indifference.

However, we see her moments later smoking with a mix of worry and anger on her face. The moment she sees Pierrot’s mail addressed to Spike, she gets panicked and asks Ed to hide it, knowing he will go.

He sees it though and realises if Pierrot can mail Ed then he can definitely trace the people in his life and likely hurt them while trying to get to Spike. So he has to go and face up to Pierrot. But I feel at this point Spike’s feelings are intense enough to want to know if Faye feels something for him as well. Perhaps, seeing her so concerned about hiding the mail from him, he senses that she might but doesn’t know for sure.

So he asks her in the most juvenile and adolescent way possible, asking if she will come rescue him. Faye is not amused but then she does come. She’s not much use to the fight and ends up being shot down almost immediately but it tells him for the first time that she cares for him as well and how much. This romance in his life is very different from whatever he may have had earlier since it is very much reciprocal, authentic, and really quite innocent on both ends. But he has not experienced such reciprocation before.

When she shows up he likely realises how idiotic he was in riling her up to this level of concern, thus explaining his reaction at seeing her there (again the Bebop theme of covering up a poignant moment with an opposite reaction). He said what he did just to see her reaction, not expecting her to actually act on it, believing his own feelings to be one-sided. Since she acts indifferent to him, he probably feels she does not like him that way or, even if she does, her feelings don’t go deep. But the fact that she comes in the face of sure death tells him finally that what he feels is equally reciprocated, even if she hides it. Faye risking her life to try and save his, regardless of how futilely, is the ultimate test of commitment. It’s part of the progression which leads him to refer to her as his “other half” later, since he knows he is as important to her as she is to him, even though they never actually reach a point to be able to admit it openly to each other.

Unfortunately, during the entire time Spike is falling for her, Faye continues to care for him but the perception built in her mind of Julia’s presence in his life keeps her guarded. We see that in the finale as well, the intense, suppressed emotions she is carrying around after meeting Julia. It continues till the very end of the series and he never does get a chance to tell her how he feels about her. It causes her to stay away from him, keeps fuelling her sense of not belonging on the Bebop, and he doesn’t quite know why since he is unaware she knows about Julia’s existence.

Boogie Woogie Feng Shui has some hilarious sequences of “dumbass guiding dumbass” as Spike and Faye conjecture at Jet’s relationship with Meifa, get kicked out by Jet for smoking, and then he declares themselves fairies as they defend the ship together.

Cowboy Funk is a love letter to fragile masculinity and Faye takes Spike’s case with the comparisons of his personality to Andy. The events of the movie happen right after this one but we don’t see Spike too overtly bothered by Faye spending time with Andy. He has not made any kind of commitment or confession to her so what can he really expect? I always feel his reaction to the can of stew had more to do with Faye returning from Andy’s place in the morning than his hatred for Andy itself. Anyway, the episode is an allegory so we can’t exactly take it at face value.

Bitching and moaning

Hater-ology

Doing a goofy little bit about it

Having a buddy say "that's so fucked up" at intermittent points (you can also be your own buddy)

Of Course You Have Purple Hair and Intimacy Issues - submitted by meowstic-seer-of-the-future