Ok, I've done the prerequisite reading of the previous 15 pages and now I'm ready to post! You can thank me later.

First, let me say that I didn't see all of season 6 or 7, I've really only seen the first 4 seasons au complet because I have the dvds, but I did see a whole lot of Spuffy sex from season 6 on the Space Channel last Xmas at my uncle's because they ran it every day, and I became a wee bit obsessed with the whole thing. I'm much better now, but I want to comment on some of the stuff in here. I took notes. I have to mention Angel by way of compare and contrast, but it's to illustrate Spike. Bear with me.

As for this "shipper" business. As I started watching BtVS in season 4, I was a Spuffy fan, but after seeing the first 3 seasons, watching the development of the B/A relationship, and seeing the final few episodes of Buffy, I'm firmly on the B/A side of things now for the reason that Angel is really Buffy's equal. He's lived a life without her, and he's at her level, and it's a give and take. However, I maintain that Spike knows her better than anyone. He's been on every seat on the Buffy merry-go-round and and he knows her, um, inside and out, but he still knows he's not the one for her. He structured his life around her, and that doesn't make for a partnership. Strangely, however, in terms of relationships, in the end, Spike's the mature one. Angel's always smirking at Buffy's boyfriends because he knows he's the one. He did it to Riley, and he did it to Spike in the pyramid tomb. When he walks toward Buffy after she first sees him, he looks back over his shoulder. That's where Spike is, he knows Spike is there, he can smell him on Buffy, and he's rubbing Spike's nose in it. Spike knows this, but he also knows his connection to Buffy is there, even if it's not the same as her connection with Angel. He lets her go, in the end, knowing how they feel, and knowing how she feels. In fact, in the last ep of Angel, he could have killed Angel, but didn't because he didn't want to hear Buffy whine about it. He did it for her. But Angel was willing to kill Spike because he was annoying. Spike's the grownup now, not all id, but superego, too.

I also have some idea about why Spike's personality doesn't really change when it comes to being souled. I don't think personalities change at all with vampires when they're souled, or when they are vamped - they are just free, free of societal and moral constraints. They might kill whoever they want, but they kill whoever they want, not anyone willy nilly. Angel's behaviour differs when he's Angelus because he's thrown off the shackles of being good. Angel periodically acts all "Angelussy" because that's who he is. He gets broody because he's trying to suppress that aspect of himself. Spike isn't trying to suppress that, he just doesn't kill. His personality doesn't change, because that's his personality, and was before he was vamped, it just didn't come out.

Which leads me to my final thought on this. I've been wondering if something about the final thoughts of the living human has anything to do with forming the emotional structure around which vampires behave once vamped, setting the pattern, as it were. For instance, Liam was an angry young man, belittled by his father, out carousing and drinking, etc. Darla encourages him to kill his family and then points out that he'll never have his father's approval. Angelus spends the next 100 years trying to prove he is something, the best at something, even if that something is terror and death. He professes to not care, and truly he doesn't. Even other vampires fear him. He wants to surpass his father, but he never can because his father can never acknowledge it.

William's last living thoughts were of Cecily and how she rejected him. He wanted to love and for her to love him. He just wanted her to "see him" and she said she did, but he was beneath her. Spike's lived his undead life trying to find the love he lacked while living. Too bad for him he was associated with Angelus, who needed to put down the other cock in the henhouse. Spike loved and accepted Cecily, and Dru, and Buffy and only wanted the same in return, but because of his 11th hour rejection by Cecily, perhaps he doesn't really feel like he deserves it. He never stands up to Angelus about Dru, granted, he's in a wheelchair, but he never does it until he has backup, and I always had the feeling Dru just wanted him to "be a man" but Angelus was the new father, and he was imitating his own, making Spike in the image of Liam. Liam was an angry young man, spending hundreds of years trying to make everyone else angrier. William (just add "wil" to "liam") spent hundreds of years trying to make Cecily love him, and feeling unworthy. Their last living experiences formed who they were, but being vamped just let them shrug off the very constraints that repressed them in the first place. Killing and vamping is their revenge on society.

Pantokraterix, ITA with you in regard to Angel's personality changes versus Spikes. That is why I could never get on the Angel ship, because Angel truely is Angelus and his soul just acts like one of those electric collars you put on dogs to keep them from barking (or a chip ;-). And when Angel is in Angelus mode, I don't feel him emote anything for Buffy except a desire to torture.
I don't agree with you argument regarding Angel is more of Buffy's equal. Just because he has lived a life without her does not make her his equal, and it is not necessarily give and take. Actually it's a lot of emotional and physical withholding on his part. Obviously this is because of the curse, but even if he didn't have the curse I feel Angel is too emotionally distant to make a relationship survive. And even though I'm a Spuffy fan, I have to agree with you that Spike is not her equal. But his willingness to conform to her needs is better than someone being forced to be who they are not.

You mean like a government issue electronic chip?

Not sure how far afield this goes. A lot of Angel's story is about trying to be better than your baser urges. Everybody on the planet has the potential for evil within - to go out and do terrible things. Angel is just screamingly more self-aware about it, and consequently a bit more devoted toward not being his worst traits. Whether through repression or self-improvement. And not because you want the girl, or the respect, or the love - but simply because you can be a better person. That was what a big part of what Becoming was about.

The contrast being that in Becoming Spike just wants to have his girl by his side, even if he has to knock her unconscious. With or without a soul, Spike's story has been very different from Angel, although I think it started to dovetail.


This, has been Spike's story. What William hadn't realized, perhaps until End of Days/Chosen is that you can't force people love you the way you want them to. Not with Mother, Cecily, Dru, or Buffy. They either do or they don't. It's really only until the end of the series that trying to be a better Spike just to be a better Spike is any major part of his motivation

Samolly, maybe it's my own stuff, but I meant he's her equal emotionally. Hard to describe actually, but, ultimately, they're comfortable with eachother, curse notwithstanding, and can communicate. With Spike, at least before the end, she was the one with all the power. Spike may be Buffy's equal in terms of fighting, fighting evil, whatever, but she has "hand" as they say. With Riley and with Spike, Buffy was always in control of doling out relationship cookies. With Angel, she wasn't. Spike recognizes that he needs her more than she needs him, at least for love, but that they connect on other levels.

Pantokraterix, I agree with your cookie statement. It always bothered me how uneven those two relationships were. But it bothers me more that Angel was doling out the cookies to Buffy. She was always wanting more than he could give, and I always felt she deserved more. But then when she moved on to Riley and Spike, she was so hurt and guarded that she made sure she was in control of the cookies.

With Angel, he was in charge of the cookies. (Ugh, Chosen flashback.)

Anyhow, to drag this kicking and screaming back to the topic, I would have to say that Spike's last thought as a human weren't at all about Cecily anymore, but rather about Dru, and getting lucky, and being lucky. Cecily may have been the station where that train of thought set out, but he was all aboard Dru by the time she was ready to bite him.

More about being respected, I think. Being respected, loved and seen as special.

I was just going to say more or less the same thing. I think it was less about Cecily and more about feeling the fool, and Dru making him feel like a desirable, instead of a laughable, man.

I have to say in re Spike that souled Spike is very hard to discern from unsouled Spike, which I think is because of the way the writers simultaneously tried to romantacize him and then evil him up every now and again, so they wouldn't get accused of making a hero out of a killer.

In watching Season 7 again, I am struck by how little character development I see in Spike with the soul. His world is still all about Buffy, and he seems to have little regard for any other human being on the planet. Maybe he doesn't want to see the scooby gang dead anymore, but he sure as hell ain't buddying up to them either. I think ultimately the reason I just got so damned sick of him was because he made me so sick of Buffy - the character and the show. Every week it was like - Spike loves Buffy? Who knew! Way to play it cool, guy.

You're right, Autodidact. It's funny, because I hear so many people talk about how much more mature Angel is than Spike (basically in every incarnation), but their human selves, and their transformations, show the opposite. Liam had petty, selfish motives, and was living a petty, selfish life that hurt people around him. William was, while certainly not a model human being, nevertheless caring of other people's feelings, and, as you say, wanted people to respect him for who he was, rather than for how big a bully or rakehell he could be, like Liam.

While I was a Spuffy shipper, I do agree that Angel and Buffy are on the same emotional level. And frankly, deserve one another. I never really liked Angel and grew to dislike Buffy intensely during season 6.

I want Spike to move on to a grown up relationship. With someone who will love him back and respect and appreciate him for what he is, not for what he could be or for some capricious object like a soul. Whatever that is. I want the writers to finish the job they started, of developing this character in a multi-layered, complex way, with faults and failures and moving forward with small baby steps.

What I don't want (because my Spike deserves better) is the flat caricature that he seems to be at the moment.

Watching "Five By Five", the episode where they flash back to Angelus getting his soul in the first place, I don't see much of a change, either. To be honest, 50's Flashback Angel seems really close to China Flashback Angel, too. It took 100 years to turn the Scourge of Europe to the Champion of Los Angeles. Should we expect a big change overnight? Especially since his appetites seem to have changed even before he got his soul. When Dru killed and gave him the body, he first looked horrified before he tucked in. When he thought the chip was broken, he had to talk himself into the ultraviolence before he could try it.

There are changes, though. Most notably, the only time he snarks on Xander post-soul are when he's the crazy bloodhound vamp, and that doesn't really fit the rest of his S7 time. There are changes, but they aren't big.

One of the biggest things that spoiled the show for me, was how Spike corrupted Buffy, and thus the show itself. It really angered me when Spike and Buffy became sex buddies. As bad as that was, I just couldn't accept that Buffy eventually felt that she could only turn to Spike for comfort and sympathy.

And Buffy continued to defend Spike even after everyone knew that Spike went on that killing spree in season 7. I got sick and tired of "he has a soul now." Spike, even with his soul, was still as violent as he ever was. He still lived for a good fight. It was too much for me to accept that William the Bloody, the Big Bad was suppose to be the hero at the end, and that he would be the one to sweep Buffy off her feet. There was no justice to it all.

Spike didn't deserved to have humped Buffy, nor deserved to have gotten her affection, nor deserved to have been accepted by the scoobies, nor did he deserved to have been the hero at the end. The only thing the Big Bad deserved was a wooden stake in the chest.

I saw the episode "Into the Woods" recently, and although I was no Riley fan, deep down I was rooting hard for Buffy to get to the helicopter in time (even though I already knew she wasn't going to get there in time) to tell Riley not to leave. Buffy should have been with someone like Riley not Spike.

It always seemed to me that the Scoobies had no interest in getting to know the 'new' Spike either and souled Spike seemed to have no intention spending any time with them if it could be avoided. This could be because he really didn't care what they thought or it could equally be because his self loathing stopped him from wanting to force himself on people who had good reason not to like him. None of the Scoobies showed the slightest interest in souled Spike though they had all experienced the difference between souled Angel and souless Angel.

It was always very hard for me to get a sense of how Spike felt about anyone other than Buffy as we really never got any interactions between him and other people until nearly the end of the season when he seemed to have developed a certain tolerance for Andrew and a deep distrust of Wood. He was motivated to help save Cassie but he was so disturbed at that point in the season it's hard to ascribe a clear motive to that. However, I'm blanking on any signs that souled Spike actively didn't care about people other than Buffy.

Given Spike's development and lack of soul, how odd would it have been for him not to try to draw her to him by whatever means. The thing that I won't forgive the writers for is that Buffy did not save herself, not during S6 and not during S7. I respect that other viewers feel her sharing of power accomplished this but I do not. In hand with my viewpoint is my belief that Buffy could (and should) have walked away from Spike and reestablished her ties with her friends and then the world. But ultimately, the only person we can control is ourself. Buffy didn't have the strength to do so. Even in the last episode Buffy lamely tells Spike she loves him. At least Spike has the self-wisdom to acknowledge that she doesn't. So maybe we're not that far apart in our opinion, we just place the blame in different places?



Actually the sliding scale between heroic and evil is entirely what fascinates me on both BtVS and Angel.

What I meant was that they doled them out evenly. They both had an equal stake in the relationship. Personally, I think Riley was the best boyfriend any girl could ever hope for, but he was hopelessly outmatched. He follows orders, she gives them. Anyhow, Spike clearly knows more about Buffy than anyone alive or dead, but he still couldn't get on equal footing. I think that's what the evil smile was about when he figured he could hit her, that is, hit her back. She could no longer (physically) abuse him with impunity, he could fight back. Really, in my mind, only when they were more friends than lovers did he have an equal stake in the relationship. When they could fall asleep in eachothers' arms with no expectations they were on par. Otherwise, she was totally in control, and you just can't have an even relationship like that.

That, IMHO, has always been his nature for the past 120+ years - S4 being a notable exception. For human William or for souled and soulless Spike, I don't know that the world or the people in it have ever really existed beyond his ladylove du jour, and occaisionally the other people in the room with him at a given moment in time. IMHO, Spike seems to be so rebellious for two reasons. One, because he isn't really concerned with community. Two, because Authority (in terms of authority figures and social rules) tend to serve to divert his attention away from his fixations. Or attract their attention away from him.


Well that's much to the point. Buffy has more "control" in the relationship for the simple fact that she wants far less out of it, and far less from him, than Spike wants from the relationship and from her. It's very hard to have any sort of a healthy relationship when the two participants want so very different things from it, and particularly when they are (willfully or not) unmindful and unaccepting of what the other person wants. As they both were in S6, and as Spike is until near the end of the series.

I would agree with you if I felt season 7 had even set up a moment where Spike could interact with other characters apart from Buffy and refused. I just didn't get a chance to see that so I can only really guess at how souled Spike felt about the world other than Buffy as the writers never put him in a position to go beyond that. For what it's worth he did seem concerned that he'd been killing again and that he would do so again back in Sleeper/Never Leave Me and that seemed external to his feelings for Buffy.

I understand. But to me that's just characterization. In S7, there are precious few scenes where Spike even tries to instigate conversation or seeks out anybody other than Buffy. Just as there are precious few of the same in S6.

I don't feel like I need to see scenes were Spike deliberately refuses to interact with others. Usually, he "refuses" such interaction simply by not seeking it out. By way of example, he had all season to approach Willow and try to compare their analogous situations. He didn't. (Not that she approached him either - but that's an issue for the "Willow" topic) Whether that was by writer choice, or by simple omission - it's interaction that didn't happen.

It's the dog that doesn't bark.

Without illustration of his focus broadening, I don't assume that his default - the intense focus on a love object to the exclusion of most else - had really changed all that much. That was, perhaps, the most significant aspect of his characterization. Personally, I feel comfortable assume he hasn't "gone beyond that" unless the writing shows him doing it.

Maybe, but I think Spike was acting out of hurt, revenge and I do think at the heart of his motivation he was thinking about Cecily’s last words to him, that he was beneath her. IMO, Spike’s motivation with Dru was to prove Cecily wrong. He did have worth and if Cecily didn’t think so here was a “woman” who did.

Of course, there are those who have brought up Dru's ability to mesmerize. So, it's possible William was under her thrall.


It takes two to tango. The Scoobies were not to thrilled with Spike’s presence. Who went down to the basement to check on him other than Buffy? Giles tried to kill him. Dawn threatened to set him on fire. Anya bitterly mentions Spike’s special treatment and I think most of them were pretty leery of Spike’s presence in the house. There was one who visits him in the basement and he does relate to her. Faith wasn't afraid of Spike and did commiserate with him. IMO he reciprocated. So, I think his alienation is partly due to the Scoobies fear or resentment of him.


Maybe because he was chained to a wall most of the season. Or, maybe because Willow was so self-absorbed with her own new love that she didn’t bother venturing into the basement to see how Ol’ Spike was doing.

I suppose that depends on your definition of more and less. I think they just wanted different things. She didn't have to think when she was with him, and nothing else made her feel anything. She was looking for some kind of contact, and for some reason, he was the only place she felt it. He knew he was fulfilling a need no one else could satisfy, and I don't just mean sexually. Sex was just the, uh, tool.

In what way did Spike manage to corrupt Buffy? Sure, he tried to convince her that she belonged ‘in the dark’ with him, but he wasn’t exactly successful at it – she didn’t enjoy her night on the demon side of the tracks, and I can’t think of a single incident when she failed to do her job properly because of him (the only example I can imagine being advanced would be the fact that she didn’t stake Spike himself, and it’s obviously a moot point whether that would in fact have been the right thing to do). I don’t see any evidence that Buffy was at all corrupted by Spike, or even that under his influence she started to wonder if perhaps things weren’t quite so black and white as she’d once thought. In CWDP she’s clearly always going to dust Holden Webster, even though he’s one of those vampires that retains almost all of their human personality after turning, and her reluctance to stake recurring vampire characters (eg Harmony) predates her involvement with Spike.

Re: Spike showing any interest in trying to connect to other people... he apparently did invite Anya to go out drinking with him (which she took to be asking her out on a date). And when Faith came down to the basement for a smoke, he was the one who initiated their conversation (not to mention reassuring her that not all the tension was about her soon after she entered the house). And in First Date, when Buffy wasn't around, he did spend some time up top with the group. No, not too many examples. But not none, either.

Honestly, the main impression I got in S7 wasn't that Spike wasn't interested in connecting with other people so much as he didn't feel he had a right to do so. Just as he no longer had a right to make advances on Buffy or try to get her to love him. He just hung around in the basement, sometimes chaining himself to the wall, unless he was needed, and his manner around the others was a lot more reserved than it used to be. Most Buffy/Spike conversations, especially up until the last 1/3 of the season, were initiated by her, whereas it was much the opposite in previous seasons.

And I disagree that Spike didn't change post-soul or that he was "still as violent as he ever was" or that "he still lived for a good fight." All the way up until "Get it Done" they deliberately showed him as extremely reluctant to fight, allowing himself to get beat up and running away rather than finishing off a fight. They had both Anya and Buffy call him on it. It wasn't until Buffy kicked him into action that he drew on his "Big Bad" persona so that he could try to be a better fighter, but even that, IMO, was forced at first.

Yes, as the season progressed and as the fight became more pressing, Spike reembraced his old persona and stopped worrying so much about if he was a bad guy who didn't deserve stuff. But IMO, that was a result of him adjusting to the soul and reprioritizing in light of what was needed from him. More of Spike becoming what he thinks he needs to be, whether it's for the woman he loves, or for the situation at hand (ie, Spike the Master Vampire in S2, ordering around the minions).

As for B/A vs B/S, at the moment I very much agree with the much-maligned cookie dough speech. IMO Buffy needs to go out there and figure out who she is and what she wants for herself, now that the mantle of "The Chosen One" no longer lies upon her. Once she does that, then take a look at who she is and figure out who's most appropriate for her. It might be neither Angel or Spike (or Riley). It might be one of them. Who knows? But Buffy as she was in S7? IMO neither relationship is a good idea at this point. For either party.

I think that "bitch" Riley married might have something to say about it. :-)

I also agree with the cookie dough speech. I also agree with Angel it's a bad metaphor, but it works. I wish Spike had heard it.

And I gotta love his stick-figured-face of Angel on the punching bag. I slapped my knee laughing so hard at that! And the look on Buffy's face! I paraphrase:



Priceless.

And foreshadowy. And even if there wasn't oil, there was Mountain Dew.

I hate the metaphor, but I totally agree with the sentiment of the cookie dough speech, not just for Buffy, but for basically everyone. I think you really need to know who you are and what you want before you can really be part of a mature relationship that's healthy for all sides. This has always, IMO, been true of Spike too. He knows that he wants love and respect, but he doesn't ever seem to really have had a strong grasp of who he is, in and of himself. I think by Chosen he was cookie dough that had been in the oven a while (to continue the awkward metaphor), but he wasn't done baking either. I'm very disappointed that he didn't (and seemingly won't, now) get a chance to finish baking, even if he didn't get all the way into a relationship. Not that he had to be perfect, but just that he should know who he is, warts and all, and be comfortable with that. Of course, that's a lot to ask of anyone (especially the comfortable part), but that last moment in Chosen seemed like that's where he was going.

Long time lurker here with just a quick observation.

I realize that discussion about the AR invokes a lot of emotions in people, but I noticed something while watching SR the other day.

When Spike enters the bathroom to apologize to Buffy, I noticed that he seemed quite comfortable in doing so. At first, I thought it was just Spike barging in rudely like he always does. However, it was Buffy's reaction that intrigued me the most. She didn't seem shocked or even disgusted and although she was upset (because of what happened between him and Anya), she was also very comfortable with him there. During their initial exchange, it seemed (to me at least) very much like they were a couple who had been together for some time and seemed very natural with each other. This had struck me before, but I never thought about it because of the trauma of the AR.

This lead me to believe that he has been in that bathroom before with her and most likely her bedroom too.

Just a thought I had. I will go back to lurking.

This has been bantering about my brain while I've been sick in bed, so it may just be the cold meds talking but... I blame Faith for Spike falling for Buffy.

Hear me out, and I could be wrong on the timelines, but Spike wasn't really into Buffy before Fuffy approached him in the Bronze. Yeah, he'd been hanging about, all chipped and useless, but I don't think he was stalking Buffy or breaking into her house to smell her clothes at that point. But Fuffy comes on to him and puts all these naughty thoughts in his head about the two of them together and I think it all spiralled from there. Suddenly, Buffy goes from being just the Slayer to being a sexual being that he wants a piece of, so to speak. And since I used to like Spike before he went all stalker and then became Buffy's bitch, I blame Faith.

Questions, comments?

I agree, Fuffy was definetly one of the catalyst. But it was a whole series of events that brought him to love/obsession with Buffy. I think they original one being the chip. If there was no chip, none of it would have happened. Even if there had been no Fuffy, it still would have happened because of the chip bringing Spike in proximaty of Buffy on a daily basis.

Do we know if Spike ever finds out that Buffy was Faith that time? And if he did, when did he? Piecing together my Buffy history I can only assume he thought it was Buffy all along, unless maybe the subject came up during their season 6 fling? Though I doubt that, because they weren't big on the talking. And by season 7 it wouldn't have been important to him anymore.

I'm pretty sure in S7 Spike did mention that he knew about it when he was talking to Faith in the basement. I don't remember if they ever said when or how he found out.

Yeah, Faith and Spike talk about it but they never say how he knew. Buffy must have mentioned it in between all the boinking.

I bet Giles or Xander told him. He did live with both of them and therefore had a lot of contect with them. His encounter with Fuffy probably came up and they would have filled him in with some vage details so that he wouldn't get the wrong idea. Unfortunatly this combined with Willow's "let my will be done" spell put Buffy into Spike's brain in a sexy way.

Spike actually says in his conversation with Faith that Buffy told him though she didn't say who else was involved.

True, but he also said that he reformed long before Faith so we probably shouldn't put too much faith(hee) in what Spike says.

Spike didn't show any romantic or sexual interest in Buffy after his encounter with Faith in Buffy. In fact he doesn't start showing interest in Buffy until his wet dream in Season 5 (and the Buffy he dreams about doesn't seem very Faith-like to me). Of course the story seems to indicate (thanks to the Dru flashback/retcon) that Spike had always been in love with Buffy on a subconscious level. So I don't think any of it can be blamed on Faith.

If that flashback is correct then does that mean that we have to blame Drusilla for Spuffy, she sent Spike away. I don't think I could handle that because then I would have to hate Drusilla and I just can't live in a world where I have to hate Drusilla!

I suspect that Spike fell (initially) in lust with Buffy due to several factors. First the chip. As several have pointed out, this forced him into a relationship he normally would have avoided. Two, Spike is obsessed with slayers in general. This one he couldn't kill, so he channeled his desires along another path. Three, I'm sure the Faith speech certainly helped fuel the fantasy.

" I figured the only thing better than killing a Slayer would be......"

I think I may have figured out why watching Spike's character development is so enjoyable for some viewers, namely me. Those of you who have children or work with young children will probably understand more readily what I am about to describe. Watching children develop from birth to young childhood is liking driving a Ferrari and going from 0 mph to 120 mph in 4.8 seconds. It is a rush. It leaves you somewhat in awe. And it is completely fraught with head smacking against a brick wall frustration. Basically, in the span of five years (if you count this year of AtS) Spike has gone from a baby (as represented by a vampire's single-minded focus on eating) to a pre-toddler whose guardian completely controls their world (represented by the chip) to a toddler learning that their actions impact how others play with them (Spike protecting Dawn because Buffy might reward him favorably) to a slightly older toddler who will do something because they love someone but not necessarily be motivated to do it because it is the right thing to do (Spike hiding Dawn's identity as the key.) And these are just S5 examples. The real growth, the teen morality growth if you will has occured in S5 on AtS. Very cool IMO.

That would explain why I found him so frustrating. I can't deal with little kids, but I find teens fascinating and a lot of fun to watch develop.

I think you're on to something there, journeywoman. In contrast to what Dave said: I'm intrigued by little kids, and pretty much all kids up to early/mid-teenagerdom, and I thought Spike was a great character from when I first saw him. Come to think of it, after just seeing "School Hard" for the first time (so, admittedly a bit biased by already knowing a lot about Spike) I said basically the same thing in my head about Spike that I often say about my toddler cousin: "He's an [evil vampire/tiny child] but he has a personality of his own and everything! (Now let's see where that goes...)"

Very interesting theory.

I liked Spike, up till Season 5. He was one of my favorite characters. Always funny, and given some of the best lines. Loved how he got the Scoobs to PAY him for help. Good Times.

Post S4 though. God, I couldn't be rid of him fast enough for several reasons:
1) Stole from Xander's screen time.
2) Started the whole Buffy the Vampire Layer thing all over again.
3) Moved from funny and different vamp (Was more interested in the world having a status quo than world domination or destruction) to creepy and sick vamp, but was yet still whitewashed as a good guy.

I would have loved him post s5 if he wasn't ruined by Marti, the show killer.

Moved over from the Season Two thread, since it was getting kinda Spiketacular.



And yet he's also the vampire who couldn't keep it in his pants long enough to wait for the weekend Feast of St Vigeous, and when criticized about it killed the guy he had claimed he was going to stay out of the way of. In his very first line of the show, he contradicts himself and changes his mind about something. To me, he's always been the poster-child for attention deficit, and this didn't really change because he didn't bother to leap out of the wheelchair before he was healed and get himself humiliated once again by a very much not-crippled Angelus.

About the only thing he's been consistent about is his inconsistency. He's a spaz, and he'll say one thing, and do the exact opposite a split-second later, and never once think of himself as being inconsistent or hypocritical or ironic, much in the manner of a child who will scold his parents for being 'silly.'

It's the same sort of thing that later led to his ensoulment. He honestly seems unaware (or at least unapologetic) about this tendency, and, IMO, honestly believed himself when he later told Buffy that 'I don't hurt you.' After the bathroom assault, he suddenly seems to wake up and realize that he couldn't be the sort of man he'd always thought he was, that he was lying not just to her, but to himself as well.

I think that this revelation rocked his world-view. He couldn't be who he thought he already was, he couldn't say anything about himself, or promise anything, and be correct or truthful, and the trials in Africa shows that he was willing to die (and even in the gaining of a soul, he was essentially destroying the 'monster' he was, in hopes of becoming a man at all) to be *able* to change.

While I'm open to journeywoman's theory that I don't like watching Spike's journey because I don't have (or for that matter particularly like) kids, I can honestly say that I've never been sitting around one of my friend's houses, watching their kids, and shouted "Just die already!' I can't say the same for Spike.

I said it wasn't a simple case of Spike being stupid and shortsighted. I didn't say he wasn't impulsive or impatient. He is undoubtedly both. But I don't think impulsiveness and intelligence are mutually exclusive. And in Spike's early evil stages, his seemingly irrational "impulsiveness" often could also be seen as clever exercises in doing the unexpected and therefore taking people unawares. In "School Hard" he makes big noise about killing Buffy on Saturday, getting them all focused on the Feast of St. Vigeous and worrying about Saturday night, and then takes them completely by surprise and off guard by crashing into the school two days early. And honestly, the tactic came close to winning. (I actually tend to think that Spike ran away too easily to make sense at the end of "School Hard" and "Halloween" for a vamp of his reputation or personality. Especially given how they presented his later Slayer killings as one-on-one battles and his personality as a "fists and fangs" in it for the "death, glory, and sod all else." Smart to regroup, I suppose, but odd.). In "In the Dark" on AtS, he claims he got bored with his plan and just attacked Angel, but somehow had a trap perfectly in place for whenever Angel decided to come and find him - he basically lured Angel onto his own ground. In both cases, he really could have just been being inconsistent and impulsive, but in both cases it largely worked for him.

I dunno, I don't honestly think Spike thought he needed to wait for the Feast of St. Vigeous. That was the kind of ritualistic prophetic mumbo-jumbo the Master dealt in. Spike had faced and killed two Slayers without the help of some mystical night of vampire strength. And I always got the impression that he had the utmost contempt for the Anointed One, only playing along with him until he could feel out the situation. Not that he intended to just go along with the Anointed One but changed his mind later.

I totally agree that Spike is impulsive and could be contradictory. That he's more instinct/gut-driven than thought/head-driven. And I agree that what drove him to his ensoulment was the realization that he couldn't be who he thought he was or wanted to be.

But, my original argument was mainly about the idea that Spike put together the Judge to end the world, in apparent contradiction to his later claims in "Becoming" about not wanting the world to end, b/c he was stupid and shortsighted. I just got sidetracked into thinking about how in S2, Spike was almost the "voice of reason" among the three vamps, the one who told Angel just to kill her already, that it was stupid to piss off the Slayer by hurting her friends (IMO Angel failed to realize the difference between doing this to a helpless girl like Drusilla and a Slayer like Buffy), etc. Who pointed out the flaws in Angel's plans, told Drusilla not to kill Dalton yet b/c he was the only minion they had with "half a brain", who dispatched the Order of Taraka to keep Buffy occupied (or better yet, kill her), so that she wouldn't interfere with his plans to restore Drusilla...

I dunno. I just disagree, I guess, with the current trend of characterization that has Spike as a pretty dumb, purely gut-driven guy. Jeff Bell even describes him in a recent interview as not the brightest bulb but with an incredible instinct and heart. And while I don't disagree that Spike's instincts are a big part of him, I just think that the character didn't start off as a purely dumb guy.

And EONdc, I think it's a lot easier mentally to sit around wishing death on a fictional character than on real people =). At least, I certainly hope so!

Not unexpectedly, I totally agree with Teenes, especially on the point that impulsiveness and intelligence in Spike aren't mutually exclusive. In fact, as I think several of Teenes' examples demonstrate, Spike frequently seemed to see opportunities (intelligence) that others didn't, and had the impusiveness/chutzpah to leap immediately to take advantage of them. This worked pretty well for him, I think--particularly against Slayers. He seized an unexpected moment of distraction against both Chinese Slayer and Nikki, and used it to claim victory. I also think that's part of what attracted him to Buffy, from the very beginning. She's also good at seizing whatever comes to hand. The look on his face as he watches her stake the vamp with the pumpkin sign on the video he made in Halloween says a lot to me--here's a girl that he respects in large part because she is very like him. And I think that carries through his entire relationship with Buffy. He understands at least part of her, because it is like at least part of him.

But, then, that's where his impulsiveness can outrace his intelligence (which I think happens several times). He impulsively leaps to conclusions (Buffy is the same as me; getting a soul will fix everything) and by the time his brain catches up, he's hurtling down the chosen road too fast to stop. But I think he does eventually get there. He's not an "intellectual" (certianly not the way Angel was portrayed as being), but that doesn't mean he's dumb either.

And yet when he has chances to do stuff like this, he doesn't take his own advice. He is very critical of anyone *elses* plans, but when his own go balls-up, he seems to ignore the fact that he's made the exact same missteps.

I am reminded of the whole ressurection thing. He helps Dawn when she's trying to ressurect Joyce, but when the gang ressurects Buffy *without him* he's all indignant and the voice of 'magic always has consequences' (this from the same person who was going to use a love-spell to get Drusilla back). He's all kinds of hypocrite in that example, and I don't think it was intentionally hypocrisy, I think he's just not very self-aware (to staggering degrees).

He has a similar reaction in Season 7, when Buffy gives her first 'everybody sucks but me' speech, he's among the audience and gets targetted. So when people disagree with her, he has no criticism. When he *isn't* there later and she and her friends have a big disagreement, they're all traitors and he's all indignant, again. It's not about whether Buffy was right or wrong, since he wasn't there and *has no idea what was said,* nor does he particularly care, since it's all about Spike not being there, so it must have been wrong.

I could probably give an example from just about every season (save the first, obviously) of Spike saying one thing and then doing the opposite, or claiming that everyone else is stupid or wrong about something, and then doing it himself and when called on it loudly proclaiming, 'Well, what did you expect! I'm EVIL!'

To me the whole point of Seeing Red is that he couldn't count on himself, couldn't trust himself, couldn't say anything or promise anything or be any sort of man at all, and it was only this last event that actually showed this to him. He never seemed aware of his own inconsistency, his own inability to be a man of any sort, let alone a good man who kept his word. He seemed as shocked by it as Buffy, and to me his decision to actually finally take steps to become a person who could make a choice, or keep a promise, is a huge turning point.

Because of the chip, he couldn't be a demon, and because of the chip, he finally had to stop partying long enough to *notice* that he wasn't capable of being a man. He could have wished for the chip out, but he chose to be a man. That's kinda huge, as decisions go. The only 'self' he ever really knew, ever really loved or respected or cared about, his Big Bad vampire Spike persona, he chose to destroy, to risk turning back into the pathetic loser William that he seemed to hold in contempt.

He chose the harder path. He knew he was a success as a vampire, and that he could do that and be powerful and infamous again. He knew he'd failed miserably at being any sort of man in life, and that's the path he chose. To punish himself? To have a second chance to get it right as a man, instead of as a monster? Out of 'love,' assuming he ever really, as man or demon, had the slightest inkling what that meant?

Could just have been pride. He has always seemed extremely prideful to me, and it might just be that being a man 'beat' him and he had this being a monster thing down cold, so he chose the harder fight out of the same perverse instinct that made him fall in love with inaccessible women (even in life) or pick fights with professional killers of his kind. He might have chosen to try the soul route simply to prove that he could do it, that he could beat this too, and if he made Angel look like a simpering angst-wreck in the process, so much the better.

Oh ITA that Spike lacked self-awareness. The tendency to avoid introspection has a great deal to do with that, the tendency to try to find a new identity when the old doesn't fit, rather than trying to fix the old, the inability to follow his own advice to others..it's all a part of that. It's why I think he can be extremely perceptive or intuitive when it comes to other people (ie, the truthteller) and situations that he has no personal investment in, but can completely screw it up when it comes to himself and situations/people he *is* emotionally invested in.

But, once again, I think that has a lot more to do with maturity and personality than actual intelligence. Spike is no intellectual. But he's no moron either, IMO. Of course, this is the argument I've been making in response to something DaBigDave said in the s2 thread, and not really what you've been saying, Set. You seem to be making an argument more about Spike's inconsistency than his intelligence.

Oh and about GID vs "Touched", while you may be onto something in general about Spike's perception of right and wrong being somewhat contingent on his participation, especially pre-soul, in "Touched", there was sort of the added element of Buffy getting kicked out of the house. Spike doesn't know what happened, but he does know that the others were trying to tell him that she voluntarily decided to "take a break" ("in the middle of an apocalypse") which was obviously patently untrue. It's not a very good way for them to make the case that they were in the right. In GID he obviously disagreed with Buffy and didn't have any issue with the criticisms people were making of her, but all that happened there was verbal sparring. In "Touched" he returns to find Buffy essentially ousted and her friends trying to lie to him about it. I think that biases the situation somewhat to begin with. While I think that there's a chance that he would have gladly participated in Buffy's resurrection if he had been told about it (though there's a chance he wouldn't have as well, IMO), I'm not as sure he would have been onboard with Buffy leaving even if he'd been there in "Empty Places."

I think the second is particularly instructive, as applied to Spike for much of his run.

He perceives himself and Buffy sharing a commonality, and then projects himself onto her. Once he sees her as like him, believes himself to understand a part of her - he then presumes that he knows or understands all and doesn't really question his own credibility until something so radical occurs that he must release his delusions. Largely, this (and Set's comments speak to a certain immaturity and mental lassitude on his part, which he's been slowly growing past.

As to Spike's sponsorship of the judge - I'll stand by my statement - any Vampire looking to set the judge loose without any consistent plan on how to use and control would have to be either insane or stupid. At least, as pertains to that case.