About Spike's Soul

POSTED BY: Haken
UPDATED: Tuesday, July 16, 2002 13:32
VIEWED: 12486
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ZICSOFT

Saturday, July 13, 2002 4:28 PM

Quote:
Besides, he wouldn't remember his penchant for the soap opera Passions (an integral character point, IMO).

No, I think we'll find his love of soap operas to be very fundamental. It'll be one of the few things William the Bloody Awful and Spike the Slayer Slayer have in common.

Remember Spike's list of reasons for not destroying the world in Becoming? In the shooting script it includes "Love Boat"!

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Are we all convinced that Spike was deliberately seeking out his soul? I haven't seen the episodes, but I've read the shooting scripts, because I'm a nerd, and it seemed there as though he was out for vengeance, not redemption. I'm not totally discounting the possibility, but is there something I missed?

In that big panel thing at ATAS, Whedon said that Spike always meant to get his soul back. But Marsters says that he was directed to act as if he was trying to get his chip removed. Interesting interview here:

http://actionadventure.about.com/library/weekly/2002/aa062402.htm

Anyway, the business of him going through all those painful and dangerous rituals to get his chip removed never made sense. It's a medical problem, not a mystical one. He would found a neurosurgeon, like that other initiative guy only better qualified.

Anyway, you don't read the shooting scripts because you're a nerd, you read them because they're fun to read! I particularly like the off-the-wall comments in Whedon's scripts. "A beat as Buffy catches her breath. Then the HULKING VAMP is on her. FITE! (and if we can afford it) FITE! FITE!!"

J

Saturday, July 13, 2002 6:41 PM

Sorry if this isn't a good contribution, because I've only been sort of halfway reading this thread - being worried about spoilers makes my comprehension of the thread fuzzy. A couple of tracks seem to be going on in this discussion that seem to be missing some key elements, though. In "Surprise/Innocence" the Judge said, in the first, to Spike and Dru "You two stink of humanity" and, in the second, to Angelus, "This one cannot be burnt. He is clean," meaning pure evil. And given that the Judge did have this power, I accept his statements. Angelus with a chip would have been able to physically intimidate other vampires and lead them into assaulting Buffy and others by proxy. Spike, with a chip, could have done this but restricted himself to "The Yoko Factor" activities and whatnot, while also ending up helping the Scoobys and trying to win Buffy's affections rather than kill her. And, even when he found out he could kill her, chip or not, he didn't. Stack up against this the completely incoherent demolition of his character in "Seeing Red" - and stack up against that in turn, that it was arguably Spike being insane more than simply evil. Anyway - point being that Angelus is the evil one, more than Spike.

Then, there's "Crush" in which Dawn said, "I'm not even human. Not originally" to which Spike replied, "Yeah, well, originally I was. I got over it. Doesn't seem to me it matters very much how you start out." And I'd say that Spike would also figure it wouldn't matter much where you'd been in the meantime. It's where you ARE that matters. So even if Spike had been the evil one, Angel's also the angsty guilty one. Spike is capable of moving on. Like when the issue of drinking blood came up and he said, "I'm a vampire. It's what I do!" Same with any bad acts in his past. He'd say, "I was a vampire. It's what I did. Now I'm not and I don't. Let's move along, people!"

So I don't see him as being anything like Angel and don't see him as needing any sort of amnesia to avoid it.

But if you'd hung at the BronzeShelter last year, you'd have seen me theorizing at long length about Spike because his character's fascinated me since it was introduced... and you'd have seen everything I said turned to nonsense as s6 played out. (And not in the good way of "surprising" me but in the way of disappointing me.) The same will probably happen in s7.

Last note, though: Buffy and Faith are Slayers. Was Faith doing Buffy again, or Kendra? And Angelus and Spike were both vampires - was Angelus doing Spike again? So now Spike may be a "vamp with a soul" but this certainly doesn't mean it's doing Angel again. They are completely different characters, so playing out the "soulful" arc can't be the "same thing" and doesn't need any special devices to avoid repetition. People (or beings) may share a classification, but they're still individuals.

MOJOECA

Saturday, July 13, 2002 9:46 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by J:
Anyway - point being that Angelus is the evil one, more than Spike.

Many Spike redemptionists use selective evidence to "prove" that Spike has always been a fluffy puppy, not evil. Or at least less evil than Angel. I think it's as silly as arguing whether or not Stalin was more evil than Hitler (Joseph is responsible for millions more deaths by genocide than Adolf, IIRC). What's the point? Spike and Angel both killed thousands, and had pleasure in it. Sure, their natures are different: Spike loves; Angel ... I don't know what his deal is. But Spike's love motivated him to kill (for Dru). I fail see how Spike's human nature overcomes his vampire nature -- that's prior to chip. Post-chip Spike is a different post. And now he has a soul, so it's a whole new ballgame.

And if the writers say souled Spike *will* be different from Angel, then I trust they have more twists in store.
--- Joe

MOJOECA

Saturday, July 13, 2002 10:06 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Zicsoft:

Anyway, the business of him going through all those painful and dangerous rituals to get his chip removed never made sense. It's a medical problem, not a mystical one. He would found a neurosurgeon, like that other initiative guy only better qualified.

Others complain that these tests *for* the soul don't make sense either -- it means anyone's soul can be restored and Buffy is killing demons (whose soulless-ness isn't their fault, they were born that way) who can otherwise be "saved." I don't agree. It's implausible that a soulless demon (inherently evil, according to Joss) would want to endure a bad haircut to get a soul, much less fights to the death. Why Spike, then? Obvously, the chip *has* changed him to some extent.

What's interesting is that in the recent "Death of Buffy" arc in the comics, Spike's trip to Africa is hinted at as being all about the chip. In BUFFY 45, set last summer, a contact of his says to him: "I can finally leave this cursed town and complete my surgery in Africa ... If you ever need anybody to cut you up, darling ... remember Africa."

OTOH, this really doesn't mean anything. The comic writer's are given very scant outlines of what's to come (they didn't even know Buffy would die). It's possible at the time they were told about Africa, the show writers were planning chip removal. Another explanation, as this comic was supposed to be released before the season finale, is that it was meant to be another mislead.

--- Joe

J

Saturday, July 13, 2002 10:45 PM

That wasn't my point. The example was saying that Dalton got vaporized, despite being a vamp and, ipso facto, a multiple-times-killer; whereas Angel was unharmed by the Judge. And while the Judge didn't actually attempt to vaporize Spike or Dru, he implied that he could have and Spike and Dru had to remind him who was in charge to avoid having that put to the test. There's nothing selective in that, nor does it attempt to prove Spike was a fluffy puppy. The point of it was simply to say that Angel and Spike are different and would deal with his different baggage differently. So we shouldn't have to worry about any broody Spike being another Angel.

What I think is silly is comparing two fictional vampires to two real dictatorial genocidal humans in what is supposed to be a relaxed and entertaining discussion about a TV show. It tends to bounce the discussion over into much less entertaining issues and I'd prefer not to go there. As an example of such unpleasant topic drift, I might say we would do well to remember that the US and Britain didn't think it was silly when they decided Stalin was less evil and allied themselves with him in order to defeat Hitler. If they'd have said, "What's the point? - let's fight them both," they'd have been defeated and none of us would be here now. And to wrap it back around to the show, Buffy allied herself briefly with an unchipped and fully vamp Spike to deal with Angelus - an accomodation that would have been impossible with Angelus.

MOJOECA

Saturday, July 13, 2002 11:03 PM

Good point.

--- Joe

PANDORA

Saturday, July 13, 2002 11:42 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by mojoeca:

Many Spike redemptionists use selective evidence to "prove" that Spike has always been a fluffy puppy, not evil. Or at least less evil than Angel. I think it's as silly as arguing whether or not Stalin was more evil than Hitler (Joseph is responsible for millions more deaths by genocide than Adolf, IIRC). What's the point? Spike and Angel both killed thousands, and had pleasure in it. Sure, their natures are different: Spike loves; Angel ... I don't know what his deal is. But Spike's love motivated him to kill (for Dru). I fail see how Spike's human nature overcomes his vampire nature -- that's prior to chip. Post-chip Spike is a different post. And now he has a soul, so it's a whole new ballgame.

--- Joe

Ok, I think that the most important difference between Angelus and pre-chip Spike (who will henceforth be referred to as PCS) is basic personality. They both were soulless, which assumably made them both amoral. Which is not necessarily to say immoral (though that's the way it went a lot of the time).

Being a vampire is definitely to some extent or another about being evil. The degree of evil seems to depend on preference.

For example, PCS seemed always to kill with a purpose. To prove himself, to fill a need, to get done what he wanted done. Not to say that he was angsting about it, or balked at the idea, but I'm not quite sure he obsessed over it. Angelus, on the other hand, always seemed to have a lust for it. He and Darla enjoyed killing- their murderous activities seemed to resemble those types of people who always like to party, only the next bump, hit, or shot was a murder, rather than a drug or drink. They were kind of your vampire bon vivants.

Maybe this is indicative of their pre-vampire natures. As we saw in the flashback where Angelus was first embraced, he was a party boy from the start, always looking for a good time and the satisfaction of his lusts. Spike, on the other hand, was William the Bloody Weenie. Angelus was just living up to his nature, partying as hard and as wildly as he could, always on the edge of danger just for the rush. PCS was about proving that he was not a weenie (and prove it he did, sorta), and of course, about personal/emotional gain (but that goes for any vampire, I'd guess).

"Mrs. Krabappel and Principal Skinner were in the closet making babies and I saw one of the babies
and the baby looked at me." -Ralph Wiggum

ZICSOFT

Sunday, July 14, 2002 6:20 PM

"Spike Redemptionist"? This conversation is getting way too serious!

PANDORA

Sunday, July 14, 2002 8:26 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Zicsoft:
"Spike Redemptionist"? This conversation is getting way too serious!

What do you expect? You put a bunch of intelligent and articulate geeks on a site and ask them to talk about happenings in a fairly consistent fictional universe, the collegiate $10 terms are gonna come out.

Besides, all this stuff is really interesting from a character analysis viewpoint...

Pandora

"Mrs. Krabappel and Principal Skinner were in the closet making babies and I saw one of the babies
and the baby looked at me." -Ralph Wiggum

SHUGGIE

Monday, July 15, 2002 7:29 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Zicsoft:
"Spike Redemptionist"? This conversation is getting way too serious!

Do you visit many Buffy forums? Hang out in alt.tv.buffy-v-slayer some time - this thread is frivolous by comparison.

I mean we've had the "did Spike really want a soul?" question raised and dealt with in what? 2 posts - the thread over at ATBVS is in the hundreds and shows little sign of slowing. And the Spike Redemptionista (as they sometimes like to be called) are big over there. As are the anti-redemptionists.

Anyway to veer vaguely back in the direction of the topic - I think an ensouled Spike will be interesting. I think the precedent set by Angel and Darla is that he won't be quite Spike as we know him now, nor William the B.A.P. I think the memory-loss thing would be a cop-out - a way of Spike not having to deal with his past.

Shug

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