Could chippy!Spike have hurt Doyle or Cordelia?

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Bungle Jerry

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I wonder this every time I watch "Family". Spike hits Tara to see if it hurts him. The fact that it does makes him surmise that 'there's no demon in there'. But as I recall the Maclays never claim that Tara is entirely demon anyway, just partly demon. So the chip isn't protecting people who have humanity, just people who have not a speck of, er, demonity. So would Spike have been able to attack Doyle or post-"Birthday" Cordelia? What about pre-"Becoming" Buffy and her Slayer 'demon essence'?
 
Since we never got any explanation as to how the chip distinguished between "human" and "non-human" targets, it would be hard to say. Personally, I doubt that Spike could harm Doyle or Higher Being Cordy, and possibly not even Lorne, since, technically, he wasn't a demon, but the equivalent of an extraterrestrial (extra-dimensional?)
 
BuffyElevated
BuffyElevated
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In what way wasn't Lorne a demon? I mean within established canon. I thought Pylea was specifically referred to as a demon dimension. Cuddly, sure. But surely cuddliness doesn't override demonness?
 
Also, I think the chip was more geared towards 'can't attack Humans' as opposed to 'can only attack Demons'.

So the fact that Lorne was 'not human' would be enough to allow his being attacked.
 
Hmmm i have never really thought about that before but come to think about it i would think that Spike would be able to hurt half demons, as said above spike said that there was no demon in Tara, so by the sounds of it if there was so much as a little bit of demon on her then it wouldn't have hurt him to hit her.
 
I'm of the opinion that if Spike could hurt Buffy after coming back slightly different in Season 6 then he would definitely be able to hurt Doyle and Cordelia that really did have actual demon within them.
 
Its a weird one, like how does the chip know when their is some demon in the person, that sounds more mystical then science.

And he wasn't able to hit Buffy before she came back from the dead, even though she had demon essence in her at the time. So it seems like there is a level of demon that it can detect, and after Buffy came back she was that molecule more demon so I think it would depend on what level of demon Doyle and Cordy had.
 
Well, Tara's (rather unsatisfying) explanation of why Spike can hurt Buffy doesn't really refer to different levels of demonness, just that she's a bit different on a molecular level, and that's enough to confuse the sensors. And some suntan analogy I didn't understand. So all we can get out of that is that the chip has sensors that detect, presumably, humanness (as said before, the chip is to protect humans, not non-demons, or else he wouldn't be able to punch a wall) but can malfunction too. Shrug.
 
Regarding the chip, and I may be going a little of topic here, but Spike has said before that if he does not intend to hurt someone the chip will not fire up. He has shown this a few times throughout BtVS when he has been 'dancing' with Buffy, or staging fights with the potentials. Perhaps the chip is psychological rather then purely scientific? Perhaps it really is something inside of him that differentiates between humans and demons? Maybe that is why he was able to hurt Buffy, because he started seeing her as something more then human?

I may be completely wrong here, just a strange morning thought.
 
Everything makes sense apart from him seeing Buffy as more than just human. I firmly believe Spike had no idea that Buffy had a bit of demon in her since she returned.
 
dan k said:
Everything makes sense apart from him seeing Buffy as more than just human. I firmly believe Spike had no idea that Buffy had a bit of demon in her since she returned.
Click to expand...

Sorry, maybe I explained myself incorrectly. I don't mean that Spike regarded her as having demon in her, but that Spike saw Buffy as being more than human. One of the things that Spike said alot through Season 6 is that now she has been in heaven and been bought back she can see a darkness that she previously could not.
Buffy was different, but perhaps it wasn't the subtle molecular difference that meant he could hit her, perhaps it was something more subconscious. It would make sense if it was psychological seeing as how Professor Walsh was a psych teacher, not a science teacher.

Basically - I also firmly believe that Spike had no idea that Buffy had a bit of demon in her.
 
Borrowed from Masq, the chip works of the sensory information that Spike takes in. On an unconscious level he's able to tell a lot from his nose even before he processes it on a conscious level. The information he got from Buffy deviated enough from what his senses deem human so the chip didn't fire. Whether Spike could hurt any human with a sunburn or whether Tara simply equated the difference in Buffy physically as being as insignificant as a sunburn, is unclear.
 
caitaintdead
caitaintdead
Thanks. Well said.
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