If "Seeing Red" Had Never Happened...

white avenger said:
Well, it's his show, his characters, he has creative authority, and he has said definitely on numerous occasions that Spike WAS in love with Buffy and that he DID go to Africa with no other intent than to have his soul restored. That makes it 100% canon, so, yeah, that pretty much means that it is gospel.
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How can you use that argument? You are one of the people who sees the comics as canon, right? Now I don't read them myself but I remember that panel from early S10 where Spike said he didn't really love Buffy without a soul. So which is canon then? What the creator said behind the scenes years back or the actual canon that says the opposite? You have to pick one.
 
white avenger said:
Yes, he did that, but he also later said that he really did love her, and always had.
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Well that's just stupid. Again, the writers have to pick one. I know they love having it both ways with Spike with everything he says or does, but all it does is make it look like Spike has Disassociate Identity Disorder. So which one is the real Spike? That is a question I've asked myself during the whole run of the show.
 
Spike was a rapist he said he was You leave enough blood so they cry, dont think any body would be crying if the was driving a metal stake though your leg screaming yes, he mention young girls what else would he be taking of ??? He also says the blood don't exactly flow to my brain that mean it flows to his penis his penis rules his brain Buffy killed freshly risen vampire because they must feed as soon as they rise.Spike pushed everything on to Buffy even when he knew he had killed again he could have just gone out into the Sunshine. Spike was Buffy love interest , no he wasn't Spike was Buffy abuser . I agree Spikes character was all over the place from half way though season 5 but I think this was more of a case of some sort of friction between JW and SMG and JM benefiting from it of course once season six arrived and Buffy being all but adbandoned by JW, once MN was in charge if she could have had just JM with his shirt off for the entire season she would have
 
Dora said:
dont think any body would be crying if the was driving a metal stake though your leg screaming yes, he mention young girls what else would he be taking of ???
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Two things:

1. Putting aside the issue of whether Spike is a rapist or not, why do you assume that, just because the victims are females, that Spike is talking about rape? Isn't that a bit like saying "Oh, a woman has been the victim of crime, it must automatically be rape because women can't possibly be victims of anything else other than rape!"

2. I'm pretty sure having a metal spike through your leg would involve screaming AND crying. Screaming as it goes in, crying for the time it is in your leg, then screaming when it is pulled back out and the cycle repeated. You're hardly going to scream then be silent then scream, you're going to be crying between the screams.
 
He mentioned girls of Dawns age... come on he may be dead but he is still male , helpless pretty young girl you are going to kill anyway, surely you cant be that naive to think he would have had some fun, of course he would have raped them.He was a selfish evil murdering vampire not a saint
 
Let's put it this way. Even accepting the possibility that Spike might have bee a rapist as a soulless vampire, which actually has little or no connection with the original question. Other than the attempted rape, what could the writers have used as a catalyst for Spike going on a quest for his soul?
 
Dora said:
He mentioned girls of Dawns age... come on he may be dead but he is still male , helpless pretty young girl you are going to kill anyway, surely you cant be that naive to think he would have had some fun, of course he would have raped them.He was a selfish evil murdering vampire not a saint
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But again, you're assuming that just because the victims are female, it's automatically rape. I'm not arguing about whether Spike did or didn't rape whilst soulless, I'm arguing about why you automatically think female victim= rape. That line was extremely ambiguous at best so Spike could be talking about rape or he could be talking about something else. It's not 100% guaranteed set in stone that he was talking of rape. It's not naïve to think that females can be victims of other things than rape. I'd say it is more naïve to assume that is the only crime they can be victims of hence why you automatically think Spike is talking of rape when he mentions girls Dawn's age.

white avenger said:
Let's put it this way. Even accepting the possibility that Spike might have bee a rapist as a soulless vampire, which actually has little or no connection with the original question. Other than the attempted rape, what could the writers have used as a catalyst for Spike going on a quest for his soul?
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I would've preferred them to use a reason relating to Spike himself wanting his soul back rather than Spike doing it for Buffy. The idea that someone has to dramatically change a part of themselves in order to get another person to love them just doesn't sit right. Spike getting his soul back for Buffy is treated as this big romantic gesture but it's not. Would it be seen as romantic if Buffy had to lose her soul in order for Spike to love her?

I don't think Spike should've got his soul back, instead his story should've gone differently from season 6 onwards.
 
DeadlyDuo said:
The idea that someone has to dramatically change a part of themselves in order to get another person to love them just doesn't sit right. Spike getting his soul back for Buffy is treated as this big romantic gesture but it's not.
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Granted, but there could have been some situation, other than the attempted rape, come up where Spike could have blamed himself and his lack of a soul for something happening to Buffy or Dawn. Just the fact that Spike still saw himself as a monster ("I know you'll never love me. I know that I'm a monster," doesn't necessarily equate to, "If I had a soul, you would love me." The writers could have found another reason, just as valid as the attempted rape, for Spike to come to the realization that, if he was truly going to be considered one of the good guys (Xander: "I never for a moment forgot that he was just a soulless THING, all summer" was a sentiment almost certainly shared by Giles, at least, if not all of the Scoobies)

Vampires in the Whedonverse are monsters. There's no denying that fact. Joss made an exception with Angel because of the soul, and because of that, Spike could never be anything but a killer with an electronic device in his brain that kept him more or less under control unless he somehow regained his control, and just as importantly, lost the chip so that there would be no doubt that he was good by his own choice, not the Initiative's artificial deterrent. I just wish that they could have found a less heinous reason for his decision.
 
white avenger said:
The writers could have found another reason, just as valid as the attempted rape, for Spike to come to the realization that, if he was truly going to be considered one of the good guys (Xander: "I never for a moment forgot that he was just a soulless THING, all summer" was a sentiment almost certainly shared by Giles, at least, if not all of the Scoobies)
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I never liked that the scoobies treated Spike as a "thing" despite the fact that he helped them out on numerous occasions. They don't have to like him (and they have good reason not to) but they could still treat him as a person, especially because they know him and he fights alongside them. They treated Harmony as a person, even though she was a vampire, because they knew her throughout high school.

Spike complains to Anya about being treated as a "thing" and he's shown to care for people he likes such as Joyce and Dawn because they treat him as an actual person. Perhaps things would've turned out differently if the scoobies had treated Spike as an actual person.
 
DeadlyDuo said:
Spike complains to Anya about being treated as a "thing" and he's shown to care for people he likes such as Joyce and Dawn because they treat him as an actual person.
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Well he was good at pretending, I give him that. As soon as he got between Buffy's legs Dawn didn't exist for him anymore. The only conclusion I can take away from that is, he actually didn't care about Dawn and only used her to score points with Buffy. As for Joyce, I remember the scene where Joyce was telling him a story and Spike said to tell him again while he actually looked bored out his mind.

Perhaps things would've turned out differently if the scoobies had treated Spike as an actual person.
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Well he set the ball in motion. Maybe he shouldn't have played on their fears and insecurities in S4. Or always expect something in return whenever he helped. And maybe be nice to more people than just anyone named Summers. I don't see anything that Spike did for them so that they would owe him any decency.
 
white avenger said:
Other than the attempted rape, what could the writers have used as a catalyst for Spike going on a quest for his soul?
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Maybe this has been earlier stated in the thread, but he could've almost killed/risked the life of Dawn. Or Buffy I suppose, but it feels like Dawn would have more of an emotional impact on her. Especially as how she started trusting Spike in the first place through him protecting Dawn from Glory. I know she's not in the same emotional place as the end of season 5, but still imagine the look on her face if she had found a lifeless or bloody Dawn, how she would've have looked at Spike...

Obviously Dawn has to live for this to work, or Buffy probably would never have forgiven him, but I think it could've worked to "shake" Spike up enough to a)get out of town for his own saftey, b) make a radical change to his person, such as getting a soul. How Spike-almost-killing-Dawn would have looked is another matter, and how it would've come about I'm not sure. But any attempted-rape (of anyone) would've been necessary then.

🙂
 
white avenger said:
Let's put it this way. Even accepting the possibility that Spike might have bee a rapist as a soulless vampire, which actually has little or no connection with the original question. Other than the attempted rape, what could the writers have used as a catalyst for Spike going on a quest for his soul?
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Honesty I think I said this in another thread, but I don't tgink anything had to be a cataclyst to make it interesting. If the writers had continued the arc they had given Spike in the end of season 5 and early 6, they could have done it much better. By early season 6 he had showed how he had changed. He protected Dawn and helped the scoobies even though Buffy was dead, he had seemed to accept the fact that Buffy would never love him in the Gift and still fought by her side, and then was a genuine friend to her and her confidante after she returned from the dead. If they had continued in this way, they could have built a solid friendship between the two of them that could have resulted in Spike realizing the only way Buffy would love him is if he got a soul. They had a perfect set up that they destroyed instead for A metaphor.
 
GraceK said:
Honesty I think I said this in another thread, but I don't tgink anything had to be a cataclyst to make it interesting. If the writers had continued the arc they had given Spike in the end of season 5 and early 6, they could have done it much better. By early season 6 he had showed how he had changed. He protected Dawn and helped the scoobies even though Buffy was dead, he had seemed to accept the fact that Buffy would never love him in the Gift and still fought by her side, and then was a genuine friend to her and her confidante after she returned from the dead. If they had continued in this way, they could have built a solid friendship between the two of them that could have resulted in Spike realizing the only way Buffy would love him is if he got a soul. They had a perfect set up that they destroyed instead for A metaphor.
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But if he had continue progress in a positive way then why would he have needed the soul?, maybe if he had continue with the progress and in the end of S6 the chip would have failed, it could be more interesting the idea of can he be "good" without the soul or not?, but the idea of a vampire who doesn´t need a soul would have broke Buffy rules and probably many fans would disagree
 
jmm said:
But if he had continue progress in a positive way then why would he have needed the soul?, maybe if he had continue with the progress and in the end of S6 the chip would have failed, it could be more interesting the idea of can he be "good" without the soul or not?, but the idea of a vampire who doesn´t need a soul would have broke Buffy rules and probably many fans would disagree
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He would still need a soul for all the reasons the show had pushed the value of a soul for 6 years. To be the best he could be, to be a worthwhile partner to Buffy, to truly understand her moral feelings, to be able to fight beside her on a higher level, to wear that stupid piece of costume jewelry and save the world. All those reasons existed all along, and could have been compelling enough, indeed even MORE compelling for him in the context of a real relationship with Buffy.

He would understand what having a soul could mean to her and towards helping her mission.

IMO, the attempted rape didn't ADD value or meaning to his getting a soul, it detracted from it.

His arc and choice would have been that much more powerful without the AR.
 
A good scenario would be this IMO, A weapon is uncovered, but to use it it has to be a vampire with a soul. Naturally they want Angel, but he's dealing with something at the time and is unavailable, so Buffy asks Spike to get cursed. Instead, for whatever reason, he goes to Africa instead to earn it. The prophecy actually could be something like it has to be a vampire who won or chose his soul or something, in order for the weapon to be wielded. Put this at the end of Season Six, or give it an actual Big Bad, and a good writing staff, and you suddenly have a legitimate reason for Spike to get a soul that still orbits around Buffy, which would be needed.
 
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