Slayers and Vampires : the complete uncensored, unauthorized oral history of Buffy & Angel

[one eyed chicklet]

But he does good things for Joyce and Dawn as well.

Well, they are her family, I just expected that he was nice to them because Buffy would want him to. And cared for Dawn when she was dead because it was the closest thing to Buffy he had.
Spike's human personality was a lot more emotionally based than most people's would be, which is why I just assumed that he retained more of his emotional side than a lot of other vampires.

we see that Spike killing his Mummy really messed him up because he was, y'know, so special.

Then again, the only other vampire we have seen kill their parents is Angelus, and he wasn't exactly a big fan of his father and Spike did have a close connection with his mother as a human.

He's the only soulless vampire that gets a lot of screen time, I just kind of thought that if we saw more vampires for a longer period of time that way they would seem different too.

 

[thetopher]

Well, they are her family, I just expected that he was nice to them because Buffy would want him to.

But Buffy had a big family, as of S5; she had Willow and Xander and Giles. Spike wasn't particularly nice to them. Maybe it was just 'blood' family but still Spike seems to have made a choice to be nice to some and not to others. Hmn.

Spike's human personality was a lot more emotionally based than most people's would be, which is why I just assumed that he retained more of his emotional side than a lot of other vampires.

But was he? Was William 'more emotional' than other people? He was romantic, certainly, and loved his Mum quite a lot, but he wasn't that remarkable. On both shows we are seen the sainted Drusilla, selfless Alonna (Gunn's sister) and even little kids all become murderous monsters when they turn.
Was William somehow better than them? No. And yet...

Then again, the only other vampire we have seen kill their parents is Angelus, and he wasn't exactly a big fan of his father and Spike did have a close connection with his mother as a human.

Penn (who Angelus sired) slaughtered his family over and over again (symbolically) for many decades. It's well established in the mythos that vampires usually go and kill their mortal family, possibly at the urging of their sire. What made Spike 'remarkable' (apparently) is that he wanted to save him Mum and was upset that she wasn't grateful.

He's the only soulless vampire that gets a lot of screen time, I just kind of thought that if we saw more vampires for a longer period of time that way they would seem different too.

I tend to disagree. The writers intent was to show that Spike was somehow more human than most vampires for whatever reason. After all Darla got a reasonable amount of juicy plots but nobody thinks she's somehow a special vampire, she's an awesome Machiavellian baddie for the most part; still interesting but nobody makes that many excuses for her actions.

To be fair I'm gonna say that most of the above is me playing devil's advocate, not my opinion but what the writers were trying to show. What I took away from the series was much simpler; Spike is a fairly fun and sociable (though still very evil and vicious) vampire that got too many shocks to the brain and snapped, 'fell in love' with the source of most of his troubles (Buffy the slayer), and then the rest can be explained away by his own warped and romantic view of himself and the world. The fact that that the view doesn't shift that much after Spike gets a soul is kinda well, pathetic, but all in all its a better explaination that the narrative the writers tried on us; which was basically 'cuz special'

 

[one eyed chicklet]

To be fair I'm gonna say that most of the above is me playing devil's advocate, not my opinion but what the writers were trying to show. What I took away from the series was much simpler; Spike is a fairly fun and sociable (though still very evil and vicious) vampire that got too many shocks to the brain and snapped, 'fell in love' with the source of most of his troubles (Buffy the slayer), and then the rest can be explained away by his own warped and romantic view of himself and the world. The fact that that the view doesn't shift that much after Spike gets a soul is kinda well, pathetic, but all in all its a better explaination that the narrative the writers tried on us; which was basically 'cuz special'

Yeah, I was just explaining what I thought.
I could tell the writers were struggling in season 7 because they were trying to deal with too much at once, bringing Buffy back to normal, setting up the Big Bad, getting Willow back, and introducing new characters. I liked the Spike story to an extent but they seemed to be trying to do a 'quick-fix' for him because they wanted to redeem him, I'm glad they brought him back for Angel season 5, it changed my opinion of souled Spike. Also, to be fair on Spike in season 7, he was a wreck and he was thrown directly back into the fight and encouraged to be his old self.

Was William 'more emotional' than other people?

I think my wording choice was a bit crappy there. I meant more sensitive and romantic and it just showed more in his personality.

What made Spike 'remarkable' (apparently) is that he wanted to save him Mum

Again, he seems to be a lot closer to his mum than most people so I just put it down to that.

 

[katmobile]

But he does good things for Joyce and Dawn as well. And helps the gang out when there isn't much in it for him. The writers had said that they wanted to illustrate that 'Spike was different'- that was their intent in S7. See how he's portrayed in flashback in 'LMPTM' and how tender he is with him Mum compared with his attitude in S5 'FFL' (parts of which are set right after) and we see that Spike killing his Mummy really messed him up because he was, y'know, so special.
He was special for all those hundred and twenty plus years and murder and such (but that wasn't really his fault, that was Angel's fault...)

Gunn's sister when she was vamped also wanted to turn him out of what to a souless being unconcerned by the greater good were altruistic reasons i.e. to keep them together and share a way of life that was easier than the one they'd lived as mortals. She does this after telling him she feels stronger her priorities are messed up as a vamp but she geuninely thinks she's doing him a favour - her care for him isn't in question. So having feelings for family isn't unique to Spike.
Saying something is or isn't is thinking in binary. Most vampires aren't redeamable what redeams Spike is a mixture of circumstances - operant conditioning - and his own nature and obsessions. You can if you wish see ensoulment as karmic - Angelus specialised in cruelty so it was visited upon him by ensoulment. Spike's obseesion with slayers bit him in the arse regarding his feelings for Buffy.

David Fury goes with soul residue as that makes sense to him but I think he's someone who tends think in absolutes and it says more about him than the reality. I see it more as heart residue. Someone on Passion of the Nerd's website sees vampirisation as being like someone who steals a phone but can't change any of the settings only how they use them. I think it's more like it can delete any more purely altruistic programming and adds one that will ramp any violent, sadist or vindictive urges and blood lust.
Sam Lawson's programs were all deleted hence he couldn't derive satisfaction from systematically practicing evil.

 

[Mylie]

There wasn't anything interesting/new in the 10 pages left for s6. It was mostly stuff we already know about OMWF and the cast and crew praising Joss for it. So I decided to go straight to s7...

The fact is most of the cast not only knew it was the last year but were very glad of it. However, some of the crew did not know, which was totally my bonehead mistake. The actors did know and they kind of sucked up some energy from the crew. They just felt an official announcement should have been made before it was [on] the cover of a magazine, and they're not wrong. I was just like, "We've known this from the beginning of the year". It was just about paying respect. - Joss Whedon

Season seven was a bitch to film. They were trying to convince Sarah to come back for an eighth season, and Sarah would have none of it. We were known as "Buffy the Weekend Slayer" around Hollywood. Most shows film twelve hours a day and not a minute longer than twelve hours, because after twelve hours you have to pay the crew double. Twelve hours was a minimum day on Buffy. It was fourteen, sixteen, eighteen normally. We went up to twenty quite often. So, we would start at 4:30 in the morning on Monday and we would end when the sun rose Saturday morning. There were a lot of people in Los Angeles that would not work on Buffy, because they knew the long hours. And nobody got toasted more than Sarah Michelle Gellar; she was in almost every scene. When you do that to an actor for seven years straight, there's a good chance that they're going to want to marry Freddie Prinze Jr. and make cookies after it's over. No amount of money was going to change that. She was the consummate professional. She was on time all the time, had her lines down without fail, never missed a beat. That woman is a machine; she's amazing. and she carried that show for seven years. - James Marsters

Plan B, in case Sarah could not be wooed into more episodes, they were searching for a replacement for her. They had the idea of the Potentials. I don't know if there were five or seven wonderful young actresses that they were looking at to see if one of them could be the new Buffy. - James Marsters

Not true at all. I love James, but he has no idea what he's talking about. Potentials was not a network decision. It was my idea that I pitched to Joss, and he wound up buying the idea. I will say there was always talk, I think, from the network of Dawn being somebody, initially in the inception, but I don't think that ever became serious. It was just a thought in the beginning of, like "Oh, maybe if Sarah doesn't come back we can keep Dawn". But Dawn was, she just didn't seem to be the character to carry the show. If there was going to be a spin-off, I guarantee you it was going to be Faith. There's no reason at all to look elsewhere than Eliza, because Faith was an awesome character. So trust me, the Potentials was not a network plan to spin off the show. - David Fury


Not gonna lie... those last 2 quotes made me lmao.

 

[WillowFromBuffy]

What made Spike 'remarkable' (apparently) is that he wanted to save him Mum and was upset that she wasn't grateful.

I think it is more correct to say that Spike wanted to keep his mum. And he gets upset, because his mother tells him that she only pretended to love him.

I don't see how this makes Spike good or special. Spike is needy. And he is not the only vampire who is like this. Harmony, Drusilla, James and Darla all express grief after being abandoned. Spike is perhaps a little more emotional than the average vamp, but not really by all that much. Angel is the only vampire among the big ones who never expresses any sort of human quality while soulless. And even he was supposedly forever haunted by his unresolvable daddy issues, doomed to forever see himself as a failure.

 

[one eyed chicklet]

The people with the problems were the Spike-Buffy shippers who really wanted them to get together.

Not a Spuffy shipper but the AR scene was horrific to watch. Yes I get it, he’s still evil but that was too far for me, that scene made me feel sick to my stomach. I’ve seen rape scenes on TV before but they were never as bad as this. I got about 10 seconds in and I couldn’t stand hearing Buffy screaming so I just skipped it. Again, i don’t care about Spuffy, i like Buffy and Spike as characters, I never wanted them to be a thing (outside of Something Blue because that was just funny).
They always seemed to be pushing two agendas which is why it took me so long to come to terms with Spike again, I was never sure whether we were supposed to love him or hate him.

 

[DeadlyDuo]

No it ain't; its actually just kinda contrived storytelling imo. Confused shouldn't be mistaken for subtle.

The Spuffy writing couldn't be subtle if its life depended on it. The writers literally had Spike wake up and realise he was in love with Buffy despite his previous attempts to kill her. They retconned the Lovers Walk Sprusilla break up to be all about Spuffy when it originally wasn't (Dru was pissed that Spike made a truce with Buffy, not that he was in love with her), they also brought Drusilla back just so that Spike could reject her in favour of Spuffy. Essentially the writers tried to take down Sprusilla because Spuffy couldn't stand independently on its own two feet, hence why they tried to diminish the previous (far superior IMO) relationship in an attempt to make Spuffy "work".

Either vampires are irredeemable or their not; Buffy should kill them because of this or not. Watchers didn't make up the fact that vampires kill and slaughter and spread like a plague. We are shown time and again that vampires are soulless, evil things that are- like many monsters on the show- a metaphor for something.

The opening monologue basically defines Buffy's role as controlling the vampire and demon population:

"Into every generation a slayer is born: one girl in all the world, a chosen one. She alone will wield the strength and skill to fight the vampires, demons, and the forces of darkness; to stop the spread of their evil and the swell of their number. She is the Slayer."

There are never not going to be demons or vampires, Buffy's role is to keep the balance between good and evil, hence why the First targeted the potentials and slayers because it wanted to tip the balance in evil's favour (and massively screwed up by helpfully digging up the one weapon that Buffy needed to win).

We are told by the writers that Spike-one of the worst vampires on record- is different; he has 'soul-residue' and therefore more 'capacity for good' and ability to make moral choices. This clearly makes him MORE responsible than any other vampire for the crimes he commited against his victimes, especially Buffy, and yet it can be argues that he cares the least out of all the 'souled' vampires we see.

In other words, the writers needed an excuse for why Spike was Buffy's lapdog even though it creates other issues.

But he does good things for Joyce and Dawn as well. And helps the gang out when there isn't much in it for him. The writers had said that they wanted to illustrate that 'Spike was different'- that was their intent in S7. See how he's portrayed in flashback in 'LMPTM' and how tender he is with him Mum compared with his attitude in S5 'FFL' (parts of which are set right after) and we see that Spike killing his Mummy really messed him up because he was, y'know, so special.
He was special for all those hundred and twenty plus years and murder and such (but that wasn't really his fault, that was Angel's fault...)

The writers did a disservice to Spike by making his sole storyline Spuffy. I think Spike should've been kept somewhat evil or at the very least soulless.

He's the only soulless vampire that gets a lot of screen time, I just kind of thought that if we saw more vampires for a longer period of time that way they would seem different too.

I agree. There is a difference between the characterisation of the whirlwind and the general redshirt vamps that Buffy stakes on a regular basis.

But Buffy had a big family, as of S5; she had Willow and Xander and Giles. Spike wasn't particularly nice to them. Maybe it was just 'blood' family but still Spike seems to have made a choice to be nice to some and not to others. Hmn.

Joyce and Dawn treated Spike respectfully, the scoobies didn't. They don't have to like him, but there was no reason why they couldn't at least be civil to him since he was a member of team scooby.

What made Spike 'remarkable' (apparently) is that he wanted to save him Mum and was upset that she wasn't grateful.

I think he was more upset that she tried to sexually assault him.

Given that we've seen Spike uphold his end of bargains even when he doesn't need to eg Ford, my theory is that as a kid he made a promise to his dying father to always take care of his mother. Spike took that promise seriously even as a vampire hence why he thought siring his mother would make her well. He had no idea how nasty she would turn out. He always knew his mother as one thing (loving, kind, etc) and now he was being presented with the complete opposite. It's also possible that he never really confronted what happened and just tried to avoid it.

What I took away from the series was much simpler; Spike is a fairly fun and sociable (though still very evil and vicious) vampire that got too many shocks to the brain and snapped, 'fell in love' with the source of most of his troubles (Buffy the slayer), and then the rest can be explained away by his own warped and romantic view of himself and the world. The fact that that the view doesn't shift that much after Spike gets a soul is kinda well, pathetic, but all in all its a better explaination that the narrative the writers tried on us; which was basically 'cuz special'

I think the monks spell did a number on all the scoobies including Spike.

In my view, Angelus is the anomaly amongst vampires, not Spike.

 

[Taake]

When you do that to an actor for seven years straight, there's a good chance that they're going to want to marry Freddie Prinze Jr. and make cookies after it's over. No amount of money was going to change that. She was the consummate professional.

Lol! Love this quote.

Also, yeah, replacing SMG with a Potential, pffft, have another cookie James 😛

 

[Mylie]

I do have to say one [of my] favorite memories of doing the entire series was doing "Lies My Parents Told Me", which was an episode I cowrote with Drew Goddard and directed in the latter part of the season. It was a Spike-centric episode. Principal Wood's mother was killed by Spike, and it was a whole revenge story, but it was just a really fun, glorious experience for me. I had so many different great experiences working on Buffy and Angel, but my last meaningful involvement in Buffy was that episode. - James Marsters

I feel that I wrote the perfect ending and wrapped everything up exactly the way it should be and really sort of the final chord of this beautiful symphony. That, unfortunately, was in season five. So with season seven, I sort of had to shut the door on this as the last episode a little bit, because the weight of that was crushing me. I was terrified. But I so very specifically knew what I needed to say and what I needed to have happen. That was all in there. - Joss Whedon

The finale was fun, but it wasn't cool. Spike has no idea that he was going to be the big hero. He just wanted a freaking necklace. He just didn't want Angel to have that necklace and he was just proud that he got it and not Angel. It was just very petty on his part and the thing starts glowing and he lights on fire and he's like "What the f... oh no!" I played it as it wasn't a big heroic act. It was a wonderful scene, though, between Buffy and Spike. He could proclaim his love before he was gone. But I don't think of him as the heroic savior in that; I think of him as he guinea pig hero. - James Marsters

When you get into actually writing the finale, you're just like "Oh God, it's not good enough". Then you're like "Dude, you've got to chill", because it's unbearable pressure. You want it to go out with a bang; you don't want it to dribble out. You want the last episode to mean something that no other episode has. It was ****ing large. It was so hard to shoot. - Joss Whedon

Faith is my girl. She's always been good to me, and she's been a good friend to me. I love that character, this show, the places we've gone, and all the different emotions we've experimented with. I feel like she's a part of me. It was good to be back on Buffy. Sarah is such a doll. We were like reunited high school friends. - Eliza Dushku

I do have visions of spinning the show off into a Star Trek-kian film franchise, but I also have visions of invading Poland, so we'll see which one I'll do. I want the show to be remembered as a consistently intelligent, funny, emotionally involving entertainment that subtly changed the entire world... or a small portion of pop culture. Enlightenment is the slowest process this side of evolution. Three steps forward, nice steps back. It's very hard to have come up in the 70s, to be raised by a feminist and then live through the Reagan era, and now God help us. Feminism, which hopefully will become an obsolete term by the time I'm dead, is a really important thing. Not just feminism, but antimisogyny. Changing the way that people think about women and the way they think about themselves is what I want to do with my life. There are other things I have to say, there are other things I want to do and stories I want to tell, but that's the most important thing to me. If Buffy made the slightest notch in any of pop culture in that direction, well that's pretty damn good. - Joss Whedon

I'm done with BtVS and I'll the AtS part soon! 🙂

I was surprised about James's quote regarding Lies My Parents Told Me... I'm wondering if the book didn't make a mistake and they should have attributed the quote to David Fury as he cowrote the episode with Drew, directed it and it was his last episode on BtVS.

 

[Priceless]

I'm a bit late to this party as I've just started this book. It's a real page turner. I'm stupidly hopeful it will give me some sort of different view on what happened on set between Charisma and Joss. So far Charisma has been quoted as saying 'I thought he [Joss] hated me' and how she would be so tense and nervous about her scenes that she would regularly throw up.

 

[Cyberdemon]

I always thought I was Xander before he started getting laid.

he probably is a lot like Xander IRL since Xander boned Faith, Anya and Dawn in the comics 😉 Xander was the true Alpha on the show, and i could be wrong but im pretty sure he also hooked up with Buffy at some point in the comics?

 

[Priceless]

he probably is a lot like Xander IRL since Xander boned Faith, Anya and Dawn in the comics 😉 Xander was the true Alpha on the show, and i could be wrong but im pretty sure he also hooked up with Buffy at some point in the comics?

Buffy had a crush on Xander in the comics, but they never hooked up.

 

[Faded90]

he probably is a lot like Xander IRL since Xander boned Faith, Anya and Dawn in the comics 😉 Xander was the true Alpha on the show, and i could be wrong but im pretty sure he also hooked up with Buffy at some point in the comics?

No they had Buffy wanting to hook up with him - personally I thought this was one of the most stupid things they wrote in the comics (and there’s a LOT of stupid things 😂). It came across to me like some kind of former outcast fantasy ‘the former geek gets to turn down the hot girl from high school who previously turned him down’ even down to Xander basically telling her she had her chance.......

 

[Priceless]

No they had Buffy wanting to hook up with him - personally I thought this was one of the most stupid things they wrote in the comics (and there’s a LOT of stupid things 😂). It came across to me like some kind of former outcast fantasy ‘the former geek gets to turn down the hot girl from high school who previously turned him down’ even down to Xander basically telling her she had her chance.......

I thought it made a lot of sense. Everything Buffy knew has gone, she's in a remote castle in Scotland, she's the general of an army, she no longer has Giles by her side, Willow has gone deep into the magics and Dawn has been spelled and is a giant. In that situation, with nothing safe to cling to, I think it makes sense that she would turn to the only old friend she has, Xander, for comfort. Don't get me wrong, I didn't like it, but I understood it.

 

[TriBel]

No they had Buffy wanting to hook up with him - personally I thought this was one of the most stupid things they wrote in the comics (and there’s a LOT of stupid things 😂). It came across to me like some kind of former outcast fantasy ‘the former geek gets to turn down the hot girl from high school who previously turned him down’ even down to Xander basically telling her she had her chance.......

S8 begins with Buffy "missing her mom". Hooking up with Xander is a fantasy...her fantasy...it takes her back to a time when Joyce was still alive. She did have a chance and perhaps the future would have been different if she'd taken it - it's a forking path. Plus, it's a poke in the eye for Dawn. Buffy was envious of "little pumpkin belly's" relationship with Joyce and begrudged the fact that being the slayer forced her to grow up and created a barrier between her and Joyce. There's a reason "Joyce" appears in S12 and being the Slayer is still a barrier; there's a reason Buffy is still overlooking/forgetting Dawn exists in S12 (she can't do either in S8 because of her actual size...it's a metaphor); there's a reason Buffy has moments of regression in S12. S12 irritates the hell out of me but, generally, I like the comics.

Xander was the true Alpha on the show

I don't think so...he had his moments but he also has moments when he's a complete sleaze. Doesn't make him Alpha in my book. He's "Alpha" in S12 (we have a new "Trio" - Xander, Andrew and Giles) but not because of his inherent qualities or natural abilities (as in the show he's a mix of good guy/sleazy guy) because, IMO, Whedon's reluctantly come to the conclusion we're stuck with patriarchy.

 

[Athena]

Can we keep this on the topic of the book Slayers and Vampires: The Complete Unauthorized Oral History of Buffy & Angel? Please open a new thread to discuss other topics.