I really can't say this enough: I don't dislike Spike. For the most part, you might even say I'm a fan. I'm aware that a lot of what I say these days with regard to Spike is critical, but consider it a kind of tough love, or something of the sort.
I don't know why many threads get sidetracked with Spike, even when he is peripheral or beside the point to the matter at hand. It's rather interesting to me. I'm sorry, but I'm going to pursue it this time.
Bespangled, I've read this difference of opinion of yours on the topic of Spike before, and I appreciate as much now as ever your alternative point of view. I can kind of see it your way from certain angles. Now to address a few things.
I don't see you as a hater of any sort - and it would be so boring to talk to someone who just always agreed with me. Not that it's ever likely to happen. I was worried that I was causing the whole Spike sidetracking phenomenon so it was reassuring to find it already settled in before I arrived.
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I think Spike's motivations for doing what he did are the reason for my incredulity. Yes, he did die to save the world. But I feel like he only did it for Buffy really. I ask myself, did he get his soul for anything or anyone but Buffy? The answer is no. Would he have helped out in S7 if Buffy had not been a part of the process? Again, I can't understand how anyone could say anything other than no. Then he comes back, and he does not help the Angel team while incorporeal, not for the most part. He's only concerned about himself and getting his body back. He doesn't set that aside to help in a selfless way the way a paladin or true champion would (see prophecy). He gets his body back, but afterwards he doesn't pursue the shanshu prophecy as a means to understand his destiny, he plainly does it for selfish reasons: he wants to get back at Angel. He does it to spite Angel, because he feels he still owes Angel one. And then, the whole time while he is fighting outside of W&H as a season one version of Angel, he isn't doing it with a true feeling of wanting to do good. It's a complete joke in the first few episodes, where he literally tells people he saves to bugger off and insults their intelligence after saving them, etc. And the whole time it seems clear to me he is doing it because in the back of his mind he still wants to prove something to Angel. And it is easy to see how this contrasts with Angel's example. Angel is selfless and pained to see people suffer and many other noble things. It's for these reasons (early to mid S5 at least, my memory is hazy afterwards) that it is hard for me to take the idea of Spike as Shanshu champion of good seriously.
Well, first let's take an honest look at Angel's motivations early on. For 100+ years he had a soul and he drifted around not helping anyone. Sometimes he brooded, sometimes he partied, sometimes he lived in alleys and ate rats, and once he had weights strapped to his feet so he had to rescue a sub. Then he saw lolita!Buffy, and he found himself desperately wanting to help her. So his desire to help humans actually began a few years before Spike's did - and it was only motivated by Buffy. In the early years he worked with Buffy, helped Buffy, and had no desire to help anyone without Buffy - then he slept with Buffy. I have many things to say about that and none of them are complimentary. When the girl is underage and you are more than a few years older you keep your pants zipped! He damn well should have known that this was, in essence, statutory rape. (I can love Bangel and still disapprove of this). He loses his soul and obsessively tries to destroy Buffy. It's an interesting metaphor as far as I'm concerned - because sleeping with an underage girl, if you consider yourself to be part of the fight against evil, merits punishment.
For some reason
Angel gets a complete pass on everything Angelus chooses to do. Oddly enough, though Angel seeks redemption for what he did as Angelus, somehow in Sunnydale what he did as Angelus is never counted against Angel. He's the good guy, even though he is arguably the worst villain in the entire series. Evil choices do not stick to the teflon vamp. I can't see where whitewashing him and saying Angel did nothing wrong benefits the character or the universe. It actually undercuts the quest to redeem himself.
Why should anything else he did way back when he was evil matter? He didn't have a soul then, either. Therefore he was never responsible for anything he ever chose to do - series over.
He leaves Buffy because he loves her and wants her to be safe. He continues to fight the good fight on his own, but he does so in part because of Buffy. So, if we want to look at motivation, Angel is right there with Spike in being motivated to do good by Buffy.
As for dying to save the woman he loves from dying - even though he knows she doesn't love him back - in what twisted reality is that selfish? He's gonna be dead! No hugs, no slaps on the back , no acknowledgement - nada. Realizing he isn't safe to be around, hurting someone he swore never to hurt, and going to the ends of the earth to get a soul - is selfish how? He never touches Buffy without her expressed permission. He knows that he is beneath her. He is only there to help her. I'd say he's pretty much the same as Angel in the early seasons, but somehow Angel is not seen as selfish doing the same things for the same motivation. No idea about season 7 without Buffy, but it is canon that Angel wouldn't be helping anyone without having met her.
As for AtS - in the first episode he rescues Angel from the reality that getting a necromancer really really angry at you when you are a vampire is about the stupidest thing you can do. Yes he wants to prove something to Angel, and Angel also wants to prove something. It's like saying the astronauts vs cavemen was only the fault of one of them. And telling people not to go into dark alleys wearing high heels can be interpreted as helping them. If this is about attitude and speech then Faith is never redeemed - even when she gets out of prison she still talks the same and wears the same clothes. I can just imagine what she would say while saving this moron's ass.
I mean shit, people do good things all of the time for very unadmirable reasons. I estimate a guy who saves a person for the sake of a monetary reward differently than a guy who was only motivated for concern of the other person's welfare. Spike's reasons for helping at times, getting his soul and helping save the world are not really altruistic or admirable to me. At best, he did these things for Buffy. For the love of one person, for the approval of one person, because one person really needed him, and so on...and then only after the fact and in passing for other reasons. At best.
Angel wanted to help Buffy. The difference between them is that Buffy loved Angel in a way she could never love Spike. So Angel got his reward and Spike didn't. Angel wants the Shanshu - Spike just wanted to make a point but he isn't into redemption. He knows his past can't be washed clean - the people he killed will remain dead. You chose to interpret Angel's choices as altruistic, while refusing to see that they both had the exact same motivation. If redemption was all that Angel wanted he had more than a century to go after it. It wasn't until he found Buffy that he did a damn thing for other people. Hell, he let an entire hotel full of people die. Now Angel wants the Sanshu - he is working for a reward, and you say you want him to get it. So, motivation?
As far as Spike not having changed...he didn't to me. Yes, none of the superficial things changed. But integral parts of who he is didn't change either. He is this completely different effete literati poet guy...then he becomes a vampire and it is obvious he is different and evil afterwards, not just because he is sadistic and amoral but because his personality changes completely and he adopts this tough as nails persona. It makes sense that a radical change happens because after all, he died and an evil demon took his place and became the new resident of William's former body.
Yeah - and yet somehow he remains the Victorian poet. That is not necessarily a good thing. He sees life as a huge drama, with him in the leading role. All eyes should be upon him - he feels that he ceases to exist if he is not the center of attention. When freshly changed he is sweet enough to want to turn his mother, and completely clueless on so many levels. He becomes the anti-William - coarse, violent, drunk, and brutal, but he still wants all eyes upon him. Newly turned Spike is an awful lot like Liam before he was turned. Angel wants to destroy a person, to terrify them. Spike wants to be seen - just as he asked Cecily to do. He wants to be larger than life. He wants the admiration and validation that human life withheld from him. Just like Angelus and Angel both want to be in charge, Spike retains his core personality. As Darla said, what we were informs who we are.
Then Spike gets his soul back...and nothing. His motivations prior to and after getting his soul are the same for everything. His personality does not change even a little tiny bit. And yes, he still speaks the same and carries around the same "big bad" attitude. He is oftentimes inconsiderate, rude, selfish, and worse...exactly as he was and to the same degree and in the same amount as before the soul...and shows goodness on occasion to the same degree and in the same amounts as before getting a soul as well. What's different? It must take some power I don't have, because I can't see what of any substance is different.
His motivation, as you said, is Buffy. That is not the motivation he had without his soul. What we are leaving out is chipped Spike. The Spike midway between evil and souled. Look at the differences between season two Spike and season 5 Spike - there are plenty there. Season 6 Spike love Buffy and wanted to help her. But his love was demonic love. It was perfect for Drusilla (probably the only woman he had ever actually had any sort of relationship with) but it was toxic for Buffy.
Now if having a soul means not being inconsiderate, rude, selfish, and mean then there are many soulless characters in the Buffyverse. Angel fed a room full of lawyers to his girls - that was inconsiderate, rude, selfish, and deadly. Yes, he had a reason but the whole point of being good is to not respond to evil with evil. Faith threatens to kill Connor, and frankly she is pretty much always inconsiderate, rude, selfish, and self-aggrandizing (but I love that about her). Frankly every single character is sometimes inconsiderate, rude, selfish, and worse. Spike has irritating down to an art.
Here are my problems - you are comparing chipped Spike to souled Spike - not evil Spike. So a lot of the work has been done by then - he has not hurt people in years. Does he want to - at least as much as souled Angel wanted to drink from the cashier. Does he try to - yeah, after some serious attempt to talk himself into it. But he is no longer sitting around plotting evil, calling for the order of Taraka, no longer setting minions off to bring back human snacks. Chipped Spike becomes more human with each season - not a good human in many ways, but good in a few important ways.
The other part is that Angel and Spike are measured with two distinctly different measuring sticks. Angel sees Buffy and is inspired by her - because he is good. Spike sees Buffy and is inspired by her - because he is selfish. Angel fights evil with Buffy because he is good and he loves her. Spike fights evil with Buffy because he is selfish. Angel helps out the Scoobs for the sake of Buffy, because he is good and he loves her. Spike spends the months that Buffy is dead helping the Scoobies and Dawn because he is selfish. (Some people even say it's because he wants to get in Buffy's pants - that really gives me the wiggins). Angel leaves and goes to LA to makes sure Buffy is safe because he is good and he loves her. Spike burn to death to make sure she survives the apocalypse de jour - because he is selfish. Get my drift? Yes, I compare those two mainly because the fan reaction seems to mostly divide at this juncture, but also because hey, only two souled vamps.
Why does he have to be different? Well, because Joss makes it clear that when a vampire is born, the old person is gone and an evil demon takes their place. Two totally different entities. If a vampire gets its soul, I understand that that means the former person comes back. The former person is completely different because he/she is not an evil demon. And in Spike's case, he was VERY different as William compared to Spike. I expect a real change after getting a soul back, I do. Spike doesn't make any sense to me at all post-soul, he really doesn't. He is as entertaining as ever, and I rather like Spike's personality and find him interesting anyway, but that's beside the point.
Joss also made it clear that who a person was when they were turned informs who they are once turned. I trust Darla on this one since she actually is a vampire and not just a watcher. So instead of remaining like William in his outer persona he completely changed his persona, but his pathological need to be seen remained. Spike, once he is chipped, begins to show flashes of William. He never completely returns to being William, just as Angel never returns to being a drunken wastrel with a mean streak and sever daddy issues. Once again - different measuring stick.
This is an overview - and I'm sure we can (and maybe will for a while) argue the fine points.
P.S. I love our late night board discussions while everyone else is asleep!
You are someone I really respect - your arguments are well crafted and very enjoyable! I really love our late night discussions, too!
New thread time?
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