The nickname "Spike"

[Chosen Enemy]

There are 2 refrences to the origin of William's nickname "Spike:

#1-"School Hard", Giles: "earned his nickname by torturning his victims with railroad spikes".

#2-"Fool For Love", the gentleman from Spike's flashback: "I'd rather have a railroad spike through my head than listen to that awful stuff".

So which one is the origin of William's today's nickname, Spike? Which out of these two gave William the inpiration for the name we call him by?

 

[zobothehobo]

I think it's version number 2 and version number 1 is a rumor that Spike told through the underground to make it seem scarier.

 

[kittenpoker]

I actually thought it was a combination of both.... the guy said that about his poetry and spike actually did that after he was turned.... there's one more reference in one of the very first episodes, before we even meet spike and not about him directly but xander says something about rather having a railroad spike through his head than something.... probably school related.

 

[VisionGirl]

I think it's version number 2 and version number 1 is a rumor that Spike told through the underground to make it seem scarier.

I agree with this one, especially since we never hear about this again. Then again, we didn't know about Angel etching a cross into his victim's faces before Somnambulist either!

 

[xaphania]

I think it was both, too. It's a pretty popular fab theory that after he was turned, he went and tortured those people at the party with railroad spikes, because they had taunted him, as a kind of evil irony.

 

[PassionBecoming]

I think it was both, too. It's a pretty popular fab theory that after he was turned, he went and tortured those people at the party with railroad spikes, because they had taunted him, as a kind of evil irony.

This is what I always thought - the fact that the guy mocked William in that way bred to the railroad spike torture. Though it always bugged me that this was never referenced again.

 

[white avenger]

If you recall, at the same time that Giles gave the reference to how William the Bloody got the name Spike, he also mentioned his age as being considerably more than it actually was, so it's a pretty good guess that the Watchers' Chronicles aren't exactly accurate all of the time. Almost certainly, William looked that self appointed poetry critic up after being turned and granted him, and possibly some of his cronies, his wish, but whether he ever did that to anyone else again is, at least to me, arguable. Spike said on several occasions that he was "all about the kill," going so far as to seek out two Slayers just for the challenge, whereas torture, rape, and terrorism seemed to be the specialty of Angelus. That's not to excuse Spike's bad old days, or to try and paint him as being in any way less dangerous or evil than Angelus himself was, but his was apparently a different kind if evil, based more on physical violence than torture.

 

[Onyssius]

Regardless of its origins, I really love the nickname of Spike because it sounds like a dog's name, and Spike tends to be the loyal "wolf" of his ladies.
Call me twisted 😀