By shadowkat
First why are we so obsessed with Spike? Because he is a character in constant conflict. We cannot predict his next move. We cannot predict how the other characters will react to him. And we cannot predict what the writers will do. I'm not sure Spike can predict his next move. He is like the classic characters of literature: Quasimado, Count of Monte Cristo, Oedipus, Macbeth, and Richard the III. Is he the villain? Is he the anti-hero? Is he both?
Before I get into the heart of this analysis -I want to take a moment to discuss two quotes from Lie To Me, Second Season of Btvs. The first quote states in a nutshell what we wish life was about and why growing up is so painful. It takes place after Buffy staked her boyfriend Ford. Ford, who was dying of inoperable brain tumors, had made a deal with Spike to become a vampire in exchange for Buffy. (edited for length and emphasis)
Buffy: Nothing's ever simple anymore. I'm constantly trying to work it out. Who to love or hate. Who to trust. It's just, like, the more I know, the more confused I get. (edited for length) Does it ever get easy?
Giles: What do you want me to say?
Buffy: (looks up at him) Lie to me.
Giles:Yes, it's terribly simple. The good guys are always stalwart and true, the bad guys are easily distinguished by their pointy horns or black hats, and, uh, we always defeat them and save the day. No one ever dies, and everybody lives happily ever after.
Oh and if only that were true - both in the Buffyverse and in ours. But then things wouldn't be quite so interesting, would they? We wouldn't have characters like Spike to discuss. And here's what Buffy tells Ford when he tells her he wants to become a vampire. He believes becoming a vampire guarantees immortality and eternal youth, instead of the painful death he dreads.
Buffy: Well, I've got a news flash for you, braintrust: that's not how it works. You die, and a demon sets up shop in your old house, and it walks, and it talks, and it remembers your life, but it's not you.
Remembers your life? Lets remember that phrase. It's important. In Season 5 of BvTs the Writers posed a very interesting question to their audience: What if we turned a moral, kind, scholarly, Victorian poet into a vampire? Now let's back up a moment here and evaluate what this means. Human beings are animals. In our primal pre-conscious state we are violent creatures, which kill other animals including each other to survive, this is chronicled in religious and scientific literature. Then sometime in our evolutionary development we became conscious, no longer primal, no longer just beasts, we now had the ability to reason, we have a soul, a compass which leads us to believe we can accomplish more by helping one another. We learned that violence was unseemly, wrong. In Buffyverse - Giles states way back in HARVEST: "This world is older than any of you know. Contrary to popular mythology, it did not begin as a paradise. For untold eons demons walked the Earth. They made it their home, their... their Hell. But in time they lost their purchase on this reality. The way was made for mortal animals, for, for man. All that remains of the old ones are vestiges, certain magicks, certain creatures...The books tell the last demon to leave this reality fed off a human, mixed their blood. He was a human form possessed, infected by the demon's soul. He bit another, and another, and so they walk the Earth, feeding... Killing some, mixing their blood with others to make more of their kind. Waiting for the animals to die out, and the old ones to return."
In Season 1-Season 3, every demon was made from an amoral human. People like the character in Alfred Bester's novel. But Fool For Love changed everything. The infected human was a Victorian scholar, a poet. A good man. Here's the scene from Fool For Love where we see what Spike was before he became a vampire:
ARISTOCRAT #2: Ah, William! Favor us with your opinion. What do you make of this rash of disappearances sweeping through our town? Animals or thieves?
SPIKE/WILLIAM(haughty):I prefer not to think of such dark, ugly business at all. That's what the police are for. I prefer placing my energies into creating things of beauty.
When Drusilla turns him - she's not tempting him with a life of violence and debauchery. She is tempting a lonely soul with acceptance. She tells him that she understands his desire to focus on beauty, on effulgence. She isn't lying. Here's the crossover scene from Darla showing poor Dru's point of view:
Angelus: "Well, if you're lonely, Dru, why don't you make yourself a playmate?"
Dru: "I could. I could pick the wisest and bravest knight in all the land - and make him mine forever with a kiss."
So what happens if you make a vampire out of a good kind man? It is in a sense the opposite of Alfred Bester's book, Demolished Man - instead of making the corrupt man good, they've corrupted the good man. (Demolished Man is a sci-fi novel written by Alfred Bester in 1951. It is about a man who does not live by society's rules. He is wealthy and powerful and a murderer. He has decided to live as he sees fit. So society sends a group of telepathic cops after him. When they capture him, they demolish his mind and personality. They insert all sorts of psychic barriers making it impossible for him to hurt people. He becomes someone else. The soul of the man is gone. They have not only removed his capacity for violence but also his free will. )
But the evil writers of ME did not stop there - oh no, they twisted the knife again. They created a chip, a cute government chip and inserted it into our boy's head, effectively inhibiting his capacity to commit violent acts. This theme is explored in more depth in the Anthony Burgess novel - A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, later made into a brilliant film by Stanley Kubrick. The protagonist in A Clockwork Orange leads a violent gang of rapists, vandals and murderers. He violently cripples a man and rapes the man's wife while dancing to "Singing in The Rain". He is a fascinating character who lives outside society's rules. And for those of you who like the nature vs. nurture debate - the character of Alex in A Clockwork Orange was raised by working class brutes, who verbally abuse each other and their son. His world is a utopian mess. His peers celebrate his violence and urge him on. The more violent he is, the more his peers revere him. His accent is North London. He's very crude, very sexual. And he reminds me a great deal of Spike in School Hard (Season 2, Btvs). Eventually the government nabs him and conditions him to get violently ill whenever he sees violence, thinks about it, or does it. By the time the government is through with him, he can't hit or hurt anyone without getting violently ill. Like the Demolished Man - A Clockwork Orange discusses what happens when we strip away someone's capacity to commit violence. Are we taking away their free will? Both ask the same question - is this ethical? Does this truly rehabilitate the criminal? Can a corrupt individual who has committed atrocious acts be redeemed via conditioning? Or is this merely turning the fiend into a robot, a pathetic shell? After all the protagonist of A Clockwork Orange can still think for himself, he is still an amoral opportunistic bastard - he just can't hit you. So have we really done society or the character an injustice by removing that capacity? It's not the same as the Demolished Man after all - we didn't remove his personality and insert a new one. All we did was put him on a leash.
And has Spike, like the character in A Clockwork Orange, been put on a leash? Is that all it is? Would he resort to violent acts once that leash is removed, like a prized pit-bull? Is he, in truth, just the animal that Drusilla, Angelus, and Darla created? Have all the remnants of the good Victorian gentleman's personality been erased or demolished by the demon?
Let's face it - we all love a good villain. The bad guy is more interesting than the hero, more conflicted, more unpredictable. We know the hero will probably succeed. That the hero will live, they usually do. But we don't know what's going to happen to the villain. And really good villains are conflicted ones - ones who could possibly change their course in midstream - Shakespeare, the Greeks, just about every literary great has explored this idea. Regardless of what we think of him now - Spike started out as one of the most interesting and seductive villains to hit BTvs. Like the character in A Clockwork Orange - he lived life by his rules. He did what he wanted. He drank, played, he destroyed because it was fun! He cavorted with Drusilla, he stole. The world was his playground. He ruled! Then Buffy dropped a pipe organ on his head and poor Spike was confined to a wheelchair. The world ceased being his playground. Drusilla was now in control and he could do only small things to please her. To make matters worse, Angel became Angelus and Drusilla - his ripe wicked plum- drifts further and further away. How tortuous it must have been for him to watch Angelus cavort with Dru. To watch Angelus plot and plan. To sit helplessly by when Angelus makes all the decisions - where they live, who gets hurt, what to do next. There is an interesting scene in Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered (Season 2, Btvs): Spike has gotten Drusilla a valentine's gift - it's a lovely necklace with a ruby heart shaped pendant.
Spike: Fancy it, pet?
Drusilla: Ahhh. It's beautiful. Mm.
Spike: Nothing but the best for my gir...(Angelus walks up to the table and sets down a human heart, fresh and bloody. He smiles over at Spike, then down at Drusilla.)
Angelus: Happy Valentine's Day, Dru.
Drusilla: Oh... (holds her hands over it) Angel!(Angelus raises his eyebrows at Spike.)It's still warm. (Spike closes his eyes and lets out a deep breath, then looks back up at Angelus.)
Angelus: I knew you'd like it. (inhales the aroma) I found it in a quaint little shopgirl. (He sees the necklace, picks it up and holds it out to have a look at it.) Cute. (reaches around Drusilla's neck with it) Here. (She pulls her hair back and away so he can close the clasp behind her neck. Spike wheels toward them, upset with Angelus' forwardness.)
Spike: I'll get it.
Angelus: (looks up at Spike) Done. I know Dru gives you pity access, but you have to admit it's so much easier when I do things for her.
Odd. Spike gets the human gift. Angelus - the demon one. Spike - love's bitca. Until Season 2, we weren't really sure if demons could love. It is clear watching Spike and Dru that they can. As Dru says in Crush,(Season 5, Btvs): "Oh we can love quite well, just not always very wisely." Everything Spike does in Season 2 has to do with Drusilla. Drusilla to Spike regarding the slayer in School Hard: "Kill her for me, Spike. Kill her for Princess." Later in Lie to Me - Spike is about to kill everyone in the room but Buffy stops him when she holds a stake to Drusilla's chest, he lets them all go including Buffy to save Dru. In Becoming Part II - Spike flirts with Buffy but his main deal is to get Dru away from Angel. He is clearly motivated by love.
Spike's memory of William - is this motivation, "love", something left over from William? Is William still inside, somewhere? Not sure. But he clearly retains William's memories. Remember Buffy's speech to Ford in Lie to Me? Just as Drusilla retains hers - remember how she tortures Angel in What's My Line Part II (Btvs Season 2)? Reminding him of how he tortured and killed her family? "They used to eat cake, and eggs, and honey. Until you came and ripped their throats out. Say 'Uncle'. Oh, that's right, you killed my uncle." Spike, unlike Drusilla, isn't really into the whole torture thing. Is this also due to memories from William? Spike prefers things done quickly as he states in What's My Line Part II: "I'll see him die soon enough. I've never been much for the pre-show." (Angel taunts him with this because Angelus and Drusilla clearly were.) Then in Becoming Part II - when Angelus wants to take a chainsaw to Giles - Spike suggests a nicer route, like Drusilla playing with his mind. And then in Fool For Love - when Angelus and Spike argue about killing in 18th century England:
SPIKE: Come on. When was the last time you unleashed it? All out fight in a mob, back against the wall, nothing but fists and fangs? Don't you ever get tired of fights you know you're going to win?
ANGELUS :No. A real kill. A good kill. It takes pure artistry. Without that, we're just animals. (Fool for Love, Btvs Season 5)
To which Spike wonders - isn't that what we are? "Oh, I'm sorry. Did I sully our good name? We're vampires." Spike sees himself as a "bloody animal," he revels in it because to a degree that's what William would have believed. As William states - that's what the police are for, it's unseemly. The Victorian Gentleman sees all violence as unseemly. The Victorian Gentleman lives only for beauty and romantic love as expressed through poetry and verse. Here's the scene where William confesses his love for a haughty Cecily. He's just told her that the poetry he's been writing is all about her.
SPIKE :Oh, I know... it's sudden and... please, if they're no good, they're only words but... the feeling behind them... I love you, Cecily.
CECILY: Please stop!
SPIKE: I know I'm a bad poet but I'm a good man and all I ask is that... that you try to see me- (Fool for Love, Season 5 Btvs)
When Cecily rejects him and he runs into Drusilla, who changes him, what does she tell him? How does she tempt him? With words of beauty and love and romance. She, in a sense, seduces him. Remember, he's just been rejected by Cecily. No one appears to understand him. Here's the scene from Fool For Love (edited for length and emphasis):
DRUSILLA:Your wealth lies here... and here. In the spirit and... imagination. You walk in worlds the others can't begin to imagine. (Spike is riveted by her insight into his character.) I see what you want. Something glowing and glistening. Something... effulgent. (Spike is beside himself. Finally someone who understands him.)
SPIKE(sotto)Effulgent.
DRUSILLA: Do you want it? (Spike has never wanted anything more.)
SPIKE: Oh, yes! (touches her chest) God, yes. (Drusilla looks down for a moment as her face changes and her fangs descend. Spike reacts, more confused than afraid. She pulls back his shirt collar and buries her fangs in his neck. Spike cries out in pain but his cries quickly turn to moans of pleasure as Drusilla ends his human existence.)
What an odd conflict. Perfect for a debate on Nature vs. Nurture. You have a good man turned into a vampire, with no idea what that entails. Who teaches him? The Fang Gang: Dru, Darla and possibly the worst Vamp in history: Angelus, whom Spike calls in School Hard - his Yoda. Yet no matter what they teach him, he still retains those memories, the memories of a Victorian Scholar inside the head of a violent demon. (Sort of the reverse of Angel, who is the soul of a man retaining the memories of a violent demon, but I digress.) Spike has spent his unlife melding the two and not being all that successful. He lost Dru after 100 years due to the fact that 'he wasn't evil enough for her any more'(Lover's Walk, Season 3 Btvs). Now to add to it - he has this pesky chip. His capacity for violence has been stripped away. But has his free will? Not according to Drusilla. Drusilla believes he still has a choice that the chip doesn't matter. Here's what she says to him in Crush (edited for length and emphasis):
DRUSILLA: I don't believe in science. All those bits and molecules no one's ever seen. I trust eyes and heart alone. And do you know what mine is singing out right now. You're a killer. Born to slash ... and bash ... and... oh, bleed like beautiful poetry. No little tinker-toy could ever stop you from flowing.
SPIKE: But the pain ... love, you don't understand, it's ... it's searing. It's, um, blinding. She puts her hand on the top of his head and pulls it down toward her.
DRUSILLA: All in your head. I can see it. Little bit of ... plastic, spiderwebbing out nasty blue shocks. And every one is a lie. Electricity lies, Spike. It tells you you're not a bad dog, but you are.
Then she attempts to prove it to him, by taking him to the Bronze, a scene that is later repeated in Smashed (Season 6, Btvs). Both scenes are interesting because in both Spike is clearly talking himself into the act. In Crush, I'm struck by two things first the lyrics the writers chose and second the expression on Spike's face when Dru breaks the girl's neck and flings her at him - telling him to feed. He is almost in tears. According to the transcript - he closes his eyes, takes a few deep breathes and forces himself to drink. Here's the lyrics to the song playing in the background, the song is Key by the Devices: "And this time I'm staying to bury the trail that you left, you left, And if I was cold, well then you would stay inside me, warm me... I told you just like I told everyone I still have some doubts that you are the reason, Still this is just so hard 'cause I know that I'll be left like always, Here I'm safe so here I stay, Lift me out, lift the doubt." I think this tells us what our boy is thinking. He wants to go back and be the vamp but he was left last time. He wants to stop being the bad vamp because he has fallen for the slayer but she's just rejected him. His motivation for biting the girl appears to be in direct response to two things : Drusilla's invitation to rejoin her and Buffy's rejection, not to in response to his own desire. Just as his attempt to bite the girl in the alley in Smashed is in direct response to Buffy's rejection of him. "She thinks I'm confused because she's confused. I'm not confused. I know what I am. I'm a killer. I'm evil." If that's true, why does he have to say it? And perhaps it is, perhaps he's just forgotten. So is Drusilla wrong about the chip keeping him back? Or is she wrong about Spike being the bad dog?
The chip does not strip Spike of free will, all it does is limit his capacity for violence. He can still hurt people, just not physically. He can still commit evil/amoral acts. Drusilla makes this clear in Crush. So what has the chip done? According to the writers it has done the same thing to Spike that was done to Alex in A Clockwork Orange. Think about it - he can't hurt or maim living creatures. Try to imagine what this is like - you can't hit anyone. If you get punched in a bar, you can't punch back. You can't defend yourself. You can't even wack someone on the head for being an idiot. For a demon that relishes a good brawl - a good fight - this must have been overwhelming. Yet he appears to have adapted. He found that he could hit demons. And remember what he said to Angelus over a hundred years ago - "don't you ever get tired of a fight you can't win?" (Fool for Love, Season 5, Btvs) He just cares about the fight. It doesn't really matter whom it's with. Yes I'm sure he misses the killing - but if he can fight, well then life is good. So has his capacity for violence truly been stripped or is it just the bloodlust that's been curtailed? Or rather placed on a leash?
So can demons control their bloodlust? Do they have control over such an instinctual thing? Not according to the Watcher's Council. Not according to Angel. But then Angel doesn't want to admit to what Darla told him in the episode Dear Boy, Atvs Season 2: "Before you got neutered you weren't just any vampire, you were a legend! Nobody could keep up with you - not even me. You don't learn that kind of darkness. It's innate. It was in you before we ever met. - You said you can smell me? Well, I can smell you, too. My boy is still in there and he wants out!" This reminds me of what Drusilla said to Spike. Except Spike wasn't Angelus. Spike was something else and Spike only has a chip. No, no - I'm not comparing the two. What I'm asking is do demons have free will? Can they overcome a bloodlust? Harmony couldn't. But then Harmony couldn't go against the crowd as a human. She was and always will be a follower. If the popular group chose to hurt someone - she went along with it just as she does in Disharmony episode Atvs Season 2. Do demons in the Buffyverse have freewill or do their violent tendencies overwhelm it? I guess we can ask the same question about humans - do they? Or does our moral compass overwhelm it? Clearly humans do. We can choose to do good or evil. So I believe the same may be true of demons. It's just the demon is more predisposed to do evil while the human is predisposed to do good.
So if demons have free will, what happens when Spike has the chip removed? Well if we go by the American and movie version of the novel A ClockWork Orange -Spike will probably go back to his nasty ways. In that version of the novel a group of left-wingers kidnap Alex and remove his conditioning, re- enabling him to commit violent acts again, which he chooses to do without compunction. The conditioning did not change Alex. All it did was put him on a leash. He did not become a different person because of it. It did not rehabilitate him. But Alex didn't fall in love. Or care about anyone but himself. Nor did Alex have the memories of a Victorian Gentleman in his head.
It is important to note that in the British version of the novel, A Clockwork Orange, the version Burgess intended and has twenty-one chapters instead of twenty, Alex gives up violence a few months after his conditioning is removed. Not because the conditioning was removed, but because he has learned that there is more to be gained from creation than destruction. Burgess believed that was part of growing up. It was the reason his version had twenty-one chapters. The other version - the twenty chapter version - in Burgess' view was an allegory not a novel. The character has not gone through any transformation. The character has not grown. Instead he remains stunted or arrested in adolescence. He remains a "clockwork orange" or a windup toy made of juice and bone to do the bidding of God or the Devil without any choice. Of course - Burgess' character was human and Spike is a demon, but if we consider that vampires are metaphors for arrested development, is it not possible that Spike could in fact evolve in the direction of Burgess' character? Grow past the "windup toy for destruction" metaphor and become something more? Possibly become human?
