itsnotmymind (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
itsnotmymind) wrote2012-01-12 06:21 pm
itsnotmymind) wrote2012-01-12 06:21 pm
Entry tags:
Interpreting Spike
Spike fans are a very diverse group of people--given the character's popularity, they probably make up most fans of Buffy. There's a lot of different interpretations of the character, but there is a certain interpretation of Spike that I've seen more than once from some of his more hardcore fans that doesn't really work for me.
I think the thing that makes me different from some Spike fans, is that part of what I loved about him is that, well, he’s a bad guy. And was for a very long time. A very long time. That’s a major part of who he is. And I see other Spike fans who want to give him credit for EVERY LITTLE GOOD THING he does, and take the most sympathetic interpretation of everything he does. And then if he does anything wrong, it’s not his fault, because no soul. He should get credit for the good he does, but not the bad, because he is soulless.
And, yes, obviously Spike doesn’t have a soul, and that’s not really his fault, and because of that, he may not be entirely responsible for the things he does. Especially the really evil things.
But…the very fact the soulless Spike is capable of good means that, to some extent, he is responsible for the bad (I have similar thoughts about Faith--yes, her life was very hard, and she was in a very bad situation when she made her decision to go evil in S3, but her life was even worse when she made the decision to redeem herself later. So she is capable of choosing not to kill people no matter how horrible her life is). And looking solely at the good side of Spike, seeing Spike as such a wonderful vampire because he loved Buffy and helped the Scoobies, I mean, that interests me, but not as much as seeing a Spike who was, really, just as evil in S6 as in S2, but also just as much love’s bitch in S6 as S2, and this time taking his identity from a slayer as opposed to another vampire. I think it’s more interesting, because instead of Spike being super-special and unique (although, obviously, he is very unusual; few vampires are that romantic, and that adaptable), it’s just stretching the definition of what it means to be soulless. We saw in “School Hard” that Spike was a devoted lover. We saw in “Lie To Me” that he was willing to give up his prey in order to protect his love. We saw in “Becoming, Part 2” that he was willing to betray his own kind and ally with his mortal enemy in order to get back to Drusilla (and also saw that his love for Dru, while at times selfless, could also be very selfish; he took her back against her will). What happens if someone like that falls in love, not with another vampire, but a human? A human hero? Could a soulless vampire, then, be good? What does it mean to be good? What if the human he loves starts to be less good, starts to become more like a vampire? What then?
And I don’t want Spike to get credit for every little good thing he does, because it makes it less meaningful. If Spike’s soullessness means that he is responsible only for the good he does, but not the bad, why should I care about either? Part of why I love Spike is because he was so evil, for so long.
But it’s strange—because I also get defensive of Spike, and even watching Evil Spike can make me uncomfortable at times, so maybe I’m overcompensating? Working so hard at accepting Spike’s evilness because I don’t like it? I don't know.
I think the thing that makes me different from some Spike fans, is that part of what I loved about him is that, well, he’s a bad guy. And was for a very long time. A very long time. That’s a major part of who he is. And I see other Spike fans who want to give him credit for EVERY LITTLE GOOD THING he does, and take the most sympathetic interpretation of everything he does. And then if he does anything wrong, it’s not his fault, because no soul. He should get credit for the good he does, but not the bad, because he is soulless.
And, yes, obviously Spike doesn’t have a soul, and that’s not really his fault, and because of that, he may not be entirely responsible for the things he does. Especially the really evil things.
But…the very fact the soulless Spike is capable of good means that, to some extent, he is responsible for the bad (I have similar thoughts about Faith--yes, her life was very hard, and she was in a very bad situation when she made her decision to go evil in S3, but her life was even worse when she made the decision to redeem herself later. So she is capable of choosing not to kill people no matter how horrible her life is). And looking solely at the good side of Spike, seeing Spike as such a wonderful vampire because he loved Buffy and helped the Scoobies, I mean, that interests me, but not as much as seeing a Spike who was, really, just as evil in S6 as in S2, but also just as much love’s bitch in S6 as S2, and this time taking his identity from a slayer as opposed to another vampire. I think it’s more interesting, because instead of Spike being super-special and unique (although, obviously, he is very unusual; few vampires are that romantic, and that adaptable), it’s just stretching the definition of what it means to be soulless. We saw in “School Hard” that Spike was a devoted lover. We saw in “Lie To Me” that he was willing to give up his prey in order to protect his love. We saw in “Becoming, Part 2” that he was willing to betray his own kind and ally with his mortal enemy in order to get back to Drusilla (and also saw that his love for Dru, while at times selfless, could also be very selfish; he took her back against her will). What happens if someone like that falls in love, not with another vampire, but a human? A human hero? Could a soulless vampire, then, be good? What does it mean to be good? What if the human he loves starts to be less good, starts to become more like a vampire? What then?
And I don’t want Spike to get credit for every little good thing he does, because it makes it less meaningful. If Spike’s soullessness means that he is responsible only for the good he does, but not the bad, why should I care about either? Part of why I love Spike is because he was so evil, for so long.
But it’s strange—because I also get defensive of Spike, and even watching Evil Spike can make me uncomfortable at times, so maybe I’m overcompensating? Working so hard at accepting Spike’s evilness because I don’t like it? I don't know.
cont.
That's just the beginning: the whole miniseries, as we soon learn, is based on the concept of "soul for a soul": some human serial killer called John is after Spike (and used by Wolfram & Hart) because Wolfram & Hart took away his soul, to restore the balance when Spike lost his. (The catch is that John was always a psycho killer, but he doesn't feel as much pleasure in killing as he did when he had a soul.) Say what?! So would that mean that every time someone is sired, someone else has to gain a soul? Who keeps the balance? Nonsense. Some people think that the miniseries is canon because one plot ties into season 8, and because Willow was a guest star and Joss oversaw her dialogue, but the whole exchange of souls is surely never going to be pronounced canon.
And then in issue 6 or 7, I don't remember, John takes out Spike's soul but Spike manages to keep John from getting it, and he decides to give it temporarily to someone else - Drusilla, who was just in the process of biting Spike's human friend Jeremy, so it was mostly a pragmatic decision. (Don't ask why Drusilla was in the comic...long story.) Of course, Spike gets his soul back shortly afterwards, but the moment he lost it, he gives a speech about how it doesn't matter because he was already good without a soul, when he loved Buffy and was helping the Scoobies, and the soul just made it official. Obviously, another instance of Lynch blatantly using Spike as the spokesperson for his own views.
Some Spike fans loved that, others, like me, really hated it. Ironically, somme Spike haters also loved it and jumped all over that, because in their view, if Spike was already able to be good without a soul, that means that was even worse and much more responsible for the bad things he did than Angel was (Bangels are particularly fond of this view). Spike was more evil than Angel because he was less evil; get it? It makes the kind of sense that's not.