Spike (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
Template:Infobox Buffyverse Character
Spike (né William Pratt, aka William The Bloody), is a fictional character created by Joss Whedon for the cult television programs, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel. The character is portrayed by James Marsters. He is considered a Breakout character.
Biography
Character history
William Pratt was born circa 1853 in London to Anne Pratt and an as yet unnamed husband. William's surname was not revealed in the series and for years was widely accepted to be "Walthrop" in the fandom, which made it fanon. However, creator Joss Whedon recently revealed it to be "Pratt" [citation needed]. William Pratt was the birth name of legendary horror actor Boris Karloff.
Since the actor who plays him is 5'11" (1.80 meters), it's safe to say the character shares the same height.
In 1880, at approximately 25 to 30 years of age, William was a brown-haired, ineffectual gentleman who lived with his mother and wrote poetry. He was called "William the Bloody" behind his back by his peers, because his poetry was so "bloody awful." This nickname (with more deadly connotations) would follow him in the future as a vampire. While he traveled in society circles, he found little in common with his peers and felt a general disconnect from their interests and discussions. He preferred creating things of beauty rather than dwelling on the scandalous and seedy elements of existence, and he showed a strong capacity for loyalty and devoted love, which would also follow him after his siring. After his romantic overtures were rejected by the aristocratic Cecily, a despondent William accepted comfort in the arms of Drusilla only to be bitten and transformed into a vampire. He had always been very close to his mother, and after he became a vampire he also turned her into a vampire to prevent her from dying from an illness (while new vampires in the Buffy universe typically turn completely evil and delight in killing their families, Spike was a notable exception and was as single-mindedly devoted to his mother as ever.)
Unfortunately his mother as a soulless vampire proved to be a truly evil creature, taunting Spike that she had despised him all along, and insinuating that Spike had always had a sexual fascination with her. Unlike Spike, who had retained many elements of his own personality, the creature she had become seemed to have retained little of her original self (as Spike later remarked upon in "Lies My Parents Told Me"). He ended up reluctantly staking her, because he could not bear to see his mother in such a twisted, unnatural, abusive form. He wrote a poem about the experience entitled "The Wanton Folly of Me Mum", the text of which was never actually presented. The entire matricidal experience was a terrible trauma for Spike, and it would later be exploited by an evil force as a hypnotic trigger. After staking his mother, Spike began a new life with Drusilla. Euphoric with his new-found vampiric abilities, and hungry for revenge on his peers, he abandoned the genteel hypocrisy of Victorian life. He became a rebel, adopting a working class accent and becoming prone to impulsiveness and violence. He adopted the nom de guerre "Spike" because of a habit of torturing people with railroad spikes. It should be noted that one of his detractors in his human days exclaimed he'd rather "have a railroad spike driven through [his] head" than listen to William's poetry, a possible inspiration for the torture.
In the company of Drusilla, her sire Angelus and Angelus's sire Darla, Spike terrorized Europe and Asia for almost two decades. Utterly devoted to Drusilla, Spike had a strained relationship with Angelus, rather like two rival brothers. Although Angelus did enjoy the company of another male vampire in their travels, he found Spike's eagerness for battle to be an unnecessary risk and unbecoming, since Angelus regarded killing as an art, not a sport, and while Angel killed for the sheer act of evil in itself Spike did it for amusement and the rush. Tensions also arose surrounding Angelus's ongoing sexual relationship with Drusilla, which continued despite Spike's strong disapproval.
In 1900, in one of his proudest moments, Spike killed Xin Rong, a Chinese Slayer, during the Boxer Rebellion; it was her blessed sword that gave him the scar on his left eyebrow, which remains a century later. Shortly afterward, Spike and Drusilla lost touch with Darla and Angelus (who, unknown to Spike or Drusilla, had recently been cursed with a soul), and the couple wandered the world seeking amusement and mayhem, occasionally separating to pursue separate interests but always reuniting. During World War II, Spike was captured by Nazis for experimentation and transported aboard a submarine which was in turn seized by Americans; after Spike and two other vampires killed most of the crew, Angel made Spike and another vampire Angel had just sired, leave the sub, by forcing them to swim to shore before the submarine reached the United States. By the 1950's, Spike, having reunited with Drusilla, spent some time in Italy.
At some point in a century or so of being his own boss, Spike employed a pair of Fyarl Demons as muscle, which is noteworthy since in the Buffyverse vampires and demons rarely get along; Spike would continue this diversity in friendships throughout his unlife. He attended Woodstock, where he drank blood from a flower child and spent the next several hours watching his own hand move. Spike frequently challenges vampire conventions and limitations. For example, Spike often treats his vulnerability to the sun as an inconvenience, rather than a limitation; he drives in broad daylight in vehicles with blacked-out windows, and he regularly travels outside during the day, using a blanket for cover. Spike also embraced certain elements of humanity, such as love and loyalty, that would be considered too human, and therefore offensive or impure, to other vampires.
Spike's story before he appears in Sunnydale unfolds in flashbacks scattered among numerous episodes of both "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Angel". They were not presented in chronological order. A guide to finding the flashback or flashbacks to a particular event is at Angel, Darla, Spike and Dru: Before 1997.
Sunnydale
Spike first appears in Sunnydale in Buffy's second season, in the episode "School Hard", accompanied by his longtime love Drusilla, who is suffering from crippling weakness after having been attacked and viciously beaten and injured by an angry mob in Prague (her chronically weakened condition indicates that vampires can actually be harmed physically to a degree that it would take years or decades for them to recover). Spike is a devoted caretaker to Drusilla in her weakened condition, treating her with gentleness and consideration in sharp contrast with his behavior toward others. He initially believes that the Hellmouth's energy could cure Drusilla, and the presence of a Slayer he could fight only makes the town more attractive to him. Upon discovering that Angel(us) is also in Sunnydale, Spike seems genuinely glad to see him, suggesting that despite their many differences, he still considers the older vampire a friend. However, Angel's loyalty to Buffy soon ends that camaraderie, and when Spike later learns that Drusilla can only be cured by the blood of the vampire who had created her, Angel, Spike is willing to kill him to save her without a second thought. Early on, before his past is clearly revealed to viewers, Spike refers to Angel as both his "sire" and his "Yoda", but in later episodes, it is made it clear that Drusilla is the one that sired Spike. Joss Whedon explained in an interview that a vampire's sire refers to anyone prior to them in their "line". Spike later noted that Drusilla had made him a vampire, but Angel(us) had made him a monster.
For much of the second season, Spike and Drusilla are major enemies of Buffy, until Spike is so severely injured in a fight with Buffy and Kendra that he spends several months confined to a wheelchair. Originally, Whedon had intended to kill Spike, but fans were so attached that Spike was simply crippled. When Angel reverts to Angelus after making love with Buffy, he joins the pair, and eventually plots to destroy all of humanity, as a way of getting rid of the stench of humanity that Buffy's love left in him. Spike at first celebrates their reunion with Angelus, again demonstrating that genuine affection exists between the two, but when Angelus woos the appreciative Dru as a lover and persistently taunts the (temporarily) helpless Spike, their longtime rivalry is renewed. Even after Spike is recovered, he still pretends that he needs a wheelchair, feigning weakness to avoid suspicion while he plots against Angelus.
This rivalry eventually motivates Spike to ally himself with Buffy to defeat Angelus; there is some ambiguity regarding his motivation in doing so, since despite his initial claim that he just wants Drusilla back, he also makes a speech:
- “We like to talk big, vampires do. I’m going to destroy the world. That’s just tough guy talk. Strutting around with your friends over a pint of blood. The truth is, I like this world. You’ve got – dog racing, Manchester United, and you’ve got people: billions of people walking around like Happy Meals with legs. It’s all right here. But then someone comes along with a vision, with a real passion for destruction. Angel could pull it off. Goodbye Piccadilly, farewell Leicester bloody Square."
Spike knocks out Drusilla, removing her from the fight. As he carries her from the fray, he sees Angelus corner an unarmed Buffy, and thinks that he is actually going to kill her. He shrugs and leaves Sunnydale; he and an unconscious Drusilla travel to Brazil.
Spike appears in only one episode of season three ("Lovers Walk"), attempting to force Willow Rosenberg to cast a love spell on Drusilla, who had turned away from him because he's not enough of a demon for her, because of his alliance with the Slayer and (as we learn later) because she suspects that he has feelings for Buffy. He visits Joyce Summers, who listens sympathetically to his heartache. Spike, after feeling the rush of an intense fight, abandons the love spell idea, resolving to win Drusilla back the old-fashioned way: by finding and torturing her until she likes him again, as Angel did in 1860. Buffy remarks to Angel that "I can fool Giles, and I can fool my friends, but I can't fool myself – or Spike, for some reason," foreshadowing Spike's role as the "truth-seer" of the group.
Spike returns to Sunnydale alone in season four to search for the Gem of Amarra, a talisman that allows a vampire to endure sunlight and even a stake to the heart without ill effect; he later travels to L. A. to retrieve it, torturing Angel in an attempt to discover its location before he is thwarted and driven from the city. He becomes involved with Harmony Kendall, a shallow young vampire. Despite her beauty and affection, Spike considers her little more than a nuisance and sexual plaything. His unlife takes a pivotal turn when The Initiative, a secret government demon-fighting army, captures him and implants a microchip in his head, which causes crippling pain whenever he harms or attempts to harm a human being.
Unable to hunt for blood, he turns to the Scooby Gang for protection, bartering his knowledge of the Initiative. He helps Rupert Giles out of a tight spot for a price. He and Buffy briefly become engaged through an accidental enchantment by Willow, foreshadowing their later bond, and it is telling that, though Willow only told them to get married, both of them mention being in love with the other. He discovers that the chip does not prevent him from fighting demons, and, since he thrives on violence, fights alongside the Scoobies on occasion.
At this point, Spike is still looking out for himself first and foremost however, and doesn't shy away from letting the Scoobies know it. On learning that Faith is on the loose after coming out of her coma, he proclaims that he'll be the one to find Faith, so he can tell her exactly where the Scoobies are, and watch while she tears them all apart. Later in the season Spike allies with Adam, a demon/human/cyborg chimera created by The Initiative, and helps the creature in its quest to destroy the Initiative and the Scoobies. Spike's price is simple: he wants the Initiative's chip out of his head for good. Through the use of lies and lines, he briefly manages to split the Scoobies up and turn them against each other ("The Yoko Factor"). They manage to overcome his scheme and learn the truth; when Spike realizes that Adam is double crossing him, he turns back to the Scoobies, even saving their lives against rampaging demons in the middle of a battle.
In season five, Spike becomes aware after some erotic dreams that, to his horror, he has fallen in love with Buffy. Unsure how to proceed, he keeps a nightly vigil outside her home, occasionally even breaking in (most notably to sniff and steal Buffy's clothing, and to steal photographs for his secret shrine to her). Spike also becomes a more active participant in the Scooby Gang, jumping into several of Buffy's fights to provide assistance whether she wants it or not. At Buffy's request, he reveals to her how he killed the two Slayers he had fought, offering survival advice, and later comforts her when her mother has to go into the hospital. Buffy's younger sister Dawn, who has a crush on Spike, perceives his obsession with Buffy, and casually tells Buffy of it. Disgusted, particularly after witnessing the full extent of Spike's obsession, Buffy rejects him, going as far as to uninvite him from her home (something she had not bothered to do in the two years since their brief alliance against Angelus). Still, Spike's feelings for the Slayer, his inability to harm humans, and his love of a good scrap lead him to fight alongside the Scooby Gang against the forces of evil. During this time, Spike impressed Tara Maclay, at least, as having genuinely been in love with Buffy; Tara also shared Spike's near-parental love for Dawn. There is, however, little further connection between Tara and Spike. Towards the end of the season Spike becomes one of Buffy's principal allies against the season's Big Bad, Glory, including, among other things, refusing to reveal the location of the Key to Glory under intense torture, nearly laying down his life to protect Dawn. In the days and hours leading up to the final showdown, Spike fights as a selfless warrior, earning Buffy's trust (as well as a re-invite to Buffy's home). After Buffy dies in the showdown with Glory, Spike honors her memory by remaining loyal to the Scoobies, fighting at their side and serving the role of baby-sitter/father-figure/protector to Dawn. Blaming himself for Buffy's death, he keeps track of the number of days since she died until she is resurrected in season six.
During season six, Spike and Buffy became lovers of a sort, engaging in a twisted sexual but emotionally one-sided relationship in which Buffy does not return his intense, obsessive love. Their physical relationship starts after a demon's spell makes them share their emotions and Buffy expresses that she "want[s] the fire back"; but it is not consummated until Spike finds out that his chip no longer stops him from hurting Buffy since she was resurrected by Willow's spell. Buffy most often initiates both the violence and the sex between them. This includes a dark moment where Buffy beats Spike severely enough to cause injuries that last at least a week. She also threatens to kill Spike if he ever tells anyone about them. Both are unsatisfied with the relationship; Buffy is ashamed of her dark desires, and unfulfilled with what, for her, is an empty sexual relationship, while Spike craves the love, trust, and affection that she is unwilling to give. Additionally, their relationship was challenged when Riley Finn, Buffy's ex-boyfriend, found Spike in possession of smuggled demon eggs and accused of him being "The Doctor" ("As You Were"), though Spike himself claimed to be storing the eggs for a friend.
Buffy decides to call it off shortly thereafter, admitting that she is just using him, and that it is killing her. Spike at first tries to get her back by making her jealous by bringing an unnamed goth girl as his date to the wedding of Xander . He succeeds in making her mildly jealous but she keeps up her resolve to not resume the destructive relationship with him. Later, after Xander left Anya at the altar, Spike and Anya get drunk together and seek solace in each other's arms. Buffy and Xander catch them, and her jealousy at seeing Spike with Anya leads him to believe he still had a chance at winning Buffy back. Spike, his obsession out of control, corners an injured Buffy in her bathroom, making aggressive sexual advances. When she refuses him, he attacks her in desperation, apparently intending to rape her; although most of their sexual history is highly violent, Buffy clearly says no to this encounter. Her original injury is increased when she slips and lands on the shower curtain, making it easier for Spike to force himself on top of her. However, Buffy is able to kick Spike across the room after he fails to respond to her cries. He draws back and tries to reconcile, to which Buffy responds, "Ask me again why I could never love you." He flees to his crypt in horror at what he had done, as well as what he had almost done.
Incapable of dealing with his emotions, he leaves town and heads to a remote area of Africa, vowing to "give her what she deserves." He seeks out a legendary Shaman/demon with the power to make him "What he once was." He undergoes a series of grueling physical trials (the Demon Trials) to prove his worthiness before a demon shaman, who promises to give him what he wants if he survives. In the final scene of the season ("Grave"), Spike survives the trials and the shaman grants his request, giving him back what he lost: his soul. Spike's intentions are confirmed in "Lessons", when the First in the form of the Mayor confirms that Spike chose to get his soul. Spike, tormented and more than half-mad with the guilt brought about by his newly restored soul, repeated this with his own words when he tells Buffy about his soul, at the end of "Beneath You":
- BUFFY: "This is all you get. I’m listening. Tell me what happened."
- SPIKE: "I tried to find it, of course."
- BUFFY (annoyed): "Find what?"
- SPIKE: "The spark. The missing— the piece. That fit. That would make me fit. Because you didn’t want— god— I can’t! Not with you looking."
He stands up and moves off into the shadows.
- SPIKE: "I dreamed of killing you."
Spooked in spite of herself, Buffy bends down and picks up a splintered piece of wood and wields it as a stake.
- SPIKE: "I think they were dreams. So weak. Did you make me weak? Thinking of you, holding myself and spilling useless buckets of salt over your . . . ending. Angel, he should have warned me. He makes a good show of forgetting but it’s here in me — all the time. The spark. I wanted to give you what you deserve. And I got it. They put the spark in me — and now all it does is burn."
Buffy is stunned.
- BUFFY: "Your soul . . ."
- SPIKE: (laughs) "A bit worse for lack of use."
- BUFFY: "You got your soul back. How?"
- SPIKE: "It’s what you wanted, right? (looking up) It’s what you wanted, right? And now everybody’s in here, talking. Everything I did, everyone I . . . and him . . . and it . . . the other. The thing beneath – beneath you. It’s here, too. Everybody. They all just tell me go. Go — to hell . . ."
- BUFFY (horrified): "Why? Why would you do that?"
- SPIKE: "Buffy, shame on you. Why does a man do what he mustn’t? For her. To be hers. To be the kind of man who would nev— To be a kind of man."
It was clear that all Spike had done, he had done for love of Buffy. With the returning of his soul comes a conscience filled with guilt as well. He must learn to live with himself as Angel did when he was cursed with a soul. In the early episodes of season seven, Spike resides in the basement of recently reconstructed Sunnydale High School, close to the Hellmouth's opening. Tormented by The First Evil as well as by his newfound conscience, Spike appears to be going insane (he notes at one point that he is "bug-shagging crazy"). After Buffy learns that Spike is in the basement, she enlists his assistance in several situations, although it isn't until well after she learns that he is ensouled that she decides to bring him out of the basement. Spike becomes reluctant roommates with Xander, because he has nowhere else to go. However, this arrangement backfires as Spike, under influence of the First Evil's hypnotic trigger, is forced to kill innocent people. Spike initially has no memory of his actions; after he discovers what he's done, he begs Buffy to stake him. Buffy refuses and takes him into her house and tells him she has seen him change. He suffers severe withdrawals after his extended feeding on human blood, and is still vulnerable to the (as yet unidentified) hypnotic trigger, and is willingly confined with ropes or chains. Buffy tells Spike that she believes in him, a statement which later sustains him throughout his imprisonment and torture at the hands of the First Evil.
Spike faithfully assists Buffy in her efforts to train the Potentials that are gathering in Sunnydale. In the meantime, Spike's chip begins to malfunction, causing him intense pain and threatening to end his unlife. To the dismay of Giles and most of her other friends, Buffy trusts Spike enough to order Initiative agents to remove it from his head. She also takes Spike's side when Principal Robin Wood, son of the slayer Spike murdered in 1977, attempts to kill him as retribution. Ironically, by attempting to kill Spike when he is under the First's influence, Wood frees Spike from his hypnotic trigger: a song called Early One Morning that Spike's mother often sang to him before he became a vampire. The song evoked Spike's traumatic memories of his mother's abusive behavior toward him after she turned. After Spike is able to address these issues, he realizes that his mother had always loved him, knowledge which frees him from the First's control. Late in the season, Spike and Buffy achieve an emotional closeness; he remains her only supporter when the other Scoobies, Giles, and the Potentials abandon her. Spike contemptously tells the rest of the Scoobies, "You sorry sods, she died for you, and you betrayed her!" The only one that remains selflessly loyal to Buffy is Spike. They spend two nights together, though it is not clear whether they resume their sexual intimacy. Creator Joss Whedon has said he intentionally left it to the viewers to decide how they felt the relationship progressed though Whedon himself said he personally felt that it would be wrong for them to resume a sexual relationship. After the first night, Spike tells Buffy that it was the best night of his life, just holding her.
In the final battle inside the Hellmouth, Spike, wearing a mystical amulet, sacrifices himself to destroy the First's army of Turok-Hans (pure demon übervampires) and close the Hellmouth. The amulet mystically channels sunlight that turns the Turok-Hans to dust and collapses the cavern containing the Hellmouth, sealing the Hellmouth and creating a crater which swallows the entire town of Sunnydale. Spike is incinerated in the process, but not before Buffy says "I love you." He replies, "No, you don't — but thanks for saying it." Even as he burns and crumbles to dust he laughs and revels in the destruction before him, glad to be there for the end. Through this act, he becomes a Champion, dying at the Hellmouth for Buffy. Even though he didn't believe that she loved him, and he didn't think anyone cared for him, Spike still gave up his life to save the world.
Los Angeles
Despite his apparent death at the end of Buffy's final season, Spike returned as a regular on Angel in its fifth and final season, having been brought back by the same amulet that was initially given to Angel by Wolfram and Hart. The amulet is mysteriously returned to the offices by mail. Spike seeks, at this stage, to leave Wolfram and Hart and find Buffy, but, when he tries, he discovers that he is mystically bound to Los Angeles and unable to leave. For the first seven episodes of the season, Spike is an incorporeal being akin to a ghost with a connection to the human world that is unstable, causing him to disappear at random (but increasingly frequent) intervals. Spike, terrified, confides only to Fred that every time he disappears he is being transported to Hell. He asks her to help save him, and she promises to find a way to make him corporeal again. Later, it is discovered that Spike's disappearances are being caused by another ghost, the Reaper, who toys with the many souls trapped at Wolfram and Hart in order to delay his own sentence to Hell. Meanwhile, Fred successfully creates a machine to recorporealize Spike. However, when the Reaper threatens Fred's life, Spike chooses to use the machine to save her, in the process throwing away his opportunity to become corporeal but successfully stopping the other ghost. His actions prove to her, at least, that he is "worth saving."
Later another mysterious package comes in the mail, addressed to Spike but with no return address. Upon opening the package he sees a flash of light; after trying to walk through a wall, Spike discovers he has become corporeal once more. One of his first acts is to attempt to rekindle his physical relationship with Harmony, who is now Angel's secretary; however, during their attempt at sex she is strangely (temporarily) affected by a force causing her eyes to bleed and her behavior to become violent. This is the end of their physical intimacy.
Chaos concurrently erupts in Wolfram & Hart, and Eve arrives with information that the existence of two ensouled vampires in the world is affecting the fabric of reality. A new translation of the Shanshu Prophecy reveals that in order to restore the balance, Spike and Angel must compete to drink from the Cup of Perpetual Torment. Angel and Spike's relationship has always been strained by competition over women, notably Drusilla and Buffy. Ego clashes and personal hostility that had been building up for more than a century lead to an extended battle between the two adversaries; each believes that the Cup would bestow upon him great responsibilities and pain, while ultimately washing his past clean and allowing him to live as human again. When Angel asks him if it's the destiny he wants, or just to take something away from Angel, Spike answers honestly, "a bit of both." Although Angel tells Spike that Spike is a monster just like him, Spike denies any similarities: "You had a soul forced on you. As a curse. Make you suffer for all the horrible things you've done. Me, I fought for my soul, went through the demon trials, almost did me in a dozen times over, but I kept fighting. Because I knew it was the right thing to do. It's my destiny." Angel retorts that the only reason Spike wanted his soul was to "get into a girl's pants" (an interesting argument considering that for a hundred years or so after Angel was re-ensouled, his actions, though not completely unnoteworthy, mostly consist of self-imposed isolation and brooding; Angel only becomes a "useful" creature after seeing and falling in love with Buffy). Then, for the first time in over a century of friendship and rivalry, Spike clearly defeats Angel and drinks from the Cup. Clearly, for the first time, Spike believes he is the better "man," and is able to prove it. Perhaps the battle between them is best symbolized by Angel's inability to touch a giant cross, which Spike, contemptously ignoring the pain, holds and wields with ease. However, the prophecy turns out to be a sham (the liquid in the Cup was merely Mountain Dew), rendering the whole exercise seemingly useless. Spike regains much self-confidence with his defeat of Angel.
Even though he is now corporeal (and therefore no longer bound to L.A.), he decides not to go to Europe in search of Buffy; he wants her to remember him as the hero who died to save the world. Spike later takes on a psychotic Slayer, who had until recently been locked in a mental institution, but she captures him, drugs him, ties him up, and cuts off his hands. This experience causes Spike to more deeply examine the nature of the evil inside him. He tells Angel that the girl thought that he had killed her whole family: "What am I supposed to do, complain, because hers wasn't one of the hundreds of families I did kill?" He believes that the girl has become a monster like them; Angel responds that the girl is an innocent victim, and Spike points out that he and Angel were innocent victims at one point. His hands are subsequently reattached at Wolfram & Hart, and he is instructed to play video games for physical therapy, including Donkey Kong and Crash Bandicoot.
Beginning in "Soul Purpose", Lindsey McDonald, pretending to be the late half-demon Doyle with a connection to The Powers That Be, persuades Spike that he is destined to "help the helpless," in much the same way as the real Doyle persuaded Angel of the same thing at the start of Angel. Alienated by Angel's corporate, bureaucratic approach to fighting evil, Spike steps into his role as hero until he learns that "Doyle" is actually Lindsay, who has been manipulating him the whole time. Spike, after a bout of depression, is brought back to being an affirmed champion of the good. His relationship with Angel becomes increasingly acrimonious, and they contemplate the possibility of Spike leaving L.A. after a particularly bitter argument over whether cavemen or astronauts would win in a fight. When Fred becomes infected with the essence of an ancient demon named Illyria, Spike works alongside Angel and the team to find a cure, and mourns for her when they fail. He abandons the idea of leaving L.A. after Fred's death, deciding to stay because that is what she would have wanted. He is put in charge of "testing" the newly-awakened Illyria's abilities, which generally involves fighting with her and recording details on his clipboard. Because of the drastic changes in the circumstances of his own life, he could relate to her situation, offering her conversation, company, and advice. By the end of the season, Spike is a trusted member of the team, being entrusted to rescue an infant and destroy a demon cult in the final episode "Not Fade Away", in order to help defeat the Circle of the Black Thorn and wound the Senior Partners. Before Angel's team of demon killers enter their greatest and perhaps final battle, Angel gives them the day off, to spend as though it was going to be their last day. Spike, returning to his mortal roots as a frustrated poet, triumphantly knocks them dead (figuratively) in an open mic poetry slam, reciting his completed version of "Effulgent", a poem he'd begun over a century earlier, before being sired by Drusilla.
After succeeding in his mission, Spike joins Angel, Illyria, and a badly-wounded Charles Gunn in the alley as the series draws to an end, preparing to suicidally incur the apocalyptic wrath of the Senior Partners, as a way of going out in a blaze of glory. Whether Spike survived this battle has yet to be confirmed, although he does appear in (non-canon) material set after it.
Joss Whedon has spoken of a possible Spike movie set after the events of the series, so Whedon apparently still regards Spike as an active character.
Appearance and Personality
William's natural hair color was medium brown; in 1943 he was seen with it dyed black and slicked down; and by 1977 he had begun to bleach it, keeping that look at least until he was last seen in May of 2004. Spike has claimed that Billy Idol stole his look from him, which accounts for his appearance in 'present day' continuity as well as during the flashback to the 1970s (see below). He received an V/Y-shaped scar on his left eyebrow from the sword of Xin Rong, the first Slayer he killed, in 1900; on his first appearance in the series, the wound still looks fresh, but gradually blends in over the course of the series. James Marsters had received the scar in real life during a mugging.
Spike has a taste for long black leather jackets, including one that he took from a Nazi officer and another that he wore as a trophy of Nikki Wood, a Slayer whom he killed in 1977 after coming to New York specifically to find and fight the Slayer of the time. Spike wore Nikki's jacket for over twenty-five years before it was finally destroyed in a firefight in Italy, after which the Italian branch of Wolfram and Hart supplied him with a new, nearly identical coat. His trademark look typically comprises the leather jacket, a black/dark brown t-shirt or v-neck shirt and black denim pants, usually with heavy boots; he also wore a red long-sleeve shirt fairly often, but this item was occasionally omitted particularly in later seasons of Buffy and Angel. In "Doomed", Spike is forced to wear one of Xander's Hawaiian shirts and a pair of knee-length shorts because his clothes were shrunk due to the basement flooding.
Asides from his appetite for destruction, one of Spike's most prominent characteristics is his dry, sarcastic sense of humor. A polar opposite to his callow and simpering human nature, Spike quickly adopted a swaggering posture and enjoyed living by nobody's rules save his own. Fitting in with this was his habit of making pithy remarks and glib insults, even towards the few he didn't see as antagonists. Among his favorite targets was his grandsire and rival, Angel (often making fun of his large forehead, constantly groomed appearance and his attempts to be a 'big, strapping hero'); others include Xander Harris, Rupert Giles and, to a lesser degree, Buffy Summers. However, Spike also retained something of his literary intellect from his human side, routinely referencing poetry, songs, and literature; he would, on occasion, also wax poetical on the nature of love and life (even unlife) as being about blood, reasoning that it is what separates the living from the dead, and is therefore more powerful than any supernatural force.
Spike enjoys beer, whisky, Weetabix (which he mixes into blood for texture), spices and burba weed (which he mixes into blood for flavor), ate a box of chocolates from a present meant for Buffy, Buffalo wings and onion blossoms, having perhaps the most varied diet of any of the vampires or other demons on the show (another example of Spike defying vampire conventions). He also smokes, (as do many vampires); his preferred brand is Morley cigarettes, which he lights with a trademark silver Zippo lighter.
Powers & Abilities
Spike has the standard powers and vulnerabilities of a vampire. On many occasions he has tracked people or demons through the streets (or even sewers) by smelling the air. He can also smell fear, and was able at one point to sense Buffy from the other side of a door. He can identify and track someone by scent alone, though it's easier for him to track blood. Like other vampires, Spike's "vampire constitution" provides him with an extremely high tolerance for alcohol. Age has given him strength, speed, stamina and resistance superior to those of most other vampires. Like Angel, he can endure sunlight longer than average vampires, though no longer than a few seconds.
He has acquired a number of skills in his long unlife. One of the factors making Spike so deadly an opponent in battle is his complete disregard for tradition and rules, placing him on equal footing with Buffy - herself not much for rules and traditions. Spike is highly skilled and adaptable in both armed and unarmed combat. Spike has been shown on occasion using firearms and modern weaponry as well as the bladed weapons more often seen in the Buffyverse. He is skilled at using many varieties of weapons, such as a rifle, knife, sword, axe, crossbow, stake, and a staff. His fighting style seems to blend several different disciplines accumulated over his years of fighting others. His style resembles a cross between kung fu, with its free style movements, and various other martial arts blended into one flowing style, shifting from a classic karate stance to a boxer, nearly instantly. In combat, Spike shows great physical strength and ability, for example, he was able to briefly overcome Illyria during a testing of her abilities, when she was at the height of her powers. Illyria criticized his (and others') ability to adapt, calling it "compromising"; however, for a creature with somewhat limited power (unlike the orignial Illyria), it was one of his greatest strengths as a fighter.
What gives Spike an added edge in both combat and personal matters are his skills in perception and observation, especially with regard to relationships and personalities. His strong connection with his own emotions also provide him with useful insight, giving him the previously mentioned "truth-seer" status. His ability to take a "Big Picture" approach, analyzing complicated interpersonal dynamics with ease, allows him to wield powerful psychological weapons as well as physical ones. For example, when he wanted to create disharmony among the Scoobies, he divided-and-conquered with the "Yoko Factor", exploiting tensions that existed under the surface to alienate the group members against each other. When he and Angel competed for the Cup of Perpetual Torment, Spike's verbal taunts, insights, and insults were as crucial (in that they further demoralized an already insecure Angel) to his success as his physical blows. His skills of analysis also had many positive effects. For example, his perceptiveness and insight made him a natural father-figure for Dawn, who needed protection, attention, and guidance. He was the first to see through Tara's abusive and controlling family, and revealed their sinister intentions before any of the Scoobies even suspected it. He had a solid sense of the state of relationships, identifying with startling accuracy when and why relationships, such as that between Buffy and Riley, were not meant to last. He also clearly identified Buffy and Angel's continuing love at a time when both of them were trying to say that they were "just friends", forcing the two of them to finally face the truth to each other.
Spike's most distinctive trait is his love of combat for the sheer joy and adrenaline rush; up until the point when he falls in love with Buffy (about a year and a half before he regained his soul) he does not much care if he fought for good or evil; he is driven by the desire to do violence, and he particularly appreciates fights that pose a challenge, which has resulted in him taking on angry mobs and multiple Slayers. However, after falling in love with Buffy, Spike consistently fights on the side of "good". His love for battle continues after his re-ensoulment, which is ironic because, as a human, he had been quite meek, mild-mannered, and gentle. When he first arrives at Wolfram and Hart, he and Angel are confronted by a Droxlar Beast, whom Angel attacks. Spike immediately moves to fight the Droxlar (although, being immaterial at the time, this proved impossible), despite being in the course of a bitter argument with Angel and having no particular reason to help him. Even as a ghost, Spike tried to be useful and join in the fray; he found himself able to affect the world around him if he wanted to badly enough, so he was able to assist in fighting before he was actually recorporalized.
Spike can also withstand excessive amounts of pain for extended periods of time, particularly when properly motivated. He withstood terrible torture at the hands of Glory, refusing to tell her that Dawn was the Key she sought, sustained only by his unrequited love for Buffy. He later withstood extensive torture while imprisoned by the First Evil; he refused to give in to despair, taking strength from Buffy's declaration that she believed in him. While not as skilled or as cruel as Angelus, Spike is also a skilled torturer as seen when he tortured Doctor Sparrow ("Shells").
Spike has a special place in vampire lore for the rare feat of killing two Slayers in single combat. When Buffy asked him to train her, so she could avoid that fate, his most interesting warning was that his opponents had failed because they became tired of fighting, tired of the struggle ("a death wish"), which he could sense, whereas he never tired of the love of battle, and she could not afford to either, if she hoped to stay alive. He managed to hold his own with Buffy, even though she is physically stronger than him. In the last season, when Faith moved to attack Spike, after the gang had abandoned Buffy - much to Spike's open and very scathing contempt - he and Faith fought in a very evenly matched brawl that spanned from the kitchen to the dining room, trading blows until Spike flipped Faith over him into the wall and left in search of Buffy, with Faith making no efforts to stop him.
Although capable of developing sound battle strategies, Spike (particularly in the days before the chip and the soul) often lost patience with anything more complicated than outright attack:
- Spike: I had a plan.
- Angel: You, a plan?
- Spike: Yeah, a good plan. Smart. Carefully laid out. But I got bored.
He also was impatient to fight the Slayer upon his initial arrival in Sunnydale; while the attack was supposed to coincide with the Night of St. Vigeous (when vampire powers were enhanced), he "couldn't wait" to go after the Slayer and attacked the night before. However, he is somewhat masterful with strategy, and has exercised patience in many ways. For example, in Sunnydale, when Angelus joined Spike and Dru after Spike's injury, Spike patiently played the role of the weakened cripple, listening, learning, and enduring tortuous weeks watching Angelus sexually pursue a very willing Dru as he waited for the right time to strike.
Spike is also seen: picking locks; driving a car, a motorcycle, and a motor home; using video game systems and a computer; treating injuries; pickpocketing; and playing poker and pool. He is fluent in Latin, Luganda (a language of Uganda, where he met the demon shaman), and the language of Fyarl demons. It is implied that he has some minimal familiarity with Italian (he can at least say "ciao" and "strada").
Romantic Interests / Intimate Liaisons
While mostly confirmed as a heterosexual who often gets obsessed over the women he falls in love with, Spike apparently had a homosexual liaison with one male vampire.
- Cecily Addams/Cecily Underwood: the object of William's affections and poetic efforts in life; her rejection made him open to seduction and siring by Drusilla.
- Drusilla: Spike was romantically involved with Drusilla for a long time, a devoted couple for over a century. While vampires do not usually experience love for one another, Spike and Drusilla did, as was noted by the Judge who found their relationship to reek of humanity. They shared more than a century travelling around the world, keeping each other company and enjoying themselves. While Spike was single-mindedly devoted to her, Dru was never consistently faithful (maintaining a sexual relationship with Angelus despite Spike's obvious jealousy and discomfort, and fornicating with The Immortal). She became disillusioned with Spike after he betrayed Angelus and allied himself with the Slayer, recognizing Spike's fixation with Buffy before he himself did. She cheated on Spike with a chaos demon ("All slime and antlers!") in South America before breaking up with him, sending him into an extended drunken depression.
- Angel: Spike mentioned in "Power Play" that he "was never intimate with Angel... except for that one time." Whedon has confirmed in numerous interviews and forum posts the possibility of at least a one-night stand between the pair. In the DVD commentary to the episode "A Hole in the World" he explicitly says: "You know, um, I just wanna say Angel and Spike, they were hanging out, uh, for years and years and years, they were in, you know, all kinds of deviant, they were vampires... Are we thinking they never...? Come on, people! I'm just sayin'. I'm just sayin'. You know, they're open-minded guys. They may be evil but, you know, they're not bigoted or closed-minded."
- Harmony Kendall: Spike was involved with her from season 4 through early season 5, and attempted to couple with her once in the last season of Angel.
- Buffy Summers: Spike became her ally reluctantly during seasons 2 and 4, and fell in love with her reluctantly in early season 5. During season 6 they started an unhealthy sexual relationship which ended badly, largely because Spike sought love and intimacy while Buffy merely sought physical comfort. During season 7 they became closer emotionally. His championing her, when all others abandoned her, showed his absolute loyalty to Buffy. Buffy eventually told Spike she loved him which Spike denied. Whether she meant her love in a romantic sense is still a major point of debate.
- Buffybot: When rejected by Buffy Summers, Spike commissioned Warren Mears, a young mad scientist, to build him a robotic replica of her to be single-mindedly devoted to him. Although he initially enjoyed the toy, it was damaged in a fight with Glory. After Buffy's death, Willow reprogrammed the robot. It became a useful and important tool in the fight against evil until Buffy's resurrection, although bits of the original programming occasionally resurfaced, causing Spike, who was deep in mourning, significant pain.
- Tarantula, a goth girl, Spike's date to the wedding in "Hell's Bells".
- Anya Jenkins: drunk and on the rebound, they coupled in "Entropy".
- Winifred Burkle: Technically not a romantic relationship per se. Spike initially flirted with her, and his feelings later evolved into affection and esteem. She was the first person in Los Angeles who believed that he was "worth saving" and she worked tirelessly to find a way to recorporalize him (while denying being taken in by his charm). He sacrificed a chance at becoming corporeal to save her life, and he later chose to remain at Wolfram & Hart in tribute to her sacrifice. Spike said in "A Hole in the World" that he loved her, albiet in a platonic way.
Appearances
Spike has appeared in:
Buffy
Buffy the Vampire Slayer : Spike was a series regular in the show's fourth (starting with "The Initiative"), fifth, sixth and seventh seasons, although he did not appear in "The Body". He appeared in 96 episodes, including guest appearances in:
- Season 2 (1997, 1998) - "School Hard"; "Halloween"; "Lie to Me"; "What's My Line, Part One" and "Part Two"; "Surprise"; "Innocence"; "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered"; "Passion"; "I Only Have Eyes for You"; "Becoming, Part One" and "Part Two"
- Season 3 (1998, 1999) - "Lovers Walk"
- Season 4 (1999, 2000) - "The Harsh Light of Day"; "Wild at Heart"
Angel
- Angel
- Spike became a series regular in the show's fifth season. He appeared in 24 episodes, including guest appearances in:
- Season 1 (1999, 2000) - "In the Dark"
- Season 2 (2000, 2001) - "Darla" (flashbacks)
Whedon has proposed making a Spike movie starring James Marsters and Amy Acker and written and directed by Tim Minear.
Books and comics
- Books & comics
- Spike has appeared in numerous extensions of the Buffyverse, his biggest appearances are in the following stories:
- Published - Tales of the Vampires, Spike & Dru, Pretty Maids All in a Row, These Our Actors, Spark and Burn, Old Times, Spike vs Dracula, Old Wounds, and Lost and Found
- Upcoming - Blackout.
See also
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