Spike (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)

Spike is a fictional vampire character played by James Marsters in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV series and its spinoff Angel. He is arguably the best example of Buffy's theme of redemption, first appearing as a thoroughly evil character, but reforming over several years to become a world-saving champion of good.

Spike in Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Spike first shows up in Sunnydale in Buffy's second season in the episode "School Hard" with his longtime love Drusilla, who was suffering from a mysterious ailment that could only be cured by the blood of Angel, her "sire" (the vampire who transforms a given human into a vampire by exchange of blood). (Early on, before his past is clearly revealed to viewers, Spike refers to Angel as his "sire," but in later episodes, it is made it clear that Drusilla is the one that sired Spike. However, because Angelus is the one who sired Drusilla, it can be argued that he is also the sire, or at least the "grandsire," of Spike. It can also be said that, because of Drusilla's madness, Angelus was the one who had to act as Spike's sire by teaching him about the vampire world.)

Related Topics:
Sunnydale - Buffy's - School Hard - Angel - Vampire

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For much of the series' 2nd Season, Spike and Drusilla are major enemies of Buffy. When Angel loses his soul after sleeping with Buffy, he joins the pair, and eventually plots to destroy all of humanity. Drusilla, ecstatic to be reunited with her sire, becomes very affectionate with Angelus (as the soulless Angel tends to be called), causing Spike to become jealous of him. Feeling that Drusilla is lost as long as Angelus is around, Spike then forms a surprising alliance: himself with Buffy against Angelus. At the end of Season 2, Spike and an unconscious Drusilla leave Sunnydale.

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Spike appears in only one episode of Season 3, during which it was revealed that he and Drusilla had split up due to her continuing infidelity and (as we learn later) because she suspects that his true love is Buffy.

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He returns to Sunnydale in Season 4, without Drusilla, and becomes a member of the regular cast for the remainder of the series. At the outset of the season he is involved, to some degree, with Harmony Kendall, a shallow young vampire. Despite her beauty and affection, Spike considers her little more than a nuisance and sexual plaything. His (un)life takes a pivotal turn when The Initiative, a secret government demon-fighting army, captures him and implants a microchip in his head. This chip induces crippling electric shocks whenever he attacks, or merely intends to attack, a human being — though it allows him to cause harm to demons. The implanting of this chip marks the beginning of Spike's gradual turn away from evil.

Related Topics:
Harmony Kendall - The Initiative - Demon - Microchip

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In Season 5, Spike and Harmony kidnap a surgeon and try to make him remove the chip. The surgeon however, warns him that its removal could cause brain damage. Spike will not accept this, and the surgeon only pretends to remove the chip, never actually performing the procedure. After some erotic dreams, Spike realizes that he has fallen in love with Buffy. These feelings are very troubling to Spike, and he only very reluctantly reveals them.

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Dawn, Buffy's younger sister, has a crush on Spike. When she goes to see him once, she realizes Spike's feelings towards Buffy. When Buffy confronts Dawn about her crush, Dawn admits to her that Spike would never notice her because he's in love with Buffy.

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Disgusted, Buffy does not return his feelings and repeatedly rejects him. Still, his love for the Slayer, his inability to harm humans, and his need to satisfy his bloodlust by attacking demons lead him to fight alongside the Scooby Gang against the forces of evil.

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During Season 6, Spike and Buffy became lovers of a sort, engaging in a physically gratifying but (seemingly) emotionally empty relationship where she abuses his love. When they are not intimate, they often become violent, most often instigated by Buffy, as Spike's chip does not prevent him from hurting Buffy since she was resurrected by Willow's spell. This includes a dark moment in the episode 'Dead Things' where Buffy beats Spike severely enough to cause injuries that last at least a week. When Buffy decides to call it off, Spike at first tries to get her back by making her jealous by starting a fling with a woman named Anya. He succeeds but she won't return to him. That, added to her pain at seeing him with Anya, leads him to believe he still has a chance at winning her back. Unfortunately, earlier mixed messages where violence was used as a precurser to sex, as well as Spike's out of control state, leads him to try to rape her in an effort to win her back. Uncapable of dealing with his feelings, he leaves town and heads to a remote area of Africa, vowing to give her "what she deserves." He undergoes a series of grueling physical trials to prove his worthiness before a demon shaman, who promises to give him what he wants if he survives. At the close of the season finale, we learn that what he wanted — and is granted — is the restoration of his soul.

Related Topics:
Abuse - Willow - Africa - Shaman

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In the early episodes of Season 7, Spike resides in the basement of Sunnydale High School, close to the Hellmouth's opening. Tormented by The First Evil, Spike appears to be going insane, and Buffy — after learning that he is ensouled — leaves him alone in the basement for several months, before she finally takes pity on him and has him live with Xander. But this arrangement backfires as Spike, under influence of the First Evil, is made to kill innocent people. After he discovers what he's done, Spike begs her to stake him. Buffy nevertheless takes him into her house and believes that he can reform. To the dismay of Giles and most of her other friends, she trusts Spike enough to relieve his agony, by allowing Initiative agents to remove his now-deteriorated misfiring microchip. 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 actually causes Spike to overcome the effects of the trigger, the song that Spike's mother once sang to him before he became a vampire.)

Related Topics:
Hellmouth - The First Evil - Insane - Pity - Xander - Giles - Principal Robin Wood - 1977

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Late in the season, Spike and Buffy achieved an emotional closeness as he remained her only supporter when the other Scoobies abandoned her. They spend a night 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), and the true nature of their feelings for each other remain ambiguous.

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In the final battle, Spike, wearing a mystical amulet, sacrifices himself to destroy the First's army of Turok-Hans (pure demon vampires a.k.a. ubervamps). The amulet channelled sunlight that turns the Turok-Hans to dust and causes the ground (and eventually, the entire town of Sunnydale), to bury the Hellmouth opening under a mountain of debris. In the process, Spike is incinerated, but not before Buffy says "I love you". Sadly, he replies, "No, you don't... but thanks for saying it."

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