I recall her 3 episode absence in Season 3 been down to family loss or something. It was a while ago though so I may be wrong
I'm not sure if that's the real reason but I do sometimes wonder about these things. Now, we have seen Angel go dark even with Cordelia around, like in Season 2 before he fired her. But I often wonder how things might have turned out differently with regards to Wesley kidnapping Connor if Cordelia had been around at the time. Perhaps she might have tempered his jealousy over the Gunn/Fred romance from sending him over the edge?
It's probably much more like what she doesn't even realize how bad it is what she did. He was a guy, she was a girl, so it's a-ok, right? Then it got turned around and suddenly with the male in the attempted rapist role, it actually shows just how bad it is. Oh, and Joss okayed it, and the show focused for the rest of its run on the rapist, while what it did to Buffy is pushed away as unimportant. Then he spends his time talking to the fans who are horrified by it as, "Buffy and Spike can NEVER be together." And then to the Spike fans, Spuffy fans, and the ones who would follow him straight into hell, "They need to rebuild the trust (there was never any there, so there's nothing to "re"-build, but eh) in a physical relationship." PUKE.
You're aware that the rape incident in question was the impetus for the Demon-Spike to go get himself a soul right? In terms of the story, it took something that unequivocally wrong for him to realize how far gone he was. Now whether or not Soul-Spike can be forgiven or redeemed after something like that is something filled with lots of story potential, which I believe was the point. The question of whether Soul-Spike was even the same person who committed that act? Was one of my personal favorites. -Angel was a demon, cursed with a soul (His two halves always at war) -Spike was a demon, who sought and won a soul (Birthing something completely new in the process.) I always thought that was why it hurt so much when Spike won his Prize, the demon seeking the soul wasn't being buried or burned away, but was being cleansed and integrated with the soul. Hey, if Angels can fall then demons should certainly be able to ascend.
If we follow what was established in S1-2 of Buffy, which admittedly I'm not sure was followed up on later... when a person becomes a vamp, their soul, the part of them that makes them human, leaves and goes to heaven/purgatory, and a demonic being takes residence in the body retaining the memories of the person. And then when a vamp is re-en-souled, that soul is taken from the afterlife and restored to the body. So when Angel and Spike don't have their souls, they are completely not responsible for any actions they take. It's not them, it's the demon controlling their corpse. Of course, under this rationale, all vamps should be executed without question. They're demonic animals incapable of NOT killing. Which is why it's ridiculous that they spare Spike and Harmony because they make funny jokes.
Also, not to split the hair too thin but it wasn't a rape, but an attempted rape. As I recall Angelus did MUCH worse than that, possibly worse than Spike in his time. Though I must admit, after hearing the root of that plot element I wonder how it would have played if the gender roles were revered and treated with the same unflinching (yet still creepy) honesty. A woman forcing herself on a man is usually treated almost comedically, as if it's every man's dream but a violation is a violation and abuse is abuse. Believe it or not this stuff does actually happen and I'd be interested to see how people's reactions differ when the gender roles are reversed.
That assumes that all demons are inherently evil. As Angel portrayed more often than Buffy, some of them are fairly normal guys. The vampire-flavor of demon does seem to tend to the the evil side of the Force, but that's by no means an absolute. I consider it rather similar to the situation with the Trill. What's being carried over from human to vamp (and vice versa) is mainly memories, not consciousness; yet still there can be a powerful effect on the present person based on the previous one. I know that and you know that, and that was clearly the intended story twist, but "some people" insist on seeing it differently. Please, let's not stary up that whole thing again. As interesting as that concept is, going back to the Trill analogy, I think it's merely the fact that Spike's decision to seek his soul merely allowed William to more readily integrate his "previous life" with his new one. Rather than completely rejecting what had come before as Angel did, he merely accepted it and moved on.
On Buffy and Angel it seems like sometimes vampires don't completely loose their human souls, or the human personalities were so strong that the human personality pretty much takes over most of the time. Of course Spike and Harmony are the two major examples of this, the demon and the human soul versions are very similar personality wise. It's actually a pretty cool concept, I wish they would of given us more information on why it happens (unless it's just a random fluke).
Maybe it has to do with what type of people they were before going vamp. Liam was pretty much as asshole, so it's no surprise Angelus was one of the most evil vamps around. Darla pretty much the same. Her vamp self wasn't an entirely radical difference from whom she was before the bite. I think human personality plays a very big role in what kind of vamp they become.
Agreed. For that matter, Spike had done far worse than that prior to being chipped in "The Initiative." It may happen but I imagine it's EXTREMELY rare for a couple of reasons: 1.) Show me a sexually aggressive woman that a man doesn't want to have sex with. 2.) Show me a woman physically capable of sexually dominating a man against his wishes. The question I have about this explanation is whether the "demonic being" that takes possession of the body has any existence outside of the body. Could this demonic being be separated from the body and sent to an afterlife in the same way that the human soul is? I would argue that it cannot. I believe that there is hardly anything in the vampire that wasn't there already when it was a human. Rather, a vampire is simply the result of the human being deprived of its soul, and therefore its conscience. A soulless creature is incapable of feeling remorse or empathy for other creatures. For that matter, without its preexistent human knowledge of "good" & "evil," a vampire would be incapable of telling the difference between the 2. Now, simply removing a person's conscience won't automatically turn them evil but when you combine that with the added biological thirst for human blood, the result is a creature generally far to dangerous to be left alive. A vampire (with rare exceptions) won't do something because it is "evil." Rather, it will commit evil acts in the course of satisfying its carnal desires and feel no guilt for its actions. A vampire is also capable of performing good acts. Without a soul or conscience, it is incapable of deriving any pleasure from the goodness of its acts but it can still do "good" things to achieve morally neutral ends. Spike (pre-soul) performed many good acts because it gave him pleasure to do things that made Buffy & Dawn like him. Harmony was, for the most part, a well behaved individual when she worked for Angel. She was good, not for its own sake, but because so much of her self-worth was tied into other people's opinions of her. She wanted Angel & co. to like her and that's why she behaved well. However, I would agree that the reasons for keeping Spike alive were incredibly flimsy, especially after he betrayed the Scooby Gang to Adam in "The Yoko Factor"/"Primeval."
Regarding the personality of the human versus when they become a vampire... I vaguely remember something regarding that. I believe it was the episode where Willow's vampire self from Anyas world comes to the main universe. I believe towards the end Willow said something about how she could be something like that. Buffy replied saying something regarding how a humans personality has nothing to do with the vampires. Angel then says like "Actually..." but Buffy cuts him off trying to protect Willow. The implication was clear though. The Vampires personality is definitely affected by the human. I wish I could remember if that was the episode, but it fits in right in my mind. There was definetly an episode where Angel tried to say the human personality does affect the soul and then got cut off. Edit: Got the episode right...It was on Wikipedia: Willow: It's horrible. That's me as a vampire? I mean, I'm so evil, and skanky — and I think I'm kind of gay. Buffy: Willow, just remember, a vampire's personality has nothing to do with the person it was. Angel: Well, actually — [Buffy glares at him.] ; that's a good point. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doppelgangland Yes, but didn't Angel try and deal with it and move on. I always kind of felt that had Darla accepted him for who he was after he got his soul, Angel would have kept on never rejecting what he did. He felt some guilt, but he didn't have the "mission" and drive that he had from the series. It took absolute rock bottom for him to come to that. With Buffy and then later the Angel character around, Spike never had to hit rock bottom. He was supported from the very beginning.
In short, the rape was about the rapist, not about the girl almost getting raped, which is WRONG, disgusting, and craptacular. Also, even IF he went to get himself a soul, which on screen tells us he didn't, he didn't do it because it was "wrong and he realized how far gone he was", he did it because in his mind a soul was what was required to get back in Buffy's panties. There is no other motivation, not a single care about anything being wrong, not a single little bit of guilt - obviously not, vampires aren't capable of it. Indeed, to a vampire, the more wrong something is to us, the more right it is to them. Which, incidentally, is exactly the what was shown on screen; Spike was disgusted that he couldn't be a monster anymore, and went to get his chip removed so he could kill Buffy's friends and family, finally removing the ties that kept him from dragging her completely into the darkness, so he could finish doing exactly that. Ah, back again to rape being about the rapist, not the girl who it is being done to. As for story potential? Where did it go? All we got was ever increasing piles of junk, more shirtless anorexic Spike, and "hug your rapist, for he is the only one you can rely on, cause he truly wuvs you"-scenes, which more than ones literally gave me urges to hurl. And that is NOT an exaggeration, during S7, I've literally spent time actively keeping my lunch and/or dinner down. What question? The question was never bothered with. Spike with soul acted not a single shred different as Spike without a soul, after all, "asshole-Spike" was popular so even if he's now a "good guy" he's still the same asshole. We wouldn't wanna mess with a ratings bringer, right? That incidentally "new-Spike" comes across as the same Spike and thus as every other abusive, raping boyfriend or husband who utters "it'll never happen again" for the umpteenth time, and Buffy comes across as the weak-willed, victimized, women who sprout "but he's different now" - conveniently paraphrased as "but he's got a soul now" - and take the abuser back, only to wait for him to do it all over again (and indeed, he's wining and guilt-tripping Buffy shows he's already performing the mental abuse again) and again, and again, and again... And this is supposedly the feminist role-model, main character of a feminist show! Grand! Oh, yes Angel is Liam. They're the exact same spineless coward. :sighs: EVERY vampire keeps parts of the human's personality, but in a special way. What the vampire's personality becomes, is a twisted, pure evil caricature of the human's personality. Everything bad is magnified and pushed forward, while anything good becomes a mirror. If then, there are or hardly any difference between the vampire and the demon - there was simply no, or hardly any good - to twist into evil. The worse a human being is, the less different the vampire afterwards. The other way around. The sweeter and nicer a person is, the worse the vampire. They become evil funhouse mirrors of their former selves. Darla was pretty lacking in morals as a human, as a vamp thus, there wasn't much, if any difference. Notice that she doesn't get actually bad until Angelus takes her on the tour. Before him and after, she's pretty much the Master's obedient pet. Liam genuinely loved his mother and sister, but was also a spineless coward who didn't have the guts to stand up to his father, so instead he drowned his perceived sorrows in alcohol and womanizing. Thus, the first thing the vampire did was happily slaughter the family, starting with sister, and ending with the father, only seeing him as a nice prey to kill, instead of a person he should cower in front of. Of course! Because men are perverted, hormonal bastards and pigs, who will jump at any chance to have sex with a woman - especially if that woman is aggressive and likes beating him to a pulp in the process. Yup, beasts that's what men are and nothing else. Let's see... do you just want women that are physically capable of sexually dominating a physically weak nerd, or want women that are capable of taking on and beating even the reasonably strong men... well, if I got the latter, you should know that are a whole lot more that can take the other: From the wrestling world: Beth Phoenix, Awesome Kong. Weightlifting athletes. Female practitioners of martial arts. Trained military women. Etc. etc. Of course, that's not mentioning that annoying problem that one doesn't need to be physically ABLE to rape a person in order to ATTEMPT it. Let alone that there are plenty of mental and psychological leverages around that allow a woman to abuse and rape men - doubly so when children are involved - without having to do it physically. That depend on your interpretation, doesn't it? I've already explained above how a human's personality influences the vampire's, the vampire's is a sick, twisted, pure evil mirror caricature of the human. So the personality does, literally speaking, have something to do with the person. Does that however mean, that the vampire's personality is anything like the person's? Well, if the person was a bad if not evil person, yes. If the person is good, however, the personality is so utterly twisted, you couldn't find any similarities even if you tried. Nothing, excpet a few darker traits, remain in the vampire. So in that way, the personality has nothing to do (in common) with the person it was. That's because Liam/Angel is a spineless coward. Hell, even rock bottom wasn't enough for him to come to do that. Even while he was claiming he was there to help Buffy, and that he instantly wanted to do so after seing Buffy "because (the vampid airhead, Cordelia-clone (at the time)) carried her heart on her sleeve", he STILL didn't have the guts to fight by her side, prefering to lurk in shadows and dumping cryptic hints, while un-empowered, mortal teens risked their lives, immortal gutless preferred playing the voyeur where he could be certain his gel-filled hair didn't get messed up. It's only Xander Harris shaming him into action that made finally do something.
Having read through your posts, I see that you're firmly entrenched in a particular point of view in regards to Joss Whedon and his work, so I won't bother trying to sway you. But in regards to your understanding of Spike going off to "show them" as it were, you may want to watch it again. That entire section was a "bait & switch". More plainly put, the writers wanted you to think Spike was out for Violence when in fact they wanted a cliffhanger for the end of the season to reflect something the audience wasn't supposed to expect. In my case it worked, I was right there with you until that last bit of Dialogue when the Magic Guy gave Spike what he "wanted". Now Again, some have said that this was a play on the concept of a Jin giving you what you asked for and not what you intended, but I don't really see that here, after thinking it though. Whedon was quoted at the Dr. Horrible Panel at Comic-Con recently saying (and I'm paraphrasing) that he was gratified that people took so much from the stories that he and his fellow writers had created. Sometimes this included things that weren't there to begin with (as in, what was intended by the writers) but in fact actually was there and had been all along. He said he still was pointed out things by fans in shows he'd done and was discovering things he didn't even know was there until then. Similarly, I think that even though we saw the same footage, we obviously didn't see or experience the same story. Anyways, no hard feelings on my part, just wanted to say what I saw.
Except that is isn't a bait and switch, if it was meant to be, it was bad writing and totally botched. You see, if you want to trick people into seeing one thing, and then pull the rug out from under them with another possibility, it must be a POSSIBILITY. In short, you need to write it so two or more interpretations are valid and ambiguous. What Spike said and did, wasn't in the least bit ambiguous. He asked "to be made what he was". Well, Spike was never a souled, chipped vampire in any way shape or form. Which means, it is impossible for him to have asked for his soul, especially if you consider that the thing he's asking is a wish-fulfilling DEMON. Even genies happily twist your wishes, what do you think a DEMON is going to do? Seriously, let's examine how ridiculously you have to twist Spike's words to turn "make me what I was", into "give me a soul": Spike was never a souled chipped vampire, Spike was never souled. The only thing Spike has ever been is two things, an unchipped, monstrous vampire (that monster he's been complaining about he can't be, that he wants to be again), and a chipped, neutered vampire. The chip being the cutting off point, before that, exists the "was". Let's start the twisting process: Well, the corpse Spike is animating right now, was once alive, before Spike even existed. This living being that died and who's existence ended before Spike ever existed, had a soul. So, if we convieniently twist the past requested through "was" to apply not the being asking for it, but the physical body he is inhabiting, this corpse his existence keeps from disentegrating, we could say that this body "was" once souled, even if it is before the wishing party was even born. Therefor 'he was once "souled"' and we can ram a soul up in there along the wish's parameters, even it is the most extreme twisting of a wish in the history of wish-fulfillment. It is obvious then, that Spike could never have meant "give me a soul" with his wish "make me what I was." Indeed, look at the demon. He makes Spike not go through one test, but test after test after test. He's constantly deriding Spike and insulting him. It pretty much seems like he hates Spike, like they have a history - which incidentally perfectly explains why Spike never went to have the chip removed before, they have a history and Spike likes the demon no more than the demon him, he wouldn't go there unless he had no other choice. There is no way in hell, no pun intended, that this demon is going to fulfill Spike's wish if he can help it, Spike knows this, so Spike would NEVER have given this demon such a ridiculously impossible to decipher wish - "make me what I was" --> "give me a soul" - he would have made it extremely clear so this demon can't twist his words. And then, just as the wish is be fulfilled, the demon's demeanor changes somewhat, suddenly he isn't so pissed off anymore... as if he just managed to twist the wish's words far enough to the very breaking point, so impossible a twist only someone putting hours and days of conscious thought to it, to be able to doublecross Spike. Which would rather explains Spike surprised look at the demon before the glowing hand even touches him. There's absolutely no way in hell what happens in those scenes and the words Spike utters can be seen as ambiguous, especially considering Spike can't afford to be anything but perfectly clear to a practically by definition wish-twisting, wish-fulfilling demon. And if it's not ambigous, then the show tells us Spike can't have gone there to get his soul.
I think the following dialogue from S7 "Beneath you" makes it pretty clear that Spike's purpose was to get his soul back. And writers are on record (Jane Espenson for example, if I recall correctly) that it was an intentional mislead: the audience was supposed to think he went to be dechipped, but the soul was his goal all along. As for the "make me what I was", before everything else (a vampire, soulless, chipped) wasn't he a man, with a soul? (copied from the Buffyverse Dialogue Database) SPIKE: I tried to find it, of course. BUFFY: Find what? SPIKE: The spark. The missing... the piece that fit. That would make me fit. Because you didn't want... (starts to cry) God, I can't... Not with you looking. (drags himself into shadows) SPIKE: I dreamed of killing you. 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've 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: Your soul. SPIKE: Bit worse for lack of use. BUFFY: You got your soul back. How? SPIKE: It's what you wanted, right? (looking at the ceiling) It's what you wanted, right? And--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: 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-- (chokes up) to be a kind of man. (approaching the alter & a giant cross) She shall look on him with forgiveness, and everybody will forgive and love. He will be loved. So everything's OK, right? (rests on the cross, his flesh starts to smoke) Can--can we rest now? Buffy...can we rest?
But he once was a man with a soul. That's the bait an switch part - leading us on with an assumption that turns out to be wrong.
My objection to the notion that he went to that demon to get the chip out is extremely simple: The chip is a technological artifact. Why it would even seem relevant to a mystical ritual is beyond me. Besides, if he thought he could have gone there to get de-chipped at any time, he would have done it as soon as he heard about the place. Since we never got a "learning about it" scene, we must conclude he was aware of that possibility all along. Incidentally, I recently read the novel Debatable Space. Not the best book ever, but it did have one fun reference: upon observing the wildlife on Earth, one character comments to another that all the animals are equipped with "Whedon chips" and are thus incapable of harming humans.
The vampire is a demon living in the soul-less body. In "The Dark Age" I believe, it was some S2 ep, they send the body possessing demon into Angel's body, where it just ends up fighting the demon already in there, and they made a comment about there were three things living in his body then and it was too many.
No, he was not a man with a soul. That man is dead. Spike is just the demon wearing that man's corpse. Why does everyone refuse to read what I wrote. I've said this multiple times over already: if you want a mislead, then what's really going to happen has to be a possibility that leads from the misleading scenes and dialog. IT DID NOT. As for the dialog; it's called a retcon, or in Spike's case: lying through his teeth. After all, here's Buffy, the girl who's panties he wants to get back into after having attempted to rape. Let's see what sounds better: "I went to get the chip removed so I could kill your friends and your sister, so the ties that keep you in the light were finally gone, and I gone drag you into the dark with me! But the demon double crossed me and gave me my soul instead." Or: "I went to get my soul to make me worthy of being back in your panties, boohoo." It might be a tossup, but I'm going with the latter. No, he was NOT a man with a soul. The man the with a soul is DEAD. Spike is just the demon wearing that man's corpse. Also, even if it were true, "make me what I was" would mean "make me a living human being again", NOT "give me a soul". And I've explained it over and over again, for you to pull a bait and switch, you actually need to have the switch be a possibility. It was not. So if it was a bait and switch, then it was bad, if not outright crap writing. :sighs: 1. There was no mystical ritual anywhere. 2. It is not relevant to a mystical ritual. 3. The closest thing to a mystical ritual is Spike's tests whether he's worthy - worthy to get his wish granted, WHATEVER THAT WISH IS - although undoubtedly within limitations. Why does everyone refuse to read what I wrote? I already explained this one as well. Remember how Spike treated the demon with barely contained contempt? And the demon returned the same? They hate each other's guts! They have a history together. And Spike hates the dude so much, 1. he can't trust him, and 2. he wouldn't go to him if his life depended on it. So he'd rather live with the chip in his head, then having to go crawl to the wish-fulfilling demon. It's only in his most desperate hour, when he has no other choice left, that he went there to earn his magical out. It all fits rather perfectly together. Hell, it was filmed and written that way. You see, an alternate ending was filmed, where Spike indeed got his chip removed. And that question: why didn't he do it before, had to be answered, so they layered to scene to reflect they have bad history together.