evil vampires are not so nice

[deird1]

So, over on Mark Watches, the comments are discussing Angel. And someone just said this:

Vampire Spike was never as evil as Angelus (considered one of hte most evil vamps ever) he just does the killing bit because he truly enjoys it. He's not a good guy, doesn't try to be, doesn't pretend to be, but he isn't so evil as to actually want to tear someone mentally to pieces.

Hmm.

I responded by pointing out this line of Spike's:

Do you know how much blood you can drink from a girl before she’ll die? I do. You see, the trick is to drink just enough to know how to damage them just enough so that they’ll still cry when you… ‘cause it’s not worth it if they don’t cry.

...and the answer I got? "Yeah, but he's just saying that so Buffy will kill him."


Allow me to get my ranty pants on for a minute or so.


Spike is a vampire. An evil vampire. A VERY evil vampire.

HE IS NOT A NICE GUY WHO JUST "HAPPENED" TO KILL PEOPLE.

I am, admittedly, a pretty big Spike fan. The guy is awesome. BUT - that doesn't mean glossing over the utterly appalling stuff he did for over a century. HE'S EVIL.

When you start deciding that the evil vampire guy is so cute and fun just a big softy, and didn't really do anything so bad because it wasn't actually on screen, and actually, when he mentioned raping/killing/torturing people, he was probably just lying or exaggerating or something, because he never really wanted to be evil, he just kinda liked violence, and really, can you blame him? it's not like he's actually a bad guy.
...when you do that, I want to scream and write meta on how SPIKE IS THE WORST PERSON EVER. Which I don't actually think, so I'd appreciate it if you could stop motivating me to write it.

It minimises Spike's redemption arc, dismisses murder as irrelevant if you don't know the victim, and also gives the more vindictive Bangel fans lots of ammunition of the "rapist lover" variety, which I'd really like to never hear again.


In short? A character can do awful, evil stuff. And still be your favourite character. And you don't have to gloss over one to keep the other.

Let me leave you with a fanfic that addresses this. Because if I could write that fic, I wouldn't have to write this rant instead.

Comments

[next_to_normal]

So I can easily see him doing the same with Angelus, back in the 1880s. Trying to model himself on him, do the same things he did, get the same kind of thrill from psychological torture.

Oh, agreed that he would copy Angelus, but I don't know that I'd say it was a thrill for him, necessarily. He seems pretty annoyed with Angelus' prolonged torment of Buffy in S2 - he's always asking why Angelus doesn't just KILL her already.

But it's not a matter of not being evil enough to enjoy psychological torture. He's not morally opposed to torture. He just gets bored too quickly to enjoy the drawn-out stuff. :)

[stormwreath]

Well, I did say trying to get the same kind of thrill. :) I can see him hero-worshipping Angelus at first as the role-model of a vampire, someone he should copy and live up to. But after a few years of that, he'd have an epiphany that actually, all that slow psychological torture stuff was boring, and even as a vampire he didn't have to do it.

He could do his own thing instead, and mock Angelus instead of trying to imitate him. Much more fun. :)

Mind you, on a similar note I have a suspicion that he isn't annoyed at Angel's actions in S2: he's annoyed at Angel himself, and so whatever Angel did would be wrong.