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

[spuffy_luvr]

THIS is everything I feel about Spike, and I am a huge Spike fan and shipper of Spuffy. Besides that one line, there were actually several others 'cut' from S7. So I personally don't believe Spike said it just to push Buffy's buttons, even if you could interpret it that way based on what made the final cut. In the scene in the church, where Buffy discovers he has his soul, they ended up rewriting quite a bit (if you compare the transcripts to the shooting scripts). And one thing specifically left out is Spike talking about how he raped and murdered for over a century.

There were other signs of his 'evil' nature that got left out of previous seasons. In Smashed, I think it was, he prepped his crypt with whips and chains for what he hoped would be a 'romantic' encounter with Buffy. *Shudders* I suspect the writers often cut some of these more potent reminders in order not to lose sympathy for such a popular character. Just my personal suspicions, however.

Spike obviously enjoyed a different brand of evil than Angelus... but does that make him less evil? I can't buy into that.

I suppose one could say that he is less evil than Angelus in that he WAS redeemable (maybe) when soulless, whereas Angelus was evil through and through. But that doesn't negate Spike's previous evil in any way.

I love Spike because of his redemption arc, and because he chose redemption, even when soulless. Minimizing his evil takes away from how powerfully different Spike is, to me. In a sense, his ability to choose to turn good means that it was a choice to be evil... and you might say that makes his evil worse. This leads into whether or not vampires have free will or not, and is *that* what makes Spike different, and we could get very metaphysical and philosophical here. Which would make my brain hurt.

You wanting to scream that he's the worst person ever when people turn him into a fluffy evil vampire - OMG I not so long ago wrote a similar post due to the exact same feelings. You're more coherent than I, though. :)

*Shameless self-promotion* I wrote an entire story for this last round of Seasonal Spuffy due to that line of Spike's, and the others that were cut from the same scene (such as "You never met the real me").

[spuffy_luvr]

I just checked out the fanfic you linked to, and I've read that before. I love that one. Especially the scene with the girl in the coal bin. I have seen fans say/stories written where they believed Spike's alternate nice-guy ending. NO NO NO! Now that would be Spike putting a spin on his actions. :P

[red_satin_doll]

Especially the scene with the girl in the coal bin. I have seen fans say/stories written where they believed Spike's alternate nice-guy ending. NO NO NO! Now that would be Spike putting a spin on his actions. :P

SERIOUSLY?