S is for Spike

This month I'm participating in A to Z Challenge, where 100's of bloggers around the world challenge themselves to write every day for the month of April, working their way through the alphabet.  I'm stitching the Buffy The Vampire Slayer alphabet cross stitch pattern (available from my Etsy store).  Each day I will share that letter's stitching, as well as a bit about the relevant character.

S is for Spike

Spike in the leather jacket he stole from Nikki Wood

William Pratt was born in 1850 in London, England.  He was a sentimental poet, nicknamed “William the Bloody” because of his “bloody awful poetry”.  In 1880 he was sired by Drusilla, exchanged his posh London accent for a working-class North London one, and spent the 19^th and 20^th centuries terrorising Europe with Drusilla, Angelus and Darla.  He earned the nickname Spike from torturing his victims with railroad spikes, and killed two Slayers – Nikki Wood, and another during the Boxing Rebellion.

Spike and Drusilla arrived in Sunnydale in 1997 and spent nearly a year tormenting Buffy (as Season 2’s Big Bad), later joined by a de-souled Angelus.  Spike eventually betrayed Angel to Buffy and left town with an unconscious Dru.  He reappeared in season 4, having been dumped (again) by Dru, and was captured by The Initiative who put a chip in his head which prevented him from hurting living people.  As he was still able to fight demons, Spike became sort-of ally of the Scooby Gang, briefly having a relationship with Buffy, before his soul was restored at the end of Season 6.  Spike eventually sacrificed himself during the Final Battle at the end of Season 7 in order to permanently close the Hellmouth.  Never fear though – he reappeared at the beginning of the final season of Angel (19 days after the Final Battle) as a ghost, haunting Angel and his team for the remainder of the season.

I love Spike.  He is rude and sarcastic and immoral and evil, but he is also caring and loving (as much as a vampire can) and foolish and flawed and down-right funny.  James Marsters can do a very convincing British accent (his regular American accent sounds wrong to me), looks good blond, and has a great singing voice.  Spike brought much needed conflict to the show, and assisted Anya in pointing out the obvious to Buffy.  He had a great relationship with Joyce and Dawn, and his scenes with Giles always made me laugh.  All that aside, I did not like him with Buffy and am not a “Team Spike” girl.  He was a vampire without a soul, and he tried to rape Buffy.  I am constantly amazed by the number of people who think his relationship with Buffy was something ‘beautiful’ or ‘romantic’.  It wasn’t.  It was abusive – physically, mentally, emotionally abusive.  Yes he got his soul back in season 7, but that doesn’t change or erase what happened in season 6.  He made amends, but there’s a reason Joss Whedon (the creator/writer/everything) didn’t put them back together in season 7.