Vampire with a Soul: Angel vs. Spike

[TriBel]

With Spike the demon doesn't have as much to go on. He loved and was loved by his mother. He had a comfortable life. So soulless Spike's nature largely comes from his issues with class and status. His demon rebels against the ordered social structures that rejected William, and so is more focused on mayhem and destruction. As for love, yes he can still love, but his relationship with Drusilla is co-dependent just as it was with his mother - a constant desire to please her and receive approval through that affection. His love is ultimately inward and self-serving because he is still playing out that Oedipal desire.

Debatable - Yes - he loved and was loved by his real mother - and yes - this was displaced onto Drusilla. I can see how this can be understood as inward inasmuch as it's dyadic - it breaks the incest taboo and there's no consistent intervention of a third term. Self-serving though? She takes him as the phallus - which is what the child wants. But he's also the father inasmuch as he protects and provides for her. From this perspective he's playing the father's role. They call each other "my Girl", "my Boy". I'd say it was mutually self-reinforcing in the sense that it confirms and confers identity. That aside, outside of perverse love, do we ever love looking for disapproval? Isn't love meant to replete the libido? Unrequited love results in self-hatred; requited love in positive self love - love that sustains the ego.

But - Spike hated the demonic mother. This hatred I suggest, was displaced onto Slayers. His demonic mother was a slayer - she killed the "good boy" by forcing him to kill her. In a sense, what we see is the abject(ion of the) mother literalised. IMO, it's not a coincidence that the first Slayer he kills says "tell my mother I'm sorry" or that Nikki was a mother. What makes Spike unique is the profusion of mothers. This gets around the thorny problem of the mother's fort/da - the good breast/bad breast - the phallic/castrating mother etc. He's able to separate them out into two different entities. What happens when he meets Buffy is the two Spike's (and there are - as I've described them - two) are united. He loves Buffy and hates the Slayer. It's this conflict we see coming to a head in S6. IMO, she has a similar predicament - a conflict of interests. She has feelings for William (As You Were) but can't reconcile this with her duties as Slayer - who's raison d’être is the killing of vampires. In S7 both work to put open water between their two selves. As they are in S11 - he probably still has a psychic structure that pertains to the hysteric but it's not as pronounced as it was and he's less prone to fetishization.

I won't go into what I think is the logic behind him getting his soul except to say he's driven by both love and hate and this isn't resolved or realised until part way through the trial. As for Angel, Spike's a romantic poet, what's the betting he's a humanist and his idea of the sublime is different to Angel's - isn't Angel Irish Catholic? Angel's problems are - as you suggest - no less Oedipal but it's a conflict with the father. I'd be inclined to look at to the other side of Freud's Totem and Taboo. I'd also consider a correlation between psychoanalysis and the therapeutic journey and Catholic Confession. I'd also look at his sister - Kathy (meaning pure) and ask why Angelus' "thing" is the rape and killing of nuns. I'd do all those things if I wasn't already procrastinating. 🙂

 

[Mylie]

@TriBel Your reading of Spike's relation to mothers and slayers is interesting. Do you think it's a coincidence that Spike develops his love for Buffy at the same time she becomes a metaphorical mother? Dawn appears, made from Buffy, and 3 episodes later Spike has his dream/revelation that he's in love with her.

 

[TriBel]

@TriBel Your reading of Spike's relation to mothers and slayers is interesting. Do you think it's a coincidence that Spike develops his love for Buffy at the same time she becomes a metaphorical mother? Dawn appears, made from Buffy, and 3 episodes later Spike has his dream/revelation that he's in love with her.

It hadn't occurred to me - I can be thick at times (and I've focused more on S7 than anu other season) - although, on reflection @Priceless might have mentioned it. If she didn't - it sounds very feasible. 🙂 I do think Dawn is very significant to him. More than being just Buffy's sister. It's as though he has a "little bit" of Buffy hidden in Dawn. I think this is a good thing - complete love is very static - it can't develop.

 

[EarthLogic]

@TriBel, I agree with much of what you say. I mean, I can't debate the details of the pyschoanalytical points you make as I'm not well versed in it but certainly both characters have oedipal conflicts with their parental figures; Spike with his mother and Angel with his father. And absolutely Angel's Catholicism informs much of how Angelus acts and then later how Angel responds to the memories of what he has done (that Catholic guilt runs deep). In fact Angel's journey is entirely couched in religious terms - 'faith', 'redemption', 'forgiveness', 'salvation'.

I'd also look at his sister - Kathy (meaning pure) and ask why Angelus' "thing" is the rape and killing of nuns.

Yup. I don't know if the writers gave that much thought to her name. It's possible, but sometimes they do also just pull these things out of thin air. It works though. Angelus' obsession with purity is also part of his wider mocking of God (the father) by severing his connection with him. Christianity models its structures on familial relationships and in turn encourages believers to model familial relationships on its structures (father-God, mother-chaste vessel, son-future hope,). Nuns are meant to be chaste, therefore guardians of purity, untainted. They're called 'sisters' but they're also like mini Madonnas- think of their garments. Thus they are able to receive the holy spirit - be impregnated with it, yet remain pure. They are the perfect mothers. By destroying this purity, Angelus breaks his connection to God - he destroys the vessel, the lifeline, that connects the son to the father.

But anyway, the point I was trying to make with the part you quoted was really just to explain how there is such a disparity between the degree of evil each vampire has. Angelus' is much more brutal because he's lashing out at his ties to humanity. He lacks the ability to form bonds like Spike, Dru and other vampires do because he hates the very idea of it. And it makes sense - if his experience of 'love' was the harsh judgement of his father and resulting feelings of worthlessness, then naturally the demon would seek to reject it. Spike on the other hand, has no need to rebel against the idea of love since it was never really a problem for him. Sure his close relationship with his mother was kind of unhealthy, and we get the whole 'bringing home Dru (his new mother/lover) to his old mother/lover thing', but it (arguably) doesn't damage him in the way Liam's parental relationship does. He perpetuates it -with Dru, the slayers, then Buffy - rather than seeking to undo it. What he does lash out against are the societal structures that belittled, then ostracised him. His brash personality is a reaction to that.

I can see how this can be understood as inward inasmuch as it's dyadic - it breaks the incest taboo and there's no consistent intervention of a third term. Self-serving though? She takes him as the phallus - which is what the child wants. But he's also the father inasmuch as he protects and provides for her. From this perspective he's playing the father's role. They call each other "my Girl", "my Boy". I'd say it was mutually self-reinforcing in the sense that it confirms and confers identity. That aside, outside of perverse love, do we ever love looking for disapproval? Isn't love meant to replete the libido? Unrequited love results in self-hatred; requited love in positive self love - love that sustains the ego.

I guess I used the terms 'inward' and 'self-serving' merely in an attempt to stress how their love can still be seen as falling short of the selflessness that the show upholds as the ultimate marker of human love, as we see with Spike when he finally gets his soul. Yes Spike/Dru it's dyadic, and mutual, but its still all about them regardless of the world, of any other connections or purpose. (And yes you can argue that humans also exhibit less-than-ideal, selfish forms of love, therefore it's not something unique to vampires, but this starts to take us to the issue of the concept of 'humanity', which I want to address but won't do so now, because I'm tired and need sleepytimes!)

I'd do all those things if I wasn't already procrastinating

Pshh, my whole day has been procrastination. 😉

 

[TriBel]

Pshh, my whole day has been procrastination

I'm fairly sure procrastination defines my entire existence. That was a great response - thanks. Psychoanalysis I'm fine with - the theological bits and pieces would be literally bits I knew joined together with conceptual leaps entirely of my own making (damn - my syntax seems to have developed a life of its own). I'll give this due consideration tomorrow - I feel more procrastination coming on. 🙁

Oh - and apologies if I sounded terse. I have a tendency to do that in order to avoid writing asides in brackets (rather like this one).

 

[Ethan Reigns]

I have a theory (no, I didn't just sing that). The curse of acquiring a soul may be like the curse Amy put on Willow described in this exchange:

KENNEDY
What did you do to her?

AMY
What, to Willow? Oh. Just your
standard Penance Malediction is all.

KENNEDY
Penance? For what, kissing me?

Amy stops, stares at Kennedy. Gets it. A smile creeps over her face.

AMY
Wait, seriously? It happened when
she...
(laughing to herself)
Nah, I planted the spell months ago
after that whole "end of the world"
routine... All I had to do was wait
for her to punish herself. -- The
spell just took her thoughts and
powers and made them manifest.
(then)
Turned out much better than I thought
it would. That kiss musta been a
whopper. Nice going, you must be
good.

KENNEDY
All right, listen. You've had your
fun. Now undo it. Let her out.

AMY
Okay. Oh, wait, I forgot. No.

The restoration of a soul may happen the same way - the restored soul may have characteristics based on the remaining memories of the demon which would make it different for Angel, Spike, Harmony, Drusilla and Darla although it has only been applied to Angel and Spike.

 

[theslayerettes]

My head is kind of fuzzy right now, so bare with me. First, amazing and well thought out points have been made that have really made me think. I won't be able to express my opinions as well as some others have.🙁

I've only watched through AtS twice because honestly it didn't appeal to me that much even with the awesome characters. So I'm a little fuzzy on a lot of Angel's backstory that was revealed there.

But anyway, the point I was trying to make with the part you quoted was really just to explain how there is such a disparity between the degree of evil each vampire has. Angelus' is much more brutal because he's lashing out at his ties to humanity. He lacks the ability to form bonds like Spike, Dru and other vampires do because he hates the very idea of it. And it makes sense - if his experience of 'love' was the harsh judgement of his father and resulting feelings of worthlessness, then naturally the demon would seek to reject it. Spike on the other hand, has no need to rebel against the idea of love since it was never really a problem for him. Sure his close relationship with his mother was kind of unhealthy, and we get the whole 'bringing home Dru (his new mother/lover) to his old mother/lover thing', but it (arguably) doesn't damage him in the way Liam's parental relationship does. He perpetuates it -with Dru, the slayers, then Buffy - rather than seeking to undo it. What he does lash out against are the societal structures that belittled, then ostracised him. His brash personality is a reaction to that.

I think you make really good points about Angelus and humanity. A great example of him suppressing love is in "I Only Have Eyes for You" after the spirit of the teacher overtook him. He scrubbed himself to the bone to get rid of any love that could still be in him. Then he stated that he needed a "vile kill".

I think that what we 'know' about vampire in relation to the human whose body they are in could be misleading. We first hear, I believe, from Buffy that once a person becomes a vampire the person is gone. I think this is when she is explaining it to Xander that vampire Jesse, isn't really Jesse. However, the first thing vampire Jesse does is go after Cordelia, the girl who rejected him. So clearly, the human motivates the vampire.

Later, in season 2, "Lie to Me", Buffy says to aspiring-vampire Ford, "You die. And a demon sets up shop in your old house. It walks and talks and remembers your life but it's not you."

So far the mythology surrounding vampires and souls has been seemingly
consistent. You take the characters words for it, but given that there is no actual proof of this, hypothetically, the characters could be wrong. It seems to me that the idea that the human is gone and the demon is just taking on the personality of the human could just be a myth. Imagine if your loved one became a vampire and was trying to kill you. It would be much easier to tell yourself that the person you knew is completely gone. It would be incredibly hard to think that your loved one was capable of something like that. So instead of accepting that this is that person with new evil desires and a lack of morals or conscience, you convince yourself that this is a new entity completely.

But then we have Angel's experience. In the episode "Angel", Angel says, "When you become a vampire, the demon takes your body. But it doesn't get the soul. That's gone. No conscience, no remorse . . . it's an easy way to live."

You would think that Angel being a vampire would know all the in's and out's. His saying this proves that the human is completely gone, right? But what if it isn't? What if a guilt ridden Angel is so desperate to distance himself from his evil deeds that he convinces himself of this myth too. If you think about it, why would Angel feel guilty for the things Angelus did if, he, Angel, did not do it? It would be like blaming yourself for a murder you did not commit. Maybe Angel and Angelus are not two people but different sides of the same coin.

In "Doppelgangland", when Buffy tries to comfort Willow about vamp Willow, she says that the vampire isn't like the person it used to be. Angel almost contradicts her, but then thinks better of it. Could it be that Liam, Angelus and Angel are not as different as we think they are?

Honestly, I don't even know. I basically just spewed out a bunch of incoherent thoughts and made up a theory that I'm not even sure I believe. Please feel free to disregard, I'm sure it's full of more holes than I can even think of at the moment. 😕

But - Spike hated the demonic mother. This hatred I suggest, was displaced onto Slayers. His demonic mother was a slayer - she killed the "good boy" by forcing him to kill her. In a sense, what we see is the abject(ion of the) mother literalised. IMO, it's not a coincidence that the first Slayer he kills says "tell my mother I'm sorry" or that Nikki was a mother. What makes Spike unique is the profusion of mothers. This gets around the thorny problem of the mother's fort/da - the good breast/bad breast - the phallic/castrating mother etc. He's able to separate them out into two different entities. What happens when he meets Buffy is the two Spike's (and there are - as I've described them - two) are united. He loves Buffy and hates the Slayer. It's this conflict we see coming to a head in S6. IMO, she has a similar predicament - a conflict of interests. She has feelings for William (As You Were) but can't reconcile this with her duties as Slayer - who's raison d’être is the killing of vampires. In S7 both work to put open water between their two selves. As they are in S11 - he probably still has a psychic structure that pertains to the hysteric but it's not as pronounced as it was and he's less prone to fetishization.

Your theory is definitely interesting and obviously well thought out. I always thought that Spikes interest in slayers stems from his insecurities and need to prove himself. As William he was laughed at and others thought that he was pathetic and talentless. Killing Slayers made him a 'good' vampire. He proved himself to Darla and Drusilla when he killed the first slayer during the boxer rebellion. That was also when he became more confident and less of a screw up.

The only thing that I believe might hurt your theory is Spike's relationship with Joyce. He seemed to always have respect for her and thought highly of her.

Either way I really enjoyed your theory and points. 😀

Sorry for the essay-length rambly post. I just have so many thoughts on the topic, some of which still haven't fully been able to work out. There might be a few loose threads or contradictions in what I've written, but I'll try and address them at some point.

Please don't be sorry! I love it when people are passionate about their writing and get swept up in it. Thank you for sharing your opinions!! 🙂

 

[Stoney]

As far as we know, (based on the show) Angel and Spike are the only vampires with souls. When Spike got his soul we assumed that it worked just like Angel's does. But it seems to me like the soul affects them differently.

I haven't had the chance to read through the thread so I'm just putting forward my take on it. It depends what you mean by affects them differently to me. They aren't affected differently in the sense that it works differently for them, so no in that sense, but they respond differently to it, so also yes too. 🙂

I don't agree that Angel and Angel'us' are separate entities. It think this is where you come to them simply responding differently. The show made the shifts more dramatic for Angel because that served purpose for how the soul was used for the character's story and they didn't want the same harsh break with Spike, not with the same dramatic shifts, but the character does change when souled too. I personally think that it actually works well for the different personalities to explain the difference in how they respond.

As I've said before when this topic has come up, I think the show is consistent personally that a vampire is the human personality, their drives and motivations warped by the inclusion of a demon. There is consistency from human - to vampire - to souled vampire, the same underlying/original personality is part of the mix throughout and they are governed by the same motivations as part of that personality. Both Spike and Angel are shown to be massively informed by the human that they were, there would be zero point in showing us the flashbacks if they didn't inform the characters and story being told. As I've also said before elsewhere, the background we learn about Liam gives good coherent reasons why his behaviour swings strongly (beyond the two vamp's different paths to being souled). Angel's focus on guilt/redemption works with the Catholic upbringing and his own stated perspective of not being able to stop looking back on his victims. The shifts in how he holds himself and how he expresses himself, and emphasised in his clothing, again just works with him feeling subdued in his guilt or free and rebellious with his conscience and that guilt lifted from him. Spike took William's tendency to prefer to avoid what he doesn't like to think about (as stated in the party about the murders and as later allows The First to be able to hide the trigger in a suppressed memory about his mother), so he doesn't like to look back but prefers to look forward at what choices he can affect and what he can do in the here and now. How he can change things. He is less brash when souled and he tried to visually reinvent himself again at first, not wanting to feel that connection to his soulless self. His image and how he presents himself is of course a major, well-established insecurity. But he had rejected wearing the coat and at first tried the bright blue shirt etc. He didn't return to his previous image until they deliberately gave a reason for him to need to use it as a tool. He put the same persona on again actually against what he wanted, to put the mission first and to be able to be the fighter he was. Needing to do that is a weakness, but it is a consistent character issue so it does make sense.

So both vamps do change in how they outwardly present themselves and how they behave I think. It is just that their reactions to being souled are affected by their individuality, their personalities and their coping mechanisms. Both are shown to struggle with their past actions and although Spike doesn't tend to be open, he always leans towards putting up a front to protect himself emotionally, he does speak to both Buffy and Angel about his soul and struggling to see his path going forward. Neither vampire would, or does, behave like they did unsouled. They are connected through their personality and from retaining the memories throughout of 'themselves', but becoming a vampire, then becoming a souled vampire are all still distinctly different states for them both that actually works the same way. The differences are just about individuality.

Souled, Spike and Angel aren't responsible for what they did unsouled in one sense, there is a very real distinction between them once souled as they wouldn't have chosen to do those things, but there is also still consistency within them too. They still have the demon within them, even if the soul overrides it. They still have the urges for violence and blood and they still have the memories of all that they did. I think it makes sense that they feel connected to their unsouled pasts and feel responsibility. And they did come to their souls from very different paths too and their demon side is still within them when souled. It makes sense that how that side responds to the inclusion of the soul will affect the swings in behaviour. I don't think you can expect a set, formulaic reaction to being sired or then to being souled. That isn't realistic I don't think. Consider the myriad of responses people have all the time to similar experiences just based on basic individuality. When souled you then also have the additional disparate internal mix of demon and soul complicating further the considerations of basic personality differences. But they do both change and both vampires put themselves on the line time and again to help others and are choosing to try to walk heroic paths. It is just that they are different personalities from different backgrounds, have walked different paths and so have different responses. That just makes sense to me.

We see/hear Spike's reactions to who he had been and what he had done in S7 beyond Buffy. In Beneath You he is clearly being plagued by his past and refers to everything he did and everyone from his past being in his head telling him to go to hell. He is horrified by remembering those that he had killed under the trigger, and we hear it as well as see it, "I killed, and I can feel 'em. I can feel every one of them." But when he is talking to Buffy in Never Leave Me it is again about his more distant past and not about what he did to her. He is broken up about what he has done to girls Dawn's age and who he had been, who he could still be within (his issue with remaining a monster) and states, "As bad as I was, as evil and as wretched as I was, I never truly hated myself back then. Not like I do now." He outright states it, "Buffy, I can barely live with what I did. It haunts me. All of it. If you think that I would add to the body count now, you are crazy." (Sleeper). So this really comes down to the kind of difference I was talking about in individuality. Spike's story is consistently showing how he puts up fronts and often tries to protect his more vulnerable sides from ridicule and exposure. His whole persona of Spike started to drive a distance between himself and William. He won't expose a weakness voluntarily often and can even be overly determined to use bluster and bravado to try to cover. It is a character flaw to behave like that over anything, despite how it makes you seem. And then there is also that important personality distinction in that Spike's focus is looking forwards and not back, as he and Angel discuss in Damage. So I can see how it can be easier to 'see' Angel's remorse over his past but Spike definitely is seen to feel remorse about it all, it just isn't where his personality pulls the focus. And really it is good that they don't cover it in the same way as they do for Angel. If they did it exactly the same it would be repetitive and boring. Their stories have different points of focus, of emphasis, which is better for their individuality and to draw out variations from their different personalities and how they cope with their situations. 🙂

 

[TriBel]

The only thing that I believe might hurt your theory is Spike's relationship with Joyce. He seemed to always have respect for her and thought highly of her.

Sorry - I should have been clearer. He loved Buffy because she unconsciously recalled his real mother (the actress who played Anne Pratt was chosen because of her resemblance to SMG) but he simultaneously hated the Slayer (the bad demon mother). Joyce, I think, reminded him of his real mum.