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Spike (a.k.a. William the Bloody) is a fictional vampire played by James Marsters in the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel .
Spike is probably the best example of Buffy's theme of redemption; he first appears early in the show as a throughly evil character, to slowly reform over a story arc lasting several years, to become a world-saving champion of good. This arc is popular amongst fans and is widely considered to contain good characterisation, particularly the complex love-hate relationship between him and Buffy herself.
Overview
Before Spike became a vampire, he was William Walthrop, a brown-haired, ineffectual gentleman from the Victorian era (circa 1880) who lived with his mother and wrote poetry. He was called "William, the Bloody" behind his back by members of his social set, because his poetry was so "bloody awful". This title (with more deadly connations) followed him as a vampire. After being rejected by the aristocratic Cecily Addams, he found comfort in the arms of Drusilla and was transformed into a vampire. Euphoric with his new-found vampiric abilities, and reacting over his treatment by others as a mortal, he threw off the stifling culture he grew up in and became an extremely immoral rebel, prone to impulsiveness and mindless violence. He acquired the name Spike because of his affinity for torturing people with railroad spikes. Along with other vampires, including the infamous Angelus, he terrorized Britain, Europe and Asia for at least six decades. In the 1940s he was relocated to the US via submarine from Europe by covert agents of the US Government, and then escaped. His mid 20th-century persona preferred slicked black hair and had an affinity for leather jackets. His late 20th/early 21st-century signature look included peroxide blonde hair, smoking Morleys, and a long black leather coat which he took as a trophy from a Slayer he killed in New York. He also adopted a working class Mockney accent that makes some British people cringe.
Spike first showed up in Sunnydale in Buffy's second season in the
episode "School Hard" with his long time love Drusilla, who was suffering from a mysterious ailment that could only be cured by the blood of Angel, her "sire" (the vampire who transforms a given human into a vampire by exchange of blood). Early on, Spike referred to Angel as his "sire," but later episodes made it clear that Drusilla sired Spike. This conflict may be due to a continuity error on the part of the writers or because, as some fans speculate, Spike considered Angel his sire because he is a close part of his vampire lineage (and because Drusilla's insanity prevented her from guiding Spike's early years as a vampire, leaving Angel to educate him).
After Angel lost his soul in a tryst with Buffy, he joined with Spike and Drusilla in a plot to destroy the world. Spike became jealous of Angelus and Drusilla, and then allied himself with Buffy in an effort to restore his relationship with Drusilla by defeating Angel. At the end of Season 2, Spike and Drusilla left Sunnydale.
Spike appeared in only one episode of season 3, during which it was revealed that he and Drusilla had split up due to her continuing infidelity.
He returned to Sunnydale in season 4, without Drusilla, and became a member of the regular cast for the remainder of the series. He then became involved with Harmony, an inexperienced young vampire. Despite her beauty and affection, Spike considered her a nuissance, and nothing more than a sexual plaything. Soon after the beginning of season 4, a secret government military organization, The Initiative, implanted a microchip in his head. This chip induced crippling electric shocks whenever he attacked humans, but he remained able to cause harm to demons. The implanting of this chip marked the beginning of Spike's gradual turn away from evil.
In season 5, Spike fell in love with Buffy. She did not return his feelings and repeatedly rejected him. Still, his love for the Slayer, along with his inability to harm humans and his need to satisfy his blood lust by attacking demons, led him to fight along side the Scooby Gang against the forces of evil.
During Season 6, Spike and Buffy became lovers. Their mutually physically violent relationship was emotionally destructive for each of them. When Buffy broke it off, Spike attempted to force himself on her sexually in an effort to win her back. Guilt over his attempted rape of Buffy led Spike to decide that he could never be good enough for her unless he could gain a soul. At the end of the season, he had his soul restored by a shaman after undergoing several physical trials to prove his worthiness.
Spike's role in the early episodes of Season 7 focused on his guilt and repentance for his previous acts of evil. By this time, Buffy trusted him enough to ask and allow Initiative agents to remove his deteriorated misfiring microchip. During the season, he and Buffy achieved an emotional closeness as he remained her only supporter when the other Scoobies abandoned her. However it is unclear whether they resumed their sexual relationship, and the true nature of their feelings for each other remained ambiguous. In the Season 7 (and series) finale, Spike sacrificed himself to save the world. He wore an amulet which radiated a mystical light that destroyed a legion of uber-vampires and sealed the Hellmouth. In the process, Spike was incinerated, but not before Buffy told him she loved him. With his final words he thanked her for her kindness, but said that he did not believe that she loved him.
Despite his apparent death, Spike was mystically restored to (vampire) life and appeared regularly on Angel in its fifth and final season. At Wolfram and Hart, Angel received a mysterious package in the mail, containing the amulet Spike had worn at the destruction of the Sunnydale Hellmouth. On opening the package the amulet fell out, began to shine and Spike suddenly appeared, in the closing moments of the first episode, "Conviction".
For the first few episodes of this season, Spike was an incorporeal ghost, able to pass through walls and so on, though his connection to the real world was unstable, and he disappeared at random (but increasingly frequent) intervals. Spike told Fred that every time he disappears, he is being transported to (a) Hell. Spike wanted, at this stage, to leave Wolfram and Hart and find Buffy, but when he tried, he discovered that he was mystically bound to Los Angeles and unable to leave.
In the episode "Hell Bound", Fred tries to make Spike corporeal again, but this plan is thrown by the appearance of another ghost, who threatens Fred's life; Spike throws away his opportunity to become corporeal (and, thus, stop being periodically sent to Hell) in order to save Fred, of whom he's becoming quite fond.
The episode "Destiny" sees another mysterious package arrive at Wolfram and Hart, which renders Spike corporeal again. One of his first acts is to again fornicate with Harmony, now a secretary with the firm. We discover that the existence of two ensouled vampires in the world is messing with the fabric of reality and the two vampires learn (from Eve) that there is a prophecy detailing how to restore the balance, involving both vampires competing to reach the Cup of Perpetual Torment. Angel and Spike's relationship had always been strained due to competition over women, notably Drusilla and Buffy. Spike also tended to needle Angel with the fact that he had made love to Buffy on many occasions, whilst Angel had only had her once. Ego and personal hostility led to an extended battle between the two adversaries; Spike beats Angel to the Cup and drinks from it, believing it would bestow upon him great responsibilities and pain; making him the "greater" champion of the two. Ironically, someone had replaced the mystical contents of the cup with soda pop, rendering the whole exercise useless.
From "Soul Purpose" onwards, Lindsey McDonald, pretending to be Doyle, with a connection to The Powers That Be, persuades Spike — until the ex-Wolfram and Hart employee's duplicity is discovered — that he is destined to "help the helpless", in much the same way as the real Doyle persuaded Angel of the same thing at the start of Angel series one. Spike, after a bout of depression, is brought back to being an affirmed Champion of the Good and, by the end of the season, Spike is again a trusted member of the team, being entrusted to rescue an infant and destroy a demon cult in the final episode "Not Fade Away", in order to help defeat the Circle of the Black Thorn and wound the Senior Partners. Having succeeded, Spike finds Angel, Illyria and a mortally-wounded Gunn in the alley, preparing to incur the apocalyptic wrath of the Senior Partners, as the series draws to an end.
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