Spike (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)

Spike is a fictional character played by James Marsters in the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel .

Spoiler warning: Plot or ending details follow.

Before Spike became a vampire, he was William (surname unknown), a gentleman from the Victorian era 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 nickname (with more deadly connations) followed him as a vampire, but he is most often called Spike, a name he acquired as a vampire because of his affinity for torturing people with railroad spikes. His signature look includes peroxide blond hair and a black leather coat which he took as a trophy from a Slayer he killed. And a Mockney accent that makes a lot of British people cringe.

Spike in Buffy the Vampire Slayer

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, he joined with Drusilla in a plot to destroy the world. Spike 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.

He returned to Sunnydale in season 4, without Drusilla, and became a member of the regular cast for the remainder of the series. 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. During the season, he and Buffy achieved an emotional closeness as he remained her only supporter when the other Scoobies abandoned her. They did not resume 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 a shiny medallion which radiated with a mystical light destroying a legion of uber-vampires and sealing 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.

Spike in Angel

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 a discorporeal ghost, able to pass through walls and so on, though his connection to the real world is unstable and he disappeared at random (but increasing) intervals and we learn that, every time he disappears, he is being transported to (a) Hell. Spike wants, at this stage, to leave Wolfram and Hart and find Buffy, but we discover that he is 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. 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. After an extended fight scene between the two adversaries, Spike beats Angel to the Cup and drinks from it — selflessly, given he knows that it would bestow upon him great responibilities and pain, as well as making him the "better" champion of the two.

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 dicovered — 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 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 meets Angel, Illyria and a mortally-wounded Gunn in the alley, preparing to fight the apocalyptic wrath of the Senior Partners, as the series draws to an end.