Thank you for your mini essay. Spike is one the best characters i've seen on TV. Next to Gregory House (House M. D.) and Dexter Morgan (Dexter) ....and Starbuck (Battlestar Galactica) ...in my humble opinion.   See 21 other replies

i realize in rereading my final statement that i made a point that i didn't finish. in my diamond analogy i was going to explain how facets and conflict go hand in hand and one complements the other. which makes my repitition make a bit more sense. good night.   See 21 other replies

Part 3:Facets make a character, not how nice he his or how well he dresses his side of the cardboard. Spike is constantly in conflict and conflict is what makes a character. I have a diamond analogy about facets and conflict if you wann hear it but it's late and i'm tired so i shall deliver upon request.I love that this inspired mini essays! Digging my fingers into character development and arguing viewpoints to gain a wider perspective on what goes into creating a fictional person that audiences will relate to enough to rally behind is freaking fascinating.   See 21 other replies

Part 2:With Spike we get to see the full rotation of his charater. From sinister and sarcastic, to his willingness to do anything for Drusilla, to the simpering idiot he becomes when she leaves him, to the stronger individual he becomes once he gets over her, to his strife to prove that he truely is evil, to the crumbling of his dignity when he needs to go to the slayer for help, to the reconstruction of his dignity fighting for the good guys while not actually being a good guy, to the emotional attatchment he gets to Buffy even though she's always beating on him (look up Stockholm Syndrome in your psych book) to the realization that he doesn't actually want to kill her, to the sexual draw and physical obsession which turns to the giving and receiving of sexual abuse (which, if you watched spike and dru's relationship, is how vampire relationships function, so while it's not excusable it is understandable on Spike's part. Remember how he ultimately decided to get Dru back?) to the realization that he is a monster who doesn't know the first thing about being a man, to the driving need to be a man so that he can know how to fix what he did wrong, to the... well, soul, obviously, which he chose and went through hell to get, to the brooding-below-unable-to-deal stage (which, footnote that's not actually at the feet, Angel did for 100 years and Spike did for three months) to needing to make amends but not having the trust of those he wants to make it up to, to the strive to not be evil but not being able to help it at all, to the realization that he is his own man and no first evil or inner demon could take that away from him which ultimately is the man who brings Buffy out of her end of season slump and revs her up to save the world.   See 21 other replies

Part 1:the question wasn't "who's better for Buffy" or even, "who's a better person" it was "who's the better CHARACTER"Spike is one of the most multi faceted characters on TV. He is constantly in conflict both inside and out. Even before the chip and the soul and everything, he struggles with his human side in his love for Drusilla and the way he let his love win over his hate. While he was evil, he almost struggled to be so. Angelus never had that struggle. He would never join with an enemy to get back somebody he loved. He had to conflict. And that was when Angel was at his best character wise.Angel. Is. Boring. His personality through the duration of the show is that on a piece of cardboard with a frowny face drawn on it. While I'll acknowledge that there was character change from the point he lost his soul to the point he appears on the show, we see no growth. If you go from what we're shown in flashbacks and told in episodes, Angel goes from a miserable moping nobody in the gutters to the suave soulfull vampire in a snap just because some guy tells him to. That's not growth, that's convenience for the sake of film. Continuing my cardboard analogy, we have sewer brooding Angel on one side, close your eyes while i flip it over and put it in a velvet smoking jacket and voila, it's occasionally helpful brooding Angel. And nobody cares how it happens because he's on Buffy's side and there's mounds of sexual tension. And (close your eyes one more time so that i don't actually have to connect this to the character in any way) if i pull a black leather sheet in front of it he becomes Angelus who isn't REALLY Angel, just the demon that lives inside him, so Angel is still fully innocent in every way once we pull the cardboard out of hell.   See 21 other replies

"they go deeper into spikes character and who he is as a vampire than they did with angel on buffy"They did and they didn't. It was more obvious when the went into Spike's history certainly. Angel's was more...subtle.   See 21 other replies