RE: OT: Spike, a rebuttal from Jung prospective and Vampires

["sc rose" <scrose@xxxxxxxx>]

-----Original Message-----
From: danspector@xxxxxxxxx [mailto:danspector@xxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Wednesday, October 31, 2001 2:28 AM
To: buffyloveswillow@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx; buffywantswillow@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: CA Moore: OT: Spike, Freud and
Vampires


CA,

Granted, I'm not one for Spike Support right now, and any positive words
for the Insufferable Little Twerp (someone's else's name, which I
proudly adopt) will provoke a knee-jerk reaction. And granted, I know
beans about psychology studies. But I still have to disagree.

To say that humans have been wrong about vampires being soulless because
they've been fighting them is specious. Knowledge of the enemy is a key
to doing battle and no organization could have been as successful over
the centuries as The Watchers' Council has been if they didn't even get
the basic facts on vampires correct.

I've encountered a whole country of People raised in an environment of hate
and distrust everyone not just like them. This was done by massive
propaganda and early indoctrination of a particular ideology. So in light of
the simple fact that humans have been shown to have rather diverse
personality types some of them make "Evil demons" look saints. It's not
difficult to extrapolate that vampires might select people who fit into one
of the more violent personality archetypes for their symbionts. For it does
seem that it is a symbiosis that exist that "soul" might not exist but a bad
personality residing in the meat (brain) would still exist. This not only
could but would be carried over why toss out perfectly good human
personality etc... Note Harmony is still pretty much an accident looking for
a place to happen and walking disaster who likes stupid things. IE A great
deal of what was Harmony before she was turned was carried over.

(Slight divergence to remind you that however much he may coo at Buffy,
Spike is incapable of Love. The Judge said, disgustedly, that Spike and
Dru "share affection and jealousy" and, again, knowing this sort of
thing is this immensely powerful and immortal demon's sole reason for
existing. Had they loved, they'd have been destroyed.

Thing those are most unquestionably emotions so while vampires might not
have souls they can have affection and even care deeply for someone if not
at the level of "love" So we have a matter of degrees not a total lack of.

(Spike cannot love because he has no soul and the soul is where love
comes from. The Guide [in the form of the Primal Slayer] tells Buffy in
"Intervention" that "you love with all your soul". That's why lovers are
called soulmatesno soul, no love.)

See above he might not be able to love but he is able to have a somewhat
twisted emotional relationship with someone. The number of actual humans who
miss out on the chance to find real love and take what they can find is
appalling. While this might be a little depressing to bring this up some
actual real people don't know how to love or be loved. They can be offered
real and unconditional love as mother has for a child and will reject it for
the familiar (emotionally or physically abusive) unhealthy dependency based
relationship.

In addition, the vampire's weaknesses all stem from his lack of a
soulvulnerablity to religious objects like crosses, inability to
survive the purity of sunlight. These are present because a vampire is
an abomination, abhorrent in the eyes of God. A creature with a soul,
however submerged, would not be so punished and cast out.

What a complete and total load of crap! Let's jump into the way back machine
to the movie which is canon to joss verse. It's not the cross it's the
belief of person holding it that has the effect. The whole sunlight thing is
very it hurts them but are you saying God didn't make cloudy days. A vampire
in the Joss verse can wall around all day long on dark cloudy day and
certain magical items protect them. It's cursed by belief not by nature.
When Buffy (Christy Swanson) holds out a cross in front of the big bad of
the movie and he laughs in her face and tells her you think your pitiful
faith is going to effect me and the cross burns in her hand which she then
turns into a blow torch with a can a hair spray.

The fact that vampires retain some personality traits does NOT mean that
they are the humans they were, infected by a vampiric "parasite". As
Wesley says in "Disharmony":

"THAT is not your friend. That THING may have your friend's memories,
her appearances, but it's just a filthy demon, an unholy monster."

Thing is it's more than some of that personality it's most of look at who
and what came out of Harmony being turned. Looks pretty much intact to me

And let's acknowledge that, twittish tendencies aside, Wes is a superb
researcher who has spent his life studying millenia of demonology and
vampire lore. I'm inclined to believe he knows what a vampire is and is
not.

Besides, your conclusion that a vampire's actions are ultimately
determined by a still-present human host impugns all those innocent
souls who died horrific deaths and then rose as fanged fiends. Jesse,
Theresa, Eddie, and so on, none of them were the immoral murderers their
vampire selves became before they died. And your argument basically
says that Willow and Xander are evil (see "The Wish"). Sorry, not
buying that one.

Willow is evil and becoming more so every episode. She's paid a very high
price for her super powerful magic and isn't afraid to use it for pretty
much anything at anytime.

So I'm going to stand with Buffy, Giles, Jenny, Enyos, Willow, Wesley,
Angel, Darla, Doc, Spike himself and everyone else in the Buffyverse on
thisA vampire is NOT the person who was bitten.

If that was the case Buffy would be a vampire several times over. Joss stole
how vampires procreate straight out of an Anne Rice novel or to quote Buffy,
"First they suck your blood then you suck theirs it's a whole big sucking
thing."

Like I said, BleachBoy apologia=Sore Spot. Pardon my going ranty.

Don't mind the rant just disagree with it as you seem to be discounting how
much of the personality resides in the meat (brain) of a person. I did find
at least one of your points to be less than cognizant with the established
Joss verse as people seem to forget. The motion picture is indeed considered
part of the canon Joss verse.