Dear Johnny Fanboy,

The vampires in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel are supposed to be soulless creatures lacking any moral values. That is, apart from Angel and Spike once they have had their souls restored, of course.

However, Spike has always been a bit of a "good" baddy, even before the return of his soul. He retained strong feelings for his mother after he'd been vamped. His mum became a heartless bitch when she was turned, so why didn't this happen with Spike? Angel just ate his mum, which is what you might expect!

Spike also had really strong feelings for Drusilla. Angel and Darla had no real loyalty toward one another throughout their history, but Spike did for Dru. He bent over backwards to appease Buffy in Season 5, and he was in floods of tears when she died. And he was always looking out for the "little bit" (Dawn), even before he got his soul back.

So what's with Spike?

Lynette Kirwen

Johnny Fanboy replies:

I challenge the assertion that vampires are always totally amoral. They're not - it's just that they tend to have few qualms about killing humans. Angel and Darla were supposed to be the baddest of the bad, and I don't think all vampires descend to their level.

Many seem capable of forming friendships of sorts with other vampires, with demons and occasionally with humans. Remember how Harmony sought the company of Cordelia when she was feeling down. In fact, when Harmony was vamped, she ended up being scarcely different from her old human self... but then I suppose that says more about her own shallow nature than it does about vampires in general!

If you're still not convinced then I would suggest that, due to some freak effect, the vamping process didn't entirely destroy Spike's soul, but left a modicum of humanity within him. Which, when you think about it, makes his past crimes all the more horrible.

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