Jaime J. Weinman makes some very interesting and valid points in his article "Why Spike ruined 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer,'" and this is not a letter calling for the "all shirtless Spike, all the time" show. However, I think she misses one central issue that Spike's back story has brought out beautifully: Spike was a geek and he retains a good part of that geekiness inside his sleek, platinum exterior.

When he was mortal, he wrote bad poetry, doted on his mother, and generally had no clue how to act around women. Hell, the "cool kids" made fun of him and his nickname "William the Bloody" originally referred to his writing being "bloody awful." When Spike gets to join the popular gang (Angel, Darla and Drusilla), he tries over and over to prove himself worthy -- he affects his cockney accent, starts smoking, dresses better, has lots of sex with Dru, but it doesn't, truly, make him fit in. He's with the popular gang because the beautiful psycho girl likes him, not because he, himself, is cool.

If Spike really were a jackass who hated the nerds, would he have felt genuinely sorry for Anya when Xander (in a fit of horrid cowardice) left her at the altar, or found Willow hottest when she wore the "fuzzy pink number"? In many ways, Spike is the outsider among the in group. He speaks the truth when no one wants to hear it, he ineptly, and, at points, disturbingly demonstrates his obsession with Buffy, and he plays on every "cool guy" cliché without ever making it work out exactly right.

Don't blame Spike for the decline in the show. Underneath the leather and the tight pants and the punk rock, he's still the sad, bad poet trying to win the girl.

-- Alice Stanulis

I agree with much of your article -- but you are forgetting how Spike began -- as a poetry-reading, mouth-breathing Mama's boy, universally humiliated by women. (He still has a twisted addiction to being beaten on emotionally and physically by women, Buffy and Drusilla being cases in point.) He is as much of a reinvented character is Willow is -- the leather jacket is a facade. The difference is, we got to witness Willow's transformation firsthand.

And therein lies the problem -- we don't get to witness anything firsthand anymore. Anything that passes for human interaction, we are told about, not shown, and there's no growth, just repetition (Willow's Kennedy "thing" -- I can't call it a relationship -- for starters). We are hit over the head with anything the writers want us to know through the characters' exposition rather than watching it unfold ourselves. They've begun talking everything to death on "Buffy" even worse than on "Charmed."

(Not to mention the gross errors of continuity the writers have allowed through -- sending characters traipsing through an Initiative that was supposed to be "destroyed and filled with cement.")

The show has suffered dreadfully and perhaps irredeemably the past two seasons, but I can't blame Spike all alone.

-- C. Lofters

Mr. Weinman, I imagine today's e-mail bag is stuffed fulla unfriendly messages from folks who just can't bear you shedding the harsh light of day on beloved "Buffy." The show, they'll argue, is just like it was -- no, better! Well, take heart, Mr. Weinman, this isn't one of those letters. I think the show has changed.

Praise for uncool kids, meant to counterbalance their constant denigration, is almost always founded on some expectation of future retribution and assimilation: When you're rich and handsome, oh spotty nerd, then you'll show 'em. And sure enough, some of those geeks grow into handsome lawyers and swanky socialites. But what about those that don't? What happens to the poor saps who didn't fit in then and can't fit in now? Well, I suppose they write articles like yours.

You're right, "Buffy's" characters have changed. Joss Whedon's famous theme for the sixth season was "Oh, grow up!" By then, the Scoobies had literally and metaphorically overcome social isolation and needed to move into adulthood, which may be less romantic and more ambiguous, but no less terrifying. Appropriately, that season's big bad villains were three boys who couldn't face these challenges, who still dreamed of fighting high school battles for high school fantasies. Should the show have defended the left behind? That would've justified the chronically uncool, but would it have been right, for its characters or us? Don't we ever get to grow up?

"Buffy's" greatness never rested in its allegiance to those that don't fit in; rather, it constantly delighted because it forced its characters to grow, and allowed them to fail. Even in its final seasons, the show presented choices we'd rather ignore. And between change and stasis, I'd choose change. Because we have no choice.

-- Jeremy Eric Tenenbaum

There is a whole faction of Buffy fans who hate Spike. I don't, because except for Xander, Spike is the only character who can make me laugh.

Spike didn't ruin the show. We have the lack of an engaging plot, the lack of an interesting villain, an overcrowding of faceless girls who are simply there to be killed off, and an unlikable heroine; but it's all Spike's fault?

Willow's character was neutered in Season 6 with her ridiculous "addiction to magic," which in Season 7 became something else entirely, but with the same result -- she's afraid to help out. Seriously, if Willow wasn't afraid to use her magic, she could solve all the problems Buffy is having in one episode. So just to keep the plot going, Willow's sidelined.

Xander has always been the bravest person on the show. He has no special powers and doesn't have a vampire's strength and agility, yet he throws himself into every battle without hesitation. This is still the case, but when they focus on Xander's personal life it's all Anya, Anya, Anya. How is that Spike's fault, again? And speaking of mass murderers ...

Don't forget that Anya and Andrew are both killers. Andrew is a personal favorite of mine, but he had a very important episode this season in which he faced the reality of his deeds. He's not just some brave geek whom people unfairly scorn. They don't trust him because of his past. At least that story line came to some kind of resolution when Buffy suspended him over the hell mouth! Anya, just one season ago, killed a houseful of frat boys. She faced no comeuppance other than the death of a friend and the loss of her demon status, and nobody has forced her to face anything except that she has friends.

I, too, am upset about the scene that was cut from "Beneath You." But it's the least of the problems the show has this season. The show hasn't done the most it could do with any of the characters, including Spike.

And one last thing. Spike was also a misfit -- before he was a vampire. This was established in Season 4 or 5. The revelations in recent episodes concerning Spike's past do not necessarily contradict what came before. I wouldn't be surprised if Joss Whedon planned a lot of the current Spike story line from the very beginning.

-- Helen Mazarakis

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