Random thoughts 2 : Spike and humanity

[candleanfeather]

Let's beginn with a few quotes:

• Season 2

Surprise
THE JUDGE (to Spike and Drusilla  )
You two stink of humanity.

BBB
Spike offers a necklace to Drusilla as a Valentine's gift, Angel a still warm heart ripped from some poor human being  

• Season 5

The Gift
SPIKE (cont'd)
I know that I'm a monster. But you
treat me like a man, and that's...

• Season 6

Smashed
SPIKE
A man can change.

• Season 7

Beneath you
SPIKE
Buffy, shame on you. Why does a man do what he mustn't? For her. To be hers. To be the kind of man who would nev- (looks away) to be a kind of man.

I love how the writers latched onto this characteristic they had introduced for Spike in season 2 and made it into a real motiv guiding his whole history. It emerges then disappears and re emerges; it's always there giving the character its depth and coherence. I absolutely love the generosity and the hopefulness of the view and the metaphore that Spike's carries as a character defined by his journey towards humanity.

Interestingly enough, the only season where this motiv is absent (as far as I remember) is season 4 (I won't take into account the only episode in season 3 where Spike appears). It's probably a testimony of the fact that the writers still didn't really know at this point what they would do with the character, but it's also coherent with the thematic of the season for Spike: being deprived of his status as a monster and trying to retrieve it. So instead of the man motiv there's the animal/monster motiv:

Doomed
SPIKE (after finding out he is able to satisfy his inclination to violence against demons)
Yeah! That's right! I'm back and I'm a bloody animal