Nov 25, 2025
Ars Poetica by Sean Thomas Dougherty
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Ars Poetica by Sean Thomas Dougherty
anthonygreen666 Sent to me by @.tdougherty31 and jd foster who played in my first band called audience of one 🤘💐❤️. Time is weird. They were the first to teach me that a strong friendship can make for a magical creative collaborative process. Music is cool.
posted september 22, 2025
Moments we all related to Evie lol
So the metaphor is growing up and the “canon” lore is vampires are incapable of growing up, right? Not in the physical way, the mental way, the spiritual way. A vampire remains an undeveloped entity in every way. That’s the “canon” lore for vampires.
But then you have a vampire character that is literally written to contradict that lore. Forced to by the network or not, Whedon wrote him like that to begin with. He’s the one that planted the seeds of goodness in Spike in the first place only to stomp all over the flower when it bloomed specifically because it bloomed. It’s petty and just shows how much of a dick he is that he blames everyone else for that regretful decision of making Spike be the outlier in the “canon” lore. Personally I believe Angel is but that’s another topic for another day.
The fact of the matter is that Spike is not like other vampires. ‘Fool For Love’ directly contradicts the “canon” lore point blank by showing us how a human informs a demon and a demon informs a vampire. It IS a development - a cycle. Some random demon has not set up shop in Spike despite William’s soul leaving his body. Spike gets the demons instincts but retains William’s psyche. So if he was just a soulless monster, he wouldn’t immediately feel guilty for his actions the same way Angel wouldn’t as Angelus. He is just evil to be evil. Nothing more, nothing less. But I’m sorry because that’s just not what they show with Spike. They show he is capable of good just as much as evil and they show that it’s through choice rather than through nature. So the question becomes - does Spike CHOOSE to rape/sexually assault Buffy or does the demon in him compel him to as it’s part of his NATURE as a vampire? This is the debate.
My insistent stance is he doesn’t and it doesn’t. He wouldn’t choose to do it and it’s not against his will. It’s a contradiction. Neither argument works. The debate is irrelevant. It’s character assassination.
See this is the problem with the split-divide identity/personality of Angel/Angelus. His CHOICE means nothing because IT’S NOT HIM! It’s a random demon. They don’t do that with any other significant vampire in the show. And so Spike is rendered “faulty” instead of the former. I honestly think it’s insulting. I prefer flawed characters. Not faulty ones. Because faulty ones can’t grow from and through their flaws without an external source.
This means that there’s only one thing Spike can do to “fix” this “faultiness” and that he CHOOSES to in itself directly contradicts the “canon” lore as that is also a development.
Why should you write?
why bother