Jon Solo Sebastian 10/24/2025:

Before I get into today’s vampire, I want to thank you all for “tuning in” this week to read the Vampire of the Week posts. This has been a lot of fun for me, and I will probably do more “Something of the Week’s” in the future. Now, to wrap up the week… Welcome to Sunnydale.

Almost every story is better with a dose of comic relief. The television series: Buffy the Vampire Slayer has a very good balance when it comes to serious tones and humor. One character, who I like to refer to as the C-3PO of the Buffyverse would be none other than William the Bloody, mainly known as: Spike. While Threepio isn’t a brawler or evil, he, across movies and series’, is well known for his one-liners and hilarious scenarios he finds himself in. While I do not believe Spike was modeled after Threepio in any form, he is similar in that he is the person that tries to be serious, but almost always comes off as comic relief no matter what the situation is.

In season two of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the “Big Bad” arrives in Sunnydale with his eyes set on bagging his third slayer. Spike is the big bad, and he comes into town by driving over the Sunnydale High sign. He steps out of the car to some heavy chugga chugga music with his face all vamped up. He’s got the signature bleached hair, black clothing, black long coat (we later find out belonged to a slayer he killed), and a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. From there, he walks into a vampire hideout where he quickly and arrogantly takes charge.

“You’ve got slayer problems. That’s a bad piece of luck. Do you know what I find works real good with slayers? Killing them.”

“Can you?”

“A lot faster than Nancy boy over there. Yeah, I did a couple of slayers in my time. I don’t like to brag. Who am I kidding? I love to brag!”

He was instantly likeable as a villain. You could also see there was more to him than just killing and creating chaos when his girlfriend Drusilla enters. Upon her arrival, his face changes to human form and his attitude shifts to loving.

Spike becomes a serious problem for Buffy, but she also becomes a problem for him. “Once he starts something, he doesn’t stop until everything in his path is dead.” As it turns out throughout the series, he doesn’t stop trying to kill her until he’s unable to due to a chip installed in his head by a secret military group. The chip causes him immense pain whenever he attacks a human. He eventually becomes part of the team; his reasoning is basically this: he cannot harm humans, but he’s a vampire and only knows how to kill. He helps Buffy and the Scooby gang by killing demons and vampires. Over time, he falls in love with Buffy. She rejects him, but after a while things get wild and dark between them. He hurts her and leaves town. Spike, a soulless being, felt awful for what he had done to Buffy, which almost seems impossible for a creature like him (feeling bad about his actions), but Spike has always been a different type of vampire. In order to be a man she could possibly forgive and eventually be someone she could love, he sets off to take the trials to win his soul back.

I’m really giving you the short, short version, and trying not to spoil anything in case you’ve never watched the show. Spike is a very complex and compelling character that starts out as just a bad ass and arrogant killing machine who eventually becomes someone everyone can root for—even those who do not trust or like him.

A few fun facts about Spike

There were two reasons they called him William the Bloody. Before he was a vampire, he was an aspiring poet. The problem was that his poems were not good, and everyone made fun of him. They called him William the Bloody because his poems were “bloody awful.” Later on, after he became a vampire, he gave the nickname new meaning by unleashing bloody terror unto his victims.

The word on the street is he got the name, Spike, by torturing people with railroad spikes.

Joss Whedon’s inspiration for Spike’s bleached hair came from Billy Idol and Kiefer Sutherland’s David from The Lost Boys.

Actor James Marsters had to have his hair bleached every eight days over six years in order to have the hair color consistent in the show. He had said it was painful and that he had sores on his scalp.

Joss Whedon has been quoted saying that Spike was the most fully developed character in the Buffyverse.

If you’ve watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer, who do you think is the better vampire, Angel or Spike? Spoiler Alert: We get to see them battle several times between the Buffy series, and the Angel series. While Spike makes the list this year, Angel is also one of my favorite vampires, and I will eventually write about Angel, and his series because both the character and the show were awesome.

Once again, thank you so much for joining me on my first ever Vampire Week. It’s been a blast! I’ll be returning to my weekly posts starting next week, which just so happens to be on Halloween!