The Road Less Traveled: Mutant Enemy, Spike, Angel and Redemption at the End of the Day

Meta
Title:	The Road Less Traveled: Mutant Enemy, Spike, Angel and Redemption at the End of the Day
Creator:	Leslie
Date(s):	2001
Medium:	online
Fandom:	Buffy: The Vampire Slayer
Topic:
External Links:	The Road Less Traveled: Mutant Enemy, Spike, Angel and Redemption at the End of the Day, Archived version
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The Road Less Traveled: Mutant Enemy, Spike, Angel and Redemption at the End of the Day is a 2001 Buffy: The Vampire Slayer essay by Leslie.

This essay was posted to the Tabula Rasa website.

Excerpts

If life's a journey, then most of us are at some point stranded without a map. But TV isn't real life, and we look to the lives of TV characters for a structure, an arc, we don't necessarily have in our own lives. We may fiddle around, going nowhere fast, but in drama we look for progress, achievement, an all-wrapped-up-in-a-big-red-bow ending. And in the particular case of Spike, we're looking for red-ribboned redemption as his--and our--reward. Will he get there? Do the smiling sadists (and I mean that in the nicest possible way) at Mutant Enemy have happiness in store? I believe yes, but in their own special way.

Start with Angel, the vampire with a soul, the darling of the Powers That Be, with his destiny, his epiphany and his shanshu. Angel was the first BtVS vampire to set foot on the road to redemption, and his is a mystical, fated journey. Because of that, he has only a limited amount of free will. When he's in danger of straying too far from his pre-ordained path, of opting out of life and the struggle, the Powers intervene and set him right or save him (magical snow, anyone?), as the situation demands. Interestingly--and somewhat off the main argument--one of the biggest problems Buffy will (or would, anyway, if I ran the circus) face in her acceptance of Spike is the fact that if he can do good without a soul, why couldn't Angelus? I venture to say that that, too, was as a result of Angel's destiny. He had to be evil so that his transformation back to the Good would have the necessary meaning. His path is a narrow one, and he has very little chance to stray from it, whether for good or bad. Unlike some, I actually find him an interesting character and his potential struggle--against himself, against the Powers that have taken away his ability to choose--a fascinating one. How far ME will go with that remains to be seen, but I'm still enjoying the ride. But that's Angel's road, and only Angel's road. If we all had Important Roles For The Fate Of The World to play, then his wouldn't be special or interesting, and there would be no point in telling his story.

Then there's Spike. Clearly Angel's road isn't open to him. He's a regular guy, in vampire terms, and what he gets, he has to figure out and fight for himself. For the fundies, that means redemption is out of the question, because Angel's road is the road to redemption, and since it's closed to Spike, so is the possibility of reaching redemption. That's, imho, patently ridiculous, and I once more return to the metaphor of life as a journey for my explanation.

Fundies are fundies precisely because their argument, based as it is on the religious concept of a soul, is a fundamentally religious one. That means it's based in belief, not logic, and nothing I say next is going to sway them. Frankly, I don't care, because I don't have a lot of interest in the thoughts of anyone who's uninterested in original thought, in interpreting the world around them, in the value of free will, and--most of all--in weighing the value of actions, of reality. I have to believe that an atheist who does good simply because it's the right thing to do is a better person than the criminal who recants and finds God on his deathbed. If the fundies want to consign the first to hell while rewarding the second with heaven, that's their prerogative, but it's mine to disagree with them.

Though I'm personally not religious, my approach to life and morality is informed by religion, specifically Judaism. One of the key differences between Christianity (and the fundies are clearly aligned with Christianity) and Judaism is that the bulk of the Judaic laws and the main thrust of the religion deal with man's treatment of his fellow man, quite a comfortable fit with my own atheism. Another is that there are no concepts of heaven and hell in the Christian sense, though there is a concept of reward. And I would argue that Mutant Enemy's approach to Spike's redemption is essentially either an atheistic or a Jewish one (not that I think that was anything like a conscious decision, just that that's where it nets out at the end of the day), because it's based not on divine intervention and posession of a soul but on actions, realities. And that's just as valid an approach--to anyone but a religious fundamentalist (and you already know what I think of them)--as any other.

But what a road he's got to choose. The popular path is out, so all that's left is the lonely one. And he really does have to do all the work himself, at least for a while. Right now his love for Buffy isn't returned--or not in the way any sane person would want it returned, anyway. And when she does return it? In some ways that could be a hindrance to redemption, since it would be tempting for him to get stuck at the stage (Reformed!Spike) of continuing to do good only for her. I think by that point he'll have the self-awareness to know he needs--wants--to move beyond that simplistic motivation in order to achieve not just Buffy!Love but redemption, but that only means his path will continue to be a solo one in many ways. Because he has no soul and the easy option is closed to him, he's going to have to work, and work hard, for what he wants. But what we work for, we treasure. We hold it dear because it cost us dearly. Spike has caused hell, now he may have to go through it. But once he does? He gets it all. He gets the girl--and not just any girl but a superhero girl--and he gets redemption. Not only that, I think we can reasonably believe that his journey will be not just as valid as the religious path but in fact a better one, in terms of what it's already shown--and will continue to show--about him, his mettle, and all that makes him--and us--human. As Robert Frost said:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I --

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

It will make the difference in Spike, too.