Spike's Soul: What Does it Mean?

any monster who wanted to be redeemed would be capable of willing himself to be a better person. One of the main reasons I chose this interpretation was because it was closest to my ideas about free will in the real world. Unless a vampire has a choice in how he acts, I can’t consider him truly evil. I have a hard time applying the label “evil” to any creature that has no control over its own actions. A shark or a rabid dog may be dangerous, and it may need to be destroyed, but it is not evil. I also preferred this position because I loved Spike and I wanted to believe that Spike was going to become one of the good guys. After all, if vampires have free will, and being evil is a choice, then not being evil is also a choice.

The quote from Giles, along with the fact that Spike seemed to be trying to do good things, convinced me that the free will position was the correct one. After that, I spent most of Season Five hoping and believing that Spike was growing a desire to be good and that having that desire was going to be enough to allow him to become good.

The events of Season Six, however, have led me to modify my thoughts on this issue. I now think there is more to it than that. Looking at Giles's definition once again, I think it allows for the possibility that there could be a monster who can't will himself to redemption even though he might want to be redeemed. According to Giles, however, his desire for redemption is more important than his having the ability to achieve it under his own power.

During Season Five, nearly every week I saw some progress in Spike’s journey that seemed to support the free will interpretation. Even when Spike was exhibiting his worst behavior, I could see his sensitive “William” side under the surface. Sometimes his sensitive side was even more obvious at the moments his behavior was at its worst. In "Crush", when Spike chained Buffy up and was begging her for the tiniest hope that she could someday return his love, his behavior was certainly wrong and disturbing, but at the same time he also seemed to be at his most vulnerable. It was clear to me that he desperately wanted to be

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