Before I get started here, I must offer a mighty disclaimer. I think Buffy is one of the best shows of all time. It was packed with great storylines, great characters, and was powerfully emotional and psychological, particularly in the 5th and 6th seasons. Therefore, my extremely obnoxious tearing apart of its internal consistencies does not serve as a complaint, more of a "wow, how amazing is it that a show could be riddled with such inconsistencies and still be so damned good?" thing.

But just let me be the geek that I am...


*Angel's Curse*

It was clarified by both Giles and Buffy that when a regular human turns into a vampire, the soul of that human disappears and goes elsewhere - presumably wherever human souls go after death - and the spirit of a demon shacks up in the body. Therefore the vampire and the human are two entirely separate entities. The only thing they have in common is that they've both used the same body, and for whatever reason, the vampire inherits the human's memories. But they are not the same.

This makes the gypsy curse on Angel rather...odd. The gypsies gave Angel his soul back, essentially returning the "human Angel" to his body and driving out the demon. He's still undead, unfortunately, and needs blood to survive. This seems rather unfair to Angel, as he was not responsible for any of the things the demon did while using his body. This isn't the end of the curse, however. If Angel ever experiences a moment of true happiness, his soul will disappear and the demon will return.

So why did the gypsies decide to punish "human Angel", who had never done anything wrong?

But wait, here's where it gets really inconsistent. A romp with Buffy causes Angel to experience this moment of true joy, and we're waving goodbye to his soul. "Demon Angel" is wild, evil, sadistic...and oh yeah, way more interesting than brooding, one-facial expression "human Angel". He is a complete and utter monster, and during this soulless period, he does a whole lot of shitty things - including killing Giles's love interest and torturing Giles for hours.

Eventually Angel does get his soul back, and here's the kicker. Xander and Giles treat him like crap, due to all the things "demon Angel" did. Giles even lays a guilt trip on Buffy for her desire to stay friends with Angel. That's kinda like everyone in The Exorcist being mad at Regan for everything she did while possessed by Pazuzu.

Actually, it's exactly like that.


*Xander's Hypocrisy*

Because Xander always loathed Spike, he's pretty horrified to learn (in Season 6) that Buffy and Spike have been sleeping together. Xander wonders what the hell is wrong with Buffy - how could she be involved with someone who is so "evil and soulless"? Buffy counters by saying that Xander fought by Spike's side for an entire summer, even letting him take care of Dawn. Now Xander counters with, "But I never forgot what he was."

Okay. While I think Xander's opinion is a little black and white, it's not an altogether unfair thing for him to say. Technically, Spike IS a demon. For over a hundred years, he has murdered countless innocents, including two Slayers. He has committed unspeakable atrocities.

Just like Xander's ex-fiancée.

Oh that's right, Anya was a vengeance demon for over a THOUSAND YEARS. Why is this fact so conveniently overlooked not only by Xander but by the entire Scooby gang? Yes, she was originally human, and now she has become human again. That doesn't take away the unspeakable atrocities SHE committed. It can be argued that Anya was ultimately far more evil than Spike could ever dream of being. Her specialty was cursing unfaithful men, and let's admit here that the punishments she exacted didn't quite fit the crimes. Take Stewart Burns, for example. She turned him into a demon and banished him to a hell dimension, where he was to be tortured for all eternity.

That seems fair.

Here's the thing. Since she became human again, you might assume Anya would show some remorse. Instead, she speaks freqeuntly (and with great pride and joy) of the horrific things she has done. Again, neither Xander nor the Scooby gang seems particularly bothered by this.

Now let's get back to Burns, the unfortunate man mentioned earlier. He winds up escaping the hell dimension and exacts a little vengeance of his own by persuading Xander to leave Anya at the altar. (It wasn't difficult, as Xander was already having second thoughts about this wedding...but ironically NOT because he suddenly realized he was about to marry an ex-DEMON. It was actually because he realized he was not going to be a good husband, and he didn't want to ruin Anya's life.) After being spurned by Xander, Anya immediately reverts back to her vengeance-y self, persuading the rest of the Scooby gang to wish agonizing torment on Xander so that she might fulfill their wishes and gleefully watch him suffer. Now Anya did have a right to be hurt by Xander's actions, but wanting him to be literally tortured is a tad evil.

And after all of this, Xander still has the audacity to say that Buffy should have nothing to do with Spike, because of "what he is".

Interestingly enough, it's not just Xander. Buffy was horrified with herself for being with Spike, but she was all supportive of Xander and Anya. Giles was always wary of Spike, laying down the line very clearly in Season 5 when he shoved Spike against a wall and said, "We are not your friends." Was he ever wary of Anya? Why not? Because she was adorably tactless and unintentionally hilarious? She just seemed harmless despite her bloody, bloody past?

I'm not even going to talk about the fact that everyone was fine with Anya inviting a whole troup of demons to the wedding.


*Spike: Soulless and Otherwise*

Spike was always, to me, the most fascinating character on the show. He was introduced to us as evil. Fun, kickass evil, but evil nevertheless. Then, in Season 4, the Initiative captures him and implants a chip in his brain, making him unable to hurt a human without experiencing agonizing pain. He desperately wants to be the same evil vampire he always was, but it just doesn't quite work anymore, and he's reduced to selling information to the Scooby gang and hoping that some other big bad comes along and kills them.

In Season 5, Spike - for whatever reason - falls in love with Buffy, and that's where things get really interesting. It's not just lust. It's actual love. Twisted Spike love, granted, but love. Now how does this work? How does a soulless demon feel genuine love? There was never any indication that the chip caused this. From this point on, there is a battle raging in Spike between the evil that has always been there and this sudden, powerful streak of good. And he doesn't act good just to score points with Buffy - in fact, he never even knew she would find out about his most honorable action: getting tortured practically to the point of unconsciousness by that bitch-goddess Glory, all for the sake of protecting Dawn and Buffy.

Of course, the evil is still there, as we see more than once, and that's what makes Spike such a fascinating character. I'll accept that somehow, a demon could learn compassion, as impossible as this seems. I'll try to be slightly less obnoxious here and not scream "inconsistency".

But...

At the end of Season 6, Spike gets his soul back. And here's where all the rules just fly out the window. Remember the whole deal with vampirism - how a demon shacks up in a human body? How this demon and the soul of the former human are NOT the same? Yeah, okay, apparently that's true with every vampire except Spike. Because despite a temporary bout of insanity and being considerably more gentle, Spike is still the SAME EXACT GUY once he gets his soul.

I know what you're thinking. "But Katie, what about Season 1, where Giles said it was possible for a vampire to actually have the same personality as the person whose body they've taken over?"

You've got a point, despite the fact that this is the first time we've ever really seen that happen. But here's the problem. Before Spike was a vampire, he was William: a sweet, bumbling, sensitive poet. Was Spike ever like that? And was re-ensouled Spike at all like that? (Please keep in mind that he had it in him to punch Anya IN THE FACE when she almost let it spill to the rest of the gang that Spike had gotten his soul back.)


*Angel, Spike, and Smoking*

It was clarified early on that vampires do not breathe. This was a major point at the end of the first season, when Angel could not revive Buffy with CPR because he cannot breathe.

Yet he had no problem inhaling and exhaling cigarette smoke in Season 2. For that matter, Spike NEVER had any problem smoking.

How does that work, boys?


*Spike and Food*

Chalk up another one to the "Spike isn't your average vampire" category. Vampires are not supposed to crave any sustenance other than blood. When you consider what a vampire technically is, I don't think their bodies could actually process anything BUT blood. Yet Spike is quite fond of Awesome Blossoms and tequila. And cookies. And hot chocolate with little marshmallows in it. Again, huh?


*Clem, the Friendly Demon*

Let's just talk about the word "demon" for a second. Both in and out of the Buffyverse, demons are generally evil. Really, really evil. Soulless. Sadistic. Even in the Buffyverse, you don't find demons who deviate much from this description. Well, at least not often.

We meet Clem, the floppy-eared, loose-skinned, poker-playing demon in the episode "Life Serial". He is not at all an integral part of the episode, and it seems doubtful we'll ever see him again. But Spike lets Clem tag along to Buffy's birthday bash, at which he seems kinda...adorable. In a weird way, I'll grant you, but adorable nonetheless. The truth is, the most evil thing Clem ever does is eat kittens, which is...okay, pretty freakin' evil...but still, this is a demon. The fact that he never kills or even poses a threat to a human being? Interesting.

Now, in the same way that I accepted soulless Spike's "goodness", I also accept that there could be such a thing as a friendly demon. (Technically, we've already seen one - Whistler in Season 2.) What I don't get is that Buffy, whose mission it is to SLAY demons, accepts Clem one hundred percent without knowing anything about him. She doesn't even think about kicking him out of her house (never mind that there was a curse on the house at the time and that technically no one could leave), and in a later episode, she lets Dawn stay with him because she knows he's safe. Um, how does she know he's safe? This is the third time she's seen him. Did she ever even research this species of demon? What if he's all nice and friendly until a full moon, when he morphs into something huge and deadly and hungry for more than just kittens?


*Sunnydale's Selective Amnesia*

I'm not really even sure where to begin on this one. Perhaps I'll just sum it up by saying that Sunnydale has a particularly high death rate (the brunt of it focused in Sunnydale High) which very few people seem to notice. Yes, yes, Giles conveniently explained this in Season 1, saying that people tend to forget that which they don't understand. Which is why parents aren't yanking their kids out of Sunnydale High left and right. And which is also why everyone accepts all the bullshit explanations about things like vampires, human/praying mantis hybrids, part of the swim team turning into Lovecraftian fish people, mummy attacks, students possessed by hyenas, etc...

With all that amnesia going on, it's interesting how the students gave Buffy a special award at the senior prom for protecting them from all those things they forgot about.