fenderlove | Quandary about Spike's Chip.

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Quandary about Spike's Chip.

When Spike was chipped, would the chip fire if he killed an animal? In S4, the Initiative fellows said that he couldn't hurt "any living thing" and there was the joke about him not being able to pick a flower (Spike says he could), but in S6, he's obviously feeding off of kittens at least a fraction of the time. Here's what I want to know- do you think that the chip would fire when he fed off of an animal? 'Cause getting a migraine just for what little blood would be in a cat doesn't seem worth it. Do you think maybe he killed them first and then drained them? Do you think that it fired but not to the point of causing him a headache? Or did the chip just not fire at all? Seems like it would be easier just to microwave bagged blood and be done with it.

Now I'm sad 'cause I'm thinking about Spike eating kittens... Poor little panda baby Siamese kittens. :(

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I don't remember him ever saying he ate kittens - he only played poker with them (Clem and the other poker playing demons said they were delicious).
He kept blood in a bottle in his refridgerator in his crypt (he took it out in a scene from Gone, if I remember correctly) so I guess he just bought/stole bagged blood.

If he didn't eat them, what would he do with the ones that he won? Would he lose on purpose just to be rid of them before they grew into cats and weren't worth anything? Seems like a waste of a perfectly good food supply especially after going through all the effort of winning them.

Fenchurche below reminded me that he seemed to be stalking rats in S7, either just because he was crazy or that's how he was feeding himself while in the school's basement. I had completely forgotten about that.

But we don't actually see him catch and bite the rat, so we don't know if the chip would have fired or not.

well he could have sold them in exchange for blood and smokes. Since they were playing poker in a demonbar.

Maybe for smokes, but I still think that a kitten is a ready warm blood supply for him and having food is more important so it'd be weird to trade it for anything else like cold processed, possibly tested-and-rejected human blood. Maybe he'd get a little otter, a little vole, but it probably wouldn't be an equal trade for a litter of lunchables. He could start a kitten farm... Oh, God, that is a plot bunny I do not want...

I think despite that bit of dialog that Spikes chip was set to spare humans only. I suppose It makes sense doesn't it. The initiative wanted to created a slave army so having them unable to harm humans seems the logical thing to do.

It does seem like humans are the only life that the Initiative valued, so it does make sense.

I think he'd be able to kill animals. He was able to kill demons and at least some of them were living.

It's understandable that he could fight vampires and such since they aren't alive, but yeah, I did wonder why he could fight and kill demons that are intrinsically alive. I wonder if the chip is more tied to how Spike's brain processes information. Like, if he thinks of what he's killing as a living person or not. Maybe it's not the "deep molecular suntan" that made Spike able to fight Buffy after her death but that he thought of her as dead but walking like him. Of course, the government really could have sensors that detect living human flesh that could work through the bouncy castle of radio anomalies that is someone's skull...

Speaking of Spike's lollipop head, how is his brain still able to be operated on? When we get that x-ray view of Angel when he's zapped by Gwen in "Ground State," it looks like his organs are all shriveled. Would Spike's heart have to be started for him to be operated on; is that why when he first tried to get the chip out that the doctor he and Harmony snatched had such a hard time? So, so many questions about vampire biology.

And I don't think Josh was very consistent about vamp biology anyway. There are all the questions you have, plus others, like how can a vampire get an erection without blood circulation?

Whedon jokingly said it was rigor mortis, which if he was serious is just weird.

I often had a question about if vampires really had any cold dead seed. To make Connor, Angel has to have some in some form or fashion. If, like Anne Rice vampires, any change in the body will eventually revert to the state it was in in death, then it's reasonable to assume that vampires regenerate the seed that was in their body at the time of death... which means that if they spent that seed within a few hours of regeneration, the seed would still be motile and viable for impregnation... which lends credence to the whole dmaphir thing and why male vampires in legend are the only ones able to procreate with humans. Males regenerate their seed constantly, females are stuck with what they were born with... which would ultimately decay very soon after death... I've thought too much about this... *head-desk*

You have given it a lot of thought. :-) And incidentally, I do know it's Joss. Man, I need to learn to type!

I always just assumed he couldn't harm animals either (he played kitten poker, but never talked about eating the kittens), because otherwise, why bother with the bagged stuff when he just needed to drive a bit out of town and feed off any cows he found out in fields.

But then in Season 7 we saw Crazy!Spike hunting rats (which really confused me at the time). Unless he was so crazy and hungry that it didn't matter if the chip went off?

I rather suspect it mostly means that the writers didn't really think about it much. :-p

What was he doing with the kittens that he won? Was he just waiting until the next poker tourney to lose them? Land Shark guy said it, "Kittens turn into cats" after a while... and then apparently aren't delicious. O_o;;; Not that I wouldn't mind Spike the Crazy Cat Vamp 'cause that'd be adorable... "Scamper, kittens! Be free!"

I just figured he'd barter them with other demons for money or things he needed. Although I rather like the Crazy Cat Vamp image, too...

Kittens love you unconditionally as long as you feed them and bow down before them. Spike could do that. XD

Totally!

Edited 2011-02-21 19:06 (UTC)

I don't think that was ever defined. In S4, it's stated that he can't hurt any living thing. Harmony says that means he can't even pick flowers; Spike hotly denies that. He can kill demons, but it's never explained why. And in S7, he's definitely hunting rats... but we never actually see him catch and bite one, so we don't know if the chip doesn't fire for non-humans, or if he thinks the pain is worth the meal. There's also the factor that by S7, the chip was starting to fail, and we don't know how soon that started. It's possible that it stopped working intermittently. It's also possible that when he was under the FE's influence, it blocked or lessened the pain of the chip somehow, allowing him to kill all those people (and possibly rats, too.)

Basically I think you could have it work just about any way you need to for a story.

I'm going to go with that. XD

I think it all ties back to pesky souls and the writer's interpretation of how that all works, and that Joss never cared about continuity or good storytelling if it got in the way of his grand scheme.
The mechanics of the chip were never really spelled out. It couldn't really be a soul detector so technically it could only be detecting life signs which would mean all animals. Arguably it could be set to determine intent on Spike's part in which case human could be the default although that would have stopped Spike from hurting Buffy, so perhaps the Initiative had identified some sort of demon gene and when Buffy came back from the dead her demon gene was activated?
I'm just going to go with artistic license and the writers changed it to suit.

I'm just going to let my inspiration fly.

This is a JW production, so continuity and the craft of writing are not particularly prized. I prefer my own interpretations of things, as always, regarding vamp biology/physiology. I could blather on about that for ages, but will sum it up as, 'JW says whatever sounds cool at the time, and does not bother to check that it does not contradict something said previously'.

Also, that bit with Angel's organs being all shriveled annoys me.

As for what Spike did with the kittens, I would reckon if kittens are so hotly prized as the equivilent of cash in demonic card games, that yes, he could trade them for blood or fags or booze or whatever. I don't think it's the quantity of blood in the kittens that is making them desireable to the demons-- there's something else going on, and it also seemed like different breeds of kittens were more desireable? Or maybe I just made that up.

I prefer peasant_'s explanation as to what Spike does with the kittens he wins-- Spike always just happens to set the basket down for a second to light a fag and the little buggers run away. :>

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Quandary about Spike's Chip.

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