Deep thinky question of the day

[snick_backup]

[Poll #1393306]

Comments

[gabrielleabelle.livejournal.com]

I chose the fourth option only because I have no clue. I've often wondered if Spike would have been able to hit Angel while Angel had a soul. Given what happened with Buffy in S6, I'd think yes, but...then I don't know...

[snickfic]

Yeah, I think it's one of those unanswerables. I do think Spike could have hit Angel, though - I can't see Angel's soul affecting his vampire status. After all, he still can't go out in the sun.

Although I guess I could see the chip reacting to souls or lack thereof, rather than to physical, er, demonicity? Which would imply that the Initiative had come up with some scientific way of detecting souls...

Argh!

[rahirah]

The problem is, the chip's abilities and limitations are never properly defined.

The easiest explanation would be that the chip reacts to Spike's intent to do harm, by detecting the physiological changes associated with aggression. But in that case, there's no reason why it shouldn't react when he hits a demon, too.

So it has to have some way of distinguishing between demons and non-demons. Well, maybe it's wired into Spike's olfactory bulb, or into whatever complex of neurons involved in facial recognition. But in that case, if it's depending upon Spike's ability to recognize demon and non-demon, why would it stop reacting to Buffy when Spike had no clue that Buffy had undergone any physiological changes?

Well, maybe it doesn't depend on Spike - maybe it can tell the difference between demon and non-demon on its own. But how? Is it wirelessly tapping into a monster database somewhere? Does it have some kind of sensory abilities of its own, and if so, how the heck do they operate with no apparent external sensors?

And just how sensitive is it, anyway? Can Spike bite animals? One would assume from the fact that he claimed to be starving when he threw himself on Buffy's mercy in S4 that he can't. But then in S7, he's shown hunting a rat. But the chip could have been getting wonky by then, so maybe it wasn't firing reliably. Or maybe he was just too hungry or crazy to care if he got a shock.

For all intents and purposes, the chip is magic. A mailing list I was on once had a long debate about how the chip worked, and in the end we threw up out hands and decided that a wizard had done it.

[gabrielleabelle.livejournal.com]

lol! Yeah, I usually don't attempt to fanwank the chip. It does whatever the writers need it to. There's very little sense to it when you try to reason it out.

[snickfic]

There you have it, folks. The whole messy problem in six paragraphs. *g*

[deird1]

I picked option 4 simply because I love that interview...

[snickfic]

Tee hee. You can tell he's a wee bit out of his depth, but still. I love that they talk about the Jayne hat.

[angearia.livejournal.com]

I think the chip would recognize Oz as human in human form, but would let Spike attack when in werewolf form. But really I don't know. The problem with the chip is that the rules from when it was first introduced to now kept changing. *shrugs*

But ultimately I'm landing somewhere in between that the chip would fire at all times for Oz or maybe not fire if he's in wolf form.

[snickfic]

The problem with the chip is that the rules from when it was first introduced to now kept changing.

True dat. We go from "Spike can't aim a toy gun" to "Spike can swing at Buffy as long as he doesn't actually mean to hit her..." Bleah.

[angearia.livejournal.com]

Plus we have Riley saying it worked and the hostile "can't harm a living thing without intense neurological pain" and Harmony saying Spike can't even pick flowers then we see Spike can hurt demons. So demons aren't living things? Or is it just that Spike can't hurt humans? It's all very confusing.

[snickfic]

I'd forgotten that bit about Spike not being able to pick flowers. What ep was that?

I think I'm just going to say that Riley was overstating the case a bit. Otherwise, Spike wouldn't be able to, like, walk on the lawn.

The part that really gets me is the whole idea in "Family" of the chip functioning as some kind of diagnostic - as though it were somehow capable of telling whether or not Tara was human! If it really does work "on intention" as Spike says just one ep later, then it ought to rely on Spike's understanding of whether or not the creature he's hurting is human. And it shouldn't fire if he accidentally, like, stepped on someone's foot. (Does that ever happen in canon - it firing when he hurts someone by accident?)

[angearia.livejournal.com]

Not sure what ep Harm said that in, but with Riley I think it's just that they didn't really establish what the chip fully did. They left it a bit loose and then altered the parameters of the chip to meet the story's needs.

And yeah, Fool For Love seems to put a kink in the works. Is it diagnostic or based on Spike's perceptions? Because if Spike believes someone to be a demon and hits them, how does the chip know that person is human if his mental faculties are reading it as a demon. Or Spike hitting Buffy in Season 6 - he expected the chip to go off and it didn't. So how did the chip externally read it?

[phoenixofborg.livejournal.com]

I'd say that the chip firing in "Family" could be explained as Spike perception -- he thought she was human and expected it to fire. So it didn't really explain anything, even though everyone else took it as proof... (You could get some fic material out of that, I'm sure.)

But again, Season 6 Buffy-hitting is the kink in the works... Unless it tied into Spikes statement that she 'came back wrong' somehow?

[snickfic]

You could get some fic material out of that, I'm sure.

On the one hand, yes, definitely. On the other hand, it seems to me that any fic that hinged on nitpicky details of how the chip functions would be on shaky ground. You'd pretty much just be asking your readers, "Okay, let's pretend that it always works like this, and ignore those counterexamples because they, uh, don't make sense." Which is workable, I suppose, just not optimal.

Come to think of it, I've seen very few AU's focusing on Tara. I'm in the wrong corner of fandom, I suppose - they're problem a dime a dozen over in Willow country.

Unless it tied into Spikes statement that she 'came back wrong' somehow?

Like, he subconsciously thought that she had, even though consciously he still thought she was human? That's... too complicated for me. *g*

[phoenixofborg.livejournal.com]

ZOMG Tara really *is* a demon Spike was wrooooong. :P

Re: Buffywhumping- And um, IDK. Maybe? Or maybe because she's not acting like herself, in his mind she's not really 'back' yet, so in his subconcious, she's still not really alive....

Ow, philosophy headache!

[snickfic]

Bleah. That's the magic word for staving off a philosophy headache. *g*

[phoenixofborg.livejournal.com]

...Am I weird if I think Demon!Tara could have been a really interesting direction to take?

[snickfic]

Well, it would have given Tara actual, like, plot of her own, and we couldn't have that...

But as Anya says, there are all different kinds of demons, and no particular reason to think that Tara, had she been a demon, would have been one of the nasty kind. Yeah, I think that could have been really interesting.

I almost wonder if the writers didn't have that in mind when they were hinting back in S4 that Tara was a demon, but changed their minds later. It seemed like a pretty cheap trick to me, that didn't really get them anywhere interesting - but then again, I didn't actually notice the hint until after I'd seen "Family," so it was pretty much lost on me. (Kind of like I didn't realize in S7 that they were setting up Giles to maybe be the First, until the ep when it was revealed that he wasn't. Went right over my head.)

[phoenixofborg.livejournal.com]

Lol. Darn that obvious-in-retrospect foreshadowing.

And yeah, that's my issue with Tillow -- Tara wasn't nearly as well developed as Anya or Oz IMHO, I might have liked the pairing more if she was.

Okay, that's it. Demon!Tara-centric AU is now on my list for after the next time I finish something.

[snickfic]

Tara wasn't nearly as well developed as Anya or Oz IMHO

Yeah. As far as I was concerned, she was pretty much a nonentity until S6 when she breaks up with Willow and becomes her own person. Then I started to really like her, especially her role as friend/counselor for Buffy. (But then, I realized recently that considering the huge number of girls on the show, there weren't a lot of girl-girl friendships. Just Willow-Buffy, pretty much. I wish there'd been more - that Tara and Anya could have bonded more, or that we could have seen more Dawn-Willow time onscreen as was initially hinted at.)

Demon!Tara-centric AU is now on my list for after the next time I finish something.

Which would imply that you need to send me Chapter 2 of something... *prod* :)

[phoenixofborg.livejournal.com]

*looks sheepish* I'm working on it!

[rahirah]

Well, Spike did deny the flower-picking thing.

[angearia.livejournal.com]

Haha true. I think they were backtracking on what Riley had said initially. :-P

[2maggie2.livejournal.com]

Except when he was escaping from the Initiative when he did a fair amount of throwing people about. At least Petrie in the commentary to that episode has the grace to admit that they rules about the chip were pretty much it fires when the writers need it to and not when they don't.

[angearia.livejournal.com]

it fires when the writers need it to and not when they don't.

Yep! *nods*

[snickfic]

the chip were pretty much it fires when the writers need it to and not when they don't.

You're right, of course. Oh, Joss. Your characters, they are wonderful; your worldbuilding, it leaves something to be desired. Then again, only weird obsessed people actually care about this stuff... :p

[silverusagi]

The chip makes no sense. Don't try to figure it out, LOL.

But I would say if he hit Oz when Oz was human, it would fire. It fires on Buffy, and we know the Slayer has a little demon in her.

[snickfic]

The chip makes no sense. Don't try to figure it out, LOL.

Good call. *g* Some things in the Buffyverse just don't bear thinking about...

[angearia.livejournal.com]

The chip makes no sense. Don't try to figure it out, LOL.


Word.

[phoenixofborg.livejournal.com]

The chip is like the transporter -- tech whose mechanics and and ability to function is entirely subject to the whims of the writers, and depends more on how much coffee was consumed during the scriptwriting process than anything else.

When in doubt, blame tachyons. :P

[snickfic]

and depends more on how much coffee was consumed during the scriptwriting process than anything else.

LOL. Yes, well, there is always that...

[phoenixofborg.livejournal.com]

*somewhere hypothetical at an ungodly hour*

"Wait, why doesn't Spike's chip fire?"

*looks at empty coffeepot*

"Fuck it. It just doesn't."

[riccadonna.livejournal.com]

Keeping in mind that the absolute truth is that the chip fires when the writers want it to, you can rationalize everything in any way: in "The Initiative" it could have been kind of adjusting, (having been recently implanted) so that the reaction was not yet attuned to Spike's brain, but the state-of-the-art device was self instructing and finding the right amount of shock to give with each subsequent trial; Spike in the beginning is also so confused and flustered by his growing inability to hurt humans that he doesn't even think of hitting or biting something else. He does look confused when Harmony says that thing about the flowers.

[snickfic]

Well, yes, that's true. And I'm actually moderately okay with the "adjustment" idea, now that you mention it. I mean, I'd be even more okay with it if someone had mentioned it in canon, but oh well. *g*

[cafedemonde.livejournal.com]

he is a werewolf, his blood is different, infected now. So I think the chip should fire.


No matter how sweet he is, he's not 100% human.

[snickfic]

True, about the blood. (Except, I think you mean the chip shouldn't fire.) What made me ask the question in the first place was Giles' assertion (in "Phases") that a werewolf was still a person, or human, or something -- I forget the phrasing -- 28 days out of the month.

[cafedemonde.livejournal.com]

Yep, I meant shouldn't fire.

And I took Giles statement to mean for all intents and purposes Oz was human in that he could not change at will and was as harmless as any other person. But the thing is, if he had bitten someone, got his saliva into their bloodstream, they would be turned. He didn't have to be wolfy. His cousin Jordy got him while all humany.

AAAAND...Oz had super smelling abilities while in his human state and, for me, definitely had a wolfish character at all times.

And if we go by Nina, she was craving very rare meat while human, and hearing everything, smelling everything.

[cafedemonde.livejournal.com]

and I voted wrong too. I put the chip would fire when I meant it would not. slap me silly please.

[snickfic]

True points, all. (Although frankly, I thought Oz was a bit wolfy before he got bit, so... *g* I actually said sometime early in S2, "Geez, where are the werewolves? I bet Oz is a werewolf.")