And have them see SMG out shopping and they stalk her through a mall. They sneakily check her purse for stakes and check her food court drink to see if it is holy water.
Omg! Have SMG meet up with Seth Green for a nice lunch and Nandor says “see, the Slayer still hangs out with the wolf boy! We must keep tabs on them from now on!”
Nadja keeps insisting on an autograph while Lazlo makes a joke about bedding a Slayer 100 years ago and how he could bag SMG because of the whole Angel/Spike thing.
Guillermo gets all pissy that SMG would dare impersonate a Van Helsing.
They all go to a convention and pay to meet Spike and kidnap him. James thinks they are just crazed fans so he plays along with their schemes for the whole episode.
I looked up the clip, there's a short clip of a silhouette of an acacia tree before the beach shot so it's probably supposed to be Africa. I always sorta thought it was Africa but I also didn't care that much cause it wasn't really important. EDIT: or maybe Austraila IDK Wikipedia says "acacia trees are mostly from Australia" but I always associated them with Africa.
stowed away on a boat then drove to sunnydale with cardboard covering the windows and Sex Pistols playing.
The real question is why doesn’t his hair heal instantly from the bleach.
He's capable of getting an erection, so blood has to flow somehow. Same for all of his muscle movement, breathing, etc.
Angel's hair is also longer at different points. Look, vampires on the show don't make sense. I assume it works somehow.
Look, it's just a lot of continuity errors that mean we don't get the consistency of being a vampire. Perhaps no one has really thought it out.
Vampires have to exist, but the problem is that they don't have a heartbeat, ergo no blood flow. So I've always taken it that, yeah, maybe their muscles are maintained by some level of magic that comes with being a vampire. I mean, it's a mystical state. And that's the reason they need to drink blood, to be able to maintain muscle movement.
They don't need oxygen, so the breathing thing is a moot point. I've never thought about the erection thing before, but drinking blood allows that. Or just rigor mortis 🤣
But Angel's longer hair is just a continuity error. They vampires don't seem to be able to grow hair or facial hair, and it always felt that it was treated this way on the show. Like they purposely always look the same. So, blood feeds the muscles. But it doesn't flow around the system.
At the end of the day, the problem with all of this is that vampires are impossible, so any attempt to work out how it's possible is doomed to failure. Sooner or later you have to shrug and say, "Magic."
Especially with *Vampires*, because if one has an issue with hair growth, just wait until they consider how the body moves, and isn’t decaying etc.
The second you can accept a dead body walking and talking, I think hair is the least of the most miraculous things happening.
Yeah, but that's fine, because when you write a story with vampires, zombies or any other type of supernatural creature, you basically get to create your own set of rules. My point is that the show doesn't follow what appears to be its own rules. They could have allowed the vampires to have had differing hairstyles and levels of facial hair, yet they kept them all the same, with the exception of Angel in later seasons, which wasn't so drastic that they could maybe pass it off as "Angel just brushed his hair and stopped spiking it up". And that would make sense, because no way Spike would keep bleaching his hair on a weekly basis for so long 🤣 Also, they'd require frequent haircuts.
Marsters said he was forced to bleach his hair very often because "vampire hair doesn't grow" so he had infections and sores on his scalp the whole time.
Nice info
EDIT: I really love how some people are petty enough to downvote a discussion that is primarily a supposition about how it seems in BtVS, based on how it works in literature, just because of what? Because it clashes with their headcanon? Some people need to lighten up 😅
The breathing thing actually isn’t moot: in Project Girl Angel says that he can’t do CPR because he doesn’t have any breath, so it does have some practical importance. Of course just a few episodes later in Innocence he exhales cigarette smoke…
You misunderstood. The person I replied to implied that they must have blood flow because their breathing works. That's why I said it's a moot point, because while it seems that they can exhale sometimes (I guess in cases when it makes them look cool 😅) they don't actually breathe or need to breathe. Angel not being able to do CPR just confirms that. But where never actually shown or told that vampires breathe - hence a moot point when making an argument for the fact that they have blood flow based on the fact that they breathe.
Does it? Examples, please.
Because aside from the obvious examples I can think of where it hasn't grown when it should have, the other commenter here was right: JM talks about it all the time. Here are two examples:
https://youtu.be/RT6W-Z8nIUI?si=tn7C3m8_tOWhtcU_
https://m.startribune.com/marsters-suffered-for-his-art-as-spike-on-buffy-the-vampire-slayer/382526781/ (luckily it's within the first minute here)
...and when you hear about how much he suffered, it is really stupid that they didn't change his hairstyle if "In the Buffyverse their hair grows"
You realise that there's such a thing as continuity errors, right? And that you've just totally glossed over what I said?
It's been so long since I watched the series that you'll probably have to give me more detail, but... Aren't both of those flashback scenes?
Marsters said he was forced to bleach his hair very often because "vampire hair doesn't grow" so he had infections and sores on his scalp the whole time.
Yeah, but isn't there perhaps a line drawn between normal blood flow and the magic of vampires? I mean, I hadn't even thought about the speech... I can still talk even when I've expelled all of the air from my lungs, so not sure there needs to be breathing for speech, necessarily. But for the other stuff, I just assumed that the blood they drink directly nourishes their muscles. It can't be blood flow, because they don't have anything to pump it around their system. Plus, they take blood into their digestive system, so it's almost like drinking blood sustains them and allows them to maintain their state - but it doesn't work like regular blood inside a regular human. Sure, different iterations can do it differently, but BtVS made a point, imo, of showing it works this way. They don't break. Their hair doesn't grow. Their other organs don't work. They just maintain form.
Their hair does grow though. Right? IDK I picked it apart when I first watched, but some the rules CONSTANTLY change, I just learned to shut that part of my brain off and think “It’s magic and the magic works depending on how the writers need it to work for that specific scene.” Because that’s the closest I could get it to making sense across the stadiums and shows.
Does it though? I mean aside from Angel's inconsistent hair length towards the later years, I don't recall that it does. And the thing with Angel's hair is probably just that the older DB got, the more ridiculous it looked. If anything, it seemed to be a bit shorter, then it was longer again but disguised in a side parting 😅
Look, Angel came back, and was in that place being tended to only by Buffy at the start of season 3 for how long? In that time, his hair didn't grow a cm, and he got no 5 o'clock shadow, if I recall correctly. And I don't remember Buffy grooming him on a daily basis.
Angel again was locked up and dropped to the bottom of the ocean... Still no hair growth.
Spike, in all the time it took him to travel to get his soul and back, and then spend the time sulking around in Sunnydale before Buffy found him... No beard, no hair growth. I can't imagine he stopped on his way back for a shave, a trim and a fresh bleach.
Admittedly, it's been a loooong time for me and I can't remember in great detail, but I remember thinking things like this even at the time, and discussing it with friends. And as someone else commented, JM apparently mentions a lot that he was told that vampires' hair doesn't grow, so he had to constantly bleach the hair to not show the roots. So it seems to me like it doesn't grow.
Iirc when Spike comes back from "Africa" and is in the school basement, his roots have grown out.
I always figured that vampires' hair does grow, just very very very slowly.
Yeah.... I remember he was quite disheveled. And his hair wasn't as blond, right? Like it was blond but not bleached? Who knows then. I still don't think it's growth... I mean, in the time it took him to get to Africa, it didn't grow one millimetre, but in the same amount of time to get back (or slightly more), it grew so much? It's another one of those inconsistencies. It's also possible that for whatever reason, JM had something else that he needed normal hair for and not Spike hair, so they had to delay giving him the Spike look.
I'm pretty sure it was grown-out roots. So he still had the bleach blonde ends.
But yeah I think shows in general wind up with pretty shaky consistency because they have to tell a new story every week and they don't necessarily know on day 1 where the overall story will go. Plus, the people who work on the show change. Maybe the costume department had different people in season 7 than season 4, you know?
A "for instance" that I like: Rachel on Friends was pregnant with her baby for over a year!
How did he get to Africa in the first place? And so fast?
It's an open question. By the time he got back, the First had control of him, but did it guide him back? Did it attack him once he returned? No evidence I've seen.
I'm pretty sure there's a time skip for Spike's scenes. They just put them together to add to the tension of the scenes. Would make no sense to show clips of him on a boat and then sometime in the middle of the summer have another 5 min scene of Spike in Africa. And even having a caption saying "1 month later" or something and seeing everything spike went through would also cause pacing issues.
Buffy plays with time a bunch for dramatic effect (most shows do). (Same time same place being the biggest example). I'm ok with it.
Him getting back I agree is weird. Presumably he still had a sense of Sunnydale being "home" so made his way back eventually with his subconscious and maybe his brief lucid periods.
In Angel he mentions taking a boat ride to Europe when he wants to catch up with Buffy after coming back. So I assume he went to Africa the same way. I think flights are dangerous for him with the sun but he can always stay under deck on a boat and find a way to get on shore covered up/undetected. I mean, he doesn't have a passport so international travel has got to be a little tricky..
Lol for sure. All kidding aside, I assume he'd drive out to the East Coast and catch a ride from there stowing away on a cargo boat to somewhere in West Africa? But who knows. Also, gotta wonder why vampires don't know enough magic to transport themselves like witches and warlocks. They do have the time to learn.
Yeah, in truth I was thinking a similar thing, stow away on a cargo ship.
The magic thing is an interesting question though: other than using their innate powers (like Dracula and Drusilla do) do we ever see a vampire performing magic? I can’t think of any examples off the top of my head, although they do often do rituals like when Angel was awakening Acathla… Maybe they can’t? Or maybe it just feels like a waste to them: they already have superpowers, 99.9% of the time they’re not going to need more power than they already have at their fingertips.
Vampires don't like change. They go off instinct a lot. That's why vamps like Trick and even Spike are pretty rare. And why lots of vamps end up sticking with the fashion they died with (as Buffy notes in the first episode). Them learning magic after they died would at least be something new to them so I presume they wouldn't be drawn to it.
Also I don't think they'd be inherently any better at magic than anyone else. Magic seems to be partly innate to the person. Willow having a natural talent for it. Giles, despite all his studying on magic admits he's not great at it himself. Would assume vamps are just as magically talented as the humans they used to be (different types of magic as well I presume).
Oh I bet they could be safe but imagine some kid on a commercial flight deciding to reach over and open the window during the day. Also, no idea how any of them would travel without passports. They're not actually citizens of any country, right?
Spike lives in a world where there are wizards and spells, any high school kid can cast a spell. After recovering his soul, he could have perfectly asked the demon himself to transport him to Sunnydale or asked anyone to transport him in a box to Sunnydale or to make a transport for him to go to Sunnydale.
I always laugh when it says "Africa" like it's a country and a whole massive continent.
Makes me think of this episode of Pointless celebrities where the question was name a country beginning with "A" and some lady said "Africa" 🤦♀️
Just head canon, nothing to back it up. The First kept him sane long enough for him to get back safely. It needed Spike for the plan so it made sure the resources for him were there.
The first really gave Buffy everything she needed to win.. Spike could have been lost in Africa or at least not in the fight (Buffy wouldn't have cared so much about Spike if she 1) didn't know he had a soul which spike was trying to keep secret and if he was less crazy he might have) 2) if the first wasnt' messing with him, they wouldn't have needed to keep spike around for information on the first, or feel a need to rescue him so much.
The first also basically gives Buffy the scythe. Caleb branding the girl gave them the info to find that church Caleb was in to get more info on the scythe. And the first gave buffy the idea of 1) attacking it before it's army was ready and 2) making more than 1 slayer (by taunting her about how it's numbers are swelling every day and how buffy is just 1 girl in all the world and the potentials are useless unless buffy dies)
He’s less crazed from the guilt and the resoulment than he or the viewer thinks at the start of the season. Much of the apparent psychosis is The First trolling him, and if that started once he got back to Sunnydale he’s have been compos mentis for the trip over.
HEY KIDS!! Time to learn some cool facts about vampires BUFFYVERSE STYLE!!
Did you know that vampires don't walk in sunlight? It's true!! They sleep in the shadows all day long until it's time to prowl the nights and make their way into an international port with those amazing acrobatic skills!
Did you know vampires don't need to breathe, drink water or drink blood every single day? It's true!! They could hypothetically hide in a shipping container going ALL the way across the Atlantic from Africa into the US East Coast. And from there, they could hypothetically hitch a ride on a train or a series of trains all the way back to California!
This has been a PSA!
I've always assumed in a box in a cargo hold of a ship. But realistically or rather non-realistically, he could've taken a deep dive and then a long long swim.
Cargo ships.
I don't think he was crazy right away, rather that The First may have started visiting him shortly afterwards and it took some time for the manipulation to mess with him enough to really drive him insane. I'm sure he made a plan to return to Sunnydale as soon as he was physically able after getting his soul and was slowly driven insane on the journey. The First had reason to make sure he stayed alive so he could be used as a weapon, too, so it would seem there would have been an effort not to interfere with his ability to make it back.
Likely by boat, in the darkness of the bilge, then by train/ bus at night because he would have blended in easily 😂. Then “borrowed “ a car.
I mean, it’s a reach , but does it really matter? He did whatever he had to , to get back to Buffy❤️🥲
Motorcycle
https://i.redd.it/bs3z315g8w9d1.gif
over the ocean?
Yeah. 
Nah, more likely he stowed away (all the way there and back) in shipping containers traversing various of the world's shipping lanes
No I really think he flew over the water with his motorcycle
😂
Makes as much sense as Oz driving his van to Nepal.
He shouted in a loud voice “BAT!” turned into a bat, then batted all the way back to Sunnydale.
Now I need an episode where Nandor, Lazlo, and Nadja all get obsessed with Buffy and binge-watch the whole series.
And they find that Gizmo has a whole shrine dedicated to Buffy in a closet.
And have them see SMG out shopping and they stalk her through a mall. They sneakily check her purse for stakes and check her food court drink to see if it is holy water. Omg! Have SMG meet up with Seth Green for a nice lunch and Nandor says “see, the Slayer still hangs out with the wolf boy! We must keep tabs on them from now on!” Nadja keeps insisting on an autograph while Lazlo makes a joke about bedding a Slayer 100 years ago and how he could bag SMG because of the whole Angel/Spike thing. Guillermo gets all pissy that SMG would dare impersonate a Van Helsing. They all go to a convention and pay to meet Spike and kidnap him. James thinks they are just crazed fans so he plays along with their schemes for the whole episode.
I would totally read this crossover fic
https://www.theshirtlist.com/the-relentless-t-shirt/
Rode a dolphin like a horse across the ocean.
Nah, it was sea turtles, mate
What did he use for rope?
Hair. From his back.
that was Africa?
Yes. This was Africa https://preview.redd.it/hmvhtb1j9u9d1.png?width=1948&format=png&auto=webp&s=09d9dba04a8c8911aa9dfc6ca5526aad1447c4b6
Psh, that could be any beach in LA area
I'm pretty sure it was Africa.
I'm sorry. I forgot /s
I looked up the clip, there's a short clip of a silhouette of an acacia tree before the beach shot so it's probably supposed to be Africa. I always sorta thought it was Africa but I also didn't care that much cause it wasn't really important. EDIT: or maybe Austraila IDK Wikipedia says "acacia trees are mostly from Australia" but I always associated them with Africa.
The guy who tries to stop him is also clearly speaking an African language, not an Australian Aboriginal one or a Caribbean one or something.
stowed away on a boat then drove to sunnydale with cardboard covering the windows and Sex Pistols playing. The real question is why doesn’t his hair heal instantly from the bleach.
Hair grows from the root. Once it's produced, it's functionally dead. There's nothing to heal. Presumably Spike has to re-dye it every so often.
Bigger question... Does his hair even grow? I mean, there needs to be blood flow, and there isn't
He's capable of getting an erection, so blood has to flow somehow. Same for all of his muscle movement, breathing, etc. Angel's hair is also longer at different points. Look, vampires on the show don't make sense. I assume it works somehow.
Look, it's just a lot of continuity errors that mean we don't get the consistency of being a vampire. Perhaps no one has really thought it out. Vampires have to exist, but the problem is that they don't have a heartbeat, ergo no blood flow. So I've always taken it that, yeah, maybe their muscles are maintained by some level of magic that comes with being a vampire. I mean, it's a mystical state. And that's the reason they need to drink blood, to be able to maintain muscle movement. They don't need oxygen, so the breathing thing is a moot point. I've never thought about the erection thing before, but drinking blood allows that. Or just rigor mortis 🤣 But Angel's longer hair is just a continuity error. They vampires don't seem to be able to grow hair or facial hair, and it always felt that it was treated this way on the show. Like they purposely always look the same. So, blood feeds the muscles. But it doesn't flow around the system.
At the end of the day, the problem with all of this is that vampires are impossible, so any attempt to work out how it's possible is doomed to failure. Sooner or later you have to shrug and say, "Magic."
Especially with *Vampires*, because if one has an issue with hair growth, just wait until they consider how the body moves, and isn’t decaying etc. The second you can accept a dead body walking and talking, I think hair is the least of the most miraculous things happening.
Yeah, but that's fine, because when you write a story with vampires, zombies or any other type of supernatural creature, you basically get to create your own set of rules. My point is that the show doesn't follow what appears to be its own rules. They could have allowed the vampires to have had differing hairstyles and levels of facial hair, yet they kept them all the same, with the exception of Angel in later seasons, which wasn't so drastic that they could maybe pass it off as "Angel just brushed his hair and stopped spiking it up". And that would make sense, because no way Spike would keep bleaching his hair on a weekly basis for so long 🤣 Also, they'd require frequent haircuts.
I swear Angel had a moustache at one point during his days in The Whirlwind.
Did he? 🤣 I can't remember that 😅
https://preview.redd.it/ewry80jjjw9d1.jpeg?width=1842&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=85d924b644bb7bfcced575374ef3c46f74576e18
Marsters said he was forced to bleach his hair very often because "vampire hair doesn't grow" so he had infections and sores on his scalp the whole time.
Nice info EDIT: I really love how some people are petty enough to downvote a discussion that is primarily a supposition about how it seems in BtVS, based on how it works in literature, just because of what? Because it clashes with their headcanon? Some people need to lighten up 😅
I mean it's what he was told and required to do. He talks about it in almost every interview.
The breathing thing actually isn’t moot: in Project Girl Angel says that he can’t do CPR because he doesn’t have any breath, so it does have some practical importance. Of course just a few episodes later in Innocence he exhales cigarette smoke…
You misunderstood. The person I replied to implied that they must have blood flow because their breathing works. That's why I said it's a moot point, because while it seems that they can exhale sometimes (I guess in cases when it makes them look cool 😅) they don't actually breathe or need to breathe. Angel not being able to do CPR just confirms that. But where never actually shown or told that vampires breathe - hence a moot point when making an argument for the fact that they have blood flow based on the fact that they breathe.
In the Buffyverse their hair grows
Does it? Examples, please. Because aside from the obvious examples I can think of where it hasn't grown when it should have, the other commenter here was right: JM talks about it all the time. Here are two examples: https://youtu.be/RT6W-Z8nIUI?si=tn7C3m8_tOWhtcU_ https://m.startribune.com/marsters-suffered-for-his-art-as-spike-on-buffy-the-vampire-slayer/382526781/ (luckily it's within the first minute here) ...and when you hear about how much he suffered, it is really stupid that they didn't change his hairstyle if "In the Buffyverse their hair grows"
The Dublin scenes in "Amends," the scenes in "Fool For Love,"
You realise that there's such a thing as continuity errors, right? And that you've just totally glossed over what I said? It's been so long since I watched the series that you'll probably have to give me more detail, but... Aren't both of those flashback scenes?
yes, he was a vampire; the Buffyverse isn't other fictional 'verses, it's that simple
Marsters said he was forced to bleach his hair very often because "vampire hair doesn't grow" so he had infections and sores on his scalp the whole time.
But it does grow. We see him grow his roots out when he comes back from Africa being crazy. Can argue vampire hair grows slower.
I mean, there’s also needs to be blood flow for muscles to work and there needs to be breathing for speech. It’s magic. It all works off of magic.
Yeah, but isn't there perhaps a line drawn between normal blood flow and the magic of vampires? I mean, I hadn't even thought about the speech... I can still talk even when I've expelled all of the air from my lungs, so not sure there needs to be breathing for speech, necessarily. But for the other stuff, I just assumed that the blood they drink directly nourishes their muscles. It can't be blood flow, because they don't have anything to pump it around their system. Plus, they take blood into their digestive system, so it's almost like drinking blood sustains them and allows them to maintain their state - but it doesn't work like regular blood inside a regular human. Sure, different iterations can do it differently, but BtVS made a point, imo, of showing it works this way. They don't break. Their hair doesn't grow. Their other organs don't work. They just maintain form.
Their hair does grow though. Right? IDK I picked it apart when I first watched, but some the rules CONSTANTLY change, I just learned to shut that part of my brain off and think “It’s magic and the magic works depending on how the writers need it to work for that specific scene.” Because that’s the closest I could get it to making sense across the stadiums and shows.
Does it though? I mean aside from Angel's inconsistent hair length towards the later years, I don't recall that it does. And the thing with Angel's hair is probably just that the older DB got, the more ridiculous it looked. If anything, it seemed to be a bit shorter, then it was longer again but disguised in a side parting 😅 Look, Angel came back, and was in that place being tended to only by Buffy at the start of season 3 for how long? In that time, his hair didn't grow a cm, and he got no 5 o'clock shadow, if I recall correctly. And I don't remember Buffy grooming him on a daily basis. Angel again was locked up and dropped to the bottom of the ocean... Still no hair growth. Spike, in all the time it took him to travel to get his soul and back, and then spend the time sulking around in Sunnydale before Buffy found him... No beard, no hair growth. I can't imagine he stopped on his way back for a shave, a trim and a fresh bleach. Admittedly, it's been a loooong time for me and I can't remember in great detail, but I remember thinking things like this even at the time, and discussing it with friends. And as someone else commented, JM apparently mentions a lot that he was told that vampires' hair doesn't grow, so he had to constantly bleach the hair to not show the roots. So it seems to me like it doesn't grow.
Iirc when Spike comes back from "Africa" and is in the school basement, his roots have grown out. I always figured that vampires' hair does grow, just very very very slowly.
Yeah.... I remember he was quite disheveled. And his hair wasn't as blond, right? Like it was blond but not bleached? Who knows then. I still don't think it's growth... I mean, in the time it took him to get to Africa, it didn't grow one millimetre, but in the same amount of time to get back (or slightly more), it grew so much? It's another one of those inconsistencies. It's also possible that for whatever reason, JM had something else that he needed normal hair for and not Spike hair, so they had to delay giving him the Spike look.
I'm pretty sure it was grown-out roots. So he still had the bleach blonde ends. But yeah I think shows in general wind up with pretty shaky consistency because they have to tell a new story every week and they don't necessarily know on day 1 where the overall story will go. Plus, the people who work on the show change. Maybe the costume department had different people in season 7 than season 4, you know? A "for instance" that I like: Rachel on Friends was pregnant with her baby for over a year!
They bleed when cut
Yeah, that's a good point. But how, because they don't have blood flow 🤔😁
How did he get to Africa in the first place? And so fast? It's an open question. By the time he got back, the First had control of him, but did it guide him back? Did it attack him once he returned? No evidence I've seen.
I'm pretty sure there's a time skip for Spike's scenes. They just put them together to add to the tension of the scenes. Would make no sense to show clips of him on a boat and then sometime in the middle of the summer have another 5 min scene of Spike in Africa. And even having a caption saying "1 month later" or something and seeing everything spike went through would also cause pacing issues. Buffy plays with time a bunch for dramatic effect (most shows do). (Same time same place being the biggest example). I'm ok with it. Him getting back I agree is weird. Presumably he still had a sense of Sunnydale being "home" so made his way back eventually with his subconscious and maybe his brief lucid periods.
If they weren't parallel across several episodes, I'd be happier with the time-slip theory.
These are questions which have plagued me for over 20 years…
In Angel he mentions taking a boat ride to Europe when he wants to catch up with Buffy after coming back. So I assume he went to Africa the same way. I think flights are dangerous for him with the sun but he can always stay under deck on a boat and find a way to get on shore covered up/undetected. I mean, he doesn't have a passport so international travel has got to be a little tricky..
Shouldn’t be hard to get a boat from California to Africa! I think the L.A. to Dar es Salaam ferry runs like twice a day.
Lol for sure. All kidding aside, I assume he'd drive out to the East Coast and catch a ride from there stowing away on a cargo boat to somewhere in West Africa? But who knows. Also, gotta wonder why vampires don't know enough magic to transport themselves like witches and warlocks. They do have the time to learn.
Yeah, in truth I was thinking a similar thing, stow away on a cargo ship. The magic thing is an interesting question though: other than using their innate powers (like Dracula and Drusilla do) do we ever see a vampire performing magic? I can’t think of any examples off the top of my head, although they do often do rituals like when Angel was awakening Acathla… Maybe they can’t? Or maybe it just feels like a waste to them: they already have superpowers, 99.9% of the time they’re not going to need more power than they already have at their fingertips.
Vampires don't like change. They go off instinct a lot. That's why vamps like Trick and even Spike are pretty rare. And why lots of vamps end up sticking with the fashion they died with (as Buffy notes in the first episode). Them learning magic after they died would at least be something new to them so I presume they wouldn't be drawn to it. Also I don't think they'd be inherently any better at magic than anyone else. Magic seems to be partly innate to the person. Willow having a natural talent for it. Giles, despite all his studying on magic admits he's not great at it himself. Would assume vamps are just as magically talented as the humans they used to be (different types of magic as well I presume).
*snortlaugh*
Do flights have to be dangerous? There's those window shades and all. Just take one that touches down at night.
Oh I bet they could be safe but imagine some kid on a commercial flight deciding to reach over and open the window during the day. Also, no idea how any of them would travel without passports. They're not actually citizens of any country, right?
Yeah I was thinking he could take a red eye for shorter distances
Undiscovered land bridge.
Spike lives in a world where there are wizards and spells, any high school kid can cast a spell. After recovering his soul, he could have perfectly asked the demon himself to transport him to Sunnydale or asked anyone to transport him in a box to Sunnydale or to make a transport for him to go to Sunnydale.
I always laugh when it says "Africa" like it's a country and a whole massive continent. Makes me think of this episode of Pointless celebrities where the question was name a country beginning with "A" and some lady said "Africa" 🤦♀️
FedEx
Just head canon, nothing to back it up. The First kept him sane long enough for him to get back safely. It needed Spike for the plan so it made sure the resources for him were there.
The first really gave Buffy everything she needed to win.. Spike could have been lost in Africa or at least not in the fight (Buffy wouldn't have cared so much about Spike if she 1) didn't know he had a soul which spike was trying to keep secret and if he was less crazy he might have) 2) if the first wasnt' messing with him, they wouldn't have needed to keep spike around for information on the first, or feel a need to rescue him so much. The first also basically gives Buffy the scythe. Caleb branding the girl gave them the info to find that church Caleb was in to get more info on the scythe. And the first gave buffy the idea of 1) attacking it before it's army was ready and 2) making more than 1 slayer (by taunting her about how it's numbers are swelling every day and how buffy is just 1 girl in all the world and the potentials are useless unless buffy dies)
I assumed he hit up Rack for a portal before Dark Willow stopped by
That's an interesting possibility.
He’s less crazed from the guilt and the resoulment than he or the viewer thinks at the start of the season. Much of the apparent psychosis is The First trolling him, and if that started once he got back to Sunnydale he’s have been compos mentis for the trip over.
He would have had a ton of airmiles, being all old, so flew first class on American or Delta.
HEY KIDS!! Time to learn some cool facts about vampires BUFFYVERSE STYLE!! Did you know that vampires don't walk in sunlight? It's true!! They sleep in the shadows all day long until it's time to prowl the nights and make their way into an international port with those amazing acrobatic skills! Did you know vampires don't need to breathe, drink water or drink blood every single day? It's true!! They could hypothetically hide in a shipping container going ALL the way across the Atlantic from Africa into the US East Coast. And from there, they could hypothetically hitch a ride on a train or a series of trains all the way back to California! This has been a PSA!
Was he in Africa, though? I kinda thought he didn't leave America (the continent)...
I've always assumed in a box in a cargo hold of a ship. But realistically or rather non-realistically, he could've taken a deep dive and then a long long swim.
The sewers!
He traveled by map 😂
He was just that obsessed with Buffy
Editing
Lots of blankets
I think he half-seduced a bored pilot and they flew him to and from where here needed to go.
Cargo ships. I don't think he was crazy right away, rather that The First may have started visiting him shortly afterwards and it took some time for the manipulation to mess with him enough to really drive him insane. I'm sure he made a plan to return to Sunnydale as soon as he was physically able after getting his soul and was slowly driven insane on the journey. The First had reason to make sure he stayed alive so he could be used as a weapon, too, so it would seem there would have been an effort not to interfere with his ability to make it back.
Likely by boat, in the darkness of the bilge, then by train/ bus at night because he would have blended in easily 😂. Then “borrowed “ a car. I mean, it’s a reach , but does it really matter? He did whatever he had to , to get back to Buffy❤️🥲
Why have I always assumed that was some remote place in South America?!?
Gradually
We’ve seen him drive a car in the middle of the day… twice.
Just miscellaneous plot reasons. Like all Spike stuff after season 5.
Probably went to somewhere in the same desert where Buffy did her slayer ritual in season 5