Spike's Chip

[Glenn]

I am watching season 6 at the moment and it got me thinking about Spike's Chip (no it isn't British slang for something else )

The functions of his chip seemed to change to suit the plot which i am not really a fan of. I may be wrong, perhaps some of you can help me understand better

First off, i thought the chip worked off of Spike's own senses. If he knew he was going to hurt a human then it would go off. Incidents that support this theory is when he explains to Buffy about it in "Fool For Love" The fact he knew he couldn't touch her was the reason it wasn't going off. Another scene that seems to support this is in "Crush" when Drusilla comes to town and tells him that the chip is all mind over matter and that if he is strong enough he can overcome it. This is all fine and what i thought the chip entailed. But then it started to get complicated.

I didn't really give it too much thought at first because the episode bores me but in the season 5 episode "Family" Spike uses the chip as some kind of sensor. Like it has a brain of its own. He punches Tara in the face to see if it goes off to prove whether she be a human or a demon. Other incidents that Make the chip appear to have a brain of its own, rather than being connected to Spike's brain is when he jumps a couple of robbers thinking they are vamps and the chip goes off. And of course the big one where Spike can now punch Buffy because the chip is "confused" about what Buffy is.

So what do you think. Did the chip alter to suit plot or was it always that way and i am the one who is confused.

[Kana]

I'm not entirely sure. Maybe it works off Spike's intinctual sense before it reaches the higher brain. That is to say Spike realised the robbers were robbers in the instinctual sense but his higher brain functions hadn't caught up yet.

[Deleted]

To be honest, I hadn't given a lot of thought to it before, but my understanding was always that it worked off him physically. If he was actually attacking someone (for instance, when he attacks Tara) the chip would go off if that someone were human. If he were simply thinking of physically attacking someone, the pain he knew he'd receive from the chip might be enough to keep him from it.

I always took Drusilla's line about it being mind over matter as her saying he was strong and if he really wanted to go about attacking people he just needed to psych himself out to ignore the pain.

[Laura]

I always thought the chip worked off of Spike's senses, and here's why:

Even though he seems to use it as a test in "Family," I think he just knew that Tara wasn't a demon, and he just wanted to prove it to everyone else. As for the robbers, he didn't believe it would hurt because he thought it was demons. It's like if you put your hand on a burner because you don't think it will hurt. That doesn't mean the burner has a mind of its own, it just means you did not expect pain. However, when Spike recieved pain, he realized it was humans and any further attacks would continue to hurt.

However, perhaps the whole chip is somewhat psychological. For example, he knows he can't touch Buffy, so his chip doesn't go off. Then, he doesn't think the robbers are demons, so it doesn't go off until he gets pain and realizes they are humans. Then, with the case of being able to hit Buffy, perhaps he just thinks she isn't entirely human anymore, because she was brought back from the dead.

[Kana]

Yeah, I think it's a bit of both. Apparently the chip collects sensory information from Spike's senses and is located in upper frontal lobe where the Primary motor cortex is located so it ties in with Spike's voluntary movement (wanting to hit something, bite etc) and receives info from Spike's senses even before he makes sense of it consciously. Buffy S6 must have fooled his senses and not set off the chip, so it's primary unconscious senses tied in with intent to hurt, make sense?