Dark and Troubled Past: Difference between revisions

** Spike used to be ridiculed by his social peers while still alive, and this is shown to deeply affect his personality, most evidently by lowering his already not-so-good social skills, along with leaving other significant marks. After siring his mother, she abused him verbally and [[Parental Incest|sexually assaulted]] him, to the point that he was forced to kill her for good to stop her. He admits many years later that this episode has been weighting on him. After regaining his soul, he has to [[The Atoner|come to terms]] with the great sense of guilt he feels towards his criminal past. Us viewers usually get to [[Troubled Backstory Flashback|see bits of his past via flashback]], and the extent to which it is dark and troubled is occasionally emphasized by Spike telling Buffy that she [[You Do NOT Want to Know|really doesn't want to know]] how far he's gone in torturing and killing people. [[Dynamic Character|It gets better]].

* Then there's the ''[[Angel]]'' side. There's Gunn, who ended up a street teen because vampires killed his family, and Fred, who got sent to a hell dimension, enslaved, and lived in a cave for five years.Plus Wesley, who was emotionally abused by his father and locked in a dark closet for hours. Plus Angel himself, of course. And Connor, good lord, Connor. Raised in a hell dimension to hate his real father and once tied to a tree and left behind at five years old so he could work to escape and find his foster father.

** Marcus Cole , in the episode in which he was introduced, says he "doesn't believe in miracles". We later learn that he witnessed everyone he cared about, including his Ranger brother, being killed in a Shadow attack on his home colony. He can't shake the survivor's guilt.

** It comes completely unexpected with Delenn, who, throughout the show, is well known for her compassion and kindness, as well as being a firm believer in the just cause and a wise advisor to others, cautioning against anger and hatred. However, it's not until much later that some details from her earlier life get revealed. {{spoiler|She was aboard the ship that encountered the first human vessel and whose salute to the strangers scared the humans so much that they opened fire. When the initial salvo killed the most important religious leader of the minbari, she became the highest ranking person on the ship, and still holding the dead body of her teacher, immediately ordered a holy crusade by the whole minbari people [[Kill All Humans|to completely annihilate the entire human race]]. When the destruction of earth was stopped at the very last moment, it was not because she regreted her order.}}