Spike Spiegel is the Villain of Cowboy Bebop and I’m Tired of Pretending Like He’s Not

 Spike is the epitome of a cool, chill dude you hope would be your friend but are always left wondering whether he cares at all.

 His charm is infectious and his personality draws in everyone around him. He is someone you want to root for and genuinely want to have his happy ending; he has the persona of someone you don’t want to see lose. But, I can’t pretend like he isn’t a terrible person.

 First, I’d like to point out, there isn’t a whole lot of material strictly between Spike and Vicious within the show. There are so many different, episodic events and plot points happening throughout Cowboy Bebop and it is really more of a character-driven show about the whole ensemble than just Spike. Because of that, I am having to go off the little, bare-bones story we actually get between Spike and Vicious.

 So, with that in mind, the line that first opened my eyes to Spike being the villain was not even a scene with Spike but, rather, when Gren confronts Vicious after all their time apart.

 In case it has been some time since you have seen the series, as it has been for me, Gren is a character that the bounty gang… well, mostly Faye Valentine... runs into on Callisto, one of Jupiter’s inhabited moons. It is to Faye that Gren confides how he was stationed with Vicious during the Titan War and viewed all of the people he fought alongside with, including Vicious, as comrades. Before telling us all of this, he makes mention of how moved he is by the idea of comrades, “To the point of tears.” He also details a small, special moment he and Vicious shared where Vicious gave Gren a music box for him to keep and then kills a scorpion that is dangerously close to Gren. There may have been, and probably were, more interactions between them, but this is all we are presented with.

 This time during the Titan War clearly leaves an impression on Gren and creates a deep bond he feels towards Vicious. Despite this, Vicious ends up testifying against Gren when he is accused of being a spy, which puts Gren in prison where he falls into depression, suffers from insomnia, and ends up taking drugs that drastically alter his physiology. 

 After providing Faye, and therefore the audience, this context of his relationship with Vicious, we are brought back to the present where Gren is luring Vicious to him via a drug deal, and a transmitter in the music box, so he can confront Vicious about betraying him.

 Gren’s plan does succeed in bringing Vicious to his location, allowing him to confront Vicious face to face and this is where the true nature of Vicious, at least what little of it we get in the show, starts to unfold. There is some back and forth action that takes place, surprise attacks, etc., which you can go watch the show to see how it all plays out, but the main part that stood out to me was when Gren asks Vicious why he would betray him since they were comrades and Vicious simply replies “There is nothing in this world to believe in. There is no need to believe.”

 This reply deeply, emotionally impacted me but not in the way, it seems, that most people interpret it.

 Most people seem to take this as validation that Vicious is just a psychopath who will do anything necessary to get his way. While this is probably true in current timeline of the show, many use this to also suggest that Vicious has always been this way; this does not seem to be the case to me. From what I can tell, especially because this is in reply to someone mentioning being comrades, this line does not show that Vicious is just a hollow, empty shell and has always been that way but, rather, it shows me just how deeply Spike’s betrayal impacted Vicious 

Now, there are some purposeful character and story design elements that make it difficult to picture Vicious ever being anything other than a psychopath who cares about nothing other than himself, one of them being the fact that his name is freaking Vicious… I mean, I get it, how can you look past someone with a name like Vicious? “Hello, I am here to apply for the Business Analyst Position. Oh, you need my name? Vicious. Yes, Vicious Violent.” I mean, I just hope his mother didn’t name him that.

What I’m trying to get at is that, while his name certainly reflects who is currently in the series, I am not 100% convinced Vicious was always... vicious. And that is the other intentional story point the creator made is that we really only view Vicious in the present. Most viewers take this present version of Vicious and overshadow anyone he could have ever been in the past with his current self.

 We don’t get to see much of Vicious’s past other than a couple of flashback shots which consequently means we don’t really get a feel for who he was. But, even within these brief, brief flashbacks we do see a quick shot of Vicious and Spike fighting back to back and Vicious is... smiling.  Okay, it is more of a smirk, but either way it looks genuine. Whether it is out of some sort of friendly rivalry from their ranks in the syndicate or, as I interpret it, he genuinely trusts Spike to literally have his back, it is clear he believed in something ‘more’ during this time. And that shot stood out to me the most because no matter how you interpret it, Vicious has some form of true and real camaraderie with Spike, you can’t interpret this smirk any other way. This is in stark contrast with what we witnessed him saying to Gren about believing in nothing. While there is no definitive proof that this is the case, since the screen time for Vicious is purposefully thin, I believe that this shows that Vicious did in fact believe in something at one point.

This is just a small glimpse into the past but, what I’d like to argue is that we have no idea what Vicious was like outside of the current events of the show. We know he isn’t a great guy, he is part of a crime syndicate, but we don’t have hard evidence that he is the complete psychopath he is at the current point of the show.

And, if it is the case he wasn’t always a complete psycho, the only thing different between who he was and what he believed back then versus now is what Spike did to him.

Now, to reiterate, I am not saying he was ever a great guy, either. He was, and is, part of a crime syndicate which, by definition, means he is involved in criminal activity and he was an enforcer in said syndicate so he would be charged with taking people out. My point is not that he was good person, but rather that it is not clear he was always a psychopath who did not care for anyone else. I actually think Vicious did care about people and had a certain code he lived by, Spike being at the top of the list of people he actually cared about. 

To drive this point home, it is mentioned at one point that the Syndicate at least had a code, however brutal it may have been, but Vicious’s ways were even more twisted and chaotic than theirs. I believe it was Spike who tipped Vicious into this layer even further down than the syndicate. It was Spike’s betrayal that shattered whatever humanity or any sort of code that Vicious did have.

Spike and Vicious both started on the “neutral” state, and I’m using “neutral” extremely liberally here, of the syndicate’s ways. Spike attempts to reach above these ways and move ‘upwards’ towards something ‘better.’ People tend to view this as Spike somehow being a better person than Vicious since Vicious chooses to spiral downwards into an even worse place than the syndicate. My problem with this is that it’s not like these are two completely separate paths that aren’t intertwined. All the actions Spike took immensely impacted Vicious. It is less of two separate paths and more like a see-saw: as Spike takes his actions to get out of the syndicate and live the life he wants, he does so at the expense of Vicious; as he moves ‘upwards’ Vicious is pushed ‘downwards’ by Spike’s actions.

 I’m not excusing Vicious for his actions, either; he could have chosen to rise up from what was done to him and become someone else but, instead, he becomes a murderous, empty shell of a man. It’s not Vicious that I get hung up on, though, but rather everyone seems to give Spike a get-out-of-jail free card. He did awful things as a part of the syndicate, his reasons for leaving the syndicate are not selfless, and he didn’t care about the consequences when trying to leave the syndicate or the impacts it would have, especially trying to take Julia with him. And, the only reason I can think of for people giving him this pass is because he is just so dang likable.

Now I’d like to unpack some of the points I just made about Spike. People like to sing Spike’s praises as if he is so much better than Vicious but this just neglects the fact they were in the same syndicate with the same job killing the same people. Now, I know some people will say, “But Cole, Spike wanted to leave the syndicate. He wanted to quit his criminal life. See, he’s a great guy. Woo, Spike!” And to that I say BOLOGNA. It seems to me the only reason Spike wanted to leave was because he fell in love with Julia, not because he suddenly grew a conscience and became a good person. I’ll admit, I do think Spike has changed after being out of the syndicate through some of what we see in the show, but I don’t think that negates that he only wanted to leave to be with Julia, who, we can’t forget, was Vicious’s lover.

 My point in all of this is that if we got a prequel show of Vicious and Spike’s time in the syndicate and witnessed Spike attempting to leave after being with Julia, we would have a very different feel for Spike.

 He is a dude in a crime syndicate, taking out hits on people just like Vicious. He is injured, you know... by doing said criminal activity, and is nursed back to health by Julia… his close friend’s girlfriend… and they begin an affair. He then wants to leave the syndicate by faking his death and taking Julia with him… again, his best friend’s girlfriend. Did I mention Julia was Vicious’s girlfriend? Because Julia was Vicious’s girlfriend.

 Now, this is where I think the “current Vicious” glasses come most into play. People give Spike a pass here because they just assume Vicious has always been the way he is now so Spike somehow deserves Julia more than Vicious, the raving psychopath. But, as I’ve mentioned, we have no idea what Vicious was like other than he was in the same, exact position as Spike at that moment. If anything, this utter betrayal by his close friend seems to be what robbed him of any sanity he did have. Spike was the first one to do something awful to Vicious, not the other way around. Almost everyone who watches the show never seems to mention this simple fact.

 While I can’t be exactly sure of how Vicious was in this past storyline, knowing just these facts gives me enough evidence to believe Vicious honestly had every right to be furious. His best friend and comrade is planning to abandon him by faking his own death while also stealing his girlfriend so they can elope? And this also brings up another point that I can’t go into enough because she is barely in the story, but Julia betrayed Vicious, too. Vicious’s retaliation may have been brutal but he had also just been betrayed by arguably the only two people he trusted in the world. Again, people view Vicious as he is now and say he never cared for Julia but we can’t be sure of that. For all we know, he could have cared for her deeply and then was broken by both her and Spike’s betrayal.

 This is why I am so confused as to why when people hear Vicious tell Gren to “believe in nothing,” they think he is just some psychopathic nihilist because, when I hear it, I hear a man who was utterly betrayed by his close friend deciding to give up on anything else or believing in anyone. To me, that line, more than anything, signals how much Spike broke Vicious and exemplifies how tragic of a character Vicious really is.

 If we had been able to watch the story beginning from their time in the syndicate and followed Vicious’s side, would we maybe have rooted for him? I get we wouldn’t completely, he is a man that spiraled into chaos, destroying everyone in his wake to achieve his goals, but would part of us root for him in his story of revenge against the man who so utterly betrayed him? Would we want to see Spike pay for what he had done. This is why I say Spike is the true villain of Cowboy Bebop, he triggered all the bad that came for him and made Vicious into what he was. His selfish desire, not anything altruistic, is what ultimately cost so many people so much.

 Another comment I see fans everywhere say is that Vicious is Spike’s Darker half but this couldn’t be further from the truth. Spike isn’t some shining light and Vicious isn't his darker shade.

 Vicious more appropriately is the embodiment of all the selfish actions Spike took and tried to escape from. Everything in the show points to this. The, “don’t leave things locked in the fridge,” episode. The show ending with, “You’re gonna carry that weight.” All of it. And people seem to think it is just about Spike trying to escape his past as if he is innocent and didn’t do anything. But he is the cause of it following him. He betrayed Vicious, in multiple ways, and made Vicious into a maniac. Vicious falls into chaos, kills Mao, takes over the syndicate from The Van, and kills Julia in the end.

 Most opinions I read make Vicious out to symbolize what Spike could have been if he stayed in the Syndicate or the past self he is running from that he doesn’t want to be, but I see it more as running from the monster he created. His actions are what formed the version of Vicious we see in the show.

 My biggest gripe, as I’ve mentioned, is that fans seem to take where the characters are in the show’s present (Spike has clearly learned some things and grown as character, while still not being all that selfless or empathetic, and Vicious is just a violent psychopath) and paint their entire character history through this lens. They then give Spike a pass because he is currently “the good guy” and Vicious is just “a lunatic bad guy” and wish Spike could have his “happy ever after” with Julia. Like I mentioned in the beginning, Spike is such a likable character that even I want him to have his happy ending but, my question is, does he deserve it?
 
 It’s easy to forget the fact that he was the one who stole Julia from Vicious and then was just going to abandon him by leaving with her. Despite him later saying he has “bled all that blood away,” in reference to no longer seeking to hunt down others, this doesn’t mean not wanting to kill others is why he tried to leave the syndicate originally. He clearly wanted to be with Julia, so all of his motives were completely selfish and then had terrible consequences, even if he has ultimately grown as a character (somewhat) at the point of the show where we first meet him.

 The final point I want to leave you with is that I think Cowboy Bebop is actually a show about a villain going through a redemption arc. Despite being extremely likable and charismatic, Spike is just not a great person. Even up to the point of the show where we meet him, he may not be a crazy, murderous person or anything like that, but he also does not care about others all that much. He has grown, we do see some moments of genuine compassion, he never goes out of his way to just be evil, but he is almost always just out for himself.

 This is also after the events of his past took place. He was an enforcer in a crime syndicate, who would’ve done terrible things up to and including murder, that then wants out because he wants to run away with his best friend’s girlfriend. This is a very low starting point and quite villainous, selfish behavior.

 He then is a part of the Bebop crew and is impacted by all the different members and we do see that he has started to change from his past ways. But, for all of the show, he is just cruising through in a gray part of his life. He may be beginning to change, but he is still trapped by the actions of his past and desires for Julia.

The real redemption is when he does finally go to face Vicious in the final episode. This takes place after Julia dies. He could walk away and just be with Faye, leave it behind and start a new life with her. But, he instead chooses to go and fight Vicious. He directly tells Faye, “I’m not going there to die. I’m going there to find out if I’m really alive.” I don’t know how much more you can be slapped in the face with redemptive verbiage. 

 Many are confused as to why Spike went to fight Vicious, especially after Julia died, and often believe it is purely out of revenge. Conversely, I think this is the moment Spike is finally willing to confront his past mistakes, even if it is going to cost him his life. He is not going there simply to get revenge on Vicious out of hate, he is going there to redeem himself from the mistakes of his past represented in the form of Vicious. If he were “dead,” none of this would matter. The atrocious crimes Vicious committed, Julia’s death, his responsibility in all of it, none of it would matter, he is “dead” so he can just continue in his cruising, half-existence.

 But, since he is “alive,” he feels a call to take action for the things he has done. He can’t just run away and do nothing. He knows in his living, beating heart that he has to go and do something about this creature he made and can’t continue to gallivant around as if he isn’t responsible. Since he is alive, in every sense of the word, he knows he can’t sit by idly with what he has made to happen.

I believe, in this moment, Spike actually does want to go off with Faye Valentine. But, if he did that, then he would just be doing the same thing he did before all over again. He would be running off with the woman he wants to be with and not confronting the consequences of his choices, which would, again, have more consequences. Vicious now runs the syndicate and does not have the same code that they previously did, meaning he will reign chaos and terror down even on innocents.

It is in this moment that Spike is finally redeemed. He chooses to go against his own passions and desires with nothing to truly gain and only his life to lose. There is no Julia, or Faye, to leave with at the end of this one. The only thing he could gain is freeing the world from the consequences of his actions. This is how Spike determines he is alive, that he cares for something bigger than himself, is willing to pay for his past mistakes, and is willing to pay it to the fullest, all the way up to paying with his life.  And, as we know, he does all of this in spades, redeeming him from causer of chaos to restorer of order. 

 So, he may have been a villain slowly being redeemed over the show, but it is within these final moments that he is fully redeemed. Despite what the ending card says, I believe he is actually finally free from that weight.