In his poem "Bishop Blougram's Apology," Robert Browning pointed out a phenomenon of the human psyche that accounts for much of the fascination viewers feel with the character of Spike: "Our interest's on the dangerous edge of things,/ The honest thief, the tender murderer..." For Browning's purpose the mentions of the thief and the murderer are just examples to set beside his central concern, the ambiguity in Bishop Blougram's religious beliefs. Blougram's refusal to be pinned down as either a truly devout man of the cloth or a non-believing, hypocritical poseur sets up a paradox that Browning explores throughout the poem. For several years on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" a similar paradox existed (and may still exist) with regard to the characterization of Spike, who started off as a vampire guilty of countless evil deeds over the past hundred-odd years, but found himself helping Buffy and her friends for reasons that were at first self-serving but later, as he fell deeply and sincerely in love with the heroine, came to seem ever more noble and selfless. In a step unprecedented among Buffyverse vampires, Spike even had his soul restored for Buffy's sake, whereupon he became an even nobler and more morally exalted character. Many observers, however, have questioned the basis of Spike's morality even after he was re-ensouled, and scriptwriter David Fury has publicly stated that in order to differentiate Spike from the other ensouled vampire, Angel, he strives to maintain moral ambiguity in his scripting of Spike. Thus in the last "Buffy" episode that Fury scripted, episode 7.17 (Lies My Parents Told Me), Spike nobly refrains from killing a man who has attacked him, but by terrorizing the man with his fangs and refusing to apologize to him for past wrongs, Spike remains on "the dangerous edge of things." As of this writing the new season of "Angel," with Spike in the cast, is about to begin, and by all indications the scriptwriters are still striving to maintain the fascination of Spike's characterization as a morally ambiguous hero/villain, a "tender murderer," in contrast to the show's titular hero. This paper will make use of Browning's formulation, and of past analyses of Spike's morality such as Gregory Sakal's, to probe the paradoxes inherent in Spike's characterization and the reasons for viewers' strong response to him.