The same that happened Gygax happens to Rein-Hagen?

[Willie the Duck]

I understand the expectation was most players would side with the Anarchs, you know, fight the power. But it was the opposite, with most players siding with the Camarilla and inflicting abuse on their inferiors.

It's hard for me to separate out what was in the initial rulebook from what was added in supplements/revised editions, but I think there was a gradual shift. Initially, I think the Camarilla were supposed to be a flawed but often well-intentioned power structure. All vampires were struggling to be good (see: failed self-control checks, failed humanity checks, mind-control powers, ghouldom, etc.), but the Camarilla not moreso than others. As the series progressed, the devs seemed to lean into just how petty, controlling, and power hungry the Camarilla were. No doubt the Sabat moving somewhat to anti-heroes as the player base insisted on playing them had something to do with it, but also just the cultural zeitgeist at the time was strongly fight-the-power-esque, and the game shifted to match.

It’s also a story that’s about interrogating what makes a monster, which Rice’s works are very much not, and V:tM… seems to want to present itself as being about that, but the gameplay doesn’t really support it well, in my experience.

The original V:tM was a very traditional game with just a few beginning attempts at making personal character discovery aspects a central theme. Mostly it just used tone and stated expectation to try to make it the game the designers wanted it to be. Wraith, with the passion system and resolving your fetters and some actual likelihood of being able to accomplish their success state*, was actually a significant step in that regard**. But by the time it came out, a lot of the player base had already absorbed the mentality of 'I don't care what the devs wanted, this is a cool nighttime superhero game.'
*Transcendence, which I actually saw in play, as opposed to Golconda
**although trusting a bunch of new and often young gamers to take control of literal embodiments of each others' characters' worst character traits who literally want to undo everything they care about was... an interesting choice at best.

My understanding is that the network demanded the show have a vampire love interest character, and Angel was what Whedon came up with to satisfy that demand while distorting his intended allegory as little as possible. Angel having been magically cursed with a soul excused him being different than other vampires, and he still served as an externalization of adolescent turmoil, standing in for the struggle with taboo attraction to dangerous men, particularly older men. And I don’t know how far ahead Whedon planned this, but as early as season 2, the “cursed with a soul” setup developed into a representation of the older boyfriend who completely changes after their first sexual encounter, and the character dies at the end of that season. I don’t think Whedon initially intended to bring him back to life in season 3, but that, along with Spike’s cameo in season 3, return as a regular character and occasional ally to the Scooby gang in season 4, and gradual development from creep to toxic sexual relationship to full romantic intrerest over the course of seasons 5-7 were all results of studio demands because of the two characters’ incredible popularity among viewers, which Whedon fought tooth and nail against every step of the way.

Personally, I do think this is a rare case of studio meddling improving a series, because Spike is one of the best things about the show. Though that might be better attributed to James Marsters’ performance than anything else.

Various renditions of the tale seem to tell slightly different stories. The stuff that is consistent seem to be that Angel was a network idea; that Spike was supposed to be a short-lived antagonist (Drusilla was supposed to be the real threat); and that Whedon resented it (because it screwed up his allegory). Exactly how much Whedon fought seems to vary from telling to telling (and after the series ended, he said Spike was one of the characters he still wanted to finish the tale of, although who knows how much of that was 'because it will be lucrative').

Spike is an interesting case, in that my reaction is always 'which Spike.' He wins the Kathryn Janeway award for inconsistently written character, and you can see the battle in the writing room over how to portray him. Kudos to Marsters for being able to be able to do this shuffle (along with being able to portray him as a badass despite getting his butt kicked every week, he and Michael Dorn had their work cut out for them there).