Jamie

My general prediction for Spot isn't exactly a "redemption", more so him coming to some kind of understanding and deciding to stop being actively hostile. I think he's a little too messed up to switch back into being a good guy in just one movie, so I expect it to be more of a conversation between him and Miles that changes his perspective. I'd like an open ended second chance, where the movie doesn't explicitly tell you what he does with it.

I used to be on board with the idea of him hypothetically dying as long as it was well written and he was done justice by the narrative, but over time I've realized that might be impossible or at the very least very tricky. I'll keep an open mind, but I'm skeptical of the implications. Spot is the parallel character to Miles, he was written to mirror his struggles so that the audience would connect and empathize with him the same way. Spot has a darker conclusion, because he doesn't have the support of any family or community like Miles does he succumbs to his issues rather than rising above them. An ending where he dies because he's "too far gone" or just generally isn't given any grace by the story would feel a little too nihlistic for the franchise's overall tone. It's been done to death, and a more emotional resolution would be nice for Miles's arc given his initial mistake with Spot was an unwillingness to connect with him on an emotional level.

I also lean towards the emotional resolution theory as Spot in his Abyss form appears to be a pretty clear mental health metaphor. In ATSV he draws comparison between his feeling of emptiness with his holes, and says that the only way to fill that up is with more holes. This is what he ends up doing, as the movie goes on he gets more and more portals until he is entirely covered in them as Abyss, and he starts to lose the kindness he once had more and more as he does so. With the brief moments we've seen of him in the Abyss form he appears to constantly be in pain, jerking limbs around and splitting them in half. Character design wise it is very unlikely they did that just to make him seem scarier, there's a clear intentionality to it.

There's also just no way Miles's parents die. I'd bet money on it. Jeff won't die because they showed us that exact thing happening, at the very least there has to be some extra context that paints the vision we saw in a new light. When showing a future vision there almost always has to be some kind of subversion. I also really dislike the theory that Rio will die in his place, it changes almost nothing as Miles would be just as heartbroken and it'd feel like a very lazy way to subvert the audience's expectations for shock value. The next film, just from the CinemaCon stills that were released, appears to have an emotional focus on the Morales family and I doubt that exists only to build up a sad death. I often see people claim they showed Miles's emotional connection with his mom so that it hurts more when she dies, which is also a very flat way to look at storytelling. They emphasized his love for his parents so that it would be more impactful when he overcomes the Spider Society turning him away, similarly to how they emphasized his love for his family so that he could defeat Kingpin in the first film.

People seem to think someone has to die because of the "you can't always save everybody" line from the first film, but I disagree. "Can't always" does not equal "can never." Miles is aware of the inability to always save everyone, but his mentality is rooted in always trying to anyways.

My strongest theory is that Spot will fight the Spider Society in the first half of the movie, causing him to become more and more agitated in his Abyss form until he becomes less like himself and more of a force of nature, becoming more monster like as his mental state becomes strained. When we first see him as Abyss, he's coherent and calm, whereas in the future visions he seems to be in pain and splitting himself apart as well as growing larger. This will also be a great way to showcase the flaws in the Society’s structure, trying to handle Spot through violence only making the problem grow larger. The film will push it's "is it worth it to save one life at the risk of everyone else's" question to it's extreme, by having the characters decide if it's worth it to save Spot, a monster who is destroying the city. It's a no-brainer for Miles to want to save his dad, but it'd be very interesting to see if his mentality extends to someone he has very little incentive to save. That extends to the other characters as well, it'd be an interesting question to see Miguel grapple with as I'm sure he'd be very on board with killing Spot when he sees how much damage he's doing. The ideal conclusion would be for the characters to decide that it's worth it to try, finally unifying the Spider Society and bringing them all back to the real point of their job which is to save people who need it, as well as allowing Miguel to finally put his faith in Miles to know what’s best when it comes to his own nemesis. It'd be nice to see a conclusion where all the damage Spot did is still around and there's a lot left to fix, to leave some lingering consequence while remaining optimistic.

I watched a character study of ‘The Spot’ that I found on youtube: 

The video above portrays a deep explanation of different movie tropes and norms seen throughout superhero movies and how the Spider-Verse films use characters like ‘The Spot’ to subvert those norms. This video also made a note of The Spots' character development and morals throughout the movie, and how his descent into becoming a villain is portrayed in contrast to other superhero movies. The spot's introduction to the movie is initially set up to portray him as a weaker villain who allows Miles (Spider-Man) to showcase his powers and improvement at the start of the movie. His presence at the beginning of the movie doesn't come across as threatening and his actions and the presence of Miles, who is presumably more powerful, reflect that. What also presents his character as weak is his ‘joke’ appearance; The spots that cover his body don't scream scary and are the only things that make him present as strange in comparison to the normal human being. The spots are also associated with clowns, which doesn't help the character's desperation to be taken seriously. There's also a lack of understanding of what he's capable of. From a glance, there's no direct interpretation of what he is able to do and we don't gain an understanding of his powers until he uses them. While his design on the outside presents as eerie, he doesn't look dangerous, he has the same physical structure and anatomy as most humans, with the only difference being his lack of features and the large spots that cover the majority of his body.

When looking at his transformed body in comparison to his human form, there are a lot of changes. The first big thing I noticed was his posture. His structure is a lot more confident and he stands more upright in comparison to how hunched he's normally seen. This is also a reflection of his position and confidence. When the spot is unsure about his powers after being shunned and shamed for his abilities, his body language reflects that, but the more understanding he gains about how to use his newfound strength, the more confident he becomes and the more he strives to be respected by those around him. His Intelligence from his human form also transfers into his new body and along with that, he retains and resents the memories he had when he was still human. He's striving to be understood and taken seriously and these memories of mistreatment by his colleagues propel the story and provide reasoning for why The Spot acts the way he does. 

The Spot’s ability of portal creation and teleportation via ‘spots’ fits his character design incredibly well. Not only does his powers incorporate his design and main features, it also provides context for why he has said features and gives a reasoning for what they are used for. 

The video below gave me a good understanding of The Spots' motives and reasoning for becoming a villain and it discussed the comparison between him and the villain in the first movie. It also went over how their stories are directly connected and how different their motives are.

Despite the fact that Spot is arguably the 2nd-3rd most important character to the franchise’s overall message, it isn’t very popular to do in-depth analysis on his character. He was written to be a mirror to Miles thematically, (confirmed information from the art book and interviews); however this is relatively niche knowledge to a lot of fans given the widespread disinterest in earnestly engaging with his character.

Spot is often seen as the most shallow, one-note character in the film, and I think this is a case of fanon overtaking people’s perception of the actual movie. Again, I'm not saying you have to like him by any means, but a lack of awareness of him and his motivations means that a large piece of the story is missing from a lot of people’s interpretations. “He’s overreacting” and “all over a bagel” are common sentiments when it comes to The Spot even though I would argue that Spot is one of, if not the most tragic character in the franchise. Characters like Miguel and Gwen tend to get the “complex character” defense while Spot does not, which is incredibly odd to me given he as well is a very layered character who was in development for a very long time during production.

For example, when the topic of Spot staying in the lab while the 1610 collider exploded comes up, people are more inclined to write him off as “stupid” than to actually consider why he may have done so. If you take into consideration how he’s described as a lonely man who values his work more highly than he does his own life in the art book, it becomes far more likely that he was either trying to minimize the damage from the explosion or save a piece of his life’s work at the cost of his own safety. It’s completely fair to call him a hypocrite for blaming Miles for the situation, however it is a disservice to the character to assume that his decision to stay behind came from any sort of cluelessness or ignorance. Spot is shown to have a lot of self-destructive tendencies, opting to put himself in harm's way and hurt himself twice in the film just to prove that he's worth something. Common sense would lead one to the conclusion that those traits would carry over even before he was transformed. The common perception that Spot is entirely responsible for his own situation also lacks nuance, while Miles is obviously not at fault for what happened to Spot, his family, the system and the people around him 100% failed him and caused him to turn out the way he did.

It just frustrates me how fans realize that his actions seem nonsensical and hypocritical, but don’t bother to consider why that may be. He’s been living through an absurdly bleak situation for over a year, unable to return to a normal life despite trying very hard to do so. While it doesn’t excuse his actions, Spot going off the deep end in the film was his last resort after spending a very long time rotting in a cluttered apartment with nobody there to help. If the Spot was only introduced as a relatively good person just for the sake of shock value when he ended up being the big bad, that would be a case of poor writing. He was introduced that way not only for the twist, but also to show that he is an average person who was pushed to his absolute limit.

Spot’s emotional immaturity comes from a lack of community, both him and Miles being outcasts with opposite arcs. Miles manages to rise above the Spider Society that rejects him due to his mother’s speech and his family’s love that keeps him going. Meanwhile Spot, having nobody, succumbs to the darkness and looks for acceptance in the wrong places because that unconditional love isn’t a luxury he’s ever had. Spot blaming Miles for his situation doesn't come from stupidity, it comes from desperation, having faced a long life of neglect and hitting a dead end with nowhere else to turn.

On another note, I think that Miles’s motivations with The Spot are also often misconstrued. A common take is Miles he wants to get some sort of revenge on Spot, kill him, etc., but taking his words into account when he talks about The Spot I just dont think thats true. Obviously he has every right to be furious with him for recklessly putting so many lives at risk, but with the way that Miles defends Spot to Miguel by saying that “he just wants to be taken seriously”, as well as calling The Spot situation a “success in progress” after Jess’s off-handed comment about it, it’s clear that he’s trying to minimize the damage as much as possible and doesn’t want things to end violently.

Miles’s mistake at the start was the decision to write off The Spot as a nobody, a mistake he clearly regrets given how similar they ended up being. Miles wants to diffuse The Spot situation and get him out of it alive, and I think that if Spot were to die it would take a bit of agency away from Miles in the process. This is the last movie, Miles needs a win in the end to conclude his arc after being told by everybody around him that he didn’t know what he was doing. If Spot is Miles’s nemesis, Miles should get to choose how things end with him.

Spot, in my reading, is not only a metaphor for depression but severely depressed himself. His apartment was deliberately designed to be messy and cluttered with work, as he was constantly drowning in his goals and leaving his personal life neglected. The reference to the film “Everything Everywhere All At Once” above his apartment also leads me to believe that they could’ve taken some slight inspiration from the messaging of that film with his character, given the similarities he shares with it’s main antagonist. The mental health metaphor becomes far more obvious with his line in which he draws a link between his own feeling of emptiness and the black holes that cover his body. As he collects more holes, he becomes less like himself, a hollow shell of who he once was that is far more jaded and nihilistic. As he is drawn towards the collider in Mumbattan, his holes magnetize to his chest, creating a literal hole in his heart. His abyss form twitches and jerks it’s limbs around in brief moments as if it’s physically hurting him, and he put himself in harms way to become The Abyss in the first place. Miles’s mural is about expectations and the silhouette dead center resembles Spot to a haunting degree. The meaning I personally draw from this is that Spot himself was crushed by expectations, tearing himself apart to meet an unattainable goal.

Drawing The Spot every day until Beyond The Spider-Verse releases

hehehe the rewrite was so peak i drew a comic about it