I'm curious of why? I mean I do agree kind of.
There's a noticeable difference between earlier appearances of characters and later appearances.
Spike- In Season 2, Spike is an actual threat to Buffy and his failures are through no fault of his own. He nearly killed Buffy in School Hard, but Joyce hit him with an axe. He nearly killed Buffy in Halloween, but the spell on her wore off in time and, given that it was an opportunistic attack and he ended up surrounded on his own, he cut his losses and escaped. In Lie to Me, it was only Drusilla being there that enabled Buffy to use her as leverage against Spike otherwise she was outnumbered. He actually was successful in getting Dru better in What's My Line, but it was Willy and co turning up with Buffy at the church which meant Spike ended up injured and confined to a Wheelchair, however he and Dru still managed to assemble the Judge. He was stuck in a wheelchair so Angelus could be the main threat to Buffy, but even so he got his own back and secured safe passage out of town for him and Dru by striking up a temporary truce with Buffy. Also in What's my line, Spike hires the order of Taraka (supposedly world class assassins) to take Buffy out so that he can concentrate on his goal without her interfering, in terms of villainy that's a smart move.
In Season 3, he's a drunken mess after Dru breaks up with him, but he still poses a threat. He kidnaps Willow and Xander and holds them hostage in order to get Willow to perform a love spell. The only reason Buffy even knows he's in town is because she heard his voice over the phone. If that hadn't happened (bearing in mind it was WILLOW who sent him to the house in the first place) Buffy may not have known he was there. After the altercation with the mayor's minions, Spike decides to just leave and does temporarily win Drusilla back.
In Season 4, he successfully finds the Gem of Amara (which would've taken a while) without Buffy being any wiser and it's only because Harmony opened her mouth and spilled the beans that Buffy even heard of the gem.
and there was a definite flaw in his logic in In The Dark though he still managed to lure Angel into a trap and almost got the ring back if not for Oz's intervention.
Post chip- Spike is in an awkward situation where he can't harm the scoobies physically but is still somewhat of a threat, especially with turning the scoobies against each other and Buffy only figured it out because Spike inadvertently let slip the scoobies had fallen out when there was no way he should've known that. He very nearly got the chip removed in very early Season 5 but Harmony didn't check what was in the tin and he didn't realise until it was too late.
However, from that point on, which coincidentally is when Spuffy begins taking hold, Spike's intelligence takes a nose dive and he becomes a joke. Not to mention the ridiculous "Doctor" plotline, then there is the whole season 7 stuff. Even Angel Season 5, he's not as sharp as he was in the earlier seasons. Where's the smart deadly vampire from Season 2 gone?
Anya- In Season 3, Anya was a lot less ditsy than she was in later seasons. She was a real threat in the wish and she formed an alliance with Vampire Willow in Doppelgangland despite being mortal and thus easy prey. She didn't really interact with the scoobies but when she did, she was usually able to offer some form of useful information such as what the mayor's ascension really meant. She asked Xander to prom, only because she didn't want to go on her own and he was the only male she really knew. She was also ready to skip town to avoid the mayor's ascension because there was no reason for her to stay and suffer the consequences. She offered Xander to come along with her, but when he refused she went on her own because she wasn't going to risk her life for him (which is a refreshing move in this kind of storytelling).
She didn't come back until Season 4 when the danger had passed and she hung around Xander constantly but she still had some wits about her. She didn't really have a role in Season 4 but she still had elements of her season 3 moxy, she still had brains and she still existed outside of Xander.
Come season 5, it's amazing Anya can even tie her own shoelaces, He whole world becomes Xander shaped which it never was in Season 3 or 4. He speech in the body about not understanding death is ridiculously over the top and is again put through the lens of how it makes Xander feel and Anya feels bad because it makes Xander feel sad. Anya's emotional understanding reduces to that of a child.
There is a slight improvement in Season 6 post hells bells, but it reverts back in Season 7. Pre-hells bells it's still Xander, Xander, Xander.
Thing is that, as a vengeance demon, Anya would need to understand human emotion and customs so that she could manipulate them. She posed as a friend to Cordelia and Halfrek posed as a guidance counsellor to Dawn so that they could manipulate them into making wishes. They acted as a sympathetic ear and just let Cordy and Dawn talk whilst asking questions that would push the two girls towards saying "I wish..."
In Season 7, Anya is terrible at her vengeance demon job. D'Hoffryn punished her for losing her amulet despite her still being at the top of her game, yet he's willing to let her continue being a vengeance demon despite a subpar performance then tries to try and have her killed when she chooses not to be a vengeance demon anymore. His whole "never go for the kill when you can go for the pain" line loses weight because Anya wouldn't have to live with the guilt of Halfrek's death if she was dead. Also vengeance demons seem to work in an office environment (given that someone had a picture of Willow skinning Warren on their wall), why wasn't Anya fired?
Drusilla- There's a difference between how Drusilla is portrayed on Buffy and how she is portrayed on Angel. In Buffy Season 2, she's smarter than she makes out she is and she is a lot more dangerous than people give her credit for. She's a competent fighter, having taken out Kendra easily and putting up a good fight against Spike. In Angel Season 2, she's treated like a child and acts more like one too. The Whirlwind might be protective of her but they never babied her which is kind of what Darla does in Angel Season 2.
Buffy- She was a lot more smarter and likeable in Seasons 1-4 than she was in Seasons 5-7, again coincidentally pre-Spuffy but also pre-Dawn. Sure, she made some mistakes but they were more growing pains. High school Buffy killed the love of her life because she had to in order to save the world, despite it being an extremely painful thing to do. She co-ordinated her entire school year in a battle against the mayor. Buffy used to be about overcoming difficult odds with the help of her friends but Season 5 onwards was about piling misery upon misery on Buffy. There was no joy to her growing up. Whilst adulthood isn't as carefree as being a teenager (though Buffy still had a massive burden on her shoulders as the slayer), it's not as bad as the show made it for Buffy. Parental death, financial difficulties, becoming an unplanned parent, bad relationships, social services threating to remove the child from the household, crappy job etc., everything that could be horrible about adulthood was thrown at Buffy and there was no respite. There was no upside for Buffy about being an adult. I could go into more detail but this post is getting long enough as it is so I'll keep it as concise as possible (aside from Spike and Anya who were the most obvious dumbed down characters).
Giles- Up until Season 6, Giles is okay. He transitions from purely being Buffy's watcher to being more of a father figure. Several times he tries to take a step back before realising that he wants to be there to help Buffy. Then comes the ridiculous decision of Season 6. In Season 5, he was planning to leave but changed his mind at the last moment. In Season 6, when Buffy actually needs him, he just abandons her despite learning that she'd been ripped out of heaven. Okay, so she left him to parent Dawn which probably irked him, despite Buffy not being Dawn's mother either, however it's revealed that Buffy was dealing with being pulled out of heaven which is a big deal. Dawn's bad behaviour was another problem that Buffy didn't need on top of everything else, yet Giles just decides to leave her to it? I know Giles had to be written out somehow because ASH wanted to spend some time with his family in England, but the writers could've come up with a better excuse for him to go, rather than the same one they'd used in Season 5 then discarded.
In Season 7, Giles informs Buffy that a horde of teenage girls are going to descend upon her house so that she can protect them and he ends up doing bugger all to help. He could've been a lot more hands on than he was, all the scoobies could've been. Instead, it's left up to Buffy to deal with EVERYTHING then the scoobies pile in on her when everything starts going wrong because Buffy is stressed.
Willow- Like Giles, she's fine up to Season 6 (though the babyish moment in Season 5 between her and Tara is really annoying). Aside from the whole magic=Drugs despite meaning lesbian love in Season 4, Willow just makes stupid decisions that literally make no logical sense. She and Tara are living at he house yet don't seem to be trying to help Buffy in any way upon her return, then Willow erases Tara's mind despite the risks far outweighing the benefits eg Tara finds out, or someone mentions the argument that Tara doesn't remember having etc. Then comes Season 7 and Kennedy. What the hell was Willow thinking? What the hell were the writers thinking? "Let's kill off one half of our lesbian couple so Willow can go dark, then we'll give Willow a new lesbian lover she can end the series with!" If Tara's death was enough to send Willow over the edge to that extent and she was crying for forgiveness from Tara for kissing another woman, then a second kiss from the same woman that caused the problem in the first place shouldn't make everything magically better yet for Willow it apparently does.
Cordelia- It all goes wrong around Season 3 of Angel.
Some characters do fair better than others eg Xander, Dawn, Angel, Darla, Wesley. They were smarter in their later seasons than they were in their first appearance. Not counting the stupid OMWF "twist". Dawn matured considerably in Season 7 though that could be because she was written more age appropriate than she was in Season 5 where she was written younger than she was supposed to be.
Faith- Faith's intelligence is quite steady until Buffy Season 7 where she repeats almost exactly the same mistake Buffy did and she has sex with Wood. Faith gets points though for being the one who is smart enough to put Kennedy in her place, though loses points for taking the potentials into a bringer infested town unarmed "to blow off steam". Faith wouldn't have been able to protect them all on her own.
I can't remember ever defending Faith's crappy actions in these episodes. It was abuse-y or whatever and badwrong or some other combination. All I have stated is that I don't think she 'raped' Buffy, I think it diminishes what is in reality a horrible crime and takes something metaphorical and makes it literal. That's never what the show has been about.
I disagree. It's clear Faith raped Riley by deception, that's undisputable, he never would've slept with Faith if he'd known it was her. In real life, this would be like an identical twin pretending to be their other twin in order to sleep with their twin's boyfriend.
In regards to Buffy, whilst there is no exact real life example to compare the situation to unlike with Riley, it is still rape of Buffy's body within the parameters of the show. Every guy Faith sleeps with whilst in Buffy's body is a rape of Buffy's body (this also technically means that Riley raped Buffy's body through no fault of his own) because Buffy is not there to give consent and thus the lack of consent means it is rape.
If you consider a person's body to be the house for their mind and soul, then that is their house regardless of whether they are there or not. Much like a house of bricks is still your house even if your not constantly in it. That house belongs to you and is yours, much like Buffy's body belongs to her and is hers. Buffy doesn't consent to Faith using her house as a brothel.
Also there are many who just flat-out call her a rapist without holding women like Darla or Willow to the same standard.
's a bit weird to be honest.
Just remind me of the situation with Angel and Darla again. Wasn't she having sex with him whilst he slept or something but then he also did something to her or got quite sexually aggressive with her?
What Willow did to Tara was definitely an abuse of trust. However, in regards to whether it was rape or not (not talking about "mind rape" but physical), I can see arguments for both sides.
On one hand, it could be argued that Tara wouldn't have agreed to sleep with Willow after their fight because she was mad at her. However, on the other hand, all Willow did was remove the singular memory of the fight and didn't play with Tara's mind in any other way at all. Therefore Tara does consent to sleep with Willow. It might not be "informed" consent but it is still consent nonetheless.
Willow is still Willow and isn't someone else pretending to be Willow in order to sleep with Tara.
I greatly enjoy it when he's a soulless vampire
Same here. Spike was a much better character when he was still evil and pre-chip.
They were both romantic but Spike had the gumption and confidence- mostly- to act upon his romantic feelings. This was nurtured and encouraged by Drusilla.
William kind of acted on his romantic feelings. He was writing poems about Cecily, maybe with the intention of eventually wooing her with them, and when she did ask him directly if they were about her, you see him take a deep breath before admitting that they were. He'd summoned up the courage to tell her about his feelings, though probably a lot sooner than he wanted, and she threw it back in his face. He'd probably imagined that she would be delighted by his "romantic gesture" and when she rejected him, he didn't know how to handle it, which is why he left rather abruptly and took himself somewhere to be on his own and calm down.
Ha, I actually forgot about this ONE debate we ever had. Wow.
*shrug* Okay I do remember reading some rather weak excuses about why its 'okay' that Spike assaults others without provocation. I mean, it isn't, ever, and its perfectly reasonable to say that. People can just say 'Spike in S7 was still a work in progress and he makes some bad choices, but hey, at least he wasn't hanging around the Boxer's Rebellion eating murderers'.
See? That's a valid comparison and a debate can be had from that.
We can all say that he was unstable and that's why he hit Anya multiple times but its doesn't make it 'okay', it just puts it in some context, same with Faith in 'Touched'; you can say his actions are understandable in character but in the thread that you're referring to many people were trying to justify it by saying that Faith was a *ahem* 'a vampire-bigot who was trying to silence Spike' or something. There's a big difference.
I remember that debate and I still think Faith knew what she was doing. There was a reason she chose to use those words, that's not saying she's a "vampire bigot" (your own words) but that she was drawing Spike's anger away from the rest of the group and on to herself because she didn't want him affecting morale even more.
But y'see, about the no-provocation punching thing I hate it when every other character does it; its a cruddy thing when Buffy does it or Faith or whomever. It's never just some kinds 'Spike thing'... except that Spike is the only one who gets righteously defended because it seems like he can do no wrong lol.
The thing with this, and I think with the hate that Xander gets too, is that it's the fans picking up the slack from the characters eg with Xander, there are a lot of times he should've been called out on his actions by other characters but isn't which means the fans tend to focus on those bad actions.
In regards to Spike, he is hit quite a lot by Buffy for no reason at all, and the scoobies treat him badly at times for no reason at all (again, they don't have to like him but there's no reason not to be civil especially as he's team scooby), the fans pick up the slack on this perceived mistreatment of the character by perhaps going too far in the other direction. Spike is no angel (pun not intended), but he seems to be either demonised or can do no wrong which winds both sides of the argument up.
I make no bones about thinking he one of the worst characters in S7, judging by his actions.
I wouldn't call him one of the worst in Season 7, there are at least 4 other characters that take that honour, but like with the previous two seasons, Spike's character became all about Spuffy and Seasons 6&7 were quite heavily Spuffy focussed. If you don't like Spuffy then those seasons can be quite wearying. He never should've gotten a soul. It was a cheap ploy to absolve him of the AR but then the AR shouldn't have happened in the first place.
