I'm blaming Spike for it because he's the one who tried to rape her.
You'll never convince me of your theory that Spike tried to rape Buffy, and I'll never convince you of the contrary, so I won't bother keeping the debate up.
What this thread has proven beyond any chance of reasonable doubt, though, is that it remains
debatable whether or not he tried to rape her.
🙂
Theses are completely different things. Spike killed Wood's mother, so Wood tried to kill Spike out of revenge. If you're saying that they are the same things, then you're saying that Buffy sexually exploited Spike and so Spike tried to rape her out of revenge? They are completely different situtation and you know it.
[...]
See above - it's not the same situation. Then there are many other factors surrounding the events in question.
The similarities far outweigh the differences. You refuse to concede that because, seemingly, to you revenge is a justified motivation (I strongly disagree), and that a history of sexual and emotional exploitation is not connected with an "attempted rape" within the same relationship (I disagree so strongly as to find the view almost laughable).
Your frame of reference is so very different from mine that there's no point for further discussion on the issue, I'm afraid.
The bit in bold is exactly the argument I made. Yes he wanted more, but he was entirely happy with what he got, and, yes, he did follow her around and beg for more. I'm getting tired of saying that, because it's so plain to see from the episodes. Just accept it.
Buffy was no less "happy" with the situation than Spike, in fact, a lot of the time, she was
far "happier" with it than him (e.g., the whole of "Gone"), and she did no less follow
him around to beg for more. If that isn't plain to see for you, your lense is very distorted, indeed.
Hoo-ray, a relationship with feelings so intense that the two of them express them by periodically raping each other. I wonder why I don't like this ship. :whatever:
Thank you very much for
totally ignoring what I said. The Spuffy ship (as in, the love story between Spike and Buffy) went for a time-out between Smashed and Seeing Red. I do not like that part at all, in fact I don't know anyone who does. It is NOT what Spuffy is about. Spuffy is about
coming back from the dark place, not about the sad, disturbing time of dwelling in it.
If you measure the value of the Spuffy ship on that, then you'll have to measure Bangel on one part killing off the friends of the other and getting sadistic kicks out of torturing her in general. Seems like raping each other periodically would actually be more benign than that, no? At least the amount of abuse is balanced, and not one-sided as with Bangel. :whatever:
Some things are good and some things are bad. Like Wesley said - "There's a line. Good and evil. Black and white." Some things are evil, no matter what the circumstances, and rape is one of those things.
I disagree wholeheartedly. "Good" and "evil" are fabrications, arbitrary labels used by an authoritarian mindset to ease the discomfort of living in a complex world beyond one's control. I believe (judging from my own experience) that the world would be a much nicer place if we all could just leave morality behind. For my part, I'm definitely happy and relieved that I've disposed of that baggage in my life.
Uh, the fact that she was the one and only slayer? The corrupt council that would likely have had her killed if she refused to fight in order to get a new slayer called? The legions of vampires and demons that would seek her out so that they could be the ones to kill the slayer? Her mystical, undeniable calling that the show spent 7 years establishing was completely inescapable, even with a second slayer and an ensouled vampire available to help?
She never even tried, now did she? And as for bringing the Council into the question, I advise you to take another look at episodes like "Helpless", "Graduation Day 1", and "Checkpoint". If you argue that Nikki had no choice but to toe the Council line, I wonder if you can explain to me what happened in those episodes?
And as for "Prophecy Girl" - dude, what a boring episode, on the background of your argument. "I'm 16, I don't want to die"? Boo hoo, stop wasting time whining and go do your job, you stupid girl!
Teenagers, seriously.
😉
But he did. Please stop denying that. That would be like me denying that Faith ever killed anyone, or that Angel likes Barry Manilow. No matter how bad the things our favourite characters do are, we cannot just bury our heads in the sand and live in denial. They happened, end of story.
[...]
I refuse to lay any blame on Buffy for almost getting raped. He tried to rape her - in that bathroom he was the rapist and she was the rapee. It doesn't matter what questionable things happened elsewhere, the fact is that that is what happened in that bathroom.
I'm not "denying" anything. You pose your theory as fact, and I challenge that claim. It's plain to see for me that Spike did
not try to rape Buffy, and also that Buffy did
a lot to bring the bathroom situation onto herself.
(Which, just to make it clear, is not the same as saying she
deserved it. I'm not a moralist, so I could hardly care less about guilt and punishment; instead, I'm arguing within categories of responsibility and consequence. The fact that a moralist viewpoint tends to regard these as meaning the same thing merely shows the limitations of said viewpoint.)
So, obviously, as there's two conflicting views on the table, the situation is
not based in fact, but a matter of perspective open to interpretation.
That is what you are, indeed,
denying.
🙂
I meant that he gave up his vengance gig after trying to kill Spike.
Which is a real big deal and worth noticing, seeing as both Spike and Buffy made it unmistakably clear to him that he'd used up his one free pass and would be one chunk of dead principal if he tried it again.
😀
In your opinion. I think that the soul-getting is worth a tally point in the "good" column, but that's not nearly enough to weight against all the bad stuff yet.
I wonder, then, where you stand on everyone treating Angel as if he were a good guy. (Except for Giles and Xander, of course, who always saw through that act.) What exactly had he done to "weigh against" mass murder, rape and torture for the sheer fun of it? A few decades of eating gutter rats are hardly hero material. And don't even get me started at his lies and denial about what he'd done, post-soul. (Yes I know, the glories of retcon... But fiddling retcon into canon leads to Angel inarguably LYING to Buffy in "Angel"... probably because he was wetting his pants that she'd stake him then and there if he were truthful to her about himself killing people, feeding on human blood, and siring vampires,
after he got his soul.) If Spike stands at one tally point, Angel may well come in at a big fat zero or even in the negative, especially considering the time spent. (Tally points per year? Angel will need A LOT of time before he can hope of catching up on Spike!)
And note that it's comparing SOULED Angel with UNSOULED Spike here. That alone should make clear that if Spike's redemption is in doubt, Angel (souled Angel, not Angelus!) must in comparison truly be the scum of the Earth and should have met the business end of Mr Pointy a handful of eps into S1.
No, Spike had it coming to him, he killed Wood's mother. Buffy was right to try to stop it, Spike was indeed a force for good then and was needed for the battle. This doesn't leave Wood indebted to Spike because Spike was kind enough not to kill him. That would put Spike 2-0 up on the murder count. If Wood had killed Spike then it would've been a 1-1 draw.
If killing
an attacker who used lethal force against you rates as murder in your book, Buffy is a professional serial murderer, and so was every Slayer since time immemorial. Wonder why they even let her run free, and why hardened career criminals like her would be shown as a hero and role model.
And as for killing Wood's mother... By not trying to split city for a home on the range, Nikki agreed to the rules of the game. Vampire. Slayer.
Two men enter, one man leaves. It may not be nice, but it's the cold hard facts, and Spike, other than Wood, had understood it perfectly. (Besides, Nikki was a serial killer by your logic, so why should anyone care if she snuffs it?)
Spike is getting all the blame here because a) this is a thread talking about the AR, which Spike did commit and therefore is responsible for, and b) it's a thread about Spike, full stop. If it was a thread about Buffy's behaviour in S6 you'd be seeing a lot more anti-Buffy talk, but we're discussing Spike here.
Sorry, but that's beyond ridiculous. If the thread is about Spike alone, and Buffy is not to enter the reasoning, what's left to discuss? It's a thread about the bathroom scene, and there's
two people in that one. Take one of them out of it, and what do you have left to blame Spike for, exactly? What's his crime - being in the show, wasting screen time? (I know a lot of people say exactly that about him in S7, but that's obviously a topic for another thread.
😛 )
Next time, we'll discuss "Passion", but the thread will be focusing on Jenny, so we'll have to leave Angelus out of it. I think we should call it "The mysterious death of Jenny Calendar - could it have been suicide?"
😀
