The dozen or so people that Spike killed in S7 would like to have a word with you. The trigger is no excuse. If he can stop himself from killing Buffy, no matter how he does it, and it's not the First stopping him (who is the only one that controls the trigger) then Spike should have been able to also stop himself from killing all the other non-Buffy shaped people. So souled Spike is guilty of multiple murder.
And of course there is S8, where having the grand entrance meant more to him than letting people know about the whole Twilight!Angel thing.
Wow, really??! The show made it clear that Spike wasn't in control when he was triggered, kind of the whole point of the trigger from The First's point of view, and when he stopped attacking Buffy it was that the slight taste of her blood broke the trigger in that moment. But as a slayer's blood is specifically portrayed as being unique and powerful throughout the show, that doesn't prove anything about how he should have just managed to stop on all other occasions. They very specifically went on from that to show how the trigger overrode any basic control and, through when Spike discussed it with Buffy, how he didn't even remember anything over just going out and talking to people. The trigger was only broken fully when Spike found the trigger of the song in his memory when his sired mother played the music box and the past that he had been suppressing was released and the trigger broken.
As for S8, Spike arrived in the middle of the disastrous fallout from Twilight and he was cocky and full of swagger because that is what he does to cover over insecurities and uncertainties. It is like his entrance in
Beneath You when he appears in the doorway seeming confident and as if he's suddenly pulled it all together, which he hadn't. How Spike presents himself is often forced, which is a major part of his story right back as he fought to distance himself from William and create an image of who he wanted to become. S8 obviously wasn't the easiest situation to walk into for numerous reasons, but
he did so to help save the people he cared about and to help by giving them information they needed to protect the world. The stupid bug ship was a whole other thing, but his motivation in appearing when/how he did was responsive to a situation he wasn't in any way responsible for but was there helping to solve.
Speaking of the Twilight storyline, Angel is not a paragon once he is souled that doesn't make some really bad choices at different points. But most fans accept that he is then trying to put things right, even if he does have a habit of letting his hubris lead him into further questionable choices. But he did return to killing in his confusion/despair when he first had the soul. He
chose to do that. He locked up the lawyers to be killed by Dru and Darla. Heck, he chose to try (or just risk, depending on your interpretation) to lose his soul again in a fit of depression that the world was an awful place and his search for redemption pointless when he went to find Darla to sleep with her. He mind wiped people and lied to them which led them into joining W&H and then compromised his own mission to be there. What makes Angel such a fascinating character for me, and I do love his overall story, is that he struggles all the time with balancing his darker side, the man underneath as well as the demon. We can compare and contrast different characters but their personalities and their pasts are all different and there isn't any straight X vs Y that draws a clear line where some subjective interpretations aren't at least a little in play. Spike and Angel both have strengths and weaknesses, but how one responds to something doesn't damn the other for not mirroring it. Neither are always right or wrong, but how they reflect and contrast each other can be very interesting and informative. But let's not pretend that one of them shows you how to do it and the other simply lacks in every which way. That is just character preference imo and that is what tends to drive most of the more blinkered comparisons between the two which often seek to brush away certain parts of their acts/pasts/or personality flaws.
As for the whole coat issue, the show heavily drove the point about the symbolism of the coat. He left it behind when he attacked Buffy in S6, Xander found it on the bannister, and when he returned with his soul he
chose to not wear it any longer. We even saw him try the bright blue top when he came out the basement in
Beneath You, a visual indicator that something was different, but that got stripped away as he struggled and found donning a new 'look' didn't work to contain/cover it all. He only fetched the coat when Buffy goaded him in
Get It Done that he wasn't any use to her if he didn't reconnect with the fighter he had been. Fetching the coat was a symbolic way of showing him pushing past his reticence, the fact that he
didn't relish the fight anymore as he said, and trying to blend the demon and soul for the benefit of the greater good. I don't think Robin deliberately trying to trigger him, to force him into being something he knew Spike wasn't any more because he wanted to kill the monster is hard to understand, but it obviously isn't OK either. That Spike was furious about what Robin had done to him and vicious in response is also not hard to understand. But was he a b*stard to Robin? Yes he definitely was. And even if I do think in his anger he took it to unnecessarily callous levels, that he has to shut off from considering his feelings to be able to wear the coat, for the good of the mission, was the connection to Buffy/Nicky that was being made.
Spike openly says that he doesn't look back on his victims the same way Angel does. They are different characters and Angel's upbringing means that his focus on his guilt and atonement makes perfect sense for him. I think Spike rationalises having sought out slayers to kill them by telling himself it was a natural fight, and this is something that he has avoided considering fully. I don't think that is good, or that it is healthy to avoid as he does, but I can also understand why he and Angel both feel connected and yet separate to the actions they took unsouled. It must be difficult to feel responsible over things you have done but wouldn't do now and sometimes personal ways of dealing with difficulties aren't the best. But Spike has also had weaker, more open moments when he has been distressed about things that he had done. Generally though, Spike's character tends to look forward to what he can be doing rather than focussing on looking back, and this can be quite determinedly so sometimes. And we have to always remember that characters are not wholly reliable narrators. They say things to cover their feelings or block them and we understand this because of the wider actions that we are shown and reminders of the past. In AtS 5 Spike and Angel both regress to childish behaviour and respond to each other in silly ways to try and protect their own feelings of inadequacy. They eventually learn to respect each other more, and although they have some very revealing conversations, they don't start trusting each other with their personal weaknesses much. As is shown by a lot of their arguments. The way that I understand Spike's attitude about the coast in AtS 5 is to look at the symbolic meaning of it that was a major part of his story in S7. It was a symbol that was repeated in his defeat of Pavayne earlier in the season too. Having lost the coat he feared losing his edge again, losing his connection and becoming weak/useless to the cause. He wasn't going to
explain that to Angel, to expose himself, so a quick cover to his reaction was to claim to mourn it and it matter to him because he earned it. We know that isn't how he felt about it, we saw S7. Putting on the coat was about becoming someone harder again, not about reliving a moment of glory.
I do personally have an issue with Anya's lack of remorse when souled, how she talks constantly about her vengeance days, but I accept that the length of time that she was living as an evil demon enjoying murder/mayhem was extensive. I can't like her at all if I don't see her behaviour as somewhat defensive and blinkered for self preservation. That she does get to regret the choice to return to being a vengeance demon and realise that she has changed since becoming human is good progression. Her choice to stay and die in the battle in S7 directly contrasted her attitude when she first became human and fled the danger of an apocalypse for self preservation and I think for me that is indicative, alongside her regret earlier in the season, that she had become 'better'. She put the greater good ahead of herself and that redeemed her somewhat to me. But I can see why it wouldn't feel satisfactory as a completed arc for some.
