I really really really hated Spike looking like a walking Gap ad. I just couldn't get over that. True Dru came back and he put on his black again and cattle prodded Buffy tryign to "make" her love him (which actually was characterization I could believe) but he still dressed in khakis.

The problem being, of course, that having the soul fundamentally means he was a different entity than unsouled Spike. More or less. Soulless Spike is the demon driving through the filter of William's memories. Souled Spike is William himself, in a vampire's body. I dislike a lot of how it was handled, but I actually agree with Buffy's sentiment.

Which I would buy more, had that been what was shown, not just what was told.

And it wasn't, in fact, what was shown in S7, unless William and Spike happened to be a lot more alike than flashbacks showed.

Nor (we're fraternal brain twins today) does it map to Angel, who is neither Angelus nor Liam.

There were ways they could have got around it, and could have shown the character as changed. They didn't, not after his scene-chew on the cross, and their attempts to have their cake and eat it too left a sour taste in my mouth.

Sorry, I'm new. Would anyone be willing to tell me what's a "dead lesbian cliche" or does that dredge up too many bad memories?

Would anyone be willing to tell me what's a "dead lesbian cliche"

if you're feeling brave, the kitten board still has up their FAQ here.

Denise! i googled "dead lesbian cliche" and one of your lj posts was on the first page! hahahahaha!!

Sorry, I'm new. Would anyone be willing to tell me what's a "dead lesbian cliche" or does that dredge up too many bad memories?

In a lot of pre-Stonewall, and more post-Stonewall than is comfortable to admit for many, literature and film, lesbian characters tended to end tragically.

If you've done queer film studies, it's a pretty well-known trope. Vampires and Violets covered it fairly thoroughly.

So when Tara was killed, and Willow went dark side, people familar with the trope felt betrayed by the terminal ending of a fairly positive portrayal of a lesbian relationship on TV.

Laga, the cliche is that any lesbian in a work of fiction will die before the end of the story. True or not, the stereotype is there.

When Tara died, we were at World Crossing. Posters in another forum of Buffy fans (unrelated to the Buffistas) were very, very emotionally invested in the Willow-Tara relationship -- in fact, the forum was more or less built around love of that relationship. As I understand it (I didn't read the forum myself), the posters at that forum reacted very, very strongly when Tara died. Including assertions that Joss/ME was homophobic and followed "the lesbian dies" cliche.

We had a very intense (and very courteous) discussion about the subject at the time -- including the nature of the cliche, whether there was any validity to the cliche, whether Tara's death was an example of the cliche, etc.

I have this whole AU theory in which Dru, having vamped a convienent gypsy sorceress, returns to Sunnydale, has the gypsy minion remove Spike's soul, and then those two crazy kids make up.

Aw. In my AU, Spike has Warren build a Spike-bot at the end of "I Was Made to Love You," and leaves town to find Dru, never to return. It explains so much!

The problem being, of course, that having the soul fundamentally means he was a different entity than unsouled Spike.

I think I'm with Plei. Soul = conscience, not a personality.

And it wasn't, in fact, what was shown in S7, unless William and Spike happened to be a lot more alike than flashbacks showed.

Thinking about that, I fanwanked that it had to do with the sort of people they were before they were bitten:
While Liam's relatively willful and contrary soul was able to put up a good fight and assume dominance over the demon within except when he was in the throes of extreme despair or lust, William's soul was too weak and used to being submissive to take over fully except for a few early bouts of weepy cross climbing. Thus, the demon was the dominant component of that gestalt and Spike's personality didn't undergo the sort of radical change post-ensouling that Angel's did.

I'd buy that for....whatever you're selling it for.

Your soul.