It's more my own feelings about Spike. Although I haven't rewatched those episodes in a long time. I just remember feeling frustrated because it felt like Spike was retreading Angel's storyline and wanting Spike from the early seasons, which would have been limited growth.

I agree with you. 100%.

Tell me more about retreading Angel's arc. He had a crazy spell, but we got to see it, and he was on board with the soul thing right away, since it was his idea, not a torment. Also, he had no curse, so all of that angst completely didn't exist.

I can't see a mirror to Angel without the angst, honestly. It was such a big part of him.

It's my own feelings about Spike.

Also clouded by not rewatching the episodes so I admit I may remembering certain things wrong.

But I , personally, didn't really like the whole Spike had a Soul thing. Spike became less interesting to me. It felt like a Angel Lite.

I think more to the point perhaps: I thought it was strange that ostensibly both Angel and Spike wanted to be "better people" after seeing/falling in love with Buffy. Yes, it is true that Spike didn't follow Angel's trajectory EXACTLY, but having them be in competition with each other physically, for Buffy, having them both ensouled, I didn't like it.

I liked Spike as a straight up villain. I get that ultimately the major characters got some redemption arc (even Darla!), but for me it was just too much. I liked the uniqueness of a vampire with a soul. Did we really need two - and then for them to be on the same show?!

Spike didn't follow Angel's trajectory EXACTLY

I'm not saying it has to be exact. I'm saying that it's missing a major defining characteristic. Cheerful aggro Angel is ... not Angel. Even if Angel things happen to him. It's not a character arc in my book, because the characters are so radically different.

That's another thing, by the time Spike got a soul he didn't feel like a radically different character to me. By that time it just felt like ...almost like they ran out of ideas to keep Spike around so they just rebooted Angel getting a soul. A little different, but not radically different and not original.

I'd never read Mark WAtches/Read before this. I'm not sure if he's ever dealt with characters that were not sane. I get that he doesn't like the word crazy nor does he want to use it. From what people have said here, saying someone is insane is okay, or at least acknowledging they are mentally ill is okay.

However, there's a big difference between not using a word you think is a slur and ignoring a huge aspect of a character.

The difference between a slur and something diagnostically accurate is huge to me to, askye. And I am glad you said something because it's been bothering me too.

I think Mark is trying to purge some words from his own lexicon, and it's his blog, his rules.

I personally wish I could purge "gypped" from my own word list, but it's fairly well ingrained and (around here) divorced from it's origins that I have to remind myself.

OTOH? There are a number of things I have managed to purge from childhood, so at least the outlook is good.

Back to Mark. Someone recently told him he should go back to his old reviews and replace every "list post" with a "real" review. That's chutzpah!

Purging words is all nice and good, but I haven't heard anyone complaining about, say, gypped by also rooting out synonyms. I don't raise an eyebrow at someone who doesn't want you to use derogatory terms for things--but you can't (okay, you can, but I don't think it's healthy) ban concepts. Especially when they're right in front of you.