I'm pretty sure that there are just going to be fewer commercials because of the Acuvue sponsorship.

Nikki's/Spike's coat: Wood stripped it off Spike when he was going to kill him.

They fought.

Spike retrieved it when he left.

I liked that. It was symbolic of Spike accepting, incoporating, integrating the soulles era of his life (which is what he'd really just done with the whole trigger thing) with whom he is now. I think taking that coat back was one time when the writers did "show" us (rather than "tell"), this season.

That's why nobody staked Spike after he got the chip.

I thought nobody staked Spike after he got the chip because he'd been defanged. He was no longer a threat.

What you say is right. For me, it's just incomplete within the Buffyverse moral code. Nobody staked Spike after he was defanged by the chip and was no longer a (I'd add 'immediate' here, because he still could plan/oversee murder) threat, because staking him at that point would have been an act of vengeance for past wrongs, not a defensive action.

Cindy, the distinction I would make is whether things are done for good or evil. Vampires' intent is evil. Vampire killers are on the side of good.

I don't see the Buffyverse telling us that. I think that was part of Faith's conceit that got her into trouble in Season 3. That's what's behind the whole want - take - have mentality.

I don't interpret the Buffyverse moral of Wood's story that way. I interpret the moral of Wood's story as saying he was doing this with evil intent, i.e. he was intent on seeking vengeance. Remember that Wood's suspicion that Spike killed his mom was confirmed by The First Evil. Use of the FE in that way, wasn't a throw-away plot-point. That's a cue - a cue that killing Spike (as is - ensoulled and not intentionally harming humans) was going to be an evil act.

If, in real life, a human had committed a string of murders, felt convicted of all he did wrong, and then turned himself in and the cops shot him at the station, we'd say it was evil. If a victim's family member did it, we'd understand and sympathize and perhaps know we'd act no better, but we'd still know it was wrong.

(Please don't continue the above analogy on to death penalty arguments, because it wasn't intended to cover that, and is specifically why I'll keep the Scoobies in the role of cops here, not the entire legal system. It wasn't intended to reach that far because Buffy and co. aren't here to play judge, jury and executioner, they are first line defense; they're security; they're our body guards; they're our army warding off hostile attackers.)

So Wood has been acting on the side of good by killing vampires. While I see your point on the vengeance thing, I still think he'd be justified in killing Spike merely because he's a vampire. The fact that he can get his rocks off because the guy killed his mother is just gravy. And for the record, your chocolate scenario is of the evil :)

Consider The Initiative storyline, their treatment of Oz, and R*ley's initial response to finding out that Oz was a werewolf (which was a metaphor for racism). Also involving Oz, consider Cain (or whomever - that werewolf hunter was in Phases). Consider when Uncle Enyos reminded Jenny that their clan doesn't serve justice; they serve vengeance. These are all planks in the Buffyverse moral framework.

I don't know that we've ever really been told that vampire killers are good in an absolute sense. We've traditionally seen vampire killers killing vamps out of self-defense/defense of the vulnerable. That is good, but a defense-based killing has a different motivation than a punishment-based killing. In fact, it's a different act than slaying to punish them for past wrongs.

For, me, Wood's desire for venegence is justified, but the method he wanted to take his vengence was not.

and (in response to something else...)

Yes. This. There's a speech that Jack McCoy once gave in Law & Order that applies here. Somebody was going for a sympathy defense and kept talking about all the bad things the person they murdered had done to them and don't you understand why I did it?

McCoy's response was "yes, I understand. I sympathise with everything you've been through, and I even understand your need for vengeance. What I don't understand is where you picked up a knife and stabbed them to death."

Justification does not = excuse.

I agree with all of the above, except the first clause from justkim, and the last line from Sean. I think those words (justified, justification) are problematic; the word choice makes the rest of it untrue. If the killings were justified, that would literally excuse them. To justify something means to make prove something or somebody right (righteous); to make it/them free from blame; to absolve (from) guilt.

Slayers patrol and find vampires (who by reason of their being are always hunting, and/or in the act of/planning mayhem) and kill them, because that is the only way to stop them. It's always the only way, proven by eons of history. Soulless vampires kill. When you see a soulless vampire, you see a guy with no conscience and a bomb locked to him somehow. He has swallowed the key, and he's standing in a crowded building. His bomb is running on a clock and will explode when the clock runs out, killing whomever is around. It also has a "detonate now" button.

When you see the slayer, you're seeing a cop approach the guy and the guy is not going to disarm his bomb. If the slayer/cop approaches vamp/bomb guy, he'll press that "detonate now" button and take the slayer/cop out. The only way to stop vamp/bomb guy is to kill him.

(cont'd in next post)

(cont'd from above)

With ensoulled vampires, that's not strictly true. It's no more true that they'll kill, than that humans will kill. They retain the ability, but their minds have more control, more choice. An ensoulled vampire is no longer a creature mainly motivated by this blood lust. Blood becomes only a nutritional requirement; it stops being his reason for being.

One of Buffy's big points to Giles this season was that you don't stop evil by doing evil. That makes ita's point even more interesting:

I'm disturbed by Buffy's "Spike, why aren't you more savage!" exhortation. I think it was pretty low on the conscience-o-meter. As was her "Oh, Will, get over your Dark!issues."

Buffy was right to want to motivate Spike (and Willow). She was wrong to chide them in that particular way for trying to keep themselves in control. That was an abuse of her power over them as a friend and leader. Everyone has been acting out of extreme feelings this season, a beautiful point I think has been lost with the high static-to-noise ratio that the SiTs have brought in their duffels. It was a point made several times in Selfless; it was also made in Buffy's approach in Help, in her bursting into Dawn's classroom in Lessons, in everyone's response to jacket-boy (and how they attempted to pursue him) in Him.

I agree with all of the above, except the first clause from justkim, and the last line from Sean. I think those words (justified, justification) are problematic; the word choice makes the rest of it untrue. If the killings were justified, that would literally excuse them. To justify something means to make prove something or somebody right (righteous); to make it/them free from blame; to absolve (from) guilt.

But Cindy, I didn't say that the killing was justified, I said

For me, Wood's desire for venegence is justified, but the method he wanted to take his vengence was not.

Wood's desire to kill Spike is excusable, the actual killing of Spike is morally questionable at best and wrong at worst within the scope of Buffyverse morality.

(Edited to not continue the display of my crappy typing.)

The desire is understandable, sympathetic; it's not justified. Vengeance, and the desire for it, cannot be justified (at least not in a 'verse where vengeance is represented by Gypsies who won't modify a curse, even when the object of the curse is and has been not killing for a century, and is now fighting for good; where it's represented by demons who wreak havoc).

It's no accident that Cordelia also suffered and died in the wishverse of The Wish. Vengeance harms everyone, even (especially) the seeker. When Giles tells Willow she's opened herself up to dark forces when she re-enacts the Curse of Restoration. She opened herself up to vengeance, not just dark magicks. Follow that train of thought down the road for the four seasons from S2 to S6, (with a great pit stop in season 4) and see where vengeance got her.

Also, your point was (and I didn't reference it in my post) is that he should have sought his vengeance in a different way. When actually, the point of the episode was that he shouldn't have sought vengeance at all. If he instead looked for some sort of restitution (and what that can be for killing a mother, I don't know), or amends, or something, I would agree that those sorts of desires are justified in the Buffyverse.

Desires though, in and of themselves, aren't the problem. It's how they're either sated or controlled - what acts are used, that are the real problem.

What, as usual, Cindy said. I think it's also worth emphasising that Wood himself hit Spike's trigger in order to bring vamp Spike out. I think that shows that Wood knew that he wasn't completely justified in killing AllInOne!Spike. Bringing vamp Spike to the surface might have given Wood a salve to his conscience.

And if that's true then the writers have shown us that killing Spike was wrong under those circumstances.

I always thought they didn't kill Spike because he was hot and good for ratings.

My whimsical theory for the day: when the First merged with *cough* had metaphysical sex with *cough* Caleb, his eyes went black, something we've seen as symbolic of possession by mysterious powers before, with Willow. Very notably, with Willow when she was possessed in "Becoming 2" and re-ensouled Angel. Offering a sort of back-handed suppot for the theory that the First had plans for Angel way back when, even before "Amends."

I'm not terribly attached to this theory, because I think that magic ought to equal power (which is dangerous and tempting and amoral in itself), not evil power; but it's fun to play with.

I wanted Spike to be very different from Angel, more than that I wanted Spike not to be the remorseful vampire with a soul because everyone's been working on the assumption that having a soul will make a vampire good. I wanted Spike to be different than that because I wanted Spike to be different than Angel.

Also because I'm rather bloodthirsty and I wanted to see how Buffy would deal with souled Spike who would kill once he got the chance. Because soul != good. But that's not what happened, instead Spike became whatever the hell he is.

I never saw Spike killing Nikki as anymore personal than when he killed the Chinese Slayer or his first attempts to kill Buffy. He took Nikki's coat as a trophy. Wood never really had possesion of Spike's coat, at least not in my eyes---he attempted to take back Spike's trophy but he lost the fight so Spike kept the duster.

Anyone else been to ebay to see the Buffy auction yet? I'm waiting for the soiled socks that Buffy wore in a scene that was cut out of Episode 25. Nothing else moves me, but when those socks go up for bid, stand back and watch me toss my life savings down the bidet.

A coaster!!! For god's sake, people are bidding money on a coaster. A. Coaster. "A", as in the singlular. A coaster. A paper coaster, no less.

Call me when they put Clem's sweat glands up for bid.