Well you could argue it's ME's job to pose questions, and it's up to us to bring our own answers. Look at it this way, it's made a lot of people think more deeply on this subject than they might otherwise have done.

it's made a lot of people think more deeply on this subject than they might otherwise have done.

It's also made me think the writing staff is very disorganised and shortsighted.

I think they've lost people's devotion to the show, and that's bad. I don't like having to pretend stuff didn't happen to make two seasons hang together, but I gotta.

And allysons answer to the more general hypothetical makes at least some sense.

I've read a number of studies that the husband has raped the wife at least once in 13% of all marriages. Even assuming this is an exagggeration, marital rape is a known and studied phenomenon, and not all cases end in divorices. So some women to come to terms with it and go on living in a relationship with a man who raped them. And in point of fact I would swear I saw back in the eighties a mini-series about a mail-order bride bought by a really dumb mean (and not very good looking) pioneer; he raped her as sort of introduction honestly not knowing bett. Eventally she managed to kind of housbreak him, and managed forgive him for what he did back when he was mostly animal, and establish some sort of mutually loving relationship. The acting was really good, and convinced me.

Not a lot I can say to that. They worked for me. S6 more so than S7, right enough.

Umm I think leaving a rapist alone with someone stunningly beautiful is probably even a worse mistake then leaving them alone with someone of average appearence. I know rape is primarly a crime of violence - but isn't someon vulnerable and sexually attractive even more at risk? Maybe not.

Spike raped Buffy because of who she was. If there'd been a reason to rape Dawn in his twisted rationale, I don't think her looks would have had the slightest bearing on it. It would have been because of her relationship to Buffy.

Point taken ita - my mind was wandering between the episode and the mroe general question. And I'm not sure it was correct even there.

Well you could argue it's ME's job to pose questions, and it's up to us to bring our own answers

You could, but I wouldn't.

It's also made me think the writing staff is very disorganised and shortsighted.

What ita Said.

Okay fair enough. I never suggested you should.

Perhaps, early on, had Spike said, "I can't help you fight this monster, because I can't bear to face you, because I know what I did to you," maybe not even to Buffy (because that could be interpreted as laying a guilt trip, perhaps to Xander, because he wasn't going to buy any bull from Spike, it would have helped.

Hmm. I'm not sure if I see Spike as Big Emotional Speech, Take Responsibility For What He's Done Guy. It was more like him to show up at the house in "Beneath You" and try to help, without explaining what was up.

I think, if he had tried to turn her into a vampire, I would have bought it as a desperate act, and more in tune with the character, and also as a catalyst for him saying, "If I can't change her, I need to change me."

That would have worked soooooooooooooo infinitely much better. I think that's an example where the metaphor can get at more truth than reality.

B/c right now, I'm kind of in the ita camp, where SR never happened.