I think if they had Spike try to vamp Buffy it would have negated his entire story since he got chipped. The irony of the attempted rape was that it was because of the "progress" that he'd made.

I think both are equivalent in that way. Either would have shown that no matter how hard he tries to be "good," frustration and anger can aort of bring the (metaphiorical and literal) demon out in him.

I think that ones interpretation of events being colored by Season 7 in valid. A choice an author makes in the middle of a novel can be either made to make sense by the rest of the novel, or can not be backed up by the rest of the text. Similarly, ME could have done things in season 7 would have made the attempted rape a better plot point. Instead they really backed away from it. I assume this was because it had unintended effects-- that in fact the story they wanted to tell would have been better served by a vamping. There could have been a good, different story that included the attempted rape and the soul, but that was not the one they chose to tell. So as a whole, the cohesiveness of the Buffy story did not work as well.

Xander wasn't just some guy who wanted to go out with her. Xander was one of her two best (and only close) friends (and Buffy very well knew her other best friend had feelings for him).

It's the second part that's most important here -- Buffy knew Willow had been crushing madly on Xander for years before Buffy entered the picture. Whatever Buffy's potential feelings for Xander were, he was off-limits if she wanted to stay friends with either of them.

My initial reaction to the rape scene was "What the FUCK -- did I accidentally change the channel???" I thought the scene was so poorly executed from a production standpoint that I couldn't even think about it in terms of character motivations for a long time afterwards. I found the nat-sound/handheld camera to be waaaaaay too overtly manipulative to have any emotional impact, and it pissed me off that ME thought it would.

Is it possible your view of it has been coloured by what happens in S7?

Absolutely. My whole argument is based on the premise that if/since they planned to continue on with Buffy's feeling for Spike in season 7, yet weren't going to give the story the time it needed to address it beyond a point where she comes off as a victim who blames herself for the attack, that they should have picked another device. I've never argued** the attempted rape was wrong within the context (only) of Seeing Red, or even most of season 6.

I feel this way because of the stance on Spike, that the writers gave Buffy for season 7. That's my whole point. They had her want to have him stick around, for emotional reasons. They had her risk her life to enter the FE's lair, to save him. They had her calling him a hottie. They had her endangering the potentials and herself - the whole known slayer line, by insisting he live in the Summers' home. They had her remove the chains before it was known whether or not Spike was free of the FE's trigger.

When Spike realized his chip didn't hurt him when he attacked Buffy, his very next step was to find tasty young morsel to feed on. When his chip kicked in at that time, he realized the chip wasn't working with Buffy only.

Yes. I didn't mean to call that scene into dispute, but rather compare his season 6 self to his season 4/post-chipping self. At the beginning, Spike was consumed with blood lust, moped outside windows to watch nests of vampires share a victim, and used much of his screen time plotting on ways to rid himself of the chip. He started to come to terms with it in season 5, and by season 6, although we see him vicariously enjoying the chaos the biker-demons caused in Bargaining, we don't see him yearning to get the chip out.

I think it's natural that he'd try to kill someone when he thinks it's not working. But he had to talk himself up in that alley scene, and after he realized he couldn't bite that woman, what did he do? He went to Warren. Did he go to Warren to see if he could use his technological resources to deactivate the chip? No. He didn't give a damn about the chip. And getting back to killing wasn't only not his first priority. It didn't seem like it was a priority at all. For a vampire, that's progress, big progress. YprogressMV. ** edited for word choice

My initial reaction to the rape scene was "What the FUCK -- did I accidentally change the channel???" I thought the scene was so poorly executed from a production standpoint that I couldn't even think about it in terms of character motivations for a long time afterwards. I found the nat-sound/handheld camera to be waaaaaay too overtly manipulative to have any emotional impact, and it pissed me off that ME thought it would.

Oh, I thought it was a fabulous scene. I thought it had a much greater impact for exactly th reasons you thought it was poorly executed. It was so stark, and so clear.

And I think that is why I was so annoyed that people said it wasn't an attempted rape, just attempted sex (whatever the hell that is).

Cindy Ah right, I see where you're coming from now. It's because of what happend in S7 that you would've preferred they went with vamping.

Rape is all about power, and S7 was all about "the power", Buffy getting it back, sharing it, etc. However I get the impression that rather than dealing with Buffy dealing with the attempted rape in the grand over riding "theme" of S7, you would've liked to have seen it dealt with at a more emotional, "gut" level?

Lady o' Spain said all the things I wanted to say, but oh so much better.

And I think her point is supported by the discussion of how the attack was filmed; it was made as realistic as possible, and whether you as a viewer responded to that by getting hit in the gut (as I did, and Cindy did) or by feeling manipulated, it definitely stood out as Different From the Rest of BtVS, just as The Body did. But they didn't follow through. And that irks.

UTTAD - I don't see how she dealt with it on any level.

She shrunk from his touch in Beneath You. She was using him as her guide dog the next episode. Soon, he was living in her house.

Argh. I have to go. Scott stayed home today so we could get things done, and we're not (especially not the "me" part of "we"). Later gators.

Well, not only different from the rest of BTVS but different from the rest of the episode. If they'd filmed the rest of the episode the same way -- it might have felt slightly less manipulative.

Cindy Sorry I meant Buffy as a TV show, not as an individual. They dealt (or tried to deal) with it, as the over-riding theme of the season, her getting her power on.