I always got the feeling that Wood was never going to play fair when it came to killing Spike.

In the high school did he start to say something to Spike before he went to stake him? I'm fuzzy on that but my impression was: Wood was going to stake Spike in the back and then maybe say "you killed my Mom" as Spike went to dust and then tell Buffy "oh, well one of the rampaging students got to Spike before I could save him."

Wood did play fair when played the trigger. It was just that the trigger turned Spike "bad" but also that it confused him and made him less coherent. Spike acted very animalistic and that wasn't the same way Spike acted at all when he killed Nikki, but it made Spike weaker, the same way taking him to a room with crosses nailed all over the walls made him weaker.

He had more than a clue. He'd been around Spike long enough to see trigger!Spike and good!Spike. You can't honestly say that Wood thought Spike was still evil when he started in on his mission to kill him.

You can make an argument based on cold logic - Spike was a danger, because of the trigger, and Buffy was unwilling to take the necessary steps to reduce that danger. (Which would not have had to include killing him.)

I totally agree that vengeance is not an okay reason to kill in the Buffyverse, though.

I think being just a Guardian of the Axe would be immensely boring, but I'd like it if Willow was able to replace the CoW with CoGuardians.

And Katie nails the reason that anyone would have been justified in taking Spike out. Trigger!Spike was actively killing people.

Did Buffy's point that Spike would be a useful source of First-related info (what with the thrall, and stuff) come to anything?

But, yeah, soul. And not under his own control. I think the combo of the two would traditionally render the scoobs unable to kill.

I need to stop thinking about the season as a whole and concentrate on the last few eps, which I've enjoyed, as it's too crazymaking for me. Let's all just agree to disagree on whether Spike is great or a total wanker :)

Edited to say "agree to disagree on whether or not you find Spike to still be an interesting character."

It's no accident that Cordelia also suffered and died in the wishverse of The Wish. Vengeance harms everyone, even (especially) the seeker.

You know, as many times I watched "The Wish," I hadn't made that connection. Thank you, Cindy--and I appreciate the clarity of your thoughts on vengeance in the Buffyverse in general as well.

And Katie nails the reason that anyone would have been justified in taking Spike out. Trigger!Spike was actively killing people.

That's a different argument. And to convince me of it, you'll have to convince me that Oz should have been killed while human, because he might have broken out of his cage and killed during a full moon.

Once Spike and the Scoobies realized Spike was a sleeper agent of the First, they shackled him, and were able to keep him from killing again. In fact, he didn't kill again. The closest he came was when he attacked Andrew. Now, if Buffy hadn't been able to subdue him and had killed him while trying to fight him off, that would have been justified. Calculating that he should be killed when not under immediate influence of the trigger flies in the face of the Buffyverse moral code.

What if Xander had been triggered to kill? What if Willow had? What if Buffy had? With the way things have always been treated in the Buffyverse (Oz; drugged Angel in the A:ts episode, Eternity; Dark Willow) there was little support for this kind of action.

What's more important though, is that it wasn't the point of the story. The point of the story was that Wood and Giles were wrong. (Buffy was wrong in the other way, in that she wasn't taking it seriously enough, but that's another issue). You can tell W&G were wrong, because they lied and operated under false pretenses to do what they wanted to do.

There's a big difference between saying, "I wish Spike had been staked because I don't like his storyline" and calling staking him in a cold, calculated manner - any kind of justice.

Well, I do wish he'd been staked because I don't like his storyline :) But I don't see a parallel between Spike and Willow/Xander because Spike is a vampire. In the Buffyverse, vampires have had to prove themselves worthy of not being staked. Angel has done this. Spike did it in Season 5. But events of S6 and S7 make me feel that he's not worthy anymore. I really don't think we'll be convincing each other either way. Especially since I'm totally aware that my view of Spike is skewed because of Spuffy. Spike could perform the most selfless act ever at this point and I'd still like to see him staked because the stories they've told have made me just abhor the character.

This is a place where the season didn't work for me. Emotionally, I want Snarky McHotperson to stick around. However, I haven't been shown what Buffy sees in Spike. He wasn't (pre-chip-removal) a very effective fighter, even though Buffy kept saying he was.

I would have liked to have seen a lot more evidence of Buffy depending on him emotionally, not just her saying she did. If you're going to play it as "I can't explain why, but I NEED him", you have to back it up subliminally.