Normally, I lurk. Normally, I avoid discussing the attempted rape because it can really bring up some heated discussions that get out of hand. But, I can see this one is being well-handled so I want to throw in another viewpoint.

Buffy doesn't need to forgive Spike. While I agree that many of the people felt the rape was too "real world" and confused many veiwers, it did not confuse me. I saw it as, Spike is an evil vampire, he will do evil things. Pre-season 7, Spike was equivalent to Angelus. Even with the chip, he was still evil. His primary moral compass was toward evil, regardless of his helping the Scoobies, loving Buffy, protecting Dawn, etc. Those actions were abnormal on his part. Normal, for Spike, was evil. Just as we saw in season 3 BtVS and seaon 4 AtS, what Angelus did never needed to be forgiven because it was expected that he would act that way. Spike says it to Wood in LMPTM, he did what vampires do, kill Slayers, he wasn't going to apologize. Basically the same thing he told Buffy in Beneath You, that he wouldn't apologize for the rape. What a vampire does, does not require apologies/forgiveness. You don't forgive the rabid dog that bites you, you shoot it. So, yeah, Buffy should have staked Spike. Not that I wanted to see that mind you, Spike's just too pretty to lose off the show.

I'm coming at this from the perspective that many people have said that they've treated Angel and Angelus like 2 people, but not Spike. My belief is that we should be looking at Spike the same way and Seeing Red was the writers' attempt to get us to do just that. And personally, it did that for me. Up until that point, I truly thought Spike could be redeemed through his own choices. I could pooh-pooh Spike being the Doctor in AYW, but once he tried to rape Buffy, well...I was all for having something horrible happen to his manly parts. Fortunately for Spike, he high-tailed it before Buffy could go Lady Hacksaway on him. And then he went and got the soul.

So now we've got Angel!Lite and how can Buffy not come to care for him? He's insane, attempts to self-immolate for her, helps find Willow, tries to help Cassie, helps Xander steal the letter jacket, he's all about doing the right thing. Yeah, yeah, he's turning people, but not because he wants to. So, Spike is trying to help the helpless, just like Angel. Wow, how can Buffy not come to care about someone who follows the same formula? Okay, tad sarcastic there (and I am a B/S shipper), but I thought it was pretty much crammed down our throats that Spike was the Angel replacement, but with peroxided hair. In fact, the only way Spike could be acceptable was to make him behave like Angel. Thank dog for LMPTM, because I felt we finally got to see him break out of it. Although, one could argue that his biting Wood was the equivalent of Angel smothering Wesley. Actually, that makes Spike better than Angel, because Spike stopped. Angel had to be stopped. So, ya know what, by this point I see Spike as much more "worthy" of affection than Angel.

What it boils down to, is that since forgiveness is not required, why shouldn't Buffy come to honestly care for Spike? And since his behavior can be equated to that of Angel's (who is held up to us as a champion) is there any reason Buffy should hold herself back from caring? No. And that is what I saw in Chosen. Buffy finally came to this realization herself. Doesn't mean she wasn't still half-baked, but she finally saw Spike as someone who could be loved.

For what it's worth, I agree that souled Spike should be afforded the same degree of cosmic forgiveness (or acceptance or tolerance or whatever) as souled Angel for behavior while unsouled. Same with Vampire X, should he or she come along. Beyond that, it was (and rightly so, I think) up to the characters (well, the writers) how they treated the souled version of each vamp with respect to what each did while unsouled. I don't see why Buffy wouldn't be just as likely to not equate souled Spike with the soulless creature who tried to rape her as she would be to not equate souled Angel with the soulless creature who killed Jenny, tortured Giles, and tried to kill Willow, all in an attempt to destroy Buffy. How many times did she say about Spike something like, "It's different now, he has a soul"? (How do you punctuate that? Too lazy to look it up.)

That's how it shakes out for me. Within the 'verse and taking into account the souled/unsouled behavioral loophole (which is presented with greater complexity, I know. At a basic level, though, soulless creatures aren't so much held responsible for what they do as they are, uh, killed for it mostly, and souled creatures are held responsible for their choices to do good or evil, but if they do evil, they can go for redemption rather than automatically having to be killed. Simplification, but ...), I can accept Buffy's acceptance of souled Spike as being distinct from soulless Spike. It took her a while to figure out what that meant to her, and then she went with how she felt (that is how I interpreted the writing, anyway).

Re: soul = new person. As a metaphor, it brings up all kinds of nasty issues.

Which I've already discussed ad nauseum, so I will spare the repost and just give you the direct link to the semi-polished version. Please note that this was written post-Touched, and that Chosen managed to clean up some of the mess.

I had the most worthless Buffy related dream to date today. We were all sitting around the magic box playing Scrabble. Anya won. For some reason the Judge was there with a yoyo in the corner.

Could the term "attempted rape" be the problem, not the abbreviation? It's kind of a wussy neutral-journalism courtroom term. Seems like if we had to refer to the ACTUAL CAR CRASH as the "alleged car crash" every time, we'd be quicker to abbreviate to ACC. Just because it's not as juicy. Maybe the legalese shorthand is responsible for the breezy dismissal Michele blames on the abbreviation, and we'd be better off saying "the time Spike tried to rape Buffy" along with "the time Xander put words in Willow's mouth."

Heather's right that Buffy giving a date to Jonathan is a different case from giving a date to Xander, and giving one to Xander wouldn't help.

not being judged on any sort of objective "you'll never know the love of a woman" scale.

Not having any experience, I tend to overfocus on the objective-type qualifications, like status matching and height. I'm always surprised when my sisters break up with funny, smart prize guys over issues of personality. (I originally had "not charming enough to deserve a date with you in the natural order," which was more accurate but sounded prone to be taken personally -- and I was already on shaky ground, because I wouldn't want to be told who I ought to date to be considered nice.)

Let me say right off that I'm jumping ahead a few hundred posts, and will go back and catch up afterwards.

As a Spuffist, although hopefully not a rabid one, what bothered me most about the AR was that it felt like the writers trying too hard to make a point. I loved the B/S relationship, in the sense that it gripped me, it made me think, it made me both uneasy and excited at the same time. Spike loved Buffy, honestly loved her, but at the same time was knowingly pushing her buttons, bringing forth the dark side that he knew she was trying to...not deny, necessarily, but sublimate. It was a real love, but it wasn't necessarily pretty or healthy. On Buffy's side, she saw the good in him but pretended she didn't. She wanted the positive aspects of him but would only acknowledge the dark sides. So freaking complicated, hot, ugly, caring, passionate, abusive, devoted, all at the same time. I've never seen anything like it.

Then, SR. It felt like the writers saying "No! You thought he had layers - there are no layers! You thought there were grey areas? There is no grey. He's bad, bad, bad, and no two ways about it. And we'll prove it, so there."

That felt like a slap. It felt like writers pretending that the complicated layers of what had come before were being denied, that we were being chided for reading too much into things. Like they were saying to those of us who saw Unsouled!Spike growing and changing, "no, forget that, it's not where we were going at all." And since we can't trust you to get it, we'll have to shove it in your faces so literally that it can no longer be denied.

Fuck that.

(I know that Fury, for one, always kept Spike's history front and center. I don't think he was wrong - except that I think that perhaps he didn't get that not all fans who dug the B/S thing were ignoring that darkness. I like Fury's vision of Spike - he doesn't pretend that his history is irrelvant, that it isn't a part of who he is no matter who he's in love with, whether he has a soul or not. Fury's Spike in many ways is the Spike I love - I'd also say he's the Spike that Buffy loves, howerver you define that word.)

So what prompted the AR? It seems now (and I didn't see this at the time) that they wanted Spike to get the soul, and the Spike they'd created - not good, but also not in any way the evil creature he first was - didn't have the impetus to go that route. In order to get him off to Africa, they had to deny where they'd taken him before.

SR and the soul-hunt at the end felt to me like the writers either ignoring the complexity they'd already built into the realtionship, or believing that people who'd bought in to the S/B dynamic had somehow lost their grip on the real message. Yeah, there are crazies out there. But you know what? They didn't sacrifice the story for the Kittens, why should they do it to spite the Spoldemorts?

They didn't sacrifice the story for the Kittens, why should they do it to spite the Spoldemorts?

I dunno. Kennedy should be dead, yo.

t applauds brenda

I don't see why Buffy wouldn't be just as likely to not equate souled Spike with the soulless creature who tried to rape her as she would be to not equate souled Angel

Then, SR. It felt like the writers saying "No! You thought he had layers - there are no layers! You thought there were grey areas? There is no grey. He's bad, bad, bad, and no two ways about it. And we'll prove it, so there."

No, see I think that the rape came about because of how much Spike had changed. And that's why it should've been so difficult for Buffy to forgive him. Ironically I think if Spike had been his S2/3 self and had tried to rape Buffy then got souled up, it would've been a lot easier for Buffy to forgive him.

Then, SR. It felt like the writers saying "No! You thought he had layers - there are no layers! You thought there were grey areas? There is no grey. He's bad, bad, bad, and no two ways about it. And we'll prove it, so there." That felt like a slap. It felt like writers pretending that the complicated layers of what had come before were being denied,

I couldn't agree more, Brenda M.

Heh. I take it from the rest of the context that you haven't experienced the latter, and I pray you never do, because no one should. But, in my experience, being left for another woman doesn't leave you flinching away from a hand getting too close to your face or leave you fighting panic attacks and flashbacks at a sound or smell that reminds you of the incident.

PMM, I wouldn't dream of downplaying how your experience has affected you. Please extend me the courtesy of not downplaying what has happened to me. Having everything I most cherished smashed by the person I most loved and trusted? And you mention triggers -- do you think perhaps that I don't flinch and have panic attacks and deeply fear whether love or trust are possible again?

Rape is much different in its essence than the beating. The beating was borne of self-hatred. Rape is power over another person's body, taking ownership of someone's being.

So beating someone's face to a pulp ISN'T taking power over another person's body? And whatever Buffy's motivation was, it doesn't change the badness of the action, just as whatever Spike's motivation was doesn't change the badness of the attempted rape. How would people feel if the sexes were reversed, if it were a woman trying to stop a man she was involved with from confessing to a crime he didn't commit, and he responded to that by beating her face to a pulp (out of self-hatred) while she lay back and took it and said, lay it all on me. Sick violence on the beater's part, sick masochism on the beatee's part.