Oh, absolutely! The idea of vampires as Purely Evil never bothered me personally, but I know a lot of people found the concept really upsetting and unattractive and quasi-racist.

Sometimes, I think a lot of people are nutjobs.

But, more seriously, I've seen a couple of arguments where I now have sort of an idea as to *why* redemption sans external forces was so very important to a certain breed of Spike fan, and while I think I see where they're coming from, and am far more sympathetic to it than I would have been a year or two ago, it is still an alien concept to me.

The darkness he thought she belonged in?thought she should come to terms with?was the kind of darkness where you don't worry about killing one innocent because you've saved a lot of others. "Good" knows that isn't so.

Admittedly he wasn't taking her to Meetings, but if the darkness is true, and the denial is tearing her apart, anyone should encourage her to come to term with it. First step in fixing the problem is acknowledging its existence.

So that isolated act isn't one of evil.

Now, the "dark like me" part implies not-goodness. But that's a separate issue to me.

Oh, absolutely! The idea of vampires as Purely Evil never bothered me personally, but I know a lot of people found the concept really upsetting and unattractive and quasi-racist.

I can't do those discussions without the cranial ka-boom. There was some guy hanging around the Beta for awhile who claimed that Buffy was a genocidal war criminal for her rampage against vampires.

When I picked my jaw up off the floor, I asked if he was aware that vampires weren't, y'know, real.

They're monsters. Yes, played by pretty pretty (and show-breakingly overly sympathetic, in one case) people, but not human. Dead things wearing corpses as a cloak. Etc.

Given his history of evil, though, him looking after Dawn for no other reason than "a promise to a lady" definitely points to him trying to be good.

He was better than your average vamp, it was clear. Most of them seemed to be too evil to help good, even for their own profit. They also would be unlikely to anonymously bring flowers for dead humans.

Does that wipe a slate clean? Does it make him driven snow day forward? Nope. But it does make things more complicated.

Cindy, doesn't Giles fail your "good" test?

They're monsters. Yes, played by pretty pretty (and show-breakingly overly sympathetic, in one case) people, but not human. Dead things wearing corpses as a cloak. Etc.

Well, see, this one of the aspects of the Whedonverse that always sort of niggled the back of my brainpan.

"Vampires are soulless! They're demons! Demons have no souls! Demons are evil!

"Oh, except Lorne. And Clem...Clem's okay...Merle's annoying, but useful, so maybe he has a soul of sorts...Harmony seems to be okay these days..."

I bullshit wanked it in my head as "Demons don't have human-type souls, but that doesn't necessarily mean they are conscience-less ravagers every one of them. Sometimes they can be human-like and nice and stuff."

And when Spike was going through his pre-souled "redemptive" thing, that explanation fit. "Okay, so...he's choosing to be good. He can do that. Why not?"

What I wanted was, once he had a soul for him to come back and start killin' people willy-nilly.

"But...Spike! You have a soul!"

"Yeah? So did Dahmer."

Given his history of evil, though, him looking after Dawn for no other reason than "a promise to a lady" definitely points to him trying to be good.

Not really. More points to him being a romantic sap to the bone. He'd have done the same for Miss Edith, if Dru had died while he was under her spell.

It's a good act, to be certain, but the impetus is morally neutral.

What I wanted was, once he had a soul for him to come back and start killin' people willy-nilly.

Yes. That's what I wanted, and was quite disappointed when it became obvious that wasn't going to happen.

Given his history of evil, though, him looking after Dawn for no other reason than "a promise to a lady" definitely points to him trying to be good.

Yes. I think he tried like crazy. I think the 'verse rules are such that you need the raw materials, and he didn't have them.

Cindy, doesn't Giles fail your "good" test?

When judging an act (like killing Ben--I'm assuming that's what is in your mind), there are different standards than judging a person (overall) as good vs. bad. Good people do bad things in the 'verse, and bad people can do good things. But people are using Spike's good deeds (and I agree they were good) as proof he was good, when it seems to me there were probably an equal number of bad deeds done during that good period.

Giles act with Ben was bad from a hero's POV, but was rational, and sort of him leaping to the conclusion. Glory made that decision understandable. For me, it falls—at worst—on the harsh side of pragmatic, because (at least to me) it seemed to be the only way out. When Glory/Ben healed, she would have come back to kill them all. If she ever got her way, Ben was was going to die (wasn't that their specific mythology? Did it change? It's all a jumble). If she came back, and Buffy found a way to kill her, Ben would die. Ben was most likely a goner, and Giles was protecting his family in war. Ben, in the end, wasn't completely innocent, either. He wasn't a demon, but he gave up Dawn to Glory's minions (was it in a bargain to save his own skin? It's been a while).

OK, we're getting into moral definitions of the universe. Too subjective for my blood.