But last night, with Caleb near peak strength (after merging with FE), she was able to take his punches far better.

My take on this is that it's a mental preparedness thing. Slayers fighting better when they feel confident is canon. See Faith v. Kakistos, Buffy v. Bitch who broke umbrella from s4, and many many other battles. (axecalibur doesn't hurt, of course)

eta that not only is it canon, it's just fact. buffy needs a sports psychologist.

Your soul is returned to you.

Didn't say it was giving Spike what he wanted, asked for, or deserved. I still think what Spike wanted (to be a dechipped vampire, which would at least settle the man-or-monster question) and what he got were two different things.

The difference between Angelus and AR!Spike may be the history. The Scoobs knew Angel as Angel and gave him the benefit of the doubt. Much like one could (but not necessarily would) forgive the misdeeds of a friend who's messed up by, say, bad medication. Spike seems harder to put in that category. The Scoobs never saw William -- just Spike, the Big Bad wannabe. (And even near his moral peak late in S5, he still had the Buffybot programmed to moan, "You're the Big Bad!") There's no William they could point to as a possible norm.

That's clearly true in the real world, but we've been told it is one for Angel thousands of times. (Yes, he's gone grey, but in general the soul/likes to help people unsouled/likes to kill people distinction is pretty firmly held to.) Why shouldn't souled/unsouled spike have the same distinction?

But it's true in the Buffyverse as well that a soul doesn't always make you good or do good. We've seen it with countless people. And with Angel, it was fairly clear that he has had to make some conscious choices to do something with the soul other than drink, occasionally save puppies, and let a hotel full of people get fucked with by a paranoia demon.

I don't think that Spike shouldn't have had the redemption option, I just think that they've told rather than shown, based on an assumption that's sketchy to begin with, if that makes sense.

Wow. Step away, do a little work, and a whole new thread pops up!

Belated thanks to Dana and smonster for their help re: "Amends".

He's amused me occasionally, but the joke continues to grow thin.

Again, I find myself with Hayden. It’s a good place to be.

WRT Andrew, I would rather have seen Jonathan live. I have to admit I've enjoyed Andrew, but I resent him being as prominent when there's so little time left.

See, that’s my ish. He’s playing too prominent a role this season given that last season we were all, “who’s Andrew?”

If only they could have devoted as much screen time to Real! Giles.

As for White! Willow, I am so totally into it. Oh yeah.

I used to battle for the "but Spike has a soul now" team, but honestly, the soul was never an issue for him the way it was for Angel, and I therefore don't see the soul as having done much for him. I mean, the only time he was actually killing people in the past, what 3 seasons, is after he got the soul. Granted that wasn't technically his fault, but it just proved to me that soul does not = eternally good.

I mean, like Anya said, people kill each other, which is clearly insane, and hey, we are all supposed to be soul-having by nature. So the soul argument just doesn't do it for me anymore. The lines between soul = good no soul = bad have become very blurred, and that seems much more realistic to me.

yer welcome, justkim.

re: the spike thing, I have this memory of JM saying that they filmed it both ways -- him getting his soul and him getting his chip removed. Is this a false memory implanted by the monks or did anyone else read this interview?

That would make sense, and then maybe they did some poking around to see what would create more of an effect. I don't remember the interview smoster, but it sounds resonable.

Also, I'm posting again so soon because, when Spike was reinsouled, it seemed like he lost a lot of oomph. Angel with a soul still had some character, while to me, Spike with a soul is just Buffy's Little Love Slave.

I don't think that Spike shouldn't have had the redemption option, I just think that they've told rather than shown, based on an assumption that's sketchy to begin with, if that makes sense.

I think this is the point that Plei has been trying to make forever, that is maybe not getting across as well as it should.

The problem is not whether Spike should be allowed redemption; it's not whether there's a difference between Souled!Spike and Unsouled!Spike; it's not whether Spike should be allowed to win back Buffy's heart AR or no AR.

The problem is that they haven't done any of those things.

The problem is that they've just had Spike come on the screen and say "I have a soul now, I am redeemed," and had Buffy go "okay."

This is telling. Not Showing.

This is what Plei (and I) have a beef with, both in this season, and in the development of the B/S storyline.

But it's true in the Buffyverse as well that a soul doesn't always make you good or do good. We've seen it with countless people.

But we've never seen a vampire who had a soul and was evil. Look at how Darla was changed by Connor's soul -- kind of reverse Fetal Alcohol Syndrome.

Yes, doing good deeds is a conscious choice. But there's a difference between "having a soul doesn't make you do good things" and "having a soul doesn't make you basically good." We can say the former but not the latter.

I do think the writers have done a bad job showing how the soul has changed Spike, and being consistent about it. But I don't think it's meaningless.