But would you rather be remembered in history as the one that abandoned your daughter, or the one that stayed with her through thick and thin?

I would rather be alive and with my daughter. If that wasn't an option? Then yeah, the good mommy award is ... good. And I think your point about death allowing for more nobility is a good one.

But Angelus killed Jenny because she was trying to resoul him. She didn't die in the heat of battle, but she was murdered because of her powers.

Mmmm... yeah, okay. The part where she was fleeing gives it a different vibe for me, though. (This should not be taken as a criticism of her decision to flee or skill in doing so, though it should be taken as a criticism of her decision to sit around after dark in a school that Angelus could enter rather than going the heck home. Silly woman.)

So ita, in your view, Angel can't count as having died, because he was dead to begin with, even though he went through something that would have been dying to anyone who was still alive, and capabable of dying?

Does Spike's immolation count as dying?

Good question, P-C. I would guess yes, under the theory that he, like Darla, got dusted, and the fact that he came back as a ghost.

The part where she was fleeing gives it a different vibe for me, though.

Yes, and that's why I think her heroism at the end can be debated.

It seems like most witches who aren't Willow, and possibly Tara or Amy, don't really have enough fire power to do anything *but* run when faced with a vamp. Given that, you're right she should have just. gone. home.

So ita, in your view, Angel can't count as having died, because he was dead to begin with, even though he went through something that would have been dying to anyone who was still alive, and capabable of dying?

And along with that, when she told Giles, Buffy said that she'd killed him. In her mind, she had. Even knowing he'd been in (small h) hell, I'm not sure she ever revised that opinion.

Actually, I think I see ita's point, and somewhat agree with it. Angel is a vamp. Vamps don't die unless they are dusted. Angel wasn't dusted, therefore he didn't die.

Everyone thought he died, and reacted as if he died, but they were acting on a faulty premise.

To go back to my original point - when I said women were the protagonists I was kind of using shorthand - the majority of characters you care about, and thus who are worth killing, in Buffy are women. You kill Hank - who fucking cares? With the exception of Xander and (after S3) Giles, all the characters you identified with were always women (OK, it's possible you were meant to relate to Spike in CWDP, but I choose to erase the memory of that farrago). The guys were totty of one kind or another, and thus less emotionally gripping. The show's about girls, and about girls becoming women. No matter how much Marti drifted from that mission statement, that's how Buffy started, that's how it ended. Everything big that happened in Buffy happened to girls.

Buffy did a big terrible awful thing (well, excepting the part where she saved the world). She stabbed her ex through the gut and sent him to hell. For most people, that would be deathly. But if a normally mortal injury doesn't kill you, you aren't dead. And that injury doesn't even count as normally mortal for him.

I'm pretty sure I'm talking around Joss et al being sloppy here, but ... too late. They already were.

Has it been mentioned onscreen, ever, that he wasn't dead? I mean, in rebuttal to the claim he was?