This Year&#39;s Model of Humanity

See, I never much liked Wesley's relationship with Virginia. I didn't hate it or anything, it just seemed really...shallow to me.

Like it was more about doing fun activities than sharing inner thoughts, that they put up with each other's priorities but never really connected and accepted each other. To me they were just dates, they weren't partners.

(Never seeing any chemistry between them might have been a factor there too, along with the fact that they met when Wesley was playing a false role.)

And to me the way it ended just proved that point -- she couldn't handle his most fundamental truths/needs/mission, what made him who he was.

I'm not saying that was the wrong choice for her -- with her background, I might very well have done the same. If someone wants to argue that Virginia as a person was healthier than Lilah as a person, I'd be all for it. But separate issue.

To me that wasn't a healthier relationship for Wes than Lilah, because it was barely a relationship at all, and Wesley overcoming his diffidence to show his true self was the deal breaker. That ought to make a healthy relationship stronger, not end it.

To me, a healthy relationship is one that gives you what you need and supports you in doing what you believe is right. Virginia couldn't give Wesley what he needed -- encouragement of his ripening self-confidence and patience with his risk taking. And she wasn't capable of supporting him in doing what he believed was right either, not if it put him in danger and her in worry.

I'd say he should have given Virginia what she needed too, but honestly I never had any idea what that was, beyond a presentable escort.

I give Virginia a lot of props for knowing herself and for being honest with Wesley. I'd say it was a very healthy breakup. But again, separate issue.

Lilah, for all her issues, was unshockable by Wesley's dark side, which was what he needed most after being rejected by his friends. She loved him when he had begun to believe himself unloveable.

She chose him when everyone else had abandoned him. It was crystal clear that she wanted Wesley, not just Wesley's body or knowledge or role or the most convenient suitable guy. She believed in him, in her own screwed up way she trusted him.

And she opened herself up to a world of pain for his sake, instead of choosing safety over him. Not to mention the smoking hot sex.

Plus, she gave Wesley someone to contrast himself to, which was kind of nasty of him but very possibly an essential part of his climb back. By presenting him with a constant temptation to refuse, he got to make himself better than -- if not her, that. And right then he very badly needed to be better than something.

That might have made it unhealthy for Lilah, except that Lilah never made any bones about being evil and content with it. It was no skin off her back if Wesley wanted to prove his good guy mojo in comparison to something she didn't want.

There were a lot of inevitable messes along the way, but I think Lilah had already come to a very healthy place vis a vis Wes when she died.

It's a toss up to me whether Wesley could have followed or whether, like season six Buffy, he was going to deny that he *could* have anything real and good with an evil person until in the end he made his fears come true. He was teetering right on the point. But I think he had a better shot at getting there, both for in character and meta reasons.

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Ya know, I kinda think Virginia:Wesley::Kate:Angel -- that is, an interesting possibly 3-D female character that got set up in a relationship (or at least the possibility of one) and then totally tossed for the excitement of drama (Darla, Lilah). I mean, I actually love the Angel/Darla and Wesley/Lilah arcs, but the way those two earlier female parts were tossed is kinda discomfiting (particularly Kate, who was a lot more well-developed as a character, although I thought it would have been fun to see how Virginia's background played out with Wesley's job).

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You know....based on what you just said, it sort of makes me think Virginia was like Wesley's Riley -- i.e. the "nice normal reliable" relationship (within the confines of the Jossverse -- Riley was a military creation, Virginia the daughter of some big demon honcho IIRC) that just had no chance of working out given the backgrounds of both characters and the circumstances they were in. It wasn't un grande romance, but sometimes the Jossverse made me uneasy with its emphases on such -- that it had to be a broken bloody OTP or it wasn't any good. -- Or maybe I just really misunderstood your points....at any rate, I liked both Virginia and Kate as secondary female characters and thought it was a shame they both pretty much just vanished.

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Maybe. I didn't like Riley either. Partly because the Jossian view of the "nice normal" doesn't ring true to me. (I had the same problem with Fred.)

I don't have a problem with normal. But normal's not enough of an identity in itself, either for a person or for a relationship. It's too much defining the relationship by what it's not. I want to know what it *is*.

I felt like Buffy was with Riley because of what he wasn't -- Angel -- and Riley was with Buffy because of what she wasn't -- in the stifling chain of command, a civilian to be protected -- and their nice normal relationship never transcended that. Ditto Virginia fleeing her father and Fred fleeing her cave.

Normal in these cases has such negative, rejecting overtones. Whereas real normal takes its normalcy for granted. Or even disclaims the label, since the emotional emphasis is on the little things that make that person not normal, but unique.

Willow and Oz, to me, is a great example of a healthy relationship without big drama. But Willow didn't love Oz because he was low maintenance, and neither did I. We loved him for being quirky and grounded and patient and having a way with words.

To me, Lilah and Wes is itself the opposite of a big OTP, in the sense of a Destined and Pure Love. It's more collision and circumstance than anything else, but love -- a screwed up, unlikely, patchwork love, but love -- grows anyway, like a weed in the sidewalk.

I do like grande romances, though -- or at least, what I want is for the characters to feel strongly for each other -- strong love, strong lust, strong anger, strong friendship, strong ambivilence, whatever.

It can be non-romantic love, it can not be love at all, but it needs to be something I can care about. I'm not interested in watching people puttering along well enough together out of habit, because that's much duller than my actual life.

Also, story lines need conflict. Relationships that get their own story line tend to interest me more in ones that are mostly offscreen, but that means they include some conflict.

Of course, I don't think lack of external star-crossing means lack of conflict and learning process, which is another common Jossverse thing. My relationships mostly tend to supply their own issues, and in my experience most people's do.

But in the Jossverse it seems like Willow/Tara, Fred/Gunn, Wes/Virginia, Buffy/Riley stay basically conflict-free until something from outside comes along to split them open. So they strike me as unrealistically static -- and therefore dull -- in the meantime. Normal means no problems, and therefore no growth curve.

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See, I never much liked Wesley's relationship with Virginia. I didn't hate it or anything, it just seemed really...shallow to me.

Well, I can see that point of view, but I don't see that Lilah and Wesley started any more deeply. Just because their sex was fucked up and brought on by depression doesn't mean that it wasn't essentially shallow when it started. Wesley used her and she used him and it became something else over time.

Like it was more about doing fun activities than sharing inner thoughts, that they put up with each other's priorities but never really connected and accepted each other. To me they were just dates, they weren't partners.

Right, I liked them because they weren't Doom and Gloom. They acted like a casually dating couple. It was refreshing for me.

(Never seeing any chemistry between them might have been a factor there too, along with the fact that they met when Wesley was playing a false role.)

Whether or not each person sees the chemistry always seems to be a huge factor. I thought they were hot together and liked the way that Wesley revealed more of who he could be because of the false role that he played.

And to me the way it ended just proved that point -- she couldn't handle his most fundamental truths/needs/mission, what made him who he was.

Well, it wasn't the demons and such that she couldn't handle, it was the bullet. It was a danger that she hadn't expected him to face. And yeah, after that, Wesley became Gun Man but at that point, guns were not a true essential part of him.

To me that wasn't a healthier relationship for Wes than Lilah, because it was barely a relationship at all, and Wesley overcoming his diffidence to show his true self was the deal breaker. That ought to make a healthy relationship stronger, not end it.

I guess that a lot of it also depends on why you see them breaking up. I don't think it was seeing 'his true self' that put her off, she just couldn't take the blood and danger and the constant fear of losing him. That's not Wesley's true self, just where he ended up going.

To me, a healthy relationship is one that gives you what you need and supports you in doing what you believe is right. Virginia couldn't give Wesley what he needed -- encouragement of his ripening self-confidence and patience with his risk taking. And she wasn't capable of supporting him in doing what he believed was right either, not if it put him in danger and her in worry.

He was shot! He almost died. She knew that she couldn't take that, but she also knew better than to ask him to walk away from it. If Wesley hadn't gone in the direction that he had, I think that they could have been happy. But they both made choices that made a relationship untenable. Virginia was Wesley's biggest cheerleader during their time together. She honestly thought that he was amazing and talented and accomplished enough to do anything that he wanted.

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Lilah, for all her issues, was unshockable by Wesley's dark side, which was what he needed most after being rejected by his friends. She loved him when he had begun to believe himself unloveable.

But Wesley's dark side was largely a product of what had happened to him. I don't think that where he went was inevitable and I'm not entirely sure that it should have been encouraged. Of course she was unshockable by his dark side, she wanted him to cross over to her side.

She chose him when everyone else had abandoned him. It was crystal clear that she wanted Wesley, not just Wesley's body or knowledge or role or the most convenient suitable guy. She believed in him, in her own screwed up way she trusted him.

Was it? Did she? I think that she grew to, over time, but I really don't see that at the beginning of their relationship.

Plus, she gave Wesley someone to contrast himself to, which was kind of nasty of him but very possibly an essential part of his climb back. By presenting him with a constant temptation to refuse, he got to make himself better than -- if not her, that. And right then he very badly needed to be better than something.

But I don't see that as healthy for Wesley, any more than I saw it healthy of Buffy to do that with Spike (or Faith). Fucking someone and looking down on them at the same time is something that I can't help but see as intrinsically unhealthy.

It's a toss up to me whether Wesley could have followed or whether, like season six Buffy, he was going to deny that he *could* have anything real and good with an evil person until in the end he made his fears come true. He was teetering right on the point. But I think he had a better shot at getting there, both for in character and meta reasons.

I thought that he did do that. "It isn't always about holding hands." He truly cared for her, but realized that it would never work out because their basic orientation differed.

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I loved them both, too. Virginia and Kate -- both had crappy stuff happened to them, they then got over it with varying amounts of angst, and got on with their lives.

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Maybe. I didn't like Riley either. Partly because the Jossian view of the "nice normal" doesn't ring true to me. (I had the same problem with Fred.)

Well, I wasn't Riley fan the first time around (though this time? I love everyone.) and I didn't really liked Fred until the Jasmine arc, when I fell totally in love.

I don't have a problem with normal. But normal's not enough of an identity in itself, either for a person or for a relationship. It's too much defining the relationship by what it's not. I want to know what it *is*.

Which is why Buffy/Riley didn't work out. They didn't have a relationship, or at least Buffy didn't -- she had a Not-Angel.

I felt like Buffy was with Riley because of what he wasn't -- Angel -- and Riley was with Buffy because of what she wasn't -- in the stifling chain of command, a civilian to be protected -- and their nice normal relationship never transcended that. Ditto Virginia fleeing her father and Fred fleeing her cave.

See, I agree about Riley and their relationship, but not about Virginia or Fred. I saw so much more than 'normal' in them. But we all see what we see.

Normal in these cases has such negative, rejecting overtones. Whereas real normal takes its normalcy for granted. Or even disclaims the label, since the emotional emphasis is on the little things that make that person not normal, but unique.

That's actually just what I saw in the Virginia/Wesley relationship. They just were.

Willow and Oz, to me, is a great example of a healthy relationship without big drama. But Willow didn't love Oz because he was low maintenance, and neither did I. We loved him for being quirky and grounded and patient and having a way with words.

Actually, I thought that he was presented as far too perfect up until season four and never found their relationship at all believable or realistic. I enjoyed him, but I didn't really believe in him as a character until he actually showed some personality beyond Zen Guitarist.

To me, Lilah and Wes is itself the opposite of a big OTP, in the sense of a Destined and Pure Love. It's more collision and circumstance than anything else, but love -- a screwed up, unlikely, patchwork love, but love -- grows anyway, like a weed in the sidewalk.

Is that what an OTP is supposed to be? Because sometimes it means that for me, but not always. For me, an OTP is what I think is the most interesting and fulfilling pairing available for those characters. I don't OTP Buffy and Xander because I think their love was written in the stars, I OTP them because I think they'd be happy together.

But in the Jossverse it seems like Willow/Tara, Fred/Gunn, Wes/Virginia, Buffy/Riley stay basically conflict-free until something from outside comes along to split them open. So they strike me as unrealistically static -- and therefore dull -- in the meantime. Normal means no problems, and therefore no growth curve.

Really? I saw all those as being pulled apart by something inside the relationship itself -- Willow took Tara for granted, thought that she knew best, and it bit her in the ass. Fred and Gunn each had fundamental misunderstandings about the other's true darkness potential. Wes and Virginia had life paths that took them apart, but the choices lay in the people themselves. And Buffy and Riley split up because Riley felt dissatisfied, went elsewhere for satisfaction, which rightfully pissed Buffy off. Then he ran away.

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Well, I think that Wesley and Virginia broke up in order to pull away Wesley's structure -- they were setting up the fall. Actually, the same thing sorta happens with Angel and Kate. Take away the interesting yet not intrinsically dangerous woman, take away a potential true support, and instead offer up a much more unsteady source.

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But Wesley's dark side was largely a product of what had happened to him.

Ah, I don't agree with that at all. I think it's been an intrinsic part of him since he said they should let the Mayor have Willow back on Buffy -- that he's always been willing to do dark things to get the light ones done. That's my Wesley, by any means necessary. That came out more in Pylea, in the Ring, and even more with baby Connor and Justine, but to me it was the full flowering of a seed that had been growing for a long time.

It got more noticeable when not covered by his own fear, hesitation, and incompetance, and then more extreme under stress -- and without softer-hearted colleagues whose good opinion he wants to keep to restrain him -- but it was in him all along. That was the point of Billy and his reaction to it, as far as I can see -- to establish that it was always in him and he knows it.

and I'm not entirely sure that it should have been encouraged.

That makes perfect sense from your starting assumption that it's not inevitable, but not from mine. To me the darkness in Wes by the time Lilah and he got together was way past encouragement or discouragement -- it was a fact, inescapable, wherever it came from. And Wesley needed to know that it didn't make him an unloveable monster, beyond redemption or feeling or touch. There is a very close parallel here to gayness for me.

What he *does* with the darkness, how he channels it, can be encouraged or discouraged, and I'm not saying Lilah was the best moral compass in the world. But frankly I don't think Wesley needs a moral compass. He's already got a sense of right and wrong that was too uncompromising for his own health and everyone else's. What he needed, to me, was someone to bring him back from that cut or be cut brink, to blur his justice with a little mercy. And Lilah was a great person to do that.

Of course she was unshockable by his dark side, she wanted him to cross over to her side.

To quote you, did she? Lilah never struck me as trying very hard on that at all. With the cunning, the ruthlessness, and the resources at her disposal she... pretty much let him be, even helped him sometimes, in his tiresome quest to do the right thing, and the one time she betrayed him she was all but begging him to think better of her so she wouldn't do it first, and holding it up as an I told you do after. I think that might have been her opening gambit, but it faded into a pretext to spend more time with him very quickly, if it wasn't that from the get go.

TBC

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(continued) However even if I take that at face value, her having a good reason not to be shocked really just proves my point that she's a healthy choice, if -- as I still think -- what was needed was someone unshockable.

To me, her trying to recruit him might even have been a plus. He needed the reminder that he still knew how to make the right choices, and he also needed the reminder that he had choices, 'cause he's awfully prone to that "there's only one thing to do, and I know because it's the one that hurts most" heroic flaw.

really don't see that at the beginning of their relationship.

*nods* I don't see it at the beginning of the relationship either. But I don't see much of any of the relationships having all that much to do with how they started, except for the contrast of how far they've come. I count where it ended up a lot more heavily.

But I don't see that as healthy for Wesley,

I wouldn't have seen it as healthy to stay there -- but he didn't. Or for her to let him get away with it -- but she didn't. But to go through it as a stage of pulling himself up from the gutter, and by doing it, learning in his gut how oversimplified his black and white was in the process -- I think was definitely healthy, because it was part of a healing process that gets past that and gets it out of his system.

Not a part that I particularly admire, but a necessary step nonetheless. Healing is often not pretty, especially when there's no helper, just the damaged wrestling their demons in the form of each other.

any more than I saw it healthy of Buffy to do that with Spike

I thought it could have been very healthy for Buffy, too, had the dynamic been allowed to move on. But for whatever reasons, it kept being yanked back there and defined as purely that, even when both of them were acting differently. I agree that was very unhealthy. But it's my turn to say I think that was circumstance and not inevitable.

I thought that he did do that. "It isn't always about holding hands." He truly cared for her, but realized that it would never work out because their basic orientation differed.

I didn't see either of those things as so clear cut. I agree he cared for her, but he told her dead body that he'd never know now if he could have loved her. That to me conveyed that he wasn't sure how much he felt or whether it would work -- as did him leaving and then going back for her. Wesley seemed to be talking a different game than he was acting, and I will always wonder how that would have been resolved if she had lived, or come back for season 5.

Man I;m spamming your journal. Poke me when you want me to shut up and give the other kids a turn?

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I didn't really liked Fred until the Jasmine arc, when I fell totally in love.

I started to like her in that arc too. But then in season 5 they undid everything I liked, so it was back to the ugh for me.

we all see what we see.

Nicely said. Yeah, that's what it comes down to. So much so that it really should be an icon. :)

Is that what an OTP is supposed to be?

Oh, it doesn't have to be. I just got the sense, because of the context, that that was the way it was being used here.

Personally, I tend to use OTP as "the pairing that speaks to me the most." Spike/Angel is my OTP, because it's the one that seems to go the deepest, and that's more important to me than happy per se is -- especially in a world like the Jossverse, where happy never seems to last past the opening credits.

But even in ours -- happy comes and goes, and persuing it too hard seems to me to guarantee not catching it. I certainly don't want myself or my characters to be with people who make them *unhappy*, but my favorite pairings are more about people who make each other feel as strongly as possible than about people who make each other feel primarily good.

Because that's a trial by fire, and if it works they come out the other side knowing each other in a way that is damned near unshakeable. And that's what I want for them.

I saw all those as being pulled apart by something inside the relationship itself

I agree. But my point is, you never see them just having a fight because they've had these problems all along and some stupid little thing about ordering Chinese food brought them up. And so you never see this normal relationship changing over time. They go on being nicey nice nice until Big Stuff comes and hits those internal stress fractures all at once, and usually the relationship ends almost immediately. With the exception of Willow cheating on Xander, I see very little dealing with problems in relationships except by breaking up.

Granted some of that's because Chinese food is less fun to watch than demons, but even as a scene set or an offstage thing, doesn't happen. They made a point of saying that Willow and Tara had lived together for a year without ever having a spat until Glory came.

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Yeah, I definitely agree, and those are two awkward moments in the series cause you can basically see the machinery behind the plot moving. ("OFF you go, Kate...off...OFF....")

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I didn't like Riley either. Partly because the Jossian view of the "nice normal" doesn't ring true to me. (I had the same problem with Fred.)

Heh. I like the idea of Riley -- mainly I like that the oh-so-normal-Mr.-Potato has a really dark side -- but I hated how ME used him to set up Buffy's emotional distance (she fails to love a Good Man! blahblah!). Even Tara, the sweetheart, was suspected of being part demon, or all demon, for, well, one episode.

I felt like Buffy was with Riley because of what he wasn't -- Angel -- and Riley was with Buffy because of what she wasn't

Ah, see, Marc Blucas sold me with "But she doesn't love me." I think Buffy did see him as nice and reliable, and like him for that, but there were at least hints that he liked her as Buffy -- he likes the whole package -- at least before ME blew it all up with that stupid suck jobs subplot.

Willow and Oz, to me, is a great example of a healthy relationship without big drama. But Willow didn't love Oz because he was low maintenance, and neither did I. We loved him for being quirky and grounded and patient and having a way with words.

I would agree. And it does seem to be healthy (well, healthier than Willow/Tara, anyway, much as I loved Tara). But doesn't Oz leave because he fears his wolf nature, he doesn't know what he'll do and has to try to control it? which would seem to be a conflict rising up from who he is, not necessarily something external (although it is triggered IIRC by Veruca).

love -- a screwed up, unlikely, patchwork love, but love -- grows anyway, like a weed in the sidewalk

I like that, and it seems appropriate for Lilah/Wes -- although

jennyo got to me pretty thoroughly on that one, that they probably did love each other as OTP but didn't admit it/didn't realize it, and their love didn't save them, anyway.

in the Jossverse it seems like Willow/Tara, Fred/Gunn, Wes/Virginia, Buffy/Riley stay basically conflict-free until something from outside comes along to split them open

I think I'd agree with that except for Willow/Tara -- Willow's need to control people through magic had been poking its head through long before the memory spell that broke them up. Then again, the permanent separation does happen by accident, with a stray bullet -- and I think that was v deliberate on Whedon's part. So I can see your point re that, as well....

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They didn't have a relationship, or at least Buffy didn't -- she had a Not-Angel.

Much as I hate to admit it, I do think Riley saw Buffy more clearly than she saw him and loved her more as a person than as a Not-This or That -- although I hate that kind of plotline, because it falls right into the Strong Women = Emotionall Unavailable cliche. It was made all about Buffy's coldness and shutting down, and what he couldn't get from her, and ugh.

Willow took Tara for granted, thought that she knew best, and it bit her in the ass. Fred and Gunn each had fundamental misunderstandings about the other's true darkness potential. Wes and Virginia had life paths that took them apart, but the choices lay in the people themselves. And Buffy and Riley split up because Riley felt dissatisfied

For me what works best in that list is Willow and Tara -- I could see the relationship being pulled apart by aspects of their personalities, especially Willow's (although the final parting was arbitrary, and seemed deliberately designed to be). I never bought why Fred and Gunn were together in the first place (big eater?), so they didn't seem so much ripped apart as the other couples (although that also opens up the problematic potrayal of Fred the Capable vs. Fred the Symbol, which I won't get into here). I actually thought the Buffy/Riley relationship had the most artificial split in it -- all of a sudden he was talking about how she wasn't emotionally there for him, at a REALLY traumatic period in her life. It made him look like a self-centered git.

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I really like this dialogue and wanted to join in some more, but LJ ate several drafts of replies....((kicks LJ))

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See, I never felt like Riley accepted who Buffy was. Between him being threatened by her Slayer strength and hurt by her way of coping with stress, I saw a lot of issues with him about women who don't need or want to be protected.

I totally agree about Oz. They did a good job of showing those issues as ongoing. For Willow/Tara, you're right. They did show it earlier in Willow. I was just dissatisfied with the way Tara's co-dependence in that relationship was shown as romantic all the way until Willow broke trust, as opposed to it being a problem in itself.

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Just because their sex was fucked up and brought on by depression doesn't mean that it wasn't essentially shallow when it started.

I'm not saying it wasn't. What I'm saying is that it became something else over time. And I never, ever saw Virginia and Wesley do that, although in the breakup scene they talked as though they had.

Right, I liked them because they weren't Doom and Gloom. They acted like a casually dating couple. It was refreshing for me.

Gotcha. Maybe the difference here is that I don't usually do casual dating, and even in my own real life I don't find it interesting enough to pay attention to for long.

And since the main reason I watch TV is to experience more strong, life changing events than I can reasonably have on my own, to me watching casual dating is like watching the Wesley has a sandwich and takes a nap show. I'm happy enough that they show casual dating from time to time, for the sake of realism, but I'm certainly not emotionally invested in it beyond that.

Well, it wasn't the demons and such that she couldn't handle, it was the bullet. It was a danger that she hadn't expected him to face.

That so doesn't seem like a separate issue to me. Risk of death = risk of death. I'm not talking about guns being a fundamental part of Wesley, I'm talking about putting his life on the line for the good fight being a fundamental part of Wesley. If you can't handle the bullet, then to me that says you never really understood the reality that a spell or a crossbow could do the same thing. Not to mention the fact that anyone who thinks modern day demons/vampires/witches/whatever will never use guns is not, to me, being very realistic.

she just couldn't take the blood and danger and the constant fear of losing him. That's not Wesley's true self, just where he ended up going.

To me it is his true self. The one thing he wouldn't give up on, despite being dismissed by the Scoobies and fired by the Watchers, Angel, and Angel again. He'll go it alone if he has to, he'll sacrifice allies if he has to, he'll sacrifice himself if he has to, but he won't give up on this fight.

So I don't think of that as just where he happened to end up. I think all roads lead to this for Wesley. If Angel hadn't taken him in I truly believe the Rogue Demon Hunter would be out there somewhere getting shot, spelled, and walloped on a regular basis.

He was shot! He almost died. She knew that she couldn't take that, but she also knew better than to ask him to walk away from it. If Wesley hadn't gone in the direction that he had, I think that they could have been happy.

If Wesley hadn't gone in the direction that he had, to me he wouldn't be Wesley any more. It would be like Angel taking the humanity to eat chocolate with Buffy and letting the mission go hang. And in the long run, I don't think he could be happy that way. I think he'd be making himself so much less to keep safe for her sake *shudder*.

relationship untenable. Virginia was Wesley's biggest cheerleader during their time together. She honestly thought that he was amazing and talented and accomplished enough to do anything that he wanted.

Yes, she was. But if she doesn't get, in her gut, why what he wants to do with it is this, and why it's worth it -- well, she was smart to leave. But I wouldn't call it healthy any more than I'd call it healthy for a writer to be in a relationship with someone who get why she has to waste all that time typing, or a doctor with someone who can't stand the risk of infection. Not everyone needs a mission, but anyone who has one needs a partner who believes in it, not just in him.

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I was just dissatisfied with the way Tara's co-dependence in that relationship was shown as romantic all the way until Willow broke trust, as opposed to it being a problem in itself.

Ya know, that kind of reminded me of Fred and Wesley on Angel -- Fred was shown, at least IMO, as mildly creeped out by his intentions and it really wasn't the healthiest thing for him to fixate on her, and then all of a sudden (people say they saw it coming, but it really looked all of a sudden to me) she's interested in him again and they were happy together and then tragedy struck. It felt like the plot wheels were creaking as ME moved the characters into place to get them where ME wanted them to go, and I really felt that with the end of W/T.

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Well, with Kate, didn't she want off so she could go do L&O or something like that? Or am I misremembering?

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However even if I take that at face value, her having a good reason not to be shocked really just proves my point that she's a healthy choice, if -- as I still think -- what was needed was someone unshockable.

I don't know. I can't see where she was good for him. I'm trying and I sorta get your points, but there's a wall. As River said, "She understands but she doesn't comprehend." There's a certain point where my brain stops and starts saying 'tilt'.

He needed the reminder that he still knew how to make the right choices, and he also needed the reminder that he had choices, 'cause he's awfully prone to that "there's only one thing to do, and I know because it's the one that hurts most" heroic flaw.

Well, he doesn't ever stop being that. I don't recall him ever embracing his choices. He just does what he feels he has to do to accomplish what he needs to accomplish.

I count where it ended up a lot more heavily.

I'd go more with the sum total of the relationship. Not the beginning and not the end, but both and the middle included. Wes and Lilah had a very interesting relationship. In the end, though, their personal goals remained unreconcilable. However much they cared, it couldn't bridge that gap, and they both knew it.

I wouldn't have seen it as healthy to stay there -- but he didn't. Or for her to let him get away with it -- but she didn't. But to go through it as a stage of pulling himself up from the gutter, and by doing it, learning in his gut how oversimplified his black and white was in the process.

But I don't knew if he ever does learn that. He loses a sense of certainty, but at the same time, much of that previous attitude is still there. As you say at some point, that ruthlessness has always been a part of Wesley. Even at his lowest, in fourth season, Wesley still makes decisive decisions based on his sense of what is right and now. The boundaries may have shifted a little, but I don't see a significant change in his morality in season four. Maybe I just need to watch the season again.

Not a part that I particularly admire, but a necessary step nonetheless. Healing is often not pretty, especially when there's no helper, just the damaged wrestling their demons in the form of each other.

But I didn't see Lilah doing that. She wasn't always happy with what she had to do, but she did it with no hesitation. I never saw her struggling. Maybe that's a big difference between how we see their relationship, because I think that Lilah always knew how it would end, she just didn't realize how much Wesley would come to care for her and that he'd think she could be saved.

I thought it could have been very healthy for Buffy, too, had the dynamic been allowed to move on. But for whatever reasons, it kept being yanked back there and defined as purely that, even when both of them were acting differently. I agree that was very unhealthy. But it's my turn to say I think that was circumstance and not inevitable.

Except that Buffy isn't built that way. Every time that she hit Spike, she was hurting herself, too. As she says when she does break things off, "This is killing me." It does that from the very beginning. I'm not seeing how healing could ever happen in that situation, where the two parties are so incredibly far apart on the moral scale. It was only when Buffy pulled back and realized that destroying someone else wasn't helping anyone and that Spike realized that all he was capable of without a soul was destruction that they could move on. I guess I just see that moral choice as an essential element.

I didn't see either of those things as so clear cut. I agree he cared for her, but he told her dead body that he'd never know now if he could have loved her.

Yes, he cared about her. 'Caring' is a far cry from 'love'. He can know that he cared for her deeply and still wonder if he ever could have loved her. Buffy says of Spike, "I feel for him." That's not love, which she does end up reaching and then saying in Chosen.

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Ah, I don't agree with that at all. I think it's been an intrinsic part of him since he said they should let the Mayor have Willow back on Buffy -- that he's always been willing to do dark things to get the light ones done. That's my Wesley, by any means necessary. That came out more in Pylea, in the Ring, and even more with baby Connor and Justine, but to me it was the full flowering of a seed that had been growing for a long time.

I don't know. I feel that there's a difference between ruthless and dark, not so much in execution but in intent. And I saw Wesley as always ruthless, but only dark later on.

It got more noticeable when not covered by his own fear, hesitation, and incompetance, and then more extreme under stress -- and without softer-hearted colleagues whose good opinion he wants to keep to restrain him -- but it was in him all along. That was the point of Billy and his reaction to it, as far as I can see -- to establish that it was always in him and he knows it.

Well, I think that that's Wesley's fear, but the episode itself seemed to argue that that rage was not innate. From Wesley's point of view, the darkness seemed to be a part of himself, but I don't think that the show itself was arguing that, especially when that darkness is what killed him in the end. Angel's darkness is part of himself, something he can live with because it is innate, but Wesley's is unnatural, forced on him by circumstance and his own belief in the good of many over the good of one.

That makes perfect sense from your starting assumption that it's not inevitable, but not from mine. To me the darkness in Wes by the time Lilah and he got together was way past encouragement or discouragement -- it was a fact, inescapable, wherever it came from. And Wesley needed to know that it didn't make him an unloveable monster, beyond redemption or feeling or touch. There is a very close parallel here to gayness for me.

Ouch, that hits all the wrong buttons for me. The second that being gay is parallelled to being dark or evil, my brain shuts down.

What he *does* with the darkness, how he channels it, can be encouraged or discouraged, and I'm not saying Lilah was the best moral compass in the world. But frankly I don't think Wesley needs a moral compass. He's already got a sense of right and wrong that was too uncompromising for his own health and everyone else's. What he needed, to me, was someone to bring him back from that cut or be cut brink, to blur his justice with a little mercy. And Lilah was a great person to do that.

Lilah had mercy? She had self-interest and interest in the people that she did care about, but I don't see hte mercy.

To quote you, did she? Lilah never struck me as trying very hard on that at all. With the cunning, the ruthlessness, and the resources at her disposal she... pretty much let him be, even helped him sometimes, in his tiresome quest to do the right thing, and the one time she betrayed him she was all but begging him to think better of her so she wouldn't do it first, and holding it up as an I told you do after. I think that might have been her opening gambit, but it faded into a pretext to spend more time with him very quickly, if it wasn't that from the get go.

I really do need to rewatch the end of S3 and the beginning of S4, because I'm definitely remembering a different Lilah.

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I'm not saying it wasn't. What I'm saying is that it became something else over time. And I never, ever saw Virginia and Wesley do that, although in the breakup scene they talked as though they had.

Well, I think part of the problem in the breakup scene was that Virginia realized just how much she did care about Wesley, because seeing him hurt was hurting her so much. And that wasn't a feeling that she was used to.

That so doesn't seem like a separate issue to me. Risk of death = risk of death. I'm not talking about guns being a fundamental part of Wesley, I'm talking about putting his life on the line for the good fight being a fundamental part of Wesley. If you can't handle the bullet, then to me that says you never really understood the reality that a spell or a crossbow could do the same thing. Not to mention the fact that anyone who thinks modern day demons/vampires/witches/whatever will never use guns is not, to me, being very realistic.

And that's part of why they didn't work out -- because Virginia was very sheltered and young at heart, despite everything. It wasn't until the bullet that she truly understood the life and death nature of his work -- until then, she knew the melodramatic nature of it, but only that.

To me it is his true self. The one thing he wouldn't give up on, despite being dismissed by the Scoobies and fired by the Watchers, Angel, and Angel again. He'll go it alone if he has to, he'll sacrifice allies if he has to, he'll sacrifice himself if he has to, but he won't give up on this fight.

So I don't think of that as just where he happened to end up. I think all roads lead to this for Wesley. If Angel hadn't taken him in I truly believe the Rogue Demon Hunter would be out there somewhere getting shot, spelled, and walloped on a regular basis.

Part of the reason that I don't see that is because I do see Angel and AtS being what unlocked Wesley's confidence and abilities. Without them, he wouldn't have ended up that way, because he's still emotionally be the very young man that we knew in BtVS and the beginning of AtS. He seemed to be trapped into a state of clumsy ineptitude because of his father and without Angel or someone like him, I can't see Wesley growing past that.

If Wesley hadn't gone in the direction that he had, to me he wouldn't be Wesley any more. It would be like Angel taking the humanity to eat chocolate with Buffy and letting the mission go hang. And in the long run, I don't think he could be happy that way. I think he'd be making himself so much less to keep safe for her sake *shudder*.

Hmm, I was thinking less on the lines of 'what if Wesley were a different person' and more on the lines of 'what if circumstances had been different'. In the given case scenario that we had, no, I don't think that Wesley could have ended other than dead on a floor, empty and broken. But his given personality didn't guarantee that end, it was his personality combined with the situation.

Yes, she was. But if she doesn't get, in her gut, why what he wants to do with it is this, and why it's worth it -- well, she was smart to leave. But I wouldn't call it healthy any more than I'd call it healthy for a writer to be in a relationship with someone who get why she has to waste all that time typing, or a doctor with someone who can't stand the risk of infection. Not everyone needs a mission, but anyone who has one needs a partner who believes in it, not just in him.

I think that someone can understand the importance and enormity of what a person has taken on themselves without being willing or able to take on that burden themselves. I'd actually parallel Wes/Virginia to Angel/Nina. Yeah, it meant that they ended up being ill-suited to each other, but it doesn't mean that the relationship wasn't worth attempting or that they didn't truly care. If Wesley hadn't cared for her, he wouldn't have made the out so easy for her.

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I'm not sure whether she left to pursue L&O or what, but the abruptness of her departure would suggest that. She's being eased out of L&O, (http://tv.zap2it.com/tveditorial/tve_main/1,1002,271%7C88933%7C1%7C,00.html) thankfully (I liked her as Kate but NOT as the ADA). Depressingly, I have just found out she is three full years younger than I am. I will now go cry into my tea.

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Yeah, I think I'm at that "there's a wall" place in the opposite direction. We just don't see these characters the same way.

I don't see a Lilah who knew it wouldn't work, because I don't think Lilah saw them being on the same side as essential to it working. Nor did I see a Lilah who would have been completely unopen to the idea of making a third side for the narrow band of overlap they did agree on.

I saw a Lilah who right up to the end thought it could work and in fact, was working, if only Wesley would realize/admit it. And I saw a Wesley who was considering it more than his words sometimes let on, and regretted her death as taking from him the real chance that it might have worked.

You see a Buffy who just isn't built that way, I see a Buffy who gave a lot of indications by her actions that she was, except when she announced in so many words that she wasn't, and then Marti went on about it in interviews. And I see a Wesley who just is built that way where you see his circumstances changing him.

I agree that the element of moral choice is very important, but I'm not sure I agree with you about what is a moral choice. To me, loving someone bad can *be* the more moral choice than rejecting the person because of all their past actions. Forgiveness, hope, trust, second chances -- those are all moral things to me.

Especially in Spike's case, where the bad actions were in the past and he was showing substantial signs of willingness to amend his behavior if she would give him just a sliver of help and encouragement. That kind of essentialism and belief that people can't and won't change strikes me as a moral bad in itself.

I don't have as much to say for Lilah, who had no interest in being redeemed. But I do think there's something to be said for loving who you love, and not taking on the responsibility for their actions.

But then, I also don't think that it's true that all Spike was capable of without a soul was destruction. He saved Dawn. He tried to save Buffy. He took care of the Scoobies and Sunnydale after Buffy's death with no thought of reward, because it's what she would have wanted. He liked Joyce, and mourned for her, and tried to save her. He helped Dawn and made her promise not to tell Buffy, so we know it wasn't with an ulterior motive. Hell, way back in the day he helped Tara with her family before he even *liked* Buffy.

As far as I'm concerned, I'm not sure there's such a thing as good people and bad people, as opposed to good actions and bad actions. And that casts the dilemma somewhat differently. In that case, whatever you can do to encourage people to act rightly and stop acting wrongly is better than declaring that they're past hope, which does the opposite.

Yes, he cared about her. 'Caring' is a far cry from 'love'. He can know that he cared for her deeply and still wonder if he ever could have loved her.

Yes, of course he can. But my point is that wondering if he ever could have loved her is a far cry from knowing the answer is no. I took his wondering as his first admission (moving, because too late) that their relationship had had a real chance at working, and I'm not sure where you're getting the interpretation that he knew it never could.

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Ah! For the first time, I get what you're saying about Wes -- that he needed Angel to unlock that about him.

My assumption was that sooner or later his incompetance and the attendant insecurity would have worn off on its own, if he lived that long.

I still actually think that. He might well have ended up unable to trust or communicate or work with anyone, without Angel, but I don't think he would still have been bumbling after 10 years of practice. Still, I can see why you would think the opposite.

I agree, you don't have to take that burden on yourself. Virginia didn't need to have Wesley's mission. I'm not saying a doctor should only marry a doctor. I am saying a healthy relationship for a doctor would be with someone who not only put up with their SO having such a burden but thought it was worth while.

Virginia didn't even put up with Wesley's, much less be proud and supportive of it, not once she properly understood the implications. Hence the breakup, and hence why I don't consider that a healthy relationship for him. Or for her.

I never said he didn't care. I didn't believe he did care deeply, but that was about how they were together, and how he was afterwards, not because of this problem. I never said it wasn't worth attempting, either. I said it was unhealthy for Wes, which by me is a separate issue.

*nods* I definitely see the parallel. But then, I've got no big love for Angel/Nina either for many of the same reasons. It's the same "meh, it's fine, good for the realism, that was a cute line, are we done yet?" reaction.

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I feel that there's a difference between ruthless and dark, not so much in execution but in intent. And I saw Wesley as always ruthless, but only dark later on.

This may be part of the difference. I don't see that as such a big difference. I see "too ruthless" as a subset of dark, and that Wesley's particular darkness was only a letting run-free of tendencies he'd always had, and had been kept in check more by externals than by his own belief that they should be.

And I see "evil" as another subset of dark, and one that Wesley never even approached, which is why I found your using them as near synonyms below rather disconcerting.

Well, I think that that's Wesley's fear, but the episode itself seemed to argue that that rage was not innate.

Ah, I didn't see that at all. I thought the episode seemed to support Wesley's fear as accurate at least as much as it undercut it -- because everyone else didn't react the same, though they all had rage and misogyny, because of the lengths he went to, because the words were all there, just waiting -- and because when it did come out, he recognized it.

To me, Fred's skipping off down the hallway at the end of that emphasized her Pollyanna disconnect from the reality of Wesley having a dark side, something Wes was being forced by these events face and control, no longer deny.

especially when that darkness is what killed him in the end.

Huh? You totally lost me there. I wouldn't say Wesley's darkness is what killed him in the end. I'd say his light did, his heroism, his willingness to fight a losing battle.

Angel's darkness is part of himself, something he can live with because it is innate, but Wesley's is unnatural, forced on him by circumstance and his own belief in the good of many over the good of one.

Yeah, we're never gonna agree on this. To me Wesley's darkness is natural, which is shown by the fact that it IS his own belief in the good of the many that he's acting on, and the circumstances only give him a chance to show his true colors. If anything, it's Angel's darkness that's unnatural, since it is motiveless and magically implanted.

Ouch, that hits all the wrong buttons for me. The second that being gay is parallelled to being dark or evil, my brain shuts down.

As I said above, I don't think darkness -- especially Wesley's darkness, which takes the form of an uncompromising doing the right thing -- is the same thing as evil at all. But be that as it may, that's a shame, because that's exactly how most gay teens from homophobic families feel about themselves, as well as BDSMers like me who grow up thinking it's us and the axe murderers. I would hate to lose the ability to make that metaphor real.

Lilah had mercy? She had self-interest and interest in the people that she did care about, but I don't see hte mercy.

No, caring for Lilah taught him the need for mercy, by making him feel sympathy and positive things for something other than the One True Path. (I could probably argue that she's shown it from time to time, too, but it's not what I meant so it's not worth going into.)

I don't think you need to rewatch. It's just a question of how we read the lines and which ones we saw as more important/representative.

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I don't see a Lilah who knew it wouldn't work, because I don't think Lilah saw them being on the same side as essential to it working. Nor did I see a Lilah who would have been completely unopen to the idea of making a third side for the narrow band of overlap they did agree on.

I think that she hoped that they could keep on with what they were doing, but I also think that she could see that it was essentially unstable. A villian working in shades of grey is very different from a hero doing the same. You know, now I'm wondering if this disagreement doesn't come down to how we view good and evil and the shades in between. We may just have a fundamental disjuction in our worldviews.

I saw a Lilah who right up to the end thought it could work and in fact, was working, if only Wesley would realize/admit it. And I saw a Wesley who was considering it more than his words sometimes let on, and regretted her death as taking from him the real chance that it might have worked.

I guess I saw Lilah as more... I don't know if perceptive is the word that I'm going for. I think that she knew that for Wesley to get to that point, he'd have to be broken to the point of not truly being Wesley anymore and that she didn't really want that, which is why she acted as she did in the sewer. She knew that he couldn't, but part of her still wanted him to.

You see a Buffy who just isn't built that way, I see a Buffy who gave a lot of indications by her actions that she was, except when she announced in so many words that she wasn't, and then Marti went on about it in interviews. And I see a Wesley who just is built that way where you see his circumstances changing him.

I place weight on things like Buffy cowering on her bed, surrounded by garlic, holding a cross, knowing that it's her own fear that has her trapped there. Her numbness after beating up Spike and her absolute horror in Dead Things when she's 'not wrong'. That moment there, with Tara, is actually the clincher for me. She is so utterly broken in that moment that I can't see anything that gets her there as anything that can approach good. I don't want Buffy to cry. Hurting Spike made Buffy cry. Therefore...

I agree that the element of moral choice is very important, but I'm not sure I agree with you about what is a moral choice. To me, loving someone bad can *be* the more moral choice than rejecting the person because of all their past actions. Forgiveness, hope, trust, second chances -- those are all moral things to me.

I don't see love as a choice. Accepting love and acting on it, yes, but love itself I don't see as controllable that way. If Buffy didn't love Spike, then she didn't love him. She can't just choose to love him. And hell, she gives him all of those things, far more than most people would be capable of in that situation. She's willing to trust him with Dawn even after he's tried to rape her.

Especially in Spike's case, where the bad actions were in the past and he was showing substantial signs of willingness to amend his behavior if she would give him just a sliver of help and encouragement. That kind of essentialism and belief that people can't and won't change strikes me as a moral bad in itself.

The problem, I guess, lies in whether or not you think that the soul matters. In the context of the Buffyverse, I do think that the soul matters, absolutely. Before the soul, Spike's actions were selfish (and selfish doesn't end at the skin, it does extend to helping those that you like). After he acquires a soul, he's capable of caring about people that he doesn't like. The changes that he goes through after he gets the soul only served to point out, to me, how essential it was.

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But then, I also don't think that it's true that all Spike was capable of without a soul was destruction. He saved Dawn. He tried to save Buffy. He took care of the Scoobies and Sunnydale after Buffy's death with no thought of reward, because it's what she would have wanted. He liked Joyce, and mourned for her, and tried to save her. He helped Dawn and made her promise not to tell Buffy, so we know it wasn't with an ulterior motive. Hell, way back in the day he helped Tara with her family before he even *liked* Buffy.

Well, I don't know about that last bit. I think that he was pretty much always attracted to her. But yes, always destructive is inaccurate. I was in the moment. What I should have said is 'selfish' -- he helps when it helps him or the people that he likes and the rest of the world can get sucked into hell.

As far as I'm concerned, I'm not sure there's such a thing as good people and bad people, as opposed to good actions and bad actions. And that casts the dilemma somewhat differently. In that case, whatever you can do to encourage people to act rightly and stop acting wrongly is better than declaring that they're past hope, which does the opposite.

I think that the weight of culmative actions can make it hard for a person to shift directions, though I do agree that there's no cut-off point, no time in which someone can change directions. Anyone can make a 'good' choice or an 'evil' one. But I also think that intent matters and that you can't... pavlov someone into being good. They have to actually want to do good for the act to be any good for them and their moral direction. Spike made a choice in season six, a choice to become a man, but it was an inherently selfish choice -- he wanted Buffy, wanted her, not a shadow of her. And he had no clue what he was getting himself into. And because of that choice, that choice to change instead of trying to force the world to, he was given the chance to make other choices.

Yes, of course he can. But my point is that wondering if he ever could have loved her is a far cry from knowing the answer is no. I took his wondering as his first admission (moving, because too late) that their relationship had had a real chance at working, and I'm not sure where you're getting the interpretation that he knew it never could.

But I don't see him wondering if he could have loved her the same as him wondering if their relationship could have worked. I think that it would have failed, regardless of love, and that's what I see Wesley as knowing.

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We may just have a fundamental disjuction in our worldviews.

*nods* I think so.

I don't want Buffy to cry. Hurting Spike made Buffy cry. Therefore...

Makes sense. For me, that cry was long overdue and the start of her healing. I'd have liked to see her get there some other way, but she wasn't. Spike gave her what she needed, however unpretty; was able to take it and not blame her for it, and be more concerned with what she was feeling. That made him, for me, the perfect partner for her at that moment. The only one she didn't have to protect or hold back with.

I'd have liked to see her have that cathartic cry with him -- talk to him like she used to, on the back porch when Joyce got sick or in the alley when she came back from heaven. If she could have done that -- made him the confidente and not just the scapegoat -- they could have had a different, and much healthier, relationship.

I put weight on the under rug intimate chit chat, the awkward and deeply felt conversation at the wedding -- all the parts of that relationship that made me feel like it wasn't just a matter of her hurting him on her side, even if she couldn't admit that.

I don't see love as a choice. Accepting love and acting on it, yes

Me neither. I put that badly. But I did feel, watching, that Buffy had, if not love, then at least romantic caring and the possibility of love for Spike in season 6. That it was her horror at being able to feel that for a soulless, evil vampire that she was taking out on him and hiding.

And hell, she gives him all of those things, far more than most people would be capable of in that situation.

I didn't think so.

She's willing to trust him with Dawn even after he's tried to rape her.

Yes, that was impressive. But that's about the only case of it I can think of pre-soul, and doesn't, to me, make up for all the times where she shut him out and refused to give him a chance. Though, fair disclaimer, I feel about Spike much the way you feel about Buffy.

In the context of the Buffyverse, I do think that the soul matters, absolutely.

I guess that's the problem. I think it matters, but not absolutely. We have proof by humans that a soul is not enough. Up until seasons 4-6, I'd assumed because of Angel that the soul was necessary, though not sufficient.

But in those seasons I saw Spike showing a widening circle of empathy and caring, from just Dru to Buffy for selfish reasons to Buffy even when it hurt him to the people Buffy cared about, even after she was gone and even when he didn't like them himself.

At that point, he was behaving more altruistically than much of the human race.

The fact that he chose to get the soul while he was soulless was the clincher for me that soulless vampires, while handicapped, can learn to choose to live as non-evil, and maybe even somewhat good.

Before the soul, Spike's actions were selfish (and selfish doesn't end at the skin, it does extend to helping those that you like). After he acquires a soul, he's capable of caring about people that he doesn't like.

To me, fighting beside and rescuing Xander and Giles after Buffy's death contradicts the former, and on BTVS I didn't see much if any difference, post soul. (ATS, yes.)

Who did he care for in season 7 that he wasn't in seasons 5 and 6? The potentials? He barely put up with them for Buffy. I thought him hesitating and having to talk himself into attacking a girl in an alley when he thought the chip wasn't working, and over the girl Dru killed, were just as notable.

Craziness, sure, but that was chalked up to the First. Remorse for hurting Buffy, sure, but he already felt that. It was remarkable how much he didn't show remorse to Wood.

The changes that he goes through after he gets the soul only served to point out, to me, how essential it was.

What changes? Once he came out of the basement, I didn't see any very concrete changes in him, as opposed to in Buffy's attitude towards him. I didn't see anything much that he did in season seven that he couldn't have or didn't do without the soul. Even sacrificing himself, which he didn't do knowingly, wasn't so different from what he'd have done to save Buffy in the Gift.

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But I also think that intent matters and that you can't... pavlov someone into being good.

I agree you can't Pavlov it. I don't think the chip by itself would have made Spike be good, though it did make his actions less evil.

But I do think you can *teach* it. I think that's exactly how humans learn it, and why sociopaths are often those who did not get the right kind of attention, affection, and lessons at the right stage in their development.

Pavlov is a reductionist, avoid pain/get pleasure kind of programming, where a single stimulus produces a single response. Teaching is about reward and punishment, but it's also about understanding and developing empathy, and using reward and punishment -- and analogy, and providing new experiences which can be used for analogy -- to lead someone to a new perspective.

That's not always successful -- you can lead a kid to morals but you can't make him drink -- but it's usually a lot more successful than *not* doing it, or we could just dump our kids in a room full of books and have them come out socialized at 18.

Spike, to me, is a sociopath. All soulless vampires are. It's normal for them. But that doesn't mean to me that he's hopeless. It's possible, even likely, that vampires, like kids who missed that developmental window, will never be able to feel the same as normal humans do.

But I know two people -- dear friends -- who consider themselves sociopathic with good reason. They don't feel inhibitions on hurting others the same way that I do. So they've painstakingly taught themselves ethics and social rules, and are very careful to apply them, because they know they can't trust their own instincts to do the right thing.

Does that make them not good, because like Spike their instincts are selfish and they can't feel it the way we do? Or does that, as I think, make them even more impressively good, because they're willing to fight their instincts to do what is right?

I am pretty sure they do it not purely, or even mostly, out of noble altruism but because it is enlightened self-interest -- they understand intellectually that doing good for others will be better for them. For that matter, you could argue that all altruists do the same thing.

At a certain point, to me, intentions don't matter as much as actions. If someone is behaving well out of the fear of going to hell, that's just as selfish as Spike wanting Buffy to like him. But they're still behaving well. If someone is committing murder in the belief that he's making the world a better place, I don't care, he's still committing murder.

The first is good and the second bad as far as I'm concerned. And I see ample reason to think that a soulless vampire could be, and was well on the way to be, becoming at least as good as the man who fears hell. Maybe not a hero or a saint, but a decent guy who does a little more good in the world than he does harm, for the very common reason that he wants to live up to the expectations of the people who believe in him. Hell Angel, for all his soul, became a good guy for exactly that reason.

but it was an inherently selfish choice -- he wanted Buffy, wanted her, not a shadow of her.

Ah, I don't agree. I think he made that choice for her as much as for himself, if not more. Ever since Glory we've seen him have the capacity.

And he had no clue what he was getting himself into.

I don't agree with that either. He'd seen Angel. He had as good an idea as anyone.

And because of that choice, that choice to change instead of trying to force the world to, he was given the chance to make other choices.

That I agree with. But I think making that choice in the first place indicated how much he'd already changed.

But I don't see him wondering if he could have loved her the same as him wondering if their relationship could have worked.

I get that in theory, but in that context and tone that's what it meant to me.

I think that it would have failed, regardless of love, and that's what I see Wesley as knowing.

I'm not so sure of that, and whatever he thought along the way, once she was dead I read Wesley as not so sure either. We just read the lines differently. There's no way to resolve that.

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Makes sense. For me, that cry was long overdue and the start of her healing. I'd have liked to see her get there some other way, but she wasn't. Spike gave her what she needed, however unpretty; was able to take it and not blame her for it, and be more concerned with what she was feeling. That made him, for me, the perfect partner for her at that moment. The only one she didn't have to protect or hold back with.

Except I don't see her as healing much during that time period. Dead Things is her lowest point and it is not beating up Spike that gives her her moment of change, but crying to Tara about the entire situation later. I suppose that... I do see Buffy as a protector, at her heart. I see it as against her nature to be so intensely hurtful.

I'd have liked to see her have that cathartic cry with him -- talk to him like she used to, on the back porch when Joyce got sick or in the alley when she came back from heaven. If she could have done that -- made him the confidente and not just the scapegoat -- they could have had a different, and much healthier, relationship.

Did you see the same episode that I did, re: Joyce? Honest question, not intended as an attack. Because I saw Buffy crying before he got there, then demanding why he was there, and just being too damn tired to make him go away. And he pinpointed in Once More, With Feeling just why she confided to him in After Life -- "Whisper in a dead man's ear, doesn't make it real."

I put weight on the under rug intimate chit chat, the awkward and deeply felt conversation at the wedding -- all the parts of that relationship that made me feel like it wasn't just a matter of her hurting him on her side, even if she couldn't admit that.

Oh, the conversation at the wedding. That does make me want to hug them both, instead of just Buffy (but it's telling that Spike does take the opportunity of the wedding to try to hurt Buffy in order to suss out her feelings -- it's also telling that he feels bad about it. Good for him on the second bit.). Doesn't make me think that they were at all healthy together, but it does make me think that yeah, there was some feeling on her side. But since the rug conversation is just Buffy saying that occasionally, she actually likes him, instead of just wanting to fuck... well, it isn't a statement of love and devotion.

I guess that's the problem. I think it matters, but not absolutely. We have proof by humans that a soul is not enough. Up until seasons 4-6, I'd assumed because of Angel that the soul was necessary, though not sufficient.

I actually meant 'absolutely' as in 'definitely important', not as 'the only important thing'. Bad wording on my part.

The fact that he chose to get the soul while he was soulless was the clincher for me that soulless vampires, while handicapped, can learn to choose to live as non-evil, and maybe even somewhat good.

Except that I don't think he knew what he was getting into (basing this mostly on his rambling monologue in Beneath You). He just figured soul=Buffy's love. What she wanted, she would get. Because he couldn't force it onto her. She had to choose. So, he had to make it more likely to choose him.

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Who did he care for in season 7 that he wasn't in seasons 5 and 6? The potentials? He barely put up with them for Buffy. I thought him hesitating and having to talk himself into attacking a girl in an alley when he thought the chip wasn't working, and over the girl Dru killed, were just as notable.

Honestly, I always thought he was trying to work himself up to the idea because he'd been getting massive pain over just that sort of action. They probably wrote it that way just so that it could read both ways.

To me, fighting beside and rescuing Xander and Giles after Buffy's death contradicts the former, and on BTVS I didn't see much if any difference, post soul.

But he's a jerk about it. He's clearly only there to protect Buffy's memory. In S7, he works alongside Xander without being a snarky asshole.

Craziness, sure, but that was chalked up to the First. Remorse for hurting Buffy, sure, but he already felt that. It was remarkable how much he didn't show remorse to Wood.

Except that a pre-soul Spike would have killed Wood if he'd been able to. Or rather, that's what I see. It's really fascinating how much how we see the character affect how we see his motives. I'm finding this entire discussion enlightening. This is what Spike fen see when they look at him pre-soul. It does make a lot of sense, if you agree with the premise.

What changes? Once he came out of the basement, I didn't see any very concrete changes in him, as opposed to in Buffy's attitude towards him. I didn't see anything much that he did in season seven that he couldn't have or didn't do without the soul. Even sacrificing himself, which he didn't do knowingly, wasn't so different from what he'd have done to save Buffy in the Gift.

Honestly, the biggest change to me was the "not an asshole" thing. In S7, he doesn't say (or says much less often) the casually cruel observations that were his trademark, pre-soul.

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But I do think you can *teach* it. I think that's exactly how humans learn it, and why sociopaths are often those who did not get the right kind of attention, affection, and lessons at the right stage in their development.

Except that vampires already know the rules. They have a demon that makes them not follow the rules, but they do know them. It's not a natural ignorance, but a forced choice into ignoring them.

If someone is behaving well out of the fear of going to hell, that's just as selfish as Spike wanting Buffy to like him. But they're still behaving well. If someone is committing murder in the belief that he's making the world a better place, I don't care, he's still committing murder.

Well, yes, but the second person is insane. And the first person... if you only act out of fear, then the second that you stop fearing whatever it may be, there's no reason to keep doing good. Whereas someone who does good because it is good will continue to do so regardless of the stimuli. Good out of fear isn't sustainable.

Maybe not a hero or a saint, but a decent guy who does a little more good in the world than he does harm, for the very common reason that he wants to live up to the expectations of the people who believe in him. Hell Angel, for all his soul, became a good guy for exactly that reason.

And I also don't judge Angel as good in and of himself unless he's doing good out a will to do good. Angel isn't a good man at the end. He may or may not be a champion, but he ordered a man to be killed. And he knows that that's wrong and he did it anyway.

I think he made that choice for her as much as for himself, if not more. Ever since Glory we've seen him have the capacity.

Well, he had just tried to rape her. And she'd just proven that he couldn't. The only way to have her would have to be willingly.

I don't agree with that either. He'd seen Angel. He had as good an idea as anyone.

Seeing and experiencing are two very different things. He saw Angel... and made fun of him. It was until he had a soul that he truly understood the pain that Angel had felt ("Angel... should have warned me.").

But I think making that choice in the first place indicated how much he'd already changed.

I think that if Dru had ever said that he would need to have a soul for her to keep loving him, he would have gotten one, come hell or high water. She just wouldn't have either said or implied that. Buffy herself is the one who gave Spike the idea -- "I can't love you. You don't have a soul." She's the one who made it a prerequisite.

I'm not so sure of that, and whatever he thought along the way, once she was dead I read Wesley as not so sure either. We just read the lines differently. There's no way to resolve that.

Very true. I think we've reached the wall again in this one place.

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They probably wrote it that way just so that it could read both ways.

I'm sure you're right. They're sneaksy, those ME people. :)

But he's a jerk about it. He's clearly only there to protect Buffy's memory.

Ah, I didn't think either of those things. I thought he was no more of a jerk than Xander was to him, and often less. Snarky humor, but no worse than souled Cordelia was. Not mean, not until he found out what the others did to Buffy.

And I didn't think he was there to protect Buffy's memory at all, because I didn't think (or think he thought) that it needed protecting. I thought he was there to protect first, Dawn, and second, everything that Buffy would have wanted to protect. Mostly because she would have wanted it, but secondarily because he'd developed a reluctant but real respect and some fondness for the Scoobies and their cause.

Remember that scene with Xander lighting Spike's cigarette after his hands got cut up running from Glory? I thought from then on, there was a distinct camraderie between the two of them that only got ruined when Spike found out about the Scoobies bringing Buffy back. Which, frankly, was them being much more selfish than he was. He was prepared to give her up. It was the souled Scoobies who wanted her back more than they wanted what was best for her.

In S7, he works alongside Xander without being a snarky asshole.

In season 7, it seemed to me, he only really related to Buffy. Nobody else was quite real to him until they forced themselves on his attention (Giles, Wood, Faith.) I actually thought that was a huge step back for him, in terms of empathy and relating to the world outside of his romantic interest.

He wasn't snarky to Xander because he looked right through Xander in season 7. I chalked that up to being broken and preoccupied, not a better person, especially after Buffy told him she wanted the old Spike attitude back. (I have to say his snark on ATS confirms this view for me. Spike, souled or unsouled, is snarky unless he's too deeply hurt to do anything but lick his wounds.)

Except that a pre-soul Spike would have killed Wood if he'd been able to. Or rather, that's what I see.

*nods* And I don't. He didn't kill Willow and Xander when they were in his power, or even rape her when she said no. He might have killed Wood, if he'd felt like it, except that he knew Buffy wouldn't like it and that she needed all the help she could get. I think even pre-souled Spike would have known that and held back. And I'm not so sure post-souled Spike would have not killed him if it weren't for those same factors.

It's really fascinating how much how we see the character affect how we see his motives. I'm finding this entire discussion enlightening.

Yes, me too. Although I still get flashes of guilt for monopolizing your journal.

This is what Spike fen see when they look at him pre-soul. It does make a lot of sense, if you agree with the premise.

*nods* Yup. And this -- your this -- is what non-Spike fen see when they think we're all on crack. Good to know. *grin*

Honestly, the biggest change to me was the "not an asshole" thing. In S7, he doesn't say (or says much less often) the casually cruel observations that were his trademark, pre-soul.

Ah, that makes sense. Wherease I didn't think what he said was cruel or assholey to begin with. (What he did, the off-screen murders and tortures and rapes, yes. Beyond question.) But I found his comments more refreshing than anything else.

To me, cruelty is where you hit people's fears and old wounds. Whereas Spike's comments hit their blind spots. He made them see the stuff they didn't want to see, and their own hypocrisies. They said the emperor has no clothes. They made people look at themselves and each other as they looked from the outside, not as they wanted to look to each other.

And with the exception of the Yoko Factor, I think he did a lot of good thereby, however inadvertantly. I missed those comments dearly in season seven, and found Spike without them either boring or broken, not better.

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Dead Things is her lowest point

Right. She hit bottom. Which is the precondition for & beginning of recovery. She could only do that because of beating up Spike. Before that she was in a bad holding pattern, not letting out the feelings & therefore never getting quite to the bottom so she could start to get better.

it is not beating up Spike that gives her her moment of change, but crying to Tara

I don't agree. I think the crisis point you're feeling about is as much the moment of change as the safe place where you show it.

I do see Buffy as a protector, at her heart. I see it as against her nature to be so intensely hurtful.

*nods* Whereas I think the name is Slayer & not Protector for a reason. She's got a strong drive to protect, but she's also got a dark side of pleasure in killing & demonic powers. She has a history of not acknowledging it & projecting onto someone else (like Faith).

I think she was doing that with Spike. Especially when she came back from heaven, where she was free of it. Dealing with that darkness again was incredibly upsetting.

Her protecting her friends from the consequences of what they'd done, while kind, was good for no one. It was bad for the friends who didn't have to face & learn from their mistakes. It was bad for Buffy who had to deal with this scary, depressing truth alone.

Because Spike understood that darkness, would never judge her, was so much worse than her, & she didn't have to protect him, she could show him the truth and not be alone any more.

and just being too damn tired to make him go away.

Then no, I guess we didn't. Because I saw her being touched by his concern, acting comfortable with him in her body language. Being too tired to keep up her usual facade of disdain & distance, but finding that without it she wanted to confide in him & got relief from doing so. Probably because he was outside the inferiority/superiority dynamic. I saw them becoming friends.

"Whisper in a dead man's ear, doesn't make it real."

Right. Because he's outside her protect/keep them innocent thing. She can't ever stop protecting humans. With Spike she can put that burden down for a while & just be Buffy.

But that seems to me to be the beginning of a very promising intimacy of equals instead of protector and protected. Something she could never really let herself have with someone she considered her responsibility. I see that it didn't go that way, but I don't see why it never could have.

it's telling that Spike does take the opportunity of the wedding to try to hurt Buffy in order to suss out her feelings

Yes. Though souled humans often do much worse things after breakups.

Doesn't make me think that they were at all healthy together

It doesn't make me think they were, but that they could have been if Buffy had let them be. Instead of panicking whenever she had a second of feeling for him & then taking it out on him.

just Buffy saying that occasionally, she actually likes him, instead of just wanting to fuck... well, it isn't a statement of love and devotion.

No, but as you pointed out elsewhere, most relationships don't begin there. I saw it as the start down that road, not the end. When she forgets to hate him they look a lot like Wes & Virginia. A dating couple, having fun. Where could that have gone if she had let it develop? Maybe someplace good.

Except that I don't think he knew what he was getting into (basing this mostly on his rambling monologue in Beneath You).

I don't think he knew exactly. I don't think you can, until you've experienced it. But I don't think that meant he knew nothing. He knew it would be a quest just to get there, & literal torture to win it. He knew the soul was a curse for Angel, so it couldn't be a walk in the park.

He had to know it would take away much of his joy in what he'd been & loved for so long. It's a big sacrifice.

He just figured soul=Buffy's love.

I don't think that either. He knew she said she couldn't love him without it, but he didn't rush off & get it when she said so. I don't think he thought she could love him after the attempted rape. I think he got it so he would never hurt her like that again.

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