Why we fight

[Cangel]

So I've just watched this episode for the first time, and well ...not the best imo
first off all, I'm really asking myself (and not only after this episode, but before) why Joss hates the Germans so much? It is like torture to listen to that Nazi officer and the American guy who got later vamped by Angel, both with very strong accents (I guess it's okay for an American, but not for a Nazi officer).
And then, wouldn't it have been fun to see Spike meet the guy in the end, not like how it actually was.
I'm feeling pretty anti-lingual today, so sorry for my English, I hope it's understandable what I mean

[Joyce Summers]

I don't think Joss hates the Germans as in the German populace....just you know he has issues with Nazis which is kinda expected and understandable.
I liked this episode though mainly for Spike's attitude in all the flashbacks. The fact he has no clue about Angelus being now Angel and everything. And Angel is very broody and serious and protective of the people and Spike is his typical 'Hey enjoy the ride!' which is always refreshing. It's what I liked about most Spike scenes in season 5.- he lightened the mood when it threatened to get too dark and moody.

[Cangel]

Yup, I agree, Spike is great in this eppi. Just one thing, how come his hair is so dark? Whenever we saw him in flashbacks, he had lighter hair.
And okay, about everyone in the world has Nazi issues (which I understand), but there was never any good German on Buffy (we had 2 Grman demons, Der Kindestod and Hänsel und Gretel) and the German language gets majorly abused, lol (believe me! remember the scene when Giles read this webpage about Hänsel und Gretel and translated it to English? Well, it looks like they used google translater, the whole grammar was messed up and it was a word-by-word translation from what Giles said (and that never works))

[Joyce Summers]

I think Jane Espenson said something about the German translation being awful in Gingerbread but none of them had time to do it properly.

And hmm, maybe there was never an opportunity for an openly German (good) character on the show. And well most fairytales are either German or French based so that couldn't be helped with Hansel and Gretal. I don't think that was any direct purposeful link to Germany. Just that the fairytale creature they could use appropriately in the story happened to be German based.
As for Der Kindestod...maybe it's some other German lore/mythology? I'm not sure. But I honestly don't think it's ever done on purpose- just the way it turns out.

I mean aside from Giles the English community isn't shown very well through the Watcher's Council is it? Shown to be prissy, full-of-themselves sods who don't like to get their hands dirty but rather come out with a load of cliches and Churchill references.
The only other representation is Spike and Drusilla which basically seems to say the rest of England is made up of thugs.
But I don't think this is what the writers were saying about England at all, it's just the way it turned out was that they were the only characters on the show who happened to be English.

And the way Texans were representated through the Gorches?

In a way it's all coincidence. However, I can't speak for any other films or TV shows that have negative representations of Germany.

[Scythus]

Yup, I agree, Spike is great in this eppi. Just one thing, how come his hair is so dark? Whenever we saw him in flashbacks, he had lighter hair.
And okay, about everyone in the world has Nazi issues (which I understand), but there was never any good German on Buffy (we had 2 Grman demons, Der Kindestod and Hänsel und Gretel) and the German language gets majorly abused, lol (believe me! remember the scene when Giles read this webpage about Hänsel und Gretel and translated it to English? Well, it looks like they used google translater, the whole grammar was messed up and it was a word-by-word translation from what Giles said (and that never works))

i may be wrong as i haven't watched season 7 of buffy for a while but wasn't there a german potential in one of the first few episodes that got killed by the bringers? Der Kindestod was a cool demon, i cant decide which is more freaky out of him or the gentlemen. About spikes hair, maybe he had it dark before he had it bright, the only other colour i remember seeing his hair in flashbacks that predate the war flashback is his natural brown

[InsaneMystic]

i may be wrong as i haven't watched season 7 of buffy for a while but wasn't there a german potential in one of the first few episodes that got killed by the bringers?
Yes, there was. Her styling was however a bit too blatant in its reminiscence of Franka Potente's character in the German hit movie "Lola rennt", for my taste. ;)

- - -

As to the accents... hm. Maybe this is one of the veeeery few times where I can consider myself lucky to only know the dubbed version? lol

With Spike's hair, I think it's obvious that he was dyeing it as early as in the 40s, just that he hadn't found his trademark coloring yet. However, I really didn't like to see him with that special kind of black coat *cough* in this episode... made me very, very uncomfortable.

I think it's a shame they killed off the Prince of Lies. Even if the character was a ripoff of Max Schreck's Nosferatu (how fitting to use the German expressionist vampire image for the Nazi vamp recruit!), I kinda liked that guy. I wonder how old he was supposed to be in relation to the other ancients (Master & Kakistos).

Also, the bit of info given of the Intitiative's beginnings dating that far back, and their vampire behavior chips possibly being a technological descendant of Nazi experiments was fascinating; no less fascinating than the question whether a vampire created by an ensouled sire regularly would face the feeling of hollowness that this guy felt!
And, of course, just another lie we caught Angel at having told Buffy... not only did he feed from humans after his ensoulment (as was established before), but he actually sired one vamp!

All in all, an ep that could have been better, but still had enough good stuff in it to get my thumbs up.