I agree. One of the problems I find with S7 (and some of S6) is that we no longer really see 'the Buffy of it', as Whedon always claimed to be doing with his storylines.
I can't. Souled Spike displayed a cruelty in his dealings with Wood that rivals Angelus. While soulles Spike would hook into your insecurities and use that against you so he could achieve a selfish end, it was usually just wrapped in funny barbs. In S6 with Buffy he was cruel but it wasn't his intend. It's just that he couldn't understand (due to lack of soul) that he was hurting her. But with Wood he deliberately hooked in with the intend to destroy the last good memories Wood had of his mother. I associate that more with Angelus and not Spike.
But it's still canon, no matter how fanfic-y. After all the comics are also one giant Spuffy fanfic and they are considered canon by some. You can argue OOC behavior all day long but at the end of the day TGiQ is canon.
Yeah but like you say above, it would be plausible for him to try and cling to his former identity at first like Angel did. Maybe they could have done something with that - so even though his initial remorse is entirely Buffy-focused, his real season-long challenge could have been being forced to confront his past via Wood. Angel tries to continue his soulless behaviour but finds he can't. They could have shown Spike trying to use the 'it was just my nature' argument to avoid having to look really deep, but ultimately failing in that. But anyway, what-ifs don't really help much here because it's not what they gave us in the end. He was just an arsehole. and yeah, it was cruel. Lord knows why the writers decided to do that.
But haven't you yourself said before you don't consider the Dawnverse as true BTVS canon? I don't usually disregard what we see on the shows but for TGIQ I tend to make an exception because the entire premise just reaches new levels of ridiculousness. I mean, Angel and Spike don't even remember what colour eyes Buffy has!
Clinging to your former self is one thing, surpassing the douchbaggery of your former self is another. Spike is the Angel story in reverse. They both tried to cling to what they were used to. But where Angel just couldn't get to that level of Angelus' evil, souled Spike surpassed soulles Spike in terms of intentional cruelty to destroy someone.
Yeah, but that's how I see post- S4 Buffy because it's the only way for me to make sense of the changes and so forth. But that's me and no one else, for everyone all is canon. And the Dawnverse doesn't affect the Angelverse because it never became a topic there. And TGiQ is in the Angelverse.
My point is that if you feel the need to disregard the Dawnverse because you find it so incoherent then I can equally choose to disregard TGIQ because I find it nonsensical as an episode.
Which is why I love the Angel/Holtz interactions and find the Spike/Wood one baffling - I don't get why we're supposed to side with Spike there😕
But that's Spike. Spike was obsessed with slayers. He was after an equal demon. He wasn't after the individual human part. Because why would you when you are all demonic and soulless. Does he know Buffy's favorite color/ice cream/movie etc.? Does he know about her ice-scating escape (if this is still true in the Dawnverse)? <or her childhood in general? Does he even care to know? Nope, cause it's the demon he is after, the slayer part.
I thought they first saw each other when Angel was creeping on her in the alley. When was the room scene?
