Who get the biggest passes from Buffyverse fans and can you give examples of the worst things these characters do?
Well this is a juicy question.
Interestingly, at some point, both characters were given the role of calling Buffy out on her "crap." James Marsters even talks about how he was brought in as a replacement for Cordelia in season 4, but then was replaced by Anya when they decided to do something else with him.
With Cordy being the mean girl, and Spike the soulless vampire, the writers had the freedom to use these characters to say and do some incredibly cruel things towards Buffy in the name of "brutal honesty," while also excusing their behavior because they weren't meant to be the hero...at least initially.
This worked a little too well, as Charisma and James were amazing in their roles. Each character is charming, beautiful, multifaceted, and extremely funny.
The problem is, you can't keep your characters stagnate, so the writers were forced to give Cordy and Spike character growth, but also find a way to retain who they are. This is incredibly difficult when your character was literally written to clash with Buffy, and is popular for saying mean, biting things in the name of "tough love."
While Queen C is more than the resident mean girl, her cruel words and selfish behavior are praised as "truth" and confidence, with her belittling nearly every member of the Scooby gang. She is constantly pitting herself against Buffy; (Homecoming, Halloween, etc) demeaning and belittling her when Buffy has personally saved her life several times. She begins to show signs of character growth in season 3, but once Xander cheats on her, reverts right back to blaming Buffy for everything. Instead of holding Xander accountable for his actions, she makes a wish that Buffy never came to Sunnydale, and then never sees the consequences for her own actions.
Even after her move to LA, she calls Buffy a cry-Buffy, blames her for turning Angel into Angelus, emasculates Wesley, victim blames and shames a SA survivor (Untouched), and is generally just careless about what she says or does, with no thought about how her words effect others.
Personally, while I do see some growth over her time on Angel, I do not buy her characterization in the later seasons where she is drastically changed to become a Champion, and then shoe-horned into a relationship with Angel. On top of that, she never atones for or even recognizes her need to change for her awful behavior, and that makes it very hard for me to forgive her for her past sins, let alone root for her.
It's possible that with better writing and without Joss being a horrible person, that her transition would have been more organic and believable.
For a show about feminism, the writers really spend a lot of time on this man. He steals Buffy's underwear, stalks her, makes a sex robot that looks just like her, attempts to kill her multiple times, boasts about killing and torturing other slayers, justifies it by saying they wanted it, ties her up, then spends a season belittling her just so that she'll sleep with him. THEN when she refuses sex with him, attempts to force himself on her.
And for those of you who say, "oh he just didn't have a soul yet." Fine.
After he had a soul, he boasts about assaulting her, shames her for using him for sex when he knew she didn't love him, shames her for not loving him, and blames her for the reason he's tortured with having a soul. (Beneath You)
He nearly kills Robin Wood, and then mocks him for not being loved by his mother (which is proven to be false in "Damage"), all while wearing the coat that he stole from Robin's mother after he killed her.
Not once does he apologize to Buffy or attempt to hold himself accountable, even after he has a soul. It is not until "Damage" on Angel that we see any sort of unselfish remorse.
Then to add insult to injury, season 7 has Buffy spending so much time taking care of Spike, rescuing Spike, training with Spike, reassuring Spike that he is a good man...all to the detriment of her other relationships. People like to blame the Potentials for why season 7 is as clunky as it is, but I blame the focus on Spike.
Even worse, the show doesn't seem to want Spike to change, as there's hardly a difference between pre souled and ensouled Spike. And that goes against the show's core tenant of choice and growth.
From the very beginning, vampires represent the opposite of adolescence in that they are stagnate and do not change. "Fool for Love" very clearly establishes that Spike's persona is created to compensate for his lack of an identity. Cecily's rejection of him deeply wounds him and he is shown to create a facade to mask his insecurities. So he takes from powerful women and forms a false identity around them to prove that he is not beneath them. The episode emphasizes this pattern with Cecily, Dru, and the two Slayers, continuing in present day with Buffy.
In order to be consistent with the lore and message of the show, ensouled Spike needed to look a lot different from un-ensouled Spike, but the writers knew he wouldn't be as popular.
And so we're left with a half baked season where we're supposed to believe that Buffy is distant from everyone but Spike, who looks the exact same as he did the season before when he tried to force himself on her.
It's just icky. It's the opposite of empowering. It blurs the lines of the lore. And it sends the wrong message.
We can like these characters and even root for them, but we need to be honest about their flaws, and not justify awful writing and problematic characterization.
