Current mood:	accomplished
Current music:	Holst, "Venus, Bringer of Peace" (Boult/LPO)

A Brief Inquiry.
Well. I will certainly admit that my previous attempt to steer us back on track didn't seem to have the desired effect. However, I will admit some fascination with what appears to be a growing coalition to defend Spike against the barest slight to his character. I don't particularly have time to engage in a long dialogue about this subject, but I would be remiss as a one-time Watcher if I did not take a few moments of my time to address a few salient points.

For the record, Angel's time as a killer encompassed a good thirty or forty more years than Spike's, it's true. However, we must also take into account their various modus operandi. Spike has always been an indiscriminate killer, revelling in the fun of it, taking whatever victims were unlucky enough to stumble across his path. Angelus, on the other hand, was obsessed with pageantry. While he certainly had no qualms about killing to feed, he very rarely found an appeal in murder for his own sake. What he delighted in, above all else, was cruelty. He would pick a victim and reduce him or her to a quivering, senseless mass of despair before making their end. This would be a more time-consuming process than Spike's methods, so actually, it's not unreasonable to assume that Spike's kill ratio is actually greater than Angel's, despite the chronological advantage the latter has.

But, of course, that's neither here nor there. What, I think, holds a bit more water at this point, is that with few exceptions, Angel's kills all took place in the dead past. The vast majority of the people who suffered loss as a result of his ministrations are now long departed. Spike, however, has been killing steadily for the past hundred years, right up until he was apparently neutralized somehow around the turn of the century (I'm a little unclear on the details). So there are probably hundreds, if not thousands, of people still very much alive and currently feeling the anguish and emptiness that comes from having people removed from their lives; mothers, fathers, brothers, daughters, &c. What do you suppose the reaction of these people would be if they learned that the murderer of their loved ones was not only walking around free, but the benefactor of a multi-million dollar company that was pouring large sums of money into re-granting him the ability to affect the tactile world again? I daresay even Mr. Abrams would be hard pressed to explain that one.

So Spike came to the decision to re-ensoul himself on his own. Bravo. The fact remains, however, that he did not do it for the betterment of mankind, but rather for purely selfish motives; he wanted the girl. Angel, admittedly, had no such desire when soulless, but upon being cursed, he was forced to live with the guilt for what he did for a hundred years. Shortly after that, he spent an interdeterminate time in what has only been referred to as hell.

The bottom line is, Angel's paid for what he's done. Spike hasn't even begun to do so, and shows no interest in doing so. Now apparently he has made some grand sacrifice to save the world; whether that was an intentional offering up of himself or something that happened inadvertently is up for debate. Speaking for myself, I can say I've observed little behavior on his part since his arrival that has concerned anything other than his own self-preservation (the meritorious act of saving Fred aside). Angel, however, has spent the better part of a decade opposing forces of every kind and power level in order to protect a world that refuses to acknowledge his existence.

And as for the allegations of sexual assault mentioned by several people, while I have no knowledge of the incident in question, it would certainly not be the first, or even the twentieth, time that it was reported in William the Bloody engaging in such an activity. There are even reports of girls as young as fifteen--well, I'll spare you the details. But again, it's nothing that Angel hasn't perpetrated himself to some degree. The difference remains that there have been consequences for Angel's actions, and he's realized the weight of them and made a determination to right the cosmic scale. I've seen no such efforts on Spike's part.

Now, figuring out the difference between Angel and Spike is child's play. What poses a thornier question is this flock of supporters that William the Bloody appears to have amassed out of whole cloth. It's certainly not without precedent; serial killers from Theo Durrant to Ted Bundy have attracted scores of female admirers. A psychologist with far more insight than I would no doubt be able to elucidate the reasons for why so many women are drawn to men with violent, psychopathic tendencies; what's patently obvious is that these women have latched on to something that exists only in their mind. As they will never meet Spike, he's a safe fantasy figure for them to project their own desires on, without having to contend with the day-to-day realities that comes with living alongside your average mass murderer. While they go to great lengths to lavish such affection on him, what they don't realize is that they're actually doing him a disservice by blindly forgiving him all his transgressions. If they really want him to be as good a man as they proclaim him to be, they'd hold him accountable for his misdeeds instead of blindly waving them away. As it is, one has to wonder if Spike would retain such a groundswell of support if he were a bespectacled middle-aged man with a pot belly and male pattern baldness. I'm a bit skeptical of it.