Re: Douchebag characters considered "Nice Guys" - example 1: Xander Ha
Killing someone for having consensual sex with Xander's ex, after he had dumped her at the altar?
He would not be killing someone at all. Spike is not a someone. He's a demon-animated corpse. He's a blight upon the world that needs annihilating.
Incapable of love? Many wouldn't agree. Whether they are human, as Tara ("Dead Things" - 'He does love you')
She's wrong.
and Buffy herself ("Conversations with Dead People" - 'And the joke is, he loved me, in his sick, soulless way, he really loved me')
And she's wrong.
or demon (The Judge to Spike and Drusilla in "Surprise" - 'You two reek of humanity, you share affection and jealousy").
And he never said anything about love. Affection and jealousy, aka lust and obsession, do not love make.
There are several people and beings you can trust about vampires and love; Angel being one of them, because he's had both perspectives. He's said, again, and again, and again, that vampires aren't capable of feeling love, or even understanding what it is. But you could say, he's a demon and human being, a soul, the soul could have colored the memories.
But there's another one. Darla. Darla was a demon-animated corpse, a vampire, that through the soul of her unborn son, for a while, artificially, got to feel actual human feelings, the things a vampire-demon never gets to touch. Here's what she has to say on the subject, "You have to destroy me, Angel. You know you do. You know that what I feel now, I only feel because of the soul. The moment it is gone, I will kill my baby. I will tear it apart. I won't even be able to remember... and I want to remember."
Vampires are so completely incapable of feeling and understanding love, that even when they artificially are made to feel it, that the moment that artificial reason is gone, not only are immediately incapable of feeling it, not only are they still utterly incapable of understanding it, they are so incapable of understanding it, they aren't even capable of properly remembering it anymore.
Like Anya? You know, Xander's ex-fiancee? Vengeance demon, killed and tortured a lot of people for 1000 years, stopped being a demon only through an outside interference, never expressed any remorse for any of it, still talks about what she used to do as a demon as something fun? Anya, who chose to go back to being a demon as soon as Xander left her at the altar, and has been spending all her time trying to find someone who will allow her to wreak a terrible vengeance on him?
Double standard much?
Nope. Completely unlike Anya. While Xander was with Anya, she was a 100% human being. Her making fun of it, that would be her coping mechanism. And the second time around as a demon; her soul couldn't be dominated by the demonic anymore; having remorse and incapable of doing all the bad deeds and wishes, and eventually willing to sacrifice her life to undo them - but got turned back into a human again instead.
edit: the stuff you added in your last edit:
And then decided to go back to being a demon as soon as Xander dumped her at the altar. Doesn't that only make it worse? Yes, there is a massive difference - as Buffy would later note in "Selfless", Spike never chose to become a vampire.
There is a massive difference indeed. Even as a vengeance demon, Anya was selfless. Even being a soul, Spike still couldn't ever be selfless.
And what difference exactly did this human soul of hers make? I didn't see any. She was 100% the same with or without it.
The difference was massive.
And I still haven't gotten the answer: why didn't Xander think that non-human Anya's life was as worthless as Spike's supposedly was? He referred to Spike as a thing - "you slept with that" - but Anya was a demon again by this point. Was she a thing, too?
If you don't see the difference between Spike and Anya, there's no help for you.
What he is doing to Buffy? At the moment, he was doing nothing to her. Except hurting her by sleeping with another woman, which he never meant her to see, but there was actually nothing wrong with it, since Buffy had dumped him and told him to move on, and claimed to have no feelings for him. It's not his fault if she was in denial.
And what was he doing to her before she dumped him, that she didn't consent to? Please tell me. She chose to start a sexual relationship with him.
No, he forced her to start a sexual relationship with him. He understand she felt like she was in hell, literal hell. And he just kept hounding her, until all the horror got too much and maybe sexual pleasure could alleviate the horror that she was feeling. He manipulated, and used her trauma to get in her pants.
What he
will be doing to Buffy? That makes no sense. You're telling me that Xander was trying to kill Spike because of something he hadn't even done? What is that, Minority Report? Was Xander prophetic?
Not prophetic, but he knows what Spike is going to do, because Spike is a vampire: torture, rape, murder, slaughter. You know, what vampires do. If not directly, because of a chip, then indirectly as Spike has done several times over - and he still wasn't dusted for it, making the whole of the Scooby Gang look like idiots for leaving him alive for so long.
Yeah, because the show has never whitewashed characters of their crimes committed in a soulless state... like, you know, Angel after his return in season 3?
So all vampires should just be allowed to continue slaughtering people and attempting to end the world, on the one in a million chance this vampire gets a soul, and to top it off, becomes a good guy because of it?
And Xander was perfectly content to fight alongside Spike and let him help take care of Dawn the whole summer.
He didn't try to stake Spike in all that time.
Because he had a chip that kept him from hurting people, he was thus a useful tool to be used. Of course, he showed he could have hurt them indirectly, or find a way to get rid of the chip, so letting him live for so long, is one of the reasons he and all the Scoobies look stupid, and the show idiotic.
Until he learned that he slept with Anya. Which any human guy might have done, and which had absolutely nothing to do with Spike's vampirism, soullessness, or his previous attempts to kill Buffy or the rest of the Scoobies. If he had tried to kill Spike because he killed or bit someone, you might have had a case, but this way...
But since Spike isn't people, it doesn't matter. He should have been dust a long time ago, and never have had the chance. Whatever reason finally made him come to his senses to end the blight's existence, doesn't matter. Sadly Buffy's bullshit made him stop from annihilating it, and thus make him and the entire show look further moronic.
t only got better. Darker, more adult, dealing with some complicated issues that had gone unaddressed before, showing the main characters struggling with adulthood and real life, blurring the lines between demon and human - and making humans (including one of the main characters) the villains of season 6, which I thought was brilliant.
You can't blur the lines between demons and human. That's the main flaw of the show. There's two reasons; one there isn't anything human. They're like a virus, a blight upon the world. And two; blurring the lines, meant that instead of having heroes, we have a bunch of murdering psychopaths.
Unless as an antagonist/threat/enemy there's nothing interesting in murdering psychopaths.
and most of them did not choose to become vampires out of their own will, which complicates matters. The Slayers don't kill vampires because they're racist and prejudiced, they kill them because vampires present a very real danger to humanity.
No, not a single vampire chose to become a vampire out of their own free will. Exactly the way no human being chose to become a human out of their own free will. Just like humans, vampires are born. Vampires are born when their sire sires them. They kill the human, and then let a new demon being born take over the corpse.
The human that was there before, is dead. That human is no longer present, no longer alive, gone, he/she no longer exists. All that's left, is a demon that animates a corpse.
Angel and Spike weren't posing a danger to humanity at the time Buffy was involved with them. Angel because of his soul, and Spike (seasons 4-6) because of the chip; in S7 because of his soul. If soulless chipped Spike was a "serial killer in prison", then, to expand the metaphor, souled Angel was a serial killer on probation for good behavior, while the rest of the vampires are serial killers on the loose.
Nope. Spike when he allied with Adam, when he had an initiative flunky attempt to get his chip out, when he ran with Drusilla, ate more humans that she killed for him, kidnapped Buffy, then when he went to sell demon eggs with more demons that kill humans and could overrun them because they multiplied that much; showed he DID pose a danger to humanity, and yet they didn't dust him.
Angel is not a serial killer on probation, he's not the serial at all. He's a completely different entity.
Of course, souled-Spike is different; because unlike Angel who clearly acts different, who in fact is night and day with Angelus; souled-Spike doesn't act one insignificant bit different than soulless-Spike. Why that is doesn't matter, but it shows he's no better than his soulless self.
(edit: Just to make it clear, I've always maintained that "soul" in Buffyverse stands for conscience/internal moral compass. This is the only way to make sense out of it.
No, that's the only way it completely breaks down. Angel/Angelus doesn't work if a soul is nothing but a conscience. Give something as twistedly evil as Angelus conscience, he won't get better, he'll get WORSE.
You see, a conscience isn't absolute. A conscience is taught, and is based upon your moral values, which are taught. Something as evil as Angelus has no moral values, except slaughter, murder, torture, lies, annihilate, kill is good. Give him a conscience, and he'll feel guilty when he only kills quickly for food and isn't torturing a victim to death. He'll feel guilty when he chooses not to murder someone, because he is in a hurry. Without a conscience, he'll just leave a lot of people be. With a conscience he will torturing lots more people to death.
It's obviously not soul in metaphysical sense, or soul as we normally refer to it, as "soulless" vampires and demons
It obviously IS a soul in the metaphysical sense, or else Angel/Angelus doesn't make any sense. When first ensouled, Angelus goes from frightened, but predatory running to instant human behavior an mannerisms, including having no idea where he is: because he's never been where he is before. He just arrived from wherever he was, and before it, an entirely different creature was controlling his corpse.
The same thing happens once more when Willow ensouls Angel. "I feel like I haven't seen you in months." (That's because he HASN'T seen her in months.)
And of course, there's Eyghon. When Eyghon jumped into Angel, you actually get to see Eyghon and Angelus duke it out inside the corpse, while Angel, the soul-entity/being, is just along for the ride, and does not fight as the two demons do at all. He just gets jerked around as the two demons clash.
in Buffyverse are very obviously people, with minds and feelings and personalities, which in many cases aren't even that different from their human personalities - e.g. Harmony, Darla. The "demon" that takes over their psyche after they become vampires basically just seems to be their own rampant id, while "soul" is superego.)
No, they are very obviously NOT people. Look at Gunn's sister, once turned, she's an instant killing machine; right down to the predatory mannerisms. The same goes for Xander and Willow's best friend. The same goes for Angel/Angelus, and yes indeed, Darla. Darla as a human has entirely different mannerisms than Darla as a vampire, the difference between a human and a killing machine (also look above at Darla speaking about her child's soul.) The same also goes for the example vampire the potentials get to fight in S7. As Buffy says and the episode shows; corpse one moment, next moment waking up and instant killing machine.
but it doesn't make him a bad guy, he had good, unselfish reasons which is why she forgives him in the end
)
(Which, actually, kinda made it all the more fun to watch...) Look at their scenes in season 2 finale when they team up to stop Angel and Drusilla - it's the first time they interact without trying to kill each other, and they still argue and don't trust each other, but strangely enough they are acting like they've known each other for ages. That's the kind of chemistry Buffy never really had with anyone else. Buffy and Angel had a very different dynamic that always seemed a bit uncomfortable to me, they either only talked about their love (in Big. Romantic. Terms.), or she was trying to figure him out and he was being mysterious (because he was afraid that she wouldn't love him if she knew the real him). And Buffy/Riley... when they were supposed to have a fun conversation, it would just look forced.
Buffy could not conceive of falling for a guy she didn't find physically attractive, while Willow insisted that the intellectual connection and understanding they had was enough. 
