It's the oogling women in the strip club, the way he called that woman a "cow"--each on its own might not matter, but Fury puts these little things into every episode:
The way Spike treats Harmony as an sexual object and completely ignores her feelings. The way he knocks her out and doesn't even bother checking to see if she's okay. All the lines about how every bit of good Spike did was to get into Buffy's pants (in this episode, in "Destiny"--over and over, anywhere that Fury can squeeze it in. 'Cause I'm sure, y'know, when Spike was letting Glory dig her finger into his chest in "Intervention," with no expectation of being rescued, all he was really thinking about was getting into the pants of a Buffy who, to his knowledge, would never even know about his resistance even if he did survive.) The way Spike speaks possessively toward Buffy, so that they can make Angel look as if he respected her as a person while Spike just wanted to possess her, completely ignoring how it was Angel's patriarchal condescending decision to leave her in the first place. (For example: Spike: "You can't keep her from me!" Angel: "She's not mine to keep... or yours." Yes, now Angel is the mature one when it comes to respecting Buffy's choices. Just forget the whole "leaving her for her own good" thing.)
I like truth-teller Spike and I like bad-boy Spike, but there's a line between that and misogynist Spike. Fury makes sure to push a little farther across that line every episode.
In the past, we had good arguments about why Spike wasn't a misogynist, that he respected and valued women, treated them as equals, trusted them to make their own decisions (Harmony being the exception driven by his anger at women after being left by Drusilla, not the rule)--so much early S/B fic is based on contrasting this with Angel and Riley's possessive attitude toward Buffy.
Now, we don't really have that argument anymore. We used to, IMO, but since Fury controls canon, he's basically stacking the deck against us. If it was fic, I'd call it anti-Spike agenda fic and stop reading it. Without Jane Espenson to balance it out, Fury has free run to ruin Spike's character however he wants. He's been insisting for years that Spike's a misogynist, and now he's got his chance to prove it.
no subject
The way Spike treats Harmony as an sexual object and completely ignores her feelings. The way he knocks her out and doesn't even bother checking to see if she's okay. All the lines about how every bit of good Spike did was to get into Buffy's pants (in this episode, in "Destiny"--over and over, anywhere that Fury can squeeze it in. 'Cause I'm sure, y'know, when Spike was letting Glory dig her finger into his chest in "Intervention," with no expectation of being rescued, all he was really thinking about was getting into the pants of a Buffy who, to his knowledge, would never even know about his resistance even if he did survive.) The way Spike speaks possessively toward Buffy, so that they can make Angel look as if he respected her as a person while Spike just wanted to possess her, completely ignoring how it was Angel's patriarchal condescending decision to leave her in the first place. (For example: Spike: "You can't keep her from me!" Angel: "She's not mine to keep... or yours." Yes, now Angel is the mature one when it comes to respecting Buffy's choices. Just forget the whole "leaving her for her own good" thing.)
I like truth-teller Spike and I like bad-boy Spike, but there's a line between that and misogynist Spike. Fury makes sure to push a little farther across that line every episode.
In the past, we had good arguments about why Spike wasn't a misogynist, that he respected and valued women, treated them as equals, trusted them to make their own decisions (Harmony being the exception driven by his anger at women after being left by Drusilla, not the rule)--so much early S/B fic is based on contrasting this with Angel and Riley's possessive attitude toward Buffy.
Now, we don't really have that argument anymore. We used to, IMO, but since Fury controls canon, he's basically stacking the deck against us. If it was fic, I'd call it anti-Spike agenda fic and stop reading it. Without Jane Espenson to balance it out, Fury has free run to ruin Spike's character however he wants. He's been insisting for years that Spike's a misogynist, and now he's got his chance to prove it.