I can live with Spike’s ending in a blaze of glory by focussing on how the show has severely problematized the whole idea of a ‘noble death.' It was one of the things I liked a lot about the way it continued after The Gift. Good point about BtVS post "The Gift."
Also Spike has always been a character of extremes, he can be hero guy and he can be “I didn’t give a piss about your mum” guy but the one can never excuse the other. It's true that he's a character of extremes, although I feel it's not as difficult as it should be for viewers to conclude that even though Spike murdered thousands, it's all "worth it" because of how it led him to the end, dying to save billions of people. (More or less what Darla concludes before she stakes herself to birth Connor, except that she's not dying to save the world. We know Darla's sense of morals, if any, don't encompass caring about anyone else besides possibly Drusilla, very possibly Angel/us and now Connor, though.)
Spike was Nikki’s murderer but if she had killed him she still would have likely died in some other battle accepted as part of the mission she could never share or take a break from. Spike, misogynistic and brutal while he might be, is not the patriarchy but its instrument. The bigger enemy is the system that gave one woman the non-choice between a short life filled with violence and letting the whole world go to hell. Yes, this is all true.
Re: "Origin Stories," part 2
Also Spike has always been a character of extremes, he can be hero guy and he can be “I didn’t give a piss about your mum” guy but the one can never excuse the other. It's true that he's a character of extremes, although I feel it's not as difficult as it should be for viewers to conclude that even though Spike murdered thousands, it's all "worth it" because of how it led him to the end, dying to save billions of people. (More or less what Darla concludes before she stakes herself to birth Connor, except that she's not dying to save the world. We know Darla's sense of morals, if any, don't encompass caring about anyone else besides possibly Drusilla, very possibly Angel/us and now Connor, though.)
Spike was Nikki’s murderer but if she had killed him she still would have likely died in some other battle accepted as part of the mission she could never share or take a break from. Spike, misogynistic and brutal while he might be, is not the patriarchy but its instrument. The bigger enemy is the system that gave one woman the non-choice between a short life filled with violence and letting the whole world go to hell. Yes, this is all true.