Oh, I didn't mean to say you didn't care about it; I just wondered if one trumps the other for you. Character development trumps theme for me, if it comes to that, though in an ideal world, they'd be in sync. ;)
There seem to be two schools of thought amongst Spike fans about AtS S5: those who think Spike needed to get his stones back and those who think he pretty much had gotten them back in BtVS S7 anyway. Personally, I think Spike was his own man in S7, and I don't think S7 is all about his relationship with Buffy. Obviously, it's vital, but he's got his own issues--in LMPTM, significantly, in Get It Done, etc.--confronts those, and Buffy backs him. I don't really see his story as only being in service of Buffy's so significantly that he needed to escape that.
Spike no longer in hot pursuit to the exclusion of all else I guess that's where we're fundamentally different: I don't think he is in hot pursuit to the exclusion of all else in S7, so I don't need to see him not be once again in S5.
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There seem to be two schools of thought amongst Spike fans about AtS S5: those who think Spike needed to get his stones back and those who think he pretty much had gotten them back in BtVS S7 anyway. Personally, I think Spike was his own man in S7, and I don't think S7 is all about his relationship with Buffy. Obviously, it's vital, but he's got his own issues--in LMPTM, significantly, in Get It Done, etc.--confronts those, and Buffy backs him. I don't really see his story as only being in service of Buffy's so significantly that he needed to escape that.
Spike no longer in hot pursuit to the exclusion of all else I guess that's where we're fundamentally different: I don't think he is in hot pursuit to the exclusion of all else in S7, so I don't need to see him not be once again in S5.
Is that coherent at all?