Buffy forgiving Spike the AR and her trusting that with a soul he could be a good man seem to me two different issues. The first is personal the second is a judgement call and one that she made in the face of the evidence that he had returned to killing (in Sleeper). Like she told Xander when doubting that Holden was telling her the full truth "There's something. I-I can feel it. He's different. He's changed." This long before she saw him being penitent (that came at the end of the episode).
Buffy thinks she knows Angel at least as well as she knew souled Spike and, like pretty much everyone I can think of criticising her decision, I can imagine her thinking it wildly out of character that he might have randomly turned into a good old, evil-because-I'm-evil, tie-metropolis-to-the-tracks, golden age comic book villain," which is what the Twilight who organised and led a slayer pogrom would be. If that's impossible then what's left however improbable must be the truth.
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Date: 2010-08-29 06:56 pm (UTC)Buffy thinks she knows Angel at least as well as she knew souled Spike and, like pretty much everyone I can think of criticising her decision, I can imagine her thinking it wildly out of character that he might have randomly turned into a good old, evil-because-I'm-evil, tie-metropolis-to-the-tracks, golden age comic book villain," which is what the Twilight who organised and led a slayer pogrom would be. If that's impossible then what's left however improbable must be the truth.