Well, I guess. I can't really fault James for it. His character would act like that (something people don't seem to get about bad guys is they don't think they're bad guys). Spike *would* think he was constantly the victim.

At the same time, yeah, the writing. Take the Beneath You scene in the church. In Petrie's draft, there's none of that 'service the girl' crap. It works better, IMO. I know it's an unpopular opinion, but I think so. Joss's is more eloquent in a lot of ways, but contextually is nonsensical. If you watch S6/S7 back to back that stuff comes out of nowhere and comes off as extremely victim-blamey.

But it doesn't really stop with Spike. We *are* seemingly meant to think Buffy is a big ol' meanie for being fed up with Faith in Sanctuary. We are supposed to think she's mean for staking Sandy!vamp in that alley...even though Sandy!vamp went into that alley with the intention to kill her. I don't know. Maybe I'm just cold, but I didn't feel any sympathy.

Then there's also the phenomena of the way female protags are treated within fandom.

But meh. Same old discussion. Some way or another, it's always Buffy's fault.