I think that you are giving equal weight to intention and action in the Anya vs. Xander in "Entropy" argument. It is absolutely true that Anya's intentions were malevolent in the extreme, but nothing came of her machinations, so it is easily shrugged off. Xander attempted to murder a guy for sleeping with his ex — and verbally attacked her — which isn't so easy to dismiss.
Whether intention weighs more or less heavily than action is often at the heart of these kinds of discussions. The attempted rape in "Seeing Red", for instance, was probably not intended as an attack, but that's what it was in the end. Does the intention mitigate the action? Not for many (most?) people, but perhaps for some. Faith clearly intended to rape Xander — and kill him, let's not forget — so I can never figure out how it's dismissed, except for gender reasons. (There's a fic over at EF, Thursday's Child, that examines Xander reaction to this incident a couple of years later, FYI. Yay, fic!)
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Whether intention weighs more or less heavily than action is often at the heart of these kinds of discussions. The attempted rape in "Seeing Red", for instance, was probably not intended as an attack, but that's what it was in the end. Does the intention mitigate the action? Not for many (most?) people, but perhaps for some. Faith clearly intended to rape Xander — and kill him, let's not forget — so I can never figure out how it's dismissed, except for gender reasons. (There's a fic over at EF, Thursday's Child, that examines Xander reaction to this incident a couple of years later, FYI. Yay, fic!)