Injury Tally, S5 onward...
coyote_william had a very good question, and although it's her intention to delete the entry - which I understand - it's a very interesting question.
Why is Spike, from S5 onward, the eternal victim in the Buffyverse, and why is his pain played for humor?
To quote Marge Simpson, "Why can't Blanche DuBois take Stanley's abuse with gentle good humor?"
Xander, re: "The Replacement,Triangle, Intervention, Normal Again, Grave, First Date (okay, slightly with the comedic), Dirty Girls,"
Tara, re: "Tough Love, Normal Again, Seeing Red,"
Anya, re: "The Gift, Grave, Beneath You, Selfless, Chosen,"
Willow, re: "Same Place, Same Time, Never Leave Me?,"
Buffy, re: "Buffy vs. Dracula, Fool for Love, Shadow, Blood Ties, The Gift, Bargaining/After Life, Normal Again, Seeing Red, Grave, Bring on the Night, Chosen."
Dawn, re: "Real Me, Blood Ties, The Gift, Wrecked, Grave, Conversations With Dead People, Never Leave Me?, Lies My Parents Told Me."
Giles, re: "Spiral, Flooded, All the Way, Grave"
Andrew, re: "Grave, Never Leave Me, First Date, Touched, Chosen"
Their injuries are commentary mostly on what they are willing to sacrifice of themselves for love, and are generally shot to be painful, for the viewer to sympathize with the character's pain and think the better of them. Or, if one of these characters is hurt by another Scooby, the focus then becomes on how painful it is that this person has gotten to the state where they are violent towards another Scooby.
Now, if you're Spike, re: "Real Me, Out of My Mind, No Place Like Home, Family, Fool for Love, Shadow, Into the Woods, Triangle, Checkpoint, Blood Ties, Crush, I Was Made To Love You, Forever, Intervention, Spiral, Weight of the World, The Gift, Smashed, Dead Things (perhaps I should list this one three times), As You Were, Entropy, Two to Go, Grave, Lessons, Beneath You, Help, Never Leave Me, Bring on the Night, Showtime, Potential, The Killer In Me, First Date, Lies My Parents Told Me, and Chosen."
I'm certain I missed a few, and this doesn't even include Angel S5, or Buffy S4. Sadly, especially in Buffy S5 and the one scene in "The Killer in Me," most of them are played for comic effect, and many are inflicted by Buffy. Is it because he is morally ambiguous to humans? Anya's the same way, and yet she talks in glowing detail about the myriad, amusing ways in which she has wreaked vengeance on men - and we're supposed to find it funny, rather than ruminate on the thousands of lives she has taken by choice - vampires need blood to survive, but Anya chose to become a vengeance demon out of hate.
If anyone out there watches Xena: Warrior Princess, another TV show in which a woman warrior heroine confronts her darkness within by fighting the good fight, we have the thorny issue of Joxer. In some ways, he reminds me a tiny bit of Spike, at first trying to be evil, then walking the path of light, although Joxer wears his need to be loved and to belong on his sleeve. He does his best to help Xena and Gabrielle fight the good fight, despite his lack of battle prowess. Slightly misogynistic and plenty dumb, much of what he does is for love of Gabrielle, whom he loves hopelessly, and eventually dies to save her.
But how is Joxer treated in the series? He's comic relief, and because he can generally laugh off the pain of a punch or any less severe beatings, Gabrielle and Xena knock him around to the tune of comic sound effects - you know what I'm talking about. The same goes for Autolycus, the other male lead in XWP - although he gets beaten up less because of his innate cleverness and fighting ability as the King of Thieves.
Is this becoming a gimmick of woman warrior shows? Is it funny that men are beaten up, just because they're men? Can a woman only be strong when a man around her is being weak?
I'm not certain I buy the idea that Spike and Angel need to be beaten up to be redeemed. Spike's torment in "Two to Go" and "Grave" is the redemption of his own choosing, as well as the emotional pain after that. My take is that someone can be redeemed through good actions and choices - not the "eye for an eye" rule.
We have Buffy in "Potential" trying to justify, in a roundabout way, that her beating up Spike was applicable to Amanda picking on the unnamed high school guy. It's how they related to one another, she justifies. But most of Spike's attempts to relate to Buffy (once he fell in love, that is) were when he was tender, when he listened, when he tried to help her. In "Smashed," I tend to see his resort to violence with Buffy was a last resort - and it worked, oddly enough. After "Smashed," right up until "Seeing Red," it's Buffy who relates to Spike with violence, while he tries repeatedly to relate to her in other ways.
Once again, it's a good example of how Buffy is perhaps the worst person Wood could have chosen to counsel the students.
Buffy so often got satisfaction out of beating up Spike - my theory is that Buffy views him, at least until "Beneath You," as a sort of foam dummy - something that she can release her frustrations onto, but that will heal itself quickly enough to be of use to her again. She can smack him around all she wants, and he'll keep coming back, wounds freshly healed. Out of all these injuries, only three have been severe enough to be noticeable in the next episode - "Intervention," "Dead Things," and "Showtime."
It's only in "Beneath You" that Buffy finally realizes just how much Spike has endured, and that he's been brought to the point of breaking - then we begin to see much more sympathy from Buffy towards Spike. Much of it also relates to Buffy's personality - she's not good with talking or emotions, she has no power to heal or fix such things, so when she gets the chance to demonstrate her caring with something tangible - see "Potential," "First Date," and "Lies My Parents Told Me," she'll do everything in her power to help - now that she realizes that Spike actually hurts, and that he has emotions as fragile as anyone else's.
In "Grave," the reason Buffy wasn't able to take Willow out was because the root cause of Dark!Willow was grief over Tara. Willow couldn't gain control (power) over her grief, and Buffy couldn't help her there, not her area of expertise. It's why only Xander was able to break through to her and help her gain control over her grief, because his power is that of emotions and the heart, intangible things. Buffy's power lies in tangible action, not words, so when she shows her sympathy and emotion, it's most evidently seen in her action - comforting Spike, checking on Dawn in "Lies My Parents Told Me," meditating with WIllow in "Same Time, Same Place," ect.
Wow, that got so far from the original question.
Final thought: I kickbox. I enjoy kickboxing. There are few ways to get my frustrations out as satisfying as pounding my fists and feet against a practice pad. At the end of a session, I feel like I can conquer the world - although that's probably the endorphin rush.
One day, while sparring with a partner, I kicked out, aiming for the pad she held, and accidentally got her in the ribs. She was fine - small bruise, nothing major. It wasn't funny, even though she laughed it off. I know this happens in kickboxing - it's happened to me. But the sensation of hitting another human being who wasn't really trying to hurt me was scary. If someone was really trying to hurt me, I'd have no regrets about smashing their nose into their skull. It just makes me wonder about Buffy.