Who had right? Maybe both, maybe noone...

[buffymods2]

Y'all know how the Buffy/Riley relationship ended. This week's poll is mainly centered on the how of it . How two seemingly happy people broke up like that?
Have fun! :)

Your Mods,

Tabi and Pam

Comments

[laughslower]

After a lot of thought, I voted that they were both wrong. And I'm going to second sidhlairiel's comments about how the entire situation is the result of some really not-so-great writing that in my opinion, took Riley completely OOC.

Riley isn't the victim. Yes, he was feeling neglected by Buffy. Yes, he was feeling inadequate due to losing his "superpowers." Yes, he felt inferior to Angel. Yes, he felt threatened by Spike/what Spike represented. No, none of these reasons are a legitimate excuse to go out, get sucked by vamps, and ruin his relationship with Buffy. I find it hard to place all the blame on Riley, because as he said, he was trying to understand Buffy. And even though he obviously went about it the wrong way, it doesn't change the fact that in his mind, what he was doing was an attempt to, in a sense, bring him closer to Buffy and reconnect with her. After losing his strength, he felt that he couldn't relate to Buffy anymore and was trying the only other way he could think how.

Buffy isn't the victim, either. Yes, she had a lot on her shoulders. But the fact is, when you're in a relationship, there needs to be communication. And Buffy's never been too great with communication in relationships. Even though Riley may be more to blame than Buffy, it doesn't mean that none of the blame rests on Buffy. And yeah, communication is a two-way street, but to be fair, Riley had been trying to reach Buffy for a long time. She just never recognized that.

Of course, I also kind of think that they were both right, so yeah, I have quite a few conflicting opinions about all of this.

[angearia]

I disagree that Riley is OOC. By the beginning of Season 5, he's lost everything but Buffy. He's not in school anymore. He's not in the Initiative. He's not a superpowered human. All he has is Buffy and he freaks out.

As for Buffy, the end of Season 4 shows that she's backing away from being all about Riley and that her being solely focused on him was unhealthy. Primeval reaffirms her relationships with her friends, then Restless ups the ante on her conflict and confusion over her Slayer identity. Season 5 opens with Buffy tasting the darkness within her and being freaked out herself, so at the end she goes to Giles wishing to learn more about what it means to be the Slayer.

Buffy learned that ignoring all her life responsibilities and her duty as the Slayer for Riley led to badness, so she's working to balance it. It just so happens that her other responsibilities get extraordinarily time-consuming in Season 5 and Buffy has to put her mother and her sister's safety first. When Riley is in danger of losing his life, he's Buffy's priority. But she has to put her mother and sister surviving first (remember how Faith taunts Joyce that Buffy hasn't been home? Buffy wasn't around b/c she was all wrapped up in Riley and school) and Riley doesn't handle it well because she's the only person he has in his life and the only source of self-worth for him atm.

Basically, Riley needed to get a life (harsh, but true) and some outside interests to rebuild his own sense of self-worth and stop overrelying on Buffy. He needed more forms of social support than his relationship with Buffy.