"glory always makes the blood of women flow."

[prozacpark]

I generally don't like ranting about things I dislike (because ranting about things I like is just so much more fun). But. Unconditional Supernatural love just sets me off.

This site is wondering if Supernatural is as good as Buffy. And, um, no? A world of no, even. How can anyone even compare something as misogynistic and sexist as Supernatural

Comments

[oberongeiger]

The only reason I liked Buffy was for Spike, and they treated him awful.

Anyone who says this? Their opinion on ANYTHING is immediately discounted, forever and ever. Because Spike was so fucking milked on that show that I was enraged by how he took over Buffy for the last few years. It became Buffy and Spike and sometimes their sidekicks. And even after he tried to rape her, we were supposed to still care about him and like him and want them to be together? FUCK to the THAT.

And if this person is telling me that SPIKE FANS weren't even pleased? Then guess what: Nobody was happy with that fucking show by the end.

[meganbmoore]

Spike fans make me wish I didn't know Buffy fans, in a way. Nothing says "Yay!" like being grouped in with people who think attempted rape was ok. (I still liked him as a character, but was extremely annoyed with how his narrative took over Buffy's, and pissed at how they pretty much made it OK for him to still be her love interest after he tried to rape her.)

[ixat_totep]

As I've said in another comment, I hate how Spike wrenched the center of the show away from its original ensemble balance. The attempted rape thing was horrible, although in the writers' defense, I thought it was clearly portrayed *as* horrible, and that it was designed to show Spike that he really wasn't a human with fangs, and motivate him to get his soul. The problem with all of that was how it was just kinda swept under the rug after that, especially by Spike's fans. Just kind of "oh, I was soulless, so it's OK". Blah.

[meganbmoore]

Yeah, I didn't mind the attempted rape as a plot point when it happened for just those reasons. But then they played it as he was still an acceptable love interest for Buffy...

[ixat_totep]

Yup. The other problem I had with the whole thing was that Spike-with-a-soul was really almost no different from Spike-with-a-chip. The Angel/Angelus dichotomy made the whole "you are replaced by a demon" thing work pretty well. But while I can possibly see an argument that the "Spike" persona is what timid "William" always wanted to be, I wish they'd addressed that in the writing. It did not seem to me like a socially awkward 19th century poet suddenly woke up to the horrors that a demon had done with his body. But I'm sure Spike's fans didn't want to see pre-vamppire William, they wanted to see an "acceptable" Spike.

I guess one of the things that bugs me about later Spike is that there was actually a lot of interesting things that *could* have been done with the character but weren't. Instead we got "Spike the eternal embodiment of cool".

[prozacpark]

I possibly liked Buffy the best in season five out of any other season (the character, not the show), and same goes for Spike. And this was probably still true at the end of season five, but once we entered season six, it slowly killed my love for Spike, and the rape bit was the last straw. And then Buffy's blind defense of Spike in season six made me dislike her, too. Really, when I ship, it's usually because I think that two characters actually improve from their interaction with each other. Spike/Buffy? Is totally the opposite of that. The relation really did ruin both characters horribly.

I totally refused to watch the last season of "Angel" once they added Spike to the cast. I had barely been able to stand him on Buffy, and his addition to "Angel" made me bitter beyond words.

[prozacpark]

Yeah, pretty much exactly what I thought when I saw that comment. A page full of stupidity, but that one totally took the cake.

And, you know, I'm no great fan of Willow or Xander, but even I agree that they got the totally non-existent end of the stick in the last season, especially. In season seven, it was so bad that Buffy was pretty much questioning the loyalties of everyone who dared to even glare at Spike, and really, it sort of made me dislike her as much as it made me hate Spike.

The writers totally bent over backwards to please the freaking Spike fans (and alienated almost everyone else for that), and the Spike fans still have the nerve to bitch about his treatment.