Blah blah Bangel, blah blah Spuffy...
This is my way of avoiding complaining about having a cold and children being awkward...
In AOQ's 'Never Leave Me' post, I left a comment focussing on the whole 'I love you' Vs 'I believe in you', that I mentioned the other day, ending with this bit:
Spike in essence asks the same question, and Buffy comes out with a
resounding 'Yes'. He *is* worth saving. Not because of any feelings she
might have, but for his own sake. The look on his face is amazing.
And I love that. To me, that's more important that a world full of 'I
love you's, and it's one of the reasons Spike/Buffy is so much more
satisfying to me than Buffy/Angel. Don't get me wrong, B/A is a great
story, in all its doomed glory, but take away the love and what's left?
Someone else replied to my comment with quite a few good thoughts, but then went on to say this:
But to answer your question, take the love out of Buffy/Angel and what
you have is Buffy/Spike.
Not surprisingly, this nearly made my brain implode. Here is my response, re-posted mostly for my own convenience, although feel free to read (unless of course you feel bored to tears by this subject, which wouldn't be surprising).
No. No no no. If you take away the love from Buffy/Angel, you barely
have a relationship at all. See B/A happened because the two if them
fell in love. This is the normal way for people to start a
relationship, and if he hadn't been a vampire, and she hadn't been a
Slayer, they might have ended up married in the suburbs. But... what if
they hadn't fallen in love? The reason Angel hung around Buffy was
because he loved her, not because they had any shared interests - as a
matter of fact he has great difficulty understanding her, but makes the
effort because he loves her. She rarely knows what goes on in his head,
but tries to find out, if she can, because she loves him. Everything
these two do stems from the love they have for each other. Yes he comes
to Sunnydale to help fight evil, but he was sent there by The Powers.
Until S2 he just turns up, delivers a warning and leaves again. When
The Powers wanted him elsewhere he'd have moved.
Now Spike and Buffy started out as opponents. And they were well
matched, because they right from the start understood each other
extremely well. Just look at how quickly they negotiate their terms in
'Becoming' - they've worked each other out pretty well already then.
'Lovers Walk' shows this even clearer:
Buffy: Need him? He's probably just got them locked up in the factory.
(she knows exactly how he thinks, and is already ahead.)
Buffy: And I can fool Giles, and I can fool my friends, but I can't
fool myself. Or Spike, for some reason.
(He's got her number, and she knows it.)
The love that eventually appears in S5 (on Spike's side only of course)
comes from their 'relationship' (speaking not romantically, but meaning
all their interactions). They have a connection - one so strong that
Dru can see it:
Drusilla: But you're lying! I can still see her floating all around
you, laughing. Why? Why won't you push her away?
And it isn't romance and it isn't love... it's something deeper I
think. As SMG put it in an interview way back in S5:
Sarah Michelle Gellar: "There's a part of me that will always believe
that Angel was Buffy's true love. That there will be a piece of her
heart that will always be with him for the rest of her life. It
doesn't mean that's the person that she's meant to be with
eternally. The thing about Buffy and Spike is they understand each
other on a level that nobody else understands her. They've both lived
a hundred lives and I think there's a connection there that we will
see evolve over the next couple of years where she realizes that he
really is someone that she can trust, someone that's a companion to
her and someone that really understands her unlike anybody else."
To me B/S is interesting because the drama comes from the characters,
not from outside sources. Take outside influences away from B/A and you
have IWRY with all-day-in-bed eating ice cream etc. It's sweet, but not
very exciting to watch. Do the same with B/S and you have 'Something
Blue', with plenty of fun and bickering. Differences create good
sparks.
Just a final thought, now I'm posting: There are a lot of discussions about whether Spike believed Buffy's 'I love you' in Chosen, but in one sense it doesn't matter. Her attachment to him goes much deeper than that ("That's not why I need you here").
And now I'm going to go to bed. *yawns*
Oh and pardon bad grammar etc. I know it jumps between past and present like a frog on a pogo stick.
In AOQ's 'Never Leave Me' post, I left a comment focussing on the whole 'I love you' Vs 'I believe in you', that I mentioned the other day, ending with this bit:
Spike in essence asks the same question, and Buffy comes out with a
resounding 'Yes'. He *is* worth saving. Not because of any feelings she
might have, but for his own sake. The look on his face is amazing.
And I love that. To me, that's more important that a world full of 'I
love you's, and it's one of the reasons Spike/Buffy is so much more
satisfying to me than Buffy/Angel. Don't get me wrong, B/A is a great
story, in all its doomed glory, but take away the love and what's left?
Someone else replied to my comment with quite a few good thoughts, but then went on to say this:
But to answer your question, take the love out of Buffy/Angel and what
you have is Buffy/Spike.
Not surprisingly, this nearly made my brain implode. Here is my response, re-posted mostly for my own convenience, although feel free to read (unless of course you feel bored to tears by this subject, which wouldn't be surprising).
No. No no no. If you take away the love from Buffy/Angel, you barely
have a relationship at all. See B/A happened because the two if them
fell in love. This is the normal way for people to start a
relationship, and if he hadn't been a vampire, and she hadn't been a
Slayer, they might have ended up married in the suburbs. But... what if
they hadn't fallen in love? The reason Angel hung around Buffy was
because he loved her, not because they had any shared interests - as a
matter of fact he has great difficulty understanding her, but makes the
effort because he loves her. She rarely knows what goes on in his head,
but tries to find out, if she can, because she loves him. Everything
these two do stems from the love they have for each other. Yes he comes
to Sunnydale to help fight evil, but he was sent there by The Powers.
Until S2 he just turns up, delivers a warning and leaves again. When
The Powers wanted him elsewhere he'd have moved.
Now Spike and Buffy started out as opponents. And they were well
matched, because they right from the start understood each other
extremely well. Just look at how quickly they negotiate their terms in
'Becoming' - they've worked each other out pretty well already then.
'Lovers Walk' shows this even clearer:
Buffy: Need him? He's probably just got them locked up in the factory.
(she knows exactly how he thinks, and is already ahead.)
Buffy: And I can fool Giles, and I can fool my friends, but I can't
fool myself. Or Spike, for some reason.
(He's got her number, and she knows it.)
The love that eventually appears in S5 (on Spike's side only of course)
comes from their 'relationship' (speaking not romantically, but meaning
all their interactions). They have a connection - one so strong that
Dru can see it:
Drusilla: But you're lying! I can still see her floating all around
you, laughing. Why? Why won't you push her away?
And it isn't romance and it isn't love... it's something deeper I
think. As SMG put it in an interview way back in S5:
Sarah Michelle Gellar: "There's a part of me that will always believe
that Angel was Buffy's true love. That there will be a piece of her
heart that will always be with him for the rest of her life. It
doesn't mean that's the person that she's meant to be with
eternally. The thing about Buffy and Spike is they understand each
other on a level that nobody else understands her. They've both lived
a hundred lives and I think there's a connection there that we will
see evolve over the next couple of years where she realizes that he
really is someone that she can trust, someone that's a companion to
her and someone that really understands her unlike anybody else."
To me B/S is interesting because the drama comes from the characters,
not from outside sources. Take outside influences away from B/A and you
have IWRY with all-day-in-bed eating ice cream etc. It's sweet, but not
very exciting to watch. Do the same with B/S and you have 'Something
Blue', with plenty of fun and bickering. Differences create good
sparks.
Just a final thought, now I'm posting: There are a lot of discussions about whether Spike believed Buffy's 'I love you' in Chosen, but in one sense it doesn't matter. Her attachment to him goes much deeper than that ("That's not why I need you here").
And now I'm going to go to bed. *yawns*
Oh and pardon bad grammar etc. I know it jumps between past and present like a frog on a pogo stick.