Relationships between men

[tkts]

I'm trying to think if there are any men in Buffy who have particularly strong relationships with each other. Within the main cast, I can't come up with any.

Giles and Xander: Never seem particularly close. The feeling Giles expresses toward Xander most often is probably annoyance. Although I certainly want to think that Giles comes to view Xander with affection, if it's there, it's very understated.

Xander and Spike, Xander and Angel, Spike and Angel: Can't stand each other most of the time.

Xander and Riley: Xander seems to have a certain amount of hero worship for Riley, but they don't seem close.

Oz and Xander: Oz is remarkably cool with Xander, given what happened in Season 3, and clearly felt comfortable enough with Xander to ask him if Willow was seeing anyone new in "New Moon Rising." But, still, they don't seem especially close (though Oz doesn't seem close to anyone in the Scooby Gang besides Willow).

Giles and Wesley: Pretty much strictly professional.

Giles and Spike: Not much at all ... except for the random, weird father-and-son things that get thrown in from time to time, like in "Restless" and "Tabula Rasa."

So far, the only close bond between two male characters I can think of is the friendship between Riley and Forrest. Am I missing anyone?

[Eric]

Xander and Jesse seemed to be close, but that didn't last long.

Jonathan and Andrew were best friends, but we all know how that ended.

Spike and Clem were poker buddies.

Xander and Larry had a one or two bonding scenes in season three.

In flashbacks and late season two Spike and Angelus were slightly tolerable with each other at times.

Robin Wood and Giles got along somewhat, but there scenes together were limited.

Devon and Oz were seemed to be good friends.

There was Dracula and Xander, but that wasn't consensual.


That's all I've got.

[willowsummers]

Giles kept connections with friends from his past and some of them were male.

Xander did have a couple of friends but wasn't particularly close to them.

Angelus and Spike had a time where they were close and ended up being at least able to respect each other again in Angel.

Those are the only things I can point out right now. I do get your point though and I hadn't noticed it. There is a serious lack of male bonding in the show. Seems like Joss Whedon must have issues with male friends?

[alex_krycek]

agreed, not much in the guy department. i'd say the strongest thing to strong male bonds was the trio in season six. and we all know how lame that made us guys look

[Skytteflickan88]

It's kinda sad that the trio was the strongest male friendship on the show, considering that they were raping murderers who weren't afraid to turn on each other.

The male bonding happened more over at Angel. But even then it was mainly just Gunn & Wesley, and that relationship got torn apart over several things, over and over again.

[Eric]

Angel and Gunn's relationship wasn't all that bad, was it? I forget.

[monkeywrench]

Buffy was definitely more female-centred than AtS, which explains this, I think. AtS was more male-centred so there seemed to be more of a bond between the males.

[Jaz ♀♀]

Agreed, AtS had more guy bonding.

Gunn and Angel's wasn't all that bad...we just didn't see any bonding scenes with the two (well none that i can think of at the moment). Gunn seemed to keep the relationship between him and Angel all-fighting-demons-business.

Gunn and Wesley bonded well, until like what Skytte said that it got torn apart.

Let's not forget Angel and Doyle. I think they bonded well. We even see Angel mourn him.

[Skytteflickan88]

The only bonding moment between Angel & Gunn that I can remember was when Gunn mourns his sister.

There's wasn't much in the way of everlasting BBF friendship on Ats, was there? There were love relationships, but otherwise, not as much friend love as on Buffy, for both females and males.

But if you're talking friendship and/or love, and ignore gender, I think Cordelia's and Angel's relationship might have been the strongest friendship of both shows. I think they even beat Buffy & Willow (which I think seemed even stronger than Willow&Xander at times).

[thisyearsgirl91]

Men just don't seem to be as good at showing emotions and stuff. Giles and Xander will obviously be pretty close after spending 7 years pretty much always together (with Buffy and Willow too obviously). It's just hard to show it, especially with the age gap.

Giles obviously had a close relationship with Willow and Buffy. I find it hard to believe that he would be so close to them and not to Xander. They just don't show it like women do.

[buffyfan21]

Yeah, it's true that Giles was often annoyed with Xander, but I don't think this in any way means that Giles did not care for Xander. I still believe that Giles thought of Xander as a son, just as he was a father figure to all the group. Parents get annoyed with their children, it's natural. There were more than a few times that Giles' patience was tested with Buffy and Willow as well, but that certainly doesn't mean that he stopped caring for them like a father cares for his daughters. So I don't think it's exactly fair to say that Giles' annoyance was strictly limited to Xander, this is clearly not the case. Being the two males in the group, I think they were bound to butt heads at times. And as ThisYearsGirl91 said, they just didn't show their affection for one another as openly as Buffy and Willow would for example. Giles was certainly the father figure of the scooby gang, and I believe he loved them all as any father loves his children.

[CourtneyDax]

Feb 1, 2010 1:47:44 GMT -5 Eric said:

There was Dracula and Xander, but that wasn't consensual.

They bonded a lot more in the comic series and had more of a subtext-y kind of respect for eachother. Dracula giving his sword to Xander so he could kill that one vamp was respectful right?

[Wyndam]

Wesley and Angel probably had the best male friendship in the 'verse. After that I'd say Wesley and Gunn (before S4 and especially in S2). Oz and Xander didn't interact that often, but they were definitely friends. Giles and Xander both develop quite a respect for one another, especially in Season 4 when they are on the outside of Buffy's college life looking in.

In terms of overall non-romantic friendships, disregarding gender, I think it is safe to say that Buffy/Xander, Buffy/Willow, Willow/Xander, Buffy/Willow/Xander, Angel/Cordelia, Angel/Wesley and Angel/Cordelia/Wesley were/are the strongest.

[Randi Giles]

^^One reason I love You're Welcome is because of when Angel and Wes go to pick up Cordy and it's just the three of them. *sigh* I loved their friendship despite the times they didn't get along. As far as BTVS goes I've already expressed somewhere on this forum how I wish Xander had Jesse for male bonding.

[lightandmagic]

Agreeing with Wyndam in that Wesley and Angel was probably the strongest male friendship in the Buffyverse. Or well it was, until Wes stole Connor and then it was never at the same place ever again. Same with Wes and Cordelia.

I reallllly miss the whole Angel/Wes/Cordelia relationship. All three of them are very um, I guess non-sentimental people, so they were never as openly "best buds" as Buffy/Willow/Xander, but I think they almost reached that stage. It's sad that we won't ever really see that again, considering two thirds of the equation are gone. =[

Anyway, back on topic: I think this whole lack of male bonding is pretty much a central theme to all Joss Whedon works.

In Firefly, there's no real close male friendships there either. The closest probably being either Mal/Wash or Mal/Book, and well, they weren't best of buds to begin with. Mal and Jayne talked the most, but up until I would say after Serenity there's a lot of trust issues there. They aren't exactly the best of friends.

In Dollhouse, the closest is probably Boyd/Topher. And that's not really all that close. It seemed very one-sided all first season in terms of Topher liking Boyd. It was only season two that Boyd seemed to like Topher back. But it wasn't really a friendship.

Joss Whedon just apparently does not like mano a mano bonding.

[gumgnome]

I know that the characters aren't as pivotal, but what about Forrest and Riley or Graham and those two in S4 before the Initiative falls apart. They're pretty tight buds, watching each other's backs, calling themselves family etc.

[lightandmagic]

It eventually falls apart though, when things get difficult. =/ Especially the Forrest/Riley relationship. Plus, I never got the impression Forrest was that good of a friend, in the sense that he wasn't a good friend, not that they weren't close, cause they were (well that was a roundabout sentence if I've ever seen one.)

Other friendships such as Buffy/Willow/Xander manage to stick to each other through a lot worse. Male friendship just apparently isn't as strong. Especially considering Riley and Forrest's relationship really started to fall apart as soon as he began dating Buffy (I don't know if that homoeroticism vibe was intentional, or if anyone else got it, but damn Forrest was way to jealous of Buffy to be just as a friend).

[tkts]

You can definitely tell in the later seasons that Xander misses having other guys around. Witness his "I miss Oz" line in "I Was Made to Love You" and the way he enthusiastically jumps into comic-book talk with Andrew in S7 despite pretty much despising him.

[Faith5byFive]

Xander hated Angel & Spike , Didn't really bond with Riley him & OZ were okay
OZ didn't really bond with anyone apart from the dingeos ate my baby guy
Angel bonded with Wesley , Lorne , Connor (when he was a baby) Gunn was okay
Spike didn't have any guy friends apart from Clem
Giles got on okay with principal wood , Giles got on good with Xander
Riley & Forrest were sorta BFFL
Warren , Jonathon & Andrew were BFFL till Warren went evil

[tkts]

In a way, I find the Riley/Xander dynamic the most interesting of all the male/male relationships on the show.

It starts out seeming like Xander is going to develop a strong dislike for him: "I'm sure he'd pick another night if he knew you were busy with Teutonic boy toy."

But later on, Xander really does seem to develop a kind of hero worship for Riley: "You know what he's like? He's like a cat. You know, a big jungle cat. How come I'm not like that? It's just so cool." He argues Buffy into chasing after Riley in "Into the Woods," and in the teaser for "Triangle," it sounds like he misses him. It's almost like Riley has become the big brother he never had.