Post by ptnewell on May 7, 2009 9:30:21 GMT -5
The biggest charm of both BtVS and AtS lies in the close brother-in-arms relationships that develop among the principals. The Scoobies in particular regard one another as family with only rare estrangements. But Buffy’s dough will be baked someday. Comparing her three lovers is intriguing.
Why they came to Sunnydale:
Riley: On assignment (for the Initiative)
Angel: To help Buffy (having been shown her by Whistler)
Spike: To kill a Slayer
Buffy’s First impression:
Angel: Buffy tells Giles that Angel was “dark and gorgeous, in a annoying way. I REALLY didn’t like him.”
Riley: Riley and Willow seemed not to notice Buffy’s presence as they geek-bonded
Spike: Buffy seemed taken aback by Spike’s calm conviction that he was soon to kill her
How fast the boys fell for Buffy:
Riley: He started to notice Buffy after a few weeks. A few weeks later he realized he must like her (after taking umbrage at Parker’s smearing Buffy). Love probably arrived toward the end of Season 4 (perhaps 9 months after first meeting Buffy).
Spike: First realized he loved Buffy in Season 5. However we later learned that Drusilla’s separation from Spike, seen in mid-Season 3 arose in part because Drusilla sensed an unhealthy interest in the Slayer. So Spike probably (unconsciously) had feelings for Buffy even while trying to kill her in Season 4.
Angel: At first sight (while Buffy was still in L.A., “Becoming, Part 2”)
Buffy’s Professed Love (to the lover):
Riley: One of the many things that convinced Riley that Buffy did not love him was that she never said so, despite some fairly obvious prodding. She did decide to ask him not to leave town, after Xander talked her into it – she even ran, after Xander talked her out of walking.
Spike: In the Series final, after Spike decided to sacrifice himself, Buffy squeezed his hand and said “I love you.” Spike replied, “No, you don’t. But thank you for saying it.” Buffy gave him a tender look, and left without saying anything more.
Angel: In BtVS S2 “Lie to Me”, Angel asks for Buffy’s trust with “Do you love me?”, obviously assuming that she does. It catches Buffy by surprise, since they only recently started dating, and since Angel is not particularly expressive about feelings. She replies that she does love him, but is not sure she trusts him (having just seen him talking to Drusilla). Subsequently she professes her love for him (to him) on multiple occasions, including, among others, S2 (“Becoming Part 2”), S3 “Amends” and S3 (the Prom). There are several other strong implications of love (e.g., Buffy wears the Claddagh ring Angel gives her in S2 “Surprise” in the manner that Angel tells her signifies committed love, and Buffy leaves a notebook with “Buffy and Angel 4ever” written large at Angel’s place).
Gifts Buffy Wears (Visual Marking)
Angel gave Buffy three prominent gifts:
Silver Cross (“Welcome to the Hellmouth”). Buffy wears this cross for several years. It saves her life in the second episode.
Leather Jacket (given by Angel in S1) worn by Buffy at least a few additional times.
Claddagh Ring: Given to Buffy by Angel in S2 “Surprise” to signify their committed love. Buffy finally leaves it behind in S3 “Faith Hope and Trick”, to mark moving past mourning for Angel. It is possibly connected to his resurrection.
Buffy is also marked by the bite Angel made in S3 “Graduation Day”. It shows up from time to time, e.g., prominently in Buffy vs Dracula (S5). Although both the Master (S1) and Dracula (S5) bit Buffy, neither left a mark, so Angel’s doing so is apparently poetic license.
Angel also gave Buffy a book of love poems by Browning on her 18th birthday with a single word inscription "Always". I don't think that book is seen again though.
Riley: None (or at least none shown)
Spike: None. He did show up to Buffy's 20th birthday party with a "bent box of chocolates" but left instead with Dawn to raid the Magic Box. He brought beer to Buffy's 21st B-party.
Buffy talks to others
Angel: Buffy mentions her love of Angel a few times when talking to others. For example in the S5 final (“The Gift”), she is discussing with Giles the possibility of killing Dawn to thwart Glory. She tells Giles that “I loved Angel so much” but knew that killing him was necessary and right, while killing Dawn was not. There are other explicit cases and several implicit. An example of the latter is BtVS S2 “What’s My Line (Pt. 2)”. Buffy: “Thank you for helping me save Angel.” Kendra: “…It is too strange that a Slayer loves a vampire.” Buffy (smiling): “Tell me about it.”
Spike, Riley: Buffy herself is never seen to tell anyone that she loved Riley or Spike. Andrew expresses his opinion that Buffy loves both Spike and Angel in S5 AtS, at the same time he (incorrectly, as it turns out) describes Buffy’s current infatuation with The Immortal.
S5 “Intervention” (Buffy to Giles) "I was never there for Riley, not like I was for Angel."
Other Buffy quotes:
(S2 "Reptile Boy" to Angel): "When you kiss me, I wanna die."
(S5 “Buffy versus Dracula” to Riley): "I'm your girl, and I'm gonna stay that way. "
(S5 "Fool for Love") “It would never be you Spike”
(S6, “Wrecked”, Spike tells Buffy that vampires make her hot.) Buffy says: “One vampire got me hot. One! He’s gone. You – you are just convenient.”
In S3 BtVS, Angel: “But you are still my girl?” Buffy: “Always.”
S5 BtVS “Forever”. Angel asks Buffy how long he should stay in town. “How about forever?” Buffy asks. “Does forever work for you?”
S6 “Dead things” Buffy tells Spike: “I am not your girl. I could never be your girl.” (Buffy says similar things on numerous other occasions.)
S3 BtVS “The Prom” (to Angel): “I’m never gonna change. I can’t change. I want my life to be with you.”
S7 “The Chosen” (Buffy talks to Angel about Spike): “I’m not giving you the brush-off. He’s not my boyfriend….But he is in my heart.” In the same conversation she implies that she does not see a long term relationship with Spike (“No I don’t see fat grandchildren in the offing with him”) but “sometimes” thinks she might end up with Angel. She warns him it would be a long ways off: “years if ever.”
Why They Left Sunnydale/Buffy
Riley: He thought Buffy did not love him. (Riley to Xander, S5 The Replacement) RILEY: I'm well aware of how lucky I am. Like, lottery lucky. Buffy's like nobody else in the world. When I'm with her it's like ... it's like I'm... on fire, going crazy if I'm not touching her. … But she doesn't love me.”
Spike: Died in BtVS Series Final (thinking that Buffy did not love him). In AtS S5 expresses several times the belief that Buffy does not love him. It is not clear whether this is the reason he does not return to Buffy. At any rate, he stays with Team Angel.
Angel: Because Buffy could not stop loving him. In “The Prom”, Angel tells Buffy that she deserves something better. She replies that she does not have any choice about loving him. When he insists on separating, she asks “But how can I stay away from you?” Buffy and Angel repeatedly failed all attempts to separate over S1-S3. So Angel tells her he will leave town. The same scenario is played out in minature in BtVS S5 “Forever” when Angel tries to be non-romantically supportive of Buffy (after Joyce’s death). After first asking him to stay “forever”, she starts kissing him, and they both realize he has to go again.
Intensity of the Breakup:
Riley: Buffy jokes with Giles about the breakup being the end of the world. When Giles laughs at her bantering tone, Buffy fixes him with a stern glare. “Didn’t you hear me about the end of the world?” When Giles looked abashed, Buffy told him, “Just kidding. Mostly.” Buffy smiles again.
Angel: Buffy sobbed on Willow’s shoulder (“The Prom”, S3): “I think horrible is still coming. Right now it’s worse. Right now I’m just trying to keep from dying.”
Spike: Even to the series final, Buffy denied Spike was her boyfriend, so there never was a formal breakup, per se. Buffy did tell Spike that their sexual relationship was at an end after discovering he was raising demon eggs in “As You Were”, S6. She seemed to have some pangs of regret about it, especially before Spike’s attempted rape. For example, at Xander’s abortive wedding, Spike asks Buffy whether it hurts her to see him with another woman. She replies “A little”, and seems to mean it.
Sex After Buffy (Time Elapsed from Leaving Buffy)
Riley: His return to Sunnydale was about one year after leaving, and he had then already been married for four months. So it could not have been longer than about six months.
Spike: Two minutes. Approximately two minutes after becoming corporeal again in AtS S5, he grabs Harmony, evicts a man from his office, and gets horizontal. To be fair, after the separation in BtVS S6 “As You Were”, he takes two weeks before having sex with Anya. (However he may not have waited the full two weeks, as he previously expressed an intention to take the date he brought to Xander’s wedding back to his lair.)
Angel: About 18-20 months (mid S2 AtS), mired in deep despair, he had sex with the soulless vampire Darla because “I just want to feel something again.” Interestingly, this closely matches Buffy’s expressed reasons for having sex with the then-soulless Spike (both Buffy and Angel felt numb and detached).
What the boys tell Buffy:
Angel in BtVS S3 “The Prom”: “You deserve more. You deserve something outside of demons and darkness. You should be with someone who can take you into the light.”
Spike said some variant of "I love you" more often than the other boys. In S6 Spike told Buffy: “You came back wrong.” He variously calls her an “animal”, a “demon”, “a monster like me”, that her friends would be shocked to learn the truth about her, and tells her she belongs in the shadows. Some variant thereof occurs in almost every episode in the middle third of S6 BtVS (and is evidently a factor in Buffy’s depression).
Attunement:
The close of BtVS S1 “Angel” shows one type of attunement, as Buffy and Angel finish one another’s sentences. However there is another type of attunement Buffy shows toward Angel, but not toward Riley, Spike, or anyone else. In AtS S1 “I Will Remember You” Buffy tells Angel: “…when you are around, whether I see you or not, I feel you – inside – and it throws me.” She is referring specifically to Angel's clandestine trip to Sunnydale in "Pangs", although a good example occurs later in IWRY (when Angel approaches Buffy on a sunny beach from behind.) This ability to sense Angel in particular is distinct from a general feeling that someone is watching. It shows up as early as S1 “Harvest”, when Angel appears abruptly behind Buffy. Buffy starts to talk to Angel without turning around (and she makes it obvious she already knows who it is). Similarly, when Buffy enters the Bronze for her showdown with Angel in S1x06 she “knows” that he is there (and says so out loud), but clearly does not know that Darla is also there. She has not seen or heard anything that would logically have indicated Angel in particular was in the Bronze (not in the shooting script, transcript, or DVD). S2x01 "Bad Girls" has another nice example.
A particularly touching instance of this attunement is in BtVS S5 “Forever”, when Angel, visiting Sunnydale for the first time in years, approaches Buffy from behind. Without looking back, she reaches behind her and puts her hand in his.
Converse examples with Spike exist, for example when he left town in S6 “Villains”, she enters his lair, and mistakes Clem for Spike. She is utterly unable to sense that Spike is gone. Likewise, when Spike returns in S7, and Buffy comes face-to-face with him in the basement she asks, “Spike? Are you real?”, and reaches to see if it is an apparition.
Final Words from the Boys:
Riley talking to Dawn (S5 “Shadow”) (verbatim from script)
DAWN: I'm really glad you're here. RILEY: Thanks. DAWN: Buffy's glad too. RILEY: (smiles skeptically) Yeah? DAWN: She sure cries a lot less with you than she did with Angel. RILEY: (surprised) Angel ... made her cry a lot, huh? DAWN: Everything with him was all ... eee, you know? RILEY: All...? DAWN: You know ... "my boyfriend's a vampire" crazy crazy. (Riley nods) Every day was like the end of the world. She doesn't get all worked up like that over you. Riley looks stung, but tries not to show it. Dawn realizes she didn't say the right thing. DAWN: I think you've been really good for her. She smiles encouragingly. Riley tries to return her smile, but he doesn't really feel it.
AtS5 “The Girl in Question”
Spike: “Look! I know I don’t have a shot with her, all right!. Probably never did, but I still care about her, and I’m not gonna let her end up with a jerk like …you.”
Angel: “Hey, ours is a forever love.”
Spike: “I had a relationship with her too.”
Angel: “OK, sleeping together is not a relationship.”
Spike: “It is, if you do it enough times.”
(Ironically the ensouled Spike had, at most, one night with Buffy, the night before he died.)
…
Spike: “Can’t we just…lock her away in a box where no one can ever touch her...?”
Angel: “I don’t think she’d let us. She’s pretty strong.”
Spike: We could do a spell. Some sort of mind control.”
Angel: “Oh, she’d figure it out. You know, she’s pretty smart.”
Last Word to the Lady
BtVS S7 “Selfless” Buffy: “I loved Angel more than I will ever love anything in this life.”
Patrick Newell, May 2009
(Author of "The Fourth Domain", a sci-fi novel available on the Kindle)
Why they came to Sunnydale:
Riley: On assignment (for the Initiative)
Angel: To help Buffy (having been shown her by Whistler)
Spike: To kill a Slayer
Buffy’s First impression:
Angel: Buffy tells Giles that Angel was “dark and gorgeous, in a annoying way. I REALLY didn’t like him.”
Riley: Riley and Willow seemed not to notice Buffy’s presence as they geek-bonded
Spike: Buffy seemed taken aback by Spike’s calm conviction that he was soon to kill her
How fast the boys fell for Buffy:
Riley: He started to notice Buffy after a few weeks. A few weeks later he realized he must like her (after taking umbrage at Parker’s smearing Buffy). Love probably arrived toward the end of Season 4 (perhaps 9 months after first meeting Buffy).
Spike: First realized he loved Buffy in Season 5. However we later learned that Drusilla’s separation from Spike, seen in mid-Season 3 arose in part because Drusilla sensed an unhealthy interest in the Slayer. So Spike probably (unconsciously) had feelings for Buffy even while trying to kill her in Season 4.
Angel: At first sight (while Buffy was still in L.A., “Becoming, Part 2”)
Buffy’s Professed Love (to the lover):
Riley: One of the many things that convinced Riley that Buffy did not love him was that she never said so, despite some fairly obvious prodding. She did decide to ask him not to leave town, after Xander talked her into it – she even ran, after Xander talked her out of walking.
Spike: In the Series final, after Spike decided to sacrifice himself, Buffy squeezed his hand and said “I love you.” Spike replied, “No, you don’t. But thank you for saying it.” Buffy gave him a tender look, and left without saying anything more.
Angel: In BtVS S2 “Lie to Me”, Angel asks for Buffy’s trust with “Do you love me?”, obviously assuming that she does. It catches Buffy by surprise, since they only recently started dating, and since Angel is not particularly expressive about feelings. She replies that she does love him, but is not sure she trusts him (having just seen him talking to Drusilla). Subsequently she professes her love for him (to him) on multiple occasions, including, among others, S2 (“Becoming Part 2”), S3 “Amends” and S3 (the Prom). There are several other strong implications of love (e.g., Buffy wears the Claddagh ring Angel gives her in S2 “Surprise” in the manner that Angel tells her signifies committed love, and Buffy leaves a notebook with “Buffy and Angel 4ever” written large at Angel’s place).
Gifts Buffy Wears (Visual Marking)
Angel gave Buffy three prominent gifts:
Silver Cross (“Welcome to the Hellmouth”). Buffy wears this cross for several years. It saves her life in the second episode.
Leather Jacket (given by Angel in S1) worn by Buffy at least a few additional times.
Claddagh Ring: Given to Buffy by Angel in S2 “Surprise” to signify their committed love. Buffy finally leaves it behind in S3 “Faith Hope and Trick”, to mark moving past mourning for Angel. It is possibly connected to his resurrection.
Buffy is also marked by the bite Angel made in S3 “Graduation Day”. It shows up from time to time, e.g., prominently in Buffy vs Dracula (S5). Although both the Master (S1) and Dracula (S5) bit Buffy, neither left a mark, so Angel’s doing so is apparently poetic license.
Angel also gave Buffy a book of love poems by Browning on her 18th birthday with a single word inscription "Always". I don't think that book is seen again though.
Riley: None (or at least none shown)
Spike: None. He did show up to Buffy's 20th birthday party with a "bent box of chocolates" but left instead with Dawn to raid the Magic Box. He brought beer to Buffy's 21st B-party.
Buffy talks to others
Angel: Buffy mentions her love of Angel a few times when talking to others. For example in the S5 final (“The Gift”), she is discussing with Giles the possibility of killing Dawn to thwart Glory. She tells Giles that “I loved Angel so much” but knew that killing him was necessary and right, while killing Dawn was not. There are other explicit cases and several implicit. An example of the latter is BtVS S2 “What’s My Line (Pt. 2)”. Buffy: “Thank you for helping me save Angel.” Kendra: “…It is too strange that a Slayer loves a vampire.” Buffy (smiling): “Tell me about it.”
Spike, Riley: Buffy herself is never seen to tell anyone that she loved Riley or Spike. Andrew expresses his opinion that Buffy loves both Spike and Angel in S5 AtS, at the same time he (incorrectly, as it turns out) describes Buffy’s current infatuation with The Immortal.
S5 “Intervention” (Buffy to Giles) "I was never there for Riley, not like I was for Angel."
Other Buffy quotes:
(S2 "Reptile Boy" to Angel): "When you kiss me, I wanna die."
(S5 “Buffy versus Dracula” to Riley): "I'm your girl, and I'm gonna stay that way. "
(S5 "Fool for Love") “It would never be you Spike”
(S6, “Wrecked”, Spike tells Buffy that vampires make her hot.) Buffy says: “One vampire got me hot. One! He’s gone. You – you are just convenient.”
In S3 BtVS, Angel: “But you are still my girl?” Buffy: “Always.”
S5 BtVS “Forever”. Angel asks Buffy how long he should stay in town. “How about forever?” Buffy asks. “Does forever work for you?”
S6 “Dead things” Buffy tells Spike: “I am not your girl. I could never be your girl.” (Buffy says similar things on numerous other occasions.)
S3 BtVS “The Prom” (to Angel): “I’m never gonna change. I can’t change. I want my life to be with you.”
S7 “The Chosen” (Buffy talks to Angel about Spike): “I’m not giving you the brush-off. He’s not my boyfriend….But he is in my heart.” In the same conversation she implies that she does not see a long term relationship with Spike (“No I don’t see fat grandchildren in the offing with him”) but “sometimes” thinks she might end up with Angel. She warns him it would be a long ways off: “years if ever.”
Why They Left Sunnydale/Buffy
Riley: He thought Buffy did not love him. (Riley to Xander, S5 The Replacement) RILEY: I'm well aware of how lucky I am. Like, lottery lucky. Buffy's like nobody else in the world. When I'm with her it's like ... it's like I'm... on fire, going crazy if I'm not touching her. … But she doesn't love me.”
Spike: Died in BtVS Series Final (thinking that Buffy did not love him). In AtS S5 expresses several times the belief that Buffy does not love him. It is not clear whether this is the reason he does not return to Buffy. At any rate, he stays with Team Angel.
Angel: Because Buffy could not stop loving him. In “The Prom”, Angel tells Buffy that she deserves something better. She replies that she does not have any choice about loving him. When he insists on separating, she asks “But how can I stay away from you?” Buffy and Angel repeatedly failed all attempts to separate over S1-S3. So Angel tells her he will leave town. The same scenario is played out in minature in BtVS S5 “Forever” when Angel tries to be non-romantically supportive of Buffy (after Joyce’s death). After first asking him to stay “forever”, she starts kissing him, and they both realize he has to go again.
Intensity of the Breakup:
Riley: Buffy jokes with Giles about the breakup being the end of the world. When Giles laughs at her bantering tone, Buffy fixes him with a stern glare. “Didn’t you hear me about the end of the world?” When Giles looked abashed, Buffy told him, “Just kidding. Mostly.” Buffy smiles again.
Angel: Buffy sobbed on Willow’s shoulder (“The Prom”, S3): “I think horrible is still coming. Right now it’s worse. Right now I’m just trying to keep from dying.”
Spike: Even to the series final, Buffy denied Spike was her boyfriend, so there never was a formal breakup, per se. Buffy did tell Spike that their sexual relationship was at an end after discovering he was raising demon eggs in “As You Were”, S6. She seemed to have some pangs of regret about it, especially before Spike’s attempted rape. For example, at Xander’s abortive wedding, Spike asks Buffy whether it hurts her to see him with another woman. She replies “A little”, and seems to mean it.
Sex After Buffy (Time Elapsed from Leaving Buffy)
Riley: His return to Sunnydale was about one year after leaving, and he had then already been married for four months. So it could not have been longer than about six months.
Spike: Two minutes. Approximately two minutes after becoming corporeal again in AtS S5, he grabs Harmony, evicts a man from his office, and gets horizontal. To be fair, after the separation in BtVS S6 “As You Were”, he takes two weeks before having sex with Anya. (However he may not have waited the full two weeks, as he previously expressed an intention to take the date he brought to Xander’s wedding back to his lair.)
Angel: About 18-20 months (mid S2 AtS), mired in deep despair, he had sex with the soulless vampire Darla because “I just want to feel something again.” Interestingly, this closely matches Buffy’s expressed reasons for having sex with the then-soulless Spike (both Buffy and Angel felt numb and detached).
What the boys tell Buffy:
Angel in BtVS S3 “The Prom”: “You deserve more. You deserve something outside of demons and darkness. You should be with someone who can take you into the light.”
Spike said some variant of "I love you" more often than the other boys. In S6 Spike told Buffy: “You came back wrong.” He variously calls her an “animal”, a “demon”, “a monster like me”, that her friends would be shocked to learn the truth about her, and tells her she belongs in the shadows. Some variant thereof occurs in almost every episode in the middle third of S6 BtVS (and is evidently a factor in Buffy’s depression).
Attunement:
The close of BtVS S1 “Angel” shows one type of attunement, as Buffy and Angel finish one another’s sentences. However there is another type of attunement Buffy shows toward Angel, but not toward Riley, Spike, or anyone else. In AtS S1 “I Will Remember You” Buffy tells Angel: “…when you are around, whether I see you or not, I feel you – inside – and it throws me.” She is referring specifically to Angel's clandestine trip to Sunnydale in "Pangs", although a good example occurs later in IWRY (when Angel approaches Buffy on a sunny beach from behind.) This ability to sense Angel in particular is distinct from a general feeling that someone is watching. It shows up as early as S1 “Harvest”, when Angel appears abruptly behind Buffy. Buffy starts to talk to Angel without turning around (and she makes it obvious she already knows who it is). Similarly, when Buffy enters the Bronze for her showdown with Angel in S1x06 she “knows” that he is there (and says so out loud), but clearly does not know that Darla is also there. She has not seen or heard anything that would logically have indicated Angel in particular was in the Bronze (not in the shooting script, transcript, or DVD). S2x01 "Bad Girls" has another nice example.
A particularly touching instance of this attunement is in BtVS S5 “Forever”, when Angel, visiting Sunnydale for the first time in years, approaches Buffy from behind. Without looking back, she reaches behind her and puts her hand in his.
Converse examples with Spike exist, for example when he left town in S6 “Villains”, she enters his lair, and mistakes Clem for Spike. She is utterly unable to sense that Spike is gone. Likewise, when Spike returns in S7, and Buffy comes face-to-face with him in the basement she asks, “Spike? Are you real?”, and reaches to see if it is an apparition.
Final Words from the Boys:
Riley talking to Dawn (S5 “Shadow”) (verbatim from script)
DAWN: I'm really glad you're here. RILEY: Thanks. DAWN: Buffy's glad too. RILEY: (smiles skeptically) Yeah? DAWN: She sure cries a lot less with you than she did with Angel. RILEY: (surprised) Angel ... made her cry a lot, huh? DAWN: Everything with him was all ... eee, you know? RILEY: All...? DAWN: You know ... "my boyfriend's a vampire" crazy crazy. (Riley nods) Every day was like the end of the world. She doesn't get all worked up like that over you. Riley looks stung, but tries not to show it. Dawn realizes she didn't say the right thing. DAWN: I think you've been really good for her. She smiles encouragingly. Riley tries to return her smile, but he doesn't really feel it.
AtS5 “The Girl in Question”
Spike: “Look! I know I don’t have a shot with her, all right!. Probably never did, but I still care about her, and I’m not gonna let her end up with a jerk like …you.”
Angel: “Hey, ours is a forever love.”
Spike: “I had a relationship with her too.”
Angel: “OK, sleeping together is not a relationship.”
Spike: “It is, if you do it enough times.”
(Ironically the ensouled Spike had, at most, one night with Buffy, the night before he died.)
…
Spike: “Can’t we just…lock her away in a box where no one can ever touch her...?”
Angel: “I don’t think she’d let us. She’s pretty strong.”
Spike: We could do a spell. Some sort of mind control.”
Angel: “Oh, she’d figure it out. You know, she’s pretty smart.”
Last Word to the Lady
BtVS S7 “Selfless” Buffy: “I loved Angel more than I will ever love anything in this life.”
Patrick Newell, May 2009
(Author of "The Fourth Domain", a sci-fi novel available on the Kindle)
But loved the comparison, thanks for doing it!
