A little tidbit about Riley's character.

Interesting article! I thought it had a good analysis of Buffy and Riley's final scenes in "Into the Woods." I wouldn't mind Riley coming back in a cameo, but I wouldn't want him to return as a major character, nor would I want the new Slayer to have a similar boyfriend.
 
Whilst there's some interesting points made in the article, there's also a number of issues with it too. I won't go through them all at the moment, but this particular point stands out:

He slept with Faith while she’s in Buffy’s body, completely failing to take notice of how out-of-character she seemed – or rather, perhaps, completely failing to care.
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I don't think that's fair, and making it sound as if the blame of what happened falling solely onto Riley when Faith is the person who was behind it all.
 
T
thrasherpix
Especially as it's not something Riley (injured) would've thought possible. He DID think "something happened" but had no way to guess what that actually was. And IIRC, even Spike didn't realize it wasn't Buffy.
Joan the Vampire Slayer
Joan the Vampire Slayer
Agree about Riley actually - how could he have known?
hoponlilmama said:
@thrasherpix - great point on Spike not realising too. Willow didn't spot anything either - it was Tara who saw something was off.
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Yes, and Tara had never even met Buffy before. She could just tell that Buffy's aura was wrong and that Buffy was not her. Willow had known Buffy for four years by this point; expecting Riley to be able to tell after merely a few months is unfair. And, if you don't know bodyswapping is possible, why would you expect it had happened? If someone is acting a bit off, in those situations leaping to something you don't even know can happen is hardly a logical first step. Drink or drugs are far more likely.
 
NotASlayer said:
Yes, and Tara had never even met Buffy before. She could just tell that Buffy's aura was wrong and that Buffy was not her. Willow had known Buffy for four years by this point; expecting Riley to be able to tell after merely a few months is unfair. And, if you don't know bodyswapping is possible, why would you expect it had happened? If someone is acting a bit off, in those situations leaping to something you don't even know can happen is hardly a logical first step. Drink or drugs are far more likely.
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Riley is still 'green' when it comes to the supernatural world - doubtful he's aware of body-swapping magic, he's also coming off an injury, and then in his dorm room he's maybe thinking 'Buffy' wants to try something 'different' in the bedroom.

To act like Riley's supposed to be psychic and know something's going on and laying the blame on him smacks of being part of the 'we hate Riley club' when people should be cutting him some slack. He loves Buffy and wants to be with her, not Faith, or some random girl.
 
Joan the Vampire Slayer
Joan the Vampire Slayer
Agree totally.
From Riley's POV, his hot girlfriend drags him into the bedroom for some great sex. Then in the aftermath, when the cuddling starts, she freaks out. And Riley realizes at that point that SOMETHING is wrong, he's just not sure what.

Same thing with the Buffybot in season 5. Buffy's friends figure out pretty quickly that something's wrong, but they thing something's wrong WITH Buffy, not that it ISN'T Buffy. Which is not an unreasonable stance to take.
 
T
thrasherpix
I laughed more than once over, "You couldn't tell me apart from a robot!?"
hoponlilmama said:
Riley is still 'green' when it comes to the supernatural world - doubtful he's aware of body-swapping magic, he's also coming off an injury, and then in his dorm room he's maybe thinking 'Buffy' wants to try something 'different' in the bedroom.

To act like Riley's supposed to be psychic and know something's going on and laying the blame on him smacks of being part of the 'we hate Riley club' when people should be cutting him some slack. He loves Buffy and wants to be with her, not Faith, or some random girl.
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I have noticed that Riley and Xander in particular often get their actions deliberately misinterpreted in the worst way possible, or have motivations that are not backed up at all on screen, in order to paint them as worse than they are. Spike, on the other hand, is treated the opposite way; his actions, no matter how despicable, are deliberately excused and painted in a good light. Even when that is not backed up at all on screen. Sure, neither Xander nor Riley are perfect, but if you just say what they, or Spike, did, rather than try to interpret them, Spike comes off orders of magnitude worse.
 
Well, it takes a lot of gall to side with Buffy over Faith and Riley, I respect that. But I do think a lot of the metaphors are broken, this being one of them.
 
Correct me if I'm wrong but up until that point when Faith had Buffy's body I didn't think Buffy and Riley had slept together yet!!! If that's true then that would definitely explain why Buffy was so very upset when she found out what happened. If it was the first time for Riley to be with Buffy then I can understand him not questioning her and how she was acting. (slutty rather than sentual)
 
Moptop said:
Correct me if I'm wrong but up until that point when Faith had Buffy's body I didn't think Buffy and Riley had slept together yet!!! If that's true then that would definitely explain why Buffy was so very upset when she found out what happened. If it was the first time for Riley to be with Buffy then I can understand him not questioning her and how she was acting. (slutty rather than sentual)
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The episode "The I in Team" (13th of the season) is where Buffy and Riley first sleep together. Episode 16 "Who are You" is where Faith sleeps with Riley in Buffy's body. While it's not definitive, general consensus seems to be that from "The I in Team" to "Who are You" is about 8-10 days.

So Faith didn't sleep with Riley before Buffy, but Buffy and Riley are new enough in their relationship that they still don't know each other that well, which also contributes to Riley not realizing something is wrong.
 
Out of Riley and the Scoobies who amongst them a) had known about the existence of magic for years, b) had known Buffy for years not months and most importantly c) knew the body-swapping was a possibility because it was the first non-vampire case they dealt with?

The answer is pretty much anyone of the gang but Riley and yet the article is all 'yeah, he didn't even care!'

He did care, which is why he was wary and didn't jump at the chance to partake in any of Faith's tempting attempts at corruption. I mean, come-on, he saw the lingering shots of Buffy in leather pants crawling around on his bed and he's all 'actually, I want to look into your eyes and tell you I love you when we're gettin' it awn.' That's almost too gentlemanly and it certainly took a large amount of willpower, so maybe the writers could throw him a bone?

I'll give the dude some credit anyway. Nice guys finish last... and they make sure the lady finishes a few times before that happens.
 
As someone who was married to a girl with multiple personality disorder, it took a while for me to discover just exactly who I was dealing with at any given time. I have no doubt that someone in a new relationship would not know about any of this and the first thing to come to mind when someone was behaving in a manner they hadn't seen before is "this is something new", not "this person has been body swapped". I am no fan of Captain Cardboard but slagging him with the idea that he didn't care who was on his bed is simply not reasonable. He would have thought that maybe Buffy had a kinky side that he hadn't seen yet.

The real takeaway from this scene is that Faith, even with the body swap that made her unrecognizable, could not simulate the responses of someone in love, the damage she had suffered in the past prevented her from having a loving relationship.
 
hoponlilmama
hoponlilmama
Hey reaction to Riley saying, "I love you" was very telling. And sad. Faith had obviously had quite a rough life.
Joan the Vampire Slayer
Joan the Vampire Slayer
Great post, agree!
NotASlayer said:
I have noticed that Riley and Xander in particular often get their actions deliberately misinterpreted in the worst way possible, or have motivations that are not backed up at all on screen, in order to paint them as worse than they are. Spike, on the other hand, is treated the opposite way; his actions, no matter how despicable, are deliberately excused and painted in a good light. Even when that is not backed up at all on screen. Sure, neither Xander nor Riley are perfect, but if you just say what they, or Spike, did, rather than try to interpret them, Spike comes off orders of magnitude worse.
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You are right. There is quite a bit of vitriol directed towards Xander and Riley, deciding their actions are more sinister than an actual soulless demon. Wonder if they were considered as hot as Spike whether people would feel the same way. And, popular characters tend to get away with more.

As for ol' William, it forms part of the cherry-picking with him. Cries of, 'he's unique, he feels, he loves, he's changed, he's special!', but when he does something wrong, 'he's a demon, he doesn't know what he's doing!'. Nope, can't have it both ways.
 
NotASlayer
NotASlayer
Absolutely! And a soulless demon who didn't know what he was doing would not have chosen to get a soul. Either he knew he was doing wrong and did it anyway, or didn't and had no incentive to get a soul.
Joan the Vampire Slayer
Joan the Vampire Slayer
Spike will always have his Get Out Of Jail Free card.
@hoponlilmama you make a good point. Poor old Riley. With a bestie like Forrest Gates (has a character ever been more destined to end up evil?), is it any wonder things turned out badly? And Xander was never supposed to be a goody-two-shoes.

I think Xander & Riley get on because they both have more of a black-and-white attitude to good and evil generally, and neither reacts well when they have to question their life choices. It's also good to have slightly more rigid characters for others to bounce off.
 
Mott1 said:
@hoponlilmama

I think Xander & Riley get on because they both have more of a black-and-white attitude to good and evil generally, and neither reacts well when they have to question their life choices. It's also good to have slightly more rigid characters for others to bounce off.
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I also think Xander wanted a male friend, I mean, Buffy and Willow were his best friends, and he craved a male counterpart.
 
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