Bangel or Spuffy? #2

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Spuffy. More development, more passion, more real. I appreciate Bangel but it always felt more idealized or fantasy first love. Whereas the history (good and bad) between Spike and Buffy, their chemistry always felt more authentic through all the seasons. Season 7 while confusing to me is their most romantic season imo
 
SpikeRocks said:
I mean, no, the complete opposite......Buffy/Spike in Season 7 for example. [In regards to Season 7] "To explore the idea of the Slayer fully and to see a very grown up and romantic and confusing relationship that isn't about power, but actually genuinely beautiful between two people in the form of Buffy and Spike." -- Joss Whedon
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I don’t really feel that comment of Joss’ reflects the ”Buffy is always Spike’s #1” thing though. Joss is speaking in terms of storytelling, always #1 is just shipping. But If that’s the only argument then ok, horses for courses.
 
Taake said:
I don’t really feel that comment of Joss’ reflects the ”Buffy is always Spike’s #1” thing though. Joss is speaking in terms of storytelling, always #1 is just shipping. But If that’s the only argument then ok, horses for courses.
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This is subjective, naturally, but to be someone’s partner, they need to be your #1….it’s rooted in support, placing their needs before yours, always having their back, being their best friend and ally, loyalty, and lots of other things I’m sure I’m not eloquent enough to express. Fits Spike’s role for Buffy/in her life in S7 to a tee, and in my opinion, couldn’t be any further from teen-romancy stuff.

Joss' comment merely reflects how it's a mature/grown up relationship in S7, to counter the teenage thing.

Angel is capable of being these things for Buffy, but it will always come second to his redemption journey (IWRY, for example). And that’s cool. But that doesn’t make for a partner she deserves. She deserves to be someone's #1. Spike doesn’t have the same type of motivations/need for redemption as Angel which would supersede what he could be for Buffy IMO.
 
SpikeRocks said:
This is subjective, naturally, but to be someone’s partner, they need to be your #1….it’s rooted in support, placing their needs before yours, always having their back, being their best friend and ally, loyalty, and lots of other things I’m sure I’m not eloquent enough to express. Fits Spike’s role for Buffy/in her life in S7 to a tee, and in my opinion, couldn’t be any further from teen-romancy stuff.

Joss' comment merely reflects how it's a mature/grown up relationship in S7, to counter the teenage thing.

Angel is capable of being these things for Buffy, but it will always come second to his redemption journey (IWRY, for example). And that’s cool. But that doesn’t make for a partner she deserves. She deserves to be someone's #1. Spike doesn’t have the same type of motivations/need for redemption as Angel which would supersede what he could be for Buffy IMO.
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I see. I guess for me being #1 romantically just doesn’t mean #1 in all areas of life. They don’t overlap for me.

For me, I like that Buffy is Angel’s #3 in totally and vice versa, where redemption and Connor comes before her (if you have to rank things like that) just like slaying and Dawn comes before him. To me that is true partnership, but yes, that is subjective 🙂
 
S
SpikeRocks
To me, that's more parallel paths that can never intersect (they're tragedy), not a recipe for partnership....they can't ACTUALLY ever be a real partner to the other, nor enough of a foil that challenges and benefits the other's growth :)
Sometimes I feel like this question shouldn't be Spuffy or Bangel, but rather "Why is Buffy ok with (and enjoys) having sex with reanimated corpses?" 😂 😂 Maybe a good character study Q for her lol
 
Neither if we're talking about Manichean dualism because ultimately the text deconstructs them. "If you believe in the Manichean idea of dualism, you tend to look at things as having two sides that are opposed. To Manicheans, life can be divided neatly between good or evil, light or dark, or love and hate". Dualism oppresses women. She doesn't belong in the dark or in the light - I think S7 attests to this, with Touched providing the final confirmation she belongs in the shadows...shadows are transformative.

Look at her clothes in Touched; pinstripe trousers; black vest under white top - she's a creature of both the dark and the light. Look at the way a key light is used to cast shadows that transform the objects on the nightstand. Look at the 7 or 8 potential light sources in the bedroom that go unlit. Look at the painting on the wall, which could be a moon or could be the sun. By her own admittance, this is the episode that empowers her.

Spike's right. She belongs in the shadows - not necessarily with him but it's her rightful place. In fact, I don't think it's coincidence that the final frame of A11 shows Angel walk away with Fred and both are followed by their shadows. So...Spuffy because Spike's the vehicle for her transformation. When she steps into the light in Grave and in Chosen it's with new knowledge - new enLIGHTenment.
 
Antho
Antho
Thank you very much :)
Someone on Youtube made this comment, which I kinda love:

Angel (soul): "I can't give Buffy what she wants and deserves, I can't be who she needs…I'll just break her heart and walk away for her own good."

Spike (soulless): "I can't give Buffy what she wants and deserves, I can't be who she needs…I'll go to hell and back and face any amount of suffering and pain and risk of death to BECOME who she needs and deserves."

Of course, it's all much more complicated than this 😋
 
FaithLehane16
FaithLehane16
Laughable.
katmobile said:
Again you're not comparing like with like - you're comparing souless to souled. The true comparison would be in First Date where Spike too offers to leave.
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He should have left regardless and stayed gone. He should have stayed gone after the attempted rape in Seeing Red. It was NOT a few seconds, and even if it were… that’s enough to scar someone for the rest of their life, he had no right. In season 5, but spike was literally stalking her, stealing her underwear, and made a sexbot of her. It was incredibly predatory and violating.


Season 7 doesn’t really help his case either because he doesn’t really seem remorseful and no one really holds him accountable for anything he does. And then the writers do this truly *rich* thing where they try to convince us that their connection was more than it was and then further isolate Buffy from all her friends so that Spike is the only one in her corner.
 
FaithLehane16 said:
He should have left regardless and stayed gone. He should have stayed gone after the attempted rape in Seeing Red. It was NOT a few seconds, and even if it were… that’s enough to scar someone for the rest of their life, he had no right. In season 5, but spike was literally stalking her, stealing her underwear, and made a sexbot of her. It was incredibly predatory and violating.


Season 7 doesn’t really help his case either because he doesn’t really seem remorseful and no one really holds him accountable for anything he does. And then the writers do this truly *rich* thing where they try to convince us that their connection was more than it was and then further isolate Buffy from all her friends so that Spike is the only one in her corner.
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Buffy is isolated from her friends because she made a mistake in her tactics with Caleb and the First and Kennedy makes a grab for power.

I know this going to annoy you but I can't let this slide and your high handed approach isn't encouraging me to pull punches. I find it pretty rich that you're talking about how Buffy needs Spike out of her life when he traumatised her for life coming from someone who's name identifies them as a Faith fan. Should she have stayed in prison so she doesn't retraumatize Wesley who she tortured, Buffy whose body she used to rape and even you don't accept that ....to cheat on Buffy with her own boyfriend and may well have help wreck that relationship and ....especially from Xander whom she almost raped or/and murdered which she even has the nerve to tell Anya she had first.

Now I love Faith and if you've done really bad things some sort of selective memory in not remember them all probably counts as a survival technique but let's not kid ourselves that Spike is the only person who did gross things and traumatised people and at least Buffy got an apology, Xander doesn't.

Faith does good and so does Spike - he wades in to save a stranger despite it causing him and when the person he's fighting asks him who he is he says 'a bad man'. He's also the one who stops Caleb poking both Xander's eyes out and God knows he has enough reasons to dislike Xander but it's an instinctive act of protection and empathy towards a fellow souled being. I think the most telling statement about how he views his own redemption is when Wood asks him how it's going and he says 'its a work in progress' and Xander's hammer analogy about power delivered to Willow applies as much to Spike as to does to Willow or Faith. Willow finally gets and accepts Faith after her own fall perhaps finally understanding that Faith's fall came from her insecurities and trauma in the comics we see her accept Spike as does Xander who after he screws up gets to take a hard look in the mirror and begin to sort himself out. All three struggle with issues of how to use their power and anger effectively and how to manage their guilt. Angel needs his guilt to stay good and I think his own series illustrates that when he's not grounded by his friends he becomes arrogant and arbitrary in the adminstration of his 'justice'.

I often feel that those who just condemn Spike aren't looking at the verse as a whole and are just following their own knee jerk reactions - even if these tap into geunine trauma and are valid they aren't objective 'truth'.
 
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katmobile said:
I know this going to annoy you but I can't let this slide and your high handed approach isn't encouraging me to pull punches. I find it pretty rich that you're talking about how Buffy needs Spike out of her life when he traumatised her for life coming from someone who's name identifies them as a Faith fan. Should she have stayed in prison so she doesn't retraumatize Wesley who she tortured, Buffy whose body she used to rape and even you don't accept that ....to cheat on Buffy with her own boyfriend and may well have help wreck that relationship and ....especially from Xander whom she almost raped or/and murdered which she even has the nerve to tell Anya she had first.
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Yes, it does annoy me because Faith didn't choose to force her way back into Buffy's life after violating Buffy. She went on a kamikaze mission and then went to jail, which Spike never did.
 
FaithLehane16 said:
Yes, it does annoy me because Faith didn't choose to force her way back into Buffy's life after violating Buffy. She went on a kamikaze mission and then went to jail, which Spike never did.
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Part of the reason she did is so Angel wasn't sent there which would have fried him so what you ask is in fact impossible. Spike does try and goad Buffy into killing him in Never Leave Me so the paralell is there too also there's the fact he's only in control of his actions some of the time.

Also Spike did fricking die - the fact it was temporary was something he had neither knowledge or control over.

One rule for us for you another, do unto yourself as you see fit for your brother, is that not beyond your understanding.
 
FaithLehane16 said:
Yes, it does annoy me because Faith didn't choose to force her way back into Buffy's life after violating Buffy.
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Yeah...she kinda does when she returns to Revello in Dirty Girls. Hence Buffy's willingness to punch her and her sarcastic greeting; hence the reminder that Revello's a different place; hence the remarks about her being an "unwanted fugitive"; hence Dawn's "Does she have to stay here? Because there's some nice hotels that welcome tried-to-kill-your-sister types"; hence the basement episode with Spike. It's made clear she's an unwelcome intruder. In fact, not only does she intrude in the house (now a public space), she also takes over Buffy's life again by sleeping in Buffy's bedroom (her private space). It's a condensation of their history on repeat.
 
Priceless
Priceless
Faith's not even very nice in S7
@Priceless - what I should also have mentioned is the (blindingly obvious) connection between the bed and dreams and dreams being the "royal road to the unconscious" (wishes, desires, fears etc). Also (again blindingly bloody obvious) remember I said "I hoped you were a mirage" was a Freudian slip 'cos a mirage is something you want to be true? Well I don't think it's coincidence her last word is "Spike" and they're in a desert.
 
FaithLehane16 said:
Season 7 doesn’t really help his case either because he doesn’t really seem remorseful and no one really holds him accountable for anything he does.
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I don't want to have to list all the times the show referred to the AR and all the times Spike showed remorse over it, in S6 and S7, and into the comics, but I can......I think it's kind of crazy that it all just slips by people despite being a major issue. I can understand feeling it's not addressed enough, or he doesn't show remorse enough, because you feel nothing could ever be enough (it's hard to qualify what "enough" could be), but to say the show does not address it/no one holds him accountable/he shows no remorse, is plain wrong.....
 
FaithLehane16 said:
Yes, it does annoy me because Faith didn't choose to force her way back into Buffy's life after violating Buffy. She went on a kamikaze mission and then went to jail, which Spike never did.
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Spike literally DID go on a kamikaze mission after violating Buffy (the demon trials where he either losses and DIES, or he wins and gains his soul which is DEATH to who he is/all he knows himself to be). And he also never forced his way back into Buffy's life....you often tout this rhetoric....what is it based on? Certainly not what the show gives us.
 
Bluebird said:
I thought I'd revive this thread. 😀

I've never had a strong allegiance to one or the other or even properly discussed it, but if I had to choose I'd go with Bangel over Spuffy.
I like Spike and I like Buffy but I don't think they work as a couple. By the time he was introduced as a love interest I thought the show was retreading old ground with another vampire boyfriend. Spike latches on to Buffy's depression for his own gain once he realises she's willing to have sex with him. And in my opinion souled Spike works better as a friend to Buffy, they have mutual support and respect for each other.

I don't find much to like about Spike when he's chasing Buffy, which is a shame because I like his character a lot when he wasn't obsessing over her.

That's not to say I love Bangel, but I found Spuffy to have very little in the way of moments of happiness or light to it.
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Oh lord why would you start another 'ship war?

No one will ever agree, and no one's ship is going to be changed by another person's opinion.

That said, to put it simply, Spuffy is more interesting to me, but I can see the allure of Bangel. To each their own.
 
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