I was actually thinking of Spike, although the description fits Angel pretty well too. I’d agree that neither were anywhere near as boring or badly written as Edward (and I’m saying this as someone who didn’t care for Buffy), but as much as I hate Edward as a character he’s arguably better boyfriend material than either of them. At least he’s in no danger of suddenly losing his soul.
Edward does have major flaws that I don’t think Buffy would have put up with. He’s very controlling of Bella, and I’m sure he’d not only object but actively try to prevent her from doing anything as dangerous as hunting the evil vampires. If Buffy had been involved with an Edward-like vampire on the show then she might eventually have been forced to stake him just so she could keep on doing her duty as a Slayer. But the video makes it look like it’s being a vampire or something of a stalker that would be total dealbreakers for Buffy and that just wasn’t the case.
Not that I’m criticizing the video on that point, it’s a satire and a pretty darn funny one, but I think an equally good satire could be made pointing out how much Buffy and Bella have in common when it comes to their taste in men. Luckily for Buffy that’s about all she does have in common with Bella, though. Bella has got to be the most useless and irritating protagonist I’ve ever encountered! Had Buffy taken her place in the book then I think she’d have wound up dating Edward just the same, but she wouldn’t have needed so much rescuing and she would have killed the evil vampires herself. And she wouldn’t have been randomly falling over all the time! If Bella were to take Buffy’s place she wouldn’t be able to stay upright long enough to even try out for the cheerleading squad, much less save the day on a regular basis. She’d probably just stand around whining to herself until some vampire killed her.
Oh yeah, I forgot all about Spike! Yeah, that relationship wasn’t good for Buffy. I need to rewatch sometime, to see if she got anything positive from it. What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger?
I don’t think Buffy ever fooled herself that she was in love with Spike. She seemed to recognize that it was lust, rebellion, good sex, etc.
I only managed about 50 pages of Twilight. From what I’ve heard, Bella never really examined her feelings for Edward.
It’s pretty obvious by mid-season seven that she cares deeply for Spike (she threatens Giles, who’s the closest thing she has to a father, when he rightfully tries to dust him after he starts killing again), and she tells him she loves him during the climax of the final episode.
As far as I can tell her relationship with Edward is based primarily on his superhuman hotness and secondarily on the fact that he’s saved her life on multiple occasions (necessary mostly because she’s a helpless idiot). I don’t know if it gets any deeper than that as the series progresses, but somehow I doubt it.
I must say that Twilight is much more entertaining when read aloud with a group of like minded friends and perhaps the beverage of your choice. I can’t remember the last time I laughed so hard. We laughed until we cried. At one point my friend fell off the couch!
The execution makes all the difference. Buffy’s relationships with Angel and Spike definitely had a touch of the creepiness that infuses every aspect of Bella and Edward’s “romance.” But whereas Meyers writes as if this is acceptable behavior for a couple (indeed, she doesn’t even seem aware that it could be construed as creepy), BtVS always emphasized that both of Buffy’s vampiric relationships were troubled at best, and effed up at worst. More importantly, they used the relationships to explore the raging emotions that give rise to such situations in real life, and how people (good and bad) react to them.
To give a specific example of what I’m talking about, consider Buffy and Giles’s conversation after he finds out she slept with Angel (and in doing so, unleashed all sorts of nastiness upon Sunnydale). There is acknowledgment on both sides that she screwed up, that neither she nor Angel were thinking properly when it happened, and that the consequences will be dire for everyone involved, and quite a few others besides. Then Giles does something truly remarkable: he expresses his respect for Buffy, and his love and support. In one brief scene, we get a complex discussion about the mine-laden topic of teenage promiscuity, and a deepening of the relationship between a young woman and the man who is rapidly becoming her surrogate father.
Try to find that level of writing anywhere in Twilight.
Spike season 6 and Spike season 7 are two different persons. Season 7 Spike had a soul. Buffy lied to Spike when she said she loved him to make him feel better about the killing himself to save the world thing.
[spoiler]I don’t fully agree with either of those statements.
Buffy was way too protective of Spike during the entire season, and though I don’t believe she loved him romantically, I think she really did love him platonically when he sacrificed himself.
As to him being a different person, I’ve never liked the whole soul situation in Buffy. Humans can be just as nasty and despicable as any vampire, and I don’t think someone getting ensouled is the get out of jail free card that so many other people do. Sure, he likely regretted his most vile deeds, but while Angel suffered for over a century, Spike went crazy for a half-dozen episodes, died about a dozen more later, and then was back to his neutered bad boy self when resurrected in LA.[/spoiler]
[spoiler]Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t Giles say (in the first season?) something about when a person turns into a vampire, his soul gets replaced by a demon with all the previous hosts memories. The soul (original personality) is innocent of what the demon does. While Angel and Spike were tormented by their deeds when they were without souls, that doesn’t mean they could be held accountable for them. The Scooby gang was always more upset when they found out the killer was human rather than a monster. Also, Buffy refused to kill any human no matter what he/she had done, for example, she refused to kill Glory’s human host.
Anyway, my point was that while Buffy’s relationship with Spike in season 6 was creepy. Loving Spike in season 7 would not necessarily have to be creepy a la Twilight.
[/spoiler]
[spoiler]Buffy doesn’t kill humans, because that’s not her job. There are systems in place for dealing with misbehaving humans. She also doesn’t kill (at least on purpose) harmless demons (see Clem). On Buffy, it’s not about demon/human, it’s about good/evil. Everyone gets a chance to be a good guy.
Angel had his soul forced on him, Spike got his back on purpose, in a quest to “be a better man” and Buffy’s protectiveness of him is based largely on that. I’m not mad at her for it, that’s fairly points-worthy. I agree that Buffy did love him, if not necessarily in the way he’d have wished.
And he didn’t revert to badness on Angel. He was just a dick to Angel. They’ve got some issues. ;)[/spoiler]
And just out of curiosity, why are we spoilering something that went off the air five years ago?
A bit silly I know but this forum has a large Buffy fanbase, and as a result has a lot of Buffy recruits so to speak. I didn’t want to ruin anybodys day by revealing Buffy plot points in a thread that’s not really about Buffy plot points.
