BTVS: Critiquing the Gothic Romance Trope....

[shadowkat]

A while back, can't remember when exactly, I watched an old interview with Audrey Hepburn during the interview she said a lot of things, but the statement that stuck with me was this:

"When you are young you want wild passionate love, where you can't stop thinking about the other person, you become lost in them, and you fight and have wild love at night...but it gets tiring. You can't sustain it. After a while...you find you are just tired. Later, when I got much older...I realized that I didn't want that. I wanted someone I could just sip tea with, talk to, sleep with, go on walks, who was a companion, and we didn't necessarily have sex all the time, but we loved and it was deeper and lasted longer." I wish I could remember her exact words.

Been rewatching Buffy the Vampire Slayer, S1-S3 at the moment, and have just completed the first five episodes of Season 3. What I've become struck by this go around, which I didn't really notice before, no idea why - is the deft critique of romantic love and in particular the gothic romance trope, with all of its horrific consequences. Joss Whedon and his writing team are deft satirists of the horror and in particular gothic horror/gothic romance tradition. Not surprising, considering the name of the series is Buffy the Vampire Slayer - that alone, just screams satire.

There's a great line in the fourth episode of S3, the episode in which Angel returns from hell, entitled Beauty and the Beasts:

"It's okay to get lost in love. There's nothing wrong with that. But sooner or later you have to get un lost, see what is going on around you and take part in it. Because if you stay lost...then love becomes your master, and you - its dog."

The speaker is Doctor Plat. A psychiatrist that Buffy is forced to see after she is reinstated in school. The line occurs after Buffy has confided in him her feelings regarding Angel. She's told him that she had loved this guy, he had been her first, and then...he turned mean, but she still loved him anyway.

Doctor Plat is killed, rather brutally, by the boyfriend of another patient, a couple who serve as metaphorical stand-in's for the Buffy/Angel romance of the last season and this one. They even look a bit like Buffy and Angel, Debbie is blond, and her boyfriend is dark headed and when he turns into Mr. Hyde - has the ridged forehead, slanted demon eyes, and speaks a bit like Angelus. It's subletly done. As we had with Angel - Angel/Angelus - who appear as separate as Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde, so does this guy - he's the cute angelic hunk/ and abusive monster. When he changes, the monster remembers but he does not. Angel similarily claims to have no knowledge of Angelus or Angelus's deeds when he returns to Buffy at the end of Becoming Part II - just as Debbie's boyfriend acts as if he has knowledge of Mr. Hyde. But when she attempts to get rid of the formula that turned him into the monster - he tells her, he no longer needs it - she is enough, all by herself, to do it to him. Just as Angelus states that all Angel requires is Buffy to turn him into mean old Angelus.

In case we don't get the point, there are camera shots that emphasize it - when Debbie's boyfriend changes back into his Dr. Jekyll persona and sees that he hurt her, he falls to his knees in front of her and hugs her waist crying. And she pats him, saying that's not you. This isn't you. At the end of the episode, Angel is in the same pose, his head buried in Buffy's stomach, as Buffy looks past him...the camera pulls back to show us what she sees - in the foreground, while she and Angel fade into the background - it's Debbie lying on her back, dead on the ground, killed by her boyfriend who had turned once again into Mr. Hyde. The image serves as a warning and potentially foreshadowing.

Then there's the first episode of S3, Anne, written and directed by Joss Whedon. It's an episode that I was admittedly less than fond of when it first aired. Now, I see the satire that I didn't see then. It feels obvious to me now. So much so, that I wonder how I could have missed it. In this episode, Buffy is attempting to get lost, to lose herself in her memories of Angel, in her love of Angel, and her grief and overwhelming guilt at his loss.

Buffy had killed Angel and sent him to hell at the end of Season 2, at her friends urging, and in order to save the world. But, for Buffy, nothing but Angel matters, and part of her wishes she'd gone with him. She runs across a young couple, Lily and Ricky, who have tattoos - on Lily's arm is half a heart with Ricky, and the other half of the heart is on Ricky's arm with Lily. They are both fairly pale, undernourished, and wrapped around each other - as if they are all that matters. They see nothing else. Then Ricky disappears, and Lily is lost. Wandering about like a ghost. Buffy tells her that she needs to deal, not close her eyes to everything but Ricky or what she's lost. But Lily doesn't listen and gives into the despaire, what is life without Ricky? So she literally follows Ricky to hell. Except he's long gone, having gone there before her, and left an old man. 80 years of age. Buffy save Lily, and Lily taking inspiration from Buffy - takes her pseudonyme Ann, and her job at Denny's waitressing.

Ricky and Lily are much like Debbie and Dr. Jekyll (Pete?) - stand-in's for Buffy and Angel. Victims of love.

In Season 2, the episode I ONLY HAVE EYES FOR YOU - shows this as well, except in this episode Angelus and Buffy get stand-in for the doomed lovers. The lovers in this episode, are an older teacher and her love-sick student, who as the title states only has eyes for her. She is his life. He can think of nothing else. When she rejects him, because she's much older and their love can't work - he kills her, then himself - because life without her is something he can't handle. Buffy is the person he picks to possess in order to find his own peace - because as she states, he knows she can identify. And Angelus is picked for similar reasons - he is obsessed with Buffy, much as he had been when he had a soul. [ETA for clarity: Like the teacher, he finds himself obsessed with Buffy, he can't break it off, he can't leave her. Even though he knows it is wrong, even though he knows he is hurting her. Even when he has the chance - to leave town on her birthday, he gives her a gift keeping her with him. The implication here - in case you missed it - is the teacher who has the experience, the knowledge, who knows what will happen, keeps the relationship going until it almost too late to break it off. And when the worst does happen, she continues it by possessing people, enabling her lover to kill them each night again and again. The misdirect is that the student is the villian her, that is what Buffy thinks, because Buffy blames herself for Angel going bad. As may well the viewer. But if you pay close attention to the metaphors before and after that episode, from Inca Mummy Girl to Ted, you'll see that it is not necessarily Buffy's fault, any more than it is Xander's for loving the mummy girl or Joyce's for loving Ted. It's her fault for letting herself get lost in him. Letting the love take over, so she's sees nothing else. But Angel is the one that pursued Buffy, and Angel is the one who went after her. Just as the mummy girl, Ted, Malcolm the Robot, and the Praying Mantis (monsters from the first season) go after their targets.]

Angel much like the teacher in I ONLY HAVE EYES FOR YOU, loves her, but it is love that is not rational, and leads him about by the nose. As Spike states in an earlier episode, Innocence, "it sickened me, watching you play the slayer's lap-dog" - which in effect is what Angel had become. As Angelus, he wants to hurt her. To make her feel as he did. Yet, he still, as Willow states in Passion, Buffy is all he thinks about. And as a result the world falls down. In I ONLY HAVE EYES FOR YOU - the two doomed lovers kill innocent people as they replay their self-involved love story over and over again, killing all and hurting all that get in the way of it. They are not kind ghosts. Angel and Buffy similarily inflict harm on all around them - Angelus going so far as to attempt to open the mouth of hell and suck all into it, while Buffy comes wickedly close to losing everything, including her own life - as it stands, all she loses is Jenny Calendar and Kendra.

Season 2, also had a stand-in couple or metaphor for the Buffy/Angel romance - in the form of Spike and Drusilla - who were fools for love, obsessed lovers, who cared not for anyone but each other. Spike was much like Ricky, Pete, Angel/Angelus, and the doomed boy mentioned above in his devotion for Drusilla. Drusilla was also, much like Lily, Debbie, the doomed teacher, and Buffy in her devotion to Spike. It is clear from School Hard through Becoming that Spike would do anything for Dru. He would die for her. He would kill for her. He would sacrifice everything. He would even betray Angelus, and strike a deal with the enemy - the slayer - to get her back. Buffy likewise appears to be willing to do anything to get Angel back - including stall when she thinks Willow can re-insoul him. They are both love's bitch, being lead about by a leash - at Angel and Dru's whim. While Angel and Drusilla cavort behind them, seeming not to care. Angel and Drusilla go from weak, damsels in What's Your Line two-parter, to devilish controllers in Innocence and Becoming. And Spike and Buffy go from sacrificing everything to save them in What's Your Line - to fighting them in duels that are, but not quite to the death.

It's the gothic romance turned inside out.

Beside these wild passionate love affairs - are the romances of Buffy's friends. Each a separate take on her own. Xander and Cordelia - which typify the mortal foes or star-crossed lovers, who realize they really have a lot in common and fall headlong into lust and possibly love. Willow and OZ - the companionable gentle lovers, who just snuggle and never argue and rarely appear to kiss - yet OZ turns into a beast and has that violent potential but like Angel, it's not OZ - he isn't aware when it happens. Then finally Giles and Jenny, the more mature, adult romance, complete with awkward courtship, and minor betrayals and forgiveness - it is the one that does end the most abruptly, a direct casualty of the Buffy/Angel romance.

The message seems to be clear, it is not romantic love in of itself that is the problem, so much as being completely lost in it, where the only thing you care about is your lover, they are all that matters and all that you see. There are other things, more interesting things than romantic love...which you can forget, when you are caught inside it.

It's an interesting critique - particularly when you consider all the tv shows and books that play into this fantasy or trope. The most famous amongst them is the best-selling Twilight series. Whedon's Buffy in a way satirizes the romances in Twilight, True Blood, Moonlight, Forever Knight, and many many more. It is what distinguishes Buffy and why the show and writing stand out. In Buffy, the lover's do not ride off into the sunset, instead she tells him at the end of the series - what was the highlight of our relationship? When you tried to kill me? Or when I sent you to hell? But then Buffy, unlike the others is not a romance, it is a coming of age horror tale, focusing on the journey of a flawed heroine through a world filled with demons both literal and metaphorical. Told with satiric wit and often undercutting the romantic tropes within the genre. The irony, of course, is that a good portion of the fandom has resisted the satire and continues, much - I suspect - to the writers considerable chagrin not to mention annoyance - to insist on the durability and sustainability of whatever romantic trope the writer is lampooning. Stubbornly blind to the satire contained within the tale.

We see, I think, what we want to see. We hear the story the way we want to hear it, regardless of how well it may be told. It's the most frustrating thing about human communication - no matter what language and no matter how well translated, you cannot force someone to hear or see what you want them to, especially when they wish to see something else entirely. Any more than you can force them to agree or see your point of view. You can write volumes arguing it, they will still stubbornly only read the bits of what you wrote that they wished to read. As I fear you may well be doing now with what I wrote above.

Comments

[embers-log.livejournal.com]

lol
I like your twist: that your readers at lj may be as blind as those watching/reading a romance....
"knowledge is structured in consciousness" that is to say, we only see what we are ready to see (or worse, what we want to see).

Of course why should the stories we watch or read be any different than real life? Too often our RL romances are mostly delusion aided by a lot of wishful thinking....
(I should keep my thoughts on that to myself, huh?)

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

lol
I like your twist: that your readers at lj may be as blind as those watching/reading a romance....
"knowledge is structured in consciousness" that is to say, we only see what we are ready to see (or worse, what we want to see).

Yes. One of the things I've been noticing in Whedon's stories, most recently Dollhouse - is an exploration of the horrific consequences of maintaining delusions or what we want to believe. Last night's episode of Dollhouse, for example - had a woman who returned after her death to visit her family and determine who murdered her - in the episode she's forced to come to grips with the fact that she did not know her family as well as she thought, nor were their views of her what she expected. Her reality and theirs was not the same. Buffy, similarily, is forced to realize that Angel is a monster - much as Pete had become with Debbie. Without meaning to - she brings out the monster in him. Her love for him is in the end destructive. But she doesn't want to see that, she can't see that - because it is too painful.

Of course why should the stories we watch or read be any different than real life? Too often our RL romances are mostly delusion aided by a lot of wishful thinking....
(I should keep my thoughts on that to myself, huh?)

Yeah...I probably should too.;-)

But I've been thinking about this a lot lately. And It's not just romances, it's friendships, relationships with siblings and parents and family members...

I was watching Dollhouse last night - and there's this bit where Topher creates the perfect playmate for his birthday.
Just once a year. To be less lonely. But I wonder if it doesn't just make him more lonely? The playmate isn't real.
There's nothing more painful that the discovery that something you invested a great deal of emotional energy into is not real.
And may never have been. It's like having a layer of your skin ripped off.

[embers-log.livejournal.com]

my theory on Topher is that he uploaded his own personality into Sierra, so she was the perfect playmate because she was him (talked like him, moved like him, could beat him 1/2 the time at the games they played). Which would only reinforce (IMO) his isolation: that he can only relate to someone who is exactly like him.

I'm guessing he is a high functioning autistic who cannot really relate or understand other people.

But you're right, the loneliness and isolation of real life relationships is painful because we cannot really know what they are thinking (in Dollhouse last night Margaret's relatives told her what they really thought because she was dead.... so the only way she could learn about not knowing who they really were was by dying, that is VERY isolating and sad!).

[curlymynci.livejournal.com]

I particularly like your thoughts about Beauty and The Beasts. It's not my favourite episode so I've often overlooked a lot of the more subtle bits.

That was very nice reading.

[joe-sweden.livejournal.com]

Very interesting stuff. It makes me think... Btvs is much like Northanger Abbey, only the things that go bump in the night are real - it's the romantic elements that are a trap for the mind.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Haven't read Northhanger Abbey - it's one of the few Jane Austen's I just could not make it through. But you are correct it's Austen's satire of gothic romance. Although read more like a parody to me, which was why I struggled with it. Not a huge fan of parody.

I don't think that the romantic elements are necessarily meant to be traps for the mind or bad. Just that taking them to the extreme...is. For example - Willow's romance with Kennedy in the comics is fairly mature and reasonable. It's also notably the only romance that seems to survive in either series. All the others fall apart. What is different is that Willow and Kennedy aren't joined at the hip, they can be friends with people who don't necessarily like their significant other, and
they can spend lots of time apart. They do not only have eyes for one another. It's a tempered romance.

I think the critique here is of gothic romance or the melodramatic aspects of romance, the swoon bits. There's some hilarious lines - such as "When I kiss you I want to die" or
"When I think of the future - all I see, all I can think of is you."

[joe-sweden.livejournal.com]

I, sorry, i meant Romance in the genre/period sense rather than all the love stuff! Just the Twilight bits :)

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Ah. Thanks for the clarification!

Just finished watching "Lover's Walk" - and the writers basically drill it home in this episode.

There's this great exchange between Spike and Joyce, which in a way acts as an exchange between Joyce and Buffy - with Spike as the stand-in. It's also a brilliant critique of the Twilight/gothic genre.

Spike: We were supposed to be forever, I don't understand...
Joyce: Sometimes two people can seem perfect for each other, but their lives take them on different paths and it just doesn't work...for example me and Buffy's father -
Spike: But our love was different, it was Eternal!

Then later, Spike repeats it more or less to Buffy/Angel - stating : "You'll never be friends.
You'll fight and you'll shag, you'll hate each other until it makes you quiver...but you can't be friends.
Love isn't about brains children, it's about blood screaming inside you to work its will. I'm love's bitch but at least I'm man enough to admit it."

IT is the same exact speech that Doctor Platt gives Buffy in Beauty and the Beasts, except a bit more poetic and a lot funnier.

[joe-sweden.livejournal.com]

It is a good speech indeed. Evil telling truth to power is one of the enjoyable Buffy tropes :)

[westlinwind.livejournal.com]

Those two quotes about love? Needed to read them right now. Thank you.

[swsa.livejournal.com]

But when she attempts to get rid of the formula that turned him into the monster - he tells her, he no longer needs it - she is enough, all by herself, to do it to him. Just as Angelus states that all Angel requires is Buffy to turn him into mean old Angelus.

I'd always seen the parallels between the two couples in BATB, but never some of the very specific framing that went on in the episode. Very interesting. I'm just about to wrap up S3 in my own rewatch, so this was perfect timing and gives me a lot to think about.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

The framing struck me on this go around, because it's such a nice counterpoint to Angel saving Buffy. We are lead to believe, oh, Angel is good now, they are reunited, their love is forever. Except for that closing frame, which foreshadows the exact opposite.

[ponygirl2000.livejournal.com]

Subtle is actually the last word I would use to describe Beauty and the Beasts. It's my least favourite episode of that season, because it keeps hitting us with the parallels to Buffy/Angel and abusive relationships - but then doesn't provide any way out of this cycle of violence: Debbie gets killed, and even Buffy has to be rescued by Angel of all people. Who the hell has any agency in this episode? The men are feral animals, the women are victims and I just end up getting mad thinking about it again!! Grr!

[dlgood.livejournal.com]

It's pretty much an after school special. Necessary to the season arc, but pretty artless relative to other episodes.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

I certainly viewed it that way the first couple of times I've watched that episode. Been a while since I'd seen it to be honest, because in previous viewings, I tended to skip over Beauty and the Beasts - mostly because I remembered it grating on my nerves.

Was tempted to skip it this go-around as well. Very glad I didn't.

Sure the central part feels very after-school specialish. And it is a bit on the preachy side regarding the whole domestic violence/abusive boyfriend syndrom. But...

when you watch with the other episodes...you pick up things.
One of the themes I picked up on, and keep in mind this is a horror series so tends to go for the nasty - is the whole love dynamic. The men literally become dogs - Angel, Pete, OZ - in regards to the women they love. But it's not the women who turn them into dogs. It's the passion/love - the feeling.
Not the person. They've become so lost in the emotion, they can't think, rational thought is gone, it is all about devoring, consuming, and killing. Destroying all that gets in the way. And the women involved - all enjoy to a degree being the focus of that passion, they ignore the monster, want to ignore it, want to cage it, yet at the same time...

Pete and Debbie were fine, but Pete felt he had to be more for Debbie, much as Xander feels he has to be more for Cordelia in Go Fish. Or Scott Hope wonders if he is enough for Buffy. She seems so distant. He can't connect to her. Buffy in turn can't connect to Scott - he's not dangerous, he doesn't excite her, and he can't begin to fit in her life as the slayer. Re-enter Angel...who at this point she can't figure out, is he good, is he damaged and broken?

Giles gives her two options - he could have come out of hell, a monster, with no remorse, no good in him, a beast - the Mr. Hyde character that he'd been after Innocence and the MR. Hyde character that Pete becomes whenever he drinks the potion.
OR he could have survived, found a way to hold onto himself, not given in, which would take extraordinary will - that person may be redeemable. Pete or Dr. Jekyll or Willow's OZ - who wants to beat back the wolf. Pete unfortunately loses himself to Hyde, and no longer requires the drug to change.
OZ...the jury is still out on at this point. And Angel appears to at least at this point to have held on to himself, he comes in at the last minute and fights off Hyde, killing him. Sure you can see it as the typical guy saves girl, but I think the reason the writer chose to have him save her was to show him fight off Hyde, to fight off himself. It isn't Pete, Angel attacks in that scene but Angelus. For Pete is saying to Buffy all the things Angelus did and fighting her as Angelus did.
Yet, it still isn't a happy ending - that's why we get the final frame - as reminder that these two can't be happy together. Buffy can never allow herself to trust Angel.
Trust is non-existent. And without trust...love can not sustain itself.

[dlgood.livejournal.com]

Again, sure, but... well, duh. And of course, the key distinction between Pete/Debbie and Angel & Oz is that Pete is intentionally making demands and even seeking demanding circumstances out. Whereas Angel and Oz do not embrace monstrous nature, do not ask others to accept it, and do not make demands.

Now, what should one make of it in light of S6, and the fandom's view of S6 relationships? (Presumably, this 'message' of this episode would be met with angry howls as applied to S6.)

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure the episode sayt that OZ and Angel don't embrace that nature. At least not any more. The final frame leads me to believe that the writers are telling us that there's always the chance that they will.
And...well, I'm trying not to get ahead of myself in my viewing. Because I've discovered something interesting while viewing these episodes - that I'm not looking at them in the same way that I did before.

If memory serves, and I may change my mind once I make it to Season 4 - OZ does end up embracing the wolf which is what sends him scurrying away, and when he returns, he realizes that Willow brings it out - he can't handle her choices. Also, if memory serves, Angel does end embracing his inner demon towards the end of the season due in part to Buffy's urging in order to save his life - which almost kills her, and sends him scurrying off to LA to find himself. At least that's how I remember it.

So, what I see in Beauty and the Beasts is foreshadowing, and a warning - OZ and Angel are doomed to become Pete at some point in the near future. And Willow and Buffy doomed to fall in Debbie's footsteps.

TV shows will often do this, heck Dollhouse is at the moment - they will tell the story we don't want to see with the guest performers - spell out the doom of our characters relationships through that A story thread.
Then a few episodes down the line, we actually see it played out.

Regarding S6? I'm going to wait until I rewatch, before discussing it again. I want to see how it looks in context to the rest of the episodes. I'm sort of re-watching the series much as one might re-read a favorite novel. It's weird I know, not to mention a tad on the annoyingly anal side, but it's making me happy. LOL!

That said, I think base purely on my memory of it, yes, portions of Season Six and Season 7 as well as Season Five echo portions of Seasons 1, 2 and 3 but from a far more complex and gray perspective. The metaphors are a little less heavy handed and there are more gaps in the storytelling. It's almost as the writer is retelling the story but from another, more adult, angle and to an adult as opposed to juvenile audience. As a result - The writer seems to trust his audience more in the latter seasons than he did in the earlier ones. But again that's based on my memory of the seasons. We'll see what I feel when I watch them again.

As far as fandom's view of S6? Sigh. I don't share it. But then you may have already guessed that to some extent. Fandom's take on season 6/7 and some of the relationships is why I have a bit of a cranky relationship with fandom. I have to keep biting my tongue or I'll get myself verbally slapped.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Sigh, typos galore. Sorry. I blame the warm weather.

[dlgood.livejournal.com]

Angel does end embracing his inner demon towards the end of the season due in part to Buffy's urging in order to save his life - which almost kills her, and sends him scurrying off to LA to find himself. At least that's how I remember it.

Angel has already decided to leave, and told her he is leaving town, when that happens.

Both Angel & Oz leave because they have an inherent monstrous nature they cannot control or wholly suppress, (but wish to because they value the human side of their nature), and because they do want to impose that struggle on the people they love. It is perhaps noble and stupid, but also a valid value choice. Particularly as both believe Buffy and Willow can (and should) be happy without them. Whether they prefer it or not.

And also, Angel has aspirations to do things with his life, that would be permanently frustrated if he remained in a small town like Sunnydale. In fairness, I think this applies to Buffy too, who always looked considerably less miserable every time she contemplated possibly escaping town.

[next_to_normal]

Now, what should one make of it in light of S6, and the fandom's view of S6 relationships?

Not sure what you mean by "fandom's view" since I find it varies depending on which sector of fandom you're in. But the fact that you brought up s6 is interesting... because the first thing I thought of when I read the Audrey Hepburn quote was Spike and Buffy's exchange from "Seeing Red":

SPIKE: Trust is for old marrieds, Buffy. Great love is wild and passionate and dangerous. It burns and consumes.
BUFFY: Until there's nothing left. Love like that doesn't last.

(Sidebar: I wonder if Buffy is speaking from experience here, if she recognizes that this is what happened with Angel, or if she's just disagreeing with Spike on principle.)

In any case, I think they're making the same statement then as they were in the episodes discussed here. Spike's passionate, all-consuming love for Buffy is dangerous, and they're better off in season 7, when they've built trust, even if it's not a sexual relationship.

You could also apply the same idea to Willow and Tara, I think. Their relationship only goes bad when Willow taps into her own "inner monster" - her use of magic.

Xander, on the other hand, seems to ruin his relationship with Anya out of fear of the monster, before it ever really makes an appearance.

[dlgood.livejournal.com]

(Sidebar: I wonder if Buffy is speaking from experience here, if she recognizes that this is what happened with Angel, or if she's just disagreeing with Spike on principle.)

I believe she's arguing as much on principle as experience, because she does come into most of her interaction with a baseline moral/value system - and that total/obsessive devotion Spike defines love by is inimical to the broader sense of responsibilities held by someone who takes the Slayer role so seriously.

But I do also think Buffy has a longer memory than she necessarily lets on, and I also think she's evaluating things in light of past experiences. (Although, there's a certain limitation on applicability, since they broke up over what they viewed as unworkable curse and mortality/immortality issues rather than deciding 'love had burned them out' or something.) It's also likely she's thinking of other examples - maybe her parents, friends, I don't know...

But I do see what you mean with the experiences feeling like call-backs. Sort of - in the same way - I couldn't watch their argument over Katrina's murder in "Dead Things" without also thinking about Buffy & Faith's arguments in "Consequences". And the differences between how they interact, I think, mean a lot for her.

[next_to_normal]

Although, there's a certain limitation on applicability, since they broke up over what they viewed as unworkable curse and mortality/immortality issues rather than deciding 'love had burned them out' or something.

True, although I get the sense from the crossovers (post-IWRY, that is) that they do see their love burning out over time. When Angel left, I don't think Buffy could imagine not being madly in love with him. But with time and distance, she's able to see him... and then walk away. It's easier and easier for them to part, so I think she recognizes that the great love that once consumed her is burned up. (If she doesn't recognize that here, I think she definitely recognizes it by "Chosen." Her cookie dough speech is not the speech of a girl still madly in love.)

I couldn't watch their argument over Katrina's murder in "Dead Things" without also thinking about Buffy & Faith's arguments in "Consequences".

Oh, definitely.

[dlgood.livejournal.com]

If she doesn't recognize that here, I think she definitely recognizes it by "Chosen." Her cookie dough speech is not the speech of a girl still madly in love.

That's true. It goes to her experience and awareness that life is more than romantic grand gestures, and that she can't live day-to-day, exclusively by them. Now, I also think there are day-to-day things she did get from him (a lot of emotional support and a sounding board who recognized and shared many of her concerns) that she does miss out on. But rather be tied up in ideals of love, she did adjust, grow, move and live in the world.

I actually think they were more mature about their relationship than a surface reading gives credit for. Most of S3 is the process of them coming to terms with an inevitable break-up, and that can be very hard to do - particularly when standard romantic tropes say "True Love" is supposed overcome adversity, damn all else.

Buffy sometimes indulged herself but reluctantly accepted this doesn't hold given her larger set of values, so she's naturally not going to accept it coming from Spike later on.

None of which says they either could or could not sustain a different or more mature relationship in the future if they had circumstances that supported it. The mad love isn't there, but there were other things there too.

[dlgood.livejournal.com]

I'm not entirely sure of some of the parallels. With the ghosts, Buffy is the young man and Angel is the doomed teacher. You seemed to imply the reverse.

Buffy, similarily, is forced to realize that Angel is a monster - much as Pete had become with Debbie. Without meaning to - she brings out the monster in him. Her love for him is in the end destructive.

Although, that's kind of a simple and declarative take - and not in and of itself. Because his baseline state in the episode is a mindless monster chained up in an abandoned mansion. So you could say that love makes him a monster, but also note that it is also the thing that got him out of the sewer in the first place.

Just as the melodrama of the relationship is counterposed by numerous scenes of them sitting around talking quietly and not doing very much.

Satire/undercutting of the melodramatic/gothic romance is set-up far earlier. You have stock examples like Buffy's cross burning Angel's chest when she kisses him - which is an undercutting though played dramatically. And there is a scene in What's My Line where they have a typical conversation in the room, but another camera angel shows the conversation in the mirror and Angel is not in it. Which was the storytelling making the point about the unsustainability of their romance in a very quiet but clear way.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

No, I saw Buffy as the young man and Angel as the doomed teacher. The doomed teacher is as responsible for the relationship as the young man and as obsessed.
That's what I meant to imply above.

I'd agree that yes the under-cutting of the gothic romance trope is set-up from the get-go. It's actually even earlier than you mention. I did not mean to imply it starts in S2. It actually starts in episode one of the series Welcome to the Hellmouth - with Angel lurking in the shadows.

Angel, note, doesn't really do anything to help Buffy.
His information tends to be more cryptic than useful.
And when he does help her - it is calculated to get a romantic response.

It's not "love" that pulls him out of the sewer, but an infatuation. After all, he doesn't know her at that point. She appeals. And he wants. Desires.
As Whistler states - she must have been much more attractive than the last girl. He also waits a long time before approaching her. Until he's at his best, and when he does, he is careful about it, seductive.
He is every young girl's fantasy - but pull back the viel and you have a monster, something horrific who will turn on a dime.

[dlgood.livejournal.com]

With the other note, that none of this includes the aspirational elements of Angel's character which aren't gone into much before the spinoff.

On the face, "Becoming" paints the infatuation and a shallow argument for why he chooses to help her at all... but I think the parallel scenes make the point that it's as much the case of identification. And not exactly with Buffy herself, or a romance, but connecting what he assumes the aspirations of a teenaged girl as proxy for admitting and accepting that he has aspirations of his own that cannot be met if he hides in a sewer.

He doesn't like the idea of the pretty girl out in the sun getting dragged into a world of darkness because he doesn't like being there himself - and she's a catalyst to that. It helps that she's pretty. It helps that - being the slayer - means that she's doing "God's Work" if you will. (And does to Angel, who clearly needs to feel like he is doing something significant/good if he's going to act.)

Which is ultimately why he'd wind up running his own shop in LA, building a family, being part of the world. And also, why (claims to calculated seductiveness aside) it seemed so important for him to encourage her having a 'normal life' - things like work, school, friends/family. Because those are His Values.

Which, I think, makes for strong storytelling - because Wheedon sets up characters with both aspirations and values. The characters have internal conflict with those values/aspirations. The characters have test and opportunities to prioritize and show who they really are and what they really value.

Which, depending upon ones definitions of the terms, either makes it "better than just a romance" or "a good exploration of the genre" because the viewer is supposed to see beyond romance/sex/love and see characters having to make choices and grow.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

At this point in the story, we aren't really delving into Angel as Buffy views him. Outside of Becoming, we aren't in Angel's pov, and even in that episode - the pov is odd and highly romanticized.

It's not until, as you note above, that Angel is spun-off into his own series that the character is REALLY given a chance to develop, as are Cordelia and Wesley for that matter.

That said, there is an episode in S3, which I haven't re-watched yet, so am trying to avoid commenting on, that does develop Angel.

What limits Angel is his romance with Buffy. Don't misunderstand me - I'm not saying they shouldn't be in love or that their love was necessarily wrong in of itself - what I see, and this is hard to articulate well - is a critique of the TWILIGHT style romance or
MOONLIGHT romance - where the girl's love inspires and saves the guy. And being lost in one another, forgetting the world around them is of the good. It's the getting lost in one another that is destructive.
And that is what happens to Buffy and Angel. No one else can be in their circle. She can't be with her friends and be with Angel. Angel can't be a hero and be with Buffy. They inspire each other, they will always care about each other, but when they are together - they fall into the abyss, the world falls away and does not matter. It's the quote above - it is okay to be lost in love, but if you stay lost - you become love's dog.

Apart Buffy and Angel are far stronger than they are together. It is no surprise that they don't really have friends in common with the possible exception of Willow, Faith and Spike. Their closest friends can't abide them - Cordy hates Buffy, and Xander hates Angel.
And in a way Buffy is far better suited to Xander, as is Angel far better suited to Cordelia...

But, I'm trying not to comment too much on Angel until I get to the episodes. I'm literally watching all the episodes in order to see, partly out curiousity, how they hold up next to each other - now that I'm no longer emotionally invested in the outcome or in a particular character. I'm not really. I love all the characters at this point, more or less equally. Although I will admit that Willow is starting to grate on my nerves. ;-)

[dlgood.livejournal.com]

What limits Angel is his romance with Buffy.

What limits him is that, in S1-2, he has very little screentime. That he uses much of that time encouraging her about school and family... on one side, this is boyfriend stuff (but not all boyfriends did this) ... but on another is indicative that these are things he finds of value to a person.

It's the getting lost in one another that is destructive.
And that is what happens to Buffy and Angel. No one else can be in their circle. She can't be with her friends and be with Angel. Angel can't be a hero and be with Buffy.

Buffy can't be with her friends, and be with Angel? I'd dispute that. She could. She was. And it's certainly not something Angel asks of her. He's very supportive of her other relationships.

And yeah, Angel couldn't "be a hero and be with Buffy" in S2, arguably because he needed to grow the hell up. The fact that we are looking at a HS student and a guy who's had no real relationships for a century and expect "love" kind of points out the flaws of viewing things through a romantic lens. (Any more than it is trying to apply that lens in S7, when she's still only 22 and has barely left her own house.)

I'd also note that if you look at them after S7/S5, they are more suited for each other than they were in S2 given their shared leadership experiences and value systems. (That Xander doesn't accept or respect Buffy's values is an under-regarded lurking problem if they ever tried to make it as a couple.)

To the extent that people can't be with Angel - it'd due to the 'curse' - which renders him unfit for anyone. He can find people he is willing to mark time with, yes, but not someone he deeply loved.

It is no surprise that they don't really have friends in common

Because they have about 5 friends total between the two of them... Small sample size.

In fact, I think the problem isn't so much the characters - who have reasonably realistic views of romance given who they are - but the audience that is expecting very unrealistic things out of characters who were never supposed to be fully formed in the first place.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Hmmm.

Remember this is a horror series. Not only that but a television horror series. The characters can't be that fully developed. Also romances cannot last. We can't have Buffy and Angel getting married, having kids, and fighting demons - well, we could, but that would go against the nature of the series, plus I'd probably be bored. But if you like that sort of stuff? I highly recommend Moonlight and Tanya Huff's Blood Ties and Charlian Harri's Sookie series. Also you may enjoy the Twilight novels a great deal. Not my cup of tea I'm afraid, although I'll admit to liking Blood Ties.

I guess what I loved most about this series was the anti-romance aspect. It's populated with metaphors and images dictacting how romances like Buffy/Angel fall apart and cannot be sustained. I'm not saying that they can't be sustained, that it is impossible, I'm saying the series is depicting the opposite.

If Buffy was a romance novel = you would get what you depict above. But it's not, it is a horror show - you get the opposite.

It is showing how romances go badly, how things go wrong. A similar argument could be made for B/X, B/S, etc and be just as true as yours above. I've read them.
But, that's not the story the writer wants to tell and it is not the story that is being shown, nor should it be. The story on air is satirizing what you discuss above. It is making fun of it. Undercutting.

[dlgood.livejournal.com]

But if you like that sort of stuff? I highly recommend Moonlight and Tanya Huff's Blood Ties and Charlian Harri's Sookie series.

Why would you think I'd like that? I don't read romance novels, watch TV for romance, and I don't have particular awareness of the genre. Which I find largely uninteresting. Perhaps I should then differentiate by using the term "un-romance" as opposed to "anti-romance". Some viewers want Romance, either to be promoted or undercut. I don't need it. But I examine it if it's there.

I'm a realist, and my primary interest is examining the characters as though they really inhabit the worlds their shows are set in. Hence my expectations for a character's romantic life being "she's 17, she's in HS, of course it's not going to last". Hence my assumption that Buffy, at age 22 as of the S7 finale, has yet to meet the person she'll marry, if we're required to assume she ultimately does.

From my unromantic perspective - seeing how the relationship falls apart or hearing the author tell me why romance doesn't work - that doesn't interest me. I already expect that. What does interest me, is seeing why they actually would be together in the first place - and to see what values lead to support or conflict between them. (see Ted or Gingerbread) And what are the organic aspects of the characters that make things work or not work - and what it tells us about who they are and need to grow into.

That characters would be together because of lust/ passion/desire - I find obvious and boring. And too often a creative crutch for the writers.

I recognize that shows require ongoing love stories with dramatic tension, as this appeals to a broader base of passionate viewers. I'm not one of them.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

I guess from your arguments, it appeared that you were heavily invested in the B/A romance and didn't like that the show wasn't following through on that relationship and had chosen instead to go in another direction or undercut it? Anyhow sorry that I misunderstood you. And thank you for taking the time to clarify.

I think we have to tolerate the fact that people do not share our interests. That we are interested in different things. And what may have bored the socks off you, will turn someone else on and vice versa. The difficulty, and I am as guilty of this as you are, is not to judge someone who likes things we hate or that bore us, too harshly. For example - I admittedly have as cranky a relationship with B/A shippers as you appear to have with B/S shippers. ;-) (Which does make discussions on lj, fanboards, and the like dicey at times.)

As for Buffy, I think I'm reading the show differently than you are? And wanting different things from it? And as a result, may be enjoying it more? Because it is giving me what I need. I don't know.

Just finished Lover's Walk, a brilliant episode - in it we see what attracted Buffy to Angel and vice versa - and why they aren't together when Buffy becomes an adult and never will be. If you want to know why - it's said pretty clearly in Lover's Walk.

We fall in love with or become friends with people, tv shows, books, etc.. who give us something we want and need. When they stop providing us with that something or when we finally come to grips with the fact that they can't ever give it to us and are not who we thought they were, the relationship falls apart.

Buffy says to Angel at the end of Lover's Walk - I can't be with you, I can't ever have what I want from you. It is a speech she gives him in different ways across four seasons. And likewise, Buffy cannot give Angel what he wants, he will never get from Buffy what Cordy gives him in LA.

In the episode Ted - Ted wants a woman who will stay with him, care for him, support him, and cater to his needs. His wife left him when he got cancer. So he made a robot Ted to get her back. He could not accept the fact that she could not give him what he needed. Could not be what he thought she was. And he in turn could not be what she needed.

Relationships are successful when both parties get what they want from the relationship, and see each other clearly, without projecting their own desires/fantasies onto each other. When they can tolerate each others short-comings, compromise, and realize that even though they aren't getting everything they may desire from the relationship - they are getting what they need from it - and that is enough.

The difference between a mature and immature relationship or lust/infatuation vs. love - is when the two parties see each other as they truly are and not what they want each other to be, and accept each other as they are, faults intact. Love can't happen at first sight - that is physical attraction.
You have to have trust, you have to know the person - see them at their worst and their best and still forgive their faults, for real lasting love to happen.

Giles and Jenny have that type of relationship in Season 2, it is done in sketches, as do Tara and Willow in Season 6, and
Willow and Kennedy in the comic books. They are to date the only ones who we see with that type of relationship, (with the possible exception of Buffy and Spike by the very end of S7 and Angel/Cordy in S3, before she is taken from him - but I know you vehmentally disagree with me on that point and I really see nothing to be gained in arguing it. Since the characters cannot be together, because they are both, to a degree an adult retelling, at least that is how I see it again your mileage may differ, of the B/A relationship.)

[dlgood.livejournal.com]

I guess from your arguments, it appeared that you were heavily invested in the B/A romance and didn't like that the show wasn't following through on that relationship and had chosen instead to go in another direction or undercut it?

This is because most discussions of shows require talk of romance, and assume the universes are closed loops. People operate with the fundamental assumptions that (1) characters must eventually be permanently paired up and (2) that these pairings must be limited among those already in the cast. These are very flawed assumptions.

They are particularly flawed when considering pairings of immortal/eternally young characters with mortals - where milennia of human mythology weighs in against that. And particularly in the case of Angel - whose curse - makes any serious, long-term loving relationship a non-starter. Were that barrier removed, it might be quite possible for Angel & Buffy to work on a functional relationship. But again, this is a non-starter.

And indeed, because I know it is a non-starter, I never have to get distracted worrying whether they'll ever make it as a couple or whether the story should or should not have endorsed or rejected them. Who winds up with whom, isn't the point for this viewer.

But I reject the idea that they are fundamentally unsuited for each other, simply because it is not possible to conduct a viable test. The metaphysics of their universe preclude it, and they are unromantic enough to not pursue it.

My real concerns are not "ship" based, but based in character and storytelling. What makes the Buffy & Angel relationship interesting, is that their interactions prompt tests of their value systems. These characters will have compelling internal and external conflict whenever they interact, and that is good for telling a story. The functioning of mundane aspects of their relationship (i.e. everyday stuff) is not of paramount importance to the story, but this should not lead us to assume they either could or could not work.

Fixating on talking about why they are doomed is a distraction to what I consider more interesting storytelling. Just like fixating on why Buffy & Spike should be so great together - which shippers are prone to do - distracted greatly from any valuable analysis of Spike's character.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Sigh. I think perhaps, we are talking at cross-purposes and just frustrating one another. Because after reading the above, I do not believe we disagree on romance or how it should be viewed on a tv show or in a story.

Where I think we do disagree is in which relationship is the most interesting to follow and why. I think Angel is far more interesting when you remove Buffy from the mix. That the B/A relationship distracts from the analysis of Angel's character. His character is far more complex when you forget Buffy. He's less the Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde cliche we see in Beauty and the Beasts. And I do agree, Spike is by far, more interesting when he is not with Buffy or not analyzed primarily in context with Buffy. The problem with analyzing either character in context with just Buffy is the tendency to romanticize the character, to excuse their faults.

Angel - is set up early on in BS1 as the worst out thing out there. He taught and created Spike and Dru.
He was to stand at the Master's Right hand and was the Master's favorite son. But he got a gyspey blood curse guaranteed to make him suffer for the horrors he did.
Angel is proud of being the worst thing ever, while at the same time deeply guilty and in pain over it.
He wishes he didn't have a soul - "do you have any idea how hard it is to have done what I've done and to care?" Very complicated and dark character.

Spike likewise is a very complicated and dark character.

I find Angel and Spike's relationship to be far more interesting than Angel and Buffy's. Heck Angel and Darla were more interesting.

That is where you and I differ. You are as annoyed by the fixation on Buffy and Spike and why they should be so great together, as I am by the fixation on Buffy and Angel and why they should be together which shippers are prone to do and distract equally from any valuable analysis of Angel's character.

That said - my post above is not analysis of Angel's character nor Spike's - it was and I think I was pretty clear about it - a post about how Whedon satirizes romantic love specifically in the episodes of Beauty and the Beasts, IOHFY, and other episodes. It was in my lj, not on a posting board, and several people enjoyed it, actually everyone but two appeared to. It was also lj-cut, so I didn't make you read all of it. If you didn't enjoy it, fine. If you disagree, fine. But hey, I stand by the post and why I wrote it - which was to discuss how untempered love or letting love rule you is a destructive thing and why I'm loving my re-watch of the series.