Arguments against Bangel that annoy you #2

[Mrs Gordo]

Yes, I think that's the video @dcai0830 once made a status about and I had the same reaction! Though I already felt that argument was bullshit, but the video confirmed it to me. And now I just laugh whenever I see people say that they never smiled around each other.

Every time I see the argument now I just want to link that vid over and over.

 

[Mrs Gordo]

Btw in case anyone doesn’t want to go dig for the vid here is the link so you can also send it to all those who make that silly argument:

 

[RomanticSoul]

Yes, I think that's the video @dcai0830 once made a status about and I had the same reaction! Though I already felt that argument was bullshit, but the video confirmed it to me. And now I just laugh whenever I see people say that they never smiled around each other.

Does that argument come from that other shipper camp or non shippers? Because if it comes from the other camp that would be hilariously stupid. No smiles really in that ship (other than those under magical influence), at least as far as I remember. Nothing but sad faces, well on Buffy's end anyway.

 

[Mylie]

Does that argument come from that other shipper camp or non shippers? Because if it comes from the other camp that would be hilariously stupid. No smiles really in that ship (other than those under magical influence), at least as far as I remember. Nothing but sad faces, well on Buffy's end anyway.

I do see it from spuffy shippers, but I think I've seen it used the most by Cangel shippers (though they're usually also Spuffy shippers). But they tend to focus on how much Angel smiles around Cordelia in comparison to how miserable he seemed around Buffy. Which... makes no sense to me? Angel literally achieved perfect happiness with Buffy. But yes, he was obviously miserable with her! lol

 

[RomanticSoul]

I do see it from spuffy shippers, but I think I've seen it used the most by Cangel shippers (though they're usually also Spuffy shippers). But they tend to focus on how much Angel smiles around Cordelia in comparison to how miserable he seemed around Buffy. Which... makes no sense to me? Angel literally achieved perfect happiness with Buffy. But yes, he was obviously miserable with her! lol

How do Cangel shippers even quantify that? For a comparison you'd have to look at the time they were romantically involved or at least the courting phase. For Cangel the former doesn't exist and there is precious little of the latter. So how much did Angel smile during that period? Then there is also the uncomfortable possibility that the whole thing was influenced by Jasmine. Did Angel smile around Cordy during AtS? Sure, since S1. But during their 'romantic' phase? I don't remember that well enough (willfully blocked it out) but I'm gonna say no. There was too much other stuff happening (namely Connor).

 

[Mrs Gordo]

You also you have to take into account the temporary insanity that was Angel’s personality in s3.

As @Carrie Hopewell says in one of her tumblr metas on the subject of angel and happiness.

Season 3 is the era of goofy Angel. He smiles excessively, has a spring in his step, becomes interested in Hockey, seems to be wiped off remorse or grief until the serious episodes ™. Note that he behaves this way whether he’s around Fred, Cordelia or a plant. In fact, Cordy is gone for the Wesley trilogy and that doesn’t affect Angel one bit.

 

[Carrie Hopewell]

As @Carrie Hopewell says in one of her tumblr metas on the subject of angel and happiness.

Lol. Throw back to that time I compared Cordelia to a plant.

 

[crazysoulless]

Lol. Throw back to that time I compared Cordelia to a plant.

In a way, Cordelia compared herself to a plant. In IWRY, she held a wilting one up and complained, "This plant was thriving just this morning. I tell you, where she (Buffy) leads, dark forces follow."

Cordelia was metaphorically the plant who thrived that morning until Angel became human. She thought Angel was going to retire to be with Buffy, dismantle AI, and stop paying her a weekly salary. Without acting or singing talent and too much conceit to get a regular full-time job while going on auditions (most beginners start off as a waitress, barista, nanny, receptionist, office temp) she survived solely by getting paid to be an AtS version of a Scooby. "I'm only good for two things, international stardom or helping a souled vampire rid the world of evil." Angel was literally Cordy's boss/employer and kept her sheltered & fed and from prostituting herself to get ahead (in City Of she was going to have sex with Russell "What do you want me to do?" because he was wealthy/In-Crowd).

Cordelia was pissed off at Buffy because instead of being happy for Angel, Cordy only focused on the safety net she thought she was losing. While he was off fighting the Mohra demon and possibly being murdered, Cordelia was inventorying all of his stuff to sell off so she'd have money for herself while complaining that Angel (her boss for only 3 months) didn't give her a severance package.

 

[MarieVampSlayer]

Another argument that I hate is when people say that Bangel is not real love because it's Buffy's first love. I mean that is not how love work. You don't have to love tons of people and have a millions relationship to have a special connection with someone. It's a chemical things not an age thing. I think I feel strongly about this one because my boyfriend is my first love and we have been together for 12 years!!!

 

[DayDreamer27]

Another argument that I hate is when people say that Bangel is not real love because it's Buffy's first love. I mean that is not how love work. You don't have to love tons of people and have a millions relationship to have a special connection with someone. It's a chemical things not an age thing. I think I feel strongly about this one because my boyfriend is my first love and we have been together for 12 years!!!

Agreed. I think it's not that black & white when people say "Teenagers know nothing about love, so it's not real." I am old fashioned myself, but even I don't agree. Some teens do experience real love just like some adults get together & act like children. Age doesn't automatically equal love or a good relationship. I think most teens will experience puppy love and infatuation. But that's still not all. Some do experience the real thing and last.

Arguments I hate, and sorry if they already got mentioned.
1. Angel doesn't deserve Buffy because he doesn't love her w/o a soul like Spike can.

Couple of things wrong in that for me.
1. I don't consider soulless Spike's feelings love. I believe it's limerence, which I suffered from myself since I was 8 -when it first popped up. Anyone unfamiliar with the term.
Limerence - Wikipedia
I know this is not love. The feelings are intense, and can actually cause pain or even depression when the person you're affected by is beyond your reach -felt that too. Because of how intense it is, many think it has to be love & it's not. And the fact Spike had a subservient sexbot of Buffy shows that imo. He loved the idea of her and created a toy of her to do with as he please, which wasn't the real Buffy, and thus he's not appreciating her for herself. He's indulging in a fantasized version of her.

2. If we try to paint soulless Spike's feelings & subsequent behavior as love, then we can do the same with Angelus. lol He loves Buffy so much, he tries to torture and kill her because she makes him feel things he doesn't want to. He doesn't want though feelings and to be so affected, so he tries getting rid of her.

So I don't think pre-soul Spike or Angelus deserves any points. But the former tends to get sanatized a bit too much. Even by Buffy on the show and comics.

 

[Mrs Gordo]

Agreed. I think it's not that black & white when people say "Teenagers know nothing about love, so it's not real." I am old fashioned myself, but even I don't agree. Some teens do experience real love just like some adults get together & act like children. Age doesn't automatically equal love or a good relationship. I think most teens will experience puppy love and infatuation. But that's still not all. Some do experience the real thing and last.

And in conjunction with this, you have to look at the context of the story (this has probably been said before in this thread or on the former thread that was closed down) but Buffy is NOT your typical teenager. When Angel and her meet in Sunnydale, she has been a slayer for a year. By the time they get into any type of relationship she has been a slayer for two years, she fights vampires/demons on a daily basis , and she has already died once and saved the world. Those kinds of experiences tend to put you on the face track to growing up whether you like it or not. I always say with regards to the argument about "it was puppy love" that an argument can be made this was the case before Angel went to hell. But after Angel comes back from hell, the argument falls apart. Buffy moves away and lives on her own for 3 months where she gets a job and supports herself with no help at all. Buffy in season 3 is 18 going on 25 given all she has been through - including the decision to kill the love of her life and an innocent soul to save the world! And yet still, Buffy loves Angel when he returns from hell. She loves him just as much at 19 when she spends the day with him in IWRY. So the argument that she is just some swoony school girl really doesn't even remotely fit Bangel post Becoming. And of course Buffy clarifies all of this non-sense for us anyway in s7 Selfless:

(gif by marshmallow-the-vampire-slayer on tumblr)

But why listen to Buffy she doesn't know anything about her own feelings she is just in deeeeeeeeep denial.

If we try to paint soulless Spike's feelings & subsequent behavior as love, then we can do the same with Angelus. lol He loves Buffy so much, he tries to torture and kill her because she makes him feel things he doesn't want to. He doesn't want though feelings and to be so affected, so he tries getting rid of her.

I've been meaning to make a thread about this and review a fic that explores Angelus' feelings towards Buffy. I'll get on that in the next week or so. I'm a bit on the fence about it myself. I'm rather ambivalent on Angelus' feelings towards Buffy but I can see the argument made that he is obsessed with her.

 

[BuffyBot22]

Agreed. I think it's not that black & white when people say "Teenagers know nothing about love, so it's not real." I am old fashioned myself, but even I don't agree. Some teens do experience real love just like some adults get together & act like children. Age doesn't automatically equal love or a good relationship. I think most teens will experience puppy love and infatuation. But that's still not all. Some do experience the real thing and last.

Arguments I hate, and sorry if they already got mentioned.
1. Angel doesn't deserve Buffy because he doesn't love her w/o a soul like Spike can.

Couple of things wrong in that for me.
1. I don't consider soulless Spike's feelings love. I believe it's limerence, which I suffered from myself since I was 8 -when it first popped up. Anyone unfamiliar with the term.
Limerence - Wikipedia
I know this is not love. The feelings are intense, and can actually cause pain or even depression when the person you're affected by is beyond your reach -felt that too. Because of how intense it is, many think it has to be love & it's not. And the fact Spike had a subservient sexbot of Buffy shows that imo. He loved the idea of her and created a toy of her to do with as he please, which wasn't the real Buffy, and thus he's not appreciating her for herself. He's indulging in a fantasized version of her.

2. If we try to paint soulless Spike's feelings & subsequent behavior as love, then we can do the same with Angelus. lol He loves Buffy so much, he tries to torture and kill her because she makes him feel things he doesn't want to. He doesn't want though feelings and to be so affected, so he tries getting rid of her.

So I don't think pre-soul Spike or Angelus deserves any points. But the former tends to get sanatized a bit too much. Even by Buffy on the show and comics.

Thank you so much for bringing this up and introducing me to a new word!!

I have said many times that unsouled Spike never loved Buffy, he was just obsessed with her. But, limerance incorporates all of it. He really is convinced that he loves her, even though it is not true love it is more of an obsession with getting what he wants.
 

I've been meaning to make a thread about this and review a fic that explores Angelus' feelings towards Buffy. I'll get on that in the next week or so. I'm a bit on the fence about it myself. I'm rather ambivalent on Angelus' feelings towards Buffy but I can see the argument made that he is obsessed with her.

IMO, both Angelus and unsouled Spike are obsessed with Buffy. They just express their obsession in different ways.
Spike wants to bed her and make her love him (mommy issues much?)
And Angelus wants to torture her and all her friends (daddy issues much?)

 

[Skanky Vamp]

IMO, both Angelus and unsouled Spike are obsessed with Buffy.

I would say love, not obsessed. But totally agree.

 

[Antho]

To be fair it is an obsessed love because I believe love can be obsessional

 

[crazysoulless]

Anti B/Aers use it as an excuse. Tv is filled with "high school romances" that were taken seriously & got endgame/marriage.

 

[crazysoulless]

These couples weren't in high school but Marshall & Lily were only 18 when they fell in love, Gabrielle was 18 when she started traveling with Xena, and Rose was 19 when she met The Doctor.

 

[crazysoulless]

Angel loved Buffy the girl but Spike loved Buffy the woman

Spike realized he was "in love" (soulless bastardized version) with Buffy in Out Of My Mind. It was only 10 months after IWRY. It was 1.3 years after Gradation Day. That's all.

Spike fell for a 19 year old. Buffy was a teenager. She didn't turn 20 until Blood Ties. He met her when she was 16 and clearly thought she was hot. He said to Buffy (16), "She begged for her life. You don't strike me as the begging kind." He said to Buffy (18), "What does it take to pry apart the Slayer's dimpled knees?"

Things Spike did to Buffy (19):
* stand outside her house listening to her having sex in her bedroom
* sneak into her bedroom to sniff her clothes
* sneak into her house to steal her clothes and photos of her
* create a shrine
* talk to a mannequin with a blonde wig as if it were her
* sabotage her relationship with her boyfriend and show jealousy that she is shagging him
* tell her boyfriend if he had the chip out he would've killed him long ago
* try to kiss her
* grope her when a troll throws her on top of him
* trail his hand down her chest when she was forced via spell to be more timid in Superstar

Angel didn't fall out of love with her. It was about not feeling worthy of someone so innocent and believing if he hasn't atoned, he'll be punished for being happy with Buffy and that the punishment will involve her getting hurt or killed as well as those around them. He spent so much time feeling remorse for his actions as Angelus that sacrificing their future together seemed better than what Spike did, which was to pursue her relentlessly, out of selfish desires, guilt her into taking care of him and then years later continue to throw his few positive deeds (getting a soul, wearing the amulet) in her face as proof of his devotion while ignoring so many of his other actions (faking his death, having sex with other women while souled, propositioning Faith). BtVS s7, AtS s5, and the comics have NEVER brought up the fact that Spike took advantage of her.

Angel is called out incessantly. Anti BAers often point to the age disparity as a huge red flag. And yet many of those same people who see Angel as a predator give a pass to Spike and champion Spuffy as an adult thing between two equals. Even though the sex started when she was 20 (suffering suicidal depression, PTSD, a fugue state believing she's not "real", gaslit to believe she was a demon who belonged in the dark, grieving her mom, substitute dad moved out of the country just like her real dad, poor) and he was 150.

Angel proved he still loves Buffy when she's 20 (kisses her in Forever, leaves the country for months to mourn her death), when she's 22 (kisses her in End of Days/Chosen), when she's 22-23 (in AtS s5, "I have to wait until she's done baking"), and in the comics covering ages 23 through 27. Angel's yearning for Buffy is actually more pronounced in the comics than it was on AtS s3-4.

In s6 SMG was 24 and JM was 39. But everyone comments on how disturbingly young SMG looks near DB even though by s2 she was 20, putting them in the same decade bracket. SMG & DB were two 20 something year olds during two thirds of the Bangel " high school" romance, just happened to be tall & broad shouldered and short & petite.

 

[Mrs Gordo]

I can’t quote @crazysoulless but yeah - we’ll said. With regards to:

Angel loved Buffy the girl but Spike loved Buffy the woman

Buffy is still growing and changing always. But she has always shown great maturity. She goes off and lives on her own after s2. When she comes back in s3, she is most certainly a young woman when they get back together. I don’t know at which point people argue that Buffy “becomes a woman” (I’m really trying not to hear Brittney Spears’ I’m not a girl song in my head here lol). And it’s not like Angel and her have no contact with each other as the years move along. He sees how different she is in s5 and her their connection and feelings remain evident. But she is still at her core the same person he fell in love with. He didn’t love her because she was a “girl”, he loved her because she was interesting and because of her trusting heart and because she taught him about never giving up.

If Buffy’s cookie dough speech was about her feeling she was still growing into womanhood, I get that. It’s her decision to make and she should decide where she is in her journey. But I think regardless of our age, we are always growing and changing and baking forever.

 

[RomanticSoul]

How can any Spuffy say that though? Some argue Spike fell for Buffy in S2 (16-17) and some say in S4 when Fuffy came onto him (18). That's still Buffy the girl. And if the Buffybot proves anything, it's that Spike has no clue who real Buffy is and what she is like. In fact the bot seems to show how he prefers her to be an air-headed bimbo, teenage and obsessed with him. Like Spike himself is.

 

[crazysoulless]

They say things like "Spike was attracted to teenage Buffy but he didn't have sex with her until she was in her twenties, unlike Angel."

That really ignores the obvious she wouldn't have ever let him touch her pre-resurrection. The most he got was a 2 second chaste thank you kiss for getting tortured for hours instead of revealing Dawn was The Key, and that was just because she thought so little of him to assume "there's no way he didn't tell." It was clear it was a one time thing. After that she let him be part of the group but didn't encourage his feelings, even when he cut up his hands to stop that sword through the roof from impaling her. She didn't pay attention to his injuries until Xander told her to and then she just grabbed his hands, did a quick look, and dismissed him as fine.

If teen Buffy had propositioned him he would've jumped her bones. Throughout s5-6 it was evident he took Faith's cockteasing to heart. It made him think Buffy was just pretending to be a sexually virtuous girl and was preventing herself from really letting loose.

BtVS s6
Spike: Don't get all prim & proper on me. I know what kind of girl you really are.
Spike: You just love to play the thought that you might misbehave.
Spike: I figured it out, you're not drawn to the dark like I thought, you're addicted to the misery. (not even him realizing she's miserable with him, it's him thinking she likes to deny herself instead of being happy without any friends in the dark with him)

Angel is accused of being overprotective of Buffy but the only ways he is involves her emotional and psychological state. He got that she was mature but inexperienced when it came to a lot of things.

Angel was careful with Buffy's sexuality. Spike wasn't. She didn't even lose her virginity until mid s2 and then barely had sex for the 3rd time in The I in Team, which was mid s4 when she was 19. Farmboy Riley was the first man she had sex with more than once. By the Faith cocktease, Buffy could count on one hand the number of times she had sex and have fingers to spare.

BtVS s2
Angel: If we date we both know one thing is going to lead to another. I'm just trying to protect you. This could get outta control.
Anfel: Buffy, maybe we shouldn't.
BtVS s3
Angel: I dont need to see movies to get worked up, just being around you does that just fine. It doesn't mean that I'm going to lose control or that I'm going to be frustrated around you. It feels nice, just to feel.
AtS s1
Angel: It's not that I don't want you, Buffy. You know how much---I just think it's worth the wait to know that it's right. I need to make sure you won't get hurt again.

Post automatically merged: Mar 15, 2018

I can’t quote @crazysoulless but yeah - we’ll said. With regards to:

Angel loved Buffy the girl but Spike loved Buffy the woman

Buffy is still growing and changing always. But she has always shown great maturity. She goes off and lives on her own after s2. When she comes back in s3, she is most certainly a young woman when they get back together. I don’t know at which point people argue that Buffy “becomes a woman” (I’m really trying not to hear Brittney Spears’ I’m not a girl song in my head here lol). And it’s not like Angel and her have no contact with each other as the years move along. He sees how different she is in s5 and her their connection and feelings remain evident. But she is still at her core the same person he fell in love with. He didn’t love her because she was a “girl”, he loved her because she was interesting and because of her trusting heart and because she taught him about never giving up.

If Buffy’s cookie dough speech was about her feeling she was still growing into womanhood, I get that. It’s her decision to make and she should decide where she is in her journey. But I think regardless of our age, we are always growing and changing and baking forever.

Whedon wanted s6 to be Oh Grow Up but like you said, Buffy already was in many of the ways they tried to act like she wasn't. She didn't struggle because of adult responsibilities. It was the trauma of resurrection and the shame of her choice of self-medication.

She had to get a full-time job and pay the bills. She already was at 17 and then wasn't the second half of 18 through first half of 20 because she was a university student on top of all that being a Slayer required. That's like doing Angel's job *and* Cordelia's job on AtS but for free and with a full college course load.

She was struggling financially because thanks to her friends she was starting in debt. It's one thing not to have money, it's another to owe money. And she had nothing to show for the months between May and October since she was dead but to the outside world what does it look like she was doing, not in school or working, just spending money she's not replenishing.

I think in Chosen she was picking up where she left off in late s5. "I need to learn how to be alone with Buffy." She never got the chance to examine herself since life kept coming and she was swimming against the current trying not to tread water. She compartmentalized instead of cleaning her inner closet.

Buffy has a lot in common with the Winchester brothers.