Characters that you liked EVENTUALLY

[Wesley Pryce]

Name the characters from both series that you didn't much like at first but you eventually came to actually like,or even love.

Have fun 🙂

 

[Fuffy Baith]

A lot of characters probably. The more and more I rewatch Buffy the more I like some of the characters or maybe it's just I get used to them.

Dawn has grown on me a lot, not a super big fan but I don't hate her like I did on first watch.
Cordelia-now that I've seen her whole journey from Buffy to Angel, I really like her a lot.
Kate-I didn't like her on first watch but on rewatch I really enjoy her and was said she left the show.
Tara-With Tara it's tricky. Cuz I still don't like S4 Tara but on rewatch I really like S6 Tara.

 

[SiegePerilous02]

Back when I only watched BtVS, I was sort of neutral on Angel. After watching his own show, he became one of my favorite characters, and it retroactively made me love his showings on the parent show much more.

Others were Riley, Kate, Connor and Dawn, all of whom I found boring and/or annoying at first and then liked them with each subsequent re-watch. On the other hand, I find my liking for characters like Spike and Anya dwindling as the years roll by.

 

[thetopher]

Angel- This is the big one for me since I intially disliked Angel.
Mainly because I saw him as just a romantic foil for Buffy- and I wasn't a big fan of Bangel on my first watch-though. I was like 'Urgh, romance and all that mushy stuff! Punch something already!' 🙂
That changed when I saw the first episode of his own show, and he's been one of my favourite characters ever since.I can now retroactively look at him on Buffy and like him now.
Few characters have his sheer number of layers or complexity.

Wesley- didn't really like him on Buffy. But then he was supposed to be annoying and two dimensional. He gets a lot better on Angel. Around about S1 'Five-By-Five' he shows real courage and character, and he just gets better from there.

Gunn- Didn't like him in 'War Zone' at all, but by 'First Impressions' I ws like 'okay, this guy has serious likability, he's not just 'angry black guy''- plus J. August Richards got some great lines that episode.

Anya- I didn't like her at all in S4, she was a kind of shrill annoying appendage to Xander's character.
But I liked her a lot in S5 (I actually think its her high point, by far.) before she became seriously annoying again in S6. She recovered a little in S7, but never became a favourite, just tolerable.

We should totally do a thread about characters you eventually came to hate, 'cause I bet they'd be lots of contenders for that one. 🙂

 

[Fuffy Baith]

Angel
We should totally do a thread about characters you eventually came to hate, 'cause I bet they'd be lots of contenders for that one. 🙂

I second that. There are some characters that become grating after a while.

 

[BuffyElevated]

I didn't like Anya at first, but grew to love her. I also hated Illyria at first but started loving her more and more after I rewatched "Angel".

 

[dtrain24]

Quite a few...I'll probably end up forgetting some.

Angel- Agree he was a bit bland at first, but his show made me like him more. Still a Spuffy guy, but I began to actually like him a lot on his own show.

Anya- A bit annoying in S3, but she was amazing in S5.

Dawn- At first, it was like "WTF," as I'm sure most fans were, but she grew on me.

Fred- She bugged me at first, even though her actions were understandable after what she went through. I really liked her by S3 though.

Wesley- Seemed bland in BtVS, but really had an unexpected turnaround in AtS. Grew from a throwaway character to one of the best character arcs on the show.

Conner- Hated him at first, liked him in S5.

Tara- Didn't like her much in S4, especially because I loved Oz and didn't feel Tara was a suitable replacement love interest for Willow. Boy was I wrong. Loved her in S5 and S6.

 

[AnthonyCordova]

My big one was Angel- I thought he was rather bland and cardboard-y in the beginning. It annoyed me how he always seemed to really struggle with finding the right words to say, especially on Buffy (I kept noticing how so many little dramatic personal issues arose between he and other people [mainly Buffy] that were the result simply of his inability to speak well for himself). And I didn't like DB's acting initially. I did relate a lot to Angel too from the beginning also though, so it was more complicated than that. What can I say, Angel is one of my favorites now, even if some of the initial impressions and issues remain a little bit (although it's easier for me to explain them away to myself). Yeah, I liked Angel a lot on his own show, especially as the show wore on.

Also Wesley (He went from a minor character who was a little irritating on Buffy to my favorite character on Angel) and Gunn (what thetopher said pretty much summarizes how I felt about him at the start; I liked him by the end of AtS though).

---------- Post added 08-10-2014 at 12:01 AM ---------- Previous post was 08-09-2014 at 11:53 PM ----------

 

[bespangeled]

I second that. There are some characters that become grating after a while.

Yeah, there's a few I really can't stand, still!

But as far as liking someone you hated - Wesley. I am not a fan of slapstick, and I really disliked him in Buffy. I don't like characters who seem paper thin and brought in for comedy. In fact, he was why I had to be strong armed into watching Angel. Now, I love him - he fascinates me. His journey is so much about finding and getting beyond all the restrictions and all the pain. But in every part of his journey he remains moral - he does what he knows has to be done. He may be wrong but he does what he knows is right.

Angel - I wasn't an Angel fan from the start. I liked him a bit - liked him more when he became Angelus (except that he hurt Spike's feelings 🙂) By season 3 I was done with Bangel and Angel. Then I watched him on his own show, and he too seemed to develop so much depth and complexity. I didn't approve but I flat out loved it when he locked the lawyers up with Darla and Dru.

I like Dawn and Anya but as the show moved on they did so little with two really great possibilities. A 1,000 year old demon used as a perpetual orgasm joke, and an ageless ball of energy with apparently only one use.

Dru annoyed the crap out of me - now I love her.

I still don't like Xander all that much but I do appreciate parts of him more. I always liked Cordelia but I really grew to love her on Angel.

Faith - omg, couldn't stand her. I hate the whole rebellious from abuse trope. Then I watched Angel, and she is now one of my absolute favorites.

 

[AnthonyCordova]

With Faith I kind of agree a little bit @bespangled. To elaborate though, I liked her from the beginning...I liked her in a 'I don't like you' kind of way. Or in other words, I didn't like her, but she made a terrific villain so I did like her. Initially I didn't buy the excuses for her attitude and her "fall" the way so many other viewers did, but now I don't know how to feel about that. There are days when I remain unconvinced and there are days when I can see it. But she of course became more likeable to me as time on both shows wore on.

 

[white avenger]

Like several others before me here, I had no use whatsoever for Angel when I first saw him, which is understandable, considering the fact that I first saw him as Angelus in syndicated Season 2, and I never watched his own show until after "Buffy" ended. As a result, it's very hard for me to see Angel, even now, as much more than Angelus with a muzzle, and that only a temporary one. I didn't come to actually like Angel until I started watching his own series on DVD.

But I still don't completely trust him.

 

[JCoatsworth]

Faith, probably. I was kind of on Buffy's side when everybody else seemed to love her. After a while, however, I began to empathize with her, and I began to understand her problems.
There are others as well, like Tara or Cordelia, but my opinion on Faith underwent the most drastic change, I'd say.

 

[Blaze]

If only I could remember that far back....lol

 

[Living Dead Boy]

Well Angel is the first one that comes to mind. I absolutely loathed Angel every time his bloody face popped on the screen. 😛 I couldn't for the life of me, understand his popularity. I was almost certain it had everything to do with his looks and not his wooden personality. So that was the reason why Angel The Series was the last Whedon show I ever finished watching, simply because I couldn't stand him. But dude, he grew on me. I think I got around to season 3, and with the ongoing story-lines with Darla, Holtz, and the like, I really took to him. He's still not my favorite character, but he's definitely cool in my book. 🙂

And also? Xander. He was someone that everyone seemed to love right off the bat, but for some odd reason, he annoyed the hell out of me. Especially during the early seasons, with his petty jealousy. Eventually, I warmed up to him, and realized that he has a heart of gold. It was the same way with Topher on Dollhouse. Topher was basically Dollhouse's Xander. It was then when I realized Joss Whedon had stock characters in virtually every series of his. Xander in Buffy, Wash in Firefly, Topher in Dollhouse. Willow in Buffy, Fred in Angel, Kaylee in Firefly, etc. Just a thought....but yeah, those are the only characters I could think off that really grew on me.