Early or Later Couples?

Monkey Pants

Monkey Pants

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Do you tend to prefer the main couples from high school (Willow/Oz, Buffy/Angel, Xander/Cordelia)? Or the ones from the later seasons (Willow/Tara, Buffy/Spike, Xander/Anya)?
For me it's definitely the high school couples, which may be an unpopular opinion. The parts of season 2 and 3 where Willow/Oz (my favorite Buffyverse couple) and Xander/Cordy are together for me is the absolute best time of the show. I thought W/O and X/C were perfect for each other and had amazing chemistry, and I never got quite as invested in the later couples, even though I do love Xander/Anya a great deal, and enjoy Buffy/Spike. I think the cast chemistry for the couples, and even overall, was better in the early years. And I really never could enjoy Willow/Tara. I did really like Kennedy/Willow though.
 
I like a bit of both!

I love Willow/Oz
I love Willow/Tara
I prefer Xander/Anya to Xander/Cordelia
I prefer Buffy/Spike to Buffy/Angel

So I guess I lean more towards the later seasons, but I don't actively dislike any couples from earlier seasons, I just feel later season couplings work better.

I would say I love Willow with anyone, but that's not true. 😉
 
The early couples for me - especially Xander and Cordelia. Always enjoyed their scenes. I know Anya is such a popular character but she grated on me an awful lot at times.

I don't think anyone had as much chemistry as Buffy and Angel in the later seasons.
 
Early couples are better: Buffy/Angel, Willow/Oz and Cordelia/Xander- they never seemed to get in the way of 1) telling a good story or 2) The core four friendship.

Later things fragmented a lot more and the couples- with the exception of Willow/Tara which I grew to like very much- weren't as likeable.
 
I think Buffy and Spike were total chemistry, which is why it made it hard for either of them to fight it.

I loved Willow/Oz and Xander/Cordy, but their relationships always seemed fun, but a bit too juvenile to me. I much preferred the older relationships - far more grown up
 
Maybe it has something to do with what seasons people prefer? For instance, which seasons do you prefer? Because I like 1-3 for that reason-they're fun and a bit juvenile😛. The later seasons and couples may be more adult but they don't warm my heart and make me laugh like the early ones.
 
Monkey Pants said:
Maybe it has something to do with what seasons people prefer? For instance, which seasons do you prefer? Because I like 1-3 for that reason-they're fun and a bit juvenile😛. The later seasons and couples may be more adult but they don't warm my heart and make me laugh like the early ones.
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Totally agree seasons 1 -3 were loads of fun, and I like the dynamics. But I think I am one of the few who enjoyed the later seasons just as much, and because I was older myself, the relationships were more relatable 🙂
 
As a rule I prefer the earlier couples, they always seemed more authentic to me. Later on things got forced. Like Anya, her sole purpose on the show was to be Xander's significant other, and she mainly seems like a variant of Cordy, created specifically to fill that sarcastic hole left by Cordy's abscence. (Yes, shared with Spike in season 4, but he moved past that, she didn't). And for Spuffy to happen Buffy had to drastically change, she couldn't be herself. So simply there was more effort on the writers behalf to "create" sexual tensions/relationships later on, in my opinion.
 
Dolores said:
Plus - I found Anya's frank comments about her and Xander's sex life way too awkward and cringey. 😕
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I agree. I think they wanted a character to make sexual jokes so they had to keep her character as comic relief in order to make the jokes seem more family friendly. So that people could just roll their eyes and think 'that's just anya... what a scamp'
 
Dolores said:
Plus - I found Anya's frank comments about her and Xander's sex life way too awkward and cringey.
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That and the way she talks about her glory days of all pain and horrors she inflicted as a vengeance demon.
The only really bad thing you could say about Cordelia is that she didn't have tact and could be the 'surgeon of mean'. 🙂
 
I found everything about Anya hilarious🙂 theirs was my favorite of the later years. Tara/Willow bothered me more because I felt that Willow became very removed from the group and changed a lot in response to Tara, which was the beginning of the end of the core four...
 
But Anya seemed more to subsume Xander's role more in S6 and 7. She was the 'funny' one who said inappropriate things and told people what they didn't want to hear. She supplanted Xander's role to some extent.
Then Andrew took the nerd part from him and so Xander was reduced to being the carpenter who 'sees' things.
And then Caleb poked his eye out!
Why not break his hands and take away his work tools as well. Poor schlub.

Good thing he found his mojo again in S8 rather than pottering around the Buffy-cave and talking about the good old days. But then Anya was dead by that point

...And then Anya coes back as a ghost and Xander's the poor, grubby guy again! 😱
It's official Anya steals Xander's mojo.
 
Fuffy Baith
Fuffy Baith
Xanders character is really reduced in s7, it's sad.
I think they were trying to have Xander grow up and be mature. I still found him funny in every season.
But yes, he did lose a little something, as I think everyone in the core four did later.
 
I'm a bit all over: I like Willow with Oz more than Willow with Tara- but I like Tara more as a character.
I like Buffy/Spike but I like Buffy more as a character when she's with Angel/Riley.
I like Xander/Anya but I prefer the Xander in high school- he gets more to do.
I like Giles/Jenny more than Giles/nobody ever again!!! (he cleans his glasses with the collected tears of his lonliness...)

So I ship...future couples: Buffy/ cookie dough, Willow/Faith and Xander- whoever/Dawn?
 
Dolores said:
Plus - I found Anya's frank comments about her and Xander's sex life way too awkward and cringey. 😕
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People come down on Xander for telling Anya to keep their private life private, when honestly, I'd be twice more annoyed than Xander if my husband started babbling about our sexual activities to others. And even though he'd expressed his opinion on this plenty of times, she STILL does it.
 
sosa lola said:
People come down on Xander for telling Anya to keep their private life private, when honestly, I'd be twice more annoyed than Xander if my husband started babbling about our sexual activities to others. And even though he'd expressed his opinion on this plenty of times, she STILL does it.
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Agreed - it definitely had a negative effect on the way I saw Xander as a character. I felt he was portrayed as much weaker than previous seasons because he could barely get a grip of Anya.
 
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