Question Most Heartbreaking Break-Up

[WillowFromBuffy]

Only that S07 couldn't hammer it down more that Buffy luurrves Spike above everyone else. I don't take Spike's words as gospel truth here.

It doesn't have to be true. Spike believes it and that belief keeps him from rejoining Buffy after his resurrection in Los Angeles. Ergo: Break up.

 

[gnarl]

I chose Tara and Willow because they where so in love at the point of their breakup.
I mean, a few days earlier Tara was singing about how Willow's love has brought her out into the light and helped make her the person she is, but in the end she still has to leave to protect herself and do what she can to discourage Willow's addiction. I felt proud and sad for Tara at that moment.

Does Spikes death count though? Wouldn't Buffy's "I'm using you and it's killing me" speech count as the Spuffy breakup of the series? With Buffy and Spike the boundary between being friends, being enemies, being lovers is so blurry, it's sometimes hard to tell where one ends and the other begins…

Also, Bangel breakups: Does the awful soulless morning-after scene count? Does the one when he becomes a human for a day count?

 

[BuffyBot22]

It doesn't have to be true. Spike believes it and that belief keeps him from rejoining Buffy after his resurrection in Los Angeles. Ergo: Break up.

You can't break up if you weren't together. They were not in a romantic relationship or even a sexual one in s7. I'm sorry, but that was not a break up. That was a death.
 

I chose Tara and Willow because they where so in love at the point of their breakup.
I mean, a few days earlier Tara was singing about how Willow's love has brought her out into the light and helped make her the person she is, but in the end she still has to leave to protect herself and do what she can to discourage Willow's addiction. I felt proud and sad for Tara at that moment.

Does Spikes death count though? Wouldn't Buffy's "I'm using you and it's killing me" speech count as the Spuffy breakup of the series? With Buffy and Spike the boundary between being friends, being enemies, being lovers is so blurry, it's sometimes hard to tell where one ends and the other begins…

Also, Bangel breakups: Does the awful soulless morning-after scene count? Does the one when he becomes a human for a day count?

Gosh when Angel loses his soul, that's a tricky one. Basically Angel is dead and now Angelus has surfaced. So Buffy and Angel never technically broke up, but once Angel resurfaces, Buffy sends him to hell and once he is back, they were clearly not together anymore- so yes in a way they did break up, it's just no one ever said the actual words.

Well Buffy has no recollection of that day, but technically Angel told her he was turning back the day before it happened, so in a way it was a breakup because Angel let Buffy know that they were not going to be able to be together because if they were it would put her and a lot more mortals in danger.

But the official Bangel breakup is definitely the one in sewers during s3 of BtVS

 

[Athena]

As per the original poster....

Sticking to break ups only and not deaths.

....Spike and Buffy in Chosen doesn't count.

 

[gnarl]

Gosh when Angel loses his soul, that's a tricky one. Basically Angel is dead and now Angelus has surfaced. So Buffy and Angel never technically broke up, but once Angel resurfaces, Buffy sends him to hell and once he is back, they were clearly not together anymore- so yes in a way they did break up, it's just no one ever said the actual words.

It's funny, I'm half inclined to think of that moment when Buffy kicks Angelus in the nuts as their breakup (or at least the end of it) because it kind of signified (for me) the moment when Buffy comes to terms with the fact that he's not her boyfriend anymore, even if she isn't ready to kill him yet.

 

[Fuffy Baith]

Willow and Oz! As much as I love Buffy and Angel, their breakup was not the most heart breaking moment for them. But I love Willow and Oz as a couple. They're so adorable! And the circumstances which they break up are terrible. Stupid Veruca!

 

[Mrs Gordo]

Also, Bangel breakups: Does the awful soulless morning-after scene count? Does the one when he becomes a human for a day count?

I consider that a death essentially and I think that he show treats it as a death.

"Dream on school girl your boyfriend is dead"

I wanted to stick to break ups because they include a conscious decision by one or more parties. Deaths are heartbreaking as well.

 

[HowiMetdaSlayer]

Voted for Wiilow & Oz only cause of her reaction following the break up. As sad as she was post-Tara break up. Think she it was lessened/more tolerable due to being there before.

 

[Bite-me]

I chose other. I say Darla and Angel (not Angelus) Darla rejects ensouled Angel but Darla can not let him go, as does Angel refuse to let Darla go, it is a break up between two people who love each other but can not be together, it is tragic like Angel and Buffy but they had closure and solace, Spike does not care for Drusilla by now he threatened to vanquish her well before having a soul. Angel and Darla hearts never truly mended.

 

[RomanticSoul]

You can't break up if you weren't together. They were not in a romantic relationship or even a sexual one in s7. I'm sorry, but that was not a break up. That was a death.

Thank you for pointing out the obvious. I'm still confused as to how you break up with someone you weren't even with.

And clearly death wasn't part of thee topic question. The topic is about choice, not death. A break up in which a person chose to leave a relationship. So what's with all the dying =breakup nonsense?

 

[Mylie]

Yeah if people want a spuffy break up there's always As You Were.

 

[RomanticSoul]

Bangel and Willoz is kind of like the exact same break-up. You have the guy with a monster in him that he can't control (one of the shows longest running themes 'all men are monsters'). That monster is dangerous to/for the women they love. And it follows the 'breaking up with her for her own good' storyline. It's just that the monsters are different which leads to different reasons.

 

[Puppet]

I voted for Xander/Anya, for a few reasons. First off, this break-up had been coming for the whole season, you knew things weren't going to go well, but then it still broke your heart when it came true. Second, Xander (like mentioned with the Oz/Willow break-up) didn't stop loving Anya, but wanted to protect her from what he thought he would become in the future. I still don't agree with what he did, but damn if that doesn't make me sob, every single time I watch the episode. Lastly, the fact that it was so painful that Anya returned to being a demon, another reason as well. Just...ugh

 

[Mrs Gordo]

Bangel and Willoz is kind of like the exact same break-up. You have the guy with a monster in him that he can't control (one of the shows longest running themes 'all men are monsters'). That monster is dangerous to/for the women they love. And it follows the 'breaking up with her for her own good' storyline. It's just that the monsters are different which leads to different reasons.

Very true. I saw a great deal of parallels between the ending of the two relationships and you see it a few times. I wondered if the writers were being lazy or if they wanted to show us the story play out in front of Buffy to give us her reaction. Except we got no reaction, she was oddly not very empathetic. And when Willow sees Angel in Pangs and goes off on her rant "See, I don't get that, all this "leaving for her own good" garbage. Because that's what it is. You can't just give up because there's obstacles. What kind..." - the show is spelling it out for you because I mean really they are two very similar situations.

And the episode New Moon appeared to be drawing a great deal of parallels between the two relationships too in the sense that both Buffy and Willow have "moved on". The ex showing up, Willow had moved on she struggles with her feelings but ultimately she decides she is happy with Tara. Of course, the play out in Santuary/Yoko is different in my opinion from Buffy's perspective but either way the very next BTVS episode it's like "oh look now Angel is back" so they followed a similar format.

 

[crazysoulless]

Angel/Buffy

I felt like Willow genuinely got over Oz. She moved on. She realized she's a lesbian. She thinks of Tara as her great love. She would not go back to Oz if they were both single and nothing was in the way. That relationship was meant to be temporary.

But Bangel. My goddess.

Angel started dating Buffy when he was 270 yet he could honestly say she was the only person he ever loved. He was alone, existing but empty of everything but guilt and hunger, no longer even thinking of himself as a person. And then there she was. She inspired him to be a hero and gave him perfect happiness. He once told her "Loneliness is the scariest thing in the world." His love for her got him through one hundred years in Hell. His first word top side was her name and he may have remembered it longer than his own. He literally dreamt of marrying her, wanted her as his wife, to start a family with her, to be the father of her children. Darla was the paramour of Angelus but never truly his girlfriend. Buffy was. At nearly three centuries he found his first love and she turned out to be his soulmate.

He was going to commit suicide just to stop himself from ever hurting her again. When he broke up with her, he thought he was giving up the only happiness he would ever have. He didn't know what would happen (friends, fatherhood, a business) on AtS. Leaving Buffy was the hardest decision he ever made. It was like he was Olaf from Frozen and actually got to touch sunshine and now he's back in the cold and he knows he's a snowman and would melt away but it was worth it because her light and warmth felt so good and right and like home.

And when he left it wasn't to another country. He couldn't be that far from her. He didn't want life experiences or to find himself. He moved to her hometown, the first place he ever saw her, just two hours in case she ever needed him, he'd always be there, in the shadows, the way it was before she pulled him into her world and made him feel human.

 

[Ethan Reigns]

My vote was Buffy and Angel. Even though I am not a Bangel, I still see this as the breakup of true soulmates. I don't see the other couples in this sense and this breakup was due to a curse rather than any incompatibility between them. I prefer Spuffy as a plot engine - Bangel ran out of gas and had nowhere to go but Spuffy always had change (more like mutation sometimes) in its favour and drama relies on change. But Bangel was the true romance.

Willow and Oz broke up because he was a werewolf and wanted to search the world for a cure but Willow was quite prepared to curse him with never finding love when he cheated with Veruca and of course, she got caught with Xander, the object of her desire for years.

Gunn and Fred is not even in contention for heartbreaking breakup. She wants to send Professor Seidel where he had sent her and Gunn took over and killed him so she would not carry the taint of vengeance. Even though they made a cute couple, there was never any sign that they had anything in common.

One of Xander's first statements in "The Prom" describes this matchup perfectly: "One of us is very confused and I honestly don't know which." "Hell's Bells" was a tragedy but I could see the prediction made by one of Anya's victims as being her karma - she spent more than a millennium cursing men and one finally came back and gave her the same treatment.

Willow and Tara? This breakup had to happen. Mind alteration happens a lot in the Buffyverse and this is one of the few times the perpetrator got called out for it. I never saw Tillow as a matchup of equals - Willow's megalomania grew during this time and it was more important than their relationship. The first sign of impending doom? She refused to give a straight answer about where she got the fawn's blood for the ritual performed to resurrect Buffy. Willow knew Tara would never agree to take a life, even of an animal, just to perform a spell.

Buffy and Riley started with secrecy - her rank as slayer and his as soldier - and that did not bode well for the relationship. Riley was not the image of the Midwestern conservative - we see him hanging a banner for the Lesbian alliance - but his insistence that she had to need him and let him take care of her did not sit well with her and was always going to be a contentious issue.

 

[KendraTheSlayer]

Buffy and Angel all the way for me. Especially after he achieved his moment of true happiness, and the next day, was a total jerk to Buffy. Obviously, that was a huge night for Buffy, and the way Angel went about acting because of the loss of his soul was just heartbreaking. Not to mention when Angel finally leaves Buffy due to the spinoff show, it was hard seeing him disappear into the night, knowing that he wouldn't be endgame with Buffy. I loved them together.

 

[GoSpuffy]

Willow and Tara for me because of their age. Willow was sad over Oz but it was a high school relationship, you wouldnt expect it to endure. Tara and Willow were two adults who had committed to each other to the point of Living together, that's so much more than dating. In fact Willow's overly dramatic reaction to the break up is just further proof the relationship was of the high school first love/crush variety.

 

[Mrs Gordo]

knowing that he wouldn't be endgame with Buffy.

That's me in denial... As long as they are alive (or undead) there is hope yet!!

 

[MarieVampSlayer]

For me it's Oz and Willow because its the only one who felt permanent. I could not see how they could get back together after all that happen and well they didn't so its even more sad!