Rudeness, manners, etiquette in the ‘verse

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goldenboy

Scooby
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So much of Buffy/Angel, thematically, was about overthrowing tradition, convention, authority. Recently, I've been noticing books, shows and articles about manners, civility, rudeness...

Who were the rudest characters in the "˜verse? The most polite? There are some obvious choices there, lol. But I'll just throw one out...

I think Joyce was actually quite traditionally gracious, conscientious. Some might almost think of her as sort of the traditional clueless TV mom, with her "quaint" ideas about sitting down to have a meal, wanting to invite Buffy's friends over for gatherings. Her early, somewhat stilted, formal relationship with "Mr Giles".

OK, this is painfully obvious, but Joyce was an etiquette, social role model for Buffy. I think when you're young you might be inclined to think of traditional etiquette, manners as some form of pretentious nonsense, adult hypocrisy. But it's actually social grease"”and social glue"”that keeps civilization humming along...

There were times when being rude or overly assertive was valuable in the "˜verse. But there are probably many occasions that could be cited concerning the value of tact, grace....
 
I agree with you that Joyce was very polite. Another one that was polite was "Mr. Giles"(LOL I loved how you used that). He was always the stuffy one in the beginning of the seasons mainly when the Scoobs were still in high school.

A very rude character would have to be Anya. She was like the queen of tactless-ness. And it's not really her fault because she didnt know how to act with humans. Maybe all vengeance demons are like that.
 
Another person who called RG "Mr. Giles" was Tara. She was always more respectful of him than the original Scoobies who had known him from high school. I thought it was very sweet, it sort of tied into Tara's feelings of being outside of Willow's group.

Edit: Addition-about those original Scoobies, remember Buffy and Willow calling him "Jeeves" in intentional disrespect, Buffy in the alternate reality of "The Wish", Willow in "Grave". It took me a while to finally learn how that name can be insulting (explained to me by another Buffy fan).
 
Mmm, yeah, great points Watcher1006. I admired Tara for, among other things, her politeness and respect for others.

It seemed like Giles and Wes were sort of like an American caricature of stuffy British pretense. I always liked the back and forth putdowns between the Yanks and the Brits, lol. But, there was value in Giles' etiquette, and he really did help Buffy, in terms of tact, grace. Buffy and Giles sort of helped eachother temper their natural tendencies.

And Anya was great when she was really trying to impersonate a normal polite human. Like, after attempting a normal human interaction, she'd always look over at Xander and smile, like an anxious puppydog, lol.
 
I was thinking Cordy would be fairly easy to peg, in this context, but...hmm.

She's actually kind of tricky to analyze. High school Cordy is probably at least tied for first place"”with one or two others in the 'verse"”for the ultimate in rudeness and tactless statements. But, she actually seemed acutely aware of the existence of social norms, expectations. Sometimes, she seemed to say whatever was on her mind, cos she didn't have patience for niceties. Other times, she just seemed to be a tactless fool, lol. Kind of a mix. She was constantly mortified by Xander's social faux pas. It's like she vaguely understood the letter of the laws of etiquette and social standards, but not the spirit. They were just a means to an end for her"”attention, power, glory.

Cordy on "Angel" gradually matured and figured out the spirit of those laws. And she even helped Angel to not be such an impolite, anti-social loner.
 
I agree that Cordy was rude A LOT of the times. But I think that the only people she was rude to were the scoobies and other people her age. If we look at the Invisible Girl episode, you can see that she is very polite to Ms. Miller and the teacher obviously liked her. But, that was the only time that I remember, where she was really polite to somebody.
 
I'm sure you have a better memory for specifics than I do, VG. Now, is rudeness a willful act, or is it something done by accident? Both, I guess. I think sometimes Cordy was just so blunt and honest, she didn't take the time to consider the side effects of her honesty. And sometimes she was trying to hurt someone.

I think you're right that she was generally quite respectful of adults, authority figures. Sometimes it was sucking up, sometimes, genuine respect.

And Cordy sometimes ended up saving the day, early on, on "Angel". Wes or Angel would say something unintentionally dumb or bizarre to a prospective client, and Cordy would do her best to smooth things over. Actually seems like they took turns saying stupid things to their clients, lol.
 
Cordy, like Anya, didnt know she was being rude. Like she said "tact is just not saying true stuff". She didnt realise people can be offended by honesty. She would probably think of her honesty as a good trait. But as witnessed in Angel, she could be polite when she needed to. But I think she had to think about what she was saying more to do this. Til she grew up a bit anyway.
 
You know who who was also at least sort of outwardly gracious and polite? Holland Manners. An appropriate name in some ways. Sure, he was an evil SOB, but he often sort of feigned hospitality and etiquette with Angel and Co. And he had elegant dinner parties, heh. Sometimes the most evil villains seem quite cultured, gracious.

Same with the Mayor in some ways. Very proper, formal at times"”in terms of offering people beverages, snacks, lol.
 
I agree. Holland Manners was extremely polite. Not just him but a lot of the Wolfram and Hart employees were. Like Hamilton, he was very polite also. He was always calm and he tried not to disrespect anybody. Like when he visited Gunn in the hell dimension. Hamilton didn't go all out trying to convince Gunn to change his choice. He respected Gunn's decision and just left.
 
The Mayor would have been my comment.
I mean no matter how much he disliked someone, he very rarely lost that respect he had.
Unlike Hollands Faux etiquette, i believe the Mayor was truly versed in the Laws of Grace decency and public/private etiquette....i mean he wanted the Vampires to kill, but to keep the language clean....i love the Mayor.....awwww
 
Was just thinking back to Angel, season 5. You guys can remind me of all the details. It was the one when Lorne wants to throw I think a Halloween party, and invite that ambassador or royal something-or-other, Sebassis.

Angel reluctantly tags along with Lorne to pay his respects. It was hilarious, Angel trying to act gracious and polite, when he finds this guy completely appalling and repulsive"”kind of unintentionally insults him, several times, lol.
 
Now that you've mentioned Lorne...my first impression of him was that he looked kind of ridiculous-the green face, exaggeratedly pointy features, the horns. But once I started watching Angel seriously I quickly discovered he's a most likable character in the mix. He was always very conscious of etiquette and civility-remember the aura he cast over his club to prevent demon violence. His actions regarding that Halloween party were typical of him throughout the series.
 
There was always a lot of intrigue going on at W&H in the four seasons before Team Angel came in. The lawyers-Lindsay, Lilah, Lee, Gavin, nobody there seemed to like anyone else. The way they spoke among themselves, there was always a layer of frost. They certainly didn't trust each other.

I don't know if this was a commentary about law firms. Without even touching on all the other reasons for not wanting to work at W&H (lol!), I'd certainly hate to work at a place with so much sniping and backstabbing constantly going on.
 
Well clearly It was an environment of cutthroat competition. Dog eat dog. But there was usually a layer of civilization, decorum spread over the top. They'd have board meetings, followed company, meeting protocols. I always thought it was funny when a WR&H employee would get "fired", often by having their head lopped off during a meeting. All done very calmly....

I kinda sensed that by the time Lindsey left the firm that first time, he and Lilah had at least a sort of grudging respect for eachother's talent...
 
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