It's a little unfair to point an accusatory finger at all B/Aers in regards to this plot point simply because their pairing is off having happy sexytimez. The view is that Buffy sleeping with a soulless Spike back then isn't the same as Buffy sleeping with Angel, who does have a soul and fought the good fight.
Angel,
while ensouled (with the whole Angelus alibi, "soul or no soul" tends to get accounted for as a lot), was responsible for the death of dozens of Slayers "for the greater good". To me, that's far more despicable than a soulless Spike killing two Slayers for fun.
Spike, for a soulless creature, was a pretty decent guy. Angel, for an ensouled creature, is a pretty humonguos jerk.
Part of the reason Buffy hated herself for being with Spike because she felt it was wrong as he was a soulless demon.
I know, but I can't help but see her reasoning as flawed there. Looking at Angel and Spike, I can't help but think the soul does not make the man. I'd trust soulless Spike far more readily than ensouled Angel.
The same can't be said for Angel in this situation, especially since she has no real proof that he did actually kill any of her Slayers. She trusted Angel for a long time, so why wouldn't she now as he's facing her and telling her that he wasn't responsible for the deaths and that he was trying to help her?
Well... because everyone but the wide-eyed crushy teenage bimbo Buffy turns into the moment Angel gives her his "woe is me" puppy eyes can see that excuse is a load of *expletive deleted*?
Besides, when Willow, who everyone had trusted for a long time, decided to kill off humanity to stop the suffering at the end of S6, no one was cheering her on... even though I don't see any worse intention in her plan than with the Twilight thing here.
The point people seem to be making with the comparison of "I don't get how this is any different than her sleeping with soulless Spike" is that it's not completely out of character for Buffy to sleep with the enemy, especially one that she cares for.
Except that here it's "ooh, Bangel sex *squee with joy*" while in S6 it is "ewww, Spuffy sex *finger in throat gesture*". Hypocrisy, if you ask me.
People aren't suggesting that her being with Angel = being with Spike.
But yes, I am saying exactly that. Bangel has IMO
always been parallel to S6 Spuffy, except
a) S6 Spuffy was handled more realistically and maturely, and
b) Spuffy outgrew the dark place it was stuck in and came to be true love in S7, while there was
never any true love in Bangel and it not only wallows in its badness, but currently enjoys making its depravity worse than ever.
The point is why wouldn't she have sex with someone who she still loves and trusts, especially when something more powerful (then they are) is compelling them?
Not only am I saying Buffy never loved Angel, but also that with the Twilight stunt, Angel doesn't
deserve being either loved or trusted. Again, to me, unsouled Spike seemed more lovable and trustworthy than the prick with the mask - still he gets painted as "bad for Buffy" in S6 by the same people who enjoy this mess here.
They're obviously still attracted to each other and as far as we know, the universe isn't stopping them from being together.
The same sentence is true about S6 Spuffy.
😉
I don't see how this relates to whatever went on between Spike and Buffy in season 6. This is the universe compelling Buffy and Angel to have cosmic sex so they can get to another plane of existence because they've both evolved beyond human existence. It sees Angel as her other half and in order to create a new reality, it needs both of them to gtfo. I'm not sure why people are still upset about this concept of Angel as the ying to her yan.
Not the most creative plot to begin with... and with the boinking the slayer of Slayers, and the "eugenics is a good thing" undertones, it becomes downright disgusting.
Remember Adam in S4? All he wanted to to was to bring humans, demons, and technology to a higher level of evolution, too, by fusing them together. Strangely, though, Buffy never considered boinking
him, and everybody acted like he was a bad guy, not the messiah ushering in a better world.
And nobody was sympathethic to poor Glory just wanting to go home, because everybody kept nagging that deaths of innonect people, causing of catastrophies and merging of Hell and Earth was a bad thing. Maybe Buffy should've boinked her, too, before shoving Dawn off the tower for Glory as a parting gift. I prefer lesbo soft porn over hetero, anyway. (sw)
Again, this has nothing to do with what happened in season 6 with Spike. There's no plausible reason why this plot would play out the same way. I'm not sure why shipper wars have to break out whenever Buffy does anything involving Angel.
Because people, especially Bangels, still call Spike "evil" for the death of two Slayers, that's why.
Buffy may have loved Spike, but she still loves Angel.
I disagree here, of course - Buffy loved Spike (we don't know if she still does, but it'd be a right shame if she doesn't anymore!), but she
never loved Angel.
(I know I'm pretty lonely with that view, but I don't care.
😀)
If she has the opportunity to be with Angel (without the curse or anything else being an issue), there's no real reason why she wouldn't take it. Buffy has always been a little selfish when it came to him, even when she knew she shouldn't be.
206 dead slayers and global apocalypse is no real reason why she shouldn't take it? Ok then... if that's really what Buffy Summers and her idea of "love" stands for, I hope Giles goes through with his plan comes in and kills the b*tch dead,
as any true hero would do. (And with a so-called feminist icon failing so spectacularly in the hero game, it would be fitting that it'd take a man willing to get his hands dirty to sort her mess out again in the end.)
Dudette. Seriously. If we chalk these happenings up to "a little selfish", I wanna hear no more blame for Spike in "Seeing Red",
ever. Taking a chance to be with the woman you love ain't such a bad thing, so who cares if he's "a bit selfish" and the girl gets roughed up a little on the way ? We're supposed to care for one single woman made to have sex against her will and consider Spike "evil" for it, but just shrug off the collateral of hundreds dead and billions in danger of dying as the result of Buffy being "a little selfish" with her lover? Rrrrright.
It's not like she didn't try to do what was best (kill him), except that something more powerful than she stopped her from doing so.
Her only chance for redemption is to see that "something more powerful" as a bad thing, try to thwart it, and if it can't be thwarted, tell Angel to get out of her life forever and never come under her eyes again, because,
for the good of mankind, they may never be together. And if he doesn't leave, she should kill him, because
that's what a hero and a role model does - Buffy understood that back in "Becoming", and if she falls back behind that level of ethical maturity, I'm done with her character. Female empowerment looks way,
way different than that.
And btw, any continuation of Spuffy is right out by now, too. Spike would be as much of a danger to humanity if he started boinking Buffy again as is Angel... with the only difference being that Angel is a selfish jerk and is ready to eat his cookies served with an icing of ethnic cleansing and sprinkled with genocide, while Spike is a noble hero and so I trust he will accept that he can't ethically justify being with Buffy anymore because "sex leads to bad things". (Hooray -
not - to the "supernaturally enforced celibacy" coming full circle...
Spike and Buffy are star-crossed lovers doomed to be seperated by a curse. Wonder why that seems a tad trite to me by now.)
As for Angel... by now I just want the guy dead. For good. In the name of puppies, and christmas, and everything nice in the world. Allowing him to exist in the same world as Buffy is a risk no sane person should take (and if Giles, smotherer of Ben, doesn't go through with at least
trying to erase the Angel factor from the equation, I'll give up on Giles as a character, too). And if Angel continues to just be unkillable, pull a Connor 2.0 on him and encase him in three tons of steel concrete and sink him into the Mariana Trench. That should solve the problem nicely even with invulnerability.
