When You Kiss Me, I Want to Die

[willow23]

"When you kiss me, I want to die."

"I;m just trying to keep from dying."

"I can't love you...and it's killing me."

This thread has been around for almost an entire year, ani I STILL think that all three statements were made by a melodramatic, immature girl with a death fixation.

I agree. The first and second one of those are two of my least favorite lines in the Buffyverse. I physically tighten up when I know they are forthcoming.

 

[Lindsey McDonald]

Er...you guys do the other meaning of the verb "to die", don't you? You know, the Shakespearian one? That might be why Joss liked the line so much. It's Buffy being melodramatic-teenage-girl, Bangel being all Romeo & Juliet, and some nice foreshadowing of Angel losing his soul. Keeping that definition in consideration helps me keep faith in the writers anyway.

Or maybe I just have a dirty mind.

 

[hazzard]

i liked all of these lines. yes, they're dramatic and yes, buffy is young, but she's also the slayer. there comes with that a maturity and a wisdom and a sense of duty that other 16 year olds don't have. i thought the buffy/angel relationship was passionate and desperate and beautiful--those lines help the beauty of it. i prefer buffy/spike, but angel and buffy will always be fighting with the love they have for one another, and i think those lines express the gravity of the situation nicely.

 

[Wild At Heart]

I think she's just being a melodramatic teenager.

Alternately, since he's dead, it could mean she wants to be like/with him forever.

That's how I interpret it as well. I think she means just that, that she wishes she was dead like him so they could really be together the way they want to be. I actually really like that line & that whole scene.

 

[TheChosenTwo]

I think that was a bad line, I actually didn't get it

 

[Vtheslayer]

I interpreted 'when you kiss me I want to die' as meaning 'As the Slayer I'm suddenly so ashamed of kissing you because you're a vampire, that I want to die'

Basically shes bummed that her true love is a vampire. And for a moment she's just incredably shamed and dissapointed in herself for enjoying him so much!

 

[Skytteflickan88]

It does sound like a overderamatic attempt at hurting Angel, but when you think about it, maybe she didn't overreact?

If you fall in love for the first time with a very dangerous being and you get very lusty feelings, while still feeling like a child and like sex is wrong and so are vampires, it wouldn't be so weird if you had the thought "Maybe I should just die now and don't have to deal like this"?

Or maybe, new at this as she is, she felt like she was taken over by feelings and hormones, like she was drowning, and in a way felt like she was dying.

Or maybe, she just wanted to hurt him.

 

[olol]

I hate that line. But I think I can understand it. She just feels so much, so many different feelings and thoughts, that she just wants to die.. I dont know how to explain it and she obviously didnt either. xD

 

[Roonblah]

In hindsight, the quote seems to me to be a little more upbeat on how she felt about her life, compared to later seasons. Yes, she is a teenage girl with all the dreams and aches that go with it, but I think she had a little more hope than she did later. She believed in true love and forever and all the good stuff out of fairytales. She also believed that death was final, dramatic and completely consuming. I guess when she kissed him, she wanted to give it all - everything she thought she had - and commit to her moments with him. I don't think she could conceive giving up on life at that point, so bringing in death was a show of commitment. I guess in later seasons when life had pretty much beaten her down to the point where there was no more magic or fairytales or swelling heart prose, the better quote would have ended up being "when I kiss you, I want to live."

Or I spend way too much time thinking random thoughts.

 

[wehappyfew]

Buffy to Angel--"When you kiss me, I want to die."

Buffy to Spike--"I can't love you...and it's killing me."

Do you maybe get that this chick has some kind of a problem distinguishing between love and death?

I skipped over a bunch of replies so sorry if someone already mentioned this but, I remember in the Buffybot episode of season 5 when Buffy's on her vision quest the spirit of the first slayer says a few things that confuse buffy and i remember they both had to do with love and death.

Interesting 🙂