Who loved Buffy more: Angel or Spike?

[badsister]

when i see people talk about not seeing the difference between soulless and ensouled spike i remember this

 

[Cangel1987]

I think Angel as well as Spike love Buffy in each in their own way It would be wrong to say something else.
We can not compare every relationship or partnership. Every relationship is unique. At least, that's what I think.

 

[Dania]

It's a hard question we can't compare a love. Each love story it's unique on its own way

 

[Serenityrose]

Difficult question because I'm not sure you can really quantify love like that.

I do believe Spike knew Buffy better. He saw her at her absolute worst and saw her at her most heroic/best and he loved her completely.

Touched:
You listen to me. I've been alive a bit longer than you, and dead a lot longer than that. I've seen things you couldn't imagine, and done things I prefer you didn't. I don't exactly have a reputation for being a thinker. I follow my blood, which doesn't exactly rush in the direction of my brain. So I make a lot of mistakes, a lot of wrong bloody calls. A 100+ years, and there's only one thing I've ever been sure of: you. Hey, look at me. I'm not asking you for anything. When I say, "I love you," it's not because I want you or because I can't have you. It has nothing to do with me. I love what you are, what you do, how you try. I've seen your kindness and your strength. I've seen the best and the worst of you. And I understand with perfect clarity exactly what you are. You're a hell of a woman. You're the one, Buffy.

It continues in the comics (depending on if people take it as canon. I do)
Buffy: He really loves me, Will I can feel it. It's not some storybook pure love, there's fear and lust and doubt about himself, that he doesn't deserve it..an instinct to run, that getting hurt now is better than later. Sometimes I annoy the hell out of him, sometimes he thinks he'd be better off with someone else, or no one. All the things I sometimes feel too but would never say but that's just temporary..fleeting. What stays, what's always there is..love.

For me it doesn't get more complete and beautiful than that

 

[TriBel]

You can't quantify love BUT actually, I will do. I think Spike loves her "more" but whether that's a good thing is anyone's guess. Spike loves her unconditionally good or bad. He says as much to Xander in After Life; he says as much to Buffy in Touched and Buffy's implying as much in the S10 quote @Serenityrose gives. Angel, I think loves her because she's essentially good. So - while Spike's love stops being obsessive, it's excessive. Angel's love isn't. This doesn't make either better than the other - just different. Think of it as mother's love v father's love.

 

[AstridDante]

I don’t think you ever love two people the same way and it doesn’t negate either relationship. That’s how I feel about Buffy having two great loves, Spike and Angel.

 

[Serenityrose]

I don't know for me I always felt that a sign of true mature love is seeing the person's faults and loving them anyway. Or even acknowledging that part of why you love them is because they struggle and have faults of their own. It's the sum of all their parts that makes them the person you love.

I don't necessarily think that's excessive though. I think excessive is when you want to die without that person or when you have nothing outside of that person. I think that's when it gets a little murky.

JMO.

 

[TriBel]

I don't necessarily think that's excessive though. I think excessive is when you want to die without that person or when you have nothing outside of that person. I think that's when it gets a little murky.

I don't think it's particularly "murky". I think psychoanalysis would frame it as "in the other more than you're in yourself". I think it's just that we've become accustomed to a different "type" of love - one that sees strict boundaries between the self and the other. IMO, Whedon was trying to expand the notion of what love is - that's what I mean by "excess" - it's in excess of existing definitions. It shouldn't work - it's to his credit that it does. It's this excess that rescues it from the good girl/bad boy trope. In theory, Spuffy is incredibly clever.

@Priceless - I still hate S12. 🙄 As it stands, it makes no bloody sense. Except it does - he'll hang around forever and Angel will eventually leave. He'll hang around because he'd rather have her in his life than not (and LOL! I think I've just quoted Chloe about Lucifer!).

 

[Angel6]

I think Angel loves her in a healthier way. The reason they aren’t together is because he wants better for her, he wants her to have a shot at a normal life, a better life than he can give her. It’s a selfless love. Angel says ‘I have lived for 243 years and loved exactly one girl’. Can spike say that? No. Buffy is Angels one true love. Their soul mates, their destined, it’s timeless.

 

[AstridDante]

I hate this question but I don’t think it’s a case of loving one or other more. As a Spuffy even though it is hard to admit, on face value, from the show, I would say Angel. However, I would qualify this by saying she was a different person when she first fell in love with Angel, younger not as world weary, first idealised love and all that and she continued to love Angel. Whereas with Spike she grew with him, been through so much together (good and bad) and as far as my reading of the show was only starting to fall in love with Spike towards the very backend of Season 7 and I think she was still trying to make sense of it all, these two guys who mean so much to her. I think her feelings for Angel were more instantaneous whereas with Spike it was more of a journey. I don’t think it undermines either love tbh

I hate this question but I don’t think it’s a case of loving one or other more. As a Spuffy even though it is hard to admit, on face value, from the show, I would say Angel. However, I would qualify this by saying she was a different person when she first fell in love with Angel, younger not as world weary, first idealised love and all that and she continued to love Angel. Whereas with Spike she grew with him, been through so much together (good and bad) and as far as my reading of the show was only starting to fall in love with Spike towards the very backend of Season 7 and I think she was still trying to make sense of it all, these two guys who mean so much to her. I think her feelings for Angel were more instantaneous whereas with Spike it was more of a journey. I don’t think it undermines either love tbh

lol
Sorry my brain read the question wrong. In which case I think Spike loved her more without a doubt

Sorry guys I misread the question I think Spike loved Buffy more than Angel. The reason I say this is that he really knew her better. Angel was in love more with the idea of this perfect Buffy. In fact I think Buffy and Angel both idealised each other whereas Spike knew all parts of her the best and the worst and loved her regardless.

 

[Ann]

I am going with Angel loving Buffy more than Spike. Angel broke up with Buffy even though he needed her, so she could have a more normal relationship with someone other than him. In I Will Remember You Angel gave up his human life and went back to being a vampire to keep her from dying. Angel proved over and over again that he loved Buffy. He regarded her as the only one he had ever loved and expressed it many times. From Earshot: "In 243 years I have loved exactly one person."

 

[ChaseRules]

I am going with Angel loving Buffy more than Spike. Angel broke up with Buffy even though he needed her, so she could have a more normal relationship with someone other than him. In I Will Remember You Angel gave up his human life and went back to being a vampire to keep her from dying. Angel proved over and over again that he loved Buffy. He regarded her as the only one he had ever loved and expressed it many times. From Earshot: "In 243 years I have loved exactly one person."

I cant say that about Angel. If that so then why did he start going out with Cordy . It likes he two timing her & with one of her friends to make it worse .

 

[TriBel]

The Earshot remark - I think it's a lie. Not a deliberate lie on Angel's part but a lie nonetheless. In A11 it's clear he loved his sister Kathy (a good girl); it's clear she puts him under a mandate to remember her (to never forget her); it's clear he's repressed the memory because it's too painful. It's clear there's a connection between his love for Kathy and Buffy (and I'm not talking incest). His memories of Kathy return in disguised form (definitely with regard to Buffy and Fred; I'm not sure about Cordy). Earshot - "the range or distance over which one can hear or be heard." Just because we can't hear something doesn't mean it wasn't said. When we talk about "voices from the past" they're not actually real voices...etc.etc. They're usually to do with repressed/suppressed/forgotten or unrecorded history.

ANGEL Kissing her meant nothing. I don't want a bad girl. I've done that before. I've lived a long time Buffy, and I'm past that. I've been with dozens of girls like her. More.
BUFFY Oh this honesty stuff is funnn.
ANGEL I mean, there's no comparison. In two-hundred-forty-three years, I've loved exactly one person.
BUFFY Ohh...it is me right?
ANGEL Next time, just ask.

Look at the above. He doesn't want a bad girl (Kathy's a good girl. Liam's father bars Liam from seeing her in case he corrupts her. He tells Liam his evil side will always come out). Buffy comments on his honesty. He's being honest but not telling the truth (he can't remember). "There's no comparison" - umm...yes there is. Angel evades confirmation when Buffy asks if it's her. I'm not belittling Angel's feelings. Spike and Buffy's feelings are similarly impacted by repression.

In fact, I have a hunch the most "authentic (not really the right word)" love Buffy feels (ie. not based on repression) is her love for Willow, Dawn and Xander. I'd have to think about it. Her love for Joyce is also different.

 

[ChaseRules]

I have to agree with you . Buffy best love is with Xander & Willow as well as Dawn & Joyce .
I think that one point she had love for Giles but after what happened on her 18th birthday I don't know
how she felt for him after that to be totally honest .

 

[FaithLehane16]

Angel since it is a "forever love, always."

 

[ChaseRules]

Angel since it is a "forever love, always."

It might be a forever love but it seems like Angel & Buffy have moved on .

 

[FaithLehane16]

It might be a forever love but it seems like Angel & Buffy have moved on .

Not entirely.

 

[TriBel]

It might be a forever love but it seems like Angel & Buffy have moved on .

If you mean S12...

Spoiler

I think they've moved on. There's love there but he stays primarily because Illyria told him not to follow her. I'm honestly not sure about Spike and Buffy.

 

[ChaseRules]

Not entirely.

How so ?

 

[FaithLehane16]

How so ?

That kind of love never dies.