I figure that their lives have become so absorbed by things like apocalypses that they've never really learned how to handle normal, every day problems.
Buffy even laments at one point, as I recall, how her mother knew how to deal with all that stuff and she doesn't.
Plus, Buffy seems to be uncomfortable with asking others for money (a lot of people are). A flaw Angel apparently shares. Though you could argue that Willow and Tara earn their keep by providing magical assistance.
Hmm... maybe Cordelia should have stuck around to handle Buffy's finances. Anya could to, but she's not that close the Scoobies other than Xander.
Edit: Actually, I expect that normally Giles would have kept a closer eye on the finances, but he was badly messed up by Buffy's death/resurrection, and unfortunately, season six Willow had stopped listening to Giles' advice.
Which brings us back to "season six Willow is the worst friend."
The Romulan Republic wrote:I figure that their lives have become so absorbed by things like apocalypses that they've never really learned how to handle normal, every day problems.
Buffy even laments at one point, as I recall, how her mother knew how to deal with all that stuff and she doesn't.
Plus, Buffy seems to be uncomfortable with asking others for money (a lot of people are). A flaw Angel apparently shares. Though you could argue that Willow and Tara earn their keep by providing magical assistance.
Hmm... maybe Cordelia should have stuck around to handle Buffy's finances. Anya could to, but she's not that close the Scoobies other than Xander.
Edit: Actually, I expect that normally Giles would have kept a closer eye on the finances, but he was badly messed up by Buffy's death/resurrection, and unfortunately, season six Willow had stopped listening to Giles' advice.
Which brings us back to "season six Willow is the worst friend."
Which brings us back to "Why doesn't the Watchers Council realize that a professional monster hunter necessarily involves the word, 'profession'." As in, any slayer is going to be significantly less effective if she has to work a day job instead of actively seeking out and investigating threats.
Angel is a grown-ass man, was a grown-ass man when he was turned, and boinked an underage girl who he had been covertly stalking since she was 14.
How does this even qualify as a romance?
"Believe me, there’s nothing so terrible that someone won’t support it."
— Un Lun Dun, China Mieville
Fuzzy Necromancer wrote:Angel is a grown-ass man, was a grown-ass man when he was turned, and boinked an underage girl who he had been covertly stalking since she was 14.
How does this even qualify as a romance?
Fifteen, if I've got the timelines right, but yeah.
Its a romance from Buffy's point of view, I suppose, because she's an inexperienced teenager who's in love for the first time and doesn't know better.
Angel, being ostensibly an adult, should have known better, which is why we have age of consent laws.
Edits: When you get down to it, the Buffyverse is kind of bleak. Most of the characters are anti-heroes at best- either bad people trying and usually failing to find a lasting redemption, or good people who slowly had the hope and idealism ground out of them.
Which, again, I think is part of the appeal of Faith (and Spike I suppose). Neither is entirely noble, but both are basically better people than the were at the start of the series.
The thing that really annoyed me about Spike was, he got a soul, and he went crazy, and all these radical changes happened to his character while so many other things were going on. We didn't get to see what either of those things meant before he was thrust into the full-throttle of a new context.
"Believe me, there’s nothing so terrible that someone won’t support it."
— Un Lun Dun, China Mieville
Fuzzy Necromancer wrote:The thing that really annoyed me about Spike was, he got a soul, and he went crazy, and all these radical changes happened to his character while so many other things were going on. We didn't get to see what either of those things meant before he was thrust into the full-throttle of a new context.
Well, we did see it a bit, and they explored it more over on Angel, but I think that aside from that, its fair to say that season seven can partly be described as a lot of individually interesting ideas, nearly all of which were underdeveloped.
I think season 4 was where Buffy seriously ran into trouble, but about halfway through. The season started out strong, but ran into some issues.
Xander's plot of feeling left out of the group because he's becoming the townie compared to their aspiring college aspirations, never develops. It becomes about how pathetic Xander is, and the show really doesn't want to let that go. Culminating in Xander's slapfight with Harmony.
Willow's relationship with Oz ends, and rather forcefully, due to Oz acting out of character. This was from behind the scenes work as Seth Green was getting a lot of movie offers, and so he wanted to pursue it. This meant his arc about the werewolf Veruca had to be accelerated and condensed into one episode, with him cameoing in a couple episodes later.
Tara was brought in, and for the longest time, she's portrayed as less of a character, and more of potential antagonist and mystery who we will unwrap later. The standards and practices of the time, preventing her and Willow from displaying as much as they could now, was also a factor.
Giles's arc was that of a man in a midlife crisis. They don't really go anywhere with this until season 5, and then he becomes the local shop owner.
Buffy's plot in the season is rather good, as someone who is finding herself in this new situation, and trying to adapt to it. Being used by a D-bag like Parker, a romance with a nice guy like Riley, becoming a better slayer, etc.
Spike, as I've said before, becomes the key problem. After a certain point, Buffy and company should have staked him somewhere in season 4, as he was endangering them every chance he could. It's also when the show fell into that problem of Spike becoming less of a threat and more of an unwelcome guest. Very weird considering that Giles had him in his apartment for long durations, and Giles never got rid of him with a wooden stake when pushed too far. Anya is in the same vein, as they wanted a Cordelia character, but they forgot that Cordelia had a conscience deep down, which made her tolerable, whereas Anya was okay with random people dying, which made her hard to sympathize with. Harmony also fell into this category.
If the Buffy and friends knew you for more than an episode, it didn't matter if you were a blood sucking monster, you were one of the gang and allowed to be around as a wacky sidekick. Notably, the one character they did avert this with was Ethan Rayne, as he was promptly arrested and never seen again. (Not counting comics).
Heck, thinking about it, if I were in charge of the show, I'd try for something a bit different. Knowing that Seth Green is leaving the show, give him a lot to do for the episodes he has left, with us getting a more-indepth look at who Oz is and why he is so tempted by Veruca. Giles has a midlife crisis, but after Ethan Rayne's misadventure, he gets his act together and work to make his own local business. Mystical Antique dealer maybe. Have Xander become an apprentice for Giles, showing that the healthy atmosphere is doing a lot for Xander reaching his potential. Willow starts exploring her sexuality with Tara after Oz leaves, and finds herself being happier.
For the Cordelia role, bring back Amy, a couple years as a rat changes one's perspective.
With Tara, we should give her an episode or two where we actually see who she is.
I think Spike would have worked better if he hadn't been lounging around in the Scoobies' basements, living off their generosity while still trying to undermine them.
I get why they wanted him to come back. And I like the character. And I do think he was already pretty much played out in the role of main antagonist, as the show had moved on to different and bigger villains (and "The Harsh Light of Day", where Buffy kicked his ass even with the gem of Amara, pretty much put the final nail in the coffin of his big bad status- its notable that his next appearance on "Buffy" is basically mocking the idea of Spike as big bad, where he shows up all threatening and then immediately gets tazed and captured by the Initiative).
Besides, he'd already transitioned to reluctant ally back in Becoming, and that was a more interesting dynamic.
But he's still Spike, he's still a monster at this point, and its terminally idiotic of the Scoobies to tolerate his bullshit for as long as they do.
I might have had Spike continue as a second-tier villain, still with his own allies and power-base, reluctantly allying with the Scoobies against a common enemy. Maybe further explore the idea of him interacting with Faith during her two-parter, trying to double cross the Scoobies and ally with Faith instead. However, make it increasingly clear that he is a has-been trying to relive past glory.
Once you get to season five, its easy to rationalize the Scoobies working with him, because they're desperate for any help they can get against Glory (and that's when Spike realizes he's in love with Buffy, too, which explains his motivation).
Anya could to, but she's not that close the Scoobies other than Xander.
