Anybody else not like BtVS anymore?

[EJA]

When Buffy the Vampire Slayer first came out, I thought it was quite cool and exciting; it hooked me enough for me to buy a lot of the DVDs, spin-off novels and comic books. But in recent years, my interest in it has waned considerably, and I no longer have any real desire to watch it. To be honest, there are times when I wonder what I ever saw in it to begin with.

I suppose one major factor here is that, in all honesty, I never identified much with any of the main characters, and there were times when I didn't really like them much. This includes the character of Buffy herself - the writers intended her to be all cool and likeable, but to me, more often than not she came across as obnoxious and unpleasant. Case in point: In the much-lauded episode "Becoming, Part 2", she actually says to Principal Snyder "You never got a single date in high school, did you?" Ah, way to go, Buff, insulted all those people out there who suffer from rejection and alienation because they're not good enough in someone else's eyes; of course it's easy for you, considering you're oh so gorgeous and have had loads of boyfriends and plenty of pals (I know Snyder wasn't exactly a very nice person, but come on...).

Oh, and remember poor Robin Wood, whose mother was brutally murdered by Spike? Robin's desire for revenge against Spike was perfectly understandable IMO (I mean, the guy walks around wearing his mother's leather coat like a goddamn trophy, for crying out loud!!). It was bad enough that a supposedly reformed Spike showed absolutely zero remorse for what Robin had suffered, but then our hero Buffy displayed exactly the same attitude. She fawns over a vicious, unrepentant wanker like Spike, but to Robin she just coldly and brutally tells him to shut up and behave himself or she'll let him be murdered. Honestly, it's a wonder a person like this has any friends at all. I certainly wouldn't want someone like that as a friend.

 

[WillsBabe]

I've just rewatched the entire run, funnily enough. First time since it aired. I enjoyed it just as much now as I did back then. It's a shame when you lose interest in something that you used to enjoy. I know that's happened to me in the past with tv and film.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Love it more than ever.

The fact that so many of the protagonists are challenged in one way or another as personalities and that Whedon has so little interest in the idea that people are motivated by morality is one of the appealing things about...well, all of his work. It's so rare to find anyone who actually lets an eccentric POV show through in his/her work running a TV series.

 

[Kegg]

Well Joss Whedon does tend to people his series with characters you sort of want to punch in the face (the eminently hateable Mal Reynolds from Firefly is another classic example); but then, I didn't like Buffy when it was on.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

The folks in Whedon's shows that I dislike are very few and far between. Sometimes the worst of them are the most likeable. The ones who are self-consciously "good people" are annoying because they're so deluded.

 

[EJA]

I just don't see how anyone can like Buffy (the character).

 

[Forbin]

My wife and I are in the midst of another rewatch (just finished season 4), and we still love the show as much as ever. But I can certainly understand your viewpoint. Buffy became more abrasive in later seasons, and she was very hard to take in season 6 and 7. I guess ya drag somebody out of heaven, they get pissy.

 

[Too Much Fun]

This includes the character of Buffy herself - the writers intended her to be all cool and likeable, but to me, more often than not she came across as obnoxious and unpleasant. Case in point: In the much-lauded episode "Becoming, Part 2", she actually says to Principal Snyder "You never got a single date in high school, did you?" Ah, way to go, Buff, insulted all those people out there who suffer from rejection and alienation because they're not good enough in someone else's eyes; of course it's easy for you, considering you're oh so gorgeous and have had loads of boyfriends and plenty of pals (I know Snyder wasn't exactly a very nice person, but come on...).

During one of my re-watch sessions of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", I realized that I didn't really like the character of Buffy anymore because she was so obnoxious and self-centered, but there are so many other great characters, dialog, and cool things going on with that show that its protagonist not appealing to me much was not even close to enough for me to lose interest in the show itself.

Also, there are so many better examples of Buffy being a conceited bitch than the one you gave, and you're missing the point if you think the point of that exchange was Buffy being arrogant because she's considered more physically attractive and popular than someone like Snyder.

Buffy said what he said because Snyder had just told her that he was getting off on being able to expel her. He was being a colossally prejudiced, closed-minded, mean-spirited and sadistic asshole, and she simply said the most cruel thing she could think of in response to his dickish attitude. He totally asked for it and totally deserved it. This wasn't a case of her being cocky because she's pretty and insulting all people with romantic problems. It was just her comeback to Snyder's unfair spite.

 

[Bob The Skutter]

I don't think you're supposed to think Buffy is cool, I don't know if you're supposed to like anyone for any reason other than you like them yourself. I mean Joss Whedon's characters are just people, they have flaws, they do good things for their own reasons, they do bad things for their own reasons. You like them of you like them, you don't if you don't but there's not a view point you're supposed to take. At least that's how I always saw it.
In real life some detestable people are charming and you can't help but like them, some really nice and good people are awkward and stand-offish and you can't help but not like them, I don't see why it should be any different for protagonist and antagonists in TV shows.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

I just don't see how anyone can like Buffy (the character).

Many reasons, starting with the fact that she's defiant of senseless authority. She's extremely brave, despite being very much in fear. She's been dealt a hand in life that completely sucks, and she deals with it with rather graceless determination.

I suppose I can see why some people wouldn't like her - she doesn't put up a "brave front" and she does insist on being about as immature as one would expect a young adult to be in this situation - but I just don't find the objections interesting.

 

[DevilEyes]

I love BtVS exactly because none of the characters are perfect. That's exactly what makes them relatable. They also aren't static, they change and develop throughout the show, which makes them look like real people. Real people don't remain the same from the ages of 16 to 23, and certainly not if they've been through everything that those people have been through.

I suppose one major factor here is that, in all honesty, I never identified much with any of the main characters, and there were times when I didn't really like them much. This includes the character of Buffy herself - the writers intended her to be all cool and likeable, but to me, more often than not she came across as obnoxious and unpleasant.

IMO, Buffy was not intended to be "cool and likeable". Certainly not "cool" in the usual sense of the word. She is a real hero, with many great qualities, someone who is giving her best and trying to do the right thing, but she's also very flawed and makes a lot of very human mistakes. She is strong, but she also is very vulnerable, and she can be very unpleasant. This is what makes her interesting and relatable, and this is why she's a lot more than your cookie-cutter 'kickass heroine'. The essence of her character is the duality of being "the Slayer" (which implies strength, heroism, but also violence, darkness) as well as "Buffy" (a human girl with family, friendships, interest in romance, normal life). When it comes to fighting supernatural monsters, she is at home and has no problems, but it's everyday life and emotions that she has a lot more trouble dealing with: whether it is high school, college, working a crappy job and having to pay bills, or having her mother die out of illness (something Buffy couldn't fight - if a monster was threatening her mom, she would have known how to deal with it), or (especially) her love life, which tends to be painful and disastrous.

She's always been the character I related to the most in Buffyverse, but for me it was even more so the case in later seasons, when the show made her flaws and her dark side and her problems more apparent, which seems to upset a lot of people who expect their heroes to be "likable" in the usual sense of the word. Another problem is that Buffy, in later seasons in particular, is a lot more emotionally closed, so her feelings and motivations aren't that obvious as with some other characters. She rarely talks about her feelings in later seasons, and when she does, her words are often at odds with her actions. This is one of the main Buffy's flaws, her tendency to be denial - about her own feelings, about her own nature, about the reality of her relationships - but this is something that the show always played with and often mocked Buffy for. She was never portrayed as someone who knows it all or who is always right. This is what makes her lovable, to me. There have been many times when I wanted to smack her and tell her "Stop being such an idiot!", but I always could see where she's coming from, and empathize with her, because the mistakes she makes are often those I could make, too.

I could list a lot of mistakes and bad behavior by Buffy, but those two you mention are not among them.

Case in point: In the much-lauded episode "Becoming, Part 2", she actually says to Principal Snyder "You never got a single date in high school, did you?" Ah, way to go, Buff, insulted all those people out there who suffer from rejection and alienation because they're not good enough in someone else's eyes; of course it's easy for you, considering you're oh so gorgeous and have had loads of boyfriends and plenty of pals

...Which she actually didn't have. She only had Willow, Xander and Giles, and she was considered a crazy freak in school. (Not that she had any time or interest in socializing with everyone anyway, what with having to be the Slayer every night. Or rather, she started off as someone who wanted to be a normal girl, to be popular and all, but this changed soon.) And trust me, it's not unrealistic. Being gorgeous doesn't make you popular in school in itself, if you're considered crazy, freaky or arrogant and distant. It can only give you more problems since there are always girls who will be jealous and antagonistic the way they wouldn't be with someone they didn't notice (pretty much what you see with Cordelia in season 1). And it's not like Buffy had a lot of luck with dating, either, did she? Although for reasons other than "nobody wants her because she's unattractive". Again, being considered attractive doesn't guarantee a wonderful and happy and fulfilling love life.

Too Much Fun has already covered the rest. It's not like Buffy mocked people who suffered rejection or alienation, and it's not like she despised people who had trouble finding dates due to their status in school. Her best friends were Willow and Xander, who weren't exactly the most successful in that area. She didn't mock them, she didn't even mock Jonathan. She just mocked Snyder because he was such an asshole.

Oh, and remember poor Robin Wood, whose mother was brutally murdered by Spike? Robin's desire for revenge against Spike was perfectly understandable IMO (I mean, the guy walks around wearing his mother's leather coat like a goddamn trophy, for crying out loud!!). It was bad enough that a supposedly reformed Spike showed absolutely zero remorse for what Robin had suffered, but then our hero Buffy displayed exactly the same attitude. She fawns over a vicious, unrepentant wanker like Spike, but to Robin she just coldly and brutally tells him to shut up and behave himself or she'll let him be murdered. Honestly, it's a wonder a person like this has any friends at all. I certainly wouldn't want someone like that as a friend.

So what was she supposed to do? Tell him it was OK for him to kill Spike? Kill Spike for him? What would have satisfied you? Wood was out for personal revenge (while there are more important things going on, like the upcoming apocalypse; and he didn't even mind getting 'advice' from the First Evil), and it was obvious that nothing but Spike's death would have satisfied him (he certainly wasn't interested in Spike saying 'sorry' to him, even said so when he mistakenly thought he did). Please tell me when exactly did the right to kill someone out of revenge become a basic human right? If your idea of friendship is that your friends must allow you to kill people out of revenge (including those that matter to them), then I really wouldn't want to have you as a friend.

So, Buffy basically told Wood to stop trying to murder Spike, and that if he tried to do it again, she wouldn't stop Spike from killing Wood in self-defense. Well, isn't that awful from her.

 

[WillsBabe]

I don't think you're supposed to think Buffy is cool, I don't know if you're supposed to like anyone for any reason other than you like them yourself. I mean Joss Whedon's characters are just people, they have flaws, they do good things for their own reasons, they do bad things for their own reasons. You like them of you like them, you don't if you don't but there's not a view point you're supposed to take. At least that's how I always saw it.
In real life some detestable people are charming and you can't help but like them, some really nice and good people are awkward and stand-offish and you can't help but not like them, I don't see why it should be any different for protagonist and antagonists in TV shows.

I agree. I don't understand this apparant need to "like" characters or not to enjoy shows if you don't "like" the characters. There are tv shows I enjoy watching but don't "like" the characters. Doesn't really detract from my enjoyment.

OTOH, with BTVS, it's the dark and light, the shade, the good and bad to characters that I really enjoy. I like it when "good" characters do bad things and "bad" characters do good things. I like Joss' stuff for the reason that he makes his evil characters attractive and his heroes assholes from time to time.

 

[Bob The Skutter]

I don't think you're supposed to think Buffy is cool, I don't know if you're supposed to like anyone for any reason other than you like them yourself. I mean Joss Whedon's characters are just people, they have flaws, they do good things for their own reasons, they do bad things for their own reasons. You like them of you like them, you don't if you don't but there's not a view point you're supposed to take. At least that's how I always saw it.
In real life some detestable people are charming and you can't help but like them, some really nice and good people are awkward and stand-offish and you can't help but not like them, I don't see why it should be any different for protagonist and antagonists in TV shows.

I agree. I don't understand this apparant need to "like" characters or not to enjoy shows if you don't "like" the characters. There are tv shows I enjoy watching but don't "like" the characters. Doesn't really detract from my enjoyment.

OTOH, with BTVS, it's the dark and light, the shade, the good and bad to characters that I really enjoy. I like it when "good" characters do bad things and "bad" characters do good things. I like Joss' stuff for the reason that he makes his evil characters attractive and his heroes assholes from time to time.

Yeah, there are TV shows where no one is really a likeable person, but that doesn't mean I can't enjoy the show. Mad Men for instance, a vast majority of the characters aren't in the least likeable, but I love almost all of them as TV characters.

Angel had a lot of characters going against type and doing their own things for their own reasons. Which is something I really enjoyed about the show.

 

[DevilEyes]

I don't think you're supposed to think Buffy is cool, I don't know if you're supposed to like anyone for any reason other than you like them yourself. I mean Joss Whedon's characters are just people, they have flaws, they do good things for their own reasons, they do bad things for their own reasons. You like them of you like them, you don't if you don't but there's not a view point you're supposed to take. At least that's how I always saw it.
In real life some detestable people are charming and you can't help but like them, some really nice and good people are awkward and stand-offish and you can't help but not like them, I don't see why it should be any different for protagonist and antagonists in TV shows.

I agree. I don't understand this apparant need to "like" characters or not to enjoy shows if you don't "like" the characters. There are tv shows I enjoy watching but don't "like" the characters. Doesn't really detract from my enjoyment.

OTOH, with BTVS, it's the dark and light, the shade, the good and bad to characters that I really enjoy. I like it when "good" characters do bad things and "bad" characters do good things. I like Joss' stuff for the reason that he makes his evil characters attractive and his heroes assholes from time to time.

Yeah, there are TV shows where no one is really a likeable person, but that doesn't mean I can't enjoy the show. Mad Men for instance, a vast majority of the characters aren't in the least likeable, but I love almost all of them as TV characters.

There's a difference between being a likeable person (as someone you'd actually like to be friends with in real life) and a likeable character in the sense that you can empathize or relate to them when watching the show. The lack of the latter can be a real problem when watching the show; the lack of former, not so much. Battlestar Galactica, Oz, The Sopranos also come to mind as examples of shows where I 'like' many of the characters in the latter sense, but most of them aren't people I'd like to meet in real life, let alone hang out with or go for a drink.

 

[Bob The Skutter]

I agree. I don't understand this apparant need to "like" characters or not to enjoy shows if you don't "like" the characters. There are tv shows I enjoy watching but don't "like" the characters. Doesn't really detract from my enjoyment.

OTOH, with BTVS, it's the dark and light, the shade, the good and bad to characters that I really enjoy. I like it when "good" characters do bad things and "bad" characters do good things. I like Joss' stuff for the reason that he makes his evil characters attractive and his heroes assholes from time to time.

Yeah, there are TV shows where no one is really a likeable person, but that doesn't mean I can't enjoy the show. Mad Men for instance, a vast majority of the characters aren't in the least likeable, but I love almost all of them as TV characters.

There's a difference between being a likeable person (as someone you'd actually like to be friends with in real life) and a likeable character in the sense that you can empathize or relate to them when watching the show. The lack of the latter can be a real problem when watching the show; the lack of former, not so much. Battlestar Galactica, Oz, The Sopranos also come to mind as examples of shows where I 'like' many of the characters in the latter sense, but most of them aren't people I'd like to meet in real life, let alone hang out with or go for a drink.

This is true. You see this is something that always makes me wonder about shows when people say "there's no black/white/Asian/gay/whatever characters, so I can't relate." Is it really so hard to relate to people who aren't "like you"?
I may not be gay, but I know what it's like to be bullied, to be rejected, to be in love. I may not be black but I know what it's like to be in the wrong part of town, worrying about if someone may take a dislike to me just because, just for example.
I may not be an evil scheming alien trying to take over the universe, or a mobster, or even a 60s adman but I can watch the show, see their circumstances and understand and relate because I'm able to empathise and understand how I would feel in a given situation.

 

[Mr Light]

I haven't watched it since the show ended but the last two years pretty much killed my love for the show. I enjoy the Season Eight comic but I don't feel the need to rewatch the show any time soon. Maybe in a few more years.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Certainly people looking for stories in which such things as universal justice or some kind of cosmically determined (ie, writer-determined) moral balance exist ought to avoid Whedon.

 

[saturn5]

No

Buffy the Vampire Slayer is the greatest TV show of all time and it's characters are goddam wonderful. I sympathise with Robin Wood but resouled Spike is not the man that killed his mother and for the greater good he must accept that. forgiveness for all because they've all made mistakes in their time and all made amends.

William the Bloody just bumped into the wrong girl in the alley one night, he's not to blame any more than Liam, Darla or Dru is. He saved the world as did all the Scoobs at one time or another

 

[Kegg]

Certainly people looking for stories in which such things as universal justice or some kind of cosmically determined (ie, writer-determined) moral balance exist ought to avoid Whedon.

Interestng you frame it that way as part of the problem I have with Whedon is his smug didacticism. Which isn't even a comment on the values presented per se, I just seldom care for the tone.

 

[DevilEyes]

Certainly people looking for stories in which such things as universal justice or some kind of cosmically determined (ie, writer-determined) moral balance exist ought to avoid Whedon.

Interestng you frame it that way as part of the problem I have with Whedon is his smug didacticism. Which isn't even a comment on the values presented per se, I just seldom care for the tone.

Care to elaborate?