lirazel | Annoyance of the day:

People who flat-out say that Buffy didn't love Spike despite the fact that she said she did.

She said she did. The only reason we have to believe that she didn't is one thing Spike said, and since when do people believe anything that comes out of Spike's mouth? Boy can speak the truth that no one else will, but he also says a ton of b.s., and everyone knows it.

I just hatehatehatehatehatehate all of these people sitting around telling a woman (and it would be a woman--if a man said, it I think a lot less people would disagree with her) who finds it nearly impossible to say the words "I love you" even to people she regards as family (remember "Intervention"? That's canon) that she doesn't love someone when she said she did.

I don't have a problem with people quibbling over the nature of her love. You can argue that she didn't love him romantically or as much as she did Angel or whatever (I would disagree with the first one and re: the second, I would remind you that, as

the_royal_anna says, we don't love in amounts. We love in ways). That's legit. But to say, flat-out, that she didn't love him even though she says she did takes agency away from Buffy in a way that I am entirely uncomfortable with and that DRIVES ME CRAZY, OKAY. If she had said she loved Riley (she didn't, did she?), I would be pissed at people saying she didn't love him, either. Uuuugh why does this annoy me so much?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

To clarify, I'm not saying the feelings aren't important. But they're like...the frosting on the cake. Take away the frosting, you've still got cake. But if you take away the cake, all you've got is frosting. Feelings have to be built on the back of real love--which I would argue is pretty much the same no matter how it manifests, involving sacrifice, respect, trust, commitment, selflessness, affection, compatibilty (to an extent), etc.--or else they aren't worth anything and they certainly aren't love.

Well, right. I just think there's a distinct difference between loving someone and being in love.

Buffy loves Dawn. I would argue she loves Dawn more than she loves anyone else. But she is not -in love- with Dawn (I hope!). Those are different emotional contexts, and I don't think you can make a choice to be IN love. It is a thing that happens to you, it is not something you choose.

Well, sure. But what I meant was, I don't see any textual reason to believe that Buffy wasn't in love with her three guys. I think she didn't know Angel well enough to love him in the early seasons (I actually don't think she's in love with him until S3, really, when they finally take the time to get to know each other and move beyond mere infatuation, though admittedly I've not seen it in a while so I could be wrong). I think her love for Riley isn't as important to her as it could be, because she's just got so many other things going on emotionally that she can't invest enough. And I look at the way she looks at Spike in S7, the way she curls up in his arms, and yeah. Enough of that.

Those are different emotional contexts, and I don't think you can make a choice to be IN love. It is a thing that happens to you, it is not something you choose.

I think all love is a choice or it's not love. The feelings part of it may happen to you, but until you start to build something solid beyond feelings, it's not actually love, imo. So I guess we'll never agree on that.

I don't see any textual reason to assume she is, though. I think it depends on your read of the character, and I read her as pretty detached from that sphere of her emotional experience. It's an interpretation question.

And yes, you have to make the choice to build something out of your feelings, but the feeling -- the indescribable feeling -- has to exist first or you're not in love. My $.02.

This is why love is historically a subject for poetry and not prose, haha.

Yeah, and I read her as feeling things very, very, very deeply but being unable to articulate or control them and also feeling guilty for them. So that would definitely affect the way you see her.

I actually don't disagree, there, but I think she very clearly cordons off the romantic sector of her brain because she has to. I think she shuts down there because it's too difficult to deal with that and be the Slayer. Idk, I think her whole conversation with Holden in "Conversations" is really illuminating.

Also, a thought occured to me:

I thin the reason I'm handwaving this distinction a bit is because the hardcore Bangels always act like they're doing us a big favor when they admit, "Oh, Buffy loved Spike. She just wasn't in love with him." And they they preen and smirk about how clearly inferior her feelings for him were to her feelings for Angel.

And obviously you don't feel that way. Obviously. But I think having experienced that roughly twelve million times, I've gotten to the point where I'm like, "It's the love that matters." Does that make sense?

Yeah, that makes sense! I just don't think people being stupid devalues the distinction. Like, the distinction is still a true thing even if it's been used clumsily as a bludgeon in ship wars.

True. I also, though, really resent our cultural obsession with falling in love and with sex how it's viewed as more legitimate than other kinds of love, etc. Hate that. A lot.

Aaaand I really do believe what I said about the cake stuff, too. :D

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