Annoyance of the day:

[lirazel]

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?

Comments

[angearia.livejournal.com]

it's an acceptance of herself as well.

Yes.

That's the beautiful symbolism that's presented with her loving him and his death destroying the hellmouth. Learning to love the demon destroys the projected demonic within, the manifestation of the demonic, of the psyche, that is the hellmouth.

[blackfrancine.livejournal.com]

Ha! I wonder if I read your post and somehow it got digested into my subconscious--and now BAM! it comes out.

Learning to love the demon destroys the projected demonic within

YES. I love this. I don't know how you always manage to say such pithy, pretty things.

[angearia.livejournal.com]

Hey, that's totally the difference between reading something and agreeing, "that makes sense," and taking it in yourself and coming to that realization on your own. Hearing versus knowing. Like seeing your math teacher work out a calculus problem on the board isn't the same as you figuring it out yourself when you're at home with your textbook.

YES. I love this. I don't know how you always manage to say such pithy, pretty things.

Sometimes I get lucky! I love that symbolism, the Hellmouth as the psyche and loving the demon being what destroys it. Not only love, but faith and belief in the goodness of darkness. The "dark place" is not evil, we don't have to demonize it and marginalize it. We must embrace it.

Also! Check me out down here. I'd love to hear your ~thoughts~.