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Spuffy has ruined me...
Or rather - it has crystallised something about what sort of relationships I enjoy reading (and watching). I'm currently working my way through 'The Girl in a Swing' (one of my mother's favourite books), and I'm getting increasingly frustrated. Partly because it's one of those books that begins with the ending (the girl has left/died/disappeared/? - read the book to find out what happens) and the main character is all bereft. Being about 1/3 through he's just met the girl (and proposed) and they're both deliriously, blissfully happy. Basically it's B/A all over. And pondering why it bothers me so (currently I'm thinking he'd have been better off never meeting her, and I'm sure that can't have been the intention), I've realised something:
I like couples where the problems are inherent in the characters, in their temperaments and interactions. To quote 'Elfquest': Differences create good sparks. If they can make it work in spite of - and because of - who they are, then I love it. The action is all in the interplay, and outside forces might have an impact, but it doesn't *shape* the relationship. They are interesting, even if everything around them is dull.
See the problem I have with this book - and with B/A I guess - is that it's outside forces that determine how the relationship fares. There's lots of love, giant big heaps of it, but that's not very interesting. People who are in love are desperately dull to anyone else. So you need to have outside forces to batter the couple - war, or family, or deep, dark secrets, or one of them turns out to be a vampire... And this is when you get the OTT drama, the soul destroying angst when the lovers are parted - because love is (in a way) the only thing keeping them together. The relationship evolves out of their love, rather than the other way around. That's the difference. And I'm not sure that the relationship ever does evolve much. As![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
the_royal_anna once put it so perfectly:
When I think of Buffy and Angel, they are always standing opposite one another, face-to-face. They are looking only at each other, caught in the moment, still, timeless, static.
When I think of Buffy and Spike, most often they are side by side. I think of the back doorstep in Fool For Love, in Flooded, the moment he sits down beside her in Touched, the night he holds her while she lies awake in Chosen.
That says it all for me.
~~~~~~
We'll be going home on monday, so hopefully I'll be a bit more interactive soon. Please comment, I promise to reply (sooner or later...).
I like couples where the problems are inherent in the characters, in their temperaments and interactions. To quote 'Elfquest': Differences create good sparks. If they can make it work in spite of - and because of - who they are, then I love it. The action is all in the interplay, and outside forces might have an impact, but it doesn't *shape* the relationship. They are interesting, even if everything around them is dull.
See the problem I have with this book - and with B/A I guess - is that it's outside forces that determine how the relationship fares. There's lots of love, giant big heaps of it, but that's not very interesting. People who are in love are desperately dull to anyone else. So you need to have outside forces to batter the couple - war, or family, or deep, dark secrets, or one of them turns out to be a vampire... And this is when you get the OTT drama, the soul destroying angst when the lovers are parted - because love is (in a way) the only thing keeping them together. The relationship evolves out of their love, rather than the other way around. That's the difference. And I'm not sure that the relationship ever does evolve much. As
the_royal_anna once put it so perfectly:When I think of Buffy and Angel, they are always standing opposite one another, face-to-face. They are looking only at each other, caught in the moment, still, timeless, static.
When I think of Buffy and Spike, most often they are side by side. I think of the back doorstep in Fool For Love, in Flooded, the moment he sits down beside her in Touched, the night he holds her while she lies awake in Chosen.
That says it all for me.
~~~~~~
We'll be going home on monday, so hopefully I'll be a bit more interactive soon. Please comment, I promise to reply (sooner or later...).
no subject
And yes too, to the relative fascination levels in outside forces versus interior conflict - I think that's why the best B/A stories I've ever read all focus on the inner torment of Buffy and Angel's situation. Not that I'm always in the mood for that, though, because it gets pretty torturous - they can't stop loving each other, even though it really, really hurts. It's like those S6-based internal Spike pieces, where he's all up and agonzing about his hopeless love for Buffy, only it's both of them.
I guess I lean toward Spuffy because there at least always seems to be some progress. They talk and they adapt and they change. With B/A, there's a timeless quality, but it's just too static for me.
no subject
I know I'm callous, but that makes me laugh!
They talk and they adapt and they change.
::nods:: I know there was something I was going to say, but now it's completely gone. If I ever remember it I'll be back...