I followed your link from molly_may's last Riley Rant post, and I think your thoughts here are very insightful.
I always found Riley boring (and in "As You Were" found him completely infuriating in every way), but at the same time I always found him necessary to Buffy's journey. And I think this is because of what you explore here. Buffy is definitely chaos and thriving within that chaos (or, in S6, drowning in it), but she really, really wants order. She believes that order=a normal life, and that's why she holds onto Riley for so long. It's her chaos thinking order is intrinsically better, and I think she needed to actually see up close that it isn't, necessarily, for her.
And you really get that here. Also the contrast with Spike are very, very interesting. Especially with the Spike seeing what's underneath, which is so true. Though I would disagree with you about Spike in "Normal Again." I usually understand his POV very clearly, but I think in that moment he wasn't really saying that for Buffy's benefit (like he does in, say, "Touched") but for his own since he's still hurt over her breaking up with him. But that's just me. ;)
Anyways, again, I really, really enjoyed this. I rarely see meta posts about Riley, and this one is great. Thanks for it!
no subject
I always found Riley boring (and in "As You Were" found him completely infuriating in every way), but at the same time I always found him necessary to Buffy's journey. And I think this is because of what you explore here. Buffy is definitely chaos and thriving within that chaos (or, in S6, drowning in it), but she really, really wants order. She believes that order=a normal life, and that's why she holds onto Riley for so long. It's her chaos thinking order is intrinsically better, and I think she needed to actually see up close that it isn't, necessarily, for her.
And you really get that here. Also the contrast with Spike are very, very interesting. Especially with the Spike seeing what's underneath, which is so true. Though I would disagree with you about Spike in "Normal Again." I usually understand his POV very clearly, but I think in that moment he wasn't really saying that for Buffy's benefit (like he does in, say, "Touched") but for his own since he's still hurt over her breaking up with him. But that's just me. ;)
Anyways, again, I really, really enjoyed this. I rarely see meta posts about Riley, and this one is great. Thanks for it!