next_to_normal | "That was real."

penny_lane_42 made a post which prompted a discussion about Spuffy (shocker, I know!) and, less obviously, a comparison to Cordy/Angel. I started to comment, but it turned into a book, so here it is in a new post. I've actually talked about Cordy/Angel before, and while I think I like them more as a romantic pairing than I did then, my feelings about the execution fail in their relationship arc remain the same.

That said, I definitely see parallels between S/B and C/A, in a way that makes me like C/A a lot more precisely because of my Spuffy love. It can be hard to see the similarities because the two couples started at opposite ends of the spectrum and worked their way to the middle - Cordy and Angel started as friends who grew to love each other, whereas Buffy and Spike started as lovers who built a friendship out of the rubble of their destructive affair. But both were a slow build, and at the climax of their relationships (for B/S it's late S7, for C/A it's "You're Welcome"), both couples managed to develop a relationship that encompassed friendship, desire, trust, and love.

I think it helps to start by looking at the characters individually - a lot of people like to compare Angel and Spike because of the whole "vampire with a soul" thing, but superficial comparisons aside, they're not all that alike. In contrast, Angel and Buffy are actually very similar, and Cordy and Spike play corresponding roles in their lives.

Angel and Buffy are both the alphas in the relationship. (This is, in fact, one of the reasons I don't think they could ever work long term as a couple. They're too similar.) They are the heroes, the leaders of their respective teams, the ones who make the big decisions that affect people's lives. There's a lot of responsibility in that, and it can get heavy. Both of them struggle with the pain, the stress, and the isolation that comes with being the Chosen One. They need someone they can trust, someone who understands them in a way that no one else does, someone who will support them and keep them from detaching themselves too much, but also call them out when they're wrong.

Enter Cordelia and Spike. They are the foundation upon which our heroes build. Angel can't function without Cordy - he needs her to keep him sane, to keep him connected to the living, to keep him on the right path. She is his connection to the Powers and his guiding light. Likewise, Buffy depends on Spike - he is her best fighter when she needs back-up, her escape when the world is too much, her strength when she feels like giving up. He is the one she can count on when no one else is there.

Cordy and Spike help Angel and Buffy be heroes. They lift them up, and they love them in a way that doesn't ask for anything in return. Cordy and Spike make them better people. And I think the reverse is true as well - certainly for Spike, whose desire to become the kind of man Buffy would love drove him to do good, to get a soul, and save the world, but also for Cordelia, who became a much more compassionate and mature person with Angel. Cordy and Spike become heroes in their own right, but they never want or need to shine brighter than their respective partners. The mission is what matters, and Cordy and Spike have both dedicated themselves wholeheartedly to someone else's.

S/B is certainly not a pretty ship, so I can see why C/A fans might be dubious at the comparison. It's messy and complicated and occasionally dysfunctional, but it's very real. That's what separates it from the idealized romance of Buffy and Angel. It's not about destiny or star-crossed love; it's just two people trying to muddle through the best they can, and sometimes they get it right and sometimes they get it wrong. And that's a quality I see in C/A - they too are real, they never idealized each other, they never allowed each other anything but the unvarnished truth. (As I said in my previous essay, I think the writers went off the rails trying to make them more epic than they needed to be, so I think it works better in theory than in execution, but that foundation was definitely there, and it could've been so much better than what happened.) They've seen the best and the worst of each other, they understand each other with perfect clarity, and they know... you're the one.