I hadn't thought to draw those parallels between the two relationships, but you're totally right.
It's interesting, the way the differences in character made the two relationships go in such different directions. Spike helps Buffy to be a hero in S6 because he's where Buffy works out her relationship with her own darkness - he helps Buffy to be a better person because, at this point, he's not good, even if he's done good things. And because this required actual meeting and talking and doing, we saw an actual relationship dynamic. Spuffy was all about balance, within and between the parties, and I like that internal character work. There's a lot of the balance stuff at play with C/A, but it's purely between each other (dark and light; doubting and trusting; joyful and broody). Maybe that's why the writers felt like they had to throw up such pointless (and I agree with you, very poorly conceived and executed) roadblocks - it's lacking those internal layers of tension Spuffy has.
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carisma_sensei
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Date: Aug. 25th, 2010 11:29 pm (UTC)It's interesting, the way the differences in character made the two relationships go in such different directions. Spike helps Buffy to be a hero in S6 because he's where Buffy works out her relationship with her own darkness - he helps Buffy to be a better person because, at this point, he's not good, even if he's done good things. And because this required actual meeting and talking and doing, we saw an actual relationship dynamic. Spuffy was all about balance, within and between the parties, and I like that internal character work. There's a lot of the balance stuff at play with C/A, but it's purely between each other (dark and light; doubting and trusting; joyful and broody). Maybe that's why the writers felt like they had to throw up such pointless (and I agree with you, very poorly conceived and executed) roadblocks - it's lacking those internal layers of tension Spuffy has.