I think Drusilla hates herself. She was so good, a tool of the powers and a pure young woman and then to become what she is, evil and vampiric, finding pleasure in torture and killing of the worst kind, I think deep down under all of that insanity she hates herself. And I think that’s why she prefers Angelus to Spike. Spike loves her, loves who she is, the thing she has become, is utterly devoted to her, Angelus could care less about her, just uses her. So she goes to Angelus because she hates who she is and can’t stand the fact that Spike loves what she has become.
Tag: tw ptsd
“Buffy was so whiny in season 6! Like, okay, we get it, your life sucks, but the rest of the Scoobies had it hard too and she pushed all her friends away! No wonder she got thrown out of her house, she was being such a pissy, cold, distant bitch! She should have pulled it together, watching her moan so much for so long was so annoying! Things weren’t that bad and her wangst dragged on and on and on!”
Okay, but wasn’t it strongly suggested that the reason Buffy was so “whiny” was because she had clinical depression, and quite possibly was experiencing suicidal thoughts or even tendencies?
“Dawn is so whiny and ungrateful! Like, oh my God, so annoying. All she ever did was complain and piss and moan! Other characters suffered way more than her but all she did was cry all the time and mope about her sister dying, when she came back anyway! Christ, I wish Buffy just left her on that tower!”
Well, couldn’t a lot of Dawn’s alleged “moaning” be attributed to the fact that she displayed many of (if not all) the symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder?
“I can’t believe Drusilla cheated on Spike, the slutty, selfish cow! What a whore! Spike loved her more than anyone else in the world and she just couldn’t keep her legs closed for ten seconds once Angelus came back. Pathetic. Spike deserves so much better than that bitch.”
Sexist terminology aside, surely at least part of the reason Drusilla was so receptive towards her sire’s advances was because she was implied to suffer from Stockholme Syndrome after decades of his abuses?
HI hi! :D I have a Buffyverse question! So. Do you think the writers’ treatment of Drusilla as a character (underused, not very respectful in my opinion) may be partially a reason for why we don’t really see Angel feeling much/any remorse over what he did to her?
Hi! ❤ That’s a pretty plausible Doylist explanation. :3 I personally prefer reasoning on a Watsonian level, but the fact that Dru was a minor character- a minor antagonist, no less – probably factored into it. Why waste time reflecting on characters who aren’t relevant to the main plot, after all? Drusilla is only in twenty four episodes of the Buffyverse- less than 10% of the series- so Angel reminiscing on her in every episode would only serve to stifle and distract from the active plot. I think we’re just meant to assume he agonizes over it conveniently off-screen.
It’s not that we’re not shown him being haunted by the horrors he caused Drusilla that bothers me; Angel rarely expresses guilt loudly and proudly. He doesn’t seem the sort to scream about his regret at the top of his lungs. He’s the type who would let it fester quietly under his skin like a broken rib; nobody can see how much pain he’s in, but it hurts him to breathe. Hence the sulking in a sewer for decades; it was easier for him to just retreat into himself than be vocal and proactive about his remorse. So him not talking often about Drusilla makes sense to me. That’s not why I sometimes don’t buy that he’s sincerely sorry about it.
The reason I question Angel’s guilt is because he set Drusilla on fire and then bragged about it to Kate. The reason I question Angel’s guilt is because he joked about Drusilla “being fickle” to Spike, ignoring or dare I say even reveling in the fact that it’s his fault that she’s so emotionally unstable. Because he seemed horrified at the idea of giving up on Faith, but apparently saw Drusilla as irredeemable. Inconsistencies and double standards like that is why I question Angel’s guilt.
Alas, it’s not just Drusilla; Angel is the kind of character who’ll preach about unconditional forgiveness one moment and order the cold-blooded murder of Lindsey (who wanted to change his ways) the next. He’s the sort of character who’ll claim being riddled with self-loathing for his crimes one moment and boast about eating his own parents the next (Sense and Sensitivity). Lindsey had to die for turning a blind eye to the corrupt nature of his employers for two years. Angel deserves infinite chances in spite of murdering, raping, and torturing an entire continent of people for two hundred years. Lindsey did it to escape poverty. Angel did it because he could. The moment Lindsey truly realized how depraved Wolfram and Hart was he fled of his own free will, turning down a promotion and risking his life in the process. When Angel got a soul and realized how horrible his own actions were he tried to carry on as normal for two years. It’s more or less irrefutable that Angel has much more blood- quite literally in many cases- on his hands than Lindsey. Doylist explanation? Different writers had different interpretations of Angel as a character, thus leading to the contradiction in his philosophies. Watsonian explanation? Angel is not quite as heroic as we’re led to believe. And as previously established, I’m a sucker for Watsonian theories.
xoxox
The Official Ranking of Every Buffy Episode
God Tier: Halloween, Lie To Me, Surprise, Innocence, Passion, Becoming Part 1, Becoming Part 2, Band Candy, The Wish, The Zeppo, Doppelgangland, Something Blue, Hush, Superstar, Restless, Fool For Love, The Body, The Gift, Once More With Feeling, Tabula Rasa, Selfless
High Tier: Angel, Nightmares, Prophecy Girl, School Hard, What’s My Line Part 1, What’s My Line Part 2, Phases, I Only Have Eyes For You, Anne, Faith Hope and Trick, Homecoming, Revelations, Lover’s Walk, Helpless, Bad Girls, Consequences, Enemies, Earshot, Choices, Graduation Day Part 1, Graduation Day Part 2, Fear Itself, Pangs, A New Man, This Year’s Girl, Who Are You, Primeval, Buffy vs Dracula, The Real Me, The Replacement, Family, Checkpoint, Blood Ties, Intervention, Tough Love, Life Serial, All the Way, Hell’s Bells, Villains, Two to Go, Grave, Lessons, Same Time Same Place, Help, Conversations With Dead People, Potential, Storyteller, Chosen
Mid Tier: Welcome to the Hellmouth, The Harvest, Witch, Never Kill a Boy on the First Date, The Pack, The Puppet Show, Out of Sight Out of Mind, When She Was Bad, Inca Mummy Girl, The Dark Age, Bewitched Bothered and Bewildered, Go Fish, Beauty and the Beasts, Amends, Gingerbread, The Prom, Wild at Heart, The Initiative, Doomed, The I in Team, Goodbye Iowa, New Moon Rising, The Yoko Factor, Out of My Mind, Triangle, Crush, I Was Made to Love You, Forever, The Weight of the World, Bargaining Part 1, Bargaining Part 2, Smashed, Wrecked, Gone, Doublemeat Palace, Dead Things, Older and Far Away, Normal Again, Him, The Killer in Me, Dirty Girls
Low Tier: Teacher’s Pet, I Robot You Jane, Reptile Boy, Ted, Killed By Death, Dead Man’s Party, The Freshman, Living Conditions, The Harsh Light of Day, Where the Wild Things Are, No Place Like Home, Shadow, Listening to Fear, Into the Woods, Spiral, After Life, Flooded, As You Were, Entropy, Seeing Red, Beneath You, Sleeper, Never Leave Me, Bring on the Night, Showtime, First Date, Lies My Parents Told Me, Empty Places, Touched, End of Days
Shit Tier: Some Assembly Required, Bad Eggs, Beer Bad, Get it Done
I agree with a lot of this and disagree with a lot of it. Personally, I don’t think that Faith’s character really takes off until we get the sliced-up psychotic POV shots when she goes to Angel; any storyline that gives one character/species as much power as Jonathan or the vengeance demons seem to have sets my continuity-protection sensors to beeping; and I don’t really despise any of the episodes in OP’s Shit Tier. I’d love to see you break down a few of the episodes into your specific likes and dislikes, though.
With pleasure! ❤
To provide some variety, I’ve picked one random episode from each tier. Without further ado…
The Zeppo (God tier): Xander Harris isn’t my favourite character. I don’t hate him, but I have at times joined the chorus of condemnation for his less-than-endearing traits, like getting away with some pretty major screw-ups (Becoming Part 2, Once More With Feeling), making sexist comments, or just his general mean-spirited streak. I would also agree that his character hasn’t aged well, drawing more ire with every new generation of fans who are well equipped to recognise a Nice Guy ™ when they see one. However, there is something compelling about the idea of an everyman in a cast of Chosen Ones and super heroes. This episode takes that concept and elevates it into a masterpiece. It’s hilarious. It’s touching. It’s bittersweet. It’s unique. It’s the most likable Xander has ever been. I was roaring with laughter throughout this episode, every punchline landed, every joke tickled me. Just the premise of there being a huge apocalypse and only getting to see snippets of it while our everyman embarks on a side-quest made me giddy. But in the final scene, we see there is a deeper purpose to this episode than its shenanigans (and even if there was not, the shenanigans alone were more than enough to earn this episode a place in my heart). Here, we’re given the impression that Xander might be ready to move past the ugliness of his insecurities. My only complaint is that I wish the character development had stuck.
Life Serial (high tier): “Life is the Big Bad” – as Marti Noxon remarked of season six – was never better expressed than in this criminally underrated episode. Grimly amusing and painfully relatable, here we see Buffy attempt to reacclimatise to everyday life, only she just can’t seem to do anything right. Unbeknownst to her, she is being magically targeted by The Trio, who are tormenting her in profoundly lame and mundane ways. But they are still tormenting her. Haha, Buffy goes to college to try and learn things but the day just speeds by in a second and she has no idea what she’s doing! Haha, Buffy’s retail shift just never seems to end! Ever! Haha, Buffy is drinking to distract from her fear and uncertainty about the future! I first saw this episode when I was fifteen, and honestly I didn’t really ‘get it’ then. Call it blissful ignorance. But oh boy, I understand this episode now. This is the perfect encapsulation of season six’s mission statement, and it really deserves more appreciation.
When She Was Bad (mid tier): This episode was a game changer. Here we see the first hints of the series shedding its ‘Monster of the Week’ format in favour of long-running continuity with high emotional stakes. Here we see for the first time that what happens in the show can have lasting consequences for the characters. Buffy defeated The Master in last season’s finale, but the trauma of drowning has changed her forever, leaving her with PTSD that will make up part of who she is for the rest of the series. And so one of the most subtly tragic aspects of the Buffyverse is born. As I explained in this post- contrary to popular misconception – mid-tier isn’t reserved for average episodes, but good episodes. This was a good episode. It is commonly accepted wisdom that the show didn’t mature past the wacky, episodic nature of season one until ‘Innocence’, but for me the real turning point was Buffy tearfully smashing the bones of The Master, never to be quite the same person again.
Seeing Red (low tier): I have no problem with TV shows tackling serious or taboo issues. If something exists, then it has a place in fiction. If handled well, then storylines dealing with sexual abuse can spread awareness of the issue and give a voice to the survivors of that trauma. I don’t even think the attempted rape was out of character for Spike (an amoral demon), as so many have insisted it was. But my God, I don’t think the writers could have handled this storyline more thoughtlessly if they tried. Using your female lead’s traumatic near-rape experience to spur on the attempted rapist’s character development, making the victim an accessory for his redemption arc? Bad move. Bad, bad, bad move. This is the first time that I felt Buffy was really betrayed by the writers, the first time she was used as a disposable plot device for Spike. This trend continued into the seventh season, and felt like a cruel betrayal of the show’s core values. Killing off Tara in the same episode she finally became a series regular was also a slap in the face to LGBT fans, who at the time had very few lesbian role models in media. The more I think about it, the less sure I am as to why I saved it from shit tier. Certainly it did more harm than ‘Some Assembly Required’ or ‘Beer Bad’, which were laughably atrocious but not an insult to everything the show claimed to stand for like this was. Speaking of…
Beer Bad (shit tier): this is the shortest episode in the series if memory serves me correctly, but it somehow feels like the longest. Rumour has it that the writers were paid by an alcohol awareness charity to write this episode, and I don’t know if that’s true, but it definitely feels like that. Perhaps the only enjoyable part of the episode was Willow chewing out Parker Abrams. Ironically one of the few episodes of Buffy to be nominated for an Emmy (for outstanding hairstyling, I believe). I was lucky enough that my introduction to the series was the epic character study ‘Fool For Love’, but had it been ‘Beer Bad’? I doubt I would have ever watched another episode.
Cheloneuniverse 