30 Days of Buffy, Day #07

[itsnotmymind]

Day #01: Favourite season
Day #02: Favourite episode
Day #03: Favourite song used in an episode
Day #04: Favourite female character
Day #05: Least favourite female character
Day #06: Favourite male character
Day #07: Least favourite male character
Day #08: Favourite friendship
Day #09: Favourite romance
Day #10: Least favourite season
Day #11: Least favourite romance
Day #12: Least favourite episode
Day #13: Favourite potential slayer
Day #14: Favourite female villain
Day #15: Favourite male villain
Day #16:Episode you like that everyone else hates - Favourite piece of monologue
Day #17: Character you relate to the most
Day #18: Character who didn’t get enough screen time
Day #19: Character you like that everyone else hates
Day #20: Best Spike-centric episode
Day #21: Best Willow-centric episode
Day #22: Best Xander-centric episode
Day #23: Two characters you wanted to get together that never did
Day #24: Favourite example of 90s special effects
Day #25: Favourite Buffyverse saying
Day #26: Favourite Scooby moment
Day #27: Cutest moment
Day #28: Character you love to hate
Day #29: Episode you hate that everyone else loves
Day #30: What you think made Buffy so great


Day #07: Least favourite male character
Probably Riley. I'm not usually anti-Riley (except at his worst moments in S5), but he is far from the top of my favorite character list. I just don't like him that much. Which, ironically, does not stop me from getting defensive when I think criticism of him is unfair. I dislike him, and yet I simultaneously feel he is underrated.

Also, it looks like I skipped a day (Least favorite female character), so I will do that tomorrow.

Comments

[red-satin-doll.livejournal.com]

In one year I've gone from having sympathy for him and insisting fan writers give him his due as one of Buffy's lovers alongside her vampires (and acknowledge the depth of her love for him) to turning him into my whipping post. And that anger really belongs to the writers for trying to convince me that some terrible behavior in his part was acceptable and Buffy "drove him away", poor boy. Spare me. (I'm not sure why the writers and fandom lay the blame for his identity issues largely at Buffy's feet.) And the thing of it is they had some interesting material to work with, it could have been a much better arc.

[itsnotmymind.livejournal.com]

I get outraged about Riley on the show, but defensive of him in fandom. It's a strange combo, but I once saw someone argue that he was the most evil character on the show, and I just thought no, I don't think so. But on the show, yes, I hate that he's such a jerk and that this is framed as Buffy's fault.

[red-satin-doll.livejournal.com]

That's closer to how I was in fandom, and I have thanked writers in the past for giving him his due, or giving Buffy/Riley their due as a legitimate relationship (and not just marking time between her vampires or "just" a rebound man for her. there was some of that, yes, but not all there was on her end.)

The fact that this is framed as Buffy's fault, as you say - it's very weird. Parker gets hit on the head - twice - and called a jerk etc (in canon and fandom)for what is a much smaller sin in comparison.(Because in hindsight Riley's behavior in ITW is foreshadowed in Doomed, so it's not OOC, just really unpleasant.) It gets back to someone on the writing staff being a Riley fanboy, I guess.

I tried to figure it out and thought, well this has never happened to me before - but I think recent events that hit me personally affected my view; but also it occurred to me not long ago that my ex-stepfather #1 cheated on my mom during their marriage. I guess I really have little tolerance for that sort of thing. (Whereas I feel agnostic about Dru & her lovers because - hello, vampires. I would expect them to be amoral or break all the rules.)

[itsnotmymind.livejournal.com]

Curious: how is Riley's behavior in ITW foreshadowed in Doomed? I feel like I should know this.

[red-satin-doll.livejournal.com]

Listen to the way he speaks to her and puts her down for not being ready to enter a relationship with him (or being reluctant to) assuming he knows her better than he does: "You know what? You are stupid!" she hits the nail on the head when she says "So I'm supposed to do what, turn a frown upside down?" And she hits the nail on the head in ITW in their argument. He resorts to pop psychology clichés both times. In Doomed he's more confident of success (and at the end of the ep she rewards him with a kiss); in ITW he's on shakier ground and doesn't "get it sold"; it takes another "salesman", Xander, to seal the deal and get Buffy to run after the helicopter. The message is the same in both: You don't know yourself little girl as well as the menz do.

And in AYW, more of his pop psychology, very in-character for someone who seems to have had zero growth. But as we've said before, the writers want us to see Riley as in the right each time *gags* it's not being played ironically. too bad, so sad.

[itsnotmymind.livejournal.com]

Listen to the way he speaks to her and puts her down for not being ready to enter a relationship with him (or being reluctant to) assuming he knows her better than he does: "You know what? You are stupid!" she hits the nail on the head when she says "So I'm supposed to do what, turn a frown upside down?" And she hits the nail on the head in ITW in their argument.

I can see the parallels. I guess even his metaphorical cheating was about thinking he knew her and her inner darkness better than she did.

[red-satin-doll.livejournal.com]

EXACTLY. All her men do it to her: Giles, Xander, Riley, Angel, Spike. Buffy even calls this out explicitly in NLM: "You don't know me. You don't even know you." That's pretty much what she's telling Riley in the argument in ITW. Different dynamic, same idea.

[lokifan]

I do actually like him (at least, I find him adorable in S4 and a-dickhead-but-mostly-sympathetic in S5) and I definitely think he's underrated. But I hate hate hate the way Buffy gets blamed for Riley's shit.

[itsnotmymind.livejournal.com]

I agree.