February 9, 2024

Welcome back, dear readers, to my attempt to answer "So what about dead boyfriends?" Does Buffy, the titular vampire slayer, lose a statistically significant number of love interests to the ravages of time, monsters, and Joss Whedon's idea of good storytelling? Read on to find out. 

This post got to be quite long, so I've split it into two parts. In part 1, we'll go over the character, the setting, the men, and their nefarious intentions. In part 2, we'll look at the deaths.

The Character

Buffy Anne Summers is a fashion-forward, bubbly teenager who develops vampire-fighting superpowers at age 15. From that day forward, she lives in interesting times.

My life happens to, on occasion, suck beyond the telling of it.

- Buffy empathizes with a depressed classmate, "Earshot" (1999-09-28)

As summarized in this Reddit post, Buffy goes through her parents' divorce; dating a man who turns abusive; having to kill that man; seeing multiple friends die; living as a runaway for 3 months; loss of her mother; raising her kid sister (who was born a teenager!); poverty; daily attempted murders; and dying, twice. All before the age of 22.

There are perks to this lifestyle, such as the fact that she saves the world frequently. They even put that fact on her tombstone after her second death.

Don't worry, she gets better.

Still, this all does take a psychological toll on Buffy. Her trauma around her first serious relationship, in particular, results in her not saying the words "I love you" to a romantic partner for 110 episodes (aka 5 years). When she finally is ready to say them again, it's only because the man she's talking to is going to die momentarily.

Buffy: I love you.

Spike: No, you don't. But thank you for saying it.

- "Chosen" (2003-05-20)

Now, in this blog, we will not analyze the full litany of plots and subplots that torture Buffy and her friends into literal insanity and back. What we will do is ask a few important questions about Buffy and her love interests, beginning with...

Does this fictional universe hate all love?

Yes. It was created by someone who once said:

Happy people make boring television. - Joss Whedon

This is relevant to our analysis because it's possible Buffy isn't uniquely cursed with dead boyfriends. That might just be how her world works. I kept an eye out for how often Buffy's allies lose their better halves. The answer is "often."

As a representative sample, note the following:

• Willow (Alyson Hannigan), Buffy's best gal pal, is in love with her girlfriend Tara (Amber Benson) from seasons 4-6. After a break of several months, they've recently reconciled and are eagerly planning a future together when she gets hit by a stray bullet fired by a villain who was aiming for Buffy. (Benson, for what it's worth, is one of the actresses who confirmed Charisma Carpenter's allegations of Joss Whedon's misogyny.)
• Giles (Anthony Stewart Head), Buffy's mentor and trainer, is in a serious relationship with the witch Jenny Calendar (Robia Scott) in season 2. After Angel (David Boreanaz) loses his soul from sleeping with Buffy, Jenny tries to cure him, and he wrings her neck.
• Giles also has a fling with Buffy's mom Joyce (Kristine Sutherland), who dies of an aneurysm in season 5.
• Xander (Nicholas Brendan), Buffy's best guy friend, dates Cordelia (Charisma Carpenter), who breaks up with him after getting impaled on rebar. She survives that injury, moves over to the spinoff, and falls in love with Angel...only to die from complications of giving birth to an evil Higher Power, which is a child she conceived by sleeping with Angel's teenage son while under the influence of mind control. (It's exactly as creepy as it sounds.)
• The second time Angel loses his soul, in season 4 of the spinoff, he drinks the blood of his friend Wesley's situationship Lilah (Stephanie Romanov), and Wesley (Alexis Denisoff) has to decapitate her corpse to prevent her rising as a vampire. This is, surprisingly, only the second-most heartbreaking way in which Wesley loses a love interest.
• A season later, Wes's true love Fred (Amy Acker) politely rejects the advances of a coworker, Knox (Jonathan Woodward). Knox arranges for an Old One to take over Fred's body so that he can continue to worship it. Fred gets her soul painfully burned out and dies in terror. (This one is even creepier than it sounds.)

Phew. Survival tip: if you're a Whedon character, and you find yourself in a happy relationship, update your will.

How does all this death affect Buffy's love life? Let's find out.

The Study

As usual, the threshold for calling someone a "boyfriend" has been set at "on-screen kissing and/or established relationship." To research this, I watched the Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel series on my sister's Hulu account, and the original Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie on my mother's Max account. Then I rounded up some of the continuation comics from my county library system, but it doesn't own all of them, so I read fan recaps to fill in the blanks. I decided to only use the comics as references for if any of the love interests from the series die in the post-series canon. And for the Audible Original sequel series, Slayers, I had my sister spoil the key plot point, namely: does Spike die yet a third time?

Hi, Mom! Hi, Katie! Hi, Erin-the-head-librarian! Teamwork for the win!

The Men

There are 9, of whom 3 have long-term impact on the plot. Two, jock Jeffrey and alcoholic-drifter-with-a-heart-of-gold Pike, only appear in the original movie and are not mentioned again. The ones who appear in the 2 TV series are high-school-fling Scott Hope; college one-night-stand Parker; her kid sister’s crush RJ, whom she hooks up with because (unbeknownst to him) he's wearing an enchanted varsity jacket; and "The Immortal," who never appears on-screen but is the focus of an Angel episode.*

* Note: In the sequel comics, it's stated that Buffy didn't date The Immortal for real; it was part of a cover story. I'm keeping him on the list because their fake-relationship is a part of the plot.

In addition, there are the following plot-affecting relationships.

• Angel (David Boreanaz), is a vampire-with-a-soul whom Buffy falls in love with at age 16 and carries a permanent torch for, notwithstanding that he abuses her after losing his soul, drinks her blood to save his own life, and then dumps her with the excuse that it's for her own good. If you couldn't tell, I'm not a Buffy/Angel fan.

What was the highlight of our relationship? When you broke up with me or when I killed you?

- Buffy puts Angel in his place after he questions her dating Spike, "Chosen" (2003-05-20)

• Riley Finn (Marc Blucas), a TA in one of Buffy's college courses, turns out to also work for a secret military Initiative that's experimenting on vampires, werewolves, demons, and other monsters. After Buffy opens his eyes to the ethical problems with that, he disobeys orders and gets discharged. When he finds out he has a behavioral-control chip in his chest, he cuts it out with a shard of glass barehanded in order to help Buffy fight the bad guys. They date for approximately a year before his insecurities over her feelings for Angel cause him to get addicted to letting female vampires drink his blood. He re-enlists in the military and leaves. Riley is the fandom's least-favorite partner for Buffy, despite the fact that he never kills any of her loved ones or drinks her blood.

 I am not qualified to give dating advice. I've had exactly two boyfriends, and they both left. Really left. "Left town" left.

- Buffy sells herself short, "I Was Made To Love You" (2001-02-20)

• Spike (James Marsters), another vampire (and quite a nasty one at that), becomes Buffy's ally after Finn's Initiative takes away his ability to feed on humans. Spike falls in love with Buffy in season 5 and they have a torrid affair while she's depressed in season 6. She convinces herself that he's not a whole person without a soul, which inspires him to go get himself one. The resulting redemption arc gets a lot of attention in the final seasons of both BTVS and Angel, and Buffy's final on-screen line is Spike's name. Spike/Buffy is the fandom's most popular pairing, although it's controversial because they're abusive to one another in season 6, and that might set sets a bad example to the audience.

What the hell is that, and why is its hair that color?

- demonic goddess Glory meets Spike, "Intervention" (2001-04-24)

For those of you keeping score at home, that gives us 5 older men (Pike, Angel, Riley, Spike, & The Immortal) pursuing Buffy when she's under the age of 22, including 3 who are over the age of 100. It also gives Buffy 2 separate relationships with vampires. The vampire romance genre existed before 1992, obviously, but it's fair to say that Buffy helped to bring it into the mainstream - which means we can partially blame it for the popularity of Twilight. Compared to Bella from Twilight, though, Buffy has the far superior reaction to a vampire (Spike) breaking into her bedroom while she's asleep.

Get out, or I will drop you out head-first.

- "Into the Woods" (2000-12-19)

Ordinarily I'd go directly from listing the men to telling you which ones bite the dust, but writing out this list has inspired me to reflect on...

The Nefarious Intentions

Content Warning: This section discusses sexual assault and relationship violence. Skip ahead to part 2, "The Deaths," if you want something more cheerful.

44.44% of the men in Buffy's life have nefarious intentions. That's the third-highest rate among our protagonists to date, putting the Buffy Boys on par with the Kirk Girls for evilness.

Nefarious Intentions Rates bar chart showing, from lowest percentage to highest, James Bond, Sam Winchester, MacGyver, Joe Cartwright, Sam Carter, Buffy Summers, James Kirk, Daniel Jackson.

The nature of the nefarious intentions varies. Sometimes they are intricate plans to suck the world into a hell dimension, or murder her, or Frankenstein up demon/human/cyborg supersoldiers for the US military.

I'm not making that up.

Other times, however, the nefarious intentions are completely run-of-the-mill and typical of the patriarchy. I refer to the fact that there are 3 scenes in the series depicting a sexual assault against Buffy (two forcible attempts, one statutory). And, in what is either a commentary on how women are socialized to behave, or an accidental confession of how the author wishes women would behave, Buffy forgives all three of her attackers. Along the way, the narrative gives us a whistle-stop tour of all the best worst most common excuses offered for abusive behavior. May I say: ugh.

Let's break this down.

Angel and her 17th birthday

I've covered this incident in detail in "Buffy, Angel, and the Problem of Age-Gap Relationships." In sum, Angel is a grown man who experiences so-called love at first sight with the underaged Buffy, stalks her, and starts a relationship with her. They have sex on her 17th birthday...in a state where the age of consent is 18. And he's so happy about it that it causes him to lose his soul, turn evil, and abuse Buffy until she finally kills him in self-defense. He gets better, and unfortunately, she takes him back. In fact, when he makes a guest appearance in her series finale, she heavily implies she's open to getting back together with him again once she's grown up a bit more.

Although lots of people in-universe condemn Angel for the abuse and murder and stalking, nobody calls him out for the statutory rape. The bright side is that neither does anyone condemn Buffy for sleeping with Angel, even though his behavior post-soul-losing is absolutely monstrous. The message seems to be that losing one's virginity is perfectly normal and acceptable behavior for a teenager in love, but also, the dating world is full of monsters who will screw you and then ruin your life. So far, so true, amirite? Except then why do they follow that up with "and maybe that monster just needs the love of a good woman to save him from himself"???

Ugh!

Xander and the hyenas

Xander is not technically a love interest; despite his interest in her, they are just platonic friends. However, he gets possessed by a hyena-god's spirit (don't ask for more details, because I don't understand it, either.) He then decides to act on his attraction to Buffy, in a manner that's meant to invoke animal-mating habits. For context, this is what he says as he's tackling her:

You like your men dangerous...dangerous and mean, right, like Angel? Well, guess who just got mean...c'mon, Slayer, I like it when you're scared.

- "The Pack" (1997-04-07)

Buffy, being a superhero, knocks him out before he can get farther than taunting. The script does call his actions what they are, though it's followed up with a joke.

Buffy: He tried his hand at felony sexual assault... it's safe to say that in his animal state his idea of wooing doesn't involve a Yanni CD and a bottle of Chianti.

They break the possession and get Xander back to normal. And then...nobody ever acknowledges any of this, ever again. Xander feigns having amnesia for what he did when he was possessed, and everyone else plays along so that they won't have to talk about what he did. Because, after all, he wasn't himself!

Ugh!

Spike and the bathroom

Finally, and most infamously, we come to the incident in Buffy's bathroom. For context, this happens towards the end of season 6. Buffy has recently decided to end her affair with Spike, because she realizes she's been mistreating him. That much is true: he loves her, she just wants sex; he worships her, she thinks he's not even human; he does everything he can to take care of her, she repeatedly beats him up. This is not a healthy relationship. Spike doesn't want her to dump him, however. What with being an evil vampire and all, he thinks that if he can get her to continue having sex with him, their problems will be over. So, he decides to try to force himself on her. The result is a scene so awful that James Marsters would only perform one take of it. Fortunately, Buffy fights Spike off, and he immediately regrets hurting her. (Gee, if only he'd had that thought a few minutes earlier!) His regret inspires him to go on a quest to get his soul back, specifically so that he can be the kind of man Buffy deserves.

There are several flaws with this logic. For starters, nobody deserves to take back someone who's violently assaulted them. Neither Spike nor Buffy should be expected to continue a relationship with this much physical violence in it, no matter who instigated which parts. Furthermore, lots of men with souls commit sex crimes - see Angel and Xander, above - so Spike getting his soul back won't necessarily cure him of the impulse to hurt women. On top of which, Spike later admits that he'd sexually assaulted many women before Buffy, in his vicious-vampire-bad-guy days (which lasted over 100 years!)

Do you know how much blood you can drink from a girl before she'll die? I do. You see, the trick is to drink just enough so that they'll still cry when you— (chokes up) 'cause it's not worth it if they don't cry.

- a re-ensouled Spike tries to convince Buffy to kill him before he can hurt anyone else, "Never Leave Me" (2002-11-26)

So it's not entirely clear why attempting to sexually assault Buffy, specifically, would make him realize he was acting like a monster. The whole plot comes across as the writers using attempted rape as a way to develop the character of the perpetrator. They don't completely ignore the impact on the victim - Buffy is shown processing her trauma over the course of several months - but in the end, she and Spike are friends again and all is forgiven. Because he's really, really sorry for what he did, even though she drove him to it, and now he can change.

Ugh!

Buffy's Nefarious Intentions

Now, in what is either a neat feminist twist on tropes or else a blatant double standard, Buffy is implied to commit two sex crimes, neither of which is explicitly condemned by the narrative.

First, during her affair with Spike, she temporarily turns invisible and uses that power to break into Spike's home and rip off his clothes without identifying herself. He goes along with this at first, but later withdraws consent. She ignores him and - apparently, though the audience can't see this - initiates oral sex to shut him up. (Couple that with the many, many times she beats him up during their affair, and his attack on her actually could be interpreted as reactive abuse. That doesn't make it OK, but it does reinforce the fact that neither of these two characters is treating the other well.) So...ugh.

A season later, Buffy is working at her younger sister's high school when she meets RJ, the aforementioned football player with an enchanted varsity jacket. The jacket makes all women who see him fall in love. So what does she do? Get him excused from class and have sex with him in an empty classroom. He's underage and she's employed in a position of authority over him. She faces no repercussions for this: once Spike and Xander arrange to break the spell, nobody speaks of it again.

And again I say: Ugh.

I suppose I should also award a dishonorable mention to the time Buffy's frenemy Faith forcibly body-swaps with her, and uses her time in Buffy's body to trick Riley into bed. Her intention is for Riley to get rough and hurt Buffy's body (which he doesn't). When they swap back, Buffy's extremely freaked out... by the fact Riley didn't notice she wasn't herself. Given that Riley is the victim here, one might expect him to be the one who's offended, but no. His girlfriend is more jealous than she is worried about the rape-by-deception.

Once more, with feeling: Uggghhhh.

There is a WHOLE LOT of sexual violence going on in this franchise, is what I'm telling you, and NONE of it gets dealt with in a healthy or realistic way. In fact, its repeated failure to handle the issue responsibly inspired someone on Archive of Our Own to create my new favorite tag: "fanfiction as feminist praxis."

Listen, you don't need me to tell you there's a lot of sexual violence on TV. For that matter, there's a lot of sexual violence in real life. But on a show that was supposed to be all about empowerment, it's downright depressing that they couldn't at least condemn the perpetrators in-universe.

Welp, this is getting long. And sad.

Good point! Let’s take a little break here and come back in part 2 for more of Buffy’s stats. Until then, keep your sexy lamps burning.