Buffy and Angel: All Paths Lead Home
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| Title: | Buffy and Angel: All Paths Lead Home |
| Creator: | Margot Le Faye |
| Date(s): | early 2000s? |
| Medium: | online |
| Fandom: | Buffy & Angel |
| Topic: | |
| External Links: | Eternal, Archived version |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Buffy and Angel: All Paths Lead Home is an essay by Margot Le Faye.
It is one of many essays at Octaves, a Buffy and Angel website.
"Margot is the champion of hope for the battered B/Aer's heart. This "essay" was a response to a post on the BA Fluff list, but reading it just gave me a huge shit-eating' grin. If you're worried that the path won't lead our beloved characters back to each other, read this!"
Excerpt
Speaking as a writer and as someone with an undergraduate degree in English Lit, there is one basic truism about storytelling that we, as an audience, often overlook: drama requires conflict.That's why so many shows whose success is owed to the sexual tension between a popular pair end up dying in the ratings once the pair finally hooks up: the sexual tension is resolved, the conflict ends, and there's no more drama. The story of Boy meets Girl, Boy Loses Girl, Boy Gets Girl effectively ends when Boy and Girl finally get together. "And they all lived happily ever after" is the last line of the book.
To that end, Joss's solution to keeping B/A interesting is a stroke of genius. Joss gave us what we wanted in Suprise (Buffy and Angel finally consummating their love) and took it away in Innocence, when Angel lost his soul. BUT, the genius behind that was that Buffy didn't really lose Angel at all. A new, totally unforeseen obstacle was introduced to their relationship, and that kept the drama going, arguably stronger than ever.
When the Angel spin-off was first announced, Joss said in at least one print interview I have (I think with Xpose magazine) that separating the two characters was a way of keeping B/A "fresh," because, as he put it, "Five years of 'I love you, I don't love you' would get old" quickly. In another print interview I remember reading during the first or second season of Angel, Joss said that if he had his way, Angel would not have another love interest, because it would "violate the character." The interview went on to point out that with the logisitical problems of two different shows, Joss might not have an option.