I don't agree with everything that Rougemont said, but his thesis was really something at the time.
That is the paradox, because we also want the lovers to stay together and to experience companionship also. We need to believe they can have a future together. We want EROS and AGAPE at once. It's probably the main challenge that fanfictions have to take up. But even in the sweetest fanfic where Spike and Buffy are a couple, married even, there's always that the threat of loss that allows romantic love to survive. Spuffy isn't an exception to that literary rule.
But unlike Tristan and Iseut according to Rougemont, I don't think that Spuffy is necessary nihilist and lethal. I think that they were good to each other, they helped each other to grow up on screen. Buffy made Spike progress, and Spike made Buffy understand a lot of things about herself and the world. In SB they didn't like one another (something Buffy said !)but later they came to really see, understand and like each other. Even Buffy understood Spike eventually in season 7.
In RL passion doesn't last, but during the 3 years of passion that basically corresponds to the chemical time of love when pheromones rule (some people say it's only one year)I think that love can be built little by little if the two people really work as a couple, if they match. If they don't, the "being in love" thing will stop when the spell wears off...
If Buffy and Angel were reunited they would not work and would fit in Denis De Rougemont's thesis, but I think that Spuffy can work because through the years and the "little" things of life that also happened in BTVS (taking care of family members, facing illness and depression, working to make a living, training Potentials etc)their couple has been built. They are mates.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2006-02-18 11:52 am (UTC)That is the paradox, because we also want the lovers to stay together and to experience companionship also. We need to believe they can have a future together. We want EROS and AGAPE at once. It's probably the main challenge that fanfictions have to take up. But even in the sweetest fanfic where Spike and Buffy are a couple, married even, there's always that the threat of loss that allows romantic love to survive. Spuffy isn't an exception to that literary rule.
But unlike Tristan and Iseut according to Rougemont, I don't think that Spuffy is necessary nihilist and lethal. I think that they were good to each other, they helped each other to grow up on screen. Buffy made Spike progress, and Spike made Buffy understand a lot of things about herself and the world. In SB they didn't like one another (something Buffy said !)but later they came to really see, understand and like each other. Even Buffy understood Spike eventually in season 7.
In RL passion doesn't last, but during the 3 years of passion that basically corresponds to the chemical time of love when pheromones rule (some people say it's only one year)I think that love can be built little by little if the two people really work as a couple, if they match. If they don't, the "being in love" thing will stop when the spell wears off...
If Buffy and Angel were reunited they would not work and would fit in Denis De Rougemont's thesis, but I think that Spuffy can work because through the years and the "little" things of life that also happened in BTVS (taking care of family members, facing illness and depression, working to make a living, training Potentials etc)their couple has been built. They are mates.