Old School Vs. New Breed

[lee]

Which set of characters did you prefer?
Old school(Cordy, Oz, angel) or New breed(Anya, Tara, Spike)

I think Oz v Tara is a tough decision, but although Oz was great, i have to choose Tara. I didnt really like her at first but by the end i liked her alot.

Angel v Spikes another close one, but id definetly pick Spike.

Now, Cordy v Anya is the easiest choice for me. Although i liked Cordy in s1/2 of Ats, i think anya is much better, she brought so much more to the show, better stories, funnier, sexier. Yup, Anya for me.

So, i think the new relationships are better(close one though)

[Nina]

I'm all for the old school.

Angel vs Spike isn't very hard for me ... Angel.
Angel vs Riley isn't a close call either ... Angel.
(Yes, I always pick Angel )

Oz vs Tara is the hardest one for me ... but still Oz
Oz vs Kennedy is very easy ... Oz

Cordelia vs Anya, I love Anya but Cordelia is the queen.

And I also love the scoobies in Highschool more that in the last seasons ... only Xander grow on me in the last seasons.

[vampmogs]

Yeah I'm going to have to agree with Nina on this one. I'm hopelessly in love with the old school Scooby gang in comparison to the gang later on in the series.

As I've stated before, I have a real strong connection with the characters Buffy, Xander, Willow and Giles. There's a lot of nostalgia there. I watched this show from 'Welcome to the Hellmouth' when it premiered and I was only seven at the time so I grew up watching Btvs and I'll always remember how excited I was as a little kid watching the show when these characters were still centre stage. It's a kind of excitement that's very different to the joy you get out of a show as you grow up, it was more about entertainment and general pleasure then analysing and critiquing the show, which is fantastic to, but I miss that simple joy. So I'll always find it incredibly hard to ever replace these characters or find another character more interesting than them.

And then extends to the other members of the Scooby gang at the time. I have a really big soft spot for Angel, Cordelia and Oz. I have a big soft spot for the old school Sunnydale crew in general. Which probably explains why Angel and Cordelia were my favourite characters on Ats as well. I loved Ats and I really enjoy all the characters but aside from Angel and Cordy I've never had the emotional connection with Gunn, Wes, Fred and Lorne that I had with the characters from Btvs. I view them more as interesting characters to study, and yeah I teared up when Fred and Wes died I wasn't emotionally numb regarding them but never felt as emotionally attached to them as the characters from Sunnydale. I found Sunnydale characters to be a bit more loveable.

And that's the same with the later cast of Btvs. I really enjoyed Anya and Tara, even if I thought Tara was a tad to saintly at times. And Spike was great but I actually disliked him in season six so I couldn't ever hold him in as high regard as Angel unfortunately. I still loved all these characters but I'll always prefer the Scoobies from earlier seasons.

And that goes for their relationships as well, I found Xander/Cordy and Willow/Oz far, far more interesting than Xander/Anya and Willow/Tara and enjoyed Buffy/Angel over Buffy/Spike.

So yup, it's the 'Old School' cast for me. Which explains why the Buffy/Xander/Willow/Giles scene meant so much to me in 'Chosen,' especially after season seven neglected all of them which was inexcusable. It also explains why I get giddy when I read season 8 and it's about those characters again, and why I get shivers when I watch 'Graduation Day Part II' and see them walk away as *that group* for the final time. It's why I felt like I kind of lost the Buffyverse completely when Cordelia died in 'You're Welcome' because she was my last connection left to Sunnydale other than Angel.

So yeah, that may all sound really sentimental, over the top and mushy but it's how I feel and how I always get when I'm thinking about those characters.

[lee]

Thats a good point you made about nostalgia and sentiment though.
I like new breed best and i started watching btvs from the begining of s4, and i just so
happens that thats when Anya, Spike and tara became the main characters.
Thats probably why harsh light of day(1st ep i seen) is in my top 10.

[vampmogs]

Thats a good point you made about nostalgia and sentiment though.
I like new breed best and i started watching btvs from the begining of s4, and i just so
happens that thats when Anya, Spike and tara became the main characters.
Thats probably why harsh light of day(1st ep i seen) is in my top 10.

Yeah, I do think a lot of times I can be a reason why a fan may like a character or why certain things are more important to one fan than another. Take for example those who started watching late into the series when the writers stopped paying a lot of attention to the Buffy/Xander/Willow relationship. Of course this is a generalisation but it's reasonable to suggest a fan who watched the show when they weren't as focused on, would never find that relationship as significant to the series as a fan who started watching from very early on in the series.

I have seen some fans change their mind though. I had a friend who really started watching Buffy around season six. They didn't like Angel, loved Buffy/Spike and found Willow and Xander a little boring. They got the ?Chosen Collection s1-s7 Boxset' for Christmas and have since become madly addicted. Since watching it from the start they love Angel, like Buffy/Angel more than Buffy/Spike and Xander and Willow are in their top five favourite characters. So it's entirely possible one isn't automatically fixated on something from what point they joined the series.

But yeah, I think it can play a part. As you said 'Harsh Light of Day' is in your top 10 episodes because it's the first episode you ever saw.

[Pandora's_Box]

Anya over Cordy
Tara over Oz
Spike over Angel

Definetely the new breed which makes sense since my two favorite seasons are 6 and 7.

[skinless]

Lets See, If I had to Pick it would Proly be a mixture of Both But I have to say that:
Cordy over Anya
Spike over Angel- I always loved Spike cuz he just not as broody as Angel and hes lot more fun that Angel culd ever be.
Tara over Oz But Kennedy over Both of them, Dont Ask Why I dont feel like explaining.

[Retrograde]

Tara was a tad to saintly at times.

I completely agree. I much prefer Oz; I think he was a stronger character and had so much potential.

Definitely prefer Anya to Cordy. Even in Angel I dislike Cordy, she is too much of a cliche for me - 'I'm superficial but really I'm deep'

Spike Spike Spike! Angel for me was definitely just tall dark and forehead. I found his and Buffy's 'love' shallow, too sudden and completely unconvincing. Angel doesn't have attitude, a sense of humour, or any other face than brooding puppy. I really dislike him!

[Veverka]

The thing is, the scoobies changed, that's part of why their friend set changed. People don't stick together their entire lives, the fact that eight years on, Buffy/Willow/Xander are still all best friends is unusual. Understandable, given what they've been through, but unusual.

So while I tend to prefer the 'new breed', coz I am hopelessly in love with Tara and have so much affection for Anya, I can't separate the fact that Cordy grows up too. In terms of Cordy's character, she changes a great deal after high school, more than any of them, I think she really becomes herself.

As far as Kennedy is concerned... well, again, time and place, etc (!) so I can't complain too much, although, like I said, I'm all for Tara.

[blue_peroxide]

Anya over Cordy (that's really tough but still Anya)
Oz over Tara (I like Tara but she's just too nice)
Spike over Angel (obviously Spike, since he is the reason I didn't stop watching the show)

So I guess the new guys win for me. I watched Buffy from ep 1 of S1 on TV and was instantly curious. S2 was really a good season (Spike & Dru ) But season 3 was getting boring because of all the angst and by Graduation Day Pt 2 and Angel's (I guess it was supposed to be heartwrenching) leaving I was so irritated I couldn't even be sad for their tragic looove anymore.
So I wouldn't exactly draw the line between those who watched the series from the start vs those who started from S4 or 5 or 6. I guess who prefers "old" and who "new" BtVS depends on the certain person, on her attitude to life, what issues, themes, topics interest her the most, what makes her laugh and what cry and so on and not on the fact of watching, say, S5 before S3.

[litzie]

Yeah, I do think a lot of times I can be a reason why a fan may like a character or why certain things are more important to one fan than another. Take for example those who started watching late into the series when the writers stopped paying a lot of attention to the Buffy/Xander/Willow relationship. Of course this is a generalisation but it's reasonable to suggest a fan who watched the show when they weren't as focused on, would never find that relationship as significant to the series as a fan who started watching from very early on in the series.

I started from the beginning (with the dvds...and watched the whole series in little more than a month...when I was supposed to be working on my undergrad dissertation, god that was an awesome procrastination method! And now three years later I'm working on my MA dissertation and don't have anything nearly as good to watch!) and I really prefer all of the "new breed" characters.

I always found Oz really boring and uninteresting, and I also liked Willow a lot better in her relationship with Tara. I do like his intro (who IS that girl) better than Tara's...I've always felt the stuttering was a mistake. But by the end of seaosn 4/beginning of season 5 I really liked her, and I felt like she really blossomed as a character in season 5. I also really enjoyed her interaction with Buffy and Dawn.

I do love Cordelia, but I never felt like she was as well integrated with the scoobies as Anya. Maybe because she was much more her own person than Anya!...but mostly I think because she wasn't really in their social circle, even when she was forced there by dating Xander, and once they broke up (and before they got together) she always seemed a bit inserted into the episodes/gang for me. Plus, I think she got a lot more attention/development on angel (except for season four, but I like to ignore the whole evil!Jasmine!Cordy thing there, so...).

Angel annoys me on Buffy. But to be honest he often annoys me on Angel too, and I've only started to have fuzzier feelings toward him since watching DB on Bones. He's too broody, and he's very patronizing in his relationship with Buffy...always treating her like a child. Which she was...compared with his 200+ years. But for me that was less of an excuse for his attitude and more of a reason they were bad together. I used to really like Spike, and really like Spuffy...but I've definitely grown out of caring about anything shippy. I still sometimes like Spuffy but everything season 7-y seems really annoying to me now (colored by my overall hate for that season, yes), and mainly I like them better unrequited in season 5. I do think Spike is more interesting than Angel though, because to me snark is always more interesting than sentimentality.

However as a villain I like Angelus better than Spike (who was really only a villainy villain in the beginning of S2, for me).

[Enisy]

Oz > Tara
Anya > Cordelia (it's a close shot, but Anya perseveres because Emma Caulfield is a better actress)
Spike >>>>>> Angel

So, New Breed for me, I guess, although I haven't thought of the characters in those terms before. (And it has nothing to do with when I started watching the show; my first episode was Welcome to the Hellmouth, and I watched everything in order from there.)

[ThePoet's<3]

I guess I don't consider Spike really "old school". He was in Season two with Dru, Season 3 with Dru and from Season 4 to the end. So - I don't see him as Old School.

My favorites will always remain: Spike, Faith, Oz, Willow

[BlasterBoy]

Hmm...real hard. I'm split.

Old school(Cordy, Oz, angel) or New breed(Anya, Tara, Spike)

Cordy < Anya (Anya = best character evah)
Oz = Tara
Angel > Spike

Yeah, I can't choose....at all.

[Dark Ages]

Wow this is really hard, I really dont know who to choose. My favorite seasons are 3 and 7, that makes it very hard for me. I like the oldies and the new breeds. But i love Cordelia and Anya equally. I love Tara and Oz but I have to say Oz is my favorite out of the two. I like Angel better than Spike, hands down. So mine is a mixture.

[LaJaula]

Oz>Tara (though I do like her a lot, especially in Season Six)
Cordeila>>>Anya (Cordelia's one of my top 5 characters, and I don't really like Anya very much)
Spike and Angel....hmmm. Well, I don't like S6 or S7 Spike. At all. But I like S4/5 Spike more than S1-3 Angel. So I think it just about balances out.

In terms of overall Scooby dynamics, I'm in huge favor of the Old School gang. Planning the death of the Mayor in Graduation Day, Part Two is one of my favorite scenes, because I get Buffy, Xander, Willow, Giles, Cordelia, Oz, and Angel all in one room. And it's everything I could possibly want it to be and more.

[DigitalLeonardo]

Hmm, interesting look at the series and I think there are some easy choices here.

Angel vs Spike: I will always be an Angel fan, and I enjoyed him on Buffy and his own series. Even though season 2 I liked Spiked alot more than Angel, I think with Spike's development over the series from badass to Buffy's bitch... Angel is far the better character over Spike. Spike over lived his welcome by season 6 and it was shameful they never did anything to make him redeem himself.

Oz vs Tara: I am a Tara fan, always have been always will be. Oz was a good character, I just always felt like he was an outsider of the group. Very forced into scenes and storylines that it made his depature alot easier to deal with. Tara - though an outsider for awhile - was able to really join the group and really worked well with the other characters. The Buffy/Tara scenes near the end of season 6 were some of my favorite. So, Tara wins.

Cordelia vs Anya: This is hard, and I think Cordelia had the same problem as Oz. For season 1 and 2 she always felt like an outsider just because who she was. If they had given her one more season in Sunnydale I think she would have fully clicked. She rocked on Angel and I loved her in season 1-3, but on Buffy - Anya was just so much more enjoyable.