Things you find hard to believe

[Vampire in Rug]

When does the Buffyverse break the barriers of believablity for you? There have been dozens of sitiuations over the years where I've just had to roll my eyes and say "yeah right". I can only think a handful now.

For me the biggest one is "Sunnydale Syndrome". How could the average citizen possibly not know about the supernatural? There's a vampire in every alleyway and graveyard! Then there's largescale stuff that everyone in Sunnydale should notice like "Hush", "Once More With Feeling" and "The Gift". Not everything can be chalked up to gangsters on PCP.

[Wolfie Gilmore]

The idea of Willow or Xander having trouble getting a date. They are hot. But that's just tvland where a girl counts as ugly if she has silly glasses/bad shoes.

[Nina]

Oh a couple of things were hard to believe, but I can't remember what those were right now as well.

*Buffy's SAT-scores and that she got into Northwestern.
*That Sunnydale had a university, a zoo, etc.
*Every parent is evil, except Joyce.

[Veverka]

When the gang think the initiative are after them, so think sleeping at Xander's place will be the best way to avoid impending doom. Seemed to me like the writers wanted a plausible way to have a sleepover party and to put Buffy in her yummy sushi pjs, but I just don't buy for a moment that Giles would have slept in that basement.

[KingofCretins]

Seriously, neither Willow nor Xander should have lacked company. We only meet a few guys that are nominally 'popular' at Sunnydale High... Larry, Hogan, Devon, Owen... and Xander and Jesse were both better looking than any of them. Willow was able to be kept relatively secret by wardrobe until Season 4. Although her outfit in "Consequences" is gorgeous, IMO.

I actually was okay with the forgetful society -- it fits pretty well with psychology anyway.

[Wolfie Gilmore]

Seriously, neither Willow nor Xander should have lacked company. We only meet a few guys that are nominally 'popular' at Sunnydale High... Larry, Hogan, Devon, Owen... and Xander and Jesse were both better looking than any of them. Willow was able to be kept relatively secret by wardrobe until Season 4. Although her outfit in "Consequences" is gorgeous, IMO.

.

That's true about the allegedly "hot" guys...they all minged! Well, not minged, but they were dull looking and in no way sexy.

I see what you mean about Willow's outfits though. But I can't help thinking she'd at least get hit on by older guys who were out to do the high school equivlent of "fck a fresher week".

[vampmogs]

The most unbelievable thing to me, is that Joyce just 'forgot' that she put her daughter into a mental institution. That was just crappy writing, which to me ruined 'Normal Again.' We didn't need that bit of retcon to make the situation harder for Buffy, all it did was screw up continuity in a major way.

And that really goes for other things as well, such as Willow's mum "just forgetting" she nearly burnt her daughter at the stake, or Joyce "just forgetting" she came onto Xander.

I would also say the Sunnydale thing but people have already mentioned that, and in the end they did all finally leave town. And I would say it was kind of hard to believe Sunnydale High had all those demonic books in it and it hadn't been focused on until 'Gingerbread.'

[redrevo]

All the jerking around of Spike's character in seasons 5-6 and even in "Beneath You."

That all high school boys are either lascivious or terribly flawed in some way. That 98% of villains who get a line - and Buffy puts them in their place - are misogynistic.

That Giles didn't visibly touch/pick up a single thing in season 7 after he came back. (No human can do this.) The stupid mental institution retcon (thanks vampmogs, I nearly forgot it). But one of the dumbest things had to be that Buffy got great scores on her SATs. Seriously, they could've added to the feeling of being stuck by only letting Buffy get accepted to UCSunnyD and maybe a few other obscure colleges far, far away.

[Vampire in Rug]

The comic book "Slayer Interupted" makes the mental institution more believable than the show did. Apparently when Dawn was very young she read Buffy's diary and decided to show it to Hank and Joyce. At the time Buffy had been hanging out with a bad crowd (Pike) and had recently burnt down the school gym. So when they found out that thier daughter was living in a fantasy world where she was a superhero who killed vampires, the freaked out and sent her to the institution.

So I'm thinking pre-Dawn (seasons 1-4) Buffy hadn't been in the institution, but after Dawn entered the series, Dawn blabbing about Buffy's diary and Buffy being sent to the institution as a result might be one of those things she just "remembers".

[LaJaula]

"Summers blood. It's just like mine."

Think that pretty much sums it up.

[stormwreath]

What I find hard to believe is that there's all these people who think Buffy should have got lower SAT scores. She's very intelligent - not up to Willow or Oz standard, but certainly above average: quick-thinking, good at making connections, excellent at spur of the moment improvisation. She falls down a bit on the book learning, due to lack of time and/or interest more than intelligence - but she can still pull out references to William S Borroughs or Samuel Beckett off the top of her head. The dumb blonde act she pulls sometimes is just that - an act. (See, for example, the way she teased Tara about her college assignment on 'Hunchback of Notre Dame')

[LaJaula]

I never got the impression that Buffy was very smart. The SAT doesn't test how well you can plan, or how well you can improvise-- it's basically just by-the-book info. So I really, really have trouble believing she did so well, not to mention the fact that she made it into Northwestern University. My friend was accepted there, and he was top of his class, excellent letters of recommendation, tons of extra curriculars-- Buffy doesn't have any of that. Plus, she would have had to have written an essay-- Joyce couldn't have just sent in the form.

[Watcher at Large]

For me the biggest one is "Sunnydale Syndrome". How could the average citizen possibly not know about the supernatural? There's a vampire in every alleyway and graveyard! Then there's largescale stuff that everyone in Sunnydale should notice like "Hush", "Once More With Feeling" and "The Gift". Not everything can be chalked up to gangsters on PCP.

I agree and disagree. Yes, far more people should know about the Hellmouth-y activities, but there are more subtle clues that outsiders, at least, know enough to stay away.

Near the start, during "Witch," Xander exclaims, "No wonder you can still buy a house in Sunnydale!" Also, the population never exceeds 40,000 - interesting when you consider that what's likely Sunnydale's nearest real-life model, Santa Barbara (on the coast, two hours from L.A., day's drive from the Mojave like in "Intervention," with county boundaries identical to Sunnydale County's), had 92,000 in the 2000 census. And post-resurrection, Buffy has trouble using the family home as collateral for a loan - home values held down by vampire hits, hmmm?

So maybe folks make themselves oblivious to these goings-on from day to day, but the town's evil reputation finds subtler ways to express itself - like in the number people too scared to move there in the first place.

Just some wild thoughts. If you think I need another Thorazine dose, maybe you're right.

EDIT: On the topic of Sunnydale vs. Santa Barbara... remember the snowfall at the conclusion of "Amends," which saved suicidal Angel from getting fried? A friend of mine in SB tells me that snow, while exceedingly rare, has occurred there in recent memory - the last instance being November 1983. Make of that what you will.

[Cell]

The fact that there is no such thing as a lasting relationship in the Buffyverse. No relationship lasts, no one stays in love, all relationships either end in a break-up or someone dies, very unbelievable.

[Veverka]

The fact that there is no such thing as a lasting relationship in the Buffyverse. No relationship lasts, no one stays in love, all relationships either end in a break-up or someone dies, very unbelievable.

Lol. I don't disagree, Cell, however, this is just kinda an unfortunate trait which is common to TV shows... Joss loves it, it's true, but generally speaking, it's not just AtS and BtVS, but most shows which run by the premise "happy is okay, unhappy is super interesting!" And luckily BtVS shows lots of long standing relationships outside romantic ones.

[alexa]

The idea of Willow or Xander having trouble getting a date. They are hot. But that's just tvland where a girl counts as ugly if she has silly glasses/bad shoes.

I can personally testify that hot people don't always get lots of dates

Dawn was hard for me to believe for a long time. Almost felt betrayed having a character so close to Buffy put slap bam in the middle of the show suddenly. Got used to it.. you know, 2 years later.

[Cell]

Lol. I don't disagree, Cell, however, this is just kinda an unfortunate trait which is common to TV shows... Joss loves it, it's true, but generally speaking, it's not just AtS and BtVS, but most shows which run by the premise "happy is okay, unhappy is super interesting!" And luckily BtVS shows lots of long standing relationships outside romantic ones.

My main problem is that you don't even get it in the periphery characters. Xander's parents are together, but they loathe each other. Willow's parents are together, but they have a loveless scientific relationship. And the list goes on and on, it is impossible for their to be a universe where every character we meet, main or periphery, fails to find a healthy, good relationship that lasts.

As for the writing aspect, great writers can write good relationships just as well as unhappy people. An inability to do as such shows an inability to be a complete writer.

[kana]

My main problem is that you don't even get it in the periphery characters. Xander's parents are together, but they loathe each other. Willow's parents are together, but they have a loveless scientific relationship. And the list goes on and on, it is impossible for their to be a universe where every character we meet, main or periphery, fails to find a healthy, good relationship that lasts.

As for the writing aspect, great writers can write good relationships just as well as unhappy people. An inability to do as such shows an inability to be a complete writer.

Good point. Pain=interesting is a huge limitation. Bad example but I really liked the Sandy and Kirsten Cohen on the OC. They stayed together but kept it interesting. It would be nice to see people get together when they are young and stay together.

All of this said, my friends and I are all closer to Buffy's age in Season 8 and none of us are with the person we were with when we were 16, but still it would be change to show a young couple get together and stay together or an interesting, happy married couple.

[Cell]

Oh, I agree that young love doesn't always pan out, so I really don't have a problem with the break-ups after high school. When it begins to get a bit tiresome is around season 6 when Xander and Anya break-up, Tara dies, none of the periphery characters have yet to stay with someone, etc.

[Wolfie Gilmore]

As for the writing aspect, great writers can write good relationships just as well as unhappy people. An inability to do as such shows an inability to be a complete writer.

Mind you, Shakespeare wasn’t much cop at happy relationships, unless you count people getting together at the end of a play. He was much more about the suffocation/patricide/suicide pacts. And Jane Austen tended to leave the happy parts of relationships (apart from maybe sister/other family relationships) to the few sentences before “the end”

But that’s probably partly a matter of the form of the novel/drama at the time(s) which was structured with marriage as the endpoint.

As far as the Scooby relationships go though, perhaps not unrealistic to have only failed relationships, as they’re all in their early twenties by the end of season 7, and not many people end up with the person they’re dating when they’re 16-18!

Lack of happy parental relationships/marriages is a different story though. Perhaps Mutant Enemy is run by vengeance demons with, as Anya coughs, daddy issues

Then again, one in three marriages ends in divorce, and lots of people have bad parents so, not unusual?