By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
On Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the title character faced many tough decisions over the years, but perhaps the hardest was choosing who her heart belonged to: Angel, the haunted vampire with a soul, or Spike, the bad boy vamp who reluctantly joined the Scooby Gang and even got a soul of his own.
Debates about which choice is the right one still rage throughout the community, with fan ‘shippers rooting for either Bangel (Buffy/Angel) or Spuffy (Spike/Buffy). While fans may not ever arrive at a definitive answer, Buffy actor Sarah Michelle Gellar did. In an old Reddit Ask Me Anything thread, she chose Angel over Spike.
Buffy, Angel, and Spike
If you’ve never watched a Buffy episode or have simply caught the occasional rerun, you may need a primer on how Angel and Spike became romantic prospects for Gellar’s character in the first place. In short, Angel was her love interest from the very first season, and the show shamelessly plucked the depths of romantic melodrama with the star-crossed tale of a vampire and a vampire Slayer falling in love. Meanwhile, Spike was introduced as an enemy and former Angel associate in Season 2, and he began developing feelings for Buffy in Season 5, two seasons after Angel left Sunnydale for his own spinoff.
Buffy didn’t see much of Angel (outside of occasional cameos) after his spinoff began, and that spinoff is how Spike became a mainstay of the cast. Resident mean girl Cordelia had also left Buffy and joined Angel as another familiar face in Los Angeles, the setting of Angel. Because of this, showrunner Joss Whedon brought Marsters in as a regular in Buffy’s fourth season to fill the hilariously antagonistic role that Cordelia once did, though the vicious vamp eventually developed feelings for Buffy that culminated in their destructive (literally and metaphorically) relationship in Season 6.
Ironically enough, Buffy’s final episode did nothing to quiet speculation about whether Sarah Michelle Gellar’s character should end up with Angel or Spike. Earlier in the episode, she has a heartfelt conversation with Angel about her future, confirming that Spike is not a “boyfriend” but that “he is in my heart.” She admits she’s not yet ready for a relationship and wasn’t “thinking that far ahead,” but she implies that she and Angel might yet have a future together.
This scene might make you think Buffy will ultimately choose Angel over Spike, but things get complicated when Spike sacrifices himself to save the world. Right before he dies, Buffy tells Spike “I love you,” to which he replies “no you don’t, but thanks for saying it.” There you have it, folks: in the same Buffy episode, our Slayer implied a romantic future with Angel and pledged her love to Spike, leaving fans forever questioning who she should have ultimately ended up with.
Sarah Michelle Gellar Chooses Angel
However, Buffy actor Sarah Michelle Gellar thinks that Angel is the only logical choice rather than Spike. On her Reddit AMA, one fan asked “Spike or Angel” and she elaborated with an all-caps “ANGEL.” Later, another Redditor asked the same question and she reaffirmed her answer: “still Angel.”
Hearing that the woman who brought Buffy Summers to life prefers Angel over Spike may just be enough to end the nonstop fan fighting over the matter. In all likelihood, though, most fans will continue to pick their battle lines based on everything from which actor had the best performance to which one had the best hair. That last one is a bit unfair, though…as all Spuffy fans know, Captain Peroxide has the better ‘do, and we’ll always bet on this bleached blondie bear to win Buffy’s heart over Boreanaz’s brooding bore of a bloodsucker.
Source: E! News