Watched 'Into The Woods' yesterday and had something of an epiphany...

First of all, I have to say that Riley's feelings of being unneeded are set up very nicely, but - it comes back to the old saying:

You shouldn't be in a realtionship if you want to be made happy, but to make happy.

I'm not saying that Riley should have continued with an unsatisfying relationship, but he left because she didn't make him feel a certain way:

RILEY: You say that, but I don't feel it. I just don't feel it.

Anyway, this brings me to my main point. It was these lines that suddenly stood out:

BUFFY: Oh, I'm sorry. You know, um, I'm sorry that I couldn't take care of you when I thought that my mother was dying.
RILEY: It's about me taking care of you! It's about letting me in. So you don't have to be on top of everything all the time.
BUFFY: But I do. That's part of what being a slayer is. And that's what this is really about, isn't it? You can't handle the fact that I'm stronger than you.
RILEY: It's hard sometimes, yeah. But that's not it.

Riley misunderstands her there. She is NOT talking about physical strength. She is talking about the strength to walk to her own death when 16 years old. The strength to kill the love of her life. The strength to carry to weight of the world on her shoulders and not let up, because no one else can carry her burden:

First!Buffy: Look hard. What do you see?
Caleb: Strength. And the loneliness that comes with real strength.
'Dirty Girls'

A strength (and inherent weakness) that Spike of course understands:

And the thing about the dance is, you never get to stop. Every day you wake up, it's the same bloody question that haunts you: is today the day I die?
'Fool For Love'

Buffy tried to warn Riley, way back in 'Doomed' - and his response was that people could get through these things if they looked after each other. But that's never going to work with Buffy... not really. Because she's a Slayer:

Spike: I know slayers. No matter how many people they've got around them, they fight alone. Life of the chosen one. The rest of us be damned.
LMPTM

This is Riley's tragedy - Buffy would never, ever need him the way he wanted her to.

And we saw that even when unsouled Spike in some ways understood Buffy better than Riley. And when souled could give her what Riley never could - support without asking for anything in return:

Spike: I'm not asking you for anything. When I say, "I love you," it's not because I want you or because I can't have you. It has nothing to do with me.

Mostly, I think the whole thing is summed up best in this icon by _jems_, which was what spurred on my initial thought:



(ETA: This is the short version. If you want *long* B/R meta, I got that too! *g*)