Buffy vs. Bella

 When I was on my re-visiting Buffy the Vampire Slayer kick, I began to notice quite a few similar scenarios between it and the controversially popular Twilight. Similar, but with subtle, yet important differences. Here are my findings:

#1 The male vampire sucks his lover's blood.

TWILIGHT VERSION: Edward must save Bella by sucking out another vampire's poison.

BUFFY VERSION: Angel has been poisoned. The one cure? A slayer's blood. Angel refuses. Buffy punches him in the face until he turns vampire-y and thus tricks him into drinking her blood to save his life.

 Winner? Buffy. She's the savior, plus she punches her own boyfriend in the face. That's pretty bad-A.

#2 Vampire boyfriend leaves human lover because being with them is too dangerous. Almost identical break-up dialogue.

TWILIGHT VERSION: Bella completely loses it, becomes practically comatose in grief, basically does not interact with another human being for months.

BUFFY VERSION: Buffy is depressed, but finds comfort in her friends. She also gradually starts seeing other people. Basically, she handles it like a sane person.

Winner? I think you can figure it out. Get it together, Bella, geez!


#3 Human drops something; vampire catches falling object with great skill. Human comments something to the effect of, "Good reflexes!"

TWILIGHT: [movie version] Edward catches apple, imitating book cover.

BUFFY: Angel catches falling coffee cup, not spilling a drop.

Winner? Meh, I gotta go with tie on this. The cover copy thing was clever, but Angel didn't spill a drop of coffee. That's pretty impressive.


#4 Predator/prey relationship.

TWILIGHT: "So the lion fell in love with the lamb." Edward = lion, Bella = lamb.

BUFFY: Slayers kill vampires. Buffy could kill Angel in a second. And she does once, to save the world. Long story.

Winner? Totally Buffy. Both Angel and Buffy are lethal, so they're a power couple of sorts, fighting demons and such. Bella is about as tough as marshmallow fluff, and apparently as delicious to vampires.

#5 Werewolf friend.

TWILIGHT: Jacob becomes a werewolf, the vampire's one natural predator. Thus making the love triangle just a wee bit more tense. Well, technically, he's not a werewolf, he's some other thingy that I can't remember, because he's not dependent on the moon and he doesn't bite people. But still.

BUFFY: Oz becomes a "werewolf". I don't know why they didn't just settle on weremonkey, though, because that's clearly what his costume is.

Winner? Gotta hand this one to Twilight. By a long shot.

  Overall, Buffy kicks trash. Twilight is a simple, mostly silly story. But, hey, I can still appreciate that. How many chick flicks aren't incredibly ridiculous, honestly? I can enjoy it without getting worked up about feminist implications or whatever.

  But that being said, yeah, Buffy still kicks trash.