From: daviderl31@yahoo.com   
      
   https://junkee.com/buffy-riley-finn/191659   
      
   A Hate Letter to Riley Finn, Worst Man in the Buffyverse   
      
   by LUCY VALENTINE  4 FEBRUARY 2019   
      
   Many words have been written about the main love interests in Buffy The   
   Vampire Slayer: about Angel, about Spike. There’s also been many words about   
   about female empowerment, and about Sunnydale being the whitest Hellmouth in   
   California. But not enough words have been written, or can possibly be   
   written in this lifetime, about how much Riley Finn fucking sucks.   
      
   Full apologies to Marc Blucas, a man whose name sounds like it was already   
   spoonerised. You have a nice jawline and kind eyes, but I’ve thought about   
   you being torn apart by a Fyarl demon in great detail, and I didn’t hate it.   
      
   If you need a Buffy refresher, remember a psychology teaching assistant who   
   was a walking ‘slow cooker recipes’ Facebook page of a man?   
      
   A big slab of white meat in commando gear with the personality of a second   
   hand SUV? Memorable for dialogue such as saying ‘negative’ when any normal   
   person would simply say ‘no?’   
      
   What Do We Know About Riley Finn?   
      
   The first real conversation Riley has with Buffy reveals such riveting   
   personal complexity as the fact he stays at his grandparent’s house for   
   thanksgiving, and after dinner they take a walk down the river with their   
   dogs. Riley knows what you’re thinking, smiling that his life sounds “just   
   like a Grant Wood painting,” proving that he has either never seen or has   
   never understood a Grant Wood painting.   
      
   Nobody in American Gothic is having a good time, my dude.   
      
   Riley Finn is the guy you date after you’ve just come out of a tumultuous   
   and painful relationship, desperately seeking the kind of comfort only a   
   loaf of soft white bread can bring. It’s warm, it’s inoffensive, it   
   isn’t a   
   vampire that loses his soul if you bone him. It’s a palate cleanser, a   
   comforting bite of bland before the substantial course. But you should never   
   fill up on bread, and you should never let a Riley Finn stick around for a   
   season and a fucking half.   
      
   We’ve all dated a Riley at some point, and perhaps this is why Whedon’s   
   painful attempts at expressing the non-existent sexual chemistry between the   
   two is so jarring. There are constant strained allusions to the passion of   
   fighting, sweaty missionary positions interspersed with scenes of Buffy and   
   Riley sparring.   
      
   Haven’t we suffered enough? Hasn’t SHE suffered enough?   
      
      
   Riley Finn Is A Piece Of Shit   
      
   Am I unfair to single out Riley? Perhaps. Season by season, we climb the   
   crescendo of garbage that is Buffy Summers’ devastatingly bad taste in men.   
   If a man shows up and he’s got a strong jaw, huge upper body and a bigger   
   head, looks great in a sweater and has the personality of a wet sponge,   
   you’ve   
   got yourself a Buffy love interest.   
      
   Remember Parker, the white man in a dark sweater who said some shit about   
   his feelings, slept with Buffy and dumped her immediately? We know Riley is   
   a good boy because he punches Parker after he makes misogynist comments   
   about Buffy. This apparently doesn’t have anything to do with being   
   disgusted with Parker’s treatment of women in general, rather it’s   
   Riley’s   
   big realisation that he ‘likes Buffy.’ Aww!   
      
   Which brings me what is most infuriating about a man like Riley — he’s not   
   just boring, he has major ‘nice guy’ syndrome and a massive entitlement   
   complex.   
      
   Riley makes Xander Harris look like a viable romantic option, and that says   
   a lot. We all dream of dating the chiselled boy-next-door, when next door is   
   the industrial military complex, who views all demons as subhuman and   
   conveniently does not know the extent of his superiors’ inhumane treatment   
   of people like Oz.   
      
   We all want to marry the man who doesn’t really believe us when we say his   
   evil scientist boss tried to murder us. Get me a fella who manhandles me and   
   refuses to leave me alone when I say it’s better for me if we don’t get   
   involved! That’s romance, baby.   
      
   What is this man’s appeal? Well, in typical Buffy fashion, when Riley shows   
   up she becomes a boring husk of a person and starts being shitty to her   
   friends because she’s loved up, so we can reasonably conclude the dick IS   
   that good.   
      
           [As in S4 E18, 'Where the Wild things Are'?]   
      
   Buffy and Riley’s relationship was characterised by his insecurity, his   
   inability to deal with being the weaker half and his desperate attempts to   
   assert his masculinity. Losing his mind when he learns about her history   
   with Angel, he goes off the deep end and starts doing some incredibly lame   
   thrill-seeking. He gets all ‘edgy’ and starts paying female vampires to   
   suck   
   his blood or something, a development that is super weird and also just   
   deeply embarrassing.   
      
   Riley ultimately decides Buffy doesn’t really love him, flies off in a   
   helicopter to be a super spy then marries some other poor woman, finally   
   departing my television screen forever.   
      
   Bon voyage, bitch.   
      
   If the apocalypse comes, beep me so that I may spend my last precious hours   
   watching Riley Finn burn.   
      
      
   David   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)