Opinions on Buffy's friends

I think people are hating a little too much on Buffy's friends for me. Like, no they weren't flawless but I feel like people will just jump on any bad things they had to done just to make them seems awful, without considering the positive stuff.

One, I love my girl Buffy, she's one of my favorite characters on TV ever and my favorite female character period. But let's not assume like she was always 100% the best friend. I noticed that Buffy could be quite self-centered at times. In "Living Conditions" she was always complaining about her roomate while it was clear Willow wasn't exactly comfortable with hers either. This episode is iconic and it's one of my favorite but when taken under serious tone, it's kind of upsetting. Same thing, during three whole episodes, we saw Buffy trying to get over Parker and Willow was always behind, trying to support her. But I find Buffy to have been extremely unconsiderate towards Willow in Something Blue, when she was drinking to forget about Oz, a relationship she has been emotionally involved for almost 3 years. I was like, could you cut her some slack or ?. In Dead Man's Party, I agree that the behaviors aiming against Buffy was infuriating and that's why it's probably the episode I rewatch the least but when you also take into consideration that they were teenagers and didn't exactly had a way to cope their feelings in the most healthy way, especially when you also consider their home lives, it became actually hard to hate Willow. I'm not exactly saying Xander because he was clearly attacking her and I'm still not over his "boys trouble" speech cause what do you mean "Boys trouble", honestly, that was really uncalled for. But Willow actually tried to reach over to Buffy by saying she wanted to be there for her but Buffy is the one who shut down her emotions (and I get that, I mean she experienced a a big trauma) and she was clearly more sad to have lost than angry.

Willow was a good friend on numerous occasions. She was always there for Buffy, emotionally and always hyping her up. I mean people who said she didn't care about Buffy are liars cause Willow cared a whole much. All this when you also consider the fact that she had a BIG inferiority complex towards Buffy from the get-go. In season 1, Xander only had eyes for Buffy and only take Willow as a second after-thought. In the hyena episode, she clearly stated that Xander only had eyes for her and that's why he didn't pick on her. It is also aimed several times trough the seasons and even in Restless, when it's Buffy the one taking her clothes off infront of people, proving that she feels powerless against Buffy. And when she was Dark Willow, she says "6 years as the sideman, now I get to be the Slayer" which prove she always craved the power Buffy hold and always felt less than her. However I don't recall of times where Willow was pinning Buffy down. I don't know if you already had that kind of friend in your life. The friend who clearly have jealousy towards you and always to try to put down your self-confidence by saying this like "you're not that pretty" or "get over yourself". I know I had. Also, her speech to Buffy when she was trying to wake her up in season 5 was still a best friend move. Also, I saw one person says that those two didn't felt like best friends in season 6 and I'm like, yes they felt like it. I made a rewatch of that season and I was shock to see that despite their current mental states, they were still the persons to talk to. When sit on the bed at the end of episode "Smashed" or sit on the street at the end of episode "Gone", those converstions felt very deep and their bond could clearly be felt.

And as for Xander, in the early seasons he could be quite obnoxious but between season 4 and 5, I found him to be pretty reliable friend for Buffy and the scenes those two shared of "I Was Made To Love You" are weirdly precious to me. They clearly felt like brother and sister at this point. I also want a spotlight to talk about how people looooove to talk bad about Xander in his relationship with Cordy. I'm not gonna talk "post"-cheating them but before. And I'm sorry, Xander wasn't the only bad bone of the relationship. I love Cordy too, don't get me wrong, but on rewatches the things she would say to Xander were genuiely shocking to me, like she could be so direspectful of him but nobody would talk about it but would jump at any occasions to slash Xander.

And for Giles, I didn't see that mcuh complaints about him except for his decisions to leave Buffy in season 6 and I agree that was....not good at all but that was making sense. It was something that was being foreshadow from the moment he was fired from the council, with his existential crise in season 4, his dreams in Restless, the decision he took in season 5 before Buffy claimed to be needing him again and the Buffybot 's talk about why he was still there. He choose the worst moment possible for it but it was always coming. And again, in season 7, when he took the decision to kill Spike behind Buffy's back. Was it upsetting and surprising ? Yes. Was it out of character ? No.He already took those kind of decisions before.

There you go, here's my long-ish rant. What do you think ?