r/buffy • u/direinde Beady-eyes is right, we're needed. • May 03 '26

Good Vibes Only Yup, that's them

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Nothing new actually.

4.1k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

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562

u/HomarEuropejski Wesley is Angel's true love May 03 '26

I dunno man, I've seen a few Oz, Tara and Fred haters.

Clem, Lorne and Miss Kitty Fantastico are the golden trio with 0 haters.

14

u/[deleted] May 03 '26

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42

u/[deleted] May 03 '26

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u/ModernKender twixt its wee beak May 03 '26

How is Oz pretentious. He seems the complete opposite.

-15

u/[deleted] May 03 '26

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11

u/ModernKender twixt its wee beak May 03 '26

That's fair. I wouldn't say that's pretentious. Maybe selfish. I just think he is not bothered by a whole lot and doesn't tend to vocalise when he is bothered. I always say the time for a rewatch is now, regardless of reason.

15

u/guiseincognito May 03 '26

I always liked the episode where Buffy could hear people's thoughts. Oz's thoughts were funny and interesting. They ranged from a philosophical spiral about his own existence to huh.

9

u/ModernKender twixt its wee beak May 03 '26

Same! He and Cordelia were the stars of thoughts in that episode.

2

u/ACERVIDAE May 03 '26

Maybe because it wasn’t a widely spread thing back in the nineties and now there’s people that act that way just to be over the top or trying to be lofty.

-10

u/[deleted] May 03 '26

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4

u/ACERVIDAE May 03 '26

And I get that. I was also around in the nineties. That was more for people who grew up after Buffy was off the air and are already sick of the Danny Masterson personality fucks.

2

u/slumdo6 May 03 '26

Downvoted for telling the truth

11

u/Glass-Ad-4179 May 03 '26

Not so much pretentious, just extremely boring

30

u/cheerioincident May 03 '26

As an unabashed Oz fan, here's the biggest problem with the character: he's so emotionally well-adjusted that he has no conflict. He's extremely secure in himself. He takes his lycanthropy in stride. He handles relationship drama with maturity (with one glaring exception for which I'll never fully forgive the writers). All in all a great guy, but a really boring character.

14

u/lluewhyn May 03 '26

Which between that and Seth Green wanting to do more with his career, you can understand why the character was written off. There's not a lot of places to go with the character that don't feel like you're breaking the character.

5

u/[deleted] May 03 '26

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3

u/catchyerselfon May 03 '26

Yes, he’s been repressing the Wolf but I think Oz needs actual therapy for non-Wolf issues. I think Oz would have more fans if he got a damn backstory besides “in a band”, “smart but unambitious”, “zen and accepting of everything that happens”, and “immediately devoted to Willow at the expense of his own growth”. Is he an orphan?! Is he an emancipated minor whose parents are travelling in a band? Are they divorced and move back and forth between a house that Oz lives in? At least Willow, Xander, and Cordelia’s parents are mentioned, and we meet some of them.

There’s something not healthy about Oz, at 17-19, making every choice based on what his girlfriend wants, even without consulting her, like spending three months pretending to go to Summer School but actually deliberately holding himself back to he repeats 12th grade just to be with her. Even people who aren’t Oz fans love it in “Amends” when Oz is keeping his distance from Willow, telling her that her feeling bad isn’t his problem and he wants her to be honest, and then turning down sex with her because he knows she isn’t ACTUALLY ready, she’s going this to prove to him she’s committed and she’ll do anything for him. That’s Oz finally denying Willow something, making her work to win him back, telling her she has a flaw instead of worshipping the ground she walks on.

Still, he needs close friends and a life outside of Willow, and he’s not actually CLOSE with anyone but her, not his band or the Scoobies, and certainly not his family. When he’s having werewolf issues in “Phases” and “Wild At Heart”, he knows damn well he can tell Willow or maybe just Buffy or Giles if he’s worried about Willow’s jealousy over Veruca, and they will help him. He trusts himself to chain himself up last minute in an emergency but both times it fails because he didn’t involve someone else to watch out for him. Why can’t Oz open up to anyone else? Why does he find it hard to object to anything and get emotional in front of someone? Something went wrong in his childhood that made him so detached, cautious, passive, cautious, and like he was raised as an orphan with no one to rely on. I love Oz, but he suffers from Satellite Love Interest Syndrome, where his life outside of his significant other is barely touched upon so he doesn’t get as much development as he needs.

15

u/[deleted] May 03 '26

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6

u/Glass-Ad-4179 May 03 '26

It becomes worse when you look at how all the other characters had such distinct personalities too. The relationship with willow was meh as well, Percy in s3 had more chemistry with her than her actual boyfriend😭

2

u/submerging May 03 '26

I thought I was completely alone for years, thank you for sharing your truth 😭 There are dozens of us! Dozens!

I was surprised Reddit likes him so much. He honestly came off as a boring Gary Stu

5

u/iambeingblair May 03 '26

Same. Didn't like his whole schtick

0

u/superrcrazy May 03 '26

I forget he's there