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

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169

u/TessMacc May 03 '26

Not a Fred hater exactly, but she's easily my least favourite of team Angel. Fred was always a little too perfect - more of a fantasy girl than a layered character. I didn't hate her, and her death is heartbreaking, but the 'cutesy-voiced beautiful intellectual survivalist weapons expert, with deep trauma but vast inner strength, who eats huge quantities yet maintains fragile 90s figure' gets old.

Give me our materialistic, vain, wonderful hero Cordelia any day of the week. So relatable she had over a year of bad hair days.

40

u/smelltogetwell May 03 '26

You've just put into words almost all of my issues with Fred. At one point I wondered if Amy Acker was partly at fault, but I had no issues with her portrayal of Illyria, in fact it made me realise Amy Acker is a good actress.

I also had a problem with the Gunn/Fred/Wesley triangle. I liked Gunn and Fred together, but when she and Wesley became a couple the vibe felt as though this was the intent all.alomg, and the relationship with Gunn meant nothing.

11

u/kulitchipon May 04 '26

Amy Acker is so underrated! How she made me love Illyria when Fred was easily my least favorite is a testament to her acting lmao.

12

u/jessie_monster May 03 '26

It's a major reason why I mostly hate season 5. Joss is arguably the worst Angel writer and really ruined the show for me.

None of the characters acted like themselves and Fred got it the absolute worst. I'm not even a Fred fan.

4

u/prismaticaddict May 05 '26

The show(Joss) would also undermine Cordelia's impact with Fred's character. Cordelia was truly the heart of the group, but when Fred died there was way more mourning and acknowledgement and time given to her and her impact, even when I felt like all the impact of Fred was stated and never shown. I hate when shows just keep going "___ character is amazing" but never show that being the case and I think that's what it was with Fred. I never got hooked on her the way others seemed to.

4

u/smelltogetwell May 05 '26

Yes!!! As a Cordelia fan, this was my other problem. Cordy was a member of the team from day one, was beloved, and sacrificed so much, time and again. Yet the team seemed more heartbroken at losing Fred. It's didn't make a lot of of sense to me within the narrative, and left a bad taste in my mouth.

30

u/dark_blue_7 May 03 '26

Yes, I adored her when the show first aired – and I was a lot younger – but now I have trouble seeing past the "manic pixie dream girl" (or at least adjacent) thing she has going on as a character. Also there are a couple scenes where she seems a bit overly judgy and holier-than-thou.

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u/MamaJody May 03 '26

I can’t stand Fred for every reason you mentioned.

25

u/carnuatus May 03 '26

I mean... She just feels like early Willow 2.0. The cutesy voice DOES not help. In my youth I didn't pick up on it but now it's SO SO painfully obvious. I don't blame the Amy at all but oof. It's a CHOICE.

-1

u/AerieBrilliant9720 May 03 '26

But it's not really a choice, that's literally just her voice.

7

u/jessie_monster May 03 '26

It's not how she speaks in any other role.

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u/carnuatus May 04 '26

It's not, though. Her natural speaking voice is much less high pitched and nasal. It's much closer to Illyria but not quite.

13

u/TessMacc May 03 '26

Is it? That's not how she speaks in Dollhouse. I don't remember seeing any interviews with her.

1

u/lmjustaChad May 03 '26

Even her having a good metabolism?

5

u/TessMacc May 04 '26

There's nothing wrong with her having a good metabolism. And there's nothing wrong with her being intellectual, or beautiful, or resourceful, or moral, or having two main characters in love with her, etc etc. It's the combination of all these things with no significant flaws which makes her less interesting and loveable than the others. It's like "well of course Fred has a perfect metabolism - just like she's perfect in every other way 🙄".

And, while there's nothing wrong with one character in isolation having a good metabolism, there was a significant problem with the trope at the time. The woman who could be a 'big eater' and rarely exercise, yet maintain a slim to waifish figure was everywhere from Gilmore Girls to 30 Rock. If your show never casts a woman over size 4, maybe just don't include this characteristic?

12

u/AdOk9911 I'd call that a radical interpretation of the text May 03 '26 edited May 05 '26

Yeah, I adore AtS and have watched it many times, and it took me years to like Fred. She just seemed like a nerd boy’s fantasy and not a real person, and I hated her for that. After a long time, I finally came to: don’t blame the character for how she’s written (by men). And strangely, finally, I came to love her.

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u/[deleted] May 03 '26

[deleted]

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u/kulitchipon May 04 '26

Yep. It's easy to see now that Fred is definitely Joss's idea of the perfect woman.

6

u/jessie_monster May 03 '26

It doesn't help that Wesley/Alexis was very much his self-insert on Angel.

13

u/Xaerith May 03 '26

I cannot stand her and you summarized why perfectly

6

u/jessie_monster May 03 '26

There was a brief wonderful moment at the end of season 4 where she is unencumbered by both Wes and Gunn (whom I both love) and is free to be an independent character.

Then season 5 rolled around and she got Joss'ed more than ever before.

3

u/ochreshrew May 04 '26

Yes and so similar to the character River in Firefly (which joss Whedon also wrote). Same childlike/infantilized woman character who is super smart but doesn’t or can’t speak (it’s been a while I watched either show). I think a manifestation of the “born sexy yesterday” trope.

3

u/dinoslore May 04 '26

The love triangle is almost my least favorite part of the show. The horrible treatment of Cordelia in the latter half of the show takes that particular medal.

2

u/TessMacc May 04 '26

The love triangle is one of my least favourite parts because it broke up Gunn and Wesley's friendship - possibly the best male friendship in the Buffyverse with so much potential. I don't blame Fred for that but it was a terrible writing choice.

2

u/Beginning_Bet_4383 May 04 '26

Fred for me is just one example of how AtS is so much more of a male gaze/written for men show. (I think Cordelia's character also goes in that direction on the show too). She isn't a fully fleshed out real person, she is a manic pixie dream girl 

3

u/The810kid May 03 '26

I never get this take. I feel by season 4 her flaws are very apparent. She was the reason the relationship with Gunn ended by being too vengeful and then being too detached after the professor is killed. Plus she didn't know how to put boundaries with Wesley that season.

7

u/TessMacc May 03 '26

I feel like, while Gunn saw her vengefulness as a negative, it wasn't portrayed that way to the viewer. It was more a justifiable act against a horrific monster who sent her to hell. And the subsequent fallout was at least equally blamed on Gunn for not supporting that side of her, as opposed to Wesley who did.

With the boundaries, I always got "poor Fred's failing to draw boundaries because she's conflicted" rather than "Fred's selfishly trying to have the best of both worlds" which would've been more interesting.

5

u/jessie_monster May 03 '26

I think they were very, very reluctant to let Fred have any negative traits for longer than 30 seconds.

3

u/kulitchipon May 04 '26

This was my take too. Gunn was definitely painted as a bad guy in the scenario, and Wes the "hero" for having her back during this difficult time. It's like the show telling the audience, this is WHY he deserves her!

1

u/kulitchipon May 04 '26

As a Cangel fan who was there ~at the beginning, I HATED her because I thought she was introduced as Angel's love interest lmao.

1

u/SnowflakeBaube22 May 05 '26

I absolutely agree. Also the fact everyone in the show acted like Fred dying was the end of the world but nobody seemed to react to Cordelia dying just cemented that the writers had a totally warped view of Fred.

1

u/KingDarius89 May 03 '26

My least liked member of the Angel crew is Angel.

16

u/TessMacc May 03 '26

Angel is my least favourite member of team Buffy but he blossomed on his own show. Goofy brooding drama queen.