That troll hammer...

[deird1]

I've seen a few comments recently on Buffy picking up Olaf's hammer - and how the fact that she could so easily when Spike couldn't lift it shows just how much stronger Buffy is than the average vampire.

Which I'm finding odd, because I always assumed it was because the hammer is a mystical item. So Buffy, as the Slayer, has special picking-up-hammer powers that are denied to Spike.

...am I completely alone in this assumption? Does everyone else in the whole world take it as Buffy being ridiculously strong compared to Spike?



(Yes, she's stronger than him. But not by that much...)

Comments

[slaymesoftly]

Couple of things - I'm not sure how much of the "Buffy is much stronger than Spike" is canon, and how much fanon. Although, I think she does say it somewhere... I don't know that it jarred me one way or the other, but I would probably have said it was a Slayer thing. She is stronger than Spike, probably, but not that much. Of course, Spike's strength and fighting abilities tend to come and go based on the needs of that particular episode... Consistency, thy name is not Whedon! Anyway, I think the having her be able to wield the hammer when he couldn't pick it up was just meant for a humorous bit and not to be taken overly seriously. That's how I saw it.

Empresspatti says...

[(Anonymous)]

I think the writers wrote it for a laugh and didn't think one more itty bitty bit about it.

Re: Empresspatti says...

[next_to_normal]

This. The mystical connection explanation never occurred to me because I just assumed their relative strength was entirely dependent on the joke the writers wanted to make in that episode and has absolutely no bearing on how well-matched they are in past or future episodes.

ETA: As if we needed any more proof that the writers just make this shit up as they go along, check out how Olaf, in "Triangle," was turned into a troll by Aud, an ordinary human at the time. But by "The Gift," he's apparently a troll god, which makes his hammer the appropriate weapon to fight a god. So... ordinary humans can now create gods just by doing a spell? Um. Yeah. Okay. Maybe Buffy should've asked Anya to turn her into a troll god in order to fight Glory.

[deird1]

Maybe Buffy should've asked Anya to turn her into a troll god in order to fight Glory.

Heh. Someone should fic that.