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

[ms_scarletibis]

Buffy having "special pick up hammer" powers makes no sense to me. There's no reason for her to have access to a troll hammer...

Also, Angel explicity says that Buffy is stronger than him; why wouldn't she therefore be stronger than Spike?

Another thing--Buffy can take on five vamps at once and be fine. Do you think that if Spike were to take on five slayers at once, that he'd not end up dust at the end of it? I don't think he'd survive. He is a skilled and aged fighter--of course. Stronger? Not so much.

[deird1]

Are you reading carefully? I've explicitly said that Buffy is stronger than Spike.

What I'm disputing is that she's so much stronger that she'd be able to lift something without thinking while he wouldn't be able to pick it up at all.

[(Anonymous)]

Okay, then back to the group fights point--

We've seen Buffy take on multiple vamps on her own. Do you think Spike could do the same, but with multiple slayers?

[deird1]

No idea. Is it relevant?

[(Anonymous)]

Very much so, yes.

Generally speaking on the strength of vampires and slayers--if they're more even keeled, it wouldn't make a difference. But since slayers are inherently stronger? It makes a big ass difference.

Not to mention, and this is just Buffy specifically at the moment, but she'd have to be very much stronger (proportionally speaking) for someone 5'3" and under one hundred pounds, taking on demons and vampires alike so much larger than she is. A good example of this would be Jonathan "dressed up" as a demon very much larger than himself, but he only had the strength of his human/non-magicked self.

[ms_scarletibis]

Sorry--somehow got automatically logged off.

[rahirah]

Well, he does fight demons, some of which are stronger than Slayers, so I don't think it's totally impossible that Spike could take on a group of Slayers and survive. It's also possible he'd end up dust in the wind. Honestly, provided that both parties are competent fighters, this is something that's totally dependent on the needs of the plot. If you need the protagonist to beat a group, you come up with a way to make it plausible. If you need them to get killed/captured, you come up with a way to make that plausible, too. Angel may have beat Spike out in raw strength, but Spike nonetheless captured him in In The Dark.

[ms_scarletibis]

Well, if IIRC, didn't Spike set a trap in ItD? It had nothing to do with strength...like Buffy v. Kralik.

Well, he does fight demons, some of which are stronger than Slayers

Which ones? Spike couldn't fight Glory without getting knocked out, he was captured by The Bringers and held prisoner under the uber-vamp...if he did, Buffy did too, and probably quicker.

All that aside, Angel does say that Buffy's stronger, the troll hammer...fact of the matter is, she'd have to be stronger--very much so--in order to survive at all. Otherwise, there'd be no point since for the longest time it was only just the one.

[rahirah]

Glory was a god, not a demon. Buffy couldn't take her without the hammer, either. Since some of the demons that Buffy fights are stronger than she is, and Buffy is stronger than Spike, and Spike fights the same variety of demons Buffy does, he's pretty much got to be fighting demons stronger than he is once in a while. (Plus he's killed two Slayers one on one, and presumably they were stronger than he was, just as Buffy is.) Presumably he wins fights against stronger opponents the same way Buffy does - by being a better/sneakier/dirtier/more inventive fighter than they are. While superior strength obviously gives someone an advantage in a fight, it's not the only factor affecting who wins.

[ms_scarletibis]

Buffy fought Glory at least twice without that hammer, and managed to stay conscious. When they first meet, and in "Blood Ties."

And I didn't mean to imply that's the only way to win--clearly it's not since Buffy won with the standard human strength of a 5'3" woman under a hundred pounds. Also, due to her size, proportionally, she'd have to be much stronger than Spike because she is so very, very tiny.

[rahirah]

It's difficult to gague these things as well because the characters' strength and competence varied wildly at the writers' whim. Sometimes a single vampire had Buffy on the ropes; sometimes she could dust six without breaking a sweat. The same goes for Angel and Spike. (Who both magically became much better fighters when they moved to AtS.)

[ms_scarletibis]

I don't think they became better fighters--just more aerodynamic ;)