Oh God ‼️Buffy The Vampire Slayer S06E16 'Hell's Bells''♡Reaction & Review♡
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- Опубліковано 7 лип 2023
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Firefly!!! Really!!!
it's been hinted since season 1 that xander's sense of humour is his coping mechanism from being raised in a toxic environment
The last shot of Anya wit tears down her face, she's so pretty and breathtaking.
This conversation that B/S had here stood out from the rest plot. It's extremely soft considering that it's still honest from both sides. Even if they talk about Buffy being jealous the conversation is really sweet and beautiful. I think that actors played a big part in it. As we all know how plot saw their couple I believe this conversation should have been more formal but they made it really soft. Even how they talk, their voices are quite. The way how gently she says 'Hey' here it was never like that in any episode.
"He gives you hope for something and then instantly takes it away from you..."
Well, if that's not foreshadowing, I don't know what is. 😭
Or he relizes it many seasons later in the worst way possible(ex. Xander x Willow).
I was just about to make this same comment. I cringed when she said it.
It’s coming soon too! Can’t wait for that reaction 🥲
More of a tendency at this point. It'd be like saying that Buffy slaying more vampires & demons has been foreshadowed.
@@jp3813 True,but I believe the reference was specifically _someone's_ death. (It's not a spoiler anymore since Sofie has already finished the show,but I'm not gonna say the name...we ALL know who that is anyway!;"""-((( 💔)
There were many clues of Xander's disfunctional and toxic family, and of his insecurities and traumas too. Even his psychological profile during all previous seasons matched. Still, he was always smiling and joking. He was so cheerful that all of us would have never expected he was the grimmest of them all. But this is how it works in real life, isn't it? Many people smile every day only to keep the sadness they're feeling away.
No wonder Nicholas Brendon played him so well.
I think it was really smart of the show not to tell us what the demon did to get punished. It’s easy to assume that he was a bad person that got what he deserved but we know that not all of Anya’s victims deserved it. Cordelia was mean but she definitely didn’t deserve to wish she got
100%
I think it was really smart of the show not to tell us what the demon did to get punished. It’s easy to assume that he was a bad person that got what he deserved but we know that not all of Anya’s victims deserved it. Cordelia was mean but she definitely didn’t deserve to wish she got
It also seems very likely that D'Hoffryn engineered the whole thing. This guy Anyanka sent to a hell dimension years before somehow got back, got the fancy vision orb, and showed up in exactly the right time and place to ruin her wedding, leaving her devastated and in just the right mindset for D'Hoffryn to take advantage?
"Where's Giles?" A VERY good question. I understand Anthony Stewart Head needing more time with his family, but it didn't make sense for him to NOT come to Anya and Xander's wedding. I still haven't forgiven them for this episode. I see you're at the end of Buffy, so no spoiler. I really would have preferred they gotten married and had to deal with marital drama. This one just felt very cliche to me. It's the easiest way to have the wedding episode go. As soon as Anya started practicing her vows at the beginning, I had a feeling this was the route they'd go.
This breaks my heart every time I watch it. There are also many wonderful moments such as Buffy entertaining the guests. It's a testament to the writing and acting that even though we hate what Xander did to Anya, like Buffy and Willow, we can't quite hate him.
Well, some of us can’t.
There are plenty of Xander haters.
Anya did say all the way back in end of season four, in a dream during Restless that future is going to be pretty big on Vengeance and that she's going to get back into vengeance business again after Xander gets distracted by his demons.
It's Xander's tragedy that he's extraordinarily courageous when facing monsters, demons, and every other kind of physical danger, but can't confront his internal problems. That terrifying moment in "Restless" where he looks up at the shadowed figure of his father at the top of the stairs and says "that's not the way out" sums it up: Shadow Father then proceeds to rip Xander's heart out (and Xander is 'the heart' of the Scoobies as defined by the Adam-fighting unification spell). That's the fear that's too much for him.
One of my favorite tropes is when the comedy relief goes dark or evil, when you laugh with a character it hits harder when he does horrible things. I’m not just talking about Xander but the demon at the end.
People like to blame Xander here, but I put the full blame on his father. It's him and Xander:s fear of becoming just like him that lead to this.
I put the blame on D'Hoffryn too. This guy Anyanka sent to a hell dimension somehow got back from it, got the fancy vision orb, and showed up in exactly the right time and place to ruin her wedding, leaving her devastated with D'Hoffryn right there ready to take advantage? Can't be a coincidence.
@@rfresa it's not out of the question that he had something to do with this. But I was more talking about Xanders insecurities leading into this very situation, the vision orb ofc was the huge trigger but the insecurities was always there.
Also I think far to many people ignore just how potent that vision was, I for one don't think that Xander witnessed the events like we the audience did, but instead that he lived it, being the Xander in the vision that we saw. Which means that he not only experienced actually killing Anya but more importantly, experienced the wish to do so. Imagine coming back from that and not be 100% sure that you will end up killing her.
@@Henrik_Holst I agree. The demon said, "See what I've seen. Feel what I've felt." Xander lived that "vision" as if it really happened. I can't blame him for running as far as he could in the moment after having experienced that. How was he supposed to just smile and go on with the wedding? I'm also not really a fan of big weddings, and I think this caused the disaster much as Xander's cold feet. They should have just had a small wedding with a few friends.
There's shared blame to go around. Xander didn't have to propose.
@@jp3813 and he also didn't have to leave her to go up to the altar and announce it. Honestly if he's the one calling it off, the least he can do is own it in front of the other guests.
Xander is still only 21 years old. It isn't that much of a surprise that he isn't ready to get married and settle down forever at 21.
Honestly one of the cons of getting late 20s-early 30s play teenagers/young adults is that the audience forget how young the characters actually are.
@@cherryfreckle yes definitely. I feel like in season five they all started showing their age.
This season has a lot of problems and missed opportunities and some of the bigger ones are tied to this arc. I really think one of the shows bigger mistakes in general was never exploring Xanders home life in a non-comedic way. His character makes so much more sense going all the way back to the start when put in context of a violently abusive home. Like bad enough he sleeps outside to not hear the fighting. It's referenced and mentioned every season, but it never actually gets addressed, there's never a spotlight episode on it. His dream in Restless is the only time we see even a glimpse of it without it being played as a joke.
I also wish they'd had Willow talk Xander through this. Fear and uncertainty about who you are, fear of what you might become if you take the wrong path, it was a great opportunity to tie together her struggle and his in a way that would play to both of their arcs and grow both of them. But then this season isn't about growth, it's really just about breaking down characters and then going nowhere with it once they've been broken.
That's one of the reasons why I feel the show, despite its pro-feminism, is a cry for help from the guy who created it, and, after reading the NY Magazine article about him last year, it's kind of a pathetic cry for help. Xander's basically a coward when it comes to real life, but not when it comes to vampires and demons. He may be Buffy's friend, but he uses her as an escape hatch from his dysfunctional family. If he confronted them, he would have deserved getting married to Anya.
That is one of the big flaws of season 6. It gets praise for being “grown up”. But its character exploration is mostly shallow and random. Everyone is depressed and does dumb stuff isn’t really the exploration some fans think it is. Only Willow really gets the exploration to give weight to her downbeat arc. And even then I feel there’s some major stumbling. I don’t want to completely blame Joss for a lot of the missteps of this show’s final two seasons, because it’s apparent his focus was with other projects.
Yes! Having a scene here where Willow and Xander talk about his fears would have added to the season and its ending. Particularly making the point that they've known each other since they were kids.
Of the whole season. this is the episode I stìll cannot get myself to watch it completely. Despite what disasters this season let loose on the scoobies, this ep was the wòrst afa 'hitting me in the feels'. Poor Anya.. betrayed. Again. Her happiness taken away from her by Xander being the utterly self-absorbed, traumatised, warped jerk that was always simmering behind his jokes and goofiness. Brilliant writing, though. As a viewer You're torn between rage and sadness and empathy.
The Xander slander in the comments already.
*sigh* 😔
I wish more people would have appreciation and consideration for flawed characters in TV art/entertainment. There’s usually a reason why they are the way they are and were you in the same situation, you’d probably act or react just as they do or worse. People are so quick to judge these flawed and fallible characters when they’re on the outside-looking in. But those characters tend to be the realist ones. I have much more interest in them for this reason. I don’t want perfect characters.
All these years, I thought D'Hoffryn seemed kind of cool, for a demon. He's been kind to Willow before, despite being denied; and here, he's giving his full attention to Anya in her time of grief. As I am rewatching, I wonder if he is the one who sought Anya's ex to cause this disaster, to have her being a vengeance demon again. He's so quick to jump at the opportunity. As if it was all part of his plan. Perhaps there was more to it, in case Xander had resisted. Perhaps it's just an accident, and maybe D'Hoffryn simply saw an opportunity, and took it on the fly, but accidents are few and far between in this universe...
I think so too. This guy Anyanka sent to a hell dimension years before somehow got back, got the fancy vision orb, and showed up in exactly the right time and place to ruin her wedding, leaving her devastated and in just the right mindset for D'Hoffryn to take advantage? Can't be a coincidence.
You absolutely nailed the reason Giles couldn't be in this episode!!! It never would've happened. Great reaction!!!
❤🧡💛💚💙💜
What Xander did here was unforgiveable. Yes, he had concerns, fears and insecurities. But leaving Anya at the altar is _not_ the way to deal with them. The fears came up in "Once More with Feeling". A brief comment by Anya when Anya and Xander were talking to Giles after "I'll Never Tell" where she said that her toes weren't hairy confirmed that in that number they were aware of what each other was singing.
What Xander _should_ have done was talk to Anya about his fears. If necessary, delay the wedding while they worked them out, maybe with actual counseling. _Or_ he should have just grabbed hold of his fears, shoved them in a box, and determined that they _would_ work it out.
What he did was the worst possible thing.
Can’t agree..Xander is afraid he will end up like his own father and hurting Anya in some way..he sacrifices his own possible future happiness to protect her, whether that’s a realistic fear to the rest of us, or Anya, that’s what his character is experiencing.
@johncspine2787 then he should have brought his issues up _before_ the wedding day. Maybe counseling. Maybe just talking it out. It's not like he just suddenly had these doubts. Again, that was obvious since at least "Once More with Feeling."
Also, becoming like his father is not something that just magically happens. It's the result of a lot g series of choices. Don't want to become that person? Then make different choices. Forewarned, as the old saying goes, is for-armed. People have fears all the time but you cannot let your life be dictated by fear. Xander chose that route.
@@coldservings yes..but just because you can see a logical sequence of decisions doesn’t mean the character of Xander, at this moment, can see the same things. People aren’t logical about their emotions..he simply sees himself “protecting” Anya’s future happiness by removing himself.
@johncspine2787 and there are consequences for that. It's not like any of this is a surprise. He's had lots of time to think about it. That he didn't do so is exactly the problem. He didn't address his own concerns from "I'll never tell," and ended up making Anya's a reality. What was it he said to Buffy in "Dead Man's Party?" You can't just bury things. They'll come right back on you. Yet that's exactly what he did.
Anya is such a beautiful bride 💕 I'm not a fan of Xander, but my heart breaks for her.
Couldn't you tell it was going to be a bad day when it was raining the entire episode.
Likely an unpopular opinion because we all love Anya but after centuries of inflicting torment on scorned lovers there is almost a poetic justice that one of them exact vengeance by coming back and ruining Anya’s wedding day.
True, she wasnt exactly innocent, she was pretty ruthless so who knows maybe she deserved it, ( i love Anya)
That's why I feel sorry for her,but I'm not mad at the demon. She *definitely* had it coming! I'm not mad that he got his revenge...expecially because he got killed short after. I mean...put yourself in _his_ place for a moment:you get turned into a demon and tortured for hundreds of years,you _finally_ get to make the responsable suffer a bit,ruining her wedding...and you immediately get killed!POOR GUY! I feel more sorry for HIM than her,TBH!X-(((
It also seems very likely that D'Hoffryn engineered the whole thing. This guy Anyanka sent to a hell dimension years before somehow got back, got the fancy vision orb, and showed up in exactly the right time and place to ruin her wedding, leaving her devastated and in just the right mindset for D'Hoffryn to take advantage?
@@rfresa Another reason why I don't blame the guy.D'Hoffryn is the mastermind behind everything. If someone has to be blamed it should be him!
@@divinelangene6813 I don't blame Anyanka for doing what vengeance demons do, but the whole big fancy wedding was at least as much to blame for what went wrong as Xander's cold feet. It couldn't have been Xander's idea to invite all these demons and his whole family. "I like the quiet."
Some unanswered questions: How did the demon get back from the hell dimension Anyanka sent him to? How did he get the vision orb, and know exactly where to go at the right time to ruin Anya's wedding?
My theory is that D'Hoffryn (the leader of the vengeance demons) engineered it all to get Anya back on his team, and to punish her for her failure.
My issue with Xander leaving Anya at the alter is more along the lines of him having reservations and cold feet since _All the Way_ aka the Halloween episode of this season. If he had talked to her instead of doing magic to see if they'd have a happy ending aka making a musical (how many people died because he refused to talk to her instead), then perhaps Stewart Burns wouldn't have been able to get into Xander's head with fears of becoming his father.
Xander shouldn't worry about being his father, he should worry that what he does ends up being behavior that isn't any less hurtful emotionally than what he claims he trying to avoid physically when not marrying Anya.
I don't mind that he had these issues, but admitting the spell to make everyone sing being to just see if he'd be happy with her means he wanted to know, which means he should have either been talking to her about it or not marrying her, and that goes back to her hitting him because she assumed his proposal meant he was doing so because he didn't think he'd have to follow through, which he'd assured her was bogus. If he couldn't talk to Anya about all these issues she was right about why he was initially proposing. I feel like Anya saying "grow up" and "your only [proposing] because you know you don't have to go through with it" goes right over Xander's head. It's sad that he does this when he had many chances to make sure it didn't. It's not Xander's issues that bother me. It's how he chooses to handle and react to them: how he reacted when Buffy says she doesn't see him romantically, leaving Anya at the alter, and many other things in-between.
Willow considering the larva over the dress was hysterical (she wasn't wrong in why she considered it, joke or not). Dawn was the only one who came close to pulling it off.
As soon as she mentioned it, I was dying to see Willow "all Marlene Dietrich-y in a dashing tuxedo." She would have looked sensational! And, yes, it was a near-miracle how Dawn still looked pretty in that dress.
I subscribe to the theory that D'Hoffyrn was behind the demon’s plot to ruin the wedding because there's no way that demon would know all about Xander's life, what his friends were and what they do. Those visions were either brought on by a fear spell that affects the person individually based on what their fears already are. Or... the demon had to have been tipped off by someone that knows all the information to fabricate those visions. And since D'Hoffryn actually came to the wedding, odds are he was there to oversee the chaos and damage and to immediately get to Anya when she was most vulnerable. It was a set up by him. I'm sure of it.
It does make me wonder whether Halfrek was apart of it though because D’Hoffryn does tell her to relax and that they’re “not here to work”. A way to get her out of the way, perhaps? I couldn’t imagine Anya’s friend would ever do something so cruel even if she didn’t approve of her marrying Xander. It just doesn’t seem like something she would be apart of.
I always enjoyed, even liked, D'Hoffryn for his incongruously beautiful manners ("Ah Miss Rosenberg. How lovely to see you again"😁), but as later developments will show, he's a rat bastard. A dead giveaway is in this episode when he reassures Halfrek "I love all my demons equally." I thought nothing of it at the time until a friend and fellow fan pointed out "That's exactly what a pimp tells his 'girls'." THAT is D'Hoffryn!
@@DanielOrme that’s right. He’s a demon pimp!
You’re giving Halfrek too much credit. She cursed her friend with “house arrest” in 6x14, Older and Far Away. The only reason I don’t think she had anything to do with this is because it’s too clever for her. Hally wasn’t really the brightest.
@@robertmckenna3994 Yes, but she did that to help out Dawn. She thought she was doing a good thing. Anya just happened to be one of the people would be in the house at the time. She never intentionally trapped her. She trapped everyone neglecting Dawn.
I don’t think she would be that cruel to Anya.
@@Girl4Music but she was that cruel to Anya. She had the option to help out her friend and remove the curse, but she chose not to. The only reason Halfrek undid it is because she was trapped by the curse as well.
You noticed the floppy ears on Fake-Future Anya's daughter. I assume that means Anya cheated with Clem. 😮
Ewww😂😂😂
To be honest, if I was made to choose between Xander and Clem, I would prefer Clem too.
Get Xander Therapy 2kAlways.
An unmistakeable sign that Xander's vision is fake is that Anya is anything but a successful businesswoman. (I think she's supposed to be shilling for an MLM here, as they mentioned parties? Plus the pink costume which is basically a uniform for one of them?)
I love these videos sm ❤❤❤❤
New intro sequence? Nice.
Go ahead, keep wanting nice things.
Season 6 is a top 3 favorite for me
OH NO! i JUST REALIZED you barely reacting to this episode NOW! I figured since its been 2 years you finished haha I watch you and 2 other reactors So I was trying to find your episode for the next one and its not out yet haha I'm already on a few other patreons so i Cant add any more haaha but guess i'll have to wait lol
I love this show!! I haven't seen it in ages. Where is she watching it from, please? Someone let me know, please!
Épisode 19 is coming 🎉
Yay 🎉🙄
@@dianaudodova4592so disturbing the first time but show the true evil side of humanity …. 🎉
Hi
I thought the Wedding episode was very cleverly observed. From the Bridesmaids hating the awful dresses, to the culture clash between the two families, the obsessiveness of the Bride, the doubts about getting married at all etc. All these are very real things that could be attributed to many weddings. Of course as the Old Man creates the false future for Xander this reinforces his doubts, it can only lead to trouble. Even though he eventually knows it was all fake, he still can't go through with it. It has to be said that from the off Anya was almost forcing Xander into the relationship, and he was so somewhat immature and not ready for this. This is of course no excuse for his actions here in not going through with it, but it is an important point too. With Anya spurned we know how this is going to affect everything. I think everybody tends to forget how dangerous she can be, and the turmoil she caused in the past going back to S3 The Wish. Hell's Bells is the spark that adds to the 'chaos' that is Season 6, a very important episode for the darkness of the Season going forward.
😢
What about the Next one?!!
The Fandom HATES this episode. Like Beer Bad hatred. I think its because for the fans, like the wedding itself was to Buffy, we all thought this episode was FINALLY gonna be a feel good relief in the darkest season of the show, but once again they clubbed us with the depression stick...
not gonna lie, those visions hit different after learning that Nicholas brendon was arrested multiple times for beating up his girlfriend...
This is the problem a lot of the fans have. Separating the actor from the character. NB is not Xander.
@@CJ77777 We know NB is not xander, but it's a bit more difficult to separate them when you know they'd both have done the same thing. The scenes where Spike is evil for exemple are a lot easyer to digest, because you know that's something James would never do.
@josephguillerey4391 I guess it's down to the person watching. James Marsters wrote a very inappropriate song about Michelle T when she was a teenager yet this doesn't impact fans love for him or mar their idea of the character while watching, because they want to separate the two and idealise him.
@@josephguillerey4391There's no way Xander would actually do what he saw (and felt) himself doing in the vision! It was the horror that he might potentially become that person that drove him away.
new intro, though i still prefer the original.
Me too. I really don't like the music in the new one 🙉
Giles barely tolerated Xander. Why would he come back for this wedding? Hell, you could argue that Giles and Spike had more one on one screen time than Giles and Xander.
Giles was close to both Xander and Anya.
@@jeanetteking434 you could make a case for Anya. That's fair. But there is not a single display or expression of affection between Giles and Xander in the entire series. At best, Giles tolerated him because Buffy and Willow desired his presence.
Don't they hug in the airport before he leaves at the beginning of the season? Also after the engagement is announced he talks alone with Xander about his future with Anya. I always found him more impatiently annoyed with Xander and then there are times he just ignores him 😂😂
Giles and Xander actually got along a lot, especially in season 4; neither of them had to deal with College so they were hanging out for a bit, hunting together and all
Giles 100% would've attended. Regardless of Giles' feelings towards Xander, they were still all part of the same group and cared for one another. If Anthony was still part of the main cast at this point, he would've been there.
Hmmmm, as much as I get Xander's issues, I don't think the show portrayed them in a way to have this result. IOW, I don't think his betrayal of Anya was an earned narrative.
Tbh the show did Xander so dirty, like the little hints of family trauma that were dropped throughout but then never fully delved into (e.g his father being abusive in 'Restless' like why tf is that just ignored). There was so much more with his character that could've been explored but they just never bothered.
@@cherryfreckle Good points!!! OTOH, it is a show called "Buffy" :-)
I think the fact that Anya goes straight back to being a Vengence Demon at the end is proof that she was not ready to be married either. 😅 Also, still had a lot of work to do in being human.
Very true
10:27 - 10:56 Can't say I blame the guy.
BTW 12:54 - 12:56 Xander...you know divorce _exists_ right?If it doesn't work out it's still an option.
13:23 - 13:28 The irony of Buffy wearing a T-Shirt saying"I Survived".💔
13:47 - 14:03 🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬
Do you know that people should not get married expecting to get a divorce. That is not the goal of marriage.
@@ShieldVids Of course,but it's not like you _expect_ that,only..you know that _if_ something goes wrong with the marriage it doesn't have to be"forever". It only should be"forever"if the marriage is going WELL. That was my point.People are having this irrational fear of"not forever"relationships that prevents them to enjoy relationships for what they are _in the moment_ and I'd say it's pretty harmful(as we've seen in this episode).
@@Nicamon if you are marrying not thinking that its forever then you shouldn`t be marrying at all mate.
@@Yamatsu7 Not necessarely true. As I said this is an expectation we're getting for our whole life but it's both harmful and pretty unrealistic,TBH,for today's standards.Happily ever after belongs in fairytales but in real life we should be more mentally elastic.
@@NicamonHis parents stayed together you can’t underestimate how much that shapes his views on marriage.
Hey I'm all about people making choices but Xander this is dumb one
Posting my BUFFY REWATCH recap for ‘Hell’s Bells’. May contain spoilers.
I have said before that the main themes of Season 6 are power corruption, depression and addiction. Buffy and Willow are the main focus of the season and therefore are assigned to these main themes. Buffy to depression and Willow to power corruption and addiction. Another theme in Season 6 is fear and that’s the theme the main character Xander is assigned to. Xander and his theme isn’t a focus for Season 6 but it is a prevalent side story all throughout it’s progression. And given this episode is Xander-centric, that’s what I will be talking about for this episode recap as there isn’t really much else going on in it and I very rarely talk about Xander or Anya as it is.
We learn very little about Xander and his backstory all throughout the show. He has significantly less character representation and development than his female counterparts despite also being of the core four. I believe this is partly the reason why much of the Buffyverse fandom dislikes him. Because his character arc, compared to Buffy and Willow, isn’t very well written and fleshed out. Thus, much of what we see of Xander’s characterization in the show is mostly just him being the comedic relief. For whatever reason that is lost on me for the most part, the writers decided that the dialogue comedy this character should provide is humour steeped in toxic masculinity. It is really only in this episode and ‘Restless’ that we find out the reason why Xander is the way he is as a character. Why he makes such inappropriate sexist and sometimes even misogynistic comments every now and again that really just puts him in a negative light as a character in the fandom. The reason why is because he has grew up in a very abusive household. Now while I understand that the abuse a person observes and experiences themselves from when they’re too young to understand that it’s not personally about them why they’re treated so abusively shouldn’t be an excuse for them being a dick, and that they have all the agency to be better than the people that have inflicted that abuse on them… I also understand that hurt people hurt people and how hard it is not to reflect and project the same behaviour that they’ve observed and experienced on to others. And the reason why I defend Xander’s character from the fandom that love to hate on and slander him to all hell is because he is never abusive. That really is remarkable considering all he has ever really known from the people he has known the longest is abuse. Abuse: emotionally, mentally, and possibly even physically is what Xander goes through and has gone through all throughout his life living with his parents. Xander is not anything like his father despite how much this episode shows us that he chronically fears he will be if he marries Anya.
When that old man, pretending to be Xander from the future, shows him his nightmare version of his potential married life with Anya… the first thing he thinks to do is to disappear. To get as far away from that wedding as possible. Now the relevant question is not to ask why he disappears because we already know why as he tells Anya when he returns. He believes it could be the truth. That if he marries Anya there is, to him, a very likely chance he could end up an abusive husband to her and that he could end up physically striking her the way it was depicted in the false vision of his future. Out of pure anger and hatred. No, the relevant question to ask is why his instinctive reaction is to disappear. Why is the first thing he thinks to do to run away like a scared little boy and not confront Anya and talk to her about it or to communicate with anyone at all about it? The answer is in the reason he disappears whenever he observes and experiences his parents being abusive to each other. Because he simply cannot face up to his fears, cannot communicate them to anyone, and instinctively avoids thinking about them himself. That’s the reason he doesn’t say anything to Anya or anyone in this episode, at any point when planning the wedding or even before announcing the engagement. See, it’s not just that he has fears. He has trained himself to ignore them, to distract himself from them, and to discard them. His instinct is to run away, to disappear, to hide not from just the reality of what’s happening to him, but also from the mentality of it. Because that’s what he has always done when afraid. It is routine for him. And while it has never worked to resolve anything for him, it has provided for him respite from the responsibility to resolve it. To procrastinate. He obviously knows what he should do, but he doesn’t do it because fear is too hard to face. And in this episode when this truth hits him… when he realizes that his instinct is always to run away from what scares him and from what upsets him, he turns back because he knows then that he can’t run away anymore, and that he has to face Anya and his sham of a proposal and admit to her that he was never ready to marry her in the first place. He does that because his love and respect for her is stronger than his fear. He calls it off because he wasn’t ready, not because he didn’t still want to be with her. He loves her. And he loves her enough to confront her and tell her the truth when he has actively avoided doing so the whole time.
If it wasn’t for those false visions, if it wasn’t for his instinctive reaction, he would have gone through with it. He would have married Anya. But that wasn’t the right thing to do given the way he felt and he knew that. And he also knew that it wasn’t fair to Anya to keep those feelings from her. So he called it off and left her at the altar because that was the only option left since he never had the courage to call it off earlier. But he knew he couldn’t lie to her even more and go through with it only to regret doing so afterwards. That would be much more cruel than leaving her now.
Was he in the wrong? Only in the sense that he never made it clear what he really wanted when it really mattered. When it wouldn’t have being so devastating to call it off. But he was in the right to call it off at all. And Anya - being Anya - took it as he didn’t want to get married because he didn’t want to be with her. In the next episode; ‘Entropy’, Xander tried to explain all this to Anya but she wouldn’t listen. And I’m not saying Anya didn’t have the right to shut Xander out. I’m just saying her not listening and being passive-aggressive when he was trying to explain didn’t help.
ANYA:
*Firmly*
“Do you still want to get married?
*Close on Xander's face. He hesitates, looks unsure. Anya looks upset. Very quietly*
Oh.”
XANDER: “Ahn, it's a very complicated question.”
ANYA:
*Getting teary*
“No, actually, it's really not. It's kind of an either-or deal. Do you want to get married?”
XANDER: “Someday, yes, very much. When we're ready.
*Anya looking very hurt*
I don't want you to take this as a bad thing. It's good.
*Anya looking resigned, annoyed*
I love you, I love you so much, I'm just trying to be honest with you.”
ANYA:
*Angry*
“Yes, honesty *now*. Congratulations, Xander, on being honest now. I wonder what the medal will say.”
XANDER:
*Confused*
“Okay, clearly I'm not handling this well.”
ANYA:
*Yelling*
“Well, duh!”
Ultimately no one was in the wrong for the way they reacted because they only reacted by way of their nature. Xander’s nature was rooted in fear. So you could argue his theme for the whole show is fear and all the complicated layers that come with feeling fear. What is ironic about Xander and Anya is the fact that they’re the most communicative couple in the whole show (yes, they are) and yet the reason why their relationship is destroyed is because they “never tell”.
This episode with xander is one of two mistakes i think the show made. The other is a spoiler so….
I disagree.On both.Anyway,she has seen the whole show by now,nothing is a spoiler anymore.
terrible moment for anya.hate this episode…. 😢💔
Worst episode in the series, followed by the second worst episode in the series... I'm not a season 6 hater either. I love season 6. I just hate these 2 episodes.
Well, Xander sucks. What else is new?
No understanding whatsoever.
@@Girl4Music understanding for what? Hypocrisy? Selfishness? Cowardness?
Halfrek was right, Anya should have listened to her.
I hate this episode it's just so dumb to me. All these demons mixed with the humans and acting like they're normal people it's just silly. So many episodes in season 6 like this.