The hyena episode, he did a lot of things in that episode that he himself found disgusting and wrong (bullying, attempted r*pe, attempted cannibalism, to name a few) and at the end of the episode who pretended to have memory loss rather than address anything he did. That always rubbed me the wrong way. But it’s like you said, most of my issues came from how quick he was to tear Buffy down or attack her when she was at a point.
Let's not forget he caused a bunch of human combustion in once more with feeling and blackmailed Amy to spell Cordelia almost causing her death. He also owes Joyce the door Drusilla threw down. Honestly, Xander has killed more people than Faith, why is she the bad one?
he never treated angel and anglus as the same person he HATE anglus does not like angel BUT he has no reason to like angle, i mean angle almost feed him to spike had to be force tosave buffy 200 year old going after a 16 year old girl angel has NOT one sence were he nice to xander,
He cheated with Willow, they both guilty. And honestly Xander feel more guilty than Willow. He left Anya, because of demon manipulation - and it's Anya fault. She's made that poor dude demon, and he want revenge. He uses Xander and his inside fears. It's not the reasons for hate...
@@TodaysDante The show never did a good job of explaining Xander to the audience. He lived in a dysfunctional household his family we see on the wedding episode being terrible we get one small scene on Christmas where he sleeps outside to avoid his family's conflict the guy suffered trauma. It's no surprise he does things like joking in serious situations to deescalate tension or is horrible at relationships it's all he ever seen and the guy was 17 and 20 when both these events happened, he's still trying to figure out life and has not overcome abuse.
Yeah, I always felt so many of Xander's underhanded digs at Buffy were because she turned him down. Which is honestly just really yucky. He's my least favorite charecter. And you brought up a great point of no accountability. Showing my husband this show, that was his main complaint. There is never any real accountability for Xander or Willow. It's kind of always just brushed under the rug.
@@az21bob666umm Buffy is ONE person Just like Superman, she can’t save everyone Willow, Xander or the others would have the SAME weight on their shoulders..
Yeah, Cordilla only steps in when things are at the absolute lowest. Once squarring off against a vampire. This time against Xander. If Cordialla has to step up defend someone, you know you screwed up
The only thing i ever hated about Xander it's his hypocritical relationships with Buffy's supernatural romances. I mean, Buffy isn't let to date vampires but you are let to date vengeance demon?
Former. Anya was completely human when Xander dated her while Angel was an undead demon who murdered a person they loved or tortured tried to kill them.
@@lance9249 not Angel. Angelus. It's different personalities and even then Angel constantly shows huge remorse for what his evil alter-ego did. Anya on the other hand wasn't showing any remorse until season 7. It's even more hypocritical when Xander say that he won't forgive Spike cause he "exterminate half of Europe" in his past while I'm pretty sure Anya killed much more people.
Faith Sexually Assaulting Xander would have been a great narrative to explore how men can be victims and how it affects them in a world that just brushes it off.
I agree though this show pretty much ignores all sexual assault besides Warren. Willow erases Tara memories then scissors her without Tara being able to give consent because her memories were erased which is sexual assault.
Realy should habe been him.having PTSD. I mean he kill his best friend. His second mom was killed. And like what 20 army friends were killed. And a drug problem. He did not start.
I hated Xander until he decided he was going to marry Anya. I thought their relationship was one of the only good things happening in season six and that they were having some cold feet but theyd get over it. Then he leaves her at the alter even after it was explained that it was someone with a vendetta trying to break them up with lies. Now its back to being the worst again. This man is constantly negative and frames it as being protective but its just controlling at heart. He's digusting
it not contorling at all, if it there a chacne it get someone killed then it ok to judge people for it. i spike was a mass murder and rapist sleeping with him was very dangerous taht why xander had a problem with it, buffy sleeping with parker xander had no problem see the difference
@@az21bob666 but like spike had a chip and it was very much felt like he was shaming her and anya for sleeping with spike. he wasn't at all concerned for their safety's just disgusted that they'd sleep with spike.
i think part of was safty but it was becouse spike a evil soul monster he even said you let that SOULESS THING touch you. people like spike but he is a mass murder and rapist i would look at anyone that sleep with him as there carzy, and the real life eq of spike would be someone like jeffery domoer
@@az21bob666 As he was talking though it didn't sound like he was shaming spike, more like he was shaming Anya and Buffy because they slept with a 'souless evil thing' and Xander for some reason felt some entitlement towards these woman who he a. left at the alter and b. knew wasn't interested in him.
I did a tik tok about this awhile ago. Maybe I'll make a vid over here about it. I think Xander is Joss' insert before he'd gained success/power and Warren represents Joss after he gained power, the ability to act out on feelings of entitlement and abuse that power.
Tbh I feel like the reason he didn’t have any growth was because the writers didn’t think he needed to. Which is telling, especially with Whedon at the helm
Xander was Joss Whedon that is why everytime Xander was enabled by his fans, Joss was enabled to do what he did. There was no need for character growth because, Xander was allowed to get away with everything..... he was never brought to task for what he did to Anya, he never was brought to task over his lying about Willow wanting to kick Angels ass, Xander was ''The Trio''...... which is why it took so long to see them as the threat that they were. it is why so many people hate season 6...... season 6's reaction says more about the person, than it does the season.
Xander felt like he had this superiority complex and entitlement to the woman on the show. Like you said, there was never any balance for him. I think the thing that made his character worse for me was that the show would reward his horrible behavior to his friends, i.e., making his bad hot takes correct or not punishing him in the same way others would get punished.
@@az21bob666There's an entire episode that unfortunately proves you wrong. The one where he tries to put a love spell on Cordelia. He could have let it go, but he tried to manipulate her mind. I know I know, he was acting out bc he was hurt, but still.
Well he did not do the spell. But I agree 100 percent wrong. But he did not ask for the spell to get her back. Just to break up with her. Like she did him But if you hold the same standard Buffy and willow were the same way.
I think you nailed this, tbh. Yes, all of them are deeply flawed characters, but most of them got to confront those flaws at some point during the series and learn from it. It’s hard to hate someone who recognises their mistakes and tries to make up for them. Xander never really had those moments, and so you come away with the idea that he was being given tacit permission to be a jackass. He ended the show believing that he was justified in all the horrible things he did, because he was never shown a mirror and made to look at his true reflection.
I wouldn't say I hate Xander but especially in the early seasons he can be pretty unlikeable. And I totally agree that it's a shame that so many things weren't addressed when it comes to Xander. I'm so annoyed everytime I watch season 7 because they just sort of gloss over the fact that Xander lied to Buffy regarding Angel. Willow just says something like "I never said that!" and that's it. Buffy seems to not even recognise what Willow says. I would have expected Willow and especially Buffy getting furious with Xander.
Buffy does address it later when she brings up the kick his butt line. But she doesn't press, which shows that she may hate that he did it. But she can understand why he did and can see why it was nescesary for the world. The writers have stated Buffy would have lost if she thought Angel had any chance of coming back, since she would have held back. So Xander's lie did save the world in the writer's mind and was nescesary. That's why they didn't take Xander to task over it. They didn't see it as bad. And we know at least two of the writers are pretty gross people, so it's really making sense why all the characters worst traits never get brought up properly in show. Willow should have gotten mad at him though. Because even if Xander had a reasonable thought proccess behind not telling buffy about the second attempt. He should not have put willows words into the kicking his butt thing. That's the really horrible part and is the reason Buffy ran away. If he didn't say that part, Buffy would have stayed with Willow over the summer/gone on a summer roadtrip with her and Oz or something. Or at least been in contact with Willow with Willow keeping it secret.
@@razycrandomgirl Marti. The entire spike/buffy storyline was her, with the bathroom scene even something she proudly proclaimed to have done to an ex boyfriend.
@kyleellis1825 I thought joss pushed for the bathroom scene. I remember reading that he wanted spike to do something so egregious because he didn’t like all of the fans liking spike so much and he wanted to remind them he’s an awful vampire
@@lindseystein9676I thought you meant Steven DeKnight, the writer who called Jenna Ortega toxic for having input into her character on Wednesday. Idk how Marti was in the Buffy writers room but on Mad Men she helped fight against sexual harassment in the writers room.
From what I understand, Xander was Joss Whedon's self-insert, and that would explain a lot, especially with discoveries made since then about Joss and how he treats people, especially women.
All the characters did messed up stuff. But I don’t think the writers were ever fully aware of how messed up some of the things Xander said/did were. A lot of things just got swept under the rug and never really investigated. I think that it partly due to the time. Xander was the classic “nice guy”. He had female friends. He was (mostly) loyal to them. He wasn’t a cheater. He wasn’t an obvious macho, aggressive jackass. He was supposed to be a nerd. So, I feel the writers likely viewed his hypocrisy and judgmental tendencies and possessiveness as not that harmful because he was an overall “nice guy.” They never really felt the need to confront that stuff in meaningful ways. I also just don’t think the writers were as invested in him as they were Buffy and Willow. Nicholas has talked about Joss telling him that they had planned on killing off Xander at the end of season 3. But Nicholas asked to continue. They kept Xander alive but warned him that he wouldn’t be getting as much attention as Buffy and Willow. Hell, you can almost tell that the writers weren’t that invested in Xander by them immediately putting him with Anya in season 4 and her quickly becoming the funnier and most interesting character of the two. They lost interest in him. He never really got an arc or a storyline post season 3, just an episode every ten installments or so that focused on him. And therefore a lot of things that should have been addressed or fleshed out never really was with him. In conclusion, the combo of “nice guy” syndrome and the writers losing interest in him is why a lot of Xander things don’t play as well today and he seems to have no real arc.
@@lifelikelisa I didn’t see that as a serious relationship. It’s also apparent that the writers didn’t see that as big of a betrayal as it actually was.
I dislike him greatly. Even if I enjoyed his humor and felt him the only ''normal'' one of the bunch, hence the most relatable. His hatred for Angel puts me off despite me not loving Angel all that much. He never got over the fact Buffy rejected him, so he had to hate any boyfriend she had. Riley he liked because they were so alike. It felt like Xander loved Riley more than Buffy ever did. Then there's leaving Anya at the altar. That is disgusting, no matter how you look at it. And before that, there's him ruining Willow's relationship with Oz. I found that worse than his cheating on Cordelia. Willow had been after him for so long and he knew it! He only noticed her when she found someone else. That said, I love how he was there for Buffy despite not having to. Most people would leave such a dangerous friend behind. And I love his scene with Dark Willow, I cannot hate him, but I'm happy buffy and Willow dodged THAT bullet. I really wish he was held accountable for the bullshit he did, like most other characters.
I liked his character ok enough in season 1 but I couldn't forgive he or Willow after cheating on Oz. I still liked the show a lot: especially for Spike and Anya, but who could cheat on Oz? He's the best!!
Your video popped up as a recommended video. I'm glad it did. You made a great video with very detailed points. It's been years since I was "in" the Buffy universe, but you still pulled me into it with your conversational tone and backed it up with so many details and receipts. Great vid! Thanks!
For me it's the sense of entitlement which drove forth a lot of his actions, the repeated cheating on Cordelia, leaving Anya at the altar which highlighted that he is at his core a coward who can be easily swayed - all he does is react to how poorly his parents behave around each other, he doesn't bother to think "no, I can do better"; rallying gang-ups on Buffy, the overall lack of growth or change, and what really doesn't help the perception of his character is the fact Whedon identifies with Xander specifically.
Another reason i dont like him is woth the who willow thing, willow always loved him, he couldnt care less, he always saw her as back up or rebound, he had so many chances to get with will but he didnt want her until oz wanted her, i know band candy had something to do with that but still, hes a low insecure little boy
the sick nice guy thinking, xander love willow just becoue he did not want to date her he did nothing wrong and just becouse his feeling got mess up and they kiss a few time does not make him a bad man. i mean willow cheated to and you dont blame her sorry but xander not wanting to date willow is fine and there nothing wrong there,
@az21bob666 read the comment again that's not the only reason, this video was not about willow, cause I do have my issues with her moving on so fast after tara, of course he loves her, like a sister he even said it, I could over look it, cause I don't blame oz for cheating on willow, but Xander makes stupid decisions and comments way too much
It hit me with the episode where he BLACKMAILS Amy to cast a spell on Cordy for revenge. Then he lies to Cordy about why, and they end up back together.
It started with him creepin' on Buffy when she clearly wasn't interested. Then he mostly just acted like a teenage boy/young man, which is reason enough. It's a compliment to the show though that they let him be as flawed as most young men that age, but he still came through when people's lives were on the line.
There’s major reasons why I hate Xander Harris, him being a self righteous judgemental hypocrite. The problem I have with some of the Xander lovers who are Pro-Xander say that Xander is the heart of the group, how is he the heart of the group when he constantly judges Buffy’s decisions, lied to her in “Becoming Part 2” as well as verbally attacking her in “Dead Man’s Party” not to mention he slut shame Cordelia because of how she dress. Yes I know Cordelia bullied and insulted Xander but Xander slut shaming her was disgusting, in fact Cordelia was a better friend to Buffy than Xander ever was. There were some good things that he did such as buying Cordelia’s prom dress when she couldn’t herself and reviving Buffy in “Prophecy Girl” but it doesn’t excuse his misogyny.
Cordelia deserved it was Xander just supposed to ignore her constantly bullying of him like he deserved it for not being popular? She bullied Willow she bullied everyone who she thought was beneath her Cordelia was a terrible person. Xander had Angel almost kill him once with Dru saving him he stood off with Angel in the hospital watched Angel kill Jenny almost kill Willow seriously he had a broken arm because of Angel in "Becoming Part 2" I get your perfect and all but he had every right to want it over and Angel dead.
@@lance9249 Cordelia’s mean girl behavior is the reflection of the person that Buffy Summers was before Buffy became the slayer, Cordelia actually grew out of it and became a better person there’s a major difference between the person she was in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the person she became in the spin off Angel. Xander insulted her by saying her outfit make her look like a hooker. Xander was a horrible friend and should be grateful Buffy is still friends with him because she could have pulled a Cordelia by insulting Xander for all the horrible things he did as well as judging her decisions.
you crazy xander never was a hypocrite buffy let anglus kill for mouths sorry but everyone should be hateing buffy NOT xander willlow slut shame cordy more then xander did sorry but xander yelling at buffy becous she was getting people killed is 100 percent ok. she should have been yell at more
sorry xander judge buffy on shit that get peopel killed and shit that people shoudl hate her for, buffy let anglus kill for mouths and xadner lie sorry but everyone should be hatting on buffy NOT xander and cordya better freidn who xander buffy life like 20 time it was for sure nto cordy
One of the moments that really stood out was when after learning about Spike & Buffy she tells him that her personal life is none of his business and his reply is "It used to be" #1) I couldnt believe he said and #2) She didnt reply, as though it was a valid point. Her private life used to be his business?? When, why, and WTF? Moments like that I wonder what the writers were thinking.
I took it as meaning as because they used to be best friends she would tell him ( and willlow) personal things in the early seasons but by that point she wasnt. They were less close than they used to be. Of course it’s not his right know but it also shows that Buffy doesn’t feel as comfortable sharing things as she used to be
Spike and Faith were my favourite characters on the show, of the Scooby Gang I liked Willow and Cordelia, hated what they did in later seasons of Angel with Cordy. I could see Willow having a supernatural spin-off today with Alyson Hannigan and real life husband Alexis Denisof as Wesley Wyndam-Price as the leads.
Also, after 25 years Willow could be at Dr. Strange and Scarlet Witch levels of magical abilities and Wesley would be a veteran demon slayer in his own right, it could have multiverses, time travel like Marvel and DC storylines, maybe cross over with Ash Williams of The Evil Dead. I'd watch it.
We judge him as fully grown adults with worldly experiences and decent parental foundations for morality/ethics, but there isn't anybody out there that wasn't mostly an asshole through their teens into the early twenties. Also, we see much of this from Buffy's POV; she has very few positive realationships with men and Xander lacked any education on how to better himself. He expected to die back in s2
So first off, I barely remember the series and watched this because at this point I’m mostly familiar with the series through fanfics where I’m generally looking for the stories that are Xander-centric, stories that usually don’t have him being the problem, so I was genuinely curious what bad points you’d bring up, and you did bring up a few good points, but I just want to address one, his encouragement of Buffy to end Angelus to save the world. Yes, he knew Willow was going to try the soul curse again and he didn’t know how far along Angelus was in his plans to end the world, but he did know Angelus was close and that at that point Buffy had had several occasions where she could have ended the vampire but hesitated. He knew the world may well be at stake so he offered encouragement for something he knew she’d have a hard time doing, and let’s not forget that if she had hesitated again the world would have ended, so maybe son’s hold that one against him.
I'm in the camp of those that liked Xander well-enough back when I watched the show on air (30 years ago???) but really feel like you nailed all his character shortcomings. I will say that I never really liked him as much after the end of S2 and the beginning of S3, and his treatment of Anya (whom I loved) sealed the deal on my dislike of him.
anya was 1000 year old xander 18 tell me if it was giles and dawn adn dawn treated giles like xander does anya would you be attacking Dawn. people forget anya had the power in there realionship. she was FAR FAR FAR older and more powerfull
I don’t hate Xander and I kind of think he’s the male version of Rory Gilmore. It’s not that he’s more flawed than other characters, it’s that his flaws are more normal, and a lot of people either see people they know IRL or sometimes even the less flattering parts of themselves in him. Think about it. It’s hard to see yourself in Faith or Spike or Angel because they’re much more extreme characters who are btw all murderers. Even Giles and Andrew are killers. I think Xander does exhibit growth but it is a subtler kind, where he has to just live in his imperfections and accept that he’s not just not a superhero he’s also ordinary in the moral sense. Again he’s like Rory on Gilmore Girls who never gets that moment or obvious speech of owning her flaws but she just settles in the way most people do, being a person with ordinary levels of virtue. I think people don’t like characters who never have that cathartic change or revelation because it feels like bad storytelling but it’s real. People are sometimes like that.
Man, I’d completely forgotten that he was even supposed to be in a “one who sees” role. Spike was so effective at it that Xander was completely overshadowed in my mind. I remember Buffy actually saying, “I can fool Giles, and I can fool my friends, but I can’t fool myself. Or Spike, for some reason.”It’s a really interesting thing to do with a character who isn’t a good person and can’t be trusted to have even his allies’ best interests in mind for so much of the story. There’s no reason Xander couldn’t have grown to be very perceptive in a way that would suit his character. It would not have been the same as Spike, which sounds fascinating. I mourn the lost potential. But they really, really would have needed to put the work in when they do have this other guy wandering in and out with his dismaying tendency to hone in on the things people were hoping no one would notice.
At the time Riley told Xander that Buffy didn't love him, Joice had not yet become ill. That conversation took place at the end of season 5 episode 3...Joice started to become unwell in episode 5 . Buffy did not yet have that to deal with at this point
Wow dude... I've watched this show a dozen times, easily my favorite show of all time, and of course I've considered the problems with Xander for a long time, and I obviously knew the facts of the situation, like I was aware of the numbers, but I had never once actually considered the implications of Anya vs Xander's ages in the same way that I have with, let's say, Buffy and Angel. Like, for some reason that never "clicked" in my brain, if you see what I mean. I think you just made me recognize an internal bias I didn't realize that I had that I'm going to have to do some thinking about. Well done, and also, I am your 420th subscriber. Nice.
I don't know... While it's true that Anya was a vengeance demon for far longer than Angel was around, she had no real growth during that time. She just went around, find women who were hurt by men, and giving them the option to seek their revenge. She basically lived the last few weeks of her life over and over and over. She didn't really learn much in the ways of emotional or intellectual growth. On the other hand, she DID have one failed marriage from her previous life to bring experience into.
@@GoeTeeksSee, but that is exactly the point I'm making. All Angel did was go around and drink people's blood, he wasn't growing as a person or trying to advance his understanding of human relationships, so he was still pretty close to his "human" age of 17ish when he met Buffy, right? By your argument, every single person who ever becomes a vampire does nothing except relive their earlier life, but he was definitely closer to humanity than Anya was and yet we don't consider his relationship to be in any way "worse" than Anya and Xander, right? And the question is, why is that the case? My point was that they both have a similar gap between their understandings of reality and their partner, but we still think of them as different for some reason, and honestly you kind of demonstrated my point perfectly.
@@lorehammer40k4 Angellous did way more than drink peoples' blood and stuff. He read books, saw plays, watched wars. He actually became very cultured, in his own demonic way. And it is very wrong. Pretty much any relationship based on old immortal to young person is wrong, but as long as they LOOK the same age, no one bats an eye. Also, Liam was 26-27 when he was bitten and turned to Angellous, so even by the ages they look, he's much older than Buffy. However, Anya just hung out in a demon void until she found someone who desired revenge. You're not wrong. But in the case of Anya, she's really only a little more emotionally mature than Xander when they start dating. It's not... appropriate, but it's not really taking as much advantage of him as it would appear to be. I mean, look at how much growing up she had to do while dating him.
@@GoeTeeks Of course Angelus was 1000x times more cultured than Liam was, but to suggest he somehow had so much less experienced with human relationships than Anya did that it somehow justifies him having a relationship with Buffy while Anya and Xander is somehow different just seems absurd to me. I was saying that I had never considered the different between Anya and Xander in the same way that I had with Buffy and Angel, even though the numbers are similar, like, if Buffy had left Angel at the altar I would have reacted very differently, but I never stopped to think about why, ya know? That was the point of my comment. Also, can I just say, thanks for talking with me about Buffy, that is waaaay to rare these days, so thank you ;) I really do appreciate it.
@@GoeTeeks And just to be totally clear, I think Anya and Angel both had to grow in a similar way in order to make their relationships work as well as they even did considering their own experiences, the point was just about how I reacted to them back when it happened, if you see what I mean. I think they're both honestly very similar, its just strange that I never realized that until I watched this video, if you see what I mean
your Deep dive for this is on point and I have notes! lol I believe that Zander's character arc was Supposed to be exactly what became of Riley's minus the relationship with Buffy. Zander really should have been officially recruited into the Initiative and become the leader that he saw Riley as. It should have been Zander that left and returned to assist like we saw Riley do. Riley's character feels like it was actually where the Story of Zander was headed. Before the network change and the 2 extra seasons were suddenly added after it was unofficially drop by the (WB) maybe that is what Changed...
I definitely agree that Riley feels very much like what Xander could've or should've been. I think that's why Xander identified with him so much. Riley is literally the trajectory Xander was on (s1-s3) but never go there.
I don’t hate Xander. I personally think he had some of the funniest one liners and heartfelt speeches of the show. The only time that I was furious with him was when he left Anya at the altar since he was the one who proposed and seemed to lead to the on the wedding in the first place. I can’t even watch that episode. It makes me so mad. Lol. I do agree that he didn’t have character growth, although I didn’t realize it until this video. I think I felt somewhat of a connection with him in the earlier seasons because I grew up in a poor and sometimes violent home, but that didn’t really go anywhere. Side note: I’m really glad I discovered this channel. It’s hard to find good Buffy content, which baffles me since there’s so much great material to analyze. Thanks for the great videos and keep them coming 😊
@@jeromelancashire3278 I mean, it was knowledge that was gained without any living memory or experience to back it up. If he wasn't using it or recalling it regularly, it wouldn't be much better than cramming for an exam the night before and forgetting it all the next week.
It's amazing how the episode gets more infuriating as the years go on. lol I started making vids about that episode two years ago on tik tok and it makes me even more mad today
Realising Xander is Whedon's self insert, makes you understand alot about his character and the stories we've now heard about Whedon's attitude on set, especially towards SMG and fellow actresses.
I love Xander and I disagree with most of your points. Xander did grow. By the age of 21 yrs old, he had found a career that he enjoyed and excelled at, he was in a committed relationship longer than anyone else on the show and he was a support system for his friends. Also, he had a right to grieve for the loss of his eye and barely played a role when everyone turned on Buffy. His contribution was basically, “I think your judgement is off and my lack of eye is my evidence.” NOW, let’s talk about the real problem with Xander. He had huge misogynist tendencies, like feeling a sense of entitlement to Buffy, cheating on Cordelia, and telling Anya that he felt sick looking at her because she slept with someone after they broke up. One last point that I don’t hear people talk about, Giles. Of all of the scoobies, Xander’s the one that needed a father figure the most and Giles rejected him over and over and over again. If Buffy or Willow made a mistake Giles would be there to comfort them and hold their hand through it all. Xander only ever got an eye roll from Giles. Giles couldn’t even bring himself to hug Xander goodbye when he left for England!
These are some fair points, especially the last paragraph with how Giles rejected him. I feel like that part is unfortunately a downside of 90s culture with machismo culture, it was in full force back then and emotion between men was frowned upon (but slightly getting better). Xander isn't perfect and there's no denying his misogynist tendecies like you pointed out (made worse when you learned about the truth about Joss Whedon and Xander was supposed to represent him...) but despite the mistakes, Xander still came through when the time really called for it.
if you want to blame xander for cheating then do the same for wilow and and yes spike a mass murder and rapesit anyone that sleep with that i woudl look at like there dogshit and that fine. l
In becoming pt2 he withheld information from her as she was going into battle. If Willow's spell hadn't have worked the planet would have been sucked into help because buffy was about to behead Angel and then how would they have closed Acatha's mouth? Also why would Buffy believe Xander's message about Willow for all these years when she had been the one to re-ensoul Angel? Dead Man's Party, Partying Gifts, Revelations! When he and Willow were cheating on their S/O and Xander caught Buffy with Angel and ran back to for another meeting where Buffy is humiliated. Buffy really is too nice, she gives xander more grace than he deserves. She lets him be her friend when he's not really one at all. I remember him telling that dream to Willow about how Angel would disappoint her eventually and he would swoop in to save her and she would cry? He really has a weird thing about punishing women ... Maybe Xander Harris suffered as a character because Nicholas Brandon just wasn't a very good actor. Everyone else in the cast was more talented than him, he seemed to just be dialing it in as the wise cracking side-kick, what wasn't very charismatic. I say 🎶the wrong kid died 🎶when it comes to Xander and the best friend (they never talk about) Jesse. IDK if it was true at the time but Eric Balfour is a stronger actor then Nicholas. if the actors swapped perhaps they would have given a stronger actor more to work with, like all of Xander's family drama. Xander and Anya was a very weird ship to me. It seemed forced that she would be drawn to the ex of her last charge. Very weird. the yellow cayon moment and him giving buffy mouth to mouth was very forced into the narrative to give Xander a win, for me.
I love the point that the wrong kid died. I didn't like Xander back in the day, as an adult I find him really painful to watch. He had one really good moment with Dawn about not being the special one, but that's it.
I have to say something about Empty Places. That's actually the least antagonistic he'd been towards her. Usually, he lays into her, but this time, all he said was two sentences and was completely subdued. Everyone else (minus Faith) said a lot worse.
ooo yes agree 100%! and a lot of his flaws don't even seem to get recognised by the narrative/go unadressed (which links to the no growth point), which i think adds to it a lot as well
His best moments when on Halloween he became a military man and retained some of it, Buffy pointed out he has more field time than most, will put himself on the line and lost an eye in the battle, had a sexy date with Ashanti who was a demon and almost killed. Looking at his family he also like Faith came from a dysfunctional family as his father was a violent and sloppy drink. That character arc was not explored. His character is a foil the writers used to his detriment. Xander dies have a strong core for heroic cure brought out in desperation and fear for those he loves. His intellectual acumen was baseline in many areas except in wit. This character has a wry and sardonic wit that was eclipsed by his self deprecating psyche. It would have been a testament to character development to imbue him with empathy which he then channeled into a primal awareness for beings as demonstrated in his relationship with Anya. Anya was my favorite secondary character and the actress Beas able to illicit depth and the fragility of humanity. Anya had the greatest capacity for pragmatic intelligence and a long archival access to the observed nature of beings.
I think Xander's character was, as other people suggested, an avatar for Joss, which ended up boxing him into his toxic patterns because Joss was (we now know) boxed in with his toxic patterns. I also think he kind of got Frank Burns-ed (MASH). He was always the character who made the awkward nerdy jokes, and needed saving because he lacked social awareness and... like... basic foresight. If he grew, they wouldn't be able to use him in that function any more. I'm really speculating here, but the one area where Xander did develop where the other characters didn't was the trappings of adulthood. By season 7 he was the only one of them that even had a driver's license as far as we can tell. He and Anya are the only ones that have their own apartments... ever... in the entire show (maybe Tara did for a hot second while she was on the outs with Willow, but we don't really know). He's the only one that went out and found himself a career. Anya has the magic shop, which was haded to her by Giles, and Buffy briefly has the counselor job, but only because Robin was positioning her where he could keep an eye on her (she was really bad at that job). He goes from selling corndogs and ice cream in season 4 to supervising a construction job site in season 6, which seems like a meteoric sort of progress. This isn't a defense of Xander. He manages all of this stuff off camera. It's not really growth. But I wonder if Joss, who seems to see value in his professional successes, but not much in developing healthy, respectful, professional relationships with all of his actors and crew, might not see that as character growth enough.
These are some good points. I can't remember all of the incidences you mention (it's been a while since I've seen the whole show), but I do remember feeling at times disappointed that they didn't go further exploring this character's issues. I don't know if that's the main problem people have with him, however. I think the real issue is that he ISN'T a hero--and that is why we may dislike him. Unlike Buffy, Willow, the vampires, etc. who begin ordinary, he begins and stays ordinary, never developing special powers, and resenting those who do, feeling inferior to them. In that way he does represent the audience, and in particular the unpopular teenage boy, who reads about exciting things but doesn't get to do them. ("Why am I everybody's butt monkey?") I think that is his role on the show, as "the fool"--part comic relief, part flawed character. I think he is one of the funniest characters, and the actor has naturally great comic timing. Not that he isn't heroic, but his heroism is that fact that he knows he has no special powers yet fights to help his friends regardless ("Just a frightened guy with a rock.") Do I wish the other characters and the show held more accountable? Yes. In a way, however, maybe he is held accountable by never being allowed to rise above the level of "ordinary putz."
I really liked Xander at the time Buffy aired, but it fell off in season 6 when he left Anya. As an adult, I now borderline hate him. I certainly loathe what the show did with his character. Xander was Joss Whedon's self-insert character (Joss said as much in interviews), which says so much about both Joss Whedon AND Xander. I think that's part of the reason why Xander's character was allowed to slide by with such little development. I'm glad you brought up Xander not helping Buffy and Riley. People like to give the excuse that Xander didn't say anything to Buffy because he didn't want to interfere in their relationship, but A.) He's had no problem interfering in her relationships before B.) He didn't necessarily need to disclose what Riley said to him. Maybe just remind Buffy that she should make sure that her relationship remained a priority and to be communicative with Riley.
Exactly! When has Xander ever minded his business when it came to Buffy's love life? The Riley situation was an awfully convenient time to start lol. I agree that Joss identifying with Xander played a big part in the show not feeling he needed growth. Like Xander, look how Joss' perception has aged
Same. Xander did a lot of things over the years that I didn't like, but I didn't hate him for it. He was living a pretty horrifying life in Sunnyvale, probably too scared to even question why he didn't run for the hills much less work to try to improve himself. He coped most of the time by joking, changing the subject, and just acting without thinking. An average person probably would react the way he did in that show. He never got powers that stayed, wasn't part of any super organizations that backed him like Giles (Watchers Council) or Riley (military), or had anything to give him a sense of self worth. Oh, and his family life sucked. He was just this regular person surrounded by amazing people feeling less than them 24/7. He could be a jerk at times, but he was also likeable and he cared. He wanted to help, but that was a crazy place and a lot to ask of someone with no special resources. He was young, dumb, and scared, but also hopeful, well intentioned, and willing to try. I liked him.
The only thing I'll disagree on slightly is when he lost his eye. They should not have kicked her out, or completely turn on her. But, as SOON as he got out of hospital, as soon as he was welcomed home, she wanted him back out and fighting. Like christ girl give it a minute!
Then Buffy tell.Xander only spike has my back. Buffy did not want a friend she wanted a follower I make the case that Xander is more of a hero then Buffy. Any a was a 1000 years old Xander 21. If anya was a 50 year old ex hit man. Would you still defend Xander Xander was right far more then Buffy was.
Admittedly, I haven't re-watched Buffy since the 2000s (when I was far less mature) but I don't remember ever hating Xander. I actually thought he was the "funny one" everyone loved. Kind of like the Buffy equivalent of Chandler from Friends. Like any real human, he was flawed, and OCCASIONALLY did dumb things, but I'm really surprised to learn how unpopular he was!
You're so right about Xander reveling in Buffy's low points. It's a really ugly part of the show that's hard to unsee once you've seen it. Buffy never deserved his long-simmering resentment.
I watched Buffy live and it was great, then I was rewatching DVDS of Angel and it forced me to go back and rewatch Buffy episodes and it definitely hit different when you werent immersed in it. Maybe I need to check it out again. I will say the Season 8 comic book was great.
Honestly, Xander's biggest issue is that he never really improved himself. My issues with Xander are the same ones I have with Stiles Stilinski from Teen Wolf. But that's because they're the exact same kind of characters.they're both the self insert for the showrunner. the main difference is that Xander at least got held accountable, and got some level of growth where Stiles had... well none.
Everyone has so many good points! I don’t even have to write a comment 😂 but I will “allegedly” say Xander was suppose to be a surrogate for Mr. Joss whedon himself, so that’s gross and makes sense why Xander did some of the bad shit he shouldn’t have Edit: So glad I ran into this channel! Definitely subbing!
If the show got rebooted/continued today, Xander is one of the things that would need to be updated. Either they need to confront his personality (along with a few other characters) and have the flaws get addresed. Or I could see them making him gay like was the coin flip option and making Willow straight.
Xender symbolizes Buffy's feelings "the heart". He cannot develop further because he symbolizes all feelings and these are stupid. The fear, the anger, the insecurity, the jealousy. These feelings are always the same. They do not grow with you. They are always there. When Riley said that Buffy does not love him, Xender could not say anything. He is Buffy's feelings, she knew it/felt it but she did not want to admit it. In her heart she already knew it, but her heart was not allowed to say it.
I kinda got the impression that part of the reason Xander did not respond in that particular scene, was because he was probably caught off guard by Riley confiding in him about something so personal. Up to that point I think Xander viewed Riley as a friend, all around decent guy, and ally to the Scoobies. He might've even looked up to him somewhat, as a big brother type, but I'm not sure he was quite prepared to have a conversation with him about deep feelings. (At least not until after they'd helped save the world together a couple more times.)
@@BCBaronI think a bit of both work. Men not deep in feelings not prepared for it. Because all either guy's flaws, they are sensitive. Riley maybe more in the "what do you need" way and Xander "hey, thats hurtful" way. But also crushing his idea that Buffy could at least be into a guy he really sees qualities in and not revile. I mean theres a level of envy that is respect. Xander could respect Buffy dating Riley that he couldnt anyone else. Whether his humanity, physique, or down to earth kindness. But not so removed from himself either. People get real weird around people they like while even they are dating someone else. No one benefits unless oblivious. So I can even see the terribleness towards Anya from the start, because while pretty, into him, they had sex, she wasnt what he would have chosen.
Xander is among other things, impulsive, annoying, unstable, needy, sometimes very cruel and snakey, insecure, self pitying.. he seems like an all or nothing, quick tempered jack of some trades.. when really someone of the scooby gang should be above such shortcomings, or get over the flaws fairly quickly because the group is full of old souls who could snap him out of it and show him better ways. He seems somewhat arrested in development, awkward, doesn't read rooms well, shows he might have adhd and even mild autism- and in that sense, i think he and Anya were an inevitable match.
@@davidmeadows5627 yeah, he did. he tried to beat up angel, spike.. let his mouth run wild saying hurtful crap to buffy, screwed everything with Anya, punched a wall, got himself almost killed by Faith and sacrificed by a demon to open the hellmouth.
@@tomcross3000 I said human beings. Angel and Spike are vampires. They don't count. You're seriously blaming him for being the victim of Faith's evil? Or for getting kidnapped by a demon? Wow! Talk about victim blaming!
@@davidmeadows5627 Well.. yes! because he swaggered into those situations looking to wet his wick and wasn't careful like any other member of the scooby gang is! that is why he's an idiot. And angel and spike have souls, so yes they do count.
@@tomcross3000okay first of all, when he tried to hurt Spike Spike did not have a soul. he had a chip inhibiting him from doing evil things. he wanted to do those evil things. he was just as evil as any other vampire. he just had something blocking him from doing so. Xander never actually hurt Spike even once after he actually had a soul. has Rachel. he never actually trusted him? yes, a lot of it was him being jealous, but there's also the fact that he has seen vampires kill his best friend. you remember that where his best friend died on the stake he had there. he has a reason to not trust them. what with Angel being the only supposedly good one and then after he was the only supposedly good one he turned evil and did all the horrible stuff there. I'm not saying that his intentions were absolutely pure, but he did have a good reason not to trust Angel several in fact. as for saying he was sauntering into an area. just wanting to get his wick wet. That sounds an awful lot. like the male version of saying well. just look how he was dressed. he was begging for it.
The closest Xander got to self actualizing was the double episode, where his "strong" half went out to get the job while the "wimpy" half held onto all of Xander's anxiety and weakness. Almost sad that they came back together. That being said, I never hated Xander, but every rewatch he gets more cringe.
While I will never deny his flaws, nor his almost complete lack of any development/growth. I actually love Xander, I wish they had done him better, but as someone who gave but couldn't follow excellent advice to my friends.... don't get me wrong sometimes we can get toxic, but we do see very clearly (than blatantly refuse to see our own scenarios...) And loved this video cause I've never understood the Xander hate... granted I was in my teens early twenties when I was watching the show on DVD, so.....
she was over a 1000 year old, you NEVER say that about a guy if giles was dating buffy at 16 you never say well he old but NOt emotionally intelligent so it ok.
@az21bob666 Buffy was dating a hundred year old guy at 16, But that is not the point. the point is Anya was confused lost in a world she didn't understand after years of conditioning to believe one way when Xander found her.
@az21bob666 A 1000 year old vengeance demon who after her husband cheated on her sort revenge when she met D'Hoffryn who taught her that human men were scum before giving her the powers to seek revenge on all men throughout countless centuries until she made a mistake and our favourite Watcher made her lose her powers and D'Hoffryn rejected her now seeing her as a worthless mortal, now lost in the world that she hardly knew she had no one until she met Xander, a mortal man who was nice, treated her well and for some inexplicable reason she couldn't understand she felt attracted to him eventually leading to her giving up her powers and eventually dying for him.
Xander was supposed to come to the realization that he was gay. If you go back to the first 2 seasons you can see it bubbling in the background. But then the writers scrapped that storyline and gave it to Willow when Oz left. They were like we can't have 2 gay main characters and they didn't know what to do with him.
As a gay man i am glad they never went with it. I already hate the ‘realization’ bs cus thats just hetero pov of what being gay is. Furthermore it would’ve painted being gay as something you become/acquire rather than born being gay which is age old religious homophobia. The show also always painted the always implicit gay men as incredibly negative and cowardly, you can see they wouldnt have been able to write a gay male character because like so many they either do not see gay men as human beings or they just don’t care about them. Xander also had an infatuation with buffy, a relationship with cordelia, an affair with willow and was assaulted by faith for his 1st time whereas willow had a crush on xander and a slow natural paced relationship with oz even tho i still do not like turning gay storylines even with willow with xander it would have actually demanded a complete suspension of belief and would have pushed for homophobic/pro c.therapy rhetoric and would have been extremely creepy all around to me. I also believe jw reasons to not make willow was cowardly and a very poor excuse i personally always saw her as bi but with a heavy lean towards women so they clearly only were able to write them by the skin of their teeth. Also they mention it when tara talks to willow about her relationship to magic/lesbianism as just college experiences and instead of willow trying to understand tara and reassure her she blamed tara and got defensive (which ngl typical bi reaction in this situation). Also people don’t like to hear but people give less leeway and less scrutiny to lesbians than gay men thats probably why they choose willow and were able to write them better than they could even write alleged gay male one off characters. I love btvs forever but they’d never have the ability to write gay male characters with the same consideration and respect as any other groups. we dodged a bullet.
I liked him the whole time. I thought xander evolved nicely. He was a goofy nut from the beginning but in the end he knew himself, had confidence and had a quiet acceptance. How is that not evolution?
I often dont like Xander. He has an unearned self righteousness when it comes to Buffy and her relationships. He often treated anya as less than. One thing i will point out though after raising two kids is he was always there to help with Dawn. Hed babysit, pick her up for school, give rides, and fix Buffys house millions of times. He never compained, refused, or asked for compensation. He jumped into any fight he was needed for until that stupid fracture in season 7. I guess hes like a butthole brother who always shows up when called.
Far too much Xander hate by many Buffyverse fans. After all he saved Buffy's life on many occasions. Firstly in Prophecy Girl when he gave her the kiss of life, again in the awful Go Fish when he got her up from the pool, and of course he single handedly saved them all in the brilliant The Zeppo, where of course none of them knew this. His mad jealousy of Buffy and Angel was of course a mark against him ( ok, also as an adult leaving Anya at the altar ), but everyone seems to forget he was a teenage boy for most of this. We have to remember also is his dysfunctional family home life, and the fact that Faith sexually assaulted him after he lost his virginity, and tried to rape and murder him. This is of course was never treated as seriously as the soulless Spike's attempted rape of Buffy in Seeing Red, because it was female on male, it somehow was never treated as seriously. God Dammit he even gave his eye for the cause! He was a flawed character, because he was very human!
Valid points for sure. At the core, the show very much centers on humans doing extraordinary things. BTVS has very a high bar when it comes to character development arcs. So many of the characters save the world at various periods and do very epic things. They do these things while having fantastically compelling character growth arcs. Xander does the the heroic things without any of the character growth arcs. That leaves his character feeling unbalanced. In the Buffyverse, just being heroic or saving the world isn't enough because so many other characters are doing the same while interiorly expanding. I think this is a lot of why Xander is open to so much hate.
I think it's slightly different when you consider he is the one doing it without powers. I mean I always saw him as making the point that you don't need to be chosen as a slayer or gifted with magic to step up. I do agree that after 7 seasons that one facet of his character is done to death but it is worth considering imo
@@ryanbtalkstv Possibly it would have been better if they moved him to Angel also, as all the characters that moved to that show were very one dimensional in BTVS, whereas in Angel they thrived in that show. Cordelia lets face it was just a Vacuous Airhead in BTVS who just got in the way a lot of time, Wesley was a bumbling fool who just seemed to get in the way also, and Angel himself thrived in his own show as well. Maybe Xander could shown more character development if he also moved from the legacy show, as I think Wesley had the best character Arc of all in The Buffyverse, maybe Xander could have also had he been mover over, who is to know.
The problem with Xander are not his flaws as every character in Buffy is flawed, but the fact that he rarely is made accountable for them, which hinders his development. I don't think Xander is shallow as we do get a very incisive exploration of his psyche in episodes like "The Zeppo", "The Replacement" and "Restless", but he definitely doesn't experience the growth Buffy, Willow, Spike, Faith, etc. go through.
@@vodkatonyq I think most of the characters failures/flaws don't get examined properly. Anya had a soul for the whole thousand years but that only gets brought up by Buffy in S7 in the heat of hte moment. Giles was the only adult in the know for years and he just let everyone but Buffy flounder. He expected Xander and Willow to be perfect but never really taught them anything like he did with Buffy. Joyce is a pretty bad mom in the first couple seasons, with a few epic moments that over shadow that. Her becoming an amazing mom from S3 onwards also overshadows it. Willow wanted to mess with xander's mind in S3 because of the cheating and that just never gets addresed (even by fans). Buffy let a lot of people die during S2. I get her reason, but that's a massive failure. Xander's flaws just just brushed off and forgotten the next episode (usually.)
I feel Xander is really just indicative of the whole show by the end. Practically every character has done some seriously sh*tty things by season 7 and is damaged beyond belief. It's one of the reasons why I don't like the UPN years and believe the show should've ended after season 5. The Gift wraps up everything. Buffy has literally defeated a god (how are you going to top that?), she's made the supreme sacrifice and the slayer cycle continues. It was the right denouement for the show. Except network execs with dollar signs in their eyes just couldn't leave well enough alone. If you showed the kids of season 1 what they'd become in 5 to 6 years, they'd have been horrified. Willow is arrogant and an addict who's given a massive hit of her drug of choice at the end (I don't believe for a minute that making the girl who abused magic the most powerful magic wielder in the world would end well). Buffy is an emotionally deadened and broken person, going through the motions. Xander has borderline incel tendencies and never seems to learn any important life lessons. At the end of the day Xander is just an early symptom of the rot that infected and eventually killed the show for me. Which is a shame, because I wanted to like him. I'm usually on the side of the somewhat geeky everyman character, but every time I started to vibe with Xander he pulled some immature crap that had me wincing. You could come up with reasons for why he's so screwed up if you're feeling imaginative, like maybe the hyena never completely left him, or the soldier's memories messed him up somehow (especially if any of those memories included tours of duty in some quagmire like Vietnam). I've done this myself writing what-if fanfiction. But the sad fact is you don't need any of that to explain him. He's simply a product of his upbringing - the son of abusive alcoholics - and often struggles (and fails) to escape the confines of that mindset. Y'know, I'm reminded of the very end scene of 'I Robot You Jane' where the three of them contemplate the prospect of never having a happy life. Gotta say, they called it.
I'm glad I'm not the only one. The show always struggled with character arcs. But the 5th season would have at least ended all of the storylines off on a high note. But the last 2 seasons destroyed any charm or character development any of the characters had.
No. Buffy's death in the end would defeat the show's premise. She was supposed to LIVE. NOT DIE young like all the other slayers did. Season 5 ending as the final series ending would've ruined the show forever. They could've done all the rest much better but any ending were Buffy ends alive and with a future is always better because it does her justice.
@@virz4432 No. You just WANT her alive because you like the character. Buffy didn't die from a vampire attack in season 5. She willingly sacrificed herself for her sister, Dawn. That's the perfect way to end the series. Because her entire personality throughout the show was her being forced to risk her life on a daily basis. By the end, she's grown so much that she's the one choosing to sacrifice her life for the greater good.
Maybe it's just me, but that's scary I lived so much about season 6. It is bleak and depressing. Everyone's screwed up and traumatized and had problems. But that felt real to me. Maybe it's coz I also grew up in abuse and have had to worth through my own trauma, but that's solace in seeing characters that are a broken as you and struggling as much as you. Season 6 is one of my faves for that reason. Thankfully though, instead of going the faith route, I put in a ton of work to heal and move past everything. But it's not like you forget. So I kind of like seeing characters that mirror the struggles I had. What pisses me of about Xander though is that he never grew at all. It's exactly like you said, he never escaped his upbringing. Even faith has her arc of atonement on angel. But Xander? He learns no lessons, never works on himself, and never grows.
Whedon always said that he modeled Xander after himself... I wonder if that's why there wasn't much growth while Whedon was with the show. Since he was more consumed with Angel during Buffy's final two seasons, I feel the writers, tried to do a little bit by making Xander more mature with the construction job and with his 'mature guy' talks with Dawn and Willow.
6:31 He mostly made jokes about it to alleviate the situation, and I quote, "Party in my eye socket and everyone's invited, Sometimes I should not say words," What are you talking about?
I can't stand Xander (nor Riley). Xander is always trying to control, take something from, hide something from or get something from Buffy that he knows he shouldn't.
I don't hate Xander. He was infatuated with Buffy, but AFAICR not annoyingly so. Didn't he even tell of another guy (...Jessie?) in season 1 for being a creep? And he's loyal. He is scared a lot of the time, but overall he's not a coward. I don't think it is fair to say there is no character development. There is, but it is all in the background; he's just not a main character. No, I hate how he is never held accountable. Leaving Anya at the altar was a dick move, but *summoning a demon* just because you are feeling insecure?
I always thought Xander was a good character never hated him with not telling her about angel I mean she had to do what she had to do I feel telling her would’ve made it harder
the writers have stated buffy would have died if he told her about the curse. but telling the part about willow is what made buffy feel so alone she ran away. if she thought willow was on her side about angel still, she would have gone to her house.
A thing with Xander that always bugged me (not related, but I'll say it here) is that I'm convinced that rather than lose an eye, he should have died. Would have raised the stakes, would have made The First a legit threat, would have made Buffy being kicked out of her house make sense. I think that he didn't have anything more to offer, it would have been shocking, and it was towards the end, meaning characters can be axed without issue, as there isn't any reason to keep them around.
I must be one of the few Buffy fans that never much liked Willow or Xander. I thought they were interesting and well played but that’s it. Xander was possessive and toxic.
I like Xander and with that being said, we ALL have that one A-hole friend that we love to hate in our group. I had no problem with Xander calling Buffy out on her former (sometimes 😒) serial killer boyfriend Angel. Xander was a great character with a heart of gold, I feel he should've been killed off in the last season tho. That would've definitely gave him a better character development overall. He doesn't deserve any hate imo.
I hear you but hear me out. We don't all have an A hole friend that we love to hate lol I definitely don't. That's why a lot of people don't like Xander. For a lot of people that trope doesn't land as softly because, for many, the lovable A hole trope just reads as an A hole. Xander also was dating a serial killer so that gives him even less space. It's the imbalance that gets Xander every time.
@@explore8539 Honestly, Anya should be getting the most hate. She had a soul for that 1'000 years of torture she inflicted. Spike and Angel are soulless demons when they do 99% of the evil. Xander accidently gets people killed because he summoned Sweet when... why was that book just in the MAgic shop? That should have been one of the protected books. Anyone Anya/Giles sold it too would have been just as responsible. Giles also bugs me. He's the one adult in the group and he never steps in with Xander to steer him away from the worst traits. Giles felt like he had no purpose with Buffy in S4, well he could clearly see how hopeless Xander was and turning him into a functioning member of society could have been an awesome storyline.
@@explore8539OK but then why does he give Willow a pass? She's a murderer. She tried to kill Johnathan and Andrew, then the whole world. And Angel and Spike never killed anyone. The demon possessing them did. That's like blaming someone that Professor-X takes over and killes someone.
xander was dating a HUMAN WOMEN, xander hated anglus BUT he did not like angel. but there not one sence were angel nice to xander NOT one. so xander had no resason to like angel. people for get that. plus angle like 200 and buffy 16 that alone woudl make me hate angel.
I did not hate the Xander Harris character. However, his constant dumb jokes and sarcastic comments got on my nerves. I always wanted Buffy, the scooby gang, and Rupert Giles to tell him to cut it out. I remember a scene during which Giles had enough of Xander's comments and snapped at him, but quickly apologized. I thought, "don't apologize, Xander deserved it."
I never hate Xander. I understand why he act that way. Also i even understand more, after study criminology. Xander is a guy from family, that nobody cares of him at all. Straight up victim of abuse from his father, neglected from his mother; he has only one real friend. And well Willow is not exactly the person that you can learn how empathy works, because she's having some real sociopathy traits. Xander is a normal dude, who grow up in bad enviroment. Did he having crush on Buffy? Yes. I guess it's only for two seasons. But he still a biggest Buffy fan ever, he can just die for her. You can't call him misoginistic, he never been. Xander hate vampires - because of Jesse. He also not a guy who been talk about feelings, so it's made sense that he never talk about Jesse. Also - with who? Willow technicaly ignored Jesse existence, and forget of him in seconds, Buffy don't know him. Xander having serious problems - he himself think he is stupid, worthless, weak, useless. He feel like that all the time - it's not just because he is only normal guy around, that's because his background. It's actualy a very good writing, also probably a glimpse of real Nicholas Brendon under, because in that part - they the same. In comics Xander is literaly having clinical depression, ptsd. Cheating Cordelia - it's also Willow fault. Stop pretending that for some reason it's only his fault. And he feel guilty and show it on his own way. Willow... she never care about feeling of other people, so she's the bad one in this situation. Leaving Anya - that's was deamon manipulation. And that demon is Anya fault. Xander was a real victim here, and because he can't just say what he feel inside - he run. His technicaly been mentaly rape in this episode. And it's somenthing bad with people empathy, when everyone just ignoring it - that demon uses all of his fears. Turns his brain into soup. Did Xander is a nice guy, or even incel (like some part of internet calls him). Nope. He is a troubled guy; he is a sad clown. He being annoing, but it's just a mask, underneath - is lot of pain, bad feeling about himself. Even with this he always try to be the best friend he can be, but it's not always work. Even in real life. Actualy writers do the best job in Buffy - they write real people. Real people are not ideal, not super logical; they flawless, they have real problems. Like i said - Willow is basicaly a sociopath, light one, pretty functional. But she's having a very low empathy, she's a total control freak, worst partner you can even imagine. And most of the people don't see it, and it's been always here. Since first episode. Six season - peak of this. Believe me you don't want to have Willow friend anywhere in real life. Anya also is sociopathic, she also a serial killer - she's not autistic, i'm sorry. She was bad person even before being a demon, she's clearly now that Olaf turned into troll been killing people in they village. I believe she's love Xander on some way, but it's a sociopathic love, not a "normal person" love. He is a tool for her, because she's ended human and well... i bet she's always having a plan to uses him to become a demon again. And probably to the some level - she's don't care he been hurt or killed. Maybe after some years, when she's little changing - and that's actualy a bad writing, you can't heal this. For me it's funny to watch Willow and Anya "fights", because they both very similar in characters. But they also unable to see it, and probably don't care at all.
I did not hate Xander BEFORE this video but now after this video I am like shit this guy is a prick , you are so right we don't like Xander 😂😂, damn good points
I'm not Xander's biggest fan but I feel like you're missing the mark on a few things. First of all, Xander not liking Buffy's relationship with Angel started out as jealousy but it didn't go beyond a snarky comment here and there until after the relationship became abusive. Anya was never abusive to Xander. That's the difference. The "kick his @$$" thing was, IMHO, totally justified. Xander thought that if Buffy held back in that fight, trying to save Angel, she would have died. I think he was right. You have to remember that metaphorically, Xander represents Buffy's heart while Willow is her spirit and Giles is her mind. Willow is still trying to save the "soul mate" but ending the abusive relationship metaphorically required the mind and heart to outvote her, if that's not too clunky a metaphor. I also think you're wrong in the confrontations you're talking about. You chose a couple of examples, the party when she comes back from running off and the last season where her leadership was in doubt, where everyone there had beef with Buffy but Xander also said something, leading to you claiming that Xander was tearing her down. That seems like an odd interpretation. I do think that Xander has a journey, it's just a much more mundane journey than the rest of them. He goes from being a fifteen year old Everyman to a twenty year old Everyman 😂 He graduates high school, falls in love a couple of times, faces some inadequacy issues and learns a trade. I think he is Jimmy Olsen. Just as average a guy as he can be, given who he hangs out with.
The hyena episode, he did a lot of things in that episode that he himself found disgusting and wrong (bullying, attempted r*pe, attempted cannibalism, to name a few) and at the end of the episode who pretended to have memory loss rather than address anything he did. That always rubbed me the wrong way.
But it’s like you said, most of my issues came from how quick he was to tear Buffy down or attack her when she was at a point.
Let's not forget he caused a bunch of human combustion in once more with feeling and blackmailed Amy to spell Cordelia almost causing her death. He also owes Joyce the door Drusilla threw down. Honestly, Xander has killed more people than Faith, why is she the bad one?
No Buffy was wrong. And Xander attack her for her stupid choices that was getting people killed
And then proceeded to treat Angel as if he and Angelus are the same person. Over-identify much?
he never treated angel and anglus as the same person
he HATE anglus does not like angel
BUT he has no reason to like angle, i mean angle almost feed him to spike had to be force tosave buffy 200 year old going after a 16 year old girl
angel has NOT one sence were he nice to xander,
Because he cheated on Cordelia and left Anya at the alter.
He cheated with Willow, they both guilty. And honestly Xander feel more guilty than Willow. He left Anya, because of demon manipulation - and it's Anya fault. She's made that poor dude demon, and he want revenge. He uses Xander and his inside fears.
It's not the reasons for hate...
@@IwonaKlichyes. You summed it up. I think people forget that point about the Demon manipulating him.
LOL - I liked Xander. BUT, I forgot about those two events. Those alone are good enough to make me rethink my thought.
@@TodaysDante The show never did a good job of explaining Xander to the audience. He lived in a dysfunctional household his family we see on the wedding episode being terrible we get one small scene on Christmas where he sleeps outside to avoid his family's conflict the guy suffered trauma. It's no surprise he does things like joking in serious situations to deescalate tension or is horrible at relationships it's all he ever seen and the guy was 17 and 20 when both these events happened, he's still trying to figure out life and has not overcome abuse.
welll he fight vampire and still sleep outsdie and is afraid of his father not hard to guess how bad his home life is
Yeah, I always felt so many of Xander's underhanded digs at Buffy were because she turned him down. Which is honestly just really yucky. He's my least favorite charecter. And you brought up a great point of no accountability. Showing my husband this show, that was his main complaint. There is never any real accountability for Xander or Willow. It's kind of always just brushed under the rug.
I hated that
Buffy let how many people die. But Xander get bash
@@az21bob666umm Buffy is ONE person
Just like Superman, she can’t save everyone
Willow, Xander or the others would have the SAME weight on their shoulders..
they do have the same weight they are hero just liek buffy, remember buffy NEVER beat a big bad without help
Yeah, Cordilla only steps in when things are at the absolute lowest. Once squarring off against a vampire. This time against Xander. If Cordialla has to step up defend someone, you know you screwed up
EXACTLY..
The only thing i ever hated about Xander it's his hypocritical relationships with Buffy's supernatural romances. I mean, Buffy isn't let to date vampires but you are let to date vengeance demon?
Former. Anya was completely human when Xander dated her while Angel was an undead demon who murdered a person they loved or tortured tried to kill them.
@@lance9249 not Angel. Angelus. It's different personalities and even then Angel constantly shows huge remorse for what his evil alter-ego did. Anya on the other hand wasn't showing any remorse until season 7. It's even more hypocritical when Xander say that he won't forgive Spike cause he "exterminate half of Europe" in his past while I'm pretty sure Anya killed much more people.
Anya human. Spike souless still a mass murder and rapist.
When he got his soul back Xander never said a word. So not a hypocrisy
Faith Sexually Assaulting Xander would have been a great narrative to explore how men can be victims and how it affects them in a world that just brushes it off.
I agree though this show pretty much ignores all sexual assault besides Warren. Willow erases Tara memories then scissors her without Tara being able to give consent because her memories were erased which is sexual assault.
Realy should habe been him.having PTSD. I mean he kill his best friend. His second mom was killed. And like what 20 army friends were killed. And a drug problem. He did not start.
I feel like Xander was just Joss Whedon's POV character, and he says what Whedon thinks about women and does what Whedon wishes he could do.
This comment right here!!! JW had said Xander was him and we all know how problematic he is. 🙄
@@KillerCammy85”problematic”
Lol no you’re not the problem at all
joss said xander was PART of him same with buffy and giles.
I hated Xander until he decided he was going to marry Anya. I thought their relationship was one of the only good things happening in season six and that they were having some cold feet but theyd get over it. Then he leaves her at the alter even after it was explained that it was someone with a vendetta trying to break them up with lies. Now its back to being the worst again.
This man is constantly negative and frames it as being protective but its just controlling at heart. He's digusting
it not contorling at all, if it there a chacne it get someone killed then it ok to judge people for it.
i spike was a mass murder and rapist sleeping with him was very dangerous taht why xander had a problem with it,
buffy sleeping with parker xander had no problem
see the difference
@@az21bob666 but like spike had a chip and it was very much felt like he was shaming her and anya for sleeping with spike. he wasn't at all concerned for their safety's just disgusted that they'd sleep with spike.
i think part of was safty
but it was becouse spike a evil soul monster
he even said you let that SOULESS THING touch you.
people like spike but he is a mass murder and rapist i would look at anyone that sleep with him as there carzy, and the real life eq of spike would be someone like jeffery domoer
@@az21bob666 As he was talking though it didn't sound like he was shaming spike, more like he was shaming Anya and Buffy because they slept with a 'souless evil thing' and Xander for some reason felt some entitlement towards these woman who he a. left at the alter and b. knew wasn't interested in him.
i dont think it was entitlemet at all it was more dispointment, i mean i would look down on any one that woudl sleep with that monster
Warren is Xander free of inhibitions
I did a tik tok about this awhile ago. Maybe I'll make a vid over here about it. I think Xander is Joss' insert before he'd gained success/power and Warren represents Joss after he gained power, the ability to act out on feelings of entitlement and abuse that power.
@@ryanbtalkstv I can totally see that!
Wow well said
@@ryanbtalkstvoh my gosh that’s totally how I feel about Xander!!
Yeah, that hit dead on.
Tbh I feel like the reason he didn’t have any growth was because the writers didn’t think he needed to. Which is telling, especially with Whedon at the helm
Xander was Joss Whedon that is why everytime Xander was enabled by his fans, Joss was enabled to do what he did.
There was no need for character growth because, Xander was allowed to get away with everything..... he was never brought to task for what he did to Anya, he never was brought to task over his lying about Willow wanting to kick Angels ass, Xander was ''The Trio''...... which is why it took so long to see them as the threat that they were.
it is why so many people hate season 6...... season 6's reaction says more about the person, than it does the season.
Very much so. They thought he was good as is. They were sadly mistaken.
He was 100% Whedon’s self insert character.
@@ryanbtalkstvI always read it as some people simply dont grow and Xander was the greatest example of this
I agree, its like real life, some people just do not grow
Xander felt like he had this superiority complex and entitlement to the woman on the show. Like you said, there was never any balance for him. I think the thing that made his character worse for me was that the show would reward his horrible behavior to his friends, i.e., making his bad hot takes correct or not punishing him in the same way others would get punished.
I never thought he was entitled. To women.
No but he did, a bit to often.
but he NEVER did, entited is they should love me not it hurt they dont love me it 2 different things
@@az21bob666There's an entire episode that unfortunately proves you wrong. The one where he tries to put a love spell on Cordelia. He could have let it go, but he tried to manipulate her mind. I know I know, he was acting out bc he was hurt, but still.
Well he did not do the spell. But I agree 100 percent wrong. But he did not ask for the spell to get her back. Just to break up with her. Like she did him
But if you hold the same standard Buffy and willow were the same way.
I think you nailed this, tbh. Yes, all of them are deeply flawed characters, but most of them got to confront those flaws at some point during the series and learn from it. It’s hard to hate someone who recognises their mistakes and tries to make up for them. Xander never really had those moments, and so you come away with the idea that he was being given tacit permission to be a jackass. He ended the show believing that he was justified in all the horrible things he did, because he was never shown a mirror and made to look at his true reflection.
I wouldn't say I hate Xander but especially in the early seasons he can be pretty unlikeable.
And I totally agree that it's a shame that so many things weren't addressed when it comes to Xander. I'm so annoyed everytime I watch season 7 because they just sort of gloss over the fact that Xander lied to Buffy regarding Angel. Willow just says something like "I never said that!" and that's it. Buffy seems to not even recognise what Willow says. I would have expected Willow and especially Buffy getting furious with Xander.
Buffy does address it later when she brings up the kick his butt line. But she doesn't press, which shows that she may hate that he did it. But she can understand why he did and can see why it was nescesary for the world.
The writers have stated Buffy would have lost if she thought Angel had any chance of coming back, since she would have held back. So Xander's lie did save the world in the writer's mind and was nescesary. That's why they didn't take Xander to task over it. They didn't see it as bad. And we know at least two of the writers are pretty gross people, so it's really making sense why all the characters worst traits never get brought up properly in show.
Willow should have gotten mad at him though. Because even if Xander had a reasonable thought proccess behind not telling buffy about the second attempt. He should not have put willows words into the kicking his butt thing. That's the really horrible part and is the reason Buffy ran away. If he didn't say that part, Buffy would have stayed with Willow over the summer/gone on a summer roadtrip with her and Oz or something. Or at least been in contact with Willow with Willow keeping it secret.
@@kyleellis1825 I know joss was the gross writer but who was the other one?
@@razycrandomgirl Marti. The entire spike/buffy storyline was her, with the bathroom scene even something she proudly proclaimed to have done to an ex boyfriend.
@kyleellis1825 I thought joss pushed for the bathroom scene. I remember reading that he wanted spike to do something so egregious because he didn’t like all of the fans liking spike so much and he wanted to remind them he’s an awful vampire
@@lindseystein9676I thought you meant Steven DeKnight, the writer who called Jenna Ortega toxic for having input into her character on Wednesday. Idk how Marti was in the Buffy writers room but on Mad Men she helped fight against sexual harassment in the writers room.
From what I understand, Xander was Joss Whedon's self-insert, and that would explain a lot, especially with discoveries made since then about Joss and how he treats people, especially women.
Exactly why Xander is a proto incel
@@gingerkid1048you use words learned on tiktok that you don't understand
He was Joss self-insert, is that why they planned him to be gay but changed it when Oz left?
All the characters did messed up stuff. But I don’t think the writers were ever fully aware of how messed up some of the things Xander said/did were. A lot of things just got swept under the rug and never really investigated. I think that it partly due to the time. Xander was the classic “nice guy”. He had female friends. He was (mostly) loyal to them. He wasn’t a cheater. He wasn’t an obvious macho, aggressive jackass. He was supposed to be a nerd. So, I feel the writers likely viewed his hypocrisy and judgmental tendencies and possessiveness as not that harmful because he was an overall “nice guy.” They never really felt the need to confront that stuff in meaningful ways. I also just don’t think the writers were as invested in him as they were Buffy and Willow. Nicholas has talked about Joss telling him that they had planned on killing off Xander at the end of season 3. But Nicholas asked to continue. They kept Xander alive but warned him that he wouldn’t be getting as much attention as Buffy and Willow. Hell, you can almost tell that the writers weren’t that invested in Xander by them immediately putting him with Anya in season 4 and her quickly becoming the funnier and most interesting character of the two. They lost interest in him. He never really got an arc or a storyline post season 3, just an episode every ten installments or so that focused on him. And therefore a lot of things that should have been addressed or fleshed out never really was with him. In conclusion, the combo of “nice guy” syndrome and the writers losing interest in him is why a lot of Xander things don’t play as well today and he seems to have no real arc.
He was a cheater. He cheated on Cordy.
@@lifelikelisa I didn’t see that as a serious relationship. It’s also apparent that the writers didn’t see that as big of a betrayal as it actually was.
That's because Xander was Joss and we all know what a jerk he turned out to be.
@@russellward4624I mean, Willow r*ped Tara repeatedly. Dint know why she always gets a pass for that, when she should be in prison.
willow cheated on OZ but she never get bash for it
buffy cheated again that over looked
I dislike him greatly. Even if I enjoyed his humor and felt him the only ''normal'' one of the bunch, hence the most relatable.
His hatred for Angel puts me off despite me not loving Angel all that much.
He never got over the fact Buffy rejected him, so he had to hate any boyfriend she had.
Riley he liked because they were so alike. It felt like Xander loved Riley more than Buffy ever did.
Then there's leaving Anya at the altar. That is disgusting, no matter how you look at it.
And before that, there's him ruining Willow's relationship with Oz.
I found that worse than his cheating on Cordelia.
Willow had been after him for so long and he knew it! He only noticed her when she found someone else.
That said, I love how he was there for Buffy despite not having to.
Most people would leave such a dangerous friend behind.
And I love his scene with Dark Willow,
I cannot hate him, but I'm happy buffy and Willow dodged THAT bullet.
I really wish he was held accountable for the bullshit he did, like most other characters.
Held accountable like when Willow erased Tara memories and raped her?
I liked his character ok enough in season 1 but I couldn't forgive he or Willow after cheating on Oz. I still liked the show a lot: especially for Spike and Anya, but who could cheat on Oz? He's the best!!
Your video popped up as a recommended video. I'm glad it did. You made a great video with very detailed points. It's been years since I was "in" the Buffy universe, but you still pulled me into it with your conversational tone and backed it up with so many details and receipts. Great vid! Thanks!
Thank you! I really appreciate the detailed compliment! Welcome back to the hellmouth!
For me it's the sense of entitlement which drove forth a lot of his actions, the repeated cheating on Cordelia, leaving Anya at the altar which highlighted that he is at his core a coward who can be easily swayed - all he does is react to how poorly his parents behave around each other, he doesn't bother to think "no, I can do better"; rallying gang-ups on Buffy, the overall lack of growth or change, and what really doesn't help the perception of his character is the fact Whedon identifies with Xander specifically.
Another reason i dont like him is woth the who willow thing, willow always loved him, he couldnt care less, he always saw her as back up or rebound, he had so many chances to get with will but he didnt want her until oz wanted her, i know band candy had something to do with that but still, hes a low insecure little boy
the sick nice guy thinking, xander love willow just becoue he did not want to date her he did nothing wrong and just becouse his feeling got mess up and they kiss a few time does not make him a bad man.
i mean willow cheated to and you dont blame her
sorry but xander not wanting to date willow is fine and there nothing wrong there,
@az21bob666 read the comment again that's not the only reason, this video was not about willow, cause I do have my issues with her moving on so fast after tara, of course he loves her, like a sister he even said it, I could over look it, cause I don't blame oz for cheating on willow, but Xander makes stupid decisions and comments way too much
Yes Xander makes mistakes. But I feel his mistakes are far less then willow or Buffy. And he get bash for more them.
It hit me with the episode where he BLACKMAILS Amy to cast a spell on Cordy for revenge.
Then he lies to Cordy about why, and they end up back together.
It started with him creepin' on Buffy when she clearly wasn't interested. Then he mostly just acted like a teenage boy/young man, which is reason enough. It's a compliment to the show though that they let him be as flawed as most young men that age, but he still came through when people's lives were on the line.
There’s major reasons why I hate Xander Harris, him being a self righteous judgemental hypocrite. The problem I have with some of the Xander lovers who are Pro-Xander say that Xander is the heart of the group, how is he the heart of the group when he constantly judges Buffy’s decisions, lied to her in “Becoming Part 2” as well as verbally attacking her in “Dead Man’s Party” not to mention he slut shame Cordelia because of how she dress. Yes I know Cordelia bullied and insulted Xander but Xander slut shaming her was disgusting, in fact Cordelia was a better friend to Buffy than Xander ever was. There were some good things that he did such as buying Cordelia’s prom dress when she couldn’t herself and reviving Buffy in “Prophecy Girl” but it doesn’t excuse his misogyny.
Cordelia deserved it was Xander just supposed to ignore her constantly bullying of him like he deserved it for not being popular? She bullied Willow she bullied everyone who she thought was beneath her Cordelia was a terrible person. Xander had Angel almost kill him once with Dru saving him he stood off with Angel in the hospital watched Angel kill Jenny almost kill Willow seriously he had a broken arm because of Angel in "Becoming Part 2" I get your perfect and all but he had every right to want it over and Angel dead.
@@lance9249 Cordelia’s mean girl behavior is the reflection of the person that Buffy Summers was before Buffy became the slayer, Cordelia actually grew out of it and became a better person there’s a major difference between the person she was in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the person she became in the spin off Angel. Xander insulted her by saying her outfit make her look like a hooker. Xander was a horrible friend and should be grateful Buffy is still friends with him because she could have pulled a Cordelia by insulting Xander for all the horrible things he did as well as judging her decisions.
you crazy xander never was a hypocrite
buffy let anglus kill for mouths sorry but everyone should be hateing buffy NOT xander
willlow slut shame cordy more then xander did
sorry but xander yelling at buffy becous she was getting people killed is 100 percent ok. she should have been yell at more
sorry xander judge buffy on shit that get peopel killed and shit that people shoudl hate her for,
buffy let anglus kill for mouths and xadner lie sorry but everyone should be hatting on buffy NOT xander
and cordya better freidn who xander buffy life like 20 time it was for sure nto cordy
Yes the heart thing never sat well with me.
One of the moments that really stood out was when after learning about Spike & Buffy she tells him that her personal life is none of his business and his reply is "It used to be" #1) I couldnt believe he said and #2) She didnt reply, as though it was a valid point. Her private life used to be his business?? When, why, and WTF? Moments like that I wonder what the writers were thinking.
I took it as meaning as because they used to be best friends she would tell him ( and willlow) personal things in the early seasons but by that point she wasnt. They were less close than they used to be. Of course it’s not his right know but it also shows that Buffy doesn’t feel as comfortable sharing things as she used to be
Spike and Faith were my favourite characters on the show, of the Scooby Gang I liked Willow and Cordelia, hated what they did in later seasons of Angel with Cordy. I could see Willow having a supernatural spin-off today with Alyson Hannigan and real life husband Alexis Denisof as Wesley Wyndam-Price as the leads.
Also, after 25 years Willow could be at Dr. Strange and Scarlet Witch levels of magical abilities and Wesley would be a veteran demon slayer in his own right, it could have multiverses, time travel like Marvel and DC storylines, maybe cross over with Ash Williams of The Evil Dead. I'd watch it.
We judge him as fully grown adults with worldly experiences and decent parental foundations for morality/ethics, but there isn't anybody out there that wasn't mostly an asshole through their teens into the early twenties. Also, we see much of this from Buffy's POV; she has very few positive realationships with men and Xander lacked any education on how to better himself. He expected to die back in s2
So first off, I barely remember the series and watched this because at this point I’m mostly familiar with the series through fanfics where I’m generally looking for the stories that are Xander-centric, stories that usually don’t have him being the problem, so I was genuinely curious what bad points you’d bring up, and you did bring up a few good points, but I just want to address one, his encouragement of Buffy to end Angelus to save the world. Yes, he knew Willow was going to try the soul curse again and he didn’t know how far along Angelus was in his plans to end the world, but he did know Angelus was close and that at that point Buffy had had several occasions where she could have ended the vampire but hesitated. He knew the world may well be at stake so he offered encouragement for something he knew she’d have a hard time doing, and let’s not forget that if she had hesitated again the world would have ended, so maybe son’s hold that one against him.
I'm in the camp of those that liked Xander well-enough back when I watched the show on air (30 years ago???) but really feel like you nailed all his character shortcomings. I will say that I never really liked him as much after the end of S2 and the beginning of S3, and his treatment of Anya (whom I loved) sealed the deal on my dislike of him.
Mhmm season 2 and seaon 3 Xander was rough. Very real but very rough
anya was 1000 year old xander 18
tell me if it was giles and dawn adn dawn treated giles like xander does anya would you be attacking Dawn.
people forget anya had the power in there realionship. she was FAR FAR FAR older and more powerfull
I don’t hate Xander and I kind of think he’s the male version of Rory Gilmore. It’s not that he’s more flawed than other characters, it’s that his flaws are more normal, and a lot of people either see people they know IRL or sometimes even the less flattering parts of themselves in him.
Think about it. It’s hard to see yourself in Faith or Spike or Angel because they’re much more extreme characters who are btw all murderers. Even Giles and Andrew are killers. I think Xander does exhibit growth but it is a subtler kind, where he has to just live in his imperfections and accept that he’s not just not a superhero he’s also ordinary in the moral sense. Again he’s like Rory on Gilmore Girls who never gets that moment or obvious speech of owning her flaws but she just settles in the way most people do, being a person with ordinary levels of virtue. I think people don’t like characters who never have that cathartic change or revelation because it feels like bad storytelling but it’s real. People are sometimes like that.
Man, I’d completely forgotten that he was even supposed to be in a “one who sees” role. Spike was so effective at it that Xander was completely overshadowed in my mind. I remember Buffy actually saying, “I can fool Giles, and I can fool my friends, but I can’t fool myself. Or Spike, for some reason.”It’s a really interesting thing to do with a character who isn’t a good person and can’t be trusted to have even his allies’ best interests in mind for so much of the story.
There’s no reason Xander couldn’t have grown to be very perceptive in a way that would suit his character. It would not have been the same as Spike, which sounds fascinating. I mourn the lost potential. But they really, really would have needed to put the work in when they do have this other guy wandering in and out with his dismaying tendency to hone in on the things people were hoping no one would notice.
At the time Riley told Xander that Buffy didn't love him, Joice had not yet become ill. That conversation took place at the end of season 5 episode 3...Joice started to become unwell in episode 5 . Buffy did not yet have that to deal with at this point
Wow dude... I've watched this show a dozen times, easily my favorite show of all time, and of course I've considered the problems with Xander for a long time, and I obviously knew the facts of the situation, like I was aware of the numbers, but I had never once actually considered the implications of Anya vs Xander's ages in the same way that I have with, let's say, Buffy and Angel. Like, for some reason that never "clicked" in my brain, if you see what I mean. I think you just made me recognize an internal bias I didn't realize that I had that I'm going to have to do some thinking about.
Well done, and also, I am your 420th subscriber. Nice.
I don't know... While it's true that Anya was a vengeance demon for far longer than Angel was around, she had no real growth during that time. She just went around, find women who were hurt by men, and giving them the option to seek their revenge. She basically lived the last few weeks of her life over and over and over. She didn't really learn much in the ways of emotional or intellectual growth. On the other hand, she DID have one failed marriage from her previous life to bring experience into.
@@GoeTeeksSee, but that is exactly the point I'm making. All Angel did was go around and drink people's blood, he wasn't growing as a person or trying to advance his understanding of human relationships, so he was still pretty close to his "human" age of 17ish when he met Buffy, right? By your argument, every single person who ever becomes a vampire does nothing except relive their earlier life, but he was definitely closer to humanity than Anya was and yet we don't consider his relationship to be in any way "worse" than Anya and Xander, right? And the question is, why is that the case? My point was that they both have a similar gap between their understandings of reality and their partner, but we still think of them as different for some reason, and honestly you kind of demonstrated my point perfectly.
@@lorehammer40k4 Angellous did way more than drink peoples' blood and stuff. He read books, saw plays, watched wars. He actually became very cultured, in his own demonic way. And it is very wrong. Pretty much any relationship based on old immortal to young person is wrong, but as long as they LOOK the same age, no one bats an eye. Also, Liam was 26-27 when he was bitten and turned to Angellous, so even by the ages they look, he's much older than Buffy. However, Anya just hung out in a demon void until she found someone who desired revenge.
You're not wrong. But in the case of Anya, she's really only a little more emotionally mature than Xander when they start dating. It's not... appropriate, but it's not really taking as much advantage of him as it would appear to be. I mean, look at how much growing up she had to do while dating him.
@@GoeTeeks Of course Angelus was 1000x times more cultured than Liam was, but to suggest he somehow had so much less experienced with human relationships than Anya did that it somehow justifies him having a relationship with Buffy while Anya and Xander is somehow different just seems absurd to me. I was saying that I had never considered the different between Anya and Xander in the same way that I had with Buffy and Angel, even though the numbers are similar, like, if Buffy had left Angel at the altar I would have reacted very differently, but I never stopped to think about why, ya know? That was the point of my comment.
Also, can I just say, thanks for talking with me about Buffy, that is waaaay to rare these days, so thank you ;) I really do appreciate it.
@@GoeTeeks And just to be totally clear, I think Anya and Angel both had to grow in a similar way in order to make their relationships work as well as they even did considering their own experiences, the point was just about how I reacted to them back when it happened, if you see what I mean. I think they're both honestly very similar, its just strange that I never realized that until I watched this video, if you see what I mean
your Deep dive for this is on point and I have notes! lol I believe that Zander's character arc was Supposed to be exactly what became of Riley's minus the relationship with Buffy. Zander really should have been officially recruited into the Initiative and become the leader that he saw Riley as. It should have been Zander that left and returned to assist like we saw Riley do. Riley's character feels like it was actually where the Story of Zander was headed. Before the network change and the 2 extra seasons were suddenly added after it was unofficially drop by the (WB) maybe that is what Changed...
I definitely agree that Riley feels very much like what Xander could've or should've been. I think that's why Xander identified with him so much. Riley is literally the trajectory Xander was on (s1-s3) but never go there.
I don’t hate Xander. I personally think he had some of the funniest one liners and heartfelt speeches of the show. The only time that I was furious with him was when he left Anya at the altar since he was the one who proposed and seemed to lead to the on the wedding in the first place. I can’t even watch that episode. It makes me so mad. Lol. I do agree that he didn’t have character growth, although I didn’t realize it until this video. I think I felt somewhat of a connection with him in the earlier seasons because I grew up in a poor and sometimes violent home, but that didn’t really go anywhere. Side note: I’m really glad I discovered this channel. It’s hard to find good Buffy content, which baffles me since there’s so much great material to analyze. Thanks for the great videos and keep them coming 😊
8:48 It was, There is an episode where he breaks into the base using his army knowledge,
Yeah but then in a later season when asked about his military memories he says that they're mostly gone.
@@GoeTeeks Huh, maybe it was fading slowly with him, who knows.
@@jeromelancashire3278 I mean, it was knowledge that was gained without any living memory or experience to back it up. If he wasn't using it or recalling it regularly, it wouldn't be much better than cramming for an exam the night before and forgetting it all the next week.
It always especially pissed me off that he threatened to kill Buffy several times when angry at her. Buffy let him off too easy.
So glad you brought up Empty Places, I just watched it the other day and it infuriated me as usual, but this helped haha
It's amazing how the episode gets more infuriating as the years go on. lol I started making vids about that episode two years ago on tik tok and it makes me even more mad today
Realising Xander is Whedon's self insert, makes you understand alot about his character and the stories we've now heard about Whedon's attitude on set, especially towards SMG and fellow actresses.
I love Xander and I disagree with most of your points. Xander did grow. By the age of 21 yrs old, he had found a career that he enjoyed and excelled at, he was in a committed relationship longer than anyone else on the show and he was a support system for his friends. Also, he had a right to grieve for the loss of his eye and barely played a role when everyone turned on Buffy. His contribution was basically, “I think your judgement is off and my lack of eye is my evidence.”
NOW, let’s talk about the real problem with Xander. He had huge misogynist tendencies, like feeling a sense of entitlement to Buffy, cheating on Cordelia, and telling Anya that he felt sick looking at her because she slept with someone after they broke up.
One last point that I don’t hear people talk about, Giles. Of all of the scoobies, Xander’s the one that needed a father figure the most and Giles rejected him over and over and over again. If Buffy or Willow made a mistake Giles would be there to comfort them and hold their hand through it all. Xander only ever got an eye roll from Giles. Giles couldn’t even bring himself to hug Xander goodbye when he left for England!
These are some fair points, especially the last paragraph with how Giles rejected him. I feel like that part is unfortunately a downside of 90s culture with machismo culture, it was in full force back then and emotion between men was frowned upon (but slightly getting better).
Xander isn't perfect and there's no denying his misogynist tendecies like you pointed out (made worse when you learned about the truth about Joss Whedon and Xander was supposed to represent him...) but despite the mistakes, Xander still came through when the time really called for it.
if you want to blame xander for cheating then do the same for wilow and
and yes spike a mass murder and rapesit anyone that sleep with that i woudl look at like there dogshit and that fine. l
I rarely if ever comment on videos but I have to say “I am really attached to my hate of Xander Harris” is the best thing I have heard this year!
Zander showed his colors by basically threatening Buffy at the end of season 2 when Angelus was after Willow
You mean the first episode of season 2 when Buffy was acting like an immature brat and almost got everyone killed?
you mean first ep of season 2 when buffy was beign a bitch and almost got willow killed yea xadner was right.
In becoming pt2 he withheld information from her as she was going into battle. If Willow's spell hadn't have worked the planet would have been sucked into help because buffy was about to behead Angel and then how would they have closed Acatha's mouth? Also why would Buffy believe Xander's message about Willow for all these years when she had been the one to re-ensoul Angel?
Dead Man's Party, Partying Gifts, Revelations! When he and Willow were cheating on their S/O and Xander caught Buffy with Angel and ran back to for another meeting where Buffy is humiliated. Buffy really is too nice, she gives xander more grace than he deserves. She lets him be her friend when he's not really one at all. I remember him telling that dream to Willow about how Angel would disappoint her eventually and he would swoop in to save her and she would cry? He really has a weird thing about punishing women ...
Maybe Xander Harris suffered as a character because Nicholas Brandon just wasn't a very good actor. Everyone else in the cast was more talented than him, he seemed to just be dialing it in as the wise cracking side-kick, what wasn't very charismatic. I say 🎶the wrong kid died 🎶when it comes to Xander and the best friend (they never talk about) Jesse. IDK if it was true at the time but Eric Balfour is a stronger actor then Nicholas. if the actors swapped perhaps they would have given a stronger actor more to work with, like all of Xander's family drama.
Xander and Anya was a very weird ship to me. It seemed forced that she would be drawn to the ex of her last charge. Very weird. the yellow cayon moment and him giving buffy mouth to mouth was very forced into the narrative to give Xander a win, for me.
I love the point that the wrong kid died. I didn't like Xander back in the day, as an adult I find him really painful to watch. He had one really good moment with Dawn about not being the special one, but that's it.
buffy let agnlus kill people for mouth then run away treated her freind like shit.
sorry people should be attacking buffy not xander
I have to say something about Empty Places. That's actually the least antagonistic he'd been towards her. Usually, he lays into her, but this time, all he said was two sentences and was completely subdued. Everyone else (minus Faith) said a lot worse.
ooo yes agree 100%! and a lot of his flaws don't even seem to get recognised by the narrative/go unadressed (which links to the no growth point), which i think adds to it a lot as well
His best moments when on Halloween he became a military man and retained some of it, Buffy pointed out he has more field time than most, will put himself on the line and lost an eye in the battle, had a sexy date with Ashanti who was a demon and almost killed. Looking at his family he also like Faith came from a dysfunctional family as his father was a violent and sloppy drink. That character arc was not explored. His character is a foil the writers used to his detriment.
Xander dies have a strong core for heroic cure brought out in desperation and fear for those he loves. His intellectual acumen was baseline in many areas except in wit. This character has a wry and sardonic wit that was eclipsed by his self deprecating psyche. It would have been a testament to character development to imbue him with empathy which he then channeled into a primal awareness for beings as demonstrated in his relationship with Anya. Anya was my favorite secondary character and the actress Beas able to illicit depth and the fragility of humanity. Anya had the greatest capacity for pragmatic intelligence and a long archival access to the observed nature of beings.
I think Xander's character was, as other people suggested, an avatar for Joss, which ended up boxing him into his toxic patterns because Joss was (we now know) boxed in with his toxic patterns. I also think he kind of got Frank Burns-ed (MASH). He was always the character who made the awkward nerdy jokes, and needed saving because he lacked social awareness and... like... basic foresight. If he grew, they wouldn't be able to use him in that function any more. I'm really speculating here, but the one area where Xander did develop where the other characters didn't was the trappings of adulthood. By season 7 he was the only one of them that even had a driver's license as far as we can tell. He and Anya are the only ones that have their own apartments... ever... in the entire show (maybe Tara did for a hot second while she was on the outs with Willow, but we don't really know). He's the only one that went out and found himself a career. Anya has the magic shop, which was haded to her by Giles, and Buffy briefly has the counselor job, but only because Robin was positioning her where he could keep an eye on her (she was really bad at that job). He goes from selling corndogs and ice cream in season 4 to supervising a construction job site in season 6, which seems like a meteoric sort of progress. This isn't a defense of Xander. He manages all of this stuff off camera. It's not really growth. But I wonder if Joss, who seems to see value in his professional successes, but not much in developing healthy, respectful, professional relationships with all of his actors and crew, might not see that as character growth enough.
These are some good points. I can't remember all of the incidences you mention (it's been a while since I've seen the whole show), but I do remember feeling at times disappointed that they didn't go further exploring this character's issues. I don't know if that's the main problem people have with him, however. I think the real issue is that he ISN'T a hero--and that is why we may dislike him. Unlike Buffy, Willow, the vampires, etc. who begin ordinary, he begins and stays ordinary, never developing special powers, and resenting those who do, feeling inferior to them. In that way he does represent the audience, and in particular the unpopular teenage boy, who reads about exciting things but doesn't get to do them. ("Why am I everybody's butt monkey?") I think that is his role on the show, as "the fool"--part comic relief, part flawed character. I think he is one of the funniest characters, and the actor has naturally great comic timing. Not that he isn't heroic, but his heroism is that fact that he knows he has no special powers yet fights to help his friends regardless ("Just a frightened guy with a rock.") Do I wish the other characters and the show held more accountable? Yes. In a way, however, maybe he is held accountable by never being allowed to rise above the level of "ordinary putz."
I really liked Xander at the time Buffy aired, but it fell off in season 6 when he left Anya. As an adult, I now borderline hate him. I certainly loathe what the show did with his character.
Xander was Joss Whedon's self-insert character (Joss said as much in interviews), which says so much about both Joss Whedon AND Xander. I think that's part of the reason why Xander's character was allowed to slide by with such little development.
I'm glad you brought up Xander not helping Buffy and Riley. People like to give the excuse that Xander didn't say anything to Buffy because he didn't want to interfere in their relationship, but A.) He's had no problem interfering in her relationships before B.) He didn't necessarily need to disclose what Riley said to him. Maybe just remind Buffy that she should make sure that her relationship remained a priority and to be communicative with Riley.
Exactly! When has Xander ever minded his business when it came to Buffy's love life? The Riley situation was an awfully convenient time to start lol. I agree that Joss identifying with Xander played a big part in the show not feeling he needed growth. Like Xander, look how Joss' perception has aged
Don't hate him at all, neither does the wife.
Same. Xander did a lot of things over the years that I didn't like, but I didn't hate him for it. He was living a pretty horrifying life in Sunnyvale, probably too scared to even question why he didn't run for the hills much less work to try to improve himself. He coped most of the time by joking, changing the subject, and just acting without thinking. An average person probably would react the way he did in that show. He never got powers that stayed, wasn't part of any super organizations that backed him like Giles (Watchers Council) or Riley (military), or had anything to give him a sense of self worth. Oh, and his family life sucked. He was just this regular person surrounded by amazing people feeling less than them 24/7. He could be a jerk at times, but he was also likeable and he cared. He wanted to help, but that was a crazy place and a lot to ask of someone with no special resources. He was young, dumb, and scared, but also hopeful, well intentioned, and willing to try. I liked him.
The only thing I'll disagree on slightly is when he lost his eye. They should not have kicked her out, or completely turn on her. But, as SOON as he got out of hospital, as soon as he was welcomed home, she wanted him back out and fighting. Like christ girl give it a minute!
Then Buffy tell.Xander only spike has my back. Buffy did not want a friend she wanted a follower
I make the case that Xander is more of a hero then Buffy.
Any a was a 1000 years old Xander 21.
If anya was a 50 year old ex hit man. Would you still defend Xander
Xander was right far more then Buffy was.
I’ve found my new favourite channel 🤩
We love to hear it! Buckle up, we have a lot of fantasy discourse to get through lol
I hated Xander from the moment he said to Buffy “kick his ass” about killing Angel 😡😡😭😭
Admittedly, I haven't re-watched Buffy since the 2000s (when I was far less mature) but I don't remember ever hating Xander. I actually thought he was the "funny one" everyone loved. Kind of like the Buffy equivalent of Chandler from Friends. Like any real human, he was flawed, and OCCASIONALLY did dumb things, but I'm really surprised to learn how unpopular he was!
I can't imagine ever hating Xander. The show wouldn't have been the same without him.
You're so right about Xander reveling in Buffy's low points. It's a really ugly part of the show that's hard to unsee once you've seen it. Buffy never deserved his long-simmering resentment.
Ah! A video about Joss' self-insert character!
I watched Buffy live and it was great, then I was rewatching DVDS of Angel and it forced me to go back and rewatch Buffy episodes and it definitely hit different when you werent immersed in it. Maybe I need to check it out again. I will say the Season 8 comic book was great.
Xander represents joss. It’s wild how much I don’t enjoy his scenes since losing love for joss as a person
Honestly, Xander's biggest issue is that he never really improved himself. My issues with Xander are the same ones I have with Stiles Stilinski from Teen Wolf. But that's because they're the exact same kind of characters.they're both the self insert for the showrunner.
the main difference is that Xander at least got held accountable, and got some level of growth where Stiles had... well none.
he's a self insert Joss based character so no surprise he didn't age too well, considering...
Everyone has so many good points! I don’t even have to write a comment 😂 but I will “allegedly” say Xander was suppose to be a surrogate for Mr. Joss whedon himself, so that’s gross and makes sense why Xander did some of the bad shit he shouldn’t have
Edit: So glad I ran into this channel! Definitely subbing!
If the show got rebooted/continued today, Xander is one of the things that would need to be updated. Either they need to confront his personality (along with a few other characters) and have the flaws get addresed. Or I could see them making him gay like was the coin flip option and making Willow straight.
Xander was the only just human.. Still he stepped up time and time again.. And, he liked the quiet.
Xender symbolizes Buffy's feelings "the heart". He cannot develop further because he symbolizes all feelings and these are stupid. The fear, the anger, the insecurity, the jealousy. These feelings are always the same. They do not grow with you. They are always there. When Riley said that Buffy does not love him, Xender could not say anything. He is Buffy's feelings, she knew it/felt it but she did not want to admit it. In her heart she already knew it, but her heart was not allowed to say it.
I kinda got the impression that part of the reason Xander did not respond in that particular scene, was because he was probably caught off guard by Riley confiding in him about something so personal. Up to that point I think Xander viewed Riley as a friend, all around decent guy, and ally to the Scoobies. He might've even looked up to him somewhat, as a big brother type, but I'm not sure he was quite prepared to have a conversation with him about deep feelings.
(At least not until after they'd helped save the world together a couple more times.)
If he is her heart, why is he the least empathic of them all? He is only nice to dawn and as it turned out in the comics, he was grooming her.
What?!
@@BCBaronI think a bit of both work. Men not deep in feelings not prepared for it. Because all either guy's flaws, they are sensitive. Riley maybe more in the "what do you need" way and Xander "hey, thats hurtful" way. But also crushing his idea that Buffy could at least be into a guy he really sees qualities in and not revile. I mean theres a level of envy that is respect. Xander could respect Buffy dating Riley that he couldnt anyone else. Whether his humanity, physique, or down to earth kindness. But not so removed from himself either.
People get real weird around people they like while even they are dating someone else. No one benefits unless oblivious. So I can even see the terribleness towards Anya from the start, because while pretty, into him, they had sex, she wasnt what he would have chosen.
@@LiilliithhI know. Couldnt believe when I heard about that. 🤢
Xander is among other things, impulsive, annoying, unstable, needy, sometimes very cruel and snakey, insecure, self pitying.. he seems like an all or nothing, quick tempered jack of some trades.. when really someone of the scooby gang should be above such shortcomings, or get over the flaws fairly quickly because the group is full of old souls who could snap him out of it and show him better ways.
He seems somewhat arrested in development, awkward, doesn't read rooms well, shows he might have adhd and even mild autism- and in that sense, i think he and Anya were an inevitable match.
How is he unstable? Did he ever get violent with a human being? He just has a lot of pain.
@@davidmeadows5627 yeah, he did. he tried to beat up angel, spike.. let his mouth run wild saying hurtful crap to buffy, screwed everything with Anya, punched a wall, got himself almost killed by Faith and sacrificed by a demon to open the hellmouth.
@@tomcross3000 I said human beings. Angel and Spike are vampires. They don't count. You're seriously blaming him for being the victim of Faith's evil? Or for getting kidnapped by a demon? Wow! Talk about victim blaming!
@@davidmeadows5627 Well.. yes! because he swaggered into those situations looking to wet his wick and wasn't careful like any other member of the scooby gang is! that is why he's an idiot. And angel and spike have souls, so yes they do count.
@@tomcross3000okay first of all, when he tried to hurt Spike Spike did not have a soul. he had a chip inhibiting him from doing evil things. he wanted to do those evil things. he was just as evil as any other vampire. he just had something blocking him from doing so. Xander never actually hurt Spike even once after he actually had a soul. has Rachel. he never actually trusted him? yes, a lot of it was him being jealous, but there's also the fact that he has seen vampires kill his best friend. you remember that where his best friend died on the stake he had there. he has a reason to not trust them. what with Angel being the only supposedly good one and then after he was the only supposedly good one he turned evil and did all the horrible stuff there. I'm not saying that his intentions were absolutely pure, but he did have a good reason not to trust Angel several in fact. as for saying he was sauntering into an area. just wanting to get his wick wet. That sounds an awful lot. like the male version of saying well. just look how he was dressed. he was begging for it.
The closest Xander got to self actualizing was the double episode, where his "strong" half went out to get the job while the "wimpy" half held onto all of Xander's anxiety and weakness. Almost sad that they came back together. That being said, I never hated Xander, but every rewatch he gets more cringe.
While I will never deny his flaws, nor his almost complete lack of any development/growth. I actually love Xander, I wish they had done him better, but as someone who gave but couldn't follow excellent advice to my friends.... don't get me wrong sometimes we can get toxic, but we do see very clearly (than blatantly refuse to see our own scenarios...)
And loved this video cause I've never understood the Xander hate... granted I was in my teens early twenties when I was watching the show on DVD, so.....
15:13 Age doesn't not mean wisdom, Anya was not emotionally intelligent,
she was over a 1000 year old, you NEVER say that about a guy if giles was dating buffy at 16 you never say well he old but NOt emotionally intelligent so it ok.
@az21bob666 Buffy was dating a hundred year old guy at 16,
But that is not the point. the point is Anya was confused lost in a world she didn't understand after years of conditioning to believe one way when Xander found her.
try again anya was 1000 year old and she new far more of the world then xadner did and SHE went after him.
@az21bob666 A 1000 year old vengeance demon who after her husband cheated on her sort revenge when she met D'Hoffryn who taught her that human men were scum before giving her the powers to seek revenge on all men throughout countless centuries until she made a mistake and our favourite Watcher made her lose her powers and D'Hoffryn rejected her now seeing her as a worthless mortal, now lost in the world that she hardly knew she had no one until she met Xander, a mortal man who was nice, treated her well and for some inexplicable reason she couldn't understand she felt attracted to him eventually leading to her giving up her powers and eventually dying for him.
she did not give up her powers and she did not die for him
still a 1000 year old and he was 18
Xander was supposed to come to the realization that he was gay. If you go back to the first 2 seasons you can see it bubbling in the background. But then the writers scrapped that storyline and gave it to Willow when Oz left. They were like we can't have 2 gay main characters and they didn't know what to do with him.
That would be have made him more interesting and bolder man living in his truth .
@@chaliceofchangehighly disagree
As a gay man i am glad they never went with it.
I already hate the ‘realization’ bs cus thats just hetero pov of what being gay is. Furthermore it would’ve painted being gay as something you become/acquire rather than born being gay which is age old religious homophobia.
The show also always painted the always implicit gay men as incredibly negative and cowardly, you can see they wouldnt have been able to write a gay male character because like so many they either do not see gay men as human beings or they just don’t care about them.
Xander also had an infatuation with buffy, a relationship with cordelia, an affair with willow and was assaulted by faith for his 1st time whereas willow had a crush on xander and a slow natural paced relationship with oz even tho i still do not like turning gay storylines even with willow with xander it would have actually demanded a complete suspension of belief and would have pushed for homophobic/pro c.therapy rhetoric and would have been extremely creepy all around to me. I also believe jw reasons to not make willow was cowardly and a very poor excuse i personally always saw her as bi but with a heavy lean towards women so they clearly only were able to write them by the skin of their teeth. Also they mention it when tara talks to willow about her relationship to magic/lesbianism as just college experiences and instead of willow trying to understand tara and reassure her she blamed tara and got defensive (which ngl typical bi reaction in this situation). Also people don’t like to hear but people give less leeway and less scrutiny to lesbians than gay men thats probably why they choose willow and were able to write them better than they could even write alleged gay male one off characters.
I love btvs forever but they’d never have the ability to write gay male characters with the same consideration and respect as any other groups.
we dodged a bullet.
I liked him the whole time. I thought xander evolved nicely. He was a goofy nut from the beginning but in the end he knew himself, had confidence and had a quiet acceptance. How is that not evolution?
I often dont like Xander. He has an unearned self righteousness when it comes to Buffy and her relationships. He often treated anya as less than. One thing i will point out though after raising two kids is he was always there to help with Dawn. Hed babysit, pick her up for school, give rides, and fix Buffys house millions of times. He never compained, refused, or asked for compensation. He jumped into any fight he was needed for until that stupid fracture in season 7. I guess hes like a butthole brother who always shows up when called.
Far too much Xander hate by many Buffyverse fans. After all he saved Buffy's life on many occasions. Firstly in Prophecy Girl when he gave her the kiss of life, again in the awful Go Fish when he got her up from the pool, and of course he single handedly saved them all in the brilliant The Zeppo, where of course none of them knew this. His mad jealousy of Buffy and Angel was of course a mark against him ( ok, also as an adult leaving Anya at the altar ), but everyone seems to forget he was a teenage boy for most of this. We have to remember also is his dysfunctional family home life, and the fact that Faith sexually assaulted him after he lost his virginity, and tried to rape and murder him. This is of course was never treated as seriously as the soulless Spike's attempted rape of Buffy in Seeing Red, because it was female on male, it somehow was never treated as seriously. God Dammit he even gave his eye for the cause! He was a flawed character, because he was very human!
Valid points for sure. At the core, the show very much centers on humans doing extraordinary things. BTVS has very a high bar when it comes to character development arcs. So many of the characters save the world at various periods and do very epic things. They do these things while having fantastically compelling character growth arcs. Xander does the the heroic things without any of the character growth arcs. That leaves his character feeling unbalanced. In the Buffyverse, just being heroic or saving the world isn't enough because so many other characters are doing the same while interiorly expanding. I think this is a lot of why Xander is open to so much hate.
I think it's slightly different when you consider he is the one doing it without powers. I mean I always saw him as making the point that you don't need to be chosen as a slayer or gifted with magic to step up. I do agree that after 7 seasons that one facet of his character is done to death but it is worth considering imo
@@ryanbtalkstv Possibly it would have been better if they moved him to Angel also, as all the characters that moved to that show were very one dimensional in BTVS, whereas in Angel they thrived in that show. Cordelia lets face it was just a Vacuous Airhead in BTVS who just got in the way a lot of time, Wesley was a bumbling fool who just seemed to get in the way also, and Angel himself thrived in his own show as well. Maybe Xander could shown more character development if he also moved from the legacy show, as I think Wesley had the best character Arc of all in The Buffyverse, maybe Xander could have also had he been mover over, who is to know.
The problem with Xander are not his flaws as every character in Buffy is flawed, but the fact that he rarely is made accountable for them, which hinders his development. I don't think Xander is shallow as we do get a very incisive exploration of his psyche in episodes like "The Zeppo", "The Replacement" and "Restless", but he definitely doesn't experience the growth Buffy, Willow, Spike, Faith, etc. go through.
@@vodkatonyq I think most of the characters failures/flaws don't get examined properly. Anya had a soul for the whole thousand years but that only gets brought up by Buffy in S7 in the heat of hte moment.
Giles was the only adult in the know for years and he just let everyone but Buffy flounder. He expected Xander and Willow to be perfect but never really taught them anything like he did with Buffy.
Joyce is a pretty bad mom in the first couple seasons, with a few epic moments that over shadow that. Her becoming an amazing mom from S3 onwards also overshadows it.
Willow wanted to mess with xander's mind in S3 because of the cheating and that just never gets addresed (even by fans).
Buffy let a lot of people die during S2. I get her reason, but that's a massive failure.
Xander's flaws just just brushed off and forgotten the next episode (usually.)
Such a good breakdown!
Thank you!
I feel Xander is really just indicative of the whole show by the end. Practically every character has done some seriously sh*tty things by season 7 and is damaged beyond belief. It's one of the reasons why I don't like the UPN years and believe the show should've ended after season 5. The Gift wraps up everything. Buffy has literally defeated a god (how are you going to top that?), she's made the supreme sacrifice and the slayer cycle continues. It was the right denouement for the show. Except network execs with dollar signs in their eyes just couldn't leave well enough alone.
If you showed the kids of season 1 what they'd become in 5 to 6 years, they'd have been horrified. Willow is arrogant and an addict who's given a massive hit of her drug of choice at the end (I don't believe for a minute that making the girl who abused magic the most powerful magic wielder in the world would end well). Buffy is an emotionally deadened and broken person, going through the motions. Xander has borderline incel tendencies and never seems to learn any important life lessons. At the end of the day Xander is just an early symptom of the rot that infected and eventually killed the show for me. Which is a shame, because I wanted to like him. I'm usually on the side of the somewhat geeky everyman character, but every time I started to vibe with Xander he pulled some immature crap that had me wincing. You could come up with reasons for why he's so screwed up if you're feeling imaginative, like maybe the hyena never completely left him, or the soldier's memories messed him up somehow (especially if any of those memories included tours of duty in some quagmire like Vietnam). I've done this myself writing what-if fanfiction. But the sad fact is you don't need any of that to explain him. He's simply a product of his upbringing - the son of abusive alcoholics - and often struggles (and fails) to escape the confines of that mindset.
Y'know, I'm reminded of the very end scene of 'I Robot You Jane' where the three of them contemplate the prospect of never having a happy life. Gotta say, they called it.
I'm glad I'm not the only one. The show always struggled with character arcs. But the 5th season would have at least ended all of the storylines off on a high note. But the last 2 seasons destroyed any charm or character development any of the characters had.
No. Buffy's death in the end would defeat the show's premise. She was supposed to LIVE. NOT DIE young like all the other slayers did. Season 5 ending as the final series ending would've ruined the show forever. They could've done all the rest much better but any ending were Buffy ends alive and with a future is always better because it does her justice.
@@virz4432 No. You just WANT her alive because you like the character. Buffy didn't die from a vampire attack in season 5. She willingly sacrificed herself for her sister, Dawn. That's the perfect way to end the series. Because her entire personality throughout the show was her being forced to risk her life on a daily basis. By the end, she's grown so much that she's the one choosing to sacrifice her life for the greater good.
Maybe it's just me, but that's scary I lived so much about season 6.
It is bleak and depressing. Everyone's screwed up and traumatized and had problems.
But that felt real to me.
Maybe it's coz I also grew up in abuse and have had to worth through my own trauma, but that's solace in seeing characters that are a broken as you and struggling as much as you.
Season 6 is one of my faves for that reason.
Thankfully though, instead of going the faith route, I put in a ton of work to heal and move past everything.
But it's not like you forget. So I kind of like seeing characters that mirror the struggles I had.
What pisses me of about Xander though is that he never grew at all. It's exactly like you said, he never escaped his upbringing.
Even faith has her arc of atonement on angel. But Xander? He learns no lessons, never works on himself, and never grows.
xander show Zero incell tendencies
Whedon always said that he modeled Xander after himself... I wonder if that's why there wasn't much growth while Whedon was with the show. Since he was more consumed with Angel during Buffy's final two seasons, I feel the writers, tried to do a little bit by making Xander more mature with the construction job and with his 'mature guy' talks with Dawn and Willow.
"Whedon always said that he modeled Xander after himself.." and Whedon hates himself.
Zander was Pet-TEA.
3 minutes in and you betta had brought up that Angel situation! I already didn't like Xander, but after that I could NEVER like him.
Zander had so much potential
5:11 I think it was to fire her up so she could stop Riley from leaving, and she was going to but it was too late.
I’m so glad I found your channel! This was a really good analysis. I agree wholeheartedly.
Thank you! I'm glad you found my channel!
6:31 He mostly made jokes about it to alleviate the situation, and I quote, "Party in my eye socket and everyone's invited, Sometimes I should not say words," What are you talking about?
Looking forward to more videos! Subbed today and promptly binged every video you’ve made!❤
I LOVE Xander, he's definitely one of my favourite characters.
I can't stand Xander (nor Riley). Xander is always trying to control, take something from, hide something from or get something from Buffy that he knows he shouldn't.
buffy the one trying to control and keep seceret
I don't hate Xander.
He was infatuated with Buffy, but AFAICR not annoyingly so. Didn't he even tell of another guy (...Jessie?) in season 1 for being a creep?
And he's loyal. He is scared a lot of the time, but overall he's not a coward.
I don't think it is fair to say there is no character development. There is, but it is all in the background; he's just not a main character.
No, I hate how he is never held accountable. Leaving Anya at the altar was a dick move, but *summoning a demon* just because you are feeling insecure?
I always thought Xander was a good character never hated him with not telling her about angel I mean she had to do what she had to do I feel telling her would’ve made it harder
the writers have stated buffy would have died if he told her about the curse. but telling the part about willow is what made buffy feel so alone she ran away. if she thought willow was on her side about angel still, she would have gone to her house.
The comics didnt do his character any favors either. Dating Dawn gives me the creeps.
Let’s also talk about how annoying Buffy’s sister was 🙄
Ксандр терпел Райдли только потому что, знал, что Баффи не любит Райли.
Вот и вся причина
Everytime i rewatch im always irritated by how much Xander talks
A thing with Xander that always bugged me (not related, but I'll say it here) is that I'm convinced that rather than lose an eye, he should have died. Would have raised the stakes, would have made The First a legit threat, would have made Buffy being kicked out of her house make sense. I think that he didn't have anything more to offer, it would have been shocking, and it was towards the end, meaning characters can be axed without issue, as there isn't any reason to keep them around.
I must be one of the few Buffy fans that never much liked Willow or Xander. I thought they were interesting and well played but that’s it. Xander was possessive and toxic.
I like Xander and with that being said, we ALL have that one A-hole friend that we love to hate in our group. I had no problem with Xander calling Buffy out on her former (sometimes 😒) serial killer boyfriend Angel. Xander was a great character with a heart of gold, I feel he should've been killed off in the last season tho. That would've definitely gave him a better character development overall. He doesn't deserve any hate imo.
I hear you but hear me out. We don't all have an A hole friend that we love to hate lol I definitely don't. That's why a lot of people don't like Xander. For a lot of people that trope doesn't land as softly because, for many, the lovable A hole trope just reads as an A hole. Xander also was dating a serial killer so that gives him even less space. It's the imbalance that gets Xander every time.
At the end of the day no one should have any hate towards Xander because he's not a serial killer like Angel, Spike, and Anya.
@@explore8539 Honestly, Anya should be getting the most hate. She had a soul for that 1'000 years of torture she inflicted. Spike and Angel are soulless demons when they do 99% of the evil. Xander accidently gets people killed because he summoned Sweet when... why was that book just in the MAgic shop? That should have been one of the protected books. Anyone Anya/Giles sold it too would have been just as responsible.
Giles also bugs me. He's the one adult in the group and he never steps in with Xander to steer him away from the worst traits. Giles felt like he had no purpose with Buffy in S4, well he could clearly see how hopeless Xander was and turning him into a functioning member of society could have been an awesome storyline.
@@explore8539OK but then why does he give Willow a pass? She's a murderer. She tried to kill Johnathan and Andrew, then the whole world. And Angel and Spike never killed anyone. The demon possessing them did. That's like blaming someone that Professor-X takes over and killes someone.
xander was dating a HUMAN WOMEN,
xander hated anglus BUT he did not like angel. but there not one sence were angel nice to xander NOT one. so xander had no resason to like angel.
people for get that.
plus angle like 200 and buffy 16 that alone woudl make me hate angel.
I did not hate the Xander Harris character. However, his constant dumb jokes and sarcastic comments got on my nerves. I always wanted Buffy, the scooby gang, and Rupert Giles to tell him to cut it out. I remember a scene during which Giles had enough of Xander's comments and snapped at him, but quickly apologized. I thought, "don't apologize, Xander deserved it."
I didn't hate him. He is just Xander.
I never hate Xander. I understand why he act that way. Also i even understand more, after study criminology.
Xander is a guy from family, that nobody cares of him at all. Straight up victim of abuse from his father, neglected from his mother; he has only one real friend. And well Willow is not exactly the person that you can learn how empathy works, because she's having some real sociopathy traits. Xander is a normal dude, who grow up in bad enviroment.
Did he having crush on Buffy? Yes. I guess it's only for two seasons. But he still a biggest Buffy fan ever, he can just die for her. You can't call him misoginistic, he never been.
Xander hate vampires - because of Jesse. He also not a guy who been talk about feelings, so it's made sense that he never talk about Jesse. Also - with who? Willow technicaly ignored Jesse existence, and forget of him in seconds, Buffy don't know him.
Xander having serious problems - he himself think he is stupid, worthless, weak, useless. He feel like that all the time - it's not just because he is only normal guy around, that's because his background. It's actualy a very good writing, also probably a glimpse of real Nicholas Brendon under, because in that part - they the same. In comics Xander is literaly having clinical depression, ptsd.
Cheating Cordelia - it's also Willow fault. Stop pretending that for some reason it's only his fault. And he feel guilty and show it on his own way. Willow... she never care about feeling of other people, so she's the bad one in this situation.
Leaving Anya - that's was deamon manipulation. And that demon is Anya fault. Xander was a real victim here, and because he can't just say what he feel inside - he run. His technicaly been mentaly rape in this episode. And it's somenthing bad with people empathy, when everyone just ignoring it - that demon uses all of his fears. Turns his brain into soup.
Did Xander is a nice guy, or even incel (like some part of internet calls him). Nope. He is a troubled guy; he is a sad clown. He being annoing, but it's just a mask, underneath - is lot of pain, bad feeling about himself. Even with this he always try to be the best friend he can be, but it's not always work. Even in real life.
Actualy writers do the best job in Buffy - they write real people. Real people are not ideal, not super logical; they flawless, they have real problems.
Like i said - Willow is basicaly a sociopath, light one, pretty functional. But she's having a very low empathy, she's a total control freak, worst partner you can even imagine. And most of the people don't see it, and it's been always here. Since first episode. Six season - peak of this. Believe me you don't want to have Willow friend anywhere in real life.
Anya also is sociopathic, she also a serial killer - she's not autistic, i'm sorry. She was bad person even before being a demon, she's clearly now that Olaf turned into troll been killing people in they village. I believe she's love Xander on some way, but it's a sociopathic love, not a "normal person" love. He is a tool for her, because she's ended human and well... i bet she's always having a plan to uses him to become a demon again. And probably to the some level - she's don't care he been hurt or killed. Maybe after some years, when she's little changing - and that's actualy a bad writing, you can't heal this.
For me it's funny to watch Willow and Anya "fights", because they both very similar in characters. But they also unable to see it, and probably don't care at all.
To be fair, there's plenty of reasons to justify hating all the characters.
I did not hate Xander BEFORE this video but now after this video I am like shit this guy is a prick , you are so right we don't like Xander 😂😂, damn good points
Zander was a “nice” guy. He was not a _good_ person.
I'm not Xander's biggest fan but I feel like you're missing the mark on a few things.
First of all, Xander not liking Buffy's relationship with Angel started out as jealousy but it didn't go beyond a snarky comment here and there until after the relationship became abusive. Anya was never abusive to Xander. That's the difference.
The "kick his @$$" thing was, IMHO, totally justified. Xander thought that if Buffy held back in that fight, trying to save Angel, she would have died. I think he was right. You have to remember that metaphorically, Xander represents Buffy's heart while Willow is her spirit and Giles is her mind. Willow is still trying to save the "soul mate" but ending the abusive relationship metaphorically required the mind and heart to outvote her, if that's not too clunky a metaphor.
I also think you're wrong in the confrontations you're talking about. You chose a couple of examples, the party when she comes back from running off and the last season where her leadership was in doubt, where everyone there had beef with Buffy but Xander also said something, leading to you claiming that Xander was tearing her down. That seems like an odd interpretation.
I do think that Xander has a journey, it's just a much more mundane journey than the rest of them. He goes from being a fifteen year old Everyman to a twenty year old Everyman 😂
He graduates high school, falls in love a couple of times, faces some inadequacy issues and learns a trade. I think he is Jimmy Olsen. Just as average a guy as he can be, given who he hangs out with.