Fandom Snowflake Challenge #8

[aadler]

Taking on the meme/challenge here.

Fandom Snowflake Challenge #8

In your own space, write a promo, manifesto or primer for a beloved character, relationship or fandom. Post your answer to today’s challenge in your own space and leave a comment here saying you did it.

All right. Mine will be for — who else? — Xander.

So, to open …

Buffy the Vampire Slayer, despite the title’s singular focus, was by design an ensemble show from the very beginning, and three of the “Core Four” — Buffy Summers, Rupert Giles, Xander Harris, and Willow Rosenberg — were introduced within the first five minutes. (Giles appeared somewhat past the eleven-minute mark, after other series groundwork had been laid.) Buffy and Willow went on to appear in every single series episode; Xander almost equaled that, featuring in all but one (the Season 7 episode, “Conversations with Dead People”, due to time limitations).

Because the show began in 1997 and ended in 2003, an entire generation has grown up to begin judging the character of Xander by standards that didn’t exist when he appeared. Some of those judgments get … extreme. This is a retrospective look at what was and still remains a very popular character.

Hero? Comic relief? Occasional idiot?

All of the above, of course. Throughout the entirety of the series, Xander was the only one who never had and never gained any extra-human abilities. (His possession by a hyena spirit in “the Pack” was the only example that even came close, and not only was that temporary — a single episode — during that episode he was simultaneously a problem to be solved and increasingly a villain.) That was actually part of his appeal: he was the ‘ordinary guy’ who hung in there, fighting the fight and putting his life on the line, backing up the heroes without any advantages at all.

He was also, by his own choices, the joker of the bunch, the one who used humor for distraction, deflection, criticism, and sometimes even bitter reflection. The character was intentionally designed to be funny, physically and behaviorally, but additionally the character himself deliberately used humor as his primary tool.

And, oh boy, did he make mistakes. Probably more than all the other main characters put together. Looking back, though, it seems pretty clear that his goof-ups, while undeniably more frequent, were much smaller and less consequential. The worst that comes to mind is in “Beauty and the Beast” (S3-04), when he falls asleep while he was supposed to be watching over werewolf-Oz in the library book cage; that was big, that was bad, that was potentially catastrophic, and the fact that it turned out wolf-Oz wasn’t guilty of the killing that happened the same night, doesn’t change that he could have been, and it would have been Xander’s fault if that had been the case. I’ve stood guard in combat zones and I know how pitilessly the Army regards sleeping on duty in those circumstances …

But, you know what? That’s pretty much it. Try to Google ‘Xander’s biggest mistakes’ and you get a list of ‘Why I hate Xander Harris’, ‘Xander was the worst character on Buffy’, ‘Top 10 worst things Xander ever did’, ‘Ten ways Xander got worse and worse’ … it’s an uninhibited hate-fest, and most of it is either opinion (“How dare he disapprove of Buffy having sex with vampires?” “Leaving Anya at the altar was heartless and unforgivable!”) or backdating current Me-Too standards onto someone who was between 16 and 20 years old at the time of his worst ‘sins’, in a venue where galloping PTSD had to have been all but unavoidable.

(The thing that most annoys me is accusations of him ‘slut-shaming’ Cordelia. Cordelia’s digs at Xander were much more numerous, much more personal, and much more potentially hurtful … and, let’s face it, Xander and Cordelia were in a perpetual snipe-war even when they were together as a couple. Yes, we can understand how that kind of thing might not be ideal now, but it was just how they related to each other back then.)

Xander and relationships

‘Xander the demon magnet’ was a common joke on the show, explicitly stated in Season 4 but recognizable well before then. Was Xander ever involved with a non-mystical woman? The only two who come close are Cordelia (who did become a seer and then part-demon on the Angel spin-off) and Lysette (his brief, car-happy ride-along buddy in “the Zeppo”, S3-13). Past that, the roster has Natalie French (sexual virgin-schtupping mantis-demon), Ampata (Inca mummy), Willow (budding sorceress), Faith (Slayer), Anya (former vengeance demon), and Lissa (shapeshifting demon facilitator of the First Evil). This doesn’t even count Amy Madison, Jenny Calendar, Drusilla, and Buffy herself, all infatuated with him during the disastrous love spell (“Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered”, S2-16).

In the relationships themselves, Xander came across as much more sensitive and injurable than callous and injuring; his attempted love-spell revenge on Cordelia came after she dumped him on Valentine’s Day, his cheating on Willow with Cordelia (and let’s never forget, Willow was cheating on Oz with that, and she was never permanently maligned for it) left him feeling long-term guilty over how it had hurt Cordelia, the accusations of him just using Anya for sex overlook that she herself was openly sexually hedonistic (as his ‘constantly putting Anya down’ overlooks that the two of them sniped back and forth at each other as regularly and happily as he and Cordelia had done).

As for the condemnation of him as a ‘nice guy’ who expected Buffy to finally turn to him if he just hung around long enough … to the extent that he did that, it was when he was youngest (16-17), at a time that human males are notoriously vulnerable to this particular comforting delusion, and it was dumb but neither malicious nor malignant.

Contrasted to this — and, be assured, this isn’t a comprehensive list — are his pep talk to Buffy in “the Freshman” (S4-01), his sending her after Riley in “Into the Woods” (S5-10), and his wonderful speech to Dawn in “Potential” (S7-12). Never mind that he talked Dark Willow down from directly destroying the world in “Grave” (S6-22) by pure platonic love. Heck, his paying for Cordelia’s prom dress, after they were no longer a couple, was a fine moment all by itself.

The Best

Oh, so much of that.

The biggest and most prominent, obviously, was “the Zeppo” (S3-13), when Xander at his most fumbling goofball peak 1) saved Faith from one of the Sisterhood of Jhe, 2) had sex with Faith (her choice, her in control, and only a lunatic could consider that as an example of Xander ‘using’ women), 3) killed three zombies one by one in a running fight, 4) faced down zombie Jack O’Toole and forced him to disarm the bomb beneath the library explicitly by his willingness to stand there and die if that was what it took, thereby 5) saving the rest of the crew (and the world) by keeping them alive so they could finish re-closing the Hellmouth.

Lesser, but still noteworthy:

Xander showing up in “Becoming”, Part 2 (S2-22) with a cast on one hand and a rock in the other, ready to back Buffy up however he could, and getting Giles out of the mansion while Buffy faced off against Angelus.

Xander tackling Spike, who had blitzed Buffy in broad daylight while wearing the Gem of Amarra (“the Harsh Light of Day”, S4-03). Totally powerless, no stronger than any human and less so than many, Xander nonetheless threw himself against a Big Bad who was already known for having killed two Slayers, providing the moment’s distraction that may have made all the difference between Buffy dying and her getting a chance to rally.

The Worst

Yeah, not really. These are my answers to some of the most egregious accusations against the guy, not counting the ones I’ve already addressed.

He was so prejudiced against Angel and Spike. (Also, he ‘slut-shamed’ Buffy and then Anya for having sex with Spike.)

Uh, guys, vampires. Xander’s very first experience with vampires was when they tried to kill him, Willow, Jesse; his second was when he found out they had killed Jesse, and his third was seeing what Jesse had turned into as a vampire. These were creatures that any sane person would have wanted to see eradicated, and Xander promptly dedicated himself to helping do so.

Furthermore, even when the chip rendered him a ‘harmless’ quasi-ally, Spike still remained evil, and openly bragged about being evil. Besides which, he was dead. There’s a reason having sex with a dead body is (rightfully) regarded as a perversion, and that body being animated by unclean magic doesn’t really improve things any.

He objectified women, regarding them purely in terms of sex.

He regarded women as desirable. The hugest majority of men do that. Humanity exists and continues to exist because men see women as desirable, and women more or less echo that regard. And — once again — for most of the show, he was a teenager. At that age, being able to think of anything BUT sex is an achievement.

He had kinky dreams about the women around him (Tara, Willow, Joyce in “Restless”, S4-22, potential Slayers in “Dirty Girls”, S7-18).

Who in all the world hasn’t had dreams that made them feel weird? Dreams are dreams. What we do is something else.

He tried to assault Buffy! (“the Pack”)

Yes, while possessed. The other Pack members ate the principal of Sunnydale High School. In “Normal Again” (S6-17), Buffy tried to KILL everybody while under demon-venom-induced delusion. Jeez, people, try some perspective once in a while.

He lied to Buffy about Willow’s plan to re-ensoul Angel, just out of pure, hateful jealousy.

Yeah. He’d already seen people die from Buffy’s unwillingness to kill the monster wearing the face of her former lover, he’d seen his best friend hospitalized — and a second Slayer killed — just within the past few hours, and Buffy was going in alone for a showdown. Right, the absolutely perfect time to give her a reason to hold back and stall for time while said monster set about ending the world.

Maybe Buffy would have won anyway. We’ll never know. What we know is that she did win, and anything less than total commitment — which Willow’s ‘hopeful’ news might have undercut — could have brought about literal Hell on Earth. So if Xander is to blame for that … thank you. And thank you, and thank you, and thank you.

Directorial influence

We have to recognize that some of Xander’s character was imposed on him externally. Most famously, Joss Whedon seems to have intended from the beginning to have either Willow or Xander enter a same-sex relationship at some point, and deliberately wrote both in such a manner as to facilitate the possibility.

Besides that, it’s said that at one point the actor (Nicholas Brendon) was instructed to stop working out and building up his physique, because that might make Xander look too heroic, and they wanted to preserve his everyman appeal.

Finally, there have been any number of rumors regarding Brendon’s alcohol abuse during some parts of the series, and speculation that this may have led the writers to neglect the development of the character during the final season.

In Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, Jessica’s character famously says, “I’m not bad, I’m just drawn that way.” We all have to recognize that, at least to some extent, the ‘character’ of Xander Harris was a construct with many different sources, and some of those may have been contradictory.

Winding it up

All of the main characters grew and changed during the series. The most prominent example would be Willow: from shy, insecure genius-nerd in the first episode to world-ending threat (Season 6) to relatively grounded world-saving sorceress (Season 7). Xander changed the least, and much of that can be attributed to authorial/directorial neglect. Even within those constraints, however, we saw a great deal of growth and development. I summed him up in one of my own stories (“Friends with the Monster”): “So, Xander. The guy who’d put his life on the line in a split-second if he thought somebody he cared for was being threatened. The guy who faced off against supernatural killers, Slayer-level threats, and not only kept surviving but actually beat them maybe one out of every five. The guy who was always there with a doughnut or a quip or a rom-com video or whatever it took to get you through whatever was wearing you down. … The guy who, if you rubbed him wrong, would rip you to pieces by saying something totally vicious, totally horrible, and totally true.”

Xander was a great guy, but it was in sum, not in toto. It was his imperfections — of which there were many — that let us identify with him. It was his virtues — likewise, many — that made us want to.

Comments

[tjs_whatnot]

Because the show began in 1997 and ended in 2003, an entire generation has grown up to begin judging the character of Xander by standards that didn’t exist when he appeared.

Thank you for this. I haven't watched all of Buffy, and one of the reasons why was that Xander was my favorite character, and I was made to believe that that was a wrong opinion and I no longer wanted to see why.

But all of this gives me hope, and makes me want to continue the show. ♥

[aadler]

Good deal! I still hold that more could have been done with Xander’s character (even though some of his best moments were in Season 7, they still missed a lot of opportunities with him), but clear to the end he remained a net positive for the show. Go forth and enjoy!

[muccamukk]

I always like Xander and Willow's friendship, especially when things got rough.

[aadler]

That was one of the constants. They might argue occasionally, but there was never a time when they weren’t close. And most of the time, it was affectionate-close, even when she might have preferred couple-close.

[kitarella_imagines]

I really liked Xander too. My favourite moment is when Jesse said to him "You won't kill me. You haven't got the g--" and Xander staked him, I think it was by accident but still. I'm always saying that to friends now "You won't kill me, you haven't got the g--" 🤣

[aadler]

And that was just the second episode, the completion of the two-episode series opener. It seems pretty clear to me that it was an accident (someone bumped Jesse into the stake Xander was holding), but just because Xander didn’t deliberately kill his former friend doesn’t mean he wouldn’t have, only that we don’t know. And he certainly committed himself fully in the future.

If you like Xander that much, you might enjoy some of my Xander-centric stories (my fanfic listing is here).

[kitarella_imagines]

I'm sorry, I can't remember the details as it must be about 10 years ago I last watched Buffy, but the quote is so funny, I'm always saying it to people to make them laugh.

Thanks for your link, I'll take a look 😊

[hamsterwoman]

Really enjoyed reading your Xander manifesto :) I watched Buffy quite late (both as an adult and ~20 years after it was airing), and Xander was actually my first favorite character of the show (though Willow, Giles, Spike, and Faith joined him over time and some of them eventually eclipsed him). I was surprised to see fandom's attitude about him, and am always happy to encounter people who are Xander fans :)

[aadler]

I frequently wonder if some of the Xander-hate comes, not from actual disapproval, but from jumping on an existing bandwagon just to belong. (The alternative possibility is that the people making such comments genuinely are that out-of-touch.)