The Worst TV Show Character of All Time | Buffy the Vampire Slayer
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- Опубликовано: 7 фев 2025
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A few seconds were cut around 41:04 for copyright purposes. Shouldn't make a difference but that's why theres an awkward cut
I was kind of hoping you would do a video on the penguin, but Buffy is awesome so I’m glad you did a video on it. Happy holidays
marcus can you do a sopranos video
Xander is Temu's Bruce Campbell. A wannabe! Nobody loves him baby!
I mean Hating Angel is a very legitimate Motivation though.
I will never forgive this ... never
51 minutes? He HATES this mf 😭
😂😂😂😂😂😂
After watching the video, I totally get it
Spiderman Lotus finally broke Marky
I was thinking the same. Now I hate the mf lol
Kendrick laid the groundwork for a renaissance of hating
I think the most hilarious thing
is that Cosmonauts most hated character in fiction is basically
joss whedon
True 😂
The lore deepens
Based
I know that's a popular theory but I've never believed it. Whedon is very academic (he attended Winchester College as a teen and graduated from Wesleyan) born in raised middle class New York. Xander is completely unacademic, working class and from a small town. Beyond being male and into pop culture (and that second one isn't that rare in the Buffyverse) there isn't really much similarity. If anyone is Whedon's 'avatar' on the show it's probably Willow.
@@Qualimar bro he literally showed a clip where whedon said he related to xander the most, cause he is the guy all the girls wamt to be friends with
Xander’s behavior is like watching someone who isn’t a main character, but thinks he’s the main character, discover, very slowly, that he isn’t the main character.
Did he discover it?
@@SXJAYSX he kinda did, but he was a bitter whiney baby about it constantly, so it helped nothing.
That is in fact Xander’s arc…
Like Sokka from Avatar the last air bender
That sounds so much more interesting and funny then what Xander issss though
"You're like 6' tall with an atheltic build. You fight for your life every night. Why are you getting bullied. Grow up." ABSOLUTELY SENT ME 😭😭😭😭😭
Wow, Spider-Man Lotus broke him so bad that he ACTUALLY made that Buffy video
This isn't the content we need, but the content we deserve
broke him not unlike Buffy's mom's ribs
@@kerobop😳😳😳
It still haunts him after more than a year
I think he also joked in a marvel video that if the mcu turned to making Robert Downy Jr be Victor Doom instead of a different Doom, he'd stop making marvel videos cause he'd be that mad and suggested maybe he'll do Buffy videos
I’m deadass named after this character
Sorry to hear that
@@cosmonautvarietyhouryou can blame my dad for that 🎉… we need a full firefly vid btw
My condolences.
@@cosmonautvarietyhour
Hey Marc, will you do a video essay on The Sopranos or Breaking Bad or are they both too long for a video?
If you do intend to do Video Essay's, collab with Pyrocynical.
LMAO
'The strongest personification of raw depression I've ever seen in a television show' - this made me laugh in a sad way. Poor Buffy
i watched buffy all the way through the first time in my 20's in the worst depressive episode of my life. i came out of the show thinking "if buffy summers can wake up every morning and get out of bed then so can i." so yeah, accurate lol
Same, and I rewatch it every time I’m feeling depressed, even if it’s just a few beloved episodes.
@@hazygoblin Literally same! I was going through the darkest period of my life when I found the show for the first time. Not sure how I would've gotten through without it, especially S6. Seeing Buffy just take hit after hit and keep going helped me to.
You put so well why Buffy will always be my favorite character of all time. Giles hit the nail on the head in the S5 finale. "She's a hero, you see." To, having the strength to keep fighting your demons, proverbial or not, is the core of what being a hero is
I notice he didnt mention how buffy was the most selfish person on the show....
35:20 Just a minor correction: Seth Green asked to be released from his contract shortly after S4 started, because he wanted to focus on his movie career. They had way more plans for Oz (his character) that got scrapped, but at least it led to the introduction of Tara and Spike being added to the main cast.
Spike was added to the main cast early on after season 2 because he was so popular with the public
Oz was a great character, i always liked him, too bad Seth wanted leave, and yes, Tara and Spike were amazing addictions.
Spike was a "Special Guest Star" until he became a regular in season 4.
Love Oz, Adoooore Tara and the whole arc. Losing her kicked my soul right in the soft spots. Both were great... with Willow as the incredible, ever evolving anchor. ⚓
God I never realized how much Sokka was a successful execution of everything Xander should have been and wasn’t. Right down to outgrowing his misogyny and becoming a wise advisor/planner character.
This. I don’t necessarily hate Xander, but I’ve always found him kind of one note. One of my biggest disappointments with his character is that he never grows & rarely gets called on his bullshit.
Yeah, Sokka is definitely Xander done right.
Plus Stiles in 'Teen Wolf'. While BTVS is the superior show overall I'd say, Stiles is also everything Xander should have been. He is the only normal character in a team of superhumans but manages to be useful with planning and advising until the end, and is not an annoying, hypocritical bigot either.
And he is not flawless either, but is shown getting better over the course of the show.
@@goldenageofdinosaurs7192 His hatred of Angel and also unlike the rest of the group never grows to trust Spike, makes more sense when he's the insert character and you hear the story about Joss pushing James against the wall infront of everyone after the network wanted to give him a bigger role in the show, screaming that he was dead. As he didn't want there to be any good vampire in the show to begin with. And when on top of that you learn that was Joss being his mild agressive self compared to what he did to the female actors, it taints the character more.
But I do wonder how much input Joss had regarding Xander, same goes for the rest of the cast for that matter after season 3. Since by all accounts he went on to focus on Angel for a few seasons before going off to do Firefly. Then again as you point out, he's the only character without a character arc. I know that his brother was really the one behind agents of shield. But its difficult to not see the parallels. And rather than going the taking a nerd who grows up to find his own way to be a badass like Wesley on Angel or Fitz in AoS. Xander doesn't get to have a story line even close to it. Meaning either Joss still had final say when it came to the writers room laying out a season arc, and refused to let him have any growth. Perhaps thinking that the show needed to have a character in the show who was always going to be the audience surrogate. Sensing that if he made him a badass people would think he was living out his fantasy a bit too much. Or the people who ran the show in his absence didn't feel Joss' insert character deserved to have that kind of arc. Leaving his character and doing nothing with him as bread crumbs for people to see once they thought the future would get out in the future.
@@fiction5559Stiles came to my mind as well!
I always hated how useless Xander was but he was just a joss whedon stand in so no wonder he sucked
every time someone makes a buffy related video i come out of a coma like a sleeper agent. buffy is so entrenched in my childhood yet no one talks about it much any more. thanks for the attention cosmonaut variety hour. also this is unrelated but i have just recovered from extreme food poisoning.
I've been watching the channel Horror Bandwagon react to it and it's been a blast. They just finished the Queller/Buffy's Mom gets surgery and the Spike Rats Out Riley episodes. (They do 2 per video)
Glad you are better!
Really? This is one of the still most talked about shows of that era, only the Soprano's has comparable continued relevance
@@segamai recommend me some RUclips media then my friend I beg you. I've only seen the Sarah Z stuff and Passion of the Nerd
Buffy is still talked about constantly.
Loved this, you nailed a lot of what I always hated about Xander. One thing you didn't mention, though: he gives Buffy a ton of grief for dating Angel, and later Spike, on the basis of their murderous past, but sees no problem with dating Anya himself, even though her body count must be higher than those two put together! Not only that, but she's constantly talking about all the horrible shit she did as a vengeance demon as though they were funny workplace anecdotes, and nobody seems to give a shit. Always bugged the hell out of me.
To be fair, at least if she was enacting vengeance that's better than just murdering people for fun.
Lmao. Clock it!
He always criticised her demon past but based his opinion on anya based on her being human. When she became demon again he criticised her again.
@@kieranbrannigan3101 So he's a hypocrite. If the show called him out on that, sure, that'd work. But it never does. And more to the point, Anya keeps going on about how much she loved killing people. When she wants to go do it.
He's also always right there to put another knife in when Buffy is in a vulnerable situation or do/say something shitty when she has far too much to deal with already. Every. Single. Gorram. TIME. And he gets inflated praise for the most basic actions of common human decency. He reeks of male entitlement and "I'm a Nice Guy" BS because that's who Whedon really is and has always been.
Crazy that the same show that gives us the worst character ever with Xander also simultaneously gave us peak fictional goated character Giles
Also Wesley and Cordelia
xander way better then giles.
don't you like my mask? isn't it pretty? it raises the dead!
@GorgonZolaIsMyName Do you always huff your own farts?
@GorgonZolaIsMyName I didn't expect all this farting.
Its so wild to me that Cordelia wishes that Buffy had never come to Sunnydale in The Wish, rather than wish that Xander was slowly flattened by a steamroller.
True, but Buffy was what gave Xander his audacity. She says it herself without Buffy she wouldn't have given him a chance.
i think it was meant to be more like "i wish this never happened". if buffy never showed up, cordy and xander would simply be enemies until they parted ways.
I never understood what Cordelia and Anya saw in Xander. That's the show's biggest mystery.
@@MermaidMusings7 They saw him at moments when he was at his least bad and they thought they were at rock bottom, only to find a new rock bottom after being with him.
She's a woman, and you expected rationality? 😂
I recently got my fiancé into Firefly, which got him interested in watching Buffy with me, since I grew up with the show. He absolutely HATED Xander and when I told him that this was Joss Whedon's self-insert character, he actually said: "Seriously? THIS is how he wants to be seen?!"
Why is it that self inserts are usually the worst characters in the show? It's never the deep characters that want to be better or improve, they're the characters that lash out at everyone and everything with the writer going "you know they're right"
It's like the one guy in transformers 4 who brought out a laminated copy of a law that let's a legal adult f- a minor. Why... are you telling me this is ok? It's never brought up in the movie, it's actually kinda celebrated. It was added to tell the audience, it's ok to do this, there's a loop hole
I think there's too parts, a writer needs to be willing to hurt their characters and making them yourself is hard and confirmation bias, it's very easy to notice a bad self insert but when a self insert is written well I don't think people will typically notice. Most writers put a bit of themselves into them. @@x0gucx
It's creative hubris. I don't think JW bothered to step back and look at the character and say, "This kid is an asshole. Am I an asshole?" He was more concerned about being a hotshot writer/visionary. Thing is he rode on the coattails of his dad and grandfather.
@@spiceupyourafterlife hes right!
@@Madbandit77 C'mon. Whedon's much more successful than his father or grandfather. And it's not like he didn't pay his dues.
Faith being described as “Buffy’s Vegeta” made me laugh so hard. So true!
Yep in many ways. Given that she's the protagonists shadow and rival. Though I would also say Spike might be more like Vegeta given his arc and that he's a lot more consistently in the series. But both work.
@@TheDarkknightrules92 He's Piccolo.
IYKYK
@@TheDarkknightrules92I mean, Spike can be Angel’s Vegeta. Him being Buffy’s Vegeta would make that analogy very… weird.
@FrancisQuindlen That's fair.
@@Smrtguy89 Or would it make it even better lmao...? Although I do agree with you that Spike is more like Angel's Vegeta... Especially considering they canonically fucked too
The best writing decision made about Xander is that Willow escaped the horror of actually dating him. Like thank GOD
You missed what was probably Zander's worst moment in the series - the Final Episode in Series 2 when Willow just manages to find a way to restore Evil-Angel's soul and relies upon Xander to get the message to Buffy. He of course 'forgets' to pass the message on and Buffy slays Angel just as his soul returns...
Yes! That was huge when Xander pulled that!!! And that just led to Buffy’s whole breakdown in LA.
Buffy would have held back and Angelus would have killed her
That probably would've brought the video over the hour mark
@@valarier0777A lot of people died because Buffy wouldn't take out Angelus and she had a couple of chances to do so, but kept dragging her butt. Xander knew Buffy wouldn't have fought all out if she knew Willow was going to try to put Angel's Soul back in his body and would have doomed the world.
That infuriated me at the time, and the fact that it was never addressed properly infuriates me to this day.
I watched this several hours ago and I just realized you never even mentioned the time Xander deliberately summoned a demon that burned people to death because he idiotically assumed a musical demon would be harmless, and everyone just shrugged that off too.
Remember when Willow nearly killed them all with a spell and nearly became a vengeance demon . Remember when Giles nearly killed them all with Eyghon . Remember when Tara nearly killed them all with her demon hiding spell . Remember Angel and Spike trying to kill the scoobies . Weird how Xander is always called out as the worst .
@@lenr112 Willow: out of her mind with grief and magic addiction.
Giles: spillover from his Ripper days that he'd spent the past couple decades trying to atone for and thought was ancient history.
Tara: casts spell because she's worried she'll be rejected by her new friends due to psychological abuse she'd suffered from her family.
Angelus and Spike: soulless vampires at time of attempts.
Xander: would rather summon a demon than have an adult conversation with his fiancee.
Xander IS the worst.
@ You can’t see how you’re excusing the actions of the people you like and demonising the ones you don’t ? Willow wasn’t out of her mind when she mind raped Tara . Buffy straight up murdered Ted . Tara nearly got them all killed. Giles almost got Jenny killed but that’s forgotten because you’re virtue signaling Xander .
@@lenr112 Never said I didn't like Xander. Just in this case, his reason for endangering the group (and getting innocent people immolated) actually is the worst and least justifiable. Everyone else's motivation comes from actual trauma, or in the case of the vampires, established lore. Xander's motivation comes from the supposed courageous one of the group being too scared to just talk to the woman he supposedly loves like a goddamn adult. I love Once More With Feeling but that reveal is the one major fail of the story.
@ Xander’s motivation in his own words was that “ I just wanted everything to work out “ He literally said he just wanted a happy ending.They clearly showed him in the episode just making the connection between the singing and dancing and people burning up . Do you really think he did the spell knowing it was going to kill people .
The worst character is basically Joss Whedon's self-insert? Lol. Lmao, even.
The fact that Xander was Joss's self insert makes SO MUCH SENSE in hindsight. The show wants us to think Xander is this put-upon everyman, but he's just a sexist asshole - like a certain someone else.
I’m shocked
SHOCKED! I tell you
Or the best?
@@MrLorenzovanmatterhono, definitely the worst.
He was supposed to be Joss? That explains a lot.
It's tragic because Xander's arc SHOULD HAVE BEEN about a mediocre dude learning how to step aside and uplift people who were better and stronger than himself instead of constantly bemoaning about how emasculated he feels, and whining about the fact that he's not the main character of the saga. He should have spent the series coming to grips with the fact that he wasn't all that special BUT STILL eventually figures out his place, and learns that someone doesn't have to be "special" to make a meaningful difference... but alas...
That was his arc hello did you watch the final season?
@@jamescarr1265 We did. It wasn’t. He was the same guy from Season 1. Only without an eye. 🩸 👁️ 👍
Hoping this is satire because this was literally his arc, which he fulfilled
@@Jeff_Pryce did you miss his speech to Dawn? 😂
@@jamescarr1265 As much as I personally love that scene, a single scene does not constitute the culmination of an arc. His behaviour outside of that moment was little different to that of any other season. Pretty much everyone else had an actual arc, but he remained the same and it was a waste of what could have been a very interesting journey for the character.
Xander was easier to tolerate when I was a teenager and friends with guys exactly like this, but as I became an adult and ditched these friends for these exact reasons, he's become unbearable.
I think that's the point of Xander.
He's supposed to be relatable to teenagers as an example of good enough guys to be friends with, but with toxic enough behaviors to look out for, because they exist in real life
@@Adamskyize he's not a good enough guy though. Teenagers only think that cause they don't know better but this show was written by adults who should.
@@LangkeeLongkee In most cases Xander is called out, has to suffer the consequences of his actions, and sometimes even acknowledge how bad he is after a moment of thought.
We're all made very aware of how awful he can be.
@Adamskyize does he though???? I'm currently still watching the show and it seems like he never apologizes for, to me, the worst thing he's done so far with intentionally not telling Buffy that Willow was bringing Angel's soul back leading to THAT whole scene. And the video you are currently commenting on shows multiple example of exactly that not happening
@@LangkeeLongkee "In most cases" he's called out and/or has to face the consequences of his actions - showing the audience how wrong he is.
Sometimes he acknowledges something as wrong right after he said or did it - showing that he is somewhat aware of his own issues.
Everyone and their grandmother have been debating whether he was right or wrong to withhold that piece of information from Buffy for some 25 years. He might just be one of those who think it was the best thing he could do.
The scene in season 7 where buffy gets kicked out of her own house is one of the stupidest things that the show has done in that season.
Honestly season 7 is one of the weaker seasons, between that and in the third to last episode where all the citizens in the town were leaving in droves, but somehow the bar was fully staffed with live music, was really dumb. Nice last episode though, plus the rocket launcher episode, the documentary episode and the principle was a great character imo.
I wouldn't be kicked out of my own house if I was the most wrong person on the planet. Buffy deserved worse than those freeloading no rent paying bums. Fuck em
*OH MY GOD* sorry, you just reminded me of it lol
@@3lancerofficialmaybe871 you mean “Buffy-a slayer of… the vampyres”?? Andrews doc 😂 man I loved Andrew
Yeah, while I absolutely think Buffy needed to be called out, that scene was poorly executed, to say the least.
Oh my god an hour long video of Marcus hating a single character. We’re reaching mid to late 2010s cosmonaut variety hour levels of back
i have never once missed "the old cosmonaut" bro never fell off this is blasphemy
@@shzinprobably4663 bro ngl got better as a youtuber
It’s so funny you describe Xander as “Sokka if Sokka sucked forever” bc my friend group used to refer to him as “Sokka But Stupid” when discussing the show 😂
50:13 “She might need a video all on her own” PLEEEEAAASSSEEEE
Start with Anya, then Angel, Cordelia, Buffy and finally Spike
And idc if it's three hours of exclusively glazing SMG's iconic performance, I need it
Absolutely 👉 imo both Buffy and Angel deserves an episode. Buffy is one of the deepest characters Ever and Angel/Angelus diffirence alone is a massive subject 😂
Honestly I think he should do a video on every character, well all the important ones.
I think Anya needs a full video. What a super underrated character
The timeline where Xander gets cut out and Cordelia stays is the golden age of television.
She's my favorite. 😊
Does this timeline also result in Xander transcending mortality and becoming a higher being?
@@Aquilenne No Buffy befriends Willow after it's made apparent what a creep he is halfway through season one and they stop talking to or associating with him. Cordelia is the one who transcends into a higher being.
I want to watch Buffy and Angel in the Time where Joss Whedon is not a Creepy Male Feminist and Epstein Island Visitor
He wrote things what ruined charecters or killed them off out of pettiness and spite of the actor and fan feedback
Ie Spike and Cordelia
Joss Whedon would never have thought to as its his self insert
I actually liked Zander at first but his charecter didn't go anywhere unlike Willow I was expecting and hoping for a similar arch, they should have used the Military Man Halloween episode to make him some what if a Van Helsing
He had a Athletic Body and he was Tall, Good Looking when he had long hair made no sense at all he got bullied or got called Ugly as he's not Joss Whedon 😅
Would’ve been interesting had Joss made Xander the gay friend over Willow. Would’ve been interested in seeing who his love interest would be but Willow and Tara are god tier so happy either way.
Marcus: Joss Whedon has worked on your favorite things, even if you don’t know it.
Me: Oh I don’t know about that, I didn’t watch a lot of action movies growing up-
Marcus: He helped write Atlantis: The Lost Empire.
Me: is vaporized instantly like the guy from Terminator 2
As an Atlantis nerd, I've looked into this a while ago. In a 2020 collider interview "Atlantis the Lost Empire: inside the troubled Disney production" the directors of the movie mention that Whedon wasn't really involved.
Here's the part of the article that mentions it.
"Unbeknownst to the team, Joss Whedon, then best known as the creator of the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, had developed an Atlantis project a couple of years earlier during his brief, uneventful stint at Disney Animation. Whedon, who wanted to work on the type of elaborate animated musicals the Atlantis team was shying away from and completed a draft (with songs!) for a Marco Polo musical, described the Atlantis project as “Journey to the Center of the Earth meets The Man Who Would Be King.” The final film doesn’t contain any of these elements and the eventual Atlantis: The Lost Empire team never read his draft, but Whedon received credit anyway. “We weren’t aware of [that script’s] existence until Joss Whedon showed up in the end credits as a writer and we went, ‘The fuck is this?’” Trousdale recalled, matter-of-factly. “Then we found out, oh he wrote something with Atlantis in the title and the attorneys thought it would be easier to just cave in and give him credit instead of fighting his agent.”
With his name in the credits and how quippy the movie is, it's understandable why it gets pointed out.
Funniest thing I've seen today.
@@lastflunky oh thank god. I mean I’d still love that movie if only one shitty dude was attached to it, because at the end of the day animation is a collaborative effort, but if he was one of the main writers I would have been so bummed.
He did write a scene for Titan AE. While it’s kind of enjoyable, I do think it’s an overly long joke that kind of stops the movie dead in its tracks.
The "guy" was Sarah Connor 😂
I think you left out the worst part about the "leaving the show's best girl at the alter" bit. The part where Anya goes and has rebound sex with Spike, and he acts like she cheated. And then shortly after finds out Spike also slept with Buffy. And then in a roundabout way tells Buffy that he is entitled to know about her sex life.
Bingo. Like, why does Xander have any entitlement whatsoever around Buffy? They’re not dating. They’re not blood. They’re not married. They are only friends, and even best friends have some limits. Who and how Buffy chooses to date is none of Xander’s business. He’s still acting like that scorned nerd he was in Seasons 1 and 2 who was pining desperately after Buffy but had no shot.
Yes!!!!!
I was really upset with that end of the wedding episode where everyone said 'Poor Xander' my friend and I watching it said out loud 'Poor Xander'!?! POOR ANYA!!' She was the one that got LEFTED ON HER WEDDING DAY! Like comfort her!! Isn't she your friend?!' I get it would be awkward to comfort your friend's ex but Anya WAS wronged!
anyone sleepign with spike is sick you know becouse spike evil,
and buffy was wrong not to tell the group that the chip does not work on her.
@@hunnykun101 You kind of hit on the point exactly. NO, Anya is not friends with any of the other Scoobies. Giles and Tara might like her (Giles wasn't there and she and Tara aren't really that close), but Buffy and Willow never really did. Spike doesn't really care about anyone but Buffy (and her mom and sister by extension). So, I think it's very in character that no one would focus on her, even when Xander was clearly in the wrong.
Somehow this makes me feel like we’re one step closer to a marcus twin peaks video (please god)
no thank you
@@tanianeira9532why not tho
@@JD-jz5gu he sucks, why do you want him to keep making shit content about the best series?
@@JD-jz5guNo fun allowed
Yes please 🙏
There's a scene where Anya rips into Xander for what he did and he has to just sit their and take it with no comebacks or jokes because he feels responsible for Tara and Buffy getting shot. It is glorious
I'm so glad that it's not just me who LOVES that scene
Would have been better if Anya had literally ripped him in half.
*there
Which scene exactly?
"He's Sokka if Sokka sucked forever." That earned you a sub.
I love how this is a 51 minute video about how much Xander sucks and a not-insignificant number of the comments are "I can't believe you didn't include [OTHER AWFUL THING XANDER DID]."
So glad you included "you RANK, ARROGANT AMateur." One of Giles's best lines
Willow should have kicked Giles' ass.
@@antney7745The season finale tho, lol.
@@antney7745 I personally think Giles has no foot to stand on in calling her out, considering he could have helped her with her magical education before, and could have easily set her up with the Devon Coven (he should have done that after 'Something Blue' at the latest), but he never did, and is now mad she is misusing magic and spiraling when he barely tried to teach her in spite of being the adult, and also having experience with the dark side of magic considering his Ripper days.
I do love Giles in the first five Seasons, but he was only a good mentor to Buffy, he seemed to not pay much attention to the rest even while being their father figure.
@@antney7745 nah he was right
@@fiction5559why would he do that when he’s Buffy’s watcher?!
As a professional Xander hater I’ve been waiting for someone to make this video!!!! Also more Buffy videos please!!!
he literally said buffy was his "perfect little princess" creepy...
EXACTLY THIS
i came here to say exactly this, so i'm glad there's dozens of us!
Xander is the best guy.
Xander is one of the major reasons, aside from the cheesy dialogue, that I could never get into this show. I found him so annoying that his presence would take me out of the story. Him being a Whedon self-insert explains a lot.
The #1 crime this show commits in relation to Xander is Xander LYING at the end of season 2 about Willow trying to spell again and then when they have that fight about it in season 7 Willow says “hey I never said that” and THATS THE END OF IT. There’s NO FURTHER CONVERSATION. NONE.
So glad someone else raised this! One of the biggest traumas in Buffy’s arc (even though it did contribute to her growth) was having to kill Angel AFTER he’d had his soul returned. If Xander had really loved her as much as he claimed to, he would have tried to help her avoid that but he was too worried about getting Angel out of the way even though he was with Cordelia at that point. Petty and cruel. I always hated him after that and it was wrong that he (and Willow) just continued to emotionally beat up Buffy after that season.
Xander looks Buffy dead in her face and chooses to lie about what Willow is doing and he NEVER gets held to account for it. Then when he discovers Angel is back in 03.07, he’s right back to Giles stirring the pot again, and then trying to get Faith to kill Angel (which he also never really has to atone for - Buffy apologises to him at the end of that episode!) The pain Buffy is still carrying around over that is still evident at the end of the series and it’s never resolved. Xander is jealous of Angel (and it’s awesome when Angelus nails him for it when he confronts him in the hospital in 02.18) but to hurt Buffy the way he does is foul. He never gets held to account for his jealousy or his cruelty. That’s why he’s so hated.
@@rachealharris3242YES!!! It got by me when I watched the show as a kid but upon rewatching that always bothered me. Everything Buffy went through at the beginning of S3 was Xander's fault and he was never even chastised for it, ugh
YES YES YES 1000 TIMES YES
IIRC, that was one of the plot arcs they had to drop in a hurry because Sarah Michelle Gellar only decided to leave the show once they were halfway through S7. They'd gone into the season without realizing it would be the last one.
@ ah okay that makes way more sense then
"He's the only aspect of this show that has aged badly"
Idk man, Angel is dating a 16 year old....
Even by season 1's midway point I clocked Xander as "he deserves none of these women" and I was absolutely right.
Deserves? As if women are rewards, a gift for good behaviour? Way to objectify them, pal.
@@djinnxx7050 oh shut up, you know that's not what he meant.
xander does not objectity women.
@@JBSpookyReview Of course I know what he means, and I'm gonna take the opportunity to take the mick out of the pearl clutchers by twisting words and ignoring nuance.
@@stevemyopinion423 "Objectity", nice.
Dear god Xander grinds my gears...
He's selfish, mean and childish, but his view of women really takes the cake. It's not just that he 'likes Buffy but just can't keep up with her because she's a superhero and that makes him bitter', it's his entire MO. He picks a girl that's a few sizes too big for him, only to try (and sometimes succeed) to drag her down to his level. All his fantasies about Buffy, all the desires he expresses are about making her weaker, disempowering her and bringing her down to his level so he can feel strong. He obsesses over Cordelia just because she's pretty even though he hates her, alienates her from her friends (doesn't matter how shallow those girls are, they are her group and she doesn't gain a new group of friends through him, she's all alone after he cheats on her), she takes a huge hit socially and all he does is put her down and make fun of her. As soon as Willow stops caring about him and comes into her own, he instantly swoops in to sabotage her relationship. Don't even get me started on Anya. She was done dirty. She's always more in love with him than he with her, she's an ex-demon, funny, clever, ambitious, and he's constantly belittling her.
It's all about latching onto a girl that's totally out of his league and taking her down a peg or two. Absolutely vile.
this is the take I was looking for!!!
You sound unhinged
Absolutely. The Incel Xander was not a description I was expecting but it was absolutely accurate. He spends the entire series thinking he's god's gift to women and his CONSTANT failures with relationships with women are just... ignored... and it's not the women, it's solely him. I'm glad he ended up single by the end of the series, essentially starting ending right where he started. The only tragedy is (spoilers) they killed off the actually FUNNY GIRL to get to that point. And really, she deserved better, but death was still better than being his rebound.
@@raelynm3902the take that Xander felt he was god’s gift to women us so off base it defies all logic.
Anya basically HAD to die because it’s the only ending that gave any meaning to her sacrifice if her demonic immortality.
Tbh that motivation sounds a lot like some women I know.
There's even variations targeting girls and boys.
Buffy actually lets Xander down really gracefully in Prophecy Girl, and it’s deeply upsetting to me that Xander acts like such a nightmare. She’s so polite, she tries really hard not to hurt his feelings, and he just… ugh, bothers me so much.
It could have worked if Xander reflected on how awful he was being in that scene, and realised he didn't have a leg to stand on.
Yeah, he got seriously butt hurt because she's not into him at least she told him to his face Buffy could've acted like a b!tch & led him on but she chose not to. It really pissed me off in the comics after the show ended they had Xander dating Buffy's baby sister. That's just wrong to me that's like he's still not over Buffy then Buffy decides she wants Xander after he got with Dawn? Buffy should've kicked Xander's ass I was glad that he moved on with Cordelia & Anya but having him date Dawn they're making Xander go backwards.
it's so annoying too because she gave him perfectly good reasons, "I don't wanna ruin our friendship." and, "I just don't see you that way." and he still acts like she owes him something.
Xander has Friendzoned Willow. It happens to girls too people..
Ive known a couple guys who really defend xander, but they both ended up being the exact same toxic "nice guy" xander is, so one of my red flags is if they like xander 😂
When I saw the title of this video, I immediately thought of the scene you describe at 39:34 when Xander gives Buffy that absolutely GOD-AWFUL advice about Riley, and I'm so glad you brought it up. He's so unbearably condescending and cruel, he knows she's been struggling emotionally, he knows how badly Riley betrayed her trust (basically cheated on her WITH VAMPIRES), and yet he has the absolute unmeasured gall to tell her she's in the wrong. That, to me, was as unforgivable as leaving Anya at the altar. He's treated as this reliable, loyal friend throughout the whole series, but he regularly undermines and tears his friends down rather than supporting and being there for them. He's a great Whedon insert though, I'll give him that.
The way he acted with Buffy’s love life was always so frustrating to me. Like, this isn’t your relationship, buddy. Stay out of it. Between the slut shaming and the “give him hell,” it made his character infuriating.
Yep, he's so creepily invested and tries to be controlling, it's really stark when you watch the show and see all the little ways he sneaks in his disdain for any man in Buffy's life like he owns her.
xander hate spike and angle becouse they both stuck, it not like willow like cordy or anya, or buffy like cordy and anya
@@stevemyopinion423 😂 Xander isn’t gonna sleep with you, buddy, get off his knob.
Xander hate club members forget that Xander fully supported Buffy's relationship with Riley. Maybe because he wasn't a vampire?? just sayin
Xander honestly is the throwaway character that is never thrown away and it’s always bugged me.
Xander's entire character arc from the start of the series to the finale is that he gets 7 years older.
Well, 7 years pass. It's debatable if Xander stops being a teenager
Hey now, he also loses an eye.
how can you be this wrong? like legit watch season 1 and then season 6 or 7.
if you can genuinely say you can't see any character growth you must be completely media illiterate.
@@qwerqwer-rt8wm It's an exaggeration, calm down guy.
@@qwerqwer-rt8wmModern audiences are kinda illiterate because they have little of their own era to learn that literacy from, it's stagnated their maturity. They have to watch old stuff for those lessons now, but then they do so through a modern lense, resulting in the learning of almost nothing, and a lot of whining. Much of their media has been sanitised, and their lenses seemingly can't handle even the slightest grain of dust.
Up until the 2010s, shows aimed at teens dealt with topics that today would be seen as inappropriate or worse, censored and devoid of any real darkness for fear of upsetting the audience and having them taking to twatter in droves to complain. I get it, but it has downsides, as we see.
I feel like I should sit down with my youngest niece and watch Bambi with her (I mean, a little bit of animated trauma is good for them, right... ), but then she'd have to see me crying like a bitch, so how do you gently open the curtain and reveal the dark reality of life to a child without utterly traumatising them. You want to prepare them for life and its hardships, but also protect them from it all. I'm glad I'm merely an uncle, I'd hate to be a parent and faced with that daily. Worst thing is that they're all on iPads and phones now from day one it feels, all connected to the internet, and you can't keep an eye on them 24/7, and you just know that someone in their lobbies or friend groups is eventually gonna be like "Hey, have you guys seen this video from Mexico... ". Didn't do me much harm as I was fucked up already by time I had internet access, but these kids aren't entering that world made of calluses, they're going online way too young and it's having to be steralised for them. They're still soft as they grow and they have too many avenues, and a large public space, within which to complain when they're offended, which is apparently all the bloody time. And that is destroying their media literacy well into early adulthood as much that would help them develop calluses has been smoothed off or otherwise removed.
I always hated how weak he was always in the background, never really doing anything of any significance. Also how manipulative he was. I could not see Buffy actually be friending someone like that. I really enjoyed what Caleb did to him though. One other thing I could not stand about him was you could not tell him a secret ever, he blabbed as soon as he got the chance. In all these points he is an absolute failure as a friend in any circumstance.
Even as bad as High School Xander is you’d think not going to college, and having to earn his way in the world, would force him to grow up more. In some ways he does, but at a basic level, he still has all those huge character flaws that an immature young boy might have.
Oh, and that season 7 scene where everyone turns on Buffy is rage inducing! I hate that scene so damn much.
buffy wanted them to go back to the same place they almsot got killed, and she even after he save her life said only spike has her back, buffy was in the wrong.
13:49 "He's the only aspect of this show that has aged badly"
Kendra's accent has entered the chat
To be fair, Kendra's accent was considered ridiculous and awful in 1997, too.
The first black character, Afro dencia, from season one enters the chat.
Poor Kendra. That girl did her best, it just wasn’t a good best.
No I was in middle school when that came out and people made fun of it at school and online at the time
They should have made Kendra a Vampire. Bianca Lawson hasent aged. Her step sister is Beyonce and shes the hot one at the holiday dinners!
I have this one friend who loves Marvel movies, Dr. Who, Supernatural, and the Vampire Diaries, but refuses to watch Buffy. Here's an analogy to illustrate my frustration.
*Friend* : "My favorite foods are bread, marinara sauce, cheese, and pepperoni.
*Me* : Oh really? Have you ever eaten pizza before?
*Friend* : No, what is that?
*Me* : It's literally all the things you just mentioned, combined.
*Friend* : Oh God no that sounds horrendous!
I've never watched the Vampire Diaries, but I heard that show borrowed some of their plot points from the Buffyverse.
@ I’ve heard that as well. I actually just started watching it. Only 7 episodes in but there’s already a ton of similarities.
But Pizza product have their own taste, like their taste is not same as products that they from its a mix of different flawors, maybe your friend just dont like these combined cause their combined form is not so delicions for them. Ps, sorry for the bad english
@@stevenalexander6713 The Biggest thing they took was the college segment. With a full on secret society that studies vampires
@@РадаГаниева-щ1з Lol It’s just an analogy buddy. Perhaps not a great one. The point is, I know my friend. I know what she likes. And given all of her interests, I know that she would love Buffy but she just refuses to give it a chance. Your English is fine by the way.
I don't hate Xander's character, but I do see why people don't like him.
The only character I genuinally hate is Angel (I like him in Angel, but in Buffy. Blergh) dude died at the age of 26, everyone sees him as a 26 year old dude in season 1, while Buffy is 16. We all know Angel is actually 240+ years old (Which somehow makes it better x3) dude should know to back tf off
Mmmmhmmmmm!! AND staLKING her since she was THIRTEEN. ( I haven't watched Angel yet) But I NEVER understood why he was a likeable character (in Buffy) bro literally took one look at a 13yo and said 'yep I can wait like 3 years'
The best description of Riley ever @38:42 "Look at him he's like a little kid who made a wish to turn into an adult".
That and Sarah Z describing him as "some cardboard". You can just substitute the entire Riley wiki page with those two lines - they describe him perfectly.
Meaning he would have been a perfect Captain America or even Shazam if those movies were made before Iron Man 2008 and the actor disappeared into obscurity...unlike Paedro Pascal who was in like one episode and now just out of luck fro being in GoT is now a mega star today.
He’s boring Leon S. Kennedy and no one can convince me otherwise
Idk someone I followed on Twitter called him "Boy band Steve Rogers" and that is also painfully accurate, the funniest part is she called him that before she even saw that he was in the military.
I was ready to rant that you did not include the scene where Angel punches him with the "the guy just bugs me" quote. But you saved it for last.
Well played.
Didn't show him getting his eye out though.
Hells yeh, i think i legit jumped up so happy when i first watched that scene 😂
all that show is angel a pos, and xander has every right to hate him.
@@stevemyopinion423 He's not though.
@@stevemyopinion423 Angel just did what most fans wanted to do and what Xander had coming to him. It’s a public service. Cry about it. 😊
Buffy was so good I drove over an hour and rented a hotel room just to watch season six 2 hour premiere when baseball playoffs preempted it in my area.
Describing Faith as "Buffy's Vegeta" is the funniest thing I ever heard. 😂
Xander is the Scooby gang's "broken stair." They just tolerate his presence and learn to skip over him instead of ever fixing him.
I was about to add to my comment that the problem with Xander isn't that he's a teenage moron who thinks with his wang, but that throughout the entire show no one really gives him the space to actually consider his errors or a reason to be better. And why would they, it's a show for teenagers and young adults about vampires and other supernatural stuff, not exactly mature drama about personal growth with a fully consistent narrative. It's basically monster of the week, take it for what it is.
Consider that perhaps Xander, despite his clear flaws, he's not merely tolerated but fully accepted as part of the gang and loved as everyone amongst them like family. He's an ass, but unlike people seem keen to do today, he isn't simply pushed away and left to rot in exile from social life, his flaws are tolerated and accepted as part of who he is. It's a group of outcasts, of course they accept him and his flaws. And it is a show form the 90s and early 2000s where we weren't so eager to kick people to the kerb for flaws that are mostly harmless.
It's the flaws that make us, it's where we become distinct individuals. Some are worse than others, but today there is an extreme aversion to flaws and a desire to ostracise those who aren't flawless, like everything has devolved into the popular girls clique of secondary schools.
Let's not forget Xander was abused. They skip over that as well.
@@DeadDogInc Xander was abused, Xander's first interaction with vampires was literally having to kill his best friend and he was NEVER allowed an opportunity to grieve that, so on and so forth.
@@DeadDogInc Maybe if they adressed his issues he could have been a good character
@@Venjaminthe show immediately shifts to a demention where Jesse never existed 😂😂😂
I'm not someone who hates Xander, but I'm deeply critical of how he is often written. And I've long believed that it should have been him who died at the end of season six. It would have been far more narratively powerful and impacted all the characters going forward into the final season. Hell, imagine that final season villain being able to taunt our main characters by appearing as Xander! So much good dramatic potential there.
The writing for all the characters except for Buffy and Spike, turned to shit in season 7. So I would have preferred that I think. What season 7 did to Xander, Giles and Willow was attrocious.
I would have been happy if Zander died instead a character I cared about died. The way it was written is definitely more impactful than killing Xander
I just pretend season 7 doesn't exist except for the finale
hated what they did to Anya (at her request) though. Btw, Anya fans should check out a movie the actress did called Timer
This is pretty much exactly where I fall with Xander. Even though I really hate his entitlement in earlier seasons and undeserved self-righteousness in later ones, I do think Xander serves a purpose in the show and I think he’s occasionally endearing. But he could have been so much better had he actually been allowed to grow and been held accountable for his mistakes! And I’m loving the potential drama we could have had if he’d appeared as the final season villain!
He was apparently meant to die in season 7 in the vineyard that’s why he has the big speech before they head there but they changed it last minute for Caleb to take his eye out instead 🙈
The Zeppo was actually great. Xander could've been so much more but Joss Whedon refuses to be.
Yeah, it was this huge acknowledgement of the flaws in his character, and does a good job of making him likable anyway - IN THAT EPISODE.
Then the show continues, and just behaves like that episode never happened.
@@OrganicRobot761 It works because the comedy comes from Xander being disproportionally punished for his initial vanity and then ends up saving the day in a smaller scale way through wit and bravery. Its really were his role could have been in the show, having his own smaller scale fights he doesn't wins with brute force.
@@ruthiebee11 Which is weird, since IIRC, Dan Vebber said that both of his Buffy scripts were given significant uncredited rewrites _by Whedon._
@@Talisguy Yep. He said Lovers Walk brain & love scene was Joss and Zeppo was heavily rewritten by him. However he did tons of rewrites during the first 3 seasons. Btw, even when he didnt, every writer did mostly dialogue and details after the team (and it was barely a team before S4... It was mostly Joss, Greenie and Marti) put every episode story into 4 acts, scene by scene. So when Joss didnt rewriter was, mostly, because they did how he wanted.
"Seth Green is one of the most emotionally mature characters in the cast." - Marcus Cosmonaut, 2024
I actually hated Oz _and_ Xander, but my reasons for hating Oz were the exact opposite as with Xander. Whereas Xander did nothing, could fight nothing, contributed nothing, and virtually never ever succeeded at anything, it seemed as if Oz was always sagely and right about everything, and it paradoxically made him insufferable. He's the token sensitive dork that all the sensitive women in the audience were meant to swoon over. (Because, in Whedon Land, men only come in two flavors: pig and chicken.) Even Oz losing Willow was one of the few relationship breakups in the entire show that wasn't the guy's fault in any way. The character felt privileged, like he slipped Joss Whedon a $20 for favorable treatment when the other characters weren't looking.
Rip the people who thought this was gonna be a Buffy retrospective
😩😩😩😩😩😩
Hey we still get one if this does well lol
still not December yet so we can only hope (my bet is a Superman retrospective tho)
@ He already said it would be
@@ArynWellspringhope so!
Important note: Most of the episodes you said you loved were written by Marti Noxon or Jane Espenson. It’s important to remember the women who made TV shows great in the 90s that never got much credit for their labor.
They got credit for their work. Stop it.
@@volourn9764I didn’t know who they were. Most people who know about Buffy only think of Joss Whedon and think that he wrote all of it. Just having a name at the end of a credits roll isn’t enough.
Some people credit Marti Noxon with ruining the show. I don't agree.
@AsherReigns Theyve gotten credit since the show was on air. But, it should be pointed out, that of course the creator is gonna get more credit than individual writers. Has nothing to do with being women. Almost every single tv series has multiple writers - almost none but the main one/creator gets lot if credit. But, I know I was fully aware who were back in the day as was any REAL Buffy viewer. Lpl
@@curtisjamesbeck8789don’t bother it’s a troll
This video was very helpful cause I'm a huge dragon age fan and recently one of the writers said that when they were creating companions for dragon age origins they hated xander so much that prompt them to want fix his character, so alistair came into creation, I never watched buffy so I thought ''lmao why they hated this character so much?'' but now I get it.
DRAGON AGE MENTIONED‼️
Holy shit, I’m literally replaying through DAO right now (trying to wash away Veilguard from my brain) and now that you pointed it out, I can’t stop seeing it!
His overall story though is such a Jon Snow ripoff it’s funny (not that I’m complaining)
Alistair is actually hilarious too 😂😂
I was going to comment this same thing. Alistair is a better xander! Also, buffy was clearly a big influence in general for origins. The grey wardens are def a mix between the knights watch and the slayers lorewise. Even the dialogue is very whedon-speak at times
That is so funny because Alistair is a lot closer to Willow than he is Xander. Like the only thing both characters have in common is wanting to be funny.
A few months ago i and a few associates binge-watched Buffy over a few weekends on Discord. It quickly became a running gag to write "Shut up Xander!" at least once per episode.
It will never not be funny to me how Skyler White always manages to rank as one of the most hated characters of all time despite her competition being psychopaths and murderers 😭😂
That's because we watch Breaking Bad for the deviant gangster types... having a goody two shoes character in there who's constantly nagging brings down the mood.
The biggest sin in fiction isnt being evil its being boring and unlikable
Because people suck and would rather praise psychopaths?
Women ☕
Like literal Nazis and child murderers, and people hate her because she was the only one that consistently wouldn't put up with Walt's bullshit.
Xander not liking Willow back on its own is perfectly valid, if he just doesn't feel the same way she does. What's bad about it is that he's aware of Willow's feelings but never actually properly turns her down. Thinking that a character played by Alyson Hannigan isn't stunning is crazy, though. They gave her the typical Hollywood "ugly duckling" treatment of giving her loose-fitting clothes and not putting her in any makeup and pretending that that alone makes her not pretty (I'm honestly surprised they didn't give her glasses, too), but that shtick never actually worked if we're being honest with ourselves.
The most unbelievable thing on the show wasn't the monsters and magic, it was that the characters didn't think Willow was attractive.
Well, at least Seth Green found her attractive, @@taragnor. And his character was in a rock band, so Joss and co. did lampshade some “realism” there.
That's a problem with fiction in general, but sticking just to this show, Xander also has this problem. He's meant to be an average-looking dork, but he's played by a six foot tall, classically good looking actor who's in good shape, so they just stick him in baggy, hideous outfits to try and disguise this fact. You could have cast Nicholas Brendon as Angel and we probably would have bought it. Parker, the pickup artist who Buffy has a one-night stand with in college, who is meant to be considered very attractive in-universe, looks so similar to Xander he could be his stunt double.
That's just how American TV rolls a lot of the time. _Everyone_ has to be attractive, no matter what role they're playing.
I agree, Xander is absolutely allowed to not have feelings for Willow. As he said it himself, you either feel the thing or you don't. And she never told him anything. More than that, I always thought Willow was toxic AF for having secret feelings for her Best friend for years, never saying anything, and somehow getting mad at him when he starts dating Cordelia. Really Willow?? I'm a girl and I've had a couple very very close guy friends who would pull that S*** and everytime it broke my heart. I thought we had this special friendship and all this time you had ulterior motives? Not cute.
@@Talisguy Not only baggy clothes, but given all the Lost Boys influence with Buffy, Xander's wardrobe really feels like homage to Sam the dorky younger brother played by Corey Haim. Even the Frog brothers had to go in close to "scope out your civilian wardrobe" LOL and as whiny and annoying as Sam was, at least he was only limited to a movie unlike Xander.
The funny thing for me is that watching the show, Xander kept kind of fading into the background as a character I didn't like but who didn't offend me either, but every time he'd get a major character thing it'd be fucking awful. Him leaving Anya at the altar and then turning around and having the absolute audacity to basically slut shame her when she sleeps with Spike in a moment of vulnerability for both of them, and the show sympathizes with his perspective, it's one of the worst moments in the show. One of the most maddening things a work of fiction can do is prioritize a rotten perspective and treat it as correct.
No kidding. I get why Xander wanted to not go through with it. He'd been mind - ****** into believing the absolute worst outcome of his future by one of Anya's old enemies, specifically by preying and bringing to light his worst fears. And you'd think with that in mind, he wouldn't have anything to say about Anya doing something dumb in a moment of vulnerability, but no, they had to make everyone's favorite Zeppo the punching bag for the meta yet again.
@@oceanberserker Oh yeah, that's the thing, too, Xander walks out on Anya and all his friends are like "ermmm Xander we're cool but just so you know Anya is still a lil upset" and then Anya does something objectively nowhere near as bad, if in fact it was bad of her at all, and Xander gets to violently assault Spike and basically call Anya a lowdown skank and he gets absolute impunity.
@@regularshowman3208 Like I said, what are they doing to you, Xan? After everything that's happened, everything you've seen and done, I expect better from you and for the production team to reflect and respect that. Why? Just. WHY? Oh, yeah, that's right, Xander is just supposed to be a sock puppet for Whedon's own issues rather than a character in his own right with his own extraordinary potential. My bad, he said witheringly sarcastically.
its sympathizes with both but also clearly shows Xander as the one ultimately in the wrong.
how can so many people be so wrong about how the show is framed?
media literacy really is dead
@@regularshowman3208 wait wait wait you're morally condemning him for not getting married?
leaving someone at the altar doesn't make you a bad person wtf lol. nor does cheating btw.
You left out how he thought it would be a hoot to invoke a frickin' demon because he thought it would "bring the fun". It's literally treated as "oh, good it was Xander, not Dawn, so nobody's being made into a demon queen!" and nobody points out that he got at least one person killed and caused ENDLESS drama.
I will forever stay mad that the show NEVER addresses the fact that Xander is essentially responsible for Angel’s “death” at the end of Season 2/the temporary ruining of Buffy’s life. Like, the beginning of season 3 spends all this time blaming Buffy for somehow “overreacting” to the situation, while Xander just gets to exist knowing that he very consciously allowed Buffy to kill Angel without ever really addressing it.
Agree!
I always saw it as Xander realizing that Buffy finally got into the mindset that she’s ready to do whatever it takes to save the world(kill angel) and if Xander would have told Buffy in that moment that he might be able to get his soul back, it would throw Buffy off her game in the fight because she would be hesitant to kill him which might get her killed
@@lilgains1153that and the fact that before he got his soul back the portal was opened meaning he’d have to be killed anyway, so all that would have changed would be possibly more guilt
People love to mention this moment but without that "encouragement", Buffy would've died or Angel would've survived but the world would end.
@@ADeina-tt7ohis that something Xander said to Buffy or anyone or is that kinda being inferred by the viewer/chain of events? I’m asking genuinely based on your comment. Not familiar with that story arc or chain of episodes.
I am HERE for a 51 minute rant about how much Xander sucks. The self-insert stuff is wild but honestly explains literally everything.
Jawell you're fat
It does, it explains why he's written so much worse than every character and yet is almost never punished for being shitty. The funniest thing is Joss accidentally showing everyone what a piece of shit he is by just writing himself into a character.
@@osirisatot19 So when he wrote Tara or Willow... He was possessed, I guess XD EVERY character was him. He just based Xander on him just for the pilot lol
@@ibgvox I'm not even sure what you're trying to say tbh.
I love Anya but Xander is such a hypocrite for constantly whining about Angel turning evil and then dating someone with an even higher body count. I hate his character so much
But Angel has a dick, so of course Xander is justified in hating him. /s
Except Anya is still human and Angel/Spike aren't. Although by season 7 Xander doesn't have a problem with ensouled Spike.
Angel has a WAY bigger body count than Anya.
Anya targets only specific people when summoned.
Angel kills whole families, communities and towns. Have you ever watched Angel to see what he did in his past?
Anya has nothing on Angel.
@@crosisx2714 Yeah, but she happily recounts her days of granting violent wishes until the second-last Season, and only shows remorse in the final one.
Angel and Spike with souls actually show guilt and a desire to be better.
@@fiction5559 I prefer Anya over Angel, though. The problem with Angel is that, yeah, his soul makes him feel remorse, but the moment that is gone, he's back to his old ways. It's why Spike is a far better character. He went and got a soul himself, so if he lost his, he would go get it again. Anya sort of sits between the two. She'd definitely go back to being a vengeance demon early on, as, like with Angelus, change was forced upon her. And she does go down that route after the single worst episode in the show. But she has actual growth that Angelus will never have.
Tony's mom is definitely an antagonist in The Sopranos. She might even be the primary antagonist of the first few seasons. She is so evil.
💯 She is pure evil.
My parents recorded their wedding over a VHS of Buffy
There’s no milestone event more important than Buffy.
Sacrilege!
As they should
I'm sorry for your loss.
how does that even work??
Make his refusal to accept Angel more tied to his guilt for killing Jesse (i think that was his name) and a refusal to believe in redemption, rather than just hes jealous he cant have the girl... and hed be a significantly better character
god i wish theyd done this... validates so many of his thoughts, but the show writes it as if jesse never existed.
@TheBloobster I saw other suggestions such as, it would have been better with no Riley in season 4, Have Xander, an aimless boy with no future, join the military, and then suddenly he's a liason between the government and Buffy, he has actual combat training. His loyalty is tested. It would require a better written military than season 4s tho... like Whedon clearly didn't have an understanding beyond, secret agency, army soldiers go blast.
But man that could have been a story of Xander.
Also Xander being with Anya seems hypocritical after all that he said about Angel, actually address and change that where it's not inspite of his beliefs against change and redemption, but that he comes to learn through Anya he was wrong.
I love where Xanders character starts. It was a good base... a flawed person who would be great to watch grow, but they never cooked the dough, never took him anywhere
RIGHT. Jesse was basically Xander and WIllow's third best friend until Buffy comes along and replaces him. He dies and is almost never mentioned again. Would've been great to bring him back to also showcase how important it is that Buffy is out slayering
He stop having a crush into Buffy around 3 season and... Still hates vampires. And yes it can be because of Jesse. Or it is, they comfirmed it in comics.
@@-_-0.0-_-idk he is a Willow friend at all. She just mostly ignores his existence. He is Xander friend, Willow is also Xander friend. Willow and Jesse barely talk to each other. And Willow just dont care of Jesse at all. Well she is kinda sociopath, so poor Xander even can't talk about Jesse to her - she probably forget about the dude after couple days...
As someone who is always ready to get on the Xander hate train, one of the most obnoxious scenes is when the show tells us that he is “the one who sees” in season seven. Excuse me??
I initially liked Xander, but much like Ross in Friends, he became absolutely intolerable on repeat viewings as I got older.
Honestly I hate pretty much everyone on Friends now other than Joey and Chandler; who both have some of the worst aspects of Xander; but Joey grows a lot as a person and Chandler is actually funny. I remember liking Xander during the first few seasons because I was a young guy and kind of identified with him, but as the show progressed I got annoyed with him; and absolutely hated him when he left Anya at the alter. Now I just pretty much always hate him and every time wish the bug lady would have just eaten him.
Genuinely curious: why do you hate Ross?
I think Rachel is intolerable so I wanna hear from others who think Ross is the most unlikable
@@l.n.3372 Everything about Ross was unbearable. He was a narcissist and petulant child for the most part, and when he wasn’t being either one of those, he was being a douche. I hated him by the end of season one, so you can imagine how teeth grating I found him by the end.
@thedudeabides3138
I appreciate the response. I don't agree, but I'm glad that you shared your thoughts so that I could hear another person's view on said character.
I think that they certainly made Ross immature by the ending seasons, but Joey suffered this same problem, too. Most characters seemed to get worse in the later seasons (except Monica and Chandler).
People also say that Ross is a nice guy or an incel (not you. Other people), and I think they're just projecting traits onto Ross that he never had. I feel like people irrationally hate Ross and project traits from men that they hate onto him as a result, and they flanderize his character a lot as such.
That is a metaphor for Xander being the audience surrogate. As in most of Xander viewpoints were supposed to be shared by the audience.
Like Buffy not willing to kill Angelus because she loved Angel is supposed to be a metaphor for a girl still loving her abuser and her friend then going WTF.
Xander watches the bigger heroes while being in the background. Normally stories are written with him being the hero. He accepts his role as being the support and is not even by Buffy side in the finale. He wasn't even going to be in the final fight if not for dawn.
Xander couldn't grow as a person because Joss himself would need to do that as well. Also Xander ignoring Willow makes a lot more sense when it wasn't Alyson Hannigan who was originally cast in the role.
29:00 "People who use magic for selfish reasons are unambiguously villainous"
Something echoed early in season 6, with Willow erasing Tara's memory so they can carry on in a relationship. It's tantamount to drugging her.
I think the worst Xander thing was him cheating on Cordelia and not being punished or him even feeling guilty; he seriously doesn't feel bad at all and somehow gets with Anya whose whole thing was avenging scorned women.
I would say he both is punished and feels guilty lol, about as much as Willow is. But I agree that it’s maybe not enough.
He absolutely feels guilty about it in later episodes. Some of his later season actions like buying Cordelia's dress so she can to the prom are his means to apologise.
@@scottwallbank4794 yeah I liked this video quite a bit (even though I really enjoy xander and find him consistently the funniest character on the show) but there are a few unmentioned moments that run counter to Marcus’ point of ‘he doesn’t change’.
Also, no mention of his abusive family which might provide context for why he is the way he is.
I just think he’s a more complex character than marcus is giving credit for.
@@minionevil❌❌❌
The way he suffered no consequences from Buffy or willow over leaving Anya at the altar never fails to enrage me
The fact that you just kept calling him 'Seth Green' and now I can't even remember his fuckin character's name goddammit lol
lol its oz
Oz
It’s Jeff ”Joker” Moreau.
It's like how the doctor lady in Daredevil/The Defenders is just Rosario Dawson lmao
Oz fans stay losing 😞
That's fairly accurate, lol. Buffy is one of my absolute favorite shows but I loathe Xander. I wouldn't even say he didn't have interesting moments, but that makes you hate him *more* for still sucking. The Zeppo is a pretty brilliant episode that the show immediately undoes by not having Xander's character development stick.
That guy who wrote the Zeppo episode is actually the cousin of one of my coworkers. I knew he was "a Hollywood writer" with a bunch of random TV episodes under his belt, but I've never seen Buffy, so his name appearing on the title card credit was a crazy twist there.
WOW! You're practically famous by association. Thanks for sharing.
really great episode.
Joss rewrote Zeppo according to Vebber. And Lovers Walk too.
Awfully brave to say you relate to Xander the most and then make him the worst possible person.
Isn't that typical for a critic, though? We enjoy exploration of characters we don't already have a connection with; if the character is a stereotype of yourself, especially a frustrating/embarrassing stereotype, it's pretty tough to get past that. It's also tough for a writer to develop the characters they identify most closely with.
xander was a better person then giles willow even buffy
@@stevemyopinion423not even close.
@fandomking8939 why not? Because you say so?
yes he was xander did MORE good then them and less bad sorry xander a better person then them.
Xander being joss' self insert makes Dawn and Xander getting married in the comics so much more gross.
Considering the Actor for Dawn wasn't allowed to be alone in the same room as Joss apparently
WELP! THIS COMMENT AGED WELL LOL
@@darklink17ful what happened in that one hour difference? You finished the video?? 😂 /Genuine question
@@hyceate-pme too
@hyceate-p yeah lol. I paused when he said Xander was a self insert, and paused again when he mentioned the comics and the actor lol
@@darklink17ful ah got it. 🫡 Hahaha.
this video is amazing. thank you. you are so right about everything you said, i can tell you know this show well. i was actually taken aback by how consistently i agreed with your points. i've loved buffy the vampire slayer since i was watching it air on tv for the first time as a child (i was born in 1992) and it's still my favorite tv show. you covered so much that's important and good to say about buffy the show, xander the character, and joss whedon the person all in this video. i am impressed.
side note: instead of skipping any episodes in season 1, my preferred method is to get people completely hooked on buffy (with minimal spoilers that'll be picked up on by a non-buffy fan) by simply asking them if i can put on Hush + watch it with them. people are usually willing to give up 45 mins of their time to a single episode of a show well regarded by many but that they never got into, especially since they know if they aren't that into it then they can cite that effort later as a reason not to try it again. i have done this many times, and almost without fail as a result of my doing this people become willing to give season 1 a shot. multiple people have continued through all 7 seasons of buffy following my watching hush with them. this method is good because instead of initially showing them a 2 part intro episode to a visibly cheesy and at that time relatively low budget show, you can spark their interest enough with a single almost perfect episode from after season 1 that is so good they'll likely start season 1 after, usually thinking it was their decision!
I've seen nothing but "I hated Xander...but eventually he grew on me and I started liking the character" for over a decade, I'm suprised it took this long to find a "I hated Xander....yep"
I think the whole trick of slotting him into a mentor role later on has the effect of essentially gaslighting the audience into thinking Xander is a smarter better character than he is. They give him less screen time and (other than the Anya marriage subplot) this gives him less opportunities to be a fuck up, so it's easier to ignore that he hasn't actually grown as a character at all, the show just wants you to THINK he has.
I hated him so much since S1 that a guy who tells me they like the character is an instant red flag.
@@zellalaing5439 considering someone a red flag for liking a fictional character is the most online thing I’ve ever heard LOL
Xander was the heel but the fact that the writers never bothered to allow this character to grow was always bizarre to me.
Joss never grew out of his teenage self so why would his self insert grow?
0:52 Smallville mention WE’RE BACK
Charmed mention WE'RE BACK
Those three shows are competition on which cast members had worse fate:
Is it the cult girl? Is it multiple felony man? Is it literal witch lady?
PEAK DC FICTION🦅🦅
Xander was absolutely ruined beyond redemption when he left anya at the alter, bro fumbled hard
That pissed me off too, but the show was overall shit by then anyway.
and anya tried to kill him for it, show xander was right,
In high school, there was an obnoxious ahole who weaseled his way into my social circle and was a Buffy stan. A few years later I watched the series and realized he had based his entire personality off Xander
Oh god. How many other guys based their personalities off Xander??? 😣
i never *hated* xander exactly, but one of the most infuriating moments of the show for me (besides buffy's friends kicking her out of her own house) will always be him going postal on anya for sleeping with spike after he LEFT HER AT THE ALTAR. acting like she owes him ANYTHING at ALL - it's not even like spike is his friend, in fact part of why he's mad is cause he hates spike so much. and the show acts like he not only has a right to be talking to her like that, but also has a right to give buffy shit for her little situationship with spike even though he's given more than enough input on buffy's love life up to that point in the show. its these sorts of things that wouldnt make me that mad on their own except that the show refuses to actually hold him accountable from a narrative perspective. whenever he does something bad he just lashes out and gets defensive whenever anyone calls him out on it and his friends just eventually drop it and let him forget about it. he and willow cheating on their s/o's is the perfect example - willow feels guilty, apologies multiple times, gets told off by oz, and then eventually gets to have his forgiveness after he's come to the conclusion on his own that he misses her more than he's angry at her. xander on the other hand not only never really apologizes, but goes back to sniping back and forth with cordelia, occasionally getting really petty and personal despite the fact that he put her through hell and you'd think he'd feel humble enough to let her take a jab or two without always having to get his lick back. buffy gives him the "well it is sort of your fault" treatment for like one episode before everyone just resolves themselves to the fact that cordelia is not really a member of the friend group anymore bc she and xander are on bad terms, and then that just essentially never gets resolved cuz he gets a new girlfriend and she leaves to be on angel.
I totally believe they only made her sleep with Spike so the audience wouldn't hate Xander as much (it only ended up making me hate him more due to his entitled reaction--as if he has nay reaction other than entitled.)
I mean... he was tricked or realized she prply has a billion ex demon hubbies
Also tldr
@@judeconnor-macintyre9874
But if the audience liked Spike more than Xander, then doesn't Anya sleeping with Spike have the opposite intended effect?
@@l.n.3372 That's a good point.
The hate on Skylar in Breaking Bad reminds me of how people hated Dexter's wife, Rita, in the show. Literally the only thing she did wrong was want to be with her husband and have him pull his weight around the house and caring for the kids. Fans were mad at Rita for trying to distract Dexter from his murder activities to bond with his baby and step kids. And what does she get for it, she gets murdered, by her husbands murder friend, in front of her baby while he is left in her blood to be found by her husband that caused all this. Thats when i left thw show, Rita doesnt deserve the hate or her treatment in the show
Edit: to the people in the replies, i dont know anything about Skylar, I've never seen breaking bad, this isnt the Skylar haye zone its a Rita deserved better zone! And if you didnt see the hate Rita got, thats okay you didnt but i would see fans discussing their hate for her and it stuck with me
I loved Rita season one and half of season two. Then they started writing her like an annoying girlfriend/wife and she got insufferable. I didn't like Skylar because she kept wanting to be a part of Walter's bullshit while at the same time condemning him for it.
Honestly? I prefer Rita over Skylar. I just could never warm up to Skylar, unfortunately. It probably really is my internalized misogyny tbh. I haven’t seen the show in a very long time. Rita deserved better tho. Much much better. Deb is also another widely hated character, but I ended up loving her the most by the time Dexter ended. Now she definitely deserved better.
Skylar wasn’t likeable, but I couldn’t understand why she got so much hate when Walter was more unlikeable imo
I said in my own comment but honestly Skylar isn't a "literally did nothing wrong" character. She knowingly helped Walt in his drug trade when she saw it could rake in money, treats other people poorly, and at one point straight up tells Walt to kill Jesse. All the while she is very hypocritical about it, still seeing herself as innocent in everything. Her saving grace comes in realizing how shes been acting in season 4 and going cold turkey with it on the spot. She tries to redeem herself but regardless she is a "hateable" character.
The place where it becomes insane is where people hate her more than say Gus or Walt who ruin lives without batting an eye, the assorted self serving characters who are of a more relateable and common form of assholes, or the literal fucking nazis who torture one of the nicest most good natured characters in the entire show. At THAT point they're just straight up misogynists
@Nopenonameok if people hate half the main cast who the hell do they like?
Was NOT expecting to learn that Joss Whedon is a certified lover boy.
I SO BADLY wanted Xander to have some kind of character growth--ANY kind of character growth. He had so much potential but never learned from ANYthing.
Such a disappointment cuz all the other characters have so much growth, even Tara who’s not a main character gets more development
Also, for those who don’t know, Buffy continues as a comic book. In said comic book, Xander ends up dating Buffy’s little sister Dawn. Like this guy couldn’t get Buffy so he decided to go after the little sister, that’s just wild to me.
Uhh yea it was mentioned in the video…
He says that in the video, I didn't know they got married and had kids though; somehow that's worse than if they just had sex. I just ignore the Buffy and Angel comics though; except for After The Fall because those were pretty good.
@@qwerqwer-rt8wm Yeah nobody was actually harmed, does not make an adult character going after the little sister of his longtime crush any less creepy of a thing to do ? what is even your fucking point here lmao
@@qwerqwer-rt8wm yeah but considering who wrote the character...
@@anishinaabaeI'm not a twatter user so i don't know what Joss has actually done to piss folk off. Not much though, I wager, probably made the mistake of being attracted to, and incorrectly confident enough to take a shot with a woman who's attraction wasn't reciprocated (obviously. He's a short, podgy, balding ginger. The ladies just love those...), and then she complained on social media or something, and probably made it seem worse than it really was. Shit happens.
I don't like him either though because he has inadvertently ruined the majority of media scripts, as they now all seem to repeatedly copy his style of every fucking character being armed to the back teeth with quips and one liners. And it's so bloody irritating.
It's so bad these days, I don't think I'd even be able to tolerate a new series of Firefly, despite wanting it for decades at this point. That and it'll be spoiled by "modern audience" pandering shite, and where does it fit in with Serenity. I'm genuinely depressed man, modernity is killing my avenues of escapism so regularly that I'm reaching for a noose just to grasp some form of escape from a worthless existence that can't be taken from me or reduced to indoctrination and agenda pandering shite. This noose is mine, get your own noose you thieving git.
i'm ALWAYS seated for people dunking on xander. i love BTVS, but imagine how great the show would've been if xander's head had actually been chomped off by that giant bug in season 1
Agreed, at the very least it would have been mostly ok if he had died instead of Tara; you could just flip those two characters in that episode and it would have worked better and also not killed off one of the first prominent gay characters in television; and made it make sense why he was still around well after the writers knew what to do with him.
it would have been notably worse because Xander is a good character that adds quite a bit to the show and the group dynamics.
"bad guy" and "bad character" are 2 very very different things.
it would have been shit actually cause buffy would have died at the hands of the master after season 1nwithout Xander and if she survived that predator Angel would have had more time as a 200 plus year Old man to groom the child who virginity he took.
@@osirisatot19 Its been almost 23 years and I'm still mad af they killed Tara
I like that your two biggest takeaways are that by never facing consequences, Xander never really changes or grows as a character, and that he spends the entire show in a pissy mood. I actually love the second point because that alone makes him a colossally unlikeable tool.
"She's basically Buffy's Vegeta." Oh that's a perfect way to describe Faith, how did I never think of that?
Those old Buffy ad breaks send such a jolt of nostalgia up my spine. I feel like my soul almost got Quantum Leaped into my younger self for a second, and the thing is I never even saw them when I was young, I didn't have the channels, but the vibe is just perfect.
You should watch the movie I saw the tv glow. I feel like to depicts the same exact feeling you’ve mentioned here with a fictional clearly very “buffy” inspired show called “the punk opaque”
Yeah, it hit me pretty hard. I was immediately flung to 1997🤣
47:31 One thing you didn't mention about "The Zeppo" is that Xander actually saves his friends from the bomb in the school, which allowed them to continue preventing the apocalypse. Hence, he proved to himself that he was an integral part of the group when it comes to protecting the world. That's actually a brilliant way to write underpowered characters in superhero teams, as opposed to the DBZ route of just leaving them behind until they level up. Many people have pointed out that Superman's intelligence tends to get nerfed while Batman's gets buffed in the Justice League in order to maintain a balance. Yet in the Middle-earth franchise, everyone bowed down to four hobbits.
This is what I hate the most about Xander. He had a great episode addressing his insecurities behind the sexist behaviour, he had this wonderful redeeming moment! It felt at the time like it's be a turning point for the character. And then next week he's just back to lol same problems as usual. It's like the character himself is trying to fight to have development and the writer is slapping him back down 😅
@Bunni89 same thing in S5 "the replacement" when he ends the episode realizing he's always had the power to be confident and successful, he just needs to get out of his own way. And then soon after, he's back to being weird about the men in Buffy's life, and being rude to Anya.
Not to mention he’s the only one who gets through to Willow at the end of S 6. He’s obviously an a-hole but his speech about how he loves “scary veiny Willow” is great
@@micahcrunch That actually goes in line w/ the uploader's criticism that whenever Xander does something bad, he makes up for it by doing something heroic instead of getting punished or learning from his mistakes. That was the same season where he leaves Anya at the altar yet berates her for sleeping w/ Spike.
@@jp3813and you forget it was Anya fault. Shes cursed the guy, who brain raped Xander. He is a victim of Anya vengeance work. Everybody like forget of it... Thats how the blind hate works :)
I knew a guy real time that behaved like Xander. This guy is married now and has a gf(dont ask me to explain that coz I can't) and he is STILL after me. He doesn't understand that NO CONTACT does not mean NOT READY TO TALK YET and is only now accepting that some of his behaviour in the past two years( er try two DECADES) might have been out of order and that he's sorry *that I took a lot of what he said wrong*, thus I'm still at fault because I don't love him. See, the thing is? I never did. I never lied, I never implied we were anything other than casual friends but this guy's obsession is a direct parallel to Xander's obsession with Buffy and it seems neither of them will EVER grow up.
Xander's obsession?
I had to ghost a friend over similar behavior. Would NOT get over his crush on me, and eventually hit me. So I stole his copy of zelda a link to the past and vanished into the night.
@@thatfuzzypotato1877 Ouch, right in the feels hehe. Bet he was more upset losing the video game though.
@@starscreamthecruel8026 trauma dumping on yt cause a fictional character (who never cheated in the show) reminds you of some guy (who let's be honest, you don't even really know personally) just because he hit on you a few too many times. Therapy would probably help more.
@@joshypolo Im not trauma dumping and you dont know the backstory. I did know the guy, VERY well, unfortunately. He was part of our gaming group that met every week regularly, for DECADES! He went around telling people that I was his first love and the one that got away and that I was too pretty to be Ace because he couldnt touch my boobs. Like I'd let you if I was straight. This guy was nasty. He tried to get me to pay for repairs to my computer by paying IN KIND, which I flatly refused and gave him money instead, like normal people do. This was, against my destiny and blah blah blah. I only really stayed friends because Dad insisted because he needed a cheap person he could hire to fix his computer too. Casual friendship and another gamer, nothing more. He's the one that took it to mean more than it was. See? This is the problem a lot of girls have. We can't be friendly and polite to some guys because they seem to believe we're coming onto them because of some daft belief that men and women cant be friends, which is bollocks because most of my friends growing up WERE guys. Only a couple tried to hit on me and when I calmly said No, took it fine and carried on like nothing happened. Just this one guy who got stupid ideas in his head and wouldn't let go. And why is it so strange to you that Xander reminds me of him? Most of these characters in movies are based on people in real life that the writer knew anyway.
I will admit much as I hate him Xander’s yellow crayon monologue too Dark Willow is also a great moment
Exactly. As much as one may hate Xander, the world would have ended that day without him
And Joss wrote it
Yeah I was thinking about this. I didn’t dislike Xander when I first watched Buffy as a 15/16yr old but The older I get, the more insufferable I find him on rewatches. BUT, God that yellow crayon monologue gets me man. I’m such a sucker for a power of friendship arc and having it be within the context of Willow losing Tara…agh I just really love that scene man. There’s j something so moving about Willows best friend since childhood saving her from her own addiction powered grief and anger following the loss of her gf, kinda just like with…love?
Outside of that Xander does suck tho lol
I can't believe that in this whole fifty minute video, there still wasn't time to mention my biggest gripe with his character. End of season two, by lying to Buffy, he causes one of the greatest tragedies of her life. Something so traumatic that she has to flee from it. I'm trying not to spoil everything. But in season three this is not only never addressed, nor is Xander ever punished for this. In fact, Buffy and Willow never even seem to fully learn what he did and how much it affected the outcome of events. But he actually LAYS INTO BUFFY FOR RUNNING AWAY with absolutely no care for how traumatized she is and never once acknowledging that IT'S. HIS. FAULT.
how did it cause anything??? do you people actually pay attention to the show??? angelus pulled the sword out before buffy could do anything. at that point she had to kill him to save the world. xander saying kick his ass changed nothing. buffy already knew what she had to do and she knew angelus was trying to destroy the world.
@dutchman8887 Knowing she didn't have to kill her boyfriend, just stall for time, could have made her quicker to engage. She seems to delegate the hurting to Spike until she's forced to step in because it allows her to keep more emotional distance.
We don't know how it would have panned out, but it wasn't Xander's call to make. It was Buffy's. She was the one who needed to make the tactical decisions here and she needed all the information to do that. If Buffy can't be trusted to be objective regarding Angel, then Xander sure as hell can't either.
Also, regardless of whether you think it's Xander's fault or not, he's still the only Scooby who knows enough to put together that Buffy may have been forced to kill Angel after he got his soul back, and that his withholding of information meant that she didn't know this was a possibility and didn't brace herself for it, so he's the one who had the least moral high ground in the argument scene the OP is talking about. Joyce and Willow aren't in full possession of the facts, Joyce was drunk and Willow at least tries to de-escalate the argument when it starts in Buffy's bedroom by giving Buffy an opening to talk about what's bothering her, so while everyone in that scene is being an asshole, I give them a little more leeway than Xander.
@@dutchman8887 Yeah, I paid attention to the show. The reply already laid out a lot of what my argument was. So I'll add from the metanarrative perspective.
The show makes a big deal out of Xander's hatred for Angelus and how it grows more throughout the episodes following Jenny Calendar's death. So, clearly, the writer's are setting up for his character to affect the outcome of this season regarding Angelus. They also make a big deal out of Willow choosing to try again and reach deeper into her magic, which is setting up for her successfully returning Angel's soul. The show then doubles down with making a point of Willow telling Xander exactly what to say to Buffy so she'll stall long enough to save Angel AND making a point of Xander telling Buffy a lie. This is a set up. The pay off is Buffy having to kill Angel seconds after he becomes himself again. Which is absolutely horrific and avoidable, had she been given the information the writer's set up as crucial.
Rewatch the episode, listen to how the lines are written. Listen to the background sound in those scenes. Watch the framing of the cameras. The writers and director wrapped so much importance around Xander's decision. And that's fine because the season's end is written to be a tragedy. It's supposed to hurt and leave big questions of whether any of this could have been avoided. HOWEVER, that falls apart when the next season simply ignores all of his fault.
Even if Angel always had to die there, Xander still should have had to own up to lying to Buffy. If Willow or Buffy had told a lie like that and caused Giles to kill someone he cared about, the show would have punished them severely. But Xander gets off completely clean, just like he does with the love-craze episode. He's never forced to grow the way the other characters are
@@Talisguy Thank you, this is a perfect summation. It wasn't Xander's call to make but he took the responsibility of making it only for the show to never give him the weight of that responsibility.
And you're so right about the "being objective" argument. It comes up so much throughout the season but Xander isn't even objective about Angel when Angel is still good. Including in season three when Xander almost gets Angel killed AGAIN.
That scene at the beginning of season three made me physically stand up while watching it, I was so frustrated. Willow arguing that she was lonely during the summer as her reason to be angry that Buffy ran away and the show treating Willow as if she's right is so infuriating. Season two was so awful for Buffy, just let the poor girl be depressed.
Imagine if Xander had actually slipped and admitted to his lie during that argument. Willow and Buffy both would have felt so much betrayal. Imagine Willow realizing she spent the whole summer with Xander, wishing alongside him for their best friend to come back, only to find out that he was keeping this from her all along. Buffy going over that night again and again in her head, wondering if she could've save Angel, if she'd just know. Imagine several episodes of them refusing to speak to Xander. Imagine Xander actually paying consequences for what he's done and growing from them instead of Buffy getting blamed for everything as usual
Buffy was a show I grew up with. I was right in the target demographic when it started and I watched all the episodes when they initially aired. At first, Xander was a character I thought I could relate to. I was after all a horny teenager at the time. However, I never liked how he treated people. I had a glimmer of hope when he got a little bit of skill after a Halloween episode, and those skills did show up to help in one situation, but he went back to just being useless. The way I began to view Xander became more of a constant. He was the ruler I could use to guage how much more awesome all the other characters were becoming. It was like he was a unit of measurement, a Xander constant. This actually helped in making the other characters feel more rich. You could constantly see their growth whenever Xander entered the picture. I'm not disagreeing that he wasn't a terrible character, because he was. This is just how I reconciled his existance in the show.
Anya dodged a bullet when he left her at the alter