Does Xander Get a Free Pass?

[El Diablo Robotico]

Mar 2, 2010 15:03:42 GMT -5 gumgnome said:

Feb 27, 2010 14:39:21 GMT -5 sosa lola said:

Reading this thread confirms what I've been saying all the time. Xander's character is the most human, most relatable, his flaws and mistakes are too real that they affect the fans more than other characters' mistakes. You read a lot about fans forgiving Willow for attempting to destroy the world or Spike for attempting to rape Buffy, but way less about fans forgiving Xander for leaving Anya at the altar, even though attempts to kill, rape and destroy the world are way more evil and awful than ditching someone in their wedding day. But, being left in the altar is more real and closer to real life than destroying the world, it's something that happens to us quite often -we don't often hear about a close friend going crazy and killing others. Xander's mistakes hit fans harder than other characters -who always have the excuse of being ruled by their demons or magic- the only excuse Xander has is being human and nothing more.

Personally, that's why Xander is my favorite. I love that his actions are his own, unlike with Spike and Angel, where you hear fans saying, hey, now they got their souls, what they did before doesn't count. Xander doesn't get to have that. Which is why I find him more interesting than Spike and Angel combined, same goes to Giles. (And this is coming from someone who considers Spike their second favorite character.)

As for free passes, all characters get free passes from time to time. Which sucks. I want characters to deal with the consequences of their actions. It's boring when they get a free pass.

Couldn't have said it better myself. Karma! I do think that Xander's wrong for doing these things, but that doesn't mean that I hate Xander. I don't hate Kennedy, Riley or Dawn either (well, I hate Dawn a little bit in S6, but that's digressing...) so maybe I'm not big on the hate. However, judging Xander's crimes as being worse than Spike's, Angel's, Willow's, Anya's etc. just because his, as sosalola says, are crimes of realistic proportion, is ludicrous.

Again, I'll draw the distinction: Spike, Angel, Willow, and Anya had decent--or even better-than-decent--excuses for their crimes. Spike and Angel didn't have souls--the souled and unsouled versions are arguably entirely separate characters, for Pete's sake (as Wesley tells Holtz, "Angel is no more responsible for the crimes of Angelus than I am"). Willow was under the influence of powerful magic, and not exactly herself, either. And Anya is an interesting case that's never really made clear enough to make any sorts of judgments about her--did she have a soul as a vengeance demon, or not?

But Xander had a soul, and wasn't impaired in any way when he made all the unfortunate choices documented throughout this thread. And even worse than that, he did these things to his closest friends! I can laugh it off when Anya mentions making a guy spontaneously combust and setting his whole village on fire, because she's a comedic figure, it's presented as a comedic story, and I didn't know that character, or anyone in his village. I can't laugh it off when Xander leaves the woman he loves at the altar, or when he tries to have the love of his best friend's life killed because he's jealous of the guy, because Anya and Buffy are two characters that I know very well, and care what happens to. And it's the same when other characters do things that hurt Xander--it's not something I like to see happen. Difference is, I don't think his friends wrong him as often, or as badly, as he wrongs them.

[deathisyourgift]

Mar 1, 2010 3:04:42 GMT -5 El Diablo Robotico said:

Yesterday at 12:39am, deathisyourgift wrote:
"The point behind Xander's whole character, in the long-term, is that he is the most purely human of all the scoobies. Willow's and Buffy's uber-righteousness is very hard for me to agree with being 'normal', so when Xander messes up, it's easy to see as being something that anyone might do in that situation."

Can you give some examples of Buffy's or Willow's righteousness? Because I can't really remember any off-hand (that's not sarcasm--it's late, and I'm really drawing a blank), yet that's one of my real complaints with Xander. If he just screwed up sometimes, that wouldn't be so bad, but he gets so angry and confrontational with his friends--Buffy especially--when they screw up. His hypocrisy becomes very hard to take sometimes. [image]


Quote:
I think there's more to be said on this, but it's late here, will post later.

Cool.

When I say Buffy's and Willow's self-righteousness I mean that they have power and know it, and more importantly they remind Xander of the fact that he has no power on occasion. I guess that I could've explained it better, but again it was late and I was tired So to expand on my point, I feel that Xander doesn't get "a free pass," in fact I feel that Willow and Buffy get less punishment than Xander at times in the series. This is primarily in the search of love and support. Buffy has her one true love, though they are apart, in Angel. She knows she is loved and will probably always love him in return. Willow has had three great relationships, Oz did leave, but they seemed to end on a somewhat better note when Oz returned to SunnyD in S4..

SPOILER: Click to show

and they have spoken in friendly terms in S8..

Tara and Willow had one of the most powerful relationships in the entire series (and arguably the entire JossVerse), and although Tara has died, Willow has kept her in her heart and moved on to have a decent relationship with Kennedy. What does Xander get? Bug Lady, Mummy, and Annoying Ashanti Demon. These are far different from the other love interests of Buffy and Willow, who get Parker (sleaze, yes, but at least human and therefore capable of good/has soul), Riley was really as close to the perfect man as possible, and Spike gets a free pass WAY more than Xander, plus he like died, and then came back, and is somehow not being held accountable for that.

WILL EDIT LATER<TO BE CONTINUED>

[Miss. Rogueh]

Mar 2, 2010 18:54:12 GMT -5 deathisyourgift said:

Spike gets a free pass WAY more than Xander, plus he like died, and then came back, and is somehow not being held accountable for that.

Jumping in for Spike, His soul got traped in the amulet and the powers that be/lindsay found and sent the amulet to Angel. Go back and watch Angel Season 5, it is explained but not spelled out.

As far as his free passes, I agree both of them have had way to many free passes. They expanded the charatoristics of the cast way to much on alot of things, If Xander really pulled the "leaving at the alter" The other characters would have freaked out on him.

[wenxina]

Mar 2, 2010 15:49:34 GMT -5 El Diablo Robotico said:

And Anya is an interesting case that's never really made clear enough to make any sorts of judgments about her--did she have a soul as a vengeance demon, or not?

Well, the price of reversing the spell that killed all the frat boys was the soul of a vengeance (or justice) demon. Halfrek paid quite dearly for it.
Whether or not the "soul" mentioned is a corrupted version of the human soul, or "soul" is interchangeable with demon essence is not made clear.

[The Girl In Question]

Mar 2, 2010 18:54:12 GMT -5 deathisyourgift said:

What does Xander get? Bug Lady, Mummy, and Annoying Ashanti Demon. These are far different from the other love interests of Buffy and Willow.

Xander also had Cordelia, which was a rocky relationship, but she really did love him (even if it was puppy love). Then he got Anya.

Then he got

SPOILER: Click to show

Renee, and soon after Dawn.

I think all of those women are very decent, and who he had genuine relationship with.

Plus Willow had that book/demon/robot thing.

[tkts]

Mar 1, 2010 23:08:36 GMT -5 El Diablo Robotico said:

- Treating a spell that raised a murderous demon like it was a mystical fortune cookie. He doesn't deserve any blame before the first death, because he didn't know that anything bad was going to happen, but keeping his mouth shut after that had the potential to be the worst thing he ever did, and he ended up getting off really lucky. You could even look at this as a precursor to what happened at the wedding: he screwed up, knew he'd screwed up, but couldn't work up the courage to speak up and admit his mistake and save things from getting much worse later on.

I agree with most of your points, but I'm not sure about this one.

Once people started dying, it would have been pretty far out of established character for Xander to keep quiet if he knew what the cause was. He's done some less-than-noble things, but nothing like that. So I'm inclined to believe that he doesn't actually make the connection until he actually sees the talisman at the Bronze.

Of course, that doesn't really explain the "I just thought there'd be singing and dancing" line. Maybe he thought the amulet was supposed to show him some kind of dramatized version of his and Anya's future together? That's a stretch, I know.

This is something that's always bothered me about that episode ... the ambiguity that strongly suggests one of the heroes doing something really reprehensible. Maybe this belongs in the "just bugs me" thread.

Then there's the explanation that he didn't invoke it at all, but just said he did in order to protect Dawn ...but I don't think there's much evidence for that interpretation.

[El Diablo Robotico]

Mar 2, 2010 18:54:12 GMT -5 deathisyourgift said:

So to expand on my point, I feel that Xander doesn't get "a free pass," in fact I feel that Willow and Buffy get less punishment than Xander at times in the series. This is primarily in the search of love and support. Buffy has her one true love, though they are apart, in Angel. She knows she is loved and will probably always love him in return. Willow has had three great relationships, Oz did leave, but they seemed to end on a somewhat better note when Oz returned to SunnyD in S4..

SPOILER: Click to show

and they have spoken in friendly terms in S8..

Tara and Willow had one of the most powerful relationships in the entire series (and arguably the entire JossVerse), and although Tara has died, Willow has kept her in her heart and moved on to have a decent relationship with Kennedy. What does Xander get? Bug Lady, Mummy, and Annoying Ashanti Demon.

Well, as TGIQ already pointed out, you're leaving Cordy, and the happenings of S8 out of there, too. For a great big geek, Xander's had some pretty hot women over the years, who cared a lot about him.

But you're kind of going off on a bit of a separate issue, sort of down the track of sosa lola when she mentions that Xander was the only one who didn't get a second chance with his exes. That's true, but it's also fairly irrelevant. It really has nothing to do with the main idea that Xander gets very little blame or anger from his friends--or the fans--for some of the really crappy things he's done over the years. You'd think a guy who's held up as the "white knight" of the show would be held to a bit of a higher standard.

and Spike gets a free pass WAY more than Xander

Completely different character, and completely different type of character. He doesn't need a free pass from S2-6. He's evil, and the fans love him for his evil-ness, the same way they love someone like Lilah. Nobody's excusing them from the horrible things they do, because that's such a core part of who they are, and those characters wouldn't want to be excused from those things.

S7, and AtS S5, he gets a free pass because he's not the same character anymore, however much he might still seem the same. Tho some people will still argue it, there's enough evidence to pretty conclusively prove that a vampire with a soul is a completely separate character from that same vampire without a soul. I'll repeat Wesley's line to Holtz: "Angel is no more responsible for Angelus's crimes than I am", and add Buffy's quote to Wood: "You're looking for revenge on a man that doesn't exist anymore." Souled-Spike doesn't need a free pass for unsouled-Spike's crimes anymore than Willow needs one for all the awful things Glory does. Again: separate characters.

And if you think Spike gets off easy for the attempted-rape--oh, man! You must've missed out on all the internet fracases between the pro-Spike and anti-Spike people back 6, 7, 8 years ago! It got insanely-nasty at times.

plus he like died, and then came back, and is somehow not being held accountable for that.

Umm, why should he be held accountable for that? Buffy did the same thing. Both of them gave their lives to save the world, and their resurrections had nothing to do with either of them doing anything "wrong" that needed anyone's forgiveness for.

Mar 2, 2010 20:53:29 GMT -5 wenxina said:

Well, the price of reversing the spell that killed all the frat boys was the soul of a vengeance (or justice) demon. Halfrek paid quite dearly for it.
Whether or not the "soul" mentioned is a corrupted version of the human soul, or "soul" is interchangeable with demon essence is not made clear.

In "The Harvest", the Master also tells Luke, "My soul is your soul," even tho they both clearly don't have souls. Not in the way Angel and Spike do, anyway. I always took that to mean that there's some sort of demonic equivalent, just something that makes up their consciousness and essence, but isn't the same as a human soul. And that's something they never really got into with Anya--did Aud lose her human soul when she became demonic Anyanka, and get it back when she became human Anya, or did she have her human soul all along? I prefer to give her the benefit of the doubt and assume that she didn't have it all those years.

Mar 2, 2010 23:27:42 GMT -5 tkts said:

Mar 1, 2010 23:08:36 GMT -5 El Diablo Robotico said:

- Treating a spell that raised a murderous demon like it was a mystical fortune cookie. He doesn't deserve any blame before the first death, because he didn't know that anything bad was going to happen, but keeping his mouth shut after that had the potential to be the worst thing he ever did, and he ended up getting off really lucky. You could even look at this as a precursor to what happened at the wedding: he screwed up, knew he'd screwed up, but couldn't work up the courage to speak up and admit his mistake and save things from getting much worse later on.

I agree with most of your points, but I'm not sure about this one.

Once people started dying, it would have been pretty far out of established character for Xander to keep quiet if he knew what the cause was. He's done some less-than-noble things, but nothing like that. So I'm inclined to believe that he doesn't actually make the connection until he actually sees the talisman at the Bronze.

Of course, that doesn't really explain the "I just thought there'd be singing and dancing" line. Maybe he thought the amulet was supposed to show him some kind of dramatized version of his and Anya's future together? That's a stretch, I know.

This is something that's always bothered me about that episode ... the ambiguity that strongly suggests one of the heroes doing something really reprehensible. Maybe this belongs in the "just bugs me" thread.

Then there's the explanation that he didn't invoke it at all, but just said he did in order to protect Dawn ...but I don't think there's much evidence for that interpretation.

To be honest, it's not something I ever thought much about before it was brought up here in this thread, because it was done as such a throwaway thing at the end of the episode.

But still, when you take a minute and begin thinking about it a little, he really starts to look pretty bad here. He's just done a spell, probably very recently, that he thinks will lead to "dances and songs" of some kind. Then all of a sudden, everyone all over town starts dancing and singing. He doesn't think that maybe there's a chance the two things might be connected? Even if it's just a small chance, once that first guy died he should've brought it up as at least a possibility of what might be happening--especially when nobody else has the slightest clue, and Giles is almost ready to start investigating bunnies.

For me, tho, it's actually one of those moments that almost takes me out of the story. It's such a weak explanation for everything that it just comes across as Joss having this amazing idea for a groundbreaking musical episode, and all the songs are going to have such important meaning for the individual characters, blah, blah, blah... And then he gets to the end of the script, and realizes that he doesn't really have a great explanation for why this demon would show up, and all these things would start happening. So he just came up with a silly little thing that he tossed on Xander's shoulders, without really stopping to think it through and realize how bad it makes Xander look when you start examining things a little closer...

[sosa lola]

Mar 2, 2010 23:27:42 GMT -5 tkts said:

Mar 1, 2010 23:08:36 GMT -5 El Diablo Robotico said:

- Treating a spell that raised a murderous demon like it was a mystical fortune cookie. He doesn't deserve any blame before the first death, because he didn't know that anything bad was going to happen, but keeping his mouth shut after that had the potential to be the worst thing he ever did, and he ended up getting off really lucky. You could even look at this as a precursor to what happened at the wedding: he screwed up, knew he'd screwed up, but couldn't work up the courage to speak up and admit his mistake and save things from getting much worse later on.

I agree with most of your points, but I'm not sure about this one.

Once people started dying, it would have been pretty far out of established character for Xander to keep quiet if he knew what the cause was. He's done some less-than-noble things, but nothing like that. So I'm inclined to believe that he doesn't actually make the connection until he actually sees the talisman at the Bronze.

Of course, that doesn't really explain the "I just thought there'd be singing and dancing" line. Maybe he thought the amulet was supposed to show him some kind of dramatized version of his and Anya's future together? That's a stretch, I know.

This is something that's always bothered me about that episode ... the ambiguity that strongly suggests one of the heroes doing something really reprehensible. Maybe this belongs in the "just bugs me" thread.

Then there's the explanation that he didn't invoke it at all, but just said he did in order to protect Dawn ...but I don't think there's much evidence for that interpretation.

The Xander summoning Sweet issue. A large part of fandom saw it as out of character and they're about three groups.

Group 1 thinks that it's unlikely for Xander to cast a spell irresponsibly after what had happened in Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered, because he had told Willow in Lover's Walk that he had learned from that lesson and he would never get involved with casting unsupervised magic.

Group 2 thinks that it is likely for Xander to make the same mistake, because after all, lots of humans do make the same mistake twice even after they had learned from the first one, it's real life. But, what's un-Xander-like is that he hadn't confessed to doing the spell after he had learned about people combusting into flames because of it.

Group 3 thinks that Joss didn't care much for characterization and continuity and he had only chose Xander to do the spell so we could have the "Do I have to be your queen?" joke.

Personally, I think group 3 nailed it

But, because we accept BtVS with all its flaws, I think the reason Giles didn't yell at Xander and Xander not showing remorse at this time is because they were too shocked with the revelation that Buffy had been in heaven. I think Xander's guilt of pulling Buffy out of heaven overpowered the guilt of causing people to die from his spell at that moment. Now, I don't have a logical explanation to why Xander hadn't confessed earlier about doing the spell to Giles when things went out of hand (like he had done in BB&B). Story-wise, they can't have that because it'll ruin the "mystery", but character-wise… no explanation comes to my mind.

[gumgnome]

While I do accept a lot of your points, El Diablo Robotico, I still think that there's a difference between finding wrong in Xander and hating him. You make an excellent case for the fact that there he does some very wrong things, but I agree with those who have already said that the reason they like him is because he makes very human mistakes - it's his faults that endear him to me. Tragic characters who seem doomed to repeat the failures of their parents are interesting characters for me, and it can be a serious psychological block to action that shouldn't be disregarded.

Leaving Anya at the altar seems out of character for me, and makes me feel that Xander may have turned out to be a little disappointing developmentally, but this isn't something that can make me hate him either.

Your arguments about Spike and Angel not being responsible for the crimes they did when they were soulless are fair, but including Anya in this seems to be a stretch for me. Her personality changes only very gradually after she loses her powers (note that she only ever refers to the change as the loss of something, rather than a gain, or switch), much unlike when Angel or Spike get their souls, where instantaneous change can be seen. Giving her the benefit of the doubt and saying she didn't have a soul before seems to be simply convenient for the argument you are trying to make, rather than being a solid hypothesi.

[El Diablo Robotico]

Mar 3, 2010 8:03:44 GMT -5 sosa lola said:

Group 3 thinks that Joss didn't care much for characterization and continuity and he had only chose Xander to do the spell so we could have the "Do I have to be your queen?" joke.

Personally, I think group 3 nailed it

So do I. Just as I feel that him leaving Anya at the altar was more of a case of the writers just wanting to make everyone as painful and miserable as possible during S6, rather than a true logical progression of his character and a decision that he would've really made under other circumstances. I honestly blame the writers way more than Xander for both these things, but still, within the confines of the fictional world the characters do have to shoulder the blame for their own bad decisions, unfortunately.

Mar 3, 2010 14:58:14 GMT -5 gumgnome said:

While I do accept a lot of your points, El Diablo Robotico, I still think that there's a difference between finding wrong in Xander and hating him. You make an excellent case for the fact that there he does some very wrong things, but I agree with those who have already said that the reason they like him is because he makes very human mistakes - it's his faults that endear him to me. Tragic characters who seem doomed to repeat the failures of their parents are interesting characters for me, and it can be a serious psychological block to action that shouldn't be disregarded.

Leaving Anya at the altar seems out of character for me, and makes me feel that Xander may have turned out to be a little disappointing developmentally, but this isn't something that can make me hate him either.

And I'll say it yet again: I don't hate Xander, and I'm not suggesting that anyone else should, either. Personally, if I ranked my like/dislike of all the characters on a scale of positive-10 to negative-10, with 0 being neutral, Xander would land just to the left of 0--maybe a negative-1 or -2. I love him in his great moments, hate him in his bad ones, and am mostly ambivalent about him the rest of the time.

My whole point with this thread is just that it's seemed to me over the last few years that a lot of fans--and the other characters around him--either ignore all Xander's bad moments, or come up with ways of rationalizing and excusing them away, more so than with other characters who've done similarly-reprehensible things. Now sosa lola says that she has seen him get called out for it by some of the fans over the years, and I don't doubt her in that, but she's apparently been visting other forums that I haven't. I've been almost strictly a SlayAliver over the last 3 years or so, and stuck to just 2 or 3 other sites in the years before that, and I've never seen it. Not here, and not at those previous stops.

Yes, Xander's a very complex and interesting character, and yes, he's deservedly popular. He's a good man, but he's not a great man. He's not any better or more righteous than Willow, Angel, Faith, or Gunn, and certainly not more than Riley, Dawn, or Kennedy, and yet I think he's somehow acquired this reputation of being a spotlessly-wonderful guy, which I don't think he deserves.

Your arguments about Spike and Angel not being responsible for the crimes they did when they were soulless are fair, but including Anya in this seems to be a stretch for me. Her personality changes only very gradually after she loses her powers (note that she only ever refers to the change as the loss of something, rather than a gain, or switch), much unlike when Angel or Spike get their souls, where instantaneous change can be seen. Giving her the benefit of the doubt and saying she didn't have a soul before seems to be simply convenient for the argument you are trying to make, rather than being a solid hypothesi.

But there's really not an instantaneous change in Spike's character. Not unless you wanna count the basement stuff, and if you do, that's fair enough, but it doesn't make for a good comparison since we never got to see Anya's reaction to the First haunting her with all her past victims. Once Spike got out of there, he pretty much slipped right back into being the exact same guy he'd been before he got the soul, which is what causes all the problems for some people in differentiating that he's actually an entirely new character.

Darla is another one who was very similar with a soul and without. It took her weeks to feel the weight of her soul, and for that guilt to finally hit home, tho eventually it did. If you wanna point out that it never seems to hit Anya, then I'll agree with that, but this doesn't exonerate Xander in any way--it just condemns Anya. And if any conclusions are going to be drawn from it, I'd say that, if anything, that points to her not having a soul even as human-Anya, because I don't see how else you can spend 1100 years killing and torturing men, and not feel any speck of guilt from it afterward. So if true, that just leads right back to Xander being King Hypocrite--being such a jerk to Buffy about her vamp boyfriends, yet himself being engaged to a soulless mass-murderer.

[gumgnome]

Mar 3, 2010 19:25:30 GMT -5 El Diablo Robotico said:

Yes, Xander's a very complex and interesting character, and yes, he's deservedly popular. He's a good man, but he's not a great man. He's not any better or more righteous than Willow, Angel, Faith, or Gunn, and certainly not more than Riley, Dawn, or Kennedy, and yet I think he's somehow acquired this reputation of being a spotlessly-wonderful guy, which I don't think he deserves.

Fair enough - can't really argue with this, although on my own watching I certainly don't tend to forgive Xander any faster for his mistakes than anyone else. I think that it's natural for people to like Xander more than Gunn because he's a more central character than Gunn, and people tend to stick by their central characters.

Mar 3, 2010 19:25:30 GMT -5 El Diablo Robotico said:

But there's really not an instantaneous change in Spike's character. Not unless you wanna count the basement stuff, and if you do, that's fair enough, but it doesn't make for a good comparison since we never got to see Anya's reaction to the First haunting her with all her past victims. Once Spike got out of there, he pretty much slipped right back into being the exact same guy he'd been before he got the soul, which is what causes all the problems for some people in differentiating that he's actually an entirely new character.

I would say that the change even after the basement is pretty clear. He's clearly trying to be the old Spike in "Beneath Me" but he can't do it - when he impales the guy, the game is up.
Darla's more interesting, true, in that it does seem to take her a while. But Anya really doesn't change very much and I would argue that she must have a soul, otherwise the whole character is thrown into question, including her motivations for doing any of the decent things she does, or her ability to truly love Xander.

[lightandmagic]

Mar 4, 2010 3:15:57 GMT -5 gumgnome said:

Mar 3, 2010 19:25:30 GMT -5 El Diablo Robotico said:

Yes, Xander's a very complex and interesting character, and yes, he's deservedly popular. He's a good man, but he's not a great man. He's not any better or more righteous than Willow, Angel, Faith, or Gunn, and certainly not more than Riley, Dawn, or Kennedy, and yet I think he's somehow acquired this reputation of being a spotlessly-wonderful guy, which I don't think he deserves.

Fair enough - can't really argue with this, although on my own watching I certainly don't tend to forgive Xander any faster for his mistakes than anyone else. I think that it's natural for people to like Xander more than Gunn because he's a more central character than Gunn, and people tend to stick by their central characters.

But the characters, and I personally believe the writers as well, forgive Xander faster than Gunn or really any other character. After That Old Gang of Mine, Gunn is continually berated/questioned by the group for not telling them earlier that it was his old gang for killing demons haphazardly. Which, in my opinion, isn't even that bad, it came off to me as something that Gunn wished to sort out himself.

Or a similar scenario, Gunn takes the majority of the heat for Fred being killed by Illyria by signing some document through, which is still not really his fault. Careless? Yes. But It wasn't like he deliberately tried to kill Fred.

Compare this to Xander who tries to get Angel killed by telling Faith that he's evil, when he knows full well he isn't. It isn't ever really mentioned again, yet the severity of his actions are way worse than what Gunn did.

To me, it seems like the writers also forgive Xander faster than any other character. Whenever (okay not whenever, the majority of the time) he does something horrible it's never really mentioned or brought up again. He should have to suffer the consequences of his actions, and it's the fact that there's never really direct repercussions for his actions that always bothers me about his character.

Mar 4, 2010 3:15:57 GMT -5 gumgnome said:

Mar 3, 2010 19:25:30 GMT -5 El Diablo Robotico said:

But there's really not an instantaneous change in Spike's character. Not unless you wanna count the basement stuff, and if you do, that's fair enough, but it doesn't make for a good comparison since we never got to see Anya's reaction to the First haunting her with all her past victims. Once Spike got out of there, he pretty much slipped right back into being the exact same guy he'd been before he got the soul, which is what causes all the problems for some people in differentiating that he's actually an entirely new character.

I would say that the change even after the basement is pretty clear. He's clearly trying to be the old Spike in "Beneath Me" but he can't do it - when he impales the guy, the game is up.
Darla's more interesting, true, in that it does seem to take her a while. But Anya really doesn't change very much and I would argue that she must have a soul, otherwise the whole character is thrown into question, including her motivations for doing any of the decent things she does, or her ability to truly love Xander.

As for Anya having a soul, it's really hard to know. She becomes a human in Season 3, yet thinks lightly about people she killed for many seasons to come. I feel that after 1000 years of doing it, it was almost commonplace for her, so death wasn't a huge deal. Or at least the memories of her killing wasn't a huge deal.

It wasn't until she became a vengeance demon again and had to deliberately kill again that she could start feeling guilty. Her first murder as a vengeance demon again is in Selfless, or is implied to be in Selfless, and she feels awful about it. While she was used to her memories of killing as there's 1000 years of them, and it's the vasttttt majority of her life (and pretty much all she knows) the actual action of killing again makes her feel tremendously guilty. And I think it's only after that moment that she begins to realize how things she did in the past weren't something hilarious.

Plus, it's also hard to judge with Anya because the writers never really developed her character as thoroughly as a lot of the other ones. She mostly was there to serve as comic relief, which is awesome because she is hilarious, but also sad because there was a lot of potential there.

[El Diablo Robotico]

Mar 4, 2010 3:15:57 GMT -5 gumgnome said:

Fair enough - can't really argue with this, although on my own watching I certainly don't tend to forgive Xander any faster for his mistakes than anyone else. I think that it's natural for people to like Xander more than Gunn because he's a more central character than Gunn, and people tend to stick by their central characters.

magic already pointed out a couple of the things I would've mentioned about the unfairness in the treatment Gunn receives compared to Xander. Different show, different writers, but still, a cynical person might also say, "Sure, dump all the crap on the brother, and let the white guy off with a slap on the wrist." I wouldn't say that, but someone else might.

But I think the main reason the fans like Xander more than Gunn isn't that he's a more central character, but that he's a more relatable character. I'm going to strictly play the percentages of the US, Canadian, UK, and Australian populations (since that seems to be where BtVS/AtS is most popular) here in making this hypothesis, and assume that most of us grew up as middle-class white kids, like Buffy, Xander, and Willow. We relate better to Xander, because we've been thru a lot of the same things as him. Gunn, on the other hand, grew up in almost a whole other world than most of us. So we relate well to Xander, and therefore we like Xander, and we're more likely to just kind of brush it off when he does something really bad, which is exactly what you're saying about people sticking by their characters.

Mar 3, 2010 19:25:30 GMT -5 El Diablo Robotico said:

I would say that the change even after the basement is pretty clear. He's clearly trying to be the old Spike in "Beneath Me" but he can't do it - when he impales the guy, the game is up.

Spike is still at the height of crazy in "Beneath You". The sanity is an act, something that looks right on the surface, but is easily broken. It does break a bit at the Bronze when, after a quick fight, Buffy tells him that he hasn't changed. At that point he sort of becomes like a DJ taking requests, and since he thinks that's the song she wants to hear, he slips back into S2 Spike (it's actually a really cool, subtle performance by JM, who even goes back to his S2 accent). Then, once he impales worm-boy, the act is shattered completely, and he goes back to being Crazy Basement Guy for the next 3 eps.

Darla's more interesting, true, in that it does seem to take her a while. But Anya really doesn't change very much and I would argue that she must have a soul, otherwise the whole character is thrown into question, including her motivations for doing any of the decent things she does, or her ability to truly love Xander.

I think you're right, but the lack of any apparent remorse for all her horrible acts is still pretty troubling. There's definitely conflicting evidence there, and that's why I've always tried not to think too deeply into it. I love her for who she is, and since the writers never really gave us enough to work with when it comes to trying to judge her against Angel or Spike, I'd rather just set her off to the side and leave her out of the debate completely.

[deathisyourgift]

As usual, I've let this thread alone for like, a couple days and I come back to be overwhelmed by the knowledge of my beloved slayalivers, lol. I think it's great to start up this discussion, because as a Xander fan (he's always been listed in quizzes as my #1 favorite character...ALWAYS!) I do tend to excuse some of the things that he does throughout the series. I absolutely don't know what to say after all the discussion that's gone on since my last post..but then I'm in grad school and my brains are turning to sludge

[The Girl In Question]

Mar 7, 2010 21:15:34 GMT -5 deathisyourgift said:

I'm in grad school and my brains are turning to sludge

Education does do that...

[gumgnome]

To both lightandmagic and El Diablo Robotico, I think you raise fair points about the different treatment of Xander and Gunn. I think that large parts of that are to do with the different shows - Angel has a much more grown-up feel, while Buffy is about growing up, so I think the mistakes characters make on Buffy are treated more as slip-ups that people make on their way while growing, while on Angel the mistakes are thought of as more final acts that you can't escape from. The themes of the show are just very different, so we feel differently about the characters in each. I know that this doesn't provide a moral or logical grounding for the explanation, but at the end of the day, we're influenced by what we're delivered on screen.

On the Anya issue, I would say that this falls into the shady contract about death that the writers of Buffy have with the audience. We are clearly given the impression early on in the show that we're allowed to laugh when some people die in this show, or at the very least not dwell on it and take it pretty lightly. Think of the number of Sunnydale High students and teachers that die all the time in the first few seasons and the humour made about it ("We're number one!"). Then there's Anya, who talks about these horrific things but is clearly meant to be making us laugh. On the other side of the coin, there's "The Body" and the death of Alan Finch and Warren which we are supposed to take very seriously as an audience. Again, how we take it depends entirely on us being taken in by the writers and allowing them to influence our impressions with what they provide us with on screen.

I think that arguing too deeply about issues like the soul, morality and the gravity of death in the show, taking the jokes as seriously as the heavy moments and expecting to get an internally consistent picture of all of these things is expecting far too much from the writers. The show wouldn't be half as enjoyable if it wasn't so funny all of the time, and the reason its funny so often is because it defies traditional rules about morality and death and pokes fun at everyone for being so serious all the time. We can't have our cake and eat it. Trying to plaster over the cracks by saying that Anya has no soul so that the actions of other characters can seem more consistent seems fruitless to me. I'm not saying that I don't enjoy a good chin-scratch about these things, but I would argue that there's only so far you can go with the characters alone, before you have to consider that the needs of the writers to propel the story in a particular direction clearly outweigh any internal justification that the fans can come up with.

[El Diablo Robotico]

Mar 11, 2010 17:18:44 GMT -5 gumgnome said:

I think that arguing too deeply about issues like the soul, morality and the gravity of death in the show, taking the jokes as seriously as the heavy moments and expecting to get an internally consistent picture of all of these things is expecting far too much from the writers. The show wouldn't be half as enjoyable if it wasn't so funny all of the time, and the reason its funny so often is because it defies traditional rules about morality and death and pokes fun at everyone for being so serious all the time. We can't have our cake and eat it. Trying to plaster over the cracks by saying that Anya has no soul so that the actions of other characters can seem more consistent seems fruitless to me. I'm not saying that I don't enjoy a good chin-scratch about these things, but I would argue that there's only so far you can go with the characters alone, before you have to consider that the needs of the writers to propel the story in a particular direction clearly outweigh any internal justification that the fans can come up with.

"It's fruitless. No fruit for gumgnome." ;D

But yeah--I agree with you. Anya's there strictly for comic-relief, and you kind of miss the whole point of her character if you start pulling her apart and really trying to analyze her too deeply.

The only time it does become important, tho, is in relation to Xander, and how he treats Buffy over Angel & Spike. He rips her for sleeping with a guy who "slaughtered half Europe", but less than 10 eps later admits his ex-fiance has "killed more men than smallpox". If he was a little more honest and just admitted that his main problem with the two vamps was jealousy, that wouldn't be so bad, but he hides behind being High Moral Ground Boy, and tries to make it seem that his dislike is all about the horrible things they've done, and how dangerous they are. But somehow that doesn't apply to him when he falls in love with a mass-murdering ex-demon.

[sosa lola]

Mar 12, 2010 14:49:43 GMT -5 El Diablo Robotico said:

Mar 11, 2010 17:18:44 GMT -5 gumgnome said:

I think that arguing too deeply about issues like the soul, morality and the gravity of death in the show, taking the jokes as seriously as the heavy moments and expecting to get an internally consistent picture of all of these things is expecting far too much from the writers. The show wouldn't be half as enjoyable if it wasn't so funny all of the time, and the reason its funny so often is because it defies traditional rules about morality and death and pokes fun at everyone for being so serious all the time. We can't have our cake and eat it. Trying to plaster over the cracks by saying that Anya has no soul so that the actions of other characters can seem more consistent seems fruitless to me. I'm not saying that I don't enjoy a good chin-scratch about these things, but I would argue that there's only so far you can go with the characters alone, before you have to consider that the needs of the writers to propel the story in a particular direction clearly outweigh any internal justification that the fans can come up with.

"It's fruitless. No fruit for gumgnome." ;D

But yeah--I agree with you. Anya's there strictly for comic-relief, and you kind of miss the whole point of her character if you start pulling her apart and really trying to analyze her too deeply.

The only time it does become important, tho, is in relation to Xander, and how he treats Buffy over Angel & Spike. He rips her for sleeping with a guy who "slaughtered half Europe", but less than 10 eps later admits his ex-fiance has "killed more men than smallpox". If he was a little more honest and just admitted that his main problem with the two vamps was jealousy, that wouldn't be so bad, but he hides behind being High Moral Ground Boy, and tries to make it seem that his dislike is all about the horrible things they've done, and how dangerous they are. But somehow that doesn't apply to him when he falls in love with a mass-murdering ex-demon.

I disagree that Xander's reasons for disliking Spike had anything to do with jealousy. Xander may see things in a naive way, and would only wake up when he's in Buffy's shoes in Selfless, but the facts remain; Anya became human, tries to act like humans, tries to fit in. Spike, on the other hand, is a soulless vampire, acts like a vampire, and doesn't try to fit in.

Jealousy was why Xander disliked Angel and every other boy who expressed interest in Buffy during the first two seasons. After that, his dislike for Angel and Spike is far more complex. If jealousy is a factor, why wasn't he jealous of Scott Hope, Riley, Ben or Wood?

[lightandmagic]

Mar 13, 2010 14:32:10 GMT -5 sosa lola said:

Mar 12, 2010 14:49:43 GMT -5 El Diablo Robotico said:

"It's fruitless. No fruit for gumgnome." ;D

But yeah--I agree with you. Anya's there strictly for comic-relief, and you kind of miss the whole point of her character if you start pulling her apart and really trying to analyze her too deeply.

The only time it does become important, tho, is in relation to Xander, and how he treats Buffy over Angel & Spike. He rips her for sleeping with a guy who "slaughtered half Europe", but less than 10 eps later admits his ex-fiance has "killed more men than smallpox". If he was a little more honest and just admitted that his main problem with the two vamps was jealousy, that wouldn't be so bad, but he hides behind being High Moral Ground Boy, and tries to make it seem that his dislike is all about the horrible things they've done, and how dangerous they are. But somehow that doesn't apply to him when he falls in love with a mass-murdering ex-demon.

I disagree that Xander's reasons for disliking Spike had anything to do with jealousy. Xander may see things in a naive way, and would only wake up when he's in Buffy's shoes in Selfless, but the facts remain; Anya became human, tries to act like humans, tries to fit in. Spike, on the other hand, is a soulless vampire, acts like a vampire, and doesn't try to fit in.

Jealousy was why Xander disliked Angel and every other boy who expressed interest in Buffy during the first two seasons. After that, his dislike for Angel and Spike is far more complex. If jealousy is a factor, why wasn't he jealous of Scott Hope, Riley, Ben or Wood?

Xander was incredibly jealous of Riley before he got to know him. He says at least a couple of lines referring to him as a meat head or a dumb jock type. By the time mid-season 5 rolls around I think he's finally gotten over his jealousy cause he's come to like Riley and now I think solely regards Buffy as a friend-type, but at least up until season 4 there are some definite jealousy issues.

As for Scott Hope, I don't think he was jealous of him because he just hates Angel so much (which once again, was born out of jealousy) that he wasn't going to say anything. Maybe it comes down to how you read the scenes, because when I watched Xander tear Buffy a new one during their little Angel intervention in Season 3 it definitely reeked of jealousy to me.

As for Spike, when he sees him sleeping with Anya it's definitely jealousy that's motivating his want to kill Spike in that moment. He didn't really have a huge issue with Spike until after this. Sure, they didn't really like each other all that much, but it was nowhere near the scale of Xander vs. Angel; which is what Xander vs. Spike pretty much got to near the end. And I don't think the hate was there because there was no inklings towards romantic feeling between Buffy and Spike for the large majority of the time.

I think I'm rambling and not making a lot of sense. Hopefully it does.

[El Diablo Robotico]

Mar 13, 2010 14:32:10 GMT -5 sosa lola said:

I disagree that Xander's reasons for disliking Spike had anything to do with jealousy. Xander may see things in a naive way, and would only wake up when he's in Buffy's shoes in Selfless, but the facts remain; Anya became human, tries to act like humans, tries to fit in. Spike, on the other hand, is a soulless vampire, acts like a vampire, and doesn't try to fit in.

Jealousy was why Xander disliked Angel and every other boy who expressed interest in Buffy during the first two seasons. After that, his dislike for Angel and Spike is far more complex. If jealousy is a factor, why wasn't he jealous of Scott Hope, Riley, Ben or Wood?

I believe him when he tells Riley in "The Replacement" that he's not into Buffy anymore. I think he got over her about the same time he started going out with Anya, and realized that she was never going to be interested in him in "that way". I think that's part of what made him okay with Buffy/Riley, and also because he recognized that Riley was a good man. If he couldn't have Buffy himself, Riley was the type of nice, decent guy that he could handle losing her to. There's probably some of that in how he felt about Scott, Ben, and Wood, too, tho mostly I just think that her relationships with them didn't go far enough or last long enough to give him the chance to show any feelings about them, good or bad.

When he finds out about her and Spike, even tho he doesn't still want her, I think there's still a big element of, "You never wanted me, but you do want him?!" in his reaction. I just don't see how else to explain the way he reacts there toward Buffy. Hurt and betrayal toward Anya, sure, (even tho it's uncalled for, and he has no one to blame but himself), and anger toward Spike, but anger toward Buffy? If he can sleep with a reformed mass-murderer, then she should be able to, too.