Xander and Once More With Feeling

[emarie]

I have to respectfully disagree with a lot of people. I think Xander should at least goten a lecture for his actions. Why? He had six years worth of time to see how magic can backfire even with Willow who had more experience than him. Not to mention that his last spell to make Cordelia fall in love for him got out of control. Giles if I recall right did lecture him then. This time people die, Dawn almost gets taken to hell, and Buffy almost dies--again--and no one says ANYTHING? That doesn't seem right to me.

[lee]

Honestly, I think there were a lot of other pressing issues that outweighed Xander's mistake. Everyone had just learned that Buffy was in Heaven and is thus tortured by being back alive. That's a lot to take in and I think Xander's mess up got overlooked because of it.

[emarie]

Still in the Price Angel opens up a portal to get his son (which IMHO is more important than Xanders' reason for his spell) back after the mess with Wesley. Everyone was highly stressed and still Angel gets a lecture from Gunn. It's just a pet peeve of mine when things like that get overlooked.

[kittyfantastico]

I think we can assume Xander understood his mistake, and maybe they talked about it afterwards. Its not like anyone had to convince him not to do it again.

Did the scoobies ever find out that it was Ben who summoned the queller?

[randygiles]

Nov 12, 2007 16:20:49 GMT -5 ladyparasyte said:

You know, it seemed kind of messed up to me that Xander, who was responsible for summoning Sweet , didn't even get a slap on the wrist while Willow gets reamed a new one for Tabula Rasa. Now, granted Willow and Tara have had previous issues with Willow's magical use, regardless someone died(dancing till they burned) because Xander wanted to see if him and Anya would work out. Someone died because of his selfish actions and he nor anyone else is bothered by this.Just thought it was interesting.

I have always wondered about this as well. Although, I do think it was indeed Dawn that summoned Sweet by accident. I always saw Xander as covering for Dawn in this situation. It would make more sense, as it's more likely that Dawn would summon Sweet because she was the one whom stole his tailsman and wore it, therefore summoning him by accident.

[buffyverseforever]

That's an interesting theory. It does fit....


Best wishes,


Scott

[cyclo]

I always thought that everyone was just really busy with other issues on their minds, and that Xander pretty much got the message that he messed up....besides, you know that deep down everyone totally enjoyed it. Maybe if they had more time he woulda got a piece of mind from someone, but there was a lot more for the show to deal with at that time.

[XanderHarris]

I always considered this as just another hasty decision by the writers to complete the story. A little bit like "Uh, we need someone to blame for the singing - let's take Xander. His intentions? Heck, he just wanted to party."

Something that annoyed me quite often in Season 6 and 7. It always looked like as if the writing of the dialogues and the plots was, from time to time, quite poor.

[CowboyGuy]

I just find it odd that he did it, yet played dumb to Giles and Anya and the rest of his best friends when it came to investigating the whole random singing thing.

Especially when people started dying!

I still blame Dawn. Haha.

[henzINNIT]

I think Xander genuinely didn't realize what had happened until Sweet mentioned the talisman. Pretty lazy exposition at work, but her that's season 6 & 7 for you. We can assume Xander got a talking to off-screen, it just wasn't particularly useful in this episode or relevent in the next.

[zoelee]

just like to say that all good points. but to me they didn't say anything to xander because they had other issues to deal with like the fact that Buffy just told them she was better off where she was. Giles did give him his stern look, sometimes a look is all it needs from Giles.

[randygiles]

I mean, Xander had absolutely no modivation for summoning Sweet. Don't you think if he had by accident, and been aware of it, he would have fessed up earlier on when he found out people were dying from it? His excuse of "I just wanted a happy ending" is weak at best. He was willing to go to hell with Sweet in Dawn's place, to protect her. Dawn, on the other hand, is more likely to make a reckless wish (or in this case, misuse a tailsman) then say, Xander is, having had such bad experiences in the past with wishes gone awry. Dawn, on the other hand - we can't expect much from her at this this point.

[Léo]

I really tend to agree, Joan. I always was annoyed by that, Xander is quite known for his bad experiences with magic and it seemed stupid to think he had summoned Sweet. On the other hand, it is very Dawnesque to do that kind of thing (I am a Dawn fan, so I don't really blame her), and Xander, who is very fond of her and who knows all the trouble you can cause with magic without meaning it, could clearly be covering for her.
This is a quite good example of something I have been noticing among buffy fans : we tend to think that "this episode is canon" means "all that is said is true". Xander could be lying, even if it's canon (the same thing happened about Knox and the whereabouts of Fred's soul, we all believed what he said).
Of course, we can't always assume that everybody is lying, but if it makes more sense, it feels more canonic to me.

[Skytteflickan88]

Dec 24, 2008 10:19:32 GMT -5 henzINNIT said:

I think Xander genuinely didn't realize what had happened until Sweet mentioned the talisman. quote]

But he said that he thought there would be singing and dancing. I don't think he's dumb enough to think, or at least not seriously consider, that the dancing+singing+burning could have something to do with his dancing+singing.

I know it's the Hellmouth, but what are the odds that two similar supernatural things are happening at the same time?

Jan 3, 2009 0:46:50 GMT -5 @randygiles said:

I mean, Xander had absolutely no modivation for summoning Sweet. Don't you think if he had by accident, and been aware of it, he would have fessed up earlier on when he found out people were dying from it? His excuse of "I just wanted a happy ending" is weak at best. He was willing to go to hell with Sweet in Dawn's place, to protect her. Dawn, on the other hand, is more likely to make a reckless wish (or in this case, misuse a tailsman) then say, Xander is, having had such bad experiences in the past with wishes gone awry. Dawn, on the other hand - we can't expect much from her at this this point.

Of course he had motivation. He did what Willow tried to do in Tabula Rasa; Make people happy and forget their problems. In a bad, iressponible manner.

And, not that I believe differently, we don't know if he was willing to go to hell for Dawn just because of the Queen-joke.

And with Dawn, we see her find the talisman, after the dancing and singing starts. Or do you suggest that she forgot the talisman in the store after the spell? Or did Sweet lie about the talisman importance? How likely is it that the writers intended for us to interpret the events this way? Or did they want to decieve us?

Although, is Xander really that big a idiot to leave a talisman he tried to use, wheter he thought the spell worked or not, in the magic shop? Doesn't he know more about magic, taht it needs to be contained and controlled? And would he really not tell people about the spell as soon as bodies turned up?

I say no, he's not that big a nut, which means; Bad, bad writers.


Or, does this icon tells the truth?

[BenTaylor3907]

Dec 16, 2007 20:23:25 GMT -5 matthewblake said:

Ben

What? Did someone call for me?

Xander summons Sweet? I thought that was Dawn? Gah!
*re watches Once More With Feeling*

[seryna]

There were a few moments of eye rolling and 'dammit, Xander'- but you're right, no one seemed concerned that Dawn almost became Sweets Underage bride. Not that anyone ever batted an eye at 243 year old Angel dating sixteen year old Buffy anyway, but I do agree that Xander should have at least been the butt of some horrible jokes. heck, his demon magnetism gets more leverage than his inadvertent never revealed to Buffy or Willow lie about 'Kick his ass'.

Xander has his 'jerk' moments, but as a rule, remains a virtuous shining white Knight.