Should Jonathon have become a Scooby?

[Saturn 5]

We're currently rewatching/reviewing Superstar on the Buffytube part of the forum (exactly half way through the series) and it occured to me, should Jonathon have been a full Scooby? He's in the series from the pilot, he know's magic and we've seen him fight in Dead Man's Party and Graduation Day pt2. He obviously wants to be judging by his comments to Andrew, in many ways Andrew completes hs journey for him?

[XanderHarris]

I personally like Jonathan very much and I gave to say, I would have loved having him as a Scoobie. Inca Mummy Girl, The Wish, Superstar, he was always the real loser of the Buffyverse - much more than Xander - and I think he would've deserved to become a hero (nah, not by fighting in Graduation Day) und a full member of the Scoobies.
He could have been a "mini-Giles" with slight powers in sorcery or demonology.

Yeah, would've very much appreciated that.

[Tea - Total]

I would like to see him in the gang,but we got Andrew lol....

[Skytteflickan88]

Rather him than Andrew. But since I don't really like Andrew at all, that doesn't say much.

I think that he was the least selfish person in the trio(of course, he did stay) and had way more sense and was less annoying than Andrew, so even tough he made a lot of mistakes, I think he made up for them in Season 7.

While I appreciate the humour and sillyness Andrew brings, I find him too annoying. I'm not sure if much more could have been done with Joanthan, character wise, but maybe part-time scoobying would have been interesting.

[buffyfan21]

I think it would have been cool to see Jonathan as an honorary scooby. Unlike Andrew (and especially) Warren, Jonathan never had an interest in being evil, but simply wanted so desperately to be a part of something, to belong (gee, can you tell I'm a psych student? ). Sure, Jonathan made some mistakes, but unlike the other two, he never killed anyone. And Jonathan was the only one of the trio to show true remorse with the killing of katrina. Warren and Andrew simply treated her death as an inconvenience, a problem that needed to be cleaned up. You could argue that any mistakes Jonathan made were derived from his desire for inclusion. He was only ever interested in harming himself, but never really wanted to put anyone else in danger. The irony is that it was Jonathan who wanted so much to become a part of the scoobies' world, yet it was Andrew who eventually gained a place within the group. I see Andrew much like I see Jonathan, not really a bad guy but powerfully driven by a desire for belonging and acceptance. It is also interesting to note that it is within this group that Andrew found redemption, along with the (eventual) acceptance he had craved for so long. I imagine that things would have turned out much the same for Jonathan if he had been given a chance to be a part of the group. It would have been interesting to see Jonathan play more of a role, perhaps have he and Andrew working together. Nonetheless, I am happy we got Andrew. True, I could not stand at first, but then he grew on me and I now love the character. Jonathan and Andrew were never bad guys (now Warren is a different story entirely).

[Randi Giles]

You know something I always thought it should have been little Jonathonin in Andrew place since he always wanted to be part of the scoobies. I felt so bad for the guy. He was the one who wanted to be apart of the gang and got killed.

[hellmouth]

I suppose that Jonathan would have been somewhat useful as a Scoobie. Here is my only problem with that, the Scoobies seem to always find themselves making the really tough decisions. In some cases being willing to sacrifice their lives to save mankind. I think Jonathan showed that when it came time to make important decisions he could be selfish, and could take the easy way to satisfy his own desires, not putting the wellfare of others ahead of his own. I think that is an important character flaw that makes him unfit for the scoobies. The thing we will never know is that if he had been a part of the Scoobies, would that have changed?

[gumgnome]

While I think a lot of the above details why Jonathan deserved to be a Scooby more than Andrew, I don't think it would have been so entertaining. With Jonathan on-board, we'd simply have another solid good guy. With Andrew we get a more ambiguous character who can offer us something that we haven't seen before.

[Darth Rosie]

I'd say no, I wouldn't have wanted Jonathon as a scoobie. Also, and I know he has his fans, I don't like the actor and I think his acting abilities are quite limited. His constant overplayed pouting gets on my nerves. I much prefer Andrew's way of exaggerating emotions.

[willowsummers]

I'm not really crazy about Andrew or Jonathan being scoobies. I suppose of the two Jonathan deserved it more, but Andrew is funnier.

[CourtneyDax]

I wouldn't have liked it. I like Jonathan's character, but I'd rather not see him every week.

[thisyearsgirl91]

I loved Jonathan. He was actually a good person, just very misled.

As we saw, he didn't like hurting people and didn't want to kill Buffy. Having him become a Scooby in S7 made way more sense, since he had a history with the gang.

All Andrew had was 'Hey remember Tucker? This is his brother!'.

[Skytteflickan88]

Oct 25, 2009 11:10:02 GMT -5 buffyfan21 said:

I think it would have been cool to see Jonathan as an honorary scooby. Unlike Andrew (and especially) Warren, Jonathan never had an interest in being evil, but simply wanted so desperately to be a part of something, to belong (gee, can you tell I'm a psych student? ).

I think Andrew was the same way. In case it had been suggested that they would become super-heroes instead of super-villains, he would have been just as eager, as long as he got to be part of a gang. I think that could be seen in Season 7, where I think it was more his need to belong rather than his need to make amends that made him eager to be a part of the scoobies.

******

I think I get why they went with Andrew instead of Jonathan. They needed Andrew as a comedy element in a dark season.

Andrew was easier to make fun of and had a lighter attitude to life, while Jonathan was a different kind of funny, and had a too serious backstory to be the same kind of silly character thrown into the mix to make the season lighter.

So I get why they choose him, but since I like Jonathan a lot more, I wish they had kept him.

[hellmouth]

Do you think that perhaps Andrew was a better fit because Jonathan had too strong a personality. Think about the events of Season 7, I wonder if Jonathan had been the one in the mix if he would have been too opinionated, tried to take over the group, in general stir the waters too much. On the flip side, Andrew just played the hostage role and even though he tried to contribute was mostly a subdued, often ignored, voice in the crowd.