Xander, Dawson, and Matt from The Vampire Diaries all seem similar types to me. In all those cases they weren't the most important in the narrative. Dawson faded more and more to the background in favour of Joey, Matt never had much of a role, and the writers clearly never invested in Xander's story in the way they did Willow's for example. But still I always get the feeling that the writers over-identify with them and like them way more than the audience does, so more and more their rather glaring flaws get glossed over, and the writers cannot bring themselves to write them out, no matter how irrelevant they become.

Maybe Dawson is more debatable heh as technically the show was named after him, but it was such a cop-out that they couldn't bring themselves to go ahead with the original plan for Xander to be killed and the First Evil to take his form, and Matt should have killed off about two seasons ago. The audience never seem to love those characters as much as the writers *think* that they should, what with all of the writer statements about Matt represting the good humanity has to offer or whatever, and Joss talking about Xander being a role model for the males in the audience. 8 out of ten fans I speak too can't stand either character and don't get that from them at all