frelling_tralk | (no subject)

Nooooooo! Ben Edlund (and Robbie Thompson) is my favourite SPN writer, why couldn't it have been Adam Glass instead :/ The writers of Mannequin 3: The Reckoning is NOT a fair trade

And The 8 Worst Characters On Television

What makes a character the “worst” isn’t necessarily their amoral actions or behavior (some of our favorite characters walk a very thin line between good and evil). They could be the most self-righteous and moral character ever, but still annoy the ever-living shit out of us. Worst characters are those whose screentime we want depleted immediately because they’re just so unlikable, despite the writers best attempts at getting us to root for them.

The only character I'm familiar with from that list is Chuck Bass, and he should be #1 in my eyes. Who else would you nominate for your worst character? At the ONTD discussion post Xander Harris got quite a few nominations lol

ETA Gah has anyone got a recommendation for a good spyware removal program? My comp suddenly seems to be riddled with pop-ups and weird links,and everything is running so slowly

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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

the original plan for Xander to be killed and the First Evil to take his form

That would have been interesting. At least if I'd given a shit about the First Evil.

I don't think Xander was a badly written character, though. He seemed pretty flawed and realistic—not so much a role model but a template for self-insertion the way Willow was for women in the audience before she took a level in badass. And I liked having someone with zero powers to ground the show when everyone else had some sort of supernatural knowledge or ability.

I'm between Riley or Kennedy for worst characters on Buffy. Kennedy was more objectively a terrible and pointless character, but Riley annoyed me more on a personal level.

I also hated both of them *g* I wouldn't necessarily say that Kennedy was completely pointless (although the forced romance with Willow was IMHO). But as one of the more gung-ho potentials I guess she filled the role of showing that some of them actually wanted to fight and had the slayer spark within them? But she made my teeth grate with the way she spoke about Buffy and the way she ordered the other potentials around. I've never forgotten her gloating at calling Chloe a maggot and being one of the causes for Chloe hanging herself, what a nasty little bully

Riley to me was worse though because so much of the emotional focus went to him in season 4 with the Initiative arc and I just did not care. It felt like him and his issues took over that season at the expense of Buffy

And I think the First Evil could have been interesting if they had used it for more psychological torment, but instead it didn't really seem like they knew what to do with it most of the time, other than as an excuse for Sarah to play evil or to bring past favourite villains back. Which is all very well, but as its own entity the First was just never scary

And Xander wasn't badly-written exactly, he just felt more and more pointless to me as the seasons went on, but the writers could never bring themselves to get rid of him. Instead they tried to force his role as the heart of the group and the one who sees. Neither of which made much sense to me, and felt more like the writers wanting to give him some kind of obvious role alongside Buffy, Giles, and Willow. But the heart of the group he was not IMO, just because he made the occasional speech once every 20 episodes or something. Most of the time he was the one in the group who was lashing out at Buffy if anything, and he never struck me as being particularly insightful either. Giles was the one in episodes like Faith, Hope, and Trick who quietly got to the bottom of Buffy's real issues, Xander was just the guy to pop up and lecture her on what a terrible friend or girlfriend she was in Dead Man's Party, Revelations, Into The Woods etc

Edited 2013-06-02 16:18 (UTC)

I don't think Xander was badly written; he was just a plain old asshole. I think you summed him up nicely. He was never a particularly loyal friend or a listener or insightful. He gave an inspirational speech here and there, but most of the time it didn't work. How can he be the one who sees when S1-S6 they made it a recurring joke as to obtuse he was? Unless he was faking it, in which case he was an even bigger asshole.

I think the First Evil worked very well in concept but no one tapped anyone on the shoulder and said they didn't have the money to clone SMG to play the First and Buffy.

Xander was just the guy to pop up and lecture her on what a terrible friend or girlfriend she was in Dead Man's Party, Revelations, Into The Woods etc

Kicker of it all is, it's gotten increasingly harder to believe we weren't supposed to believe he was right about all it.

That's what makes characters the most infuriating to me, when the writers seem unaware of the flaws that they're consistently writing for them. It used to drive me crazy with the way that Xander would constantly patronise Anya, yet the only time the show ever called him on it was in DMP when it seemed more like it was used for Halfrek to come across as stirring shit up as a vd, instead of genuinely having a point that it's kind of gross for Xander to be constantly correcting his fiance in public

I think the only character he had purely good friendship scenes with IMO was Willow, because he had no ax to grind when he would give her advise about Oz in WAH or when he comforted her over losing Tara and trying to destory the world. But most of his big moments with Buffy generally seemed to consist more of lecturing her for not living up to the pedestal that he had her on. And anyway Buffy and Willow seemed to be closer friends in the end and would generally turn to one another for support, so again I can't really think of all that many scenes of Xander being the heart of the group and the one that everyone would supposedly turn too

First!Xander could have been awesome. *sigh*

Yeah, it would have really upped the stakes if the First Evil could have used him in the final episodes to taunt the gang. SMG was good at playing the First but, whatever they were going for there, for me personally it didn't feel like it had a lot of emotional resonance most of the time when you think of the dead characters that the First could have used to taunt them with.

Edited 2013-06-02 19:16 (UTC)

Agreed on all counts.