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Buffy Rewatch: Relationships
Lots of discussion about Spike and Xander led to my own rant about Xander Harris and the Bewitched Bewildered, and Bothered episode! (I would disagree though with the emphasis placed on The Pack and possessed Xander's assault of Buffy, because the structure of season 1 was very different and so I don't place all that much importance on Xander deciding to pretend that it never happened and he has no memories of it.)
I do however have a much bigger problem with Xander planning to use magic to forcibly make Cordelia love him so that he could then dump and humiliate her. Looking back now the Bewitched, Bewildered, and Bothered episode is insanely creepy, especially when Amy warns Xander how insane and desperate a love spell could make Cordelia, and he just gloats that he wants her to unable to eat or sleep or thinking of anything but him! If anything the episode presented Xander and Cordelia in a very unbalanced way as Xander mostly seems annoyed at being dismissed by Cordelia and being made fun of by her friends, she is the one who seems to feel genuinally heartbroken when we are shown the necklace of Xander's that she is secretly wearing. Xander talks to Amy more about wanting payback and to be the one to dump Cordelia, and he's even willing to shrug off the spell's failure as no biggie the second he belives that Buffy might be expressing an interest in him. IMO His primary reason for wanting Cordelia under a love spell was because of his ego
And really there was never that much justification for Xander to react in the way that he did. Okay Cordelia blurted out her wishes to break up at a Valentine's Dance in her usual tactless way, but she also says she's sorry and she didn't mean to do it this way. For high school Cordelia the break-up speech is postively nice even as she never says anything unpleasant about Xander or that her friends feel like he's not good enough, just that they are kidding themselves and that they don't fit together. And however shallow her reasons for breaking up with Xander might have been, it was still her right to break up with him for any reason she pleased!
And then the day after Amy does the spell Xander approaches Cordelia when she is surrounded by her friends, and he is clearly hoping to see her grovel and humilate herself in front of them when he asks if she has anything to say to him, so how the spell became something romantic to bring the two of them back together is just bizarre to me! And the episode doesn't just end with Cordelia having ~having learned her lesson~ by telling off all her friends and choosing Xander in front of them, it also has Buffy thanking Xander for really coming through and him joking about how it was touch and go for a minute there, even though what they're actually talking about is Xander resisting the urge to take advantage of his friend when she was under a spell. I honestly don't know what Marti was thinking with this episode. (And soo disappointing that Gabrielle didn't get to finish her feminist write-up of Buffy episodes :/
And the thing is that if that episode featured anyone but Xander and his automatic nice guy shield, surely that role would have been clearly presented as the villain and Buffy would be dismissing them as a creepy and controlling little dweeb, the way she did other characters such as the boy who got turned down for a date in The Prom and planned retribution, orWarren's plans to dominate Katrina after she ended things with him. But because it's Xander that episode just gets shrugged off at the end with Buffy thanking him for not doing anything worse, and then he actually gets rewarded with the girl. I get the feeling we're even supposed to feel sorry for him when Amy hits on him too and he realises that Buffy's interest in him is only a spell.
I wonder if the Troika from season 6 were possibly the writers attempt to finally be honest about what it really means to use magic to control a woman, the way they could never bring themselves to do with Xander? Yeah okay he never had any plans to take advantage of Cordelia's body with that spell, but he was attempting to control his ex-girlfriend's emotions in a really sick way in order to get the power back in their dynamic. For some reason the writers seemed to feel that Giles yelling at Xander about being careless with magic, and Willow being mad at him because of her crush on him, were adequate consequences for that? Cordelia's only reaction was being flattered because she believed that Xander did the love spell to win her back :/
ETA And okay LOL, the spyware on this entry is now giving me pop-ups on "find a love spell now"
Lots of discussion about Spike and Xander led to my own rant about Xander Harris and the Bewitched Bewildered, and Bothered episode! (I would disagree though with the emphasis placed on The Pack and possessed Xander's assault of Buffy, because the structure of season 1 was very different and so I don't place all that much importance on Xander deciding to pretend that it never happened and he has no memories of it.)
I do however have a much bigger problem with Xander planning to use magic to forcibly make Cordelia love him so that he could then dump and humiliate her. Looking back now the Bewitched, Bewildered, and Bothered episode is insanely creepy, especially when Amy warns Xander how insane and desperate a love spell could make Cordelia, and he just gloats that he wants her to unable to eat or sleep or thinking of anything but him! If anything the episode presented Xander and Cordelia in a very unbalanced way as Xander mostly seems annoyed at being dismissed by Cordelia and being made fun of by her friends, she is the one who seems to feel genuinally heartbroken when we are shown the necklace of Xander's that she is secretly wearing. Xander talks to Amy more about wanting payback and to be the one to dump Cordelia, and he's even willing to shrug off the spell's failure as no biggie the second he belives that Buffy might be expressing an interest in him. IMO His primary reason for wanting Cordelia under a love spell was because of his ego
And really there was never that much justification for Xander to react in the way that he did. Okay Cordelia blurted out her wishes to break up at a Valentine's Dance in her usual tactless way, but she also says she's sorry and she didn't mean to do it this way. For high school Cordelia the break-up speech is postively nice even as she never says anything unpleasant about Xander or that her friends feel like he's not good enough, just that they are kidding themselves and that they don't fit together. And however shallow her reasons for breaking up with Xander might have been, it was still her right to break up with him for any reason she pleased!
And then the day after Amy does the spell Xander approaches Cordelia when she is surrounded by her friends, and he is clearly hoping to see her grovel and humilate herself in front of them when he asks if she has anything to say to him, so how the spell became something romantic to bring the two of them back together is just bizarre to me! And the episode doesn't just end with Cordelia having ~having learned her lesson~ by telling off all her friends and choosing Xander in front of them, it also has Buffy thanking Xander for really coming through and him joking about how it was touch and go for a minute there, even though what they're actually talking about is Xander resisting the urge to take advantage of his friend when she was under a spell. I honestly don't know what Marti was thinking with this episode. (And soo disappointing that Gabrielle didn't get to finish her feminist write-up of Buffy episodes :/
And the thing is that if that episode featured anyone but Xander and his automatic nice guy shield, surely that role would have been clearly presented as the villain and Buffy would be dismissing them as a creepy and controlling little dweeb, the way she did other characters such as the boy who got turned down for a date in The Prom and planned retribution, orWarren's plans to dominate Katrina after she ended things with him. But because it's Xander that episode just gets shrugged off at the end with Buffy thanking him for not doing anything worse, and then he actually gets rewarded with the girl. I get the feeling we're even supposed to feel sorry for him when Amy hits on him too and he realises that Buffy's interest in him is only a spell.
I wonder if the Troika from season 6 were possibly the writers attempt to finally be honest about what it really means to use magic to control a woman, the way they could never bring themselves to do with Xander? Yeah okay he never had any plans to take advantage of Cordelia's body with that spell, but he was attempting to control his ex-girlfriend's emotions in a really sick way in order to get the power back in their dynamic. For some reason the writers seemed to feel that Giles yelling at Xander about being careless with magic, and Willow being mad at him because of her crush on him, were adequate consequences for that? Cordelia's only reaction was being flattered because she believed that Xander did the love spell to win her back :/
ETA And okay LOL, the spyware on this entry is now giving me pop-ups on "find a love spell now"
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(no subject)
Date: 2013-06-22 03:18 pm (UTC)I wonder if the Troika from season 6 were possibly the writers attempt to finally be honest about what it really means to use magic to control a woman
I doubt it considering how often they used that trope. They seem to make a special distinction between what the Troika did and the goings on of W/T, Xander, etc. If they were actually making a definitive statement on that in Dead Things, I don't think Him would have been played so much for comedy.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-06-22 03:23 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-06-22 03:36 pm (UTC)there did also seem to be the assumption that because Xander was set up as the good guy then that was enough to excuse anything shady he did.
Yeah, I think that could be it or it's possible the writers just didn't see it as a problem. When you take into account that we were supposed to agree/side with Riley? It's one of those things where something is clear to those who see the problem and we're assuming the writers had some subversive point to doing it when in actuality they're just portraying what they think is the way things should be.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-06-22 08:01 pm (UTC)I also agree that the framing was awful, because there was almost zero awareness from the text of the enormity and horrific aspects of Xander's actual actions and attitude towards Cordelia. I find it consistent and believable for his personality but it's like the show has all the wrong opinions about it.
Also, I dislike the implicit impression given by the show (as a result of the ep, and how Xander/Cordelia was written in general), that Xander's wrongdoings matter less (or aren't even wrongdoings) because they're directed at Cordelia. It's one of my biggest no-nos in storytelling--judging the severity of a crime by the identity of the victim because THIS victim is somehow "worth less" than THAT one. (Of course this is a different situation from, say, declaring that it's fine to kill Angelus because he's a serial killer whereas obviously it's wrong to kill an innocent person. I mean situations like, it's not that big a deal to take away Cordelia's free will and try to emotionally manipulate her because, IDK, she falls into the "Whore" category in Xander's Madonna Whore Complex.)
(no subject)
Date: 2013-06-22 09:10 pm (UTC)And absolutely, at the time Xander and Cordelia's relationship was just something I accepted without thinking about it much, but when I recently rewatched Buffy it bothered me so much the way he spoke too and insulted Cordelia. 9 times out of 10 it was instigated by Xander as well, which wasn't something I picked up on at the time. Rather o/t but I noticed the same thing with Jesse in the pilot and how his interaction with Cordelia plays so differently to me now. At the time I just took it on face value that she was being snobby to not give him the time of day at the dance, and Joss also notes in the commentary that one scene was somewhat based on his own experiences of being rudely dismissed when he asked a girl to dance in high school. But watching it back now I was struck by just how obvious Cordelia made it in the school scenes that she had no interest in Jesse whatsoever (which again is her right, whatever we might think of the reasoning behind it). And then at the dance he interrupts her talking to her friends, she notes to them that here comes her stalker, and he asks her to dance. And somehow Cordelia is the one being framed as the villain, just because she doesn't want to dance with someone that she's already made it clear she is never going to be interested in! Watching that now, after my own experiences with guys that refuse to take a hint, I have so much more respect for Cordelia and her no bullshit ways lol. It should be the guy who can't take a hint that comes off as the bad guy, but of course all anyone mostly remembers from that scene is how mean Cordelia was to dismiss him like that
I was sooo the opposite of Cordelia in school, but she had a point too in Invisible Girl about people just friending her for her popularity or her looks. Marcie could have easily noticed the nicer girls in her class like Wllow or Amy and approached them, instead she was desperate to be part of Cordelia's crowd and constantly hanging on the edges and trying to jump into their conversations, and really is it that horrible for Cordelia not to have any time for that when she knew that she was only being targeted because she was in the popular zone, not because Marcie genuinely liked her as a person? Cordelia was definitely mean and took it too far when she targeted Willow with uncalled-for insults in the pilot, so I'm not defending every mean comment she made, but also it seemed like she would have still been stuck with the snobby bitch label anyway, unless she was willing to humour all of the hangers-on like Marcie and even Jesse, so idk maybe at a certain time she had decided to just embrace it if people were going to hate her either way
Lol sorry, this comment ended up being a little longer than I planned on :P
(no subject)
Date: 2013-06-23 01:46 pm (UTC)It's an awesome post! I kind of feel bad that I don't have more to add, lol, because I agree with pretty much everything you said...the thing is, I think one of the big problems with how the show treated Cordelia was that it conflated two different things that shouldn't be conflated: Cordelia is mean to people and insults them (which she does, in some cases I think you could even see it as bullying since at several points IIRC she deliberately seeks Willow out to say hurtful things to her), therefore it is OK for Xander to treat her the way he does, therefore we should feel sympathy for Jesse instead of noticing how his behavior endorses rape culture, etc. Because that's just wrong. Xander's behavior is wrong regardless of the kind of person Cordelia is, Jesse's behavior is creepy regardless of how other people in school might mistreat him, etc.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-06-23 02:49 pm (UTC)Also, I don't think it ever calls into question why they like her to begin with. Yes, Cordy is mean, yet they still desire her. Other than being shallow**, the undertone is one of an ego-driven desire to tame, notable when Jesse tells Cordy to shut up as he pulls her onto the dance floor.
Xander/Cordy plays out like a pretty common fantasy. Another thing that bugged me on a recent rewatch was just how obnoxious Xander is in S2 about Angel, long after Buffy shot him down. Then later he jumps to the Told-You-So. Again, both Buffy and Cordy end up getting taught lessons...while Xander never does.
**It's always bothered me this was never commented on in the show as it kind of was in the movie. While Cordy is meant to be seen as shallow and/or materialistic when she talks about guys, Xander/Jesse are interested in Cordy because she's the Queen B and hot. Similarly Xander and Angel "fall" for Buffy without ever even talking to her.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-06-23 03:29 pm (UTC)And at the risk of overthinking it, I think that played a part in Cordelia not being that impressed at someone like Jesse drooling over her. A lot of shows will go with the cliche of the pretty and popular girl find herself flattered when she realises that the geeky boy she was dismissing actually has really genuine feelings for her and sees the person that she is underneath, whereas with Jesse all we were ever shown was that he was attracted to Cordelia when she was very mean to the people around her and had few layers, so all we are left to imagine is that it must have been purely about her looks... So yeah I object to the show framing Cordelia as ~the mean girl~ in that instance for not having any time for him when he asked her to dance
And we were also shown very little about why Xander fell for Cordelia, except that he found himself physically attracted when they were arguing. He was still just as dismissive and snarking at her after they began dating, i.e in Innocence when she points out that's not much they can do to help if Buffy and Angel are really in trouble, and Xander snarks back that if the vampires need grooming tips we'll give you a call. He did apologise for that remark later and to be fair he was worried at the time, but still it does beg the question that why was he with Cordelia if that's the way he still saw her deep down? He frequently belittled her interests and didn't seem to have much time for her personality, so yeah I wonder if part of the attraction was that Cordy was in love with him and became softer around him after a time (such as her smile and wrinkling her nose before they kiss in Innocence), which does tie in with part of the attraction possibly being a subconscious ego-drive desire to tame the girl who had always acted like Xander and his friends were beneath her in the past
(no subject)
Date: 2013-06-23 05:03 pm (UTC)Hee thanks! And yeah I think that Xander got away with quite a lot of really nasty remarks about Cordelia, and the writers seemed to take the attitude of it didn't say anything about Xander, except that it really did. It stood out to me when he told Cordelia that you'll have your own line of hooker-wear someday (and another time he tells her that her dress makes everyone thinks that dress makes her look like a hooker) right in front of Buffy His friend Buffy who enjoyed dressing up in a more overtly sexy manner than Cordelia if anything as she went for the little skirts and boots a lot during the high school years and at one time even got blamed by Synder for wearing too short a skirt when a boy from the swimteam attempted to sexually assault her, and yet Xander never once had to stop and consider his female friends when he was slut-shaming Cordelia. But then Buffy ("vapid whore in Homecoming) and Willow ("skanky ho" in Phases) indulged in the same slut-shaming against Cordelia themselves at times :/
(no subject)
Date: 2013-06-23 12:56 am (UTC)I hadn't really thought about before. I think when I watched the episode I always just kind of assumed it was all about Xander's ego because on some subconscious level he was choosing to make it that way. As long as he focused on his bruised pride and getting revenge, he wouldn't have to deal with the genuine hurt he felt because he really liked Cordelia and she dumped him because her friends thought he was a dork. It would fit in with a larger pattern of avoidance of his emotional issues on Xander's part.
For some reason the writers seemed to feel that Giles yelling at Xander about being careless with magic, and Willow being mad at him because of her crush on him, were adequate consequences for that?
I like to think being chased by a veritable horde of women (including Drusilla!) all intent on killing him could be considered a karmic comeuppance.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-06-23 11:26 am (UTC)True, but the consequences were all careful how you choose to use magic, and Giles was really angry about the spell getting out of control and Xander fooling around with powerful forces, yet very little was said about the actual plan to directly hurt Cordelia. It seemed like he got away with that scot-free, and it was really just Willow upset at her feelings being stirred up again. Cordelia never really got to have a voice with anyone confronting Xander on why he would want to harm her like that.
And I agree that it wasn't all male ego on Xander's part, he must have liked Cordelia somewhat as well, I just always got the feeling that she was the one who cared more and really fell for him. The fact that he forgot about her so quickly when Buffy expressed an interest, and also in the teaser when Buffy was saying he could do better than Cordelia and he was saying the other woman he was interested in was unavailable, it all kind of added up to me to Xander certainly being attracted to Cordelia, but I'm not sure how much deeper it went for him and that his heart ever really got broken. Maybe I'm being a bit unfair, but we never really got the shot of him alone in his room and depressed like we did when Buffy turned him down in Prophecy Girl (or Cordelia for that matter looking tearful in the opening teaser of The Wish), so I never got the same sense that his heart had been broken. He was portrayed as being hurt when the other kids started making fun of him and Cordelia didn't say anything, so it just came across to me that a lot of it was more about his pride and feeling that Cordelia rejecting him gave the other kids license to start making fun of him again. Not that I'm advocating this at all lol, but I think if it was simply about being heartbroken that the more obvious way to portray Xander would be to want a love spell to win Cordelia back, not simply harbouring a plan to hurt and humilate her the way he felt that she had humilated him
(no subject)
Date: 2013-06-23 11:02 pm (UTC)Yeah, I would definitely say that Cordelia having stronger feelings for Xander than he had for her was a fair assessment, but just because he wasn't utterly heartbroken, that doesn't mean he wasn't hurt. And while I don't think having Xander cast spell to when her back would be the right choice, it's not exactly consistent with his character and it has some rape-y implication as well, the script could have been adjusted to emphasize that there was something more going on with Xander tha just 'she humiliated me so I'm going to humiliate her'. (Assuming that's what they were going for anyway.)
(no subject)
Date: 2013-06-28 08:26 am (UTC)In general, characters in the Buffyverse give me the impression that Joss has real low standards for human behavior. A bunch of those characters just make me sick -Xander, Andrew, Anya, Faith and Willow, for example. Not to mention Angel, of course. It's amazing that I love this show considering all the characters I hate, but Buffy is great (like super-great -go SMG!) and I'm very fond of Spike, Dawn, Tara, Oz and Dru as well.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-06-28 10:45 am (UTC)Just because he found it hot that a conventionally attractive woman like Buffy could also kick ass and handle herself, doesn't suddenly make him a great feminist when it was always clear to me that he had a lot of traditional ideas about men and women. He was never happy being the sidekick, in The Harvest he immediately starts complaining about being 'less than a man' when Buffy doesn't want him to come with her and get into danger, so I don't know where the idea comes from that he was happy to be a woman's sidekick. Maybe later on in the series, but definitely not when they were all in high school. Having to accept the inevitable truth that he wasn't as strong and powerful as a girl with superpowers doesn't mean that being her sidekick was the ideal state of affairs for him. At the very least his fantasy in Teacher's Pet should have seen him fighting alongside Buffy as an equal, instead of charging to Buffy's rescue as she is helpless and defeated, if he really was that into women being equally as strong or stronger than him
And the argument about him being so awesome because he's attracted to strong woman, I hate when his interaction with Kendra in What's My Line is used as an example of that. Like it's unusual and something to be be praised that a teenage boy is attracted to traditionally beautiful and in shape women like Buffy and Kendra! And then some people say it's so awesome how Xander loses all interest in Kendra when she starts stammering and isn't as strong a person as he thinks. Yeah how awesome that Xander takes a sexual interest in a slayer, and then immediately loses any interest in talking to her the second he realises that she's shy around guys and he's therefore no longer attracted to her?
(no subject)
Date: 2013-07-29 08:00 pm (UTC)Reading that his real goal was to create a male role model bothered me because once again, it's all about the guys really, not the women; but also - WHO THE HELL IS HE TALKING ABOUT? I don't hate Xander but I do take him to task for his shit, if that makes sense. (OTOH he's probably a big reason I have no desire to go back and do S1-3 rewatches.)
He never stops slut-shaming Buffy until after Selfless when she finally confronts him and The Lie is exposed. But he still whines about Anya and how she ripped out his heart (huh?) to Andrew.
Basically Xander slut shames and is possessive and judgemental towards the three women he is sexually attracted to, regardless of actual relationship status: Buffy, Cordy and Anya. Willow never comes in for that same behavior from him because she's "one of the guys", which allows him to also overlook her in S1-2.
But this is part of the reason why Grave bothers me (among a whole host of reasons); Xander's "unconditional love" for Willow has NEVER been in doubt, even if he wasn't "in love" with her. He's never been abusive to her, just neglectful. the worst overt action that he's probably done to Willow (that I recall) is harming her relationship with Buffy with The Lie. Anya is the one who deserve to hear this from him, or even Buffy, not Willow. They are the ones he's wronged that season (and earlier).
this in a season where Riley comes back as the paragon of mental health to whom Buffy apologizes, and Giles comes sweeping in to save the day full of power borrowed from a coven of women? And Buffy only has to realize that she needs to focus on taking care of Dawnie and get over herself? Just NO to any of that.
You already know how I feel about Riley getting away with shit that is egregiously wrong, so it's interesting that Xander identifies with Riley, and they both get away with a lot of awful shit - he likes Riley as an idealized version of himself, the Soldier, as a guy friend who he can pal around with; Xander is constantly whining about the lack of male friends in his life while doing nothing about it. I think part of his speech to Buffy is also because he wants her to keep him around for himself (He's obviously not putting her own needs first, because that doesn't occur to him.)
he never had any plans to take advantage of Cordelia's body with that spell
Not as a stated intent, but I'm not comfortable guessing how he actually would behave if he got the intended results. the situation is comparable with Willow in TR. Willow's intent had nothing to do with Tara's body, "just" her mind; she just wanted to stop the arguing. Xander's relationship with Cordy has been very much proto-Spuffy, snark and avowals of hatred followed by spontaneous sex in the janitors' closet. there's no telling what would actually happen once Cordy "fell in love" with him all over again.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-07-29 09:32 pm (UTC)And yeah I think that Xander totally identified with Riley and seized on that relationship as Buffy finally dating the right guy who 'comes along once in a lifetime', 'is holding nothing back' etc, when really how would Xander know anything about their relationship? The only reason he even knew about Riley's doubts about Buffy's feelings were because the guy flat out told him, and even then he was clearly surprised and taken-aback at hearing that, so where did he get off acting like the great insightful know it all in ITW!
I also thought it was telling that he reacted quite strongly to Buffy saying that she saw Riley as dependable, and he's all 'what is he State Farm'. I think that Xander saw himself as that dependable guy that Buffy should have chosen, and he never got over her dating Angel for as long as she did.
It's funny because out of context I could kind of like the friendship moment between Xander and Buffy in IWMTLY when Buffy is beating herself up about being self-involved with guys and Xander very sweetly says that 'What! I don't think you're like that', but then it's like isn't that exactly what you did tell her in your speech in ITW about how she should run after Riley and make it up to him, without having any idea of the circumstances behind why Buffy was so mad with Riley??? So that IWMTLY scene of Xander acting just shocked at Buffy blaming herself for messing up with guys never made any sense to me at all when clearly Buffy was feeling so bad about how things ended with Riley partly because her friend did make it seem like it was all her fault. Even in Triangle he's lying in bed with Anya and talking about what a disaster all of Buffy's relationships are, and how sooner or later you have to wonder who is really at fault. And that's when 19 year old Buffy had had a whole two relationships of hers not work out...
ETA And I agree that we can't say for sure how Xander would have reacted to Cordelia throwing himself at him under the spell, possibly he would have rationalised responding to her advances, but mostly the episode gave me the feeling that all he was focused on was revenge and shaming Cordelia
(no subject)
Date: 2013-07-30 02:17 pm (UTC)RIGHT? Apparently you and I have very different lenses to Joss/M.E.
so where did he get off acting like the great insightful know it all
That's pretty consistent with his character from the get-go, probably something else he learned from his dad but our culture reinforces: "Me Tarzan, you Jane, me make decision because silly girl not know what best for you." (Angel, Giles, Hank, Riley and yes, Spike, all do it too.) He does it with all the women he "loves": possessive, jealous, controlling. "Mr. Insightful" ha a great big chip on his shoulder. He says to Buffy in SR, when she says that her personal life is none of his business, "It used to be." WHEN? She mostly went to Willow if anyone in the early seasons; he MADE it his business, but in S6 she actually shuts him out, so he pouts. Poor baby (not.)
In Ted he lectures Buffy that Ted's not a demon she can slay and says "There's some things you have to accept." Then Cordy passes by and he excuses himself so he can confront her in the hallway and insist that she go out with him. (then they decide to make out in the janitors closet.)
Riley will echo that later in Doomed (telling Buffy she's "stupid" for not wanting to start a relationship just yet), but also Spike in S6, insisting that Buffy come out to her friends about their affair.
Xander saw himself as that dependable guy that Buffy should have chosen, and he never got over her dating Angel for as long as she did.
Yes. Add him wanting to keep his one guy pal around, practicing the speech he wants to give to Anya on Buffy, + his history of thinking himself Mr Insightful Guy, = a pretty complicated mix of motives. Still infuriating though.
So that IWMTLY scene of Xander acting just shocked at Buffy blaming herself for messing up with guys never made any sense to me at all
Oh that scene is on my list of "great moments in btvs WTF-ery". Hello? Telling her someday she'll find a guy who appreciates her is the complete opposite of his ITW speech!
Ironically, in an episode before ITW (Shadow? LtF?) when Riley doesn't show up for patrol one night as promised, it's Xander who makes a cutting observation about that the next day, acknowledging that Riley was not "reliable". So ITW is bookended by two very contradictory statements from Xander. I don't know whether to call it "Xander is a complex guy" or "the writing from one episode to the next seems disjointed, did the writers watch the episodes they didn't write?"
Even in Triangle he's lying in bed with Anya and talking about what a disaster all of Buffy's relationships are
You just handed me a good excuse not to rewatch. ;/ Actually the Willow-Anya clash infuriates me - they're fighting over Xander, basically; just as Willow and Cordy clashed over Xander. The ordinary nerd whom women fight over is a TOTAL fanboy fantasy. (And maybe Joss' revenge for all the girls in school who failed to go out with him?) Gross. BB&B does hang a lantern on this trope and it could have been a great chance to really subvert it but - they don't. (I think Him actually does a better job with that idea but then again - it's not Xander, just some one-time character so there's no need to let RJ's skeeviness off the hook. Although in the shooting script for Him, Xander says twice that RJ didn't know the effects his jacket had, so he was as much a victim as the girl. Extra cookies to whomever took that out.)
And that's when 19 year old Buffy had had a whole two relationships of hers not work out
It's not OOC for Xander to throw stones (who the HELL is he to talk?) and I'm sure a lot of people do that IRL when they're own relationships are in a good place; they see through the lens of their current situation and judge accordingly. Unfortunately, Xander seems to be the writers' mouthpiece oftentimes.
And you're prob right re: his intentions in BB&B, I admit I haven't rewatched. Whenever I do rewatch early episodes Xander's behavior just pops out at me all over again.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-07-30 02:44 pm (UTC)Very true! I remember in Amends when Xander attempted to apologise for being so hostile about Angel, and acknowledged that he hadn't made it very easy for Buffy to talk to him about Angel (I think that was Amends?) As you say, it was usually Willow that she turned too for relationship problems. If Buffy had cried on Xander's lap in The Prom over Angel breaking up with her, or if it was Xander that Buffy talked her Angel feelings through with in THLOD after Parker, then no doubt that would have just been used by fandom as a example of how unfair Buffy is to reject nice guy Xander and cry about the bad guys that she's dating to him!
Actually I can't think of many particularly close moments that she and Xander shared in the high school years especially, if anything it seemed like quite an awkward ~this doesn't usually happen with us~ moment when Buffy got upset over Theresa's death in Phases and hugs Xander, overall their interaction was more just that of buddies if that makes sense? Close friends sure, but not really someone that Xander should have ever expected to confide in him about who she's currently sleeping with, even if it wasn't a vampire.
Oh that scene is on my list of "great moments in btvs WTF-ery". Hello? Telling her someday she'll find a guy who appreciates her is the complete opposite of his ITW speech!
Ironically, in an episode before ITW (Shadow? LtF?) when Riley doesn't show up for patrol one night as promised, it's Xander who makes a cutting observation about that the next day, acknowledging that Riley was not "reliable". So ITW is bookended by two very contradictory statements from Xander. I don't know whether to call it "Xander is a complex guy" or "the writing from one episode to the next seems disjointed, did the writers watch the episodes they didn't write?"
I know, right! All I can think is that maybe it's that thing where you secretly do think of a friend as being really self-involved and awful with guys, but then when she starts beating herself up over that, then you have an automatic "don't put yourself down, you're not like that at all" kind of response? *g*
Actually the Willow-Anya clash infuriates me - they're fighting over Xander, basically; just as Willow and Cordy clashed over Xander. The ordinary nerd whom women fight over is a TOTAL fanboy fantasy.
And yep, I feel like a lot of Xander's relationships are like that. Cordelia was the most popular girl at school falling hardest for him and getting her heart broken when he cheated on her, Xander's best friend who can't get over him, even Faith (kind of a dicey example I know because of the later rape attempt) in The Zeppo is a pretty typical fantasy of a hot girl seducing a virgin and taking his virginity in one amazing night of passion. Then there's Anya stripping down in THLOD and quickly becoming rather obsessively devoted to him, with Buffy making the crack in ITW that Xander has no room to talk about her and Riley's relationship when he lets Anya follow him around like a puppy and treats her as a convienience. And of course it's ultimately Xander who rejects Anya because he doesn't want to get as serious as she does, and Anya is incredibly jealous in First Date when Xander gets a hot new date when she's still not over him etc
(no subject)
Date: 2013-07-30 08:12 pm (UTC)used by fandom as a example of how unfair Buffy is to reject nice guy Xander and cry about the bad guys that she's dating to him!
People do that anyway (Xander fans and/or Spike haters). Buffy just CANNOT win no matter what she does. I loathe the idea anyone can or should "love" someone else because they "deserve" it, as if love was a prize to be handed out.
I can actually feel for Xander a lot of times even when I think he's a dick; I like him in S4, S5 & S7 but I wouldn't describe him as a "nice guy" overall. The truly nice people I've known IRL wouldn't think to pull some of the shit Xander does. He can be nice, he can be decent, he can be a good friend AND he can be horrible. He's human. It makes him interesting, but not someone I'd want to know IRL.
overall their interaction was more just that of buddies if that makes sense?
Definitely. That line in SR is another "great moment in Xander WTF-ery" In PG? She calls him "one of the girls" but Willow's her true girl friend, Willow's the one who wants details about kissage. Which has a dark side: Willow living vicariously through Buffy. So Xander and Willow are really on opposite sides of the fence with Buffy in the middle. How they each feel about her and Angel has very little to do with Buffy herself in actuality. This is another reason why S6 and the SG neglect of Buffy's emotional state is hard to watch and maybe OTT at times but not terribly so. Or in Intervention. they say they need the really real Buffy but they still want the 'Bot at some level. (And fandom tends to repeat all of these tendencies. *hugs Buffy)
then you have an automatic "don't put yourself down, you're not like that at all" kind of response?
I think in a way it comes down to Joss/ME going for the emotional punch over logic as well as needing AB & C to happen (ie Riley leaving.Which could have been accomplished just fine without Xander in ITW, but then they really had to go for broke in humiliating Buffy. Because finding her boyfriend with vamp whores (thanks, Spike) and being blamed by him for his behavior with everything going on in Buffy's life is just not enough emotional torture, apparently.
And I really don't remember a lot of what you describe from S3. It is bad that Faith's attempted rape of Xander isn't handled with any seriousness, but then again is it really acknowledged that Faith raped/violated Riley and Buffy in WAY? Riley doesn't seem fussed by it, unlike Buffy. Because guys are unrapeable in our culture I guess.
Then there's Anya stripping down in THLOD
I HATE the fact that Anya's assertive sexuality is played as one big joke, although her stripping in Xander's basement is pretty squicky. And that she has to be punished and tamed/domesticated, only to be killed at the end with no real resolution of her relationship with Xander.
Buffy making the crack in ITW that Xander has no room to talk about her and Riley's relationship when he lets Anya follow him around like a puppy and treats her as a convienience.
Paging Season 6. Oh, Buffy.
because he doesn't want to get as serious as she does
In theory he doesn't want to turn into his father but in his hallucinations in HB it comes off as Anya's fault for being a bitter nagging shrew and Xander is the poor henpecked shlub. then for Xander to never really apologize or dealt with the fact that yes, he broke HER heart, ruined her life, took away friends, home, shared income etc. What woman in that situation wouldn't wish for a bit of revenge? She's just hurting. And I've never been able to follow the arguments as to why he was right to dump her; maybe she should have dumped his sorry ass. Weirdly enough, they actually had one of the longest relationships on the show. They could be adorable together a lot of the time.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-07-31 07:26 pm (UTC)And yeah I thought they really took it too far with Anya in season 7 where they made such a joke out of her being rejected by everyone and practically begging Spike to sleep with her again, wtf! I really liked their scenes together in Entropy too, but the treatment of her character was mostly pretty crappy in season 7 sadly
And I wouldn't be surprised if Xander's doubts were partly about whether he could make it work with someone like Anya definitely. When they're singing their true feelings about one another in OMWF he acknowledges that he's not attracted to things like how greedy she is, and in the flash forwards from HB it's Anya who he imagines as having cheated on him with a demon. There were a lot of hints like that that he didn't see her as the ideal partner for him. Of course his doubts on the wedding day were panic about whether he would turn into his parens marriage, but even those doubts were kind of tied up in whether Anya would drive him to that behaviour through her cheating and nagging, and making their family a hostile place with her half demon kids
(no subject)
Date: 2013-06-28 08:41 am (UTC)One factor with how Xander/Cody is portrayed is I think there's this major Popular Kids vs Unpopular Kids angle, wherein the popular are evil and the unpopular are the good oppressed underdogs. That may have helped prevent Joss and co from seeing how much Xander was a jerk to Cordy.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-06-28 10:56 am (UTC)And I definitely agree with that, I think the writers being 'uncool' themselves when they were at school made them very biased towards a group of outsiders like the scoobies, and they often fell into the trap of making Cordelia too one-dimensional in response. Especially in season 3 where they seemed to lose any interest in giving her character development or having her do anything but showing up for one or two scenes to snark at Xander or flirt with Wesley. And yeah looking back now the insults between Xander and Cordelia were very often instigated by Xander when she's just hanging out with her friends and talking to them. For example in Reptile Boy she's talking to her friend about college guys and Xander butts in to insult her so she insults him right back, and then it's always Xander's hurt face that they focus on urgh, never mind that he was the one who instigated the insults in the first place most of the time. But they saw it as Cordelia being the popular mean girl and Xander the geeky underdog, so they always framed those scenes from Xander's POV
(no subject)
Date: 2013-07-29 07:33 pm (UTC)THIS, very much so.
but Buffy is great (like super-great -go SMG!) and I'm very fond of Spike, Dawn, Tara, Oz and Dru as well
SPEAK TO MY SOUL.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-08-01 01:18 am (UTC)