See, I saw the lesson as being 'don't use magic to manipulate people's feelings,' which is something he needed to learn regardless of whether or not his stated motives were his real ones or not. Additionally, when Cordelia 'figures out' that Xander's love spell was intended for her, she takes that as a sign of the depth of his feelings for her and she decides to take him back, showing Xander (though I've got a bit of a feeling that this portion of the lesson passed over his head) that just having an honest discussion about his feelings with Cordelia about his feelings would have been much more effective.
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.)
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rosecarmine
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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.)