(no subject)

[frelling_tralk]

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"

Comments

[infinitewhale.livejournal.com]

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.

[12-12-12.livejournal.com]

I agree with everything you said about Xander. Especially the part where he only cared because of his ego.

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.)

[nicnac918.livejournal.com]

A lot of interesting points here, ones
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.

[sum1-different.livejournal.com]

What can I say, Xander's a prize jerk. What really weirds me out is the stuff I've heard about how Joss saw him as his alter ego or whatever. What does that say about Joss?

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.

[sum1-different.livejournal.com]

Also, I always hated Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered and I've got shit from people for not liking it. Like how could I not appreciate the lovely comedy? Most mind control stuff seriously bugs me. Writers rarely take it seriously enough. Even with Willow in season 6, she mind-controlled Tara twice and then (in talking about it to others) dismissed Tara as being bothered over nothing, yet the show acted like it was a good thing that Tara should get back together with such an abuser.

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.