I think Giles's angry yelling is the clearest authorial moral judgment because it's coming from the intelligent wise grown-up who doesn't have a personal dog in the fight
The episode is critical of Xander in terms of calling him out on the risks of using magic, that you should know that these kind of spells can be dangerous and frequently backfire, what was missing for me though was the questioning of Xander's cruelty and entitlement in wanting to use magic to alter someone else's mind after he got dumped. There's no one taking Cordelia's corner in that respect, and Cordelia herself ends the episode simply being flattered at believing that, 'the spell was for me'. I agree that it was rather depressingly in character for her to find that sort of obsession towards her flattering, but it doesn't work for me as a happy ending with Xander getting the girl, even though Cordelia had no idea what his true motives had been, and that the spell had never been about him being desperate to win her back. (Of course that would have made it much creepier if Xander's intentions had been to force Cordelia to get back together with him through the spell, but still that's clearly what Cordelia ends the episode happy to believe, even when the audience knows that it was actually all about Xander wanting to get his revenge and cause her emotional pain)
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rosecarmine
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Date: 2017-02-07 06:29 pm (UTC)The episode is critical of Xander in terms of calling him out on the risks of using magic, that you should know that these kind of spells can be dangerous and frequently backfire, what was missing for me though was the questioning of Xander's cruelty and entitlement in wanting to use magic to alter someone else's mind after he got dumped. There's no one taking Cordelia's corner in that respect, and Cordelia herself ends the episode simply being flattered at believing that, 'the spell was for me'. I agree that it was rather depressingly in character for her to find that sort of obsession towards her flattering, but it doesn't work for me as a happy ending with Xander getting the girl, even though Cordelia had no idea what his true motives had been, and that the spell had never been about him being desperate to win her back. (Of course that would have made it much creepier if Xander's intentions had been to force Cordelia to get back together with him through the spell, but still that's clearly what Cordelia ends the episode happy to believe, even when the audience knows that it was actually all about Xander wanting to get his revenge and cause her emotional pain)