Douchebag characters considered "Nice Guys" - example 1: Xander Harris

Re: Douchebag characters considered "Nice Guys" - example 1: Xander Ha

The problem seems to me to be essentially this: Beware any character described in positive terms. When a character is perceived (or, worse, conceived) as pleasant, straight-thinking, ethical, heroic, "a nice guy", whatever - insert "positive" trait of your choice here -, it always poses a problem to people with strong individual outlooks and high intelligence. And that's because such people have their own ideas as to how these traits manifest, and how they don't. Which leads to thoughts of "Bulls**t! That isn't how a "nice" person behaves!". The observation wouldn't be an issue were they not apparently supposed to view a character in those terms.

It seems that's the problem here - DevilEyes doesn't appear to have a problem as such against the character, but objects to the idea that he embodies what he's "supposed" to. As someone who has ethical and other values differing from most people, I have this basic problem with pretty much any heroic character. Which is why I prefer characters who aren't written to fulfil a role defined in positive terms- because then I'm free to relate to them how I want without it clashing with someone elses' idea of virtue.

As for identifiable characters, there are only two TV characters I've ever truly, really identified with. Xander Harris was not one of them .

 

Re: Douchebag characters considered "Nice Guys" - example 1: Xander Ha

But he is the one who sees. He's the one among them that isn't special. He has no powers and barely gets to contribute when all the supernatural stuff is going on. He is forced to be an observer. What's wrong with that?

 

Re: Douchebag characters considered "Nice Guys" - example 1: Xander Ha

The one who sees seems to imply that he sees things better than other people, that he sees the truth, that his views are the ones we as audience are supposed to agree with... At least that's the only way I can interpret it. They didn't say that he was the one who "observes" or "watches" (which could have been foreshadowing of his Watcher role in S8). Which is weird, since I've never had the impression that Xander was all that observant or that his views were usually something that I, as a viewer, could agree with.

 

Re: Douchebag characters considered "Nice Guys" - example 1: Xander Ha

Well, I guess I just have to disagree with you.

 

Re: Douchebag characters considered "Nice Guys" - example 1: Xander Ha

On which part? The meaning of the line "one who sees", or that I don't see Xander as the stand-in for the audience and someone I'm supposed to agree with?

 

Re: Douchebag characters considered "Nice Guys" - example 1: Xander Ha

The latter. Xander is clearly meant to be the Everyman in the show, and I am definitely able to relate to his character.

 

Re: Douchebag characters considered "Nice Guys" - example 1: Xander Ha

I don't think too many people have ever really considered Tony a particularly nice guy. Am I wrong? Tony Stark has always, to me, been a dick, with the text (whether comic or film) strongly acknowledging that Tony Stark is and always shall be a dick.

(As opposed to an asshole, though. For that, see Bruce Wayne.)

Xavier is a scumbag, though, yet usually considered relatively nice, even though he really ought to be killed for the safety of Earth. Or maybe he has been. I have no idea, haven't read an X-Men comic since Joss Whedon did some generic, derivative shit or maybe since Warren Ellis told some less generic, less derivative yet somehow more boring stories about I don't even remember, but at a guess I'd reckon "DMT and body modification."

Devil, I'd totally remark on Xander, but I don't know from Buffy except for episodes from the last few seasons where I happened to be paying attention while my girlfriend was burning through her box set, and then mostly because of Spike's bizarre perversities and archaic, Sid Vicious-like chavviness. In any case, Xander always seemed like a pretty standard dork to me.

 

Re: Douchebag characters considered "Nice Guys" - example 1: Xander Ha

I have to admit I didn't read the entire OP, but there is a point there. As you said for the first few seasons he was a teenage male who like a girl and she rejected him, of course your assessment of him fits there. But the point is he is a flawed person, people do judge others, they do pass judgement on friends relationships, they gossip and lie. Xander isn't a bad guy, he's a good guy at heart but he lets his emotions get the best of him and after having Angel and Spike both kill many people of course he'll not be keen to see Buffy with them.
As for not owning up to the arseholic things he's done, well many people would sooner forget and pretend things didn't happen, it doesn't make them bad.

In the end Xander is a nice guy in so much as any body is. He has things that send him off the deep end, he has prejudices and biases, and wants to forget his mistakes. Does that mean we should think he's great, no, does that mean we should see him as an arsehole, not unless we want to see practically everyone as an arsehole or an arsehole in waiting.

 

Re: Douchebag characters considered "Nice Guys" - example 1: Xander Ha

Xavier is a good example. I remember there was an old anecdote that John Byrne told about how he and Claremont had originally written a scene for the epilogue of the Dark Phoenix saga, where Wolverine tells Xavier "the only difference between you and Magneto is that he can walk."

 

Re: Douchebag characters considered "Nice Guys" - example 1: Xander Ha

Let me make this clear.

I LOVE XANDER HARRIS. HE IS MY HERO

A few reasons;
1. He brings Buffy back from the dead (twice!)
2. He saves the world by telling DarkWillow that he loves her
3. His speech to Dawn at the end of 'Potential'
4. Naked Buffy/Willow throw themselves at him in BBB and he actually turns them down
5. He buys Cordy her prom dress
6. His speech to Buffy at the end of Into the Woods
7. He's prepared to kill Ben to save Dawn
8. All of The Zeppo, especially him willing to sacrifice himself to save his friends "I like the quiet"
9. Speedos
10. His face off with Angelus in 'Killed by Death'-"Maybe not, maybe I couldn't stop you. Or those orderlies. Or that security guard. Or those cops. But I'm kinda interested to find out...."
11. A friend for Riley
12. Tara thinks he's a sweetie and she's a woman of great taste

When I grow up I want to be Xander Harris! (except for the sex change and sticky out ears)

 

Re: Douchebag characters considered "Nice Guys" - example 1: Xander Ha

Holy shit, that would have been the best line in comics up to that point.

 

Re: Douchebag characters considered "Nice Guys" - example 1: Xander Ha

Wow, the OP certainly has issues! That is way to much time and thought to put in such a drawn out post.

Really, Xander is like many nerdy guys and passes judgment on girls like many of us nerdy guys did when we were younger. It hurts to have the girl you like dating a guy who treats her like crap, and even when the guy doesn't many boys will find a reason to hate him anyway.

This isn't any more sexist or wrong than other types of adolescent hang ups that most of us have. AND most of us grow out of them as we get older as Xander grows out of his hang ups by the end of the series.

Perhaps it is time for some others to grow up as well?

 

Re: Douchebag characters considered "Nice Guys" - example 1: Xander Ha

That is a fucking fantastic line.

 

Re: Douchebag characters considered "Nice Guys" - example 1: Xander Ha

Oh yeah. Another reason I dislike Xander. He left Anya just when they were about to get married.

 

Re: Douchebag characters considered "Nice Guys" - example 1: Xander Ha

Scrawny, are you going to write a bit more about your choices? Either here, or in another thread, if it's going to be a longer post? I'd love to read your views on the douchebaggery of Giles or Angel (though I don't think Angel is really supposed to be a nice guy, except on BtVS until "Innocence" and maybe in S3? I haven't seen all of AtS, but it seems to be treating him more like a messed up guy always struggling with his past and his dark side and trying to be heroic but not always succeeding).

And on the BSG characters - though I was never sure if any of them were supposed to be nice... Roslin and Adama were supposed to be heroes, but both of them really had major asshole moments, especially Roslin. I hated her many times throughout the show. Tyrol, however, was always one of my favorite characters, but yeah, he could be a real asshole, too. But I couldn't stand Cally - and she was one of the most hated characters in the BSG fandom. How about Lee? Was he supposed to be a nice guy? I thought he became very annoying in season 4, when they were trying to make him look perfect and awesome, and it really didn't work, since he only became acting President because of his dad.

So, you're saying he's a hero because he didn't rape his best friends when he had a chance (i.e. when they were out of their minds and in no condition to consent to sex since they were under an influence of a spell gone wrong that Xander was responsible for in the first place)?

You've lost me there. That speech was one of his most annoying season 5 moments (I've already explained why).

To whoever said I had issues (thank you, that was nice) - yes, I do have issues - not with the character in question, who does grow up out of his immature, sexist hypocritical attitudes by the end of the series, but with people who haven't grown out of them. Fictional people are supposed to mess up and act like assholes, it makes for interesting characters and entertaining TV, but it starts being annoying when the character's douchebaggery is whitewashed and when they're treated as awesome and wonderful andwhen I'm told that the character is supposed to be some sort of mouthpiece for the 'normal people' or whatever. And that while he's spouting some of the most sexist hypocritical garbage, on a supposedly feminist show. So, yeah, in this case I have issues with the show itself and its writers.

Season 6 features a most jarring example. I'm one of the people who love season 6, but one thing I hate is a huge frakking double standard regarding Anya and Spike - or Xander and Buffy - that the writers of the show don't seem to have noticed at all (at least not until S7 "Selfless"). Buffy sleeping with Spike is treated like the worst, most shocking thing ever, something she is ashamed of and scared of her friends finding out, and Xander acts like a judgmental ass to Buffy once he finds out. And nobody calls him on his hypocrisy. This same Xander was in a relationship with Anya for 3 years and almost married her - you know, ex-vengeance demon, killed and tortured people for a thousand years, stopped killing people not through her own choice but because she was stripped of her demonic powers by someone else, still feels no remorse at all for her crimes and occasionally humorously refers to them? How the hell is that not the same situation as Spike? But Xander had no problem jumping into bed with her right away, dating her, being engaged to her - and none of his friends gave him a speech how deeply disappointed they are in him and how he should be ashamed for being such a sick bastard. He has no problem with Anya's past crimes, but he starts shaming her and calling her names when she sleeps with Spike after Xander has dumped her at the altar. It's like we were suddenly in a bizarre world based on an exaggerated version of Victorian morality, where women are not held responsible for their actual crimes, but are blamed for their sexual choices, while it's the opposite for men. Xander is called a "demon magnet", he jokes at some point that he should find way to repel those demon women... As if he isn't making his own choices when he dates them. He can't simply say "no"? And many fans seem to have the same kind of mindset, like the poster who wrote on the Buffy season 6 thread that "Buffy lost all credibility when she started sleeping with monsters". Nobody however said anything about Xander dating demons.

Now, as for the character himself, I actually like his arc in late seasons. What I like about season 6 is that every character on the show (apart from Tara) acts like a major asshole and sinks to their lowest during this season, but, with the exception of Warren, they all eventually come back from it and redeem themselves. Xander's behavior is nothing compared to Willow's evil turn and homicidal, world-destroying antics - but he still exhibits all his worst traits in the stretch of episodes from leaving Anya at the altar in Hell's Bells to the finale. I have a different view than the guy who wrote that article I quoted, I loved the scene when Xander stopped Willow, I even had tears in my eyes. I thought it was Xander's moment of redemption, showing unconditional love and understanding to Willow (something that he had blatantly not been showing his fiancee and his other best friend in the previous few episodes).

(Though, if I were to be cynical like the guy who wrote that article I quoted, I might wonder if Xander finds killing people and trying to destroy the world a lesser crime than sleeping with a guy he disapproves of/feels threatened by. And Willow at that point was unlikely to choose any other man over him [anymore], so that makes it safe for him to love her...

I'm just kidding... )

And in season 7, Xander does grow up out of his old douchy, jealous, judgmental patterns, and becomes a genuinely nice guy.

 

Re: Douchebag characters considered "Nice Guys" - example 1: Xander Ha

I don't hate Xander; in my opinion he generally functions as comic relief and a mouthpiece for the writers and their pop-culture sensibilities rather than a rounded self-consistent character per se. He revives Buffy, keeps other characters on the straight and narrow, provides much-needed moral support to his superhero friends and - oh, yeah - possibly saves the world from Willow. That doesn't mean that he's lacking in douchebag moments, though, and among them I would number:

- his annoyingly condescending general treatment of Anya,
- his lack of significant remorse over his summoning of the demon in Once More, With Feeling despite the fact that it's caused the deaths of several of Sunnydale's townsfolk and
- amongst other things in Hell's Bells, his ruthless killing of a (former) human being who had a perfectly legitimate reason for attacking Anya.

I don't think that he should be singled out for the anti-Cordelia stuff, though; she's absoolutely rotten to him and his friends at times, and most of them conspire in anti-Cordelia douchebaggery; such as neglecting to tell her that Angel is a vampire and, er, neglecting to tell her that Harmony is a vampire.

 

Re: Douchebag characters considered "Nice Guys" - example 1: Xander Ha

The annoyingly condescending general attitude to Anya almost goes without saying (I was too lazy to look for examples, and the guy who wrote that Xander-hating article mentioned it but elaborated on it in another article).

The only reason I don't hold the Cordelia stuff against him as much as the author of the article does is because insulting each other was a pattern in their relationship.

I don't see anything wrong in killing someone to protect someone's life - and I'd never fault anyone for killing someone to protect a loved one, or expect them to feel remorse over it, whether or not the attacker had legitimate reasons or not.

 

Re: Douchebag characters considered "Nice Guys" - example 1: Xander Ha

Xander Harris is not a nice guy, and he never was. Xander Harris is a broken individual who has a dark, angry inner side, that manifests as a cold ruthless fury. The nice guy is just a mask he wares to keep the darkness at bay.

This after all, is the guy that told the girl he was in love with, one of his best friends, "Buffy, if they hurt Willow, I will kill you." And he didn't say this as some empty threat, he said it as a casual fact.

This is the same guy who had a witch friend cast a love spell, not to get the girl back, but to get the girl back so he could break up with her, to get payback in a ruthlessly, cold, terrifying manner.

Quite frankly, you don't want to be anywhere around if there ever comes a time that Xander decides to take the mask off, or simply can't keep it on. And you certainly don't want to be his enemy if it happens.

As for Xander's choice in women; in case you hadn't noticed, but the one woman he actually can denigrate because she doesn't have the spine to stop him - Willow - is the one he rejected. He goes after the strong women; Buffy, Cordelia, Faith, and even Anya, exactly because he can not denigrate them, if he tried, he'd be getting his ass kicked either verbally or with fists.

This is because he is afraid of that dark cold side. This fear is what causes him to keep that mask on at all times. And in case you hadn't noticed, but the reason he left Anya at the altar, wasn't because they're relationship might not work out and then get a divorce... no, what he was afraid of, was that if it went wrong, it meant he'd bash Anya's head in with a frying pan.

I wonder if he was a girl and Anya was a guy, and she left him at the altar if anyone had such massive problems with what he did. Probably not.

The difference between Spike and Anya is of course MASSIVE. While Anya didn't simply lose her powers, she became a fully, souled, HUMAN girl, while Spike is a demon-animated, room-temperature, soulless, incapable of love, vampire. It's a demonic thing that needs dusting. In fact, him finally going after Spike after seeing him with Any isn't the problem. The problem is him not finishing what he started. In fact, the problem is that Spike wasn't dust ages ago. After all, he is as said, and shown, again, and again, a soulless demon-animated corpse, incapable of love, a sick, twisted, evil, unnatural existence, a blight upon the world, that's attempted to kill all of them on multiple occasions - and let's not even talk about what he is, and will be, doing to Buffy. After Spike attempted to have his chip removed by the initiative doctor, and immediately tried to kill Buffy, and then the rest if he had succeeded, again, it should have been the absolute last straw. In fact it is pretty much stretching things he wasn't dust after the ADAM debacle. But after the chip-removal attempt, it was absolutely over, the definitive Buffy shark-jump moment. After that, BtVS only went down hill, the characters all looked like idiots and caricatures, and it went there fast.

 

Re: Douchebag characters considered "Nice Guys" - example 1: Xander Ha

Slayerdom, as a concept, is based entirely on racism. Human = Good, not Human = Bad. It makes sense that Xander would get caught up in that racism when Buffy pulled him into her life, along with the other scoobies.

Buffy dating Angel isn't like a vulnerable teenage girl dating a bad boy in leather. It's like the Grand Wizard of the Klu Klux Klan dating a Negro. The claim that it is alright for the Slayer to love a good vampire flies about as far as the claim that it is okay for the top ranking Klansman to love a good Negro who helps him lynch other niggers sometimes.

The fact that one of her followers might be galled at the hypocrisy of it shouldn't come as a surprise. And she does it twice.

If Angel and Skipe are okay, if killing them is wrong, then Xander has been helping Buffy commit cold-blooded murder practically every night for as long as he's known her. It's not like they ever bother sorting the good vampires from the bad, except in those two cases. He has to assume, as a universal truth, that all vampires are bad, or else he's a worse monster than most of them.

Of course, Buffy doesn't see this because he's blind to her own racism. Not only is she blind to it, she holds onto it like a security blanket without even understanding that it is racism.

 

Re: Douchebag characters considered "Nice Guys" - example 1: Xander Ha

These are all good points. When you put it like that, I like Xander. As long as nobody is trying to convince me that he is a nice guy.

Probably yes.

You should have stopped while you were ahead. Gosh, where do I even start with this...

Killing someone for having consensual sex with Xander's ex, after he had dumped her at the altar?

Incapable of love? Many wouldn't agree. Whether they are human, as Tara ("Dead Things" - 'He does love you') and Buffy herself ("Conversations with Dead People" - 'And the joke is, he loved me, in his sick, soulless way, he really loved me') or demon (The Judge to Spike and Drusilla in "Surprise" - 'You two reek of humanity, you share affection and jealousy").

Like Anya? You know, Xander's ex-fiancee? Vengeance demon, killed and tortured a lot of people for 1000 years, stopped being a demon only through an outside interference, never expressed any remorse for any of it, still talks about what she used to do as a demon as something fun? Anya, who chose to go back to being a demon as soon as Xander left her at the altar, and has been spending all her time trying to find someone who will allow her to wreak a terrible vengeance on him?

Double standard much?

edit: the stuff you added in your last edit:

And then decided to go back to being a demon as soon as Xander dumped her at the altar. Doesn't that only make it worse? Yes, there is a massive difference - as Buffy would later note in "Selfless", Spike never chose to become a vampire.

And what difference exactly did this human soul of hers make? I didn't see any. She was 100% the same with or without it.

And I still haven't gotten the answer: why didn't Xander think that non-human Anya's life was as worthless as Spike's supposedly was? He referred to Spike as a thing - "you slept with that" - but Anya was a demon again by this point. Was she a thing, too?

What he is doing to Buffy? At the moment, he was doing nothing to her. Except hurting her by sleeping with another woman, which he never meant her to see, but there was actually nothing wrong with it, since Buffy had dumped him and told him to move on, and claimed to have no feelings for him. It's not his fault if she was in denial.

And what was he doing to her before she dumped him, that she didn't consent to? Please tell me. She chose to start a sexual relationship with him.

What he will be doing to Buffy? That makes no sense. You're telling me that Xander was trying to kill Spike because of something he hadn't even done? What is that, Minority Report? Was Xander prophetic?

Yeah, because the show has never whitewashed characters of their crimes committed in a soulless state... like, you know, Angel after his return in season 3?

And Xander was perfectly content to fight alongside Spike and let him help take care of Dawn the whole summer. He didn't try to stake Spike in all that time. Until he learned that he slept with Anya. Which any human guy might have done, and which had absolutely nothing to do with Spike's vampirism, soullessness, or his previous attempts to kill Buffy or the rest of the Scoobies. If he had tried to kill Spike because he killed or bit someone, you might have had a case, but this way...

It only got better. Darker, more adult, dealing with some complicated issues that had gone unaddressed before, showing the main characters struggling with adulthood and real life, blurring the lines between demon and human - and making humans (including one of the main characters) the villains of season 6, which I thought was brilliant.

A comparison between Ku-Klux-Klan and the Slayer is wrong on so many levels, because black people aren't full of bloodlust and trying to kill white people in order to feed their own needs. Vampires in Buffyverse seem to be a metaphor, if anything, for serial killers and sexual predators, who feed on others to satisfy their desires - except that they are literally not human, and most of them did not choose to become vampires out of their own will, which complicates matters. The Slayers don't kill vampires because they're racist and prejudiced, they kill them because vampires present a very real danger to humanity.

Angel and Spike weren't posing a danger to humanity at the time Buffy was involved with them. Angel because of his soul, and Spike (seasons 4-6) because of the chip; in S7 because of his soul. If soulless chipped Spike was a "serial killer in prison", then, to expand the metaphor, souled Angel was a serial killer on probation for good behavior, while the rest of the vampires are serial killers on the loose.

But to make the comparison more accurate, let's say that all of them have the excuse of having, or having had a serious mental illness or psychological disorder (this is the closest parallel I can find to soullessness and vampire demon-urges in human terms). Which, apparently, can even be cured, but only in extremely rare cases. Most humans we see committing crimes in Buffyverse did not have that excuse. By the end of S6 of BtVS, Dawn and even Xander were starting to think that some humans were worse than any vampire (their opinion of Warren), and Buffy herself must have felt this way, but was still trying to cling on to the 'thou shall not kill a human' morality, for fear of crossing the line the way that Faith had done, and acting like she was above any law (in this case, the 'law' that the Slayers were supposed to follow).

You do make some good points, however. Buffy, as a Slayer, had to start with a black and white morality taught to her by Giles and the Watcher's Council - in order to do be able to do her job, without feeling that a Slayer is just a killer. But getting to know many individual vampires and demons has muddied the waters a lot, getting involved with a souled vampire first showed her that things weren't that simple, but getting involved with a soulless one made everything even more complicated.

Which, IMO, is one of the main reasons why her relationship with Spike was so disturbing to her. It did bring into question everything she was and everything she had been doing. The difference between "slaying" soulless vampires and demons and "killing"/"murdering" humans is made clear in season 2 when Buffy is concerned that she might have killed a human for the first time (Ted, who luckily for her turns out to be a robot) and season 3 when Faith murders a human. But everything we've seen on both shows really muddies the waters. Especially since it seems that it's possible to be re-souled, re-humaned, rehabilitated. So what about all those random canon fodder vamps who never got that opportunity? We just didn't know them (and neither did Buffy), so we didn't care. Is a soulless creature a "person"? If yes, does it basically mean that it's OK to go about righteously killing evil people to rid the world of the danger? Which puts the Slayers, the Council and the Watchers in a much darker light. Or, as Buffy asked in the season 5 finale, "Is Slayer just a killer, after all?"

(Which would actually be an excellent topic for a thread of its own...)


(edit: Just to make it clear, I've always maintained that "soul" in Buffyverse stands for conscience/internal moral compass. This is the only way to make sense out of it. It's obviously not soul in metaphysical sense, or soul as we normally refer to it, as "soulless" vampires and demons in Buffyverse are very obviously people, with minds and feelings and personalities, which in many cases aren't even that different from their human personalities - e.g. Harmony, Darla. The "demon" that takes over their psyche after they become vampires basically just seems to be their own rampant id, while "soul" is superego.)