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

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

But that's not what I'm saying. I don't think they gave them to her anymore than they gave Lorne his power to read people's minds. It may definitely be some innate part of her being.

The magic in the Whedonverse, however, originally came from the Demons and Gods that walked the Earth. They seeded the world with Good and Evil and would eventually become The Powers...or the Senior Partners of Wolfram and Hart...or whatever. So anyone who has these magical abilities is, at least distantly, connected to the Powers That Be.

 

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

She was very obviously planning to kill him and then turn him. Why the heck wouldn't she? Vampires turn humans all the time, and she had a strong reason to turn this one, the same one William had to turn his mother: to have him as an eternal companion in afterlife. It was someone she was the closest to when she was human, and she enjoyed her new strength and powers and thought that it really would be great for both of them. But Gunn dusted her not because he didn't believe her, but because he did - because he didn't want to become a vampire, and because he thought it was a horrible fate for his sister to have become one. Any other interpretation of the scene is just a far-fetched attempt by someone to read something into the story that isn't there.

Yeah, obviously an overgrown momma's boy taking care of his ill mother, writing bad poetry and reading it to some girl at the party (which immediately qualifies as "creepy stalking"* - and if that's the case, 70% of guys at every party are evil creepy stalkers, just substitute "bad poetry" for "awful chat up lines") is an epitome of evil. And I thought it was the people like dictators, serial killers, war criminals, murderers, torturers, or those who exploit people, cheat them off all their money, etc. Silly me.

* Back in William's day, they called it "courting". And Cecily must have been really creeped out, since the next time she (as Halfrek) met him and recognized him (in "Older and Far Away"), she was awkwardly/flirtatiously adjusting her hair...

Oh, I'm sorry if I misunderstood you again, but trying to make sense of your posts is very difficult.

So, you just decided to focus on those two examples, like there aren't plenty of people who kill their parents but don't get to the front pages of newspapers. (And you even disregarded the link I gave you that offers another example of a guy who tried to kill his parents.) Like, say, a guy who lived his elderly mother and bashed her skull one day. Neither insane, nor a calculated murderer. That was just one of the news stories I read in crime sections - maybe there aren't that many such stories in USA or UK where adults normally don't live with their parents, compared to my country where it's not at all uncommon, but Liam was living with his family while he was human. Please stop pretending that you're some sort of expert in criminal psychology, OK? You haven't shown any credentials or any signs that your knowledge on the subject comes from anything else but movies and maybe a few popular front page stories. I'm not saying that I'm an expert either, but unlike you, I'm not pretending to have superior knowledge (which is so shaky that it can easily be contradicted even with any random example pulled from a crime section of some random papers) and acting so arrogant about it to dismiss someone's post with a guffaw smiley and the line "This is brilliantly funny and idiotic".

...Which, BTW, is flaming, and you should get a warning for it. I thought I would leave hyzmarca the decision whether to report you, but on second thoughts, if he/she doesn't, I will.

 

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

I am not even reading all posts here, but agree that Xander is D-bag character who has skated as a nice guy.

How many hundred years did Angel spend in a hell dimension because Xander decided to withhold information?

 

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

Come to think of it, there is one occasion where I thought Xander was a huge douchebag. Remember when Gwendylon Post attacked Giles and Xander just *assumed* Angel did it after turning evil?

Then he sends Faith after Angel and is all stoked to go with her to see her stake the guy. And I'm sure that was because of his anger at Giles being hurt and not his immature jealousy towards Angel, right?

But I forgot about that, because most of the time I found him charming. Aside from his Angel jealousy, cheating on Cordelia with Willow, and leaving Anya at the altar (which I often forget about since I hate most of season six and seven).

He's made some stupid, selfish choices, but I loved him as the comic relief with so many funny remarks and physical comedy, so I was able to overlook a lot of his pettiness. Thanks for bringing it back on topic, Yarn.

 

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

How many innocent people died because Buffy was still so twitterpated with Angel that she couldn't bring herself to kill Angelus in "Innocence"?

Lorne's behavior clearly demonstrates that he has a conscience. In that respect, he has something resembling a soul. Whether or not he has an overall spirit that can go to an afterlife when he dies is another matter. There's no evidence on one side or another on that front.

I'm not arguing that a conscience is the sum total contents of a soul. It seems that there are other aspects of it that can be removed from the body and sent to an afterlife. However, that operates on a metaphysical plane beyond the concern of the TV shows (and thus this argument). We only see the body and how it behaves with various personality arrangements inside it. When Angel & Spike get their souls back, they never speak of having any memory of being in an afterlife. In fact (excepting some immediate post-restoration amnesia), they only remember all of the things their body did while they had no soul.

If Liam, Angelus, & Angel all have the same memories and know all of the same things, then how can they not be the same person? What else is a person besides the sum total of his memories?

Furthermore, if Angel is not Angelus, then why does Angel feel guilty for all of the bad things that Angelus did? Why doesn't he just shrug it off and say, "That wasn't me"?

 

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

Yes, I realize that a vampire body would probably instantly dust if that happened. However, what of the demon-spirit? Could it exist outside of the body? And if so, what would it be like?

And where would it get this compulsion to do purely evil things? You claim that there is no such thing as innate morality; that humans make moral decisions based on what they've been taught regarding right & wrong. If that's the case, then how do vampires learn to be evil if the demon-spirit does not pre-exist the body?

I think it's much more likely that a vampire isn't good or evil at all. It is merely a rational animal serving its own appetites & desires without any concept or care for the moral standing of its actions. It may seem "evil" to us because:
1.) It has a predatory instinct to feed on human blood.
2.) All those little hateful or hurtful impulses that human beings have in a flash of anger? Imagine all those but without the other little voice that tells you not to act on them. Being a vampire means to exist in a world where you absolutely cannot think of any reason not to do whatever you want if you think you can get away with it.

OK, I think I see where you're misunderstanding me.

Good & evil are universal. What is morally good for one person must be morally good for everyone & everything in the universe. Otherwise, it's not morally good; it's just convenient or advantageous for someone at the expense of someone else.

Good & evil are not human. They supercede humanity, existing in the realm of ideal Platonic forms.

However, human beings have a conscience, which I would define as the rational part of the brain that can identify good & evil and give them those names. The conscience can identify those concepts in their raw form regardless of the upbringing or culture that the person is from. Because a human being can identify good & evil, he will, to the best of his limited abilities, endeavor to be good (unless he is a sociopath).

Unsouled vampires do not have a conscience. The part of their brains that can independently identify good & evil is broken or disconnected. Since vampires used to be human, they can draw upon their previous human knowledge & their surrounding culture to make an empirical judgment about whether or not they think human society would judge something to be "good" or "evil." However, they cannot identify good or evil for themselves, nor would they care. A vampire might try to be "good" to win the approval of others or "evil" to spite society. Either way, they do so because it pleases them, not because it fulfills some kind of moral agenda. They can't have a moral agenda because their brains are now incapable of determining morality.

Hardly. Look at my central moral statement: "It is wrong to cause undue suffering to other people." Every moral human being on the planet & every single society that ever existed has adopted some form of that principle. (Seriously, cite me an example of someone who hasn't.) All variations in human history merely come down to wildly different interpretations of the words "undue" & "people." Or else it's another case of imperfect humans failing to live up to their ideals (again). But that central principle has remained universal.

That "morality" you state of "Protect your genes and destroy others' genes" is elegant in its simplicity. What could possibly be the evolutionary benefit to developing anything more complicated than that? There is no biological incentive to having a "morality" that goes beyond "Do whatever you want that you can get away with." So where did a more sophisticated, selfless morality come from?

If he burns humanity, then why didn't he burn Angelus? Afterall, Angelus was obsessed with tormenting his ex-girlfriend. You can't get much more human than that.

 

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

Brilliant. False, but brilliant. If vampires "were turning humans all the time", then at very least there would be so many vampires and so many people dying by vampires by now, there would be no way they were still a secret and hidden; if they didn't outnumber humans altogether.

The fact that there are very few vampires tells you that vampires turning other vampires is in fact very rare. Further, ever heard of brothers and sisters turning each other? Parents children? Children parents?

None, with the exception of the S2 brothers, who were both turned at the same time, and did not turn each other - and were in fact evil before they were even turned.

The result is simple: vampires rarely turn people, and turn their family members even rarer. In other words: they most likely kill them, if they're in the neighborhood.

And William turned his mother because he is completely obsessed with her, even before he got turned. One of the reasons he's a creepy sicko even before he got turned.

No, Gunn dusted her because she was demon animated corpse. No other reason was necessary, whether he believed her or not.

And I'm not the one reading stuff into anything; you're the one who is doing that. You're reading human emotions into something that isn't human. You're anthropomorphizing something utterly inhuman.

He wasn't a momma's boy who took care of his ill mother. His mother wasn't even ill. In this case, what the demon mother said, was the actual truth. Creepy, stalkerish, obsessive, crowding, staying there where he shouldn't remain. What the demon thought and told him, probably in this case was one thing she thought deep down herself. But being good and loving, not daring to believe it and voice it. Quite frankly what the demon spoke, that's the way William being with his mother was written and depicted on screen. That's the only way I've ever been able to see. And of course, it completely fits with the fact that William/Spike didn't change from human to vampire.

Except that you still haven't given any example that contradicts what I said. Whether or not some people kill parents or children or spouses doesn't matter. What matters is whether Angel is one of those people. He isn't.

 

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

That's Xander making a correct tactical decision. Not him being a douchebag.

Lorne's behavior clearly demonstrates that he has a conscience. In that respect, he has something resembling a soul. Whether or not he has an overall spirit that can go to an afterlife when he dies is another matter. There's no evidence on one side or another on that front.[/quote]

Uh, no, he's a demon, so he doesn't have a soul. That's one of the criteria of a demon: soulless.

Except that we've seen at least one afterlife, and possibly two if you count Cordelia, she was said to be in same place as Buffy, although that came from a evil henchman. So no, they are NOT beyond the concern of the tv shows, they are directly part of the tv shows.

Which is why I think that the soul doesn't go into an afterlife, but remains in limbo, removed from the body and essentially put on ice / into a coma, or trapped inside a cage in the body and put on ice. However, this of course has nothing to do with the discussion at hand.

Angel does NOT have the same memories as Angelus. "I feel like I haven't seen you in moths" he says to Buffy, that is because he HASN'T seen her in months. There are different.

Angelus, however, has very different memories than Angel. Look at Orpheus, he doesn't talk about all the stuff that Angel went through that it happened to him, or that he remembers doing those things, hell no. He talks about remembering being inside Angel and egging him on doing bad things, separate from Angel. This is exemplified by his absolute horror at reliving from a different perspective Angel saving a puppy. Angelus' memory of the event isn't saving the puppy, it's the physical and psychological torture of having to go through Angel saving the puppy. Angelus is trapped beneath Angel, and he is forced to endure everything that Angel lives through, which with Angel being good and all soul having, is torture to Angelus.

And so you know what the goal of the curse is.

There are actually three separate sets of memories:

1. Angelus - see above.

2. Angel/Liam - the souls', exemplified by not remembering stuff has he gets restored, and still being aware vaguely of the passage of time that he's been gone.

3. The body's/brains - simple physical memories left behind that every human being has. The body's memories are laid down, created by whichever spirit is in charge of the brain.

This is why Angel can remember what Angelus did as if he did them himself. The soul returns, accesses the brain's memories and gets everything that Angelus did.

I suspect that remembering what Angelus did as if you did them yourself, is difficult to separate from yourself, especially if your spineless hedonistic self is what got Angelus unleashed upon the world in the first place. Further, Angel isn't seeking redemption/feeling guilty for Angelus' crimes as much as he is seeking redemption/feeling guilty for his own crimes. Not in the least of which is letting a shop keeper get killed so he could drink his blood, and letting an entire hotel full of guests and one in particular die and be the victim of a demon because he was too petty and short sighted to see past the guests did not have the strength to withstand the demon's influence.

 

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

None of that sounds like anything Whedon would subscribe to.

 

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

What does that have to do with anything?

Humans are not (vampire) demons. Just because we develop our conscience as we start out neutral, doesn't mean demons are the same. A cats eats mice and birds, and it'll do this even if it is never taught to do so. It's simple instinct.

Which makes them evil, period.

No, they are not universal. What is good by one person's standards is evil by another person's standards. And that's just with people living in the same society raised by the same culture. That's not even talking of different cultures, or hell, different species altogether.

That doesn't exist. Good and evil are defined only by humans (for now) by their ethical and moral standards. If you think that means there is no such thing as morality, and things only exist as convenient or advantageous for someone, then that's your view, but that's all that exists.

And yet, this does not exist, and no, a person does not "endeavor to be Good". They endeavor to follow what they think is right and wrong, as taught by their parents and culture. This is because humans have empathy. We can project ourselves into others. We do not wish to subject horrors upon someone else, because we can imagine those horrors visited upon ourselves, place ourselves in the other place. We thus don't want to inflict upon others what we don't want inflicted upon ourselves, because if we are allowed to those things upon them, they are allowed to do them upon us.

Funny thing, the moment we think that it can't be done, or won't be done to us, a human's morals slip rapidly. Just look at prisoners, criminals, prisons - the death penalty. Suddenly it's all about punishing, hurting these humans; because they are guilty, and you would never be guilty, or innocently claimed to be guilty, therefor inflict whatever you want on them. Rehabilitation? Good reasons why the actions were done? Doesn't matter.

There are but very few people who have defeated that extremely immoral part, animalistic part of themselves. We do not posses a lovely absolute conscience.

Which, of course, makes them the TRUE evil. It's the same evil the kid had, that the demon looking for a "greater evil" couldn't deal with and got swallowed whole. Vampires are completely selfish, and couldn't give a shit about anyone or anything else. If they appear to do so, it's really ultimately only about themselves after all. The moment you have "a greater evil", a "purpose", you have in fact morals and join forces with others, think about others, consider their desires important, etc. etc. In fact, that description is a describing is good. It is no wonder that truly evil people, despicable evil people, often regard themselves as good. According to their morals they are good. And really there is not much difference between them and good.

But vampires, and the kid, they are the most purest form of evil. No allegiance, no trust, just plain slaughter.

This is not true. Show me how it is possible in any way shape or form, that slaver of their own race, they're own skin color, could ever be construed as not being undue suffering. People didn't care; they had money, the other had not, was captured, and so you could happily use them into their graves. It is pure selfish use, and the people doing it couldn't give a rat's ass about "undue suffereing". Indeed, as the prison example above, undue suffering really only formed and is important between two equals. For you if you cause undue suffering onto an equal, he or she can cause the same undue suffering onto you. It was thus a simple self-preservation principal; I don't mess with you, you don't mess with me.

It is only recently, and as the prisoner example showed, even that isn't anywhere near universal even today, that we have finally started to see nobody as unequal.

From those very same elegant simple things. We just kept growing more complex, and decided that there are very few things simple. Along with what the genes, if they could thing, would consider a bad mutation or a misfire in the brain.

You can't be asking "evolutionary" benefit and decide that if there wasn't one, false or true, that therefor it wasn't evolution and other simple natural causes. Evolution is not a directed path, it does not remove bad mutations, it is not directed. Individuals survive better in their habitat; they pass on their genes, even those genes that are bad and would lead to the species annihilation a few millennia hence.

He was not obsessed with tormenting his ex-girlfriend. Buffy was never Angelus' girlfriend.

 

I think you're using a too rigid definition of "demon" here. As Lorne, Clem, et al prove, "demon" does not automatically equal "evil" or any other moral judgment about them. Buffy/Angel seems to use "demon" as a catchall word for any creature that is not known to real world science. Some demons are just uncatalogued animals native to our world. Lorne is an intelligent, sentient being from another dimension. He's basically the Buffyverse equivalent of a space alien from Star Trek. Unless there is specific dialogue indicating otherwise, I see no reason to believe that Lorne or any other benevolent "demon" doesn't have a soul.

We're not talking about Buffy's experiences in the afterlife. We're talking about the place where a person's soul goes after he has been turned into a vampire. Any experiences that this soul goes through in an afterlife should affect its outlook and personality when it returns to the body.

If a soul goes into limbo, and a soul is a function of mind, then that means that the mind, for that duration, ceases to exist in a Cartesian sense. The mind cannot exist if it does not think.

Yes, but then Angel integrates the memories of Angelus into his own. So in that respect, you could say that either Angelus becomes Angel or Angel becomes the new incarnation of what Angelus was. So, excepting those early moments of post-restoration amnesia, Angel & Angelus DO have the same memories.

Oh, not this again. Look, I think we've pretty well established that you & I interpret "Orpheus" totally differently. You see Angel & Angelus as two separate, feuding spirits that are literally different people fighting for dominance within the same body. I see them as representations of Liam's super ego & id.

In "Amends," it seems pretty clear that Angel feels guilty for stuff that Angelus did. He's tormented by a vision of Jenny Calendar, as well as at least a couple of other people that Angelus slaughtered.

If there aren't abstract absolutes of good & evil, then the finale of Angel doesn't make any sense. Angel & co. make a final, fatal stand against the abstract, absolute evil of the Senior Partners at the expense of their own lives. This grand, symbolic sacrifice prevents them from continuing their quest to help people, doing good in a small, concrete way.

On the contrary, vampires are very human. They used to be human. They retain memories of their human lives. The Scourge described vampires as "the lowest of the half-breeds" in "Hero." And if vampires aren't human, then why was the Judge able to burn that bespectacled henchman in "Surprise"?

 

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

Oh, so you're answering with guffaw smileys and mocking again, because you have no real arguments, or because you're just plain rude. BTW, I have reported you for that post where you mocked hyzmarca.

See, "vampires are turning humans all the time", doesn't mean that they do it with every human. It just means that they do it very often. Get it? Where else do all those vampires come from that Buffy has to dust in graveyards every night. And it's not like they have particularly high standards or anything. Why did Drusilla turn Sheila? Why did anyone turn Harmony and her minions? Why do they turn some humans and they don't others? Who the hell knows. And, you know, if you're looking for something truly ridiculous, it's your statement that there would be more vampires than humans if vampires were always turning their victims (which I never said, but anyway). WTF? How many humans do you think were killed by vampires? According to you, it would have to be the #1 cause of death in the world.

Oh great, another one of your imaginary statistics of the vampire world. Where did you pull that one from? Well, actually I know, but I'll be polite and not say it. It's the exact same place you pulled that "fact" that people who kill their families never kill their parents or siblings. Nah, I'm sure you actually went and did reseach, I'm waiting to get the stats on all the families of the vampires you have included in the sample.

Erm, yes she was. Tuberculosis was an illness, last time I checked. http://buffy.wikia.com/wiki/Anne_%28vampire%29

Except that 1) that's not at all what you said, you explicitly claimed that people who kill their families don't kill their parents and siblings. And 2) Angel is not one of those people? Says who? Newsflash: just because you believe something, it doesn't make it a fact.

And I'm not sure what kind of "example" I'm supposed to give to prove that. An example of Angel killing his parents and siblings? ... Oh wait, he actually did that.

You know, since your "arguments" tend to consist of you simply stating things arrogantly without bothering to offer any evidence or logic behind it, I think I'm done replying to you, unless you write something else that is a factual error that I just have to correct, like your statement that William's mother was not ill.

 

"What does that have to do with anything?" Well, since we're debating the nature of vampires, I think it's a good idea to separate and identify each of the separate components that comprise a vampire and the human that it used to be.

I thought you were implying that the demon spirit that animates a vampire was also a force of mind. In fact, in certain portions, that still seems to be your argument. (You insist that Angelus is a separate mind from Angel, even when the soul is present.)

On the other hand, you state that evil behavior is an instinct that vampires are born with. This comes back to the idea I stated earlier about an anti-conscience. I think it's interesting that you insist that there is an inherent instinct in vampires that propels them towards evil yet you vehemently deny that there could be such an element in humans that propels them towards good.

And in that case, at least one of those people must be wrong. If there is no such thing as absolute morality, then "good" & "evil" are just subjective words with no real meaning. While I would agree that human beings spend a lot of time & effort defining "good" & "evil," often with corrupted, inaccurate results, I believe that there must be an absolute morality as well. Otherwise, the endeavor is totally pointless. Why search for truth if "the truth" is just whatever you happen to believe is "the truth" at the moment?

But is self satisfaction always an inherently evil motivation, even when someone does only good things to attain it?

While human empathy can deter someone from active evil, it does little to diminish the rational self-interested impulses that drive most people. For example, say I work a job that I don't like for the sole purpose of earning money for myself to spend on hollow pursuits like buying DVDs. I only have selfish motivations for doing that job. Does that make it evil?

It's the same way for vampires. They can't be pure evil because there are times when they are not slaughtering people. In fact, Spike did a lot of good things helping Buffy & Dawn. The fact that he had selfish sexual motivations doesn't mean that the good things he did weren't, in themselves, good.

Honestly, there are times when I read your arguments and it seems like you forgot to type out the first half of the paragraph that actually explains what you're talking about. I get lots of supporting details but the main point remains obscure.

Semantics. OK... If the Judge burns humanity, then why didn't he burn Angelus? Afterall, Angelus was obsessed with tormenting Angel's girlfriend. You can't get much more human than that.

No! Please don't leave me alone with him!

 

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

My interpretation was that the 'tormenting' part makes him 'inhuman'. He's not obsessed with the girl in a loving, human way.

 

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

There are many humans who aren't loving and many humans who torment their exes. Or kill their families. Or enjoy killing and torturing people in general.

 

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

Where did I say anything about evil? In fact, I said the exact opposite. Soulless does not equal evil.

With vampire demons it does of course.

Which would be one more major failing of Joss Whedon: he doesn't believe in aliens, so he refused to use the term, and therefor he named everything demon.

However, that's not my problem. If Lorne is not a demon and a space alien, he should have been called that. However, he even calls himself a demon. And a demon equals soulless.

There are obviously no experiences that this soul goes through while a demon where its corpse. Angel would be radically different if he had experiences while he was dead.

Which, is of course, exactly how it is depicted. While Liam/Angel is dead, nothing happens to him.

No, they don't. Because of two things:

1. Liam existed before Angelus does, and has entirely different personally than Angelus, one he retains has he comes back.

2. Angel does NOT remember all of Angelus' memories. He only remembers those that Angelus had that he left behind in the physical memory while he was in control. Any memories he makes while Angel is in control, that are not put down in the physical memory, are never Angel's.

There is nothing to interpret. Angelus tells you straight up: he isn't gone when Angel is in control, he remains fully intact and conscious. Something "The Dark Age" shows beyond any shadow of doubt as we see Angelus fighting Eyghon. You can only interpret things differently if there are two or more theories that fit all of the facts. Angelus and Angel not being separate does not fit the facts that happen in "The Dark Age". It's that simple.

And? Did I ever say otherwise?

Just because they sometimes retain some traits that the Judge would claim is human, doesn't mean vampires are human. They are about as far removed from humanity as you can get. Indeed, there are many demons that are much more human than any vampire ever depicted in Angel/Buffy. Lorne for example, hell, the Scourge themselves.

 

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

Yeah, but we're not talking about human as in physiologically human. We're talking about 'human' as in merciful and moral. The kinds of humans you're talking about may be physically human, but in their hearts and minds, they lack the simple decency that is identified as inherent in humanity. Think of this definition of human as similar to the word 'humane'.

 

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

Well that's the point, human doesn't equal 'humane'. And Judge's definition of human doesn't fit either definition. Affection isn't "humane" in itself, it's all about how you act on it. Jealousy has little to do with being or not being humane (in fact, many people do inhumane things out of it, like murder or abuse). Liking books has nothing to do with being or not being humane.