Ink Tea Stone Leaf

For fans of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, last week brought some sad and sobering news. In the wake of the surprise cancellation of the planned revival of the show, it was reported that Nicholas Brendon, who played Xander Harris throughout its original run, had died. In a media era which seemingly never tires of bringing back popular properties, this news is a reminder that time does march on, and there are limits to our collective ability to revisit the past.

Brendon led an unfortunate life at times, cycling through drugs, violence, and declining health. It hasn’t been reported what caused his death, though in the last few years he learned he had a congenital heart defect, so we might suppose that had something to do with it. But as with all celebrities, it is too easy to suppose we know anything at all about a person whom we mostly know as the characters they have pretended to be for the camera. All I can really say about Nicholas Brendon is that he seemed like a good actor with some good personal qualities, who also made a lot of very poor decisions and suffered from poor luck. Only the people who really knew him can say more than that.

As it happened, before the news broke I had just recently started what I determined would be a slow-motion Buffy rewatch—not a binge, just an episode every couple of days or so. Coincidentally, the next episode to come up was Season 1’s “Teacher’s Pet,” a Xander-centric episode in which the tragically horny teen follows his hormones into the lair of a monstrous praying mantis disguised as a sexy substitute biology teacher. Season 1 Buffy plots can get really cheesy like that, and I would never call “Teacher’s Pet” one of the all-time greats, but it felt appropriate for the moment, and ultimately led me to some thoughts about the character of Xander, a personality I feel much more qualified to analyze than I do the actor who portrayed him.

It’s not easy to say anything original about Buffy the Vampire Slayer, a show that inspires passionate interest in its broader themes from amateurs and academics alike. Opinions and analyses are diverse, but if there is any kind of consensus among the kind of Buffy fans I know, it’s that Xander kind of sucks. On a show that is supposed to celebrate female power, he and his fragile male ego sit close to the center of most episodes, sexualising his friends and dispensing some highly questionable wisdom through an endless barrage of jokes. While he has his moments, his particular brand of 1990s male “feminism” has not aged well in most points. To the extent that his character serves as a surrogate for the show’s creator Joss Whedon, whose reputation has suffered in recent years in light of his own bad behavior on the Buffy set (and elsewhere), Xander can look like a big, flashing, warning sign, harshly illuminating all the basic philosophical contradictions at the heart of the show.

Perhaps it’s only natural that, following the news of Brendon’s death, I would want to reevaluate Xander, and argue that perhaps he doesn’t suck all that much after all. Admittedly, I’m still only in the middle of Season 1, so I’ll mostly have to argue from less-than-recent memory, but there are actually a few points in his favor that it’s only fair to acknowledge, especially as we remember the show in the context of its time and environment.

Although Buffy is remembered as a feminist show, it was more generally successful in its early seasons as an examination of the stresses of adolescence, regardless of gender. Xander has many of the most annoying traits of teenage boys, but he is also saddled with the albatross such boys are made to bear: the social imperative to be impressive. It may be a curse that boys largely bring upon themselves, but it is also nearly impossible to avoid if they seek the approval of other boys. Xander, in fact, has almost no close male friendships, because he is not a very impressive guy on the surface. His female friends appreciate his humor and loyalty, his two most genuine strengths, but he judges himself from the male perspective, and perpetually finds himself wanting.

Of course, Buffy is the kind of show where men who feel marginal often find themselves transformed into demons or supervillains. It speaks to a certain fundamental decency, then, that through seven years Xander maintains a relatively normal outlook on life. Despite his lack of exceptional or superlative ability (with rare and silly exceptions, like his temporary magical knowledge of all things military) he cares enough about helping his friends and doing the right thing to stay involved. He grows up, and he learns a trade—carpentry and construction may not be as glamorous as monster hunting, but they are useful. 

When Xander retreats into entitlement and resentment, it can be enough to make you question why Buffy or Willow or anybody else still keeps him around. Some of his life choices (like breaking off his engagement to Anya) speak to a stubborn immaturity that undermines his overall growth. Truly, there are times (too many times) when Xander really does kind of suck. However, while it wouldn’t be enough to simply point to all of the men on the show who are worse, we can do better than that. We can recognize Xander as an imperfect character and a product of his time, who nevertheless has a noble spirit and great taste in friends. Who wouldn’t want to be remembered for that?