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Old 10-16-2021, 12:35 PM   #28 (permalink)
Marie Monday
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definitely. In general I feel like of all the characters in the show, Xander's moral flaws are relatively unexamined, and to a lesser extent, those of Giles too. Buffy is consistently given a very hard time throughout the series and has to pay severely for her mistakes while others get off much more easily, to a point that episodes like Death Man's Party, Empty Places, and the abusive elements of Spike+Buffy are hard to watch. And other female characters (Willow, Faith, Cordelia, Anya) all have to go through serious redemption arcs.

The faults of not just Xander but all the male characters are examined to a much lesser extent, I think; some of their biggest obvious misdeeds do require redemption (because you can't get around Angel's past or Wesley keeping a slave woman in his closet, for instance), but many of their smaller but still significant misdeeds are almost ignored in the long run. Xander's toxic treatment of his love interests, his slut shaming, his lie about Angel being re-ensouled in Becoming, and Giles' initial participation in the horrible Watcher's council practices, his assasination attempt on Spike, Riley's stupid vampire whoring: there is (sometimes) some reaction against it by other characters, but no serious redemption, and often the show doesn't even take a moral stand against it (when Buffy leaves Riley for his ****ty behaviour he actually gets told off by Xander, and by the show by proxy .). And I think it's no surprise that these are all flaws that seem to align with the character of Joss Whedon (although it's also my bias that picks out these particular issues).

Also, how did I not know this thread existed <3
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