lotesse | from the annals of watching Buffy on Hulu

... which is obviously the only way to spend Sunday afternoon. The stupid St. Augustine readings for my Rhet&Comp class go much quicker with quippy Josslanguage in the background.

The current ep on the docket is "Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered," which I always enjoy, coming as I do from dual positions of Cordy love and Xander scorn. She's so sweet! He's such a douche! I really works for me.

And on that note, something I only noticed on this rewatch - there's no reason that Amy's lovespell couldn't have worked fine. Her language during the casting never specifies Cordelia as the object, only "Xander's beloved." And maybe it isn't just that Cor already loved the jerk - maybe it's that as usual, Xander Harris doesn't know what the hell he wants.

This is my (ongoing) problem with Xander: he wants everyone and no one. He wants Buffy, but then he also wants Cordelia, but he still wants Buffy, and then there's Willow. Not content with the lover he has, he's got to keep lanes open to every other possible object of love - even when he's with Cordy, the popular beautiful everything-he-ever-wanted Cordy, he still resents Angel for being with Buffy.

He's perpetually unfaithful. He ditches poor ice-cream-on-her-nose Willow as soon as Buffy's back in town, and then he macks on Will once he's dating Cordelia, and then he abandons Anya in a fit of - of I don't even know what.

He's not a complete dick, because he always feels bad, and gets that he's a fool, and is sorry. But he still keeps on screwing around, trying to possess all women and through that losing the lovers he's got.

It's one of the reasons why Xanderslash makes such total sense. He's so bad at dealing with girlfriends that he's either a fool or he's queer. He's more sympathetic if he's queer. Personally, I'm so hacked off with him on behalf of Will and Cordy and Anya that I don't care. but it does make sense.

"Xander's beloved" could mean any woman, any woman at all. Because he definitely can "love two people at once," more fool he.

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I think that is more common than you may know. Lots of guys are not content with what they have and always want more or different. For some of them it's the thrill of the chase and the catch, for other ones it's greed, even insecurity to the point of thinking a partner is no good if they actually love him. Many many men are big fat fools.

Oh, I know it way too well! I spent the last year doing the un-fun part of teaching Women's Studies courses - the part where all the female students come to you with their broken hearts. And I hurt for those girls, and it makes me really unforgiving when it comes to fictional characters doing the same.

It's the ones doing it because of insecurity that get me the most - because obviously the solution to having been put down is to use women! Ugh.

His parents had a bad marriage, which explains everything, I think, though best stated through the episode where he walks out on Anya.

I don't think it's that he's queer or poly, he's just never sure on any woman because he's always imagining it ending in a horrible marriage, so he flits around and sabotages the relationship he is in, trying to find someone so perfect for him that even he can't screw it up. That's not how it works, though, so it's not looking good for Xander on the enduring love front.

I am wondering, though; if he did turn gay (like he asked Will to make him in that one episode as a joke) would that make it easier for him to commit? The relationship wouldn't mirror that of his parents, so it might just trick his mind into believing it could last.

But does the bad family marriage excuse the heartbreaker behavior? Cause I gotta say, it's not like anyone else's parents have good marriages on that show! B's parents are divorced, Willow doesn't seem to have a home life to speak of, Tara's family are creepy misogynist fundamentalists. Heck, Angel had major Issues with his daddy, and Spike vamped his mum. So they should all be coming from the same place as far as screwed up patterns comes from. And yeah, none of them are great shakes at making love last, but they don't o quite as far as Xander does into destroy all I touch territory, imo.

I didn't say it excuses it, just that it explains it. Xander's not necessarily aware of his condition or thinks like most people that you should try and have a relationship. If you have these patterns deeply ingrained pretty much the only thing you can do to prevent yourself from hurting your partners is to not date.

Buffy also doesn't have good relationships and for all we know Willow does have loving parents, they're just not shown. Anyway people react to parents with bad marriages differently. Angel was a bastard when he was human and needed a horrible dose of guilt to become what he is; Spike has transferred his devotion to mummy to Drusilla and then later to Buffy, both women who love him less than he loves them. It's different patterns. The only person here who is having good relationships is Willow.

Xander doesn't mean to screw up everything he gets into. He ends up sabotaging these relationships because he's afraid of going for it really long-haul, in case he just ends up hurting them more. There's no evil intent there.

then he abandons Anya in a fit of - of I don't even know what.

And then gets all self-righteous about how she's ZOMG DEAD TO HIM!1!! and soiled forever because she's had sex with Spike. Um, you left her. In possibly the most unkind way imaginable, at the altar. You don't then get to moralise to her about what she does with her life. Geez, maybe examine why all these women you love would rather have sex with an 'evil soulless thing' than you.

Didn't they say they were gonna make Willow or Xander gay? Should have been Xander, imho, there was way more evidence for it than with Willow, and I never thought Alyson Hannigan had much sexual chemistry with the other girls; whereas Xander/Angel and Xander/Spike seemed to.

(I think Buffy/Xander is one of the Buffyverse ship that squicks me the most. Which is weird, because it's fairly traditional - friends to lovers - and it wouldn't be beyond the realms of possibility, but for some reason, I hate it. Maybe because of his have-his-cake-and-eat-it syndrome. I'm always like 'Get over her, you have great girls in front of you!' And he gets so revolted with her actions that it makes me think his crush is more based around her looks than her personality, since if it was 'I love who you are', he'd feel the same way about Willow, presumably.)

Buffy/Xander is wrong in every way that it's possible for a ship to be wrong. Just, just, no. Eurgh.

Anya's post-Xander arc also makes me sad, because I don't think they can figure out what to do with her, and it does come off as ickily moralizing. Xander himself get great development in those last seasons; Anya just gets dead. Bad form, show.

But, yeah, the YOU HAD SEX WITH SPIKE HOMG thing fits his pattern - he doesn't want her, but nobody else can get close either because she's his, damnit! Which is totally gross, and I really wish the narrative had smacked him down over it.

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