fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #1899 ]

⌈ Secret Post #1899 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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02.

[The Tempest]

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03.

[SGA]

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04.

[Life After People]

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05.

[Uncharted]

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06.

[Super]

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07.

[Japanese voice actors]

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08.

[Kamen Rider Den-O, Doctor Who ]

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09.

[Silent Hill 4: The Room]

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10.

[Tripod]

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11.

[True Blood]

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12.

[Cabin Pressure]

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13.

[How I Met Your Mother]

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14.

[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]

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15.

[Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy]

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16.

[Gossip Girl]

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17.

[Sense and Sensibility]

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18.

[FFX]

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19.

[The Princess and the Goblin]

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20.

[Code Geass]

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21.

[Star Trek (2009)]

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22.

[Tree of Life]

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 042 secrets from Secret Submission Post #271.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 1 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I think it is that Xander is the typical nice guy and that he's never called on it. Buffy acts like it was this amazing thing that he didn't rape her when she was under the love spell even though he did what any decent human being would do and was the cause of the spell in the first place. And even though a love spell is pretty damn sketchy anyway and that gets glossed over. And his double standard of trying to get involved in all Buffy's relationships as if he had the right, not telling her Angel was getting his soul back, blaming her for not being in love with Riley, and then getting mad at her for going to do her job and kill Anya (who had done far more bad things than Angelus ever did).

Basically, Xander hits many of my pet peeves. But if it was acknowledged that his actions were not okay, I'd be less bothered. But we are supposed to think of him as the nice, normal, protective friend rather than the sexist jerk who thinks he can or should control a slayer and a powerful witch just because they are female and he is male.

I agree with you about season 7 Anya. I do like season 7, but Anya's characterization and storyline was one of the things that annoyed me. And yes, Whedon is awesome and does try. But he's still a man, and he's not as much of a feminist as he thinks he is.

He....doesn't try to control anyone. Especially not Willow. Is he opinionated? Sure. But I would hope that from a feminist perspective that the burden would be placed on Buffy for somehow being too handicapped to think for herself, because any real adult wouldn't give a flying flip what Xander thought on their personal life.

Xander wasn't perfect, but he was hardly the worse. And god, I'm not even a Xander fan...I guess I just find him low on the totem pole. He never raped his girlfriend (Willow) or beat her up (Buffy), not to mention the fact that those two saw nothing wrong with their actions...so Xander's a jerkface who sometimes says inappropriate things. But my goodness, don't actions speak louder than words? At least he wasn't a rapist or an abuser. Good grief :(

Not being a rapist or abuser does not give him any brownie points. That part of your comment was pretty stupid.

True, because on this show, being an abusive rapist would earn him a legion of fangirls ready to rip people's heads off the second his behaviour was questioned.

So that is how we judge people now. As long as they aren't a rapist or abuser, everything is good and they are awesome? That is pretty depressing, frankly. Xander does try to control Buffy and Willow, at least in terms of romantic relationships. He thinks he has a say. And he tries to protect them, even they are more powerful than he is, he still acts like he is the hero and they are the damsels in distress. Xander is the typical "nice guy". And while that doesn't make him the worst character, those personality traits are some of the ones that bug me the most.

Given that two of the most popular characters in Buffy ARE a beater and a rapist, I can understand why it's put as a good point for Xander.

And seriously? Where do you get he's controlling? he gets as much a say in their romantic relationships as they get in his (In fact, less.) Trying to protect her friends? Oh, my. That's a horrible thing to do. He never acts like they're damsels in distress, he knows and acknowledges that they're far more powerful than he is, but he still tries to help. And, while yes, in seasons 1 and 2 he acts like an idiot teenager... well, he is an idiot teenager.

I get that people don't like him, but I don't get why he's called a "Nice Guy"tm, when he's not and the series gives us examples of real Nice Guys like Jonathan and Warren.

I know the reasons why people hate Xander, I just meant that I'm a bit perplexed by the intensity many dislike him particularly . He can be shitty, it's just that they all are sometimes, as are people in general.

I'm not so sure his actions are not acknowledged for what they are. Plenty of confrontations about them, and when he does them, I haven't gotten the feeling that we're meant to excuse him for them. And there are just as much shitty stuff from Angel, Spike and several other male characters. I see more of a problem with punishing the female characters for what they do. It might seem like the same thing, but imo it's not.

Personally, I realize there are worse characters than him. His particular traits just happen to be ones that are among the traits that most irritate me. I dislike him (not sure I'd ever use hate to describe a fictional character) because he's a "nice guy", because he reminds me of guys I know who have been particularly problematic in my life, because as a feminist I would have hoped that Joss would be capable of writing a more feminist character. Just being a male character who doesn't rape/abuse, doesn't outright dislike women, and doesn't have "traditional" values doesn't mean a character is feminist or not problematic. Joss seems to think that doing things that any decent human being would do should win a character points and makes them feminist even if they actually do a whole lot of problematic things. And that frustrates me.

I get what you mean, and I agree with you in general. I'm also very much a feminist, and the nice guy thing is icky. I've never seen Xander as a good guy as such, but I've interpreted many of his flaws as attempts to expose some of the underlying problems with them. Perhaps I've given Joss and the writers too much credit.

Except Cordellia called him out for it? And the 'text' agrees with her? And it wrecked his relationship with Willow, didn't it?

And yeah, he does stick his nose in relationships that are none of his business, but again, the women involved don't exactly appreciate him doing so. They get into fights with him about it. And the Angelus/Anya parallel does get pointed out in that episode too.

So yeah, I agree with your characterisation of Xander, but not that he just gets away with it. He's depicted as normal, protective, but not always nice and not always a good friend. I don't think you're giving Whedon enough credit, at least in these examples.

I'd say you're the one applying the double standard. It's wrong for Xander to dislike Angel and Spike (who have tried to kill him many times), but it's okay for Buffy to kill Anya? You are contradicting your own argument.

Also, how can you claim to be a feminist and still like Anya's character? It's a character who has spent a thousand years killing men yet the writers treat her as a innocent woman who's funny and adorable.

[ SECRET POST #1899 ]

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