Hmm, I don’t know? What are people’s theories? Just on a hunch I would say that people don’t want to ship Buffy with a “normal guy”? It’s never really been a popular ship. I don’t ship but I’m willing to try if someone wants to try and convert me!
The prominent (and in my humble opinion rather reasonable) justification for not shipping Buffy and Xander is that he doesn’t always treat his lovers- and indeed his female friends- very respectfully. He belittles and publicly humiliates Anya constantly in her attempts to understand human culture and tradition, rather than being sympathetic as to how hard it must be to be shoved into a society you’ve been apart from for a 1000 years. He cheats on Cordelia and when she doesn’t accept his apology instantly he takes to relentlessly taunting her instead, not understanding that she has the right to forgive him in her own time, or not at all if she so chooses. He takes advantage of Willow’s crush on him and uses her as a “backup plan” when Buffy rejects him, instead of telling her that he isn’t interested so she can move on as she deserves. And when Buffy politely declines his offer to date him, he does not react with the same politeness in kind. To put it delicately. As such, I find it understandable why people think shipping him with Buffy undermines the themes of female empowerment in the show.
What I find interesting is that I rarely see the same arguments against shipping Angel with Buffy. Surely that isn’t the dictionary definition of a respectful, equal, or even lawful relationship either? Angel stalks Buffy, constantly makes decisions for her without her knowledge or consent, tells her she isn’t allowed in “his city” as though he owns LA, talks down to her, and under Californian law is guilty of statutory rape. The huge age gap between them also perpetuates a very unequal power balance, something Angel himself points out in Some Assembly Required. Yet Angel and Buffy is beloved among the fandom and iconic among pop culture.
As for Spike and Buffy, well, we know what happened there. Even the most avid supporters of the ship own up to it being very mutually abusive and unhealthy, at least in season 6. Need I even mention the events of Seeing Red? And Spike/Buffy is likewise very popular.
I’m not saying it’s wrong to enjoy any of the above ships (there are plenty of lovely people who ship all three), and I’m not hating on any of them, and I’m not saying that Angel or Spike’s treatment of Buffy retroactively justifies Xander’s. But I do think it’s interesting that Buffy/Xander is perhaps deservedly condemned for its sexist implications, but less commonly Angel/Buffy. And although Spike/Buffy does get a lot of criticism for the way it was handled, it still prevails as one of the most popular ships in spite of this.
I’m not going to get into a debate about which unhealthy facet of Buffy’s relationships is worse, because I don’t want to trivialize anyone’s experiences, and if I were to play Top Trumps with how Buffy was mistreated that misses the point completely. The point is that Buffy doesn’t deserve to be manipulated or abused at all. No one deserves to be. No ifs or buts about it.
Tag: Buffy The Vampire Slayer
Early dialogue in Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Xander: say, remember when that guy was eaten?
Buffy: still a better fate than attending biology class 😉
Xander: haha we’re all so numb to the unstoppable death and horror that constantly unfolds all around us 🙂
Willow: we’re pretty much all dead inside 🙂
Xander: *skateboards*
Idk if this is really unpopular but I think Anya deserved better than Xander
strongly agree | agree | neutral | disagree | strongly disagree
Absolutely. It has been argued that Xander, Willow, et al treated Anya so poorly because she’s, well, a mass murderer, and such an argument is certainly not without merit. But if Xander could get past the crimes she committed enough to marry her (or nearly marry her), then surely he should have been able to treat her with a modicum of compassion and respect too? Similarly, even if we were to go with the “Xander treated Anya so condescendingly because she was evil” theory, then that still doesn’t explain the glaring differences in how he regards Willow’s, Angel’s, Faith’s, and Spike’s past sins as opposed to Anya’s…Or the glaring differences in how the show regards all five character’s crimes, period. But that’s a whole other barrel of fish.
I digress, Anya totally deserved better than Xander. As did Cordelia. And Buffy. And Willow. It’s rather astounding how he treated them all a lot of the time. Even when Anya died he was cracking jokes about how “stupid” she was. She couldn’t even escape the humiliation and degradation from beyond the grave. Even when her best friend was murdered right in front of her eyes and Anya was left in crisis, Xander still felt it a good opportunity to tell her to not be such a “dope”.
Moreover, in season seven Anya has an episode reflecting on her character called “Selfless”. And I find it amazing how the episode title encapsulates her entire relationship with Xander in one word.
See, “selfless” can mean unselfish, sacrificial, and giving, like Anya was for her fiance. However, the word also implies a lack of self, as ‘less’ as a suffix to a word oft means ‘none’ (for example, hopeless = lack of hope, loveless= lack of love, selfless= lack of self).
So in one word the writers summed up Anya; because she was busy giving and giving and giving to Xander, so dedicated to his needs and never her own, she sacrificed her sense of self, her identity. She radically changed who she was for his sake, and abandoned her values in doing so.
So yeah; Anya deserved much, much better.
xoxox
You know, I’ve changed my opinions on a lot of characters as i got older, but it’s good to know that I still hate Xander Harris with the steaming passion of a million burning suns and that will probably never change.
The more I watch Buffy, the more I realize Xander’s a fuckboy.
Xander’s sitting there, telling Buffy that Willow is his “best friend” and he doesn’t really “think about her lips” because friend, not crush, and then turns around and gets grumpy when Buffy doesn’t want to date him and even possessive when he learns a male foreign exchange student is supposed to stay at her house.
Cheloneuniverse 