Processing rn. This one is a little piece of my boyhood. Xander was my original window into the show. When I was a 12 year-old boy I wouldnât have chosen to watch a show about a girl who saves the world if I didnât relate to the âregular guyâ who compensates for his insecurities with humor and pines over the girl. I was the dorky kid who only got attention when he made the class laugh and saw myself in him a lot. Before the show even confirmed it, I thought âI bet he has a difficult home life.â Which is more thought than I gave most things at that age, and it was an insight that I only could have had if it reflected my own youth.
As I got older, I saw a lot of the problems in his behavior towards Willow and Buffy that also reflected how I used to see the world, but I also saw his growth, particularly in season 7. The show never really focuses on it, but Xander did become a friend who supported without expecting anything in return. He reinforced how great Buffy is to the new girls who didnât get it. He declined to crap on her relationship with Spike when the entire group was doing it and Anya even gave him an invitation to join in. Does he deserve a medal for it? No, but to me itâs important that in the end he was confident in who he was and who heâd become, and was no longer holding on to the things that made him bitter and possessive and entitled in the past.
I grew to love a lot more about the show, but I donât think I wouldâve gotten into my favorite TV show of all-time without him, which means I may not have otherwise as a young man gotten into media that centers women and also showed me different ways to be a man than the other things I consumed as a kid (IE pro wrestling and action movies). A part of me will always feel like a Xander who grew up and changed a lot.
Iâm sorry that Nicholas Brendon seemed to have never found the peace that Xander eventually did.
And, one time for all-time, because standard fandom arguments are a welcome distraction rn, Xander was right when he said kick his ass lol




















