The Buffyverse Character Countdown (#2)

#2.

Hero: Wesley Wyndam-Pryce (Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 3, Angel)

"It's our desires that make us human." -- Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, "To Shanshu in L.A."

Oh… Wesley. Oh my Wesley.

I honestly struggled with Wesley’s placement on the heroes list. On one level… he’s my favorite character. There’s no doubt in my mind that Wesley has the best character arc in the Buffyverse except for the #1 entry on the heroes list. It’s melodramatic as heck, but it’s believable and compelling; plus, it’s the only character arc in the series that isn’t bastardized by the events of Angel Season Four. Yet, for all of his development, I’d be hard pressed to call Wesley a good person. He is heroic, possessing some of the very best individual qualities of any of the characters in the Buffyverse. But these qualities come mixed with a lethal cocktail of crippling insecurities, moral righteousness, deep-seated resentments, overwhelming selfishness, a vengeful streak, and a propensity to turn to violence as an outlet for his pain. He is a character for whom empathy and manipulation go hand in hand. All factors considered, Wesley is the hero whose actions border on the villainous the most often, and that’s including reformed villains like Spike, Jonathan, and Anya. Indeed, were any other character to possess these traits, he’d probably belong at the bottom of the list. And yet I can’t rank Wesley anywhere else than #2. For, while I cannot say that the audience should necessarily admire Wesley, he’s the character the audience can probably learn the most from. He is the best tragic hero in the series, so long as we stick to the traditional definition of “tragic hero.” While Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a series about characters growing to ultimately reach their full potential, Angel is one about the trials of adulthood. Some people are able to face those trials and grow stronger because of them; some, by virtue of either personal weakness or a blend of wrong decisions, end up destroyed. Angel is the former, Wesley the latter.

The first time we encounter Wesley Wyndam-Pryce in Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Three, we take an immediate dislike to him. He’s an arrogant Brit much like first season Giles, but he holds himself with an aura of superiority and condescension that Giles never possessed. Wesley is an entitled prat, one given privileges within the Watchers’ Council due to his father’s seniority and outstanding influence. Because of this, he becomes so disconnected to the reality of vampire slaying that he is even more useless in battle than Giles – AKA the character who gets knocked out so often that it becomes a running gag. Making matters worse, Wesley adheres to the patriarchal model of the Watchers’ Council without question, treating Faith as if she were little more than an attack dog. It is of little surprise, then, that his “watching” helps push Faith over to the dark side. He’s even got a perverted attraction to Cordelia that’s quite uncomfortable (though Cordelia’s manipulation of these feelings to get Wesley to perform embarrassing acts is hilarious). He’s such a tool that many of the downtime scenes in Season Three comprise of little more than the Scoobies ragging on Wesley; every insult is well-deserved. His only positive character trait is his comprehensive knowledge of demons and vampires, a knowledge that rivals even that of Giles. We also do see signs of a strategist within Wesley, suggesting that he could be far more capable than he currently is. Given his current stage of development, however, it is of little surprise that Wesley is shamed for losing the support of Buffy and the sanity of Faith and ultimately excommunicated from the Watchers’ Council.

One would think this would be the end of one of the silliest characters in the Buffyverse, but Wesley eventually finds his way to Los Angeles, choosing to become a “rogue demon hunter.” His skills have improved, but he’s still somewhat of a lummox. His knowledge of the occult is put to good use when he starts to assist Angel and Cordelia, still reeling from the loss of Doyle, and he eventually becomes a member of the team. He then gets an opportunity to re-join the council, but he sides with Angel in choosing to protect Faith from their clutches, even after Faith tortures him. However, it should be said that Wesley’s darker side has already begun to show. In the final minutes of “Five by Five,” Wesley frees himself from his bonds with the knife used to torture him and heads down into the alley to help Angel fight Faith. He drops the knife once he sees that Faith has capitulated to Angel, but we realize that Wesley was willing to kill another human being in the name of justice or, worse still, in the name of revenge – much like Faith herself.

The first two seasons of Angel more or less serve to build Wesley up to the point where he is on equal footing with Angel and Cordelia as a member of Angel Investigations’ life-saving triumvirate. His intellect is such that he becomes the group’s strategist and magical expert, and his martial prowess improves to the point where he’s probably the second-most powerful member of the team – and that’s including Gunn, the character typically cast in the “muscle” role. His social confidence also sees a significant boost. Heck, in the episode “Guise Will Be Guise,” he actually pulls off a successful romantic and sexual relationship with one of his clients, a romance that lasts multiple episodes. He becomes the leader of Angel Investigations after Angel fires his staff, keeping the group on task and organized while Angel pursues Wolfram & Hart on his own. In Pylea, it is Wesley who ends up leading the human resistance against their demonic captors, doing more than even Angel himself to save the day. Even here, though, Wesley’s more frightening qualities pop up; Wesley seems willing to risk far too many lives for “the greater good” than most of his followers, including Gunn, are comfortable with. Much like Cordelia, Wesley is pragmatic to a T, yet, unlike Cordelia, his pragmatism is cold and oddly dispassionate. He’s more determined to “get the job done” rather than perform an act he intrinsically cares about.

Yet it is in Pylea that Wesley first finds something, rather someone, to truly care about: Fred. Wesley’s relationship with Fred is the most fascinating and rewarding in the entire Buffyverse. Sure, Willow and Tara’s relationship might be more grounded and natural, but no Buffyverse relationship captures the ardor and passion of romance while simultaneously offering genuine connection, honesty, and humility. On paper, there’s no reason for Wesley’s love for Fred to be as pure-hearted and genuine as it is. Sure, the two have commonalities – they’re the two smartest members of Angel Investigations, both have suffered traumatic experiences, both are socially awkward – but one would expect someone of Wesley’s background, a background fraught with patriarchal attitudes, to be patronizing and possessive. Yet Wesley never treats himself as Fred’s superior. He enjoys being with her on equal terms, admiring her not as a prize to be won but as a partner. He also wholeheartedly accepts Fred for whom she is, flaws and all, unlike Gunn, who feels the need to keep her innocent. In “Supersymmetry,” Wesley acknowledges that Fred’s decision to kill her former professor is a bad one, but he does not try to stop her, only equipping her with the knowledge she needs to make a balanced decision. Moreover, Wesley cares about Fred’s happiness more than his own: when Fred is dating Gunn, Wesley keeps himself out of the way and lets Fred be happy with someone other than him. He could easily have reacted with spite, but he bottles his frustration and learns to cope with disappointment. Granted, these feelings do burst forth somewhat in “Billy,” but that’s only under the influence of Billy Blim’s misogynistic magic mojo, so I’m inclined to discount much of it.

“Billy” does, however, reveal something crucial about Wesley’s character: though he might be very good at repressing his violent and negative urges, they do exist. When Wesley has no inhibitions, he is a more terrifying opponent for Fred, and any other character in Angel for that matter, that we’ve ever seen. His intellect combined with his bloodlust and single-minded focus for achieving his goals make him terrifying to behold. The reason, we soon learn, Wesley does not act in this manner all the time is the fact that he’s got people and things to lose. Were it not for his friends and Fred, he would let himself become a monster. Unlike Angel, a character who would lose all choice and agency after one moment of becoming an object in the universe (by virtue of becoming Angelus), Wesley would be willing to continually abnegate his agency in pursuit of completing the next task, satisfying the next “moral end” (whatever it may be), doing the next job. Wesley might act adorable, clumsy, and altruistic, but he’s concealing a very destructive mindset. It’s only his tethers to reality that keep him from crashing.

In Season Three, these tethers strain for the first time. Disturbed by the thought of Angel killing his own son, Wesley chooses to follow his principles above his emotional commitments and kidnaps Connor. The result: having his throat slit by Justine Cooper and being nearly strangled in his hospital room by a vengeful Angel. Worst of all, all of Wesley’s friends, including Fred, abandon him completely in the wake of this decision, with Fred even leaving him with some particularly stinging words of departure. Wesley recovers physically but not spiritually, entering a practical death spiral: sleeping with Lilah, becoming a gun-for-hire, torturing Justine Cooper. His principles of justice keep him firmly in the “heroic” category, but his actions are largely passionless. He saves Angel’s life from Connor’s murder attempt (a twisted inversion of his kidnapping of Connor in the first place), but it’s a passionless act. He is largely dour, cold-hearted, and spiritually inert. In his new, pessimistic mode, the only things he are able to act on are his moral principles and his only remaining desire: companionship with Fred, the only person who did not cut ties with him completely. Angel’s wiping the team’s memory of Connor and the events resulting from Connor’s actions restores Wesley to full membership in Angel Investigations once again, but we’ve already gotten a hint of what is to come. Angel without a soul might be evil, but Wesley without desire is perhaps even more terrifying.

In Season Five, though, we get to see the best of who Wesley can be. With Cordelia’s absence and the entrance of Spike into the fold, it is Wesley who steps into the role of peacekeeper and team organizer. His companionship with Angel is something to behold; without Cordelia around, there is no one whom Angel trusts more than Wesley (and that’s despite knowing that Wesley once kidnapped his son). He retains his martial and tactical prowess from Seasons Three and Four, wielding the most impressive arsenal of weaponry in the entire series, ranging from melee weapons to retractable stakes to magic to dual pistols. He ends up saving the day on multiple occasions throughout the season. Best of all, he finally hooks up with Fred with the most satisfying kiss in the entire Buffyverse. The kiss in “Smile Time” is completely perfect, as Wesley, the most smitten character in the entire series, continues to deny his feelings out of respect for Fred’s previous reticence towards him, only for her to take the initiative and kiss him. It’s a celebration of both of their willpower – hers to have the courage to express her feelings and his to respect his friend’s desires – and one of the most touching moments in the series.

Yet we must remember: Wesley’s story is not a happy one. Just as these wonderful moments emerge from Wesley’s strengths, so are they taken away by virtue of his own faults. In the episode, “Lineage,” Wesley faces down his emotionally abusive father; at the episode’s conclusion, he ends up killing him (or, rather a robot duplicate of him) in order to save Fred’s life, completely cutting off his ties from the Watchers’ Council and abandoning the model of justice he followed throughout the rest of Angel. The only tie he has left in the world is Fred. When she then dies in “A Hole in the World,” we’re left to witness a Wesley who is truly alone. Without Fred, Wesley becomes even more hollow than he is in Angel’s third and fourth seasons. He viciously stabs Gunn, intent upon hospitalizing him, after learning that he was even remotely responsible for what happened to Fred. He shoots any of his staff members who weren’t able to save Fred. He even cuts off his ties with Angel, the only friend he ever truly trusted outside of Fred. The only thing giving him any purpose whatsoever is helping Illyria find a place in the world, and even this he does solely out of respect for Fred’s memory. Illyria’s character might be that of a demon occupying a decaying husk of a body, but, when we’re faced with conversations between her and Wesley, we wonder which character is truly hollow.

The brilliance of the tragedy of Wesley Wyndam-Pryce stems from his attitude towards himself. In a sense, he’s a more extreme version of Willow. While Willow feels empty and unable to function without others, Wesley outright hates himself. Worse yet, unlike Willow, whose self-loathing behaviors largely stem from factors outside of his control, Wesley is able to find justification for his self-loathing within his own actions. While Willow is eventually able to forgive herself and grow past her actions in Season Six, Wesley can’t see past his errors and embrace his own identity for what it is. As clumsy, single-minded, and violent as Wesley may be, he does have the right to love himself. Yet Wesley chooses to abstract his self-identity into two mental frameworks: obligation to moral code and love for Fred. When both of these things are taken away, any chance for Wesley to fully realize himself disappears. He’s too far gone. Just as he presaged in discussing Angel’s fate back in Season One, he has become inhuman by virtue of no longer desiring anything – most importantly, the desire to be all that he can.

This brings us to Wesley’s death. Alongside Fred and Joyce’s deaths, it’s one of the most painful in the series, though not for the same reasons as those. Fred and Joyce’s deaths were moments of empathy: we felt for both the characters passing away and those mourning for their loss. Wesley’s death is a moment of pity: we can no longer bridge the gap of empathy because he has simply abandoned all of the ways he can connect with his audience. On the one night he could spend doing whatever he wants, Wesley consigns himself to dressing Illyria’s wounds to prepare for the fight, as there is “nothing that he wants.” The only thing he is able to which he is able to hold true is his final moral principle: dedication to truth. He will not let Illyria take Fred’s form to give him false comfort that everything will be OK. When he walks into the room to kill Cyvus Vail, there’s a part of him that knows this will be the end. In his final moments, though, Wesley realizes that there will be nothing waiting for him on the other side. With Fred’s soul eradicated and his soul to virtuous for Hell, Wesley’s soul belongs in a state of limbo, practically a state of non-existence. Death brings no peace, no final truth, no catharsis. Much like the audience’s experience in “The Body,” it is nothing but numbness and emptiness. Thus, in his last moments, he allows Illyria to lie to him, taking solace in the false image of Fred and brittle promises that he and Fred will be together in the afterlife. Watching Wesley die is watching a man willfully destroying his soul on the way out, abandoning all of his principles as his essence fades away. It’s a torturous scene, though nothing less than an extraordinary one, given that we’ve seen all of the steps that have brought Wesley to this point.

Wesley is the #2 hero on this list because he isn’t a role model: he’s a character who, in trying to become the hero, destroys himself. He’s the perfect example of how a character who does good things isn’t necessarily a good person, even if he desires to be a good person and others recognize him as good. Unlike the other heroes in the series, Wesley cannot move past his insecurities and tragedies. His storyline is worthy of a Sophoclean tragedy, as his two greatest virtues – his determination and his compassion for others – end up leaving him the most broken character in the Buffyverse. Yet it is because of Wesley’s tragic failure to become the best he can be that he is so compelling and effective. Everyone is able to actualize him or herself – indeed, perhaps most of us never reach that point. While most of us do not die in complete bitterness and isolation as does Wesley, our reflections upon our lives are often filled with anger and regrets. As a heroic model, Wesley is the character whose fate we wish to avoid, but we are still connected to him with extraordinary empathy, sympathy, and pity through the completeness of his arc and the excellence of Alexis Denisof’s performance (easily the best acting in the entire Buffyverse, no questions asked). Of all the Buffyverse heroes, Wesley is the closest reflection of who we are.

#1 is the hero we want to be.

Villain: Mayor Richard Wilkins III (Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 3)

"I don't find that sort of thing amusing... I'm a family man. Now let's kill your little friend." -- Mayor Wilkins, "Doppelgangland"

The critics’ choice for best Buffyverse villain usually goes to Angelus. Most die-hard Angel fans would pick either Lilah or Lindsey. However, if one polled the Buffyverse fandom as a whole, villain numero uno would probably end up being the Big Bad of Season Three, the Mayor. Lilah might be more complex, Angelus might have the more complete backstory, but there’s no other Big Bad who functions as well within his season as does Richard Wilkins. Every element of his character, from his quirks, his plans, his personality, his performance, his relationship to other characters to his all-important role as a metaphor for institutional sexism, contributes to the best season arc in the entire Buffyverse – Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Three. (For the record, just as Wesley is my character hero in the series, the Mayor is also my personal favorite villain. Just to put that out there.)

In 1841, an ambitious man named Richard Wikins founded the town of Sunnydale over a Hellmouth. In exchange for providing the demons a steady supply of human chew toys, the more powerful demons in the Hellmouth granted Wilkins eternal youth and physical invulnerability. However, Wilkins’s ambitions extend beyond being “Mayor for Life.” He seeks to become a pure demon, a being whose power is only just below that of gods like Glory, by ascending to pure demonic state. To this end, he organizes a network of political corrupt allies, vampiric henchmen, and lesser demons engineered for the sole purpose of consolidating his rule and ensuring that his plan to become a pure demon goes off without a hitch. Prior to Buffy’s arrival in Sunnydale, his scheme is perfectly on track. Despite Buffy’s extermination of most of Sunnydale’s undead in the first two seasons, the Mayor is actually able to take these “setbacks” in stride. While the Mayor is certainly powerful enough to have taken out villains like the Master, Drusilla, and Angelus on his own, he would prefer to have someone else do the work for him. He then orchestrates the expulsion of Buffy from Sunnydale High, almost removing the Slayer from the fight without firing a shot. The name of his office alone is sufficient to chill the hearts of every monster and man in Sunnydale. And that’s all before we even meet the Mayor.

The personality of Richard Wilkins initially seems at odds with his intimidating backstory. He’s the most chipper and optimistic villain in the series, nearly always smiling and rarely ever showing his displeasure. When one plan goes awry, he merely looks ahead to the next step in the process of becoming a pure demon. He delights in the little things: low-sugar sweets, shredding paperwork, his impeccably organized desk, the looks on his enemies’ faces when they fail to hurt his indestructible body. He’s almost like Ned Flanders from The Simpsons… if Ned Flanders were evil. Unlike Angelus and Lilah, who are delightful because of how irredeemably evil they are, the Mayor is delightful for who he is: evil seems to be nothing more than his day job. It’s only when the Mayor has his clutches upon his adversaries and gets the chance to take revenge upon those who have hurt him that his menace truly shows. Harry Groener is able communicate more evil with a single twisted smile than Angelus is able to pull off in an entire murder sequence. The very qualities that make the Mayor the most fun villain of Season Three make him the most off-putting and disturbing Big Bad in Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

The Mayor’s presence throughout Season Three is rather unique considering the various Big Bads of Buffy. Unlike Angelus and Glory, the Mayor isn’t one to tackle his enemies head on. However, unlike the Master and Adam, the Mayor does not send out his henchmen, one by one, like an idiot, to beat the Slayer. He’s a more strategic villain, cutting his losses and prioritizing those battles essential for his ascension. He takes advantage of villains that Buffy allows to survive, hiring Mr. Trick as his initial right hand man after Faith and Buffy fail to take him out. He secures the most crucial objects for his ascension while Buffy and the rest of the Scoobies are distracted taking out his minions. Most importantly, he manages to do what no other villain in the entire Buffyverse can claim: acquire a rogue Slayer as a henchman. His partnership with Faith makes him one of the most effective baddies in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, as she’s able to provide the brawn needed for his schemes to run smoothly. He truly does provide a level of threat unsurpassed in the early days of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and the crawl to his ascension on “Graduation Day” is oozing with suspense.

The relationship between the Mayor and Faith is also one of the richest and most complex villainous partnerships in the entire series. The Mayor truly does treat Faith as if she were his own daughter, and he’s shown to care for her – even love her – as if she were his own child. It’s crucial to remember that the Mayor, despite being immortal, is still human; he’s capable of selfless love in a way demons are not. While he is somewhat of a task master for Faith, willing to withhold privileges from her should she disobey his orders, he’s more than willing to provide for her. He gives her an apartment to call her own, a custom-designed combat knife, and even a Playstation. And yet their parent-child relationship is not based on materialism alone. The Mayor is the only character in the series thus far who is willing to acknowledge Faith’s feelings without judging her whatsoever. Her feelings of inferiority towards Buffy, of abandonment, of wanting something more after reaching adulthood: the Mayor embraces them all and guides Faith towards a sort of adulthood. Granted, it’s a path of murder, treachery, and complete evil, but it is genuinely based on concerns for Faith’s actualization. He’d just rather her become a puppet of evil than a purveyor of virtue. Though his kind treatment of Faith is conditional, his love for her as a father is most certainly unconditional; after Faith gets hospitalized in “Graduation Day, Part 1,” the Mayor, instead of shrugging off her loss as he does to those of his other henchmen, vows to eat Buffy. Heck, he very nearly manages to strangle Buffy in her own hospital bed before Giles and Angel interrupt his attempt at revenge. The two are totally adorable in their familial evil.

It’s also crucial to note that the Mayor is arguably the Big Bad with the most “good” qualities. Since the Mayor is human, he is capable of reaching moral insights other villains cannot, and, unlike Warren, the Mayor has lived long enough to pick up the wisdom to know that the “journey” is more important than the destination. His graduation speech to the Sunnydale Class of ’99, though cliché in its discussion of life as a “journey,” is nonetheless relevant to Buffy’s journey. Joss Whedon has noted that the Mayor was the one time he used the Big Bad of the series to end up imparting something he intended the audience to receive earnestly: it’s a quality distinct to the Mayor that no other Big Bad has. It’s also key to remember that some of the Mayor’s actions, while nefarious, ultimately produce some positive consequences. He ends up providing Angel the proper rationale by which he ends his relationship with Buffy. Just as the Mayor outlived his own wife, earning her disgust from having an eternally youthful body, so too would Angel outlive Buffy and leave her hating the fact that she must leave without him. Lastly, his positive treatment of Faith is genuinely fatherly and protective.

These good elements all tie into the Mayor’s function as a metaphor. The high school villains of Buffy the Vampire Slayer are nearly always allegories for crucial life problems. The Master is the evils of ritual, Angelus is the violence of emotional abuse, Drusilla is the danger of the collateral damage we cause through our own actions, Faith is the darkness of our Jungian shadow selves. The Mayor, though, is the most complex, insidious, and dangerous of these metaphors: he is institutionalized, structural sexism and control. Unlike Buffy’s relationship with Giles, a partnership based on mutual respect and individual autonomy, Faith’s relationship with the Mayor is ultimately one of slave to master. The Mayor is nice, loving, and caring, but he always has the upper hand in their relationship and dictates the path it will take. This is much the case with structural sexism: women can advance in certain fields, but they only ever advance through baby steps and by virtue of the whims of men who have previously worked their way up an uneven ladder. Much like the Mayor has genuinely delightful qualities and quirks that distract us from his evil, so too does structural sexism have principles and qualities that misdirect many from the iniquities underlying the system: notions such as “preserving the meritocracy,” “individual choices matter more than reform,” and “paying one’s dues.” While respecting authority and valuing merit are important, they should not come at the expense of an uneven system that inherently throws societal treatment of minorities off-balance. As fun as the Mayor is, he is evil, and his scheme to ascend is ultimately unsustainable. He must feed upon children in order for his demonic form to stabilize, and when the children rise up as one and take him on, he’s unable to defeat their united front.

The Mayor is the best Big Bad in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and, indeed, the Buffyverse as a whole. In terms of his narrative achievement, metaphoric significance, and individual character, he’s as delightful yet menacing as villains in television can get. He’s a villain the audience truly loves to hate, and every second of screen time he gets is delicious. He even excels on a meta-narrative level, raising the stakes from the undead villains of the first two seasons whilst expanding the lore of the series. In terms of creating a villain for a single arc, the Buffyverse never truly topped him. Any villain who’d even think of topping this guy would have to be bloody brilliant…