The Buffyverse Character Countdown (#9)

#9.

Hero: Xander Harris (Buffy the Vampire Slayer Seasons 1-7)

Of all the main four heroes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Xander is initially the most problematic and “least heroic” of the bunch. In the early seasons of Buffy, Xander displays several attitudes towards his peers, especially those that are female, that are highly selfish and entitled. While we come to understand the origins of these attitudes and behaviors, they should not be excused. However, Xander is fundamentally a more interesting and praise-worthy hero than Giles, for, while Giles begins the series as essentially perfect and stays that way throughout the series, Xander eventually attains the level of virtue of his spiritual father figure over the course of several seasons and becomes the hero the Buffyverse deserves. Plus, whenever Xander does screw up, the show does castigate him for his failings. Xander has the best character-centric episodes of any character in either series, and, in each one, he learns from his mistakes. While there are many occasions on which we do not like Xander, his growth makes him interesting. Fran Kuzui, the director of the original (and hokey) Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie, once said that parents should instruct their sons to be like Xanders: they must be ready and willing to learn.

In the beginning of the series, Xander suffers from the standard high school drama trope of having feelings for an attractive female friend (Buffy) that does not notice them, or, rather chooses to ignore them since they are a severe distraction to her own life. However, unlike most manipulative high school boys in other shows, Xander does the right thing and actually musters up the nerve to ask Buffy out in the events of “Prophecy Girl.” Granted, after being rejected by Buffy, Xander makes the extremely selfish and borderline cruel decision to ask Willow, whom he knows to have a crush on him, out to the prom as a rebound. This anecdote pretty much sums up Xander’s heroic arc throughout Buffy’s first three seasons: Xander does something smart, Xander does something selfish. He’s the wittiest and funniest character in the first half of the series, yet many of his jokes come at the expense of his peers. He wants to defend his friends, but he’s often either cowardly or brutish in his attempts at revenge. He’s noble-minded when it comes to issues of “masculine” virtue, yet he’s unbearably petty. As a character, he’s extremely frustrating, right up until the viewer realizes one thing: he’s a high school boy. It’s little wonder that Xander is such an infuriating male presence in the series; he’s surrounded by people trying to make him even more sexist, egoistic, and foolish than he already is. Moreover, when we consider Xander’s home life, it’s a miracle that he’s not even worse than he is.

Most importantly, whenever Xander’s actions truly do step over the line, the series does punish him for his transgressions. In “Teacher’s Pet” and “Incan Mummy Girl,” Xander’s lust for sex at the expense of others’ character nearly ends up with him getting killed by a giant praying mantis and an undead princess. In “Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered,” his attempt to cast a love spell on Cordelia in an act of revenge ends up turning every woman in Sunnydale into a sex-crazed zombie intent on ripping him to shreds in return for his love. Most importantly, his inferiority complex and bad grades prevent him from going to college with his friends, and he has to learn how to be an adult without any of the safety nets protecting Buffy and Willow. Xander might only be able to learn the hard way, but the Buffyverse is more than ready to roll out the demerits.

And Xander does learn. In the fantastic Season Three episode, “The Zeppo,” we get to see the world through Xander’s eyes, the eyes of the one decidedly “ordinary” member of the Buffyverse crew. While Buffy, Willow, Giles, and Angel all face off against an earth-shattering crisis, Xander goes on a personal journey of self-discovery in his uncle’s souped-up car. Throughout this odyssey, he is emasculated in every sense, having his life threatened by a cluster of zombies and his virginity taken away by an uncaring Faith. As much as high school Xander aspires to be a macho man, his aspirations are all but destroyed by the episode’s finale. He’ll never be the kind of hero his friends are. What he can do, however, is put his life on the line for them and be the one willing to make the personal sacrifice others will not: he’s everything good about impulsiveness. Plus, by the episode’s conclusion, he inadvertently saves his friends from being killed by the zombie goons’ scheme to blow up the school using a homemade bomb.

Looking at adult Xander as compared to high school Xander, the difference is truly jarring. While Xander suffers from somewhat of an inferiority complex during his first year out from high school, he finds a new source of motivation and responsibility in Anya, the former demon with whom he forges a relationship. While they initially have difficulties communicating – with both of them viewing their relationship in a wholly sexual light – they eventually forge one of the healthiest relationships in the entire Buffyverse. In Season Five, after accidentally becoming the thrall of Dracula, no less, Xander determines to no longer be anyone’s “butt monkey.” One more character-centric episode and Xander begins to demonstrate his true potential, not only in the workforce as the leader of a construction site but also in the team as a reliable source of muscle and as, most shocking of all, an emotional confidant. In one of the best turns in his entire character arc, Xander transforms from the most emotionally needy and insecure character in the entire series to the most emotionally considerate and articulate member of the team (with perhaps the exception of Tara, but even that’s debatable). He provides so much stable ground for Anya, Buffy, Willow, and Dawn that it’s truly remarkable.

Yet Xander isn’t able to purge all of his demons. Despite proposing to Anya in Season Five, Xander begins to have worries about his marriage in Season Six. Interference from the demonic Stewart Burns compounds pre-existing fears such that he leaves Anya at the altar. While I cannot condone Xander’s inability to properly communicate these fears to Anya (granted, this is somewhat of a Herculean task given Anya’s difficulty with understanding complex human emotions), the origins of his fears are well-grounded. Xander is terrified of becoming a low-life, neglectful, borderline abusive father just like his own; given his current career, his lasting inferiority complex, and his extremely dangerous lifestyle, marriage with Anya could very well have proved harmful if done straightaway. It is the horrifying hypothetical grounding Xander’s fears that make his choice to leave Anya behind a heartbreaking one grounded in a understandable heroic flaw rather than a plot contrivance.

Xander’s separation from Anya also sets the stage for his greatest act of heroism in the series to play out in full: his saving Dark Willow from herself, and, through this, the entire world. In the fallout of Xander’s broken wedding, he very nearly gives into his rage by trying to kill Spike, after the vampire both has sex with Xander's former fiancée and very nearly rapes Buffy. Xander soon realizes, however, that these destructive impulses are what produce miscommunication and distrust towards him: it's that lack of trust that would turn him into a bastard like his father. The only way he can become truly whole is to love his friends – especially his best friend, Willow, and his love interest, Anya – selflessly. And love Xander does: despite Dark Willow’s tearing his face open and very nearly collapsing his lungs, he walks through her magical attacks to give Willow the support she desperately needs. This moment is the peak of Xander’s character arc and is quite possibly my favorite moment in all of Season Six… and that’s including all of “Once More, with Feeling.”

Xander is the beating heart of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, both the series and the character, a heart that has more than its fair share of foibles but also far too many merits to count. High school Xander might be jealous, often sexist, and needlessly cruel, but his ability to overcome these faults makes him one of the most admirable characters in the entire series. Xander might not present a revolutionary new model of masculinity and sexuality, but he does represent the best of what most ordinary people can become (though, humorously enough for someone who is a demon magnet throughout the series, Xander is apparently one of the best lovers in the series… according to Anya, at least). Xander’s high school transgressions really are the only thing holding him back on this list, as, otherwise, he’s about as much of a role model as one can get on this series.

    

Villain: Illyria (Angel Season 5)

Illyria holds a truly unique place in the Buffyverse as the only out and out anti-villain featured in the series. She’s definitely not an anti-hero: not only do her intentions never sync up with those of our heroes, but she also serves as a wolf within the ranks of Angel Investigations that no one trusts. Moreover, Illyria’s unique breed of evil derives from the kind of monster she is: a Lovecraftian horror whose powers are beyond comprehension. She’s far older and more powerful than any other villain in the entire Buffyverse. Much like Anya, Illyria must learn how to cope within a limited existence, yet, unlike Anya, her inhumanity and villainy holds true; she’s a monster trapped within a human body, not a monster learning to be human. She introduces an entirely new type of antagonist into the Buffyverse, one whose evil hides behind blue hair and a frozen stare.

As far as villainous introductions are concerned, Illyria’s got pretty much every other candidate on this list beat: it’s kind of hard to top slowly and brutally burning one of our most beloved character’s soul into nothingness and then possessing her corpse. While we might ascribe the death of Fred to those who permitted it to take place – Gunn, Knox, Dr. Sparrow – the blame is rightly laid at Illyria the Merciless. In her first appearance, Illyria tries to track down her ancient army of warriors in order to conquer the entire planet, taking down every single member of Angel Investigations as if they were mere dust mites. It’s only when she realizes that her entire army has been destroyed in her absence that she puts an end to her spree and submits to Angel Investigations, though, even here, she only agrees to assist them on account of possessing many of Fred’s memories. She might be willing to help them, but she is in no way accountable to them or empathetic. As far as Illyria is concerned, all human affairs – even those involving the fate of the planet – are insignificant compared to her.

Given Illyria’s powers and scope, those feelings are justified. Illyria might be absurdly strong, but her greatest power is her ability to manipulate time. She’s able to slow it down, time shift her body in order to predict the future and affect the past, and even experience multiple timelines at once. She claims to have once lived seven lives at once, and we have good reason to believe her. Existence in a singular timeline – the result of being trapped in Fred’s body – is a prison to her. When her time powers start to spiral out of control in “Time Bomb,” she very nearly destroys Angel and his team. Heck, in one alternate timeline, she does what no other villain in either series is ever able to accomplish and kills the entire main cast singlehandedly. Even in “The Wish,” the only other dystopian timeline in the Buffyverse, Giles managed to survive. Not so for the alternate timeline in “Time Bomb”: if it weren’t for Angel’s latching onto Illyria’s time stream, the demon would have wiped out the entire team in one-fell swoop.

The biggest mystery of Illyria is her place in the moral universe of Angel. On the strict terms of the character sheet, Illyria exists outside of the scale entirely. She’s a Lovecraftian horror to whom human morality is meaningless. Whenever she learns of a human moral system, she then applies it to a calculated yet absurd extreme that does not admit of the moral nuance of humanity. When she gets a taste of utilitarianism, realizing that she could make Wesley slightly happy by taking on Fred’s form, she does so, at the expense of lying to Fred’s family and utterly violating Fred’s image and memory. She does not commit these sorts of actions out of malice, but she doe not do so with Anya’s sense of innocence either. It’s clear that Illyria is a demon who is trying to figure out the rules of the game so that she can eventually win the day, one who assists Angel Investigations on the occasional mission purely because they’re the most effective stepping stone to returning her to power. Whenever they obstruct her goal, she turns on them and very nearly destroys them. The only things Illyria seems to enjoy in the entire series are wanton destruction (especially using Spike as her personal punching bag) and trying to understand Wesley’s broken psyche. She is a being beyond human morality, yet she’s so averse to the ultimate ends of the heroes that she cannot possibly be listed among their ranks.

Illyria’s best element is her relationship with Wesley. Obviously, the relationship is fraught, given that Illyria occupies the dead body of Wesley’s beloved, but he clings onto Illyria because she is the only thing left of Fred’s memory. Trying to teach her about the confines of human morality and the balefulness of living in the human world is as much of a purpose as he has left, given that pretty much everything else in his life has been taken from him: his family, his moral center, the only person he ever truly loved. Illyria, by contrast, treats Wesley as a curiosity first, a companion second. Though she does form some connection to him by the end of the series – even avenging his death and wishing to do more violence in the wake of it – these feelings only emerge because of the lingering memories of Fred within Illyria; the crying woman cradling Wesley’s body at the end of “Not Fade Away” isn’t entirely Illyria. As Wesley grapples with his conflicting emotions towards Illyria, she’s very much a rock, functioning as a metaphor for those moral struggles that cannot be surmounted. She’s the unanswerable questions of the universe, the ones in which trying to find an answer only produces more pain.

Illyria’s presence in the final few episodes of Angel are some of the most fascinating and engaging in the entire run of the series. Despite her being in a mere eight episodes, she leaves a more powerful impression than most of the Big Bads in either series. Indeed, it’s only because of her limited impact on the latter end of the series that she does not top the next entry on the list. Definitely the most underrated villain in the Buffyverse.