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https://www.instagram.com/alysonhannigan/p/DWIIzmkEdru/?hl=en

A NiceGuy™ isn't simply a guy who gets jealous or handles rejection badly. It's someone who treats kindness and friendship as transactional and feels entitled to romantic or sexual attention in return.

Xander absolutely handles rejection badly. He even admits this in "Prophecy Girl" when Buffy rejects him. He's hurt, jealous, and immature about it.

But then he still goes to help Buffy and saves her life with CPR.

He also moves on. He dates Cordelia, falls in love with Anya, has sex, gets engaged, and develops relationships completely separate from Buffy. So calling him an "incel" doesn't make much sense either.

If you really want to apply the incel comparison to Buffy characters, the Trio are much closer to it than Xander. Warren, Jonathan, and Andrew.

And when Xander dates Cordelia in season 2, it's not a case of Cordelia being this innocent girlfriend who Xander constantly treats horribly. They are both pretty awful to each other. They insult each other, embarrass each other, and spend half the relationship acting like they're ashamed to even be dating. Xander absolutely deserves criticism for how he treats Cordelia at times, but Cordelia gives it right back. Their whole relationship is built around them being equally mean and dysfunctional with each other.

You can criticize Xander for jealousy, sexism, hypocrisy, the love spell, the "kick his ass" lie, cheating on Cordelia with Willow, or leaving Anya at the altar and getting mad at Anya sleeping with Spike.

Those are actual flaws and reasons to hate his character.

But an incel or NiceGuy™ is what Xander is not. He's an insecure and immature guy who doesn't always handle his emotions well who admits that. That doesn't automatically make him either of those things.

I'm interested to hear people's thoughts on this statement. It's really heartfelt, and I think it captures Nicholas' complexity and how confusing that can be for his community, especially in grief. There are parts here though where I'm not entirely sure what Adam is saying, but that's okay too.

here are people you work with
and then there are people you share time with

Nick was the latter

Some moments stay small on paper
a laugh between takes
a look that says we got this
the quiet understanding of showing up
and doing the work together

But those are the things that last

He carried something real
not perfect
not polished
just real

And in this business
that matters more than most things

We don’t always get to choose
how long someone stays in the story
only that they were here

And he was …Rest easy Brother

Some people leave a mark without trying

This is such a lovely article about Nicky. It brought me fresh tears.

As sad as it is for so many, it must be extra hard for him right now. To lose your twin brother.

https://www.instagram.com/stories/emmacaulfieldofficial/3857416284350895457/?hl=en

Xander generally handled the fact that he was literally the only member of the group without supernatural abilities quite well for the vast majority of the time. I know he's generally hated for his misogynistic attitude and silly jokes, but in my latest rewatch of the series, it struck me that he's underrated for that reason. I don't think many people would handle being generally useless as well, and they certainly wouldn't fight as bravely alongside the other heroes as he did. Therefore, I'm not afraid to say out loud: justice for Xander!

Also, "Willow, gay me up" lol

I’m heartbroken to hear about Nicholas Brendon, and I kind of want to celebrate the moments where Xander was important to us right now. What were your favourite Xander moments in Buffy? For me, my mind immediately went to his “Yellow Crayon” speech with Willow.

Curious because as someone born in 02’ and I didn’t watch it until my late teens, nothing about me found Xander very attractive 🤷🏻‍♀️ But I wonder if I would have thought differently if I were born in the 80’s-90’s

I mean look at him bro he’s not quite the brick he is by season 4 yet but he’s still in very good shape and fights vampires man. Not really a critique or anything I just think it’s funny how we see this tall very athletically built man who fights the forces of darkness being thrown around by bullies.

Seriously what is up with the Xander hate. Everyone I know who’s seen the show have always told me he sucks cause he’s a stand-in for Whedon, but now rewatching the show after such a long time, he’s really not that bad at all. He’s funny and works both as an audience surrogate and as a protagonist in his own right. The big emotional moments always work like his speech to Dawn or his speech to Willow, has some really good lines and great Xander centric episodes as well, like the one where everybody falls in love with him or the one with the bomb.

It’s like someone decided long ago that he’s a bad character and that has become the law now. I disagree

I guess you can say that this is Xander prodding in a snarky way that’s meant to judge the guy for being so insecure that he will admit to wanting to beat up Tara, but I still find it funny that’s another attribute comment. I think he also said something about Angel at some point. It’s kind of hilarious.

“He’s absolutely sickening, we should’ve done away with him”

“And after he’s dusted, he’ll be remembered for his great skin” 😭

I'm genuinely curious. It seems like every discussion nowadays is about how much Xander sucks and how much his character has aged. But was it like that back then too? Did Buffy fans 20+ years ago also hate Xander and called him a jerk, a mysoginist etc?

I'm not trying to defend his character, I like him well enough, but he's not really one of my favourites and he is definitely very flawed. I'm just curious if the seemingly common opinion about Xander being crap is coming from modern fans or is it something that was already very prevalent back then.

Xander can be super polarizing, but if nothing else he was a teenage boy who found out his bully was gay and kept his mouth shut. He never threatened or outed Larry to anyone. That's excellent writing and probably would've gone a different way on another show.

I will never understand why Xander is still treated like one of the most controversial characters on Buffy. I’m not saying he never did anything wrong, because obviously he did, but at this point hating Xander feels like one of those easy topics that you know will get you positive karma on reddit.

Even the stuff people constantly bring up gets stripped of any context or character growth. He threw Angel in Buffy’s face with the whole “you only like dead guys” insult, realized he crossed a line and apologized to her.

And honestly, while Xander's jealousy obviously played a part in how he treated Angel, I don't understand why his dislike of Angel is treated like it was completely irrational. Angel knew who Buffy was and fell in love with her when she was 15 years old at Hemery, before Buffy even knew he existed. By the time they actually get together she's 16 and Angel presents as a man in his mid-20s. If this were real life, we'd call that predatory behavior. No logical person should be thrilled about their 16 year old best friend dating a 25 year old man, let alone one who had already been watching her before she met him.

He cheated on Cordelia with Willow, which was absolutely wrong, but people act like that one mistake defines their entire relationship. In season 3, when he finds out Cordelia’s family lost everything, he keeps the fact that she's poor and working at the dress shop a secret so she can maintain her image at school. Then he secretly pays for the prom dress she couldn't afford. They weren’t even together anymore at that point.

And yes, leaving Anya at the altar was horrible. But I have a hard time holding that against Xander as a character because I blame a lot of that on the shoddy writing choices of season 6. I genuinely don’t believe Xander and Anya would have been broken up if Whedon had continued running the show day-to-day. They always felt like they were being built toward endgame, especially when Xander proposes to Anya in The Gift right before they go into what could literally be their final battle.

And no, I don't consider the comics canon. I know Xander eventually ends up with Dawn, they get married and have a daughter, but I just cannot see that ever happening if the show had continued. Xander ending up with Buffy's little sister feels so disconnected from the relationship dynamics the actual TV series spent three seasons (Season 5-7) establishing that I don't factor it into how I view his character at all.

I also don't understand this idea that because Xander is one of the good guys, he's somehow not allowed to be flawed. Xander is insecure, jealous and sometimes says really shitty things. So do basically all of the Scoobies. Willow, Buffy and Giles have all done things that are much worse than Xander being an immature asshole sometimes.

That's part of why I like these characters. They're flawed people who screw up, hurt each other, apologize and grow. I just don't understand why Xander's worst moments seem to permanently define him in fandom discussions while his apologies, good moments and actual growth are treated like they don't count.