watcher1006
30-09-08, 08:25 PM
We can discuss the possibility or impossibility of a Buffy-Xander ship, and the merit or undesirability of such, but I wanted to start by asking the question in the title. I mean, did he?
My answer is that he never did, at least not completely. He was taken by her at first sight in "Welcome To The Hellmouth", wanted to but never got to the point of asking her out through all of Season 1, and then finally did ask her out in "Prophecy Girl" and got turned down. Along with all the complexities in their story afterwards there was the process of Xander reconciling himself to being a best friend to Buffy and not her boyfriend. Certainly the long shadow of Buffy was present in his relationship with Cordelia. Cordelia's line in "Innocence": "...You were too busy rushing off to die for your beloved Buffy. You'd never die for me." Two episodes later, "Bewitched, Bothered, And Bewildered" he says to (bewitched) Buffy: "It's not that I don't want to. Sometimes the remote impossible possibility that you might like me was all that sustained me. But not now. (trips and falls....Not like this. This isn't real to you.....You're only here because of a spell....I mean, if I thought you had one clue what it would mean to me....But you don't. So I can't" which says to me that in his heart he still desired Buffy, even while hurting from his breakup with Cordelia and trying to get even with her.
Buffy, for her part in the rest of the series knows how Xander feels (or felt) about her and is okay with it. There's the exchange between her and Xander in S6 "Hell's Bells" where she's helping him get ready for his wedding:
Buffy: You're one of the decent ones, Xander. I hope I'm as lucky as you guys someday.
Xander: You wanna get lucky? I've still got, what, fifteen, twenty minutes?
At that point they could joke about marrying to each other even though any serious romantic possibility had long since been set aside.
While Buffy's shadow wasn't so blatently present in his relationship with Anya as it was in the case of Cordelia, I feel it was always there in some vague form or another.
A few episodes after "Hell's Bells" there was the scene in "Entropy" outside the Magic Box with Xander, Spike, Anya, and Buffy where an enraged Xander has just tried to stake Spike for having had sex with Anya when he finds out that Buffy had sex with him as well. Xander had long since accepted the idea of he himself having sex with Buffy as impossible, and the outrage of learning Spike had done it is too much for him.
So I don't think he ever entirely gave up his romantic desire for Buffy but the fact that she could not return it did not stop him from being her friend. At the end of S3 "Graduation Day Pt. II" when they are walking together amid the wreckage of the high school he senses that Buffy is looking for Angel, and despite his hatred/jealousy towards Angel tells her in his reassuring way that he made it through the fight. In S5 "Into The Woods" he does his best to persuade Buffy not to let Riley go, and finally gets through to her, although it's too late.
I think that Xander being a loyal friend to Buffy whom he wished could love him romantically but who never would is just one of the memorable human stories (among many) of the show.
My answer is that he never did, at least not completely. He was taken by her at first sight in "Welcome To The Hellmouth", wanted to but never got to the point of asking her out through all of Season 1, and then finally did ask her out in "Prophecy Girl" and got turned down. Along with all the complexities in their story afterwards there was the process of Xander reconciling himself to being a best friend to Buffy and not her boyfriend. Certainly the long shadow of Buffy was present in his relationship with Cordelia. Cordelia's line in "Innocence": "...You were too busy rushing off to die for your beloved Buffy. You'd never die for me." Two episodes later, "Bewitched, Bothered, And Bewildered" he says to (bewitched) Buffy: "It's not that I don't want to. Sometimes the remote impossible possibility that you might like me was all that sustained me. But not now. (trips and falls....Not like this. This isn't real to you.....You're only here because of a spell....I mean, if I thought you had one clue what it would mean to me....But you don't. So I can't" which says to me that in his heart he still desired Buffy, even while hurting from his breakup with Cordelia and trying to get even with her.
Buffy, for her part in the rest of the series knows how Xander feels (or felt) about her and is okay with it. There's the exchange between her and Xander in S6 "Hell's Bells" where she's helping him get ready for his wedding:
Buffy: You're one of the decent ones, Xander. I hope I'm as lucky as you guys someday.
Xander: You wanna get lucky? I've still got, what, fifteen, twenty minutes?
At that point they could joke about marrying to each other even though any serious romantic possibility had long since been set aside.
While Buffy's shadow wasn't so blatently present in his relationship with Anya as it was in the case of Cordelia, I feel it was always there in some vague form or another.
A few episodes after "Hell's Bells" there was the scene in "Entropy" outside the Magic Box with Xander, Spike, Anya, and Buffy where an enraged Xander has just tried to stake Spike for having had sex with Anya when he finds out that Buffy had sex with him as well. Xander had long since accepted the idea of he himself having sex with Buffy as impossible, and the outrage of learning Spike had done it is too much for him.
So I don't think he ever entirely gave up his romantic desire for Buffy but the fact that she could not return it did not stop him from being her friend. At the end of S3 "Graduation Day Pt. II" when they are walking together amid the wreckage of the high school he senses that Buffy is looking for Angel, and despite his hatred/jealousy towards Angel tells her in his reassuring way that he made it through the fight. In S5 "Into The Woods" he does his best to persuade Buffy not to let Riley go, and finally gets through to her, although it's too late.
I think that Xander being a loyal friend to Buffy whom he wished could love him romantically but who never would is just one of the memorable human stories (among many) of the show.