Xander Harris
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Xander redirects here. For the Drawn Together character, see Xandir.
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Alexander "Xander" LaVelle Harris (born 1981 in Sunnydale, California) is a fictional character in the cult television program Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The character is portrayed by Nicholas Brendon, whose twin brother Kelly Donovan appeared as his occasional double.
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[edit] Biography
[edit] Character history
Alexander LaVelle Harris was born to Anthony and Jessica Harris. According to Xander, his dad once tried to sell him to some Armenians. Tony was a self-pitying drunk who first appeared in a nightmare sequence in Season Four's "Restless"; he tore out his son's heart. Jessica is a fragile mess without a stove; her culinary repertoire includes a "famous phone call to the Chinese place." Xander's uncle Rory is an alcoholic taxidermist.
His best friend Willow Rosenberg broke up with Xander over a stolen Barbie when they were 5. At his 6th birthday party, which Willow attended, his parents hired a clown who chased him and gave him a lifelong phobia of clowns. He faced it in Season One's "Nightmares". When he did not get a toy firetruck for his 7th birthday, the house next door caught fire. He saw real firetrucks then and thinks he had Willow to thank.
Every Christmas, Xander sleeps outside to avoid his family's drunken arguments. Neither parent is happy with their marriage, but they have stayed together for decades. When he was 13, Xander attended Willow's bat mitzvah, where his parents drank to excess. Throughout the series, Xander's family was said to be unreliable, even abusive and the main source of his insecurities. They finally appeared at Xander and Anya's aborted wedding in Season 6's "Hell's Bells".
In 1997, Xander meets Buffy Summers on her first day at Sunnydale High. He overhears her bizarre conversation with Rupert Giles in the library and loses his male best friend Jesse McNally to vampires in "The Harvest". Xander takes the stand that "vampires are bad" and is forced to stake Jesse the following night. He becomes a wisecracking sidekick of the Scooby Gang, often annoying those around him, including Angel ("Enemies") and the more uptight Giles. Despite his insecurities, Xander proves to be loyal, courageous, and endowed with a high degree of emotional intelligence. In the season one finale ("Prophecy Girl"), he revives a drowned Buffy, allowing her to defeat The Master. In the 2nd Season, Xander's military knowledge enables Buffy to defeat the Judge, a supposedly invulnerable demon, in "Innocence". In the Season Three finale ("Graduation Day, Part Two"), he leads Sunnydale High's students against Mayor and his vampires. In Season 4's "Primeval", Xander gives Buffy his "heart" in the spell that defeats Adam. In Season 6's conclusion ("Grave"), Xander's love for his childhood friend Willow turns her around and saves the world.
Xander develops a crush on Buffy quickly, but it is not reciprocated. He gradually begins a turbulent and ambiguous relationship with Cordelia Chase after they are thrown together in several life-or-death situations, though he had been the treasurer of the "We Hate Cordelia" club. Being seen with Xander costs Cordelia her position among Sunnydale High's fashionable clique, and she dumps him on Valentine's Day. Xander retaliates by coercing Amy Madison to cast a love spell, which misfires: for a few hours, until the spell is broken, Xander finds himself irresistible to every girl, woman and female vampire in sight – except Cordelia, who, realizing how much Xander cares for her reunites with him in defiance of her former friends ("Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered"). Season Three sees him revive an interest in best friend Willow and a kiss that leads to Cordelia's near-fatal injury ("Lovers Walk") and Anyanka's arrival ("The Wish"). He is used by Faith one night ("The Zeppo") and loses his virginity to her. Later he is asked to the Prom by the newly-human Anya.
After graduating from high school, Xander chooses not to enroll in college. He sets upon a cross-country trip inspired by Jack Kerouac's On the Road that ends when his car breaks down. He spends most of that summer working as a dishwasher in a male strip club to pay for a new car. One night, when a dancer was sick, Xander reluctantly takes to the stage. He returns to Sunnydale and moves into his parents' basement, for which he has to pay rent. In the fourth season, he takes a series of odd jobs as a food vendor, a bartender, a phone-sex operator and a delivery man. Xander eventually pursues a more stable career in carpentry and construction work. He moves into his own apartment with Anya, where he stays until the end.
He falls in love with Anya in Season Four after much persuasion, and proposes to her before the end of Season Five. His doubts about their future together cause him to leave her at the altar a year later. They still love each other, however, when his left eye is gouged out by Caleb, a preacher for The First Evil in Season Seven. His love does not survive the finale because Anya is killed by a Bringer's sword, and her body remains in the new Sunnydale High's ruins as the empty town is swallowed by the earth. Andrew, whom she had fought alongside, comforts Xander by saying that Anya had died saving his life. The last time Xander is referenced on television (in the Angel episode "Damage") he is in Africa, rounding up potential Slayers for Buffy. More recently, he is featured in the post-Sunnydale story "Antique" in the Tales of the Vampires comic line, apparently having spent some time under the thrall of Dracula again, as his manservant. He is summarily rescued by Buffy and two new Scythe-Awakened Slayers.
[edit] Powers & Abilities
Xander represents the importance of everyday humans in the struggle against evil; he has proven that even an “average” person can make a difference and save the world. He possesses no special powers or abilities, but he gains much experience from battling by Buffy’s side. As Buffy explains to the Watchers' Council, Xander has clocked more field time than all of the Watchers combined ("Checkpoint"). His powers of persuasion and empathy are often his most useful assets. For example, he saves the world from Evil Willow using only his words ("Grave"). He also recognizes that Buffy and Riley are "imploding" and forces Buffy to face the role that she played in the failed relationship ("Into the Woods").
While possessed by a hyena spirit (in "The Pack", Season 1), Xander exhibits enhanced strength and heightened senses, as well as a taste for fresh, raw meat and a lack of social inhibitions.
Xander is briefly transformed into a soldier on Halloween night (Season 2), and thereby acquires military training and weapons knowledge. His abilities fade, but do not disappear completely, over the next few years.
Xander was once hit by a bolt from the Ferula-Gemina which split his personality into two different beings ("The Replacement", Season 5).
He is something of an expert on pop culture. On one occasion ("Seeing Red", Season 6), Xander shows that he can read Klingon. In Season 7 he often demonstrates pop culture knowledge rivaling that of Andrew Wells.
Xander becomes a skilled carpenter by the end of the series, gaining practical job experience from repairing damage caused by various combats involving the Scooby Gang and as a foreman of a construction crew. He was first promoted to this position in "The Replacement", Season 5. Spike at one point referred to him mockingly as 'a glorified bricklayer'.
In season 7 both Xander and the evil priest Caleb make reference to Xander being "the one that sees everything" in that he sees his friends flaws and strengths more clearly than anyone else, simply because no one is looking at him, even going so far as Dawn saying that this perhaps is his super power. This human (non supernatural) strength - his insight, empathy and understanding is what prompts Caleb to take Xander's eye, also knowing it would anger Buffy.
[edit] Romantic Relationships
- Buffy Summers: Seeing her on her first day at Sunnydale High caused Xander to crash into a railing, literally falling head over heels. She sees him only as a friend, and over time, they have become surrogate siblings (The only excepton to this was in the episode "Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered", see below).
- Miss Natalie French: The real teacher was born in 1907 and taught for a few decades. Her name was stolen by a demonic she-mantis whose pheromones attracted many of Sunnydale's males. She drugged Xander's drink at her house and intended to mate with him before beheading him. Buffy managed to stop her and save Xander in time.
- Ampata: The Incan mummy girl wanted to live a life she never had the chance to, but her love with Xander was short-lived when she attempted to kiss him (and thus draining him of life to continue her own).
- Every Woman in Sunnydale: When Amy performed the magic spell to make Cordelia fall madly in love with Xander just so he could break up with her and hurt her, it backfired and made every woman in Sunnydale except Cordelia fall in love with the "irresistible" Xander Harris.
- Cordelia Chase: Cordelia and Xander meet as children and are antagonistic from the beginning. Their romantic relationship in high school faces several obstacles, including peer pressure from Cordelia's clique (she is ostracized from her social circle), Cordelia's self-involved and insensitive manner, and Xander's unresolved attraction to Willow, Buffy, and Faith. When Cordelia discovers Xander and Willow kissing in the basement of an abandoned factory (where they are being held prisoner), she ends their relationship for good. By the end of the 3rd Season, they have settled into a hesitant friendship (for example, Xander buys her a prom dress after he discovers that her family has lost its wealth). After graduation, their lives take different paths; he remains in Sunnydale and fights evil with Buffy, and she moves to L.A. to become an actress (See Angel) and "helps the helpless" with Angel.
- Willow Rosenberg: After a brief romantic involvement in elementary school, Xander and Willow are best friends for years. Xander shares a moment of tenderness with Willow during the boring summer of 1997, which is ended by Buffy's return. Later, in the show's 3rd Season, Xander and Willow began a secret romance while he was dating Cordelia and she was dating Oz. This ends when Cordelia and Oz rescue Xander and Willow, who have been kidnapped by Spike, and discover them kissing.
- Faith Lehane: Some weeks after his relationship with Cordelia dissolved, Xander found himself helping vampire slayer Faith fight a demon one night (Season 3, episode 13, "The Zeppo"). After the battle an adrenaline-fueled Faith took Xander back to her apartment and had sex with him. This was Xander's first sexual encounter. Weeks later, after Faith had gone rogue and killed a man, Xander confronted her about her actions. She began simulating rough sex and then started to strangle him before being interrupted.
- Anya Jenkins.
- Nancy: After being fustrated with his own relationship problems with Anya and others in the past, Xander luckily runs into Nancy and, along with the gang, protects her from a giant worm-like demon that was specifically attacking her. Xander walks her home, and both new at dating, they awkwardly ask each other out. However, after finding out the demon is Nancy's ex-boyfriend who was turned into the worm-like creature by Xander's own ex-fiancee, Anya, the two never date.
- Lissa: Approximately a year after his breakup with Anya, Xander takes another dip in the dating pool, and impulsively asks out Lissa, a beautiful woman he meets at a hardware store. Their date goes well until Lissa ties Xander to a torture wheel, reveals herself to be a demon, and cheerfully prepares to use Xander as a human sacrifice. Xander, before being rescued, ponders what causes him to keep getting involved with female demons.
[edit] Appearances
Xander has appeared in:
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer
- Xander was a series regular for all seven seasons, appearing in 143 of 144 episodes. He did not appear in "Conversations with Dead People".
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Slayer - A novel-length fan-fiction series featuring Faith, Spike, Xander, Dawn and a companion series of Angel.
- I Need A Parrot - The Xander Zone of the Buffy the Vampire Slayers Fan Fiction Writers' Guild
- Saifai.co.uk :: BtVS :: Xander - Actor and character profile for Xander Harris and his counterpart Nicholas Brendon including biography and photograph gallery
- Buffyverse Dialogue DB - Character profile for Xander Harris including his main story arcs and a detailed list of episodes and script lineses:Xander Harris
