Spoiler! What could be behind the decision to make Xander a villain?

That's part of it, to be sure. Remember, Xander hasn't been useful as a character since, like Season 3? You aren't doing a Willow Romance with him, you probably aren't doing a Buffy romance. I forget, does Cordie make an impact on the Boom run? However, the franchise dabbled in turned characters, but never really went there, so it's a good tangent to go off on.
 
Xander was a villain? I'll admit, I stopped reading shortly after I realized the series was NOT going to match the genius that was the show. I remember that he was turned, but then I thought they did a soul tethering spell between him and willow? I think it was around the halloween issue where Buffy went to the hellmouth, apparently enough for the slayer line to call Kendra, that I stopped reading. Because that made zero sense.

How did he become a villain?
 
I do first want to say that putting spoiler in the title serves no purpose if the spoiler is in the title as well. Something like "Spoiler: Why did BOOM take Xander in the direction they did?" works just as well as a title and doesn't spoil anything.

And yeah, you have to do something with him. In this reboot Willow is lesbian from the beginning so no romance there, Buffy/Xander is never going to happen except in fanfic, and the other two slayers (Kendra and Faith) aren't interested.

But the BOOM comics are poorly written and nothing flows smoothly. I gave up on them.
 
danzalthar
danzalthar
You're right, I'm sorry! Dumb move.

I liked "The Vampire Slayer" series a lot better.
Because to the modern generation of Buffy fans Xander is often viewed as a quasi-villainous entitled 'nice guy' who is just jealous of Buffy's hot vampire boyfriends and urgh just, Xander. Is. The. Worst.

So...the writers go ahead and make him actually villainous, turn him into a vampire and have him just come out and say the stuff that these fans imagine that he's thinking to Buffy's face, that little incel.

That solves the problem of 'what to do about Xander' and makes him dangerous, a more tragic character...maybe sexier? I dunno, but its the obvious solve to get around some current audience attitudes.

Also, more charitably, it should make good character drama for all Xander's friends and be suitably shocking/dramatic way to lead to different stories.
 
Cohen said:
Xander was a villain? I'll admit, I stopped reading shortly after I realized the series was NOT going to match the genius that was the show. I remember that he was turned, but then I thought they did a soul tethering spell between him and willow? I think it was around the halloween issue where Buffy went to the hellmouth, apparently enough for the slayer line to call Kendra, that I stopped reading. Because that made zero sense.

How did he become a villain?
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He became a vampire and was like Drusilla’s love interest if I remember right. Sort of like a mix of Angelus and Spike. A better comparison I guess would be Frey’s brother, if you’re familiar with that character.

The whole soul tethering thing was handled in the Willow miniseries, which I remember not hating.
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Kendar said:
And yeah, you have to do something with him. In this reboot Willow is lesbian from the beginning so no romance there
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That was the dumbest thing. I actually like just saying “okay, let’s make Willow a lesbian from jump, why not” because most everyone remembers that stuff fondly and it was a big win for the show at the time (and has aged well, in my opinion).

But they completely blew it by having her be a lesbian from the beginning with some nobody named Rose that they hardly even try to establish. And then before really ANY character work can be done with Rose, Willow acts like a brutish ogre (complimented well by the atrocious artwork) and they break up.

It’s just like that pathetic Picard show, where the writers maybe watched 2-3 episodes of the source material and got bored, so they just wrote whatever details they could be bothered to remember about the characters without actually fleshing them out.
 
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Hmm
A, what could be behind the decision to make Xander a villain and
B, do I care
no!
although it might make his character worth watching as many actors have stated portraying a baddy will make them work better.
 
Plasma said:
He became a vampire and was like Drusilla’s love interest if I remember right. Sort of like a mix of Angelus and Spike. A better comparison I guess would be Frey’s brother, if you’re familiar with that character.
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That is... an interesting plot. I remember Frey's brother being turned and he ended up being a major antagonist for Buffy season 12 to bring Frey back full circle. But shackin up Drusilla and Xander? These writers took that small plotline in Bewitched, Bothered & Bewildered WAY too far. lol
Plasma said:
It’s just like that pathetic Picard show, where the writers maybe watched 2-3 episodes of the source material and got bored, so they just wrote whatever details they could be bothered to remember about the characters without actually fleshing them out.
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This is exactly how I felt about the Boom! Series and why I stopped reading. At first, I was like "oh, this could be interesting" when they brough Dru and Spike in immediately. But then it quickly went sideways. Even at first, turning Xander was interesting, but I think they were trying to do too much change too quickly, and it just didn't hit. Then, to get 2/3 slayers at once, they made "entering the hellmouth" akin enough to "death" to awaken Kendra, and then Faith. And it was too much. I only read synopses after Buffy entered the Hellmouth. I didn't even finish reading that arc. It was just bad.
 
Cohen said:
This is exactly how I felt about the Boom! Series and why I stopped reading. At first, I was like "oh, this could be interesting" when they brough Dru and Spike in immediately. But then it quickly went sideways. Even at first, turning Xander was interesting, but I think they were trying to do too much change too quickly, and it just didn't hit.
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This is exactly the problem with Anya in the book. Like Anya only got popular when she ran the magic box, so now she just…runs a magic box esque place and is more or less her S5-onwards character, as opposed to the build up of 3 & 4. From jump. Like, issue 1.

They had 0 patience or idea of building things up. Characters come in and are just “there”, despite being horribly underutilized or never really properly expanded upon.

Cohen said:
Then, to get 2/3 slayers at once, they made "entering the hellmouth" akin enough to "death" to awaken Kendra, and then Faith. And it was too much. I only read synopses after Buffy entered the Hellmouth. I didn't even finish reading that arc. It was just bad.
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I think the universal consensus is that Hellmouth was a high point and then everything kind of nosedived.
 
I think it is also that - Xander had very little purpose in the group. In the show he provides jokes and heartfelt speeches, but his longevity in the series kind of comes down to the cast chemistry more than the character itself.

I’m reading one of the Buffyverse novels right now, and as in most of them - once we are away from the screen - Xander is pretty useless. His character doesn’t translate well to plain text, and writers mainly use him to have him mess up and create a problem the others have to fix.

In the new comics they had to do something with Xander to justify keeping the character around. Having him go bad was a good idea, even if the execution of the Boom comics was somewhere between meh and terrible
 
Cohen
Cohen
Do you remember which novel you read when you wrote this?
Taake said:
I think it is also that - Xander had very little purpose in the group. In the show he provides jokes and heartfelt speeches, but his longevity in the series kind of comes down to the cast chemistry more than the character itself.

I’m reading one of the Buffyverse novels right now, and as in most of them - once we are away from the screen - Xander is pretty useless. His character doesn’t translate well to plain text, and writers mainly use him to have him mess up and create a problem the others have to fix.

In the new comics they had to do something with Xander to justify keeping the character around. Having him go bad was a good idea, even if the execution of the Boom comics was somewhere between meh and terrible
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except having him go bad is the opposite of keeping him around?
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Cohen said:
This is exactly how I felt about the Boom! Series and why I stopped reading. At first, I was like "oh, this could be interesting" when they brough Dru and Spike in immediately. But then it quickly went sideways. Even at first, turning Xander was interesting, but I think they were trying to do too much change too quickly, and it just didn't hit. Then, to get 2/3 slayers at once, they made "entering the hellmouth" akin enough to "death" to awaken Kendra, and then Faith. And it was too much. I only read synopses after Buffy entered the Hellmouth. I didn't even finish reading that arc. It was just bad.
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I'm thinking about doing a fanfic thing and I feel like it could work for a reboot where both "one dies, the next is called" and the "in every generation there is a chosen one" thing is true. Where if any Slayer lasts a full generation(18 to 20 years?) her replacement is called, but she is still subject to the replacement on death thing, so that when she dies she'll also get a replacement that way.

The Slayer has existed since time immemorial. With the calling of Buffy Summers after her predecessor lasted a generation, there are now five Slayers in existence
 
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Taake said:
I think it is also that - Xander had very little purpose in the group. In the show he provides jokes and heartfelt speeches, but his longevity in the series kind of comes down to the cast chemistry more than the character itself.
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Which is interesting, given that without Xander in the series, Buffy does not make it past S1. And that is just to start with.
 
garfan said:
except having him go bad is the opposite of keeping him around?
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Well, he was still in the story. Just not with the gang. Also as far as I recall Willow gave up part of her soul for him, so he was kept around
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NotASlayer said:
Which is interesting, given that without Xander in the series, Buffy does not make it past S1. And that is just to start with.
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Sure, but he is a background character that occasionally emerges to do something important. Works on screen, but he’d have to be more mysterious and engaging than that in a comic book
 
Well, that just makes him Yamcha. He was really important in Dragon Ball, but is now a pop culture joke.
 
Buffy was famous for being a feminist show in the beginning and so, any male character had to be a problem child of one form or another. At the time Buffy was written, men didn't have problems, they were the problem. I can't say anything has changed. We have now had five decades of denigration of men in popular culture. The comics just continued the slander.
 
Taake said:
I think it is also that - Xander had very little purpose in the group. In the show he provides jokes and heartfelt speeches, but his longevity in the series kind of comes down to the cast chemistry more than the character itself.
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In the high school years, Xander is helpful as part of the Scooby Gang, but I'd argue the role he plays in the later seasons of the show is being a supportive friend to Buffy.
 
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