Xander Harris

Alexander ("Xander") LaVelle Harris is a fictional character in the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. He is a friend and helper of the title character. One of his remarkable qualities is that, unlike most of the series's regular characters, he has no supernatural powers or special training of any kind. The character is portrayed by actor Nicholas Brendon.

Xander's main role on the series is to provide comic relief. He resorts to sarcastic comments and sophomoric humor to relieve tension, a characteristic that often annoys those around him (especially Rupert Giles). In this respect, Xander provides a dose of realism to the series, as people do tend to use humor to handle stress. Another comic aspect of Xander is his tendency to poke fun at himself, revealing a low self-esteem. Xander's insecurity and immaturity not only reflect the common stereotype of the teenage boy, they also served to strengthen the Buffy character in the first few seasons by making her appear more mature and capable. In the second season Halloween episode, Xander is mystically transformed into a soldier, and afterwards retains much of his military knowledge and many of his martial skills. This event was pivotal towards increasing Xander's value to the Scooby Gang, and the resulting upgrade to his low self-esteem.

Despite Xander's low self-esteem and sarcastic personality, he proves time and again to be a loyal supporter of his friends and a courageous member of the gang. In fact, on several occasions his caregiving and compassion are key to averting apocalypse. For instance, at the end of season one in the episode "Prophecy Girl" it is Xander who revives a drowned Buffy, allowing her to defeat The Master. In season two, Xander's military knowledge and planning enables Buffy to defeat the Judge, a supposedly invulnerable demon. In season three's "Graduation Day" he leads the attack by Sunnydale High's students on the Mayor's vampires. In season four's "Primeval", when the gang imbues Buffy with their strengths so that she can defeat Adam, Xander gives her his "heart". And at the end of season six it is Xander's love of his friend Willow that thwarts her plan to destroy the world. Near the end of season seven, Xander was blinded in his left eye by Caleb, an agent of The First Evil.

Though he is reasonably good-looking, Xander tends to be unsuccessful romantically, nursing crushes on Buffy and Faith and frequently becoming involved with women who turn out to be evil. His most successful relationships were with Cordelia Chase and Anya Jenkins, both of whom are honest about their feelings to the point of rudeness.

From early on in the series, it was implied that Xander had a bad home life, with alcoholism and verbal (and possibly physical) abuse in his family. When his parents were finally shown in season six at his aborted wedding to Anya, this impression was confirmed.

Professionally, Xander has pursued a variety of odd jobs, including selling candy, bartending with fake ID, delivering pizza and operating an ice cream truck, before settling into a career as a carpenter and contractor.

Around the second season of the show it had been decided by Joss Whedon, the show's executive producer, that one of the characters was going to eventually be openly homosexual. It was determined that this would either be Xander or the character Willow; as such, personality changes were made to make each of them relatively sexually ambiguous, regardless of the gender of the characters with whom they were romantically linked. To this end, Xander confronted Larry, to find out whether the high school football player was a werewolf. In the process, Larry confessed that he was a homosexual and, much to Xander's dismay, believed that Xander was also gay. Likewise, the show's writers suggested that Willow might be a lesbian by having her discover that her alter ego in another dimension, a vampire double, seemed "kinda gay." Ultimately, however, Willow was the character chosen, although references to Xander's ambiguous sexuality continued well into the seventh and final season: when a character (confronted with the convoluted sex lives of the main characters) asks if any of the Scooby Gang have not had sex with each other, Xander and Spike exchange glances.

The character of Xander is particularly noteworthy for having more screentime than any other character on the show with the exception of the title character Buffy. Out of the 144 written and aired episodes of Buffy, Xander appears in all of them except one: episode 7.07, "Conversations with Dead People".es:Xander Harris