My problem with Xander's talk to Dawn in 'the Potential'

[liliaeth]

XANDER: Aw, I'm just thinking about the girls. It's a harsh gig, being a potential. Just being picked out of a crowd, danger, destiny, (grins) plus if you act now, death.

DAWN: They can handle it.

XANDER: Yeah. They're special, no doubt. The amazing thing is, not one of them will ever know, not even Buffy.

DAWN: Know what?

XANDER: How much harder it is for the rest of us.

DAWN: No way. They've got?

XANDER: Seven years, Dawn. Working with the slayer. Seeing my friends get more and more powerful. A witch. A demon. Hell, I could fit Oz in my shaving kit, but come a full moon, he had a wolfy mojo not to be messed with. Powerful. All of them. And I'm the guy who fixes the windows.

DAWN: Well, you had that sexy army training for a while, and?and the windows really did need fixing.

XANDER: I saw what you did last night.

DAWN: Yeah, I? (embarrassed) I guess I kinda lost my head when I thought I was the slayer.

XANDER: You thought you were all special. Miss Sunnydale 2003. And the minute you found out you weren't, you handed the crown to Amanda without a moment's pause. You gave her your power.

DAWN: (shrugs) The power wasn't mine.

XANDER: They'll never know how tough it is, Dawnie, to be the one who isn't chosen. To live so near to the spotlight and never step in it. But I know. I see more than anybody realizes because nobody's watching me. I saw you last night. I see you working here today. You're not special. You're extraordinary. (stands, kisses her forehead, starts to walk out of the room)

DAWN: (tears welling in her eyes, calls after him) Maybe that's your power.

XANDER: What?

DAWN: Seeing. Knowing.

XANDER: Maybe it is. Maybe I should get a cape.

DAWN: Cape is good.

XANDER: Yeah. (leaves the room)

(Dawn goes back to work)



Nice scene isn't it, Xander talking about not being chosen, and buffing up Dawn's ego. One problem with it. It's utter bullshit.

Yes Xander wasn't chosen, but neither was Willow, or Gunn or Spike or Giles or Wesley or Oz or...

Now no matter how much I like the idea of being special even despite noone picking you out for it. But that doesn't take away the fact that all these other characters became special because they worked at it.



Willow wasn't a witch when the show started, she learned about magic, she took the effort to find things out about magic, to find out how it worked and how to use it.

Giles and Wesley spent years, possibly decades in Giles' case learning everything they could to be watchers. They went to school for it, they put in the effort to become watchers.

You don't just wake up one day and wham, suddenly you have the knowledge of a watcher. They studied for it. Kinda like you study to be a doctor or an architect or...

Or take Spike, sure he's a vampire, but there's noone concentrating on him being special. Where vampires are concerned he's a regular guy, only a regular guy who trained himself, who took risks and who fought to become someone that's noticeable. It took Spike 20 years before he killed his first slayer, but he still managed it. Making something special out of himself because he put in the effort.

Nobody had to curse him, he put in the effort to regain his soul.

Nobody made him a champion, he had to fight for it.

Or Gunn, nobody told Gunn "here's a pack of powers, now see what you do with it." He trained himself to become the best fighter he could be. And yes he was still insecure at the end of it, but he never just gave in to the idea of "that's all I'll ever be, so why bother trying for more"

Xander on the other hand...

See, one of the reasons I prefer regular non-powered Xander is because it fits in with canon that Xander never put in an effort to become more than that. Not because he couldn't, but because he didn't ever work at it.

I remember this one scene in season four, where Xander is looking in one of Giles books and reads what it says and it flames up. With Giles saying:"Xander don't speak latin in front of the books"

Sure that book could have been extremely volatile, but if it were, why was Giles letting Xander mess with it to begin with...

Xander could very well have potential for magic, but he never did anything with it. Xander could have learned how to fight, but he barely bothered to learn what he needed and ignores any fightingskills otherwise.
Sure, Giles was never as interested in Xander's skills as he was in Buffy's, but if Xander had really wanted to, he could have bugged Giles till the guy did teach him some things. Hell, he could ask Riley for training.

He lets any soldier training he remembers from the halloween ep just slip away, never bothering to use the knowledge he got magically to learn about that kind of thing for real.

The only reason Xander didn't become more powerful, is because he never bothered to learn anything to make himself more useful and powerful.

Now I like Xander (most of the time), but the fact remains that when it comes down to it, he had a lot of potential, only he never ever bothered to explore it. Might have been because he didn't think he'd ever get as good as the others so it wasn't worth to even try it.

Xander does have a tendency towards insecurity and selfdeprecation. Which probably didn't help him in trying to improve himself, but that still doesn't take away his own responsibility. It's not Buffy's duty to make Xander train, or Willow's duty to force Xander into learning about magic, it was Xander's and he was very much a slacker in that regards.

Well Xander and Giles', but then again, Giles was preoccupied.

And yes, Xander did have to worry about a fulltime job, but that job didn't happen until s4, he had plenty of free time during highschool to try and learn, esp. since he mostly failed highschool for the same reason that he failed becoming a better fighter. A lack of effort and thinking too low of himself. (he would have almost given up his job in
'the replacement' because he just doesn't realize how good he is at it)

Just look at Xander's job, within four years he goes from selling hot dogs on a stick to foreman, that's four years to become the boss at a job that actually requires math.
(just look at the fact that he has to go to meetings and has to handle
the architects plans)
If you're stupid, you don't get that high a position, esp. in a job that occasionally requires you to wear suits to work. No matter how high the death rate around him. (just look at his co-workers, several of them are older than Xander is and probably more experienced)

It's not that he lacks the intelligence, he just lacks the drive.


Now I can understand the meta involved. Joss stopped being interested in Xander somewhat around s4-s5. And he wasn't a fave of one the other writers like Jonathan was for Jane Espenson. There's even the logical reason that they needed a diverse cast, so they couldn't all be witches.
(in fact, if Xander had started at witchraft, there's no real reason why Buffy wouldn't learn about it as well and if that were the case, all too soon there wouldn't be a demon that actually stood a chance against them)


But textwise, the one thing that really matters, Xander's a slacker. So really what he's telling Dawn in Potential is the equivalent of some unemployed slacker complaining that he didn't get into college when he never put in the effort to get good grades to begin with.

Now don't get me wrong, Xander does do a lot for Buffy. So maybe he's more like the construction worker complaining he didn't get to go to college. Hell I don't have a college degree either. But like Xander, I could have gotten one, if I'd put more effort into it.

Comments

[saifai.livejournal.com]

I rather put his attitude in that scene back to the same one he had back in the season three episode "The Zeppo". He needed to find his "thing". He didn't have a special place in the group as the Slayer, the Watcher, the Werewolf, the Witch... He was the normal guy who got donuts.

I don't think he ever let go of that attitude no matter how much bullshit it really was, especially with has past deeds (being the heart in that big spell that brought about the mass dreaming and even the time he stopped Willow).

But textwise, the one thing that really matters, Xander's a slacker. So really what he's telling Dawn in Potential is the equivalent of some unemployed slacker complaining that he didn't get into college when he never put in the effort to get good grades to begin with.

Basically. I won't disagree with you at all. It was ironic after watching recently not only "The Zeppo," but "The Pack" as well. In "The Pack" you see Willow trying to get him to study so he can pass his math. He asks why. She answers by telling him he'll be the weird guy working for the pizza place. He still graduates from high school though and still ends up going nowhere and working for the pizza place (among others).

The boy has issues. Luvs him dearly, but he's got issues for sure.

[archbishopm.livejournal.com]

Interesting stuff.

[ladypeyton.livejournal.com]

Yes it's utter bullshit and yes Xander can be a total slacker when it comes to anything outside of his comfort zone but I still adore his speech to Dawn because it acomplishes the one thing it inteneds to accomplish. It makes Dawn feel better about no longer being a potential. In the end she still feels special which is very imporant to a *normal* teenager so I can imagine it's even *more* important to a teen who still isn't convinced she's not artificial.

It also accomplishes something he doesn't necessarily intend it to accomlish. It inspires Dawn to try to help in other ways and enables her to discover a talent she didn't know she possessed. Languages.

[redeem147.livejournal.com]

Willow's a witch, and it goes beyond her working for it. She has natural abilities. Tara started in witchcraft as a child, and within a year of Willow's training, Tara can't touch her for power. Spike's a vampire, and that means, in the Buffyverse, superpowers. Ditto werewolf Oz. For that matter Anya as a vengence demon, though you don't mention her.

He doesn't know Gunn, and for all he knows, Wes is still a dork.

I might give you Giles, but I was so mad at him in season seven that we shan't get into that.

I think the speech works in the context of the core scoobies. Xander and Dawn are the two who are just ordinary people (since being a key doesn't seem to mean anything, unless it's given her that unusual skill in translating lanuages she's picked up).

Xander's a carpenter, and he's good at that. He's a supportive friend to those he loves. In other words, for the vast majority of people, he's us.

And who knows what he's up to in Africa :)

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

Interesting, I never thought of that before.

I do remember Xander's self-pity in Grave felt a bit overdone. In a huge "evil friend ending the world" crisis, it's really not the time to mope about feeling useless. Gunn and Wesley trained themselves to handle demons, and Xander could have done better at fighting if he'd worked at it. I mean Justine on Ats was practically a slayer, just a self-made one. Giles could handle himself with a sword it would seem *g*

Anya bitches about Buffy's powers being handed to her, but it's not like we still don't get scenes of Buffy working out and training herself to be better. Amy was suggested to be a natural witch because of her mother, yet Willow quickly overtakes her through sher hard work. In season 7, doesn't Amy complain about Willow becoming the better witch?

[sp23.livejournal.com]

I agree and don't agree with you, both at the same time. As others have pointed out, most of the people in Buffy's crowd actually *do* have superpowers. I don't think Willow would have been so powerful a witch if she hadn't had a natural talent for it.

However, I totally agree with you that I never understood why Xander never trained to become a fighter. He was constantly in danger, and yet he never took martial arts training. He never, as you said, did anything with his supernaturally acquired soldier training. I never really understood that. It wasn't that he was physically weak, but he was only a mediocre fighter throughout the entire run of the series. He may have been the comic relief, but I think you can be the comic relief and the stand-in for 'everyman' facing danger and still learn basic self-defense if you're going to be facing demons every night.

Still, I don't have any arguments with that speech to Dawn since it accomplished what it was meant to accomplish - make Dawn feel special. The problem I have with the scene though is that I thought the tag that he was 'the see-er' was ridiculous. He was probably one of the blindest people with two working eyes I've ever seen. He saw nothing and understood even less. He happily wolfed down free Doublemeat burgers while even a soulless vampire could see how miserable Buffy was. He never understood his friends or his girlfriend, and he was completely emotionally retarded.

I loved Xander for the most part, but of all the characters in the Bverse, I think he was the most flawed and the most with wasted potential.

[dragonflymuse.livejournal.com]

I am not a Xander fan, and while I agree with you about the majority of this, I have to say that I think, thematically, Xander was supposed to represent 'The Normal Guy' (aka Joss): he was the core demographic that the show was targeted to, as well as being the core demographic that Buffy mostly saves for the first few seasons.

Your example of Gunn as someone who taught himself how to fight and be a demonhunter is both pro and con for your argument. Gunn learned to fight demons because he had personal reasons: Xander initially did too (Jesse), but that motivation quickly fell to the wayside after S1. Gunn was a self-made fighter until S5 of AtS, when Eve made it sound like that wasn't enough for the group he was affiliated with ('just the muscle'). So, Gunn has 'super powers' handed to him by W&H. But as with anything not worked for, it comes with a price and, even though he knew there would be one to pay, Gunn goes full throttle with his legal upgrade and ignores those consequences until the price turned out to be 'one of us' (Fred).

I actually see a parallel between Gunn's legal upgrade and the Shamans making the first slayer: power gifted comes at a price that even the informed recipient can't prepare for, and the only benefits of that 'gift' are to the ones who imparted it.

And I also think that speech was utter crap :) Xander was re-playing his big talky thing from S6, and it felt, and sounded, hollow.

[trepkos.livejournal.com]

It's not that he lacks the intelligence, he just lacks the drive.

I think you may be underestimating the demoralising effect of having seriously crap parents. He may be a slacker for a good reason - so that his Dad doesn't notice him getting ideas above his station, for example.
Or so that he won't feel gipped that no one's going to pay for a college place for him, even though he got the grades.

[jgracio.livejournal.com]

Only problem with your reasoning?

You're seeing what you want to see. :)

As far as canon is concerned, and per S7, Xander's a crack shot with a bow, can handle a sword/axe pretty well and has some understanding of tactics. All of these take hard work.

Now, ME didn't develop Xander all that much after S4, but per Restless, Xander isn't following in Buffy's footsteps, he isn't playing in her sandbox, he has his own thing going on. The fight against evil isn't his focus, having a normal life is, but he still manages to have some skills.

For the most part everyone in his social group is special. Willow is an uberwitch, Buffy the most sucessful Slayer in like ever, Giles is a Watcher, years of training and magic abilities. Spike is a vampire of the Master's line. Of Darla's, Angelu's and Drusilla. He wasn't sired by some unnamed minion.

In short, a "normal" human would never be all that impressive when compared to this group. You see that as Xander not trying enough, I see it as an inevitability, since there's nothing average about them.

[thirdblindmouse.livejournal.com]

In short, a "normal" human would never be all that impressive when compared to this group. You see that as Xander not trying enough, I see it as an inevitability, since there's nothing average about them.

Ah, but her point is that only Buffy got her powers handed to her. Giles and Willow were average (if enthusiastically studious) people before they put in a lot of hard work to become Watcher and witch. Think of Dawn in season 7. Despite her supernatural origins, she was just an ordinary girl...who then learned multiple foreign languages and wanted to learn to fight and really made herself useful and *special* without it being given to her.

[jgracio.livejournal.com]

I'm not disputing that the speech is pretty much untrue, since anyone can think of several ways for Xander or any other normal human to gain powers.

I don't see a problem with this, since Buffy characters lie / embelish the truth all the time. They don't always speak what they actually think.

Unless they're Cordelia.

[tx-cronopio.livejournal.com]

Very interesting points that I hadn't really considered, but I completely agree with you! Thanks!

[empressvesica.livejournal.com]

That whole scene made me roll my eyes...and now I have a coherent explanation for it all. :D

It seemed like a strange mirror to Faith and Buffy's conversation in End of Days. Except without the funny - which just made it seem so forced.

Give me conversations that end with "Thank God we're hot chicks with superpowers" any day.

[thirdblindmouse.livejournal.com]

Good points all. Note that his speech-making ability is one of the things he really has gotten down...yet another example of what he can do when he tries.

And he's certainly not the seer; he's one of the most oblivious people out there. Spike was the seer (or Lear's fool, if you want to go all literary).

[spikeverse.livejournal.com]

I think they should have kept up Xander's role as the strategist, which he mostly gets from movies and video games.

[ludditerobot.livejournal.com]

I agree about ... 80-90% with that.

Gunn sorta throws a curve-ball into this, because he shows off near-Slayer, near-Angel quality moves. That throws off the metric. The metric is this: Buffy's enemies are great at hand to hand, so to defeat them, she has to be supernaturally gifted to stand up to them, and she is. The Initiative comes in, with guys who have gone through Marine boot camp, advanced training and have spent at least a year fighting this kind of enemy, and it's only Riley on chips and drugs who is able to hit the level of fighting Angel to a standstill.

Which is to say, Xander could've been training like crazy and it wouldn't have been so noticable.

And there's always that shot in "Dirty Girls". That's hitting a moving target in the wrist across a fairly big room. I am convinced that Xander had been training with the bow or else that would've either hit nothing or more likely hit Rona. That is the only reasonable explanation in my mind for that shot.

But like I said, beyond that, I'm 80-90% in agreement.

[juleskicks.livejournal.com]

Oh, now that's interesting, and you've wonderfully verbalized why that speech of Xander's rang false for me. Hell, in S7 we even see that Dawn is working to become more than just the kid sister with the compulsive shoplifting habit -- I'm guessing, for instance, that she didn't just pick up Sumerian overnight. *G*

Thanks for sharing this!

[(Anonymous)]

I think you're overanalyzing it. Buffy is one of those shows where if you put a lot of thought into it, you quickly reach a point where you've put in more thought than the writers, and the whole thing falls apart.

Xander has two jobs, comedy relief and pep talk guy. In this scene he was fulfilling the second role. He couldn't learn any skills or retain any powers because it would have hindered his comedy relief role. He had plenty of drive, witness his rapid rise at his job, but it couldn't be expressed on screen or he wouldn't be as funny.

Take the two other comedy relief characters. Anya say. It's established that Anya was a powerful witch before she became a demon. It would make excellent sense for her to return to that in the series, but this is downplayed and largely forgotten. When they need an extra spell caster Anya will pitch in, but otherwise this is forgotten. She's plenty smart, has lots of drive, which led her to become a powerful witch in the first place, and which led her to become a successful business woman. She runs a magic shop stocked full of tomes of power. She fights supernatural foes and lives on a hell mouth. So why not return to magic?

Because it's not funny. Powerful witches are not funny characters. So Anya to be funny, had lose her powers.

Andrew has the ability to summon demons. This is a formidable power and makes him quite dangerous, perhaps the most powerful of the trio. But you don't see Andrew summoning demons do you? Because Andrew is comedy relief. Powerful people aren't funny, powerless people are. Andrew has to be ineffective and timid because that's where the funny is. If the show continues in any format, there'll probably be a scene where Andrew loses his demon summoning powers. Like Xander lost his army guy powers.

I don't agree with it, and I don't like it, but I can understand it. Comedy characters amuse with their ineptitude, serious characters grow ever more powerful. It's a pattern in this show. Personally, I think powerful people can be very funny, and inept characters can be very heroic, but that's not how this show works.

[francis-eugene.livejournal.com]

While there is a little bit of validity to your complaint, I think the problem you (and others, and even Dawn to an extent) are having is you're reading it wrong. You're all reading it as Xander complaining/whining about not having demon-fighting powers (even though he's done nothing to get/earn them). But I don't see anywhere in his comments where he even implies he wants powers or even to be "in the spotlight". The closest that might come to that meaning is this line:

They'll never know how tough it is, Dawnie, to be the one who isn't chosen. To live so near to the spotlight and never step in it.

My read of this, in context with other parts of his speech, is not that he wants or needs to step into the demon-fighting spotlight or is envious of those who are, but rather that once in awhile it would be nice to be appreciated and recognized for what he does do and for what he has contributed. His contributions have not been insignificant, saving virtually everyone's lives at one point or other, coming up with the plan or idea needed to defeat the bad guy on multiple occasions, or just simply being a stalwart friend (yeah, yeah, there have been many ups and downs in all his friendships, but at the end of the day, no matter what's happened, he's still by their side). But he rarely if ever gets the recognition, just like Dawn is not being recognized now, and yeah, that's hard. It would be hard on anybody, and yet he still willingly soldiers on.

As for the comments about being a slacker, it's just amazing how far off base those are. You're making the mistake of measuring that quality solely by his demon-fighting abilities and nothing else. There's far more to anyone than how good that person is at fighting demons. He's the one holding down a full-time job, paying the bills and cleaning up the messes (yes, sometimes his own, but frequently others'). Leaving aside how unrealistically rapid his rise in the building trade is, it's still indicative of someone working very very hard to achieve a goal and better himself. And doing so while continuing to fight alongside Buffy. I'd hardly call that slacking off.

Contrast that with Willow, for example. Does she support herself in any way? Despite being a full-time roommate, does she contribute at all to maintaining the Summers' household? Does she even pay rent? All indications are that she lives there completely gratis. Now there's a slacker for you!

Or even contrast that with Gunn, one of the few other "normals", who you claim has put in the effort to better himself. Okay, he put in the effort to become a good fighter. What else? What did he do when it came to acquiring and retaining his legal knowledge? He cheated! Not for a moment did he even think to try and actually learn it, to better himself by his own effort. "Slacker" seems to be an adjective that might fit.

With regard to "seeing". Xander does not claim to be see-all-know-all. He merely claims he's more observant and aware than the people around him realize. That's been demonstrated numerous times. It's Dawn who links that with some notion of "special powers".

One last point. His message to Dawn (and the viewers) is most emphatically not "O' poor us, we have no special powers or skills (or education). Pity us (even though we're slackers)." No, the message is: being special or extraordinary does not come from having or acquiring "special powers" or skills. It comes from who and everything you are, how you deal with adversity, the choices you make--the character of your soul, if you will. He's now offering recognition of that to Dawn.

There is nothing bullshit about that message.

Okay, all done venting. :)

[(Anonymous)]

Agreed but there's also another BIG reason Xander (and Dawn) either never sought power or handed back the power at the first opportunity.

The power comes at a price they don't want to pay:

Buffy -- cold hard nasty bitca with a taste for degrading sex.
Willow -- torturer and murderer, see Anya, Spike.
Andrew -- murderer.
Giles -- loss of any family and emotional life, devoted to a slayer who has tossed him aside in favor of her vampire playthings.

Xander's quickest and surest route to power (on the level of Spike) would be to get turned into a vampire. Same for Dawn. It would automatically make them on the level of Spike, Angel, Buffy and Willow. And clearly neither wanted that.

The other issue is that eventually both Xander and Dawn will realize: sufficiently advanced technology gives them the same advantages as magic superpowers while still allowing them to remain, well them.

Dawn with a gun, sufficiently practiced, is just as dangerous as Spike. More so in a sense that her weapon and skill equalizes (assuming silver hollowpoints filled with wood paste) Spike's powers and allows her to kill from a distance Spike can't match (or any vampire). THink "lunger" Doc Holliday who weak and tubercular was as deadly as Earp.

Xander ... with enough time and separation from the others might well "fix" himself with a bionic eye, or force field, or any of a myriad devices without having to murder a bunch of people. Be even more important than Buffy or Angel or Spike in that using that knowledge to ... make and sell stuff changes the world the way a couple of bicycle mechanics from Ohio with only a HS diploma, a potato farmer from Idaho, or a dead-end postal clerk did (Wright Bros, Philo T. Farnsworth inventor of TV, and Einstein respectively). For all of Willow's credentials as big-time black magic person (flaying a guy alive) she's not much better than Xander, college dropout who cheated at her exams (through magic) in ... meaningless sociology stuff. Her computer skills declined to the level of mere Google usage.

In many ways Giles and Willow are the least smart and able of the characters. Trapped by their scholarship they don't seem aware of technology and the ability to equalize (and ultimately make slayers at best irrelevant and worst part of the vampire problem). Could Willow or Giles even have the spatial knowledge to fix a window or act as foreman on a major construction effort? I don't think so. Giles and Willow are very deep but not very broad; outside their expertise not very useful.

Part of the scene is that Willow, Buffy, Giles and the others equate their own (important) contributions to the total success of their efforts. Like fighter pilots thinking they are the only ones who are important. Given that it takes 35 hours of maintenance for every hour of flight time to keep an F16 in flight; the mechanics and support crew are just as critical as the pilots (in other words, Xander and Dawn). They may not fly the plane but they keep it in the air. And of course eventually the UAVs replace the pilots anyway.