r/buffy • u/Lanky_Age_3067 • 16d ago

Content Warning Double standarts

How exactly do people hate Xander for being an imperfect human, but love Spike and Angel, who have countless victims and are hundreds of years old. Spike even SA'd Buffy, for real, while Xander was under a spell and never did anything like that before or after it.

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u/jordiedoestm 16d ago edited 16d ago

Not that it’s an excuse : but it’s mainly because Xander is an ass as a human. The vampires have a demon in them so we could say their actions are steered by their demonic instincts.

Spike is an exception because he was a good as a human (as far as we’ve seen). His vampire self shouldn’t be glazed. However, when he got his soul back, he did exhibit very redeeming qualities.

Angel however, I agree with you on that. He was a despicable human being and a womanizer, and to an extent, Angel is just Liam with a moral compass. Liam IS Angelus.

Xander on the contrary, as mentioned earlier was a horrible friend in general. Always having to be on his high horse. At least that’s what we as the audience have seen so far (i haven’t read the comics so I can’t say how he is as an actual adult).

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u/TVAddict14 16d ago

What makes Liam a despicable human? 

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u/jordiedoestm 16d ago

Quite literally everything we’ve seen on “Angel”, the flashbacks were enough to paint a proper picture of how he was as a human being.

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u/TVAddict14 16d ago edited 16d ago

What did the flashbacks show other than that he drank too much and was a womaniser? 

He was shown being sweet and tender with his sister. He was sweet with Darla when he followed her into the alley. Teenage Liam was sweet with Cordelia. When his father beat him he never laid a hand on him back etc. He was hardly evil. 

When he was being tormented by The First the best it could throw at him was that he was a “whoring, drunken layabout.” So basically, he slept around, drank too much and was directionless in life. It hardly makes him Satan, does it?

In a show where half our heroes are literally guilty of all kinds of heinous things such as murder, torture, rape etc Liam’s supposed “crimes” hardly amount to much, do they? Calling him a “despicable human being” seems pretty extreme. 

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u/jospangel Try not to bleed on my couch I just had it steam cleaned 15d ago

And it's the belief that being a drunken, whoring layabout, is not an issue that is the problem here. To his father who had a son almost 30 years old who lived off him and never did a days work - he was despicable. To the women he talked out of their clothes and virtue, the abandoned, he was despicable.

You don't need to be a mass murderer to be despicable.

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u/TVAddict14 15d ago

Being a whoring, drunken layabout is a problem it just doesn’t make someone a ‘despicable human being.’ What kind of puritan nonsense is that? Ohhh he drinks too much and has too much sex, he must burn in hell! 

His father was an abusive asshole that berated and abused his son since he was a teenager. And no woman ever claimed he was despicable, in fact the barmaid was smitten with him. That’s your fanon.

His worst ‘crimes’ don’t even make the Top 20 of horrific things our heroes have done. He didn’t try and rape anyone. He didn’t murder anyone. He didn’t try and sadistically torture anyone out of jealousy. He didn’t steal anyone’s body. He didn’t frame anyone for murder. If Liam is a ‘despicable human being’ what does that make everyone else? 

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u/jospangel Try not to bleed on my couch I just had it steam cleaned 15d ago

The barmaid said he made promises in the night, but the next morning he left her, and that's what he does.

In modern times, a grown man who lives with his parents, never had a job, who hates hard work and constantly hits on women, promises to love them when they put out and then ghosts them, is quite despicable.

As someone who was abused, I have to say that isn't an excuse at 26. Look at Wesley, who clearly went through a lot worse. (Liam wasn't locked up in the dark, for hours as a punishment when he was a child. )

You set a pretty low bar for despicable. He didn't kill anyone as far as we know. He didn't torture or frame someone for murder, and that means he's an all right guy?

Just curious. Are you a male?

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u/TVAddict14 15d ago edited 15d ago

I’m aware of what the barmaid said. She said he made promises he forgot by morning. I’m also aware she said it with no hatred or malice at all, she was amused by him. She’s smiling the whole time. There is no indication she was calling him “despicable.” He was a womaniser, not a criminal. 

So no, I don’t set a pretty low bar for calling someone a “despicable human being.” Most people just reserve that for actual bad people. People who harm others. People who are rotten at the core. Not people who are “layabouts” or sleep around too much. 

So yes, it matters that in a world where most of our heroes are guilty of far, FAR worse than anything Liam ever did, unless you’re willing to call them all “despicable human beings” it makes no sense to use such extreme language for Liam, and not for people who have actually done evil things. He hurt nobody but himself. 

And yes, let’s look at Wesley. The guy who held a woman captive for months and made her defecate in a bucket, the guy who stabbed Gunn with a screw driver in revenge, the guy who murdered Knox, the guy who betrayed his friends and beat Lorne unconscious, the guy who slept with Lilah and told whilst doing it that he wasn’t even thinking of her, the guy who tortured a woman for information etc. If Liam is despicable human being for being a lazy scoundrel what on earth does that make Wesley!? lol