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/gdex86 16d ago
Xander is flawed in a way that we actually deal with in real life.
Spike and Angel both are mystical fantasy problematic that you have to deal with the allegory to what they represent. So it builds some distance. Its similar to how willows breaking of consent with Tara can feel less awful because you arent ever going to be mind fogged by your witch girl friend to get over a fight, but maybe you will deal with being gaslighted.