Buffy The Vampire Slayer’s Most Beloved Character Was Meant To Turn Evil

By Chris Snellgrove
| Published 18 seconds ago

Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a show that fans love to endlessly rewatch because they always find something new to appreciate. However, those fans are increasingly finding something old to hate: the character of Xander Harris. He was written to be an adorkable male presence in a female-dominated show, but many of his jokes and actions (like that time he magically roofied every single woman at Sunnydale High so they’d fall in love with him) just seem wildly problematic in retrospect.

Honestly, the best thing Xander ever did was date Anya, but he left her at the altar, becoming nothing but “bad joke support character” by the show’s final season. However, Buffy came dangerously close to improving Xander in the most shocking way: by brutally killing him off. Even more surprisingly, he was going to be the final form adapted by the First Evil, effectively making one of Buffy’s oldest, closest friends into the series’ final Big Bad.

The Big Bad That Never Was

This information comes to us courtesy of the original DVD commentary tracks for Buffy the Vampire Slayer (just in case you needed another reason to embrace physical media). In the commentary for the episode “Dirty Girls,” writer Drew Goddard said that the writing staff considered ending Xander’s first encounter with Caleb (a minion of the First Evil, played by Nathan Fillion) in a very different way. Instead of simply having the henchman rip our hero’s eye out, Caleb would have immediately killed Xander!

Obviously, the writers ultimately decided against this plan: in Season 7, Xander narrowly survives his encounter with Caleb and makes it through the final episode intact, although his former fiancée Anya dies. However, I can’t help but feel like the writing staff made the wrong call here. Had Caleb killed off Xander, it would have legitimized him as a major threat while making the First Evil’s final appearances that much more chilling.

The Change That Would Have Made Season 7 Unforgettable

You see, the First Evil’s gimmick is that she can take the form of anyone who has previously died. This is how she impersonates Buffy (who died twice) to torment the Slayer and to manipulate others, including Spike. When Buffy’s former boytoy vampire comes back with a new soul and a muddled brain, the First manages to deceive him, ultimately transforming Spike into her murderous attack dog.

It was always fun seeing the First Evil take the form of various deceased characters, but how much cooler would it be if it took the form of Xander after Caleb killed him? Buffy would suddenly be receiving taunts and threats from someone wearing the face of her closest friend. This would have made the First that much scarier to audiences because taking Xander’s appearance would be a constant reminder of just how deadly this ancient evil really was.

Joss Whedon’s Self-Insert Character Nearly Died Onscreen

Plus, the writing for Xander’s character had gotten increasingly worse over the years, so killing him off would be an effective (if drastic) way of making the character interesting again. Additionally, Joss Whedon has frequently stated that Xander is his own self-insert character, which is why the young man serves as the quip-spewing class clown of the Scooby Gang. Now that Joss Whedon has been canceled (both for allegedly cheating on his wife with unnamed cast members and for allegedly abusive behavior on the Justice League set), some fans might find it downright cathartic to see his surrogate character get killed onscreen.

The Buffy revival is right around the corner, and it may very well retroactively redeem Xander, making him a more likable character. Until that happens, though, he will be remembered by the Buffy the Vampire Slayer fandom as a guy who gets just a little creepier every time they rewatch the show. Because of this and (let’s be honest) how weak sauce the First Evil was as a final villain, it would have been better for the show if Xander had been killed off so he could take his rightful place as the scariest Big Bad of them all.