Xander Harris

From Wikinfo

Alexander "Xander" 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 serve to strengthen the Buffy character by making her appear more mature and capable.

Despite Xander's weak self-image and sarcastic personality, he proves time and again to be a 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.

Though he is quite good-looking, Xander tends to be unsuccessful romantically, nursing crushes on Buffy and Faith and frequently becoming involved with evil women. He does have relationships with Cordelia Chase and Anya, though. Unfortunately by the end of the series he has lost one of his eyes.

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 6 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 writer Joss Whedon that one of the characters was going to eventually be openly homosexual. It was determined that this would either be Xander or the character of 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. (In the event, Willow was the character chosen.)

References

• Adapted from the Wikipedia article, "Xander_Harris" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xander_Harris, used under the GNU Free Documentation License