Meta: BtVS 1.6 - The Pack
This is kinda rambly and disjointed ... it was a little hard going finding any real meat in this episode, but I didn't want to just treat it like another MotW. It's about Xander, after all.
Xander is the good guy. He's the loyal friend with a yen for Buffy, but despite his jealous streak, he's a nice guy. And he remains a nice guy. Throughout seven season, he's our nice, go-to, loyal friend even though he leaves Anya at the altar and really has a super hate-on for Buffy's OTL. It's interesting that everyone else undergoes some serious life altering changes, but Xander kinda never really does.
Sure, he's got complexity and some darkness (remember, he *did* leave Anya at the altar *and* there was that whole kill Angel thing, yay! in Becoming II).
The Pack gives Xander (and thus Nicolas Brendan) an opportunity to stretch into unfamiliar terrain. It also gives the character a brief moment of transition that Buffy and Willow will see for much more extended periods and with greater repercussions in the later seasons. Xander is our steadfast character and with only brief forays into unfamiliar territories (Halloween and The Replacement).
(Although I will admit to a bias towards Xander and so, I'm totally open to elaborations of drastic changes in behavior or temperment that restulted in long term changes in the character.)
"You like your men dangerous."
While this may *become* true, I don't think that it's true as of The Pack. In fact, as far as we know, it's very much the opposite. Although, we may look at Buffy's attraction to Angel as support, remember that at this point she doesn't know that he's a vampire or anything supernatural at all. As of Never Kill a Boy on the First Date Buffy has a stereotypically average attraction to a mysterious older guy because, as Buffy admits, Angel *is* a honey. But she was also very attracted to the semi-deep, vaguely emo psuedo-jock, Owen. Owen, more than Angel, represents the unattainable. He's very Normal. He's also cute, smart and no other girl at Sunnydale High has managed to attract his notice.
The Pack
The epsiode presents us with two paralleld groups: Buffy, Xander and Willow, and The not-posessed pack. Sort of bastardized Scoobies, they're tall, confident, lanky and beautiful. They also read older. This is important to remember because Xander's transformation is marked by a physical change in posture and general appearance, a change made all the more sinister for its subtlty. Playing around with stereotypes about hyenas, The Pack dirties Xander up. The opening sequence makes a very obvious shift as he is transformed. From the zoo to The Bronze, suddenly Xander is less enthusiastic and way less coltish and much more adult. His hair gets pushed off his forehead and he, along with the rest of the pack, get a make-over into a darker, way less colorful wardrobe. (Deal for a moment with the tragedy of plaid pants and the yellow button down.)
Suddenly Xander is the alpha male in contrast to Buffy's alpha female. It's interesting to note that the spotted hyena (the only "laughing" hyena) is actually a matriarchal species. All females are dominant to all males. The alpha female heads the pack with a complex familial and social network of ever-shifting alliances determining the rankings of the the other females. After the lowest female, the cubs take precedence and finally the alpha male and then every male after him. The females in Xander's pack are always in the back. Only one of them actually speaks.
The sterotypes associated with hyenas are taken up and applied, the whole fear and preying on the weak thing is a fallacy. Hyenas are actually very effective hunters as well as scavengers. And it's not just the weak and the dying. They also defend their kills against encroaching lions and other predators.
Those false ideas of hyenas also leads us to the biggest, most inaccurate scene in the episode: the Buffy/Xander show down. A shadowy version of what will happen in S6's Seeing Red, it's an unlikely scene considering that female hyenas, as the dominant animal, are in control of mating. The scene is dark and low lit, paralleled with the stalking of Principal Flutie by the other members of The Pack. It lacks all of the violence in Seeing Red and is only partially shown. We see Principal Flutie attacked and killed, but somehow Buffy manages to hit Xander with a desk and drag him safely to the cage in the library. There's a terrible realism in Seeing Red that just isn't achieved in The Pack.
Of course, in the end, Xander is restored along with the other members of the pack. And in true Xander fashion, he jumps in to save the day ... and then gets pummeled. But he's back to being loyal and loveable Xander. In addtion to Buffy's horrific black beanie (what was with the psuedo goth, anyway?), we get Xander with his hair brushed over his forehead and in brighter colors.
I think that Nicolas Brendan did a great job with playing Hyena!Xander. The nuances of expression, change in posture, the increased intensity all remind you that he is, indeed, an older actor playing a younger character. Lovable, goof-ball Xander and scary predator all rolled in one.
ETA: Something I just thought of ... Xander is infected with Hyena bad in this episode in contrast to the "evolution" and "exploitation" of pre-existing personality traits that we see in Buffy and Willow. The Hyena thing doesn't bring out any characteristics, neither does the costume spell in Halloween that gives him soldier mojo. It's an interesting comment on Joss's Mary Sue-ing of Xander. I know that in The Replacement we get an actual split and get to see aspects of the character, but I'm not convinced it's as nuanced and exploration of the character as it is with some other character arcs. And by that I mean characters who make bad decisions, have bad reactions and have to live with the repercussions of their actions ...(Willow, Buffy, Wesley, Gunn, Angel).
Xander is the good guy. He's the loyal friend with a yen for Buffy, but despite his jealous streak, he's a nice guy. And he remains a nice guy. Throughout seven season, he's our nice, go-to, loyal friend even though he leaves Anya at the altar and really has a super hate-on for Buffy's OTL. It's interesting that everyone else undergoes some serious life altering changes, but Xander kinda never really does.
Sure, he's got complexity and some darkness (remember, he *did* leave Anya at the altar *and* there was that whole kill Angel thing, yay! in Becoming II).
The Pack gives Xander (and thus Nicolas Brendan) an opportunity to stretch into unfamiliar terrain. It also gives the character a brief moment of transition that Buffy and Willow will see for much more extended periods and with greater repercussions in the later seasons. Xander is our steadfast character and with only brief forays into unfamiliar territories (Halloween and The Replacement).
(Although I will admit to a bias towards Xander and so, I'm totally open to elaborations of drastic changes in behavior or temperment that restulted in long term changes in the character.)
"You like your men dangerous."
While this may *become* true, I don't think that it's true as of The Pack. In fact, as far as we know, it's very much the opposite. Although, we may look at Buffy's attraction to Angel as support, remember that at this point she doesn't know that he's a vampire or anything supernatural at all. As of Never Kill a Boy on the First Date Buffy has a stereotypically average attraction to a mysterious older guy because, as Buffy admits, Angel *is* a honey. But she was also very attracted to the semi-deep, vaguely emo psuedo-jock, Owen. Owen, more than Angel, represents the unattainable. He's very Normal. He's also cute, smart and no other girl at Sunnydale High has managed to attract his notice.
The Pack
The epsiode presents us with two paralleld groups: Buffy, Xander and Willow, and The not-posessed pack. Sort of bastardized Scoobies, they're tall, confident, lanky and beautiful. They also read older. This is important to remember because Xander's transformation is marked by a physical change in posture and general appearance, a change made all the more sinister for its subtlty. Playing around with stereotypes about hyenas, The Pack dirties Xander up. The opening sequence makes a very obvious shift as he is transformed. From the zoo to The Bronze, suddenly Xander is less enthusiastic and way less coltish and much more adult. His hair gets pushed off his forehead and he, along with the rest of the pack, get a make-over into a darker, way less colorful wardrobe. (Deal for a moment with the tragedy of plaid pants and the yellow button down.)
Suddenly Xander is the alpha male in contrast to Buffy's alpha female. It's interesting to note that the spotted hyena (the only "laughing" hyena) is actually a matriarchal species. All females are dominant to all males. The alpha female heads the pack with a complex familial and social network of ever-shifting alliances determining the rankings of the the other females. After the lowest female, the cubs take precedence and finally the alpha male and then every male after him. The females in Xander's pack are always in the back. Only one of them actually speaks.
The sterotypes associated with hyenas are taken up and applied, the whole fear and preying on the weak thing is a fallacy. Hyenas are actually very effective hunters as well as scavengers. And it's not just the weak and the dying. They also defend their kills against encroaching lions and other predators.
Those false ideas of hyenas also leads us to the biggest, most inaccurate scene in the episode: the Buffy/Xander show down. A shadowy version of what will happen in S6's Seeing Red, it's an unlikely scene considering that female hyenas, as the dominant animal, are in control of mating. The scene is dark and low lit, paralleled with the stalking of Principal Flutie by the other members of The Pack. It lacks all of the violence in Seeing Red and is only partially shown. We see Principal Flutie attacked and killed, but somehow Buffy manages to hit Xander with a desk and drag him safely to the cage in the library. There's a terrible realism in Seeing Red that just isn't achieved in The Pack.
Of course, in the end, Xander is restored along with the other members of the pack. And in true Xander fashion, he jumps in to save the day ... and then gets pummeled. But he's back to being loyal and loveable Xander. In addtion to Buffy's horrific black beanie (what was with the psuedo goth, anyway?), we get Xander with his hair brushed over his forehead and in brighter colors.
I think that Nicolas Brendan did a great job with playing Hyena!Xander. The nuances of expression, change in posture, the increased intensity all remind you that he is, indeed, an older actor playing a younger character. Lovable, goof-ball Xander and scary predator all rolled in one.
ETA: Something I just thought of ... Xander is infected with Hyena bad in this episode in contrast to the "evolution" and "exploitation" of pre-existing personality traits that we see in Buffy and Willow. The Hyena thing doesn't bring out any characteristics, neither does the costume spell in Halloween that gives him soldier mojo. It's an interesting comment on Joss's Mary Sue-ing of Xander. I know that in The Replacement we get an actual split and get to see aspects of the character, but I'm not convinced it's as nuanced and exploration of the character as it is with some other character arcs. And by that I mean characters who make bad decisions, have bad reactions and have to live with the repercussions of their actions ...(Willow, Buffy, Wesley, Gunn, Angel).