Thoughts on "Out of Mind, Out of Sight"

[gryfndor_godess]

You know what's neat? When you haven’t seen a BtVS episode in so long that you actually don’t remember the details. I liked this episode a lot the first time around, but I’d never rewatched it until today.

Comments

[bluemage55]

OTOH, Xander's dislike of Angel prior to Angelus seems mostly motivated by his jealousy over Buffy and the feeling that he "deserves" her because he's the 'nice,' normal human guy. I'm sure Angel being a vampire is part of it (theoretically there's Jesse angst, although the writers so so dropped the ball on that), but I think the majority of it is Xander feeling threatened in regard to Buffy and that's just petty, chauvinistic, and icky. After Angelus, he'll have legitimate reasons to hate Angel, and as with Spike, I don't blame him for that.

I think it's initially motivated by jealousy, but it's along the same lines of the way he feels about Owen at first (and though it's petty and icky, it's hardly chauvinistic and little different from how Willow feels jealousy towards Xander giving his attention to Buffy and later Cordy). The part where it turns into full-blown hostility is when he finds out that Angel is a vampire.

And though Xander did have legitimate reason to hate Angelus, I think it's clear that he Xander understands that Angel isn't responsible for Angelus's actions, but hates him anyway (even after Angel has helped the Scoobies substantially). His conversation with Riley in The Yoko Factor is pretty revealing in this regard:

RILEY: I take it you're not an Angel fan either?
XANDER: Well, it's not like I hate the guy. Just, you know . . the guts part of him.
RILEY: Can't blame you. But to be fair, it's not him you hate. It's the curse.
(Xander doesn't respond. )
RILEY: Right?

[gryfndor_godess]

And though Xander did have legitimate reason to hate Angelus, I think it's clear that he Xander understands that Angel isn't responsible for Angelus's actions, but hates him anyway (even after Angel has helped the Scoobies substantially).

I'm not sure I agree that this convo indicates that Xander thinks they're two entirely different people. He hates the curse, i.e. he hates the fact that Angel is artificially constructed to be something he's inherently not and that Angel consequently gets to be the hero/get the girl etc. He knows that Angel is "different" from Angelus, but I doubt he sees the black-and-white distinction as much as Buffy. *shrugs* Or maybe I'm projecting 'cause we fans know there isn't such a b-a-w distinction. In any case, I still think Xander's hatred is justifiable (if not laudable).

[bluemage55]

Fair enough.