"Xander's Not Done": LR Explains Himself
A while ago, I wrote a post called "Willowy Thoughts", where I explained my thoughts on Willow's characterization, her difficulty in the Gen I try to write, and so forth. It contains this line: "Beyond that, Willow's odd. Her issues are all tied up."
z_publicizes wrote something about how she liked how I described her phrasing, but "I disagree with this meta's statement that Willow's issues are tied up neatly by the end of season seven, but..."
Neatly.
OK, because curiosity, I went back to some of S7, and I agree, she's still a bit nutso. The fanfic agreement seemed to be that the Kennedy experiment wasn't going to work out long-term, that they were together because of attraction and not love. For years on, yes, Willow see something, think "isn't that something Tara would like?" and spend the rest of the day barely functional.
But her primary malfunction, established in the earlier, more sensible part of the season, is that without magic, she's useless and with magic, she's evil. Her last big act in "Chosen" has her channel the Good Magic through the Scythe and present as with white hair, contrasting her black-haired evil self from S6. She has shown that she can use her magic in massive, world-changing ways and still be good. With this, she has resolved her primary malfunction. With this, she is, to me, done.
And the comics to the contrary, and I cannot comment too much on them because I haven't read them, Buffy is also done. When you tell a story, you get to the good parts. Buffy The Vampire Slayer is the story of Buffy, the Vampire Slayer, in her time in Sunnydale, protecting the Hellmouth. Or protecting the World from the Hellmouth. After seven seasons, The First's ringer, Spike, took the First's bauble below the school and closed the Hellmouth, causing the destruction of Sunnydale. No Hellmouth. No Sunnydale. It is done, Buffy knows it, and despite everything she owns but the clothes on her back falling down into the pit, despite the death and destruction, she stood on the edge and smiled, because she knew she was done. There may be more in the future, but she was done.
And we get to Xander. His friends put him out to pasture. The love of his life is dead. He's permanently disabled. Honestly, I definitely see him as needing to be on suicide watch, and that's how I've written him in Eyeless and Snowblind. There are many ways to take that. He can peace-out from Scoobying. He can start going alone into graveyards, intending to pick a fight he can't win. He could find a vamp who'll suck him for money. He can stay there, but start using that special snark he saved for Angelus, Jack O'Toole and pre-dating Cordelia. I always go back to a Lefty Frizzell song, "I Never Go Around Mirrors", for this.
So I never go around mirrors
I can't stand to see me without you by my side
No, I never go around mirrors
Because I got a heartache to hide
If there was a real Season 8, not the paper one I should consider reading some day, I could definitely see him in a very unstable mental position. That I never got to his Heart in the "Heart of Darkness" for my Scatterlings and Orphanages ficathon. (Aside: You might think that the Darkness is inherent in Africa, at least in Joseph Conrad's presentation, but Kurtz brought the darkness with him. The story is told on a boat in the English Channel. The darkness came from the Europeans who came to conquer and exploit.) Xander as a dark figure with an army of Slayers that needs the Scoobies to respond could be a very Dark!Xander fic, but I think that it would be more than anyone would write: The haters would never consider making him that important and the lovers would never do him like that.
So, those are my thoughts on that. Perhaps I should've written this a decade or two ago, when people cared, but eh?