Alexander "Xander" Harris
Name Alexander "Xander" Lavelle Harris
Position Scooby
Character Information
| Gender | Male | |
| Species | Human | |
| Age | 26 |
Physical Appearance
| Height | 5'9 | |
| Weight | 169 | |
| Hair Color | Brown | |
| Eye Color | Light brown | |
| Physical Description | Thin, tall, brown short hair, |
Family
| Father | Anthony Harris | |
| Mother | Jessica Harris | |
| Other Family | Rory, Dave, Carol and Karen Harris. |
Personality & Traits
| General Overview | Alexander Lavelle "Xander" Harris was the best friend of Slayer Buffy Summers and a founding member of the Scooby Gang. Being the only one of his group of friends to not possess any supernatural abilities, Xander was usually the one who saw everything beyond the supernatural. Besides this, Xander was known to be very humorous and sarcastic, especially in the face of danger. Talented but not skilled like Buffy |
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| Strengths & Weaknesses | Strengths: Street smart and a excellent detective. Weaknesses: Clowns |
| Personal History | Early life Xander was born to Anthony and Jessica Harris and grew up in the small California town of Sunnydale sometime before the middle of January in 1981.[6] Xander's father struggled with alcohol addiction while his mother's mental health declined; both parents were negligent and even abusive towards their son, leaving him with various insecurities.[7][8] Xander's lifelong best friend was Willow Rosenberg, who secretly harbored a hopeless crush on him. The pair briefly "dated" when they were five, but broke up over a stolen Barbie.[9] In kindergarten, Xander suffered an unknown humiliation involving Aqua man underpants.[10] Xander and Willow developed a mutual hatred of their snobby classmate Cordelia Chase, which led them to form the "We Hate Cordelia Club", of which Xander was the treasurer.[11] At his sixth birthday party, Xander's parents hired a clown which chased him; this traumatic incident gave him a lifelong phobia of clowns and caused him to suffer from nightmares.[12] When Xander did not get a toy fire truck for his seventh birthday, the house next door burned down and he believed that Willow had set the fire to let him see real fire trucks.[13] When he was seven, Xander had to take a test to see if he had a learning disability. Despite being a little slow on math and spatial relations, it was assured he wasn't "challenged".[14] When he was sixteen, he attended Willow's bat mitzvah, where his drunken parents caused a scene.[7] Sunnydale High - Crush on the Slayer In his sophomore year of high school, Xander met Buffy Summers on her first day at Sunnydale High and overheard her bizarre conversation with school librarian Rupert Giles regarding demons and vampires.[9] Xander and Willow discovered that Sunnydale was situated on a Hellmouth and that Buffy was actually the Slayer, granted supernatural powers and destined to fight the forces of evil. When his other best friend, Jesse McNally, was kidnapped and turned into a vampire, Xander fought him and accidentally staked him when someone pushed Jesse into the stake Xander was holding. After stopping the Harvest together, Buffy, Xander, Willow, and Giles formed the "Scooby Gang"; a small group of people who helped Buffy fight the forces of darkness.[15] Xander acted mainly as a sideman alongside Buffy who always provided constant comic relief. One of his main aspects in his sophomore years was his longing attraction for Buffy which he quickly developed upon seeing her. This was put alongside when a beautiful substitute biology teacher named Miss French directed his interest into her. Ignoring Buffy and her suspicions about Miss French, Xander ended up finding out she was actually the She-Mantis, a giant insect that disguised itself as a beautiful woman to seduce, mate with and eventually eat male virgins. Buffy saved Xander before he could be raped and decapitated, and his attraction was returned to her.[16] His feelings took a dangerous turn when he and a gang of bullies were possessed by the spirit of a hyena, twisting his feelings to the point of obsession where he sexually assaulted her as well as committing several other exploits such as bullying students, insulting Willow and eating a live pig. Buffy and Giles eventually found a way to remove the hyena spirit from him and the other students. Embarrassed, he pretended that the experience was removed from his memory, with only Giles being aware of his memories.[17] Returning to his schoolboy crush, Xander showed great jealousy to any man Buffy took an interest such as her brief relationship with loner Owen Thurman and her attraction to the handsome stranger Angel.[18] His hostility towards Angel grew stronger when he learned that Angel was a vampire, albeit one with a soul. He encouraged Buffy to kill him since she was the slayer and was willing to do so when it seemed that he hurt her mother. Finding out he was framed, Xander still didn't trust Angel and was shocked to discover Buffy still liked him.[19] Come Prom time, Xander finally admitted his feelings to Buffy, wanting to take her as his date. Buffy did not share the same feelings and rejected him, leaving him bitterly disappointed. He then asked Willow on the rebound, but, despite her crush on him, rejected his offer as she knew his true intentions. Saddened and depressed, Xander lied on his bed and listened to country music ("the music of pain"). However, he still made it his mission to save Buffy when he was told she went off to fight the Master, despite destiny claiming she would die. Xander teamed up with Angel to look for her but was too late as the Master already drowned her. As Angel had no breath, Xander saved Buffy's life by performing CPR, allowing her to kill the Master.[20] Overcoming insecurity In his junior year, Xander still continued to have an attraction for Buffy, but to a lesser extent, despite having threatened to kill her when her new distant and emotionally crude attitude after her death experience got Willow kidnapped by vampires. During a foreign exchange student program, he fell for Buffy's assigned partner, Ampata Gutierrez. However, he soon discovered she was an awoken Inca Mummy in disguise as a male Peruvian exchange student. As she needed to suck the essences of others to survive, effectively killing them, Xander refused to let her take Willow's life so they could be together and she then died. Being his second supernatural love interest, Xander noticed a pattern which would soon follow up.[21] On Halloween, a spell caused the trick-or-treaters of Sunnydale to take on the personalities and/or traits of their costumes, transforming Xander into a soldier. When the spell was lifted, he retained his memories and knowledge of the military, giving him better fighting skills and the know-how on using certain weapons or technology.[22] This came at its handiest when Buffy needed to disassemble the Judge, a powerful demon who was invincible and could kill with a touch. With his knowledge, Xander got into a military barracks by blackmailing a soldier who was dressed wrongly, allowing Xander to obtain a rocket launcher for Buffy.[11] While hiding from a demonic assassin in Buffy's basement, the tension between Xander and Cordelia resulted in a kiss. They tried to deny their attractions but couldn't resist each other and the pair began a secret relationship, consisting largely of making-out in a closet.[23] When Willow discovered their affair, she was devastated and offended that Xander would rather be with Cordelia than her.[11] Eventually, Cordelia's friends found out about the relationship as well, and Cordelia became alienated from the popular crowd, leading her to break up with Xander on Valentine's Day. Wanting revenge, Xander coerced the witch, Amy Madison into casting a love spell on Cordelia so he could dump her so she could be hurt her as she hurt him. The spell backfired, and Xander became irresistible to every female in Sunnydale except Cordelia. He took no enjoyment and rejected all the advances from Amy, Willow, and even Buffy, instead he tried to avoid the obsessed women who then aimed to kill him out of the desire to stop Xander falling in the hands of Cordelia, who accompanied him in his escape as she was targeted for rejecting him. As the spell was broken, Cordelia, realizing that Xander genuinely cared for her, reunited with him in defiance of her former friends and the two started an open relationship afterward.[24] After the suspected deaths of Sunnydale High Swim Team by fish-like beasts, Xander infiltrated the team by joining them, which required him to wear small red Speedos to the pleasure of Cordelia and Willow. He soon discovered that the swim team members were actually becoming Gill Monster as opposed to being killed by them. Exposed by the performance-enhancing cold war drugs that initiated the change via aromatherapy, Xander feared he would become one of those monsters until he received the necessary treatments to undo the process when he and Buffy stopped the swim team's insane Coach who perpetrated the transformations.[25] When Angel lost his soul and reverted to the evil Angelus, Xander felt that his long-standing mistrust of the vampire had been validated, especially when he murdered Giles' girlfriend, Jenny Calendar.[26] A rage-filled Xander opposed Buffy's backup plan for Willow to re-ensoul him if required, believing Buffy wanted to forget his actions to get her boyfriend back. After the death of another slayer at the hands of Angel, Xander took the opportunity when Buffy was willing to kill Angelus and encouraged her to do so, deliberately neglecting to tell her that Willow was planning to re-ensoul him herself after attempting to do so the first time but failed when Angel's minions attacked them, causing a fighting Xander to break his arm before Giles was kidnapped. Xander later rescued Giles during their ambush Angelus' mansion before Buffy sent the newly ensouled Angel to hell. Finding his identity In his senior year of high school, Xander joined Willow and her new boyfriend Oz in patrolling for vampires at night in place of Buffy who left Sunnydale to L.A. without a word after her encounter with Angel. When she returned, Xander argued his disapproval for her leaving during her welcome back party, acknowledging that she was selfish to run away, especially from her mother. Adding to further disappointment from Buffy, Xander was the first of the Scoobies to discover Angel's return from Hell, and that Buffy has been secretly rehabilitating him and still had feelings for him when he found them passionately kissing. Furious and disgusted that Buffy still loved Angel after Angelus' siege against Sunnydale only a year before, Xander immediately informed the other Scoobies of Angel's return and even went so far as to manipulate Faith Lehane into attempting to slay him. However, when Angel saved Willow from being killed by a corrupt ex-Watcher who was allegedly assigned to Faith, Xander begrudgingly accepted him back into the fold.[27] Suddenly, Xander began to have a romantic interest in Willow and she to him, leading to several secret kisses between them which were problematic because of their current respective partners. While Willow tried to find a way to end their urges through magic, they were kidnapped by Spike, a vampire that rampaged in Sunnydale for a period with his lover Drusilla who took Willow so she would use her skills in magic to create a love spell on Drusilla after she dumped him. Injured, Xander and Willow shared their final kiss that contributed to Cordelia suffering a near-fatal injury after she and Oz discovered the two in the act.[28] He appeared to her at the hospital with flowers and she immediately told him to stay away from her, thus ending their relationship. Returning to school, Cordelia's anger along with being mocked by her friends when she reunited with them, led to the arrival of the misandristic vengeance demon Anyanka in Sunnydale, though she was quickly depowered into a human.[29] Following their break-up, Cordelia stepped up her usual ridicule of Xander, labeling him "The Zeppo" and mocking him for being useless compared to his friends, who were Slayers, witches, werewolves, and vampires. In an attempt to prove her wrong, Xander acquired a hotted-up car which led him to embark on an adventure with a group of zombies, led by tough guy Jack O'Toole who used Xander as transportation. However, when O'Toole and his friends tried to blow up Sunnydale High, Xander single-handedly put an end to their plan by convincing Jack to deactivate the explosives. While this happened, the other Scoobies fought to prevent the apocalypse from happening, dismissing Xander's involvement for his safety and remaining unaware of Xander's heroism the next day.[14] Also, during that insane day, Xander also lost his virginity to Faith after he aided her during a fight. After this, he believed he and Faith shared a connection, not knowing the full extent of her promiscuous behavior and that he was just another man used and thrown by her. As Faith wouldn't own up after murdering a human, Xander approached but ended up nearly being raped before Angel saved him. During the upcoming Senior Prom, Xander was asked by what was Anyanka, now Anya to go with her as neither of them had dates, so he accepted. During this time, he discovered that Cordelia's family lost their wealth, home, and cars because of her father's tax evasion, and made peace with Cordelia by helping her pay for her prom dress. At his high school graduation, Xander led Sunnydale High's students against Mayor Wilkins and his vampires, acting as a commander alongside Buffy. After the school blew up and killed the Mayor, Xander expressed his happiness that high school was literally destroyed and that it was the best part of it, which was agreed upon the rest of his friends.[30] Struggle with Growing Up Xander's inferiority complex and feelings of isolation increased when he chose not to enroll in UC Sunnydale like Buffy, Willow, and Oz. After graduating from high school, he set upon a cross-country trip inspired by Jack Kerouac's On the Road that ended when his car broke down having only gone as far as Oxnard. Needing to pay for repairs, he was forced to take a job as a dishwasher at a "Ladies Night" club for a month and a half where no one ever spoke to him until one night when one of the male strippers called in sick, making him do the obvious, though he claimed that "no power on this earth would make me [Xander] tell you [Buffy] the rest of that story". He then traded his car for one that wasn't "entirely made out of rust". In his entire trip outside of Sunnydale, the only aspect of knowledge gaining he accomplished was watching the film Grand Canyon, which he found was lame. Returning to Sunnydale, he moved into his parents' basement where he had to pay rent. He arrived several days before his friend's first day at college without calling them, as he didn't want to help them move. Reuniting with Buffy, he continued to help the gang in fighting demons as well as hanging out with them on campus. During this time, Xander took a series of odd jobs such as a food vendor, a phone-sex operator, and a deliveryman. His most notable jobs included being a bartender at the college bar after using a fake ID. There he served a brand of beer called Black Frost that, not to his initial knowledge, was cursed by the bar owner to turn the patrons, including Buffy, into savage cavemen, likely leading to the end of that job where he initially expressed excitement of offering to light lonely patron's cigarettes. He also worked at a construction site, building a new Cultural Center that led him to be briefly contracted with mystical syphilis, malaria, and smallpox after he was attacked by the vengeful spirit of a Chumash Indian. Shortly after his arrival to Sunnydale, Xander was approached by Anya who still had feelings for him and after a very little persuasion, he had sex with Anya and then began dating. Initially, his interest in Anya was purely sexual, but as time went on, he develope genuine feelings for her, eventually falling in love. Unfortunately, Xander's problems multiplied when he was forced to accept Spike as a roommate for a short time while the Scoobies were hiding from the Initiative. Throughout the year, Xander relentlessly had to deal with the fact that his friends were going places in their lives while he struggled to see himself as a grown-up. These feelings were used against him when Spike, recruited the gang's newest big bad Adam, used the power of words to separate Buffy, Willow, Giles, and Xander. Spike made Xander feel he was useless in the gang and that his friends talked about sending him to the army, so Xander fled to the basement where he laid down in his bed in the nude. It wasn't until Anya came and made him feel important. He then rejoined his friends in their plan to defeat Adam. Walking through the Initiative compound, Xander helped Buffy clear through the various rioting demons with the help of an Initiative Taser blaster. He then joined them in performing the Enjoining spell, binding their essences with Xander providing the "heart" in the team so they could defeat Adam. Later, when the four had a movie night at Buffy's house, Xander brought Apocalypse Now but they didn't get to watch it because the First Slayer attacked them in their dreams, angry that Buffy worked with others to fight evil. In Xander's dream, he abstractly dealt with aspects with his life such as his inner primal desires, insecurity around others, loyalty to Buffy, relationship with Anya, crummy upbringing and his journey in life. Maturation When the famous vampire, Dracula, came to Sunnydale in search of the Slayer, he hypnotized Xander into briefly becoming his willing manservant. Xander became a bubbling, spider-eating Renfield that escorted an entranced Buffy to Dracula as he was promised he would become a vampire. He tried to prevent the intervention of Buffy's current boyfriend Riley Finn but was easily taken out. As he regained consciousness, Buffy already bested Dracula and Xander, free from his thrall, expressed his anger, not only at Dracula but generally how he is the "butt monkey", and declared he will be no more.[31] Despite what Dracula did to Xander, the pair apparently remained in touch through letters following Dracula's departure.[32] Xander later decided to move out of his parent's basement and try for an apartment, but he failed to impress the building manager with his inability to pay for it and his physical appearance, disappointing Anya who wanted him to buy it. When the demon Toth came in search of the Slayer and attack her with the Ferula Gemini, Xander took the blast for her and was then split into two separate beings; one displaying his strengths while carrying a flattened nickel and one displaying his weaknesses. His stronger half excelled, dressing more presentable and getting a promotion in his current job in construction, which allowed him to lease the apartment. The weaker half believed the other half was the evil weapon of Toth that used the nickel to mesmerize people into trusting him. While the stronger Xander was with Anya, the weaker Xander tried to kill him with Anya's revolver. After Toth was killed, the Xanders found out about their true nature as Toth actually wanted to split Buffy into two; one as her Slayer side and the other powerless which, because if one duplicate would die so would the other, making her easier to kill and meaning both Xanders could have died. The Xanders were returned back into one being, and Xander discovered that the real reason why one of them was so ambitious and fortunate was that that was his true potential. However, as Riley helped Xander move out of the basement, Riley revealed to Xander that he knew Buffy didn't love him.[13] Xander kept Riley’s words a secret until he confronted Buffy, who was left with an ultimatum after she discovered Riley was secretly paying vampires to bite him for the rush (as he felt neglected by her). Riley told Buffy that he would be leaving her to rejoin the military. After Buffy killed Riley’s vampire clients, Xander came and told her that it was because she largely treated Riley as a rebound from Angel and asked her if she really wanted a serious relationship. She did but was too late and Riley left. Because of Buffy’s experience, Xander made it known that he fully appreciated his relationship with Anya, and how she made him feel like an adult. Xander, however, later became the center of a conflict between Anya and Willow who had disagreements about running Giles' shop The Magic Box when he temporarily left it to them. Anya was suspicious of Willow's feelings for Xander despite the fact she discovered she was gay a year before while Willow became irritated by Anya's personality. This led to them accidentally summoning Anya's ex-boyfriend and now troll, Olaf, who rampaged through the streets of Sunnydale. Xander tried to rescue the girls but was easily overpowered and was forced to choose between them. Luckily, Buffy came, having grown emotionally respondent from Xander and Anya's relationship, and defeated Olaf before he was taken out of this dimension.[33] Shortly before going into battle with the hell-goddess Glory, Xander asked Anya to marry him should they survive, and she accepted. During the battle, Xander acted as one of the many pillars to weaken Glory. As Buffy temporarily lost Olaf's mystical hammer (acquired to use against Glory after his defeat), Xander used his skills as the "glorified bricklayer" against Glory by employing and operating a wrecking ball to keep her off her feet. Even though Glory was defeated, the portal to her dimension was opened via the blood of Buffy's sister Dawn, causing strings of lightning bolts to spark which made a load of wreckage fall onto Xander, but he was saved by Anya, who pushed him out of the way and took the damage. Xander later carried an injured yet living Anya just before the dead body of Buffy (who closed the portal by sacrificing herself). Unready Engagement For months after Buffy's death, Xander aided Willow, Tara and the Buffybot look after Dawn in her sister's absence. Xander had doubts about his future with Anya and didn't want her to announce their engagement during such a time when they were recovering from their loss. Xander hesitantly joined in Willow's spell to resurrect Buffy despite having deep doubts about it. As the spell was successful, Xander announced the engagement during Halloween after seeing that everyone was happy after a strenuous day working at the Magic Box (with it being the appropriately themed holiday), letting it slip while watching Anya’s “Dance of Capitalist Superiority”. Xander also tried to help Buffy find a job by letting her try her hand at his construction site, making use of her superhuman strength. However, that only caused trouble for him when Buffy was attacked by a bunch of demons summoned by The Trio. Hoping for a happy ending, Xander summoned the demon Sweet to turn Sunnydale into a living musical, which went horribly wrong when people started bursting into flames as well as singing their feelings out. During that period, Xander and Anya both expressed their love and excitement over their upcoming marriage while also revealing each other's flaws. Buffy also revealed that — while dead — she was actually in what she believed was heaven. and her return to life was hell by contrast.[34] Buffy then began a secret affair with Spike which Xander failed to notice despite some heavy indication when she was briefly turned invisible, having nearly caught them in the act during that period. Xander and Anya showed both excitement and frustration on their upcoming wedding, as they both learned to Waltz while arguing about preparations, which became resolved after being given advice from Riley and his new wife Sam during a visit to Sunnydale in order to kill a demon. They concluded that they feared their wedding, not their marriage. Xander, however, was still unsure. His fears over marrying Anya were made worse during their wedding by a visit from a demon pretending to be his future self, showing him a bitter future trapped in a marriage similar to that of his parents.[7] Although the vision was later revealed to be false, Xander became more conscious of the doubts he was already having, especially seeing his drunken father abuse Xander's mother and insult Anya's demonic "family". Not wanting to hurt Anya, he decided to call off the wedding, leaving a heartbroken Anya at the altar. Xander then fled to a hotel for the night before returning to his apartment where he drowned his sorrows in beer and music. Xander attempted to fix things with Anya as he still loved her. However, pain-hearted Anya returned to the vengeance fold and tried to have Xander's friends make wishes against him. Failing to do so, Anya became drunk with Spike and subsequently had sex with him. Discovering them in the act, Xander attacked and very nearly killed him in a jealous rage, but abandoned those plans out of anger and disgust when he and the other Scoobies discovered that Buffy and Spike had been sleeping together behind their backs for quite some time.[35] When Spike subsequently attempted to rape Buffy, Xander was infuriated, and later realized that Buffy had not told them about her relationship with Spike because she knew that Xander would react as he had. After a peaceful conversation, Xander subsequently made amends with Buffy.[36] When Willow's girlfriend, Tara Maclay, was fatally shot by Warren Mears, who was trying to kill Buffy, Xander blamed himself for both that and Willow’s subsequent turn to the dark side, remarking that he had seen Warren’s gun before he raised it and was merely frozen with fear while he shot both Buffy and Tara. Xander was so enraged at Tara’s death that he supported Willow’s intentions to kill Warren in revenge until she actually did so.[37] Willow attempted to destroy the world, and as Buffy was unable to stop her, Xander came to Willow, claiming if the world were to end he would be by her side. Even as Willow attacked him, Xander simply refused to leave her and said that he still loved her — which managed to return her to her senses and restore her humanity.[38] The One Who Sees The following year, Xander looked after Dawn along with Buffy while Willow was away in England for rehabilitation with Giles. He continued a steady career in construction where he was one of the workers who built the new Sunnydale High. This allowed him access to a map of the restored school where Dawn attended that year so she could avoid any supernatural occurrences though this did not stop Dawn from encountering a group of evil manifestations on her first day which Xander defeated by destroying their tailsmen. As the remaining Scoobies came into contact with a still-demonic Anya, Xander struggled over his feelings for her. He protested to the notion of Buffy killing Anya after she had a group of frat boys killed, believing there was still a chance to redeem her even though Anya didn't believe it herself. He warned Anya of Buffy's intentions but Anya nevertheless fought back until her boss D'Hoffryn intervened, having been summoned by a recovering Willow. In order to revive the frat boys, Anya was stripped of her powers once more and she and Xander finally broke up for good, despite admitting that they still loved each other, though they did continue to have the odd fling in times of crisis. Xander played an active role during Buffy's conflict against the First Evil and his attempt at ending the Slayer line by murdering all Potential Slayers in Buffy's protection. It was his job in construction that provided Buffy an arena to fight the near-invincible Turok-Han vampire in order to provide an example towards the Potentials. When Buffy's sister Dawn mistakenly believed herself to be a Potential Slayer, Xander empathized with her disappointment at not being the one in the spotlight while also praising her initiative when she encouraged the actual Potential Amanda to follow her destiny. [39] Xander had his left eye gouged out by the evil preacher Caleb, and began wearing an eye patch.[40][41] Despite his insistence on fighting side-by-side with Buffy, Xander was pleaded to drive himself and Dawn out of Sunnydale as the two of them was the most vulnerable. He had to have her chloroformed as she couldn't be negotiated with but ended up being tasered unconscious and driven back to the Summer's home by Dawn herself. In the final battle against the First Evil, Xander fought alongside Dawn while Anya was killed by a Bringer's sword, and her body remained in the new Sunnydale High's ruins as the empty town was swallowed by the earth. Andrew Wells, whom she had fought alongside, comforted Xander by saying that Anya had died to save his life. Xander replied by saying "That's my girl. Always doing the stupid thing." |
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| Powers/Abilities | Knowledge of military training, tactics and weapons. Extensive experience in vamp hunting and melee combat. Detective skills Street smarts Excellent construction and repairman Temporarily possession by a hyena spirit |