Alexander Lavelle Harris is a fictional character created for the action-horror/fantasy television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997–2003). He was developed by Joss Whedon and portrayed throughout the television series by Nicholas Brendon and in two episodes by his twin brother, Kelly Donovan. He was conceived as an everyman and a male character for series heroine Buffy Summers (Sarah Michelle Gellar) to interact with, and to provide comic relief in the series. Xander is one of several friends of Buffy who assist her in saving the world against numerous supernatural events that plague Sunnydale, California, a town built over a doorway to hell.
Xander is based in part on Whedon himself, particularly in his high school years; as such, he is often the most geeky as well as witty and verbose of Buffy's characters. The character's overriding arc through the series has been his struggle towards maturity and earning the respect of others. In the canonical comic book continuation of the series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight (2007–2011), Xander comes to achieve these goals in becoming the tactical leader of a global army of Vampire Slayers alongside Buffy.
Academic attention to the character has frequently come in the form of gender studies or with a focus on social class, reflecting Xander's working class home life and his fears of inadequacy. However, Xander's unique position as both outside and within the main group enhances his insight into the other characters, especially as the series continues; in Season Eight, he is Buffy's unofficial "Watcher", who watches over her and has a clear perspective. Critics have noted that although Xander frequently exhibits a struggle of masculinity, his storylines often focus on his romantic conquests. Following his unreciprocated love for Buffy, these include the tumultuous relationship with rich girl Cordelia Chase (Charisma Carpenter), brief fling with his best friend Willow (Alyson Hannigan) and his long-term relationship with ex-demon Anya (Emma Caulfield). In Season Eight, the character's older-brother relationship with Buffy's little sister Dawn (Michelle Trachtenberg) also develops along romantic lines, too late for Buffy to act on her recognition of her own compatibility with Xander.
The character of Xander Harris also appears in numerous items in the series Expanded Universe, such as comic books, tie-in novels and video games.
Appearances
Television
Xander Harris is introduced in season 1's (1997) two-part premiere "Welcome to the Hellmouth"/"The Harvest". Xander meets Buffy Summers (Gellar), the Slayer, on her first day at Sunnydale High, as well as her Watcher Rupert Giles (Anthony Head). While in the library, he secretly listens in on a conversation between Buffy and Giles in which she identifies herself as the Slayer. After his friend Jesse (Eric Balfour) is made a vampire, Xander accidentally kills him, resulting in him resenting vampires. Xander and his best friend Willow (Hannigan) become Buffy's reliable sidekicks. He pines for Buffy's romantic affection, oblivious to Willow's affections for him, and distrusts Buffy's boyfriend, the ensouled vampire Angel (David Boreanaz). Typically, Xander is a target for bullies at school, but one dangerous situation forces him to pummel a man for the first time and was surprised of knowing that he can throw a powerful punch, and later he finds that he can even stagger a lesser vampire. In the season finale, "Prophecy Girl", Xander saves Buffy's life by administering CPR after she is drowned by the Master (Mark Metcalf).
In season 2 (1997–1998), Xander begins a turbulent and ambiguous relationship with popular girl Cordelia Chase (Carpenter) after they are thrown together in several life-or-death situations. He tells Willow that she is his best friend but that he has no romantic feelings for her, to Willow's dismay. Xander is briefly turned into a soldier in the episode "Halloween", and retains extensive military knowledge and training thereafter; in "Innocence", this knowledge proves essential to helping Buffy defeat a demon known as The Judge who had been believed practically invincible. In times, Xander gradually honed his fighting capabilities after a chain of events against supernatural and human threats. When Cordelia decides she needs to break up to preserve her social status, Xander coerces witch Amy Madison (Elizabeth Anne Allen) to cast a love spell, which misfires; Cordelia is unaffected but, seeing how much Xander loves her, reunites with him in defiance of her former friends, in "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered". The episode "Go Fish" focuses on Xander, after he joins the swim team to investigate the disappearances of Sunnydale High swimmers. In the season finale "Becoming, Part Two", Xander decides not to tell Buffy about Willow's plan to re-ensoul Angel—who has lost his soul, reverted to his vampire persona Angelus, and is going to bring about the apocalypse— so that she will not hesitate to kill him in order to save the world. Buffy is surprised and grief-stricken when Angel regains his soul moments before she must kill him.
Season 3 (1998–1999) begins with Xander and his friends slaying demons since Buffy ran away to Los Angeles. Some time after Buffy's return, Xander sees Angel and Buffy together and rushes to tell Giles of Angel's return in "Revelations". Xander and the others confront Buffy, angry that she concealed Angel's return. While still angry, Xander tells Faith that Angel is alive. When Faith decides to slay Angel, Xander is eager to join her. When Cordelia catches Xander kissing Willow in "Lovers Walk", she dumps him. They ultimately part as friends, although only after an extended period of mutual antagonism. "The Zeppo" is a comedic episode focusing on Xander: the episode begins with Cordelia mocking him as a "loser", which upsets him. A solo adventure begins when the rest of the Scoobies insist he stay away from the dangerous fight with the Sisterhood of Jhe; he borrows his uncle's classic car, loses his virginity to mentally unstable rogue Slayer Faith (Eliza Dushku), and single-handedly stops a band of zombies from destroying Sunnydale High School. His calm handling of the incident significantly enhances his self-confidence and, when again mocked by Cordelia, is unperturbed. Xander takes Anya (Caulfield), formerly vengeance demon Anyanka, to his prom in "The Prom", and his retained military training proves useful in defeating the evil Mayor (Harry Groener) in season finale "Graduation Day".
In season 4 (1999–2000), Xander's feelings of inferiority and isolation increase, as he has not enrolled in college with his friends. Outside the core group, Xander strengthens his relationship with Anya and the two eventually fall in love. In the season 4 climax "Primeval", Xander becomes the "Heart" in the spell, which conjoins him with Buffy, Willow and Giles to defeat Adam (George Hertzberg), a part-demon, part-human cyborg monster. Finale episode "Restless" delves into the characters' psyches through dream sequences; Xander's dream involves his erotic attraction to Buffy's mom (Kristine Sutherland), Willow and her girlfriend Tara (Amber Benson), his fear of his abusive father, and features a re-enactment of 1979 film Apocalypse Now.
In season 5 (2000–2001), Xander matures. He becomes a carpenter and construction worker, and moves into his own apartment with Anya. He comes under the thrall of Dracula in premiere episode "Buffy vs. Dracula", becoming his Renfield. The episode "The Replacement" focuses on the two aspects of Xander: the emotionally sensible, driven man, and the comedic buffoon. Xander-centric episode "Triangle" sees him defend Willow and Anya equally from Anya's ex-boyfriend Olaf the Troll (Abraham Benrubi) when ordered to choose between them. In the season finale, he asks Anya to marry him, and in the final battle he uses a wrecking ball to assist Buffy in defeating the season's villain, hell-goddess Glory (Clare Kramer).
In season 6 (2001–2002), Xander and his friends resurrect Buffy, who had sacrificed herself to close the portal between dimensions opened by Glory, and whose soul they believed had been sent to a Hell dimension as a result. However, Buffy had ascended to a "Heaven" dimension instead, where she existed in bliss, and she sinks into depression after returning to the mortal world. Xander's doubts about his future with Anya are expressed when he summons the all-singing demon Sweet (Hinton Battle), in the musical episode "Once More, with Feeling". A demon exploits these fears in "Hell's Bells"; Xander leaves Anya heartbroken at the altar, and she resumes working as a vengeance demon. In the season finale, when a grief-stricken Willow tries to end the world, only Xander's compassion and love for her is able to stop that apocalypse.
In season 7 (2002–2003), when Buffy's little sister Dawn (Michelle Trachtenberg) mistakenly believes herself to be a Potential Slayer, Xander empathizes with her disappointment over not being the one in the spotlight, in "Potential". The season 7 episode "Conversations with Dead People" is the only Buffy episode in which Xander does not appear. In the episode "Dirty Girls", Xander's left eye is gouged out by the evil preacher Caleb (Nathan Fillion), and he begins wearing an eyepatch. Though he and Anya get back together, in the series finale, "Chosen", Anya is killed by a Bringer's sword. Andrew (Tom Lenk), the only witness to her death, tells him Anya died saving his life. Xander responds, "That's my girl. Always doing the stupid thing."
Though Brendon does not portray Xander again subsequent to "Chosen", the Angel episode "Damage" (2004) mentions that Xander is in Africa, recruiting newly activated Slayers for Buffy's team. Between 2001 and 2004, Joss Whedon and Jeph Loeb developed a 4-minute pilot episode for Buffy the Animated Series, which was set during the show's first season. Had the series been picked up by a network, it would have featured Xander (voiced by Nicholas Brendon) in more adventures set during Buffy'''s first season. Following a 2008 leak of the pilot to YouTube, Loeb expressed some hope that the series may be resurrected in some form.
Literature Concurrent with the television series, Xander appears in canonical tie-ins to the television series. Xander appears in most Buffy comics and novels (those set within Buffy's Sunnydale years), and is the featured character of several. The Xander Years, Vol 1. and Vol. 2 for instance are each novelization of three key Xander episodes from the show's first three seasons, spanning "Teacher's Pet" to "The Zeppo".