andrewducker: (Default)
andrewducker ([personal profile] andrewducker) wrote2011-12-12 11:00 am

[identity profile] cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com 2011-12-12 12:55 pm (UTC)(link)
See, for instance, treatment of Xander in Buffy, who never manages to break out of his original role.

Indeed. Although to be fair to Xander, the character does start off pretty simple, and makes several efforts to grow, but always ends up falling back into the inneffectual comic most of the time. So I agree the character gets short shrift, but at least it's a "failure to grow from 2D while other characters do" rather than "started interesting but became self parody".

I think it's that the show always needed a comic relief, and couldn't find a way to make Xander consistently competent and still interesting, so he ended up always being a klutz (despite isolated moments of competence).