He was twenty. I actually think S5 Dawn is written very well; she feels very fourteen to me. I have a sister who's sixteen, and Dawn's arc has always felt very correct to me in terms of how she develops and matures.
Six years is a significant distance, and I am not even really comfortable with the idea of 19 year-old Dawn and 25 year-old Xander, frankly. I say this as a 22 year-old. At 19 I was in no way equipped to have an egalitarian relationship with a 25 year old.
The other thing that is gross to me about it is that when Xander finds out Dawn is the Key, all he wants to talk about (to Giles of all people) is that a "powerful being" has a crush on him, ignoring the fact that she is -fourteen-. The idea that he got off to that and then sat around waiting until she was legal so he could fuck her is really gross to me.
I am not a Xander fan. I always thought he was a Nice Guy TM, and I was grossed out by him. Yeah I view him this way all the way up through "Chosen".
From what I can tell in S8, he's completely moved on from his Buffy-crush. Yeah and to me this is just a big failure of characterization. Like, the idea that Buffy would ever want to be with Xander in the first place is insane, but the idea that Xander would turn her down is just crazypants to me. It reads to me like Joss wanted Buffy to finally cave to Xander (his admitted author proxy) and for Xander to shut her down. It reads as petty vengeance against all the pretty girls who ever shut Whedon down. And then he gets the Summers sister consolation prize. Idk I hate hate hate it.
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Six years is a significant distance, and I am not even really comfortable with the idea of 19 year-old Dawn and 25 year-old Xander, frankly. I say this as a 22 year-old. At 19 I was in no way equipped to have an egalitarian relationship with a 25 year old.
The other thing that is gross to me about it is that when Xander finds out Dawn is the Key, all he wants to talk about (to Giles of all people) is that a "powerful being" has a crush on him, ignoring the fact that she is -fourteen-. The idea that he got off to that and then sat around waiting until she was legal so he could fuck her is really gross to me.
I am not a Xander fan. I always thought he was a Nice Guy TM, and I was grossed out by him.
Yeah I view him this way all the way up through "Chosen".
From what I can tell in S8, he's completely moved on from his Buffy-crush.
Yeah and to me this is just a big failure of characterization. Like, the idea that Buffy would ever want to be with Xander in the first place is insane, but the idea that Xander would turn her down is just crazypants to me. It reads to me like Joss wanted Buffy to finally cave to Xander (his admitted author proxy) and for Xander to shut her down. It reads as petty vengeance against all the pretty girls who ever shut Whedon down. And then he gets the Summers sister consolation prize. Idk I hate hate hate it.