I try to keep my equilibrium about the characters that I hate have issues with. Xander is very much up there, and I've always thought that he was the stand-in for Nice Guy Racists, who are those seemingly normal people that completely lose their shit when "The Other" gets anything they want for themselves: respect and women, primarily. (You know, all those decent folks that have been completely driven round the bend by having Obama in office?) I kind of liked that he was there to represent that very real, very difficult to face, element of our society.

I can definitely see how it may have be too subtle to be an effective diss, though. His character does get some pretty awesome moments, and he often gets to be stupid brave, after all. eleusis_walks takes him to task for what he says in Prophecy Girl, for instance, and I agree. But in the same ep, he's the one that forces Angel to show him where Buffy has gone, and takes action to save her while everybody else is sitting around worrying. He gets to be an actual, real-life hero, not just a super-hero.

Maybe I'm too generous with authorial intent in his case. It's my hope that he's there to show that even if you have these horrible sexist and racist compulsions — probably because you were raised in an environment of fear — you can be more than that. I would argue that there's is a little of this ugly thing in most of us. Xander is indeed a douche, and he is legion. It comforts me to think that he can also be a decent carpenter, a safe driver, a generous friend. He isn't entirely his worst aspects. I can't really forgive him his trespasses, but I try be fair about his accomplishments.