30 Days of Buffy: Day 7

Day 7: Least Favourite Male Character

Least favourite simply means that - it doesn't mean I hate the character, it just means that I like other characters better.

This category is actually a lot harder for me than favourite female/male and least favourite female because at various times many of the male characters annoyed the hell out of me.

I am toying with Caleb but because he was a cartoon misogynist he doesn't feel like a real character worthy of being least anything (except if there is a category coming up which is called least favourite villain).

So for sheer consistency, Xander wins. S5 Riley could have been a candidate as well as Spike in half of S6 and all of S7. Even Giles was in with a chance for leaving Buffy in S6 but I'll blame ASH for that bad move. I could have chosen any one of the Trio and if I had done 30 Day thing before my re-watch, Andrew would have been the obvious candidate. However, on re-watching, the Trio were no longer bothering me ("who are these people?", "why are they hogging screen time?" and "what about the characters I care about?") because I had accepted that the show I loved wasn't quite the same any more and I began to enjoy the three of them. My dislike of Riley in S5 is surely shared by most people although I do feel his character was treated rather shabbily. I loved Spike for a long time but when Buffy and Spike became Spuffy I seriously began to dislike him mainly because sometimes I wondered whose bloody show it was. S7's "Mad" Spike was unbearable and I felt the focus on him meant that other characters didn't get a look in (for example, Dawn).

Ah, poor Xander. I liked him fine enough in S1 and S2 (except for "she told me to tell you...kick his ass") and for most of S3 (I have a big problem with "The Zeppo" because I didn't believe a word of it) but my least favouriting of Xander began when Anya became a regular. I detested the way he spoke to her: it was patronising and awkward - and not funny.

Then there was the nadir that was "Into the Woods" which is an episode that I dislike so much that my rant about it almost embarrasses me.

Then he dumped Anya which was a storyline that didn't bother me because I liked Anya without Xander but after that Joss and Marti just didn't know what do with him (apart from a sympathetic speech to Dawn in "Potential") and it still dismays me that he had no place in "Conversations With Dead People".

So for all that, he's my least favourite male character. And he got away with this:

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