Buffy The Vampire Slayer Nearly Ended Up Romantically With A Surprising Character

Buffy the Vampire Slayer celebrated the 20th anniversary of its first air date on Friday and even now, nearly 14 years since it went off the air, a debate rages on.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer fans constantly debate which of her vampire boyfriends she was most meant to be with, Angel or Spike (sorry Riley) and their passion at its peak could put Team Edward and Team Jacob to shame. Even creator Joss Whedon himself weighed in on the matter.

However, Whedon left something out of his ruling, and that is that he had considered having Buffy Summers end up with someone else, someone who )wasn’t undead (and no we’re not talking about Riley).

According to Buffy the Vampire Slayer star Nicholas Brendon, it was his character, Xander Harris, that Joss Whedon considered pairing with Buffy at the end of the series. Brendon revealed this during an interview with the AV Club when he was asked about Xander’s relationship with Anya, the former vengeance demon turned human.

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“Yeah, that was a lot of fun,” Brendon said. “Joss did have a talk with Sarah [Michelle Gellar] and I because he was kind of contemplating the idea of Xander and Buffy ending up together at the end of season seven. He just said, ‘What do you guys think about that?’ And we were both for it, but then that never came to fruition and I lost my eye.”

Being told your character is going to end up with the Slayer and then having your eye plucked out instead is definitely an unexpected turnaround. Brendon says the change of heart was likely because Whedon saw so much of himself in Xander.

“He was just thinking about the end of the show, and Xander and Buffy would be together,” Brendon explained. “But Xander is essentially Joss, and Joss does not like his characters to fully be happy in love. At least on Buffy.”

Xander was set up to be a rival to Angel for Buffy’s affections in the show’s early seasons, but Buffy so clearly only had eyes for Angel that it didn’t really stick. By the show’s third season, Buffy and Xander’s relationship had become more sibling-like than romantic and Xander found love, on and off, elsewhere.

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Those who have followed the Buffy the Vampire Slayer comics into Season 8 and beyond will know that Xander eventually ended up dating Buffy’s younger sister, Dawn, though that relationship has since expired. Brendon notes that he feels Xander has generally been an underrated Buffy the Vampire Slayer character.

“They don’t even make action figures of Xander. Oz has an action figure. I don’t have an action figure,” Brendon said. “Well, I have an action figure, but then they made those [Funko Pops!]. I don’t have one of those. Xander was always kind of under-appreciated on the show and he was written that way and I always felt bad. I wasn’t the Spike or I wasn’t Angel because I didn’t have any special powers, but without that sense of humor, I’m not sure what the show is. You needed someone playing Xander for that show to work. I just thought that character was under-appreciated because he wasn’t the one that was the romantic lead.”

Is anyone else reminded of “The Zeppo” episode?