History Characters / BuffyverseScoobyGang

* FatalAttractor: All of his dates are demons. ''All'' of them. He and Willow have devised a secret phone code for "My date's a demon who's trying to kill me."

* AbusiveParents: Not explicitly abusive ''per se'', but they're definitely not loving parents. His father is also, at least verbally and emotionally, abusive of his mother, and on one occasion tried to sell him to some Armenians. It's also noted that every Christmas, Xander sleeps outside so as not to deal with his drunken family.

* PopCulturedBadass: He read ComicBook/XMen comics and referenced both [[ComicBook/TheFantasticFour the Human Torch]] and ComicBook/NickFury. He displayed the ability to read Klingon and often demonstrated pop culture knowledge rivaling Andrew's.

* ArcherArchetype: He had sufficient dexterity and aptitude with bows, using them on several occasions, including the battle against the mayor and in helping Angel Investigations fight off Spike and Marcus.

!!CharacterSpecificPages

** Spike is an example in Season 7—most of the Scoobies neither like nor trust him (lampshaded by Anya), but Buffy insists he stick around because he's valuable. Though that's not the only reason.

** Later, Anya (a former vengeance demon-turned-human) for the same reasons as Cordelia.

* BabiesEverAfter: [[spoiler: With Dawn. They end off Season 12 seemingly married, living together and with a baby girl named after [[TeamMom Joyce]].]]

* AMFMCharacterization: He's a fan of classic rock like Music/{{Cream}}, Music/TheWho, Music/LynyrdSkynyrd, Music/DavidBowie, Music/TheVelvetUnderground and Music/TheBayCityRollers, showing he's not as stuffy and stuck-up as he seems at first.
* AntiHero: As he puts it, Buffy is a "real hero" who always puts helping others above anything else. That's also what allows Giles to assume this role, as the group ''needs'' someone more ruthless and vicious when difficult choices have to be made -- Giles is the man who carries that burden so Buffy and the others don't have to. He then promptly and calmly suffocates Ben (host of Glory), who'd been explaining this to.

* DarkAndTroubledPast: It has trouble staying buried, too. 'Ripper' Giles used to be evil (or at the very least, violent and criminally inclined [[JerkWithAHeartOfGold Jerk With A Deeply Buried Heart Of Gold]]) in his younger days; a vicious delinquent practicing dark magic.

* IDidWhatIHadToDo: His reaction to [[spoiler: smothering Ben to stop Glory for good.]] Nasty work, which is why he did it; Buffy shouldn't have to.

* InSeriesNickname: Ripper. He earned it.

* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome: She fulfills the "blunt, no filter, say anything that pops into her head" role that Cordelia filled, along with Spike. The difference here is that while Spike and Cordelia were blunt, they each brought something to the group: Spike was the only member of the gang that could physically fight monsters alongside Buffy, and Cordelia was the only one with a car and could drive them places in high school. Anya’s only role in the group was Xander’s girlfriend. Since Spike and Cordelia contributed ''something'', they were easier to tolerate. Sans Xander, the entire group looked down on Anya, which eventually leads to Buffy openly asking her ''what'' she contributes to the group [[TheLoad besides getting rescued]].

* OutOfFocus: During Season 7, with an all-time low of three lines in "Lies My Parents Told Me" and an absence in "Conversations with Dead People."

* AmazonChaser: Xander has a noted thing for Slayers, showing interest in Buffy, Kendra, and Faith (and losing interest in Kendra when she becomes tongue-tied). He ends up losing his virginity to Faith. Cordelia, Anya, [[spoiler:and Dawn]] aren't exactly pushovers, either.

* OOCIsSeriousBusines:

* PlatonicLifePartners: With Buffy and Willow, after it was made clear there could be no romantic prospects between them and that they were BetterAsFriends.

* RunawayGroom: In "[[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS6E16HellsBells Hells' Bells]]", he dumps Anya at the altar, although that's just cold feet; there's no OtherWoman involved. There were exceptional circumstances, too: an old man claiming to be Xander himself from the future showed up, showing young Xander horrible visions implying he would kill Anya if the two of them got together (which merely augmented his fear from his parents' own unhappy marriage). It turns out this old man is lying; he's actually an old enemy of Anya's trying to ruin her wedding out of revenge, but by the time this comes out Xander is too freaked out to go through with it. Both Anya and Xander are depicted sympathetically.

* VirginShaming: In "[[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS1E4TeachersPet Teacher's Pet]]", the reason that the praying mantis teacher wanted to kill him was ''because'' he was a virgin, which Xander vigorously tried to deny after Buffy and Willow found out. After being propositioned by Faith in "[[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS3E13TheZeppo The Zeppo]]", he sheepishly admits that he's "never been up with people before". It doesn't stop her.

* FakeGuestStar: Despite appearing in almost fifty episodes, she's still billed a guest star. [[spoiler:Eventually she gets PromotedToOpeningTitles, but that's just a cruel trick by Joss, the ginger dominatrix of fandom.]]
** In fact, this was more-or-less confirmed by Whedon [[spoiler:to be an intentionally evil check on his bucket list (given that he'd wanted to do this with Creator/EricBalfour as Jesse, who was killed in the Pilot); he'd ''always'' wanted to kill a character in the first episode they received star billing, and he knew that whomever was dating Willow was destined to die, hence Benson not receiving star billing despite being a regular in all but name.]]

* IconicSequelCharacter: She is not brought in until
Season 4's "Hush" and remains a recurring character until Season 6's "Seeing Red" (where she is killed off). As Willow's girlfriend, she was seen as a milestone of LGBTQ representation at the time of airing.

* IChoosetoStay: At the end of the third season he is offered a chance by Anya to leave town but loyally refuses so he can stay and help his friends beat Wilkins.

* IgnoredEnamoredUnderling: Works for Warren out of love but Warren couldn't care less.

* LaughablyEvil: His attempts to become the dastardly supervillain he wants to be comically fail, though his actions do quite a bit of harm in "Normal Again."