reverse unpopular opinion: xander harris
lol i literally sent someone else this very question today!! great minds think alike...
first of all i must remark upon this boy's fashion sense. it is unparalleled. i unironically love his fits. my 2 faves are his "earshot" fit with the christmas-colored shirt and his "i <3 dirt" shirt which is simply excellent beyond measure.
secondly i will say that, while xander can certainly be a jerk, he also does demonstrate growth and the ability to recognize his behavior and try to do better and make up for his mistakes. in "prophecy girl" he reaches out to angel for help to save buffy even though he's still in the midst of a jealous snit about buffy liking angel more. in "amends" he shows up to help buffy and giles figure out what's wrong with angel because he acknowledges he's been unfair to buffy about angel. in "the prom" he buys cordelia's dress for her (which is not a minor thing given his financial situation) without expectation that she will dance with him or go to prom with him because he is able to overcome his bitterness about her not forgiving him to see that she's a human person who has been hurting for some time. in "seeing red" he acknowledges that buffy had good reasons to not come to him about spike and says that he wants to be a better friend to her. and in s7 he is actually very non-judgmental about spike & her relationship with him, and in general is very supportive. granted in s7 he does not get much screentime lol. but still.
thirdly, although the theme of this ask meme is 'reverse unpopular opinions', i am going to take an unpopular stance and defend the Lie. i certainly understand why people take umbrage with xander, a boy who has repeatedly made sexist comments and shown jealousy over buffy preferring angel to him, deciding that buffy cannot be trusted with the knowledge that willow is trying to return angel's soul to him and telling her that willow simply told her to kick his ass instead. i don't think it's the best or most selfless or most morally correct decision ever, and there is an undertone of sexism and possessiveness in the decision to withhold this information from her.
HOWEVER. if buffy DOES falter in her fight against angel. and i cannot stress this enough. literally the entire world goes to hell. and honestly, as much as we the audience sympathize with buffy's emotional struggle to kill angel, the reality is that she has not yet demonstrated that she can. for all that xander's Lie comes across to many as paternalistic and condescending in its assumption that she would hold back and endanger the world if she knew willow was trying to save him, the truth is that xander has good reasons, based in experience and buffy's past actions, to make this assumption. i also just frankly think that the Lie did not change the outcome of the buffy/angel fight for the worse; it either did not change the outcome at all, or xander was right and it helped buffy cement her decision to fight angel as hard as she could.
now that said i do think the Lie made it much harder for buffy emotionally to kill angel since she was not prepared for his soul to return, and i do think it probably contributed to her leaving town because she felt like her friends were all pro-killing angel and wouldn't sympathize with her. and also just in general it's not super kosher to lie to your friends about what your other friends said! so i'm not saying it was a good or heroic thing. but i do think it's not nearly as bad as people make it out to be. and the writers bringing it up in 7x05 (a full 4 years later) to make xander look worse in an argument where he is 100% correct was pure ridiculous nonsense.
fourthly i think his struggle with his abusive father, and particularly his fear of becoming his abusive father, is very sad and poignant. his dream in "restless" is maybe my favorite; the way he keeps ending up back in his parents' basement no matter where he turns, with his father at the top of the stairs looming threateningly over him, is so. raaaagh. can we get him out of there!!! and i think of all his missteps, his choice in "hell's bells" is by far the most sympathetic, because they do a really fantastic job of showing us just how deep-seated his fear of turning into his father is. (and unfortunately, "entropy" demonstrates that this fear is not entirely baseless.) the fact that he ends up hurting anya so profoundly anyway in his quest to not hurt her is also deeply sad and speaks to the cycle he's trapped in and how difficult it is for him to get out of it.
fifthly he is extremely brave. he challenges angel to his face in "killed by death." he plays a game of chicken with a zombie who wants to blow up the school in "the zeppo" and he wins. he stands in between willow and the statue she needs to destroy the world and fully invites her to kill him, just to show her he's there for her. xander claims in s1 that he "laugh[s] in the face of danger" and then "hide[s] until it goes away" but in actuality he is one of the consistently bravest characters in the buffyverse.
sixthly he did NOT mooch off buffy in s6. that man was EMPLOYED and he did his best to help her, with getting discounts for her through his connections to plumbers, etc. the same cannot be said for everyone that season !
lastly i admire his commitment to being a hater. like in that one episode where he's at the bronze complaining about angel like "angel, angel, angel! why is everyone always talking about that FREAK who i HATE" and then angel shows up behind his shoulder and clearly heard him and xander says, completely confidently, "hey man :)" with absolutely no shame. i love angel but one must respect a committed hater and xander's haterism is unparalleled. just like his love of dirt <3
