Hell's Bells

[Updated May 2, 2013]

“We know what we are, but not what we may be.” Hamlet, Act IV, sc. 5.

Metaphorically, Xander couldn’t marry Anya in Hell's Bells. He’s Buffy’s “heart”, and this season her heart is unsure, conflicted. We’ve seen that uncertainty in her half-hearted pursuit of the Trio and in her relationship with Spike. We’ll know Buffy has recovered from her malaise when her heart is sure again. And vice versa.

Xander’s not just a metaphor, of course, he’s fully developed character in his own right, so we need to look at this episode from that angle as well. For me, there are three factors contributing to his decision to walk out. One is his relationship with Buffy. The second is how much he really loves Anya, an issue I’ve raised before in my post on Into the Woods. The third factor is Xander’s own family background. I’ll discuss these in this order.

Xander, as I’ll discuss below, fears his own weaknesses. He’s able to overcome those weaknesses, in part, because he sees himself as valuable to Buffy. His vision suggests that when that's gone, there will nothing worthwhile left in him. He also senses that he’s going to have to put Buffy’s mission aside for Anya. The thing that makes him feel enough of a man to believe that he can get married (his ability to help Buffy) is the same thing he stands to lose if he goes through with it.

I’ve said before that I thought Xander’s speech to Anya in Into the Woods rang false. In my eyes, Xander didn’t behave as if he loved Anya “powerfully, painfully”. Xander rarely defended her, he often criticized her, there was always an air of patronizing about his sarcasm towards her. I collected instances of these in my posts on Into the Woods and Doublemeat Palace. That treatment, we now see, turns out to be consistent with, though not nearly as obnoxious as, the way Xander’s father behaves towards his mother; it’s part of Xander’s fear revealed here in Hell’s Bells.

Xander’s vision also included physical abuse, though he has never been physically abusive towards Anya, nor do I think he ever would be. We didn’t see that with his father, but it doesn’t take much to imagine that physical abuse also was part of the Harris household. It’s not surprising, then, that Xander would fear it even if I don’t think it’s likely. The potential for physical abuse does fit with the season theme, given Xander’s metaphorical role and Buffy’s relationship with Spike.

Xander made the decision to cancel the wedding just like he made the decision to announce it – without letting Anya have any real say. As Tara told Willow in TR, “But you don't get to decide what is better for us, Will. We're in a relationship, we are supposed to decide together.” It’s worse in Xander’s case, because he told Anya just last episode that he very much wanted to be married to her:

ANYA: So our wedding... (Xander nodding) ...is not our marriage. (smiles)
XANDER: Separate things. One fills me with a dread akin to public speaking engagements.
ANYA: And that would be the wedding.
XANDER: Which will be over soon.
ANYA: But our marriage...
XANDER: That lasts forever.

And a year ago he actually promised Anya to give her warning if he decided to leave:

ANYA: If you ever decide to go, I want a warning. You know, big flashing red lights, and-and-and one of those clocks that counts down like a bomb in a movie? And there's a whole bunch of, of colored wires, and I'm not sure which is the right one to cut, but I guess the green one, and then at the last second "No! The red one!" and then click, it stops with three-tenths of a second left, but then you don't leave. (pause) Like that, okay? XANDER: Check. Big bomb clock. (Triangle)

In light of all this, one way to see Xander’s speech to Anya in ItW is that it did for him exactly what I think his speech to Buffy did for her (see my post on that episode): he talked himself into thinking something he didn't completely feel. He rushed into proposing to Anya before considering what marriage meant. He tried to force himself to go through with the wedding even though he didn't want to. I think the fact that he and Anya were not a couple in Tabula Rasa tends to confirm this view (hence my reference to the Sherlock Holmes story Silver Blaze, where the key clue was that the dog didn’t bark).

Xander’s relationship with Anya has also raised issues regarding Xander’s judgmental reactions to Angel (and even Spike, though to a lesser extent). Anya is in a similar situation as Angel was when Buffy met him. Angelus was a vicious, violent demon who committed unspeakable crimes until he got his soul. Anyanka’s career as a vengeance demon was arguably worse if for no other reason than that it was 4 times as long. Both became human by chance and their own “mistakes” in the choice of victim. Unlike Angel, Anya showed occasional nostalgia for her former life (Doppelgangland, Pangs, her continued relationship with Halfrek and D’Hoffryn). Xander’s criticism of Angel looks pretty hypocritical in this light.

The demon’s “poetic justice” revenge drives this point home, but it would be a mistake for us to see Xander’s reaction as motivated solely by doubts about Anya. They aren’t, though the demon leads Anya to think that. Xander’s doubts are mostly about himself – he thought his family was his destiny instead of his origin. He hasn't realized what Spike said to Dawn in Crush, "Doesn't seem to me it matters very much how you start out." It’s not surprising that Xander thinks this way – it’s exactly what he thought about Angel. Metaphorically, we might see this as expressing Buffy’s concern that her Slayer power will eventually corrupt her human side; when Xander walks out of the wedding for fear of what he might become, that’s a form of Buffy’s refusal to accept her adulthood.

By leaving, Xander demonstrated that he isn’t ready for adulthood either. As manwitch put it 10 years ago, “You don't avoid becoming your father by running and hiding from the situation. You avoid becoming your father by being in the same situation and being different.”

In comments, State of Siege offered a much more favorable take on Xander’s relationship with Anya. It’s worth reading as a contrast to mine. I'd put it this way: Xander wants someone he can put on a pedestal. He wants (his idealized) Buffy. Anya's flaws make it impossible for Xander to put her on a pedestal. In order for the relationship to work, he needs to learn to stop doing that (and to stop expressing his disappointment when the woman fails to live up to his ideal). Anya is therefore a test of Xander's maturity.

Xander told Anya that didn’t leave because of her, but he certainly does have doubts about Anya. Those doubts were the focal point of OMWF: “Am I marrying a demon?” Anya may not be a demon, but she’s no fairy princess either. She never has made much effort to realize her humanity; the closest she came was when she finally got her wedding vows right. But not until she confronted the demon she created has she had the opportunity to come face to face with her past wrongdoing.  If remorse is an essential condition for redemption, then Anya hasn’t shown that yet. The ending scene suggests that D’Hoffryn has offered her her powers back. In that case we’ll find out if Anya’s commitment to humanity is real or if it’s still a work in progress (Xander’s words in The Prom).

On a purely structural note, I have substantial criticisms of Hell’s Bells. In particular, it’s hard to explain the absence of Willow, Buffy, Tara, and Dawn from the scene in which Xander tells Anya he’s leaving. All four were standing there next to him just a moment before, but they are completely absent thereafter. That’s a real flaw in the plotting and it’s distracting. So is the absence of Giles without any mention of him.

Trivia notes: (1) Willow wanted to wear a tuxedo and be “Marlene Dietrich-y”, after the 1930s film star. (2) Uncle Rory wanted an Irish coffee: coffee and whiskey. (3) Mr. Harris said that Krelvin came from a long line of “geeks”. The joke is that the word “geek” originated in the circus – they were the “freaks” in circus side-shows. (4) The “Bison Lodge” is a takeoff of Moose Lodges. (5) Uncle Rory is a taxidermist, which we learned in The Dark Age. (6) Clem mentioned the Commedia dell’arte, for which see the link. (7) Xander asked Buffy if she wanted to “get lucky”, which is an American idiom meaning to have sex. (8) Buffy responded with “into the breach with you”, which plays off a line from Henry V (“once more unto the breach”) and tells Xander to brave the crowd. (9) Dawn referred to Spike’s date as a “Manic Panicked freak”. The reference is to a New York-based chain specializing in hair dye and related products. (10) Dawn described Spike as “macking” with his date, a slang term meaning “making out with”. (11) Mr. Harris said that marriage saved him from a dose of the “clap”, a slang term meaning venereal disease. (12) Joss wrote the Buffy/Spike scene. (13) Spike tells Buffy she “glows”, a reminder of William in Fool For Love when he wanted a synonym for “glowing” and ended up with “effulgent”. (14) Willow reminded Xander of their last experience with formal wear, which was when they first kissed in Homecoming. (15) Anya’s reference to herself as a “sex poodle” was a joke about Jane Espenson, who called herself that. (16) Mr. Harris asked the bartender for a “double Jack”, meaning a double shot of Jack Daniels whiskey.