Summary
In this episode, Cory and Laine discuss how Buffy handles Parker, how Harmony handles Spike, and how Xander handles a juice box.
Thanks for listening to our discussion of Season 4, Episode 3: The Harsh Light of Day.
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Music
Music for this episode is “Digging a Grave,” by Shadows from the Underground, and is used under license from Audiosocket.
Myth Taken: A Buffy the Vampire Slayer Podcast 
Regarding the Xander-Anya stuff in this episode, I agree that Anya’s dialogue could have been changed to feel more like a forthright, 1120 year old demon rather than… whatever it was we got. I think what annoys me about a lot of Anya’s characterization is that I get what they’re doing, but I think they’re doing it clumsily and relying too much on teen girl/feminine stereotypes. Anya has been alive many years and I don’t think that just gets brushed aside because she’s stuck in a human (teenage? 20-something?) body. She can deal with insecurity and vulnerability while still being Anya, and still being blunt and pragmatic, rather than having her act like she has less impulse control and less of a sense of self than the human teenagers around her. Plus, I don’t know, this might be something that just gets to me about Anya’s character generally, but I’m not a fan of the idea that she’s so thrown by human emotions that she just immediately falls in with Xander and that (and only that; she seems to have nothing else that’s important to her) is fulfilling for her? It just seems odd for her particular character, for this forthright centuries old demon. I know they address it a bit in that great Anya-centered episode in season 7, but something about Anya becoming a human woman and just kind of slipping into this idea of “what a human woman is” and that being so entirely centered around this one guy… it’s always bugged me a bit (if you can’t tell ;)).
As for Xander’s less than great response to Anya, I think it’s indicative of how he is with her and has been with Cordelia in the past. I think Xander does grow to love Anya, absolutely, but I also think he can be very dismissive of the feelings of the women he’s dating, and this is just one instance of that. Like, I get that at this point he understands their relationship to be very casual (he might even understand it to be in the past, based on what Anya said after they slept together). But then it does turn into something more, pretty soon, and treating someone like that who he’s actually in the very early stages of a relationship with (even if he doesn’t know it) does kind of make me wish he had been a little kinder to her.
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