Xander Harris

Alexander LaVelle Harris has lived in Sunnydale, California, all his life. His best friend is, and has been since childhood, Willow Rosenberg, and she was at Xander's sixth birthday party when he was menaced by a clown (see "Nightmares", 1.10). He was also good friends with Jesse, until the latter was turned into a vampire and was inadvertently staked by his buddy (see "The Harvest", 1.2).

Little is known about the Harris family, though apparently neither Xander nor his parents are cooks - Xander once invited Willow over for dinner by telling her that "Mom's making her famous phone call to the Chinese place", which prompted Willow to ask if they even had a stove at their house (see 1.11 - "Out of Mind, Out of Sight").

Although not unintelligent, Xander has never excelled academically, relying on Willow's tutoring skills for most subjects, especially mathematics. His love life is not the most successful either, remaining cheerfully oblivious to Willow's feelings, and instead pursued a variety of women who were no good for him, including a She-Mantis (1.4 - "Teacher's Pet"), a mummy disguised as an exchange student (2.4 - "Inca Mummy Girl"), and of course Buffy, crashing his skateboard at the moment he first laid eyes on her (1.1 - "Welcome To The Hellmouth"), but although he is self-declared treasurer of the We Hate Cordelia Club, ("Innocence", 2.14), they have had an on-off relationship since "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered" (2.16).

Despite this, he continues to lust after Buffy, which annoys both Willow and Cordelia, and caused a lot of antagonism between the X-Man and Angel before the vampire's soul was taken, which led to a not-entirely-unjustified "I told you so" ("Passion", 2.17) plus a lack of desire to see his soul restored ("Becoming", 2.21 & 2.22).

Xander did manage to graduate high school (despite some fan speculation that he might not), and attempted a road trip last summer, though he didn't get far. He's not going to college with the gang, instead working a variety of odd jobs and spending plenty of time with girlfriend Anya.

Xander is played by Nicholas Brendon.