The complicated Everyman

Nicholas Brendon, who died recently, was a fan favourite on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, even as his character mixed quiet heroism with hostility toward the show's women

- Derrick Bryson Taylor

Nicholas Brendon in "Buffy the Vampire Slayer". -INSTAGRAM@NICHOLASBRENDON

(INSTAGRAM@NICHOLASBRENDON)

When Nicholas Brendon, a star of the teen horror series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, died on Friday at 54, his former costar Sarah Michelle Gellar took to social media to pay tribute.

"They'll never know how tough it is to be the one who isn't chosen. To live so near to the spotlight, and never step in it. But I know. I see more than anybody realises, because nobody's watching me," Gellar, who played the show's title character, wrote on Instagram. "I saw you Nicky."

Gellar, as it turned out, was quoting Brendon's character, Xander Harris, a nerdy, sometimes clumsy underdog who beguiled fans with his rarely-in-the-spotlight, Everyman status. Brendon was hardly the world's most famous actor, but his Xander, an average guy whose often exceptional qualities gave him agency in a world otherwise populated with vampires, demons and the like, reached a cult renown among the legions of Buffy fans. The show, leaning heavily into a high-school-is-hell metaphor, ran for seven seasons, from 1997 to 2003.

An 'authentic' ordinary person

Xander "provided us in a very real and very authentic way, a glimpse of what it would be like to be an ordinary human being in this supernatural world," said James South, a professor of philosophy at Marquette University and the editor of two books on the show. The character, he added, confirmed to viewers that humans could, in fact, have a place, maybe even prosper, in a superhuman universe.