Cool Loser: Difference between revisions
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*** Xander is probably the only student in the history of high school who could publicly save the life of another student, join a varsity sports team and win a championship, and date the head cheerleader... and not only avoid gaining any popularity but then go on to ''remove'' the head cheerleader's popularity simply by association with him. He managed to turn one of the show's most expert social manipulators, whose father was also the richest man in town, into a temporary social outcast ''simply because she was dating him''. And even after Cordelia gets a measure of her social mojo back none of it remotely falls on Xander (and if anything, he actually ends up in a worse public position than before). It's like he radiates some kind of active Anti-Popularity Field.
*** Xander's also faced down and beaten up his school's worst bullies and yet somehow didn't earn renown as either chief [[Bully Hunter]] or else the new alpha bully himself, beaten the starting varsity quarterback in a fist-fight without becoming the new alpha male, and despite being the funniest guy in school ''since kindergarten'' couldn't even win the student award for Class Clown. Really, you could rename this trope "The Xander" at the rate he's going.
*** All of this is capped by the end of season 3 and Graduation Day. It's an explicit plot point that by this point Xander and his accomplishments are so familiar to every clique in Sunnydale High, from the jocks to the geeks to the burnouts to the faceless masses, that Xander can not only successfully serve as Buffy's emissary to every single one but also persuade them all to take up arms and join the battle vs. the Mayor -- under Xander's leadership. And yet he ''still'' can't get a date to the prom, to the point he actually accepts the offer of a 1000+-year old man-hating ex-demon to go with because she is literally the only girl talking to him socially at this point who isn't either dating someone else or has already broken up with him. It's like Xander somehow had every qualification for and all the effects of high school popularity... except for actually ''being'' popular. With anyone.
* Sabrina in ''[[Sabrina the Teenage Witch (TV series)|Sabrina the Teenage Witch]]'': Despite being an attractive do-gooder and a model student, she was treated with contempt by both Libby and Vice-Principal Kraft. Libby at least might have seen Sabrina as a threat to her own popularity, but Kraft... [[Sadist Teacher|well some people are just jerks.]] That and he dated her aunt.
** And then he dated the other aunt. Poor Sabrina...
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