Xendra: Difference between revisions

* [[Abandoned Warehouse]]: The frequency with which they turn out to be vampire lairs is lampshaded and mocked by the Scoobies.

** "Lestat" uses such a warehouse for the lair of his band of vampires, but approaches it with [[Dangerously Genre Savvy|dangerous genre-savviness]].

* [[Acquired Poison Immunity]]: What it turns out that the Cruciamentium is ''really'' about -- building up the Slayer's immunity to a number of otherwise deadly toxins of demonic origin. The immunity is carried by the Slayer Spirit, so even if a particular Slayer dies from the Cruciamentium, the next will have improved resistance to the poison(s).

* [[Anachronism Stew]]: At least in regards to pop-culture references. While the story ostensibly starts during the series' canonical time period (1996-2002), the characters routinely invoke, quote or cite works that wouldn't come out until well afterward.

* [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking]]: Willow's panicked babble from the end of chapter 102, at the prospect of her parents ''both'' coming home at an inopportune time:

{{quote|How am I gonna tell 'em that I'm a magic-wielding lesbian sex-having witch who believes in the supernatural and turned her boyfriend into a girl? And I've eaten bacon!}}

* [[The Atoner]]: Faith, after she's freed from mind control.

* [[Attractive Bent Gender]]: Definitely in play for everyone subject to a gender transformation in this story.

* [[The Baroness]]: Invoked (through ''[[G.I. Joe]]'') as a model for Xander/Xendra's early "Goddess Messalina" act.

* [[Bavarian Fire Drill]]: Xander (as "Xendra Giles") when the Council team visits Sunnydale.

* [[Bow Chicka Wow Wow]]: Invoked by Willow when speculating on playing "pizza delivery girl" sex games with Xander.

* [[Brainwashed and Crazy]]: Faith, after evil!Amy tricks her into accepting a "clarity of thought" spell which actually turned up all her bad traits and turned down her good ones.

* [[The Caper]]: A lot of Scooby plans work out like classic capers, especially the plan to tap into the Sunnydale Army base's comm system so Willow can untraceably crack high-security government computer systems.

* [[Chekhov's Gun]]: There is no dearth of them: just about anything that initially seems to be a "one-off" event or item eventually returns.

* [[Continuity Cameo]]: The arrival of a tween-aged Vi (complete with knit hat) on the Summers doorstep as the ''fourth'' Slayer at the very end of the story.

* [[Conversational Troping]]: Despite the anachronism, the Scoobies appear familiar with troping jargon and use it a few times, such as describing Cordelia as an [[Alpha Bitch]] to Faith.

* [[The Cracker]]; Willow, in a rare non-malevolent (though admittedly still criminal) example.

* [[Crossover]]: Very loosely. Xander gains Xena's body, skills, and memories, but after Halloween ends is ''not'' her. And he quickly discovers that while he knows all the ancient languages she knew, not all her memories of the ancient world are accurate either because of different timelines, because modern history is missing information, or both.

** Late in the story, Willow deliberately includes a dying Riley Finn in Xander's transformation to Xendra to save both their lives.

* [[The End - or Is It?]]: The story ends with the defeat of Glory, expanding numbers of Slayers, the dawn of a new era of Council support for them... and a conclave of villains planning how to take advantage of the vacuum created by the destruction of the Circle of the Black Thorn, the Senior Partners, Wolfram and Hart, and Glory.

* [[Even Evil Has Standards|Even Chaos Has Standards]]: Ethan Rayne's patrons -- a variety of gods and goddesses of Chaos -- force him to cooperate with the Scoobies and the DRI to find a way to reverse the effects of his Halloween spell on the children of Sunnydale, because it made it possible for them to become Glory's demonic minions.

* [[Evil Laugh]]: Corrupted!Amy gets a few in the privacy of the Madison home.

** Willow's parents do this when interrogating Willow and Xander.

* [[A Good Name for a Rock Band]]: Invoked by name several times, such as with "Gunn and the Broodmeister".

* [[Hero of Another Story]]: In the early part of the story there is an extended sequence where we see the Scoobies working to keep Sunnydale safe while Buffy has run away as in canon, something that was glossed over in the series.

* [[Heroic Sacrifice]]: How Ethan Rayne ultimately breaks the spell that turned children into Glory's minions.

* [[Impossible Task]]: What the Scoobies and the Watcher's Council ensure that reassembling the Judge will be in the future. The Council arranges for some pieces to be dropped in deep ocean trenches, others to be buried in Antarctica, and one to even be shot into space. Willow keeps a piece and after determining that she can't find a way to kill it, freezes it with liquid nitrogen, shatters it into innumerable tiny shards, and then has those shards mixed into fresh concrete being poured as the foundation of a building.

* [[Improbable Weapon User]]: Xander keeps up the use of chakrams in combat. Even though he never gets as good as Xena with them in either form, he does become quite skilled. They're also advantageous in that most vampires and demons don't know how to handle them, frequently ending up missing fingers when they try to catch the weapons -- and Xander makes his chakrams engraved with tiny crosses for that extra special something on top of their razor-sharp edges.

* [[Invisible to Normals]]/[[Sunnydale Syndrome]]: Starts breaking down, at least slightly, in the wake of the Mayor's explosive death in the middle of a park, and the subsequent distribution of tons of snake meat across the landscape.

* [[Let's You and Him Fight]]: The Scoobies use this on the demonic targets that are too big for them to deal with directly, first by manipulating the Circle of the Black Thorn into killing each other out of paranoia, and later by exploiting a magical loophole to drop Glory into the home dimensions of the Wolf, Ram and Hart (the first two of which she kills).

* [[No Ontological Inertia]]: Most if not all of the spells cast by the Mayor gradually (or suddenly) collapse on his death.

* [[Oh My Gods]]: Xander, thanks to a bit of personality overlap from Xena, is given to occasionally saying things like "the wrath of Zeus".

* [[One from Column A and Two from Column B]]: Willow mentions that she cloned a computer from Wolfram & Hart to use as a cover for some hacking and is asked if she used magic or technology.

{{quote|"Both!" Willow grinned. "Some from Column A and some from Column B."}}

Okay, he should stop making jokes that included the words ‘sign of the apocalypse’ because, well, real apocalypses that were happening all over the place. Who the hell decided there should be an apocalypse twice a year? Okay, the word ‘hell’ there was probably totally relevant, because things from hell dimensions were probably a part of the whole mess anyway. And hadn’t Giles told him that the things that created vampires were maybe still around in their own hell dimensions? Jerks.

Nah, he should keep making jokes about the signs of the apocalypse. Because if you couldn’t make ‘signs of the apocalypse’ jokes anymore, then the apocalypsers have already won. Or something like that.}}

* [[Operation: Blank]]: When making plans to expand their intelligence on the DRI, the Scoobies spend some time discussing what to call their plans, at one point invoking this trope. But ultimately this is averted, as they can't agree on any of the words to fill in the "Blank", and simply end up calling whatever they do "The Op", "The Other Op", and "The Other Other Op", as needed.

* [[Post-Modern Magik]]: Willow becomes a master of this, reaching a point where she can deconstruct ancient, complex and time-intensive spells or formulae, determine their "active ingredients", and reconstruct them into simpler and often more-effective forms using off-the-shelf components. She eventualy extends this into true [[Magitek]].

* [[Put on a Bus]]: Darla, and then Angel, are shipped off to the Vatican to protect them from Wolfram and Hart. They never return during the course of the story.

* [[Reasonable Authority Figure]]: In addition to Joyce's canon status as this after she learns about the supernatural, Willow's parents ''also'' get on board with the team after the truth is revealed to them.

* [[Redemption Equals Death]]: After Ethan Rayne's [[Heroic Sacrifice]] is discovered, the Scoobies discuss whether this might be the case -- insofar as what his patrons would consider a redemption, at least.

* [[The Reveal]]: Initially the Council looks just like the [[Jerkass]]es and near-villains they are in canon. But... early on it's unexpectedly shown that many of the "evil" or just plain dickish things they (particularly Quentin Travers) do -- including things like the Cruciamentium -- are forced upon them by or are ways to get around a compact with demonic forces that prevents the Earth from being overrun outright. The terms of the agreement go so far as to outright forbid telling anyone other than the highest echelons of the Council what's really going on, at risk of breaking the compact and opening Earth up to outright invasion. For much of the rest of the story the contrast between the Council's real motives and purposes and what the Scoobies ''think'' they are makes for an interesting undercurrent to the plot.

* [[Running Gag]]: The early disagreement over the proper collective noun for a group of vampires: [[Twilight (novel)|"sparkle"]], "kiss", or "clot"/"coagulation".

** Between Willow, Xander and Faith, [[It Makes Sense in Context|marshmallow cream]].

* [[Society for Creative Anachronism]]: The Scoobies start carrying their weapons around in dufflebags with prominent SCA labels and logos.

* [[Spit-Take]]: Several instances and near-instances, usually set up and triggered as a prank.

* [[To the Pain]]: "Messalina"'s "torture" of Kevin to get information on "Lestat"'s little band of vampires and followers is almost entirely stagecraft and suggestion. The only real pain inflicted on him are a couple slaps with a riding crop; he breaks when what he thinks is a dentist's drill is simply brought close to his face.

* [[Transformation Trinket]]: The one-use crystals holding the spell that turns Xander into Xendra. After a few changes he acknowledges that it's occasionally a necessary and good thing to be able to change if needed, so Xander tends to carry one with him at all times.

** Later, she uses the expertise gained then to create a fully-fleshed out legal identity for Angel to help protect him from some of Wolfram and Hart's schemes, and to protect the hotel as well.

* [[Unspoken Plan Guarantee]]: Actively averted with the caper to tap into the Army base satellite dish. We get all the planning and debugging of the plan, the practice of the physical aspects, and then its execution -- and nothing goes wrong.

* [[What Might Have Been]]: An [[In-Universe]] example occurs when Xander is told, in broad, vague terms, what would have happened if the Monks of Dagon had not turned Xendra into the Key; the reader will easily recognize the canonical fifth season of ''Buffy'' in the description.

* [[Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?]]: Xander's suggestions (in the guise of Xendra Giles) to the Council members about what to do with Acathla are basically a "good guy" version of this trope.

 

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