Character Development: Was There Any?

[Willow-Tree]

First off, I love Oz. He's my favorite male character and is just plain awesome.

But that's the thing... he's just plain awesome. He doesn't really change or evolve... we never see him freak out or get depressed. Not even really when he turned into a werewolf.

He generally had the same emotion throughout the show: calm.

Would you have liked to see him get angry? Or become depressed? Or even smile more than a few times? (Now I'm just kidding... 😛)

Thoughts?

 

[NY State of Mind]

I think it had to do with so much characters on the show that we didnt really get enough time to see someone like Oz grow..like we didnt see Angel and Cordy, Wes grow till they were on another show..plus it was kind of his character for him to be the odd one and be calm always

 

[GrrArghx]

I think that's the thing though; Oz was just... Oz. 😀

 

[PrincessBuffy16]

To be honest, I liked him calm. No drama, he was just calm and deep. I liked him that way 😀

 

[Kean]

We did see him get angry though:

In Bewithced Bothered and Bewildered he punches Xander after Willow spent the entire night on the phone to him lamenting her unrequited Xander lovage.

In Beauty and the Beasts,he he makes it very clear how troubled he is by the prospect of being a cold blooded jelly donut 😉 and when the sun goes down he tells Pete that he is gona rip him a new one right before he goes through his wolfy change.

In Consequences, he flings the pedestal being used for a spell across the library when the Scoobies suggest maybe not saving Willow straight away.

During the Veruca arc we visibily see him learn things about himself that he never knew, his aggression, his possessiveness, his anger and his lack of control, things that terrified him. The lack of control must have really rocked him to his core because it is the control of himself that has defined Oz. We've never seen OZ more vulnerable.

In New Moon Rising he comes back and if anything we how much he hasn't changed, he wolfs out in the middle of the day because he can smell Willow on Tara. He came back thinking he had learned what he needed to and it was extremely sobering for him to realise that he hadn't even begun his journey yet.

The thing is with Oz is that the majority of changes that he goes through will happen internally. The changes to his character are for his own keeping, he won't share that with anybody else, not intentionally anyway. Anytime we have seen him exude passion it has been when he has been over-powered by the emotions inside him. I think those moments take Oz just as much by surprise as they do us.

I personally think Oz went through some massive changes throughout the show but maybe that is because I would be very similar to Oz and if I'm growing as a person it is a very internal thing, not something that noticable to anyone but me.

 

[TeamSunnydale]

For me, Oz was just...Oz, most of the time, he seemed pretty chill, but he had the werewolf thing to keep him interesting. I liked that moment in earshot where we got an insight into what he was thinking. He seems like a very thought provoking person, but he stays quiet. The most emotion I think we ever got out of Oz was during the Veruca stage, an area of Buffy, which I do not particularly like. It made me kinda dislike Oz, but made me like Tara even more 🙂

 

[Chosen Enemy]

I think he did change. Right, he is almost always calm. But he did start out as a member in a rock band, then while he was away, he came back real spiritual (and even MORE calm, what with all of the yoga he must have done). And I think while he was away, he visited many countries that were so different from the American culture he came from. Even the way he dresses has been changed. Oh, and don't forget! He always changes his hair color. Can't leave that change out!

 

[faeriegrrl27]

In a word? No.

Don't get me wrong. I love Oz. I think everyone does for the most part, and one of those reasons may be the consistency of his character. But I never saw much change out of him. Yeah, there were times of stress and passion, but those were just that: times. Through the course of the show, his views and interests might change, but his character is pretty steadfast. The Oz you see in Inca Mummy Girl is pretty much the one you see in New Moon Rising in terms of overall development. I don't contest that Oz *did* change. Feelings developed, he learned about himself, all that stuff, but at the core of his character he was the same.

With a lot of other characters, you have to distinguish time periods. Early Willow vs. Later Willow. Early Buffy vs. Later Buffy (actually, for Buffy and Willow, going season by season would be more appropriate as they change so much). BtVS Cordy vs. AtS Cordy and so on. But with Oz, there was no need for such a distinction. Oz was always just Oz.

 

[Hale Caesar]

Oz was great, I think his character was fine where he was. Perhaps if he had stayed on longer Joss might have developed him into someone different, like Wesley in Angel, but we will never know lol

 

[PrincessBuffy16]

Oz was plain awesome. There was no need for development 😀

 

[The Unspoken]

I find Oz one-dimensional and rather hard to grasp, but I think the 'zen' of his character was deliberate. He started out as someone who was high on the social ladder in school and very comfortable with himself. It's natural the things he experiences, like his werewolf side, wouldn't shake him up as much, especially when one considers they are metaphors for growing up. It's also fitting that he conquers his inner wolf through meditation.

 

[Deus Ex Machina]

Kean pretty much covered everything I wanted to say. I think its kind of silly to say that Oz didn't grow as a character because it'd be like saying Tara didn't either. I mean, if you think about it, Tara started off shy, wasn't close to the scoobies except Willow and did magic.

By the time she died? Tara was still shy, still wasn't close to the scoobies except Willow and now Dawn, and did magic that she didn't get any stronger at.

But both characters did grow. Their growth just happened internally and came out in "moments" rather than showing up constantly. You can't really hold that against them, nor the fact that they were the more put together people out of the entire list of characters.