Siblings

[JollyApe]

I suddenly started to think about the Buffy and Angel characters and their families and it all of a sudden hit me, there are like no character who's got siblings.

The single children
Buffy, yeah well she got a sister, but only through the magical monks (a metaphor for something else perhaps, anyway moving on)
Xander
Willow
Cordelia
Spike
Wood
Kennedy
Giles
Wesley
Fred
Gwen
Warren?

The ones with siblings
Tara, but first of all she was deviant (said with affection), she wasn't your typical Buffy character, secondly he wasn't so much a brother as a big hick. Thirdly she was killed, that's what you get for having brothers?!
Gunn, had to kill his own sister!
Angel, seemed to have a sister, but she was like 10 years younger than he was. So not so much sibling relationship there.
Lorne, Numfar!
Andrew, Tuckers brother.

But all in all the amounts of siblings are far less than in reality. How come? What are Mr Whedon trying to tell us? A conspiracy of the single child?

 

[elmo]

Interesting. Perhaps it's because the characters without siblings had less family members to worry about while they were fighting evil. Does that make sense? The ones that had siblings had to carry the burden of keeping them safe from the forces of evil and some of them failed. We all know that evil likes to get to you through whoever's closest to you.

 

[Mr. Pointy]

Good spot JA :thumb: - it does seem to be a high concentration of one child families in the Buffyverse, doesn't it? Perhaps one of our board Brainiacs can come up with an explanation...I'm stumped as to why it should be, unless Joss and the other writers all come from similar backgrounds...I'm confused, yet intrigued.
:confused3 😕 : confused : pconfuse

 

[Anchovy]

Well, I completely agree with elmo's take that those without siblings have less to worry about as far as protecting them from evil goes. But also, this may simply reflect a societal trend of the early eighties to present. Single-child families have been the major trend in American familial units for a while now. We were arguing about this in American Politics and Society the other day: whether or not this has more to do with the availability of birth control, women's lib, the decline of religions like Catholicsim and Mormonism that encourage lots of kids, the relative economic stability of even the poorest people+child labor laws (ie, low-income families are no longer having lots and lots of kids so they can work and bring in more money). I think this trend has to do with a lot or all of those things, and maybe Joss and the writers are just reflecting society here.

Also, if you look at the characters families individually they seem to lend themselves to single-child families. Buffy's parents seem to be typical eighties "yuppie" parents (not that I don't love Joyce). Why should they have another child? Plus, we aren't sure how far back Hank and Joyce's marital troubles go. Willow's mom is obviuosly a heavy women's lib supporter (go Sheila! sorry...) and she obviously didn't put her career aside at all for Willow, so why would she give another baby priority in her life? Xander on the other hand...i tend to think that he was an accident, that the Harris' definitely didn't plan to have him when they did, and maybe didn't plan to marry at all, but did when Jessica found out she was pregnant. Could be a source of discontent in the marriage. Those are the three main characters... I could probably come up with ideas for the others...except maybe Spike and Angel. They really should have had lots more siblings...what with the different time period and Angel's father's (presumably) Catholicism.

Hmm, ponder.

 

[Xander]

Maybe Sunnydale doesn't have the best churches, maybe it doesn't have the best libraries, maybe not the best malls either but it must have a darn good family planning clinic!

Anyway, I think it was so there wouldn't need to be talk about Willow's sister, and it stopped any cliched corny storylines about siblings that crop up. And trust me, the less siblings, the better.

 

[Cookie Dough]

It was a coincidence. They weren't going to show Buffy's mom at all at first. The story was about a group of friends more than characters' families.

 

[Anchovy]

But that's not nearly as much fun to talk about. 😉

 

[goldenboy]

This may sound weird. Humor me. Maybe it's because I identify with him most of all. Of all the Scoobies, I can most easily imagine Xander being from a large family. Like he's Catholic, working class. Many sibs. Maybe slightly disfunctional. Dad's alcoholic. Xander's the baby. A few of his many brothers and sisters have shaken the dust of this crummy little town and made something of themselves. And he feels insecure, slightly inferior. parents don't much care what he does. That's not my bio exactly, but I come from a large Catholic family and there are interesting dynamics. I think If Joss had wanted to inject the sib factor into the mix earlier than with Dawn, that kinda thing would have been interesting. But then I guess they'd have to call the show "Xander and Friends" or something.

 

[SpikedBuffy]

Maybe he is trying to point out that no matter what, we all have only child syndrome.

As in, "The world revolves around ME!" a.k.a: only child syndrome.

 

[Croft Storm]

It's a good point but you might be overpresuming...

Xander-could have had an older brother or something at college right?
Willow- As above (seems less likely though)
Cordelia- We have no idea
Spike- Could have had a sibling
Wood- We have no idea
Kennedy- No idea
Giles- No idea (although he probably would have mentioned it if he did)
Wesley- Lot's of family developement with no mention but he could have had a sibling
Fred- Probably not, but still possible
Gwen- No idea
Warren- No idea

Ok I'm probably wrong on a couple of those (maybe even all of them lol) but the gist is that just cause we're never told they don't have siblings doesnt mean they don't. We're never told that Xander isn't an alien, doesn't mean he is.

But if it's true I'd go for the worrying explanation

 

[JollyApe]

Like your attitude. Question everything that is possible to question and be critical about the rest.

But at least Kennedy we know she doesn't have any siblings she told us so in one of the first episodes. And the probability for Spike or Wood to have had siblings aren't that great, spec Wood being the Slayers son and all, not so many of those.