Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Sorry It's so Long

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

If you don’t know by now, I am absolutely obsessed with Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And I would like to tell the Academy about my obsession, in the hopes that someone will watch the show, so I can finally have someone my age to talk about it with.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer is not only a show about a slayer named Buffy, but it also breaks through many current and past social barriers, such as the archetype damsels in distress, addiction, lesbianism, and death. From the first minute, the story of the slayer portrays a history of strong female leaders: in every generation there is a chosen one, who will stand against the forces of darkness. She is the slayer.

Throughout history in this show, a strong female has always been the protector of the human race against the vampires and other demons. These women have always protected people against the apocalypses that evil beings have tried to end the world, which is shown constantly throughout Buffy: in season one Buffy kills an evil vampire who tried to take over the world by unleashing a hell demon that lived under the Sunnydale High library; in season two, Buffy keeps her ex-boyfriend-vampire-who-had-and-then-lost-his-soul from empowering a demon with the ability to send the entire world to hell by killing him; in season three, she, along with the help of the rest of the graduating class from Sunnydale High, defeats the demonic mayor who had planned to become a human-consuming demon.

In season four Buffy and her two closest friends and mentor stop an evil Frankenstein-like creation from unleashing powerful demons on the Sunnydale community; in season five, Buffy dies for the third time in the series to stop a hell god from returning to her home dimension which in turn would break down the barriers between all dimensions (destroying them); in season six, Buffy and her friends unite together to stop their best friend from ending the world because of a recent tragedy, and finally in season seven, Buffy and her friends once again save the world from being taken over by the biggest evil ever to exist.

Not only is Buffy a strong leader and figure for women, throughout the series it is also proven that no matter how strong a leader is, male or female, there are moments in their lives that test who they are: such as when Buffy’s boyfriend of three years leaves her after an epic battle, and the death of her mother not to mention the discovery that her new-to-viewers sister in season five is not actually her sister, but the “key” that an evil hell god needs to get back to her home. Buffy handles these things remarkably well and only has one emotional breakdown in which she comes to terms with the huge turn of events in her life and admits her insecurities to her sister, Dawn.

In season six as well, the viewers find out that when Buffy died in season five, she went to heaven where she was happy and finally at peace, only to be pulled out of heaven by her best friends, who assumed they were saving her from a hell dimension. Her remarkable recovery not only shows how strong she is, but when her best friend breaks down after bringing her back from death a second time (Buffy and Tara get shot, and Willow tries to save Tara without knowing about Buffy’s condition and brings Buffy back instead), Buffy is able to face the fact that only months ago she was pulled from heaven back to hell (Earth) where fire and violence is real, which, having not completely recovered from, shows her remarkable strength and willingness to do anything to help her friends.

Another huge problem in the world today is addiction. Drug and alcohol addictions are becoming more and more common, damaging the health and well-being of the community. In Buffy, Willow (Buffy’s best friend throughout the show) slowly gains an increasing addiction to magic, eventually allowing it to cause her physical harm so that she can have more. When her girlfriend Tara leaves her, Willow realizes how the magic is slowly poisoning her life, but it is only when Willow crashes a car with a fifteen-year-old Dawn inside, and causes the memory loss of everyone she loves to try to undo her mistakes, her lifelong friends finally recognize the addiction Tara saw long ago. Eventually, the gang helps Willow get better, and by the end of the series, she has begun to harness her magic for good to help her friends.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer also has a unique way of dealing with death. Because it is so common for someone to die because of some dark creature in the show, when Mrs. Summers (Buffy’s mom) dies in season five of a brain tumor, the show takes a huge step towards growing up- the characters realize that they all have to die at some time, and recently demon-made-human Anya expresses the feelings that everyone have when someone close to them passes away—the “why can’t he/she just get back in that body and wake up to a daily routine again” feeling, which Anya can blatantly express because she has not been human long enough to understand that it is socially unacceptable to voice those emotions.

Well, as I’m nearing a thousand words, with the knowledge that I could continue on about this for ten or more pages of writing, I feel that this is a time to close my post. Throughout all seven seasons, the characters continue to develop and grow in a way that we will, without the supernatural, yet still with inner demons. In conclusion, Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a supernatural show that only expresses the most human parts of the most inhumane, unrealistic, and crazy lives, from being a social outcast in high school, to growing up and gaining the responsibility of an adult.



The Video (working on posting it): this video is a great overall embodiment of the show that I found on YouTube. Note: it does contain some inappropriate content, but aside from that it is a great overall summary of the best moments in the
10- Spike’s reaction to his love (Buffy) being resurrected
9- One of the high school teachers is killed by Buffy’s vampire-boyfriend who was good and turned evil again (it’s a long story)
8- Spike tells Buffy he loves her
7- Buffy kills her boyfriend to save the world
6- Buffy’s boyfriend of three years leaves her after an epic battle
5- In the last season, when the First evil is threatening Buffy and her friends, as the First begins its attack, Dawn (who’s home alone), is visited by her mother’s spirit in the middle of an attack
4- Buffy sees her mom’s dead body in season five when Joyce dies
3- Spike sacrifices himself to save the world, just as Buffy tells him that she loves him
2- In season five, Buffy jumps into a portal that kills her to save the world and her sister, because the blood of Dawn has opened a portal to all dimensions, and that blood needs to stop flowing for it to close. Because Dawn is “made” of Buffy (she’s not actually human), Buffy runs off the tower to spare Dawn and keep the walls from all dimensions stable
1- Willow shows that the bonds of friendship are what truly matters in the end: after her girlfriend dies, Willow is so pained that she tries to destroy the world to end her suffering, but Xander shows her that in the end, as long as you have true friends you’ll be okay