Favorite Characters: Buffy Summers (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)

 

There’s an episode of Spaced where all the characters are startled in the middle of the night.  Each in turn shouts something different – “I’m sorry!” from Daisy, “I’m hit!” from Mike, and “I’m blind!” from Brian.  Tim, however, calls out for someone to save him:  “Buffy!” he cries.

 

As well he should.  It kills me that Buffy the Vampire Slayer existed (albeit in its later seasons) while I was in high school and I never watched it.  Every teenage girl ought to be exposed to Buffy and her devoted gang of Scoobies.  I know I could’ve used a hero like her.

 

At the start of the series, sophomore Buffy Summers is the slayer, the solitary chosen one imbued with extraordinary powers to fight vampires and other demons.  She has super strength and incredibly fighting abilities honed by her watcher Giles, a trainer and mentor.  She alone has this power, and when she dies, another slayer will be called.

 

However, she’s also every inch a teenage girl, and a rather girly one at that.  She likes clothes, boys, and junk food, and although she’s bright, her grades aren’t stellar and there’s only so many times she can say “a demon ate my homework.”  One can never forget that she didn’t chose to become the slayer; she was chosen, and there are days when she’d much rather be an ordinary girl.  Days when the principal grows suspicious of the trouble that seems to follow her, when she gets grounded for sneaking out in the middle of night, when a pesky apocalypse gets in the way of a date with a cute boy.

 

Oh, to count the ways I love Buffy.  Obviously, she can handle herself in a fight, and while she has her unmotivated moments, she’s fantastically determined when she puts her mind to it.  She has bravery in spades – more than once, she goes into battle with a far more powerful opponent, sometimes knowing her death has been prophesied, but she goes anyway.  In the face of all her enemies, challenges, and monumental bouts of adversity (that Whedon sure knows how to put ‘em through the ringer,) she remains bloody but unbowed.

 

Beyond that, she’s a charming girl with a sly sense of humor that almost borders on endearingly dorky sometimes.  She’s an occasionally distracted but genuinely caring friend, and what’s more, she judges people by their merits.  When she first arrives in Sunnydale, the pretty, perky Buffy is courted by high school royalty like Cordelia, but she almost immediately aligns herself with nerds and losers like Willow and Xander.  Part of it is her natural inclination to defend the underdog, and part of it is her ability to see Willow and Xander’s untapped heroic potential.

 

And of course, Buffy is, importantly, not perfect.  Her strong will can make her stubborn, she can be overly reckless and impulsive, and once she’s formed an opinion of someone, she tends to see them in black and white rather than shades of gray.  If she didn’t make mistakes or get herself in trouble sometimes, it wouldn’t be half so satisfying to see her triumph.  It’s remarkable to see her grow over the course of the series, becoming a true leader while still maintaining her innate Buffyness.