Buffy Anne Summers is the title character in the movie Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the television show of the same name. The character was introduced in the financially unsuccessful movie in which she was played by Kristy Swanson. She gained popularity after being transferred to the small screen where she was played by Sarah Michelle Gellar.

The television show does not recognize the events of the movie as canon; it is intended to be an independent realization of the same concept rather than a continuation of the movie's plot. This article deals with the character of Buffy Summers from the television show only.

At the beginning of the show Buffy is a teenage high school student, a vampire slayer and the daughter of a divorced single mother. She struggles to reconcile her life as a teen — and all of the usual difficulties that entails — with her destiny as the "chosen" defender of humanity against "vampires, demons and the forces of darkness". She often professes a desire for a "normal" life but, gradually, as the series progresses, accepts her fate.

History

During the first season of the show, Buffy and her mother Joyce relocated from Los Angeles to Sunnydale, California after Buffy's expulsion from Hemery High School for burning down the gymnasium. Buffy enrolled in Sunnydale High (actually, Torrance High School), where she met Xander Harris, Willow Rosenberg, and the Watcher, Rupert Giles, who replaced her Los Angeles Watcher, Merrick. She also met Cordelia Chase, a popular but arrogant, condescending, and patronizing cheerleader. The first season focused on Buffy's fight against The Master (vampire) and his protégé, the Anointed One. The season ended with Buffy's death at the hands of The Master, her resuscitation by Xander, and her subsequent (apparent) triumph over the Master.

The second season centered on Buffy's forbidden love for Angel, who, though he helps her, is eventually revealed as a vampire. It also introduced the new Slayer, Kendra, who was "called" as a result of Buffy's death. At the end of the season, Buffy dispatched Angel to hell and ran away from home, working as a waitress in a restaurant called Helen’s Kitchen, after the infamous section of New York, Hell’s Kitchen. She later returned to Sunnydale.

Season three introduced a renegade Slayer, Faith, who was "called" after Buffy's initial replacement, Kendra, was killed by Drusilla, a sometime-paramour of Angel and another vampire known as William the Bloody, or Spike. In a terrible struggle, Buffy stabbed Faith, but the rogue Slayer escaped by falling from the roof of her apartment, into a passing flatbed truck.

According to Joss Whedon, the show’s creator, the theme of the fourth season was “Oh, grow up!” Buffy and her friend, Willow Rosenberg, having graduated from high school now attended UC Sunnydale, while Xander, also having graduated, worked at various odd jobs, finally becoming a carpenter. At the university, Buffy encountered her second lover, Riley Finn, a member of a covert military organization, The Initiative, which was collecting demons and vampires in an effort to create humans with superpowers. Their affair did not last, and Buffy next took up with the vampire Spike.

In season five, Buffy defeated an evil god, Glory, who sought to kill Buffy’s newfound “sister” Dawn, a cosmic "key" given human form by a group of monks in order that Dawn might both be hidden from Glory and protected by the Slayer. Buffy dies a second time when she commits suicide by leaping from a tall tower to save Dawn.

Brought back from the grave by a spell cast by Willow, Buffy returned to fight a trio of nerds in season six. The finale pitted Buffy against Willow, who temporarily turned to the dark side in the process of seeking revenge against the killers of her girlfriend, Tara.

The seventh and final season saw Buffy thwart The First Evil by converting every potential slayer in the world to an actual slayer, at the price of the complete annihilation of the evacuated city of Sunnydale.

After the events of the final season, Buffy's continued presence was felt in the spin-off series Angel, even though she is not physically seen in it, in the episode Damage - when Andrew explains sharply to Angel that his orders to take the psychotic Slayer Dana with him came from Buffy herself.

Buffy started out as a carefree, superficial, and rebellious teen and ended up as a world-weary but powerful and self-confident young woman who, having survived not only attacks by vampires, demons, and monsters but also the death of her mother, passed her power to hundreds, perhaps thousands, of other Slayers.

Romances & Friendships

Her descent from her bubbly beginnings was marked by constant failed relationships - first betrayed by Angel and forced to kill him, and later forced to confront him again, attempting to reconstruct a relationship only for them to decide they had to part despite their love. This had been preceded by a string of romances with failures and supernatural villains, and was followed by a relationship with Riley that ended in him very suddenly abandoning her. Buffy's final major romance was with Spike, who she had long considered an enemy and rejected - but with whom she had passionate sexual relations after her resurrection. The relationship became a sort of masochism - and in a fight with a young and particularly psycho-analytical vampire, in the episode "Conversations With Dead People", Buffy was forced to confront that she picked men who would hurt her so that she didn't have to commit. In the same conversation Buffy realized that, in regards to her friends, she had a superiority complex about which she had an inferiority complex.

Buffy's best friends were Willow and Xander, who were pretty constantly there for her. However, her role as Slayer forced her to be alone, and she had to separate herself to some degree. Giles became the father to Buffy, as her own father was pointedly never around, and it was with him she felt able to share some of the weight of her Slayer responsibilities. However Giles' own life meant that for large periods of time he was forced to leave Buffy on her own. In Dawn Buffy had for the first time a relationship that involved responsibility on her part outside the role of Slayer, and she was very over-protective. Dawn also helped alleviate some of Buffy's isolation, by being a part of her actual family. However Buffy again felt betrayed in series 7, when all the Scoobies agreed on a virtual vote of no confidence.

Creative Origins

In part, Buffy is modeled on Sailor Moon and Shadowcat of Marvel Comics' X-Men. In addition, the character was born, so to speak, of Whedon's annoyance at having a blond teenage girl ending up as the victim of a horror-movie monster. He decided to invert this stereotype and have the monster that attempts to kill the blond teenage girl (Buffy) instead be killed by her.

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