List of minor Buffy the Vampire Slayer characters
Buffy the Vampire Slayer is an American franchise which spans several media and genres. It began in 1992 with the film Buffy the Vampire Slayer, written by Joss Whedon and directed by Fran Rubel Kuzui, and was resurrected as the television series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer in 1997. The show's popularity caused it to spawn a multitude of Expanded Universe tie-in material such as comic books, novels, and video games, as well as a spin-off program entitled Angel. In 2007, four years after the television series' seventh and final season, Buffy the Vampire Slayer was officially continued in the comic book Season Eight. The following is a list of minor recurring characters who appear in the franchise.
A
Aluwyn
(a.k.a. Saga Vasuki)
Amanda
Amanda is a Potential Slayer who appears in Season Seven, played by Sarah Hagan. A Sunnydale High student and member of the swing choir, she first appears in the episode "Help" as part of the seemingly-random stream of students showing up at Buffy's guidance office. Amanda was sent to Buffy for beating up another student who was picking on her. In the later episode "Potential", it is revealed that Amanda is in fact a Potential Slayer, and she aptly slays a vampire who threatens her and Dawn. Afterwards, Amanda moves into the Summers' residence, where she trains and becomes friends with her fellow Potentials. In the final episode of the show, "Chosen", Amanda is activated as a Slayer along with the other Potentials and battles against an army of Turok-Han vampires. She is last seen falling to the ground, apparently dead after her neck was snapped by a Turok-Han. She was the first Potential to kill a vampire and the first one to kill a Turok-Han.
Amy Madison
Amy Madison is a recurring character who appears in all the seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer except Season Five. She was played by Elizabeth Anne Allen.
A classmate of Buffy's and Willow's at Sunnydale High School, in the Season One episode "Witch", it initially appears that Amy is being forced by Catherine Madison, her insane and abusive mother, to try out for the cheerleading squad despite her skills being noticeably weaker than those of the others auditioning. She is distraught when she fails to make the squad, being only the third alternate. Throughout the episode, the cheerleaders fall victim to evil, disfiguring spells cast by Amy, to disable enough members of the squad to get Amy onto it (including Buffy, whom she attempts to murder). However, it turns out that "Amy" is in fact her mother, Catherine, a powerful witch who has used magic to perform a body swap on herself and Amy so that Catherine can relive her teenage years, where she was a talented and popular cheerleader. Buffy, Giles, and the Scooby Gang combine forces to defeat her. When a spell Catherine/Amy cast against the Slayer backfires, Amy's spirit is restored to her own body and Catherine's spirit is trapped in a cheerleading trophy she had won in the 1970s (shown in Sunnydale High's trophy case).
Amy appears again in Seasons Two and Three as a Sunnydale High School student. Aware that Amy has inherited magical power through her mother and has become a practicing witch (after seeing her use magic to deceive a teacher into thinking she has submitted her homework when in fact she has not), Xander Harris asks her to cast a spell to make Cordelia fall in love with him in the episode "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered" with humorous and potentially disastrous results. In the episode "Gingerbread", the town goes on a demon-induced, anti-witchcraft spree. To escape being burned at the stake, Amy uses a transformation spell to turn herself into a rat. Unfortunately, once she is in rat form, she cannot recite the spell to transform back (although some sources, for example 'The Buffy Monster Book', report that Amy's actual intention was to turn the townsfolk into rats and the spell ended up backfiring). Willow captures her and keeps her in a cage while she researches how to turn her back into a human being. Only Buffy and Oz are aware that Willow's new pet is a transformed human, with Willow referring to her as "Amy-Rat".
When Buffy and Willow go off to UC-Sunndyale, Amy-Rat goes with them. As a result of Willow's will becoming a magic medium through which any wish of hers instantly comes true in the Season Four episode "Something Blue", Amy is very briefly turned back into a human—and moments later, back into a rat. Willow is unaware of the transformation she accomplished.
In Season Six, after much research, a much more powerful Willow casts a spell and Amy is made human once more. Amy repays Willow by introducing her to the warlock Rack and abetting Rack in addicting Willow to dark magic. Later, when Willow decides to give up magic entirely, Amy casts a spell on her, causing her to magically manipulate everything she touches. Willow complains that Amy's actions are encumbering her attempts to quit magic. Amy responds by mocking her, implying that she put the hex on Willow as revenge for being trapped in rat form for years because Willow was not assiduous enough in finding a spell to turn her back into a human. As a result, Willow cuts Amy out of her life entirely.
Amy makes a final television appearance in the Season Seven episode "The Killer in Me" in which she again bewitches Willow, this time to cause her to appear as (and ultimately start to become) Warren Mears. She is not seen again in the TV series after this but no mention is ever made of her death, and it is presumed she most likely survived the destruction of Sunnydale by leaving beforehand along with the rest of the town's population.
The character has appeared in the comic book series Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight and Season Ten. She has become an opponent of the Slayer and her support organization headed up by Xander Harris, and appears to be using her magical skills for evil ends. In the Buffy season 4 finale Restless, the character of Amy was originally slated to appear as part of a larger ensemble cast for the episode, which would have also seen the return of the characters of Faith Lehane, Cordelia Chase, Angel, Jenny Calendar, and Larry Blaisdell. Due to various scheduling issues none of the six planned characters were able to appear in the episode, their roles either being assigned to other characters or otherwise written out. Had the character of Amy appeared it would have marked her fifth appearance in the series, and the first time that the character would have appeared in more than one episode per season.
Anne
Anne (first appearing as "Chanterelle", appearing again after changing her name to "Lily" then Anne) is a recurring character initially appearing in two episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and later crossing over into three episodes of Angel, portrayed by Julia Lee. Initially known as "Chanterelle", she first appears in the Buffy Season Two episode "Lie to Me" as a member of the Sunset Club, a naive cult that worships vampires. Chanterelle discovers the true nature of vampires when the club is raided by Spike's bloodthirsty gang, and her life is saved by Buffy Summers. The character reappears in the Season Three episode "Anne", now named "Lily" and in love with a boy called Rickie. Buffy is working as a waitress at a diner under her middle name, "Anne", after running away to Los Angeles. Lily explains to Buffy that she always changes her identity and persona as she moves from place to place, admitting that she was born "Joan Appleby" and had briefly gone by the name "Sister Sunshine". When Rickie is killed by a group of demons, Buffy and Lily are taken to a hell dimension where humans are worked as slaves. Lily helps Buffy defeat the demons, and afterward Buffy goes home, leaving her job, apartment, and identity as "Anne" to Lily.
She is not seen again until Season Two of Angel, where she becomes a recurring character by the full name Anne Steele. The gives the character the rare distinction of being one of few, not counting main cast characters, to appear at least once in both an episode of Buffy and an episode of Angel.
Anne is also the name of Spike's mother, portrayed by Caroline Lagerfelt. Spike's mother is an elderly upper-class woman in England. She and Spike have a close relationship, and Anne used to sing the folk song "Early One Morning" to Spike. A flashback in "Lies My Parents Told Me" reveals that Spike, newly sired by Drusilla, turned his mother into a vampire so they could continue through life together. However, the now soul-less Anne is not the loving mother Spike knew; she attempts to seduce Spike, at which point he dusts her.
B
Ben
Ben appears in Season Five, played by Charlie Weber. A handsome intern, he meets and befriends Buffy at the Sunnydale Hospital during her mother's illness, and unsuccessfully attempts to romance her. Unknown to Buffy, Ben is the mortal prison for deposed hell-goddess Glorificus, who has learned to free herself from Ben for periods of time, in order to search for the Key, before transforming back into Ben (a spell prevents any human witnessing or hearing of this transformation from remembering it). Until his personality begins to merge with Glory's in the season's final episodes, he is presented as an essentially decent and compassionate person, protecting Dawn Summers from Glory when he learns that Dawn is the "Key". In early episodes, Ben appears as a new potential love interest for Buffy, but in a show of personal resolve (and in accordance with the writers' decision that her sister Dawn would be her main "love interest" in Season Five), Buffy decides to focus on her family issues and not pursue him. As Glory spends more time in control of their shared body, Ben's life starts to fall apart; he is dismissed from his job at Sunnydale Hospital because of increased time (as Glory) spent away from work. In the season's climax, as their personalities begin to merge, Ben agrees, out of self-preservation, to help Glory kill Dawn. When Glory is beaten, she transforms to Ben one final time, only to be smothered to death by Giles, who considers Ben for the most part an innocent but is determined to prevent him from ever returning as Glory to exact revenge on Buffy.
Buffybot
The Buffybot appears in Seasons 5 and 6. It is an identical robot replica of the real Buffy Summers and is also played by Sarah Michelle Gellar. Though it is a perfect physical likeness of Buffy and has complete knowledge of Buffy's friends and family, the Buffybot's mannerisms and speech patterns are stilted and imperfect by human standards. It also lacks understanding of nuance and tact, and can be disconcertingly blunt in conversation.
The Buffybot first appears in the episode "Intervention", having been created by Warren Mears as a sex toy for the vampire Spike, who is obsessed with Buffy. Therefore, the Buffybot is initially programmed to be in love with Spike and will do anything to please him. Buffy's friends mistake the robot for her, assuming that Buffy's grief over her mother's death has driven her insane, and Buffy later poses as the Buffybot to find out whether Spike betrayed her and Dawn to the hellgod Glory, rewarding him with a kiss when she learns that he endured torture to protect them. In the Season Five finale, "The Gift", Xander and Anya find the deactivated Buffybot in the basement of The Magic Box; Willow repairs it and it makes the first strike against Glory, distracting her from the real Buffy. After a few minutes of battle, the Bot is decapitated by Glory and the real Buffy then reveals herself.
After Buffy's death in "The Gift", Willow repairs and reprograms the Buffybot to impersonate her, to keep the demon world unaware – for as long as possible – that the Slayer no longer defends Sunnydale. The Buffybot's original programming occasionally resurfaces, which both pains and irritates Spike. The impersonation also ensures that Dawn, lacking a legal guardian in Sunnydale with both Buffy and their mother dead, can stay in town with the Scooby Gang, and the group can continue to use the Summers home as their base. In "Bargaining", one vampire discovers the secret when fighting with it; when he reveals this to a demon biker gang, they invade and sack Sunnydale. The demons destroy the Buffybot by tearing it limb from limb with motorcycles. Before "dying", the Buffybot reveals to Dawn that the real Buffy has returned from the dead.
C
Caridad
Caridad, played by Dania Ramirez, is a Potential Slayer who comes to Sunnydale in Season Seven. First seen in the episode "Dirty Girls", she plays a small role in the final episodes of Season Seven. In "Touched", she aids Giles and Kennedy in luring out and capturing a Bringer, and then later follows Faith alongside numerous Potentials to an underground arsenal of The First. She is then seen in the following episode "End of Days", at first helping those wounded from the bomb blast escape the sewers and then later at the Summers residence, helping heal the wounded and briefly quizzing Buffy on whether her return to the fold is permanent.
Cassie Newton
Cassie Newton is a Sunnydale High student with a precognitive ability who appears in Season Seven, played by Azura Skye. She is a shy blogger, the daughter of divorced parents, and describes herself as looking forward to the school dance. In the episode "Help", Cassie comes to Buffy's guidance office and predicts her own death on the next Friday Though she remains sadly adamant her fate can't be averted, Buffy and her friends become determined to save her, even when any leads to what could cause her demise turn up false. Buffy eventually saves her from a group of boys who try to kill her in order to raise a demon. Moments later, Buffy saves Cassie from a lethal booby trap. It seems fate has been cheated, but immediately afterward, Cassie dies of a heart attack caused by a hereditary condition of which she had been kept unaware, fulfilling her own prophecy. Buffy's encounter with Cassie made her realize that, regardless of her victories in battle, she cannot avert fate.
Cassie tells Buffy that she will make a difference in the upcoming battles with The First Evil, and tells Spike that Buffy will reciprocate his affections for her.
Later, Cassie's spirit apparently appears to Willow in "Conversations with Dead People" and tells her that she has a message from Tara: that she must commit suicide to avoid killing all her friends. When Willow realizes that this "girl" is not who she says she is, "Cassie" reveals herself to be The First Evil and tells Willow that it is going for a big finish, before disappearing.
Chao-Ahn
Chao-Ahn, played by Kristy Wu, is a Potential Slayer who comes to Sunnydale in Season Seven. Speaking only Cantonese, she first appears in the episode "First Date". Most of her subtitled lines serve as comic relief along with the attempts of Giles to communicate with her using crudely drawn and often frightening pictures. Chao-Ahn often mistakes Giles' attempts at communication as personal threats. For instance, she is lactose-intolerant, and various characters keep offering her milk. She is seen on the school bus escaping the destruction of Sunnydale at the end of the series, having survived the battle against the Turok-Han.
Chao-Ahn is mistakenly mentioned in the non-canon novel Queen of the Slayers as having died in the battle.
Chloe
Chloe is a Potential Slayer who comes to Sunnydale in Season Seven, and is played by Lalaine. Introduced in the episode "Showtime", Chloe seems reluctant to engage in her newfound responsibilities, and by her next and final appearance in "Get It Done", it is clear that Chloe is not cut out for life as a Slayer. Chloe was absent from the episode "Potential" because she went with Giles to get Chao-Ahn in Shanghai. The First manifests in her room and convinces her to hang herself. Buffy buries Chloe's body next to that of the recently deceased Annabelle. Chloe's suicide is a major catalyst in Buffy's choice to take drastic action, culminating in her meeting with the men who created the First Slayer. It is mentioned that Chloe loved Winnie-the-Pooh after the First assumed her form and said "T.T.F.N." ('ta-ta for now'), a signature phrase of the Disney version of Tigger.
Clem
Clem (full name Clement) is a relatively benign demon who appears in Seasons Six and Seven, played by James C. Leary. Clem has large, floppy ears, loose skin, and a friendly disposition, despite being a demon who eats kittens, something that he later stops doing for health and moral reasons. His caucasian coloration allows him to occasionally pass as a human with a "skin condition". He is Spike's friend and poker buddy. He is introduced in the episode "Life Serial", as a player in a game of poker where live kittens are the stakes; he is seen cheating by hiding cards in his forearms' skin folds. He reappears in the episodes "Older and Far Away", in which Spike invites him to Buffy's birthday party, and "Hell's Bells", in which he attends the wedding of Xander and Anya. Later in the season, he befriends Dawn while looking after her in Spike's absence. The following season, Clem meets Buffy in a demon bar and they greet one another very affectionately. Clem has the ability to project snake-like appendages; he did this trick, frightening Potential Slayers in the episode "Potential", but it was shown onscreen only from the back of his head. In the episode "Empty Places", Clem joins the rest of the Sunnydale population in fleeing the town as the apocalypse nears, inviting Buffy to join him.
He later reappears in the comic "Harmonic Divergence" (2009) as part of Harmony Kendall's hit reality show Harmony Bites, which has revealed the existence of vampires to the entire world and also doubles as a media smear campaign against the Scooby Gang and the Slayers themselves. Clem and Harmony subsequently feature in the Angel & Faith story "In Perfect Harmony" (2012). The pair have moved to London in pursuit of Harmony's reality TV career. She believes she is being blackmailed, though it transpires Clem has engineered it to create a situation where he can be a hero in the hopes she will love him back. She coldly rebuffs his affections but instead offers him a pay rise. In Buffy season 10 as the Scoobies are in charge of rewriting the rules of magic in the world with the Vampyr book, Clem visits them with Harmony as she represents the older type of vampires. Getting their hands on the book Harmony wants Clem to write her as loved by all in the world, though Clem does not do this as the book often twists things to hurt whoever they involve. Spike retrieves the book and discovers Clem did write one change in the world for Harmony: "Unicorns are totally real."
Cordettes
The Cordettes were a fashionable clique led by Cordelia Chase when she attended Sunnydale High School. It consisted of the wealthiest and most popular girls in school; Angel later described them as "like the Soviet Police, if [the aforementioned organisation] had cared a lot about shoes." Aside from Cordelia, its known members were Harmony Kendall, Aura and Aphrodesia. After Cordelia began dating Xander Harris, whom they considered their inferior, the Cordettes shunned her and Harmony became their leader. During her senior year of school, after being cheated on and hurt by Xander, a heart-broken Cordelia tried to fall back in with her former crew, only to be abused and tormented by them.
Contact among the group ended after graduation, as the girls attended separate colleges, Harmony was transformed into a vampire, and the now-penniless Cordelia was forced to abandon college and move to Los Angeles to pursue a fruitless career in acting.
D
Dalton
Dalton is a scholarly, bespectacled vampire who appears twice in Season Two, played by Eric Saiet. Spike and Drusilla commandeer Dalton's relative expertise to research a mystical cure for Dru. He translates a stolen book with the use of the "Du Lac cross", and discovers the ritual that will cure Drusilla ("What's My Line, Part One").
Several weeks later ("Surprise"), Dalton brings a mysterious package to Spike (now wheelchair-bound) and Dru (now cured and returned to her full power). The box contains a dismembered piece of the Judge, a powerful demon who cannot be killed and who instantly reassembles when all his pieces are brought together. When the Judge (who kills living things by absorbing the humanity within them) is finally re-formed, he points to Dalton and says, "This one—is full of feeling. He reads!" Apparently, this is enough to constitute a "taint" of humanity, and the Judge burns Dalton to ash.
Deputy Mayor Allan Finch
Allan Finch was the Deputy Mayor of Sunnydale in Season Three, and was played by Jack Plotnick. He is assistant to the villainous Mayor Richard Wilkins, and behaves nervously around his demonic boss. In the episode "Bad Girls", Allan admits that he likes reading the comic strip Cathy. He is later killed by Faith, who mistakes him for a vampire. Although Faith tries to dismiss the accident because Allan was involved in criminal activities, Buffy points out that he may have been coming to warn them about the Mayor's plan. Allan's death sparks a police investigation and is a major turning point for Faith, catalysing her betrayal of Buffy and the Scooby Gang.
Detective Stein
Detective Stein is a member of the Sunnydale police force, and is played by James G. MacDonald. He is first seen in the Season Two episode "Ted", in which he is in charge of the investigation of the death of Ted Buchanan, who apparently died after Buffy kicked him down the stairs in her home. He next appears in the episode "Becoming, Part Two" investigating Kendra's death. His final appearance is in the Season Three episode "Consequences" in which he questions Buffy and Faith about the death of Deputy Mayor Allan Finch.
Devon MacLeish
Devon MacLeish is a student at Sunnydale High, lead singer of the band Dingoes Ate My Baby, and a friend of Oz. He appears in Seasons Two, Three and Four, and is played by Jason Hall. Despite appearing in several episodes, he never features very prominently. Devon has also dated cheerleaders Cordelia Chase and Harmony Kendall, albeit briefly. He willingly assists in the battle against the Mayor. After Oz's departure in Season Four, the Dingoes, including Devon, are not seen again.
Dingoes Ate My Baby
Dingoes Ate My Baby are one of several bands that perform at The Bronze. The band consists of lead singer Devon MacLeish, Oz, and unnamed others.
Doc
Doc, played by Joel Grey, is a Season 5 character who appears to be an eccentric old man but is actually a reptilian demon with vast knowledge of the dark arts. He first appears after Joyce Summers dies, when Spike takes Dawn Summers to him to ask how to resurrect her mother. Later Spike and Xander come to him looking for information about Glory. Doc attempts to stall for time and dispose of a small wooden chest containing information on Glory's plans. When Spike sees through this, Doc drops the "harmless old man" façade and reveals that he worships Glory. After a brief skirmish, in which his speed gives him a great advantage, Doc is apparently killed when Xander puts a sword through his chest. Spike and Xander grab the chest out of the fire and leave; once they are gone, Doc opens his eyes. Doc later appears on the tower where Glory has placed Dawn for her ritual; with Glory occupied fighting Buffy, Doc has come to complete the ritual of bleeding Dawn on his own. Spike attempts to stop him but is easily pushed off the tower. Buffy reaches Doc soon after and casually pushes him off the tower in her race to save Dawn. He is not seen again, the fall having presumably killed him.
Dracula
Dracula appears in the episode "Buffy vs. Dracula", played by Rudolf Martin. Initially, the vampire who was going to show Buffy a darker side of herself was envisioned as "just another vampire who rode a horse and was all cool", says writer Marti Noxon. "I kept saying, 'Like Dracula'" – until Joss Whedon said, "Why not Dracula? He's public domain."[1]
Dracula arrives in Sunnydale, having heard stories about Buffy and wanting to meet her for himself. After introducing himself to the starstruck Scoobies, Dracula hypnotizes Xander into becoming a Renfield of sorts and then bites Buffy in exactly the same place where the Master and Angel had bitten her. In the final confrontation, Dracula has Buffy drink his own blood; however, the disgust of doing so allows her to break free of his thrall, battle him, and ultimately stake him. When he attempts to reform from dust, Buffy, wise to his tricks after seeing his movies, stakes him once again, and Dracula respectfully accepts that the Slayer is too strong for him and leaves Sunnydale.
He reappears in the canon post-finale comics Tales of the Vampires: Antique, and later the Season Eight story "Wolves at the Gate" (both written by Drew Goddard). Outside of canon, Dracula appears in Spike vs. Dracula, which reveals that Dracula has connections to the gypsy clan that cursed Angel with a soul. As established by his appearance in "Buffy vs. Dracula", he is an acquaintance of Anya and Spike. Spike describes Dracula as a sell-out of the vampire world, fond of magic and Hollywood, and complains that his craving for fame allowed Bram Stoker to tell the whole world how to kill vampires; furthermore, "Poncy bugger owes me £11, for one thing." Though he is a celebrity among both humans and demons, to the extent that the Scooby Gang was actually more flattered than threatened that he had come to confront them, he is now considered by most to be a myth.
Dracula has special abilities (almost all of which are derived straight out of Stoker's novel Dracula), described by Spike as "showy gypsy stuff". These abilities include transforming into a cloud of fog and animals, wolves and bats in particular, and the ability to control minds (put someone under his "thrall"), as he does to Xander in "Buffy vs. Dracula". He also appears to be immune to staking to some extent: he still falls to dust when staked, appearing to die like other vampires, but can reform himself from said dust almost immediately thereafter, as well as manipulating the cloud even once 'dusted.'
In Tales of the Vampires: Antique, Xander spends time with Dracula as his manservant, during which time Xander teaches him to ride a motorcycle. During Xander's tenure as a manservant, Dracula develops an emotional attachment to him. After Buffy rescues Xander, Dracula sinks into depression and alcoholism, appearing old and decrepit. While drunk, Dracula gambles with a group of Japanese vampires, betting his powers against a Kawasaki 21000 motorcycle, and loses. Upon hearing that Xander has come to seek his assistance, he returns to his normal appearance. Despite his hatred of Buffy and the Slayers in general, Dracula agrees to help them defeat the vampires who swindled him. He assists Willow in preparing a spell to counter the magical plans of Toru, their leader, who plans to undo the spell that Willow cast at the Hellmouth in Sunnydale. Dracula gives Xander his sword, which he uses to kill Toru and avenge Renee's death.
Dracula next appears in Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Ten when the new rules of magic have led to the creation of new vampires whose powers greatly resemble Dracula. He is recruited by Buffy and the others to assist, but ends up exploiting the reality-altering Vampyr book to transform himself into "the most powerful" vampire of them all. However, Dracula's attempts backfire, and he is transformed instead into Maloker, the Old One who was the progenitor of the vampires. Buffy and her crew are able to fend off Maloker and return Dracula to normal. Later, in the final issue of the series, Dracula is recruited to Buffy's Magic Council – in essence, a governing body of the magical universe – to represent the vampire faction.
Dreg
Dreg is one of the minions serving season five's big bad Glory. He is the first of Glory's minions to appear and helps her create the giant reptilian monster. He is killed in Blood Ties by the Knights of Byzantium.
E
Enyos
Jenny Calendar's uncle Enyos appears in "Surprise" and "Innocence", played by Vincent Schiavelli. He comes to Sunnydale to confirm that Jenny is keeping an eye on Angel, and that his soul continues to torment him. He reveals a loophole in the curse by which the Kalderash gave Angel his human soul: if he should ever have a moment of complete happiness, his soul will be lost again. This occurs, and Angelus kills him.
Ethan Rayne
Ethan Rayne is a foe to Rupert Giles and is portrayed by actor Robin Sachs. The two were friends who met in London after Giles had dropped out of Oxford. The group practiced small magics for pleasure and gain, until Ethan and Ripper discovered something bigger: the demon known as Eyghon, or the Sleepwalker.[2] Tattooing themselves with the Mark of Eyghon, they would take turns falling asleep, and the rest of the group would summon the demon into the sleeper. According to Giles, it was an extraordinary high, a euphoric feeling of power, but was also incredibly risky. When Eyghon took control of Randall, one of their group, the others tried to exorcise the demon, resulting in Randall's death. Giles was changed by the event, leaving London and returning to the Watchers' Council. Ethan, on the other hand, went in the opposite direction, delving deeper into the black arts.[3]
Ethan was first introduced in the second-season episode "Halloween" as the seemingly benevolent owner of a costume shop. Ethan curses his costumes in the name of the Roman god Janus, so that the wearer becomes whatever they are dressed as. Later that season, in the episode "The Dark Age", Ethan has been having dreams of Eyghon, and the fate of the others who wear The Mark of Eyghon, which acts as a beacon for the demon to locate them, kill them, and possess each corpse in turn to hunt his next victim with. Ethan knocks Buffy unconscious, and tattoos the Mark of Eyghon on the back of her neck and removing his own. The substitution works, and the demon loses interest in him, instead going after Buffy. But Giles arrives, and then her friends, who stop Eyghon from killing both of them.
During the third-season episode "Band Candy", the vampire Mr. Trick, in the employ of Mayor Richard Wilkins, calls on Ethan's services to curse candy bars that are distributed to adults through Sunnydale High School students. The curse on the chocolate makes adults act as if they are teenagers, leaving many areas of the city unprotected, including the hospital from which a tribute of small babies needs to be taken. Buffy and Giles uncover the plot, and stop Mr. Trick and Ethan (who claims ignorance of the nature of the tribute), but they both escape.
In the fourth season, Ethan returns to Sunnydale in the episode "A New Man". Discovered lurking in a crypt by Giles, he talks him out of a promised beating, and instead, they go for a drink together. Ethan warns Giles that the Initiative is throwing the worlds out of balance, which goes "way beyond chaos", into "one hell of a fight". Giles doesn't seem to take the warning seriously, instead being somewhat envious of the Initiative. After spending the night reminiscing and drinking with Ethan, Giles wakes the next morning in the form of a Fyarl demon. After being forced to reverse the spell, Ethan is arrested by the Initiative, who apparently place him in military custody pending determination of his status, before sending him to a rehabilitation facility in Nevada. Afterwards, despite not trusting Ethan, Giles had Buffy to be cautious with the Initiative, eventually leading the Scooby Gang to discover its corruption and dangerous plans.
F
First Slayer
The First Slayer (referred to in 4.21 "Primeval" as Daughter of Sineya, the First of the Ones and in Angel episode 5.11 "Damage" as the Primitive) was the first in the line of Slayers. The character is portrayed by Sharon Ferguson.
She first appears in the Season Four finale "Restless", where she attacks Willow, Xander, and Giles in their respective dreams before attempting to kill Buffy in the same fashion after she refuses to leave her friends for dead. The First Slayer ultimately fails when Buffy wakes up from her sleep, thus pulling herself and her friends out of the First Slayer's nightmare. Giles reveals that the First Slayer never had a Watcher, and attributes her appearance to the enjoining spell they cast with Buffy in "Primeval", claiming that invoking the essence of the Slayer's power was an affront to the source of that power. In the script, she is referred to as the Primitive. A spirit in the form of the First Slayer appears again the next season, when Buffy goes on a vision quest to learn more about her power in "Intervention". The spirit tells her that death is her gift, a message Buffy is reluctant to believe, but one which is ultimately proven when she sacrifices herself in the season finale "The Gift". In the season seven episode "Get It Done", the First Slayer appears to Buffy in a dream and warns her that the current efforts against the First are not enough. The origin of the Slayer is also explained in this episode: The Slayer was created thousands of years ago by a group of shamans who tied a girl to the earth against her will then mystically implanted her with the essence of a demon. At the cost of most of her humanity, the First Slayer gained great strength, stamina and a predatorial instinct; this is the complete legacy that passes from Slayer to Slayer.
The First Slayer appears in the graphic novel, Tales of the Slayers, in which she is asked to leave a village she defended from a vampire because the villagers fear her even more than other demons and again in Tales of the Slayer. She also cameos in the comic mini-series Fray #3, when a Slayer in the future is told the origins of her power, and in the Buffy Season Eight storyline "The Long Way Home" as an image of Buffy's dreamscape.
Forrest Gates
Forrest Gates is a friend of Riley Finn and member of the Initiative who appears in Season Four, played by Leonard Roberts. Like his teammates Riley and Graham, Forrest leads a double life, balancing his military service with his cover as a student at UC Sunnydale. He is the quintessential rule-following soldier, and while initially he likes Buffy and encourages Riley to pursue a relationship with her, her effect on Riley makes him angry and suspicious of her motives. As events proceed and Buffy becomes an enemy of the Initiative, Forrest's dislike increases and he accuses her of killing Maggie Walsh. Forrest is killed by Adam, but is then artificially reanimated with body parts from various demons and technological components. This "new" Forrest tries to assist Adam in defeating Buffy, and assaults her when she and her friends attack the Initiative complex. Beforehand, he is ordered by Adam to kill Spike, who escapes by blinding Forrest in the left eye with a lit cigarette. He is instead forced to face his old friend Riley in combat. Although he is clearly more than a physical match for Riley, he is killed a second time when he hoists a gas canister over his head, which catches a live wire and blows him to pieces.
G
The General
The General (real name unknown) was a general in the American army who replaced General Voll in the Twilight's cabal in Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight. He supplied a large military force to Twilight as part of a war on the Slayers. He appeared alongside Twilight's lieutenants, Amy and Warren, in several issues. In the comic book's final issue, he is shot dead by the rogue Slayer Simone in a revenge attack.
General Voll
General Voll is a general in the United States Army. He only appears in "The Long Way Home" story arc of Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight, the television series' official continuation. Voll investigates the ruins of Sunnydale before later soliciting Warren Mears and Amy Madison to kill Buffy. After capturing Willow Rosenberg and confronting Buffy in the ensuing melee, he mentions that he is part of the group called "Twilight", which views the Slayers as a threat to humanity. General Voll's current status and whereabouts are unknown.
Genevieve Savidge
Lady Genevieve Savidge is a British socialite Slayer who appears in the "No Future for You" story arc of Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight, the television series' official continuation. She is introduced by writer Brian K. Vaughan. She is targeted for assassination by Giles due to her plans to usurp Buffy's place in the Slayer hierarchy and, ultimately, end the world. He sends Faith to kill her. She is guided by an Irish warlock called Roden, who serves Twilight. With Roden, she hunts and kills other Slayers as part of his "training" of her. However, she and Faith find they share a lot in common; both as Slayers and as troubled young women enticed by evil, despite their drastically different backgrounds (upper class British and working class South Boston). Discovering Faith's treachery and tenuous affiliation with Buffy, she distraughtly fights Faith to the death, and is accidentally killed by an axe. At the same time, Giles kills Roden and puts an end to their plans. Her death deeply affects Faith, causing her to want to find other slayers like Genevieve and guide them back to the side of good.
Graham Miller
Graham Miller is a friend of Riley Finn and member of the Initiative who appears in Seasons Four and Five. He is played by Bailey Chase. Like his teammates Riley and Forrest, Graham leads a double life, balancing his military service with his cover as a student at UC Sunnydale. Whereas Forrest is a rather brash person, Graham is more calm and collected. He also was supportive of the relationship between Buffy and Riley, unlike Forrest. Graham survives the final battle in the Initiative complex and later testifies in Riley's favor during the inquiry. In Season Five, Graham helps Riley to get medical attention to correct the procedures that the Initiative conducted on him. Graham later asks Major Ellis to persuade Riley to leave Sunnydale and rejoin the army as part of a new squad of demon-hunters.
H
Hank Summers
Hank Summers is the father of Buffy and Dawn and the ex-husband of Joyce Summers. He is played by Dean Butler. He first appears in the episode "Nightmares", in which Buffy worries that he will not show up for their father/daughter weekend. In the Season Two opener "When She Was Bad", Hank admits to Joyce that Buffy was distant with him during their summer together. In Season Three, Hank is supposed to take Buffy to an ice show for her eighteenth birthday, but cancels at the last minute. In the Season One Angel episode "I Will Remember You" (contemporary with Buffy season 4), Buffy appears in Los Angeles and tells Angel that she is visiting her father. In later seasons, Hank's character is developed further off-screen into the archetype of an upper-class deadbeat dad. Despite his relative wealth, Buffy cannot rely on him, and he will not play the role of the father. When Buffy last heard from Hank, he had moved to Spain with his secretary, but she is unable to contact him when her mother dies in Season Five. Dawn indicates in "Bargaining" that she has spoken with her father at some point over the summer between Seasons Five and Six, but she and the others are hiding Buffy's death from him. Hank's final onscreen appearance is in the episode "Normal Again", set in an alternate reality where the events of the show are simply Buffy's hallucinations.
I
India Cohen
India Cohen immediately preceded Buffy Summers as the Slayer. In The Book of Fours, she was described as a slayer of water (with Faith representing fire, and Buffy representing air). Her watcher was Christopher Botwell, whom she called "Kit".
India was born in 1978 in North Carolina. Her father was an officer in the U. S. Navy and her mother was a popular actress in the Philippines. She had some doubts about her parentage, speculating that her real father could not marry her mother for some reason. She was called as a Slayer in 1993 while she was living in Japan where her father, a submarine commander, was stationed. Together with her watcher, she traveled all over Japan slaying vampires. India witnessed Spike and Drusilla during this time, but they never encountered India directly. Over a few years, India and her Watcher Christopher fell in love, but had to keep it a secret from the Watchers Council. Christopher even brought her a dog, which she named Mariposa.
In 1996, India and her family returned to America and went to California. There, wanderer mummies attacked and tried to steal India's soul. India fended them off, but they captured her watcher and Mariposa. India sacrificed herself so that she could save her only family. The Wanderer killed India and released Kit and her dog. It wasn't until after she died that Kit realized his true feelings for her. He contacted a woman called Cecille Lafitte, who turned out to be a voodoo priestess living inside another woman's body. She presented herself as a psychic who could help him contact India and he believed every word she said. Cecille brainwashed him and made him a servant of the Gatherer without him really knowing what was going on. He then came into his final contact with India when, in a final showdown, India inhabited the body of Willow Rosenberg. She apologized and threw herself off of a cliff to save Buffy Summers and Faith Lehane, yet somehow, though killing her spirit, left Willow completely intact. When India was killed in San Diego, California, Buffy was called as the slayer in Los Angeles.
India apparently came into contact with The Master, as he commented on how Buffy was "prettier than the last one".
J
Janice Penshaw
Janice Penshaw is Dawn's best friend and is portrayed by Amber Tamblyn. She is mentioned throughout Season Six, though she only appears in the episode "All the Way" (the Halloween episode). During her only on-screen appearance, she and Dawn claim to be spending the night at each other's houses while they sneak out to walk the streets with a couple of boys, who turn out to be vampires. During the night, Dawn gets her first kiss from one of the vampires and Janice is bitten by the other, but is rescued by Giles. Dawn is later rescued from a vampire gang by Buffy, Giles, and also Spike, who is personally offended by the vampires hunting on Halloween. Dawn mentions in "Doublemeat Palace" that Janice's sister is a lawyer. In "Normal Again" she says that she likes staying at Janice's house because everyone there seems to like having her around, unlike at home.
Jesse McNally
Jesse McNally is a Sunnydale High student played by Eric Balfour. In "Welcome to the Hellmouth", Jesse is seen as a close friend of Xander Harris and Willow Rosenberg, and a "potential friend" of Buffy Summers. During "Welcome to the Hellmouth" and "The Harvest", Jesse is captured by Darla and Luke, sired, and used as bait to lure Buffy to her death. He is accidentally staked in "The Harvest" by Xander. Jesse's death and transformation cause Xander to develop resentment towards vampires, and made him see that they are embodiments of demons with no humanity in them. Years later, Xander confides to San Francisco Police Department detective Robert Dowling of the painful experience of having to stake Jesse, revealing that he is guilt-ridden of being unable to save his best friend from being sired.
Joss Whedon states in the "Welcome to the Hellmouth" DVD commentary that he had always wanted to kill a character listed as a regular in one of their first appearances. He considered listing Balfour in the two-part pilot as a regular, only to surprise the audience by killing him off. Financial restrictions did not allow for this but Whedon later used the trick in the sixth season, putting Amber Benson in the credits for the first time in the episode where her character Tara Maclay was killed.
Jinx
Jinx, portrayed by Troy Blendell, is one of the minions serving Glory, the Big Bad of Season Five. Like all her minions, he belongs to an unnamed race of demons who are shorter than most humans, with scabby skin and black eyes; they wear brown robes. Jinx seems to be a leader among Glory's minions, and Glory often assigns him to tasks of some importance. He is the one who discovers from Ben that the Key is in human form. Jinx is beaten and stabbed by Ben, and nearly killed by the Knights of Byzantium before being saved by Glory herself at the last minute. He is often blamed by Glory when something isn't going the right way for her. The last episode in which he is seen is "Tough Love".
Judge
The Judge is an ancient and legendary blue-skinned demon from the Middle Ages, portrayed by Brian Thompson, who also portrayed the vampire Luke in "Welcome to the Hellmouth" and "The Harvest". He was brought forth to rid Earth of the plague of humanity. He was named The Judge for he had come to separate the righteous from the wicked and burn the righteous down. In the 14th century an army was sent against the Judge, and though most of the warriors died, the army was able to dismember the Judge, but not to kill him, as "no weapon forged" can kill him. The pieces were placed in iron boxes and buried "in every corner of the Earth". For six hundred years he remained aware of his status.
In the two-part episode "Surprise"/"Innocence", he is restored by Drusilla after she has gathered together all the boxes, but is then blasted into pieces by Buffy with a US Army FGM-148 Javelin rocket launcher, revealing that the "no weapon forged" rule from the 14th century was merely descriptive, not prophetic. (However, the argument can be made that the "no weapon forged by man" rule is not violated, as the Javelin uses a self-forging warhead to kill tanks. As the weapon forges itself, it lies outside the rule on killing The Judge.) The Scooby Gang picks up the pieces and keeps them separate.
K
Kakistos
Kakistos (played by Jeremy Roberts), whose name (Greek: Κάκιστος) is said in the series to be Ancient Greek for "the worst of the worst" (in actuality, the word means simply "worst"), is, like the Master, a vampire so ancient that he can no longer assume human appearance; his hands and feet have become cloven hooves. He is famous enough that Rupert Giles recognizes his name even though Buffy Summers misrecalls it as "Kissing Toast" or "Taquitos" on first hearing. He had assembled a small cult of fanatically-loyal minions, whose motto was "For Kakistos we live, for Kakistos you die."
In the Season Three episode "Faith, Hope & Trick", Kakistos traveled to Sunnydale to hunt down Faith and enact revenge for a previous battle in which Faith's first Watcher was killed and Kakistos lost an eye. Faith had come to Sunnydale hoping to avoid him. Buffy staked Kakistos to no avail, but Faith impaled the vampire with a large beam of wood, finally killing him. However, unlike the Master, who was so ancient and powerful that he left behind a skeleton when he died, Kakistos simply turned to dust.
In the video game Chaos Bleeds, Faith is forced to confront an alternate universe version of Kakistos in an abandoned quarry. The novel Go Ask Malice describes Faith's earliest encounters with him.
Kakistos also appears in the Angel graphic novel series "Blood and Trenches", set during World War I.
Kathy Newman
Kathy Newman (played by Dagney Kerr) appears in the first two episodes of Season Four: "The Freshman" and "Living Conditions". She is Buffy's first roommate in the dormitory at UC Sunnydale. She is portrayed as an overly-eager and annoyingly cheery teenage girl, who wanted "a stable non-smoker" for a roommate.
Kathy and Buffy soon begin to have serious disagreements. Kathy plays Cher's "Believe" on repeat loop, obsessively labels all her property (including each individual egg in the fridge), and is more of a neat freak than Buffy can handle. Buffy begins to act uncharacteristically hostile towards Kathy, and at first, her friends believe it is simply due to Buffy's upbringing as an only child. Later, it is revealed that Kathy is in fact a demon who had fled her own dimension to go to college. Her clan was about to locate her, so she performed a series of spells to mask her presence from them by gradually removing Buffy's soul. Being demons, her people have no human souls; thus, when they came looking for her, they would mistake Buffy for her and take Buffy instead. In the end, Giles reverses the spell and Kathy is taken back to her dimension by her angry father. Willow, who has gone through her own roommate problems, moves in with Buffy afterwards.
Katrina Silber
Katrina Silber is the on and off-girlfriend of Warren Mears who appears in Seasons Five and Six, and is played by Amelinda Embry. She is introduced the episode "I Was Made to Love You", in which she is horrified to discover that Warren had previously built a robotic version of what he considered to be the perfect girlfriend, called April. When the jealous April tries to kill her, Katrina is disgusted and breaks up with Warren. She reappears in the episode "Dead Things" of the next season when Warren attempts to rape her using a mind control device. However, the effects are short-lived and when Katrina returns to normal, she realizes what Warren has done and threatens to report his activities to the police. Katrina successfully fights off Andrew and Jonathan – who Warren calls on to stop her leaving – but as she tries to escape, Warren grabs a bottle and murders her. He later uses magic to make Buffy believe that she has accidentally killed Katrina while fighting demons. The plan almost works, but when Buffy hears Katrina's name, she remembers the events of "I Was Made to Love You" and guesses that Warren is responsible. Katrina's last appearance is as a spirit, conjured by Willow to torment Warren after he kills Willow's girlfriend Tara. Katrina's spirit is understandably angry with Warren and suggests that she should have killed him before he killed her.
Kendra Young
Kendra Young is a Slayer played by Bianca Lawson. She is called to be the Slayer when Buffy Summers dies at the hands of the Master in May 1997. Though Xander manages to revive her, Buffy's death nevertheless activates a second Slayer, causing two to exist at the same time (a first in history).
No one in Sunnydale is aware of her existence until she surprises Buffy in "What's My Line, Part One". Kendra is fully versed in the Slayer Handbook and fighting techniques, and has been separated from her family since she was a young child in order to train for her role as the Slayer. Hence, she says she has no last name, but Joss Whedon gave her the last name "Young". Unlike Buffy, Kendra has no friends, has never been to school and is not permitted to speak to boys (although she develops a crush on Xander Harris and often stutters when he's around). Her appearance is the first time the Watchers' Council has been shown to identify potential Slayers. Her tenure as a Slayer is approximately one year; she is killed by Drusilla in "Becoming, Part One", set in May 1998. Before her death, she gives Buffy her favorite stake, which she calls "Mr. Pointy".
J. P. Williams states that from the perspective of the Watchers' Council, Kendra is the "practically perfect Slayer: solemn, respectful, and efficient". She has mastered the use of every weapon reliant on muscle power, such as swords, knives, and axes, and although she has less field experience, she possesses more textbook knowledge about slaying than Buffy (from her Watcher and the Slayer's Handbook—a book that Giles felt was pointless to give to Buffy). Unlike Buffy, Kendra wields her power "exactly as her superiors instruct".[4] However, Kendra's tendency to unhesitatingly follow orders means she lacks moral autonomy[5] and is easily hypnotized by Drusilla; Jana Riess argues that Kendra's death occurred because "she always obeyed without question and has not strengthened her mind and spirit by discovering her own unique path."[6] Ironically, Kendra's initial reaction to Buffy's insistence of doing things her own way instead of following orders was to retort, "No wonder you died" ("What's My Line, Part Two").
Although her place of birth is never identified, she speaks with the accent of an individual from somewhere in the West Indies. The addition of the Jamaican accent to the character was a last-minute decision, and a dialect coach was brought in; he taught Lawson a dialect that was supposedly from a very specific, obscure region of Jamaica, and while the accent may have sounded authentic to that region, to the rest of the cast and crew (and the majority of the viewing audience), it simply sounded like a very bad impersonation of a common Jamaican accent.[7]
After her death, Kendra was succeeded by Faith Lehane.
Kit Holburn
Kit Holburn portrayed by Alexandra Breckenridge, was a student at the new rebuilt Sunnydale High, and along with Carlos Traverse a close friend of Dawn Summers. In the first episode of season seven "Lessons", Kit was targeted by three Manifest Spirits but survived thanks to Buffy. Later on in the season we see Dawn talking to Kit on the phone in the episode "Conversations With Dead People" before an evil spirit invades the Summers home.
According to Principal Wood, Kit was a bit of a trouble maker with a thick permanent record.
L
Larry Blaisdell
Larry Blaisdell is a student at Sunnydale High who appears in Seasons Two and Three, and is played by Larry Bagby III. He is initially portrayed as a stereotypical jock, first seen bullying Xander in the episode "Halloween". He is also rather lecherous, constantly harassing girls, including Buffy and Willow.
In "Phases", Xander presses Larry to confess to a series of werewolf attacks, saying that he has been through something similar himself (when he was possessed by a hyena spirit in "The Pack"). Larry misunderstands Xander's indirect language as meaning that Xander, like himself, is a closeted homosexual. This misunderstanding is echoed in most subsequent conversations between them, and also leads to Larry's own coming out and the revelation of his more caring and compassionate side. He and Xander also become friends, but the latter is uncomfortable when Larry talks about Xander's sexual orientation.
In the alternate universe created in "The Wish", Larry is one of Rupert Giles' "white hats", along with Oz and a girl named Nancy. In the Season Three finale "Graduation Day, Part Two", he is seen in the front line of battle against the Mayor of Sunnydale, who has morphed into the gigantic demon Olvikan. He is last seen being thrown to the ground by a swipe of the Mayor's tail. His death is confirmed in the Season Six episode "Smashed", when Willow informs Amy Madison that Larry will not be taking her to the prom because "Larry's gay, Larry's dead, and high school's kinda over."
Leah
Leah is a Slayer who appears in Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight comics, first appearing in "The Long Way Home". Leah has large, puffy red hair and is a member of Buffy's squad along with Satsu and Rowena. She speaks with a Scottish burr. When Buffy chooses Satsu out of all the Slayers to help her rescue Willow, Leah agrees with Satsu when she states that she should not have been picked, and tells her not to embarrass them. She is featured in the "Wolves at the Gate" arc, fighting vampires in Tokyo alongside the other Slayers. In the "Time of Your Life" Arc, Leah is the one who discovers that Dawn Summers has changed from a giant to a centaur. After the castle headquarters is struck by a missile, she is seen being carried to safety by two Slayers. She recovers from her injuries in time to join prominently in the battle against the magically conjured snake-men in the nearby forest. In the "Retreat" arc, Leah accompanies Buffy and the other Slayers to Tibet, where they surrender their powers in hopes of escaping the notice of the villain Twilight. Leah alerts the rest of the group when a cat that had been sitting in her lap suddenly disappears, leading them to realize that the cat had been Twilight's ally, Amy Madison, in disguise, and that their location has been discovered. In the season's climactic battle at the Sunnydale Hellmouth, Leah is saved by Giles from a dragon-like demon which incinerates the rest of her group.
Lucy Hanover
Lucy Hanover is a deceased Slayer who appears in Buffy the Vampire Slayer literature. She is first mentioned in the History of the Slayer WB advertisements for the Buffy television series:
Virginia, 1866. The frequent and unexplained disappearance of local Civil War widows shocked an already grieving community. These disturbing events ended when Lucy Hanover arrived in town.
The character is expanded upon in comics and novels, in which she appears as a ghostly ally of the Scooby Gang. She is the mother of Roland and is the only other known Slayer to face the Wild Hunt (in Virginia during 1865) (Child of the Hunt); provides the gang with vital information when they face a vampire who can reincarnate into another body at the moment of death (Immortal); warns Willow about the coming of the Gatherer (The Book of Fours), even summoning other spirits to help deal with it; and guides a temporally-displaced Buffy back into her past self. In that battle, she possesses a vampire to aid Buffy's friends in battle before Oz accidentally kills her host, and helps the group trap an evil spirit who had tricked her in an alternate timeline (The Lost Slayer). Her role now is to guide lost spirits to the afterlife.
Luke
Luke is a vampire who is a powerful member of Order of Aurelius. When we meet The Master, he is trapped in the Hellmouth under Sunnydale. He has a once-in-a-century opportunity to escape in a ritual called The Harvest, which calls for him to use the strongest of his brood (Luke) as his "Vessel". The only way to prevent The Master's escape is for Buffy to kill the Vessel.
At the end of "Welcome to the Hellmouth", Luke flings Buffy into a stone coffin and it looks as though he is going to kill her. At the beginning of "The Harvest", she escapes. When Buffy and Luke meet again for a fight to the finish at The Bronze, she defeats him using subterfuge: she breaks a window that had been painted over, admitting the light of a streetlamp, which Luke momentarily mistakes for sunlight, distracting him long enough for Buffy to stake him.
Luke is played by Brian Thompson.
Lydia
Lydia is a Watcher who appeared in Seasons Five and Seven, and is played by Cynthia Lamontagne. In the episode "Checkpoint", she travels to Sunnydale with Quentin Travers to test Buffy's abilities as the Slayer. As the Watchers' Council interviews Buffy's friends, Lydia nervously questions Spike, and blushingly admits that she wrote her thesis on him. Lydia reappears in the episode "Never Leave Me", in which she reports to Travers about the increasing strength of the First Evil and is killed in the explosion which destroys the Watchers' Council.
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Merrick
Merrick is Buffy's first Watcher who appears in the Buffy movie, played by Donald Sutherland. He arrives in Los Angeles to inform Buffy of her destiny, and train her in using her Slayer abilities. In the movie, he is a pseudo-immortal: born to train Slayers, ultimately dying, and reborn again with the memories of his previous life. He is initially tough and stern with his charge, but eventually comes to respect her methods. In the film, Merrick is murdered by the vampire Lothos, and dies telling Buffy to do things her own way rather than live by others' rules. Although the film is not canonical in the fictional universe of the series, Merrick does appear briefly in a flashback to Buffy's calling in the Season Two finale "Becoming, Part One", and is played by Richard Riehle.
Merrick also appears in the Dark Horse Comics limited series The Origin, an adaptation of the original script for the movie. In this version of the story, Merrick (based on Riehle rather than Sutherland) is a normal man and member of the Watcher's Council and not the pseudo-immortal from the film. He is also not killed directly by Lothos, but instead shoots himself rather than be turned into a vampire and risk harming his Slayer. Joss Whedon has confirmed the canonicity of The Origin with the television series, stating "The origin comic, though I have issues with it, CAN pretty much be accepted as canonical. They did a cool job of combining the movie script (the SCRIPT) with the series, that was nice, and using the series' Merrick and not a certain OTHER thespian who shall remain hated."[8]
Miss Kitty Fantastico
Miss Kitty Fantastico is the pet kitten of Tara and Willow. She is a black/grey kitten with white rear feet, a white stripe from her chin to chest, and a small spot of white fur around her nose. Introduced at the end of Season Four, Miss Kitty only appears in three episodes, "The Yoko Factor", "Restless" and "Family", although Willow and Tara had discussed getting a cat in "New Moon Rising". After Season Five, Miss Kitty Fantastico is not mentioned again until the penultimate episode of Season Seven, "End of Days", when Dawn claims, "I don't leave crossbows around all willy-nilly. Not since that time with Miss Kitty Fantastico."
Molly
Molly is a Potential Slayer who comes to Sunnydale in Season Seven, and is played by Clara Bryant. She is introduced in "Bring on the Night" along with fellow Potentials Kennedy and Annabelle. Molly speaks with a cockney accent and confuses the other characters by using British slang such as "peckish". According to Kennedy she is very talkative and this seems to be true. When the Potentials are locked in a crypt with a vampire as part of a training routine in the episode "Potential", Molly is the one who slays the vampire. In the episode "Dirty Girls", Molly is one of the casualties in the battle at the vineyard; she is stabbed to death by Caleb.
Murk
Murk is a minor recurring character during Season Five, played by Todd Duffey. He is a demon and one of Glory's acolytes, of the same species of demon as Jinx. He is shot by Spike with a crossbow during the Season Five finale.
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Nikki Wood
Nikki Wood is a Slayer who was active in New York City in the 1970s. Her first appearance is in the Season Five episode "Fool for Love", in which she is played by April Wheedon-Washington. In that episode, Spike tells Buffy the story of how he killed Nikki, with flashbacks revealing that he snapped her neck following a battle on a subway train in 1977 and took her leather duster as a trophy, which he continued to wear until it was destroyed in a bomb blast in early 2004. Nikki reappears, portrayed by K.D. Aubert, in the Season Seven episode "First Date", in which it is revealed that she had a son called Robin, now an ally of Buffy Summers. The First Evil presents itself to Robin in the form of his mother, and informs him that Spike was the one responsible for killing Nikki. Nikki features in flashbacks in the episode "Lies My Parents Told Me", in which Robin tries and fails to take revenge on Spike.
Nikki appears in the story "Nikki Goes Down!" of the comic book miniseries Tales of the Slayers. In it, her boyfriend Li, a member of the NYPD, is killed during a battle with an oversized bat. She also appears in the prose short story "It's All About the Mission" of the novel Tales of the Slayer Vol. IV, in which her Watcher Bernard Crowley tries to avoid the Cruciamentum (a dangerous Watchers Council tradition in which a Slayer is stripped of her powers and tested) due to Nikki's pregnancy with Robin. Nikki features most heavily in her own novel Blackout, which tells the story leading up to her death as she battles Spike. The novel also reveals how she was called, and that she had rivalries with vampires Darla and Dracula. Nikki makes small cameos in the novel Queen of the Slayers, and the comics "Auld Lang Syne" and "The Chain".
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Olaf
Olaf is a troll who was once human, a tenth-century Viking who apparently often hunted trolls and was the lover or husband of Aud; he cheated on her with a "load-bearing" bar matron, and Aud punished him by transforming him into a gigantic hammer-wielding troll. The panache of this spell brought Aud to the attention of the demon D'Hoffryn, who recruited her as a vengeance demon, renaming her Anyanka (later known as Anya Jenkins). Olaf adjusted to life as a troll, but was eventually imprisoned in a crystal by witches. Olaf is introduced as a troll in "Triangle" (Season Five), where he is accidentally released from the crystal when a spell attempted by Willow goes awry (thanks to Anya); he is still, after 1200 years, angry at Anya. After wreaking havoc at both the Bronze and the Magic Box and badly injuring Xander, he is defeated by Buffy and sent to an alternate dimension (most likely the Land of the Trolls). He later appears in human form in a flashback in "Selfless" (Season Seven).
Olaf's huge hammer was used by Buffy herself during her battle against Glory in "The Gift", during which they referred to him as "Olaf the Troll God".
Olaf was played by Abraham Benrubi.
Olivia
Olivia is an old friend and romantic interest of Giles who appears in Season Four, and is played by Phina Oruche. Although she lives in England, Olivia visits Giles on two occasions. She is first introduced in "The Freshman" and is in Sunnydale during the events of "Hush". In "Hush", she shows artistic talent by drawing an accurate portrait of a Gentleman. At the end of "Hush", Olivia reveals she is not comfortable with Giles' role in battling the forces of evil. She appears pregnant and pushing an empty baby stroller in Giles' dream during "Restless" but is otherwise not seen again on the show. She appears in three episodes directed by Joss Whedon that season and is mentioned in the fourth ("Who Are You").
Olivia returns in the comics where she is present at Giles' funeral. When Giles is resurrected in the body of a 12-year-old, Olivia refuses to rekindle their relationship due to the large age difference. However, they do sleep together again when Willow casts a spell that temporarily ages Giles to early adulthood.
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Parker Abrams
Parker Abrams is a student at UC Sunnydale who appears in Season Four, played by Adam Kaufman. First appearing in the episode "Living Conditions", he meets Buffy and forms a seemingly intimate relationship with her. The pair sleep together in the next episode, "The Harsh Light of Day". However, while Buffy feels that the encounter represented an emotional bond, Parker considers it to be merely physical gratification, a moment of "healthy fun". Buffy expects Parker to contact her, which he never does. She eventually confronts him, but he is mostly cold and aloof, and Buffy soon realizes that the emotional intimacy she felt she had experienced with Parker was part of his calculated method to attract girls.
In the episode "Beer Bad", Buffy's best friend Willow confronts Parker over what had happened. During that conversation, Parker attempts to seduce Willow, who initially plays along, but soon reveals she has seen through him and verbally attacks him. Later in the same episode, Parker tries to apologize to Buffy after she saves his life in a fire. However, Buffy, who has been mystically reverted to a cavewoman, merely responds by knocking him unconscious with a wooden club. Parker's final onscreen appearance is in the episode "The Initiative", in which Buffy's college TA Riley Finn punches him when he makes some rude comments about Buffy – specifically that "the difference between a freshman girl and a toilet seat is that the toilet seat doesn't follow you around after you use it."
The creators of the show have stated that Parker was merely Buffy's failed attempt at a normal, new relationship, as she was still trying to completely get over her separation from Angel.
Parker also appears in the non-canon "The Lost Slayer" series.
Percy West
Percy West is a student at Sunnydale High who appears in Seasons Three and Four, starting with the episode "Doppelgangland", and is played by Ethan Erickson. When Percy's low grades nearly make him ineligible for the basketball team, Principal Snyder insists that Willow tutor him; in Percy's mind, this means that Willow is going to do his work for him. After a frightening run-in with Willow's doppelgänger, a vampire from an alternate reality, Percy takes Willow's tutoring more seriously, writing up essays on both Presidents Roosevelt when he only needs to write about one, giving her an apple and quickly taking off. Later in the season, he helps to organize the students into a fighting force on graduation day in order to battle vampires and the Mayor himself. In the Season Four episode "Doomed", it is revealed that Percy got into USC on a football scholarship, but dates a girl at UC Sunnydale. Willow meets him at a party and is hurt when she overhears Percy calling her a nerd to his jealous girlfriend. This is his last appearance in the show.
Pike
Oliver Pike or often referred solely by his last name Pike is a friend and love interest of Buffy who appears in the Buffy film, and is played by Luke Perry. A hard-drinking and poverty-stricken slacker, he initially resents Buffy and her valley girl friends because of their snobbery. However, when Pike's friend Benny is turned into a vampire by a minion of Lothos, Pike and Buffy find themselves teaming up to take Lothos down, and an attraction forms between them. Although the Buffy film is not canon and Pike is never seen or mentioned in the television series, he does make a number of appearances in the Dark Horse comic book series. These include The Origin limited series, in which he plays a role similar to that in the film. He also appears in the story Note from the Underground, in which he arrives in Sunnydale between Seasons Six and Seven to help Buffy defeat a fascist demon group, the Scourge. Pike's relationship with Buffy is explored further in Scott Lobdell's and Fabian Nicieza's Year One-style run, which bridges the gap between The Origin and the television series. He and Buffy travel to Las Vegas, where Pike eventually realizes that their relationship endangers both of their lives, and breaks up with her. Pike's other literary appearances include the novel Sins of the Father; set during Season Three of the show, it involves Pike being chased to Sunnydale by a rock demon known as Grayhewn.
Principal Flutie
Robert "Bob" Flutie, played by Ken Lerner, is the principal of Sunnydale High School in the first half of Season One. Introduced in the series opener "Welcome to the Hellmouth", Principal Flutie is eaten alive by possessed students soon afterward ("The Pack"). Unlike his successor Principal Snyder, Flutie is dedicated to helping students and is concerned with their self-esteem and socialization. Snyder later quips, "That's the kind of woolly-headed liberal thinking that leads to being eaten." (Ironically, Snyder suffers a similar fate two years later.)
Flutie is mentioned again in the Season Seven episode "Beneath You"; when Principal Wood jokes about the students eating the staff alive, Buffy asks "You heard about Principal Flutie, right?"
He was originally played by Stephen Tobolowsky in the unaired pilot, produced in 1996.
Q
Quentin Travers
Quentin Travers is a member of the Watchers' Council (possibly its head, based on his actions and authority) who appears in Seasons Three, Five and Seven, and is played by Harris Yulin. In his first appearance, "Helpless", he insists that Buffy undergo a ruthless rite of passage on her eighteenth birthday known as the Cruciamentum. The test consists of depriving Buffy of her Slayer powers and forcing her to fight a vampire using cunning alone. Giles' reluctance to comply with the test and his paternal relationship with the Slayer leads Quentin to fire him as Buffy's official Watcher. Angered at having been subjected to the Council's rite of passage without her consent, Buffy informs Travers that if he appears in Sunnydale again she will kill him.
In Season Five, Quentin returns to Sunnydale with a group of Watchers and offers Buffy information on her new nemesis, Glory. However, he will only provide the information if she successfully completes a set of rigorous trials. After an encounter with The Knights of Byzantium, Buffy realizes that she is the one with the power, not the Watchers' Council. Buffy explains the new facts of life to Quentin and the Watchers with him: that they work for her, not she for them; that Giles will be reinstated as her Watcher at full salary (retroactively from the month he was fired); that their mission is to provide her with information as requested; and that otherwise they will stay out of her way. Quentin acquiesces to all of her demands.[9]
He reappears briefly in Season Seven, being caught in the explosion at the Watchers' Council headquarters.
Travers' family is featured in the tie-in novel Spike and Dru: Pretty Maids All in a Row; Harold Travers, John Travers (Harold's son) and Arianna de la Croix (a Potential Slayer turned Watcher who falls in love with John).
The character was invented by David Fury, who wrote the episode "Helpless"; Fury says in the DVD commentary that he wanted a "very British" name, and combined the names of Quentin Crisp and P. L. Travers.
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Rack
Rack is a warlock who appears in three episodes of Season Six: "Wrecked", "Villains" and "Two to Go". He is played by Jeff Kober, who previously played vampire Zachary Kralik in "Helpless". In "Wrecked", Amy talks Willow into paying Rack a visit after having exhausted all their own magical energy. Rack's lair is cloaked, being undetectable to all but demons and magic users. After the pleasantries, it becomes increasingly clear that Rack is the mystical equivalent of a drug dealer; Willow and Amy spend several hours with Rack, "high" on magic. Willow's addiction to magic becomes more severe, and she returns to Rack's apartment the next night with Dawn in tow. When Buffy mentions Rack to Spike, he immediately recognizes the name and is alarmed to learn Willow and Dawn are in Rack's company. After being chased by a demon (a side effect of Rack's spell) and causing an injury to Dawn's arm in a car accident, Willow renounces her use of magic and severs her contact with Rack and Amy. Rack appears again in "Villains" when Warren Mears, who is being hunted by Willow, pays Rack for protection magic. Willow subsequently kills Rack.
Rack appears in the Season Nine miniseries Willow: Wonderland on a mission to restore magic to Earth. In another dimension, Willow allies herself with Marrak, an Earth warlock with a growing interest in dark magic. Eventually, Willow determines that Marrak is Rack, who has been trapped in the dimension since her assault on him. Rack had intended to use Willow's good side and his dark side to create enough magic to go back and rule Earth. During a magical duel with Willow, she refuses to give in to her dark side despite his taunts. Rack is absorbed by The Embodiment of Magic and his final fate remains unknown.
Renée
Renée is first seen manning a computer in issue #1 of Season Eight, enjoying flirtatious banter about comic books with Xander. In issue #2, another Slayer tells her that she's in love with Xander, having recently developed a keen interest in comics, James Bond films and drywalling. Later that issue, we see her stabbed from behind by a Scottish zombie, although she survives as seen in issue #3. She and Xander are starting to be "sparring partners" as stated by Xander in issue #6. In issue #7, she is sent by Buffy to talk to Willow about fixing the new radar stations installed to protect them from the army. In issue #12, she prompts Xander to ask her out, which he then does. In issue #14, Renée kisses Xander. Later that night, she is impaled on the scythe and killed by the Japanese vampire Toru.
Robert Dowling
SFPD officer Robert Dowling is introduced in the first issue of Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Nine. He is investigating a series of murders of unmarked and unwounded Jane and John Does around the San Francisco area, which he hypothesized were vampires. After witnessing Buffy stake a vampire, he and his partner arrest her for homicide. After Buffy escapes custody, he declares her the target of a manhunt. After he is anonymously tipped off about the location of the real culprit, Severin, Dowling appears at the scene of a battle where Buffy and Spike are having their powers drained; he shoots Severin three times, hospitalizing him. Subsequently, he and his partner begin investigating vampires more strenuously until she too is turned. He is trained by Xander and Dawn both in how to kill vampires, and in understanding the difference between who the vampires once were and who they now are, using which he is able to kill his ex-partner. Dowling subsequently attempted to quit the force, but was put in charge of an anti-vampire task force instead, working alongside Buffy.
Later, in "Welcome to the Team", he asks Buffy on a date ahead of a scheduled patrol with Buffy and her 16-year-old helper Billy Lane. However, he is bitten in the neck by a vampire just as Buffy is mysteriously teleported away from the scene of the fray. In the ensuing chaos in her life, as events rapidly lead her to the core of the Deeper Well, a mystical cave running through the Earth from end to end, Buffy entirely forgets about him. She recalls Robert suddenly in the first arc of Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Ten. Although she initially plans to explain that she is sorry for not visiting him and, ultimately, not ready to date, she finds herself mildly upset when he understands the situation and gets in there first to say they are better as friends. Dowling would call in Buffy and Spike whenever the police needed help with a supernatural crime.
Rona
Rona is a Potential Slayer who comes to Sunnydale in Season Seven, and is played by Indigo. Arriving in the episode "Showtime", Rona didn't know she was a Potential until the Bringers attacked her. A somewhat argumentative African-American girl, Rona eventually accepts her destiny and she survives the climactic Hellmouth battle despite being badly injured several times and having a broken arm (in a cast) throughout. She appears in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight story "The Chain", as the person who decides which Slayer will act as a decoy for Buffy Summers.
Rowena
Rowena is a Slayer who appears in Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight comics, first appearing in "The Long Way Home". She is a blonde-haired Slayer who speaks with a European accent and is a member of Buffy's squad along with Satsu and Leah. In "Wolves at the Gate", Rowena takes charge of Buffy's squad when Buffy is trying to rescue Willow from Kumiko. In "Time of Your Life" she coordinates the evacuation of the Slayers' castle headquarters when it is struck by a missile, and later leads the Slayers and their Wiccan supporters into battle against the army of snake-men who were magically conjured by the missile's explosion. In the "Retreat" arc, Rowena is one of the group of Slayers who accompany Buffy to Tibet and temporarily sacrifice their powers to escape detection by their enemies.
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Saga Vasuki
Saga Vasuki (also known as Aluwyn) is a Nāga-like demon and Willow's magic teacher in the comic book Season Eight. Under her tutelage, Willow's power has increased massively. She first appears in "Anywhere but Here", in which the Old One Sephrilian shows Buffy a past vision of a nude Willow being embraced by Vasuki in an attempt to drive a wedge between the two. She later appears in person in "Time of Your Life" when Willow summons her to help rescue Buffy from the 23rd century-era New York City, during which it is revealed that Saga Vasuki's dimension can only be accessed when the witch attempting to summon her experiences an orgasm. It is also revealed that Willow and Vasuki's relationship is a sexual one, leaving Willow visibly guilty in the presence of an unaware Kennedy. Nonetheless, Saga Vasuki does seem to have genuine feelings for Willow, often addressing her as her "darling Willow". How Saga Vasuki came to be Willow's teacher is revealed in the one-shot comic Goddesses and Monsters. In the last arc of Season Eight, magic is stripped from the universe and Willow is no longer able to communicate with Aluwyn; as a result of her guilt, Willow dumps Kennedy.
Aluwyn appears again in the Season Nine miniseries Willow: Wonderland. Due to her inability to reach Willow, she has formed a "supercoven" of powerful witches from various dimensions. When Willow explores a Wonderland-like dimension as part of her mission to restore magic to the world, she is reunited with Aluwyn. They later end their relationship when Willow realises Aluwyn is selfishly distracting Willow from her friends' peril. Aluwyn visits Earth after magic is restored in Buffy season 10 only for Willow to break up with her, saying she has grown beyond who she was when she first met Aluwyn and can't ever fully trust a trickster like her. Willow tries to say they can stay friends only for Aluwyn to threaten that Willow better hope they never see each other again. Aluwyn vanishes, enraged.
Sandy
Sandy, played by Megan Gray, first appears as a human in the Season Three episode "Doppelgangland" where she is bitten by the vampire version of Willow. While her fate in this episode is uncertain, in the Season Five episode "Family" a vampire by the same name and portrayed by the same actress shares a drink with Riley at Willy's Bar, so it is assumed to be the same character. She later reappears in the Season Five episode "Shadow" where Riley allows her to drink some of his blood, only to stake her shortly thereafter.
Satsu
Satsu is a Slayer who appears in the canonical comic book Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight, introduced in the first issue. Satsu is introduced as a member of the Slayer group stationed at the Scotland command center. She and Buffy briefly become lovers during the "Wolves at the Gate" arc; their liaison is complicated by Satsu's genuine romantic feelings for Buffy, while Buffy herself sees the relationship as a temporary (though mutually enjoyable) affair. After traveling to Tokyo and participating in the defeat a group of vampires who have stolen the legendary Dracula's powers, Satsu decides to separate herself from Buffy for her own good, and assumes leadership of the Japanese Slayer field office. She appears in Buffy season 10 to convince Buffy to work with the human military to stop demon attacks that are a global problem. Her reasoning being that Buffy can give the military another chance despite their actions in Season Eight, since she forgave Angel for his actions then. Satsu has Buffy and Spike work out an alliance between the military and the majority of the world's vampires.
Scott Hope
Scott Hope is a student at Sunnydale High who appears in Season Three, and is played by Fab Filippo. He is introduced in the episode "Faith, Hope & Trick". Buffy acknowledges Scott as a potential love interest, but is still grieving over the death of Angel in the previous season. She finally gives in after numerous advances by Scott, and they date for a short time. However, Scott breaks up with Buffy shortly before "Homecoming" because he is tired of her constant distraction. Scott is mentioned again in the Season Seven episode "Conversations with Dead People", in which Holden Webster tells Buffy that Scott spread a rumor back in high school that she was a lesbian, and has ironically come out as gay himself in college.
Severin
Severin (or the Siphon) is a major antagonist in the Season Nine comic book series. He first appears in a single panel of Season Eight's final issue, where he appears "as a guy in John Lennon glasses who looks fairly evil".[10] In Season Nine, artist Georges Jeanty models Severin's appearance on actor James McAvoy as he appears in the film X-Men: First Class.[11]
In "Freefall", Season Nine's opening story, many dead humans reported missing decades prior are found on the streets of San Francisco. Buffy first encounters Severin while patrolling for vampires and discovers that he has the ability to "drain" magic, turning vampires into ordinary humans, leaving them as corpses. He explains to her that he acquired this power after his girlfriend became an unexpectedly-mindless vampire, a side effect of Buffy banishing magic. After earning Buffy's trust, he lures her to a warehouse filled with vampires which he uses as batteries to "charge" him up for their fight, where he intends to drain Buffy's powers and life force. Buffy is aided in her battle by Spike and the demon Eldre Koh, who reveals that Severin is "the Siphon", the coming of which demons had long feared. Severin survives several stab wounds, but is incapacitated when SFPD officer Robert Dowling shoots him three times. In hospital, he is visited by evil Slayer Simone Doffler, who he is revealed to have been working alongside.
Severin next appears in "Welcome to the Team", after the ancient demon Illyria recruits Buffy to her council of warriors who intend to stop him. Severin reveals his actions were intended to draw Illyria out so he could absorb her time travel abilities and use them to save his girlfriend. He defeats Eldre Koh and Buffy and drains Illyria of her powers leaving her alive in the appearance of Winifred Burkle. Severin and Simone approach Xander to steal the Vampyr book from Buffy, with the promise that going back in time will also save the life of Xander's girlfriend Dawn Summers who is currently dying without magic in the world. In "The Core" Xander supplies them with the information they need to enter the Deeper Well. Severin begins absorbing power from all the entombed Old Ones inside and prepares to turn back time. However, the power proves too much for him to control; he cannot reverse time and will soon be killed when he explodes with the energy. Illyria draws from her experiences with Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, who was distraught when Illyria's own resurrection destroyed his lover Fred, and convinces Severin to risk death by trying to save the world instead. Illyria stays with Severin as he tries to transfer his power into a new Seed of Wonder, which could restore magic to the whole world immediately. Severin expresses regret for his actions, but Illyria assures him he is giving the world something it needs. Severin explodes, seemingly killing himself along with the Old One Maloker and Illyria. His sacrifice restores magic to Earth and allows Willow to save Dawn.
Shannon
Shannon, played by Mary Wilcher, is a Potential Slayer who comes to Sunnydale in Season Seven. First seen in the episode "Dirty Girls", she is pursued by Bringers before being caught and critically injured by Caleb. He allows her to live so that she can deliver a message to Buffy. Her injuries leave her in the hospital, but the burn mark that Caleb left on her provides a lead for the Scooby Gang to investigate. She subsequently appears in the episodes "Empty Places" and "Chosen" where she participates in the final battle against the First Evil's army of Turok-Han vampires and is one of the survivors.
Sid the Dummy
Sid the Dummy, voiced by Tom Wyner, is a demon hunter, imprisoned in the body of a ventriloquist's dummy, who appears in the Season One episode "The Puppet Show". When a girl, Emily, is found dead with her heart removed, Buffy suspects that the culprit may be Sid, the seemingly living accessory of a student participating as a ventriloquist in the upcoming talent show. Buffy confronts Sid, who explains his past to the Scooby Gang; he was once a human demon hunter cursed into this form by a group of demons, the Brotherhood of Seven. However, as Sid's original body died long ago, Sid explains to Buffy that he will die when his curse is broken, but he has nonetheless accepted it, having already outlived most demon hunters. Having tracked the final member of the Brotherhood, who was responsible for the murder of Emily, Sid stabs the heart of the demon and kills it. Freed from his curse, Sid dies.
Sid returns as a playable character in the non-canon video game Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Chaos Bleeds. He is introduced in the opening of the Cemetery level, and tells Buffy where the newly resurrected Kakistos had gone. He appears again soon after Buffy, Willow, Xander, Faith, and Spike are transported to The First Evil's home dimension. He explains that he had met The First years ago and "royally pissed him off". After his curse was broken in "The Puppet Show", the First stole his soul and placed it in a duplicate dummy body. He tells the Scooby Gang the legend of Cassandra Rayne (Ethan's ancestor, a warrior for the Powers That Be) and Hope's Dagger, the only weapon capable of harming The First. He aids them in retrieving Cassandra's eyes from Sunnydale Hospital, and stays with Ethan Rayne, unwillingly dragged along for the ride by Buffy, while the Scoobies fought The First's minions and retrieved Cassandra's body parts. After The First was defeated, he disappeared into thin air, apparently dying at long last.
Humorously, Sid is initially portrayed as the stereotypical "horny dummy" act when the Scoobies believe him to be a simple dummy, only for Buffy to find out later that it is not an act. While relating his history to the stunned Scoobies (shocked at watching a dummy talk), he describes a sexual history he had in the 1930s with a Korean Slayer, even going so far as drifting out of the conversation and into the memory, later snapping out of it and saying "I'm back." He also unsuccessfully tries to seduce Buffy, and repeatedly flirts with both Buffy and Willow.
Simone Doffler
Simone Doffler is a Slayer who moved from Rona's squad to Andrew's due to her troublesomeness, before going entirely rogue, in the comic book Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight. She sports a short mohican of dyed pink hair, and dresses in a punk or goth style. First seen in "The Long Way Home", she is seen proposing to Andrew that Slayers use guns to fight, which he dismisses, as Buffy personally dislikes guns and has made it a rule forbidding all Slayers from using them. In flashbacks in "The Chain", she is seen under Rona's squad musing about guns. In "A Beautiful Sunset", Buffy surveys video footage of Simone and a small band of Slayers in an illegal raid, and Buffy feels that Rona was simply "passing the buck" in having Simone moved to Andrew's squad in Italy. Later, in "Predators and Prey", Buffy is forced to team up with Andrew to track Simone down and confront her. Simone's criminal activities, combined with the destruction of Sunnydale, the machinations of Twilight, and Harmony Kendall's reality show Harmony Bites, have ushered in a pro-vampire, anti-Slayer world order that has forced the Scoobies and their Slayers into hiding.
The last issue of Season Eight sets Simone up to be an even greater threat in Season Nine; she is depicted having infiltrated a U.S. military facility, where she kills the General who aided Twilight. In Season Nine, she appears visiting Severin in hospital, revealing she recruited him to attempt to depower Buffy. She appears in the "Apart (of Me)" where she tracks down Buffy's "real body", which has been stripped of its memories and placed into hiding by Andrew Wells without Buffy's intelligence. She first intends to interrogate and possibly kill Buffy, but is able to recruit her to her team. Buffy (in a robot body) is able to subdue and recover her real form; Spike and his crew of bugs fight Simone, sustaining heavy casualties, before she is able to escape. She next appears in "Welcome to the Team" where she is trying to create the ultimate vampire by forcing Slayers who followed her to be sired by zompires. These Slayerpires are incredibly strong but lose all intelligence. She and Severin approach Xander and request he steal Buffy's Vampyr book so Severin can turn back time to prevent the end of magic and save the lives of his girlfriend Clare and Xander's girlfriend Dawn. In "The Core" Xander supplies them with the information they need to enter the Deeper Well. Inside, Simone awakens Maloker, the Old One who created the first vampire and allows herself to be sired. She awakens having retained her intelligence but also with the added abilities of a vampire, and attacks Buffy. Simone reveals she hated being a Slayer because she had no choice but to become one and join Buffy's army. As a vampire she is proud of her choice and sees no use in having the support of others. She never believed Severin could succeed in reversing time and she never cared about saving Dawn. Simone easily knocks aside Xander and gets the upper hand against Buffy, even stabbing Buffy with the Slayer's Scythe. Simone leaves Buffy for Maloker to finish off and tries to escape the Well. As the Scoobies evacuate, Buffy expresses disgust that she made someone like Simone into a Slayer. Buffy takes back the Scythe and uses it to dust Simone.
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Mr. Trick
Mr. Trick (played by K. Todd Freeman) is a vampire who came to Sunnydale to hunt down the Slayer Faith ("Faith, Hope & Trick") with his master Kakistos, but leaves him to die at Faith and Buffy's hands, dismissing the "revenge gig" as hopelessly old-fashioned. He is an innovator who enjoys comfort and the amenities of modern occidental life, and prefers not to get his hands dirty. Mr. Trick hosts "SlayerFest '98", assembling a group of human and demonic contestants to hunt down and kill Buffy and Faith. Afterwards, he begins serving Mayor Richard Wilkins as the leader of his vampire minions. Trick hires Ethan Rayne as part of the plot to obtain the tribute that Wilkins requires to pay to the demon Lurconis ("Band Candy"), and later arranges a vampire "welcoming committee" when Spike returns to Sunnydale ("Lovers Walk").
Acting as Wilkins' middle-man, and later as his personal hitman, proves to be his undoing. Trick leads a small team of vampires to personally eliminate Buffy and Faith. He injures Buffy and has her at his mercy, but as he gloats that he will now taste a Slayer's blood, he is staked through the back by Faith. Mr. Trick survives for a few seconds, long enough to comment that something did not feel right at all, before turning to dust. Hours later, Mr. Trick's position is filled by Faith herself. ("Consequences")
V
Veruca
Veruca (played by Paige Moss) is a minor character in Season Four, who appears in "Living Conditions", "Beer Bad" and "Wild at Heart". Like Oz, she is a musician and a werewolf. Oz finds himself incredibly attracted to Veruca, who tries to bring him into her philosophy of embracing the werewolf within and succumbing to its desires. As a werewolf, Oz breaks free from his cage and mates with Veruca, and later they do so again. Oz's girlfriend Willow finds out about the betrayal and is heartbroken, and Veruca targets Willow with the intention of killing her; she believes Willow prevents Oz from reaching his potential. Oz however, in his werewolf form, protects Willow and tears out Veruca's throat. Oz leaves Sunnydale following Veruca's death to find a cure for his condition.
Vi
Vi (or Violet) is a Vampire Slayer who is first introduced in the episode "Showtime", portrayed by Felicia Day. As a Potential Slayer, Vi's Watcher sent her to Buffy's for protection in Sunnydale during the war with The First Evil. She first appeared timid, often naïve about the supernatural. However, when she was imbued with the Slayer power, Vi displayed remarkable skill with a knife inside the Hellmouth against the Turok-Hans ("Chosen"). A couple of years later, she and Andrew Wells produced a television commercial informing recently activated Slayers about the new Watchers' Council run by Buffy ("The Chain"). Vi currently leads the New York Slayer squadron ("Time of Your Life").
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Whistler
Whistler is an enigmatic demon who appears in Season Two, and is played by Max Perlich. He first appears in a flashback in the episode "Becoming, Part One" in which he approaches a dirty and destitute Angel on the streets of New York City. He describes his duty as maintaining the balance between good and evil, and claims that Angel is destined to be a force of good. He then takes Angel across the country to Los Angeles where he points out the young Slayer Buffy Summers as she is called to her destiny, and later at her home, where she is clearly distraught over her Slayer duties and hearing a massive argument between her parents. Seeing her allows Angel to decide to turn his life around, and to help Buffy in her duty as the Slayer. Whistler does not interfere again until he learns that Angel, now without a soul, plans to awaken the demon Acathla. He confronts Buffy and tells her that Angel was never supposed to lose his soul. In fact, it had been his destiny to stop Acathla, not bring him forth. He informs Buffy that she will have to kill Angel to stop Acathla if he is awakened, which ultimately comes to fruition. Whistler was originally supposed to appear in Angel as Angel's guide and link to the Powers That Be, but was replaced by the character Allen Francis Doyle.
Whistler subsequently appeared in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight comic book "Riley: Commitment Through Distance, Virtue Through Sin" (2010) wherein he is established as Angel's confidante and guide in taking up the Twilight mantle and leading an anti-Slayer coalition. The Season Eight sequel Angel & Faith (2011–2013) features Whistler as one of its primary recurring antagonists; he wishes to restore magic to the world following Angel's betrayal of their cause in Season Eight, and is shown to be exceptionally strong. The issue "The Hero of His Own Story" (2012) depicted Whistler's origin story: the child of a demon and a servant of the Powers That Be, he was blessed with foresight by the Powers and made their agent to create an equal balance of good and evil in the world. He had expected Buffy and Angel to create a paradise in the Twilight dimension where all the good people could live happily ever after, while still maintaining balance because a few million people would die before Buffy and Angel were ready to bring the worthy ones over. Evil demons and humans would be abandoned on Earth and die when it was destroyed upon completion of the Twilight dimension and therefore free Whistler of his obligation to maintain the balance of Earth. In the present day, in a world without magic, he is separated from his power of prophecy and has become unhinged. Before the loss of magic he received a vision of a dystopian future if magic does not return to the world. In England, he works with the half-demon siblings Pearl and Nash to gather all the magical items he can to unleash a magical plague that would, at the cost of a few billion lives, transform the surviving humans into a magical species. In the final arc, "What You Want, Not What You Need" (2013), Whistler takes the energy from all the magical items and turns it into an orb of pure magic which he plans on having Pearl and Nash fly into the upper atmosphere to mutate the world. In the final battle with Angel and his team, the plague orb mutates or kills several people in the London Borough of Hackney. During their confrontation, Angel forces Whistler to absorb some of the orb's magic, which clears his addled mind. In an act of redemption, Whistler sacrifices his life to destroy the orb entirely. Before he dies, he thanks Angel for saving him from himself and says doing the right thing is more important than balance. Angel mourns the death of his mentor, and subsequently decides to stay behind in the newly christened "Magic Town" suburb of London where he anticipates there will be trouble among its mutant populace.
Whistler has also appeared in the non-canonical Buffy post-Season Seven novel Queen of the Slayers, coming to Buffy in a dream to help her get back her confidence in order to defeat a rogue army of Slayers, three Hellgods, and a vampire sorcerer.
Willy the Snitch
Willy the Snitch is a bar owner and informant who appears in Seasons Two, Three, and Four, played by Saverio Guerra. Willy is a double-crossing human being, who basically follows instructions or requests if money is provided. He sometimes assists Buffy and other times betrays her. Characters, both good and bad, often beat up Willy for information. In the Season Three episode "Enemies", Xander brags about beating information out of Willy "personally", but then admits that he just bribed Willy with $28.
His final appearance is in "Goodbye Iowa", when Buffy goes to his bar in an attempt to get information on the murder of a little boy. While he does not make any future appearances, dialogue in future episodes makes it clear that he still resides in Sunnydale. His bar still appears in the show but his workers are the only ones seen. In Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Chaos Bleeds, his bar appears in the Downtown Sunnydale level as the place where the player finds Spike.
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Xin Rong
Xin Rong (known in the television series only as Chinese Slayer) is a Slayer who was active in China during 1900, and is played by Ming Qiu. In the Season Two episode "School Hard", Spike brags about killing a Slayer during the Boxer Rebellion. The Slayer's first and only appearance in the television series is in the Season Five episode "Fool for Love", in which her battle with Spike in 1900 is shown in flashback. The Slayer scars Spike's left eyebrow with her sword, and comes close to staking him, but an explosion outside rocks the temple in which they are fighting, and she loses control of the situation. As she dies, she says in Chinese, "Tell my mother I am sorry." Spike replies, "Sorry, love, I don't speak Chinese."
The Chinese Slayer appears in the Spike & Dru comic book storyline All's Fair, which gives her name as Xin Rong. In this comic, Xin's family attempts revenge by sending her brothers after Spike. They track Spike and his partner Drusilla down in Prague. In Chicago, 1933, the avengers of Xin Rong finally catch up with Spike and Dru. They beat and torture Drusilla so badly that she does not recover for ten years. The two vampires retaliate with the help of a chaos demon and the Rong family line ends there. In the Angel comic "Auld Lang Syne", the Slayer appears as a hallucination created by a demon called Lilitu to torment Spike. The Slayer's battle with Spike is recounted in the novel Spark and Burn, in which she is referred to as China Doll. According to the novel Blackout, the Chinese Slayer rescued a Buddhist monk from a dragon, for which she rewarded her with an enchanted sword. The enchantment of the sword explains why Spike's scar remains over a hundred years later, despite vampires' healing abilities. Xin Rong also briefly appears when Spike confronts the psychotic Slayer Dana, Dana's psychosis allowing her to access the memories of the Slayers that Spike has killed.
See also
References
- "Interview with Marti Noxon". BBC. Retrieved 2007-09-14.
- Kaveney, Roz (2004). Reading the Vampire Slayer: The Complete, Unofficial Guide to 'Buffy' and 'Angel'. Tauris Parke Paperbacks. p. xi. ISBN 9781860649844.
- Attinello, Paul Gregory (2010). Music, Sound and Silence in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Ashgate. p. 145. ISBN 9780754660422.
- Williams, J. P. (2002). "Choosing Your Own Mother: Mother-Daughter Conflicts in Buffy". In Rhonda V. Wilcox; David Lavery (eds.). Fighting the Forces: What's at Stake in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 63–64. ISBN 9780742516816.
- Richardson, J. Michael; Rabb, J. Douglas (2007). "Buffy, Faith and Bad Faith: Choosing to be the Chosen One". Slayage. 23. Archived from the original on 2007-09-27. Retrieved 2007-07-26.
- Riess, Jana (2004). What Would Buffy Do?: The Vampire Slayer as Spiritual Guide. San Francisco: John Wiley a & Sons Inc. p. 70.
- Marti Noxon, "What's My Line, Part 1" DVD Commentary
- "Bronze VIP Archive for January 17, 1999". Archived from the original on December 20, 2014. Retrieved 2007-06-10.
'The origin comic, though I have issues with it, CAN pretty much be accepted as canonical. They did a cool job of combining the movie script (the SCRIPT) with the series, that was nice, and using the series' Merrick and not a certain OTHER thespian who shall remain hated.' – Joss Whedon
- Petrie, Douglas, & Espenson, Jane. Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Episode 5/12, "Checkpoint." First aired January 23, 2001. Retrieved January 27, 2015.
- Vary, Adam B. (January 19, 2011). "Joss Whedon talks about the end of the 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' Season 8 comic, and the future of Season 9 – EXCLUSIVE". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved 8 May 2011.
- Jeanty, Georges. @SlayAliveForum I think he's modeled.... Twitter.com. 19 August 2011.
External links
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