Why We Were Better Off Without Dawn
WARNING: Spoilers for the entirety of Buffy seasons 1–7 and it’s comics.
Fans will recognise the familiar opening narration from the series,
“Into every generation a slayer is born: one girl in all the world, a chosen one. She alone will wield the strength and skill to fight the vampires, demons, and the forces of darkness; to stop the spread of their evil and the swell of their number. She is the Slayer.” (copyright whoever owns Buffy).
When Buffy first appeared on the airwaves, she carried over her isolated way of fighting demons from the films but then something changed. The companionship, and even antagonism, from supporting characters like Xander and Willow changed the context from being about a young woman against the world to a group of young friends against the world.
Season One ends with Buffy dying during her penultimate fight. She is revived but that brief moment allows another slayer to step into the fray, Kendra. The new slayer is brilliant having been trained from a young age but lacking in one thing Buffy had — allies. Kendra is killed immediately.
The demons and monsters of Buffy were metaphorical for the struggles of teenage life and as Buffy shared the stage with supporting characters the motivation of the bad guys shifted to others; instead of monsters just wanting to kill Buffy some of them just want to kill her friends instead.
I think this is really important when it comes to portraying healthier ways to cope with mental health problems because it’s saying to talk to others for help instead of trying to go on your own. When we’re younger we tend to develop stronger bonds with others because the experiences we have with them are formative elevating the capability of collectivism in the group.
Buffy even resisted her friends help for a while but as the show rolled on they got her out of so many spots that they affectionally called themselves the Scooby Gang and even the bad guys knew to fear the group. Eventually the slayer that replaces Kendra turns up and her name is Faith.
In a turn probably not meant to make such a pun — we got ourselves some bad Faith here. The new slayer taught Buffy how to let loose a bit and break the rules, at the cost of all her friendships. When they have a bit too much fun and accidentally kill a man in an alleyway, Faith tries to frame Buffy but it backfires because of all the people who have Buffy’s back.
Faith comes back and there’s a big battle with a giant demonic snake, ending in Faith going into a coma. Buffy is the only active slayer once again, as Season Four rolls in and out (so so so forgettable) it ends with a strange dream where Faith tells Buffy that little sister is coming… but Buffy doesn’t have a little sister! Until she did.
I admire the storytelling behind Dawn, I think their introduction of her character was smart and the actor herself did a wonderful job portraying the more delicate younger sibling of the titular hero. My issues with her character are more to do with the affect it had on Buffy’s life after. Dawn’s presence basically causes Buffy to become a secondary character within her own life story and I don’t think that’s OK. This is a sad and real part of everyday life for a lot of young people, esp. when a parent passes like their mother does in the show, but it just felt like it was a little too close to reality and not far removed enough into fantasy.
After Dawn is introduced things get increasingly tense even between Buffy and her friends. Suddenly they all want to protect the younger sister, who thanks to magic has been there the whole time, instead of their friend. To me this is not a very realistic way a group of friends would behave, but then again every group of people is different and my experiences aren’t the same as everyone elses. Maybe people like that do exist out there, sad.
In the comics the chain of events beginning with The Gift results in the entire Scooby Gang, Dawn included, of rejecting Buffy and leaving her on her own again. That’s just not how you treat the female hero in her own series. In the end it works out for Buffy, but it takes longer than it should have and the familial bonds between the Scooby Gang are never restored.
If Dawn had just been erased after they defeated Glory then Buffy could have avoided that traumatic respawn and a lot of other trauma that ensued later. She might even have settled down. Joss Whedon could have his sadist kick from making us all sad about Dawn’s tragic beautiful death.
From the beginning of the show we watched Buffy grow up with no room to have a life because of demons. It seems that the demons finally won when they created a fake sister.
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