| Character's finest moments |
Warning: this page contains
info about episodes up through season 7 BtVS/season 5 AtS. If
you're in danger of being spoiled, proceed with caution. |
| Buffy | Giles
| Willow | Xander | Oz
| Anya | Riley | Tara
| Dawn | Spike |
| Angel | Cordelia | Doyle | Wesley | Gunn | Fred | Lorne | Connor | Faith |
|
Buffy |
 |
|
"Have you ever heard
the expression, 'biting off more than you can chew?'" --Buffy to a vampire
Saving friends and innocents
If our childhood fantasies are any indication
of who we are deep down, then a slayer is who Buffy truly is.
As a child, she play-acted "Power Girl" the superhero.
At 17, it's no fantasy:
"There's also real
heroes that fight monsters. And that's me."
Best
kills
Buffy's finest moment: Easily,
stabbing Angel and saving the world from getting sucked into Hell (golden girl, Dec
28 20:54 1998).
"You can never hope
to grasp the source of our power."
|
I wish I could be a lot
of things for you. A great student. A star athlete. Remotely
normal. I'm not. But there is one thing that I can do that I
do better than anyone else in the world.
--Buffy to her mother, Graduation,
pt. 1
|
Moments of moral weakness
| The Slayer's friends are as
complex as Buffy--heroes in their own right. Here are just some
of their heroic moments: |
 |
|
 |
Giles |
Giles' finest moments
- research-guy extraordinaire
- "The Ripper"
in action
- helped people escape the Bronze during
the Harvest
- rushing to Buffy's aid
in the Witch. He stormed a witches castle and used her spells (Eiddileg, Mar 14 21:04 1999).
- went to the Sunnydale funeral home without
Buffy and fended off some pesky vamps from the Order of Aurelius
(NKABOTFD)
- performed the ritual with Ms. Calendar
that got Moloch out of the internet..
- When he was going to go
take on the
master in Buffy's
place [Prophecy Girl] (Shadowslayer, Mar 14 21:29 1999).
- kicked Ethan's @ss and broke the Janus and the spell (banana,
Mar 14 21:37 1999).
- went on patrol in Buffy's place in Ted.
When Jenny accidentally shot him in the back with the cross bow,
Giles removed the arrow and staked a vampire with it.
- bludgeoned Angelus and destroyed Spike's factory to avenge Jenny's
death in Passion.
- took Angels torture [in B2]
(Shadowslayer)
- when bizarro-Giles suspected that his
whole world had been made the way it is by Cordelia's wish, he
destroyed Anyanka's amulet in faith
that the world it would restore was a better one.
- He told Buffy about the
test [Helpless]. Then he went to the house ...and
took on the Last vamp (Shadowslayer).
- Even after the watchers
council had fired him he continued to help prevent the end of the world (Eiddileg).
- concern for Buffy in Earshot.
- Call it what you will:
a macho acting-out, a foolish move, whatever. when the Mayor
threatened his little girl [in Graduation], Giles was right there,
defending her. ...it proved to Buffy exactly what she means to
him (-mere-, May 19 10:15 1999).
- blows up the library to kill
the Mayor in Graduation, pt. 2
- breaks into the frat house to save the
gang in Fear, Itself.
- helps Buffy fight off the spirit siege
in Pangs
- gives the emotionally abusive Genevieve
Holt a piece of his mind.
- bludgeoned Toth
the warrior demon repeatedly with a fertility statue. It
didn't disable him, but it did drive Toth back for a moment.
- stands up for Tara's right to make her
own choices about her life and her family
- distracts Glory with a cross-bow shot to the bitch-goddess' invulnerable
heart
- gives Spike an
unequivocal de-invite to the Scooby gang hangout.
- comforts a distraught Buffy and sorts
out the paper work for her after Joyce's
death.
- pulls Glory-minion Jinx off Xander and
battles Jinx.
- kills Ben to put an end to Glory's evil.
- minces no words to tell Willow her resurrection spell was irresponsible.
- tells Buffy he
is proud of how she's holding up after her resurrection and
encourages her about her finances.
- stakes some vamps to protect Dawn in All the Way
- leaves Buffy for her own good. It might hurt now, but she'll
be stronger for it later.
- apologizes to Buffy for leaving her and
the gang when she was still trying to adjust to life after months
in the grave.
- Oh, and then there's that thing where
he allowed himself to be the carrier of
good magicks in an attempt to save Sunnydale and the world
from the wrath of Willow.
- kills both Turok-han and Bringers in the final fight against the First at
the Hellmouth.
The moral ambiguity of
Giles
|
Willow
Willow's witchhood
The not-so hesitant
hacker
|
 |
- accessed city plans when she "accidentally"
decrypted the city council's security system.
- got the skinny on Amber in the Witch by
hacking illegally into the school computer.
- has the coroner's office as an internet
bookmark.
- tracked down Ford's lack of school records
for Angel (LTM).
- found no dirt on Ted while hacking on
her computer, but she did save parts of the
robot for detailed examination.
- tried to access the
Mayor's files to see what he was up to. Finally got through
the encryptions and found the files empty.
- looked up FBI mass murderer profiles (Earshot).
- found maps to City Hall on the water and
power main-frame (Choices).
- broke into hell-hound raiser Tucker's
email account.
- hacked into city records to get Faith's
address by finding out how the Mayor was paying for her new abode
(Graduation).
- got into the cemetery schematics so Jonathan
and Buffy could design a plan of action in their vampire-slayage
(Superstar).
- Who says Willow's not a computer-whiz
anymore? She's got plenty of ideas for decrypting Adam's disks
(although it turns out not to be necessary) and helps Cordelia
get into the back door of Wolfram and Hart's computer system.
- tracks down the
Trio with the internet in Gone
- locates the Trio's new lair (among other
things) by tracing back camera feeds
Willow-whackage
- went after Amy with a
baseball bat. She whacked a vamp with the library sign. "Hey Malcolm! [whack!] Remember
me? [whack!] Your girl friend? [whack!] I think it's time we
broke up [whack!]"
She whacked a vamp with a bust. She whacked Cordelia later in
the closet. ...She whacked Oz-wolf with a trash can (MTVA, Jun 10
08:44 1998).
- has "expressed"
most of her aggression toward Cordelia from the "deliver"
key incident to the "have some lemonade" to "ask
for some aspirin". Let alone all the verbal attacks on Cordelia
(MTVA, Jun 10 08:58 1998).
- ...remember the crossbow
fondling incident and the skill with which she grabbed the gun
and shot Oz-wolf (MTVA, Jun 10 09:22 1998).
- The "hold him steady"
comment when Willow was fighting the vamp with Giles in WML2
(Closet Buffyholic, Jun 10 08:53 1998).
- "whackage
interuptus" on Spike in Lover's Walk
- "General Custer" Rosenberg and
Anya take shovels to the vengeance spirits in Pangs.
- gets in a little Faith-whackage with her
book-bag in TYG.
Other
finest moments:
- saves Giles from Darla by splashing her
with Holy Water in The Harvest.
- stalls Catherine the Witch (in Amy's body),
and gets thrown for it.
- screams out to distract
Darla [in the Bronze in "Angel"] (Sarah W., Mar 14
21:29 1999).
- guards hyena-Xander's cage in The Pack.
- Often Willow is good,
not just at the research stuff, but at marshaling the forces...she
got everyone in line at the frat house in Reptile Boy: "Snake!
basement! Buffy! Now!" (Mircalla, Mar 14 20:57 1999)
- takes over leading the gang while Buffy
has amnesia in Halloween
- comes up with a plan to defeat Eyghon
by forcing him out of Jenny and into Angel.
- shooting Oz in Phases
(Cleio, Mar 14 21:15 1999)
- the whole gang was brave
to go into the school to try to draw out the poltergeist in IOHE4Y.
Of course, Buffy was at the center of the storm... but the whole
thing was Will's
idea, and it was
certainly risky (Mircalla).
- did the restoration spell, even though she knew there might be dangers involved
with that (B1 and B2) (Mircalla)
- acts as vampire bait in Anne.
- her "autopsy"
in BatB (Cleio)
- pulling Oz's tail to get
him off of Faith, that took moxie [B&TB] (Eiddileg, Mar 14
21:04 1999).
- bravery in Lover's
Walk
- was instrumental in the fight against the Sisterhood of Jhe
both at the beginning and (apparently) at the end of The Zeppo
(Mircalla).
- walking into the Bronze
dressed as evil Willow to infiltrate the bad guy's ranks (Eiddileg,
Mar 14 21:29 1999) Shooting ...Vamp Willow (Shadowslayer).
- bravery in Choices
- comforts Buffy after Angel dumps her before
the Prom.
- reminds Buffy of the Poophead Principle.
- gives the Poophead a
piece of her mind
- helps fight the Vahrall demons in Doomed.
- with Tara's help, Willow does Faith recon,
seeks the source of Buffy's strange
behavior in Who Are You, and finds the cure. More of Willow's
witchy bravery
- hits the Lai Ach demon
attacking Xander and gets thrown for it
- is a supportive and encouraging girlfriend
to Tara
- proves her usefulness
to the slay-gang in LTF
- Did anybody else think
of Wile E. Coyote in the
falling!Glory shot?
Momentary suspension in mid-air, "uh oh!", whistling
fall sound. All it lacked was Willow going "meep! meep!"
(J. Boucher, 10:42 am Feb 7, 2001).
- pulls out one spell after the other to
protect Dawn and Tara
from Glory
- marshalls the forces after the slayer goes catatonic
- reverses Tara's
insanity and weakens Glory in the
bargain.
- faces off the Hellion demons with her
witchy power and a cross bow.
- stands up to
temptation during a hard day's
research in Gone
- slays the human-eating lamprey
monster and saves a paralyzed Buffy
- resists Anya's
aggressive attempts to get her
to use her magic in Older and Far Away
- reassures Buffy about which of her experiences
is real in Normal Again, then creates
the antidote to Buffy's hallucinations
- recovers from her period of dark magic
by learning a new philosophy of witchcraft
- tries to redeem herself from the death
she caused by bringing another flayer
to justice
- sees through the shape-shifting entity's
attempt to deceive her into relinquishing
her power
- overcomes her fear of her own powers to create a barrier to protect her
friends against the Turok-han
- faces her inability to get past Tara's
death when another chance at love
comes along
- restores Angel's
soul--again, and fights
an evil power to get the job done.
- brings another
Slayer to Sunnydale to join the fight against the First Evil.
- stays behind to keep the untrained Potentials
safe when the gang goes into battle
at Caleb's evil vineyard.
- uses the Jedi mind trick to get
into the police database and find out information about Caleb.
- has the courage to tap into the powerful mystical forces of the
Slayer's Scythe to turn all Potentials into Slayers.
The Moral Ambiguity of
Willow
|
Xander |
 |
In some ways,
he's the everyman heart of the show (Llewellyn, Oct 5 19:48 1999).
|
"Oh, he's gallant,
isn't he? I understand what you saw in him." --D'Hoffryn to Anya, on Xander
Xander's finest moments
- the rash but heroic Xander tries to save
his friend Jesse in The Harvest
- goes to the morgue to
help in NKABOTFD(Nikki, 21 Oct 2000 21:26).
faces the bullies picking on Lance
in The Pack and later saves Willow from the zoo keeper,
- In 'The Puppet Show' Xander
grabs the guillotine rope that saves Giles life (Lindsey, 19 Oct 1999 16:42),
- stops the kid-beating coach in Nightmares
from escaping justice,
- ...forcing Angel to show
him the way to the Master's lair in "Prophecy Girl".
He knew he didn't stand a chance, but he was completely willing
to sacrifice himself for Buffy (Odin, 26 Jan 1999 23:55),
- saves Buffy from drowning.
- WSWB~helped angel rescue
the victims while buffy fought the vampires,
- WSWB Xander sacrifices
himself to a vampire to give Willow a chance to run away (Nikki,
23 May 2000 14:12).
- SAR~left on a gurney in
the middle of a fire to save cordelia's life,
- SH~went to get angel to
help fight spike. gave angel his neck and let him
use him as bate,
- IMG~offered his own life
to ampata in exchange for willow,
- In IMG Xander protects
Ampata from her bodyguard on the bleachers (Nikki, 23 May 2000
14:12).
RB~went to the frat party to look after buffy (jealousy did play
a factor in this). After Xander gets
kicked out, he joins the frat-home invasion,
- Saving Cordelia from Eyghon
in The Dark Age,
- WML~went to buffy's when
giles thought she might be in trouble. saved cordelia from bug
man. defended angel to kendra. helped save angel. killed bug
man,
- BE~helped buffy beat the
mother bazoar,
- S/I~the whole rocket launcher thing,
- ~Saving Willow from Angelus in Innocence,
- Phases~staking theresa,
- Xander's BBB restraint
- KBD~facing down angel
twice and protecting buffy,
- GF~going undercover (not under much) on the swim team, Saving Buffy from the Fish monsters,
- ~[Saving Cordelia] from
vamps in Becoming pt. 1, keeps vigil
over Willow's hospital bed in Becoming,
- B2~'cavalry's here. cavalry's
a frightened guy with a rock, but it's here.' that takes brass
balls to face the end of the world with a broken arm and a rock.
- joins the gang to slay vampires in the summer of '98,
- Rev~doesn't lose his head
over angel, but goes right to giles,
- LW~tries to fight off
spike when
they are kidnapped,
- Offering, against his normal inclination,
to help Giles and Buffy research Angel's hauntings in Amends,
- GB~helps oz save buffy
and willow (at least tries)
- faces down the
dead guys
- tries to talk to Faith,
- saves Percy from VampWillow by "saving"
VampWillow from Percy,
- gets the address of the Graveyard demon
out o`th a bribe (Enemies),
- knocks over the food trays in Earshot
so students won't poison themselves,
- gets the ingredients for the spell to
destroy the Box of Gavrok and he and Oz put together the ingredients
- gets Cordelia out of the way of the hell-hound,
doesn't tell the gang about her new financial status, and helps
pay off her dress so that she can wear it to The Prom,
- In Graduation Xander turns
down Anya's temptation to run away together because he has "friends
on the line" (Nikki, 23 May 2000 14:12).
- helps Giles research the Ascension, and
later plays loyal general during the
battle.
~ Thanks to: Bruces Mom
(Mar 11 22:45 1999)
- Xander's Freshman slayer support
- Guards Buffy with Oz in
'Living Conditions'(Nikki, 21 Oct 2000 21:26).
- dives into Buffy and Spike's day-time
brawl and gets wrapped around a pole,
- heads cave-slayer off at the pass when
he realizes Buffy has consumed copious amounts of bad
beer,
- distracts the Hus-bear by pelting him
with fruit, giving Buffy a chance to stab the spirit,
- continues a fine tradition of turning
girlfriends into Scooby Gang members,
- foils attacking demons with Anya and puts
together the clues that pinpoint Willow's spell as the cause
of the wackiness ensuing in Something Blue,
- slugs Spike repeatedly when he thinks
the flaccid vamp has fed on Anya (actions speak louder--and better--than
words for the Xand-man).
- It was he, not Giles,
not Buffy, not even Willow that figured out that the demon's
themselves were the sacrifice [in Doomed] (Lovely Poet (Jan 18
20:28 2000)
- is one of the first (after Giles) to question the Initiative's agenda,
- jumps to Buffy's defense against Riley's
accusations, then joins Buffy during her investigation of the
Initiative,
- attacks Adam after he easily tosses
away both a trained soldier and the slayer,
- rushes back into Lowell
house to save Buffy,
- guards the gang with a taser rifle as
they cross the Initiative carnage to get to Adam's lab. Xander's
role in the ritual of primeval power:
[Xander] has heart -- that's
his contribution ...he has no supernatural powers or arcane knowledge,
but he's still ready to give demon-fighting his best shot. Literally,
in this episode -- nice aim! (C. Roberson May 16, 2000, 9:37
pm)
Xander, attitude boy
|
 |
Oz |
Scooby gang member:
- suggests finding the Judge in the mall.
- helps Willow and Xander slay
vampires (summer 1998).
- bizarro-world Oz helps the "white
hats" fight vampires.
- suggests looking up the
Mayor in the hall of records.
- helps Xander put together the spell ingredients
to destroy the Box of Gavrok.
- finds the cure for
Angel in one of Willow's spell books.
- helps construct a bomb to destroy the
demon Olvikan.
Willow save-age:
- gets shot pushing Willow out of the way
of the Tarakan assassin's gun.
- saves Willow from the gymnast vamp (Anne).
- tries to save Willow from being burnt
as a witch.
- the debate about whether to save Willow
or destroy the Box of Gavrok ends with an uncharacteristic display
of anger by the very human Oz.
- stands between Willow and the Mayor in
the library.
- begins his attack
on Veruca before he is wolfed-out in hopes the wolf will
incapacitate her.
- is willing to sacrifice
his happiness for Willow's.
Other heroic moments:
- helps to find the Buffy-rat.
- fights monster
Pete. Reporting Debbie's shiner
helps the gang find the real culprit.
- is the voice of restraint when Willow
decides to give her virginity to him for the wrong reasons.
- Does the girly best friend
thing with Buffy and later guards her with Xander in 'Living
Conditions'(Nikki, 21 Oct 2000 21:26).
- charges into the fish-factory in his van
to save Angel from Spike's torture chamber and later tries to
stake the sadistic Marcus.
Oz vs. Oz-wolf
Anya
For the ex-man killing
demon, that humanity thing is still a work in progress. But
there is poetic irony in the fact that she is finding her humanity
through her love for a mortal man.
Xander save-age:
- not liking the idea of Xander dying in
the Ascension and offering to take him with her when she skips
town.
- Anya as nurturing
girlfriend
- defending demon-magnet Xander (Something
Blue)
- saving Xander from a near drowny-death
when apparitions "baptize"
him in a bathtub.
- telling Xander he's a good person and
she's in love with him.
- offering her life in exchange for Xander's when Olaf threatens Xander's
life
- stakes a vampire who's fighting Xander
in Intervention.
| ...her sacrifice
of pushing [Xander] out of the way and letting the debris fall on her answered all of Willow's questions
about whether Anya would "hurt" Xander in the end (rowan,
13:44 5/25/01). |
 |
Scooby gang member:
Andrew: She
was incredible. She died saving my life.
Xander: That's my girl... always doing the stupid thing.
The metaphysics of Anya
The morally ambiguous
Anya
The evil of Anyanka
Riley
Riley actually does have
a say in it - he can just walk out and choose not to fight evil,
if he wished. Buffy certainly doesn't
have that choice.
And Angel is pretty much locked
into evil fighting mode
as well. ...Riley is just someone who got caught up in it all
because he is good at what he does (Acathla, Feb 15 23:04 2000).
Riley's finest moments:
|
 |
- gives Buffy an academic "pep talk"
(Fear, Itself).
- pulls Willow
out of the path of an oncoming car.
- hunts demons as part of the
Initiative and with Buffy
- prevents two men unable to talk out their
differences from fighting, and bravely approaches the
Gentlemen's hide-out and tries to fight them. In "Hush" it was he who
smashed the magic box (Rags, Jan 19 20:55 2000).
- pulls Buffy back out of the
Hellmouth pit.
|
- keeps Ethan from escaping.
- tries to stop Adam and gets skewered for
it
- decides to be double agent guy--helping
the gang find Professor Walsh's notes on Adam while remaining
loyal to the Initiative's more
benevolent purposes.
- ...He has a strong sense
of right and wrong and the
Initiative crossed than line with Oz (Gudanov, May 3, 2000. 06:22 am).
- Riley Finn, anarchist
- performs a chipectomy
on himself to come to Buffy's aid.
- saves Giles from the
Dracu-babes
- jumps Toth
from behind when the warrior demon aims his splitting-stick at
Buffy, giving the slayer time to move in for the kill.
Riley is to my mind the
role model of a perfect boyfriend. Attentive, romantic, caring,
accepting of her incredibly weird life (Jolly, 11-Oct-00 19:54).
The moral ambiguity of
Riley
|
Tara |
 |
Tara's finest moments:
- After knocking over Willow in her panic
to escape the Gentlemen, Tara helps her limping fellow witch
down the stairs to the laundry room, where they work
mgic together to put a soda machine between them and the
gruesone ghouls.
- discerns that Buffy
is not herself in Who Are You, and helps Willow discover
what happened and hatch a plan to reverse it.
- proves she knows the
real meaning of love in New Moon Rising
- sticks up for underdog "little sis"
Dawn.
- has been fighting a constant battle against
her family's fear of her witchcraft and finally
stands up to them once and for all.
- proves herself useful to the gang when
she comes up with some new ideas about Glory's
identity
- helps research the Queller
- sends Glory packing with the teleportation
spell
- steadies the gang during the painful hours
after Joyce's death
- doesn't reveal the identity of the Key--at
the cost of her own sanity.
- When Anya is taken prisoner by a demon
biker (Bargaining), Tara calls out
"Dissolvo!" and sends a bolt of energy towards
her captor. He loses his grip on Anya. Later, she evokes
Aradia to lead a lost Xander and WIllow out of the woods
and ax-murders a demon to save Willow.
- confronts Willow about her irresponsible and dangerous use of magic.
- helps Buffy research "coming back wrong" and supports
her when she confesses her affair with Spike.
- defends Willow and her magic-abstinence from an aggressive, hostile
Anya then encourages her recovery by asking Willow to take the
next step.
- thwarts the GGK
demon with magic.
- Tara's death
The moral ambiguity of
Tara
Dawn
Good deeds of the littlest
Summers:
The moral ambiguity of
Dawn
Spike
Spike has always been one of the most morally
ambiguous characters in the Buffyverse, not averse to making deals
with the good guys to get what he wants. When he was chipped,
he got a built-in meter of "good" and "not good"
put in his head, and he followed Buffy's example more and more
often. But his motives were always difficult to interpret. Now
he has a soul, and a real chance to choose between good and evil.
Highlights of Spike's
journey to the light side:
Souled Spike's finest moments
The moral ambiguity of
Spike
The evil of Spike
| Angel | Cordelia | Wesley | Gunn | Fred | Lorne | Connor | Faith |
Pictures are copyright ©
1997-2000 The WB Television Network
Screen shot credits
This page last modified 5/23/04
Do you have comments that you want
to post on this page?
