Buffy / Tropes H to N

H

• Half-Human Hybrid: As we find out in Season 3, every demon on the face of the Earth is technically this, "tainted" with humanity. The Evil Plan of the season's Big Bad is to become a pure demon, which are many times bigger and more powerful then anything the Scoobies have ever faced before.
• Halloween Episode: Three of them. In Season 2, "Halloween." In Season 4, "Fear Itself." In Season 6, "All the Way." Ironically, Halloween was usually portrayed as the safest night in Sunnydale, as the various monsters and demons would take the night off out of disgust for how commercialized the holiday had become.
• Hanlon's Razor: Harmony was the only person whose transformation into a soulless monster wasn't portrayed as tragic; objectively, it wasn't much of a change.
• Hard-Work Montage: Referenced, of course,
  Buffy: I thought it was gonna be like in the movies. You know, inspirational music ... a montage, me sharpening my pencils, me reading, writing, falling asleep on a big pile of books with my glasses all crooked ('cause in my montage I have glasses)...
  • Then in "Once More With Feeling"
    Buffy: I'm worried our training's gonna turn into a montage from an '80s movie.
    Giles: If we start to hear inspirational power chords, we'll just lie down until it goes away.
• He Knows Too Much:
  • Angelus is very thorough in disposing of everyone who knows how to restore his soul.
  • Faith murders a Volcanologist in his office, seemingly at random. We later learn that the doctor excavated the fossilized remains of an Old One, which puts Buffy on the trail of the Mayor's weakness.
  • Xander walks in on the lunch lady pouring what appears to be rat poison into the jell-o. She grabs a knife and chases him.
• Heal It with Blood: Slayer blood has the power to increase the strength of vampires. Draining the blood of a slayer is the only way to cure the vampiric poison "Killer of the Dead" (or Interfector Mortis in Latin).
• Heart in the Wrong Place: The location of vampires' hearts seems to vary from vaguely close to the actual heart to, in the case of Candy Gorch, the stomach.
• Heinous Hyena: In 'The Pack' (though a group of hyenas is actually called a clan!).
• Heinousness Retcon:
  • Warren Mears. When he was introduced in season 5, he was an awkward nerd who made a robot girlfriend to cope with his loneliness, then ditched her upon finding a real girl. He was, at worst, obnoxious, cowardly, and a bit misogynistic. In season 6, however, he reappears and takes a deep dive into evil, being the worst member of the Trio and a self-proclaimed Supervillain who becomes an attempted rapist, nearly kills Buffy and actually kills Tara. No one ever remarks on his change, with Buffy treating him suddenly trying to kill her as not surprising in the slightest. Originally the writers had intended for him to be a lackey to Tucker Wells, who unlike him (and Jonathan) had been truly malevolent in their introduction, but Well's actor was unable to reprise his role leading to Warren being drastically rewritten.
  • Amy Madison goes through this in the comic continuation. Although she Took a Level in Jerkass in the last two seasons of the show, her worst actions were trying to ruin Willow's attempts to quit using magic and casting a spell on her that turned her into Warren Mears, both of which were petty attempts at revenge for Willow taking so long to undo the spell that turned her unto a rat and didn't really do any lasting damage. In Season 8, she's retconned as having resurrected Warren and been dating him and acting on his orders during Season 7 and joins the Twilight Group, attempting to kill the Scoobies and the rest of the Slayers, with nobody acknowledging that this is in any way a step up from her previous villainous acts.
• Hell-Bent for Leather: Spike, Faith, and especially Vampire Willow all favour wearing leather.
• Hell Gate: The Hellmouth is the literal entrance to a hell dimension, and the series concludes with it being closed once and for all.
• Helpless Kicking: In the Cold Open for the episode Buffy the Vampire Slayer S3E3 "Faith, Hope & Trick"", an unfortunate Burger Fool gets yanked out of a drive-thru window and into the window of a car which is being driven by a monster. We see the poor guy's legs sticking out and kicking as the monster in the driver's seat feeds on him.
• Her Boyfriend's Jacket:
  • Angel gives Buffy his leather jacket in the fourth episode, Teacher's Pet, she wears it for the rest of the first season, albeit with the sleeves rolled up. They're not a couple yet, but when he says, at the end of the episode, that "it looks better on you", she knows she's fallen for him.
  • Tara wears Willow's sweater in the fourth season episode "New Moon Rising", which precipitates the episode's trouble.
• Heroic RRoD: "The Body". Buffy comes home to find her mother dead on the couch. Buffy, a girl who fights vampires and demons, is reduced to a near catatonic state clearly wondering how long Joyce had been in the house and if she could have been saved. It gets worse several episodes later when, despite the Scoobies' best efforts, her sister Dawn is still captured.
• Hero of Another Story: Angel becomes this after he leaves the show at the end of Season 3.
• Hidden Supplies: Giles stashes his weapons in the library's book cage. He has a another cache hidden in his apartment.
  Xander: These are his good weapons.
  • Buffy keeps her gear hidden in a false-bottom chest under her bed.
• Higher Education Is for Women: Buffy and Willow go to university while Xander doesn't. Cordelia got accepted to several universities but couldn't go because her family fortune vanished when her father went to jail. Oz does go to university but drops out after killing Veruca and skipping town.
• Historical Rap Sheet: A segment of The Origin comic based on Whedon's original script for the movie had this little tidbit:
  Merrick: You've heard of the emperor Caligula, perhaps? Or Jack the Ripper?
  Buffy: No way! They were both vampires?
  Merrick: The same one, actually.
• History Repeats: In Tough Love, Tara gets her sanity sucked out by Glorificus, prompting Willow to embark on a magically-charged Roaring Rampage of Revenge with a pit stop at the Magic Box. Said rampage doesn't end all that well for her, nor for the entire gang for that matter. In Villains, a year and a change later, Willow does exactly the same thing when Tara gets accidentally shot by Warren Mears. This time however, between her being much angrier and her mark being a mere mortal and not a god, she gets her revenge.
• Holiday Ceasefire: Most demons consider Halloween to be a "day off," making it the safest night in Sunnydale. Unfortunately for the Slayer, it's more of an unwritten rule, and there's still those who decide to disobey it sometimes, resulting in more than one Halloween Episode.
• Hollywood Autism: Andrew shows a fair degree of social ineptness, sometimes flat affect, and a fascination with certain topics that leads him to recite in detail at times.
• Hollywood Beauty Standards: Regarding Xander from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Joss Whedon mentions this trope in the DVD commentaries:
  Joss Whedon: Of course, Nicholas Brendon is way too good-looking, but this is Hollywood, so get over it.
• Hollywood Encryption: Willow can decrypt near anything, seriously, though admittedly the Initiative's most secretest files eventually decrypted themselves before she had a chance to do it herself.
• Hollywood Healing: Both averted and played straight depending on the character.
  • Buffy can shrug off most minor wounds, and even major ones rarely stick around for more than a day or two. Justified in that Slayer powers include a Healing Factor.
  • Giles' ability to recover from being knocked unconscious with no long-term effects is something of a running joke.
  • The rest of the cast are an aversion. For the most part when someone gets injured they'll have visible wounds or bandages for several episodes afterwards. Spike has to spend the latter half of season 2 in a wheelchair after getting a pipe organ dropped on him (although he was faking for some of that time, and Vampires also have a Healing Factor). In season 5 Xander gets his wrist broken by Olaf and wears a cast for the next two episodes.
• Horrifying the Horror: The basic premise of the series, actually. Instead of the cute blonde checking underneath the bed for monsters before going to bed it's the monsters checking the closet for Buffy.
• Home Field Advantage: The hell mouth gives people living above it superpowers. Demons and other mystical beings are drawn to its energy, and Word of Joss is that Warren was taking advantage of it for his robots and other super science.
• Homework Slave: Zig-Zagged. Principal Snyder wants Willow to tutor a basketball star jock so he won't fail his classes and have to be suspended from the team. The player takes this to mean Snyder ordered between-the-lines Willow to do the basketball player's assignments for him (and it's not out of the question that this is precisely what Snyder meant). Unluckily for the basketball player, this is the episode where evil vampire Willow crosses over from her reality to this one, and when the basketball player gets indignant with vampire Willow over being out and about instead of at home doing his homework, she entertains herself with him. By the end of the episode, he's committed to doing his own assignments and overachieving, fearing the wrath of Willow.
• Horror Doesn't Settle for Simple Tuesday: Except of course when Dawn is in trouble. Other than that Halloween (despite being boycotted by any self-respecting demon), Buffy's birthday party, and any school event is a guaranteed demon magnet.
• House Inspection: In "Gone", Buffy finds herself entirely unprepared for a home inspection by a social worker who comes to check on whether it's appropriate for Dawn. She encounters a mess, Spike who does his best but doesn't exactly come across as wholesome, and Willow with a bag of "magic herbs" (actual magical herbs). To make it worse, Buffy knew the inspector was coming ahead of time but failed to realize what day it was (Buffy's life is hectic, but it's hard to explain in any meaningful way to the inspector.)
• Hypocrite: Xander, especially where Buffy's vampire boyfriends' bloody histories are concerned. Usually when someone has a Jerkass moment (especially when it's jerkass moralizing), it goes hand-in-hand with some hypocrisy.
• Humans Are White: Not one of the Scoobies in seven seasons is black. Of course, this only really applies to the core group (many of whom didn't change throughout the series and were drawn from the predominantly white Sunnydale population). Throughout the first season there are different races seen in the school, Kendra is Jamaican, Wood is black, and the Potentials are made up of multiple races.

I

• I Call It Mr. Pointy: Kendra's name for her favorite stake. She gives it to Buffy shortly before getting killed.
• I Can't Do This by Myself: The show has one of these. Buffy does it to Giles after she saves him when he goes to kill Angelus, right after Jenny's death.
  Buffy: Are you trying to get yourself killed??? *grabs onto him* I can't do this by myself!
• I Don't Like the Sound of That Place: Sunnydale's original name, before the Mayor renamed it.
• I Just Want to Be Normal: Buffy, who insists on trying to have a normal life, going to school, having friends, dating boys, trying out for the cheerleading team, etc., despite her all-consuming mission to keep the world safe from evil. This makes for an ongoing source of angst for Buffy, though there are a few hints that her friends and the "normal" part of her life keep her grounded and stable, instead of turning into a cold and unfeeling Death Seeker.
  • Ironically, Cracked did an article that criticized Buffy's desire to be normal: as they put it, the demons she fights have turned Sunnydale into a war zone, and the only difference Buffy has from everyone else is that she isn't helpless, and that her powers are in fact the very reason she's able to stay alive. The article also points out that there are enough supernatural deaths in Sunnydale that the idea of normalcy doesn't exist for anyone, and this is a town where 'normal' people have to live in fear of their organs being harvested or being eaten alive by bullies possessed by demonic hyenas, and every season, at least 10 students and faculty at Sunnydale High School are killed by supernatural creatures. In short, Cracked summed it up by saying that, in the Buffyverse, "Being 'normal' means being a vulnerable hunk of meat just burning time before getting eaten by a demon."
• I Just Want to Be Special: Xander and Dawn.
  • Bites her in the ass in Season 8. She gets turned into a giant (which is problematic for her, though she does fight a giant Mecha-Dawn), a Centaurette and a Doll (which gets her captured by an insane doll collector). Xander at this point had gotten over this, basically running the Slayer Organization and Dawn is quite happy to be normal again and is actually comforted by Xander throughout the whole ordeal while everyone else basically ignores her. They get together.
  • Xander gets a big one in "The Zeppo" as well.
• "I Know You Are in There Somewhere" Fight: Jesse openly mocks Xander with this trope.
• I Let Gwen Stacy Die: Jenny Calendar's death is used to show that Angelus is a genuine threat and that Angel is unreachable without his soul. Tara's death is similarly used to set Willow off on her Roaring Rampage of Revenge at the end of season 6.
  • Spike views Buffy's death this way, during his time between season 5 and 6. He blamed himself for being unable to stop Doc from opening Glory's portal, thus "causing" Buffy to have to jump to close it.
• I'm a Humanitarian: Basically happens in "The Pack" when 4 bullies possessed with hyena spirit kill and eat Principal Flutie.
• Inconvenient Attraction: In Season 5, Spike falls hopelessly in love with Buffy—much to his horror.
  • In season 6, Buffy becomes extremely attracted right back, played to rather dark extremes.
• Informed Ability: The threat posed by the Anointed One was difficult to actually see in practice. Originally the character was supposed to have a larger role than he did in the second season so it's likely we would have gotten to see this ability in practice, but all we really got to see him do was have a few conversations with The Master and then get killed rather easily.
• Informed Attribute:
  • Vampires are quite often described as being very pale. The make-up artists apparently gave up on this early on, because with the exception of the first couple seasons most vampires sport a rather healthy complexion. Possibly allowed given that many if not most of the vampires on the show are "new recruits", or that they maintain the complexion they had at the time of their turning.
  • The importance of the slayer. The opening narration and many people in-universe make it sound like without the slayer, humanity would be doomed. Right off the bat, vampires and demons are everywhere in the world and there's only one slayer. The Initiative, Holtz, and Gunn's gang demonstrate that teams of Badass Normals can take on demons almost as effectively as a slayer. Gwen Raiden and Bethany Chalke show that people are born with other kinds of special abilities that can be just as useful in fighting demons. The government apparently has an entire school of invisible kids trained to be secret agents. And advanced practitioners of magic can perform feats far more impressive than mere physical strength. So what's the big deal about a single teenage girl with super-strength?
• Innocent Innuendo: In "Lie to Me", Giles is unsure about a "surprise" date, but finally stammers, "Alright, I put myself in your hands."
  Jenny: That sounds like fun.
  • Buffy moped over Ford for months, and would sit in her room listening to "I Touch Myself" by the Divinyls. She quickly shifts gears by saying she had no idea what the song was about.
  • Buffy glancing up from her career aptitude test to inquire, "Do I like shrubs?"
  Xander: That's between you and your God.
  • In "Killed by Death", Willow mentions that she and Xander used to play doctor (With medical textbooks and things).
  • In "Earshot", Buffy, discussing her "Touch of the Demon", is obliged to mention that it was "A good touch. Not a bad touch."
  • In Season 4's "The Freshman", Willow's speech about her excitement with school, which when she notices the wide-eyed look from Buffy realizes how dirty it sounded.
  • And in Hush, though this is nonverbal, when the Scoobies are trying to determine how to defeat the Gentlemen, Buffy makes a fist and mimicks stabbing....vertically....while seated....upon seeing the looks from the others, she reiterates this with a stake in hand.
  • In "Wrecked", Dawn describes a delicious hamburger as "like a meat party in my mouth." After a beat, she admits that came out wrong.
• Insult to Rocks: While Buffy is hunting Angel inside the empty Bronze, she calls out that she knows he's in there, and she knows what he is ("Angel"). From the balcony, Angel, in game face, sneers, "I'm just an animal, right?"
  Buffy: You're not an animal. Animals I like.
  • In "Lover's Walk", Spike sobs that he's "nothing" without Dru, a sentiment which Buffy is inclined to agree with.
    Buffy: You're not even a loser anymore. You're a shell of a loser.
  • In "Consequences", Angel's sermon to Faith doesn't appear to be sinking in. In the privacy of his garden, he grumbles to Buffy that it's like talking to a wall. "Only you get more from a wall."
• Interim Villain: The strongest example is perhaps the Anointed One in Season 2, who takes over for and tries to resurrect the Master, the previous season's Big Bad, and is subsequently used to introduce Spike... who promptly kills him.
  • Buffy would often do this: Mr. Trick was replaced by Faith and the Mayor, The Trio gave way to Dark Willow, Spike (Season 2) was eclipsed by Angelus, etc. Basically, if you weren't the Big Bad after the mid-season point, you were this.
• Internal Affairs: The Watcher's Council keeps its Slayers on a tight leash. In fact, they have an entire wetworks team dedicated to taking down rogue Slayers. The Watchers themselves (poor Giles) are also under close scrutiny.
• Interplay of Sex and Violence: As far as vamps are concerned, there is no separating wall. Buffy struggles with this side of herself throughout the series.
• Interspecies Romance: A whole lot; Buffy (a human Slayer) and Angel/Spike (Vampires). Willow (a human witch) and Oz (a werewolf), then later, with Aluwyn (A trickster snake-demon). Dawn, in between Seasons 7 and 8 takes the cake by dating a demon thing with tentacles. Honourable mention to Xander with ex-demon Anya.
• Intimate Artistry: In a disturbing variation of the trope, Angelus would draw sketches of his future victims and leave them to be found as a barely-veiled threat.
• Inverse Dialogue/Death Rule:
  • Major and semi-major villains usually take several seconds to dust. For instance, in "The Harvest", Luke has time to fall from the stage to the floor before dusting, but run-of-the-mill vamps most often dust before the stake is removed. This may be loosely based on the vampire's power, given that The Master was reduced to a skeleton but never dust.
  • Usually subverted with the good guys. Jenny, Joyce, Tara, and Anya all die quick deaths. On the other hand, when Buffy sacrifices herself in the fifth season's Grand Finale, she takes about a minute to die —and from her expression, it was an agonizing minute.
• Inverted Trope: Y'know all those classic horror movies where some blonde bimbo cheerleader is the victim of the film's monster? Well here that idea is gleefully turned upside down, where vampires and demons check the wardrobe for Buffy before going to bed.
• Invisible Parents: Buffy's mom is a major character, but everyone else's parents might as well not exist. Xander, Willow and co. are constantly going out to battle evil and end up in the hospital for doing so, and not only do their parents never show, the characters rarely ever talk about them. The only time this was subverted was in Season 3, when Willow's mom had a major role in one episode before vanishing back into the ether.
• Ironic Name: You'd think that characters with names like Angel, Faith, Harmony, and Glory would be heroic characters, but they're all villains. While Angel does pull a Heel–Face Turn eventually, he's still a vampire and becomes more of an Anti-Hero than a shining example of heroism. Faith similarly pulls a Heel–Face Turn, although she's even more of an Anti-Hero after it. Harmony is really only Affably Evil and a Card-Carrying Villain, but unlike the other two she stays a villain. Of the four, Glory is the only really purely evil one (and she's at least Faux Affably Evil)
  • It should be noted that Angel specifically picked his name to be ironic (his real name is Liam): he is the "vampire with the angelic face." His evil side, when it resurfaces, is referred to with the much more intimidating name of "Angelus."
  • Buffy was named to be ironic; the joke encapsulated in the show's title was 'valley girl versus the forces of darkness'.
  • In-Universe, Spike chose his names this way. "William The Bloody" was originally an Embarrassing Nickname he was dubbed by his human peers, in reference to his "bloody awful poetry". Once a vamp, Spike decided to live up to it, literally. Also, the name "Spike" comes from a preference for torture with railroad spikes, inspired by a mean comment made by another Victorian gentleman he knew. One can only assume the guy got his wish to "shove railroad spikes" through his head instead of listening to William's poetry.
• It's Not You, It's My Enemies: Buffy breaks things off with Guy of the Week Owen for this reason.

J

• Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique: In the Season 2 premiere, Buffy tortures a vamp by making her swallow a silver necklace.
  • If Band Candy is anything to go by, Ripper, even years before he was at his worst, was a huge fan of this.
• Jerkass Ball: The series was a game of catch with the ball, and everybody got to play with it. No exceptions.
  • Buffy catches it in season 6, when her self-destructive depression leads to much lashing out (usually at Spike) and in season 7, when her Drill Sergeant Nasty personality pops out due to mounting stress and facing her biggest apocalypse yet while having to play den mother to a bunch of baby Slayers.
  • Spike also catches it on and off in season 6, defying his Character Development in a misguided effort to get the relationship he wants with Buffy, and in response to the quite severe abuse thrown his way.
  • Xander catches it on several occasions, not the least of which being the time he opts against telling Buffy about Willow's efforts to restore Angel's soul.
  • Giles catches it in season 7, when he decides to go behind Buffy's back to have a reformed-ensouled Spike murdered because he's a potential Manchurian Agent.
  • Most of the Scoobies, sans Spike, catch it all at once, when they kick Buffy out of the only house in Sunnydale with threshold magic while demons roam the desolate streets, because they didn't like her leadership.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Cordelia, Faith, and Spike. Cordelia starts off as the Alpha Bitch, Faith as Buffy's Evil Counterpart, and Spike as a Fully-Embraced Fiend. The first two got more Character Development on Angel, with Faith taking a level in kindness upon her return; a Restraining Bolt and the Power of Love brought out Spike's good side, to the point where he made a Heroic Sacrifice in the finale.
  • Larry for Xander, and Percy for Willow.
• Joke Name Tag: In one episode, Willow dresses up as Joan of Arc, and stays in character by proclaiming that she "has a close relationship with God." This is represented by her boyfriend Oz, wearing a name tag that reads "Hello, my name is God."

K

• Karma Houdini:
  • In the Season 2 finale, Willow asks Xander to tell Buffy to buy some time while fighting Angelus, so that Willow can do the spell to return Angel's soul. Instead, when Xander catches up to Buffy, he says Willow's message is: "Kick his [Angelus's] ass." Buffy ends up having to kill a re-ensouled Angel to save the world, which leads to a major Heroic BSoD. Xander's actions are only brought up once, years later, and even then he never suffers any consequences for not giving Buffy false hope.
    • Possibly justified in that it may have been the right thing to do at the time. Giles was missing, the world was in danger of ending and Willow had just come out of a coma. Buffy, although her reluctance was understandable, had allowed Angelus to go unchecked for months before she had gathered the nerve to stake him (or found any hope of a re-ensouling spell). By the time Willow did the spell, she had only a few spells under her belt and had just woken up from a coma. Considering that Willow would be performing the spell in her hospital bed, it's no wonder that Xander might not want to give Buffy false hope.
    • Also, even though Xander couldn't have known it at the time, Angel doesn't get resouled until after he releases the demon... killing him was the only thing she could do. Not saying it's a justification for what Xander said, but it is a pretty solid reason why no one would have brought it up since.
  • "Once More With Feeling" has Xander (more through foolishness than malice) summon a demon that danced several people to death and caused several unwanted confessions.
  • Downplayed with Willow; she tried to end the world and her only official punishment was a summer getaway to England. However, it was no vacation (intense therapy and formal training) and, when she returns, she is the first suspect when flayed bodies appear.
  • Averted with Anya, whose past as a vengeance demon comes back to haunt her when a man she had turned into a demon and sent to a hell dimension for adultery sabotages her wedding with Xander as payback.
  • Anya also lampshades this when complaining about Buffy's treatment of her in a Season 7 episode, pointing out that Buffy's entire team was evil at one time.
  • Jack the bartender from "Beer Bad" who served tampered beer that turned students into cavepeople gets away with nothing worse than Xander telling him he's a "very bad man".
  • Genevieve Holt from "Where The Wild Things Are" serially abused the children placed in her foster home for years but the worst thing that happens to her is Giles telling her off and then leaving. The poltergeists that formed as a result of her actions focus on the current residents of the house and ignore her completely.
  • Drusilla is the only member of the Scourge of Europe to be neither killed off nor reformed (or both), despite the fact that she murdered Kendra and played sidekick to both Spike (before his Heel–Face Turn) and Angelus.
• Killed Off for Real: Jenny Calendar, Joyce Summers, Tara, Jonathan, and several Potential Slayers over the course of Season 7. The Series Finale also saw the abrupt death of another main character, Anya.
• Kind Restraints:
  • Oz is confined on full moons. At first in a cage locked with a key, later in a cage locked with a combination keypad which he can supposedly only operate when he is human.
  • When Buffy starts rooming with a new girl her own age, then starts to get annoyed about those kinds of little things that roomies do to annoy each other... then she starts to get delusional and claiming that the girl is 'evil', and that she's going to have to 'slay' her, which prompts the rest of the Scoobies to tie her up to stop her while trying to find out why she's suddenly gone crazy. Turns out the girl actually IS a demon in disguise, and she's been performing nightly rituals to drain Buffy's soul, which is why she's acting erratic. Also, the restraints are less than effective at holding her.
  • Buffy chains Angel up to keep him from hurting himself or attacking others after his return from hell, when he's still feral and wild.
  • Buffy chains Spike up in season 7 to keep the First from triggering him into a fury and hurting anyone.
• Kinky Role-Playing: In one episode, Harmony tries to spice up her and Spike's sex life by role-playing as Buffy, having become aware of Spike's attraction to the Slayer.
• Kiss Me, I'm Virtual: April, the Buffybot.
  • Don't forget the demon that turned the Internet and any computer connected to it into his plaything, trying to romance Willow.
• Knight Templar:
  • The Knights of Byzantium in season five, The Initiative in season 4 and The Watcher's Council in season 3.
  • Willow was arguably developing into one of these with "Bargaining", where her absolute devotion to Buffy takes a dark and scary turn, as she proves willing to cross any line to bring Buffy back from the dead and considers even possibly evil means to be trivial compared to the life of her best friend, although bringing Buffy back was clearly a good end. It's not good for humanity for the only living Slayer to be one in jail. At the end of Season 6, Willow's desire to kill Warren for killing Tara is closer to this trope, in a probably justified Pay Evil unto Evil way. The worst problem was the She Who Fights Monsters effect on Willow, which caused her to go after less heinous targets in a short, temporary Face–Heel Turn.
  • Interestingly enough, Willow's decision to bring back Buffy was revealed to be very bad for Buffy, as Buffy ended up being pulled from Heaven and sent back to Earth, leaving her emotionally crushed and barely able to cope with her responsibilities.
  • Halfrek, unusually given that demons are typically Card Carrying Villains. She insists she's enacting justice, not vengeance.
• Known by the Postal Address:
  • The Summers residence was 1630 Revello Drive, Sunnydale.
  • Rupert Giles' house was at 4616 Greenwood Place in Los Angeles.
  • Faith Lehane lived at the Sunnydale Motor Inn until the Mayor moved her into 5121 Maple Court.

L

• Lame Comeback:
  Buffy: Let's be realistic Willow, your basic spells are usually only about 50/50.
  Willow: Oh yeah? Well... so's your face!
  • A deleted scene (though still viewable in the first pilot) had Xander shouting after Cordelia, "Check back tomorrow! I'll have that devastating comeback ready!"
  • Also, when Cordelia is campaigning to be May Queen:
    Cordelia: Here's a chocolate... (snatches chocolate away from Buffy) Oh. I don't think I need the loony-fringe vote. (walks off)
    Buffy: Well, I-I don't even like chocolates! (beat) Okay, that was the lamest comeback of our time.
  • Buffy and Spike in "Something Blue":
    Buffy: One more word outta you, and I swear.
    Spike: Swear, what? You're not gonna do anything to me. You don't got the stones.
    Buffy: Oh, I got the stones. I got a whole bunch of ... stones!
• Lampshade Hanging: Whedon appears to have bought up an entire IKEA worth of lampshades, here and in his other work.
• Large Ham:
  • Olaf the troll
    Olaf: YOU DO WELL TO FLEE, TOWNSPEOPLE! I WILL PILLAGE YOUR LANDS AND DWELLINGS! I WILL BURN YOUR CROPS AND MAKE MERRY WITH YOUR MORE ATTRACTIVE DAUGHTERS! HA HA HA! MARK MY WORDS! (Pauses and sniffs the air) OOH! ALE! I SMELL DELICIOUS ALE!.
  • There was also Balthazar the fat demon, and the original Big Bad, the Master.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler: The fact that Angel is a vampire was originally a huge, shocking revelation mid-way through Season 1. Nowadays, it's common knowledge. Having his own spinoff makes him worse than other examples. The twist that former Big Bad Spike becomes a series regular gets pretty spoiled by the fact that he's on most of the box sets past season 4.
• Latin Is Magic: Magic spells tend to simply be a description of the spell's effects in an ancient language, which is usually Latin. Apparently, in writing the scripts, writers would write a simple command, such as "open the door", and then mark it with "In Latin". However, Latin does not appear to be vital to spellcasting; a sufficiently powerful witch can skip it.
• Layout of a Season:
  • "The Freshman" opens the fourth season with Buffy and the gang starting college; which is a game changer in terms of setting and, to a lesser extent, of cast.
  • As per the formula, the 15th episodes have a tendency to pull a mid-season shift of major proportions.
    • In the second season, the two-parter "Surprise" & "Innocence", Angel's soul is destroyed after sharing a tender moment with Buffy.
    • In the fifth season, Buffy's ill mother, Joyce, suddenly collapses in "I Was Made To Love You". The following episode, "The Body" confirms that she died from a brain aneurysm.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Particularly later in the show, where lampshades are hung on such facts as something bad always happening on Buffy's birthday, Dawn being in trouble on Tuesdays^note  At the time, Buffy aired on Tuesday nights, or the Hellmouth typically erupting in May^note The end of a typical American school year and television season.
• Legacy Character: The Slayer. Once one dies, another is instantly called to take her place.
• Let's You and Him Fight:
  • In "Angel", Darla concocts a plan to entice Angel "back to the fold" by arranging to have him kill Buffy.
  • Kendra first sees Buffy when she's tonguing with Angel, who's still in game face, and naturally assumes she's his vampire honey.
    Kendra: Did I not see you kissing a vampire?
    Willow: (stands up in her defense) Buffy would never do that! —Oh. Except for that... sometimes you do that. (sits)
  • In "Revelations", rogue Watcher Gwendoyln Post exploits the rift between Faith & Buffy to conceal her own hunt for a mystical glove. When Angel gets in her way, Gwen sics Faith onto him, also.
• Literal Metaphor: In "Witch":

  Willow: That girl's on fire!
  Cordelia: Enough with the hyperbole.

• Literary Work of Magic: "Buffy vs. Dracula" reveals that the real Dracula helped write the original book. He just wanted to get famous, but Spike gripes that thanks to him, everyone knows the weaknesses of vampires.
• Lock and Load:
  • Xander tries to do this with a flare gun and totally fails. Giles then demonstrates how to do it properly.
  • In "Halloween", Xander briefly gains military knowledge thanks to having been Cursed with Awesome by a commando costume. He demonstrates his newfound skills by properly loading his now-real toy firearm. This ability will come and go depending on the plot in later episodes.
• Love Informant: Dawn is the first person to tell Buffy about Spike's crush on her.
• Love Theme:
  • Angel and Buffy have a slightly mournful, sweet melody called "Close Your Eyes" that underscores many of their scenes throughout Seasons 1-3.
  • Buffy and Spike have their own theme in season 7.
• Luck Manipulation Mechanic: In the Buffy the Vampire Slayer RPG, Drama Points can be used to increase the chance of success for Heroic Feats.

M

• MacGuffin Turned Human: Dawn is an ancient energy construct called The Key who was hidden in human form by a group of mystical monks.
• Magical Girl Warrior: If there was ever a true American example of this genre, Buffy would be it. It ticks nearly all the boxes— a high school girl who is enlisted to fight supernatural forces of evil, possesses an alter ego ("The Slayer"), and has a magical mentor who aids her. Really the only difference is that Buffy doesn't have a Transformation Trinket and dresses in casual clothing.
• Magic Is Feminine: Starting from season 3, the female portion of the main cast tended to be more superpowered or connected to the supernatural than their male peers.
  • Buffy, Faith, and Kendra were Slayers, girls mystically empowered with the strength to fight vampires. All Slayers are female and the First Slayer was created by binding a shadow demon to a young girl's soul.
  • While Jenny Calendar wasn't a practicing witch, she did "dabble" in the mystic arts more often than Giles and was the one who got Willow interested in magic. In season 4, the gang is joined by another female witch named Tara.
  • Buffy's sister Dawn is a container of mystic energy created for the purpose of preventing the goddess Glory from returning to her home dimension.
  • Cordelia started out as a normal human on the show but became a Seer on Angel.
  • By contrast, no season featured more than two superpowered male Scoobie at a time. The only season to have two super male Scoobies was season 3 with Angel (a vampire) and Oz (a werewolf). Riley did have superpowers in season 4 but lost them. Spike was a vampire but didn't officially join the team until season 7, long after Oz and Angel had left. And Giles and Xander were Badass Normals.
• Mad Scientist: Professor Walsh, who blends together science with demons to build horrifying the Frankenstein's monster Expy Adam—who ultimately murders her and takes her place as the season Big Bad.
  • Warren, a talented roboticist who uses his skills to build all sorts of contraptions, which he uses to cause mischief, torment the Scoobies and turn his ex into a mind-controlled sex-slave.
• Magical Sensory Effect: The novel Blood And Fog reveals that a magic user can eventually gain a scent that accompanies their spells over time. The Big Bad Jack the Ripper, for example, smells like strawberries and cream.
• Magnetic Plot Device: The only reason the Hellmouth existed was to be a perpetual handwave to explain the large numbers of supernatural beings that come to Sunnydale. Only a few villains are directly connected to it—The Master, Dru and Spike (because Spike is hoping the demonic energy would heal Dru), and The First Evil, whose particular hell realm is directly connected to it.
• Mama Bear: Joyce goes after Spike with an axe early in Season 2. Seems Buffy didn't get all her Badassness from magic Slayer powers.
  • Buffy becomes this to Dawn after Joyce's death, becoming fiercely protective.
• Matricide: Spike turned his mother in order to save her from severe late-term Tuberculosis, but losing her soul made her become a vile monster. After she tells Spike how much she hates him and tries to seduce him, the horrified Spike stakes her to kill her for good.
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Done twice, first with the episode that leaves us unsure if Buffy is actually in a mental institution and the whole show has been dreamed up by her, and also with the blizzard that prevents Angel from killing himself. Word of God is that second one's a miracle.
• Meaningful Name:
  • Xander's name references the original Buffy movie, in which Buffy had a friend named Pike - zander and pike are closely related species of fish. Xander is also short for Alexander, which means "defender of mankind".
  • Wesley is likely named after the original Creator's Pet from Star Trek: The Next Generation considering that he was intended to be hated by the audience and killed off. Ironically, he became a well-liked, long-running character, particularly on Angel. In-Universe
  • Buffy's last name is Summers referencing vampires' vulnerability to sunlight. Her sister's name is Dawn.
  • "Willow" is a type of tree. Wood is one of the vampires' main weaknesses.
  • "Snyder" is Danish for "cheater".
  • Oz's band, Dingoes Ate My Baby: a dingo is a type of wild dog, and the lead for said band just happens to be a werewolf.
    • Dingoes are also from Australia, or 'Oz.'
    • This is also reference to a well known criminal case in 1980
  • Cordelia Chase would most probably have her name from the heroine of King Lear, but it is actually more probable that she is Connected to the Object of desire in Kierkegaard´s Diary of a seducer in his work Either/Or. The type of girl described here, fits nicely with the kind of girl Cordelia is during the first Three Seasons.
  • Spike and Angel's human names are "William" and "Liam", the English and Irish forms of the same name, possibly alluding to them being similar.
• Medicate the Medium: Buffy spent some time in a mental institution after telling her parents about the things she's been seeing.
• Medication Tampering: A de-powered Buffy manages to kill a powerful but ill vampire by replacing his medication with holy water.
• Meet Cute:
  • Buffy and Angel didn't hit it off at first. Though there was hitting involved.
  • Season 2 has a running gag of Oz admiring Willow from afar, but the pair keep missing each other. They finally meet at the school's career fair, after their genius IQs land them in a VIP room with waiters and classical music.
    "Canapé?"
  • Buffy meets Riley by accidentally dumping a pile of textbooks on his head.
  • Willow being shushed by her Wicca group for perpetuating "stereotypes". A shy girl in the back raises her hand to support Willow's opinion. Oh hi, Tara.
  • Anya and Xander's meet cute consists of Anya bluntly stating her crush on Xander and asking him to prom.
  • Buffy and Spike's first meeting was not originally written to be a meet cute, but in hindsight, comes across as one: a tense exchange of threats between the current Slayer and an infamous Hero Killer... who will then spend the coming years never actually following up on those threats and cuddling in the finale.
• Melancholy Musical Number: Once More With Feeling:
  • "Dawn's Lament" is about her lamenting about her sadness because nobody is noticing her and the things she has been doing (Shoplifting), but the song is cut short as she is kidnapped by the Demon Sweet's henchmen.
  • In "Under Your Spell/Standing", Tara is singing about Willow using a spell to erase the memory about the fight they had about Willow using too much magic, and Giles is singing about having to leave Buffy, but he wants to still be her watcher, and the two don't want to leave but have to, and are both upset about it.
• Mentally Unwell, Special Senses: The fifth season's Big Bad Glory has the ability to drain the cognitive out of humans so to stabilize her own. This leaves them insane with the added side effects of being able to see Dawn as her true form as the Key.
• Mercy Lead:
  • Angelus toys with Ms. Calender for a bit, letting her scramble out of her classroom. "Oh, good. I need to work up an appetite first." ("Passion")
  • A video recording of Mr. Trick welcoming Buffy and Cordelia to Slayerfest '98. He explains that they have "exactly 30 seconds—'(checks his watch)'' no, that's 17 now—to run for [their] lives." ("Homecoming")
  • In "The Wish", Vamp Xander and Vamp Willow snuggle a bit, prompting Cordy to screech that she can't win, since Xander and Willow are an item even in the Wishverse. Xander agrees with the "can't win" sentiment, and vamps out. "But I'll give you a head start."
• "Metaphor" Is My Middle Name: In "Teacher's Pet", Ms. French asks Xander to forgive her. He replies, "Forgiveness is my middle name. Actually, it's La Velle, and I'd appreciate it if you guard that secret with your life".
• Mid-Season Twist:
  • Season 1: the revelation that Angel is a) a vampire and b) a vampire with a soul. Hits on exactly episode 7.
  • Season 2: Angel and Buffy sleep together, causing Angelus to come out to play.
  • Season 3: Faith loses her trust in people, and offers herself as The Dragon to The Mayor.
  • Season 4: Riley works for the Initiative. Spike becomes a series regular.
  • Season 5: "Every Slayer has a death wish".
  • Season 6: Buffy and Spike kiss.
  • Season 7: The Big Bad confronts the Scoobies. Spike has been feeding again.
• Minored In Ass Kicking:
  • Giles. Quiet, scholarly, and can (and will) kick your ass. It could be with a spell, it could be with one of the hundreds (if not thousands) of weapons that he is familiar with, or (as Ethan Rayne knows) Good Old Fisticuffs. As stated elsewhere here, there is a reason why he used to be known as 'Ripper'.
  • Dawn might not be as badass, but she has shown potential in magic ("Conversations With Dead People") and combat (multiple times, including fighting side by side with Buffy and holding her own). Oh, and there was the time she tasered Xander.
• Mirror Reveal: Giles realizes Ethan Rayne turned him into a Fyarl demon when he sees his reflection in the mirror. And then he breaks some household items during his reaction.
• Missing Reflection:
  • Vampires don't show up in mirrors (prompting Willow to ask Angel at one time, "How do you shave?"), although they can be captured in photos and video.
  • One vampire actually makes sure to keep all mirrors out of their surroundings to avoid this. Unfortunately for him, this, along with the heavy curtains and slightly suspicious behavior, causes Cordelia, who has encountered vampires before, to figure out exactly what he is.
• Mistaken for Gay: Larry mistakes Xander for gay in "Phases". Over a season later in "Earshot", he still hasn't been corrected.
  • A social worker thought Buffy was gay when she found out she lives with Willow.
    "Oh, it's not a, a gay thing, you know, I mean, well, she's gay, but, but we don't... gay. Not that there's anything wrong with..."
• The Mole: Shows up a few times.
  • After Buffy joins the Initiative, she considers herself still to be investigating them and not really a member.
  • Spike is a mole inside the Scoobies, for Adam.
• Monochrome Casting: None of the series regulars are anything but white, and the background actors are largely white as well. This is especially noticeable at the scenes set in "UC: Sunnydale," as the average UC campus is 40% Asian. In the total of the series and comics there are only four non-Causasian main characters: Rona, Wood, Chao Ann, Satsu, with the occasional bit part for villains of the week and/or their victims.
• Monster Munch: A young Carmine Giovinazzo in the very first episode, who pretty much is only there to be killed by the vampire and is credited only as "Boy".
• Monster/Slayer Romance: Buffy the vampire slayer ends up dating vampires. Two of them. Twice. ^note  She dates Angel in seasons 1, and most of 2 and 3. She gets back together with him in season 8, but breaks up with him by the end of it. She dates Spike for half of season 6 but breaks up with him before the end of the season. They have a strange UST -filled friendship from season 7 onward, and eventually get back together in seasons 10 and 11, but break up some time before season 12. Her affinity for this trope becomes a Running Gag in the series, with strangers, friends and even Buffy herself directly lampshading it.
• Monster of the Week: Every season has these as one-off conflicts, in between developing the main conflict. Most notably, Anya and Spike started off this way—the former getting a second episode before joining the cast, and the latter being bumped up to seasonal Big Bad, to reoccurring villain, then finally to member of the main cast.
• Mooks: Vampires started off as the main villains and quickly became Buffy's most mundane foes, quickly and easily dispatched of on a daily basis. By the time Spike joined the cast, they had completely lost their threat-factor enough that it was plausible for one of them to straight up become a good guy.
• Moral Luck: Willow's Roaring Rampage of Revenge is forgiven fairly easily, even though (in-universe) it was really just luck and timing which prevented her from bringing about the apocalypse.
• More Deadly Than the Male: There's a reason Slayers are always women. Dudes have traditionally stayed on the sidelines, from the Shadow Men all the way down to their descendants, the Watcher's council.
• Muggles Do It Better: Zigzagged. Buffy blows up the Judge with an RPG, and later the ascended Mayor with some TNT. However, later seasons begin playing this completely straight. Discussed by Warren Mears, who comes closer to killing Buffy with a simple pistol than the great majority of her adversaries with a vast arsenal of supernatural warfare.
• Mundane Solution: How does Warren finally manage to both kill Tara and almost kill Buffy herself? He takes a gun, walks to Buffy's house, and fires as many times as he can. Buffy would've died right then and there if it weren't for Willow.
• Murder by Mistake: The Mayor's Assistant, who Faith accidentally stabbed believing him to be a vampire. Tara dies from a stay bullet intended for Buffy.
• Murphy's Bullet: In "Seeing Red", Tara McClay is killed by a random bullet that was fired in the air by Warren. It occurs immediately after Willow has made things right with Tara, making this a very clear-cut case of The Rule Of Drama in action. Although Warren does manage to hit Buffy, his target, as well. For some fans, this tastes too much like a Diabolus ex Machina.^ExplanationThe bullet is shown to have shattered a window and there's no way, given Warren's height, Tara's height, and the height of the window from the ground, that a bullet could have traveled that path unless it was a Roger Rabbit bullet that took a sharp turn in midair. And an extra sharp turn after killing Tara in order to avoid also killing Willow who is standing directly in line but on the opposite side of her
• Must Be Invited: You need one if you're a vampire. There exist loopholes though; a hotel is a public accommodation, for instance. For some reason, vampires are never savvy enough to just burn down the house from the outside.
• Must Have Lots of Free Time: There's a half-decent excuse for why Giles hangs around three of the kids in school. They are a freak (Buffy), a dork (Xander), a nerd (Willow), and he is in charge of the library where those three are always meeting. Plus, he is Buffy's Watcher and therefore obligated to watch her. Then, the school blew up. Having also been fired from the Watcher's Council earlier in season 3, he suddenly finds himself with a lot of free time in season 4. Cordelia lampshades this in "Graduation Day, Part 2", when she reasons that Weasel doesn't need to leave the country, what with Giles being unemployed and still following them around like a big loser. By season 5, when he gets gainful employment again, it doesn't need any further explaining, as the show likes the True Companions concept.

N

• Names to Run Away from Really Fast :
  • The First Evil.
  • As a young rebel Giles was known as Ripper.
  • Vampires really love this. Angelus is Ominous Latin Chanting in name form, The Master has a name that screams evil and Spike, well, if a name makes you think of sharp things, it's not likely to be a nice person. Kakistos also just sounds evil (it means worst of the worst in Greek, so yeah, evil). Averted with Darla
  • Spike's original nickname is a subversion: William The Bloody. Before he was a vampire, he earned that nickname for his bloody awful poetry. His current nickname, however, comes from his habit of sticking railroad spikes into his (still-living) victims.
    • And said habit was also inspired by one critic of his poetry, who stated that "[they] would rather have a rail spike driven through [their] head than listen to his bloody awful poetry!" ^note  However, only a few light railways in the UK spiked their rails to the sleepers. Maybe William the Bloody Awful Poet managed to get a US tour?.
  • The Initiative. Nondescript name that starts with "The" and is an organization? The logical analytical circuits find that highly unlikely and the bullshit meter agrees.
  • The name "Glory" doesn't strike fear into the hearts of the common person, but the name she's known by among the Monks? The Beast.
• Narnia Time: Angel spends thousands of years in a Hell dimension, but only months have passed for Buffy on Earth.
  • Similarly, in the episode "Anne", teenagers are taken to another dimension, worked until old age, then returned to Earth only shortly after they left.
• National Stereotypes: Englishmen hate showing their emotions, drink gallons of tea, and love tweed.
• Nerds Speak Klingon: In "Seeing Red", Buffy finds a bunch of documents in the lair of the nerdy Trio. Willow and Tara are not able to decipher all the documents, but Xander recognizes it on sight.
  Xander: It's Klingon. They're love poems. Which has nothing to do with the insidious scheme you're about to describe.
• Never-Forgotten Skill: Xander got magically transformed into an army soldier. After the transformation wears off, he still has the skills he "learned" even though he rarely uses them. Eventually he confesses that the skills he had have worn off.
• Never My Fault: Glory, based on her minions' spying on the Scoobies, concludes that Tara is the Key. When she discovers she's wrong, she blames Tara for "lying" to her.
• Never Trust a Trailer: There were a lot of ads for Dracula's appearance and a lot of effort to make it look like he was going to be a major villain for Season 5. His actual time in the show? A single episode where he shows up, gets beaten by Buffy, turns to mist, and leaves.
• New Powers as the Plot Demands: A justified trope with Willow. A natural consequence of being a witch whose powers grew over time was that Willow was often shown displaying some plot-relevant power which she'd never been shown to use before (either not having had the power previously or just never having to use it among all her other witchy powers). Particularly notable in the finale when she was able to activate all the Slayers at once, an ability never even alluded to being possible within the series' lore previously. It did require the use of the Slayer's Scythe, which was only discovered in the previous episode.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
  • Okay, you have the hots for this guy you know is a vampire. So you do the deed, which ends up causing him to lose his soul and become the mind-raping Big Bad. Yeah, nice job bringing in Angelus, Buffy. Of course, Angel gets equal blame for not keeping it in his pants though he didn't know the details of his curse (and of course neither did Buffy).
  • Thanks so much for wishing hell on earth where everybody dies Cordelia.
  • Nice job bringing Buffy back to life, and allowing The First to enact its Evil Plan.
  • While we're at it, nice work imitating Twilight, becoming possessed and killing Giles, Angel.
  • Nice job having Faith arrested just as Angel was getting through to her, Wesley.
  • Toyed with in "Fear, Itself": Nice job breaking the seal and instantly bringing the Fear Demon into his corporeal form, Buffy....wait a minute, he's just 4 inches tall?! SQUISH!
  • Hey, Robin and Giles, maybe killing Spike exactly as the Big Bad wanted you to was not such a hot idea?
• No Communities Were Harmed: "Sunnydale" is a made-up town, standing in for real-life Santa Barbara.
• No Body Left Behind: Vampires immediately turn to dust and dissolve when staked, along with their clothes.
• No Dress Code: Buffy herself, at least during the first three seasons. To the point where it was more noteworthy when she didn't wear an outfit that was either painted on, cropped, strapless, cleavage-bearing, midriff-baring, too short, spaghetti-strapped or some combination of all of the above. She was usually the only one who dressed this way, or at least the only one who did so on a regular basis, but was only called out for this once (and not by one of the Scooby Gang, or even Giles, who had good reason to ask her to wear more practical slaying outfits). This was seemingly done for little more than Fanservice, despite the character of Buffy generally shown to be the only Scooby who wasn't obsessed with popularity and/or sex. However, it could be a little bit justified, in a meta sense, as Buffy is supposed to look like your typical California bubble-headed blond monster target, while actually being the monster's worst nightmare.
• No OSHA Compliance: Mayor Wilkins lampshades an exposed gas main crossing an elaborate sewer set in Band Candy; also towers built by crazy people don't hold up very well.
• No Periods, Period:
  • Flat-out averted in the movie, as Buffy gets menstrual cramps whenever a vampire is around. This is explained as her body's reaction to something perceived as unnatural (it also underscores the connection between slayer-ness and femininity).
  • Xander going through Buffy's purse in search of a stake and being horrified to discover a tampon.
  • Willow telling Oz, in response to discovering he's a werewolf, that "for a few days a month, I'm not so fun to be around, either."
  • When Harmony (under the effects of a love spell) seethes that Cordy never loved Xander, Cordy deadpans, "... Okay, Harmony, if you need to borrow my Midol, just ask."
  • Lampshaded in Season 7:
  Andrew: [Being the Slayer] is like... well, it's almost like this metaphor for womanhood, isn't it? The sort of flowering that happens when a girl realizes that she's part of a fertile heritage stretching back to Eve, and—
  Xander: I will pay you to talk about Star Wars again.
• No Social Skills:
  • Anya — at first viewers are led to believe her complete lack of social skills is a result of having been a demon for centuries, but eventually it's revealed that she acted exactly the same before she became a demon.
  • Spike managed to improve his social skills over the course of a century, but he has a mixed bag of vaguely bipolar, obsessive, borderline, and schizoid tendencies which come and go with the story. Whenever he's bored, he'll do something ridiculously suicidal just for the hell of it, he stalked Buffy for months, and once had a full-blown psychotic episode.
• No Smoking: The show has a clear bias against smoking, as every character in the show who has smoked has been either evil (Spike and the evil Angel) or doomed (Laura in Nightmares; the prostitute who was Angel’s first kill after re-losing his soul; and Sheila in School Hard). Subverted with Faith, she starts smoking after her Heel–Face Turn.
• No Bisexuals: Willow, from Season 4 onwards. Some episodes suggest she still has feelings for Oz (and a continuing attraction to Xander and Giles, among other male characters), whereas in some she'll chirp "gay now!" at the very idea that she could be attracted to a boy, or react to a Love Potion-induced crush by trying to turn her target into a girl (though she only did so when someone else claimed that she couldn't be attracted to him if she's gay). This could be the character's own assumption that she's gay rather than bisexual, as one of Willow's defining traits is jumping headlong into her current role (of which magic and lesbianism are both big parts) in an effort to overcome her original Shrinking Violet background.
  • Also, a lot of those instances were when she was with her first girlfriend, who for a lot of that time was very insecure. This may have started as having to constantly reassuring Tara about her sexuality (as well as feelings) and become a habit.
  • This is true of Buffy, too. There's her relationship with Faith, which contains enough subtext to fill at least two books, and then in Season 8 she outright sleeps with lovelorn Lipstick Lesbian Satsu, not once but twice. THEN in Season 9 she has a comical misunderstanding with Willow, thinking that the two of them had drunken sex, but they didn't really. Yet she continues to identify as straight.
• Non-Protagonist Resolver:
  • In "The Gift", Buffy has defeated Glory, but Glory reverts to the form of her human host Ben, and Buffy can't kill an innocent human even if that means a powerful Demon God will be able to return to menace everybody again. Enter Giles.
  Ben: She could've killed me.
  Giles: No, she couldn't. Never. And sooner or later Glory will re-emerge, and... make Buffy pay for that mercy. And the world with her. Buffy even knows that... and still she couldn't take a human life. She's a hero, you see. She's not like us.
  Ben: ...us?
  [Giles calmly smothers Ben to death]
  • In "Grave", Buffy is stuck in a cave with Dawn fighting off creatures as Willow attempts to destroy the world. It ultimately ends up being Xander who saves everyone by bringing out Willow's humanity through a speech touching on their friendship throughout the years.
  • In "Chosen", it's Spike (with a sunlight reflecting amulet supplied by Wolfram and Hart) who takes care of the Uber-Vamps. Said amulet had nothing to do with the main protagonist or anything that had occurred during the entire season, it was brought in at the last minute from Angel.
• Noodle Incident:
  • Willow and Xander have these sometimes, having grown up together. Like this one from "Out of Mind, Out of Sight":
    Xander: Cordelia, man, she does love titles!
    Willow: Oh, God! Remember in sixth grade with the field trip?
    Xander: Right! Right! The guy with the antlers on his belt!
    Willow: "Be my deputy!"
    Xander: And remember the, the hat?
    Willow: Oh God! The hat!
    Buffy: Gee, it's fun that we're speaking in tongues.
  • Not to mention the fate of Miss Kitty Fantastico in "End of Days", which apparently involved an errant crossbow....
  • There's also Xander's stripper experience from "The Freshman"...
    Xander: Basically, I got as far as Oxnard and the engine fell out of my car, and that was literally. So I ended up washing dishes at the fabulous "Ladies Night" club for about a month and a half while I tried to pay for the repairs. Nobody really bothered me, or even spoke to me, until one night, when one of the male strippers called in sick, and no power on this earth will make me tell you the rest of that story. Suffice to say, I traded my car in for one that wasn't entirely made of rust, came trundling back home to the loving arms of my parents, where everything is exactly as it was, except I sleep in the basement and I have to pay rent. How's college?
    Buffy: Male strippers?
    Xander: No power on this earth!
  • The kindergarten incident Xander mentions to Dark Willow to calm her down in "Grave", about how she cried her eyes out after breaking a yellow crayon. This was lampshaded later in the Season 7 episode "The Killer In Me". When Willow falls victim to a curse that makes her look like psycho-bad-guy Warren, and she has to convince Buffy, Xander, and the gang that she really is Will and not Warren or The First.
    Willow/Warren: I'm Willow.
    Xander: Are you sure?
    Willow/Warren: [pissed] There are other stories from kindergarten. Non-yellow-crayon stories in which you don't come out in such a good light. An incident involving Aquaman underoos, for example — want me to start talkin'?
    Xander: [hurriedly] Hey, it's Willow!
  • In "Welcome to the Hellmouth" Xander asks Buffy if she's ever decapitated anyone, and she brings up an incident where there was a varsity quarterback with a really thick neck and all she had was a teeny tiny x-acto knife. This is probably a reference to a confusing incident in the movie where Buffy leaps onto the shoulders of a vampire who matches that description and the audience never see what she actually does to him.
  • In "All The Way", Dawn meets a creepy old man who proves to be a harmless designer of toys (although a few of the toys could fit in the Wednesday Addams Signature Collection). He was forced to retire when "that thing happened. One little mistake, and they took it all away from me."
  • In "The Zeppo", Angel almost died, Giles did the bravest thing Buffy had ever seen and Willow saw the Hellmouth beast's "real" face. Too bad the viewer had to watch Xander stop a bombing instead.
  • "Prophecy Girl": The story of how Joyce ended up on her first date with Buffy's dad even though he brought another date is a much funnier story (than the date itself) that Buffy will never get to hear.
  • "Seeing Red", when a now super-strong Warren seeks revenge on a high school bully of his and refreshes his memory.
    Warren: You and your jock buddies used to give me such a hard time. That thing with the underwear? God, I thought I'd never stop crying!
  • Buffy burning down the gym at her previous school. This is a reference to Joss Whedon's original script for the movie, before Executive Meddling kicked in.
  • In "Angel", Darla reminiscences with Angel about their fling in Budapest.
  • In "School Hard", Dru complains to Spike that she's hungry, and that she misses Prague. Spike points out that she nearly died in Prague; "Idiot mob." This was expanded on in the comics, where a flashback shows Drusilla being captured by an "Inquisitor" and thrown into a Prague jail. Spike didn't fare much better, as he got tossed into a lake by an angry mob.
  • Andrew summoning flying monkeys to ruin a production of Romeo and Juliet.
  • Kennedy's month-long magic-related death in the comics.
• "Not So Different" Remark: Spike is constantly telling Buffy this in Season 6, and while Buffy always angrily denies the idea it's clear she also secretly believes him, fueling her decision to have a torrid affair with Spike. Of course, it was there way back in Season 2, when the two teamed up in order to stop Angelus from destroying the world and ended up working off each other fairly well. There's also something to be said about their devotion to their respective love interests (Buffy to Angel, Spike to Drusilla, later to each other when they're not destroying themselves...).
• Not so Dire: A very common gag:
  • "Hell's Bells" begins with Buffy and Willow, accompanied by Dramatic Thunder, discussing how horrible "that thing with the arms" is. It turns out they're discussing the dresses they're supposed to wear for Anya's wedding.
  • In the final episode, "Chosen", before a final attack on the evil lair, several of the gang are shown looking at a map, discussing where they're standing, and what they're planning to do. It turns out that they're not planning the final battle which may well decide the fate of the world; they're playing Dungeons & Dragons instead.
  • In "Where the Wild Things Are", a frat house is taken over by the lingering feelings of abused children who use Buffy and Riley's sex life as a power source (really). At the end, everyone's sitting around talking about how disturbing it was...and further conversation reveals they're actually talking about Giles' singing.
  • "When She Was Bad" had Cordelia complaining about her recent ordeal (captured and strung up by vampires)...because of how tough getting the stains out of her clothes was going to be. 'Band Candy', wherein the town's adults are mentally regressed to being teenagers, ends with Buffy reliving how terrifying her exams were.
  • "Flooded" began with Buffy wandering around a dark creepy area which turned out to be her basement and she's there to fix a leaky pipe.
  • In "Bargaining, Part 1", the Scoobies are preparing the Buffybot for its most dangerous trial yet. Parent-Teacher Day at school.
  • In "Doomed", Xander enters the basement but there's no sign of Spike. Then...
    Spike: Don't turn around. [Scare Chord]
    Xander: Spike, what is it? What happened?
    Spike: Don't look at me.
    [Xander turns around to see Spike dressed like a Hawaiian-Shirted Tourist.]
  • "The Body" has an example of this not being played for laughs. Buffy says she'll have to tell Dawn about her mother's death. Dawn is then shown in tears...about something mean a classmate said about her. She rallies herself and returns to class, only for Buffy to enter with the news, whereupon Dawn breaks down completely.
  • A lampshaded example in "Graduation Day, Part 2", after the battle with The Mayor.
    Oz: Guys, take a minute and just think: We survived.
    Buffy: It was one hell of a battle.
    Oz: Not the battle. High school.
  • From "Real Me":
    Anya: Xander, I'm dying.
    Xander: What?
    Anya: I might have as few as 50 years left!
  • In "Lessons", Buffy tells Dawn that "vampires [and] demons" are "nothing compared to what's coming". Dawn notes that she "can't believe it's back" and Buffy tells her that there's "only a few more days 'til it starts. Then we'll never know what's coming next." "It" being Sunnydale High School, which has just been rebuilt after its destruction at the end of Season 3.
• Not-So-Harmless Villain: The Trio. Their schemes in "Flooded" and "Life Serial" were at most a source of annoyance, but they get their first moment of this in "Gone", when their invisible ray could have flat-out killed Buffy. It doesn't stop there, with Warren murdering his ex-girlfriend Katrina, then they make Buffy think she was responsible, and get away with it. "Normal Again" is quite possibly the greatest amount of damage to Buffy's already-fragile mentality they ever do, leading her to believe she is insane, and almost causing her to kill Willow, Xander, and Dawn. "Seeing Red" ups the ante with Warren's Accidental Murder of Tara during an intended murder of Buffy, which sets off Dark!Willow, who would've ended the world had it not been for Xander talking her down. Yeah... The Trio really did a lot of damage. Especially Warren.
• Not-So-Omniscient Council of Bickering:
  • The Watcher's Council. By the time of Angel, even Wesley shrugs off their violent demise without much grief.
  • In Fray, whatever remnants of the Council that survived to the 23rd century have been reduced to a few insane zealots.

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