History Buffy / TropesOToZ

** [[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS3E14BadGirls "Bad Girls"]]: {{Subverted}}. Since Giles was fired by the Council, Wesley Wyndam-Pryce becomes [[TheHeroine Buffy]] and Faith's new Watcher. Too bad that, per design, he acts in an obnoxiously pompous way that erodes the girls' patience soon enough. Wesley was intended to be this trope (his name seemingly hinting at a CreatorsPest status) --he'd fail at getting aid from the Watcher Council and then be unceremoniously killed off in the [[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS3E22GraduationDayPart2 season's finale]]. However, the audience felt that his efforts were earnest and he became a fan favorite, instead. So the creators decided to keep him around. He [[TookALevelInBadass takes a level in badass]] and becomes a permanent cast member the ''Series/{{Angel}}'' spin-off

* SpiritualSuccessor: The influence from ''Anime/SailorMoon'' is clear to see, and even {{Lampshaded}} in one of the ''Buffy: The High School Years'' comics.

* RoguesGallery: Across the show's seven seasons and its tie-in material (including ''Series/{{Angel}}''), Buffy and the Scooby Gang defend Sunnydale from a wide and varied list of recurring supernatural enemies. These range from vampires (naturally) such as [[VampireMonarch the Master]], [[HeroKiller Spike]], [[AxCrazy Drusilla]], [[FaceOfAnAngelMindOfADemon Angelus]] (Angel's EnemyWithin), [[CreepyChild the Anointed One]], [[TheBaroness Darla]], [[BadassInANiceSuit Mr. Trick]], [[LooksLikeOrlok the Turok-Han]], and even Main/{{Dracula}} himself, to non-vampiric monsters like [[FrankensteinsMonster Adam]], [[PhysicalGod Glory]], [[PersonOfMassDestruction the Judge]], [[JackassGenie Anyanka/Anya]] (who went through the HeelFaceRevolvingDoor quite a bit) and [[TheChessmaster the First Evil]], to human foes (some of whom are supernaturally powered) such as [[EvilCounterpart Faith Lehane]], [[ReallySevenHundredYearsOld Mayor Wilkins]], [[{{Animorphism}} Amy Madison]], [[MadScientist Professor Walsh]], [[SinisterMinister Caleb]], [[EvilSorcerer Ethan Rayne]], and [[NotSoHarmlessVillain the Trio]].

** The [[http://s246.photobucket.com/user/dioszine/media/TheTombofDracul20-BuffyTheVampireSlayers96.jpg.html cover of the sixth issue]] of Season 9 comics is stylized after the tenth issue of ''Comicbook/TheTombOfDracula''.

* ProductPlacement: Buffy's [[UsefulNotes/AppleMacintosh iBook]] almost becomes a tertiary character in later years.

** Buffy is a traumatized teenager, and Angel is a centurion-vampire who has a soul. They're a bad combo together because Angel has relatively more maturity from realizing he's a bad person and atoning for it. That makes his attitude towards Buffy condescending, to the point that he breaks up with her in Season 3 at her mother's request to give her a chance to find a healthier relationship. Though they try to go for AmicableExes, Angel gives up a chance to become human so as to save Buffy's life, and Buffy is still hung-up over the fact that she believed they were soulmates. It culminates in them having a fight where Buffy accuses him of choosing Faith over her, and Angel exiles her from Los Angeles. Even when Angel comes back to Sunnydale to apologize, Buffy admits that their relationship isn't the same. She has a human boyfriend now, he has a life in Los Angeles, and their fight broke the amicability they have. Even in ''Angel'' season three where he goes to talk to her [[spoiler:after she died and was resurrected]], Angel reveals that it didn't go well, since Buffy had bad PTSD and was too stressed to even consider a relationship.
** Likewise, Buffy has terrible choices in men and is a HorribleJudgeOfCharacter. The reason is that she subconsciously rejects any NiceGuy who has a high chance of getting killed, and most of the boys interested in her have a bad streak that allows them to accept her Slayer strength. Xander is just her friend, Scott ended up cheating on her, and Parker wanted to use her a as a warm body for a one night stand. Riley was only considered decent because he hadn't bitten her neck, and even he was revealed to be cheating on her with vampires because he sensed she didn't love him. When he returns in season 6 as a better person, Buffy is bitter that he found true love and wasn't there to support her when her sister nearly died and the world ended. She asks why she couldn't make him happy, given Buffy was working hard to maintain their relationship.

** The season 5 episode "[[{{Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS5E16TheBody}} The Body]]" brings a definite reality check to the Scooby Gang, when [[spoiler: Joyce dies]]. Sure, you may spend years fighting mystical demons and monsters, but when you are forced to face a reality that will eventually affect you, you can feel utterly helpless when a loved one dies, and there is nothing you can do about it. The episode's creepy atmosphere, punctuated by a distinct lack of incidental music, makes the experience even more realistic.

** Season 7, "[[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS7E19EmptyPlaces Empty Places]]". The Scoobies and Potential Slayers lose confidence in Buffy's leadership and mutiny against her, forcing her out of the house and appointing Faith as leader in her place on the logic that [[AsskickingLeadsToLeadership as the only other full-fledged Slayer, Faith is the most qualified for the job]]. The very next episode shows what happens when one give a leadership position to someone who has absolutely no experience: Faith's first plan leads herself and several Potentials into a DeathTrap involving a bomb and several Turok-Han vampires, with the survivors only being saved by Buffy's BigDamnHeroes moment. Several of them decide that the whole ordeal was LaserGuidedKarma for turning against Buffy.
** In a specific character example, Anya is a victim of this trope as a whole. As mentioned on other pages on this site, Anya fulfills the blunt, no filter, say anything that pops into her head role that Cordelia filled, along with Spike. The difference here is that while Spike and Cordelia were blunt, they each brought something to the group: Spike was the only member of the gang that could physically fight monsters alongside Buffy, and Cordelia was the only one with a car and could drive them places in high school. Anya’s only role in the group was Xander’s girlfriend. Since Spike and Cordelia contributed SOMETHING, they were easier to tolerate. Sans Xander, the entire group looked down on her, leading Willow to point blank say “What do you do for the group?”

** [[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS3E22GraduationDayPart2 Season 3 finale]]: [[spoiler: The Mayor]] completes his plan to ascend and become a full demon (almost every demon seen on the show is actually some flavor of low-powered half-demon or another). This also removes the immortality that he had benefited from previously, which leads to the Reality: [[spoiler: The heroes, knowing how big and strong he will become, bait him into a trap where they have laid a considerable amount of high explosives to blow him to giblets]].
*** In the same episode, Wesley leads the charge against the Mayor’s forces, and goes down in one punch to the face.

** In "[[{{Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS2E14Innocence}} Innocence]]", a demon called The Judge is hyped throughout the two-part episode as being so strong, that no weapon forged could defeat him. [[spoiler:The Judge is blown apart in one shot by an anti-tank missile. It turns out that modern weapons are rolled, cast and welded, rather than forged. And even if one extends the definition of "forged" to include such weaponry, the Judge has been gone for six hundred years. Technology advances quite a bit in that amount of time]].

** In "Lie To Me", Ford says that they (the people who believe that they will become vampires) will be able to "[[Music/{{Blondie}} Die young and stay pretty]]"