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Fridge Brilliance

  • Angel goes vamp when he kisses Buffy in season one because it was an event that approached perfect happiness, which would eject his human soul and turn him back into Angelus. Sex in season two brought it to completion.
  • When Buffy has a nightmare about being trapped in a cemetery, we're thinking, "Well, she can throw vamps, cemeteries have lots of crosses to throw them onto, she should be safe right?" Nope: JEWISH CEMETERY!
  • Cordelia's surname cannot be a coincidence.
  • Giles' name is derived from Aegidius, which often is took to mean "protector" or "mentor". Now what's his job as a watcher?
  • Buffy's second name is Anne, meaning "The favored" in Hebrew (Hannah). She is the Chosen One after all. It's also closely related to Joan, which means "God favored" and which she chose in "Tabula Rasa" as her name.
    • As for the name "Buffy", it takes on the meaning of "rebuffing" something, in this case the forces of evil. Originally, the name "Buffy" was born as a nickname by Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon (The Queen Mother), because she called herself "Elizabuff" as a little girl. The name "Elizabeth" is hebrew as well, interpreted as "God is complete" (on a more meta note, Buffy is sometimes called by her supposed full name "Elizabeth Anne Summers" in fanfic - and another possible actor to play the role was Elizabeth Anne Allen). To complete this fridge: Sarah Michelle Gellar herself is of Hungarian-Jewish descent.
  • "Tara" could be a short form of "Tamara." Then, the first girlfriend of Jewish Willow Rosenberg would have a Hebrew name, and, Tamara meaning date palm, they would both be named after trees.
  • When he first became a vampire, Liam renamed himself 'Angelus' because his little sister mistook him for a resurrected angel (right before he slaughtered her and the rest of their family). However, the Angelus itself is also an important Catholic devotion, traditionally recited three times a day.
  • In "The Harsh Light Of Day" there was an early hint about the Initiative soldiers which is actually brilliant in hindsight.. Harmony mentions being hungry, so Spike gestures to a captive young man dressed in an Army green t-shirt and khaki cargoes, just like Riley and his guys wore during down time. Harmony protests that she doesn't want to feed off of the guy because "This one tastes funny."
    • Remember how at the end of season two how Angelus spat out swim-team-guy's blood. Buffy speculated that he might be able to taste the steroids in his blood stream, so Harmony might have been tasting the Initiative's cocktail of super-soldier drugs.
  • Darla - Liam - Drusilla - William = Buffy - Spike (or Angel) - Cordelia - Angel (or Spike)
    • Buffy/Darla dies and resurrects first - Darla at the hands of the Master in 1609, Buffy either at the hands of the master in 1998 or through suicide in 2002.
    • Darla and Buffy then turn Liam and Spike (or Angel) to their side, which results in them dying and resurrecting - Liam through vampirism in 1753, Spike through closing the Hellmouth in 2003, or Angel in 1998 when Buffy sends him to hell.
    • Angel/Angelus helps Cordelia/Drusilla, a gifted Seer, along her path, one by guiding her, the other by torturing her into insanity, which results in her death - Cordy's coma, Dru's vampirism - and resurrection (even if Cordy's was just for a day).
    • William is turned through falling in love with one of the two girls; the same happens to both Angel and Spike at different times, and depending on which timeline you follow, they are the last to die (In Not Fade Away) and resurrect (in After the Fall).
    • Also, their personalities line up - Darla the Chosen Vampire and Buffy the Chosen Slayer; Wild Man Liam and Blood Knight Spike; Protective Seer Drusilla and Champion Seer Cordelia; and sensitive Poet William with brooding and sensitive Angel.
  • In "Once More, With Feeling":
    • Why wasn't Sweet able to break the contract associated with his talisman (that whoever summons him has to become his Queen), given the prevalence of Magic A Is Magic A in the Buffy-verse? Because the one who summoned him (Xander) was male and therefore was unable to be a "queen" by the common definition of the word. It wasn't that Sweet could freely break the contract, it was that the contract couldn't be fulfilled. (At the time the talisman was created, "queen" would have meant "female".)
    • Sarah Michelle Gellar's voice is obviously auto-tuned. Now while we could just say that this is because Sarah was not a confident singer and this was to compensate for that, that would be lazy and not fun. I instead maintain that Buffy actually sang that way, because her singing, like everything she was doing in life since her resurrection, was simply her "going through the motions", faking it, rather than doing it with any feeling.
      • Buffy's Slayer powers give her enhanced senses and strength. What's to say that they couldn't enhance her singing ability? While they couldn't make her a better singer on their own, they can help the mediocre vocals she does produce (à la autotune).
      • Or perhaps the spell cast by Sweet simply *forced* everyone's voice into acceptable pitch while singing. To this troper at least, the idea of demonic powers literally pulling on your vocal cords is somewhat creepier than a compulsion to think out loud in rhyme.
    • Also why does Willow has less singing time than anyone? Or more specifically, why Willow doesn't have any relevant or meaningful verses? When you think about it, even the little song that Dawn was going to have before being kidnapped was going to be about her feeling neglected by everyone. Sweet explained that the song was the outburst of deep and strong emotions (Buffy's depressive state, Giles' dilemma about leaving town, Tara's love for Willow and then how betrayed she felt, Xander and Anya having doubts about their future marriage, Spike getting frustrated by his unrequited love). The whole arc Willow gets is about her ego inflating because of her use of Black Magic. She’s not going through any deep emotions because by that moment she thinks everything can be resolved with magic, even her personal ones. This reason why she’s not concerned about anything.
      • On the same page, Sweet also foreshadows how Willow's anger could be sensed after she got to know about Buffy's real emotional state. Before that moment, Willow was still wrapped in her own delusions of superiority, which could also mean releasing her anger was going to be more destructive than spontaneous combustion. Sweet made a good choice by leaving as soon as he did.
    • Giles sends in Tara and Anya as "backup" for Buffy, and not Willow or Xander as the obvious choices. They then stand by her and support her singing. It doesn't make sense until Buffy gives a Thousand-Yard Stare at the Scoobies when revealing she was ripped out of heaven. Xander and Willow were the most gung-ho about resurrecting Buffy, while Anya was focusing on her marriage to Xander and eventually full ownership of the Magic Box, and Tara questioned if it was a good idea. They also joined the Scoobies much later. To a lesser extent, Xander revived Buffy with CPR and Willow used magic to accomplish the same deed, so they're indirectly responsible for her continued suffering.
    • In a Bait-and-Switch gag, one of Sweet's previously silent Mooks appears to be starting a musical number, only to just deliver non-sung, non-rhyming dialogue. It's not really made clear if said mooks are fellow demons, humans in masks, or even actual giant living ventriloquist dummies: If they're human, Sweet could be doing something to keep them immune from the curse - after all, however expendable your minions might be, you wouldn't want them to spontaneously combust in the middle of a fight. If they're demons or something else, Sweet just might keep them as silent backup dancers because he doesn't like sharing the spotlight.
  • In "Spiral", Mindraped!Tara pulls up a blind, exposing Spike's hand to sunlight. His response is surprisingly sympathetic. Why? He was with Drusilla for nearly a century; he understands what it's like to have a mentally unstable girlfriend. It's a pity the writers didn't allow him to have at least one short conversation with Willow that touched on this.
    • It's a bit sweeter this way, though. It's one of the few things he and Willow truly understand each other on and they don't have to say anything on it.
    • Also remember what he said in response to Xander's description of Faith: "I like this girl already." Dark-haired, criminally insane...sound familiar?
  • Season 7. Buffy is acting like a bitch, up to eleven. One would think she had gotten over the dying and resurrection by now, and for a time it looked like she had. She’s so bad that the potential slayers want the newly arrived, reformed Ax-Crazy Psycho for Hire Faith to lead them. The brilliance comes in that they are over the Hellmouth, Faith had been gone for three years, the cops are trying to kill the good guys, and Buffy had, aside from brief excursions, been over the Hellmouth for seven years, which would be working overtime to make her evil, crazy or dead. All her attitude, all of how much like First Evil! Buffy she’s becoming, is because she had been on the Hellmouth too long and it’s affecting her.
    • This also explains why the others turn on her so easily. They kick Buffy out following a horrible loss, when they are at their worst emotional points, and the Hellmouth was feeding on that. That's why even Xander and Willow turn on her.
  • In "Blood Ties", Dawn refuses to go to school. On the surface, this seems like typical teenage whining about her finding out she's the key, but in "Real Me", Dawn said that "(Willow's) the only person who likes school as much as me." Dawn loves school. So when she was refusing to go to school, she was actually avoiding doing something she liked because she was so depressed!
  • All three of the main Scoobies' romances throughout the series are paralleled. In the first three seasons, they each have a romance with a dark, conflicted brunette, who has a bit of a bad, dangerous side - ie, Buffy/Angel, Xander/Cordelia and Willow/Oz. All three relationships end around the same time, end of season 3/beginning of season 4, with the brunette taking off to try and either keep the Scooby in question safe or maybe get revenge. In season 4-7, however, all three scoobies had a romantic relationship with a blonde with some touch of demon. Xander almost married Anya, a former demon, Willow fell for Tara, whose family had convinced her she was part Demon, and of course Buffy/Spike. And all three of the romances involving demonic blondes ended with the blonde's tragic death.
  • It always annoyed me how much Buffy babies Dawn, especially in season five. At fifteen (the same age Buffy was when she was called as the Slayer), she's not allowed to stay home even for an hour or so without a babysitter (something that most kids start doing as preteens), she's often protected from truths she would be better off knowing, and she's discouraged from even helping the Scoobies with research. Of course, she's not very mature for her age, but a lot of that seems to be the result of her being treated like a child rather than the cause. Then I realized that, at the time when this is most prevalent, Buffy is cracking under the pressure that's been piling up on her over five years as the Slayer. There, in her house, under her care, is a naive fifteen-year-old who's suddenly been drawn out of her happy teenage life by the discovery of a connection to the supernatural that she neither fully understands nor wants. Sound familiar? Buffy sees herself in Dawn, and she's trying to give her the safe, sheltered adolescence that she, in hindsight, wishes she had had, even if others can see that it's not what Dawn wants or needs.
    • And another Fridge Brilliance to go along with that: Buffy was tasked with protecting the Key at all costs. If the Key was just a physical object, it'd be a standard protection deal, but she's a 15 year old girl. So Buffy's task of protection goes beyond that of mere physical protection, she's compelled to protect her emotionally too, from things that might hurt her if she found out (such as being the Key, or even just the facts of life).
  • A more general one about Dawn's existence: The Monks of Dagon had to re-adjust the economy of at least California, and given the interconnection of economies (and the fact that Joyce runs an import business) possibly the whole world's economy in order for the Summers family to afford to be raising two daughters instead of one, and paying for college. Dawn does not have many (if any) hand-me-downs from Buffy, so the Monks had to re-write the entire economy to make room for Dawn without changing things for anyone else.
    • Alternatively this is why the bills start really piling up in Seasons 5 & 6. Joyce (and later Buffy) have to pay for the upkeep of Dawn, who did not exist before, and so they have much less money than they had before.
      • As an additive to that: In "Choices", Joyce makes a note that in order to afford college they may have to get her father to chip in. Now, what's one of the changes that resulted from Dawn's existence? Their father bailed on them instead of remaining a part of their lives. So let's add in that Buffy probably took on at least a couple of student loans, and once she dropped out had to start paying them back.
  • One thing that was bugging me was magic. It seems like anyone can start picking it up (Dawn cast the resurrection spell in "Forever" and even Buffy used it to enter a trance in "Shadow"), so it was kind of bothering me that for something that seems pretty accessible, only Willow, Tara, Amy, and Jonathan seem to be doing it. And then I realized; of course many more people are using magic, the Magic Box has a steady stream of customers. Some seem to just be buying stuff as novelties, but you do see customers that are clearly buying spell components. And then it also hit me that just because magic is a key component of the show, it doesn't mean that they're gonna show us every single magic user in Sunnydale; even if they know about magic and demons, that doesn't mean they're gonna get involved with slaying, or even use magic all that often outside of their own home. So the magic = homosexuality connection (it was more prevalent before magic = drugs started) makes even more sense when you consider that there might be hundreds or even thousands of magic users in Sunnydale, but you couldn't tell from appearance.
  • In "Same Time, Same Place", Spike tells Buffy "I should hide... hide from you... hide my face... you know what I've done". He could be talking about his Attempted Rape, which is what the other characters seem to think, but once the episode is over it starts seeming like he was also giving away the twist in a Mad Oracle sort of way: It's possible that he's speaking about Willow in the first person, since it turns out that she unintentionally cast the spell that made her and most of the main cast mutually invisible, due to her nervousness about seeing them again after the whole Dark Willow thing...
  • Regarding the use of "Early One Morning" as Spike's trigger: the song is pretty much a genderflipped version of his season 6 relationship with Buffy.
  • There are many similarities between Angel/Cordelia and Buffy/Spike.
    • Throughout the first three seasons of Buffy, Cordy/Spike played an antagonistic role (less so in Cordy's case, but still present), but were still willing to play for the good guys (when it suited their own needs).
    • Cordy was like the kind of spoiled high school girl Buffy was before she became the Slayer, and Spike was a lot like the kind of vicious vampire Angel had been before his soul—and in fact, it's later revealed Angelus had a direct hand in Spike's own brand of cruelty.
    • Cordy/Spike spent the first three seasons dating "normal" brunettes (Xander being a fellow human, Drusilla being a fellow vampire) who split up with them due to infidelity (Xander cheated on Cordy with Willow, Dru cheated on Spike with a demon) that got revealed in the same episode.
    • After season 4/Season 1, thanks to some kind of painful brain-affecting plant (Cordy's visions, Spike's chip) they have to play for the good guys, and both make a gradual Jerk-Face turn.
    • At the same time, Angel got re-involved with Darla (normal vampire) and Buffy got involved with Riley (normal human) while the (on the surface) platonic relationships they had with Cordy and Spike continued to grow.
    • Cordy and Spike have lovers with similar names (D-ROO-sih-LUH and G-ROO-sih-LU Hg) and similar nicknames (Dru and Gru) who are perceptive enough to recognize the sexual tension between Angel/Cordy and Buffy/Spike, although Drusilla, being psychic, catches it a little earlier.
    • After the Angel/Darla and Buffy/Riley relationships went down in flames, the romantic tension between Angel/Cordy and Buffy/Spike started to simmer more around season 5/Season 2, until Season 3/Season 6 when it becomes textual.
    • Towards the end of Season 3/Season 6, both Cordy and Spike decide to make a sacrifice for their lover - Cordy becomes part demon to stop Angel from going crazy, Spike gets his soul back to make up for hurting Buffy - and return with their minds altered by some kind of higher power villain (Jasmine/First Evil), intending to make way for a bigger plan, in Season 7/Season 4.
    • Both of them got an Expository Hair Change when the higher power messed with their minds - as Cordy and Spike have the same hair color as Angel and Buffy on a normal day, Cordy's hair becomes blond and Spike's gets flecks of brown in it, reversing the status quo.
    • For both Angel and Buffy, the lover dies in the final season of their show, right after making a huge romantic gesture - Angel/Cordy's last kiss in "You're Welcome" and Buffy telling Spike she loves him before he burns up at the Hellmouth in "Chosen".
  • Xander doesn't like Spike, even after he gets his Morality Chip. This makes sense. Spike is still evil, and Xander would probably be the first to die if Spike started killing. He also doesn't like Angel. This could be said to be because he has a crush on Buffy, but this is no excuse for not telling Buffy Angel had a soul, just to get rid of him. However, he has no such hatred of Riley, and even convinces her to go back to him. Why such a change in attitudes? Remember in the second episode of the first season? "I don't like vampires. I'm gonna take a stand and say they're not good." Xander is a racist.
    • First, while he doesn't state his reason for not telling Buffy, it wasn't to not tell her that the soul was back (it wasn't), it was to not tell her that Willow was trying the spell again. If his soul was back, the fight wouldn't have started.
    • Second, we know they're not good. Even Angel for most of the show, what with pulling the non-fighter tall-dark-mysterious-messenger card, even though, you know, he's at least four times stronger than a human and has a century or two of fighting experience, which only adds to why Xander would hate the guy. Xander hates them partly because of Jesse, and partly simply because of what they do. I wouldn't call that racism.
    • Except, it's not really racism, it's a survival instinct. You wouldn't willingly walk up to a lion, tiger, or bear (oh my) without some sort of protection. He's wary of vampires for the same reason most people are wary of psychopaths (people with no emotion): They're big nasty predators.
    • Season 9 also reveals he's still angry about Jesse's death and that he sees his face when approached by a vampire.
    • The spell was supposed to be really difficult too wasn't it (for Willow's level at that time)? Meaning it was practically guaranteed that a novice would fail to pull it off. So he could tell Buffy, the girl he loves what Willow was trying and see her heart break when the soul doesn't come back, or he could spare her that. While Willow did succeed, it didn't do Buffy's emotional well-being any good since at that point it was doom Angel to hell or doom the world.
      • On top of that, if Buffy knew that Angel could, at any point, spontaneously sprout his soul again, she would hold back. She'd just gotten over her reluctance to kill him courtesy of Jenny Calendar's murder; that was the point that she finally accepted that Angel was gone forever, and Angelus needed to die. Hope for Angel's soul would have stripped that conviction from her, and any amount of hesitance in her fight with Angelus could have gotten her killed and doomed the world. Xander doesn't like Angel because he's jealous; post-loss of soul, Xander doesn't like Angel because he murdered Jenny Calendar and killed others, and tried to kill the Scoobies. Xander doesn't like Spike because his first impression of Spike was trying to kill Buffy and the Scoobies. Xander is also initially hostile to Anya and only changes his opinion after she literally strips naked and throws herself at him. Xander is, in general, opposed to anyone who comes into the group with a history of killing people and trying to kill the group itself.
    • Maybe Xander just doesn't really like other guys. All his friends are female. During seven seasons together he hasn't got a single bonding moment with Giles, and doesn't seem to be very close with Oz or Riley either. Apart from his construction worker job, he just doesn't seem to get along with other men very well. Which is pretty understandable, considering how much he's been bullied at school by other boys, and how terrible a person his father seems to be.
      • It was often shown throughout the series that Xander's way of dealing with everything that was difficult from threats to his life, to his parents' marriage, to being bullied, was to use humour and comic charm. He clearly found it easier to charm women than men (think of how few times any male character was shown engaging in banter with him in response to a joke) so it follows that he'd be more comfortable around them.
    • It's also natural that Xander of all the characters would be the most likely to distrust Spike and Angel simply from his role in the series. His role as "the heart" means that he's naturally going to be opposed to any character he thinks can hurt the people he cares about. Also, being the least powerful of the main characters means he's fully aware of his inability to protect them if the vampires turned bad again (whereas Buffy and the three magic users have some superhuman way to fight for the people they love if necessary). While he may have come to trust Anya, this was after she’d lost her powers and so didn’t pose a threat to the group. He trusted Oz because he could predict when Oz’s transformations would occur and knew that Oz would lock himself up at these times. Riley was tough but was still only human and had never been evil. Spike and Angel both had been evil with the potential to turn evil again and Xander didn’t want them around because it was safest for everyone if they weren’t.
      • This could also explain why Xander actually does end up coming around on Spike in the comics, but never really does on Angel; Spike chose his soul, thus even if he lost it, would be much less dangerous and malicious than Angel would be.
  • The Trio are some of the weakest enemies in the series, that Buffy would usually whup without a sweat. Three things: one they are human and Buffy is really hung up on killing humans, two she has so much on her plate there's scarce little time to focus on anything else, three she begins the season by being ripped out of heaven by her friends, clawing her way out of her own grave, seeing the Buffybot decimated, running for her life, wondering if she had somehow ended up in hell, and attempts to commit suicide. It takes her all season to get over this, had the threat been Angelus for example she wouldn't have lasted long.
    • Buffy likely realises how easily she could have taken them out had she actually been trying and likely feels responsible for Tara's death since she allowed the situation to get so out of hand before acting.
    • The Trio are filler, the real Big Bad of that season is life.
      • Season 6 deals primarily with depression (and addiction but that is arguably a side effect of depression) and the Big Bad is Willow or one of them. When you are depressed your worst enemy is often yourself. I thought that was quite brilliant.
      • Further Brilliance from that: Buffy has faced vampires, demons, the forces of darkness and even a God, yet in season six she struggles against three nerds from high school? It's a perfect metaphor for depression, because when you're depressed, you DO struggle with the little inconsequential things that shouldn't be difficult, that to everyone else seem like nothing to worry about or focus on.
  • On the subject of the Trio, rewatch their argument about different James Bonds. Warren prefers Sean Connery, a swaggering "ladies' man" who gets away with sexually assaulting women. Jonathan likes Roger Moore - charming, funny, by far the least gritty (something Warren, of course, mocks him for). Andrew, always the most awkward, sticks up for fandom underdog Timothy Dalton.
  • In Angel and Faith Clem shows up and reveals that rather than feeding on prey, he feeds on emotions. Remember who he was always hanging out with (Spike) during seasons 6 and 7 amongst all the Spuffy drama.
    • It honestly explains a lot; why Clem was basically the only demon in Sunnydale who was friends with Spike—the others outright threw him out of Willy's for being a traitor and helping the Slayer. Spike is highly emotional and dramatic all around, but in season 6 and 7, he'd basically have been a walking buffet to a demon who feeds on emotions. It also explains why he would take the risk of going to Buffy's birthday party despite being an uninvited demon; double the emotions, which are likely to be elevated even further by Spike's simple presence there.
    • Dawn also makes a comment about Clem liking Xander in season 7. Xander is The Heart of the Scoobies, and often their emotional core.
  • In the Must Be Invited entry on the Main Tropes Page, there's a bit about no vampire ever having been savvy enough to burn the house down from the outside, which wouldn't require an invitation. Here's why it's not done: Fire is risky to vampires as well. One wrong move while you're setting the place ablaze and you could end up just as crispy as your intended victims. Also, if you're planning to feed from your victims, you might find that difficult if you roast them alive first, as blood doesn't generally pump through dead bodies. Hard to feed if there's no blood flowing through the veins.
    • Debatable on just how risky it is to the vampire. There's no risk to the vampire if he's smart enough to just stand far enough away from the burning building. The vampire in question is not inside the blazing inferno; if he was, there would have been no reason to set it on fire to begin with. The point about immolating the victims also specifically only matters if the vampire is trying to feed. If he's just trying to get them to leave the house or kill them, that's another story entirely. Doyle actually brings up this very possibility when Cordelia assumes that being inside his apartment means they're safe from Spike. note 
      • Actually, Doyle is explaining why it's not safe for Cordelia to return to her apartment. Doyle's apartment is safe simply because Spike doesn't know him.
  • Near the end of "The Gift", the first thing Giles asks Ben, very calmly and solicitously, is "Can you move?" He doesn't mean it in the usual sense of "Are you okay?"; what he really wants to know is, "Do I have to restrain you before I kill you?"
  • A Meta Example: A common complaint people make about Buffy, and Joss Whedon's work in general, is the tendency to kill off the female cast. If Joss is such a feminist, why does he kill off so many women? Because there's more women then men in most of his works. In most Anyone Can Die shows and productions, the cast tends to be mostly male, so male characters are the ones that suffer the heaviest losses compared to women. In Buffy and other Joss works, this is inverted. That's also why in Firefly and Serenity, which have more male characters to female, instead killed Wash and Book, rather than any of the female characters, and Avengers, who out of the whole cast of characters only two important characters are women, instead it's Coulson who bites it.
    • And coz y'know being feminist doesn't mean women get to avoid danger. Women should be fair game to get killed off, same as the men - which is exactly what happens.
  • Faith's attitude towards men can be seen as just being bitchy, but take a closer look. Before she met Xander she had a deadbeat, a klepto, and a drummer who she didn't think much of. Xander was quite likely the first decent man she had. Years later, what she did is quite likely still something that disturbs her. Faith saying she is no one's rebound girl as she said to Spike is because she doesn't want to recall what she did to Xander, what she could have done.
  • In the first season episode "Nightmares", Xander's nightmare-made-reality includes swastikas spray-painted on the lockers and school walls. While this could be a fear of evil and hatred in general, it could also be related to his best-friend-since-childhood Willow Rosenberg being Jewish. He's afraid of a world that would hate Willow, who at this point was very much a Shrinking Violet who had yet to learn how to look after herself.
    • Confirmed by the events of "Gingerbread", in an anti-magic pogrom almost leads to Willow being burned at the stake. Xander is horrified by how Willow is persecuted that whole episode.
    • The reason why Willow is jumpy from the start of MOO: she's grown up Jewish, her parents are psychologists, and she's experienced the cruelty of school social system firsthand. It would be surprising if she didn't know a lot about the dangers of mob persecution.
  • The fact that the Scoobies go to the library, a vampire-allowed zone to study late at night all the time at first seems incredibly stupid. However, it becomes clever when one realizes that it's the ultimate Schmuck Bait, any vampire dumb enough to attack Buffy and Co. in the library is going to probably get dusted, and the Scoobies know it.
  • In "Some Assembly Required", Giles mocks American Football (as compared to rugby) and Jenny hits back at him for "dissing [her] country's national pastime". Given that "the national pastime" is almost exclusively applied to baseball, this seems at first like sloppy writing, until it is revealed later in the season that "Jenny" is actually Janna Kalderash, a daughter of the Romania-based Romani Kalderash clan, sent to Sunnydale to keep watch over Angel - her slight misuse of US sports nomenclature is actually an early slip of the mask.
    • This troper just figured she was acknowledging the dominance of football overshadowing the original national pastime. Earlier in this episode, Buffy is giving Giles advice for asking Jenny out on a date, suggesting his asking "How do you feel about Mexican?", then later on Jenny asks the same thing to him. Maybe Buffy was coaching both of them?
  • Kennedy gets a lot of hate for the way she acts as well as dominating the latter half of the season. The latter is Truth in Television as anyone who has been part of group discussion would know, but Kennedy's Jerkass behavior? She was taking her cues from Buffy who was edging closer and closer to Drill Sergeant Nasty status. Had they had a more Cool Teacher the results may have been very different.
  • Season 6 was, by far, Darker and Edgier than any that came before it. The season opened with Buffy at the weakest she'd ever been, and the Big Bad wasn't a vampire, a demon, or a god, but a trio of all-too-human nerds who shouldn't have been able to do so much damage to the Scooby Gang. And by the end, Willow had completely lost her shit as a result of their actions, threatening to do far more damage than the Trio ever could have done. Now when did season 6 air? From October 2001 to May 2002... in other words, in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, just as America was brought low not by the Great Power enemy it was expecting, but by nineteen guys with box-cutters, and was well on the road to The War on Terror and all that came with it. Even if the season premiere was written beforehand, Season 6 of Buffy wound up becoming a Post 9/11 Terrorism Show.
    • Whoa. That is brilliant, and putting aside the parallels and the fact it never came up it had to be on everyone's mind.
    • When everyone was leaving the city in Series 7 and people were becoming more violent (the cops who tried to kill Faith for instance), it was because of the Hellmouth activity, so as time went on, it got worse, but the rest of the city was gone, so nobody noticed. This explains the more hostile actions from the characters (Buffy threatening to let Spike kill Robin, Robin trying to kill Spike even though he was a good fighter and would be needed to help fight, them kicking Buffy out of the house, and more) as the Hellmouth was making them all more hostile!
  • I did wonder for a while why Xander had went for the tough (or just snarky) girls Buffy, Faith, Cordelia, even Kendra, rather than Willow, whose crush was seriously obvious. Then I watched "Hell's Bells" and I figured it out: Xander is horrified at the thought of ending up like his father, therefore he actively pursues tough women who can stand up for themselves. At the beginning of the series, Willow was a serious Shrinking Violet, therefore he may have subconsciously avoided pursuing anything further than friendship with her. When Season 3 came around, Willow had started studying powerful magic and Xander recognized that she could now take care of herself. It just came around at a bad time.
  • You may recall "Lie To Me", where Buffy's old friend Ford coming to town and selling out Buffy and a bunch of people to be vampire snacks in exchange for being turned. The whole thing goes south, and Buffy locks Ford in a basement with the vampires. Ford nervously points out that he did his part and it's not his fault the vampires lost control of the situation. Spike acknowledges this while looking like he wants to punish Ford anyway. But then it transpires that he did turn Ford. But then on thinking about it, one realizes that Spike did screw Ford over; he could have taken Ford's corpse back to their hideout, where he would have risen in safety. Instead, Ford is left to be buried, so Buffy knows exactly where to wait for him. He gets staked in five seconds.
  • In "Family", Spike was able to hit Tara to prove that she wasn't a demon. This indicates that the chip technology can't work (or at least Spike assumes it can't work) on whether Spike knows a person is human or not. How exactly is the Initiative able to develop a technology capable of determining if someone is human or not even if that person appears completely human? They were shown to be able to track certain demons but they never seemed to have a handy "demon detector" (when tracking Spike they had to use his lack of body heat to detect him). And why didn't the technology get implanted in other demons (when Adam freed the demons the Initiative captured, you didn't see many of them standing around unable to kill humans)? Maybe the chip actually uses a vampire's own senses to detect if someone's human (as in many cases vampires could tell someone else was a vampire before they revealed their vampire face). These senses could trigger unconsciously rather than just consciously (thus allowing the chip to detect vampirism even when the vampire didn't consciously realise). If it worked on the ability to detect whether someone was human (and hence potential prey) this would explain why Spike was still able to kill demons. It also explains why he was able to throw punches at Buffy when he knew they wouldn't hit her since he wasn't in "hunter mode".
  • One for the games: the first made even common or garden variety vamps a challenge, to say nothing of demons and stronger enemies. Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Chaos Bleeds allows Xander to go toe to toe with any threat and Faith can easily dust a dozen to one odds. Now this can be attributed to the controls or a slight change in the combat mechanics, but no, think about it. During the time the first game takes place Buffy herself would still struggle, and the rest were fighting a losing battle with her gone. The best setting for the second game would be season six where all the characters Took a Level in Badass and that twelve to one odds would be a Curb-Stomp Battle for a Slayer.
  • Buffy's rather Anvilicious "weak female" persona when she puts on her Halloween costume. Of course it's not meant to be an authentic 18th century noblewoman; she's The Theme Park Version of a Princess Classic.
  • Why is the student body so blasé about the weird and often humiliating things that happen to other students? Forget the deaths and disappearances; in any normal school, eating the school pig raw would make you an instant pariah. One explanation is that Sunnydale's Weirdness Censor also extends to social embarrassment; but unlike vampires and demons, "Xander showed up to class naked" is actually plausible. Why then would anyone forget? Because weirdness is so common that the next victim, the next person to run screaming through the halls pursued by invisible goblins, might be you.
  • A better explanation of Warren's continued presence in Season Eight and the First's mimicry of him in Season Seven: he actually died, but Amy was able to bring him back. She's not as powerful as Willow, but Osiris made it easy because he had a grudge against Willow after she hurt him in "Villains", at the end of season six.
    • Word of God says that this is exactly what happened; Warren was clinically dead for a few seconds before Amy managed to bring him back. This is proven when the Seed of Wonder is destroyed: without magic, there was no spell to keep him together and he crumpled in a pile of gore and bones.
  • At first Dawn’s wish to be a Potential Slayer in "Potential" seems a bit contradictory with her earlier "I Just Want to Be Normal" attitude. However, it makes a lot more sense if you consider how the season started. When the season started, Buffy was training Dawn to fight alongside her and accepting her as part of the gang and an ally, even though she had no special abilities. That once the Potentials were introduced, the idea was abandoned and Buffy was only interested in training them, once again treating Dawn more as a little sister. In effect, after reaching the point where she was able to be part of the fight and to belong (which effectively was the "normal" grown-up thing in the world she was raised in) the goal posts had been moved and the only way to get back was to become a Potential herself.
  • Season 3, "Anne": When Buffy liberates a number of slave laborers from a demon sweatshop that is working them out of their lives and kicking them onto the streets when they are of no further use, she takes some of their tools / weapons in the fracas. The ones she keeps? A rubber mallet and a sort of sickle-y thing.
  • In "Normal Again", Buffy is flashing between two possible realities: The Buffyverse, where she is the slayer fighting demons and vampires, and an until-now unseen alternate universe where she has been institutionalized due to delusions of fighting demons and vampires. The episode leaves it unclear which (if either) reality is the "real" Buffyverse. Joss Whedon himself has said that either interpretation is valid. The Fridge Brilliance? Of course either interpretation is valid. In a fictional show, either "reality" is equally real, which is to say, entirely fictitious.
  • The Early-Installment Weirdness of Xander never riding a skateboard again after the first episode? Well, given that the one time we see him try it, he runs straight into a handrail and ends up on his butt, he may very well have decided that skateboards=humiliation, and gone off of it.
    • Alternatively it's possible that skateboarding was something Xander often used to do with Jesse, which lost its appeal when his friend was gone.
  • Jonathan's musical performance at the Bronze in Superstar is an example of Non-Singing Voice (with Brad Kane doing the singing for Danny Strong). This makes a certain amount of sense in-story: Since Jonathan used a spell to create a mirror universe where he's great at everything, the performance isn't supposed to be what Jonathan's singing voice would normally sound like, just what he'd want it to sound like.
  • Angel Lampshades how apparently ridiculously easy it was for Spike to get over being re-souled, moping in a basement for a while, while he had to endure centuries and he still isn't actually over it; but in his rant he actually explains it all too easily. Spike asked for his soul back, and for a very good reason too, while Angel had it forced on him as punishment for being, well, Angelus. Spike was already starting his Heel–Face Turn by the time he went to get his soul, whereas Angelus was a monster up until his soul was forcefed into him. At one point, Spike loses his soul and doesn't turn evil when it happens, because he accepted it willingly; Angel has never actually fully embraced having a soul, which is what is causing most of the Split-Personality Takeover. There's also the slightly Fridge Horror implication that Angel wants to be evil, unlike Spike who, despite being an asshole, started to actively want to do good. Angel wants to be free from his guilt, which is why the Angelus personality still exists since Angel thinks being Angelus is the same as being free, unlike Spike. And whenever there's any plan that may involve him being soulless, he never really tells anyone to take him out if he becomes Angelus, whereas Spike said he wants Buffy to stake him if he does lose his soul rather than risk becoming what he was.
    • It's also important to note that Spike actually had a goal when he got his soul. He had a Slayer and her little sister that he wanted to protect, even if they hated him now, and it was concrete enough to give him direction. It's not that it hurt him any less to be suddenly dog-piled by guilt from a century of evil, it's that he actually had something to work towards and threw himself into achieving it rather than listlessly wallowing in self-hatred. Though it took him much longer to find it, having direction in watching over Buffy likewise pulled Angel out of the "eating rats in a gutter" stage in his coping with a soul.
    • That, and William was just plain a better person than Liam. Part of Angelus' cruelty is the result of Liam's original Jerkass personality being twisted to its darkest extreme. Spike's cruelty, on the other hand, comes purely from the demon and the inverse is true; Soulless!Spike's good side is derived from William's loyalty and romantic sensibilities. Ensouled!Spike has the comfort of knowing that though he was a monster, the monster was not him. Angel doesn't have that comfort and partially blames his original human persona for how bad Angelus is.
      • This also explains why what happened with Spike's mother is something so deeply traumatizing to him even a century later. Spike attempted to save his sickly mother because he loved her, but it turned her into a monster and then he had to kill her. This is an action that specifically tracks back to William, and thus Spike feels a profound guilt for it after he regains his soul.
  • Many have suggested that the fact that Spike isn't outwardly remorseful is bad, but if you really think about it, his actions make a lot of sense with who he is as a person. While soulless, he was always one for blunt truths and hated when people lied to make themselves feel better. In his eyes, what's an apology? A request for forgiveness, which he makes bluntly clear in "Beneath You", he has absolutely zero expectation for. It's not that he lacks remorse, it's that he keeps that remorse firmly internalized and channels it towards action instead of using self-flagellation or grovelling as a method to cope. This is also why he initially tries to keep the very fact that he even has a soul a secret; he knows it will change the way at the very least Buffy views him. It's a far more profound show of remorse that he doesn't want to be seen as anything other than the soulless monster they know him as, then it would have been if he'd gotten on his knees and pleaded his deepest apologies. It's his way of taking responsibility—even if he is no longer that person, even if it was his soullessness that made him evil rather than him as a person, people were hurt and he accepts how those actions have coloured him in their eyes.
  • Both the show and comics seem to indicate that Spike's mortal surname is not commonly known (Both Giles' tomes in season 2 and the government in season 11 know him as "William The Bloody"), so why does Spike go by the Embarrassing Nickname of "William The Bloody" given to him by his mocking peers back when he was human? Aside from it actually sounding pretty badass out of context, his actual mortal surname is "Pratt", which is pronounced the same as the English term "prat". It would be basically the equivalent of being named "William Idiot" back in England, so of course he goes for the cooler-sounding name whose context died alongside those human peers of his (who he probably also killed).
    • Amusingly enough, Spike's birth name actually did end up having a badass horror monster connection: "William Pratt" was also the birth name of Boris Karloff.
  • In the comics, Harmony becomes famous and the voice of a movement of "reformed" vampires who don't kill once The Masquerade is blown open. But how is that possible, given their depiction as Always Chaotic Evil? Well, in life, Harmony was an Alpha Bitch who revelled in the attention of her classmates. Spike shows us that even soulless vampires are perfectly capable of being "good" if it's personally motivating enough, so in Harmony's case, she's being "good" in order to maintain her worldwide fame and influence. Season 10 outright shows us that she doesn't actually care about loss of human life, she just knows it's bad PR.
  • Spike is particularly infamous for his gradual Badass Decay that follows him throughout the show, but if you think about it, the Badass Decay makes sense and directly lines up with his character. When is he at his most badass? When he's at his un-chipped, physical peak, has Drusilla all to himself and Angelus isn't there to steal his thunder. From there, his unlife only spirals downwards. Angelus shows up, steals his mantle as Big Bad and starts sleeping with Dru; then Dru dumps him; then he gets chipped and forced to work with the good guys; then he falls in love with the Slayer who largely detests him. The decay is at its worst when he's trapped between the good and bad guys, accepted in neither world and largely isolated from everyone. He starts to arguably gain his badass back in season 7 and the comics, where his relationship with Buffy improves immensely and he gains real friends within the Scoobies. Spike is an extremely emotional character who's defined by his emotional bonds, he built his badass persona but can only maintain it when he has the direction and motivation to do so. In season 2, that direction was Drusilla and the pursuit of hedonistic evil. In the comics, it's Buffy, the Scoobies and the pursuit of being a better person.
  • Angel outright admits in "Destiny" that Spike is actually a stronger fighter than him. You wouldn't imagine so, as Angelus is double his age and was defined by his sadism, thus you'd think he'd have been in more fights and developed the stronger skills. However, Spike actually indirectly explains how this is the case in "Fool For Love"; he points out that Angelus only ever fought when he knew he could win, which obviously wouldn't facilitate too much skill development. It's likely he only really started putting in effort into his fighting skills after he became a demon-hunter, which would have meant he largely began working at them seriously in the late 90's. Spike, on the other hand, spent the entirety of his century-long vampiric life not only developing those skills, but pushing his limits.
  • The reason Dawn rather spontaneously developed an Odd Friendship with Spike of all people actually makes a ton of sense. In season 5, Dawn rightfully complains about her mother and the Scoobies always coddling and condescending to her. Spike, being evil and having no particular reason to treat her any differently than he would anyone else, was basically the only adult in her life treating her like his equal and not talking down to her. On a more Meta level, it also seems the Draco in Leather Pants effect was working on her, as she points to him wearing leather and having cool hair as part of the reason she likes him.
    • For that matter, his Odd Friendship with Joyce suddenly begins to make sense in season 7; Spike was a Momma's Boy in life, which stayed with him upon transforming into a vampire, of course he gravitated toward Joyce's strong Team Mom energy.
    • Rather heartwarmingly, Dawn's friendship with Spike was the first real new friendship she made on her own. All of Dawn's other "pre-existing" relationships—with family, school friends, the Scoobies, etc.—were all created by the monks using false memories to hide and protect the Key. After Dawn learned she was the Key and therefore not "real," Spike's friendship with Dawn took on greater significance for Dawn, because she could reassure herself that Spike cared about her based on real shared experiences, not because monks manipulated him into it with fake memories. Ex-Big Bad Spike didn't have much of a "preinstalled" relationship with little sister Dawn, and they only really grew close after they both learned she was the Key.
  • A likely unintentional but rather brilliant piece of foreshadowing in "Something Blue"; Giles is surprised when Spike, under the influence of a love spell, freely offers help in alleviating Giles's blindness. At that point, he was still an enemy of theirs whom they literally had to tie down to keep him from running off. The spell wasn't making him a good person either, it only made him love Buffy, yet he was going out of his way to be helpful to her friends. It very cleanly parallels the path of his later redemption arc, in which he will begin to do good deeds with his own free will simply out of love for Buffy.
  • After the spell on them is broken at the climax of "Something Blue", Spike doesn't react with disgust to his and Buffy's proximity until after Buffy does. Probably he was protesting too much, as the saying goes.
  • Buffyverse is one of the few vampire-centric pieces of Urban Fantasy to avert the Fur Against Fang vampire/werewolf rivalry, despite featuring both as prominent characters in seasons 2 and 3. However, when considering the in-universe lore for both, it actually makes sense. Vampires are shunned and considered demon half-breeds by other demons for being demons walking around in human bodies. Werewolves, given that they are also human-turned-part-demonic, are likely viewed pretty much the same by the demon community. Vamps and werewolves probably relate too much to each other to have a rivalry.
  • In the ending scene of "Something Blue", Buffy declares she's "over the whole bad boy thing". Later seasons will prove her very, very wrong in that regard. However, when she says it, you'll notice she's still wearing her crimped hair that she always has when she's Not Herself despite it being a new day and her getting a wardrobe change... almost as if she was lying to herself when she said it.
  • The play Death of a Salesman features prominently during Willow's dream in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode "Restless". Although the interpretation of the play is far from sane (Buffy in a Chicago outfit, Riley as a cowboy and Harmony dressed as a dairy maid), it makes sense that a play about a Tragic Dream features in a dream sequence. The "cowboy" motif verges on a Rule of Symbolism as this figure also stands out as a symbol of Eagle Land feature 1, the dream Willy Loman pursues. In one production, Ben Loman proudly wore a cowboy hat.
  • Why, after refraining from evil scheming for a good 2 seasons now, does Spike randomly decide to become a demon egg dealer in "As You Were"? The answer is in "Doublemeat Palace". In which, he expresses concern to Buffy about her working her depressing fast food job and begs her to leave, promising to get her the money. Selling the savolte demon eggs was how he planned to get Buffy the money she needs to keep her house and Dawn afloat without a job.
  • When breaking up with him, Drusilla claims that Spike "tastes like ashes" presumably when they kiss. This may not just be her abstract way of pointing out that he is lost to her, but rather her voicing what his love for Buffy will eventually lead to: his Heroic Sacrifice in the series finale, which ends up dusting him. Or, more specifically, burning him into ash .
  • Why was Sid, the demon hunter turned dummy from season 1, such a horn dog? He mentioned being 'involved' with a Slayer in the 30s, suggesting that was when he was a teenager (most slayers don't tend to live to see 20 and hopefully Sid was around the same age when they were togther). If we assume he was no older than his 30s when he was cursed then he was trapped in the dummy for nearly 50 years. As a dummy he'd have no way to release any built up tension he may accumulate over the years.
  • How was Anya able to tell Spike had a soul in "Beneath You"? She could smell it, just as Doc implied demons could in season 5.
  • The tricks that the Trio pull on Buffy in "Life Serial" aren't just them messing with Buffy and exerting power over her because they can. What they do to her are heightened experiences of how the depressive state of mind works on people struggling with it.
    • First, there's the speeding up time on campus - Buffy ends up watching her life fly by, leaving her behind, as first the class talks about things she has no familiarity with, seeing all these people who seemingly have their life together, at least in comparison to her perception of herself.
    • Then, there's the demons who attack her at the construction site, only to disappear when she defeats them, leaving no sign that they'd been there, so making her out as the crazy one for talking about it - depression is an invisible illness, and often, people struggle to have their experience of depression taken seriously until someone "qualified" makes an official diagnosis.
    • And then there's the time loop, locking Buffy in a loop of the same event over and over - the repetitive monotony, the feeling of this is how things are, this is all they ever will be.
  • The running gag of Spike being a fan of Passions: Firstly, if you were a single vampire who tended to work alone and had access to electricity and a television set, you probably would end up watching daytime TV at least occasionally, just to kill time before you could safely go outside. Secondly, Passions probably appeals to him more than other soaps that were airing at the time because of the supernatural themes: the very same things that make the show seem outlandish to most viewers would probably make it more relatable to Spike... After all, he's a vampire who has personally met witches, demons, et cetera. Alternately, since Passions portrays the supernatural differently than the Buffy verse does, he does consider it unrealistic for those reasons, and only started watching to entertain himself nitpicking what they got "wrong"... but ended up becoming un-ironically hooked by the plot anyway.
  • At the start of the third season Buffy is accepted back into school because the School Board overrules Principal Snyder's decision. This makes a lot more sense in light of the season finale and the "School Protector" award and speech which shows that the locals in fact are not completely blind to all the often lethal weirdness happening, but there is some kind of Let Us Never Speak of This Again half-Masquerade going on. The School Board is likely to have several parents of students in it, and if the students themselves have noticed Buffy often comes in to help out, the parents surely know about this as well.
  • Buffy chops her hair off in "Gone", as the culmination of her growing depression since coming back from the dead. Her hair had previously been that short when she returned from the summer in "When She Was Bad" - also after she had been killed and revived, and was carrying some residual angst over the experience. Her hair remains at shoulder length or thereabouts in Season 3 when she's dealing with the fallout of having to kill Angel. And any time the hair grows long also represents a new stage of growth and beginning for her.
  • Faith's "Five by five" catchphrase mystifies most of the Scoobies, but it's featured prominently in a movie that would have come out when she was a little kid. It's hinted that Faith didn't have the best upbringing, so she may have been watching movies that weren't appropriate for a child her age at the time. Also the line was spoken by a badass female character; another reason why it may have made a strong enough impression for it to enter her lexicon permanently.
  • "Superstar" is the first time the audience gets a Reality Warper scenario where the audience is aware something is wrong with their reality while the characters are not until later. In this case, the Retcon turns out to be the result of Jonathan's selfish manipulations. So when Dawn comes on the scene in "Buffy vs. Dracula", with everyone acting as if she's been there the whole time, the audience is already primed not to trust her. However, there is one big difference between Jonathan and Dawn's reality changes — while everyone fawns over Jonathan, Dawn is treated like a normal kid sister. This leads to the later twist that Dawn is an unaware innocent.

Fridge Horror

  • In "The Witch" all the way back in season 1, Giles mentions that removing a witch's head undoes all the spells they've cast. So if someone were to decapitate Willow, Buffy would die.
    • We can take this a step further. Angel would lose his soul (twice over!), Tara (had this occurred before her death) would be rendered insane again, all of the activated Potentials would lose their Slayer powers, Amy would be a rat again, Warren would quite likely be alive and angry again as she killed him with magic, and countless monsters that Willow had defeated using magic would be once more alive and free and very, very pissed.
    • Also, the spell used by the evil witch ended up leaving her trapped, conscious and unable to move, inside a cheerleading trophy on display in a school hallway. She presumably either died in that figurine, or worse, never died, living at least until the school is destroyed. Horror indeed.
    • In season 4's "Doomed", when the Scoobies return to the destroyed school, you can see the statue lying intact on the ground in the burned out hallway... meaning she's probably still there.
    • In all likelihood, Magic has an upper limit on it's "Rules", "minor" spellwork might hold out, but spells intended to have longer lasting effects, such as sealing spells may last, or at least weaken over a long period of time, being that if seals deactivated upon the casters death, the world would be a much more hellish place than it already is, owing to the amount of Sealed Evil in a Can the franchise seems to employ, case and point, Angel, he was cursed with a soul, and the soul stayed in for 100 years at least, the original caster was probably long dead.
      • Magic in this series follows the exact words rule. If the person who cursed Angel died from any method other than having his/her head chopped off, then the spell would not lift. We saw this very clearly with the whole no weapon forged can kill me thing. In fact, even back in the days when people were executed by having their heads chopped off, the actual likelihood of dying in such a way is small due to the fact that it's actually a lot harder to fully behead someone than Hollywood would have you believe. Those tasked with such were paid very handsomely due to the skill required.
        • Was the line the witch has to die from their head being cut off or would just cutting their head off do? Because if it's the second, even if Willow dies another way, if someone gets their hands on her body, could they undo her spells by decapitating her corpse?
  • "Halloween". Many kids are dressed as monsters. And they're turned into monsters and proceed to attack that nice old la... oh. Which leads to —
    • Cordelia is one of several who wore costumes from 'Partytown', and she's being chased by a Jock dressed as a Pirate. And what are the more nasty Pirates known for, not related to either seeking treasure or stealing boats?... Not to mention, Pirate is probably a popular option... Oh.
    • For all intents and purposes, Willow was dead thanks to Ethan's spell. And as a truly horrifying thought, although after everything returns to normal she wakes up where she'd collapsed, what if someone had discovered her body before the spell was broken and had it called in by a coroner? And similar to the pirate example, considering that ghost costumes are a popular choice, what happened to anyone else that wound up choosing that style of costume?
      • They don't autopsy people instantly. Had she been discovered and an ambulance could have gotten through the crowd of monsters and vampires to retrieve her, she would have woken up at the morgue later and the same observant people who are willing to buy that vampires are gang members on PCP would have called it a miracle and moved on without asking a lot of questions.
    • The very real worry would be to those who wore those "arrow through the head" props, as the real life equivalent would just simply kill the person instantly.
      • Let's not forget that it was only costumes from Ethan's store that got transformed. Entirely possible Ethan didn't stock that one or it wasn't bought. Since he's The Little Shop That Wasn't There Yesterday, there could have been plenty that got theirs in Party Town.
  • It's made very clear to Warren, Andrew and Jonathan in "Dead Things" that their use of magic to obtain sex with Katrina is just rape. Now, remember those Swedish blonde twins who Jonathan had in his house while under the "Superstar" spell, who asked him if he "was coming to bed..."
    • It isn't quite the same thing; Jonathan really was smart, witty, strong, famous, and rich while a superstar. The Reality Warper thing at the heart of the spell made him exactly what they were attracted to. On the other hand, there's evidence that what it didn't change in Jonathan, the spell changed in others; Jonathan was still a short guy, so Riley found himself "too tall." The wimpy Buffy we see at the beginning of the episode is something else; it's not clear if this version of Buffy never needed to grow into a real slayer because Jonathan was around, or if the spell befuddled her to make Jonathan look better. It doesn't help that the spell blurs the lines between Alternate Reality By Design and straight up Reality Warper.
  • In "Empty Places", as the understated beginning of a conversation with the First Evil, Caleb says he's realized that every high school from one end of the country to the other smells exactly the same. If it makes you feel any better, he's only a serial killer, not a rapist.
  • Tara's body was in a very similar position to Joyce's after the aneurysm. Not only did Dawn have to deal with the horror of finding Tara dead, it most likely, intensely, brought back memories of her mother beginning to die hardly a year earlier. Then you realize how many loved ones, human loved ones, died (or in one case were found dead) in front of Dawn, once as a direct result of her existence, and you have to wonder exactly how deep her angst over being left alone really went.
    • But Dawn never saw Joyce's body until the morgue, she wouldn't have known what position it was in unless you're referring to Joyce's initial collapse, not her aneurysm. The rest rings true, though, seeing as Tara and Willow had become surrogate parents to her while Buffy was dead (and then absent). Tara dying was like her second mother dying.
  • Vampires. Not so much Fridge Horror as they are repeatedly and intimately explored, with the exception of one little aspect that the series seems to completely ignore: they are fucking everywhere. Even in places with dedicated, highly effective vampire hunters, vampires are always a problem. Beings that are far stronger and faster than any human, that feed on an almost nightly basis or whenever it would be fun, and that are easily and swiftly capable of creating entire armies of their kind are probably the single most common demon on the planet. Considering that in Season 4 of Angel, it was only a matter of days after the sun was blocked that the entire city became swarmed with vampires that were feasting with abandon, it seems that there is almost nothing stopping vampires from simply overwhelming humans with a sheer force of numbers.
    • Actually, it's stated that the reason all those vampires/demons/boogeymen/telemarketers are hanging out in Sunnydale is because they're attracted to the evil of the Hellmouth. And it's not stated, but the Los Angeles situation is likely similarly explained by the city being built around Wolfram and Hart, which is stated to be one of the last surviving Great Old One deities that lived before humans.
      • Los Angeles swarming with vampires might also have something to do with the fact that Sunnydale is a mere two hours away; a good portion of the city's vamps are likely just passing through on their way to the Hellmouth.
      • Spike mentions that humans know as much as they do about fighting vampires thanks to Dracula being an attention whore and getting a book written about him. Imagine how much worse it was in the old days when "stake through the heart" or "holy water" weren't commonly-known vampire weaknesses.
    • There is a valid evolutionary reason for vampires to not create massive armies and overwhelm humankind. Too many vampires means more competition for food; overwhelming humankind would mean starvation. Although most vamps in the series aren't all that analytical, natural selection could have worked this out thousands of years ago — any vampire tribe that overwhelmed its host population would end up extinct, and the ones that survived would be the ones whose instincts or social mores prompted them to be more judicious about who they turned. Alternately, any vamp who gets too enthusiastic about turning others might find that one of the smarter vamps in the community says "hang on, you're creating too much competition" and takes them out.
  • In "Becoming Part 1", when we first meet Whistler, Angel's good demon guide, we find out that Angel has been watching Buffy since she was at her old high school in Los Angeles, an unrevealed amount of time after he regained his soul. Later in a heartfelt moment, he confesses that he loved her from the first moment he saw her, which he explains was back in Los Angeles right before she obtained her powers. Buffy is very moved by this. The Squick comes in when you realize that Angel, who has been an grown adult for 200 years, "falls for" a fourteen-year old girl. She was still in high school, and he was older than her country of birth. Or pretty damn close...and also a vampire. With no breath. Or a heartbeat, and so is cold, and you know, a dead body...In the words put in a pseudo-buffy-bashing fic..."Three Words, Buff. Cold. Dead. Seed."
    • Well in Angel's defence, when he was alive the marrying age would have been around 14-16. It would have been appropriate to find girls that age attractive, especially since mid-20s would be considered close to middle age.
    • They seem to play up the Squick angle by having 1996 Buffy sucking on a lollipop very Lolita-style.
    • This is also a common historical myth; while legal marriage age was generally much younger than in modern times, for the most part people married people of within a reasonable age-gap of themselves.
  • Even the optimistic view of "Chosen" (Slayers will finally get to live relatively normal lives) still means that Buffy and co. still are going to be subjecting thousands of girls to an extremely dangerous lifestyle (although safer than what Buffy went through though) filled with things that will give them nightmares for the rest of their lives.
    • But monsters would exist regardless, and by giving them all the power, they could now fight back against the darkness rather than be victims. And if they don't want to, they don't need to, because they don't have the burden of being the only one. What's scary is that there are now hundreds if not thousands of newly minted Slayers with no idea what they have become, so they probably ended up causing a fair amount of damage, not counting that Slayers are still human and their may be dozens of Faith-like girls who'll exploit their newfound powers for evil.
      • Like any story where a vast amount of people worldwide all get hit with the same supernatural effect, the spell lends itself to some Fridge Horror. Imagine all the things that the hundreds of new Slayers worldwide could have been doing when they were activated and developed superhuman strength without any knowledge or warning. Play-fighting with an older brother, say, or cuddling a pet or younger sibling. Even the newly confident Little League batter could have smashed the ball right back at the pitcher....
    • Speaking of nightmares - based on the experience of those Slayers we've seen in the series, we know that Slayers experience the memories of all the slayers who've died. Now think of all of the horrific things that Buffy went through during her time as the Slayer. Now realize that her experience, judging by her advanced survival, was one of the least horrifying histories of any slayer, which means that the other slayers were worse. Now think about it. Every single slayer goes to sleep one night a normal girl and wakes up with the worst Nightmare Fuel in the world since the beginning of time has just been crammed into the brains of these utterly unsuspecting young girls. Who here thinks Dana's gonna be the only one in the end, raise your hands?
    • In the comic version of "season eight" and Angel's post-Buffy season five, we see a lot of exactly this: newly activated Slayers who go mad from visions, and who have even less remorse and more of a sense of superiority over the rest of humanity than Faith. Faith actually wound up facing a new Slayer who was rich and of noble birth, extremely classist; she didn't just think she was better because she was a Slayer, but she was better than every other Slayer, too, because she was a blueblood. And by that point, they're still far from finding all the new Slayers...
    • Then there's the fanon involving Buffy activating all of the Slayers lineage at once resulting in the situation of Fray where after Buffy's generation die out, there are no more Slayers because all of the magic was used up.
    • "Into every generation a Slayer is born: one girl in all the world, a chosen one. She alone will wield the strength and skill to fight the vampires, demons, and the forces of darkness; to stop the spread of their evil and the swell of their numbers." And there's one. One. And this one lives in a small town in California. Granted, it's on a Hellmouth, but that's kinda the problem; a Hellmouth. As in, there are more of them (Cleveland is referenced occasionally). So, how is the entire world not overrun if all that's standing between demons and humans is one girl who usually doesn't live past her twenties, the odd reformed demon, and whatever the heck Whistler is? They can be all the kickass they want, it's not possible for someone to cover that much ground.
      • To make it worse, when Buffy died at the end of season five, her death did not activate a new Slayer. At first, you would think it wouldn't matter because Faith was still alive. But then you realize that she was in jail and didn't break out until season four of Angel (season seven of Buffy). If Buffy hadn't been brought back to life, the world would have gone without a slayer for at least a year and a half.
      • Fanon says that that is what the Council does. And depending on where you look, some fanfics even go as far as making the Slayer more a figurehead of the Council rather than the main deal.
      • Suggestion: Slayer activates near a hot spot, clears it out, gets killed, new Slayer activates at the next most urgent hot spot (maybe the same one, if there's a lot to do.) Functional teleportation by death. Sucks for the Slayers but who cared about them?
      • Remember in the Wishverse how Buffy wasn't in Sunnydale? Perhaps it's because normally she'd be traveling to take care of stuff that was deemed MOST necessary by the Council.
  • In "Once More, With Feeling", besides the people bursting into flames, the main problem with the seemingly awesome concept of a demon who makes life into a musical is that people tend to reveal their deepest, darkest secrets through their songs with no control over it. While the non-cast songs we see are mostly innocuous, think about the fact that this happened to an ENTIRE CITY. Even if not everyone did it, a good percentage of people suddenly revealed that they were secret murderers, cheating on their wives, etc. Not all of us have personal lives as convoluted as the Buffy cast, but everyone has something they want to keep hidden. Imagine this happening to you in high school. Or at work! The rest of the season shows us the horrible fallout of the Buffy cast learning those hidden truths—now imagine the hundreds or thousands we didn't see.
    • The whole thing was Xander's fault. Obviously, he didn't mean to cause all those deaths and misery, but he is inadvertently responsible for all of it, and he knows everything that happened because of him. That cannot be easy to live with and may have contributed to his doubts about the relationship.
    • There's also the fact that Sweet has done this before. He's strolled into town when summoned, released a few pipes, and left with chaos in his wake. Not everyone has someone like Spike who retains enough of themselves to stop The Hero from a Death by Despair dance.
    • Buffy nearly dies in front of Dawn, again. Dawn was frozen to her "throne" while watching in fear. She only gets up when Spike saves Buffy's life and talks her down.
  • "Normal Again":
    • Buffy claims that she was institutionalized when Dawn found her diary entries of being the Slayer and showed them to her parents. Except...that didn't happen. Dawn's insertion into the Summers family rewrote their memories, not reality, sometimes the Knights establish. Buffy is traumatized by an event her parent never actually did.
    • Spike nearly got the Scoobies killed, thanks to his emotional issues with Buffy. If only he hadn't left the house...
    • There is a hint that the other world isn't Buffy's actual life by one fact: the doctor tells Buffy to get rid of her delusions, the violent way when she says that she wants to get better. No actual psychologist would tell someone to attack their hallucinations and leave them as demon chow, much less when one is an underage girl claiming to be your sister. That was the demon persuading Buffy to free it, and getting rid of its greatest threats. And it nearly worked if not for Buffy herself realizing that this was whack and coming back to her senses.
    • The episode strongly implies that Hank and Joyce divorced in the Slayer universe because of Buffy's powers emerging. If Buffy weren't feeling guilty enough already about that, she sees a hallucination that claims her Slayer life kept them apart.
  • Faith gets one after Buffy puts her in a coma.
    "Little Miss Muffet counting down from 730."
    • Word of God this was the exact amount of days until Buffy died. That's pretty horrifying, her archnemesis accurately predicting her death.
    • Not particularly scary but worth mentioning: Dawn/The Key is often used in reference to to the same poem. First by Glory, then by a crazy man later directed at Dawn as he gibbers on about 'curds and whey'. More worryingly in Buffy's dream in "Restless" she sees a clock reading 7:30, which Tara claims is all wrong. Buffy knows her own death is coming, but is in denial.
  • Buffy's experience with Parker in Season Four just seems like a mundanely unpleasant experience... until you go back and watch "Innocence" again and see how similar Parker's rejection of her after their one-night stand is to the way Angelus toys with her after their first time, taunting her about how it was good but nothing special, expressing surprise that it meant more to her than it did to him, etc. Just think about all the unpleasant, deeply traumatic memories that must have been brought up for Buffy.
    • Season 10 echoes this sentiment, as Buffy outright admits "Innocence" has left scars on her when it comes to mornings after. When she sleeps with Spike for the first time since he got his soul, she asks him basically first thing if he's gone evil now. While she tries to phrase it as a joke, she makes a point of getting a direct assurance from him that that's not the case before dropping the subject. It seems that sleeping with her ensouled vampire boyfriend for the first time dug up some trauma and sparked some irrational fear that she couldn't shake off on her own.
  • Think about "Bargaining, Part 1". Giles leaves for England, and then that night the Scoobies are attacked by the Hellions, who are obviously planning on raping Willow, Tara and Anya (and would have if Buffy had not intervened). Now for them, that is straight up Nightmare Fuel, but imagine Giles hearing about the rape and possible death of his friends that he might have been able to avert, while he himself is in England by choice.
  • In season 6, Xander is the most upset with Spike's Attempted Rape of Buffy. This would just be Xander's concern for his best friend, but it becomes fridge horror when you remember the season 3 episode "Consequences" in which Faith attempted to rape and murder him.
    • The horror gets deeper (and makes even more sense) when you recall that early in the Season 1 episode "The Pack" Xander was possessed by a hyena spirit and tried to rape Buffy. Part of his rage at Spike is actually repressed rage at himself because he never faced any consequences for that action.
  • The events of "The Pack": the other four kids now remember eating their principal.
    • Xander remembers attempting to rape Buffy. Fridge Logic: The Alpha was driving him to do so because the leaders of hyena pack are female, and control rivals by having sex with them. The hyena in Xander saw Buffy as a rival for power, and so made its host tried to force himself onto Buffy to prove its dominance over her.
    • What's worse is that if the hyena had performed the other main hyena behavior, dominating lower-level members of the pack first, Xander's body would have come onto Giles (as a male has less status than a female) and then Willow (female, but weak, so has less status than Buffy).
    • Or worse, he could have identified Cordelia (most socially powerful one), who wouldn't have had the strength to fight him off.
    • It gets worse than that, if you can believe it. Although this would only count after the Monks changed history, since in a hyena hierarchy if the most dominant female dies her youngest sister becomes pack leader, Dawn might have been next after Buffy.
    • Wait! Does this mean that Xander spends the episode acting like a (hyena) girl his age?!
  • Then there's the Willow/Tara scene from "Once More, With Feeling". Horror strikes when you realise Willow basically magically roofied and then raped her girlfriend—and this was after Tara had been mindraped horrifically by Glory. No wonder Tara was horrified when she found out.
  • After Faith's Face–Heel Turn, Mayor Wilkins basically becomes her substitute father. Then in "Enemies", Faith tries to seduce Angel in order to make him turn evil. Afterward, she goes back to the Mayor, sad because she failed. The Mayor acts all motivational, telling her to try again. The conversation pretty much implies that the Mayor was the one who made her do it. In other words, he took in a seventeen-year-old girl, set himself up as a father figure, then ordered her to go have sex with a guy who's 242 years old.
  • During Buffy's stay in LA in "Anne", someone tells her this about LA - "This isn't a good place for a kid to be. You get old fast here. The thing that does it, that drains the life out of them: despair. Kids come here, they got nothing to go home to and this is the last stop for a lot of them. Shouldn't have to be that way." A description which perfectly matches and foreshadows....Cordelia Chase. Barring the despair, a lot of this is true for her journey in LA. She has no home in Sunnydale after her parents lose all their money, she's living in a horrible apartment as her last stop, she is forced to grow up because of the trauma of life in Angel Investigations, her brain starts to deteriorate because of her visions, literally getting old fast and even becoming a demon doesn't help because she still dies regardless.
  • The brief bit with the Warrenbot in "Villains" became just slightly more unsettling after I thought about it for a while: the Scoobies' treatment of Buffybot raised the What Measure Is a Non-Human? thing enough, but Warren created an arguably sentient being specifically for the purposes of being a decoy that would most likely get destroyed within moments of its existence...at least, since we never heard anything about there being a Warrenbot before, I assume he either put it together really quickly while on the run, or else was Crazy-Prepared enough to just have an already completed but not activated robot double hidden someplace in case of emergency.
    • The Warrenbot wasn't sentient, it was enchanted by Rake to fool Dark!Willow; that's why she was so pissed when she found out.
  • As shown in "The Body", Anya's been a demon so long that she doesn't really understand death any more. She doesn't understand why Joyce died, and why she's no longer with them. Now think of all the men that she's killed. Hell, she basically caused the Russian Revolution. Anya's probably just realizing how many people she's killed and maimed over the years, and how many families and lives that she's destroyed. It's touched upon a bit in the season 7 episode "Selfless", but still, she's killed so many people and is only just realizing now what death really is.
  • All vampires eventually end up looking like The Master, Kakistos, the Turok-han, etc. This includes Angel and Spike.
    • Maybe because they have souls...? No, probably not, considering the aspects of vampires that you would think would leave upon gaining a soul (ie, lack of reflection) stick around even with them. Guess Angel won't have the face of an angel anymore...
    • Do we know for certain The Master looks like that all the time? Yes, obviously he does for the show's screentime, but it's not impossible he opted to simply be Game Face all the time. He doesn't seem to share Darla, Dru, Angel or Spike's vanity...
  • In "New Moon Rising" a scientist tells Riley that Oz won't be able to speak for a while because they gave him Haldol "to keep him quiet". Oz, who is The Stoic and The Quiet One, had to be put under heavy medication to keep him quiet. Really makes you wonder what exactly The Initiative did to him before being Strapped to an Operating Table...
    • Oz claims that jealousy over Willow is the only thing that can make him shift any more. But we see him shift involuntarily while the Initiative are torturing him. So presumably, although he doesn't realise it, if anybody randomly assaulted him, he'd shift and rip them apart. And possibly innocent people who crossed his path before he cooled down.
  • The Wishverse. Pure high octane nightmare fuel, and Buffy ain't coming back from what happened. So a new Slayer would be called. Wishverse Kendra? Wishverse Faith? Someone worse?
    • "The Wish" appeared to end with that universe ceasing to exist completely. The Fridge Horror was invoked by Doppelgangland indicating it was still there as a Crapsack World Alternate Universe.
    • Not necessarily, the spell in "Doppelgangland" was designed to retrieve the amulet from the TIME and place when it was lost. Whether or not the Wishverse still existed, the amulet couldn't be retrieved from the Wishverse in the present since the amulet had already been destroyed. It had to be retrieved from the time before it was destroyed. Instead, they got Vampire Willow before she was killed (which she was at the end of the original episode at the same time the amulet was destroyed). That's also why when she was sent back, she wasn't sent back to the Wishverse after the amulet's destruction, she was sent back to the time she left which was seconds before the amulet was destroyed. In other words, there were no scenes in Dopplegangland which showed the Wishverse as still existing after the destruction of the amulet and so nothing that would contradict the idea that the universe did cease to exist.
  • "Bargaining Part 2" starts with Buffy fighting her way out of her own grave. The catatonic stumbling around makes a lot more sense when you recall "Nightmares", delves into the characters' deepest fears. The first on touched upon for Buffy? BEING BURIED ALIVE.
    • ...there needs to be a justification for why Buffy is catatonically stumbling around when she's so emotionally traumatized by Mood Whiplash as to attempt to commit suicide? The girl isn't right in the head all season, but this is the point where she is the most dead to the world.
  • Kendra started training as a Potential when she was a toddler. This means that it is possible to identify Potentials as toddlers. The Bringers were going around killing all the Potentials they could find. How many of those girls were five or six when they died?
    • There are ballet and gymnastic classes for 2 and 3 year olds. Imagine being a parent like Joyce of a Potential.
  • When Buffy gets thrown out of the house in Season 7, Spike tracks her down and notes that he doesn't need an invitation to get in. He sees this as a Sign of the Apocalypse, when the far more likely scenario is that the man Buffy forcibly evicted died that night.
    • Why would Buffy have forcibly evicted a man from his home? There were plenty of empty houses with all the world-ending and murders going on. Or she could have gone to a motel.
      • But Buffy did forcibly evict the house owner in "Touched".
  • When Drusilla appears in Daddy Issues sane and offering aid to those in need Angel sees it as evil and kills the demon she trained to absorb the pain of those she helped. Them being virtually zombies aside it looks like a major What the Hell, Hero? moment, until you remember Jasmine. Who sought to Mind Rape the world, was monsterous in appearance and acts and the poster child for The Evils of Free Will. Angel clearly did, hence his determination to stop anything like it happening again.
  • It's mentioned in "Amends" that Xander's parents are so bad on Christmas that he camps outside, even after learning about all the horrors that go bump in the night. Just how horrible are his parents that he'll take possible death over dealing with them?
    • It's actually heavily implied throughout the show that Xander's parents are abusive.
  • In "Consequences", Giles mentions that Faith's killing of the Deputy Mayor is not the first time civilians were collateral damage in a Slayer's battle. Let that sink in
    • Unfortunately this makes a lot of sense, the deputy mayor was attacked because he came at Buffy and Faith in the middle of a fight, and was mistaken for Vampires who, out of Game Face, are more or less indistinguishable from humans, there are many ways in which normal people could've found themselves in the middle of a fight between Vampires and the Slayer, and in the heat of battle the Slayer just getting them mixed up.
  • Modern demons aren't pure demons but are the result of generations of interbreeding with humans. First of all, consider the fact that even in their modern impure form some demons have been described as having certain "anatomical incompatibilities" with humans but their even more demonic ancestors still must have bred with humans anyway to get to where they are. Second, consider what a pure demon looks like and the fact that at some point demons like that must have bred with human beings in order to get lesser demons.
  • In "Some Assembly Required", consider Daryl's willingness to basically kill someone just so he won't be alone and has a certain 'warped' idea about what people should do for love; has anyone else considered the possibility that Chris's experiment brought Daryl's body back to life while leaving his soul wherever it had passed on to? Ergo, like a vampire or Ryan, Daryl didn't actually have a soul when he was 'reborn'...
  • Early in season 1, Cordelia makes what seems like a shallow, flippant remark about how their teacher dying made her cry so hard that she lost more weight than when she dieted. But fastforward several seasons to their prom night, where the point is made that they have the lowest fatality rate of any graduating year. People die at all ages in Sunnydale - Cordelia and the other teens who grew up in Sunnydale would have been losing people left and right throughout their lives. They're used to people dying, so much so that it's easier to joke about how mourning is better than dieting than to constantly grieve.
    • Consider the scene in The Body where Buffy goes to tell Dawn about their mother's death, the looks on her classmate's face suggest that they all know why she's there. How often does a parent or older sibling show up at school in the middle of the day to tell a student that someone they love is dead?
  • Xander is widely acknowledged as the "dumb one" in the gang. While he comes off as Book Dumb, he doesn't really act dumb, more often than not he's the Only Sane Man. He does regularly grab the Idiot Ball, but no more than any of his friends. He figured out how to kill the Judge, he talked Angelus into backing down, he demonstrated the ability to do math in his head, and he's very good at his day job as a carpenter. Despite the fact that he doesn't act any dumber than anyone else, his grades are bad, his SAT score was abysmal, and in the episode "The Harsh Light of Day" he couldn't figure out Giles's system for organizing his books even though Giles was just alphabetizing them. All of this strongly indicates that Xander has dyslexia, or some other type of learning disability. What makes this Fridge Horror is the fact that no one ever suggested it despite all the rather obvious signs. Not his parents, not his teachers (Snyder once went out of his way to call Xander a useless waste), even his friends who genuinely cared about him occasionally delighted in mocking him for being dumb. Tragically, this would be Truth in Television for many perfectly normal to highly intelligent people who never realized their potential because the world wrote them off as just plain stupid.
  • Say, did Tara's family ever find out about her death? Would they even care, given what we saw of them?
  • In "Lies My Parents Told Me", we can very clearly see William's mother regain her human persona upon being staked and crumbling to ash. This is horrifying for two reasons; 1) it implies that the demon leaves the vampire/the the soul returns to the vampire just in time to feel themselves die, which casts a dark cloud over every vampire staking in the show 2) season 2 shows us it takes a bit before the vampire remembers the demon's memories upon regaining their soul, meaning William's mother likely only remembered being turned and then being murdered by her own son, having no real idea what caused him to take such an action.
    • More horror on the topic of vampires memories; Spike had to relive the trauma of his mother's siring, betrayal, molestation and death all over again upon gaining his soul—it would have been one of the first memories he'd get from the demon, in fact. No wonder the scar was raw enough for the First to exploit it for the hypnotic trigger.
  • Willow visits Tara's grave for the first time in "Help". She was immediately whisked away to England following her rampage as Dark Willow, meaning she was out of the country when Tara was buried. That Willow never got to say goodbye to her before she died due to the suddenness and instantaneousness of her death was bad enough, but the fact that Willow also never got to have a proper send off for her or attend the funeral is just so much worse.
  • Anya became a Vengeance Demon who specifically caters to Women Scorned because she herself was cheated on by her lover. Halfrek likewise had her own preferred "customers" in the form of neglected/abused children. Logic follows that Hallie was very likely a victim of Abusive Parents.
    • Made even worse when you consider that in "Hell's Bells", D'Hoffryn presents himself as an almost fatherly figure to Anya. If he shared such a relationship with Hallie as well, Hallie ended up being murdered by her own father-figure.
  • Consider the trap in "Showtime" set by the bringers to catch Rona when she arrived in Sunnydale; they ripped the page with the Summers house's number in it from the phone book and by Rona turning to the ripped page, they figured that she's a potential, and then they attack. Is there any confirmation that they'd only just set up this trap for Rona? If they'd had this trap set for a while, how many people did they catch, and not just potentials, there are a lot of numbers on that page, how many people will have checked the book, looking for that page, or even just coming across it and pausing, confused by why there's a page ripped out, now they probably won't have attacked everyone who stopped on that page, people who don't fit the profile of a potential Slayer, but how many people might have died?
  • Buffy would have died at the end of season 7 if Robin and Giles had been successful in killing Spike. Angel likely would have been sent back to LA after dropping off the amulet, as he was in the actual continuity. With Spike dead already, there'd been no other person who'd qualify as strong enough to wear it aside from Buffy. And because Buffy isn't a potential candidate for the Shanshu prophesy the way Spike is, she would have stayed dead.
  • Joyce must have felt some pretty intense guilt upon the reveal that vampires do in fact exist, given that Buffy had been sent to a mental institution for confiding about them just a couple years prior.
  • RJ (and his brother and father before him) from "Him" is probably unknowingly a mass-rapist, given that he seems to be taking full advantage of the women who are magically influenced by his coat.
    • For that matter, Buffy was nearly raped by him, as it's pretty obvious things were about to get sexual and a woman under a potent love spell is by no means capable of consenting.

Fridge Logic

  • How on Earth are guns not considered effective against vampires and demons? One of the ways to kill a vampire, and seemingly most demons, is beheading. This is shown to count if the neck is just broken, too. While this does mean that only a Slayer would be effective with a handgun, due to the accuracy needed, a shotgun could kill vampires easily. Even if it doesn't, vampires have been shown to take time to recover from things like paralyzation, and lost limbs are implied to stay lost. So, even if it doesn't kill them, a few good shots to the chest from even a handgun would likely leave them on the ground, immobile. Or, you could just shoot them in the knees. A vampire is a lot less scary when it's crawling like a baby.
    • Probably because it's too easy to get collateral damage compared with how effective the guns actually are against vampires. When acting with a stake or a knife it's harder to miss and kill innocents. Plus if you have to shoot it five times to shoot the neck or to get it to the ground it's just not as effective as simply stabbing it in the heart.
      • Also, the Buffy tabletop RPG puts it best when it says Slaying is largely a covert activity and that guns tend to be loud, drawing in local authorities who will respond quickly to reports of shots fired, not to mention bullets tend to be much more traceable than your average wooden stake.
      • All other things aside, firearms are considerably more regulated than things like stakes or blades would be. In any case, they'd be much more difficult to get a hold of and train enough with to be proficient. Then again, Buffy has gotten a hold of anti-tank rockets more than once.
  • "Earshot": How the hell was Jonathan planning to commit suicide without killing anybody else (thus ruling out suicide-by-cop) with a high-powered rifle?!
    • Jonathan can't even commit suicide right.
    • Easy. Put the butt on the ground, lean over and tuck the barrel under your chin, and then step on the trigger with your big toe.
    • Here's another theory: he was actually planning to shoot people and just told Buffy that he was going to kill himself in order to stop her from being angry at him.
    • Alternatively, he was planning to take a few shots that would miss anyone else to encourage panic, getting the cops called out, and go to a Suicide by Cop - if he was planning out how to kill himself, he may have been accounting for the possibility of being too afraid to pull the trigger, so he would take a few harmless shots at people down below, get the cops called out, and then take some shots at them to make them shoot him down.
  • It's possible to revive someone who dies due to magic, right? So why doesn't Willow fireball Tara while she's bleeding out? If its the magic that killed her, rather than the gun, it becomes possible to bring her back.
    • Look at the location of the exit wound. Tara took that round directly through either the heart or the aorta. She'd be dead in moments. The only way she could be deader is if she'd taken the hit at the base of the skull... which is one for Headscratchers, that Warren's blind, wild shot in through the window could be that precise. Diabolus ex Machina indeed.
      • Judging on the placement, it seems the bullet went through the point where the subclavian vein meets the superior vena cava, which is directly connected to the right atrium. Poor girl never stood a chance.
      • I've always assumed it was another side effect of the resurrection spell they weren't aware of. Willow was granted a life (Buffy) at the cost of one of the casters (Tara).
      • Season 8 seems to have confirmed, or at least Willow is convinced this is what happened.
      • Alright then, why not use some sort of spell to freeze her in time, or barring that, ice, and then simply transfer her consciousness into a robot identical to her, like they did with Buffy and the Buffybot in Season 9?
      • It all happened extremely suddenly, quickly and unexpectedly. Tara was likely already dead before Willow even processed the situation enough to begin thinking about saving her—as mentioned above, the placement of the bullet would mean a swift if not instant death. It would take a lot of foresight to think up the above propositioned scenario, and it's not terribly reasonable to assume Willow would have that as she watches her One True Love get fatally shot completely out of nowhere.
    • Besides, there's that pesky issue that magical resurrection often leaves you in the same state you would've been in without any magic at all; see Darla's syphilis. Burning Tara alive so Willow could revive her as a gunshot victim isn't likely to help.
    • Two things: 1) Could you really fling a fireball at the person you love and kill her on the off chance that it MIGHT lead to her later resurrection? Willow wouldn't have had long, and she loves Tara way too much to destroy her personally even if it meant that there's the possibility of resurrection. And 2), the Urn of Osiris was destroyed after Buffy's revival, and it was unique, the spell couldn't have been cast again.
      • Three: Did the spell come out wonky at all? Even if it worked right was Buffy meant to have ended up in her own grave? This drove her to near suicide. Who's to say things would have gone any better for Tara even if they had what they needed, or this act didn't set off Willow thinking Buffy (and by extension Tara) were better off dead than living hell on earth?
  • How did Buffy avoid the whole post-resurrection paperwork? She was dead for over a month, with an actual burial plot on the cemetery, which means there was a real funeral, and also very likely a coroner and some kind of police involvement in the aftermath of the battle with Glory. Whatever haphazard cover story was concocted, she was legally dead. Later in the episode, the visit from Social Services shows that she is still Dawn's legal guardian and clearly officially alive. Even in Sunnydale, you'd expect someone to blink at this...
    • Buffy was buried in the woods, not a cemetery. Logistically, this makes sense; nobody in the group has the money for an official burial ceremony, and burying Buffy in a cemetery means having to explain how she died, whereas burying her in the woods means that, legally, she just disappeared; just another victim of Sunnydale's tendency for people to vanish.
      • She might not have been listed as missing; the gang might have used the Buffybot as a decoy the entire time Buffy was dead. The Buffybot went to Parent Teacher Conferences. The school still expected her to show up, so the school didn't think she was in any way out of the picture.
  • So every potential Slayer has been Slayerized. What does this mean for very young girls? What does this mean for unborn children? Will all future Potentials be automatic Slayers?
    • The season 8 comic shows Potentials aren't made Slayers until they're ready. Soledad for example was called on her 16th birthday, at least a year and a half after Willow performed her spell.
  • Xander is the bottom of the social barrel despite being played by a not-unfortunate looking Nicholas Brendon. This could possibly be because Xander has been going to school with these people since childhood and something done in childhood could ruin your social status in the future.
    • Just because he's good looking does not automatically mean he'll be popular. It has a lot to do with personality and Xander is pretty dorky and dresses pretty badly, of course he is gonna be unpopular.
      • He's also poor, his parents are the town drunks, and very early in kindergarten he chose to ally himself with and stick up for another social outcast. Also, he's in a small town where your peer group doesn't significantly change from kindergarten on. Maybe if Xander had moved to another town to go to high school he'd have had a chance to break into the Very Populars, but in Sunnydale he was typecast before 3rd grade.
  • Willow spends several seasons trying to figure out the spell to de-rat Amy. However, in "Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered", Giles assists Amy in casting the spell to de-rat Buffy. Wouldn't he have remembered it, or at least remembered what book she was reading from? And surely in all that time Willow would have thought to ask Giles for help?
    • I thought Giles was assisting Amy in reversing the love spell? Trying to figure out how she went wrong. Amy only needed convincing to reverse the rat spell, since Buffy was still her romantic rival.
      • Giles was still standing right there and even if he didn't remember everything about it, he should have been able to give Willow an idea about what to look for. It seemed like a pretty simple spell and didn't even require a potion or anything.
    • Giles likely just isn't strong enough break the spell. Amy seemed to be fairly powerful and even Willow and Tara couldn't undo the spell for years.
    • Maybe transformations are much easier for the original caster to undo. Or the difficulty of undoing them depends on the strength of the caster. Amy deratting Buffy would then be trivial compared to breaking the transformation Amy cast on herself.
  • Just what would happen if Willow had succeeded in turning RJ into a girl? Would the spell be broken because it only works on guys or would the girls remain attracted to her?
    • Well, if the jacket manages to make the Lesbian get magically attracted to a guy, then it should make the Straight Girls attracted to a girl.
  • Always wondered about Spike's chip, how he was able to hit Buffy, even if she came be nearly all-right; or as Tara said, "with a sunburn on your soul." Then, it hit me: Spike was present when Buffy died, so the chip's sensors (or whatever) knew she was dead as well. When she came back, the thing couldn't distinguish about it, since only demons came back after dying. To the chip, she probably looked like another vampire, inhabiting Buffy's body.
  • In Season 7, the First is using an opportunity allegedly created by Willow's resurrection of Buffy, which somehow affected the Slayer line of succession. But Buffy had already passed on that line in the first season, when her temporary death activated Kendra. Kendra's death activated Faith (even though Buffy was still alive); Buffy's second death activated nobody at all. Everything indicated that the Slayer line was done with Buffy, and shouldn't care whether she died or got resurrected.
    • Not necessarily. We know very little about the exact mechanics of how the Slayer is activated. If we assume that one Slayer dying results in a magical 'signal' which results in another being activated, then Buffy dying the first time resulted in Kendra, who in turn resulted in Faith. However, Buffy's second death would have sent out a signal again, leading to potentially a third Slayer whom we just never see. If we allow that the magic may have been slightly disrupted by there being two Slayers (which I believe is hinted at by the Eye-demon, and incidentally supported by the last time we saw the First Evil was after Buffy's first death, potentially trying to exploit the lower-level instability), then there being three would have worsened it even more. A death-signal is being sent out from a Slayer which, according to the magic network-thing, is already dead. I can see it throwing a few magical errors in that case.
    • Always figured Buffys' replacement got called somewhere in the back end of China or DPRK or Myanmar or somewhere not speaking to the rest of the world. However, it seems the accepted logic is that the next slayer would be called after Faith bought it, as she was the last to receive the slayer baton before someone phreaked the Call-box to call everybody at onv
    • Buffy's second death didn't activate a new slayer. The audience would have known about it and she probably would have been present at the Hellmouth either around or before the Potentials got there. What the First meant was that her resurrection altered the slayer line by fully restoring Buffy to it. That means that there is now the certainty of two slayers in every generation instead of one (and three slayers in the current time). That may have been what gave Buffy the idea that all slayers could be activated in the first place.
  • Glory needed to use Dawn's blood to return to her world and end ours. It raises the question, why was the key made human in the first place? Glory mentioned specifically that she had no way of knowing that the key was in human form and even suggested it could be an inanimate object. Given inanimate objects don't bleed, wouldn't turning the key into one have prevented Glory's ability to use it? Or would it just have changed the nature of the ritual (like if Dawn was a bag of potatoes you would have had to empty out the potatoes) but the practical elements remain the same?
    • Well the key was originally a ball of energy - so presumably just flinging the ball in the right direction would have opened the key. The monks made it human because Glory wouldn't suspect it. From what I remember, they don't find out it's a person until Ben lets slip "I would never let her harm an innocent-". And really, let's be honest: you're a Hell God looking for a ball of energy that the monks have hidden somewhere. Are you really going to expect it to be a teenage girl of all things? From what I gather of the ritual, the key was something that needed to be sacrificed. Once the portal was open, Glory would go through and it would close once the energy had destroyed the key. So with the key being human, Dawn's blood opened the portal and it wouldn't close until she died. Since Glory found out that the key was human about halfway through the season, she had plenty of time to adjust the ritual to accommodate a human sacrifice.
  • In "Prophecy Girl" Xander has to perform CPR on Buffy because Angel, who got to her first, has no breath, quote-unquote. If that's so, how the hell is he able to speak? If you think about it, a vampire should be the ideal resuscitator because the air they blow out would have the exact same oxygen content as the air they take in, and they'd never get tired or hyperventilate. (You could maaaybe argue that vampire lungs/diaphragm shrivel from neglect, giving enough breath for speaking but not for mouth-to-mouth, but it's obviously a slip by the writers.)
    • A common fan explanation is that Angel just didn't know how to perform CPR and said he had no breath to save face.
  • In "The Wish," a custodial worker tells Cordelia that she should know 'students aren't allowed to drive their cars to school.' How does this make any sense as a school policy in a universe where vampires have taken over the town?? This is even underscored in the episode, as the only reason vamp!Willow and vamp!Xander are even able to attack Cordelia is because it took her so long to walk home that the sun set before she got there.
    • Possibly the value of safety in numbers - if you can take your individual car, you can split apart from a group, which makes you a far more tempting target - we regularly see vamps preying on individuals, but in groups, there's a greater chance that you're not going to be an appealing target because there are too many people around.
  • In "Real Me" Dawn mentions an incident when she told her mother that she wanted Willow and Tara to teach her some of the things they do together (resulting in Joyce becoming very quiet and sending her upstairs). It's an amusing joke where Dawn is referring to magic but the audience can smirk knowing Joyce may not have interpreted it that way. However, in the previous episode Joyce had told Willow and Tara how when they get older they'd understand how sometimes you feel like giving up on men altogether, in a way which suggested a complete lack of awareness of their relationship. Unless for some reason when Dawn was brought into existence one of the changes to everyone's memories was to change Joyce's awareness of Willow and Tara's relationship, then she probably did think Dawn meant magic.
    • Perhaps Joyce got very quiet because that was the moment she realized what sort of relationship Willow and Tara had?
  • In "Halloween", Willow gets turned into a ghost by the costume she bought from Ethan's shop, but who would buy a Bedsheet Ghost costume when they're the easiest possible costume to make at home? If Willow had just cut a couple holes in an old white sheet from the linen closet, she would have gotten her costume for free and unintentionally saved herself from becoming a real ghost.

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