Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Tropes (Season Specific)

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Season One

Principal Snyder: There are things I will not tolerate. Students loitering on campus after school. Horrible murders with hearts being removed. And also smoking.

  • Big No: The Master does one of these at the end of "The Harvest," when Buffy kills Luke, ruining the Harvest.
  • Blank Book: Moloch's prison-book after he escapes.
  • Blood Bath: The Pilot episode shows The Master hanging out in a pool of blood while fully dressed.
  • Car Fu: Cordelia plows through a horde of vampires with her car in "Prophecy Girl."
  • Chekhov's Classroom: "Teacher's Pet" features a lecture from the science teacher's substitute about the cannibalism seen in female praying mantises. Guess what the Monster of the Week is?
  • The Chosen Zero: Giles's initial reaction to Buffy.
  • Cliff Hanger: "Teacher's Pet". The she-mantis has left some eggs and they're starting to hatch.
  • Conspicuous Trenchcoat: “I Robot, You Jane”
  • Date My Avatar: Willow once dated her nice charming chat-buddy Malcolm... who was actually a incorporeal murderous demon possessing the computer system.
  • Dead Star Walking: Joss Whedon hoped to include actor Eric Balfour (Jesse) in the title credits to shock viewers when his character dies. Unfortunately, the show literally could not afford an extra set of title credits at the time.
  • Demonic Dummy: Subversion. It seemed like the dummy was killing students, but it turned out he was actually hunting the thing that was killing the students.
  • Early Installment Weirdness: Buffy was originally very chaste in manner and dress, with "earthy" hair coloring and makeup. In Season Two, the producers decided they wanted a more vibrant look for the character. This coincided with Sarah Michelle Gellar having her hair cut shorter, and dyed blonder, for her role in Scream 2, which she filmed in-between seasons one and two.
    • This pilot episode is the only time when we see Xander riding a skateboard, since the scene required a lot of space and was difficult to shoot. In later episodes we can see Xander holding a skateboard a couple of times, but never again does he ride one.
    • The pilot and "Harvest" are two of the few episodes that feature the upper level of the Bronze. Joss Whedon wrote the script to feature the two levels, but didn't realize how difficult it would be to shoot these scenes. Not only was it impractical in terms of filming and lighting, but it stretched their already non-existent budget.
    • When a pack of vamps chase Buffy and Angel into the Summers house, one of the pursuers gets his hand through the door before Buffy slams the door on his wrist. It is later established that, barring an invitation, an invisible force field encases the doorway to keep vampires out. The henchvamp shouldn't have been able to get his arm through like that. ("Angel")
    • In "Witch" (season 1, episode 3), Giles seems unfamiliar with magiks, saying "Pretty good for my first [spell-]casting, eh?" and such--which is totally at odds with his, y'know, rebellious Hellblazer youth period.
    • Well, Giles had been trying to keep his past a secret. Besides, it might have been the first time he had done a spell while pretending to be alot less badass then he really was (remember, the uptight tweed-wearer thing was implied to be an act).
  • Elite Mooks: The Three. Luke. Darla.
  • Environmental Symbolism: Angel’s statue of Kwan Yin – like a true Bodhisattva, Angel will delay his own enlightenment to ease the suffering of others.
  • Eye Scream: The Master, after making a mook apologize to him for failing, admonishes him about (SQUISH) something in his eye.
  • Face Your Fears: Xander gets to punch a clown in "Nightmares".
  • Failed Audition Plot: In "Witch", Buffy tries out for the cheerleading team but initially doesn't make the cut. Later in the episode she does get a spot on the team... which ends up making her a target for the witch who is magically injuring other cheerleaders to earn herself a spot.
  • Faking Amnesia: Xander pulls this in "The Pack", after being possessed by the spirit of a hyena. After Buffy and Willow save him, he tells them that he can't remember a thing and hopes he didn't do anything "too embarrassing". Giles, however, sees right through it.

Giles: "I've been reading up on my animal possession and I cannot find anything anywhere about memory loss afterward."
Xander: "Did you tell them that?"
Giles: "Your secret dies with me."
Xander: "Shoot me, stuff me, mount me."

Marcie: Your smile... I think it should be wider.

  • Glory Days: A witch switches places with her cheerleader daughter because she misses being a cheerleader.
  • Grand Theft Me: See Glory Days
  • Grave Clouds: In a first-season episode, it is always night in a graveyard that had been magically relocated next to Sunnydale High.
  • Haunted Technology: "I Robot, You Jane".
  • Hollywood Nerd: An Enforced Trope with Willow. The pilot had Willow played by a plus-sized actress but Whedon was ordered to replace her with a thinner, more conventionally attractive actress.
  • Hook Hand: One of the Master's vampires has blades where one of his hands used to be.
  • I, Noun: "I Robot, You Jane".
  • If You Can Read This...: At the end of "Out of Mind, Out of Sight", a textbook on infiltrating a cult compound to assassinate its leader is readable in DVD format, and consists of the lyrics to "Happiness is a Warm Gun" by The Beatles.
  • The Lonely Piano: The Buffy theme plays slowly on a piano over the final scene of Prophecy Girl.
  • Mailer Daemon: Moloch the Corruptor.
  • A Man Is Not a Virgin: "Teacher's Pet" seems to exist to highlight and subvert the trope.
  • Murder by Cremation: "Never Kill a Boy on the First Date".
  • Once Killed a Man with A Noodle Implement: In the first episode, Buffy mentions having once killed a vampire using only an exacto knife.
  • Remote Body: In "I Robot, You Jane", the demon Moloch creates a mechanical robot self he operates via the internet. Eventually he gets stuck in that body.
  • Spontaneous Human Combustion: In one of the earliest episodes, Giles initially attributes this as the cause for a cheerleader bursting into flames; it's later revealed to have been caused by a witch's spell.
  • Stab the Scorpion: Variation between the Master and a mook in "Never Kill a Boy on the First Date" where the Master (who could certainly kill the mook with his index finger) plucks a bug outo f the air next to the mook's head.
  • Stock Scream: Shows up in "The Harvest".
  • Take Five: In "Prophecy Girl", Xander wants to get Buffy alone so he can ask her out:

Xander: Willow, don't you have a thing?
Willow: A thing? The thing! That I have! Which is... a thing I have to go to. See ya later.


Season Two

  • Abandoned Warehouse: Spike and Drusilla use one as their lair.
  • Above the Influence: Willow and Buffy practically strip down and jump Xander's bones in "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered", but Xander refuses to let them. After the Love Potion wears off, Buffy is proud of him for it.
  • Absurdly Ineffective Barricade: In the episode "Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered", after a spell gone awry has caused every girl in the school aside from Cordelia to fall madly in love with Xander, he attempts to take refuge in the school library by moving the the card catalogue in front of the double doors that serve as the entrance. Since he apparently didn't realize that the doors open outwards, a coat (and not much else) wearing Buffy calmly opens the doors and walks around the catalogue while Xander's back is turned.
  • Alien Catnip: Slayer blood and high people for vampires.

Spike: If every vampire who said he was at the Crucifixion was actually there it would've been like Woodstock. I was actually at Woodstock... that was a weird gig. I fed off a flower person and I spent six hours watching my hand move.

"This is for the bra! This is for the wig! This is for the makeup! And this is for the last 16 and a half years!"

Snyder: Halloween must be a big night for you. Tossing eggs, keying cars, bobbing for apples...one pathetic cry for help after another.

Willow: But why is she acting like such a B-I-T-C-H?
Giles: Come on Willow, we're a bit old to be spelling things out.
Xander: ...a bitca?

  • Computer Equals Monitor: Angelus is satisfied that Jenny's electronic translation of the incantation that would restore Angel's soul is gone when he shoves her computer off her desk. The problem is, while the monitor was wrecked, the actual PC received minimal damage... Justified--not like a 200 year-old vampire would really know how a computer works. His monologue before destroying the computer even makes it explicit. Later episodes also imply that her hard drive was indeed undamaged.
  • Contemplating Your Hands: Spike mentions doing this for six hours at Woodstock, after feeding off a "flower person".
  • Continuity Nod: When he asks out Ampata in "Inca Mummy Girl", Xander takes care to make sure she's not a praying mantis.
  • Deadly Hug: Buffy does this to Angel in the season 2 finale, although she has to let go of him first since she does it with a sword.
  • Dead Man's Chest: In "Inca Mummy Girl" the mummy hid the body of the real Ampata in one of his trunks.
  • Department of Redundancy Department: One episode is named "Killed by Death". Although by "Death", we mean "Death".
  • Die Hard on an X: School Hard, AKA Die Hard with vampires. The Bronze is also a popular location for hostage-takings ("The Harvest", "Doppelgangland").
  • Doomed Appointment: Ms. Calendar.
  • Egg Sitting
  • Embarrassing Tattoo: The Mark of Eyghon, which Giles never gets removed (as we see it in Season 8, which leads to a conversation with Faith about how he and her are not as different as she thinks). Said conversation is even more meaningful if you know the origins of her tattoo. Both of them are the mark of a demon, in her case Kakistos (the really mutated vamp that killed her Watcher). She got it from being possessed by a dead Greek Slayer.
  • Empathic Environment: In Angelus' first episode, the lights suddenly go out on Xander and Willow inside the school. Angelus appears in a darkened hallway, his shape blocking a lit EXIT sign.
  • Fish People: The mutated swim team in "Go Fish".
  • Forgotten Friend, New Foe: Billy Fordham, "Lie To Me."
  • Groin Attack: Buffy can't bring herself to kill Angelus in "Innocence", but settles for this.
  • Groupie Brigade: "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered".
  • Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique: In the season 2 premiere, Buffy tortures a vamp by making her swallow her silver necklace.
    • If Band Candy is anything to go by, Ripper, even years before he was at his worst, was a huge fan of this.
  • Have You Tried Not Being a Monster?: One of the trope namers. With Buffy coming out to her mother as a Slayer.
  • Hemo-Erotic / Marshmallow Hell: A flashback of Angel being sired by Darla.
  • Hilarity Ensues: Spike says wackiness ensues in "The Becoming, part 1".
  • If I Can't Have You: An alarmingly common conclusion among the enchanted female populace in "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered".
  • I Just Want to Be Normal: Ampata, a former Incan mummy from "Inca Mummy Girl" chosen as a sacrifice to protect her people, raises herself from the dead and is determined to lead a happy 16 year-old girl's life--even if she has to kill at least one person a day to keep up the facade.
  • Impossibly Mundane Explanation: the gang is attempting to contact Buffy.

Xander: Well, she didn't go home. I let the phone ring a few hundred times before I remembered her mom is out of town.
Giles: Well, maybe Buffy unplugged the phone.
Xander: No, it's a statistical impossibility for a 16-year-old girl to unplug her phone.
Willow: *nods*.

Giles: Let's not jump to any conclusions.
Buffy: I didn't jump. I took a tiny step, and there conclusions were.

  • Obfuscating Disability: In the last four episodes of season 2, Spike is only pretending to still need his wheelchair.
  • One Dialogue, Two Conversations:
    • When Willow starts discussing Buffy's secret affair with Angel, Xander immediately deflects the discussion to their sordid tryst. This proves to be consistent behavior between Willow and Xander throughout the season; the stress of being caught cheating is so overwhelming, they keep blurting out psuedo-confessions to anyone in sight.
    • In "Phases", Xander confronts Larry the bully about his secret, which Xander can understand because he's been there before. Xander's talking about being a werewolf. Larry's talking about being a closeted homosexual. Later on in the episode, Buffy and Xander chat about the day's events, and Xander says he'll have trouble ever looking at him the same way again. Buffy's talking about the werewolf, Oz, but Xander's talking about Larry.
  • A Party - Also Known as an Orgy: The college party in "Reptile Boy".
  • Pure Is Not Good: From "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered":

Amy: I don't know, Xander. Intent has to be pure with love spells.
Xander: Right! I intend revenge. Pure as the driven snow.

  • Real Dreams Are Weirder: Buffy's dreams about Drusilla's return are mingled with dreams of opening an office-supply warehouse in Las Vegas.
  • The Remnant: The Annointed One's army
  • Romance-Inducing Smudge: A rare romantic moment passes between Willow and Xander in the season two episode "When She Was Bad", when Willow gets ice cream on her nose as the pair are walking past a cemetery. As Xander leans in to clean it for her, the two look like they are about to kiss... until a vampire pops up behind Willow, forcing Xander to attempt to hold it off and killing a Squee-inducing moment for Willow x Xander shippers.
    • Willow later attempted to invoke this trope by putting ice cream on her own nose, but Xander, now once again distracted by Buffy, simply says "You got something on your nose."
  • Serial Escalation: "Hmm, Angelus certainly did a good job inflicting torture and trauma. How can we top it?" They continue this trend throughout the series.
  • Shaking Her Hair Loose: In "Go Fish", Buffy pulls a stake out of her hair and shakes it loose as she prepares to fight a vampire.
  • Shock Party: In the aptly named episode "Surprise". In something of a variation, it's actually Oz who gets the shock; seeing Buffy staking a vamp for the first time.
    • Later in season 5 we have the organizing variation with Tara.
  • Sick Episode: "Killed by Death".
  • Stab the Salad: Happened in "School Hard". The gang is preparing an imminent attack from Spike. Willow is fidgeting with a crossbow, Xander & Cordelia are carving stakes and Buffy holds up a machete, which she uses to slice zuccini.
  • Staking the Loved One: Several times, most notably with Angelus.
  • Standard Fifties Father: Ted seems like one of these at first, but is actually a killer robot.
  • Stating the Simple Solution: Spike is rather miffed about Angelus deciding to toy with Buffy instead of just killing her outright.
  • Stuffed Into the Fridge: In "Passion", Angelus not only kills Jenny Calendar, but after he kills her, he takes her body and puts it in Giles' bed and leaves a trail of romantic symbols (such as rose petals) that lead Giles to Jenny's body.
  • Sword Fight: Becoming, Part 2. Hell yes.
  • Teacher-Student Romance
  • Tempting Fate: "Passion":

Angelus: Don't worry, rollerboy, I've got it under control.

(Giles tosses a Molotov cocktail.)

Xander: Yes, vampires are real, there are a lot of them in Sunnydale.
Willow: I know this must come as a shock...
Oz: Actually, it explains a lot.

Cordelia: "There you go, off to save the great Buffy again... I bet you'd never do that for me..."


Season Three

  • Are You Sure You Can Drive This Thing?: Buffy drives to the Bronze even thought she failed her driving test, with Willow in the passenger's seat. Willow gets increasingly anxious, despite Buffy's relaxed-ness. They make it to the Bronze which they discover is full of middle-aged people acting like teenagers due to cursed candy; then Buffy attempts to drive to Giles' house, which results in a crash.

"Wooo Summers, you drive like a SPAZ!!!

  • Baleful Polymorph
  • Brand X: Trick orders a "medium diet soda" at a drive-thru window without actually specifying what soda in "Faith, Hope & Trick".
  • Brought Down to Normal: Buffy in "Helpless", as part of a test by the Watcher's Council.
  • Bury Your Gays: Larry in "Graduation Day, part two. Was confirmed later.
  • Card-Carrying Villain: Faith. After the aaccidental murder of the deputy mayor she throws herself so far into villainy that she becomes about as scary as Angelus. Justified in that she first wanted to corrupt Buffy by forcing her to kill her, then it turns out Faith genuinely did have a death wish.
  • Children Are Innocent: The demon from "Gingerbread" uses this to get the parents of Sunnydale to kill witches and anyone who protects them, including their own children.
  • Collapsed Mid-Speech: The Mayor starts his Ascension in the middle of his speech to the graduating students, which causes him strong pains. However, he knew that it would happen and his collapse last few moments before he turns into a demonic snake. He only complains that he doesn't have time left to talk about civic pride.
  • Continuity Nod: "Lily" and her boyfriend attempting to buy lunch at a diner by dumping a bunch of change onto the table. David Arquette and Luke Perry did the exact same thing in the Buffy feature film.
  • Daddy's Little Villain: Faith takes on this role with gusto.
  • Destructo-Nookie: the overtly sexualized scene in the season finale when Buffy makes Angel vamp out and drink her blood. While he's lying on top of her, she grabs a metal object for support, and it just crumples. She also kicks a table through a wall. Angel leaves her with the most insane hickey in history through all of season 4.
  • Dissimile: It seems Buffy has Gandhi confused with Teddy Roosevelt.

Xander: The band. Yeah. They're great. They march.

Willow: Like an army. [beat] Except with music instead of bullets, and...usually no one dies.

    • Wilkins explains that to Faith that her errand in question involves something crucial to his ascension. He brightly says that without it, "well, what would Tollhouse cookies be without the chocolate chips?" Faith regards her cookie as if she's actually pondering that zen question. He continues, "A pretty darn big disappointment, I can tell you!"
  • Dominatrix: Picture this scene: You're tied up in a cage with burn marks over your body and a cute little girl in leather bondage gear enters. From the baby talk calling you puppy it's clear she is crazy, and she reacts to the silent treatment you give her with the promise that she is going to make you bark.
  • Double Standard Rape (Female on Male): Averted in Faith's attempted rape and murder of Xander. Angel first hits her on the head with a baseball bat to stop her, and when she wakes up he dubiously asks her about it.

"He forgot the safety word?"

Willow: It's really nice that you guys missed me. Say, you all didn't happen to do a bunch of drugs, did ya?

    • Despite being accepted into Oxford, Willow announces to Buffy that she "will be matriculating with Class of 2003" at UC Sunnydale. The mischievous smile. "...Say, isn't that where you're going?" Buffy squees and tackles her to the grass.
    • And GILES gets one from Xander, Willow, and Anya when they think he was The First.

Giles: "So you think I'm evil because I took a bunch of fifteen-year-old girls out on a camping trip... and didn't touch any of them?"

  • Good Is Not Soft: When Angel is poisoned and Buffy learns that Slayer blood is the cure, her rather scary initial plan is to force the psychotic Faith to him to feed on, dead or alive. When that doesn't work Buffy offers herself to feed on, which Angel absolutely refuses. So Buffy punches him in the face until the blows anger him enough to vamp out, then she makes him feed on her.
  • Gratuitous German: In the episode "Gingerbread", the newspaper article the gang looks up and the chant Giles is doing at the end of the episode qualifies for this.
  • Hands-On Approach: Willow and Xander have this problem. Unbeknownst to them, Buffy and Angel are also struggling to keep their hand off of...things.
  • Hannibal Has a Point: Spike's legendary "Love's Bitch" speech.

""You're not 'friends.' You'll never be friends. You'll be in love 'til it kills you both. You'll fight, and you'll shag and you'll hate each other 'til it makes you quiver, but you'll never be friends. Love isn't brains, children, it's blood. Blood screaming inside you to work its will. I may be love's bitch, but at least I'm man enough to admit it."

    • This is echoed by Mayor Wilkin, who doesn't foresee anything good for Angel and Buffy's relationship. He's reminded of his own wife in her last days, senile and cursing Wilkins for his eternal youth.
  • He Who Fights Monsters: "Gingerbread" begins with Buffy's mom finding two young children after what looks like a magical rite. She responds by organizing the other parents in Sunnydale into an organization to go after witches (and Slayers.) The episode ends with them all trying to burn their own children at the stake.
  • Hidden Depths: Cordelia, Oz. They score surprisingly well on standardized tests.
  • Hostage for Macguffin: Subverted: No betrayal happens.
  • Hunting the Most Dangerous Game
  • I Think You Broke Him: "Beauty and the Beasts" has a rare version that's not played for comedy.
  • Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Cordelia, although she survives. Also most vampires and a few other monsters.
  • Insecure Love Interest: Why Angel breaks up with Buffy.
  • It's a Wonderful Plot: In "The Wish", Cordelia unwittingly makes the demon Anyanka create a world wherein Buffy never moved to Sunnydale, which has turned into a truly hellish place where the Master and his army of vampires rules practically unopposed. The whole thing later gets a twist as Cordelia gets killed about halfway through the episode, leaving Giles to find a way to undo the wish.
  • It's Personal: Season 3 premiere.

Oz: If I may suggest: "This time it's personal." I mean, there's a reason why it's a classic.

Mr. Trick: (indignant and mildly shocked) Oh. No. No, this is no good at all...

Willow: We were so guilty about "the fluke" that we overcompensated helping Cordelia and spun the group dynamic out of orbit. Now we're just this meteor shower headed for Earth...

  • A Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Read: In the episode "Earshot."
  • No-Tell Motel: Faith crashes here upon coming to Sunnydale, further emphasizing the differences between her and Buffy. The Mayor upgrades her to a condo, but advises to maintain her old place as a cover.
  • The Not-Secret: Revealed in "The Prom" that everyone knows in school that Buffy protects them from bad stuff.
  • Other Me Annoys Me: Vampire Willow to Willow, and vice versa.
  • Prisoner of Zenda Exit: A darker variation in the lead up to the season 3 finale where a brutal fight between Buffy and Faith ends with Faith stabbed in the stomach and on the edge of a rooftop. Faith knows Buffy needs her blood to heal Angel, so she falls backwards off of the roof onto the back of a truck, which carries her now comatose body away before Buffy can catch up to it.
  • Prophetic Name: Scott Hope. Now, if only his first name were Dash...
  • Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: Angel, whose Super-Powered Evil Side Complete Monster delights in Mind Rape, was particularly disgusted with...
  • Recurring Extra: Should you be watching reruns of season 3 episodes, look for a shortish Asian guy carrying a skateboard. He's in many episodes and is referred to as "Asian Dan" by the cast. In the season 4 DVD, Seth Green, Joss Whedon, and Marti Noxon joke about his frequent appearances in the "Wild at Heart" audio commentary.
  • Revolving Bookcase: Mayor Wilkins' shrine.
  • Room Full of Crazy: From "Helpless". Buffy runs into a room full of pictures of her mother taken by a really crazy vampire.
  • Rule of Three: In season three, when Angel has been poisoned by Faith and needs the blood of a Slayer to cure him, Buffy punches him to get him to vamp out. Of course, she hits him once, twice, aaand the third time does it.
  • Sequel Episode: "Dopplegangland" is this to "The Wish".
  • Shadowland: Buffyless Sunnydale to Normal Sunnydale.
  • Spear Carrier: A harried teacher exhorting his students to "be somber" about the new year. He pops up again on Graduation Day, grimly making the kids play Hangman.

"Heh heh. They always go for the 'E.'"

  • Spoiler Opening: The 3rd season opening shows Faith before she even makes her first appearance. Averted in season 1, it doesn't hint that Angel is a vampire.
  • Stealth Pun: Faith's a bitch
  • Tempting Fate: In "Dead Man's Party":

Willow: No, let them go, Oz! Talking about it isn't helping, we might as well try some violence!
(A zombie breaks in through the front window.)
Willow: I was being sarcastic!

  • That Was the Last Entry: The first info the Scoobies have about the prophesied "ascension" is a journal entry saying "Tomorrow is the ascension, may God help us." It was the last time the town was ever heard of.
  • Throwing Your Stake Always Works: Subverted with gusto in "Anne".

Oz: That really never works.

  • Title Drop: For the episode title in "Dead Man's Party".
  • A Truce While We Gawk: In "Anne", Buffy's fight with the demons is interrupted by the head demon holding a knife to Lilly. He announces that their fight is lost and he'll kill Lilly to make an example. Lilly kills him instead. A beat later, the main fight resumes.
  • Uncanny Family Resemblance: Invoked by the Mayor, who was him, his son, his grandson and his great grandson (he's immortal).
  • Unspoken Plan Guarantee: "Graduation Day, Part Two".
  • Very Special Episode: "I Only Have Eyes For You" and "Earshot" ended with a PSA about calling the suicide hotline, which would have been useful for some fans.
  • Walk On the Wild Side Episode: In "Doppelgangland", Willow gets a little fed up with her reputation as Old Reliable and flirts with danger a bit by doing a dark incantation with Anya. It doesn't end very well.
  • Wasn't That Fun?: After the Mayor has just completed a dark ritual on his way to becoming a true immortal demon.

Mayor: "This officially commences the Hundred Days. Nothing can harm me until the Ascension."
[beat. Breaks into a fit of gleeful giggles]
"Gosh, I'm feeling chipper! Who's for a root beer?!"

Buffy: "Why don't I just put a stake through her heart?"
Giles: "She's not a vampire."
Buffy: "You'd be surprised how many things that'll kill."

Ken: "You've got guts. I'd like to slice you open and play with them."

  • Zombie Apocalypse:
    • A Nigerian mask causes a minor one in "Dead Man's Party".
    • The alternate timeline created in "The Wish" is a vampire variant.


Season Four

Can't even shout
 Can't even cry
The gentlemen are coming by
Lookin' in windows
Knockin' on doors
They need to take seven
And they might take yours
Can't call to mom
Can't say a word
You're gonna die screaming
But you won't be heard

  • Arc Number: 314, otherwise known as Adam.
  • Armies Are Evil: The Initiative.
  • Attack Backfire: Season four's Big Bad got a rush off of the Initiative's electricity guns.
  • Batman Gambit: Spike's plan in "The Yoko Factor".
  • Batman in My Basement: Inverted, Xander keeps Spike in his basement in Season 4 for a bit and later in his closet (which is fucking huge) in Season 7.
  • Big Little Man: "Fear, Itself" has Gachnar the Fear Demon... who is 4 inches tall. Buffy stomps him like a bug.
  • Black Hole Sue: Used for humorous effect in Superstar, when Jonathan uses a wish spell to fold reality around himself and turns himself into an invincible, charismatic hero, admired by everyone. Unfortunately he forgot to read the fine print. In-Universe
  • Blessed Are the Cheesemakers: The Cheese Man in "Restless".
  • California University: UC-Sunnydale
  • Coincidental Broadcast: In "The Harsh Light Of Day", Giles tells them that watching TV isn't going to help them with their problem. Sure enough the news showed a clue to Spike's whereabouts.
  • Collective Groan: In "Doomed", when the gang realized they have to prevent the end of the world again.
  • Combined Energy Attack: In the 4th season's penultimate episode.
  • Coming Out Story: "New Moon Rising", Although there's a Fantastic Aesop twist in that many of the standard plot points are applied to Oz (as a werewolf) rather than Willow (as a "coming out" lesbian).
  • Conflict Ball: Spike deliberately passes it around in The Yoko Factor, making insinuating and subversive comments to make the Scoobies turn on each other and vent repressed feelings of anger and resentment that had been bottled up. He even lampshades the trope, pointing out that people latch onto one specific event or situation as a cause of strife, but that what really happens is that the event or situation is just an excuse to bring to the forefront issues that were there all along.
  • Conspiracy Redemption: Riley and the Initiative. Riley was a loyal soldier for the organisation and attempted to recruit Buffy as well, but eventually learned that the Initiative was using Mad Scientists (particularly Walsh), boosting its soldiers' performances with drugs and cybernetic implants, and creating a cyborg Super Soldier using demon body tissue. After Walsh tries to kill Buffy, and the Initiative captures and experiments on Oz, Riley deserts and joins the Scoobies, and the following season is headhunted by a military demon-killing unit that's less morally ambiguous.
  • Creepy Children Singing: The Gentleman rhyme in "Hush".
  • Crossover: With its spinoff Angel, which has crossed over with a few things.
  • Cut Apart: In "Hush", we see Tara knocking on one of the dorm room's doors, and Willow waking up from the noise. The door opens, and one of The Gentlemen surprises Tara. This was actually hinted, since Tara had previously found Willow's room number (which isn't the number on the door).
  • A Day at the Bizarro: "Restless" certainly qualifies.
  • Driven to Suicide: At one point, Spike tries to stake himself after getting the chip, only saved by Willow and Xander. Luckily, he finds that he can hurt demons, regaining his will to live.
  • Evil Is Not a Toy: Are we supposed to be surprised that Professor Walsh's human-demon-cyborg stabs her in the back and tries to conquer the world?
  • Exactly What It Says on the Tin: The result of Willow's "my will be done" spell is that her metaphorical words become literally true.
  • Fake-Out Make-Out: Xander tries to invoke this with Buffy while undercover at the Initiative, but Buffy rebuffs him by pointing out that "This is the Initiative. Military guys and scientists do not make out with each other."
  • Fantastic Aesop: The reason why "Beer Bad" was denied additional funding from the Office of National Drug Control Policy.
  • Fiction as Cover-Up: Dracula got Stoker to write his book to pump up his street cred. Other vampires thought it was a really dick move, because it let the normal humans in on a lot of their secrets.
  • For Great Justice: Parodied by Spike. "For the safety of... puppies, and... Christmas, right?"
  • Freaky Friday Flip: Buffy and Faith in "Who Are You?"
  • Funny Background Event: In "The Harsh Light of Day" the Greek letters on the Frat house Buffy are Gamma Alpha Pi (ΓΑΠ) which, from the angle the shot is taken, look a bit like FAIL. The house in the background across the street bears the letters ΤΩA. Perhaps it's a sorority house?
  • Good Feels Good: Faith, when she was in Buffy's body masquerading as her.
  • Grand Theft Me: The spell Willow uses to help Buffy works like this, not only is she imbued with the power of all the Scoobies, she acts possessed.
  • Inhumanable Alien Rights: According to the Initiative, vampires and other monsters have no rights that are worth respecting. At first, Riley Finn shared this view, until one of the werewolves the Initiative captured turned out to be Oz and he realized that some of the "monsters" he had been capturing actually had normal lives.
  • Intoxication Ensues
  • Jerkass: Forrest.
  • "Join the Army," They Said
  • Lecture as Exposition: Lampshaded and subverted in "Hush", when Giles is forced to this without his ability to speak.
  • Love Cannot Overcome: Giles's Temporary Love Interest Olivia. At the end of the episode "Hush," after Olivia learns of the existence of demons, she says, "Scary." Giles asks, "Too scary?" and Olivia responds, "I'm not sure." Since we never see her again after that, we can presume that it was indeed too scary for her.
  • Magic Versus Science
  • Magical Native American: Hus in "Pangs".
  • A Man Is Always Eager: That Oz is reluctant to engage in the physical act of love strikes fear into Willow's heart as a sign of infidelity. Xander lampshades it, saying she may have encountered "the seven annual minutes he's legitimately too preoccupied" to want sex.
  • The Man Behind the Curtain: Gachnar in "Fear, Itself".
  • Mildly Military: The Initiative.
  • Mineral MacGuffin: The Gem of Amarra.
  • No Sympathy: "Xander, try not to bleed on my couch / I just had it steam-cleaned" ♪
  • Not Right in the Bed: When Faith takes over Buffy's body, she comes on to Spike, and is a lot more sexually aggressive with Riley than Buffy is.
  • Perplexing Plurals: Riley comments that, after falling in with the main characters, he suddenly finds himself needing to know the plural of "apocalypse".
  • Screaming Woman: Subverted in "Hush".
  • Self-Deprecation: Done in a unique way, with Faith insulting herself while in Buffy's body.
  • Salt and Pepper: Riley and Forrest.
  • Showing Off the New Body: Practically the first thing Faith does after swapping bodies with Buffy is take a long bath.
  • Slasher Smile: The Gentlemen.
  • Testosterone Poisoning: Buffy actually says the tropes name when Angel and Riley fight in "The Yoko Factor".
  • Take That: When Giles asks Buffy\Faith who's president she replies they're testing to see if it's really her, not a concussion. Could easily be either of them.
  • Two Scenes, One Dialogue: does an interesting take on this in one episode. Giles explains the ancient lore of this week's demon, while the Initiative is briefed on the nature of the same "HST" (Hostile Subterranean) in military jargon.
  • Variable Terminal Velocity: A particularly egregious example in "Doomed", where Buffy jumps into the Hellmouth after a demon and catches up to it while falling, even though she took the time to run over to Riley, grab a rope from him, and run back before jumping in.
  • Verb This: When Buffy first fought The Initiative, she fired a flare gun while saying "Contain this!"
  • Video Wills: Mayor Wilkins.
  • Vocal Dissonance: Jonathan crooning a forties pop song in "Superstar". Pro athlete, military genius, star of The Matrix, and now he's Sinatra.
  • Voice of the Legion: Buffy speaks with the voices of the whole Scooby Gang after the enjoining spell combines them all in her body.
  • What Do You Mean It's Not Awesome?: Xander vs. Harmony. Slow motion hair pulling set to dramatic action music.
    • Done to explicitly mock the show's often unrealistic fight scenes.
  • William Telling: In "Superstar" Jonathan alters reality to change himself from a geek into a demon-fighting James Bond-expy. One scene has him putting on a blindfold in preparation to shooting apples from the heads of several Initiative soldiers.
  • Worrying for the Wrong Reason: In "Pangs", Xander is in a panic because he has been cursed with a host of diseases. He's most stressed about the syphilis. Anya says comfortingly:

It'll make you blind and insane, but it won't kill you. The smallpox will.

  • You Keep Using That Word: When the Scoobie Gang and the Initiative become hostile towards the end of the fourth season the colonel in charge of the Initiative describes the Scoobies as "anarchists," and when Riley later defects he again uses the term, this time including himself with the group. However, the Scoobies have never advocated any sort of anarchist philosophy or mindset, and several episodes (Both before and after this event) have stressed their wholehearted belief in the need for people, even themselves, to submit to proper established authority when the situation calls for it.


Season Five

  • Adopt the Dog: "Intervention" is pretty much the definitive moment in Spike's change from evil to good. Despite brutal torture, Spike refuses to give Dawn up to Glory. Later Spike's confesses to his adoring robotic replica of Buffy (or so Spike thinks) that if Buffy lost Dawn, it would destroy her, and he could not live with her being in that much pain. And this was before he got a soul.
  • Anachronism Stew: The Knights of Byzantium are an ancient order of Knight Templars who use medieval arms and armour for no apparent reason than to have a cool scene involving Buffy fighting knights on top of a moving Winnebago.
  • Another Dimension: Glory's world, an H. R. Giger-ish dimension which we see bits of in the finale.
  • Arc Words: "Death is your gift."
  • Band of Brothers: After falling apart the previous season, the Scoobies eventually band together into an extremely powerful group of True Companions -- even Spike by the end of the season. One of the times this is best seen is when Tara's family comes to take her home against her will. The ending of that episode sums it up.
  • Battle Discretion Shot: We never see how Glory kills the knights trying to kill Dawn.
  • Break the Badass: Buffy's reaction to the revelation that Glory isn't a demon like everyone thought. On the contrary, Glory is a god.
  • Butt Monkey: Xander becomes the Trope Namer, yet over the next few episodes Takes A Level in Character Development by getting a promotion at work, moving out of his parent's basement and stabilizing his relationship with Anya.
  • Chekhov's Armoury: About every piece of Phlebotinum that shows up during the fifth season is eventually used to fight Glory.
  • Chekhov's Gunman: Doc, the old man who gave Dawn the spell to bring Joyce back to life. Turns out he's a Glory worshipper and he is the one who opens the portal.
  • Completely Missing the Point: The PTC decried The Gift on account of Buffy committing suicide. No!!! Don't save the world!!! Giving your life for the sake of the human race is EVIL!!!
  • Courtly Love: Spike's Character Arc this season, with Buffy as the unobtainable princess.
  • Curb Stomp Battle: The creepy old guy with the tail to Spike. Then Buffy to the creepy old guy with the tail.
  • Cosmic Retcon: Only child Buffy suddenly has an annoying little sister to butt heads with. Dawn appears out of nowhere yet everyone thinks she's always been a member of the Summers family. It takes several episodes before this mystery is answered.
  • Daydream Surprise: Used brutally in "The Body", and as a Love Epiphany for Spike.
  • Determined Defeatist: Spike in "The Gift", as shown by his "we band of buggered" line.
  • Drop the Hammer: The hammer wielded by Olaf the Troll, which becomes a Chekhov's Gun for the season finale.
  • Even the Girls Want Her: In-universe example -- Harmony refuses to have a threesome with Spike unless it's boy-girl-boy. Exceptions are made for Charlize Theron.
  • Everything Is Better With Monkeys: In "Into the Woods", Anya wants to watch a movie about monkeys playing hockey because "The ice is so slippery and monkeys are all irrational".
  • Geographic Flexibility: Spoofed in "Buffy vs. Dracula"

Riley: "I've lived in Sunnydale a couple of years now. You know what I've never noticed before? This big honkin' castle."

  • Ghost Story: Dawn listens to scary stories told by the monster himself -- Spike in his crypt. Buffy is not amused.
  • Heroic BSOD: When Glory snatches Dawn, Buffy lapses into catatonia. Willow has to both take command of the Scoobies and make a Journey to the Center of the Mind to snap Buffy out of it.
  • Heroic Suicide: Dawn attempts one in the season finale. Buffy performs it in her place.
  • Honor-Related Abuse: Tara's family is like this. They abuse her emotionally and lie to her to make her hate herself, fooling her into believing that she's less than human. When she breaks free and makes a life of her own, they start threatening to move on to physical abuse, and would most likely have made good on their threats if it wasn't for almost the entire cast closing ranks around her and telling them that they would have to go through them to get to her.
    • Which also allows Spike to cement his Heel Face Turn by hitting her, purposely causing an electric shock to his brain via his chip to prove she's human.
  • Hugh Mann: The Scooby Gang initially get totally taken in by the Buffybot and chalk her weird behaviour up to the recent death of Buffy's mom. Since she's still all but holding up a sign reading "I Am A Robot Impersonator" the whole time, Buffy is still not very happy that her friends were completely unable to tell the difference.
    • Being fair, since her friends' theory was that the death of her mother had knocked Buffy into some kind of temporary psychotic break, the part where "Buffy" is acting like she's suffering a very minor case of serious brain damage only confirms that theory.
  • I Miss Mom: Buffy and Dawn
  • Instant Emergency Response: Averted in "The Body", where it takes a reasonable length of time for the ambulance to arrive.
  • I Say What I Say: The two Xanders in "The Replacement."
  • I Wished You Were Dead: The reason for Buffy's Heroic BSOD in "The Weight of the World".
  • Literal Split Personality: Cool Xander and Loser Xander in "The Replacement."
  • Love Epiphany: Spike has a Catapult Nightmare in which he realises his Foe Yay obsession with Buffy is something far, far worse! Inverted with Riley Finn who realises that Buffy doesn't love him, fueling his eventual decision to leave.
  • Love Hurts: Spike is tormented by his unrequited Foe Yay for the Slayer.

Spike: "What the bleeding hell is WRONG with you bloody women?! What the hell does it take?! Why do you bitches torture me?!
Buffy: Which question do you want me to answer first?

  • Mind Rape: The people Glory drains to stop herself going crazy including Tara.
  • Mook Horror Show: The Dracula episode, where we see a vampire running madly through a graveyard... and then we realize he's running for his (un)life. From Buffy.
  • No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: In every episode where Buffy fights Glory until The Gift, she literally gets her ass handed to her and is typically forced to flee.
  • Not So Invincible After All: Glory can be slowed by magical artifacts.
  • Only Sane Man: Spike has a major case of this in "The Weight of the World", when he is the only one immune to the glamour that prevents mortals from remembering that Ben is Glory. See also Glamour Failure.
  • Out-of-Genre Experience: "The Body" feels very different from a normal episode of the show, using Mood Dissonance and a complete absence of background music to recreate the sense of dislocation we feel when someone close to us dies.
  • Poisonous Friend: Giles smothering Ben to death in "The Gift".
  • Prodigal Family: Tara's family are an example of the possessive, malevolent variety.
  • Promotion to Parent: Buffy has to take over this role for Dawn, despite her desperate attempt to foist the task off onto Giles.
  • Put on a Bus: Harmony and Riley.
  • Retroactive Wish: In "Triangle".

Willow: I wish Buffy was here!
Buffy: I'm here!
Willow: I wish I had a million dollars!

Season Six

  • Action Dress Rip: In the The Trio's first appearance, a monster attacks a bank and Buffy initially couldn't fight because of her "stupid skirt". She does it again when fighting a demon at Xander's wedding.
  • Actually a Doombot: The Scoobies use the Buffybot to make the underworld think that the Slayer is still protecting Sunnydale. When a vampire accidentally discovers this, it provokes immediate Rape, Pillage and Burn by demon bikers.
    • The first time Willow gets her mitts on Warren. Fizz crackle pop.
  • All Bikers Are Hellmouth Angels
  • All Just a Dream: "Normal Again" Or Was It a Dream?
  • Ambiguous Situation: "Normal Again", in which Buffy is injected with a poison that make her hallucinate... Or is it the other way around? According to a psychiatrist, who may or may not be a real person, she is in fact getting better: She has been sick all along, and now she's finally waking up from years of catatonic schizophrenia. So, the whole series is either This Is Reality or a mad All Just a Dream with a dash of The Schizophrenia Conspiracy. In the end, Buffy choses her life in Sunnydale over her life in the mental institution, but the ending leaves it ambiguous whether or not the world she settled for is the real one.
  • Amnesia Danger
  • Anachronism Stew: The Trio combine magic with high technology to carry out their capers.
  • Attempted Rape: After Buffy breaks off their relationship, Spike tries to force himself upon an injured Buffy, who is barely able to fight him off. His My God, What Have I Done? reaction causes Spike to go on a quest to regain his soul.
    • Regaining his soul was not his quest. His quest was to be made into the badass, evil son of a bitch he used to be, as opposed to the whiny, caring Stalker with a Crush he had turned into. His getting his soul back was just because he didn't choose his words carefully enough.
      • Actually, Word of God states, specifically, that Spike getting his soul back WAS the reason for his quest, because of his My God, What Have I Done? reaction. Everything else was a Red Herring.
      • Joss Whedon confirmed it on an American Academy of Arts and Sciences panel discussion (available on the season 6 DVD in the extras section).

Moderator: At the very end, wasn't Spike trying to get the chip out of his head?
Joss Whedon: No. But you were meant to believe that he was.
Moderator: Oh. All right.
Joss Whedon: This is a thing that I personally have devised called a 'plot twist'. I think it's going to catch on with the young people.

  • Armoured Closet Gay: Larry.
    • Scott Hope, Buffy's only normal high school boyfriend. He accused every girl who broke up with him that they're gay. He came out in season 6 apparently.
  • Bambification: The first sign this season will be Darker and Edgier is when Willow cuts a fawn's throat for its Blood Magic.
  • Battle Discretion Shot: Buffy's first fight against the Trio, as they're all invisible.
  • Bitter Wedding Speech: Xander's father gives one at Xander's wedding.
  • Book Ends / Rule of Symbolism: Buffy starts Season 6 by clawing her way out of her grave into the night, beginning a year-long Heroic BSOD. She ends the season climbing out of another grave into the light, having rediscovered the value of living.
  • The Cast Showoff: The musical episode allowed for several actors to show off either musical or dancing talent (Anthony Steward Head, James Marsters, Amber Benson, Michelle Trachtenberg). Others ...got sidelined for the episode. (Alyson Hannigan asked to be given a smaller singing role and no dancing role.)
  • Cavemen vs. Astronauts Debate: The Trio debated who was the best James Bond in "Life Serial". It got so bad that Warren and Andrew actually got into blows.
  • Cuckoo Nest: "Normal Again", very scarily played.
  • Cradle of Loneliness: Willow does this after Tara breaks up with her.
  • Darker and Edgier: Tends to be true of the sixth season compared to the others, though there are darker episodes in the other seasons and Lighter and Softer ones in season 6 as well.
    • The whole series is darker compared to the campy flick it was based on.
  • The Dark Side: Spoofed when Spike encourages Buffy to walk with him on the Dark Side -- which consists of Spike playing poker for kittens while Buffy gets drunk and makes snarky comments. Things become more serious later on in the season when Spike wrongly assumes (or convinces himself) that Buffy's depression and desire for rough sex means she wants to abandon her life and join him on the Dark Side. His failure to understand the complexity of her emotions has serious consequences for both of them.
  • Date Rape Averted: Violently.
  • Death Is Cheap: People killed by magical means can potentially (though not easily) be resurrected.
  • Deconstructor Fleet: The blond girl doesn't die, even after having sex -- she instead turns out to be Genre Savvy and an Action Girl and proceeds to kick vampire butt.
    • Season 6 deconstructs what the show is about. The focus is on the Scoobies foray into the real world and not the whole saving the world plot and being heroes. Only the bad guys care about that.
    • It also deconstructs the Foe Yay trope by showing just how disfunctional such a relationship would be if ever consumated.
  • Destructive Romance: Buffy starts a secret relationship with Spike to combat her depression. Unfortunately this only ends up making things worse -- Spike is convinced Buffy wants to come over to The Dark Side and is frustrated by her unwillingness to either return his love or abandon her friends, while their Interplay of Sex and Violence, her lust for a soulless monster who's supposed to be her enemy and her guilt over using Spike without respecting his own feelings only increases Buffy's self-loathing. At one point she savagely beats an unresisting Spike, describing him in terms that are clearly referring to herself ("There is nothing good or clean in you! You are dead inside! You can't feel anything real!"). The In-Universe Values Dissonance between the two reaches a point where after she ends the relationship, Spike tries to inflict the Victim Falls For Rapist trope on an injured Buffy; fortunately Buffy is able to fend him off and Spike realises that, even for him, this act is crossing the Moral Event Horizon, and motivates him to go on a quest to regain his soul.
  • Did You Die?: In "As You Were," Buffy and Riley promise to swap stories if they get a chance and see whose were more exiting/dangerous/crazy ext.. She asks if he died, and when he says he didn't, she says, "I'm going to win."
  • Disappointed in You: Discussed and subverted in "All The Way":

Giles: We need to have a conversation.
Dawn: This the part where you tell me you're "not angry, just disappointed"?
Giles: Pretty much. Except for the bit about not being angry.

  • Does This Remind You of Anything?: Rack, who gets Willow high on dark magic, looks more like a drug dealer than any Very Special Episode, Public Service Announcement and every single person in the gangland wars, combined.
  • Don't You Dare Pity Me!: Buffy reacts this way after telling Tara about her relationship with Spike -- it's not out of anger, but a belief that she doesn't deserve any sympathy.
  • Drowning My Sorrows: After failing college, Xander bing forced to fire her from construction after a demon attack and not being able to stand working at The Magic Shop, Spike pours Buffy a scotch. They then go out to a demon bar where Buffy wants to get information, takes a bottle of Khalua handed from Spike and drinks through it and snarks when Spike plays cards to get the demons talking. Hilarity Ensues when Buffy becomes roaringly drunk off her ass.
  • Easy Amnesia: In the episode "Tabula Rasa".
  • Failed a Spot Check: Xander doesn't even notice Willow's bloody shirt after Tara is killed.
  • Fantastic Drug: Magic in Season 6.
  • Finger Poke of OH MY GOD MY SKIN JUST GOT REMOVED!
  • Fainting: The characters all faint in Tabula Rasa when they lose their memories. This seems to be an effect of magical memory loss, as it happens in the Angel episode "Spin The Bottle" where the characters are all reverted to their younger selves' memories.
  • Freeze Ray: Warren's got one.
  • Frying Pan of Doom: Not played for comedy in "Normal Again" when Buffy hits Xander with one then drags him to the basement to be killed by the Monster of the Week, or "Hells Bells" where Future!Xander attacks his estranged wife Anya.
  • Gilligan Cut: In the 3nd Halloween episode, Dawn's friend Janice didn't want her and her friends to go into the creepy old man's house. Sure enough...
  • G-Rated Drug: Magic during season 6, especially during the episode "Wrecked".
  • Going Commando: Parking Ticket Lady, attempting to bribe a meter maid, sings about her lack of underwear.
  • Groundhog Day Loop: In "Life Serial."
  • Has Two Mommies: Dawn with Willow and Tara. Considering that they were really one of the only good relationships in the show (and by extension, in her life) and that they took care of her for a good year or so, it's no shock.
  • Heh Heh You Said Magic Bone
  • He Is Not My Boyfriend: Even after they start having sex, calling Buffy "luv" or "my girl" is a guaranteed way for Spike to get a sock in the jaw.
  • I Ate What??: Done twice by Xander in "Doublemeat Palace".
  • I Can't Believe It's Not Heroin!: Magic = Drugs.
  • I Have Many Names: The demon from "Once More With Feeling".
  • "I Want" Song: "Going Through the Motions."
  • Important Haircut: Buffy deliberately applies this trope...but ends up at the hair salon because she made a mess of things. Also subverted in that it marks no actual change in her life or behaviour -- Buffy cuts her hair after Spike compliments it (they recently resolved their UST and Buffy is regretting it) but quickly ends up in his bed for round two.
  • Impossibly Tacky Clothes: Dear god, the wedding dresses at Anya's wedding. Buffy even describes their awful green as "radioactive".
  • Incredibly Long Note: They got the mustard ouuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut!
  • Invisible Backup Band: Played with in "Once More With Feeling".
  • Invisible Jerkass: Buffy in "Gone."
  • Irony: Season 6 Buffy learns the value of life at a cemetery.
  • Kick the Son of a Bitch: Willow's flaying of Warran is pretty much thought of as a concern not because of what she did to him, but what sort of person she was turning into.
  • Knock-Knock Joke: "If we want her to be exactly she'll never be exactly I know the only really real Buffy is really Buffy and she's gone who?"
  • Lotus Eater Machine
  • Making Love in All the Wrong Places: Buffy and Spike spend much of season 6 doing this. Also, in the season 3 episode "Band Candy", Joyce and Giles have sex on the hood of a police car.
  • Master Apprentice Chain: The Master > Darla > Angelus > Drusilla > Spike
  • "Mission Impossible" Cable Drop: when Andrew drops down to steal a diamond, only to have Warren and Jonathan stroll into the museum without issue.
    • Also when Buffy stole the Mayor's box containing those bugs he had to eat.
  • Musical Episode: "Once More With Feeling". For tropes specific to that episode see the recap page.
  • No Mere Windmill: Buffy stopped trying to explain the very real threat of vampires after her mother had her put in a mental hospital for believing such silly delusions.
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Willow brings Buffy back from the dead, thinking she's in Hell. It turns out Buffy was in Heaven and being brought back to the real world gives her a Heroic BSOD, as well as opening the way for the First One.
  • Not-So-Harmless Villain: Warren and the Trio.
  • Power High: When Willow starts to OD on witchcraft it's explicitly analogized to being high on drugs.
  • Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: Sporadically used, notably with Spike and Warren. Verges into Sci-fi with Warren as it involved Mind Control. Faith body-switched with Buffy technically raped Riley (sex under false pretense), but everyone on that one ended with everyone worse for it.
  • Sex Bot: April and the Buffybot.
  • She's Back: Subverted; it takes most of the season for Buffy to recover from her depression over having been wrenched back into the real world.
  • Slice of Life: Season 6 dealt with the Scoobies day-to-day foray into grown up life.
  • Teleportation Sickness: Buffy and Dawn after Willow teleporting them from a cemetery to the Magic Box.
  • Terrible Trio: The Trio.
  • There Are Two Kinds of People in the World:

Jonathan: It's true, my friends. The way I see it, life is like an interstellar journey. Some people go into hypersleep and travel at sub-light speeds, only to get where they're going after years of struggle, toil and hard, hard work. We, on the other hand ...
Andrew: Blast through the space-time continuum in a wormhole?
Jonathan: Gentlemen... {{[[[Money to Burn]] lights cigar with flaming bill}}] CRIME is our wormhole!

It isn't right, it isn't fair / There was no parking anywhere / I think that hydrant wasn't there ♫

  • Unflinching Faith in the Brakes: Willow does this in the sixth season, when using magic to stop an oncoming bus.
  • What Measure Is a Non-Human?: Buffy uses Spike as a confidant because he's a "dead man", so her confessions don't count. When they start having sex, she refuses to admit there's love involved or even acknowledge (to herself or others) that he's her boyfriend; Spike calling her "my girl" or "love" often drives her to fury. Spike's soulless nature is often used by her as an excuse for this behaviour. Eventually Buffy faces up to how she is using him and breaks off the relationship.
    • Buffy's killing of the guy who was cursed by Anya to be tortured in a hell dimension. He had a very legitimate grievance with Anya, and he's unconscious and helpless, and he's killed like it's nothing. Also the bank-robber demon, who hasn't really done anything worthy of summary execution, yet is executed after first being knocked unconscious. Killing humans under any circumstances is apparantly an atrocity, but demons can be killed for crimes that would only warrant jail-time for a human and it's nothing.
  • Windmill Crusader: While Buffy has The Cuckoolander Was Right as an inherent trait, the episode “Normal Again” subverts this when Buffy is drugged and hallucinates that she’s been insane all along and that Sunnydale is only in her mind. In this, Buffy was a insane Windmill Crusader before the series started, and she has been locked in a mental institution throughout the whole series.
  • Volleying Insults: Xander and Anya's duet in "Once More With Feeling."

Xander: She clings / She's needy / She's also really greedy / She never --
Anya [interrupting] His eyes are beady!

Xander: This is my verse, hello!

  • Xanatos Gambit: "Grave" Giles arrives with the powers of a coven in order to defeat Willow after she does a Face Heel Turn. If he defeats her threat neutralized, if he loses Willow will take his power giving Willow a window to her emotions, so Xander could stop her.
  • Zero-G Spot: At the end of Tara's love song "Under Your Spell" in "Once More With Feeling", she levitates into the air over her bed, and it's strongly implied she's doing it so an off-camera Willow can do cunnilingus on her.

Season Seven

  • Achilles in His Tent: Buffy getting deposed by her own pupils, who install Faith as their new leader. One episode and bomb explosion later, and everyone goes crawling back to blondie.
  • And Then What?: The final question asked to Buffy once everything's said and done.
  • Anticlimax Cut: "Lessons":

Buffy: Vampires, demons... they're nothing compared to what's coming.
Dawn: I know. I just can't believe it's back.
Buffy: Believe me, I thought I was long past it. I guess you never are. Just a few more days til it starts, and then we'll never know what's coming next.
(Cut to the opening ceremony at the new Sunnydale High School.)

  • Arc Words: "From beneath you it devours" in Season 7
  • Back for the Finale: Some of the former regulars are in season 7 in spirit. Oz got a casual mention from Xander and Cordelia appeared in a piece of footage from "Bewitched, Bothered And Bewildered".
  • Best Served Cold: Robin Wood fights vampires in the hope of encountering the one that killed his mother (which turns out to be Spike).
  • The Big Board
  • Big OMG: "Oh my God! Oh, well, you know, not my God, because I defy him and all of his works."
  • Can You Hear Me Now?: In the season 7 premiere.
  • Catch the Conscience: The episode Storyteller, in order to make Andrew feel remorse for killing Jonathan.
  • Chekhov's Gunman:
    • Amanda, the first student Buffy talked to in her job as councilor was a potential slayer.
    • Andrew answers a call (for willow) from a guy with a girly voice called Fred. In the next episode Willow comes back with Faith.
  • The Chosen Many: Buffy has Willow release the powers of all potential slayers to help fight The First.
  • Celebrity Star: Aimee Mann. "I hate playing vampire towns."
  • Cigarette of Anxiety: Faith, despite smoking being a universal sign of evil. Well, the potentials acting like five year olds was a bit much for her. And Buffy still wanting her dead. And trying to reconcile with a recently evil Willow.
  • Cool Aunt: Faith acts as cool aunt to the Potentials, playing against Buffy as the mom.
  • Deus Ex Machina: The amulet and scythe that appear at the end of season 7 definitely qualify.
  • The Devil Is a Loser: Caleb, right-hand man to the First Evil, refers to Satan as a "little man" (at least, compared to his boss).
  • Discontinuity Nod: Giles' declaration that magic is not an addiction.
  • Elite Mooks: The First Evil's Turok-Han army.
  • Eye Scream:

"So you're the one who sees everything. Well, let's just see what we can do about that."

    • And the Bringers, the First's assassins and priests
  • Foreshadowing: In "Sleeper", Aimee Mann sings a song called "Pavlov's Bell." During the next episode "Never Leave Me" the Scooby Gang discusses the possibility that Spike is being controlled by means of Pavlovian conditioning.
  • Forgotten Phlebotinum: In the seventh season, the First falsely claims to have captured a potential Slayer, and nobody thinks to use the spell they used just a few weeks ago which can detect potentials.
  • Ghost City: Sunnydale in the second half of the season.
  • Good Smoking, Evil Smoking: Inverted with Faith, who didn't smoke when evil but does now that she's reformed.
  • Grand Finale
  • Groin Attack: You can tell Buffy likes this as she delivers the ultimate one to Caleb. Buffy has super strength of course. She finds a scythe that is meant to be the ultimate weapon. What does she do with it? Why slice the evil priest in half starting with his balls. If a job's worth doing...

"He had to split."

  • Hammerspace: At least once, Buffy pulls out a cell phone when this was the only place it could have been.
  • Heel Face Return: Faith's appearance looks like this to anyone who wasn't watching Angel.
  • Hypercompetent Sidekick: Willow is this. As the most powerful Witch in the Western Hemisphere, she was so strong that the writers felt the need to knock her out before major fights most of the season.
  • Inferiority Superiority Complex: Holden pronounces this of Buffy in "Conversations With Dead People."
  • Juggling Loaded Crossbows: "End of Days", it is implied that Willow and Tara's cat, Miss Kitty Fantastico, met her demise in a tragic crossbow accident.

Dawn: Xander, my crossbow is not out here. I told you, I don't leave crossbows around all willy-nilly. Not since that time with Miss Kitty Fantastico.

  • The Legions of Hell
  • Let Them Die Happy: Attempted by Buffy, shot down by Spike.
  • Mobile Maze: Sunnydale High's basement. Xander notes that blueprints are no good here (and he built the place!) because the walls seem to move about.
  • Motionless Makeover: Dawn is paralyzed by a demon. Anya has fun posing her. When they have to run off to save the day, leaving Dawn sitting on the couch with her arm extended, Buffy comes back momentarily to stick a remote in Dawn's hand.
  • Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Ultimately, it's the First's attempts at taunting Buffy that give her the idea that ends the fight once and for all.
  • Once More, with Clarity: "Everyone's talking to me! {{[[[Eureka Moment]] lightbulb moment}}] Nobody's talking to each other."
  • One-Hour Work Week: Buffy's job as a school counsellor. Justified Trope in that she only has the job because Principal Wood wants to keep her around in case of Hellmouth-related problems, and it's explicitly stated to be part time.
  • Remember the New Guy?: Deconstructed. When a Vampire recognizes Buffy in Conversations With Dead People he explains that they went to High School together and shared a few classes. Buffy, however, does not recognize him at all, not even when names himself, and it is only after ten minutes of explaining when they met and things they had done together that she remembers who he is. To the end of the episode he never becomes a close and dear friend from her past, instead remaining a minor acquaintance that she met on rare occasions and had forgotten in the time since then because they had never been very close in the first place.
    • Done with Dawn in "Real Me".
    • A season 2 flashback showed Angel was there when Buffy met her first Watcher, meaning he was in the movie only we never saw him.
  • Rogues Gallery Showcase: The First Evil turns into every Big Bad from the show in Season 7, all in a row one time.
    • Angelus is sorely missed right about now; his spot is taken by Drusilla.
  • Rule of Cool: Joss has specifically cited this as the reason why, in the final episode, all of the Ubervamps suddenly start dying easier than regular vampires seem to, even when being fought by normal humans.
  • Sick and Wrong: Xander lasciviously eyes a gyrating nymphet on the dance floor ("Daddy like!"), only for her to turn around and reveal herself as Dawn. Cue Squick.

Willow: Right there with ya.

  • Smash Cut: Joss Whedon loves this trope, but particular mention goes to Selfless which cuts from Anya singing a happy song to her being skewed with a sword by Buffy
  • Surpassed the Teacher: Played with; Spike confronts Giles with words along these lines, saying that one of the reasons that Giles turned on Buffy was that Giles was jealous that Buffy had surpassed him in her abilities.
  • Technicolor Death: Halfrek's fiery death in the episode "Selfless" is like this.
  • Took a Level In Kindness: That woman you might have seen chilling in prison on another show before breaking out to save a Complete Monster? Who's treated by some of the characters as so cool and nice now? Faith. Yeah, that Faith.
  • Training the Peaceful Villagers
  • Trash the Set: Hell trash the whole town. Sunnydale is reduced to nothing but a crater at the end of the series.
  • Ultimate Evil
  • Ultimate Job Security: Buffy had this at the Doublemeat Palace and Sunnydale High and Giles had it at the old Sunnydale high. The first time for her was due to having blackmail material and the second because the principal was the son of a Slayer (the one Spike killed and got his coat from) and kept her there because of easily guessed reasons. Giles? Here's an FYI, don't fuck with someone who's nickname is Ripper.
  • Where It All Began: The final epic battle ends where the series began, Sunnydale High.
  • Who You Gonna Call?

Spike: Who you gonna call? ...That phrase is never gonna be usable again, is it?

Anchovies! Anchovies!
You're so delicious.
I like you better than
all the other fishes!" ♪

Season Eight

The following examples may contain major spoilers for anyone who hasn't finished watching the television series, or who hasn't read the comics yet. Consider yourself forewarned. VERY forewarned.

  • All of Them: After Xander kills the vampire that killed Renee Buffy goes to comfort him, ordering the other slayers to kill the members of the Japanese cult. Every last one of them.
  • Almost-Dead Guy: Combining this with Heroic Sacrifice and Redemption Equals Death, Ethan Rayne gives his life to help Buffy.
  • Arc Welding: The end of the season sets up the the background of Fray, written 10 years earlier.
  • Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: At one point, Dawn gets turned into a giant...and a doll...and a centaur... Comics Dawnie is all over the place.
  • Bathtub Bonding: Occurs between Faith and Genevieve Savidge.
  • Bittersweet Ending: The group manages to win the day and avert the apocolypse once more. But Giles is dead due to Buffy's hesitation. All magic is gone with the destruction of the seed, meaning Willow is de-powered. All slayers are viewed as terrorists thanks to much idiocy of a few rogue slayers, who squarely put the blame on Buffy. While vampires are accepted by society. On the upside, Faith takes Angel in to rehabilitate him and Buffy, despite everything thats happened, continues to fight the good fight.
  • Bland-Name Product: Happy Cat, obviously intended to be Hello Kitty.
  • Boom! Headshot!: Happens to Ethan Rayne and The General.
  • Brought Down to Normal: Aiko; a Slayer who squees when Buffy personally calls her after she is impressed the Japanese girl had killed a bunch of demons, is used as a test subject by vampires who want to depower the Slayers. They easily beat her to death and string her up as a warning\threat to Buffy.
  • The Bus Came Back: Actress Elisabeth Röhm (Kate Lockley) left to be on Law & Order and was Brother Chucked from Angel in season 2, but makes a comeback in the comics because of course, comics aren't hindered by pesky things like acting contracts. Similarly Oz (Seth Green), who was Put on a Bus in season 4, returns in issue 26.
  • Can't Believe I Said That: In the same story where Buffy sleeps with Satsu, one of the lead vampires is about to kill her, threatening how he bets she tastes sweet. Satsu kills him, retorts "You have no idea", then gets all guilty and ashamed over her words.
  • Comic Book Time: While the television show had one in-series year pass for every real year because each season took a year with an episode roughly every week, Buffy Season 8 has, of course, taken longer to unfold because of the monthly comic schedule. All the characters have been stuck at the same age for the last three real-world years. Season 8 takes place a year and a half after Season 7/half a year after Angel Season 5 (with the Angel and Spike comics in the half-year between).
  • Detail-Hogging Cover: The covers are near-photorealistic renditions of the actors, and the actual comics are much less detailed and much more stylized. The resemblance of the comic art to the actors can also vary greatly depending on the panel. An example of this would be here. Compare the art on the left to the art on the right, for instance.
  • Double Entendre: One possible trope this quote could be, the other being Innocent Innuendo. In Season 8, after Xander is forced to ride Centaurette Dawn (causing her to get soaking wet), this exchange happens:

Xander: How're you feeling?
Centaurette!Dawn: Like I was ridden hard and put away wet.
Xander: AGH! Dawn, that's dis -- oh. No. It's just true.

  • Dramatic Unmask: Subverted by Twilight in the Season Eight comics. His neck just itches.
    • He later pulls this on Buffy.
  • Exactly What It Says on the Tin: Them F#©%ing. It's Buffy and Angel...you work it out.
  • Flying Brick: That one person(s). You know the one(s). They become this after getting a power-up in Season Eight, although it's Powered by a Forsaken Child: the power originates from ritually slain slayers.
    • Not really, Willow got it wrong, Buffy was powered by Twilight itself.
  • Genre Savvy: Xander is absolutely Genre Savvy. In Season 2's "Passion," Buffy is considering reveal her secret life as the Slayer to Joyce in order to protect her from Angelus, Xander protests that "the more people who know your secret, the more it cheapens it for the rest of us!"
  • Grand Theft Me: While being tortured by Amy Willow goes on a tirade about her best friend, Buffy. She then posesses The Slayer so she can guide her to where she is imprisoned.
  • Groin Attack: Buffy just can't stay away from Angel's privates can she?
  • Heroic Sacrifice: Ethan.
  • Horror Hunger: Dawn, when changed into a centaurette, mentions a craving for hay. Remember, she still looks human from her body up.
  • Humongous Mecha: Dawn fights a Mecha-Dawn--complete with a tail-- in Tokyo while still a giant.
  • Incredibly Lame Pun: The next universe is started by Buffy and Angel having sex all over the planet and in space. Brings a new meaning to Big Bang, doesn't it?
  • Insistent Terminology: Centaurette, not centaur.
  • It Always Rains At Funerals: Giles' funeral.
  • Karma Houdini: Spike points out that almost everyone has been evil at one point, and that most of them get away with it after he Becomes The Costume in a season six Angel comic.
  • The Magic Goes Away
  • Mildly Military: Buffy treats the Slayer army as a real one, however as she was a shockingly bad instructor and Xander is the only one with any military knowledge they make do as amateurs.
  • The Mole: Riley.
  • No Bisexuals: Similar to Willow in the TV series, but reversed: after Buffy and Satsu hook up, several good reasons are given why they can't stay together, but apparently the main reason is that the former is "not a dyke." But could she be bi? The possibility isn't so much as alluded to. Later, we get Kennedy saying "You're not the only fool to ever wrinkle the sheets with a straight girl," which is arguably fair, but the possibility that she's bisexual still isn't mentioned. Her straightness is treated as just obvious.
    • An offhand comment by Faith indicates she isn't bisexual. Really into a Romantic Two-Girl Friendship perhaps, but as she says if you want her to go down on a woman you have the wrong chosen one.
  • No Except Yes. Buffy works out that she was woken by a True Love Kiss from Satsu, a fellow slayer. She tells her that they can't be with each other. Then Buffy sleeps with her. Then reverting to the way she was with Spike Buffy again tries to break off the romance, then sleeps with Satsu again.
  • Not Distracted by the Sexy: Andrew complains that he's bored while the Slayers are playing strip poker, and is completely nonchalant when he sees Buffy and Satsu naked in bed together.
  • Nothing Is the Same Anymore: Given the world-shaking events of the Season 7 finale, this is to be expected. Sunnydale is destroyed, so the series can no longer take place where it was for the past seven seasons. All the potential slayers have been activated and there are now armies of slayers as well as newly-activated ones in every corner of the globe. The Masquerade is finally broken and the world at large is made aware of the supernatural, not to mention the many deaths in the final battle against The First. Oh yeah, and it's a comic.
  • Our Centaurs Are Different
  • Our Giants Are Bigger
  • Pet the Dog: Out of all the villains who could get this, the rapist misogynist who murdered Tara, Warren Meers, gets one by jumping in and saving Andrew from a bunch of demons (using a repulsor gauntlet shield). Yes, it's as awesome as it sounds (note: he's still evil though, in fact, it's Amy who starts to want to help, Warren just likes Andrew).
  • Post Script Season
  • Prophecies Are Always Right: Oh so averted. Buffy and Angel really don't give a damn if the universe has been planning its death since its creation, they aren't doing it (well, they're doing it, that's what got them into this problem, but they aren't ending the universe).
  • Psychotic Smirk: Buffy gives a particularly frightening one to a vampire as it's doused in fuel, threatening to Kill It with Fire.
  • Redemption Equals Death: Ethan, arguably Giles.
  • Red Herring: The "Black Hope"'s other alias, "The Madwoman," and her manner of dressing seem to openly imply that the Black Hope is Drusilla; its actually Willow.
  • Redshirt Army: the new generation Slayers. After the first few issues, if a Slayer you haven't met turns up, or a large number of them are gathered together? They're going to be horribly killed.
  • Retcon: The notion that vampires are Exclusively Evil was starting to be done away with possibly as early as season 5, but it doesn't really take off until the comics. The bonus/supplementary issue following 25, Tales of the Vampire, involves the aftermath of a teenage boy being transformed into a vampire, and neither he nor his vampire friends even come close to acting like any of the soulless monsters in seasons 1-3 of the television series. He briefly considers killing his mom, but quickly decides against it when she reveals that she still loves him no matter what. The idea of vampires killing people for food is even thrown out the window with Harmony's in-universe television show demonstrating that they can survive on non-lethal amount of blood from people. It goes hand in hand with the increasingly Black and Grey Morality of the series.
  • Retired Monster: Dracula. Yes, Dracula. Because he's most likely madly in love... with Xander. Dracula.
  • Snake People: Aluwyn
  • So Last Season: See Willow, probably the most powerful witch in the world, singlehandedly responsible for activating all the potential Slayers, a feat more impressive than the creation of the original Slayer to begin with. Then other magic users and Cosmic Horrors show up that can throw around equally impressive and powerful magic right back at her, including the formerly much-less talented witch, rat Amy. Even Buffy's Slayer abilities become pretty obsolete in the face of a giant army of full Slayers and Willow's magic.
  • Speech Bubbles: Warren speaks with irregular and somewhat-squiggly bubbles and Twilight talks in a different font.
  • Summon Bigger Fish: Powerless Slayers vs. US Military? Summon 3 Tibetan Goddesses.
  • Surprisingly-Sudden Death: Good lord, by this point someone should have slapped Sunnydale with the label "Death Trap" with all the times this trope is invoked.
  • Symbol Swearing
    • Taken to the next level when one issue ends with "I think they're F#@%ing" and the next issue being called "Them F#©%ing (Plus the True History of the Universe)".
  • Take That: The Season 8 comic series started over a year before the success of another franchise that featured a human girl in love with a vampire, so no-one thought much about the Big Bad of the season being named Twilight, with Buffy's only interaction with the villain coming before the other series became well known. But when they come face to face for the first time since then, Buffy points out the she did the whole Human-Girl-In-Love-With-a-Vampire thing first, and her vampire was so much better than the other one.
  • Time Travel: To Fray.
  • Timey-Wimey Ball: Future Dark Willow exploits the time travel confusion for all it's worth to manipulate people to her advantage.
  • True Love's Kiss: With Buffy down for the count it's determined that one of these is the order of the day. At the time it was hinted that Xander gives it, but Buffy later figures out that it was fellow Slayer Satsu. Her reaction is that it was sweet, but they can't be together. Then they sleep together. Twice.
  • Uncle Sam Wants You: The Chain. Also doubles as a Crowning Moment of Heartwarming.
  • The Unmasqued World: The main focus of the comics, really.
  • You Can't Go Home Again Because You Turned It Into A Huge-Ass Crater
  • Villain with Good Publicity: Harmony Kendall becomes a reality star and raises the public's opinion of vampires considerably. Likewise, she turns the Slayer Organization into a Hero with Bad Publicity
  • With a Friend and a Stranger: With the protagonist as stranger variation.
  • Zero-G Spot: Buffy and Angel during the "Twilight" arc in the comics.
    • This is, of course, in the issue "Them F#©%ing (Plus the True History of the Universe)"


Season Nine (Including "Angel and Faith")

  • Actually a Buffybot: A recent comic reveals that for some time now (possibly foreshadowed from the beginning of the season) that the Buffy we see is a robot. It has her traits enough, remembering Buffy's reaction to a robot version of her, to completely flip.

Spike...I'm a f*&^ing robot!

    • The latest issue reveals that it was an advanced Buffybot made by Andrew and loaded with Buffy's mind to act as a decoy for a new Big Bad, and the season starts with it waking up after the upload.
  • Aunt Pennybags: Giles' latest What the Hell, Hero? moment was to leave Faith everything in his will. If you know Faith you know she's usually fun to be around, but she's also putting that new found wealth to good use, from helping Angel and his research to paying off the Arsenal football team when a Slayer picks a fight with them.
  • Brought Down to Normal: Buffy, in particular, but it can be jarring to see everybody else being so...so normal. Simone by proxy attempts to have her depowered and slain.
  • Closet Geek: Not only does Faith have Batman pajamas she makes enough Star Wars references to make one think she had been hanging out with Andrew.
  • Combat Tentacles: The Plagiarus demon.
  • Curb Stomp Battle: The half-demon twins Nash and Pearl vs a Slayer squad in a flashback. The Slayers don't win.
  • Desperately Looking for a Purpose In Life: Buffy looks like she's slowly turning bonkers after everything she lost.
    • Andrew reveals to Buffy at the party that he's set up a disaster relief fund with some other slayers, much to her dismay as he has made something of his life and she, as yet, has not without being The Slayer.
  • Distracted by the Sexy: Faith looks like she is going to pull this when a slayer picks a fight with the Arsenal football team, and she later muses how she would have done it before. It turns out Faith used beer as a viable solution to the conflict.
  • Gorn: The first issue of "Angel and Faith" is very bloody.
  • It Got Worse: If you thought Buffy's life was bad before...vampires are beloved, Slayers are seen as the enemy, Buffy herself has a dead end job in a cafe, she just wants to be normal despite slaying being the only thing she feels she can do, and her friends have largely shunned her.
  • Manipulative Bastard: Arguably Whistler.
  • Must Make Amends: Angel wants to make up for killing Giles by finding a way to bring him back from the dead.
  • Older and Wiser: Believe it or not Faith. She's a Cool Big Sis to other Slayers, uses her mistakes as a basis of what to do, and Angel personally picked her for her held because she would guide him or stop him if he becomes obsessed, crazy or dangerous.
  • Our Vampires Are Different / Our Zombies Are Different: Without the Magic Seed allowing demons to posses a sired body. Vampires are now much more mindless and feral. The Scoobies call them Zompires (Zombie/Vampires) So as not to confuse them.
  • Pac-Man Fever: Buffy's roommates are seen playing Mass Effect, specifically Liara fighting Collectors, which doesn't occur in game. Doubles as a Shout-Out since Dark Horse comics are behind both adaptations.
  • Platonic Life Partners: What Angel and Faith have become.
  • Puppeteer Parasite: The Pagiarus demon again.
  • Shout-Out: The latest (Jan\Feb 2012) Buffy comic has the cover in the style of Batman. For those who saw Faith wearing Batman pajamas in her series they should have seen it coming.
  • Stupid Sexy Flanders: Willow engenders this reaction in Buffy's roommate Anaheed.
  • The Bus Came Back: Simone; last seen executing the general at war with the Slayers, is driving around San Francisco, armed to her back teeth, promising that she won't let the world forget about the Slayers. This...this can't be good.
  • We Need a Distraction: One of Faither's Slayers picks a fight with a soccer team. Faith looks like she is going to flash them, only to draw attention to the drinks she bought so they'd lay off.
  • What Did I Do Last Night?: Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 9 #1 opens with Buffy waking up in a trashed room thinking:

"God... What have I done? Also, why did I do whatever it was I've done? Also, where am I?"

  • Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters: The basic view of the world, with Slayers being seen as terrorists persecuting vampires who are now beloved. Simone does not help, her appearance in the first issue even invoking that she is a domestic terrorist.
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