#she needs to stay in sunnydale and prioritize her slaying

[tiredandoptimistic]

My take on Buffy's arc in each of the seasons (and how the villains highlight her personal journey)

Because I wake up every morning and think about Buffy Summers

Season one: Buffy starts out the show determined to deny her role as a Slayer and willing to skip a prophecy for a date. Even though she genuinely does want to help people, she's also resolved to make time for herself and her teenage whimsy. While the Master is technically the villain of the season, the real threat is the prophecy she hears in the finale: that she will die facing him. Buffy's desire for a normal life is put into direct conflict with her duty as a Slayer, and it's the bonds she built with other students like Willow that makes her realize that she cares more about being a protector than being happy.

Season two: this season systematically strips away everything Buffy had prioritized in season one. She loses her boyfriend, alienates her friends, gets expelled from high school, and kicked out by her mom. While at first she hadn't been able to make herself kill Angel, she had to come to terms with the fact that her moment of mercy led to Jenny's death. All the things necessary for a normal life are lost to her, and she can't afford to care about any of it. Her ability to go to school, her relationship with her mom, the love she has for Angel; none of it matters if the world is at stake. By the end of the season, Buffy proves her self-reliance and that she's willing to make the tough calls and kill somebody she loves if it's part of her Slayer duty.

Season three: at the start of this season, Buffy deals with the fallout of her season two arc by falling into a depression due to her isolation. Complete self-reliance is good in a fight to the death, but deeply unhealthy long-term. Buffy is a Slayer who draws strength from the love of her friends, and in season three she tries to rebuild that trust by throwing herself into all the traditional end of high school festivities. The Mayor represents the adult world they're meant to be graduating into, and he proves that there's something deeply rotten underneath the glossy suburban shell of Sunnydale. Despite the fact that the institutions of the school and the town range from apathetic to malevolent, Buffy is still able to form emotional bonds with the people she meets there. It's the power of her connection with all the other students of Sunnydale High that eventually saves the day, and even if she couldn't win Homecoming Queen she's still their Class Protector.

Season four: this is where we get into that weird phase of young adulthood where nobody has any idea what the fuck they're doing. Buffy is removed from the familiar and forced to find her way in a new environment, and she uses her newfound freedom to make some bad decisions. She and her closest friends drift apart as they all get wrapped up in their different post high school adventures, and without that safety net Buffy ends up placing her trust in the wrong people. The Initiative uses its appearance of security to manipulate young adults into throwing away their independence serving something solid. Adam is the result of this, as a young creature who's confused about his place in the world and gets sick of letting the Initiative decide his purpose for him. The thing that saves Buffy from this whole mess is to reaffirm her bond with her oldest friends, proving that growing up doesn't need to mean growing apart. The support system was always there, they just all needed to actively maintain it.

Season five: the linchpin of this season is Buffy's relationship with Dawn, as the magic weirdness of Sunnydale starts messing with the most intimate parts of her personal life. She's officially not able to keep her two world separate anymore, and has to decide whether or not she'll trust the love she has for her sister once she knows it was all planted by an outside force. Of course she chooses to stand by Dawn, and the two of them support each other through their mom's illness and death. At first Dawn's role as the key makes things very simple, since saving the day lines up perfectly with Buffy's preexisting priority (protect Dawn), but by the end she's put in a situation where she once again has to choose between the world and the person she loves most. Glory is effective as a villain because she's laser focused on hurting people Buffy loves, and is too damn strong for Buffy to actually fulfill her calling as a protector. In the end, the only way for Buffy to keep the people she loves safe is for her to sacrifice her own life for theirs (something she's been doing every day since she was fifteen).

Season six: while season five ends off with Buffy choosing to die for her friends, season six forces her to live for them. She's ripped from heaven and tossed into all the shittiest aspects of the real world, and worse than anything she's completely disconnected from herself and her friends. The main conflict here is her depression, and the contrast between the comfort she gets from Spike and the support she can't accept from her friends. Spike tells her that it's okay to not be okay, but this turns into him actively trying to keep her miserable because he thinks it's the only way she'll be with him. Meanwhile, Dawn and Giles and the rest are trying to help her support herself, which isn't exactly warm and fuzzy. When Willow becomes her dark self at the end, she basically speedruns Buffy's whole arc. She flays Warren alive for some instant gratification that hurts her in the long run, then she decides that the only way to end all suffering is to end all life, and she's eventually talked down by Xander's boundless love and support. Buffy has a similar moment at the same time, as she realizes that she wants to live because she wants to see Dawn grow up. This season shows that there isn't anything wrong with Buffy for feeling pain, but that the way out isn't to indulge her darkest feelings; it's to embrace the love of her friends and family.

Season seven: at this point, Buffy's biggest struggle is her sense of isolation. After so long as the Slayer, she genuinely doesn't think anyone else can understand her anymore (except maybe Spike, because he too has a fascinating cocktail of issues). Her isolation becomes a danger when she faces The First, a threat far too powerful for her to defeat on her own, and through Willow's magic she is able to finally be supported on all sides by people just as strong as she is. Much like graduation, this season ends with something major being destroyed to symbolize the end of a chapter in Buffy's life. She isn't just out of high school, she's officially free from the bounds of Sunnydale. She doesn't need to stay put and sacrifice her own pleasures again and again and again; there are other people willing to share the burden. Buffy can finally rest.