Buffy turned a team of whiny brats into an army of slayers to challenge the First Evil's army.
The seventh season opened with Buffy bringing Dawn along to hunt vampires with her. This may have seemed risky enough, but Dawn soon went to an even more dangerous place, the newly reopened Sunnydale High. There, Dawn met two friends who, like all of Dawn's friends, were never seen again. Buffy, meanwhile, met Spike, who was living in the Sunnydale High basement with his soul and without his sanity; and the new principal, Robin Wood, who happened to have an office directly over the Hellmouth. Unlike Principal Snyder, Wood had the good sense to realize that a slayer is a useful thing to have at Sunnydale High.
Meanwhile, Giles had brought Willow to England to learn how to use magic without undergoing undesirable cosmetic changes. A vague vision of things to come led Giles to believe that Willow should return to Sunnydale sooner than expected. Unfortunately, Willow's was anxious about how she will be received, and a curse caused this to manifest itself in Willow being unable to see Buffy, Xander, and Dawn and vice versa. This was quite inconvenient when the three of them left Willow in the hands of a skin-eating demon.
Unfortunately, Anya had not been adjusting to being a vengeance demon. Various evil entities were upset at her because her curses had been far too mild, so she conjured a demon that killed 12 frat boys. Her guilt over this led her to attempt suicide by slayer. Fortunately, Buffy forgot that one cannot slay a vengeance demon by sticking a sword through her torso. This gave Willow enough time to summon D'Hoffryn. D'Hoffryn reversed the killings and turned Anya back into a human at the cost of the life and soul of Anya's friend, Halfrek.
Meanwhile, the First Evil was plotting an evil scheme. It first appeared to the sane characters when it tried to do three things in one night: (1) get Willow to commit suicide, (2) freak out Dawn and get her to mistrust Buffy, and (3) get Andrew to murder Jonathan on top of the Seal of Danzalthar. The First Evil failed at the first task and largely succeeded at the other two. It also managed to get Spike to kill again—forgetting his chip and soul—whenever Spike heard an old folk song.
Willow ran into Andrew and brought him to Buffy's house for interrogation. Also, Giles arrived in town with three whiny brats who had the potential to become slayers. Spike had just enough flashes of memory to figure out that he might be killing. He was restrained at Buffy's house, but a bringer raid captured him and used his blood to open the Seal of Danzalthar. This released a turok-han, an übervampire strong enough to beat up Buffy and kill one of the brats. This caused the other brats to whine even more until Buffy put on a performance that climaxed in the übervamp losing its head. Unfortunately, even more brats arrived in Sunnydale.
Eventually, Principal Wood decided that it was time for Buffy to know who he was. He was the son of a slayer who was killed in New York City in 1977. After his mother died, her watcher raised him. He had fought vampires ever since, hoping to find the one who killed his mother. The First Evil helpfully pointed out to him that Spike was the vampire in question.
It was possible that the First Evil was able to manipulate Spike because his chip was starting to degrade. Buffy took him to the old Initiative headquarters, where soldiers, with orders from Riley, granted Buffy's request to remove "Assface's" chip. Giles was not pleased and later conspired with Principal Wood to have Spike killed. However, Spike was more than Wood could handle, so this conspiracy simply created tensions between Buffy and Giles.
Two important figures arrived in Sunnydale as the final battle approached. The first, Faith, arrived with Willow after Willow helped solve a problem in Los Angeles. The second, Caleb, was a minion of the First Evil and had already destroyed the Watchers Council, killing most of its senior leadership. He lured Buffy, Faith, Spike, Xander, and a few brats to his headquarters in an abandoned winery. There, he easily beat up Buffy, Spike, and Faith; killed two of the brats; and poked Xander's eye out. Fortunately, Buffy, Faith, and Spike managed to escape with only bruises. Unfortunately, most of the whiny brats survived.
This was a major blow to morale. After Giles sent Spike away on a mission, the rest of the characters staged a mutiny and ousted Buffy from leadership and her house. Spike was not happy when he returned. He found Buffy and managed to raise her spirits enough to return and find what Caleb had been guarding, a very nice looking ax.
Meanwhile, Faith had been put in charge of the group. She came up with a plan to capture a bringer and interrogate it for information. The bringer mentioned an arsenal, so Faith led a group of whiny brats to the likely location. After defeating a group of bringers, Faith opened a trunk only to find it filled with C4 explosive and a timer with big red number counting down the last few seconds. Fortunately, Faith survived the explosion. Unfortunately, so did all the brats.
However, they were still not out of peril. While fleeing the scene, three übervamps attacked. Unfortunately, Buffy arrived and killed all three with her ax before they could kill potentials. This was apparently enough for Buffy to earn her way back into the group. Top priority was learning about the ax, although hardly anyone got far enough to know that it was an ax, not a scythe. While seeking information, Buffy ran into Caleb. Even with the ax, Buffy still had a hard time until Angel arrived with some unexpected but welcome assistance. After Buffy split Caleb in two, Angel showed her an amulet that he was supposed to wear. Buffy preferred that he return to Los Angeles to prepare a second line of defense if Buffy should fail.
Buffy decided that Spike was to be the one to wear the amulet. Furthermore, she decided that Willow was to use the ax to turn all the whiny brats into slayers, who would form an army to defeat the First Evil's brewing army of übervamps. They fought well, but did not win until the amulet channeled the sun's rays, dusting all the übervamps and Spike along with it. As the town of Sunnydale collapsed into a sinkhole, most of the whiny brats and all the other characters fled, except for Anya, who was sliced in two. Despite this loss, everyone seemed happy.
Overall, the seventh season had a great start. The string of episodes from "Same Time, Same Place" through "Conversations with Dead People" ranks with the second season's "Surprise" through "Passion" and the last five episodes of the sixth season as the best five-episode streaks of the show.
In the first half of the seventh season, the First Evil showed a lot of potential as a villain. Instead of having a villain with an evil plan who underestimated Buffy and her friends until it was too late, we had a villain who specifically targeted Buffy and her friends in order to manipulate them into doing its will.
Furthermore, the First Evil provided the opportunity to bring back old favorites like Drusilla and Mayor Wilkins.
The season fell apart when Giles brought Kennedy and the other potentials to Sunnydale because that started three of the worst story arcs in the history of the show:
Tara was completely absent and other important characters such as Willow, Xander, Anya, and Dawn did not have much to do, especially in the second half of the season.
The potential of the First Evil as a villain was never realized. It evolved into yet another villain who underestimated Buffy's ability to spoil its evil plan. Furthermore, the inability to get many actors (e.g., Eric Balfour, Robia, La Morte, and Amber Benson) kept the First Evil from portraying characters important to the main protagonists.
Action highlights include:
The seventh season was supposed to be lighter than the sixth season. However, with the absence of two of the nerds and a reduced role for Anya, this season was, if anything, less comic than the sixth season. Comic highlights include:
Dramatic highlights included:
The seventh season was not one for romance. None of the characters were romantically involved during the first half of the season and most continued to be single until the end. Romantic highlights include:
Buffy spent much of the seventh season training others. In the beginning, she trained Dawn how to fight. Later, she was stuck with a bunch of whiny brats and the responsibility to turn them into a fighting force. As always, she accepted her responsibilities. However, her inability to connect to the brats led to a mutiny, one that her closest friends failed to protect her from. She experienced a bit of self-pity, but a pep talk from Spike motivated her to go out and get a really neat ax. This ax allowed her to reconcile with everyone and plan a final battle.
Spike started the season with a soul but without his sanity. It was not clear whether the lack of sanity enabled or resulted from the First Evil's attempt to manipulate him. In any case, the First Evil spent a fair amount of time haunting him and somehow manipulating him into killing people. Fortunately, attention from Buffy appeared to bring him back to sanity, and a bit of psychoanalysis cured him of any manipulation that the First Evil did to him. He seemed to accept that he and Buffy were no longer a couple and probably would not be again, although he did get a bit jealous in "First Date." In the end, however, he was the only person who stood by Buffy after the mutiny in "Empty Places." She rewarded him by giving him an amulet that caused him to burn up during the final battle.
Willow felt guilty about her actions in the last three episodes of the sixth season even though she seems to have forgotten what triggered her actions. Fortunately, some New Age gibberish that she learned in England seemed to calm her down. She was willing to use magic, but she often felt uncomfortable doing so, especially with major spells. Unfortunately, she seems to have channeled this energy into not resisting the advances of a minor. By the end of the seventh season, Willow reluctantly used magic to cast a major spell. This time, her hair turned white instead of black.
Xander did not have much to do during the seventh season. He appeared to be successful at work and spent a lot of time fixing things around Buffy's house. He related to Dawn in that neither of them had superpowers. By the end of the season, he appeared to be reconciled with Anya even though he never believed that his actions in "Hells Bells" were wrong.
Anya started the seventh season as an unhappy vengeance demon. She had a long history of discarding old identities for new ones, but the identity she adopted as part of the group stuck. She got to the point where she was probably suicidal in "Selfless." Fortunately, she simply became human, which suited her. She also grew more comfortable around Xander and even appeared to be open to restarting their relationship.
Dawn moved from whiny brat sister to an important contributor to the group. In the beginning, she was training in fighting techniques. However, it soon became clear that her main talent was in research. Furthermore, Dawn appears to be a genius at picking up new languages, which became very useful when they needed to use spells in languages other than English. Still, she seemed to envy the attention that the potential slayers received and the powers that most other characters had.
Giles started the season playing "Dumbledore" for Willow. However, he soon got word of what the First Evil was doing. He sent Willow to Sunnydale while he arranged to send potential slayers and information there as well. However, the Giles that arrived in Sunnydale was different from the one we had seen over the previous six seasons. At first, he had a neurotic aversion to touching things for some inane reason. Then, rather than play the supportive father figure for Buffy, he became distant. He dumped a large responsibility on her and then provided little or no support. He rarely gave useful advice and either nagged her or undermined her. Fortunately, the real Giles returned for "Chosen" and helped in the final battle.
Andrew was more than just the comic relief character, although he played that role quite well. He started the season pretending that he was carrying out Warren's plan for godhood. However, he later admitted that he always knew better. Still, he followed the faux Warren to the point where Andrew killed his only friend, Jonathan. His allegiance started to shift as soon as Willow captured him, but it was not as quick as it looked. As late as "The Killer in Me," he embraced what he thought was Warren. However, by the end of the seventh season, he realized that had been on the wrong side and needed to atone. On the other hand, some would say that he did not switch sides and was simply experiencing Stockholm syndrome.
Principal Wood started the season as an enigma. In fact, the writers probably did not know if he were good or evil until well into the seventh season, and Joss Whedon admitted that he did not even know if Wood was going to be male or female when he first wrote for the character. Eventually, we learned that he was the son of a slayer that Spike killed during a flashback in "Fool for Love." Understandably, he wanted revenge. He tried to act on this desire, but failure—and a lecture from Buffy—made him realize that there were more important things.
The First Evil started the season by attempting to manipulate the characters. It started with Spike in part because his new soul made him vulnerable and in part because his isolation from the rest of the characters meant that the First Evil could work without anyone else noticing. However, in "Conversations with Dead People," the First Evil decided to make its presence, if not its exact identity, known. Still, it mostly focused on Spike. As the seventh season wore on, its focus was less on manipulating the main characters and more on concocting evil schemes involving übervamps. Being noncorporeal, it needed minions, most notably Caleb, to do its bidding, so they mostly took the spotlight, particularly in the last few episodes.
Kennedy appeared to lack much of an identity. Depending on the needs of the episode, she was either a whiny brat (e.g., "Bring on the Night," "Empty Places"), a gung-ho slayer wannabe (e.g., "Showtime," "Get It Done"), or a slacker more interested in bedding Willow than in slaying (e.g., "The Killer in Me," "Touched"). She talked a big game, but did not deliver in an actual fight, as can be seen in "Dirty Girls."
Faith is a very different character from the one we last saw in "Who Are You?," and not just because she was consistently a brunette. For the first time, she appears to want to work with a team rather than be the center of attention. She has also abandoned the sense of entitlement that she had during the third season. Ironically, once she had reached this point, she became the center of attention and the leader of the group. She did OK in this role, although her one initiative—kidnapping a bringer in order to discover a hidden arsenal—did not turn out well. She willingly played a supporting role in the final battle.
The following characters earned MVPs in the seventh season:
The following characters received consideration for the MVP during the seventh season:
Buffy rebounded from a weak sixth season with six MVPs. It helped that she was alive for the entire season and that no other character dominated the end of the season the way Willow did in the end of the sixth season. Spike also had a great year, earning more MVPs than he has in any other season. Caleb also did well, earning two MVPs in the five episodes that he appeared.
Over all seven seasons of the show, Buffy earned 36 MVPs, over twice as many as any other character. Xander fought off a late rally from Spike and held on to second place with 16 MVPs. Spike did overtake Willow and moved into third place with 15 MVPs to Willow's 13.
The following characters earned this award during the seventh season:
The follow characters received consideration for the Sherlock Holmes Award during the seventh season:
Buffy had a slow start, but she ended the season strongly, winning this award in four of the final six episodes including the final three. Dawn, Willow, and Giles all had respectable performances as well. Over all seven seasons, Buffy managed to hold off Giles and won the award more often than any other character with 33. Giles was a strong second with 28. Willow held off Xander and took third place with 18 overall to Xander's 15.
The following characters earned Goats during the final season:
The following characters received consideration for a Goat during the seventh season:
It appears that Nobody was the biggest failure this season with three Goats. No somebody earned more than one Goat, the first time that this has ever happened. Seven goats died in the episode in which they earned the Goat, the most since the third season. Overall, Nobody has earned more Goats than any other character with 16. Buffy is second with ten.
"[As Warren] Of course she won't understand, Sparky. I'm beyond her understanding. She's a girl: sugar and spice and everything useless, unless you're baking. I'm more than that, more than flesh...
"[As Glory] ...more than blood. I'm... You know, I honestly don't think there's a human word fabulous enough for me. Oh, my name will be on everyone's lips, assuming their lips haven't been torn off. Not just yet, that's all right though.
"[As Adam] I can be patient. Everything is well within parameters. She's exactly where I want her to be, and so are you, Number 17. You're right where you belong.
"[As Mayor Wilkins] So, what did you think? You'd get your soul back, and everything would be jim-dandy? Soul is slipperier than a greased weasel. Why do you think I sold mine? Well, you probably thought that you'd be your own man, and I respect that...
"[As Drusilla] ...but you never will. You'll always be mine. You'll always be in the dark with me, singing our little songs. You like our little songs, don't you? You've always liked them, right from the beginning, and that's where we're going.
"[As the Master] Right back to the beginning: not the bang, not the word, the true beginning. The next few months are going to be quite a ride, and I think we're all going to learn something about ourselves in the process. You'll learn you're a pathetic schmuck, if it hasn't sunk in already. Look at you, trying to do what's right. Just like her, you still don't get it. Not about right, not about wrong...
[As Buffy] ...it's about power." The First Evil ("Lessons")
"From beneath you, it devours." Red-haired woman, Buffy, Spike ("Beneath You"), and D'Hoffryn ("Selfless")
"I dreamed of killing you. I think they were dreams. So weak, and you make me weak, thinking of you, holding myself and spilling useless buckets of salt over your ending. Angel, he should've warned me. He makes a good show of forgetting, but it's here in me all the time, the spark. I wanted to give you what you deserve, and I got it. They put the spark in me, and now all it does is burn." Spike ("Beneath You")
"You think I want this? You think I don't care? Believe me, I want to be here, do things. I wanna graduate from high school, and I wanna go to the stupid winter formal. I have this friend, and it would be fun to go with him, just to dance and hear lame music, to weak a silly dress, and laugh and stuff. I'd like to go. There's a lot of stuff I'd like to do. I'd love to ice skate at Rockefeller Center, and I'd love to see my cousins grow up and see how the turn out 'cause they're really mean, and I think they're gonna be fat. I'd love to backpack across the country or, I don't know, fall in love, but I won't. I just never will." Cassie ("Help")
"She'll tell you. Someday, she'll tell you." Cassie ("Help")
"I figured I'd be hearing from you soon. 'The Flaying of Warren Mears,' truly inspired. That was water cooler vengeance. Yes, Lloyd has a sketch of it on his wall." D'Hoffryn ("Selfless")
"Breathtaking. It's like somebody slaughtered an Abercrombie & Fitch catalog." D'Hoffryn ("Selfless")
"This isn't about his physical presence. It's about his heart." Willow
"His physical presence has a penis!" Anya ("Him")
"'Desde abajo, te devora.'" Jonathan
"'It eats you starting with your bottom.'" Andrew ("Conversations with Dead People")
"Time goes by and everything drops away: all the cruelty, all the pain, all the humiliation. It all washes away. I miss my friends; I miss my enemies. I miss the people I talked to everyday. I miss the people who never knew I existed. I miss 'em all. I want to talk to them, you know? I want to find out how they're doing. I want to know what's going on with their lives." Jonathan
"You know what? They don't want to talk to you. Those people you just mentioned, not one of them is sitting around going, 'I wonder what Jonathan is up to right now.' Not one of them cares about you." Andrew
"Well, I still care about them." Jonathan ("Conversations with Dead People")
"You don't know hurts. This last year is gonna seem like cake after what I put you and your friends through, and I am not a fan of easy death. Fact is, the whole good versus evil, balancing the scales thing, I'm over it. I'm done with the mortal coil. Believe me. I'm going for a big finish." The First Evil
"'From beneath you, it devours.'" Willow
"Oh, not 'it,' me." The First Evil ("Conversations with Dead People")
"Man, I hate playing vampire towns." Aimee Mann ("Sleeper")
"There was this one guy. He hurt her real bad, so she paid him back. She killed him, but she did it real slow. See, first, she stopped his heart, and then she replaced it with darkness, and then she made him live his life like that, but he still had to go do his job, see his friends, wake up in the morning, and go to bed at night, but he had to do it all empty, without anything to look forward to, ever." Xander ("Never Leave Me")
"It claimed to be the original evil, the one that came before anything else." Buffy
"Please, how many times have I heard that line in my demon days? 'I'm so rotten. They don't even have a word for it. I'm bad, baddie, bad, bad, bad. Does it make you horny?'" Anya ("Bring on the Night")
"I'm only saying that once you see true evil, it can have some serious afterburn, and then you can't unsee what you saw, ever." Principal Wood ("Bring on the Night")
"What makes you think you will ever be any good in this world?" The First Evil
"She does. Because she believes in me." Spike ("Bring on the Night")
"You're right. We don't know how to fight it. We don't know when it'll come. We can't run, can't hide, can't pretend it's not the end, because it is. Something's always been there to try and destroy the world. We've beaten them back, but we're not dealing with them anymore. We're dealing with the reason they exist: evil, the strongest, the First." Buffy
"Buffy, I know you're very tired." Giles
"I'm beyond tired. I'm beyond scared. I'm standing on the mouth of Hell, and it is gonna swallow me whole. And it'll choke on me. We're not ready? They're not ready. They think we're gonna wait for the end to come like we always do. I'm done waiting. They want an apocalypse? Well, we'll give them one. Anyone else who wants to run, do it now, because we just became an army. We just declared war. From now on, we won't just face our worst fears; we will seek them out. We will find them and cut out their hearts one by one until the First shows itself for what it really is, and I'll kill it myself. There is only one thing on this earth more powerful than evil, and that's us. Any questions?" Buffy ("Bring on the Night")
"I'm so alone." Andrew
"Then maybe you shouldn't have killed your only friend." Dawn ("Showtime")
"It cannot be fought. It cannot be killed. The First Evil has been and always will be. Since before the universe was born, long after there is nothing else, it will go on." Beljoxa's Eye
"I refuse to believe that. There must be some way to destroy it." Giles
"What, am I talking to myself here? There's no way!" Beljoxa's Eye ("Showtime")
"Gotta go with the stake. It's classic. I like the feel of wood in my hand." Rona
"Lost me there." Kennedy ("Potential")
"A slayer, makes sense I guess. Remember that thing about how they share the same blood or whatever?" Willow
"Yeah, I never got that." Anya ("Potential")
"Yeah, they're special, no doubt, and the amazing thing is, not one of them will ever know, not even Buffy." Xander
"Know what?" Dawn
"How much harder it is for the rest of us." Xander
"No way, they've got the..." Dawn
"Seven years, Dawn, working with the slayer, seeing my friends get more and more powerful: a witch, a demon. Hell, I could fit Oz in my shaving kit, but, come a full moon, he had a wolfy mojo not to be messed with. Powerful, all of them, and I'm the guy who fixes the windows." Xander
"Well, you had that sexy army training for a while, and the windows really did need fixing." Dawn
"I saw what you did last night." Xander
"Yeah, I guess I kinda lost my head when I thought I was the slayer." Dawn
"You thought you were all special, Miss Sunnydale 2003, and the minute you found out you weren't, you handed the crown to Amanda without a moment's pause. You gave her your power." Xander
"The power wasn't mine." Dawn
"They'll never know how tough it is, Dawnie, to be the one who isn't chosen, to live so near the spotlight and never step in it, but I know. I see more than anybody else realizes because nobody's watching me. I saw you last night. I see you working here today. You're not special; you're extraordinary." Xander
"Maybe that's your power." Dawn
"What?" Xander
"Seeing, knowing." Dawn ("Potential")
"I don't think they appreciate the gravity of what we're undertaking. It's frightening, and it's difficult, and then, apparently, someone told them that the vision quest consists of me driving them to the desert, doing the hokey-pokey until a spooky rasta-mama slayer arrives and speaks to them in riddles." Giles ("The Killer in Me")
"You think I'm evil if I bring a group of girls on a camping trip and don't touch them?" Giles ("The Killer in Me")
"It's not about hate. It's about power. Willow always had all the power, long before she even knew what to do with it. Just came so easy for her. The rest of us, we had to work twice as hard to be half as good, but no one cares about how hard you work. They just care about cute, sweet Willow. They don't know how weak she is. She gave in to evil and stuff worse than I can even imagine. She almost destroyed the world, and yet, everyone keeps on loving her? So what's wrong with having a little fun, huh, taking her down a peg or two?" Amy ("The Killer in Me")
"I'm going gay. I've decided I'm turning gay. Willow, gay me up. Come on, let's gay." Xander
"What?" Willow
"You heard me. Just tell me what to do. I'm mentally undressing Scott Bakula right now. That's a start, isn't it?" Xander
"[Dreamily] Captain Archer!" Andrew
"Come on, let's get this gay show on the gay road. Help me out here." Xander
"What if you just start attracting male demons?" Buffy
"Clem always liked you." Dawn ("First Date")
"The Hellmouth has begun its semiannual percolation. Usually it blows around May." Buffy ("Get It Done")
"Why can't you just masturbate like the rest of us?" Anya ("Storyteller")
"If we save the world, it would be kind of nice to have a record of it." Rona
"If we don't save the world, then nothing matters." Amanda
"That's catchy, Amanda. Let's make that our slogan." Kennedy ("Storyteller")
"Desde abajo, te devora." Disembodied voice ("Storyteller")
"We are as gods!" Andrew and Mutant Enemy ("Storyteller")
"Here's the thing. I killed my best friend. There's a big fight coming, and I don't know what's gonna happen. I don't even think I'm gonna live through it. That's probably the way it should be. I guess I'm..." Andrew ("Storyteller")
"I told you my concerns when you recklessly chose to remove the chip from his head." Giles
"Wait, sorry, chip?" Principal Wood
"It's a long story." Giles
"The military put a chip in Spike's head so he couldn't hurt anyone." Buffy
"That would be the abridged version." Giles
"But he wouldn't hurt anyone anymore because he has a soul now." Buffy
"Unless the First triggers him again." Giles
"Triggers the chip?" Wood
"No, the trigger's a posthypnotic thing. The First put it in his head. It was... made him... He was killing again." Buffy
"So he has a trigger, a soul, and a chip?" Wood
"Not anymore." Giles
"It was killing him, Giles." Buffy
"The trigger?" Wood
"No, the chip. The trigger's not active anymore." Buffy
"Because the military gave him a soul?" Wood ("Lies My Parents Told Me")
"I'm the other that gave birth to your son." Drusilla ("Lies My Parents Told Me")
"All I do is look at the big picture. The other day, I gave an inspirational speech to the telephone repairman." Buffy ("Lies My Parents Told Me")
"I recall as a boy, though, I couldn't help but think, 'What would happen if you were at the Last Supper and you ordered the white [wine],' a nice oaky chardonnay or white zin? I mean, would he make that out of his lymph or some all?" Caleb ("Dirty Girls")
"Faith, her name alone invokes awe. Faith, a set of principles or beliefs upon which you're willing to devote your life. The Dark Slayer, a lethal combination of beauty, power, and death. For years and years, or, to be more accurate, months, Faith fought on the side of good, terrorizing the evil community, but, like so many tragic heroes, Faith was seduced by the lure of the dark side. She wrapped evil around her like a large, evil Mexican serape. She became a cold-blooded killer. Nobody was immune to her trail of destruction, not friends, not family, not even the most pacifist and logical of races..." Andrew
"The hell are you talking about? I thought Faith killed a vulcanologist." Amanda
"Silly, silly, Amanda, why would Faith kill a person who studies Vulcans?" Andrew ("Dirty Girls")
"I've been through more battles with Buffy than you all can ever imagine. She's stopped everything that's ever come up against her. She's laid down her life, literally, to protect the people around her. This girl has died two times, and she's still standing. You're scared? That's smart. You got questions? You should, but you doubt her motives, you think Buffy is all about the kill, then you take the little bus to battle. I've seen her heart, and, this time, not literally, and I'm telling you right now, she cares more about your lives than you will ever know. You gotta trust her. She's earned it." Xander ("Dirty Girls")
"Now, it's a simple story. Stop me if you've heard it. I have found, and truly believe, that there's nothing so bad, it cannot be made better with a story, and this one's got a happy ending. There once was a woman, and she was foul, like all women, for Adam's rib was dirty, just like Adam himself, for what was he, but human, but this woman, she was filled with darkness, despair, and why? Because she did not know; she could not see. She didn't know the good news, the glory that was coming? That'd be you, for the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours, now and forever. You show up; they'll get in line, because they followed her, and all they have to do is take one more step, and I'll kill them all. See, I told you it had a happy ending." Caleb ("Dirty Girls")
"You can't swing a cat without hitting some kind of demonic activity, not that I swing cats, or eat. Nope, cutting way back, cholesterol... morals. I mean morals." Clem ("Empty Places")
"It is nigh! From beneath you, it..." Nutcase ("Empty Places")
"I know you're all upset, and I, myself, would much rather be sitting at the bedside of my one-eyed ex-fiancé than killing time here with you people in this overcrowded and, might I add, increasingly ripe-smelling basement, and I would be too, if not for a certain awkward discussion he and I recently had right over there on that cot immediately following some exciting and unexpected break-up sex." Anya ("Empty Places")
"Do you think there are gonna be questions about her sex life on the test? Because I really hope I don't have to study all that" Amanda
"Yeah, whenever she starts talking about getting all sweaty about Xander like that, I just remind her I had him first." Faith ("Empty Places")
"I've been alive a bit longer than you and dead a lot longer than that. I've seen things you couldn't imagine and done things I prefer you didn't. Don't exactly have a reputation for being a thinker. I follow my blood, which doesn't exactly rush in the direction of my brain, so I make a lot of mistakes, a lot of wrong bloody calls. A hundred plus years, and there's only one thing I've ever been sure of, you.
"Hey, look at me. I'm not asking you for anything. When I say I love you, it's not because I want you or because I can't have you. It has nothing to do with me. I love what you are, what you do, how you try. I've seen your kindness and your strength. I've seen the best and the worst of you, and I understand, with perfect clarity exactly what you are. You're a hell of a woman. You're the one, Buffy." Spike ("Touched")
"I've lived for sodding ever, Buffy. I've done everything. I've done things with you I can't spell, but I've never been close to anyone, least of all you, until last night. All I did was hold you, watch you sleep, and it was the best night of my life." Spike ("End of Days")
"I guess I was kind of new to being around humans before, but now I've seen a lot more, gotten to know people, seen what they're capable of. I guess I just realized how amazingly screwed up they all are. I mean, really, really screwed up in a monumental fashion." Anya
"Oh." Andrew
"And they have no purpose that unites them, so they just drift around blundering through life until they die, which they know is coming, yet every single one of them is surprised when it happens to them. They're incapable of thinking about what they want beyond the moment. They kill each other, which is clearly insane, and yet, here's the thing: When it's something that really matters, they fight. I mean, they're lame morons for fighting, but they do. They never quit, so, I guess, I will keep fighting too." Anya ("End of Days")
"I'm sorry, what's your name?" Guardian
"Buffy." Buffy
"No, really." Guardian ("End of Days")
"I hate this. I hate being here. I hate that you have to be here. I hate that there's evil, that I was chosen to fight it. I wish a whole lot of the time that I hadn't been. I know a lot of you wish I hadn't been either. This isn't about wishes. This is about choices. I believe we can beat this evil, not when it comes, not when its army is ready, now. Tomorrow morning, I'm opening the seal. I'm going down into the Hellmouth, and finish this once and for all. Right now, you're asking yourself what makes this different? What makes us anything more than a bunch of girls being picked off one by one? It's true. None of you have the power that Faith and I do, so here's the part where you make a choice." Buffy ("Chosen")
"If you have to go to the bathroom, it's to your left. If you don't have to go to the bathroom, picture what you're about to face. Better to go now." Xander ("Chosen")
"The earth is definitely doomed." Giles ("Chosen")
"So here's the part where you make a choice. What if you could have that power, now? In every generation, one slayer is born because a bunch of men who died thousands of years ago made up that rule. They were powerful men. This woman [Willow] is more powerful than all of them combined, so I say we change the rule. I say my power should be our power. Tomorrow, Willow will use the essence of the scythe to change our destiny. From now on, every girl in the world who might be a slayer will be a slayer. Every girl who could have the power will have the power. Can stand up, will stand up. Slayers, every one of us. Make your choice. Are you ready to be strong?" Buffy ("Chosen")
"Bunnies, floppy-hoppy bunnies!" Anya ("Chosen")
"I love you." Buffy
"No you don't, but thanks for saying it." Spike ("Chosen")
"The First is scrunched, so what do you think we should do, Buffy?" Willow
"Yeah, you're not the one and only chosen anymore. Just gotta live like a person. How's that feel?" Faith
"Yeah, Buffy, what are we gonna do now?" Dawn
"Grr, argh." Mutant Enemy ("Chosen")
The following evil entities are still at large: