Buffy: The backstory

In every generation there is a Chosen One. She alone will stand against the vampires, the demons and the forces of darkness. She is the Slayer.

What Buffy the Vampire Slayer is about

The Slayer

Buffy Summers

Buffy Anne Summers was actually a perfectly normal teenager until the day she learned of her real destiny, given to her at birth. Since that day she has fought demons and vampires, facing the forces of darkness as well as the perfectly ordinary everyday problems of a teenager. Until her sixteenth birthday she lived in L.A., but when she had to burn down her high school gym to save the students from vampires, she was expelled and moved to Sunnydale with her mother. Together with her friends Willow and Xander she attends Sunnydale High School in California – an idyllic little town that lies at the centre of demonic energies: the Hellmouth. From now on she fights with her friends Willow and Xander, her Watcher and mentor Giles and her great love Angel to keep the world from being taken over by evil.

More about Buffy Summers

The Watcher

Rupert Giles

Her teacher and observer is Rupert Giles, a so-called Watcher – a member of a secret organisation that has been trying to keep the demons in check for centuries. The Watchers have the knowledge the Slayer needs to do her job. As a cover, Giles is the librarian at Buffy’s school; he trains her in combat but also shows her what it means to be a Slayer.

More about Rupert Giles

The friends

Willow and Xander

Willow and Xander are Buffy’s new friends at Sunnydale High. Ever since they learned of Buffy’s calling, they have fought at her side with the means available to ordinary people. Willow is a straight-A student and develops a talent for magic, which after a while helps her keep the forces of evil in check even better. Xander, on the other hand, is the typical high-school student – no great grades – but he too fights with everything he has so that the world does not end.

More about Willow and Xander

The great love

Angel

Angel is Buffy’s great love – but there is a catch: Angel is a vampire. A vampire who has regained his soul and therefore, despite his true nature, fights at the side of Buffy and her friends. Their love is the deepest and purest love imaginable. But if Angel ever experiences a moment of perfect happiness, he will lose his soul again and become Angelus once more, probably the cruellest vampire there has ever been. Even with his soul, Angel is bound by a vampire’s limits: he must avoid sunlight and cannot enter a house without being invited.

More about Angel

Where to go next

Episode Guide

Seven seasons, 144 episodes – from “Welcome to the Hellmouth” to “Chosen”

Characters

All characters and their actors

Angel

The spin-off: the vampire with a soul in Los Angeles

Comics

The story continues as a comic from 2007