Does anyone else feel sorry for Dawn?

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Carousel Girl8

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I can't see a thread on this so I thought I'd bring it up, I used to hate Dawn until Season 7 and then I kinda just felt sorry for her.
At the end of the gift, Buffy tells Dawn to live, and at the end of Grave, Buffy tells Dawn that she wants to show her the world or something along those lines, well Buffy just seemed to forget all that, she barely said a word to Dawn throughout the last half of Season 7. I always feel like Buffy makes all these promises to Dawn only for her to break them.
I felt sorry for Dawn because she ended up a complete outsider, I think it was hard for her because she wanted to be a slayer.
 
E
eunsoma
i so agree
i dont think she wanted to be a slayer. she just wanted to fit in. somehow. being a potential wouild do that for her.
 
I'm with wolf, but I do agree that I felt sorry for Dawn at times. Not only in season 7 though. I know she could be annoying in the "earlier" seasons, but I still felt sorry for her. And I don't really feel like Buffy owe her anything.. I know Buffy was a mess in season 7, sort of, I think she treated everyone a bit unfair, not just Dawn.
 
From season 6 onward Dawn wanted to matter. She didn't realise anybody with an ass as great as hers automatically matters.
 
During seasons 5-6 I liked Dawn (except at the beginning of season 5). I hated her in season 7. Don't know why exactly, but I did. And then she kicked Buffy from her house and I hhhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaated her.
 
I didnt feel sorry for Dawn.. at times she just wanted attention because people were to busy with more important things.. and she felt like an outsider because she wasnt getting all the attention... and she goes and kicks her own sister out of her own home.. please i dont feel sorry for her.. i feel sorry for Buffy.. look at what she has been through!
 
Well...She was created by mobnks and had the power to destroy the world, some pressure. Her mum died. She was the reason Buffy sacrificed her life in the Gift, must be a hell of a lot of guilt she felt. She was without any family. I think Xanders speech really summed it up, about not having any super powers and that she still helps is amazing. Sure she annoyed the helll outta me sometimes, and lets not forget many people kicked buffy out in season 7. But I think she deserves some sympathy and I truly felt sorry for her at times. Just because she wanted attention doesnt make her a bad person, and the fact that she didnt really get it is something I feel that is worthy of feeling sorry for someone.
 
Yeah, I'm with TV up there. Dawn got the raw end of the deal almost as much as Buffy did. I always loved Dawn, so I guess I'm a little biased, but yeah, I felt sorry for her. I mean on top of all the regular being-sixteen (or is it 15?) stuff like cheerleading tryouts and crushes she has all this hellmouthy stuff to deal with that she never signed up for...Hey I guess she and Buffy have more in common than I thought! I just wish Buffy saw it that way. I mean Dawn can TOTALLY do research. Why shouldn't she be able to help? She's super-smart, coming up with the Gnarl thing AND she apparently reads Ancient Sumerian and Turkish. Go DAWN!

[/crazy fangirl mode]
 
in season7 when everybody found out that she was a potential slayer, buffy didn't pay much attention. and in that ep i felt sorry for dawn. But it was the only... i still think that she always thought that she could be like buffy
 
angeldarla said:
in season7 when everybody found out that she was a potential slayer, buffy didn't pay much attention. and in that ep i felt sorry for dawn. But it was the only... i still think that she always thought that she could be like buffy
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Heh yea but you know she wasn't actually a potential, right? 😉
 
I felt sorry for Dawn in season 7. She never had the close group of friends like Buffy did, and always having to play second fiddle to a sister with super powers would be a real downer. Not to mention finding out that you weren't a real person for most of the life you remember living. Its tough being a teenager, but then throw all of those things at her-all things considered I think Dawn copes amazingly well. I would have felt like a complete outsider in her place, and I probably would have handled it differently. I would have liked to see Dawn get something of her own-a unique power. I don't think I would like to see her become a potential, but it would have been nice if she got something all her own, so she could stand apart from Buffy as someone unique (not just slayer jr.) and still feel good about herself.
 
Although some of the things she did in "Him" made me cringe, (Cheerleading tryout anyone?) she really was less annoying than in the previous seasons. There were times when you could feel sorry for her.
 
Another Apocalypse? said:
Although some of the things she did in "Him" made me cringe, (Cheerleading tryout anyone?) she really was less annoying than in the previous seasons. There were times when you could feel sorry for her.
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Well, she WAS under a spell. I don't blame her for how she acted in 'Him'. (Even though cheerleading makes me cringe, too...lol). I agree, though, she was significantly less annoying in season 7....
 
i like dawn. i liked her right off, then i kind of got annoyed with her for a little bit, but that was only a while and then i started liking her again. she is put in lots of tough spots, for instance, being on glory's most-wanted list, at a point, having lost her mother and big sister, and other things that come along with living on a hellmouth. you guys already said most of this stuff, about what she's been through, and why she's cool, and deserves feeling sorry for, so ill try not to repeat. plus, she was buffy's little sister. she was supposed to be annoying sometimes. also, after s5 she wasnt a big deal anymore, and didnt get as much attention cause of all the other important demonic happenings, and slayers and witches who had to help fix them. as far as how buffy treated her, i think early on, like in s5, she did protect her ultimately, through everything, no matter what. she uprooted her life and ran away in a van, constantly fought a god that kept kicking her butt, and went to all these great lengths i wont go on to describe. she could just have let her die, and the world would be saved after she was dead, but she didnt. she really did care. she even said that if she lost dawn, she wanted to stop slaying, and stayed stuck on the one moment, even though it was tiny, when she gave up trying to help her. as far as "barely saying a word to her in season 7", she kind of got harsher and crueler to everyone. that was part of why they kicked her out of the house, even dawn. one of the most defining moments for how buffy had changed (at least, i think) was in 'lies my parents told me', when buffy says that if glory had wanted dawn now, she would actually let her die for the greater good. that was cold, shocking, and upsetting in my opinion, and showed how the slayer responsibilites and all this last season stuff had hardened her more than it had in any other season. i think that maybe in some way inside her, no matter how cold she seemed, that if things worked out with saving the world, she still wanted to look out for and protect dawn, and give her the best she could offer. ive just kind of been babbling, so i hope that made some form of sense.

roguedemoness said:
(Even though cheerleading makes me cringe, too...lol).
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didnt buffy also try out for cheerleading?
 
didnt buffy also try out for cheerleading?[/QUOTE]


Yes she did, in first season if I remember correctly...where we meet Amy for the first time. Its one of the very first episodes. Anyhow, it still makes me cringe🙂 No offense to any cheerleaders out there....! It was DEFINETELY not my thing in HS. Then again, I was way too geeky!
 
Carousel Girl8 said:
I can't see a thread on this so I thought I'd bring it up, I used to hate Dawn until Season 7 and then I kinda just felt sorry for her.
At the end of the gift, Buffy tells Dawn to live, and at the end of Grave, Buffy tells Dawn that she wants to show her the world or something along those lines, well Buffy just seemed to forget all that, she barely said a word to Dawn throughout the last half of Season 7. I always feel like Buffy makes all these promises to Dawn only for her to break them.
I felt sorry for Dawn because she ended up a complete outsider, I think it was hard for her because she wanted to be a slayer.
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It's a problem I touch upon in writing a lot. She has no friends and no real role. She was sorta Research Girl for the two or three episodes Willow was gone, and was so caught up trying to cling to Buffy's friends that she never made friends of her own. It's kinda sad really... but I think Dawn was another one of the characters that Whedon used more as props than as an actual character most of the time.
 
JoeHundredaire said:
t's kinda sad really... but I think Dawn was another one of the characters that Whedon used more as props than as an actual character most of the time.
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i dont think this is true. i think he cared about and used all his characters the ways he could. he felt that they were each their own person, with their own lives, struggles, and personalities. he had them do what he thought would fit them, and their storylines. dawn had a lot of storylines in the beginning, and even had some in s7, like 'lessons' and 'potential'. other longer lasting and quote "actual characters" cant even make that claim as much for s7. we, as the viewers, pick and choose our favourites and whatnot, but even if joss did like some characters better, he had purpose and care for every character he made, and made episodes/scenes to try and make us feel the same way (like oz's scene in 'innocence' and tara in 'family'). i dont actually know joss or that this is true, so this is only my personal opinion based on what i do know.

Spirit_Of_Fred said:
i think that maybe in some way inside her, no matter how cold she seemed, that if things worked out with saving the world, she still wanted to look out for and protect dawn, and give her the best she could offer.
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there is more evidence (i just realized) that buffy did care and was trying to keep her promise in 'end of days', right? i mean, her sending dawn and xander away was (at least, she thought) what was best for them. she says she still wants dawn to be okay in the end, and wants her to see the world like she promised before. this is why when buffy is worried she won't make it through, she tries to make sure that dawn will despite that and will get to see all she would've shown her.
 
I really don't like Dawn that much... so as soon as I saw the thread title, my first thought was 'Nope.' with a smug grin. But, I read it anyway.

...Nope. I don't. She does sort of have a hard position in the scooby gang. I mean, I would hate to be stuck researching like... like a mini-Giles all the time... but Dawn never got to me. She never related to me in any way, unlike almost every other character in the Buffyverse. I don't feel sorry for her at all. She earned all of the things she got... no one really payed attention to her. She didn't give anybody anything worth paying attention to. No one really trusted her. She never gave anyone any reason to trust her (She tried to bring Joyce back, she hardly payed attention to Buffy's authority, she never tried to prove she could be just as useful in the gang as everyone else).

This seems more like a rant, sorry. I'll post it anyway. Did I just make any sense there?
 
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