Families

[nightshade]

Would you have liked the characters families to be more involved in their lives?

We see Fred's family a few times, but other than that we only see the rest of the families, apart from Joyce, once or twice, and never in a good way.

 

[Cast No Shadow]

I think the point was that the families weren't really involved in the lives of their children, Xander's were neglectful drunks, and the one time we saw Willow's mum, she didn't notice that her child had cut her hair several weeks before.

I think if it had been any other way, it would have added lots of unnecessary dialogue "Willow honey, where are you going off to at this time?" "(lots of awkward and not quite believable explanations)".

It would have complicated things.

 

[Mithol]

Are all the characters in the Buffyverse only children? The only ones I can think of that aren't are Angel (but he killed his siblings centuries ago) and Gunn (whose sister died in his first episode). And I guess Lorne also has brothers and sisters. And Buffy had Dawn from season 5 onwards.

But I don't think there was mention of any other characters having siblings. Xander and Willow and Buffy were all only children. Giles never mentioned any siblings, neither did Wesley, it didn't seem that Fred had any siblings, nor Cordy, nor Faith, nor Spike (although I suppose he could have). And Doyle wasn't around long enough for us to be sure if he had siblings or not. Oz might have had siblings. We knew almost nothing about his life. I guess Riley possibly had siblings, they just still lived on a farm in Iowa. Did any of the nerds have siblings? Wood didn't have any.

It seems that it's easier for the writers if the characters don't have families which are too extensive. But none of them (other than the ones I mentioned already) even referred to any possible siblings, so it's safe to assume they didn't have any.