Is Buffy The Least Developed Character In The Whedonverse?

Very interesting conversation...thank you jules for making those points so eloquently...**bows to jules**. Coming to terms with something is only a step in the growth process, usually the first or one of the first. It's like the old addiction line...the first step in curing the addiction is the realization that there is a problem, and coming to terms with that fact. Buffy had so much other stuff going on (see jules' excellent post above) as well as slayer duty, it looks like she had a real resentment about the calling...even as she got better at it, she still had a problem coming to terms with it...that didn't happen until she embraced the job (sort of) in S7. If all she had to deal with was slayage, it would have been easier, but all that character building stuff (death, sex, responsibility) she went through got in the way...which brings us back to the point, I think!
 
Well, the little girl in Buffy is well and truly dead. Or maybe not dead, maybe just in long stasis. Witness the progression from Bubbly-chipper Buffy, to the Buffy in The Gift who responds to the statement "But, you're just a girl" with "That's what I keep telling myself", to the Buffy in Season 7 who has given up all hope of a life that isn't spent trying to save others (final acceptance of solemn duty).

Or, we have Buffy who hid behind witicisms, now transformed into the Buffy who won't waste time with humor when greater matters are afoot. (ok, well she still makes the odd joke, but..). She becomes the B****-queen of the series, as many have called her, because she now takes her responsibility very seriously.

We have the Buffy who believed that it was all ok as long as she has her friends, transformed into the Buffy who doesn't want to throw her friends into harms way (Spider-man complex), but then later transformed into the Buffy who is willing to sacrifice even friends in order to achieve the greater good (awareness of her life as second to her responsibility).

I think this list could grow very quickly if I spent the time. But there is merit in the original question No Angel posted. Since all the characters on BtVS have transformed radically, I'm not sure who is most changed, or least. I don't think Buffy is last, by any stretch, but it's really a tough call, and involves alot of personal opinion.
 
Lots of us have an opinion about that...we actually did a thread on it a while back! The most telling incident for me was the planning of the assault on Glory's tower. Even though Buffy died, she planned and executed an attaack against a god. She even as much as said that everyone was expendable (except Dawn). That's way different from "We saved the world, I say we party!".
 
Good conversation but surely the character who developed the least is Xander!!He basically disappeared for the last 3 series as frankly there was nowhere for the character to go to except evil and that wouldn't have gone down well with the viewers methinks......🙂
 
Or he could have left with Anya or by himself and live a somewhat interesting life doing construction work. However, he was way too loyal to the Scoobs to do that. He, of all people, had the least to gain by sticking with them.
 
Seems like Buffy is often the most misunderstood character of all. She is probably the most developed and most complex of all characters in the Buffyverse, but people often don't grasp that because of her strength. She often hides her emotions because she's focused on the task at hand - saving the world and trying to take care of everybody around her.
With Buffy, you get all the human emotions and imperfections that you get with a real person. You can't pigeonhole her except to say that she's The Slayer. She's not The Brain, she's not The Funny One, she's everybody, yet better, faster, stronger.
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There's a great deal of growth in Buffy. She was a good person when she came to Sunnydale, but she grew into a mature, self-sufficient, self-aware, self-sacrificing, compassionate leader who truly understands what it means to give everything you've got in order to do the job that has to be done. The only other person on BtVS who comes close to being that complex is Giles.
 
Yeah, she's all that, and when you look at it that way, Xander (funny guy), Willow (brainy chick), and even Cordy (uberbitch) become very recognizable stock characters. That's not to say that they weren't well done multi-dimensional stock characters, but stock characters nevertheless. The writers' genius is what they did with those archetypes to make them more interesting and more "real". The same thing could be said of Buffy. She's the archetypal "reluctant hero", in the Frodo vein. She's kinda ordinary and has a big responsibility dumped into her lap that only a few people can know about and even fewer can help with. That she stays so grounded and "normal", wanting a normal life is what truly makes her a hero...she could have packed it all in and stayed in LA after S2, but sense of duty brought her back... and love! She never lost her capacity to love others...Dawn, Joyce, her friends, Giles. Even though she became more jaded over the seasons, she never lost that...and that's a huge character development!
 
Originally posted by No Angel
I was thinking about how much characters in BtVS and Angel have developed over the years. You though who I'm talking about Wesley, Willow, Cordy ect. But then I got to Buffy and I thought "does she even have much of a character?". Now I'm gonna say this and a lot of Buffy fans will probably curse me but I think Buffy has always been a plain character. Xander was the funny guy, Willow was the nerdy (and in later seasons powerful) girl but what was Buffy? She was the Slayer but what else? Does she have any distinguishing character traits? It seems to me the only things she has ever done since season 1 is bitch about being the Slayer (which got worse as the series went on). To me Buffy doesn't really have any deph apart from being the Slayer.
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Oh man, do I SO not agree with you. Buffy in my opinion is the most complex of all the characters in Buffyverse.
 
I think Buffy is one of the most human of the show. Anya is the tact girl, Xander is the funny guy, Willow is the shy girl, Buffy is just normal. She doesn't have to be typecast to a certain personality trait. she's just human.
 
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