Is this a mistake?

[Lyssaquotes]

Buffy moved to Sunnydale in 1997 when she was 16(?) I think… but in season 5 after Dawn finds out she’s the key, she goes for a walk and has a memory of Buffy pushing her on the swings at the sunnydale park we see so often. Buffy looked about 10, making this memory years before Buffy and her mom moved there… Willow also remembers Dawn writing diaries since she was 7… again before the summers ever moved there…Is this a mistake or did the monks rewrite history to the point where the summers have always lived in sunnydale?

 

[KaitKat]

Buffy moved to Sunnydale in 1997 when she was 16(?) I think… but in season 5 after Dawn finds out she’s the key, she goes for a walk and has a memory of Buffy pushing her on the swings at the sunnydale park we see so often. Buffy looked about 10, making this memory years before Buffy and her mom moved there… Willow also remembers Dawn writing diaries since she was 7… again before the summers ever moved there…Is this a mistake or did the monks rewrite history to the point where the summers have always lived in sunnydale?

I don’t know I’ve always assumed as little as possible was changed but that’s the biggest problem with Dawn, we have no idea what our characters remember from the first 4 seasons. Since people are shaped from their memories and experiences it creates such a disconnect with our characters.

 

[garfan]

I think there's a few problems here. Dawn was supposed to be younger than Michelle Tracthenberg from what I've heard and they didn't catch every change when they decided to make her a teenager. It also could be a metaphor thing. A swingset is a swingset so it brings the memory to mind even if it's not the exact one

 

[Lyssaquotes]

I think there's a few problems here. Dawn was supposed to be younger than Michelle Tracthenberg from what I've heard and they didn't catch every change when they decided to make her a teenager. It also could be a metaphor thing. A swingset is a swingset so it brings the memory to mind even if it's not the exact one

That

I think there's a few problems here. Dawn was supposed to be younger than Michelle Tracthenberg from what I've heard and they didn't catch every change when they decided to make her a teenager. It also could be a metaphor thing. A swingset is a swingset so it brings the memory to mind even if it's not the exact one

it did occur to me after posting that she may be flashing back to another swing set and the age of Dawn being changed can explain the “diaries since she was 7” thins willow said. Thank you!

 

[Stake fodder]

Good catches that I never noticed! And it makes sense that these are details they didn't change when they changed Dawn's age. But as a headcanon, I can believe that Willow would have heard how long Dawn's being keeping a diary, without having known her that long.

 

[Spo0kyxSpice]

I think it's supposed to be the Monks embedded fake memories with everyone - so it didn't matter that the timeline doesn't add up - all these memories they're having are fake anyway and they mention specific things once they realise they're fake. As if saying "I remember this exact moment, it doesn't make sense, thus it's been created. What I'm being told is true." if that makes sense?

 

[Cohen]

This looks to me like Buffy's hair from the flashback in Becoming, so it could have been JUST after they moved to Sunnydale, and then Buffy could have chopped all her hair off the day before she started at Sunnydale. Dawn looks about 9/10 in this picture.

 

[Plasma]

I think it’s a case of the latter. The monks’ tomfoolery caused a bunch of fake memories to be implanted. That being said, it’s noteworthy that the house in Weight of the World looks significantly different from their Sunnydale home (during the bits where Buffy is a child).

It is absolutely possible that it was a mistake on the writers’ part, but the situation with Dawn is such a special instance that any potential mistake is nicely covered up by the “fake memory” explanation.

An alternate theory is that the swingset was similar to one they “used to play on” in their old hometown, and the diary thing was told to Willow by Buffy in another fake memory since their moving to Sunnydale. Bit of stretch, but could be possible.

In conclusion, probably best not to think too hard about it 😂😅

 

[CardboardGhost]

I didn't question the diary thing because I wasn't interpreting it as "Willow remembers that Dawn has had diaries since she was seven because Willow was around and remembered when Dawn started keeping a diary," I was interpreting it as "Willow remembers the fact that Dawn started keeping diaries when she was seven, which would have been mentioned to her at some point." I got the impression from "Real Me" that Dawn wrote in her diaries constantly, so I don't think it's a stretch for Willow to ask her (or Buffy) when she started writing them.

If I remember correctly, Buffy is the one who actually says Dawn was seven, not Willow? Which makes this even more likely, because we don't even know that Willow would have put a specific age on it; she could've been about to say "but she's been keeping those for years." That's not an unreasonable thing for her to know about someone, even if she didn't meet Dawn until later.