Help So why didn't Tara immediately clock the "Buffy bot"?

[YummySushiPJs]

In Series 4 Tara immediately spots that Buffy isn't Buffy when Faith has taken her body. She spots this because, as she explains, she can see auras and - seemingly with no real effort - she immediately sees that Buffy's aura isn't right.

I could be wrong but I'd imagine robots don't have auras. So in series 5 in the episode where Buffy goes into the desert and Buffybot joins the gang... with Buffybot already acting a little weird, why didn't Tara spot she wasn't Buffy?

My memory could be deceiving me - maybe Tara didn't share any scenes with Buffybot before everyone found out she was a robot....

 

[OhWow]

Not sure about Tara, but I'd expect Buffy's best friends to be able to distinguish her from a robot. It just seems inconsistent really. In both instances when "Buffy" was literally not herself, they shrugged it off. Maybe it just says something about Buffy- that she can be melodramatic and her friends assumed that.

 

[Living Dead Boy]

Probably an inconsistency. A big, fat one. With chocolate oozing out of it. I mean, even a ninnie could see that Buffy wasn't herself. That whole thing just reeked of the writers trying too hard to get a laugh out.

 

[BuffyElevated]

I never really thought of that before, but you're right... If she almost immediately noticed that Buffy wasn't herself when Faith was in her body, why wouldn't she have noticed that Buffy wasn't herself when the Buffybot was around?

 

[Zeppo]

I actually don't think Tara interracted with BuffyBot before they found out she was a robot in the house. Didn't Willow just report to Tara that Buffy was acting funny but since she had just lost her mom Tara didn't worry about it, telling her to give her time? The only Tara-BuffyBot interraction I can think of is later on in the series when they were in the cemetery in S6 when they knew she was a bot.

 

[Icarium]

I thought so too but now that I checked the transcript Tara does see the bot, albeit briefly. However, she had just woken up, maybe she hadn't turned on her aura vision yet. 🙂

Seriously, the whole Tara can read people's energies thing is never mentioned again after Who Are You. Maybe because if she could see something was wrong with Dawn, this would have ruined the suspense. Or maybe because it was just a plot device ability that Joss forgot about.

 

[SlayerFest]

Haha I've never, ever thought about that. Also, Buffy was so filthy and her hair was longer than the Buffybot's. I always found it stupid that they just assumed it was the robot...especially since they had just done a spell to bring her back from the dead less than an hour before spotting her.