What if Dawn was there from the beginning?

Chosen Enemy

Losing my soul
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What if Dawn wasn't created by season 5, what if she was created and put in from the beginning? How would the storylines look like and how would it and the other characters be affected by that?
 
I kind of feel that if she'd been around in the second season she would have gotten killed by Angelus and then the whole key storyline would never have happened.

That was the very first idea that popped into my head. I can't even explain it. And obviously they'd want to keep her around for season five for Glory and everything. I just can't shake that idea. It's eating my brain.
 
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InsaneMystic
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I think the scoobies would have treated her like a sister much like they did after season 5. However I'm not sure the dynamic would have worked so well with Dawn in it from the beginning and I think she'd probably be used as a hostage or bait on many occasions.
 
Everything would have been different in my mind. We've discussed on other threads how Joyce managed to somehow not notice a lot of things that went on with Buffy. When we see Dawn introduced in S5, Buffy is obviously given a good amount of responsibility in taking care of her. So, if Dawn was around since the beginning, then there's no way Buffy would have been able to do everything she had (at least not w/o her mom knowing) since she would have been forced to take care of Dawn then too.
 
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Enemies
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I think that Joyce would have found out about Buffy's slayer abilities much sooner if Dawn was in the picture, because even in Real Me, Dawn states that it was "always" Buffy doing the slaying and getting the attention, and to me, the two years that Joyce actually knew about the slayer dosen't strike me as "always". I think it might have been easier then for Buffy to deal with Angelus, with the support and understanding of her family. I was always interested though, what did the scoobies think happened in the past from season 5 onward? Was it really altered that much in their mind?
 
I kind of feel that if she'd been around in the second season she would have gotten killed by Angelus and then the whole key storyline would never have happened.

That was the very first idea that popped into my head. I can't even explain it. And obviously they'd want to keep her around for season five for Glory and everything. I just can't shake that idea. It's eating my brain.
🙁

Killing the Slayer's innocent, pre-teen sister would definitely have been a very Angelus thing to do. An even more likely scenario would be siring Dawn and then forcing Buffy to kill her. (We all know that vampire children/teens never outlast a season's worth of episodes, for obvious real life production reasons.)

Anyway, Dawn would likely have been really most sincerely dead by "Becoming"... leading to a total rewrite of S5.
 
I like Dawn, but I'm glad she wasn't there from the beginning. She automatically makes the Scoobies have to grow up and parent her and the Scoobies needed the first four season to mature and stop being kids themselves before they took on that responsibility.

I love Dawn in the later seasons, but the Scoobies have so many burdens and responsibilities (Dawn being one of them) that I quickly forget they are just 21/22 at the end of the series.
 
In fact I think the story wouldn't be so different in the beginning. There would be another person which would make it difficult for Buffy to explain where she is at night. Then there would be an episode in which Dawn is kiddnaped by an Monster or by Spike, but all in all it wouldn't be so different.

Later the story would change maybe Buffy would get problems because Dawn has Slayerforces too and in the end Dawn would get evil and fight against Buffy from Slayer to Slayer. But that's just a thought.
 
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