Will Dawn ever stop being Buffy's sister?

[EVIL UU]

And become a character that can stand on her own? You know, independent? 'Cause we have season 10 right now and everything in Dawn's life and I mean everything is still about Buffy. Dawn's parental figures? Buffy's friends. Dawn's friends? Buffy's friends. Dawn's boyfriend? Buffy's friend. On the top of that, pretty much every single one of Dawn's stories ends up with her being saved by her big, heroic sister and/or her friends. I swear, Dawn's more into this damsel in distress garbage than princess Peach of the mushroom kingdom. It's ridiculous and there's no way to reconcile this narrative with Dawn's personality.

 

[Fuffy Baith]

I thought you were going to say will she ever stop being her sister, like if the monks magic on her just unraveled. That would be interesting. and I'd probably be fine with that. I have not read s9 or 10 yet so I disappointed to know that Dawn is still a useless character. I hope that she does become something more than simply Buffy's sister who she has to save all the time.

 

[Ethan Reigns]

It is bad news when you look at "Grave 6ABB22" where Dawn and Buffy fight their way out of the subterranean nightmare Dark Willow created for Buffy and Dawn acquits herself quite well in the use of a sword. It looked like Dawn was becoming her own person. In Season 7, Dawn gets Xander to turn around and get her back into the fight. Dawn is the one who tells Buffy to leave her house. Dawn takes part in the final fight. Reverting to damsel in distress is a devolution of the character. I am not into the comics and the few I have seen do not make me want to get into them.

 

[thetopher]

Really I don't see this in the comics. On the show? S5/6 then yes, definitly, but not the comics.

In S8 Dawn's storyline had nothing to do with Buffy- she's a giant, then a centaur, then a dolly, all seperate from Buffy or her life (it happened to Dawn while she was away at college) .
And Dawn sorted it out on her own by telling the truth, facing up to what she'd done, and apologising to the guy (jerk). I don't remember Buffy rescuing her.

In S9 Dawn is barely in Buffy's life at all- and in fact has a complete life of her own- until the last two arcs where she gets sick and Buffy has to save her.

To me Dawn seems far more independent from Buffy and her life than either Willow, Xander or Spike- which is actually strange considering that Buffy is her only real family left. (blood relation I mean)

 

[Blaze]

I haven't ready beyond s8, so I really can't comment much, but seems like there's two completely different opinions on the matter. But based on the series alone, I will say that Dawn feels very much like her own character by the end of s7. Actually, I love Dawn in s6-7, ya she'll always be Buffy's sister because they're family, and because this is Buffy's story, we only get to see Dawn's story through Buffy. In that way, it make sense that we only see Dawn when it involves Buffy, I mean there's only so much they can do showing Dawn's life without people screaming that they are sick of seeing pointless stuff. Like that Halloween episode that was about Dawn, it was one of the most boring Halloween episode. And we actually got to see Dawn being her own self and going out with friends, but it wasn't very interesting. Why? Because Dawn is normal. If she leaves Buffy, Dawn will actually live a normal boring life. No one wants to see that.