Buffy the Vampire Slayer changed everything about genre television. It seems like today, there are dozens of shows based on this style of fantasy, with a hero teaming with his or her friends to battle a great evil. However, it was fresh and new at the time, and few shows have come close to the brilliance of Buffy Summers and her Scooby Gang.
However, as the Buffy series wore on and continued later in the pages of comic books, not every member of the Scooby Gang was as good and pure as one might hope. While overall, they are a very heroic group, some are less heroic than others, and some became truly evil, if only for a short time.
10 Buffy Summers
When Buffy Summers moved to Sunnydale, she ended up activated as the Chosen One and was tasked with defending the world from vampires and other demons from the underworld.
This proved, without a doubt, that she was the most heroic female figure in the world at the time and was the person most likely to protect the world. She is almost unflinchingly loyal to her friends and will never stop fighting, willing to die if she saves the world.
9 Rupert Giles
Rupert Giles was Buffy’s Watcher and served as her father figure, helping her learn to use her powers and grow into the woman she became. Giles had an exciting past, working as the Ripper when he rejected his path as a Watcher.
However, he came around and developed into the hero he was meant to be and worked not only to help Buffy but also to make sure that Willow could return from the path of darkness later. By the end, no one seemed to have a need for Giles anymore, but he remained heroic.
8 Tara Maclay
Tara was a witch and part of the Scooby Gang, where she ended up in a romantic relationship with Willow Rosenberg. Her mother had died, and her father and brother believed all women in her family were demons, but it was just magical powers.
Tata began to rebel, but then she settled down when she met Willow, and the two fell in love. Tara and Willow broke up when she learned that Willow was changing her memories, but they eventually reconciled. Sadly, that was when Warren Mears shot and killed Tara while trying to murder Buffy.
7 Faith Lehane
Faith showed up in Sunnydale as a Slayer, activated following Kendra’s death. She showed up without her Watcher, as he was killed by the powerful vampire, Kakistos, which caused her to run away.
Faith started as an ally to the Scooby Gang but then ended up pairing up with The Mayor and ending up on the opposing team. However, she overcame this and ended up working with the Scooby Gang and was there to help Buffy win the final battle in Sunnydale.
6 Dawn Summers
Dawn Summers is one of the most polarizing characters on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. She didn’t exist until Season 5, and then suddenly Buffy had a little sister that no one had ever heard of before. Fans were confused, and many rejected Dawn immediately. It turned out that Dawn wasn’t even human and had never existed before.
Dawn was created to hide The Key from Big Bad Grace, who needed The Key to open up the portal to allow her back into Hell, which would release Hell on Earth. The fact that Dawn was created through magic made her insecure, and she became a troublemaker for a long period of time.
5 Oz
Oz was a member of the Scooby Gang for a short time before he chose to leave Sunnydale. He was a guitarist in the band Dingoes Aty My Baby and was a student at Sunnydale High School, where he started to date Willow Rosenberg.
However, the big problem with Oz is that he is a werewolf. He could not control his beast and locked himself up to keep from hurting people, but when he escaped, he became a deadly beast. He was able to eventually learn to control his powers when he moved to Tibet.
4 Willow Rosenberg
For the first few years, Willow Rosenberg was a heroic and great ally for Buffy as part of the Scooby Gang. However, there was one point where she almost destroyed the world and became one of the evilest beings in the entire world. The danger she possesses when she loses control limits her heroism.
Willow is a witch, and she became addicted to magic, especially when she started studying Dark Magic. She began to change the memories of her friends and even her girlfriend. When Tara died, she flayed her murderer alive, and it took Xander to pull her back before she destroyed the world.
3 Xander Harris
For most of the TV series, Xander Harris was one of the least heroic members of the Scooby Gang, but he wasn’t a villain. Instead, he was just someone who wanted to do anything but fight. Things changed in the comics that are considered canon for Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Over time, Xander and Dawn developed a relationship, and when she started to disappear from existence, he ended up betraying the Scooby Gang to try to save her. In the new comics, he died, sacrificing himself to save his friends. However, this turned Xander into a soulless vampire, and he returned as a significant Buffy villain.
2 Anya Jenkins
Anya Jenkins is the one Buffy the Vampire Slayer character who got a raw deal. Anya is a former vengeance demon, which proves that on one level. she was as villainous as a character gets. However, she ended up stripped of her demon hood by an alternate version of Giles and ended up living as a human.
She fell in love with Xander, but the best thing about Anya was that she could never really act like a human. She ended up getting a bad break because she died in an almost offhanded manner in the battle at the Hellmouth.
1 Spike
Spike was the bad boy of the Buffy the Vampire series. He showed up in Sunnydale as a villain, ready to kill anyone. However, he never really wanted to be a big deal. He just wanted to do what he wanted to do.
Over time, Spike ended up implanted with a chip by The Initiative that took away his ability to hurt anyone. Later, he got his soul back and ended up similar to Angel, but with less morality. Finally, he died and returned to Angel as a ghost, stuck helping his former rival up until the final apocalyptic fight.
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