Buffy- episode uno.

the scene when buffy tells giles that he doesn't understand how hard it is to be a slayer. not given the choice and having to hide it from everyone is almost as big a struggle as killing vampires. "you're standing at the mouth of hell" when buffy and angel meet for the first time. she says that she only wants to be left alone and he says no deal. "look at them flailing about, not knowing what dangers surround them." "lucky them."

I decided to watch the first episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, "Welcome to the Hellmouth." The overal episode was about Buffy, who kills vampires as a hobby, moves to a new town in California that, unbeknownst to its citizens, is overrun with vampires. There are two key scenes in this episode that I find are really helpful in finding out who Buffy was before the show started. In one scene, she meets Giles, the librarian, for a second time. He knows she's a slayer, and she knows that he knows, so she comes barging into the library telling Giles that being a slayer is not something that she signed up for. She talks about how not having the choice of whether or not she actually WANTED to be the slayer is sometimes harder to deal with than the vampires are. Later in the episode, Giles is looking at a bunch of kids at a club and says, "look at them flailing about, not knowing what dangers surround them." Buffy sullenly replies "lucky them." This idea shows that Buffy, who in everyone's eyes is the new girl who got kicked out of her old school, is really the good Samaritan of the town, even if the town doesn't know it yet, and she doesn't want to be.

The next important scene has the same message to it, but instead of Giles giving the guidance and knowledge in positive, helpful manner, it's a vampire doing the chastising. Buffy finds him him following her and tells him to leave her alone because that's all she wants in the new life she has (and because she has super-slayer powers, she can tell he's a vampire without having to see any teeth.) He says that she's the slayer and has a duty to fulfill and that he, as well as his "family" of vampires, simply cannot leave her alone until she is destroyed. These scenes have the same idea to them, people seeking out her skills-either to harm or to help the world- and her not wanting any part of it. This is a conflict that, I believe, will eventually resolve itself in time when Buffy comes to realize who she is, how important she is to the survival of the human race, and how to handle living her new life.