[OT] Buffy questions (hopefully spoilers)

[Heretic Apostate]

I'm viewing the Buffy series in a non-sequential order. As such, I've missed lots of episodes, and have no idea what's going on, half the time.

So, here are some questions.

1) Who was Cordelia? Why does she and Zander have such a weird love/hate relationship? When did she leave, and why?

2) What's with Willow? In the episode I saw last night (when the coach was turning the swim team into sahuagin), she was all excited by the thought of the swim team naked. This is strange, because I'm used to her being a lesbian. When did she turn?

3) When did Tara appear? What's her story? In the musical (which I've seen a dozen times, I love VHS ), she sang she's been through hell. What horrible thing happened? What was the argument that they had, that Willow thought she had to erase with the spell?

4) When did Anya appear? How did she and Zander hook up? I know she was a vengeance demon, and that her schtick was men who abuse or take advantage of women, so who summoned her?

5) In the musical, Giles and Buffy were talking about what happened on Halloween. What happened on Halloween? Is this when Buffy died?

6) HOW did Buffy die?

7) What's with Angel? One episode, he's lovey-dovey, and another (non-sequential) episode, he's attempting to turn people into vampires so that they will go after Buffy.

8) What's with the three guys who are stalking Buffy? What I think is the most recent (sequentially) episode I've seen, they had videocameras everywhere, and they caught Anya and Spike doing the beast with two backs, IYKWIM. How long have they been stalking Buffy?

Okay, that's all I can think of right now....

 

[A2Z]

Okay then, let's see:

SPOILERS

















1) Cordelia was one of the original cast members. She left the show with Angel for their spin off. At first she was the 'cool' cheer leader type at the highschool. Eventually she learned about the slayer and the scoobies and became an unofficial member, although she always kind of looked down on them. Her and Xander just sort of 'hated' each other so much they ended up together for no real reason besides the fact that they were complete oposites. They split up after Xander kissed Willow.

2) Willow didn't 'discover' herslelf until college. After she broke up with Oz (her highschool werewolf boyfriend) she met Tara in the first college season. The more I think about it the more I think she must be bi. She obviously loves Tara but she also loved Oz.

3) As stated above Tara met the gang in college. The 'terrible' thing she's been through is Willow's misuse of her magical abilities. Willow was addicted to using magic and Tara left her because of it, although they still love each other.

4) Cordelia was the one who made a wish and had Anya appear. She didn't mean for it to happen and this was after her and Xander broke up. To break the wish she made the gang had her make another wish that ended in Anyanka becomming human and eventually learning to be human again and falling in love with Xander.

5) Halloween? Something happens every halloween actually. Let's see, the first halloween the city was the object of a spell that changed everyone into whatever costume they were wearing. Another time the group got stuck in a haunted frat house. I can't rmeber what happened this year. Maybe that was when Dawn made her wish that was granted by another vengence deamon (Anya's old friend actually) that caused everyone in the house to be unable to leave it so Dawn wouldn't be left alone again. Actually the more I think about it the more I think that's what they're refering to. Dawn had been feeling neglected and a lot of hurt feelings were revealed that episode.

6) She sacrificed herself in Dawn's sted in order to save the city from being overun by Glory's home dimension. She sort of jumped through the hell portal to close it.

7) During the second season (third?) Buffy and him slept together. The wording of his curse was that if he ever experienced a moment of pure joy he would revert to his evil self. Apparently Buffy's good in the sac (even though he was her first) because Angel turned bad and teamed up with Spike and Drusilla to tormant the slayer and Sunnyville. Buffy had to kill him at the end of the season, obviously though he came back. Death's not that permanent around here.

8) The three guys are sort of this years big bad enemy. They all have previous ties to Buffy and they're really just a bunch of goofs that are in over their head. They've been involved in some pretty bad things lately though including murder. It all ties in to the 'trying to live a normal' life angle if this season.

 

[Heretic Apostate]

SPOILERS.....



















5) In the Musical, Dawn was still sticky-fingered. So, I think that the run-in with Anya's old friend, the vengeance demon of neglected kids, came after the musical, where Anya found Dawn's stash of purloined treasures. Or maybe she was still up to her old tricks?

 

[A2Z]

You're right. Dawn almost got vamped on halloween when she snuk out of the house with a friend. You may want to check the official site, they have summaries for all the aired episodes.

 

[Storminator]

Correction for #3) The "hell" Tara went thru was the stripping of her mind by Glory in season 5. It left a vegetable, and she leaves Willow because the forget spell was too close to what Glory did.

Correction for #5) In season 6 Halloween, Dawn goes "parking" with pair vampire, and ends up staking him. Buffy as surragate mom/Slayer is concerned on many levels.

Correction for #6) "Hey I died twice..." Buffy died sealing Glory's portal at the end of season 5, and she drowns at the end of season 1, but Xander revives her. This death was the source of the second Slayer.

PS

 

[Ashtal]

Tara's "being through hell" is more a reference to her slightly troubled home life and having her brain sucked out by Glory in Season Five.

Anya became human sort of by default. In the alternate universe, Cordy was actually double-killed by Vamp Willow and Vamp Xander, but had left enough information behind that Giles and his alternate-universe crew were able to figure it out. Giles got the amulet, and destroyed it, reverting the universe back the way it was, and restoring Anya's humanity. She had been human once, about a 1000 years prior, and was granted demon status by D'hoffrin, a Vegence Demon by trade. Halfrek, who appeared this season, is another one.

Which leads me to Dawn's Wish eppie - that was on Buffy's birthday. The Halloween one for this season was when Dawn was out on Halloween with the two guy vampires who nearly turn her. There's always a Halloween ep, and always a Buffy birthday ep.

 

[Ashtal]

D'oh! Ya beat me to it!

 

[Staffan]

1) Who was Cordelia? Why does she and Zander have such a weird love/hate relationship? When did she leave, and why?
Cordelia used to be the rich queen-bitch of Sunnydale High. She eventually mellowed a little and got hooked up with Xander. This led to some ostracism from her previous circle which caused them to break up for one episode, but Cordy's self-esteem isn't that easily broken - the episode ended with her telling her clique (which included Harmony before she became a vampire) that she can bloody well be with anyone she pleases. She and Xander broke up after he and Willow kissed while Cordy and Oz watched - they did make peace after a while, but they never got back together again.

At the end of season 3, Cordy's family lost their money to the IRS ("OK, so he made a little error on his tax papers... twelve years in a row."). This lead to Cordy moving to LA where she was trying to become an actress which didn't work out too well. Instead, she got a job as secretary at Angel investigations and eventually got the "power" of visions.

2) What's with Willow? In the episode I saw last night (when the coach was turning the swim team into sahuagin), she was all excited by the thought of the swim team naked. This is strange, because I'm used to her being a lesbian. When did she turn?
When she started college, she tried to hook up with a group of Wiccans there. Disappointed in their shallowness (she described them as a "bunch of wanna-blessed-bees"), she did hook up with one person in the group - Tara (Tara apparently wasn't very well-liked by the group either). Along with Tara, she learned a few more things about spells and after being heartbroken over Oz's leaving for a while she and Tara fell in love.

3) When did Tara appear? What's her story? In the musical (which I've seen a dozen times, I love VHS ), she sang she's been through hell. What horrible thing happened? What was the argument that they had, that Willow thought she had to erase with the spell?

See above for Tara's introduction. Tara has also had a bit of a falling-out with her family - apparently, the women of the family have all been reasonably powerful witches, and the men started a legend about the women turning to demons when they became 20, so they needed to be kept in line. This was of course bogus, and when Tara's family came to get her on her 20th birthday they were rather firmly rebuffed by the Scoobies.

The "being through hell" thing referred to in the song was probably when Tara was mindscrewed by Glory - the 5th season big bad who needed to drain people's sanity to keep her own. The argument she and Willow had was about Willow's overuse of magic to solve all sorts of problems - for instance, when looking for Dawn in a crowd of people at the Bronze, Willow suggested using magic to shift everyone above the age of 16 into a parallell dimension for a few seconds.

4) When did Anya appear? How did she and Zander hook up? I know she was a vengeance demon, and that her schtick was men who abuse or take advantage of women, so who summoned her?
Anya wasn't exactly summoned - she and the other vengeance demons seem to be more proactive, in that they seek out those who want vengence without being summoned. After Xander and Cordy had broken up, Cordy was *really* mad at him. Anyanka took the form of a cute high-school girl and got Cordy to pour her heart out to her, with Cordy blaming Buffy for her troubles and wishing Buffy had never come to Sunnydale - leading to an alternate reality where Buffy never did come to Sunnydale and where the Master (1st season Big Bad, really old vampire) had broken free and his horde of vampires roamed Sunnydale pretty much at will and where both Willow and Xander (among others) had become vampires (Evil Vampire Willow looks *hot*, by the way). Eventually in this alternate reality, Giles managed to get Anyanka's focus, a green emerald necklace and smash it leading to the nullification of the alternate reality and Anya being trapped in human form without demon powers.

Eventually, she assimilated reasonably well into human society and got really attracted to Xander. She figured that if she had sex with him once, she would get over that attraction but that obviously didn't happen.

5) In the musical, Giles and Buffy were talking about what happened on Halloween. What happened on Halloween? Is this when Buffy died?
I guess it refers to Dawn telling the gang that she was going to sleep over at a friend's place when she (and the friend in question) were really going to hang out with boys - boys who turned out to be vampires and nearly killed Dawn and her friend.

6) HOW did Buffy die?
By jumping through a portal nexus in order to close it at the 5th season finale. She did technically die once before, but that was easily fixed with some CPR by Xander.

7) What's with Angel? One episode, he's lovey-dovey, and another (non-sequential) episode, he's attempting to turn people into vampires so that they will go after Buffy.
When first vampirized, Angelus and his sire Darla went on a rampage of destruction across Europe, eventually joined by Angelus's "child" Drusilla and her "child" Spike. During this time, Angelus killed and drained a gypsy who was apparently quite popular with her clan. This led to the gypsy clan putting a curse on Angelus that would bring his soul back, letting him feel the full weight of his actions. Like all curses, it must have a breaking condition - When Angel has a moment of "true happiness", the curse will be lifted.

In the second season, Angel's and Buffy's relationship got more and more involved, which eventually led to them ending up in bed together. This gave Angel the moment of true happiness that would lift the curse, leading to the re-emergence of the evil Angelus who went on to be that season's Big Bad. Willow managed to re-curse Angel (Willow's first use of major mojo, by the way) at the same time as he was swallowed into a hell-dimension by a demon statue he was trying to awaken, but he did eventually come back. Realizing that he and Buffy couldn't stay near one another without eventually letting their passion get the better of them again, he left Sunnydale and took up residence in LA (getting his own spinoff in the process).

 

[Flinx]

All very good and accurate answers.

One of my favorite sites is buffyguide.com . It not only has good plot summaries but also some memorable lines from the show. Unfortunately, they are way behind in updating the site. Still, it's a good place to get caught up on seasons 1-4 and about half of season 5.

 

[Heretic Apostate]

Okay, this leads to a very important question....


Where can I see a pic of Vamp Willow?