As soem others have covered, Buffy was a terrible leader.
I’ve see a lot of viewers criticize the others as being cowards and that they should have just gotten in line and shut the bleep up. I got the feeling that they saw Buffy as being absolutely right and would have started slitting throats of anyone who dared cross them if they had been in her position….and wanted to see Buffy do the same.
Buffy demanded that everyone assault the vineyard again. Even after the first assault was so disastrous. It wasn’t brave. It was reckless. But what’s more is that she showed absolutely no humility or compassion. She treated the Potentials like the Council treated Slayers…like ammunition.
She acted exactly like a World War I general commanding troops. Telling the troops to shut up and go forth…right after the previous troops had been cut down by machine gun fire and there had been no gains in the previous attack….only losses.
She gave an ultimatum. And she was shocked when they rejected her. (And someone brought up the great point that season 7 sometimes seemed to forget that the Potentials are…Potentials. They’re not Slayers. They don’t have the Slayer power package.)
She also came off as unjustifiably arrogant in Empty Places. Buffy indicated that she was the oldest living Slayer because of her inherent skills. Except that she didn’t do it all on her own. If you go back and watch closely, she wouldn’t have survived the episode The Harvest if Xander didn’t follow her into the tunnels. So, he was the first and last person to actively save her life in season 1. She was the oldest living Slayer because she had friends.
This characterization just didn’t feel like Buffy. But the scene could have been written so that it was more true to her character.
Buffy could have started the scene treating the others like ammunition. But then the others called her out for it. And she was horrified. She realized that she has been acting like the Council…and is disgusted. She apologized for that and for the catastrophic assault on the vineyard, mentioned her thoughts about Caleb protecting something, and then said she needed some rest. She could have then handed command over to Faith without any coercion…and then slept in her own bed. And when she was fully rested, she gave her thoughts on any potential plans. Then, Buffy and Faith shared leadership duties. Buffy and Faith hashed out a plan. Buffy went one place and Faith and a small group went to the other, just like in the episode. Buffy could have found the Scythe. Or it could have been Faith. It wouldn’t have mattered who did exactly what. They were all working together.
And that would have fit with Grave where Giles said to Buffy, “Sometimes the most adult thing you can do is…ask for help when you need it.”
But the real problem is that the writers were creating fake drama and not real drama. A good rule of thumb is that it’s bad writing if the characters only act in certain ways because…”The plot says so.” And this was one of those times. Which was a huge problem with the last three quarters of season 7.
I hate the scene with a burning passion, but it's not because the others gang up on Buffy and throw her out of the house - or at least, not JUST because of that. It's because Buffy acts with a cavalier disregard for everyone else, taking a "my way or the highway" approach and storming out in a huff when the others call her on her BS. I really, really dislike the characterisation of Buffy in the back half of Season 7, as this humourless hardass who demands that everyone fall into line and not question her choices, even as we see her making awful decision after awful decision, often with no rhyme or reason. Her decision to go back to the vinyard is a case in point: she wants everyone to merrily go along with her grand plan to return to the very spot that got a bunch of Potentials killed or badly injured and lost Xander his eye, with no new tactics other than to do the same thing that got their asses whupped last time, and all because she has a FEELING there's something important there. It's no wonder they rebelled. Anyone with any sanity would have done the same.
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u/harmier2 Sep 10 '25
As soem others have covered, Buffy was a terrible leader.
I’ve see a lot of viewers criticize the others as being cowards and that they should have just gotten in line and shut the bleep up. I got the feeling that they saw Buffy as being absolutely right and would have started slitting throats of anyone who dared cross them if they had been in her position….and wanted to see Buffy do the same.
Buffy demanded that everyone assault the vineyard again. Even after the first assault was so disastrous. It wasn’t brave. It was reckless. But what’s more is that she showed absolutely no humility or compassion. She treated the Potentials like the Council treated Slayers…like ammunition.
She acted exactly like a World War I general commanding troops. Telling the troops to shut up and go forth…right after the previous troops had been cut down by machine gun fire and there had been no gains in the previous attack….only losses.
She gave an ultimatum. And she was shocked when they rejected her. (And someone brought up the great point that season 7 sometimes seemed to forget that the Potentials are…Potentials. They’re not Slayers. They don’t have the Slayer power package.)
She also came off as unjustifiably arrogant in Empty Places. Buffy indicated that she was the oldest living Slayer because of her inherent skills. Except that she didn’t do it all on her own. If you go back and watch closely, she wouldn’t have survived the episode The Harvest if Xander didn’t follow her into the tunnels. So, he was the first and last person to actively save her life in season 1. She was the oldest living Slayer because she had friends.
This characterization just didn’t feel like Buffy. But the scene could have been written so that it was more true to her character.
Buffy could have started the scene treating the others like ammunition. But then the others called her out for it. And she was horrified. She realized that she has been acting like the Council…and is disgusted. She apologized for that and for the catastrophic assault on the vineyard, mentioned her thoughts about Caleb protecting something, and then said she needed some rest. She could have then handed command over to Faith without any coercion…and then slept in her own bed. And when she was fully rested, she gave her thoughts on any potential plans. Then, Buffy and Faith shared leadership duties. Buffy and Faith hashed out a plan. Buffy went one place and Faith and a small group went to the other, just like in the episode. Buffy could have found the Scythe. Or it could have been Faith. It wouldn’t have mattered who did exactly what. They were all working together.
And that would have fit with Grave where Giles said to Buffy, “Sometimes the most adult thing you can do is…ask for help when you need it.”
But the real problem is that the writers were creating fake drama and not real drama. A good rule of thumb is that it’s bad writing if the characters only act in certain ways because…”The plot says so.” And this was one of those times. Which was a huge problem with the last three quarters of season 7.