Buffy Seasons 6 & 7: An Alternative Viewpoint

Its no argument that seasons 6 & 7 of Buffy The Vampire Slayer has been rather controversial. With people saying its when the series started to go downhill. One of the complaints being is how unlikable the Scoobies has become. Most importantly Buffy. Before she was without a doubt a love or hate kind of character but the latter seasons really shifted her into the hate category. However lets take an alternate interpretation of her character in those seasons shall we?

At the start of season 6 Buffy died. Then got brought back to life. Yay. The problem with it? She was still buried and she woke up in a coffin. Ooooooh yeeeaaaaaah. And she had to scratch and dig her way out of her own grave. Then she discovers she's right back into the monster fighting chaos.

Now take this and add her previous traumas from the past seasons and add the fact that she mentioned she was in heaven before she was revived that can take a justifiably toll on a person's psyche. Something that would NOT take an episode to get over. No. This messed her up so bad that it had to take a season and a half before she is stable again.

Some could say why cant her friends help? Because they're wrapped in their own problems: Willow using powerful and dangerous magic, her crumbling relationship with Tara, Xander's anxiety over adulthood and getting serious with Anya, Giles being distant from the group, Dawns......It was a rough year for the gang. Lets leave it at that.

They're honestly the perfect examples of Shell Shocked Veterans. Buffy got the worst end of it though.

Put yourself in her position? She was forced out of heaven by her friends. One couldn't blame Buffy in growing resentful towards them because of that. And her treatment of Spike was her own way of venting out her frustrations, that and self destructive tendencies. Her having to fight her best friend who turned evil and came close to destroying the world didn't help much either.

Then Season 7 happened. Her first attempt at leading a group of potential Slayers was...messy. She wasn't a mother figure, more like the drill Sargent from Full Metal Jacket

A Slayer killed herself due to the mistreatment then Buffy called her a weakling. Just saying.

Buffy in alot of ways is a tragic character if you think about it. Before she became a slayer her biggest worry was getting a date for the prom. Not preventing the world from ending or monsters at her door. Then to add her leading a army full of Potential Slayers is like a parent not ready to raise kids being forced in a position to raise kids. Buffy was literally forced to grow up while never having the chance to experience what normal teens do. And to make things worse her friends had to experience it with her and they became just as fucked up as Buffy. You know the group is messed up when Faith's the sane one of the bunch!

Honestly Seasons 6 & 7 can be looked at as the group being a bunch of shell shocked veterans utterly broken by past events and go through a series of self destructive tendencies before trying to put themselves back together again. The last two seasons are Greek Tragedy in comparison to be honest.