Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Buffy the Vampire Slayer revolves around a high school student who discovers she’s actually a superhero destined to protect the earth against demons, ghosts and vampires with swollen eyebrows. And she hates it.

The splinters are the worst part.

She’s a reluctant hero who openly resents her abilities because they have stripped her of the chance of ever living a normal life, and because teenagers hate responsibility. In fact, she almost turns her back on her duties at the end of Season 1 and tries to run away at the end of Season 2 to escape the pressure of killing evil shit all the time.

Even by the final season, she’s still complaining about how miserable it is. She tries to give an inspiring speech to a new group of vampire hunters, and instead it comes out as "I hate this. I hate being here. I hate that you have to be here. I hate that there’s evil, and that I was chosen to fight it. I wish, a whole lot of the time, that I hadn’t been." The point being, her powers are a curse, forcing her to save the world when all she wants is to be a regular girl.

Personally, we’d take fighting vampires over student loans and car payments. But whatever.

Why This Is Bullshit:

What’s a "normal life" in the Buffy universe? How does she even have a concept of what normal is? Keep in mind, it’s not like the demons only reveal themselves to her because she’s a slayer, and everyone else gets to spend Saturday at the mall. The demons are real for everyone — Sunnydale is a war zone. The only difference is that everyone else is helpless and she isn’t.

"If only I could die screaming instead of kicking 17 kinds of ass."

Over seven seasons, we see enough bodies pile up in that town to know that the idea of normalcy doesn’t exist for anyone. The show is set in a horrifying universe where every day, "normal" people have to worry about their organs being harvested, getting eviscerated by She-Mantises or being eaten by bullies possessed by demonic hyenas. Well over 10 students and faculty die every season at Sunnydale High School, and 100 percent of those deaths are murder by some supernatural creature. Being "normal" means being a vulnerable hunk of meat just burning time before getting eaten by a demon.

Buffy hasn’t sacrificed her life for her powers; her powers are the only thing ensuring that she has a life. She is one of the few people capable of even stepping foot outside her house at night without having to worry about something crawling out of hell and planting eggs in her chest.