Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Writing Dawn into the first four seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer

From season five onward, Dawn has been a part of the Buffy Universe. However, she is also in the hearts and minds of each of the Scoobies, as if she always existed. One can think that the monks fabricated memories for all the Scoobies, but a better and simpler explanation lies with an assumption based loosely on the Many Worlds Theory in quantum mechanics.

In shortform, any possible event that could have happened in the course of linear time, or indeed anything anyone can imagine to have happened, HAS happened in an alternate reality from the one we know. There is an alternate reality where Hitler did win the war for example, according to Hugh Everett III.

Whenever you stand at a fork in the road, and you ask yourself should I go left or right? There is a reality in which you went left and there is an equally existing reality in which you went right. And never the twain shall meet... Unless of course you’re a practitioner of magic.

Rather than fabricate a nonexistent world from scratch in which Buffy’s parents, Joyce and Hank, also conceived a second child, the monks’ magicks could simply have found a world where Dawn DID exist already and MERGED that world mystically with the world where Dawn didn’t exist. So that technically the world we experienced in the first four years of viewing Buffy doesn’t exist now and since we’re talking about nonlinear temporal distortion, it never did. While merging these two realities into one, they slipped the energy ball into Dawn. This would explain why no one attempted to take Dawn before her 15th year, because she wasn’t an energy ball until that point in time.

So where was Dawn in those first four years? One can go back now, review the episodes, and try to imagine where the writers would have placed Dawn in the storylines, had they thought so far ahead as to include her. OR if you’re a purist and think those first four seasons didn’t have Dawn and shouldn’t and that quantum mechanics is a load of dingoes kidneys, fine. Think of it this way. If you were able to sit with Xander or Giles and ask them to recall the days before Sunnydale high school was destroyed, where would their mystically affected minds believe Dawn was at the time?

It’s assumed that by the time we get to "Real Me" in the fifth season, Dawn already knows that Buffy is the Slayer. Did she learn this at the same time that Joyce did, or did Dawn learn about it beforehand, and occasionally used her knowledge against Buffy to bribe her against their mother. This is a strongly tempting concept for any writer, as it creates inherently more conflict and would make great fun, so one can assume Dawn learned before Joyce did that Buffy is the Slayer.

Did Dawn know at the start of the series? Again we can assume no for similar reasons. Were the writers utilizing Dawn’s character from the beginning, it would be more exciting from a writing standpoint to offer a moment of realization and discovery on the part of Dawn, that she was related to a vampire slayer, and how might she react to that?

It’s difficult to assume that Dawn ever went out and slew vampires with Buffy, because it was established in Real Me that Joyce strongly frowned on this, and Dawn also had little to no experience in defending herself. We know that Dawn knew most of Buffy’s friends prior to "Real Me" because she had a crush on Xander, and in her diary narration it was established she had an opinion of one form or another with all the supporting characters.

Buffy turned 18 in season three (Helpless) and turned 20 in season five (Blood Ties) so at the point of "Real Me" Buffy is 19. In that same episode Dawn admits she’s 14. I know not when Dawn’s birthday is, but it should be safe to say there’s a five year difference between their ages. This means even when Buffy started in high school, Dawn was only ten years old and attending fifth grade. Dawn would rarely if ever adversely affect any scenes that occurred during regular school hours in Sunnydale High School, as she was attending elementary school. In later seasons until season five, she was in junior high school. She could however have occasionally appeared before or after school, and Buffy’s mother would have insisted Buffy help out at least occasionally with caring for Dawn. This would mean less vampire slaying time, or more excuses.

Dawn really liked Xander and Willow, moreso than Giles. It can be surmised from this that she spent more time with them, and treated her in a favorable way that was to her liking. The logical assumption would be that when Buffy went slaying, Willow or Xander would at times distract Dawn and babysit her, trying to keep her from learning the truth about Buffy’s Slayer status for as long as possible.

In the first act of the first episode, "Welcome To The Hellmouth," Joyce wakes Buffy up for her first day of school. It can be assumed that Joyce was waking Dawn up at the same time. So we may have seen Dawn that early on in the series, had the writers of BtVS thought that far ahead. A lot of the rest of the story takes place at the school itself until the third act, so none of that would have changed. In the third act there’s a scene at home, where Joyce asks Buffy about going to The Bronze. Joyce doesn’t mention leaving the house for the night, so it can be assumed she wouldn’t force Buffy to watch over Dawn. However, Dawn may have been in the scene causing minor annoyance.

In the second episode, "The Harvest," Joyce & Buffy have an argument where she is effectively grounded for the night, even though the world’s about to end (as usual). We can assume Dawn was in the house at the time. Whether or not she would have been in the scene is undeterminable. Odds are a nosy sister like that would have caused some problems, but since in the reality that Dawn exists the Master was destroyed on time, we can assume that if Dawn caused Buffy difficulty, Buffy was able to somehow fool her sister into believing she didn’t sneak out of the house. Other episodes may have operated similarly. Episodes involving Joyce & Buffy may have included Dawn but probably did not adversely affect the status quo.

However, in the second season there was an episode called "Halloween" and one can probably assume that Joyce would have insisted Dawn join her sister Buffy on the whole trick or treating deal. If Dawn purchased a costume from the same shop Buffy did, she would have gotten temporary amnesia during the fracas and become whatever her costume was. However, afterwards she would have remembered everything that happened, and odds are she would have seen her sister kicking Spike’s ass after they all got their memories back. This would have created a compromising situation for Buffy, where her secret was no longer safe, and the episodes "Lie To Me" to "What’s My Line Part Two" would probably include scenes where Dawn threatened to tell Joyce that Buffy never stopped chasing after monsters. Joyce didn’t find out until much later, so we can’t assume Dawn ever succeeded.

The episode "Ted" would have involved Dawn quite directly, as much of it took place in their house. Dawn probably would have disliked Ted as much as Buffy did. What child immediately warms up to a creepy guy dating her mom and talking about marriage so fast? So the two of them might have found themselves working together, in a truce of sorts, to figure out what was wrong with the guy. We can surmise that from this experience, Dawn would at least temporarily agree to keep their Mom in the dark about Buffy’s Slayer status. Perhaps even help Buffy concoct alibis so she wouldn’t get in trouble, in return for an endless amount of favors of course.

Come to think of it, I think the series would have been better from the start had Dawn been an integral member of the series from day one.