First forming in the Season One episode " The Harvest " to prevent The Master from opening a portal to hell, the line-up of the group varied from year to year, but the core that remained intact throughout the series ' run was Buffy herself and her best friends, Xander Harris and Willow Rosenberg, as well as her Watcher, Rupert Giles.

In the beginning, Buffy often had to protect her friends from monsters, but over the course of the series most of them gained superpowers and fighting skills of their own, with Xander the only notable member with no mystical abilities or connection to the supernatural, though he does acquire extensive military knowledge thanks to a spell.

Due to the show's strong themes of female empowerment, the most powerful members of the team are often female ( Buffy and Willow ), while the men play passive roles such as that of father-figure ( Giles ) and supportive best friend ( Xander ).

However, after the events of the series finale, the Scoobies have, as stated above, been spread across the world, with Buffy and Xander maintaining a " command center " in Scotland.

The series begins as Buffy, Willow, and their friend Xander are in 10th grade and Willow is a shy and nerdy girl with little confidence.

She grows faint at the sight of monsters, but quickly forms a friendship with Buffy Summers ( Sarah Michelle Gellar ) and is revealed to have grown up as friends with Xander ( Nicholas Brendon ).

In the second season when the characters are in 11th grade, Willow becomes more sure of herself, standing up to the conceited Cordelia Chase ( Charisma Carpenter ), and approaching Xander, on whom she has had a crush for years, although it is unrequited as Xander is in love with Buffy.

Her relationships with Buffy and Xander become strained as they try to find their place following high school.

Willow becomes much more confident in college, finally finding a place that respects her intellect, while Buffy has difficulty in classes and Xander does not attend school.

Willow is able to escape with Buffy, Xander, Giles, and Kennedy as Sunnydale is destroyed.

Willow appears to Buffy and Xander, who are in charge of thousands of Slayers, a year after the destruction of Sunnydale.

Willow's earliest and most consistent relationships are with Buffy and Xander, both of whom she refers to as her best friends although they have their conflicts.

Willow is part of a powerful quartet: she represents the spirit, Giles intelligence, Xander heart, and Buffy strength of the Scoobies.

In the Tales of the Slayers comic one-shot " Broken Bottle of Djinn " ( 2002 ) by Doug Petrie and Jane Espenson, Buffy battles a spirit in Sunnydale High, while the Tales of the Vampires comic book story " Antique " ( 2004 ) by Drew Goddard sees her breaking into Dracula's castle to rescue Xander from the infamous vampire.

A pariah in the community of Slayers and former witches, Buffy moves to San Francisco where she lives with her sister and Xander, and resumes her former duties as Slayer: patrolling at night for vampires.

In Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Nine, Buffy continues slaying vampires in San Francisco but discovers a new threat: creatures dubbed " zompires " by Xander: feral and nearly mindless vampires created when vampires sire people after the destruction of the Seed, as demons can no longer enter this dimension to fully possess their bodies.

After years of relating more to Xander, he says, " Buffy was always the person that I was in that story because I'm not in every way.

The shallow cheerleader of the original film had grown more mature and open-minded, identifying with social outcasts such as Willow and Xander, and instead, the character of Cordelia was created to embody what Buffy once was.

He kidnaps Willow and Xander, and forces Willow to conduct a love spell for him to make Drusilla love him again, even coercing Buffy and Angel to help him in exchange for the safe return of their friends.

The excitement of a brawl with the Mayor's vampires helps him see that Drusilla left him because he had begun to go soft ; he resolves to win her back by torturing her until she likes him again, and tells Buffy where to find Willow and Xander.

( Though he still spars with Buffy, provided he has no real intent on harming her ) His inability to bite is comically compared to impotence, much to Spike's constant humiliation ; in " Doomed ", he attempts to commit suicide by staking himself at Xander's house, but is stopped by Willow and Xander.

Among his favorite targets are Angel, Xander, Giles, and ( to a lesser extent ) Buffy.

As the series progresses, Giles increasingly becomes a father figure to Buffy and her friends Willow ( Alyson Hannigan ) and Xander ( Nicholas Brendon ).

Spike's skills of analysis allowed him to realize Willow was barely holding it together after Oz's departure even though Giles and Buffy thought she was doing better, to be the first to see through Tara's abusive and controlling family, forced Buffy and Angel to admit that they were more than " just friends " and identify when and why some relationships, such as between Buffy and Riley, are not meant to last, masterfully feeding Riley's insecurities in an effort to sabotage his relationship with Buffy, so Spike can pursue her.

In the comic book Buffy Season Eight, Dawn goes through a series of bizarre physical changes.

Shuttleworth notes that most Buffy characters go through a rite of transformation except for Tara.

He shoots several rounds, hitting Buffy, and the last stray shot hits Tara through the heart, killing her as Willow looks on.

In the " Retreat " ( 2009 ) story arc, Warren and Amy assist Twilight in tracking Buffy and Willow's movements through their use of magic, forcing the group into hiding in Tibet, where they learn to suppress their abilities, leading to an all-out brawl between Twilight's military forces and Buffy's depowered Slayers.

The premise of the series is that a teenage girl, Buffy Summers ( Sarah Michelle Gellar ), is given superhuman powers through mystical forces to defeat vampires and other evils in the fictional town of Sunnydale.

Whedon defended the character of Riley Finn, " The important thing for us was to find a character that was the anti-Angel and to have Buffy go through something very different, part of which was the question, ' How do I get over Angel?

She auditioned for the part of Regan MacNeil in the film The Exorcist, but the director felt that, with Family Affair still in popular consciousness at the time through daytime reruns, movie audiences might think Buffy was the one being possessed.

Donruss Playoff expanded its entertainment lines in 2002, with such trading cards as Buffy, The Vampire Slayer through its new Score Entertainment division.

Because it debuted midway through the 1997 television season, the first season of Buffy has only 12 episodes as opposed to the standard 22 in subsequent seasons.

Xander is able to revive Buffy through CPR, thus the prophecy of her death at the Master's hands is fulfilled, but its intention thwarted.

Buffy finds the Master on the roof of the library watching through windows in the ceiling.

They work through Buffy to neutralize Adam, telling him " You could never hope to grasp the source of our power ".

They are able, through Buffy, to punch inside Adam's chest, remove his uranium core, destroying him.

Riley fights his way into the belfry and while he's embattled, Buffy crashes through a window, fighting.

Whedon intended The Gentlemen to be Brothers Grimm-like monsters, with Giles playing the role of the wise man, Buffy the princess, and Tara the " little girl wandering through the woods ".

The hole in the wall through which Joyce and Buffy speak briefly shows only Joyce's head and shoulders, which, according to Nikki Stafford, is the prevailing image in the fifth season episode " The Body ", an episode which explores Joyce's death and its immediate aftermath.

In this light, they analyze Joyce's actions as overprotective of Buffy in early seasons: her vigilance causes Buffy to need to sneak in and out of the house through her bedroom window.

This process continues through the generations until 1997, when one Slayer — Buffy Summers — is killed in battle ( by drowning ) only to be revived via CPR.

This skill must be honed through practice and the Slayer usually must focus to achieve the full benefit, as shown in season 5 " Family ", during which, when Tara casts a spell that causes demons to be invisible to the gang, Buffy orders everyone to be quiet and fights a demon without seeing it.

Just as Xander and Buffy are about to come to blows, the zombies crash through the windows and doors, causing the Scoobies to immediately drop their argument and band together to combat the threat.