Vogler’s modifications of Campbell’s journey lists twelve major steps, or Stages, in the journey of a Hero:
1.Establishment of the Ordinary World
2.The Call to Adventure
3.Refusal of the Call
4.Meeting with the Mentor
5.Crossing the First Threshold
6.Tests, Allies, and Enemies
7.Approaches to the Inmost Cave
8.Ordeal
9.Reward (Seizing the Sword)
10.The Road Back
11.Resurrection
12.Return with the Elixir
Each season of Buffy follows this model on its own, including the shorter first season (as Buffy was purchased for a twelve-episode run as a mid-season replacement.) But in the last five episodes, this model expanded to create a mini-epic, or Journey, of its own: First, the Ordinary World is established: a young Potential is running for her life from the Bringers, who have already been established as minions of the bad in previous episodes. We are on the outskirts of Sunnydale, home of the Slayer, and to whom the Potential is running for safety. To Revello Drive, to be precise.
This is the Slayer’s Ordinary World, and recognition of the ordinary world is crucial if one is to leave it in order to embark on a path to a more extraordinary world.
The Potential—named Shannon, in the script—leaps into Caleb’s truck, and at first assumes that she is safe for the moment. Then Caleb quickly reveals himself to be the leader of the Bringers, brands her, and asks her to deliver a message to the Slayer. She agrees, he guts her, and pushes her out of the truck . . . knowing full well that agents of the Slayer are traveling close behind him.
Sure enough, Willow’s car screeches to a halt and Willow and her companion get out of the car. Willow rushes to the aid of the Potential, who will deliver the Call to Adventure to Buffy . . . and Faith stares out at the landscape and reminds the viewer that the call has been delivered within the boundaries of Buffy’s ordinary world:
FAITH: “Yep. Guess I’m back in Sunnydale.”
(“Dirty Girls,” 7-18)
Buffy hears Caleb’s message from Shannon—which the viewer will later learn is “I have something of yours”—and Buffy decides to answer the Call to Adventure (Stage 3) by attacking Caleb immediately, before he expects it. The Call to Adventure is the second stage of the Hero’s Journey: The call is initially refused—not by Buffy herself, but by her followers—the Potentials and the core Scoobies—who suggest that she’s impulsively leading them into a trap.
Buffy’s mentor, Giles, who arrived in “Bring On the Night” (7-10), also advises against the foray, but Buffy ignores him. One might also argue that Giles’s position in this case is as another Campbell archetype, the Threshold Guardian—those who attempt to dissuade the Hero from her path.
Buffy leads the girls on the assault on the vineyard, thus crossing the First Threshold (Stage 5)—with disastrous results. Her gambit fails; she has grossly underestimated the strength of her enemies, and some of her warriors are killed. Xander is terribly maimed.
Now comes the Stage 6 of Buffy’s journey, that of undergoing Tests and gathering Allies and Enemies. With her failure at the vineyard fresh in the mind of her followers, alliances shift. Kennedy and the other Potentials question her fitness to lead. Faith inadvertently corners their allegiance by providing them with some much-needed R&R; it is when Faith is threatened by the cops that the girls finally become the army Buffy needs to destroy The First—and who then turn against her. Wood fires her from her job because it’s distracting her from her true mission. And Giles sends Spike out of town, highlighting Buffy’s mistrust of him since “Lies My Parents Told Me” (7-17), in which Giles conspired with Robin Wood to kill Spike.
BUFFY: “You sent away the guy who’s been watching my back. Again. I think—”
GILES: “We are all watching your back.”
BUFFY: “Yeah. Funny how I don’t really feel that lately.”
(“Empty Places,” 7-19)
Making matters worse, Caleb approaches her on her home turf—her office at school—and knocks her unconscious.
Failing all her tests of leadership, her order to return to the vineyard is refused and her followers mutiny. At her nadir, she is stripped of her leadership and sent into exile.
BUFFY: “I don’t understand. Seven years I’ve kept us safe by doing this, exactly this, making the hard decisions. Suddenly you’re all acting like you don’t trust me.”
GILES: “But didn’t you just tell me today that you don’t feel like you can trust us?
(“Empty Places,” 7-19)
Even Dawn turns against Buffy. Her only ally is Spike, who seeks her out and stands by her. He provides her with crucial information for the battle to come, and rallies her.
SPIKE: “You were their leader and still are. This isn’t something that you gave up; it’s something that they took.”
BUFFY: “And the difference is?”
SPIKE: “We can take it back.”
(“Touched,” 7-20)
This period of Tests, Allies, and Enemies culminates in Stage 7, which is the Approach to the Inmost Cave. Buffy returns to the scene of her most crushing defeat, the vineyard, specifically to retrieve what belongs to her, circling back to the original Call to Adventure issued by Caleb and finally answering it. Caleb attacks her again; this is the third time she has faced him in battle, and this time she wins. She retrieves the scythe, which is the symbol of her right to lead.
Meanwhile, her rival, Faith, has led her followers into disaster. Buffy saves both Faith and the surviving Potentials, and they return to base camp—the Summers home. Her followers accept her return, and she resumes her position as commander-in-chief, the scythe firmly in her possession.
FAITH: “It’s old. Strong. And it feels like . . . like it’s mine. So I guess that means it’s yours.”
BUFFY: “It belongs to the Slayer.”
FAITH: “Slayer in Charge, which I’m guessing is you.”
(“End of Days,” 7-21)
Buffy’s not so sure of that; and she continues on the Hero’s Journey to the Inmost Cave, launching on a quest to discover the origins of the scythe. Guided by Giles’ and Willow’s research, she meets another Mentor—the ancient Guardian named “She,” who explains that the scythe was imbued with power to benefit the Slayer.
SHE: “Use it wisely. . . and perhaps you can beat back the rising dark. One way or the other, it can only mean an end is truly near.”
(“End of Days,” 7-21)
And this is where the mini-arc takes off to provide the closure for the entire series as a whole, and not just one single season: through the revelations provided by She, Buffy changes the Ordinary World. She comes to understand that the Shadow Men forced the First Slayer to swallow the demonic essence that created the line. Becoming the Watchers, they laid down the rules that there would be only one Chosen One at a time—reinforcing that notion time and again with tests like the Cruciamentum “Helpless,” (3-12); and conferring anxiously among themselves when first Kendra and then Faith were called, seemingly out of order, because Buffy had died and been revived—a total of twice (“Prophesy Girl,” 1-12 and “The Gift,” 5-22). Buffy had already broken their rule without realizing the import.
It is her enemy, speaking through the slain Caleb, who provides her with the answer to breaking free of the legacy imposed by the Shadow Men/Watchers upon Slayers since the beginning of time:
BUFFY/FIRST: “Into every generation, a Slayer is born. One girl in all the world. She alone will have the strength and skill to fight the . . . well, there’s that word again. What you are. How you’ll die. Alone.”
(“Chosen,” 7-22)
These have been the opening words of every episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer since the show’s premiere. They are the ground rules of Buffy’s universe, her Ordinary World. Throughout the run of the show, the fact that Buffy died and then was revived (in “Prophecy Girl,” 1-12) has been factored into t
he existing notion that there can be only one Slayer at a time. The presence of additional Slayers was considered an anomaly—and not the establishment of a new set of rules.
BUFFY: “In every generation one Slayer is born because a bunch of guys that died thousands of years made up that rule . . . So I say we change the rules. I say my power will be our power. Tomorrow Willow will use the essence of this scythe, that contains the energy of so many Slayers, to change our destiny.”
(“Chosen,” 7-22)
As she concludes her speech, she asks each Potential present to make a choice: to accept the power of a Slayer now, rather than to passively wait for it to be given to her, due to a random death of another girl she might never know.
It is for the Hero herself to understand that, through Willow, she has the power to change the world forever—literally. And she chooses to do so. Thus is Buffy’s entire journey distilled into the five-episode arc that concludes the show.
The decision made, this final episode then masterfully resumes the path of the season seven’s original quest: to destroy The First; but also refocuses the Journey on the establishment of a brand new Ordinary World (Stage 1), in which a new Hero’s Journey can begin.
Back in the Egyptian temple monument, when Buffy spoke with She, she also received an amulet from Angel, another of her allies. He told her she would need a champion to wear the necklace in order to prevail. Though his Mentor (Lilah, of Wolfram and Hart) is unreliable, both he and Buffy at least accept the amulet as part of the requisite items needed for her to win the day. Thus she has amassed her weaponry and her army, and now stands firmly at the door of her Ordeal. This is underscored by scenes showing the warriors on the eve of the big battle, a traditional trope of the Hero’s Journey: a few of the troops playing a game (in this case, a dungeons & dragons game); talking quietly; making love; and connecting, possibly for the last time.
The day of reckoning dawns. It’s Ordeal time (Stage 8). Buffy deliberately opens the Seal of Danzalthar by combining her own blood with that of her followers. Willow is preparing the spell that will imbue all the Potentials with Slayer power. Other warriors are taking up their positions: Xander and Dawn, Anya and Andrew, Giles and Robin Wood. Old and new strategies shift into play: brute Slayer strength, magick, and, unknown to the legions of evil, a Hero leading an army of Heroes, all prepared to launch their own Journeys.
BUFFY: “From now on, every girl in the world who might be a Slayer, will be a Slayer. Every girl who could have the power, will have the power. Who can stand up, will stand up. Every one of you, and girls we’ve never known, and generations to come . . .”
(“Chosen,” 7-22)
With these rousing words in their minds, all the Potentials are Slayers, and any one of then could carry the day. The great battle ensues, filled with the elements Vogler describes as vital to the crisis: tasting death (seeing some of the Slayers die); the elasticity of emotion (mixing humor and pathos, for example, Andrew’s speech where he wants to thank his friends and family before he dies); seeing the Hero appear to die (Buffy’s seemingly mortal wound); and the Hero witnessing and possibly causing death (wearing the amulet Buffy gave him, its power sears Spike’s soul and causes the huge explosion of light into the cavern). Buffy suffers a crisis of the heart, in which she says, finally, to Spike, “I love you,” then must leave him to die.
The Slayers prevail (Stage 9), and now begins Stage 10 of the Hero’s Journey: the Road Back—getting out of the cavern and out of danger. All the survivors save Buffy make it out and scramble onto the bus, but Buffy is left behind because she said goodbye to Spike. It is left to her to have one last star turn as she leaps from crumbling building to crumbling building as the hellmouth collapses, chasing the bus, which symbolizes safety.
Once she reaches the bus, it is time for Stage 11: Buffy’s final Resurrection. For the Slayer who has been brought back twice from deaths she has willingly chosen in the line of duty, this third death is startlingly different: she becomes a normal human being with the opportunity to live a natural life. Buffy is no longer the Chosen, no longer unique.
FAITH: “Yeah, you’re not the one and only chosen anymore. Just gotta live like a person. How’s that feel?”
(“Chosen,” 7-22)
This is Buffy’s Return with the Elixir, which she presents at journey’s end. She is changed, and she has changed the destinies of untold numbers of girls—and of viewers, who can now foresee many different paths for the Slayer “franchise,” as Noxon terms it in an interview. And it is for that reason that I suggest this ending is structurally the soundest and most emotionally satisfying piece of storytelling Whedon could have devised for Buffy.
In her essay for the New York Times, Joyce Millman projects her hopes for the finale:
I want Buffy to die and become an immortal goddess . . . I can see the series’ last moments now: Buffy’s ascension unleashes a surge of positive energy that empowers the forces of good.
I posit that the finale Joss Whedon provided does unleash a surge of positive energy that empowers the forces of good, at the same time concluding the final arc of the show, thus providing a sense of closure to that dynamic thread; and additionally circling backward—or perhaps, spiraling upward—to promises of the journey laid out in the premiere, seven seasons previous, exploiting the mythic structure of the Hero’s Journey to create an extremely satisfying, balanced end.
Nancy Holder is a four-time Bram Stoker Award-winning author, and was nominated a fifth time for one of her Buffy novels. She also received a special award from amazon.com for Angel Chronicles Volume 1. She has written or co-written over three dozen projects in the BTVS and Angel universes. The Watcher’s Guide, Volume 1, coauthored with Christopher Golden, appeared on the USA Today Bestseller List and was described in Entertainment Weekly and the Wall Street Journal as “superb.” She lives in San Diego with her seven-year-old daughter, Belle, who recently cast her friend Kate Liang as the Dancing Taco in an independent after-school production.
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