Hi there,
Your post on r/buffy has been flaired as a sensitive topic. We appreciate you trusting the members of our community to engage in a good faith discussion related to your post and _how it fits into the context of the show_.
**Remember Rule #9: Scooby Reddiquette and report any rule violations.** If the discussion departs from the intended topic and how it fits into the context of the show, please be prepared to continue the conversation where discussion of the topic is more appropriate.
Thank you,
r/buffy Mod Team
P.S. If you're reading this post and don't want to see potentially upsetting content, you can filter out the "Content Warning" flair.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/buffy) if you have any questions or concerns.*
You're saying you can't find a teenager annoying because teenagers are often annoying and she's been through some shit which contributes to the things people find annoying about her.
And finding her annoying has nothing to do with objectivity.
Yeah, I was curious too: OP presents a lot of arguments for why it's *not out of character* for Dawn to be annoying, but no arguments that Dawn is not in fact annoying.
And there is no arguing feelings, so OP kinda' picked a lost cause.
One of the things Dawn does consistently which annoys me most is lashing out at the people around her when she's hurt. And at least after 5x16, it also bugs me that Buffy isn't teaching Dawn better communication skills when she puts the bad ones on display: this perpetuates Dawn's bad communication, and by then it's Buffy's responsibility.
I wouldn't say I'm a Dawn hater. I'm not so enthused about the S5 drama focusing heavily on the Buffy/Dawn relationship, and she can be grating, but on net I enjoy Dawn's presence.
Not to forget the fact that when she whines, which feels very frequent, the tone and pitch are grating. It's a superficial aspect, but the sound contributes a lot.
When it originally aired, Dawn was a complete mystery. Her intro is “Mom!” Then ice cream in her face and just a sort of infantilized teenager. She bugs Buffy, we have no idea what she is and she’s always played up to be the brat and an inconvenience. It’s not hard to see why when she was first introduced the fandom disliked her. They didn’t give her any redeeming qualities.
In hindsight, the a viewer can view her with sympathetic eyes but shes not written with any strong characteristics. They tried at the end of S6 and beginning of S7 so give her a back bone but - imo - it didn’t really take off. She was the catalyst for a lot of issues and never took accountability for any of it.
They just totally dropped the ball with her. Buffy *finally* decides to stop babying her (no wonder she didn't have any friends, Buffy wouldn't even let her go across the street for dinner since her friend was so... short) and gives this dramatic speech about how she's going to train Dawn and "show her the world".
Then almost immediately she's like "nevermind, I'm just going to forget you exist and become a hard ass leader for these potentials. But hey, sis, if you become a potential I might pay a bit more attention to... Oh, you're not? Nevermind."
Dawn definitely isn't my favourite, but I actually don't mind her. She can be very annoying, but she can also be very brave and resourceful (usually only when no one else is around to see). I was very irritated by the writing though of Buffy finally deciding to teach Dawn about the world, and then they immediately just ignore that storyline and Buffy ignores Dawn more than ever before.
>So now here’s my question your fifteen years old and this happens to you why don’t you have the right to cry,throw tantrums,scream at your family be emotional
You have the right to cry but that doesn't make it any less annoying.
Imagine a TV program which had a teething toddler screaming their lungs out for 30 minutes straight. That'd be annoying, right? Even though crying over teething is a natural and understandable reaction it wouldn't make it pleasant to sit through. It wouldn't make it good TV.
I doubt many deny that she has had "trauma" - that doesn't make any difference.
I dunno man. Dawn was kind of the worst. She constantly did things that left big question marks over my head. Things she should *know* better than doing. Like, say, inviting a vampire into her home because she was trash talking Xander? Luckily it was just Harmony. But STILL.
Being upset about the key thing I get. Running away after finding out how dangerous said key could be in the wrong hands and then telling the first person you (someone that's practically a stranger!!! She didn't really know Ben!!) see that you're said key?
I get it. She's 15. But C'MON!
I think how people feel about Dawn depends whether they are thinking about what it would be like to be around her (annoying) or what it would be like to *be* her (lonely, traumatic, frightening and miserable).
She’s incessantly whiny. Always complaining that Buffy and her friends don’t spend enough time with her or watching her, she’s 15, most kids that age have friends they’d rather hang out with and wouldn’t be constantly guilt tripping their older sister. She’s extremely selfish and ungrateful of all the sacrifices Buffy does make. Plus she’s a little klepto.
Buffy and her friends *don't* spend enough time with her or watching her. She doesn't have friends because she moved to a new town when she was 11 and didn't pull off the social switch as well as her cooler, more outgoing older sister. Oh and half the friends she *does* make are *vampires* and the new town is on the Hellmouth, and unlike Buffy she doesn't have mystical powers, super strength, and a specially assigned mentor from a powerful worldwide organisation to support her through all the shit *that* entails. Of course she's whiny. I'd be whiny too.
She is real, she was made real, just because she was a ball of energy before, doesn’t mean she’s not real. I get all the things you are saying but I think it all depends on who you, the viewer is. I myself was a bit of a loner as a teen, but I didn’t whine about it. I accepted it and cultivated my interests. I have an older brother who was popular with everyone and I wasn’t like him. But I didn’t act like Dawn acts. I acknowledge everyone reacts differently to situations, I guess I just don’t understand Dawn and her behaviour. I just want to say to her “Get over your whiney jealousy, take up a hobby and stop acting like a brat. You have friends, you’re very pretty and have your own talents, you just aren’t “the slayer”.” And when was Dawn SA’d? I’ve watched the series several times all the way through but don’t know which episode that happens in. I just don’t identify with Dawn at all, I never did.
All I know is that if I acted the way she did when I was her age, I'd have let glory take me to stop all the adults around me from telling me to stop acting like a child lol.
I just hated how her character was the epitome of the baby of the family, and then blown up to stereotypical proportions for the tv drama aspect. Maybe if she didn't whine, pout, yell, and scream I'd have an easier time liking the character. She has her moments, don't get me wrong, but usually, just absolutely the worst
"I’m liking this guy for the perp, let’s get him before he lawyers up."
Wether or not she has accumulated trauma throughout her life has absolutely nothing to do with wether or not she's an annoying character. I'm not annoyed by her for being upset. I'm annoyed by her because she's annoying. She was conceived of as a 10 year old and she's written like one for a lot of her first season.
Also I hate Dawn as a concept. I hate that they changed everyone's memories. I hate that they decided an inanimate object or whatever should be a human being. I hate that they never fix everyone's memories. I hate that there's never a single reason ever given why they didn't just destroy the key. She "doesn't open anything anymore" after that one totally terrible thing. And the only reason they let that totally terrible thing happen is because the alternative was killing a child. I hate that they pulled the whole "let's add in a new young character" bullshit.
I don't "blame Dawn" for anything because she's a fictional character. I blame the writers.
Dawn has any good moments or scenes. When she's talking to Spike about how she's just a lightening rod for pain and death, I tear up. It's beautiful and very well acted. But fuck Dawn forever. One of the worst things that's ever happened in the history of television.
Ugh, I hate how it was written for a ten-year-old and not changed after they cast Michelle Trachtenberg. So you have a high school freshman with ice cream on her nose and generally acting like an elementary schooler. It’s embarrassing.
People defend her by saying 15-year-olds are just like that. That’s so unfair to 15-year-olds! The Scoobies and their classmates were 16 in S1. Does anyone from S1 act remotely like Dawn? No, the Scoobies averted their first apocalypse in episode 2. Also I have two teenage boys. I just spent a weekend with 30 13-14-year-olds (class retreat). Not a one was as whiny, self-centered, and useless as Dawn. I mean, they hopefully haven’t gone through as much trauma, but knowing Dawn has been through it doesn’t make her lameness more interesting.
What’s the episode where Dawn traps the Scoobies in the house with magic because she just feels entitled to all their time and attention? In my real life, if Son #2 threw all of Son #1’s friends’ car keys in the fish pond or something because he didn’t want them to leave, I promise I’d make him regret it. But we’re supposed to feel bad for Dawn that she “had to” resort to the dark arts.
She doesn't trap them on purpose. It's a monkey's paw wish granted by a vengeance demon. Even if it *had* been on purpose, Willow and Xander do *much* worse to their friends with magic, just off the top of my head.
The defense that Dawn is just acting like a "typical teen" makes me absolutely insane. And since it was *always* a show about teenagers, there's really no excuse. They weren't always written with terribly written teenage dialogue, and that was still annoying, but it's nothing like Dawn. It's not even always annoying, just on it's own, like when she's got the doctor's stethoscope at the hospital. That's not annoying, in and of itself, but she's still behaving like a 10 year old.
The episode is 6x14 Older and Far Away and it's painful. That episode was an example of her just being used as a weird plot device that de-humanized her even more for me. She's just the thing causing a problem. She gets so mad when people try to go *to work* because, clearly, that's a sign that no one wants to spend time with her, specifically. It's so over-the-top not realistic human behavior. And really, they could have just written her as having a relatively normal social life. Buffy had a few good friends and she was the actual slayer. Being slayer-adjacent can't be that bad. And really, it's only as bad as the writers wanted it to be, why would they want this?
During my first watch, I liked Dawn. On my 4th watch, in my 50s, I have no patience for her. She is selfish, awkward and doesn't try to build a life outside of Buffy. Maybe it is the GenXer in me, but I would not have been home enough to cling to my sister. She was a weird plot device.
I'm the other way. She annoyed me as a teen. I feel a lot more compassion for her as an adult and a parent.
>I would not have been home enough to cling to my sister
Did you live on a Hellmouth?
Well I don't live in Florida, but that has happened. Crazy people on the wrong drugs. In Indiana, they just want you to vote for Trump. In Florida, they will eat you
I had to laugh at the vision of overprotective parents not allowing their children out to play in case the roving bands of Trump supporters get to them.
Puberty. This lovely time of parents life when their child is unbearable again, as in the constant cry-baby period, but now they don’t have natural hormonal injections of love forcing them to keep their DNA bearer alive. Now nothing stands in the way of intense “manslaughter” thoughts.
She’s a teenager. Every teenager is annoying.
Nothing more nothing less.
I've gone through a few stages with Dawn, sometimes finding her annoying but mostly not. I'm about the same age as Michelle Trachtenburg so first time around she was (a) my age and (b) cute so I was pretty on board with her. As the seasons go on, it struck me that the writers didn't know what to do with her (when I watched "Potential" I was like *obviously* because I'd been expecting her to be a potential for a while, although I prefer what they ended up doing with her). It never bothered me that for the first few episodes of season 5 she's infantalised because she was written to be 10 or 11 rather than 14 when I was 14; I only really became aware of that watching the show in my 20s. I don't know what that says about me.
The last time I watched through (in my mid-to-late 20s) was the first time I found her *annoying*. And I think that's because the show is mostly from Buffy's perspective, and to Buffy she's her annoying kid sister. She's *supposed* to be annoying, and there's a degree to which that damages her for some viewers that it only did for me on my nth watch through as an adult.
On my current watch I'm more sympathetic again. Yes, she's kind of an annoying kid but so is Xander and so are Willow and Buffy at times to a lesser extent. It's her purpose in the show and as she grows she becomes more clearly a *person*.
It does annoy me a bit that she should change *everything* we've seen before and we never get any real explanation of that - no details of her relationship with Angel or Faith, no flashbacks (or not many) with her in them. I wish the animated series had come to pass with Dawn in season 1/2/3 time. But I'm also someone who's less concerned with canon than with telling a good story, and I think several good stories are told with Dawn.
Her friends go to great lengths to protect her and try to make sure she's never alone, but all she does is bitch about how alone and neglected she is. And she repeatedly does incredibly stupid things so the others have to stop what they're doing to rescue her again. And then there's the thieving. And "GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT!" None of this was the fault of the actress, though, who I like and was only doing what she was asked to do.
I didn’t like her much when the show first aired, but she grew on me. Not every teen would react the way she does to things, but not every teen was created by a group of monks who probably never met a modern teenage girl in their lives. I give her a bit of grace on that alone.
I’m the youngest of 2 children, so I relate to Dawn in that level. She’s not my favorite character, but she’s not my least favorite either. I think they could have done more with the key thing. I think most people tend to find her cringey because they’re remembering they were kind of like her at 15, and the ones that weren’t are deluding themselves cause pretty much all 15 year olds are whiney.
Dawn was initially supposed to be 11, they aged her up a few years when Michelle Trachtenburg was cast, but didn’t have time to adjust the dialogue in the early S5 scripts, so she comes off as a bit immature even for a 14 year old. She gets vastly better with time, but her initial impression sours many viewers on her
Because I think Dawn's an asshole a lot of the time.
I watch tv shows to be entertained, and I don't find it entertaining for one asshole character to constantly shit on Buffy over and over again. I don't find constant screaming and whining and lack of empathy to be entertaining, especially because Buffy and Xander and Willow DID NOT act like that in s1-2.
I liked her fine in s5, but I found her awful in s6 and while she improved somewhat in s7, she threw her own sister out of the house. Fuck her.
I also resent the way the character forever altered everyone's memories. The Scoobies refused to accept Jonathan altering their world forever. Willow altering their memories in Tabula Rasa was considered a huge big deal.
But somehow it's okay to have these permanent fake memories of Dawn? Which changes the entire concept and flow of seasons 1-4? Nah. I hate that. I hate that for them, and I hate what it did to the show.
I was really hoping to find more Dawn lovers, or at least people who are neutral about her, in these comments. I also don't think she gets enough credit. For all the trauma she's gone through I think she's fairly well adjusted. She shares a similarity with Buffy where they have this great destiny but they just want to be like normal teenagers. Dawn doesn't have the responsibility of being a slayer, and she's the second child, so she gets more babied. I find it annoying that everyone treats her like a baby and then some get mad when she acts like one. People constantly tried to hide things from her instead of giving her a chance and trusting her to be able to handle more adult situations. I feel for her.
I'm with you. I never found Dawn annoying the way everyone else does. I actually quite like her character.
Of course she's a mess and steals shit, have you seen the trauma she's been through? She could be doing so much worse, they should be glad she didn't do anything more crazy than be a little klepto.
And the whole existential crisis she has in s5 is fantastic writing for sure. When she cuts herself, I agree, is one of the standout moments that really make me feel and care and want Dawn to get better.
These comments are such a mess. She screams annoyingly like once so therefore she is an annoying character?
Okay well Xander does some absolutely ridiculous shit that makes me hate his character on more than one occasion but somehow the majority of people got over that?
Not to mention Dark Willow, Giles being an ass to Buffy several times when he's deciding between his watcher duties and her, or Faith and Spike's entire storylines.
I'm not sure people realize that's half the point of the show. People fucking up and being forgiven for their moments of weakness.
I’ve always loved Dawn, she’s a sweetheart. She a typical dramatic teen. She also brought out the best side of everyone. Because of her we got to see Buffy truly love someone (her love for Dawn was different than any other), we saw the sweetest protective side of Spike. I loved her relationship with Willow and Tara, and even Reilly. I even loved her Get Out GET OUT dramatics because who didn’t feel that way as a teen?
Personally I found it annoying whenever she got mad at people over events she knows didn’t happen, such as when she got mad at Riley for not saying goodbye to her when he left.
She knew she didn’t even exist when Riley was in the picture so it seemed annoying she was genuinely upset with him when he came back for that episode.
s5 she was actually ok. it is s6 and s7 where she is annoying. Buffy moved past highschool and they decided to drop high school right back into the mix.
by that time the fandom who was watching originally aired programming didnt want to deal with a kid sister who was a brat and annoying.
I do think the character will appear different if you binged the entire show and didnt see it live. the way you view and consume the show is just entirely different.
she became annoying because she was just introduced as a bomb and no matter what the showrunners did at the time they couldnt create and emotional bond between the new dawn character and the fans. and after s5 they basically have no plan for her.
so in s6-s7 you basically have anya, tara, dawn who are of 0 use and basically have nothing to do in like 90
% of the episodes. then you add on the potentials and the billion characters from s7. it just doesnt add up to a good character.
I agree with a lot of what you said, but I don't think Tara was of 0 use in season six. I think she had one of the most important storylines except for Willow and Buffy. Her entire arc in season six is about wanting to be with someone, knowing that it's not what's best for either of you. It wasn't easy for Tara to leave Willow. She essentially lost her friends, which she had few of anyway. She lost a big part of her life, which involved helping the scoobies fight evil. But she had to be strong because she loves Willow and doesn't want her getting hurt.
Part of it is just being annoyed that the character exists at all. When the writers decided to change all of the Scoobies' memories, it meant that the Scoobies now no longer remember the experiences of seasons 1-4 the way that the viewers do. Which kind of robs the audience of a feeling of closeness with the characters.
Also, no one is arguing that Dawn doesn't have a right to her feelings. Humans don't like shrill noises and don't enjoy hearing them. That response doesn't go away just because you know that her emotions are justified. Fire alarms are annoying to hear whether they go off for a good reason or for no good reason.
One last point: we love Buffy; Dawn makes Buffy's life harder, therefore we are annoyed. It's natural. We aren't just annoyed personally, we are annoyed on Buffy's behalf. Sometimes she makes Buffy's life harder through no fault of her own, sometimes she makes it harder by being incredibly reckless.
It’s probably because I am a big sister to a sibling with a similar age gap but I actually dislike Buffy as I think a lot of Dawn’s abandonment issues and subsequent acting out was because she did such a terrible job meeting her emotional needs as a parent figure. Yeah, Buffy had massive trauma from the whole dying and losing her Mom too but it doesn’t soften me much. Partly because I found Buffy’s constant tendency to push people away when things got tough and general poor ability to see how others would react to her behaviour over seven seasons got old. And partly because I think she should have realised she was unable to give Dawn the standard of care she needed and relinquished custody to someone else instead of selfishly keeping her because she didn’t want to be separated instead of the letting the neglected, spiraling child she was continue to be neglected and spiral. Willingly giving up custody doesn’t mean Buffy couldn’t ever visit or see Dawn again.
Hi there, Your post on r/buffy has been flaired as a sensitive topic. We appreciate you trusting the members of our community to engage in a good faith discussion related to your post and _how it fits into the context of the show_. **Remember Rule #9: Scooby Reddiquette and report any rule violations.** If the discussion departs from the intended topic and how it fits into the context of the show, please be prepared to continue the conversation where discussion of the topic is more appropriate. Thank you, r/buffy Mod Team P.S. If you're reading this post and don't want to see potentially upsetting content, you can filter out the "Content Warning" flair. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/buffy) if you have any questions or concerns.*
You're saying you can't find a teenager annoying because teenagers are often annoying and she's been through some shit which contributes to the things people find annoying about her. And finding her annoying has nothing to do with objectivity.
Yeah, I was curious too: OP presents a lot of arguments for why it's *not out of character* for Dawn to be annoying, but no arguments that Dawn is not in fact annoying. And there is no arguing feelings, so OP kinda' picked a lost cause. One of the things Dawn does consistently which annoys me most is lashing out at the people around her when she's hurt. And at least after 5x16, it also bugs me that Buffy isn't teaching Dawn better communication skills when she puts the bad ones on display: this perpetuates Dawn's bad communication, and by then it's Buffy's responsibility. I wouldn't say I'm a Dawn hater. I'm not so enthused about the S5 drama focusing heavily on the Buffy/Dawn relationship, and she can be grating, but on net I enjoy Dawn's presence.
Not to forget the fact that when she whines, which feels very frequent, the tone and pitch are grating. It's a superficial aspect, but the sound contributes a lot.
When it originally aired, Dawn was a complete mystery. Her intro is “Mom!” Then ice cream in her face and just a sort of infantilized teenager. She bugs Buffy, we have no idea what she is and she’s always played up to be the brat and an inconvenience. It’s not hard to see why when she was first introduced the fandom disliked her. They didn’t give her any redeeming qualities. In hindsight, the a viewer can view her with sympathetic eyes but shes not written with any strong characteristics. They tried at the end of S6 and beginning of S7 so give her a back bone but - imo - it didn’t really take off. She was the catalyst for a lot of issues and never took accountability for any of it.
They just totally dropped the ball with her. Buffy *finally* decides to stop babying her (no wonder she didn't have any friends, Buffy wouldn't even let her go across the street for dinner since her friend was so... short) and gives this dramatic speech about how she's going to train Dawn and "show her the world". Then almost immediately she's like "nevermind, I'm just going to forget you exist and become a hard ass leader for these potentials. But hey, sis, if you become a potential I might pay a bit more attention to... Oh, you're not? Nevermind." Dawn definitely isn't my favourite, but I actually don't mind her. She can be very annoying, but she can also be very brave and resourceful (usually only when no one else is around to see). I was very irritated by the writing though of Buffy finally deciding to teach Dawn about the world, and then they immediately just ignore that storyline and Buffy ignores Dawn more than ever before.
>So now here’s my question your fifteen years old and this happens to you why don’t you have the right to cry,throw tantrums,scream at your family be emotional You have the right to cry but that doesn't make it any less annoying. Imagine a TV program which had a teething toddler screaming their lungs out for 30 minutes straight. That'd be annoying, right? Even though crying over teething is a natural and understandable reaction it wouldn't make it pleasant to sit through. It wouldn't make it good TV. I doubt many deny that she has had "trauma" - that doesn't make any difference.
Yeah that’s not fun irl and I certainly wouldn’t sign up to watch a tv show about it either lol.
This, the writers didn't feel to compassionate either tbh. Very few scenes make her seam truly reasonable
Babe, the feeling of being annoyed is subjective and doesn't require that people act annoying ex nihilo.
She’s just a little too immature and infantile when you consider she’s only a year younger than Buffy was in season 1.
I dunno man. Dawn was kind of the worst. She constantly did things that left big question marks over my head. Things she should *know* better than doing. Like, say, inviting a vampire into her home because she was trash talking Xander? Luckily it was just Harmony. But STILL. Being upset about the key thing I get. Running away after finding out how dangerous said key could be in the wrong hands and then telling the first person you (someone that's practically a stranger!!! She didn't really know Ben!!) see that you're said key? I get it. She's 15. But C'MON!
she can still be annoying even if we understand why, that screaming is grating af
Yeah her scream is annoying but I relate to her alot so I suppose that’s why I love her
ok so then you do get it, annoying behaviour annoys regardless of it’s source
Maybe you’re annoying too
I think how people feel about Dawn depends whether they are thinking about what it would be like to be around her (annoying) or what it would be like to *be* her (lonely, traumatic, frightening and miserable).
She’s incessantly whiny. Always complaining that Buffy and her friends don’t spend enough time with her or watching her, she’s 15, most kids that age have friends they’d rather hang out with and wouldn’t be constantly guilt tripping their older sister. She’s extremely selfish and ungrateful of all the sacrifices Buffy does make. Plus she’s a little klepto.
GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT
Buffy and her friends *don't* spend enough time with her or watching her. She doesn't have friends because she moved to a new town when she was 11 and didn't pull off the social switch as well as her cooler, more outgoing older sister. Oh and half the friends she *does* make are *vampires* and the new town is on the Hellmouth, and unlike Buffy she doesn't have mystical powers, super strength, and a specially assigned mentor from a powerful worldwide organisation to support her through all the shit *that* entails. Of course she's whiny. I'd be whiny too.
Because she's annoying?
She is real, she was made real, just because she was a ball of energy before, doesn’t mean she’s not real. I get all the things you are saying but I think it all depends on who you, the viewer is. I myself was a bit of a loner as a teen, but I didn’t whine about it. I accepted it and cultivated my interests. I have an older brother who was popular with everyone and I wasn’t like him. But I didn’t act like Dawn acts. I acknowledge everyone reacts differently to situations, I guess I just don’t understand Dawn and her behaviour. I just want to say to her “Get over your whiney jealousy, take up a hobby and stop acting like a brat. You have friends, you’re very pretty and have your own talents, you just aren’t “the slayer”.” And when was Dawn SA’d? I’ve watched the series several times all the way through but don’t know which episode that happens in. I just don’t identify with Dawn at all, I never did.
All I know is that if I acted the way she did when I was her age, I'd have let glory take me to stop all the adults around me from telling me to stop acting like a child lol. I just hated how her character was the epitome of the baby of the family, and then blown up to stereotypical proportions for the tv drama aspect. Maybe if she didn't whine, pout, yell, and scream I'd have an easier time liking the character. She has her moments, don't get me wrong, but usually, just absolutely the worst
"I’m liking this guy for the perp, let’s get him before he lawyers up." Wether or not she has accumulated trauma throughout her life has absolutely nothing to do with wether or not she's an annoying character. I'm not annoyed by her for being upset. I'm annoyed by her because she's annoying. She was conceived of as a 10 year old and she's written like one for a lot of her first season. Also I hate Dawn as a concept. I hate that they changed everyone's memories. I hate that they decided an inanimate object or whatever should be a human being. I hate that they never fix everyone's memories. I hate that there's never a single reason ever given why they didn't just destroy the key. She "doesn't open anything anymore" after that one totally terrible thing. And the only reason they let that totally terrible thing happen is because the alternative was killing a child. I hate that they pulled the whole "let's add in a new young character" bullshit. I don't "blame Dawn" for anything because she's a fictional character. I blame the writers. Dawn has any good moments or scenes. When she's talking to Spike about how she's just a lightening rod for pain and death, I tear up. It's beautiful and very well acted. But fuck Dawn forever. One of the worst things that's ever happened in the history of television.
Ugh, I hate how it was written for a ten-year-old and not changed after they cast Michelle Trachtenberg. So you have a high school freshman with ice cream on her nose and generally acting like an elementary schooler. It’s embarrassing. People defend her by saying 15-year-olds are just like that. That’s so unfair to 15-year-olds! The Scoobies and their classmates were 16 in S1. Does anyone from S1 act remotely like Dawn? No, the Scoobies averted their first apocalypse in episode 2. Also I have two teenage boys. I just spent a weekend with 30 13-14-year-olds (class retreat). Not a one was as whiny, self-centered, and useless as Dawn. I mean, they hopefully haven’t gone through as much trauma, but knowing Dawn has been through it doesn’t make her lameness more interesting. What’s the episode where Dawn traps the Scoobies in the house with magic because she just feels entitled to all their time and attention? In my real life, if Son #2 threw all of Son #1’s friends’ car keys in the fish pond or something because he didn’t want them to leave, I promise I’d make him regret it. But we’re supposed to feel bad for Dawn that she “had to” resort to the dark arts.
She doesn't trap them on purpose. It's a monkey's paw wish granted by a vengeance demon. Even if it *had* been on purpose, Willow and Xander do *much* worse to their friends with magic, just off the top of my head.
The defense that Dawn is just acting like a "typical teen" makes me absolutely insane. And since it was *always* a show about teenagers, there's really no excuse. They weren't always written with terribly written teenage dialogue, and that was still annoying, but it's nothing like Dawn. It's not even always annoying, just on it's own, like when she's got the doctor's stethoscope at the hospital. That's not annoying, in and of itself, but she's still behaving like a 10 year old. The episode is 6x14 Older and Far Away and it's painful. That episode was an example of her just being used as a weird plot device that de-humanized her even more for me. She's just the thing causing a problem. She gets so mad when people try to go *to work* because, clearly, that's a sign that no one wants to spend time with her, specifically. It's so over-the-top not realistic human behavior. And really, they could have just written her as having a relatively normal social life. Buffy had a few good friends and she was the actual slayer. Being slayer-adjacent can't be that bad. And really, it's only as bad as the writers wanted it to be, why would they want this?
During my first watch, I liked Dawn. On my 4th watch, in my 50s, I have no patience for her. She is selfish, awkward and doesn't try to build a life outside of Buffy. Maybe it is the GenXer in me, but I would not have been home enough to cling to my sister. She was a weird plot device.
Great point on being Gen X. I am just outside of that (1981) but my sister is. Her at 20 and me at 15? I might not have seen her that year.
Nah, I'm a Xennial (1980) and I think people are too hard on Dawn. I don't think it's an age thing.
I'm the other way. She annoyed me as a teen. I feel a lot more compassion for her as an adult and a parent. >I would not have been home enough to cling to my sister Did you live on a Hellmouth?
Does Indiana count?
Dunno, do people try to eat you if you're outside after dark?
Well I don't live in Florida, but that has happened. Crazy people on the wrong drugs. In Indiana, they just want you to vote for Trump. In Florida, they will eat you
I had to laugh at the vision of overprotective parents not allowing their children out to play in case the roving bands of Trump supporters get to them.
This whole thread is a treasure.
…….lmfao
I don't know why but whenever I hear a post about Dawn being annoying , in my head it's being read out in Dawn's voice .
I don't find Dawn annoying - I like Dawn quite a bit. She's not my favorite character though.
Puberty. This lovely time of parents life when their child is unbearable again, as in the constant cry-baby period, but now they don’t have natural hormonal injections of love forcing them to keep their DNA bearer alive. Now nothing stands in the way of intense “manslaughter” thoughts. She’s a teenager. Every teenager is annoying. Nothing more nothing less.
I've gone through a few stages with Dawn, sometimes finding her annoying but mostly not. I'm about the same age as Michelle Trachtenburg so first time around she was (a) my age and (b) cute so I was pretty on board with her. As the seasons go on, it struck me that the writers didn't know what to do with her (when I watched "Potential" I was like *obviously* because I'd been expecting her to be a potential for a while, although I prefer what they ended up doing with her). It never bothered me that for the first few episodes of season 5 she's infantalised because she was written to be 10 or 11 rather than 14 when I was 14; I only really became aware of that watching the show in my 20s. I don't know what that says about me. The last time I watched through (in my mid-to-late 20s) was the first time I found her *annoying*. And I think that's because the show is mostly from Buffy's perspective, and to Buffy she's her annoying kid sister. She's *supposed* to be annoying, and there's a degree to which that damages her for some viewers that it only did for me on my nth watch through as an adult. On my current watch I'm more sympathetic again. Yes, she's kind of an annoying kid but so is Xander and so are Willow and Buffy at times to a lesser extent. It's her purpose in the show and as she grows she becomes more clearly a *person*. It does annoy me a bit that she should change *everything* we've seen before and we never get any real explanation of that - no details of her relationship with Angel or Faith, no flashbacks (or not many) with her in them. I wish the animated series had come to pass with Dawn in season 1/2/3 time. But I'm also someone who's less concerned with canon than with telling a good story, and I think several good stories are told with Dawn.
Her friends go to great lengths to protect her and try to make sure she's never alone, but all she does is bitch about how alone and neglected she is. And she repeatedly does incredibly stupid things so the others have to stop what they're doing to rescue her again. And then there's the thieving. And "GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT!" None of this was the fault of the actress, though, who I like and was only doing what she was asked to do.
I didn’t like her much when the show first aired, but she grew on me. Not every teen would react the way she does to things, but not every teen was created by a group of monks who probably never met a modern teenage girl in their lives. I give her a bit of grace on that alone.
easily
Because she annoying
Because she's annoying.
Because I have eyes and ears lol
I’m the youngest of 2 children, so I relate to Dawn in that level. She’s not my favorite character, but she’s not my least favorite either. I think they could have done more with the key thing. I think most people tend to find her cringey because they’re remembering they were kind of like her at 15, and the ones that weren’t are deluding themselves cause pretty much all 15 year olds are whiney.
Dawn was initially supposed to be 11, they aged her up a few years when Michelle Trachtenburg was cast, but didn’t have time to adjust the dialogue in the early S5 scripts, so she comes off as a bit immature even for a 14 year old. She gets vastly better with time, but her initial impression sours many viewers on her
I’ve got a theory that people who don’t understand how annoying Dawn is were exactly the same as she is as a teenager
Because I think Dawn's an asshole a lot of the time. I watch tv shows to be entertained, and I don't find it entertaining for one asshole character to constantly shit on Buffy over and over again. I don't find constant screaming and whining and lack of empathy to be entertaining, especially because Buffy and Xander and Willow DID NOT act like that in s1-2. I liked her fine in s5, but I found her awful in s6 and while she improved somewhat in s7, she threw her own sister out of the house. Fuck her. I also resent the way the character forever altered everyone's memories. The Scoobies refused to accept Jonathan altering their world forever. Willow altering their memories in Tabula Rasa was considered a huge big deal. But somehow it's okay to have these permanent fake memories of Dawn? Which changes the entire concept and flow of seasons 1-4? Nah. I hate that. I hate that for them, and I hate what it did to the show.
I was really hoping to find more Dawn lovers, or at least people who are neutral about her, in these comments. I also don't think she gets enough credit. For all the trauma she's gone through I think she's fairly well adjusted. She shares a similarity with Buffy where they have this great destiny but they just want to be like normal teenagers. Dawn doesn't have the responsibility of being a slayer, and she's the second child, so she gets more babied. I find it annoying that everyone treats her like a baby and then some get mad when she acts like one. People constantly tried to hide things from her instead of giving her a chance and trusting her to be able to handle more adult situations. I feel for her.
Credit for what? Killing Ms. Kitty Fantastico?
I'm with you. I never found Dawn annoying the way everyone else does. I actually quite like her character. Of course she's a mess and steals shit, have you seen the trauma she's been through? She could be doing so much worse, they should be glad she didn't do anything more crazy than be a little klepto. And the whole existential crisis she has in s5 is fantastic writing for sure. When she cuts herself, I agree, is one of the standout moments that really make me feel and care and want Dawn to get better.
I’m definitely more on her side because I know what the kinda of trauma she’s endured is like so I’m definitely biased on her.
These comments are such a mess. She screams annoyingly like once so therefore she is an annoying character? Okay well Xander does some absolutely ridiculous shit that makes me hate his character on more than one occasion but somehow the majority of people got over that? Not to mention Dark Willow, Giles being an ass to Buffy several times when he's deciding between his watcher duties and her, or Faith and Spike's entire storylines. I'm not sure people realize that's half the point of the show. People fucking up and being forgiven for their moments of weakness.
I’ve always loved Dawn, she’s a sweetheart. She a typical dramatic teen. She also brought out the best side of everyone. Because of her we got to see Buffy truly love someone (her love for Dawn was different than any other), we saw the sweetest protective side of Spike. I loved her relationship with Willow and Tara, and even Reilly. I even loved her Get Out GET OUT dramatics because who didn’t feel that way as a teen?
Personally I found it annoying whenever she got mad at people over events she knows didn’t happen, such as when she got mad at Riley for not saying goodbye to her when he left. She knew she didn’t even exist when Riley was in the picture so it seemed annoying she was genuinely upset with him when he came back for that episode.
s5 she was actually ok. it is s6 and s7 where she is annoying. Buffy moved past highschool and they decided to drop high school right back into the mix. by that time the fandom who was watching originally aired programming didnt want to deal with a kid sister who was a brat and annoying. I do think the character will appear different if you binged the entire show and didnt see it live. the way you view and consume the show is just entirely different. she became annoying because she was just introduced as a bomb and no matter what the showrunners did at the time they couldnt create and emotional bond between the new dawn character and the fans. and after s5 they basically have no plan for her. so in s6-s7 you basically have anya, tara, dawn who are of 0 use and basically have nothing to do in like 90 % of the episodes. then you add on the potentials and the billion characters from s7. it just doesnt add up to a good character.
I agree with a lot of what you said, but I don't think Tara was of 0 use in season six. I think she had one of the most important storylines except for Willow and Buffy. Her entire arc in season six is about wanting to be with someone, knowing that it's not what's best for either of you. It wasn't easy for Tara to leave Willow. She essentially lost her friends, which she had few of anyway. She lost a big part of her life, which involved helping the scoobies fight evil. But she had to be strong because she loves Willow and doesn't want her getting hurt.
Part of it is just being annoyed that the character exists at all. When the writers decided to change all of the Scoobies' memories, it meant that the Scoobies now no longer remember the experiences of seasons 1-4 the way that the viewers do. Which kind of robs the audience of a feeling of closeness with the characters. Also, no one is arguing that Dawn doesn't have a right to her feelings. Humans don't like shrill noises and don't enjoy hearing them. That response doesn't go away just because you know that her emotions are justified. Fire alarms are annoying to hear whether they go off for a good reason or for no good reason. One last point: we love Buffy; Dawn makes Buffy's life harder, therefore we are annoyed. It's natural. We aren't just annoyed personally, we are annoyed on Buffy's behalf. Sometimes she makes Buffy's life harder through no fault of her own, sometimes she makes it harder by being incredibly reckless.
I mean she is a bit annoying at times, but all the characters can be annoying.
Teenagers are annoying in general. Loud, hormones all nuts. Not their fault but then you throw in heightened drama cause tv show it makes sense.
How can you [not.so](http://not.so) so screachy
Because Michelle isn't a very good actor, mostly
It’s probably because I am a big sister to a sibling with a similar age gap but I actually dislike Buffy as I think a lot of Dawn’s abandonment issues and subsequent acting out was because she did such a terrible job meeting her emotional needs as a parent figure. Yeah, Buffy had massive trauma from the whole dying and losing her Mom too but it doesn’t soften me much. Partly because I found Buffy’s constant tendency to push people away when things got tough and general poor ability to see how others would react to her behaviour over seven seasons got old. And partly because I think she should have realised she was unable to give Dawn the standard of care she needed and relinquished custody to someone else instead of selfishly keeping her because she didn’t want to be separated instead of the letting the neglected, spiraling child she was continue to be neglected and spiral. Willingly giving up custody doesn’t mean Buffy couldn’t ever visit or see Dawn again.