What Buffy Character Are YOU?

Aaah, Buffy, Buffy, Buffy... For some of us, Joss Whedon's greatest creation is still, several years after the end of the last televised season, less of a great, funny, tragic, immortal work of art... and more of a humunguous, uncontrollable obsession. So let's indulge!

A favourite game amongst my friends consists of a) knocking back a few glasses of wine, b) declaiming what Buffy character they most resemble, and c) hooting with derisory laughter at the claims of their companions to be, say, as self-deprecatingly witty as Xander, as ruthless yet romantic as Spike, or a split-personality mix of unpredictable wicca chops and shy charm like Willow. People, come play!

Are you...

Anya
This is me: the character closest to my heart, and (perhaps) the one I most closely resemble. (I was not the person who first pointed this out - but I've forgiven him now). Anya's all about the spondoolicks, the bucks, the wonderful terrible filthy lucre... when she's not a roiling boiling tub of fury, ready to dish out vengeance to any errant male who dares to cross her path. And yet she's also an ardent romantic with a heart full of love, beating fit to burst at the approach of her chosen dear one. Beneath her flinty surface is a tender, vulnerable heart... but is there a core of steel still further in?

Or perhaps you have more in common with...

Spike
However phallic it may sound, you don't have to be a guy to be a Spike! A ruthless killer with a heart as melting as a chocolate covered caramel, Spike's romantic view of himself determines his course through life. As a human he viewed himself as a poet, a delicate flower. But the bitter disappointment to which his frailties led, drew him into the path of Drusilla... and into a different unlife altogether.

But even as a vampire Spike romanticises his life and his nature. Despite being a gently-born rich woman's son, an upper class human boy with an accent to make the Queen of England sound common as muck, upon entering the vampiric life he re-invents himself. Nicely brought up William becomes William the Bloody, a.k.a. Spike, a Cocknified bit of rough. He's familiar with mean streets and meaner ways, and even a soccer fan. How much this remains a façade, a pose to impress, and how much it becomes second nature to him, is debatable. What's true and certain are the fierce passions beating beneath his beloved (and tea-leafed) leather coat, however deceptive and changeable the game face he presents.

Then again, you may be a ...

Willow
Willow, ah Willow, forever the geek. Or is she? As was clearly demonstrated in the masterful episodes Primeval and Two To Go, even as a popular, sophisticated twenty-something Willow never ceases to fear the return of her shy, bullied, geek-girl-at-Sears persona. She abandoned this as she settled into the relatively 'cool' Scooby gang, but can you ever really escape your past? Willow isn't sure: and her inability to let the past go is part of the fury that drives her destructive urges as Evil Willow.

Willow changes radically as the seasons of Buffy progress: yet is fundamental change ever really possible? Are we trapped by our biographies, or can we transmute them into something better and finer? Can pain become grace, can the catalyst be found to allow shame to turn into forgiveness and love? Willow has doubts. And so do we all.

I could go on and on about Buffy and its world of wonderful, real and better-than-real characters - and according to my other half, I often do. (The continuous Buffy telethon in our house goes on and on, too, but I don't listen when he starts on about that). But you get the idea: the Buffyverse is so wide, so rich and so varied, my flabber would be gasted if you can't find someone within it to touch your heart and soul with recognition - of yourself, your life, your experience. And maybe with that learning will come awareness, and love - love for the Buffyverse, for yourself, for others, for the wonderful wider world around us.

Or maybe you'll just have a whole lot of fun!