>>5968258>>5966283>>5966290>>5966705It just feels to me that Buffy has been a bit forgotten or less referenced in our era, maybe there are just too many episodes too much lore lol (I barely remember much of it) compared to say something like Friends (similar era, far more memorable to me) and despite the massive influence wielded by Whedon over all fantasy horror / sci fi scriptwriting ever since etc. Eg Friends has an episode referencing Buffy, and in fact so does Max Payne lol (in the hotel level you can find an easter egg paying homage with a staked criminal corpse with the incomplete words BUFF... written next to it hehe).
The episodes are generally all a bit ridiculous / preposterous operating on the literal cartoonish cringe level of superhero Scooby Doo, this is not Blade (1998) or even Underworld (2003) lol though I did watch the final Buffy season which has a return to horror (actually grimdark at times). The plot then is explained as some ancient African shaman Shadow People who chained a woman to the earth so that she could be possessed by a demon (it is rape), she was the original First Slayer given power to fight demons / vampires from the Hellmouth, the series ends with an actual feminist empowerment speech, Buffy undoes the African shaman magic that permitted only one female demon slayer, previously there had been literally a scene where she travels to Africa and diplomatically pummels some indigenous elderly wise black tribal leaders, exactly like Hillary Clinton or Victoria Nuland, Buffy then creates a plan to use feminist magic to activate all women to create a warrior army so that she is no longer the unique superhero saviour, all women now possess her superstrength courage and leadership to fight the hell demons, this is then conveyed by Joss Whedon using the powerful universally understood symbolism: the visual image of a girl playing baseball. All of this happens. In the grimdark final series the main enemy is this incorporeal Temptation being The First Evil who cannot be fought, it takes the form of (many different) deceased and vanquished past friends / dead enemies and taunts and mocks the heroes. Because Buffy herself died in one episode and was resurrected, near the end the First Evil continually assumes her appearance, it looks and speaks exactly like her. So my personal interpretation of Buffy is that the happy 90s 2000s America died with Buffy, she actually lost the final battle being replaced by her lookalike The First Evil (the destroyed crater ruins basically makes it look like The Evil won anyway), everyone got bored of vampires (don't mention the abomination of Twilight) and the Iraq, Libyan Syrian etc Ukraine wars then made tactical military shooters far more fun and relevant instead