Seven Seasons of Buffy: Science Fiction and Fantasy Authors Discuss Their Favorite Television Show (Smart Pop series) Read Free

quizzes administered by the Demon Prince Alkeerzath counted toward your final grade. We lied. Sue us. We’re evil. So are you.
    QUESTION 1: IDENTIFY AND PROVE (WITH EXAMPLES) THE IDENTITY OF THE MOST POWERFUL INDIVIDUAL FORCE FOR GOOD IN THE REALM OF SUNNYDALE, CALIFORNIA (aka, the Hellmouth). You may consult your notes during this exam. Creation of interdimensional portals or spells to make the instructor (or teaching assistant) forget your existence will be punishable with eternal torment (see above).
    Good luck. (Well, not really. We’re evil. We hope you fail and suffer mindless agony forever.)
     
    INSCRIBE YOUR CHOICE FOR THE PULING, MISERABLE WORM OF A CREATURE THAT WE WILL EVENTUALLY GRIND BETWEEN OUR SHARP POINTY TEETH (the Most Powerful Individual Force for Good in Sunnydale):
    ALEXANDER (XANDER) LAVELLE HARRIS
    INSCRIBE YOUR MYSTICAL/MAGICAL EQUATION IN SUPPORT OF THIS IDENTIFICATION:
    M = (S x x S ax x S s x S i ) 6 - (E 6 )
    Where:
M
=
Most Powerful Individual Force for Good
S x
=
Saving of the Slayer (unassisted)
S ax
=
Saving of the Slayer (assisted)
S s
=
Saving of Scoobies
S i
=
Saving of Innocents
E
=
Reduction for Evil Acts
    INSCRIBE YOUR SUPPORTING PROOF (preferably in the blood of others, but your own may be used if you cannot overcome your fellow students):
    Hail to Your August and Awful Majesty, Professor Vardath 1 .
    Obviously, you seek to trick your lowly, humble, crawling students into incorrectly identifying the Slayer BUFFY ANNE SUMMERS 2 as the most powerful force for Good 3 in Sunnydale.
    However, it is clear that had the Slayer 4 been equipped only with the traditional weapons of these champions of Good (i.e., a Slayer’s Manual, some rather inadequate training, and a bumbling, well-intentioned Watcher) she would swiftly have been dispatched, probably well before she needed to be included in the syllabus.
    However, the current Slayer 5 has been untraditional in her approach to fighting our courageous and much-maligned Forces of Evil. This is illustrated quite clearly by her choice of allies.
    Clearly, upon examining the group of somewhat-human beings she has gathered around her, there are some outstanding candidates for Most Powerful Individual Force For Good (M.P.I.F.F.G.) on the Hellmouth.
    (I discount the Slayer 6 as the M.P.I.F.F.G. simply because without the nontraditional—and clearly impressive—supporters she has assembled, she would even now be a molding corpse in a forgotten grave. Actually, she HAS been a molding corpse in a forgotten grave, but that didn’t work out so well for us. Bad luck, incidentally, sir.)
    I bring your august and spine-cracking attention to the least likely suspect: ALEXANDER (XANDER) LAVELLE HARRIS. He has a traditionally heroic profile: outsider, handsome (according to ridiculous human female standards), witty, handy with power tools. He even has a dark, tragic childhood to add pathos and mystery.
    It cannot possibly be an accident that this human is the ONLY memberof the Slayer’s “Scooby Gang” without superpowers. 7 He is not possessed of great Magicks, not superbly toned and flexible, not a mystical Great Key, not a former Vengeance Demon, and not either of the two currently ensouled Vampires. (He is not even, to our knowledge, gay.) He has never meddled with Dark Powers in search of thrills. He is, in fact, startlingly mundane, and would be considered mundane even in Akron, Ohio, much less at a mystical convergence of the outré such as the Hellmouth 8 .
     
    IN THE BEGINNING
    “Oh, huh, I laugh in the face of danger. Then I hide until it goes away.”
    Xander was, in fact, the very first person in Sunnydale to recognize the Slayer’s unusual nature. As her first friend upon her moving to the Hellmouth, he immediately brought a number of vital skills to the battle: witty repartee, an unexplained knowledge of the extensive tunnel system below Sunnydale, and a willingness to face emerging evil, unusual in any Sunnydale resident, where repression