The television series shows Buffy carrying out her destiny in the small town of Sunnydale, built atop a portal to hell (Hellmouth), surrounded by a group of friends and family who support her in her mission.

The film, written by Joss Whedon, depicts Buffy as a shallow high school cheerleader who is informed by a man named Merrick (Donald Sutherland) that she has been chosen by fate to battle the undead.

Buffy reluctantly undergoes training in her abilities by Merrick, and as her responsibility as the Slayer causes her to become alienated from her valley girl peers, she finds friendship and romance with fellow outcast Pike (Luke Perry).

Merrick eventually comes to respect Buffy's rebellious nature, and she defeats vampire king Lothos (Rutger Hauer) by relying on her own contemporary style as opposed to traditional Slayer conventions.

She becomes best friends with Xander Harris (Nicholas Brendon) and Willow Rosenberg (Alyson Hannigan), and meets her new Watcher, the school librarian, Rupert Giles (Anthony Stewart Head).

[13] In the show's second season (1997–1998), Buffy continues to come to terms with her destiny, finds forbidden love with benevolent vampire Angel (David Boreanaz), and clashes with new villains Spike (James Marsters) and Drusilla (Juliet Landau).

In the final episode of season 2, Buffy is forced to reveal her identity as the Slayer to her mother (Kristine Sutherland), and send the newly good Angel to hell to save the world.

[15] Season 3 (1998–1999) sees Buffy reconnect to her calling, her friends, and her family after her departure, as well as make difficult life decisions regarding her relationship with the resurrected Angel.

In the season finale, Buffy stabs Faith in an attempt to save Angel's life, and leads her classmates into a climactic battle against the demonic Mayor of Sunnydale (Harry Groener).

Buffy eventually finds a new love interest in the form of Riley Finn (Marc Blucas), a soldier in the demon-hunting government task force known as The Initiative.

Buffy suffers emotional turmoil throughout this season, including the realization Dawn is not actually her sister,[18] the deterioration of her relationship with Riley,[19] the discovery that Spike has fallen obsessively in love with her,[20] and her mother's death from a brain aneurysm.

[24] Season 6 (2001–2002) depicts Buffy's struggle with depression after her friends, believing she was trapped in a Hell dimension, performed a spell to bring her back from the dead; however, she was actually in Heaven, and feels great loss after being ripped out.

Aside from dealing with her emotional and psychological demons in this season, Buffy is continually targeted by a group calling themselves The Trio - Warren Mears (Adam Busch), Andrew Wells (Tom Lenk), and Jonathan Levinson (Danny Strong).

In the show's final episode "Chosen", Buffy shares her power with her fellow Slayers before leading them into an epic battle against an army of Turok-Han vampires.

Buffy's debut into literature came in the comic Dark Horse Presents 1998 Annual on August 26, 1998,[29] while her first prose appearance was in Halloween Rain by Christopher Golden and Nancy Holder on October 5, 1998.

[7][8] In 2003, Scott Lobdell and Fabian Nicieza wrote a Year One-style run on the Buffy comic book series which filled the gap between the film and the first season of the show.

These stories explain how Buffy's relationship with Pike ended,[31] as well as fleshing out events alluded to in the television series, such as the time she spent in a mental institution and her parents' divorce.

The novel Queen of the Slayers (2005) by Nancy Holder offers a potential follow-up to the television series; set after season 7, it depicts Buffy living in Italy with the morally ambiguous Immortal.

In Season Eight (2007–2011), it is quickly established that Buffy is not living with the Immortal in Rome as previously suggested in Angel; this is simply a cover story to ensure her safety as she is now the leader of an army which recruits and trains Slayers to deal with demonic threats worldwide.

However, Buffy rejects Twilight's influence and saves her world by returning to the ruins of Sunnydale and smashing the Seed of Wonder, cutting Earth off from the source of all magic in the process.

Buffy is now a pariah in the supernatural community due to her destruction of magic and must deal with "zompires", a feral new breed of vampires which have emerged since demons can no longer access Earth and fully possess human bodies.

In "Guarded", Buffy explores new career opportunities by temporarily joining Kennedy's private security company Deepscan and shutting down TinCan, an interdimensional social media site run by long-term Angel villains Wolfram & Hart.

With most of her existing relationships strained, Buffy makes new allies in SFPD homicide detective Dowling and teenage vampire hunter Billy, and joins a magical council alongside demons D’Hoffryn and Illyria to battle the evil Slayer Simone and magic-siphoning Severin.

When Dawn starts fading from existence due to the absence of magic, Buffy reunites with Willow and Xander in "The Core" to save her, journeying deep within the Earth to create a new Seed of Wonder and battling Maloker, an Old One and progenitor of all vampires, in the process.

Daunted and tempted by this new-found power, Buffy seeks the advice of D’Hoffryn and his magical council, as well as lobbyists from various mystical and demonic communities pursuing their own conflicting agendas.

Buffy and Willow eventually agree to have their powers removed to leave the camp and further investigate the Pandora Project, a government conspiracy to drain and abuse magical energy; they expose White House Press Secretary Joanna Wise for summoning the Shenlong in the first place to put her plans in motion.

[39] Whedon stated "Rhonda the Immortal Waitress" was the first incarnation of Buffy in his head, "the idea of a seemingly insignificant female who in fact turns out to be extraordinary.

Whedon openly wonders why his identification figure is a woman, but describes it as "a real autobiographical kind of therapy for me" to be writing a strong female character like Buffy.

The shallow cheerleader of the original film had grown more mature and open-minded, identifying with social outcasts such as Willow and Xander, and instead, the character of Cordelia was created to embody what Buffy once was.

In 1999, she signed on to be the face of Maybelline —becoming the company's first celebrity spokeswoman since Lynda Carter in the late 1970s—[52] and was voted number one in FHM's "100 Sexiest Women" of the year.