Faith Lehane is a fictional character created by Joss Whedon for the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

The character later co-stars in the 25-issue comic book Angel & Faith beginning in August 2011 under the banner of Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Nine, the story taking place mostly in London and the surrounding area.

Faith is a Slayer: a girl endowed with supernatural abilities and destined to battle evil creatures such as vampires and demons.

Later storylines show her feeling remorse for her past crimes, and with the benevolent vampire Angel's help she eventually rejoins the side of good in the hopes of achieving redemption.

[3] Coming from a traumatic and abusive background, Faith tries to fit in with Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar) and her friends, but becomes increasingly isolated and bitter as the season progresses.

[4] A major turning point for the character occurs in the mid-season episode "Bad Girls"; while trying to show Buffy the fun side of slaying, Faith accidentally kills Deputy Mayor Allan Finch (Jack Plotnick), a human being whom she mistakes for a vampire.

[5] Feeling more alienated than ever, she betrays the Scooby Gang and allies herself with the villainous Mayor of Sunnydale (Harry Groener),[6] eventually forming a sincere father-daughter relationship with him.

Waking up from her coma, she seeks revenge on Buffy by switching their bodies using a mystical device called the Draconian Katra left to her by the now-deceased Mayor.

After feeling obliged to rescue a church full of people from vampires, Faith battles Buffy once again, expressing extreme self-hatred before being returned to her own body.

[12] Faith is approached by her former Watcher, Wesley Wyndam-Pryce (Alexis Denisof), who informs her of Angelus's presence, sparking her to break out of prison and help them.

[15] Afterwards, a recovered Faith travels back to Sunnydale, where she plays a significant role in the battle against the First Evil in the final season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

[24] "Note from the Underground" sees Faith being temporarily released from jail into Angel's custody, in order to help Buffy defeat the demonic fascists, the Scourge.

These episodes focus specifically on Faith's arrival in Sunnydale, and her subsequent turn to the dark side following the death of the Deputy Mayor.

Written in diary format, it fleshes out many areas of Faith's past which were only alluded to in the show, such as her alcoholic mother's abuse, her previous relationships, and her first Watcher's gruesome death at the hands of the vampire Kakistos.

[29][30] Faith is featured in the ongoing comic book, Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight (2007–11), which serves as a canonical continuation of the television series.

[38] In the final story arc, "Last Gleaming", Faith battles in the ruins of Sunnydale alongside other Scooby Gang members and Slayers.

[41] The question the writers wanted to answer was, despite being made from the same "raw materials," how would upbringing and environment affect the type of people they would become later in life?

[41] Some fans argued that the show developed a lesbian subtext between Faith and Buffy; Jane Espenson states that Whedon says he didn't intend this, but admitted it was there after he had it pointed out to him, jokingly attributing this to his subconscious.

[41] Co-executive producer Doug Petrie, and writer of Faith-centric episodes such as "Revelations" and "Bad Girls", says one of the things he loves about the character is that Faith is not wrong in describing herself and Buffy as killers.

"[45] Writer Jane Espenson believes one of the reasons why Faith elicits sympathy from the audience is the father/daughter relationship between her and the mayor, comparing their affection for one another to that between vampires Spike and Drusilla in the earlier season.

The writers believed it would be an interesting dynamic to have former "bad girl" Faith play a heroic role against the show's now villainous protagonist, Angel.

Faith was brought back for the final season of Buffy, because, according to David Solomon, "she had been such a crucial character at a very specific junction in the series that there would be no way to tie it up without her."

In the episode "Empty Places", the Potentials lose trust in Buffy and appoint Faith as their leader instead, a decision that literally blows up in their faces.

One of these was retaining the mystery of the character; Levy explains many aspects of Faith's background, such as her delinquency and promiscuity, are supposed to be assumed by the viewers of the show, and he didn't want to spell everything out by writing a "case study" of her.

In order to do something non-traditional, Levy chose to tell the story in a diary format, watching many episodes of the television series to get a hold on the natural cadence of her voice.