Daniel "Oz" Osbourne is a fictional character created by Joss Whedon for the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Oz's most outstanding trait is his detached, ironic approach to life, masking a deeply philosophical interior and a very calm, devoted, gentle nature.

[1] He is also the lead guitarist for the band Dingoes Ate My Baby (a reference to the death of Azaria Chamberlain), which performs frequently at The Bronze.

In the episode "Phases" Oz learns he has become a werewolf, turning into a monster on the three nights around a full moon, having been bitten on his finger by his cousin Jordy.

In the episode "Graduation Day, Part One," Oz and Willow make love before the impending confrontation with the evil Mayor Wilkins.

Unlike the other two, he does not have a dorm room, but stays in a house off campus along with the rest of the band,[2] and now locks himself up into a cage in a crypt at a local cemetery.

Oz makes one appearance on Angel to deliver the Ring of Amarra, and plays a crucial role in the plot of that episode ("In the Dark").

Unlike Oz, Veruca sees nothing wrong with killing humans when she is a werewolf as she feels that that is her true identity.

Oz realizes that Veruca was correct, and tells Willow that he is, indeed, "the wolf all the time" and needs to leave in order to try to better understand his own nature.

However, when experiencing the powerful negative emotion of jealousy evoked by the discovery that Tara Maclay has replaced him in Willow's affections, he does change, and is seized by The Initiative and locked in their cells until Buffy, helped by Riley Finn, sets him free.

[6] The story sees Buffy and her army of Slayers magically transport themselves to Oz's sanctuary in Tibet to escape the pursuit of her masked enemy, the mysterious "Twilight".

Golden's frequent writing partner Nancy Holder also wrote the 2005 novel Queen of the Slayers, set after the events of the season 7 finale.

[8] The only band member mentioned by name, other than Oz, is lead singer Devon MacLeish (played by Jason Hall).

In the writers' original plans Oz was to be killed early in season 2 by a vampire, presumably Angelus, before this dubious honor went to Jenny Calendar.

Even Oz, being a stoic and calm persona, still had a strong and violent force inside, which became increasingly harder to control.

In several episodes during season 4, Oz can be seen wearing a sheepskin jacket, alluding to the Aesopian fable, origin of the well-known phrase "a wolf in sheep's clothing".