Buffy the Vampire Slayer remains one of the most innovative, progressive shows ever written. It presented a well-rounded female lead in Sarah Michelle Gellar's Buffy Summers, as well as a fantastic supporting cast of characters. From the various members of the Scooby Gang to the monsters of the week, there are countless storylines to excite, terrify, and intrigue audiences.
There's a reason the show lasted for seven seasons. Joss Whedon and the rest of the creative voices behind the scenes created characters we could root for and villains we could understand. They even tested these boundaries, making characters like Spike morally ambiguous and turning Angel into a villain. Even Willow dabbled in the dark side.
However, with all these seasons and episodes comes the challenge of introducing interesting new characters into the mix. For all of Buffy's memorable characters and plot lines, there are plenty of people that the showrunners want viewers to forget about.
Some of these characters die before they truly get developed. Some appear in just a handful of episodes. Others are so bad they need to be wiped from the viewer's mind completely. Whatever the case, some of these people just don't reach the same height as our favorite characters.
Here are the 20 Buffy The Vampire Slayer Characters They Want You To Forget.
Jesse McNally
Introduced in the pilot episode, "Welcome to the Hellmouth", Jesse McNally is best buds with Xander Harris and is seen hanging out with him and Willow Rosenberg. Jesse also has a crush on Cordelia Chase, who repeatedly rejects his advances.
Even though Jesse has a meaningful connection to the Scooby Gang at the beginning of the series, he quickly gets brushed aside after he is bitten by the vampire Darla — Angel's sire. She and a group of vampires, led by The Master, use Jesse as bait to lure Buffy to them.
Xander wants to accompany Buffy to the vampires' crypt to help save Jesse. Yet, even after he accidentally stakes Jesse in the heart. Jesse is never mentioned in the show again. For being such a good friend, Jesse gets forgotten immediately.
Kendra Young
When a Slayer dies, she activates the next Potential Slayer in line to take up the mantle. When Buffy briefly dies in season one's finale, "Prophecy Girl", Kendra, who began training for the role early in life, becomes activated.
Kendra's Watcher, Zabuto, sends her to Sunnydale — the location of the Hellmouth. Confusion ensues when she learns that Buffy is also a Slayer, marking the first time in history that two Slayers exist at the same time. She takes a disciplined, no-nonsense approach to the Slayer job and instantly pales in comparison to Buffy's charming wit.
The showrunners must not have had much faith in Kendra, because she dies after three appearances on the show at the hands of Drusilla. This, combined with the introduction of the reckless, much cooler Slayer Faith shortly afterwards, makes for a short-lived character arc that never gets revisited.
Daniel "Oz" Osbourne
Oz was a series regular in seasons three and four (recurring in season two), serving as a love interest for Willow. He gets more screen time than people like Jesse, and eventually discovers that he's a werewolf. As interesting as that plotline may sound, he disappears into the background when the Scooby Gang graduates high school, and ultimately leaves Sunnydale so he doesn't hurt anyone.
Even Willow seems to forget about him once her main love interest, Tara Maclay, joins the show.
Fans can argue that this created a love triangle between the three, but not one memorable enough to warrant more time spent with Oz.
Seth Green, who portrayed Oz, reportedly left the show to pursue film roles and believed his character was better served as a recurring one. With the way the show handled his departure though, it feels like he was never there at all.
Veruca
Speaking of Oz, the show probably wants viewers to forget about the true nail in the coffin for Willow and Oz's relationship: Veruca.
Veruca briefly attends UC Sunnydale with Buffy, Willow, and Oz. She has a passion for music and sang in the fictional band "Shy." Being in a band himself, Oz shares this interest, but that's not the only thing they have in common; Veruca turns out to be a werewolf herself.
After Oz transforms one night, he mates with another werewolf and later discovers it was Veruca. She encourages Oz to embrace his animalistic side, and their affair continues, to Willow's dismay. When Oz turns into a werewolf again, he kills Veruca. This effectively ends their short-lived relationship, and both their character arcs on the show.
Riley Finn
There's a reason why people only debate between Angel and Spike when it comes to Buffy's relationships. Showrunners tried to give Buffy a "normal" boyfriend in Riley, a (human) guy she meets in college. Riley is an agent of the Initiative, a government agency tasked to neutralize demonic beings.
Riley was a typical nice guy, but that's his only characteristic.
There was never a real sense of romantic tension between him and Buffy compared to Angel or Spike. He's mildly equipped to fight the monsters of the week and brags that he's captured and killed seventeen "hostiles" — but that's not very impressive considering Buffy can slay more vampires than that in one night.
After Riley develops a weird obsession with letting vampires suck his blood, he rides out of Sunnydale in a helicopter and out of the show, marrying a fellow military soldier. Buffy's better off without out him.
Professor Maggie Walsh
The Initiative storyline in season four is best left forgotten anyway, and Maggie Walsh is a symptom of that. In addition to being Buffy's psychology professor, Maggie served as Director of the Initiative and Riley's superior.
She also becomes an antagonist with her involvement in the "314 Project," a secret experiment aiming to create a race of supersoldiers — a plot line that already feels played out and unmemorable. This begins with the creation of Adam, the first supersoldier and an ugly, one-note Big Bad.
Maggie tries to use Adam to kill Buffy, but her plan backfires when her horrific creation impales her. Things get even weirder when Adam reanimates Maggie's corpse into a part-human, part-machine servant.
Maggie's arc is equal parts generic and bizarre, making for an antagonist far less formidable compared to Buffy's other foes.
Forrest Gates
Along with Riley, Forrest Gates served as an agent of the Initiative under Maggie Walsh. Like those two characters, Forrest falls to the wayside in the Buffyverse.
His character development might be even worse than his counterparts, if that's possible. Forrest represents the perfect, obedient soldier and follows orders from the Initiative without question. He takes a disliking to Buffy, who represents the complete opposite of that. When she and Riley start dating, Forrest sees Buffy as a threat and a poor influence on Riley, who used to share Forrest's ideals before Buffy came along.
Not only is his personality dull, but Forrest suffers a similar fate to Maggie.
Adam combines Forrest's body with a reptilian demon to make his own monstrous creation. Riley defeats his friend and never mentions him after this point, even though they were supposed to be close.
Kathy Newman
Plenty of people want to forget their college roommates, but Buffy the Vampire Slayer takes it a step further with Buffy's college roommate, Kathy Newman.
On the surface, Kathy seems like an overly chipper, annoying roommate, but certainly nothing more than that. However, Buffy develops such a strong dislike of Kathy that she convinces herself Kathy must be a demon. Buffy's feelings toward Kathy make her go insane. She even steals Kathy's toenail clippings to look for anything out of the ordinary. This leads the Scoobies to believe that something might actually be wrong.
As it turns out, Kathy is a Mok'tagar Demon, a soulless monster who can assume different forms. Kathy siphoned off bits of Buffy's soul, causing Buffy's insanity. This is an intriguing concept, but when Kathy's parents bring her back to her own dimension, it's never explored again. Hopefully viewers didn't take too much of an interest.
Billy "Ford" Fordham
Ford is Buffy's friend and former classmate from her old high school in Los Angeles. He surprises Buffy at Sunnydale High, claiming he transferred schools because of his dad's work. While Ford seems fun and likable at first, telling Willow and Xander old stories about Buffy, nothing is ever that simple with Buffy's relationships.
Ford reveals to Buffy that he learned about her Slayer abilities before Buffy was expelled from their school. Using his connection with Buffy, Ford betrays her by agreeing to help Spike lure Buffy into a trap in exchange for Spike to turn him into a vampire. He has a brain tumor, and believes that becoming a vampire will help save him.
While Buffy finds sympathy for Ford's predicament, she still stakes him after he becomes a vampire, making his exit from the show as quick as his entrance.
Marcie Ross
Marcie Ross was a student at Sunnydale High so forgettable that not even her classmates remembered who she was. She appears in one episode in season one, "Out of Mind, Out of Sight". After being perpetually ignored her teachers and classmates, Marcie becomes invisible without anyone noticing. She uses this power to take revenge on the people who overlooked her, including Cordelia.
After Buffy defeats her in a fight, two FBI agents arrive to take her to a facility full of other invisible people.
What's interesting about Marcie's story is the premise the show sets up — before completely ignoring it.
Not only are there others like her, but there is a whole institution set up to teach them how to use their abilities, including a lesson on "Assassination and Infiltration." This sets up a fun storyline that the showrunners abandoned after this episode, making Marcie a one-and-done, forgotten character.
Scott Hope
Scott Hope is arguably Buffy's most nondescript boyfriend. It's not entirely his fault — he's the rebound after Buffy and Angel's destructive relationship in season two. Buffy, having recently slain Angel for the greater good, had trouble moving on to someone like Scott.
The two briefly date at the beginning of season three, but Scott breaks things off because Buffy seems distracted and less invested in their relationship. His sweet demeanor changes when he spreads rumors that Buffy is a lesbian and attends the homecoming dance with another girl shortly after. Scott is only ever mentioned again in season seven with the revelation that he is actually gay.
These traits suggest that Scott has internal conflict and depth that could have been explored. However, with such little screen time, Scott proved to be an underdeveloped character.
Cassie Newton
Cassie Newton only appears in two episodes of Buffy, but what makes her so easy to forget is that in those two episodes, she basically plays two different characters.
In the episode "Help", Cassie is a student at Sunnydale High who possesses psychic abilities. She tells Buffy that Cassie will die the following Friday, and fulfills her prediction by dying of heart failure.
However, Cassie reappears in the episode "Conversations with Dead People". She gives Willow a message from Tara, who is dead at this point, saying that Willow will kill all of her friends if she uses her magic. It turns out that this is not Cassie, but the First Evil speaking through her to manipulate Willow.
This situation is confusing enough without trying to figure out who Cassie really is. It's best not to think too much about it.
Quentin Travers
Giles is the cream of the crop when it comes to Watchers, so it makes sense that Watchers like Quentin Travers are so forgettable when he's around. Quentin is a Director of the Watchers Council, an organization that helps oversee Watchers like Giles.
When Buffy turns eighteen, Quentin arrives in Sunnydale to put her through a test that involves stripping her of her Slayer powers to see if she can survive without them, putting her life at risk. Quentin, being the stuffy councilman that he is, offers no sympathy and punishes Giles when Giles tries to intervene.
Not only did his personality make him bland and unlikeable, but Quentin rarely resurfaces in the show after putting Buffy through the ringer. In season seven, he dies in an explosion that destroys the Watchers Council headquarters, effectively wiping him out of viewers minds for good — if viewers ever even thought about him.
Rack
Willow experiments with a lot of crazy magic, and part of that due to Rack, her magic dealer. Rack is an evil warlock who shares his dark, addictive magic with others in exchange for a peek into that person's mind.
Willow accompanies a fellow witch to Rack's hideout. She develops an addiction to magic, and frequently seeks Rack out to get her magic fixes. Rack's service gets Willow into trouble with the rest of the Scooby Gang, causing harm to Dawn and straining Willow's friendship with Xander and Buffy.
Following these events, Willow renounces magic for awhile, but goes into a spiral after Tara's death. She confronts Rack and drains his life force to give her own powers a boost. Because of this, Rack acts as a plot device more than a character.
Ted Buchanan
After an unsettling episode, Ted Buchanan is a character whose dark, creepy storyline is best left on the sidelines.
Ted begins dating Joyce Summers and exerts a strong influence over her and Buffy's friends. This leaves Buffy uneasy, and her feelings become justified after Ted threatens her during a mini-golf outing. When Ted later slaps Buffy, she retaliates by kicking him down the stairs, seemingly killing him. However, Ted, revealed to be a robot, comes back from the morgue to kill Buffy, where she defeats him for good.
The reason Ted is so frightening isn't because he's a robot - it's because he behaves exactly like so many abusive men do. He seems perfectly charming at first, but Buffy can tell something isn't right. Then he reveals himself to be controlling and misogynistic, even drugging Joyce and the Scoobies.
It's all a little too real, especially by the standards of season 2 Buffy, and the next episode returned to campier fun with "Bad Eggs".
Dracula
While it is a show about vampires, Buffy takes things a step too far by including Dracula, the most famous vampire of all time.
Dracula sold his story to earn his fame, making himself a popular figure in the human and demon world. The Scooby Gang becomes starstruck once they face off against him. Dracula hypnotizes Xander into becoming his servant. He even seduces Buffy, bites her and later makes her drink from his own blood. Even when she does stake him, Dracula is able to reform from his dust. This means he can't be killed like the other vampires.
Dracula's presence throws the entire conception of vampires into question.
The show already established what a vampire's abilities were, yet Dracula has other powers that vampires don't have.
For being such an original show, including Dracula just feels awkward and tropey, raising questions about the mythology that get dismissed.
The Anointed One
The Anointed One was an eight-year-old boy-turned vampire who served under the Master in season one. The Master read a prophecy that the Anointed One would lead Buffy to Hell.
The Master personally teaches the Anointed One until Buffy slays him. The Anointed One goes on to succeed the Master as the leader of their vampire cult. Spike locks the Anointed One in a cage and lifts him up into the sunlight, killing him.
According to Joss Whedon, he intended for Anointed One to be the Big Bad of season two.
Whedon killed him off early because the actor who played him, Andrew J. Ferchland, aged too quickly out of the role. That's probably for the best since it made room for Angelus to become the main villain. It banked on the hope that viewers forgot about this villain.
Whistler
Whistler is a humanoid demon who serves The Powers That Be. He believes his mission consists of "maintaining the balance between good and evil."
In a Buffy flashback, Whistler approaches Angel, who is living on the streets in New York City. He takes Angel to Los Angeles to see Buffy, who gets called to become the new Slayer. This sets Angel on the right path. Whistler pops up again after Angel loses his soul and becomes Angelus, this time to confront Buffy. He asks Buffy what she's prepared to give up to stop Angelus.
With Whistler, the show presented a moral guide to two of the most important characters in the franchise. Yet, Whistler never resurfaces after giving his sagely advice. Reportedly, Whistler was supposed to become a supporting character in Angel, but actor Max Perlich's schedule conflicted with the show's filming. As a result, Whistler gets brushed aside.
Ben Wilkinson
Glory is one of the more memorable Big Bads, but she also overshadows another character intimately connected to her: Ben Wilkinson.
Ben is a medical intern whom Buffy takes an interest in after breaking up with Riley. He is also a human vessel for Glory, a powerful goddess from a Hell dimension. Glory seizes control over Ben in order to search for an inter-dimensional key — Dawn Summers. Glory and Ben's struggle for power grows over the course of the season. Their personalities start to merge together, which makes Ben an even weaker character.
Ben's lack of real characterization, and his connection to a more significant character, made him someone who literally blends into the background. Giles eventually smothers Ben to death to stop Glory from resurfacing, ending his time on the show.
The Buffybot
The Buffybot can barely be considered a character, and in the screen time she does get probably shouldn't be remembered.
Warren Mears designs a robot that resembles Buffy, which Spike uses as a toy, programmed to bend to Spike's every whim. The Scoobies mistake the Buffybot for the real Buffy and believe that she and Spike are hooking up.
When Glory kidnaps Spike and tortures him for information about Buffy and Dawn, the Buffybot rushes to save him and fights Glory. The real Buffy arrives to fight Glory's minions, and the Buffybot breaks. She and the Gang are disgusted by the robot's purpose.
The Buffybot is meant to be funny, but it comes off as gross and creepy. It also undercuts Spike's resistance to Glory's torture, making Buffy's thankfulness feel unearned. Though the Scoobies use the Buffyboy to cover up Buffy's death at the start of season 6, this is another robot best forgotten about.
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What Buffy the Vampire Slayer character do you wish you could forget? Let us know in the comments!