List of Buffy the Vampire Slayer characters
This article lists the major and recurring fictional characters created by Joss Whedon for the television series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. For detailed descriptions, see individual character pages.
Main characters
The following characters were featured in the opening credits of the program.
Buffy Anne Summers (Sarah Michelle Gellar)
The show's titular protagonist, Buffy is "The Slayer", one in a long line of young girls chosen by fate to battle evil forces in the form of vampires and demons. The Slayer has no jurisdiction over human crime. This calling mystically endows her with a limited degree of clairvoyance, usually in the form of prophetic dreams, as well as dramatically increased physical strength, endurance, agility, intuition, and speed and ease of healing. There traditionally has been only one Slayer alive at any given moment, with a new one called upon the event of her death.
Alexander "Xander" LaVelle Harris (Nicholas Brendon)
Xander is a close friend of Buffy. Possessing no supernatural skills, Xander provides comic relief as well as a grounded, everyman perspective in the supernatural Buffyverse. In another departure from the usual conventions of television, Xander is notable for being an insecure and subordinate male in a world dominated by powerful females.
