I don’t watch buffy much, but why don’t the evil ones either
(i) move to another town
or (ii) just shoot buffy instead of fighting her?
p.s My son would love to know too.
Because it would make a very dull and short-lived TV show if they did?
I’m not sure if this is worthy of the spoiler tags, but I want to try them out anyway.
Warren shot Buffy just before the end of the last season. He’s not a vampire or demon though, so it mightn’t fit your criteria. And it didn’t work - Willow healed her in the next episode.
They can’t move to another town, Sunnydale is the HELLMOUTH!!! 
Ah but had Willow not been there and all "super-powered"Buffy would have died.
I’ve always wondered why buffy doesn’t pack a few shotguns,magnums,and AK-47s.
Barring things like vamps which need the stake through the heart guns would be pretty effective.
Actually now that i think of it the lack of guns,and the emphasis on how little a bullet is when Tara was shot makes me think it is intentional on the part of Joss.
Has he ever said anything about it?
Also, as far as the vampires go, not a lot of gun stores are open during the night. They might not have a lot of access to them, even though they technically could get them…
Ah well, my theory is crap…
How about this:
They don’t have guns because
I said so!
This has been brought up pplenty of times here before. While there is no official word from WHedon on the subject, and while it could just be boiled down to the fact that he thinks guns are bad, we can also look at the world of Buffy for some hints as well.
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The Hellmouth. Well geez, think about it. Yeah, the Slayer is there … NOW … but obviously every Slayer doesn’t live there. With the Hellmouth being there, magical powers and maybe even any supernatural powers are strengthened. Mix that with the eeeevil aura the Hellmouth puts out that helps cover up “oddities” and dissapearances, it really is a great place for demons to live.
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Guns. First I’d like to note that they have used guns; Darla goes blasting around the Bronze in season 2 with duel pistols. What I think might more readily explain why they all don’t (c’mon, they could get’em if they wanted to) is really that vampires and demons in the Buffyverse are chaotic beings with serious feral sides to them. Get them ripped up and into a fighting mood and they just want to tear stuff up with their bare hands. “Graaaahhhhh!” and the like.
Hope this helps you and your son.
[shameless plug: This is my 800th post. Finally.]
I’ve never worked out why vampires don’t just wear body armour over their hearts, a wooded steak isn’t going to go through kevlar, slayer strength or no.
Nitpick: It was season one. Darla was dusted in season one. Other instances of gun usage include Buffy vs the Judge (big gun), Buffy vs Adam and Buffy (fast gun) vs the Initiative (bullets and tasers). I’ve asked this question before myself and the standard answer has been “Buffy moves faster than bullets.” Which is nonsense. I tend to think that guns are infrequent in part because of the added dramatic effectiveness of their being rare.
Tuco, vampires in the Buffyverse have a serious glass jaw when it comes to having wood shoved through their chests. In the first season of Angel, there was a bad guy vampire holding Angel from behind, and the cop lady shoved a 2x4 through both their chests, going up at an angle through Angel’s chest to miss his heart. If another entire vampire wouldn’t stop a normal human being from shoving something shaped like a baseball bat through his chest, a little armor wouldn’t have helped much either.
And yes, the majority of vampires and demons in the Buffyverse are portrayed as being pretty darn stupid.
I tend to agree with the posters that there is no obvious reason not to erase buffy with a gun - just that it would not make good TV. Of course one can hardly expect total consistancy with a programme about vampires and demons.
And just why may one not expect consistency from a show with vampires and demons?
I think he means “consistent within the realm of “realistic” television”, though that seems a contradiction in tearms as well.
Though in that vain, I would love to see a Buffy/The Practice crossover where they try to apply U.S. law to Demons and the Scoobies.
Oh, and good point earlier, Otto. And I always get confused about th efirst season because of the beginning introductory arc.
ALso, when Warren shot Buffy, the demons at the bar were going on about how if you shoot a slayer, you better have damn good aim, because if you don’t she’ll just heal,and then you’ll have a very brassed off slayer on your ass. This is what gave Warren the brilliant idea to get the hell out of dodge. Then he found out about Willow…
. . . make good TV . . .
. . . make good TV . . .
. . . make good TV . . .
The question here is suspension of disbelief. That means concentrating on the experience artists intended, and ignoring things that don’t contribute to the effect. This happens regularly in fiction. People can’t fly, mice can’t talk, evil lords can’t create master rings to rule dwarves, etc.
The plot, characters, and setting only need to be good enough to convey the message. Things that destroy the illusion need to be kept unobtrusive enough that viewers aren’t unavoidably distracted.
Although no Buffy fan by a long shot, I don’t see problems with vampires and demons being stupid. And the fact that guns aren’t used isn’t a problem, either. Presumably everyone would feel cheated if the vampires dropped a tactical nuke on Buffy’s home. The story wasn’t about tactical nukes. It wasn’t about whether an AK-47 was a better gun for vampire-killing than an M-16.
Exactly what Buffy is about, and whether the premise for the show is coherent are different matters. That Mickey Mouse and Winnie-the-Pooh readers can happily ignore the fact that animals can’t talk suggests that the artists created a satisfyingly comprehensive world, even if it’s not complete. Very likely the problem with Buffy which leads to these speculations (which it has in common with a large number of TV fantasy creations which depend more on splash value and impact than on masterful world creation, a la J.R.R. Tolkien) is that the writers and editors, in an effort to produce a huge number of stories at clockwork intervals, frequently end up violating the premises implicitely or explicitly laid down by other episodes. When this happens, the audience starts to loose its ability to suspend its disbelief about other factors, as well – it becomes difficult to sort out what is “supposed” to be ignored vs. actual mistakes. At this point, all sorts of aspects of the fantasy start being called into question.
partly_warmer, you’ve had enough to drink tonight. Can I have the keys to your soap box?
No one is asking about the suspension of disbelief or theoretical mistakes in conceptualizing the genre.
It was just a question about thematics in the Buffyverse.
Demons don’t use guns because it would break the rules.
Guns are low-class, gauche, and appropriate only for humans.
When you’re a demon, you’re supposed to use magic, natural abilities, and innate super strength. If you whip out a pistol, everyone would laugh at you.
Besides, what demon is going to rely on a human to supply some guns and ammunition?
On a sidenote: why do the demon hangouts in Sunnydale look so dive bar-ish and run down? I was comparing the SD demon bar to Caritas, and wow, the Hellmouth could totally be a better place to party. And there’s evil all over, if we can take Angel into consideration. I think that Sunnydale is to vampires, demons, and evil as film actors are to Los Angeles. If you want to make it–or try to make it–in the movies, you go to L.A., so the popular wisdom goes. If you want to raise a little hell, you go to the Hellmouth.
I think we already had this conversation in a Buffy thread from a while ago, about the lack of advanced technology in the Buffyverse. I’d dig some of it up, but I don’t want to be responsible for a hamster heart attack.
Cum’on. It’s morning here, and I’m drinking my first cup of coffee after a night with the undead.
My point is that the “Buffyverse” 1) Isn’t very consistent, 2) Isn’t meant to be particularly consistent, and 3) That discussing why vampires are so stupid is the exact equivalent of discussing whether vampires should be able to use tactical nukes.
There a difference between what Buffy is trying to achieve, and what, say J.R.R. Tolkien or A.C. Clarke or Phillip K. Dick attempt to do – which is knock you over with how complete and believable their worlds are.
Critiquing Buffy on the basis of flaws in demonic behavior is like looking at the Mona Lisa (well, maybe Andy Warhol’s soup can paintings) and complaining it looks lousy when digitized for Web sites. I.e., has little or nothing to do with the artists’ intent.
So, partly_warmer, have you watched any actual episodes of Buffy yet? Or are you still basing your opinions on promos and snippets of downloaded scripts?