Slayers have a multitude of weapons to help them kill fearsome demons and vampires.
All Slayers are incredibly strong, agile and fast healing. But the use of weapons just made her stronger. From the standard stake, holy water and fire, Buffy also creatively used her friends, and even other vampires – what ever it took to obliterate evil.
The most basic weapon was The Stake
It is unknown why regular bullets don’t work with vampires, but they don’t . Like Darla said “they can’t kill us. But they hurt like hell.” She came blazing after Angel and Buffy with guns, but a stake through the heart took her down.
So vampires do have hearts, they just don’t beat because vampires don’t need oxygen . But there is something about the heart that makes it vulnerable to a stake, but only if it is wood.
If you do not have an official stake you can use any kind of sharp wood, and the Slayers in Buffy were always staking someone with a broken table leg or other wooden object.
And you need to hit exactly on the heart – the tummy or even neck won’t do.
When Buffy dropped her back pack in the first episode Xander was quick to pick it up of course, since he had such a crush on her. Unfortunaly she had some stakes in the pack that just couldn’t be explained away easily. But he still loved her – what can you say? Below is a stake that would not do anything to real vampires but it is fun at Halloween if you want to get a Buffy related Halloween costume.
11 Inch Foam Rubber Wooden Vampire Hand Stake Stunt Prop
Holy Water
In Buffy Holy Water which has been sanctified by nuns or priest is a valuable weapon against vampires, but it usually does not kill them. One memorable exception was when Buffy was momentarily stripped of her Slayer powers as a cruel test in episode in Episode 12 of the third season “Helpless. She had to fight the horrible , deranged “Zachary Kralik who had been was a serial killer before he even became vampire. Buffy was unable to merely over-power him – or even use her weapon. He even tried to stake her . But Kralik was killed when she was able to sneak Holy Water into his cup and he burned from the inside.
The Cross-Bow
The crossbow was probably Buffy’s favorite weapon
When Buffy fights the Master in the finale of season one, she does it with a cross-bow. When she springs Riley out away from the General she does it with a cross-bow.
Crossbows use an elastic launching device to shoot projectile bolts called quarrels
A cross-bow is smaller than a bow, bit it has lots of advantages.
- it does not need to be sized to the user, so she could even use it lying down. (which Buffy does of course.)
- The quarrels can travel quite far, up to 150 feet.
- Crossbows are much easier to use than a regular bow requiring because they much less stamina . That is because the crossbow has a locking mechanism to maintain the draw while a regular bow has to manually pull the bowstring back to trigger the string,
- Crossbow users not only handle stronger draw weight but also This not only enables a crossbowman to handle stronger draw weight, without straining , but they can hold the aim for longer.
- Because of all that, Buffy could threaten with the cross-bow for longer, even if she didn’t end up using it.
- And I think Buffy just thought it made her look hot. 🙂
Buffy put it to good use against Angel and the Master in the first season. She used an older wooden model then. It only carried 3 extra bolts.
However, in the alternate universe of “the Wish” which is set in the future, she was using a she a smaller, hand-held, metal crossbow
The sword
The first time Buffy used the sword was in Becoming Part Two, when she was fighting to the death with Angel.
She also used the sword as a weapon against the Knights Byzantium who were sworn enemies of Glorificus.
Buffy was a master at the sword.
It was the weapon that she used to send Angel to the Acathla’s hell dimension dimension and prevent the world from being swallowed up. Although she didn’t kill him in the strictest sense of the world – only wood through the heart would do that – she sent him to a dimension where she believed he would not be able to escape.
The Sun
The sun was toxic to vampires, and many times it was used to kill them. If they were just pushed out to the daylight – they were dead. Daniel Holtz used the sun to burn away his daughter, who had been changed into a vampire by Angel’s evil twin “Angelus.”
The Cross
Because vampires were pure evil, a cross would be repellent. Angel gave Buffy a cross that she wore around her neck. That cross saved her life when she fought the vampire “Luke” who was being used as a vessel by the Master.
Her mocking manner
Buffy was known to have witty sayings through out her killing. Somehow the humor seemed to give her strength. She admitted that when she killed the insane vampire Zachary Kralik that her use of the English language gave her strength: ” If I was at full slayer capacity I would be punning right now.”
Anything She Could Find
Buffy was ingenious.
In the episode where Spike is following and taping her to figure out her ways – he saw her stake a vampire at a pumpkin patch.
“She’s crafty “he says.
Buffy would break furniture to make stakes , or use wire to behead vampires – she was clever that way.
All that book larnin: The Watcher’s library provided Tremendous resources
One of the perks of being a vampire slayer was inheriting a massive library of archaic tomes about witches, demons, myths and curses: all kinds of one of a kind research material that helped Buffy find answers to how she was able to defeat her foe.
When the books were blended with the computer wizardry of Willow and Miss Calendar, they indeed had some powerful information at their hands.
Buffy and Scoobies and Giles spent hours researching the demon of the week around the table in the library.
The Scoobies
The Scoobies were Willow and Xander throughout the series with the addition of Cordelia, Oz , Tara and others through the seasons. They were her main support, served as a beacon through difficult waters, and saved her life several times.
Buffy was unique in that she had friends, most Slayers let no one know what they were.
Her Watcher
Every Slayer came with a Watcher , someone who trained at the Watchers Council in England to ensure help for her in learning how to hone her natural skills to perfection so that she could kill evil.
Buffy’s Watcher was Giles.
When he was dismissed by the Council, she inherited Wesley Wyndam-pryce.
But really it was always Giles.
Other Slayers
When one Slayer died another would be called. But in Buffy due to a set of unique circumstances, Buffy would sometimes work with other Slayers. These Slayers included Kendra , Faith and in the final chapter the Potentials.
Vampire Help
Buffy became infamous for loving not just one but two vampires. And they were vampires with a soul to boot.
The first was Angel , with their doomed love affair. Due to a curse, anytime he loved and had one moment of true happiness he would lose his soul and become a monster again. That means sex caused him to revert to a soulless creature – and Angelus was the worse vampire ever.
Most of the time Spike was soul-less and yet from the very beginning he helped Buffy and the other Scoobies. But it was always because he go something out of it.
When all the soulless hi-jinks were over – both vampires were immensely helpful to Buffy.They were strong, a huge personal knowledge of the kinds of demons that Buffy had to best and gave her support that she needed, and often could not get from others.
Her mother
When Joyce conked an unsuspecting Spike on the head in Season Two Episode Three ” School Hard” she proved that even though she was mortal she was a force to be reckoned with . When Spike returns from the fight Drusilla comforts him and says tenderly “Spike , did she hurt you?” “It was close baby”, he answered. “A Slayer with family and friends that sure as hell wasn’t in the brochure.”
The Scythe
In the final season of Buffy she took the scythe out of a boulder that no one else had been able to remove. This Scythe was forged just for Slayers and had a tremendous strength that only a Slayer could wield.
Buffy The Vampire Slayer Scythe
Herself
In episode 22 of season two – “Becoming “a soulless Angelus fights Buffy and tries to kill her. At one point she seems to be defenseless as she is forced to the ground without a weapon. Angelus says “So that is everything, huh? No weapons, no friends, no hope. Take all that away and what is left?”
But as he attempts to thrust the sword into her body – she says “Me.”
She is able to grab the sword, knock them off of his feet and ultimately win the fight.
Because that is Buffy’s truest weapon, the one that never lets her down – herself.
Resources
Why are vampires killed by stakes?