From: daviderl31@yahoo.com   
      
   http://www.syfy.com/syfywire/in-defense-of-dawn-summers   
      
   IN DEFENSE OF DAWN SUMMERS   
      
   by Courtney Enlow   
      
   "I'm like a lightning rod for pain and hurt, and everyone around me suffers   
   and dies. I must be something so horrible to cause so much pain and evil."   
       [S5, E19 "Tough Love", Dawn blaming herself after Glory brain sucks   
   Tara]   
      
   It is quite possible that aside from Riley Finn, no one in the Buffyverse   
   elicits quite the level of loathing Dawn Summers does. Buffy the Vampire   
   Slayer's very own add-a-kid, a tween bundle of emotions, a wide-eyed   
   irritant to our heroes and their fandom alike, the younger and   
   supernaturally created Summers girl is near-unilaterally hated, with very   
   few defenders. Some might even think it impossible to defend this character   
   at all.   
      
   Attacks on Dawn Summers always focus on one element: whininess. While male   
   characters are certainly capable of being whiny (ahem, Xander), that   
   particular insult is only leveled their way in extreme circumstances. Among   
   female characters, it tends to get thrown around anytime a character is in   
   any way frequently emotional. In a series replete with the   
   keep-strong-and-slay-on Buffy, the always-look-on-the-bright-side Willow and   
   the not-a-human-anyway-so-trade-the-children-for-cash Anya (characters we   
   didn't see fully fall apart into emotional piles until the death of Joyce   
   Summers, after Dawn was already in the picture), the continuing angst of   
   Dawn Summers was a departure for the series that became a constant.   
      
   Season 6, which like Dawn can conjure a guttural "UGH" upon mention, was a   
   season in which every character was depressed or manic or crying or acting   
   out -- often all of these things at the same time. In a show we love for its   
   strength, we attack it for extended vulnerability. The implication from   
   fandom? We don't want to see them be weak. And by that metric, Dawn Summers   
   is weak. She needs to be saved and protected by the very design of the   
   character. She's confused and angry. She aggressively scrawls in her   
   journal, desperate for her sister to see what she's truly capable of without   
   even knowing what that really means herself.   
      
   For some of us, Dawn is relatable -- but she's a kind of relatable we don't   
   want to admit. I had undiagnosed major depression as a teen. It wouldn't be   
   diagnosed until I was almost 30. I hated myself for what I saw as   
   weakness -- my urge to cry constantly, this unrelenting feeling that I   
   didn't matter, didn't count, and the overwhelming confusion about my future   
   and my place in the world. I wanted to be strong, to be capable. I wanted to   
   be Buffy, or Willow, or Anya. But in reality, I was Dawn.   
      
   Things have changed since Buffy went off the air. Depictions of depression   
   and mental illness, something the show at times either hinted at or   
   portrayed as an extended and ham-fisted metaphor -- have become   
   incrementally more common and more carefully portrayed. We have hopefully   
   become more accepting of characters who wear their emotions on their   
   sleeves, who cry and rage and express how lost they are, and we feel more   
   comfortable admitting that -- either sometimes or all the time -- that's us,   
   too.   
      
   To all the Dawns of the world, you may not be a Slayer. But you're   
   something.   
      
   And at least you're not Xander.   
      
           [I never thought Dawn was that bad (other than being a typical   
   annoying teenager). I thought she was an interesting addition to the   
   series.]   
      
   David   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)