Popular Culture Review Vol. 12, No. 1, February 2001 | Page 90

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Buffy

Popular Culture Review
A normal, average teen who inherited the skills to slay vampires
and who happens to reside in a small town that is situated on
top of Hellmouth - the gateway for a variety of demons;
Despite the many instances of strange incidents involving
demonic shapes, most of the citizens of Sunnydale, including
Buffy’s mother, remain unaware of and ungrateful for Buffy’s
vampire slaying activities;
Absent father and clueless mother;
Buffy inherited special powers and skills that make her
“different” from her peers;
At the end of the second season, Buffy leaves Sunnydale - an
episode that is described as the “most successful.. .at elucidating
[her] profound isolation” (Tucker 38).

Edwards concludes his analysis of Psyche’s heroic characteristics with the following
statements:
Psyche’s participation in the archetypal patterns of heroic action
logically implies that heroism itself is an asexual or omnisexual
archetype. The fact that most representatives of this archetype
or enactors of this pattern are male tells us a great deal about
the values of the culture responsible for producing the
representations but very little about the nature of the archetype
itself. The corollary observation—that interpretations of these
patterns are liable to be culturally determined in the same way
as the particular details of their narratives—also seems to hold
true. (44)
Another useful perspective on the concept of female heroes is offered by Anna
E. Altmann whose course on literature for young adults at the University of Alberta
resulted in a conversation about the issue. Altmann uses Robin McKinley's novel.
The Hero a nd the Crown as an example of fantasy with strong female charactei s.
One of her students voiced this negative reaction to man> quest narrati\es with
female leads:
This book isn’t about a woman; it’s just another case of welding
brass tits on the armor. This book doesn’t talk about me. A
book that really has a woman as hero would validate women’s
lives as we live them, would recognize that what women actually