The rise and fall of Michelle Trachtenberg’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer character, Dawn Summers, is one of the greatest tragedies in the history of popcorn television. Subsequent revelations about the out-of-control ego of Buffy creator Joss Whedon have taken some of the glow off Buffy. Yet at the peak of its powers around the turn of the millennium, it had no rival in terms of its ability to combine fast, furious storytelling with emotional depth – and no character was as heartbreaking as Dawn, a mystical spirit doomed never to become the thing she desired most to be: human.
Trachtenberg, who has died aged 39, became the beating heart of Buffy from the moment Dawn – younger sister of Sarah Michelle Gellar’s eponymous vampire slayer– was introduced in the first episode of Buffy’s fifth season in September 2000. In a show about high schoolers negotiating the trials of life while fighting the undead, she was the only teenager in the cast. Her likeable, girl-next-door screen presence elevated the series – even as Dawn’s tragic story conjured hurricanes of pathos.
Trachtenberg would go on to have a successful career in cinema and TV, where parts in EuroTrip and Gossip Girl confirmed her gift for both comedy and drama. Yet Dawn was the character for which she remained best known, and with good reason. This mysterious teenager with a bittersweet origin story was the perfect showcase for her immense talents– abilities that often outshone those of her more experienced cast-mates.
For most Buffy fans, Dawn’s arrival came out of the blue. At the end of an episode in which she had tussled with Count Dracula, Buffy walks into her bedroom to be confronted by a 14-year-old stranger who insists she is her younger sibling. Buffy’s mother tells her to take her sister with her if she wants to go out. Both shout “Mom!” in unison. The screen fades to black. Across the Buffyverse, fans sat back in shock and confusion. What had just happened?
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In fact, Dawn’s arrival had been foreshadowed across previous seasons – in one episode, a character experiencing a mystical out-of-body experience tells Buffy, “Little sis coming, I know”. But most of us were too busy watching Michelle Gellar high-kick vampires in the face to pay close attention.
Dawn was more than an annoying sister. As Buffy learns when she casts a spell that reveals all and any magic at work in her environment, she is, in fact, a magical device – a “key” that can unlock the doors between worlds and which can prevent the apocalypse. To hide the apparatus, a group of monks turned the Key into a facsimile of a human being: baby sister Dawn. Imagine if Indiana Jones woke to discover he had a younger brother – but that brother was actually the Lost Ark of the Covenant in disguise to keep it safe from Hitler.
A lesser series and a lesser actress might have played up the kookier aspects of the storyline. But Buffy and Trachtenberg recognise the tragedy of Dawn, a teenager who discovers that her life is a lie. Comparisons were drawn between Dawn’s predicament and kids who find out that they are adopted before they have the emotional tools to process that revelation.
The triumph of the character is largely down to Trachtenberg, painfully believable as Dawn experiments with self-harm and considers dropping out of school – as she says to Buffy at one point, why does a Key need to learn anything?
The twist is that this seemingly damaged individual is one of the strongest characters, as is made clear when she is prepared to sacrifice herself to stop the world from ending. It is finally Buffy who pays that ultimate price instead, and when she comes back to life, she and Dawn have the opportunity to settle into a more normal relationship as siblings.
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Trachtenberg and Gellar had been friends, having appeared together in the soap All My Children, and Trachtenberg was a walking encyclopaedia of vampire slayer lore (of which there was a lot) before joining Buffy.
She had a tough introduction– Dawn was originally written as a 10-year-old rather than someone about to turn 15, and much of that childishness endured as scriptwriters struggled to understand the character. Fans were both baffled and annoyed – it was only after it was revealed that she was the Key that people gave Dawn a chance.
Off-screen, Trachtenberg had her issues too. Whedon – the angry nerd who had conquered the world – was notorious on set for his brusqueness. When Charisma Carpenter (aka Cordelia Chase) spoke out against him several years ago, Trachtenberg voiced her support. She revealed that it had been an unofficial rule that she never be left alone with the showrunner. This had followed an incident in which she had emerged crying from his office – allegedly after he had taken out a bad mood on her. (Whedon has never addressed Trachtenberg’s remarks.)
Not yet 40, Trachtenberg’s passing is a shock, especially to Buffy fans. She was often the best actor in the series, and Dawn was its most memorable character – a lost soul who finally found herself and helped save the world along the way.
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