I know Buffy and the Scoobies are aware of Dawn's origins, but do they know precisely when she showed up in their timeline at the end of 5x01? Such as, do they have a mental line that divides the fake memories from the real ones?
shareWhen Dawn arrived...the show jumped the shark. Such a turn-off, I just stopped watching.
shareWhen Dawn arrived...the show went downhill fast. Angel became far superior.
sharegotta agree with this. They should have at least picked another actress. Trachtenberg was whiny.
shareWasnt just her, the story was dumb, the writing got worse from season 5 onwards.
shareagree with this too...the vibe changed. Buffy's working hard as slayer she is not supposed to be down on her luck financially.
I thought that the Deputy Mayor should not get killed. She could get job w City because he feels bad about what had happened and he realizes she has the skills to save it.
He's like the new 'edgy' person who has to work through his past too.
They could have done so much exploring his past. Plus he was not half bad to look @ kinda cute.
A lot of Buffy season 1-3 writers jumped to Angel. There was a quality shift when Angel was WB's #1 show and Buffy went to UPN. David Greenwalt did some magic on Angel, until Joss went back for season 5 and got Angel prematurely cancelled :/
shareI...don't think they do, iirc? They're might have been a date mentioned in the log/diary that Spike and Dawn read about the key. But Buffy and the gang have memories of Dawn for her entire life (Buffy realising mommies having another baby, Dawn as a baby onwards etc, Buffy and Dawn move to Sunnydale). Hope that helps.
shareThe memories were 'planted' they were artificial. They weren't something that Buffy had grown up with---Dawn had not existed for the other prior seasons.
Yes, exactly. But Buffy and the gang don't recall that. There's no place that they can point to to unravel their jumbled memories. Those memories - the ones including Dawn - are just their reality now.
It's like if someone told me that a year ago a didn't have a cat. I'd be like wtf, of course i did, i've had him for five years, and i love my cat. Even if they showed a log book and they said hey, here's the date we screwed with your memory and reality. I'd be like ok, whatever, i guess i believe you, but i still love my cat. The analogies overkill, but you get it.
Edit: So yes, you are correct, as i think i am correct, as what they know as reality was changed. I don't think we ever had a 'hey i can't remember things clearly before this date (date Dawn was inserted). I remember Xander once referencing Dawn and the diaries she's kept since she was 7 or something (does that mean reality was altered so that Buffy and her family moved their earlier in everyone's memories i wonder?). See like those guys who made Dawn out of the key were very thorough.
The Scoobies don't. Once they know of her origins, they may have a general sense of the time period she showed up based on when they found the dagonsphere and when Glory showed up in their lives. So while they don't think of their lives in terms of seasons, they'd know she showed up early in season five, if that makes sense.
Personally-with no in show evidence to support the theory-I always believed that when Buffy came back from the dead that she clearly and accurately saw her memories before Dawn. I think it's part of that cellular scramble (the one that allows Spike's chip to not read her).
I honestly think her ability to see Dawn exactly as she is and what she is is some small part of her emotional deadness in that season. Despite "knowing" in season five, she couldn't feel it because the memories still felt true. True enough that she sacrificed her life for her sister. But in season six, fresh back from the grave and seeing more clearly? I don't think Buffy feels the same about Dawn. Buffy never connects to Dawn again like she did in season five when she was under a spell designed to force her to love and protect her sister.
That makes sense, thanks.
And I like your theory and buy it. Writers will throw in tidbits that they don't always want to have fully realized or expounded on.