Buffy Vs TVD: 5 Reasons The Slayer Is The Better Vampire Hunter (& 5 Why The Five Are) – Screen Rant

The Vampire Diaries and Buffy the Vampire Slayer both feature vampire hunters, but how do they compare to each other?

In a lot of ways, the TV shows Buffy the Vampire Slayer and The Vampire Diaries are two sides of the same coin. Buffy explores the world of vampires through the eyes of a character who has been chosen to hunt them, and The Vampire Diaries sees this world through the eyes of vampires instead.

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However, TVD also features it's own brand of mystical vampire hunters called the Five. The Five bear a lot of striking similarities to slayers, but in some ways the Five are even better than slayers, whereas in other ways the slayers are superior.

One of the most obvious reasons that a slayer is superior to the Five is because of instinct vs. training. Slayers have a natural talent for fighting, but they also undergo a lot of rigorous training to ensure they're as strong and effective as they can possibly be.

It would appear that the Five have no such training, and basically have to figure out how to hunt vampires on their own, unless they happen to meet other people in the supernatural world who can help them.

One of the most clever little caveats when it comes to the Five is that any vampire that kills one is doomed to be haunted by visions that are trying to drive them to kill themselves until a new hunter has been called.

That provides a pretty solid safety net for them if any vampire starts getting the idea that they want to kill a member of the Five.

Something that is a little iffy about the Five is that they're all predetermined to be called, and if they wind up finding each other they don't have a lot of options when it comes to working together.

But what makes having one singular fighter as the chosen one better is that they can choose who they want to work with and who will best further the cause instead of having to work together just because they're destined to.

The concept behind the Five is a simple one, and honestly it just makes way more sense to have more than one person who can be a part of the fight against vampires and evil.

As many of the slayers have demonstrated before, the difference between being alone and having someone whohas your back can be the difference between life and death, so the extra, eyes, ears, hands, and minds that the Five provides are extremely helpful.

Something that is actually really strange about the Five is that they have to go through a whole lot of rigmarole to actually get to their final destination. They have a tattoo that needs to be decoded with a sword, and the tattoo doesn't just magically appear overnight, they have to kill vampires in order to expose it.

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But if the ultimate mission is to destroy vampires, then why make things overly complicated and why not give them the easiest, best shot possible?

Or rather, they at least didn't operate in secret when they first began their mission. The supernatural world might be hidden in the modern day, but the original Five were right out there, proving to people that vampires existed and trying to solicit help from everyone that they could.

The fact that the slayers have had to operate in complete secrecy for ages certainly hasn't helped them achieve their goals.

Clearly some watchers are better than others, but the very existence of the Watcher's Council and the fact that they keep such detailed records and histories is enormously helpful to each and every slayer.

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On the other hand, the Five seem to be thrown into the deep end without a life jacket, with many of them not even knowing that the supernatural world exists before being called or finding any guidance on what to do afterwards.

Five seems to be a relatively arbitrary number, and it's fair to say that they could have made the vampire hunting team even bigger, but either way, five is better than one.

Having an entire squad of vampire hunters out there in the world is a lot more effective and safer than just having one, which is something Buffy herself eventually figured out, but god knows how much better things would be if there were many slayers out there from the jump.

One of the bigger and more confusing issues with the Five is that they actually aren't quite as strong or powerful as many vampires, whereas the slayer is clearly stronger and more powerful than the average vampire or demon.

Giving the Five a supernatural boost is good, but it would have been much better and more effective to make them even stronger than vampires.

Clearly the evil in the world that slayers have to fight against is even bigger than what exists in The Vampire Diaries, however the Five makes more sense because they have an actual endgame plan. They know how to destroy vampires for good, and that is their goal.

Slayers obviously want to do as much good as they can, and many of them have literally saved the world, but they don't have a permanent solution to their problems.

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Buffy Vs TVD: 5 Reasons The Slayer Is The Better Vampire Hunter (& 5 Why The Five Are) - Screen Rant