Caemeron Crain
4. Joyce Summers (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
Now, I know some might think Joyce wasn’t a very good mother to Buffy in the early seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but I think it is a bit harder to take that view if you manage to take up her perspective. After all, she doesn’t know that Buffy is a Slayer early on, or about any of the stuff related to that. What she does know is that they had to move because her daughter burned down the gym at her old school (or something like that) and that she continues to present behavior that, let’s be honest, would be pretty troubling to any parent. She doesn’t know that Buffy is killing vampires and such like we do, and when she finds out she isn’t really on board with the idea. That makes sense.
But, again, I’m not trying to argue that any of the mothers on this list are good mothers, or that’s not the point. I think that Joyce is, by and large—she’s doing the best that she can—but the bigger thing is just how fleshed out and real her character feels.
When she reverts to a more teenage version of herself in “Band Candy” and hangs out with Giles, even more aspects of her character start to shine through. That’s part of the power of that episode, after all—it reminds us that our parents, and adults in general, were once younger, and these aspects of themselves that they’ve grown beyond aren’t fully gone so much as they’ve realized they need to be grownups in order to make it in the world.
When Joyce dies, the loss is palpable, not just for Buffy, but for us. She provided a charm to the series and grounded it in reality in a way that makes the decision to kill her off one of the riskier decisions Buffy the Vampire Slayer made in its run (and that’s saying something!). But that loss makes it clear just how central she was as a character and as a mother.
