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Quite possibly the biggest and most debated, though, is the theory that the events of Buffy the Vampire Slayer were not even real. This is firmly rooted in Season 6, Episode 17, “Normal Again.” This starts with the Trio summoning a demon to use against Buffy, whose venom causes her to hallucinate that she’s in a mental institution, and has been for the past six years. Dawn doesn’t exist, Joyce is still alive, and her parents are still together.
Or, is it her life as the Slayer that’s really being hallucinated? That’s the question the episode very much intends to leave viewers with, sparking lots of theories that the hospital in “Normal Again” is actually the real world, and the show happens inside Buffy’s head.
Does The “Buffy Wasn’t Real” Theory Hold Up?
What’s key to the theory is how the episode ends. While it initially looks as though it’s going to conclude with Buffy killing the demon and going back to normality, it has one last sting as it then returns to the hospital. There, she’s slipped into a catatonic state, lost inside her hallucinations of being the Slayer, and that’s where the episode ends. The disturbing implication is that it’s at least possible this was the case, and technically speaking, nothing in Buffy necessarily contradicts that notion. This is also supported by Buffy claiming, in the “show universe,” that she was actually sent to an institution previously, when she first started seeing vampires.
The idea of it being fake also serves to explain the supernatural goings-on in Sunnydale, and it directly addresses the issue of Dawn suddenly appearing out of nowhere in Season 5. While this was explained away as her being “the key,” the doctor in the hospital tells us that Buffy created her later on, altering the fabric of her imagined reality out of a sense of longing for a familial bond. It’s also possible to fit other characters into the hospital, as laid out by u/theotherghostgirl on Reddit, including:
- Giles was her head therapist, who ended up leaving.
- Willow is a woman with anxiety issues.
- Xander is a nymphomaniac.
- Dru is a homeless woman and addict; Spike is her boyfriend.
- Angel is an orderly or security guard.
It’s clearly a theory you can have some fun expanding out, but there are some problems. While Buffy itself doesn’t contradict it, some parts of the show don’t fully make sense with the theory in mind, because there’s no reason for Buffy to be imagining things disconnected from her own story. Also, the claim of her being sent to an institution before doesn’t fit with what we know of her backstory and life before Sunnydale, nor Joyce’s reaction when she later learns her daughter is the Slayer. Again, it could still fit and be hand-waved away, but it’s not neat.
This is all made much more complicated by Angel. It doesn’t really make sense for her delusions to then spinoff into all of those characters, and there are events that happen on Angel, then crossover into Buffy, and it’s only on the latter that she learns of them. That doesn’t really work if it’s all inside her own head.
