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| Amy Madison | |
|---|---|
| Buffy the Vampire Slayer character | |
 Elizabeth Anne Allen as Amy Madison in 2003. | |
| First appearance | "Witch" (1997) |
| Last appearance | Angel & Faith Season Ten: Lost and Found (2015) |
| Created by | Joss Whedon, Dana Reston |
| Portrayed by | Elizabeth Anne Allen |
| In-universe information | |
| Classification | Witch |
| Notable powers | Powerful magical abilities |
Amy Madison is a fictional character on the American television seriesBuffy the Vampire Slayer, portrayed byElizabeth Anne Allen. The character appears in every season ofBuffy except the fifth.
In the show, Amy is awitch. Although initially a seemingly good-natured individual, Amy gradually begins misusing hermagic, eventually becoming an enemy toWillow (Alyson Hannigan) and her friends. In theseries' comic book continuation, the character is a villain.
Amy is a classmate ofBuffy Summers atSunnydale High School. Injunior high, she would often go over to Willow's house to escape her mother's abuse. The character first appears in the first season episode "Witch", when she and Buffy both try out for thecheerleading squad. At first, Amy performs poorly in the tryouts, but a series of strange injuries to other contestants move her up in the standings. Amy's mother Catherine, a very powerful witch, has switched bodies with Amy because she wants to relive her youth. Buffy and the Scooby Gang succeed in restoring Amy to her own body and (unknown to them) trapping her mother in the cheerleading trophy she won while a cheerleader for Sunnydale High. Afterward, Amy talks to Buffy and mentions that she is now living with her father andstep-mother, and that she is much happier.
The character appears as a Sunnydale student in other episodes. In the second season episode "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered",Xander Harris discovers that Amy inherited her mother's power. Xanderblackmails Amy into helping him perform a love spell onCordelia Chase, however, the spell goes awry and causes the entire female population ofSunnydale, except Cordelia, to become infatuated with Xander. Under the influence of her own spell, a jealous Amy invokes the goddessHecate and temporarily turns Buffy into arat. Eventually,Rupert Giles forces Amy to undo both spells.
In season 3, the character has joined a coven with Willow (now a practicing witch) and warlock Michael Czajak. In the episode "Gingerbread", the parents of Sunnydale (under the influence of the demonic Hans and Greta) become paranoid about the supernatural's influence on their children, and prepare to burn Amy, Buffy, and Willow at the stake. To escape her bonds, Amy turns herself into a rat, but is then unable to remove her own spell. Willow captures Rat-Amy and keeps her in a cage. Willow makes several unsuccessful attempts to return Amy to human form over the next two seasons. In the season 4 episode "Something Blue", Willow accidentally turns Amy back into a human, but Willow does not notice, and accidentally changes the character back into a rat.Doug Petrie, a writer on the show, describes this series of events as "as cruel and funny as anything could be".[1]
By the sixth season, Willow has become an extremely powerful witch and permanently "de-rats" Amy. The two become friends again, though Amy now seems to be drastically different. The character had been involved with the warlockRack before becoming a rat. Amy gets Willow involved, leading her to become addicted to black magic. Later, when Willow decides to give up magic, Amy casts a spell on her, causing her to magically manipulate everything she touches for a while; Willow complains that Amy's actions are encumbering her attempts to quit magic. As a result, Willow cuts Amy out of her life entirely.
Amy's final appearance in the television series occurs in the season 7 episode "The Killer in Me."Elizabeth Anne Allen said, "I think after all the things that she went through, there were a lot of reasons why she was so angry."[2]
Having physically transformed intoWarren Mears, whom she tortured andflayed in a rage over the murder of her girlfriendTara Maclay, Willow seeks help from the UC Sunnydale Wicca Group and discovers that Amy is a member. Amy explains that she had hit "rock bottom", and was doing better now. However, Amy is responsible for transforming Willow, apparently out of jealousy and spite. Allen says she would have liked to explore Amy's struggle to overcome her anger, so that she could "get a grip and come back to the fold with her friends."[2]
Amy makes minor appearances in several ambiguously canon novels set before the season 3 finale, most notableThe Gatekeeper (novel series), where she helps defend Sunnydale from a horde of magical threats while Buffy and her friends are busy elsewhere.
In the first issue of the Season Eight comic book story "The Long Way Home," Amy works together with the US Army to locate and attack Buffy.
Later, in "Time of Your Life," Amy and Warren are shown working under direct orders fromTwilight. Together they construct a missile covered in mystical runes and candles and use it to destroy a Scottish citadel, killing seven of the many Slayers residing there. When Twilight betrays Amy and Warren, she attempts to switch sides and forms a truce with Buffy in "Twilight." In the final arc, "Last Gleaming," Amy and Warren have fled far from the final battle scene. At its conclusion, after Buffy destroys an ancient relic and effectively brings about the end of magic on Earth, the spell keeping Warren alive breaks, and Amy watches as he suddenly turns into a pile of blood and bones.
Amy also appears in the second volume ofAngel & Faith, tying intoBuffy the Vampire Slayer Season Ten, in issue four. In the story, magic was recently restored to the world at the conclusion ofBuffy Season Nine, while London inAngel & Faith was the site of a failed attempt byWhistler to restore magic which resulted in the mass mutation of locals in one borough, creating the ghetto known as 'Magic Town.'
In the television series, Amy possesses formidable witchcraft abilities that she has inherited from her maternal lineage, and these powers undergo significant augmentation over the course of the series. Initially, Amy's magical prowess surpasses that of Willow, as demonstrated when she casts a rat-transformation spell that initially stumps Willow's attempts at reversal. However, in season 7, Amy concedes that Willow has eclipsed her in magical proficiency. In the comic book,Season Eight, she is significantly stronger.
Amy has appeared in 32 canonical Buffyverse episodes and comics.
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