For this paper, I would like to develop the ideas first put forth in my essay on Romantic ideology and community in Fighting the Forces. I will argue that Buffy Summers, by the end of the series run, has transcended the conventional action “heroine” model of an essentially masculine hero (a la Xena) only superficially reconfigured to represent the “feminine.” Rather, Buffy becomes a genuinely different kind of hero who is able to combine the traditional virtues of the male hero with the traditional strengths of the feminine. I propose to examine the journey of the female hero who is intimately involved with the community, as distinguished from the more familiar, solitary one of the male hero. Buffy, in her seven-year journey from high school girl to woman, exemplifies a clearly heroic, but clearly feminine, progression. The coherent narrative arc of the seven season finales of Buffy will provide the focus for this paper. I will discuss the meta-narrative of the series as it culminates in Buffy’s truly matrilineal resolution of the Slayer’s essential challenge. Buffy’s choice to share her Slayer power is the only logical outcome of a journey that has required her to come to terms, not just with her own strengths and demons, but with the role of family and community in her own life, and what it means to be a woman and a hero.