Several years ago I explored the evolution of the female hero from The Wizard of Oz to Labyrinth in a paper presented at the International Conference of the Fantastic in the Arts. By comparing Dorothy, her companions and the resolution of Oz to Sarah, her companions and the resolution of Labyrinth, I traced the development of an independent female hero in world increasing more and more chaotic and more and more untrustworthy.

What I propose to examine in this paper, using the same strategy, is a study of Buffy, of the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, with Jame, of Patricia Hodgell's fantasy trilogy, God Stalk, Dark of the Moon and Seeker's Mask. I find this an appropriate pairing, even though I move from television media to printed media, for the following reasons: both texts are compatible in length, development, and ambiguity; both texts incorporate a great deal of violence (much more so than the texts of my earlier investigation) and both employ humor to mediate violence, emphasize significant elements and humanize the hero.

In developing this essay, I will be working with Steve Wilson's "Laugh, Spawn of Hell, Laugh," Wall and Zyrd's "Vampire Dialects," Helford's "'My Emotions Give Me Power': The Containment of Girls' Anger in Buffy", Clark and Miller's "Buffy, the Scooby Gang and Monstrous Authority: BtVS and the Subversion of Authority," as well as conversations with Patricia Hodgell and Flagler's Senior Seminar this coming spring which will discuss Hodgell's texts and, of course, Buffy. Patricia will be visiting my class in March. Over email to me, Patricia has mused on Buffy falling into Jame's world of Rathillien (or the other way round). So she and my students will provide intriguing perceptions from author, reader, teacher, and combinations of these perceptions of the texts under scrutiny. At the end of this essay, Buffy and Jame will be up the proverbial tree – I argue that the pervading otherness of these girl heroes is both their curse and their strength. Despite Buffy's claim to be, "like other girls," she is not (until perhaps the series finale), nor is Jame like anyone else in her world. They are each dark and light, mothering and vengeful, powerful and vulnerable. And unlike The Wizard of Oz and Labyrinth, this is no dream.