5 Iconic Dawn Moments from ‘Buffy’ in Honor of Michelle Trachtenberg

Buffy the Vampire Slayer fans are mourning the heartbreaking death of Michelle Trachtenberg with a walk down memory lane. After the actress passed away at the age of 39 on Feb. 26, Buffy lovers are looking back on her iconic performance as Dawn Summers and planning rewatches of the series in her honor. So here’s a look back on some of Dawn’s most iconic moments and episodes as we reflect on the legacy Trachtenberg leaves behind.

“Mom!” (Buffy vs. Dracula)

Dawn only gets a few moments of screentime in her first episode, the Season 5 premiere titled “Buffy vs. Dracula,” but her debut caused quite the stir in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer fandom.

Buffy Summers (Sarah Michelle Gellar) enters her bedroom to find a young girl in the final seconds of the episode, and when she asks her what she’s doing there, her mother instructs her to take her little sister with her if she plans on going out that evening. It would be a normal enough scene — if Buffy had a little sister in any of the previous four seasons of the show. And thus kicked off one of the boldest storylines in the series’ history.

“Little Miss Nobody…” (Real Me)

Viewers continued to be confused in Season 5, Episode 2 “Real Me,” which continued to treat Dawn like a character who had always been Buffy’s little sister. Trachtenberg’s first full episode threw her into the deep end of an established cast by making Dawn the narrator of the episode, and while fans still had no idea what she was doing in Sunnydale by the end, Trachtenberg’s skillful performance as the teen immediately established where the younger Summers sister fell as an outsider to the Scooby Gang.

“You’re my sister.” “No, I’m Not.” (Blood Ties)

After weeks of theorizing how Dawn fit into the Buffyverse, the answer comes in the emotional 13th episode of Season 5, titled “Blood Ties.” In this episode, Dawn is traumatized to learn she’s The Key being sought out by Glory (Clare Kramer) and actually had only been a person for a couple of months.

As Dawn learns that she was transformed by monks into Buffy’s sister to make sure the Slayer would protect The Key at all costs, she spirals questioning who she really is. There are some really dark scenes as Dawn realizes who — or what — she really is, and Trachtenberg’s performance is what makes the episode one of the most devastating of the season.

“You don’t even care!” (The Body and Forever)

Later in Season 5, Buffy the Vampire Slayer aired arguably its best — and most heartbreaking — storyline ever with the back-to-back episodes “The Body” and “Forever.” In “The Body,” Buffy is shocked to find her mother Joyce (Kristine Sutherland) dead, and the ensuing episode is a raw look at grief. Dawn learning that her mother died while she was at school is one of those performances that sticks with you, and it’s widely regarded as one of the most brutal moments in the show.

Trachtenberg also shines in the follow-up episode “Forever,” as Dawn tries to resurrect her mother despite warnings against her efforts. In the last few moments, Dawn realizes the gravity of what she’s doing and deactivates the spell, and the resulting moment between the Summers sisters is beyond devastating.

“Be brave. Live. For me.” (The Gift)

While Dawn continues to appear throughout the series run of Buffy, the conclusion of her arc with Glory in Season 5 finale “The Gift” is one of Trachtenberg’s finest moments as Buffy sacrifices herself not only for her sister but for the whole world. The climax of the episode also features one of the most famous Buffy lines of all time as the Slayer tells Dawn, “The hardest thing in this world is to live in it. Be brave. Live. For me.”