Amy Madison
Encyclopedia
Amy Madison is a fictional character
Fictional character
A character is the representation of a person in a narrative work of art . Derived from the ancient Greek word kharaktêr , the earliest use in English, in this sense, dates from the Restoration, although it became widely used after its appearance in Tom Jones in 1749. From this, the sense of...

, a witch played by Elizabeth Anne Allen
Elizabeth Anne Allen
Elizabeth Anne Allen is an American actress. Allen is best known for her recurring role as the witch Amy Madison on the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer....

 in the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer and by Shay Astar
Shay Astar
Shay Astar is an American actress, singer, and songwriter, perhaps best known for her work in the late 1990s, portraying August Leffler, a semi-recurring character on the sitcom 3rd Rock from the Sun...

 in the Season 8 motion comics. She made appearances in every season of Buffy except Seasons Five (during which time the character was stuck in the form of a rat due to a spell cast in season three).

Amy is a witch. Although initially starting off as a seemingly good-natured individual, Amy gradually grows to misuse her magic, eventually ending up as an enemy to Willow
Willow Rosenberg
Willow Rosenberg is a fictional character created for the fantasy television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer . She was developed by Joss Whedon and portrayed throughout the TV series by Alyson Hannigan...

 (Alyson Hannigan
Alyson Hannigan
Alyson Lee Hannigan is an American actress. She is known for her roles as Willow Rosenberg in the cult classic television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Michelle Flaherty in three American Pie films, and Lily Aldrin on the CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother.-Early life:Hannigan was born in...

) and her friends, becoming a bona fide villain in the series' comic book continuation
Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight
Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight is a comic book series published by Dark Horse Comics. The series serves as a canonical continuation of the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and follows the events of that show's final televised season. It is produced by Joss Whedon, who wrote the...

.

Television

Amy is a classmate of Buffy Summers
Buffy Summers
Buffy Summers is a fictional character from Joss Whedon's Buffy the Vampire Slayer franchise. She first appeared in the 1992 film Buffy the Vampire Slayer before going on to appear in the television series and subsequent comic book of the same name...

' at Sunnydale High School. Friends with Willow Rosenberg
Willow Rosenberg
Willow Rosenberg is a fictional character created for the fantasy television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer . She was developed by Joss Whedon and portrayed throughout the TV series by Alyson Hannigan...

 in junior high, she would often go over to Willow's house and eat brownies to escape her mother's abuse. Amy first appears in the Season One episode "Witch
Witch (Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode)
"Witch" is the third episode of the first season of the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer . It serves as the show's first regular episode after the Pilot and originally aired in the United States on March 17, 1997, on The WB Television Network...

", when she and Buffy both try out for cheerleading
Cheerleading
Cheerleading is a physical activity, sometimes a competitive sport, based on organized routines, usually ranging from one to three minutes, which contain the components of tumbling, dance, jumps, cheers, and stunting to direct spectators of events to cheer on sports teams at games or to participate...

. Amy performs poorly in the tryouts, and when a series of strange injuries to other contestants move her up in the standings, the Scooby Gang suspect that she is a witch who is using her powers to harm the other girls. It is revealed that 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 for Sunnydale High when she was a student (her nickname was Catherine the Great due to her cheerleading prowess). Amy talks to Buffy after her mother's defeat and mentions that she is now living with her father and step-mother, and that she is much happier.

Amy continues to attend Sunnydale High and reappears in several more episodes; along with Jonathan Levinson
Jonathan Levinson
Jonathan Levinson is a fictional character created by Joss Whedon for the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The character is portrayed by Danny Strong.-Character history:Jonathan was born in 1981 and raised in Sunnydale, California...

 and Harmony Kendall
Harmony Kendall
Harmony Kendall is a fictional character created by Joss Whedon for the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer and its spin-off Angel. The character is portrayed by Mercedes McNab...

 she is one of many recurring student characters. In the Season Two episode "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered", Xander Harris
Xander Harris
Alexander LaVelle "Xander" Harris is a fictional character in the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, as well as in numerous items in the series Expanded Universe, such as comic books, tie-in novels and video games...

 discovers that Amy has inherited her mother's power, having become a potent, if sometimes ineffective witch. Xander decides to blackmail
Blackmail
In common usage, blackmail is a crime involving threats to reveal substantially true or false information about a person to the public, a family member, or associates unless a demand is met. It may be defined as coercion involving threats of physical harm, threat of criminal prosecution, or threats...

 Amy into helping him perform a love spell on Cordelia Chase
Cordelia Chase
Cordelia Chase is a fictional character created by Joss Whedon for the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer; she also appeared on Buffy's spin-off series Angel...

, however, the spell goes awry and causes the entire female population of Sunnydale
Sunnydale
Sunnydale, California is the fictional setting for the U.S. television drama Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Series creator Joss Whedon conceived the town as a representation of a generic California city, as well as a narrative parody of the all-too-serene towns typical in traditional horror...

, sans Cordelia, to become psychotically obsessed with Xander. Caught in her own spell, a jealous Amy invokes the goddess Hecate
Hecate
Hecate or Hekate is a chthonic Greco-Roman goddess associated with magic, witchcraft, necromancy, and crossroads.She is attested in poetry as early as Hesiod's Theogony...

 temporarily turns Buffy into a rat
Rat
Rats are various medium-sized, long-tailed rodents of the superfamily Muroidea. "True rats" are members of the genus Rattus, the most important of which to humans are the black rat, Rattus rattus, and the brown rat, Rattus norvegicus...

. She is eventually forced by Rupert Giles
Rupert Giles
Rupert Giles is a fictional character created by Joss Whedon for the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The character is portrayed by Anthony Stewart Head. He serves as Buffy Summers' mentor and surrogate father figure...

 to undo both spells.

By Season Three, Amy 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 insanely 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 then, being a rat, she is unable to remove her own spell. Willow captures Rat-Amy and keeps her in a cage until she can be restored. Willow makes several unsuccessful attempts to "de-rat" Amy over the next two seasons. In the Season Four episode "Something Blue", in what writer Doug Petrie
Doug Petrie
Doug Petrie is an American screenwriter, director, and producer. Best known as a writer, director, and co-executive producer on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. He co-wrote the screenplays for the Fantastic Four film and Harriet the Spy. He has also written for the television shows Angel, The 4400 and Tru...

 describes as "as cruel and funny as anything could be", Willow, who at the time has the power to have anything she says happen, accidentally turns Amy back into a human; however, Willow does not even notice, and a few seconds later accidentally changes her back into a rat.

By Season Six, Willow has become an extremely powerful witch and permanently "de-rats" Amy by simply conjuring up an incantation. The two become friends again, though Amy now seems to be drastically different than she was before, possibly due to her long experience of being a rat. She had apparently been involved with the warlock Rack before being transformed, and gets Willow involved as well, leading Willow 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 to Amy that this makes her attempts to give up magic even harder. Amy responds by mocking her, implying that she did it as revenge for being trapped as a rat for years. As a result Willow cuts Amy out of her life entirely.

Amy's final appearance in the television series occurs in the Season Seven episode "The Killer in Me." When asked her feelings about Amy's actions in this episode, Elizabeth Anne Allen
Elizabeth Anne Allen
Elizabeth Anne Allen is an American actress. Allen is best known for her recurring role as the witch Amy Madison on the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer....

 said, "I think after all the things that she went through, there were a lot of reasons why she was so angry."

Having transformed aesthetically into Warren Mears
Warren Mears
Warren Mears is a fictional character portrayed by Adam Busch in the American television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, as well as its canonical comic book series continuation.-Television:...

, whom she tortured and flayed
Flaying
Flaying is the removal of skin from the body. Generally, an attempt is made to keep the removed portion of skin intact.-Scope:An animal may be flayed in preparation for human consumption, or for its hide or fur; this is more commonly called skinning....

 in a rage over the murder of her girlfriend Tara Maclay
Tara Maclay
Tara Maclay is a fictional character created for the fantasy television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer . She was developed by Joss Whedon and portrayed by Amber Benson from the fourth to the sixth season until the character's death. Tara is a shy young woman with magical talents who falls in love...

, 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 much better now. It is soon revealed that Amy is in fact responsible for Willow's transformation, the result of a hex placed on her apparently out of jealousy and spite. However, in the Season Eight comic book, it turns out that this seemingly random event is actually part of a larger plan orchestrated by Warren, after Amy rescued him from death in the earlier episode "Villains."

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."

Literature

In the first issue of the Season Eight comic book story "The Long Way Home
The Long Way Home (Buffy comic)
"The Long Way Home" is the first arc from the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight series of comic books, a direct continuation of the television series of the same name. It is written by creator Joss Whedon. It ran for four issues. The first issue was released on March 14, 2007, and the final...

," an expedition of the United States Army
United States Army
The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...

 finds Amy living sixty feet under the Hellmouth
Hellmouth (Buffyverse)
In the fictional universe established by the television shows Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, the Buffyverse, a Hellmouth is an area fraught with massive supernatural activity.-Definition:"From beneath you, it devours."...

 after its collapse with her "boyfriend," an unrevealed creature whom General Voll regards with disgust. Her first words to an exploratory member were "I'm gonna help you kill her." In exchange for their cooperation, Amy requests unlimited access to all the government
Federal government of the United States
The federal government of the United States is the national government of the constitutional republic of fifty states that is the United States of America. The federal government comprises three distinct branches of government: a legislative, an executive and a judiciary. These branches and...

's magical hardware as well as a weapons lab for her "boyfriend"; and if they succeed in taking Buffy down, Amy wants full immunity and release for the both of them.

Amy attacks Buffy at the Slayers' base in Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

, putting her under a mystical sleep which only a kiss of someone's love can undo. Raising an army of kilt
Kilt
The kilt is a knee-length garment with pleats at the rear, originating in the traditional dress of men and boys in the Scottish Highlands of the 16th century. Since the 19th century it has become associated with the wider culture of Scotland in general, or with Celtic heritage even more broadly...

ed zombies to battle the Slayers
Slayer (Buffyverse)
A Slayer, in the fictional Buffyverse established by Buffy and Angel, is a young female bestowed with mystical powers that originate from the essence of a pure-demon, which gives her superhuman senses, strength, agility, resilience and speed in the fight against forces of darkness...

, Amy battles Willow mid-air before being stepped-on by Buffy's now-giant sister Dawn Summers
Dawn Summers
Dawn Summers is a fictional character created by Joss Whedon and introduced by Marti Noxon and David Fury on the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, portrayed by Michelle Trachtenberg. She made her debut in the premiere episode of the show's fifth season, and subsequently appeared in every...

. As Willow magically probes Amy's whereabouts, she is pulled through a portal to be "greeted" by a saw-wielding and skinless Warren Mears
Warren Mears
Warren Mears is a fictional character portrayed by Adam Busch in the American television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, as well as its canonical comic book series continuation.-Television:...

. As Warren tortures Willow, Amy faces off against Satsu and an awakened Buffy, who manages to channel enough of Willow's magic to defeat a demon which Amy conjured. Having seen her dreamspace while asleep, Buffy takes the form of Amy's worst nightmare: her mother. Distracted, Amy fails to notice a grenade
Grenade
A grenade is a small explosive device that is projected a safe distance away by its user. Soldiers called grenadiers specialize in the use of grenades. The term hand grenade refers any grenade designed to be hand thrown. Grenade Launchers are firearms designed to fire explosive projectile grenades...

 thrown at her feet by Satsu, and as Buffy and Satsu charge into the room containing Willow, they see Amy appear and teleport away with Warren in her arms.

Later, in "Time of Your Life
Time of Your Life (Buffy comic)
"Time of Your Life" is the fourth story arc that spreads from the sixteenth to the nineteenth issue of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight series of comic books, a continuation of the television series of the same name...

", Amy and Warren are shown working under direct orders from Twilight
Twilight (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
"Twilight" is the seventh story arc of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight series of comic books, based upon the television series of the same name, and is written by novelist and comic book writer Brad Meltzer...

, under whom Voll served. 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. The couple continue to squabble over tactical and romantic disagreements; it is Amy who is able to identify the Slayers' location and powerless status in Tibet using a cat disguise, after previous magical and military attempts at detecting them failed in the "Retreat
Retreat (Buffy comic)
"Retreat" is the sixth story arc of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight series of comic books, based upon the television series of the same name, and is written by television screenwriter Jane Espenson...

" arc.

Powers and abilities

Amy is a powerful witch with abilities inherited from her mother. These powers grow throughout the series. While initially more powerful than Willow, casting a spell to become a rat that Willow cannot initially reverse, Amy acknowledges in Season Seven that Willow has surpassed her. Willow comments that Amy's newfound power in Season Eight (which she claims has grown since the events of "Chosen") has been technologically augmented to some degree, with Amy commenting that she has grown consistently stronger stranded in the ruins of Sunnydale. In battle, Amy is able to stand up against Willow and fly by force of will.

Romantic interests

  • Xander Harris
    Xander Harris
    Alexander LaVelle "Xander" Harris is a fictional character in the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, as well as in numerous items in the series Expanded Universe, such as comic books, tie-in novels and video games...

    - After a spell Amy casts which was supposed to make Cordelia
    Cordelia Chase
    Cordelia Chase is a fictional character created by Joss Whedon for the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer; she also appeared on Buffy's spin-off series Angel...

     love Xander goes wrong, she, along with every other woman in Sunnydale
    Sunnydale
    Sunnydale, California is the fictional setting for the U.S. television drama Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Series creator Joss Whedon conceived the town as a representation of a generic California city, as well as a narrative parody of the all-too-serene towns typical in traditional horror...

    , falls in love with Xander ("Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered"). This attraction ends after Rupert Giles
    Rupert Giles
    Rupert Giles is a fictional character created by Joss Whedon for the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The character is portrayed by Anthony Stewart Head. He serves as Buffy Summers' mentor and surrogate father figure...

     gets Amy to reverse the spell.
  • Larry Blaisdell - Amy stated that she thought Larry was considering asking her to the prom, apparently unaware he was gay
    Homosexuality
    Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...

     and the fact that the graduation of her class occurred three years before, when Larry died.
  • Warren Mears
    Warren Mears
    Warren Mears is a fictional character portrayed by Adam Busch in the American television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, as well as its canonical comic book series continuation.-Television:...

    - Amy's skinless boyfriend in Season Eight. It is revealed in "The Long Way Home" that the two had been in a relationship since "Villains", where after Warren was flayed alive by Willow, Amy saved his life. Amy refers to Warren as "sweetie", while he claims that "her magic is my skin."

Appearances

Amy has appearead in 15 Buffyverse episodes and comics.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer : Amy has appeared as a guest in 8 Buffy episodes:
  • Season 1 (1997) - "Witch
    Witch (Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode)
    "Witch" is the third episode of the first season of the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer . It serves as the show's first regular episode after the Pilot and originally aired in the United States on March 17, 1997, on The WB Television Network...

    "
  • Season 2 (1998) - "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered"
  • Season 3 (1999) - "Gingerbread"
  • Season 4 (1999) - "Something Blue"
  • Season 6 (2001–02) - "Smashed"; "Wrecked"; "Doublemeat Palace"
  • Season 7 (2003) - "The Killer in Me"


Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight
Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight
Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight is a comic book series published by Dark Horse Comics. The series serves as a canonical continuation of the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and follows the events of that show's final televised season. It is produced by Joss Whedon, who wrote the...

: Amy has appeared thus far in seven issues:
  • "The Long Way Home, Parts 1-4
    The Long Way Home (Buffy comic)
    "The Long Way Home" is the first arc from the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight series of comic books, a direct continuation of the television series of the same name. It is written by creator Joss Whedon. It ran for four issues. The first issue was released on March 14, 2007, and the final...

    "
  • "Time of Your Life, Part 1 & 4
    Time of Your Life (Buffy comic)
    "Time of Your Life" is the fourth story arc that spreads from the sixteenth to the nineteenth issue of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight series of comic books, a continuation of the television series of the same name...

    "
  • "Retreat, Part 2
    Retreat (Buffy comic)
    "Retreat" is the sixth story arc of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight series of comic books, based upon the television series of the same name, and is written by television screenwriter Jane Espenson...

    "
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