Amy de la Force: What Buffy taught me about strong female leads
‘In every generation, there is a chosen one’ – and my chosen hero wore leather trousers, wielded quips like a stake and taught me that saving the world was possible in heels. She was, of course, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. So, it’s no surprise that my debut romantasy features a chosen one trope the size of Buffy’s rocket launcher blast in season two.
In the 90s, strong female leads like Buffy and Xena: Warrior Princess made for transformative TV. Now, 25 years on, these shows and their protagonists are more than just millennial nostalgia fuel – they were the formative blueprints for a generation of women who grew up with role models that showed us what it means to fight for what’s right.
For me, pop culture queens like Buffy and Xena were so foundational to my younger self that I ended up training in kung fu and sword fighting as a matter of course – also dabbling in karate, staff classes, kickboxing, and sword and buckler over the years. To quote Xena, ‘I have many skills.’
The appeal of protagonists like Buffy (also Faith) and Xena was simple: physically strong women – some with dark pasts – whose resilience, complexity and high-stakes journeys paved the way for personal growth and their rise as brilliant, empathetic leaders. This makes sense, given that these characters were prefaced by Alien’s Ripley and Terminator’s Sarah Connor; ordinary women who suffered extraordinary trauma and survived as damaged heroines. But what made Buffy different is that she was the super-powered hero from day one. In fact, her backstory as a popular cheerleader who loved to shop marked a turning point: from an era of female leads defined by masc-coded toughness, to today’s heroines whose femininity isn’t seen as weakness.
And so, my debut romantasy, A Kiss of Hammer and Flame, is a love letter to inspirational female main characters like Buffy and Xena in general, and the chosen one trope in particular. No spoilers, but stay tuned for a trope subversion in my Fated For Hael series!
With Sarah Michelle Gellar reprising her iconic role in the upcoming Buffy reboot, there’s never been a better time to reflect on what Buffy taught us about friendship, family (found, queer and otherwise), feminism, and the ethics of everything from the first evil to the patriarchy’s latest.
Buffy is back – but then, she never really left. Because she showed us the possibilities for what a woman, and an epic hero, could be. In her honour, we’ll continue to do what we’ve been doing ever since she left Sunnydale, and vampires, in the dust: slay.
A Kiss of Hammer and Flame is published by Canelo Romance on 3 July 2025
