In every generation there is a chosen one. She alone will stand against the vampires the demons and the forces of darkness. She is the slayer.

This line is the opening voice-over narration that frames the premise of the television series *Buffy the Vampire Slayer*, created by Joss Whedon. It functions as a mythic prologue, establishing the “Slayer” as a singular, hereditary champion tasked with combating supernatural evil—vampires, demons, and allied “forces of darkness.” The narration appears at the start of the series’ early episodes (notably the pilot/series opener), orienting new viewers quickly and giving the show an epic, folkloric register before the story shifts into Buffy Summers’ contemporary, teen-centered world. As a recurring introductory formula, it also underscores the show’s blend of horror conventions with coming-of-age drama.

The quotation casts Buffy’s role in archetypal terms: a lone, “chosen” figure standing between ordinary life and predatory darkness. Its rhetoric borrows from prophecy and legend, lending grandeur and inevitability to what is, in practice, an exhausting and isolating duty. The emphasis on “she alone” highlights both empowerment and burden—heroism as a form of enforced singularity. In the series, this setup becomes something the narrative interrogates: Buffy’s strength is real, but the idea that she must be solitary is repeatedly challenged by friendship, community, and institutional power structures (like the Watchers). The line thus introduces a heroic myth the show both uses and complicates.

1) “Into every generation a Slayer is born: one girl in all the world…”
2) “In every generation there is a Chosen One.”
3) “She alone will stand against the vampires, the demons, and the forces of darkness.”