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This study employs the archetypometrics framework to analyze and compare the female protagonists Buffy Summers from "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and Bella Swan from "Twilight," assessing their archetypes across 464 traits derived from 2,000 characters. The analysis reveals that while both characters are centered on themes of love and romance, Buffy embodies a strong Adventurer-Hero archetype that defies traditional gender norms, whereas Bella conforms to a weaker Outcast archetype. These findings highlight the cultural implications of character design in vampire narratives and suggest a broader applicability of archetypometrics in evaluating female representation in storytelling.
Buffy defies gender norms as a powerful Adventurer-Hero, while Bella embodies the traditional Outcast archetype, revealing stark contrasts in female representation in vampire narratives.
Fictional stories and characters embody and encode social norms, and their study is a powerful tool through which to understand culture and society. Vampire stories and folklore, in particular, have long both reflected and refracted people's preoccupation with disease, sexuality, death, and immortality. Here, we explore female main characters from two popular vampire franchises of the 21st century: Buffy Summers from the eponymous Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Bella Swan from the Twilight series. We employ the archetypometrics framework, built from 2,000 characters assesed across 464 semantic differential traits, to understand Buffy's and Bella's archetypes compared to one another and characters in their own stories, as well as within a larger societal context. While Buffy and Bella are female protagonists who share focus on love and romance, they differ broadly on their underlying traits and overall archetypes. Buffy -- presented as a prototypical high school cheerleader -- largely bucks traditional gender norms as an strong Adventurer-Hero. Bella -- stylized as ``not like the other girls''-- largely conforms to traditional gender norms as a weak Outcast archetype. In each instance, our use of archetypometrics offers a detailed, character-based lens for assessing female protagonists in contemporary vampire narratives, with clear potential for broader application across other storytelling forms.