Y is for Riley Finn

This month I'm participating in A to Z Challenge, where 100's of bloggers around the world challenge themselves to write every day for the month of April, working their way through the alphabet.  I'm stitching the Buffy The Vampire Slayer alphabet cross stitch pattern (available from my Etsy store).  Each day I will share that letter's stitching, as well as a bit about the relevant character.

Y is for the Riley Finn

Riley in his Initiative gear

Riley Finn was born in Huxley, Iowa.  Not much is known about his early years except that he had a fairly typical demon-free upbringing.  Riley joined the army prior to 1999, and was trained in a special operations unit that became known as The Initiative.  The Initiative were a USA Government operation whose mission was to capture and research demons, or "sub-terrestrials".  Their base-of-operations was located below UC Sunnydale, and Riley lead a double-life masquerading as a college student by day, soldier by night.  Riley began dating Buffy before discovering she was the Slayer (or revealing he was a soldier).  Riley eventually left The Initiative when his boss attempted to kill Buffy, and the operation was closed down not long after.

Riley attempted to lead an ordinary life, assisting Buffy in fighting demons, however he eventually returned to the army (and a secret mission in the middle of South America) when he realised that Buffy didn't care for him as much as he cared for her.  During his time in South America, Riley met and married fellow soldier Samantha.

The Buffy-Riley relationship seemed to be the biggest thing affected by the arrival of Dawn.  Throughout season 4, Riley and Buffy both seemed to be pretty committed to each other, however in season 5 Buffy seemed to drift - distracted by Dawn and by her mother's health problems perhaps.  I liked Riley as a steady, strong character and was not impressed with how his character seemed to take a nose dive in season 5.  But maybe the writers needed to get rid of him to make room for the Buffy-Dawn relationship, and the Buffy-Spike relationship.

Happy Stitching