Dawn Summers
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Dawn Summers is a fictional character in the television show Buffy the Vampire Slayer played by Michelle Trachtenberg.
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Dawn is the younger sister of the title character Buffy Summers. She first appeared at the end of the series' fifth-season episode "Buffy vs. Dracula", and would continue to appear as a regular cast member throughout the following seasons. Her introduction in the series came as something of a surprise, since prior seasons had firmly established that Buffy was an only child. This was even mentioned at the start of the episode which she first appeared in, demonstrating that this was not a continuity error or a 'retcon'.
During the fifth season's story arc, it was revealed that Dawn had not existed before the beginning of season five and that she was in fact "The Key"; that her true nature was a mystical energy that possessed the capability to 'unlock the doors between dimensions.' Dawn's identity had been concealed, and her human form entrusted to Buffy, by a group of monks who intended to hide the 'key' from the evil entity, Glory.
Dawn, and those around her, were unaware of her true nature for quite some time. She had been forged into human form with a complete recollection of her false life as Buffy's sister, and those surrounding Dawn had also been imbued with artificial memories, making Dawn's eventual discovery of the facts about her existence difficult to come to terms with, and causing a crisis of identity.