Daniel "Oz" Osbourne is a fictional character created by Joss Whedon for the cult television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. and The character is portrayed by Seth Green.

A taciturn, guitar-playing teen, and eventually Willow's boyfriend, Oz first appears in the episode "Inca Mummy Girl," becoming a recurring character throughout the second season and a main character in the third. In the fourth season, he leaves the series. He is last seen in Willow's dream in the episode "Restless", and last mentioned in the Season Seven episode "Potential". Later, Green reprises his role for an episode of Angel.

Appearances

Television

Oz's most outstanding trait is his detached, ironic approach to life, masking a deeply philosophical interior. He is also the lead guitarist for the band Dingoes Ate My Baby, which performs frequently at The Bronze. A high school senior, one year above Willow and the rest of the group, he "tests well", but his only real ambition lies in his music.

He notices Willow in spite of — or perhaps because of — her Eskimo costume at a dance at The Bronze, and seems to be interested in her at first sight. It would take several episodes for the two to actually meet in person. They go into, according to Willow, "some sort of holding pattern, except without the holding or... anything else", even though they had several dates, on one of which he witnesses a vampire being dusted by Buffy for the first time, and thus becomes a member of the Scooby Gang. He is unsurprised upon learning vampires exist and merely remarks that "it explains a lot". He and Willow eventually share their first kiss and become a couple at the end of the season two episode "Phases".

The episode "Phases" was also the episode where he finds he has become a werewolf, turning into a monster on the three nights around a full moon, having been bitten on his finger by his pre-adolescent cousin Jordy (interestingly, when Oz calls Jordy's mother, his Aunt Maureen, to ask if Jordy is a werewolf, Maureen is apparently unfazed by the question and readily confirms Jordy's condition, indicating Oz is not the only exceptionally laid-back member of his family). On his third night as a wolf, Oz is nearly killed by werewolf hunter Gib Cain for his pelt, but is saved by Buffy and the Scooby Gang, with whose help he quickly finds a way to minimize the danger posed by the wolf: he locks himself into a cage for the appropriate nights, watched over by the Scoobies in shifts.

Even though he is intelligent (so much so that he, along with Willow, was tracked for a time by "the world's leading software concern") he does not manage to graduate, due to several incompletes and failing to attend summer school. He was the highest achiever to fail to graduate as Willow proudly tells the Gang. He repeats his senior year, now being in the same year as the rest of the gang, and graduates simultaneously with them. During this year, his relationship with Willow goes through rough water as he and Cordelia catch Xander and Willow kissing. They break up, but get back together again after Oz confesses he misses her ("Amends"). In the episode "Graduation Day, Part One", Oz and Willow have sex before the impending confrontation with the evil Mayor Wilkins, concerned they might die in battle.

After graduation, he attends UC Sunnydale, together with Buffy and Willow, and is seen taking 'Introduction to Psychology' by Professor Walsh along with them. Unlike the other two, he does not have a dorm room, but stays in a house off campus along with the rest of the band. Because the cage he used to lock himself up on the nights around the full moon was destroyed (along with the rest of the library and Sunnydale High) during the fight against the mayor, he now locks himself up into a cage in a crypt at a local cemetery.

While appearing to the outside world as to have come to terms with his lycanthropy rather easily, evidence arises he indeed does hold great fear of his werewolf side ("Fear, Itself"), and especially hurting others with it. Moreover, gradually, he starts to see he and the wolf aren't as separate as he'd like to believe — although in love with Willow, he is irresistibly drawn to another werewolf, Veruca, a fellow UC Sunnydale student, who, unlike Oz, considers the wolf to be her true self. After spending a night in the cage with Veruca, and killing her at the following sunset to protect Willow, Oz resolves to leave Sunnydale so as not to endanger his friends further.

Some months later, Oz returns to Sunnydale, believing his lycanthropy is now under control through techniques learned in Tibet. Although the moon no longer affects him, he can still transform into the werewolf when faced with strong emotion ("negative stimulation"), such as anger or pain, as he discovers when he finds Tara Maclay has replaced him in Willow's affections, and when The Initiative seizes him for its experiments. This transformation can occur during the day.

After that discovery, Oz leaves Sunnydale for good (reflecting Seth Green's decision to move on and pursue his film career) soon after the Scoobies, assisted by Riley, break him out of the Initiative complex. He and Willow leave on friendly terms; she even admits she expects to run into him again at some point in her life. Oz is last seen in Willow's dream in the episode "Restless", as she meets him in college. Oz is not seen again for the remainder of the series' run.

Literature

Oz reappears towards the end of the series' canonical comic book continuation, Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight. The character was also shown briefly in Buffy's dream sequence during "The Long Way Home" arc in a collage of friends and family. "Retreat" is a five-issue story be written by Jane Espenson featuring Oz in a principal role. In Part One, Buffy and the army of Slayers are under intense fire from the public (in response to Harmony Kendall's vampire rights spokesmanship) and from the villain Twilight, able to track them down due to their use of magic. To evade Twilight, Buffy has Willow cast one last spell to take the submarine full of Slayers, witches and their Watchers to the Tibetan mountains so Oz may show them how to suppress their magical natures and lie low. As the submarine appears in the mountains Oz simply shrugs, displaying little surprise in his typical manner. Later he reveals to the Scoobies that he has a Tibetan (lycanthrope)partner named Bayarmaa and a son named Kelden now, and has learnt to deal with his werewolf problem through Eastern medicine and philosophy. He agrees to help Buffy and her Slayers but also realizes the considerable danger she has brought to his home and family.

Concept and creation

Oz originated as a temporary cast member for the show. He was based on a student with whom Buffy-creator Joss Whedon attended college, as Whedon mentions in his commentary on "Innocence" in the Season Two DVD boxed set. In the writers' original plans Oz was to be killed early in Season Two by a vampire, presumably Angelus, before this dubious honor went to Jenny Calendar. The plan changed, as shown in "Phases" when Oz's plot is expanded as he becomes a werewolf. On the season 4 featurette: Oz Revelations: A Full Moon, the writers related Oz's inner werewolf to the dark urges every person encompasses. Even Oz, being a stoic and calm persona, still had a strong and violent force inside, which became increasingly harder to control.

In several episodes during Season Four, Oz can be seen wearing a sheepskin jacket, alluding to the Aesopian fable, origin of the well-known phrase "a wolf in sheep's clothing".

Other media

Oz also appears in Buffy expanded universe. He appears in a few comics/novels, most notably the trade paperback Oz and the novel Oz: Into the Wild, which follow his quest to control his wolf-side after his departure in "Wild at Heart".

He also appears in the novel "Queen of the Slayers". In this novel the forces of evil amass to kill Buffy for destroying the Hellmouth in Sunnydale. During a quest, she encounters Oz, the apparent leader of a pack of werewolves which protect the Golden One. Oz and the other werewolves can now completely control their wolf forms and they take part in the final battle of the book during a full moon.