A Need-to-Know Basis

I was thinking about how in my kidfic, Spike and Buffy aren’t ever telling Joe a lot of details about their lives before he came along, like his mother dying twice. And that got me thinking.

How many people - for a given value of "people" - on God's green earth - discounting those off it - actually knew Buffy died in "The Gift"?

- Buffy herself
- Spike
- Dawn
- Willow
- Xander
- Giles
- Tara - dead as of the last scene in "Not Fade Away", and not a vampire-style dead, either; really and fully dead
- Anya - also dead
- Angel
- Cordelia - dead
- Wesley - dead
- Gunn
- Lorne
- Fred - dead enough to just say dead
- Glory's minions

We can presume Faith knew, either through Slayer dreams or someone having the good grace to tell her. We can also presume that Glory's minions are themselves dead, ideally with Spike hunting them down and killing them over the summer after season 5 as a suitably violent form of grief and mourning - and if there's fic of this, please let me know because I'd love to read it. But to the best of my knowledge, there's no lines of dialogue to cite or moments that point to textual on-screen evidence.

And that's it. Not a whole lot of people. Enough to keep it on a need-to-know basis, with the likely outcome being that it's decided nobody needs to know.

It's something which could be found out, whether consulting people not from God's green earth, oracles, other Slayers currently active as of "Chosen" that might find out through shared Slayer dreams, asking the living people on the list some very persuasive questions - and in the end, as of "Not Fade Away", it's still a short list.

Similarly, there's not a whole lot of people who ever knew Dawn was the Key:

- Dawn
- Buffy
- Joyce - dead
- Giles
- Willow
- Xander
- Tara - dead again
- Anya - still dead
- Spike
- The Monks of the Order of Dagon - dead
- Ben - dead
- Glory - dead
- Glory's minions, which are still presumed dead

Again, it's enough people to fit around a dinner table.

How many people are completely aware of what Spike did to earn his soul?

- Spike
- The Lurking Cave Lurker Demon What Lurks In The Cave, or Lurky for short*

A lot of people know Spike has a soul, and a few of them are aware of the general circumstances, but nobody's yet told anyone anything about the details of what happened in that cave.

*It's been hypothesized Lurky's name is Lloyd, based on D'Hoffryn's dialogue: "The flaying of Warren Meers? Oh, truly inspired. That was water cooler vengeance. Lloyd has a sketch of it on his wall." To which I say: I don't buy it. Lurky isn't a Vengeance Demon of D'Hoffryn's stripe. He seems to be pretty secure to stay lurking in his cave and doesn't seem the type for water cooler conversation, however literal or metaphoric that water cooler might be.

Who knows for certain Spike assaulted Buffy in the bathroom?

- Buffy, who was there
- Spike, who did it
- Xander, who found Buffy and put the pieces together
- Dawn, because Xander told her

Spike alluded to the vague concept of what he did to Clem without mentioning any specifics. Willow seemed to have some idea, but quickly moved onto other tasks at hand and let the subject drop. There's nothing to say she couldn't be told later, and it's possible someone decided to fill Giles in on it. But as far as I can remember, we have nothing that we can use to definitively argue that anyone besides those four know.

It's honestly pretty fascinating to think about the limited information characters have to work with, and what they’re all walking around with inside of their heads.