Beyond Selidor

That's a really great point about BTVS as a counter-example to the secrecy thing. And this is going off the point a bit, but I remember years ago getting into an interesting discussion about the impact of secrecy in things like HP, where there's a younger audience: how many times would they have been safer, sooner if they'd confided in someone, etc. Of course, that was before we learned the extent of Dumbledore's machinations... but it is interesting to look at Buffy from that POV: it's nice that the message is, "You can trust people with the deepest parts of yourself."