Buffy the Vampire Slayer was all about subverting expectations. The reason why the eponymous character was named Buffy Summers was to take a name that had connotations of being "vapid" or "shallow" and then flip that prejudice upside down by making her the heroic Chosen One. The same love of subversion applies to the villains Buffy faces, too, as many of her most insidious foes initially appeared weaker or more innocent than they really were.
Sometimes a vampire or demon initially appears as a human civilian or even an ally before outing their true evil nature. Other times, Buffy and friends battle what they believe to be a garden-variety demon before discovering that they are actually something much more ancient and powerful. Either way, the Scooby Gang repeatedly faced villains who turned out to be far stronger than they first realized, with many of these foes turning out to be the biggest threats Buffy ever encountered.
The demon known only as Doc originally looked to be a one-off villain for the seventeenth episode of Season 5, "Forever." Struggling to deal with her grief over her mother's recent death in "The Body," Dawn went to Doc to learn a ritual to resurrect her mother. At this point, all that's known of Doc is that he has a seriously creepy demeanor, and his tail gives him away as a demon (or perhaps a half-human one, like Angel's Doyle). He's clearly an expert in the occult, but in the wider context of Sunnydale's sinister population, Doc appears small-fry.
When he reappears for the final two episodes of Season 5, however, Doc's true darkness is unveiled, along with his unexpected durability — not to mention his toadlike tongue. Doc outs himself as a devoted acolyte of Glory, whose evil goes far beyond selling dark magic grimoires. In actual fact, he is dedicated to aiding in the demon goddess' quest to destroy the world. As for his personal strength, Doc is able to survive a sword to the chest unharmed and even bests Spike in a fight, throwing the vampire off the tower where Dawn is to be sacrificed.
Memorably, when Buffy arrives on the tower to save her sister, Doc prepares for a showdown, saying, "This should be interesting." In no mood for playing around, though, Buffy simply shoves him off the tower, presumably to his death. It would have been interesting if Buffy had actually deigned to do battle with Doc, as he may well have given the Slayer a run for her money. Still, given his mighty healing factor, it is possible that Doc survived his fall, so he may well be one of the few opponents Buffy failed to kill.
Given Spike's immense popularity and the franchise-defining twist that was Angel becoming Angelus, Drusilla tends to be overlooked when it comes to the trio of vampires who cause no end of strife in Buffy Season 2. Dru tends to be remembered for her volatility, and either the creepy or comedic moments that her personality spurs, rather than considered one of the strongest villains in Buffy lore. And yet, come the season finale, Dru proves that she has one rare skill in her back pocket that makes her extremely dangerous.
Specifically, her knack for hypnosis and mesmerism. The Master was also a gifted hypnotist, but his mental powers seemed temporary and not impossible to shrug off. Drusilla, on the other hand, has far greater psychic faculties. When torturing Giles into giving up Buffy's plans, Dru is able to hypnotize him so completely he believes she is his dead girlfriend, Jenny. What's more, in the same episode, Dru mesmerizes Kendra during a fight, which allows her to deliver the fatal blow, slicing the Slayer's throat with a razor-sharp fingernail.
Buffy reminds viewers again and again that Spike killed two Slayers in his past, and Angelus is routinely hyped up as the worst vamp of them all, but Drusilla is the only vampire to actually kill a Slayer (permanently) on-screen. Dru may not be as physically strong as either her ex or her sire, but the force of her psychic power means she is much more of a threat than her kooky personality suggests.
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