Argh, that was me, posting with the wrong account. I'm gonna delete it - sorry for the threading confusion! (Deleted content here: IIRC Dawn was originally going to be 12 or so, but was aged up when Michelle Trachtenberg was cast. Unfortunately I don't think they always aged the writing up to match. Also unfortunately, I don't think Joss had any idea what to do with Dawn once Buffy jumped off that tower. I like Dawn, but sometimes I think that storywise, it might have worked better to have Dawn die in S5, and have Buffy's S6 depression be about her failure to save her sister.)