HOST. Buffyverse Term/Concept/Idea/Intratext.

Thin, white wafers which symbolize the body of Christ in the Eucharist. Bram Stoker’s vampire hunters include the Host among their weapons against the undead, but it rarely appears in other vampire stories and films and did not become part of Buffy’s fighting arsenal.

The host appears appears briefly in the “The Harvest”—where Buffy lifts off the top part of her trunk to reveal stakes, crosses, holy water, garlic and a bottle full of host wafers. It never appears again in the series. One possible explanation for its continuing absence is that the host has a similar effect (at least visually) as the cross and is, at the same time, a much more obscure symbol—requiring more extensive knowledge of Christian theology and denominational practice than the other devices.

--Jonathan Edwards