Huh. I was going to ask you to explain away the whole “My blood is your blood. My soul is your soul.” line from the Master to Luke in The Harvest, but I just figured it out: demon souls.
My theory: Because more people don’t necessarily add up to a better operation… that’s my argument. Notice how many times Buffy’s close relationship with Giles has been remarked on as unusual or come close to giving away her secret. If she had an even larger entourage of adult hangers-on… someone would probably call the police about it. 
That argument probably only really relates in western cultures where the watchers have to be very discrete. In other places (like wherever Kendra was from) maybe there’s a bigger formal team from the watcher’s council.
Also, I think more resources would be available from the council for one-shot missions, but neither Buffy nor Giles were really that inclined to draw on them… they’re both lone wolves in their way, and Giles had something of a tenuous relationship with the council insiders. (Which brings up the question of why he was sent to Sunnydale to rendezvous with Buffy – possibly no-one else wanted the job because they thought her second watcher was as likely to die as the first had been??)
If you accept help from the higher-ups, you have to live with the idea that they’re going to want more authority over day-to-day operations. He who pays the piper, etcetera.
Plus, with Sunnydale’s death rate, the secondhand stores and Salvation Army are probably overflowing with surplus clothes. Buffy’s probably just good at thrifting.
Considering Giles’ technophobia, and that he refers to it as “her beeping thing,” I rather doubt it’s his.
As it did, pretty much, in the fight over the aid they’d provide with Glory at the end of S5. Buffy emasculated the Watchers as a power in the world in The Magic Shop. The next we hear of the Watchers, they’ve been blown to little pieces while having a Watcher Council meeting.
I have a question, though: We’re given numerous references to the movie - Giles is her second Watcher, Buffy burning down the school gymnasium, etc. So why are the vamps different between the series and the movie? David Arquette could levitate, vampires littered the ground when staked, and Rutger Hauer was the Supreme vampire- not Doug Neidermeyer. Are things that different in Los Angeles?
Things are that different when Joss doesn’t have creative control. (rim shot.)
But seriously, yes, he picked up the series a little while after where his original screenplay finished – note that Kristy Swanson never burned down the gym in the original movie.
(Apparently, one of his biggest beefs is that somebody let Donald Sutherland rewrite his own dialog at will.)
Alternative: when the Slayership passed to an unknown with no formal training and no pre-established ties to the council, the Watchers decided to write her off, give her minimal aid (just one watcher to keep tabs on her), and wait for her to die so someone more controllable could be Chosen.
The movie is not canon for the tv show, it may serve as a basic outline for what happened however. In fact i believe they released a comic about Buffy’s time as a slayer at Hemrey, with the likeness of SMG…That i believe is canon.
I think you’re right about this. Remember Kendra had been in training since a very young age. I can’t imagine why they would need such an expansive base of operation if they didn’t take a more active roll in the Slayers’ lives. I think, for whatever reason, Buffy and Faith were mistakes. Somebody dropped the ball there.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m certain Faith had a Watcher and was fully trained. Buffy’s the only one we know of to slip through the net.
OK, I know that supposedly Joss said that no new slayer was called when Buffy died in The Gift because the slayer line now runs through Faith. If that’s so, why did the First concentrate on Buffy and not Faith throughout most of season 7, and why didn’t Buffy and friends warn Faith sooner?
Faith was in jail until Wes busted her out toward the end of Angel season 4, after helping with their problems Willow immediately brought Faith back Sunydale to join the fight against the first. I don’t think The First would have any idea that Faith would become a player when she was in jail…but when she did the first put lots of effort into breaking her down (coming to her as the mayor).
Do comentaries and interviews count? 'Cause Whedon clearly states in many interviews that his original concept re: the Master was that vampirism was like a virus - consuming the vampire more fully through the years until he became an uber-powerful vampire. He dropped this because a) it wasn’t really that interesting in the end and b) he felt like it. Although I still maintain that’s what was happening to Angel and that’s why he got fat and ugly.
He made vamps poof because it was easier than explaining dozens of bodies laying around. Officials in Sunnydale are dim, but not that dim. Denial only goes so far.
Angel confirms in *Dopplegangland * that vampires maintain personality traits of the former humans. When Willow tells Buffy, “I think I’m kind of gay,” (referring to her vamp self), Buffy assures her that who you are as a human bears no relation to who you are as a vamp. Angel says, “Well, actually…” before Buffy shuts him up. So Spike remaining an incurable romantic as a vampire is certainly in line with this. I think Whedon clearly deliniates the difference between personality and soul. Personality is things you like (including people - Spike and Drusilla certainly did share a type of “love”, “love” isn’t predicated on having a soul), how you’re likely to react to events and your taste for Onion Blossoms. Having a soul enables true self-sacrifice and conscience.
The Council certainly exists to support the Slayer, although they had her convinced for years that she was their employee. In Checkpoint, they come to the US to try and “test” Buffy before giving her information about Glory. She submits for most of the episode before she realizes she has the power:
Obviously, because Buffy refused to work with them for several seasons, while Faith was in a coma and then in jail, they do have something else to keep themselves occupied. They did have information on Glory, for example. I think the idea that they do research and catalogue information is probably correct.
Before Buffy quit the council, Giles (and then Wesley) did have “all the resources of the Watcher’s Council” at their disposal. Buffy quit the council, not the other way around.
Spike didn’t need to be especially powerful to kill two Slayers. He said it himself in Fool For Love:
The difference between Spike and Angel was that Angel tortured and killed for artistic value. Spike brawled because he enjoyed the rush. This became very clear in the last season of Angel. Spike wasn’t bigger or badder or a better fighter - he was a street brawler, and he didn’t let his supersticious fear overcome him. He’s good because he understands Slayers - because he understands human emotions and motivations. Even as a vampire, he’s still a poet. He got a greater rush from fighting the Slayer than from fighting anyone else. And, twice, he had himself a real good day.
You are correct about Faith’s having a Watcher (we know nothing, though, of her training). Faith’s Watcher was killed by Kokistos, which IMHO is the root of Faith’s personal problems.
She has no surname that we know of, and she’s never mentioned her parents. Not confirmation, exactly, but she’s more like Kendra than Buffy.
gonzoron - the First did make an attempt on Faith after it dealt with as many Watchers as possible. However, once Buffy began gathering the Potentials the result of killing Faith would be to call a new Slayer who was fully trained and in the groove - and the result of killing that Slayer would be to call yet another. At that point, it was better off allowing Buffy to gather all the Potentials. Then it could kill Buffy and break the Slayer line by wiping out the Potentials while they were still unpowered. That done, it could finish off an easily-located and combat-rusty Faith at its leisure.
Right, I mentioned Faith because we have no idea how long she had a watcher. Did her Watcher arrive years before she was called and trained her like Kendra was trained? Or did she arrive shortly after Faith was called? Shortly before? I haven’t seen S3 in um…holy shit, over two years…but I don’t recall ever getting any substantial back story on Faith that would give us a clear timeline of her experience as a Slayer.
That would be Origin, available in trade paperback from Dark Horse. It’s actually a pretty good read. I like the goofiness of the movie, myself, but it’s nice to have a canon version of Buffy’s origin.
I don’t think Spike understands shit. He thinks he does, or at least pretends he does because he wants to get into Buffy’s pants, but he took down his first slayer out of sheer dumb luck, and we’re not even totally sure how he got the second one. It’s also worth noting that being able to kill a slayer isn’t an especially big deal for any vampire: that ratty looking vamp would have killed Buffy in “Fool For Love” if it hadn’t been for Riley, and that certainly had nothing to do with either being powerful or knowing the inner motivations of the Slayer. Slayers just aren’t that powerful.
And Spike’s not even really that good. He ends up wheelchair-bound halfway through season 2, he’s a wreck when we see him in season 3, he gets neutered in season 4 and is kept alive the next couple seasons essentially out of pity, then he’s “good.” Yeah, he tends to do pretty well in battles, but so does Xander, somehow.
I think we got a “My dead mother hits harder than that!” out of her one time, although given that it’s Faith, there’s reason to believe she was making that up.
The whole point of Fool For Love was that Slayers are powerful, but they choose when to die. They may not do it consciously, but that’s how they die. The whole fifth season supports this. It’s the only way The Gift makes any sense. She was powerful enough to beat a God, to knock Doc off the tower, to swing the troll hammer like it was a toy. The Scooby Gang had never been more powerful in any of the previous seasons–Willow was coming into her magic, Xander “the heart” had finally fallen in love, Giles showed that his ruthless streak was close to the surface, Anya despite her fears went in swinging, and Buffy had the very powerful love for Dawn. Everything that made Buffy a great Slayer was in The Gift.
And she died.
Because she chose to. Just like Spike said she would. You may not like Spike personally as a character, but remember he is, and always has been, a plot device. Like The Fool in Shakespeare, he points out the rather obvious and he’s the mouthpiece for the writers at times. If you want to think he’s a letch trying to get into Buffy’s pants as a character, well, fine whatever, but if you look at the show thematically, his speech and actions in Fool For Love support this completely.
Pointing out that he was “lucky” in the first time is exactly the point. He was lucky. And remember, before he bit into the girl, she spoke to him in Chinese (IIRC she said “Tell my mother I’m sorry”.) It was as though she gave up completely in her fight. He may have bested Nikki more fair and square–she definitely had a reason to live–but he was older then with more experience. Either way, like he said in Lies My Parents Told Me, she knew what she signed up for and by not choosing to walk away for her son (she has the strength doesn’t mean she has the obligation) she did choose death.
If you’re going to discount everything Spike said, you’re going to have to ignore all the heavy-foreshadowing in that episode for The Gift and you’re going to have to come up with a completely different thematic reason (not the plot reason!) for the fact that the only person who can kill Buffy is Buffy. You’re also going to have to deal with the fact that the whole reason the pitiful vamp nearly killed her was because she was distracted and worried about her role as the Slayer, which started in Buffy vs Dracula when she was shown hunting the vampires and implied heavily that it was more satisfying than sex. That scared her, and it began the long theme of her fear of losing her humanity, her emotions, her ability to love. But Buffy’s strongest asset, as Spike pointed out, was always her humanity and her ties to the world. The vampire nearly got her because she wasn’t at the top of her game, and this lose end was tied up in Intervention when her guide assured her she was full of love. Which launched us into the five episode arc that culiminated in her choosing death on her terms. Either way though, off the tower or in the cemetery, it was her choices and her (non physical) weaknesses (or the flip in The Gift her strenghts) that put her life in danger. Not the relative strength of the vampires or demons around her.
The same went for the Chinese slayer and Nikki and I think it’s pretty clear that Spike understood that…even if it’s just so the writers could make the audience understand that.
**shy guy ** - what **pepperlandgirl ** said. I don’t think I can do better than that, so just imagine me going “uh-huh” to each of her points.
**pepperlandgirl ** - my husband (who’s teaching a course on BtVS at a university this coming semester, incidently) and I had a great talk re: season 5 and its use of Freudian libido and thanatos theory. The entire season becomes about Buffy’s death drive. I see *Fool For Love * as the pivot point in that journey. For most of the episode, Buffy asks libidinal questions: “How did you win?” “How did you beat them?” Basically, how did you create an accomplishment? Spike flips it - turns it on it’s pivot - in that scene I quoted above. "The question isn’t “How’d I win?”. The question is “Why’d they lose?”. Why did they lose, why did they die, why did they seek destruction? From that point on, the season becomes about the death drive. It becomes about Buffy seeking death, not creating a life.
Now that I type it, it seems bloody obvious. But the Freudian connections were new to me yesterday, so I just had to share with someone who appreciates theme as much as plot.
That was actually something along the lines of what I was thinking when I said nobody else wanted the job of being Buffy’s watcher… she was considered too much of a loose cannon, expendable, and assigned someone expendable to ‘partner’ with her.
Shows what the council knows. 