by mudpuppy
post Buffy s3
Kindly donated by Jade's BtVS Theories



A few preliminaries before beginning: Much of this is just speculation based upon the facts as known to all of us. I don't present this as fact itself, just a theory that I'm willing to have proven wrong by someone pointing out facts I missed or by future eps of BtVS. Also, my overall point is not that we should support the Council, just that we are jumping to conclusions by so vociferously opposing them.

OK, first off, the general purpose of the Council as I see it and believe they see it themselves is to stop vampires and other demons from carrying out evil. That is their sole purpose to existence and they view this fight as a war. Ideally only bad guys would die in this war, but they know that good guys will also perish fighting the bad. Because of the nature of the enemy, a lot of the Council's ideology is strictly black and white: they do not see subtle shades of gray because they have no place in a battle versus demons. Individuals, even good individuals, may have to be sacrificed for the greater good (literally in many cases) in order to survive this war. Living with this knowledge is a heavy burden and being among those who decide who lives and dies is an awesome power to posses, an incredible responsibility.

Every war needs generals who are capable of using this power: if the war is worth fighting, we needs someone who can come up with strategy and tactics that will minimize the losses to our side and maximizes losses to the other. We don't want someone in charge who is cowering with fear or unable to decide quickly which troops to send where in the knowledge that this decision affects the very survival of many people. However, we want the person wielding the power to have a healthy respect for human life: we don't want them to make arbitrary decisions or to sacrifice individuals when it is unnecessary. A gallant frontal charge to get the general in the history books is a poor decision when a few mortar rounds could have achieved the same objective. In short, we want someone with the ability to use this power, but not someone who will abuse it.

The goal here, then, is not to prove that the Council has Buffy's best interests at heart: they don't. They, ideally, would have humanity's best interests at heart. Rather it is demonstrate, first, that what they have done can be construed as for the greater good and that, second, it is not overly abusive of their authority. (Some people have questioned why the Council should have authority over slayers at all. I would be happy to share theories on this as well, but it is not essential to my point here.) This is obviously a value judgement: what I find to be a decent balance between respect for the individual and awareness of the collective good, others may not. But I will try to illustrate as best I can how the Council's behavior can be seen as properly balancing these two goals.

The most odious thing the Council has done, obviously, has been the test shown in Helpless. After the airing of this ep, many on the board speculated that the Council doesn't expect any slayer to survive or, at the least, it is an incredibly rare event for a slayer to survive the test. However, the head watcher guy said to Giles, "If this girl's everything you say she is, you have nothing to worry about it." Since we can safely assume (I hope) that Giles has been sending sterling reports on Buffy, I think that what the watcher guy meant by this was that good slayers are generally expected to survive the test. Bad slayers, on the other hand are not. But why test them? Why not assume that if they made it to 18, they must be good slayers and let it go at that? But what if they were merely lucky slayers? Or they had the good fortune to live during a time or place when demonic activity was light? You'd want to weed out the poor ones so that should BIG DANGER arrive, you know you have a strong slayer fighting for you. In a special forces unit in a normal army, if you can't hack the training regimen, you wash out and they find someone to replace you (or they expect a certain washout rate and recruit with that in mind.) In the army against the demons, the only documented way to get a new slayer is for the old one to die. Unfortunately, this means that should a slayer not be any good, she can't just go into retirement, she has to die. Harsh, yes. Necessary, also possibly yes.

Now what of Buffy? Why must she be tested? She's stopped Lothos, prevented the Master from rising (twice), killed the Judge, defeated Angel's attempt to revive Acathla, and so on. She's saved the world so many times, why should the Council risk her death now? There a handful of answers to these questions: first, the Council only really has Giles's reports to go on to judge Buffy. If they doubt his objectivity, they may doubt the veracity of the reports. Second, they probably know that Buffy has been receiving help from Angel, from her friends, twice from a second slayer, and from an overly active watcher. (I say probably because Wesley seems to be oblivious to all these facts, so its possible that Giles has not made it known.) If they know this, than they may doubt that Buffy could do it on her own.

Third, do we really know how good a slayer Buffy is? We've seen two other slayers. I will say that Buffy was a better slayer than Kendra and probably always would have been, although Kendra was less experienced and may have learned. I'm not as sure of the comparison with Faith. Buffy is clearly better than Faith is right now. However, we don't know what Faith was like before her Watcher was killed by Kakistos. Faith has shown that she is a superb fighter, however she lacks self-control, doesn't take time to think, and doesn't seem to train very often or very hard. Maybe this is from the recent trauma of her watcher's death, maybe this is inherent in her personality. But, bottom line, we don't know. Perhaps with hard work, close supervision from a good watcher, and experience, Faith could rival Buffy. Point is, even if we could clearly say Buffy is the best of the slayers we've seen, it is still quite possible that she is, historically speaking, an average or, even, below average slayer. I'm not saying, mind you, that she is below average: I'm just saying that with a sample size of 3, we can reach no significant conclusions. Perhaps Buffy is a good slayer, perhaps not.

If one accepts the head watcher's implication that good slayers are expected to survive the test, than this does become an accurate gauge of the slayer's abilities, a fair test in a certain sense. View the pre-18 years as boot camp and the 18th birthday as the final test to pass. In a normal army, failure means a discharge (or a transfer to another unit); in the Council's army, this is not feasible. If the current slayer can't hack it, a new slayer is needed. This means, unfortunately, death for the current slayer. Looking at it as someone who loves Buffy, this is a bad thing: I don't want to see her die. But looking at it as someone who wants the world to not be destroyed (and pretending to be living in the "buffyverse" for a moment) I wouldn't want a slayer who wasn't capable to be trying to save the world. Arguments have been made that the normal course of slaying will weed out the weak ones making the test unnecessary, but the test is a way to control for all other factors (outside help, an easy time, etc.) and make the slayer rely on other than their physical abilities.

This leads us to another quarrelsome question: why must they go in without their abilities? I'm willing to accept the utility of a test that requires the slayer to think and to improvise. Buffy has many times faced demons as strong or stronger than she: she has survived on her wits for a long time. Faith, on the other hand, has survived on her fighting skills almost exclusively. My guess is she would fail the test if it were administered to her at this time. Now I really like Faith and this would make me sad. If I were living in the Buffyverse, though, I wouldn't want Faith (as she currently acts) as the only thing standing between the forces of evil and the survival of the world. From that standpoint, perhaps I'd want Faith to fail the test and the new slayer to be called. Callous? I'll admit it. Necessary? I'd say yes to that too.

There is an alternative theory offered by Phil PhuD. I don't actually agree with it, but it paints the Council in an even more positive light, so I'll offer a version of it here as an alternative. The powers of the slayer are truly impressive and, like the Force, can be quite attractive. There is a mighty temptation to abuse the physical powers of the slayer and believe that because you have these superpowers you can "do whatever you want" and can follow the philosophy of "want, take, have." These slayers are likely to ignore the mental aspects of slaying, and focus on the physical. The test then serves as a way of eliminating the slayers who have gone to the dark side.

Another issue of great concern to Bronzers has been Giles's firing. We all love Giles (at least, I know of no posters who don't love Giles) and seeing him get fired hurt. But was the Council wrong about firing him? It hurts me to say 'no.' What I wrote above about the test is conjecture, supposition, and stuff that I find possible but don't necessarily agree with. This stuff about Giles is my actual opinion and not just part of my theory. Giles has lost his objectivity when he comes to Buffy: he does love her. 99.9% of the time, this is, in fact, a strength. It makes him a better watcher, gives him more inspiration to help her, and gets him off his butt as opposed to most watchers. There are those rare times, however, when this love would hurt him. Giles demonstrated in Prophecy Girl his inability to send Buffy to her certain death (in point of fact, she had to knock him out because he wouldn't let her go.) He was more concerned with her life than with saving the world, and I'm pretty sure Giles loves Buffy even more now than he did at the end of the first season, so it'd be even less likely he'd send Buffy to her certain death now. As I argued above, loving Buffy like I do, I'd hate to see her die, but I'd also hate to have the world end because she didn't do her "sacred duty, yaddah, yaddah" and save the world because Giles was afraid to let her. (Wow, so much of this theory depends upon me distancing my emotions from my reason. I don't like that one bit.)

Some have argued that Giles sends Buffy to possible death almost every day. I agree, but with the caveat that there is a difference between possible death and certain death (and probable death.) Giles knows that Buffy can take care of herself on patrol: there's a chance she'll die, but it's an unlikely event in Giles's mind. However he did end up warning Buffy of the test.

I believe that he was going to warn her regardless, the escape of Zach just gave him a good

rationalization. This is pure speculation, though. Anyway, the council is aware that a Watcher must, for the greater good, on occasion sacrifice their slayer, send their slayer to her death. The Watcher shouldn't do this lightly, but should be capable of recognizing when it is necessary and then be able to do it. Giles demonstrated to the Council in Helpless (and to us in PG) that he is not capable of this. This is an offense for which he should be fired. Of course, since his love for Buffy is helpful 99.9% of the time, if I had been the Council, I would have encourage Giles to stick around and continue helping Buffy, as long as he (and she) accepted that ultimate authority rests with the new Watcher. But since Buffy and Giles will never recognize the authority of a new Watcher (even if he isn't a sniveling ninny like Wesley) then it might be best to reinstate Giles, but keep tabs on his progress. Otherwise, things might start falling apart the 99.9% of the time when Giles would have been a superb watcher. I suspect, though, that Giles will be reinstated before the season's out.

In sum, the Council's actions look horrific when one views them with an eye towards loving Buffy and Giles, i.e. when one is a fan of the series. I suspect this is what Joss wants: he is setting us up to hate the Council. But when viewed through dispassionate eyes, I don't think their actions are that awful: they are trying to protect the world and are willing to risk what they have to in order to achieve that goal.

Lastly, I want to say that I do believe that the Council needs some changes. they need to update their training regimen, both of Slayers and Watchers. (Also note that they are moving in the right direction: Wesley mentioned that they emphasize field work more now and he has to face vamps in controlled settings. Of course, the Watchers should be taught that controlled settings are not like real settings, but this is still a step in the right direction.) The Council has to take into account the modern world and realize that it will be nigh impossible to keep the Slayer isolated anymore. But reform does not mean killing them all and starting over.

 

Response by Margot Le Faye

First, let me say that I truly admire the thought, work, effort and industry you put into this argument. Whatever disagreement we may have on this issue, I'm impressed by the care you've taken in expressing your viewpoint.

Despite the work that went into it, however, you said you wouldn't mind if I tore it apart …as long as I respected you for having the guts to go up against me. Why anyone should feel they need the guts to go up against me, Mild Margot, or as I know you all think of me, Margot the Meek, I cannot imagine (Uh-huh)

So, as I promise to respect you in the morning, I am going to cut and paste your theory so I can gleefully dismantle thoughtfully respond to each point you raise.

A few preliminaries before beginning: Much of this is just speculation based upon the facts as known to all of us. I don't present this as fact itself, just a theory that I'm willing to have proven wrong by someone pointing out facts I missed or by future eps of BtVS. Also, my overall point is not that we should support the Council, just that we are jumping to conclusions by so vociferously opposing them.

I like the fact that you are willing to be proved wrong. I'm willing to be proved wrong, too. Otherwise, what's the point of engaging in debate? But I don't think those of us who oppose the Council are jumping to conclusions. The conclusions rather leapt out at us full blown in "Helpless", and have been reinforced and expanded upon, rather than overturned, every episode since. In fact, one can look at least as far back as FH&T to see glimmerings of WC inadequacies. As Buffy said in "Phases" "I took a tiny step, and there conclusions were."

OK, first off, the general purpose of the Council as I see it and believe they see it themselves is to stop vampires and other demons from carrying out evil. That is their sole purpose to existence and they view this fight as a war. Ideally only bad guys would die in this war, but they know that good guys will also perish fighting the bad. Because of the nature of the enemy, a lot of the Council's ideology is strictly black and white: they do not see subtle shades of gray because they have no place in a battle versus demons. Individuals, even good individuals, may have to be sacrificed for the greater good (literally in many cases) in order to survive this war. Living with this knowledge is a heavy burden and being among those who decide who lives and dies is an awesome power to posses, an incredible responsibility.

I'm with you until you say that shades of gray have no place in a battle versus demons. If that were true, Buffy would never have made her alliance with Spike, and the world would have been sucked into Hell by the end of B2. Yes, good individuals may have to be sacrificed. That, in itself, is a shade of gray. I do agree that being among those who decide who lives and who dies is an awesome power to posses…but you vest it in the Watcher's Council. I see it as being vested in the Slayer. The WC may tell the Slayer who and what she is fighting, they may help her plan her strategy, her tactics, her weapons. But she is the one engaged in the actual battle, and very often, she is the one who makes the decision about what happens to whom. The Watcher is rarely with the Slayer when she fights. His/her position is largely, though not exclusively, that of a non-combatant. Giles warned Buffy in "Amends" that she mighthave to kill Angel if she couldn't save him. But he was not on hand to enforce that decision. Ultimately, it was Buffy's call to make.

Every war needs generals who are capable of using this power: if the war is worth fighting, we needs someone who can come up with strategy and tactics that will minimize the losses to our side and maximizes losses to the other. We don't want someone in charge who is cowering with fear or unable to decide quickly which troops to send where in the knowledge that this decision affects the very survival of many people. However, we want the person wielding the power to have a healthy respect for human life: we don't want them to make arbitrary decisions or to sacrifice individuals when it is unnecessary. A gallant frontal charge to get the general in the history books is a poor decision when a few mortar rounds could have achieved the same objective. In short, we want someone with the ability to use this power, but not someone who will abuse it.

No quarrel there.

The goal here, then, is not to prove that the Council has Buffy's best interests at heart: they don't. They, ideally, would have humanity's best interests at heart. Rather it is demonstrate, first, that what they have done can be construed as for the greater good and that, second, it is not overly abusive of their authority. (Some people have questioned why the Council should have authority over slayers at all. I would be happy to share theories on this as well, but it is not essential to my point here.) This is obviously a value judgement: what I find to be a decent balance between respect for the individual and awareness of the collective good, others may not. But I will try to illustrate as best I can how the Council's behavior can be seen as properly balancing these two goals.

Well, this is where things should get interesting. You want to convince me that their actions are for the greater good. You don't need to. I know the WC believes its actions are for the greater good. That isn't my problem with them. My problem with them is that they do not have the least idea how to go about achieving that goal. You say they have struck a decent balance between respect for the individual and awareness of the collective good. Here, we utterly disagree. They have no respect for the Slayer as an individual at all. She is a disposable, instantly replaceable, weapon to them. Nothing more. If they respected her as an individual at all, Faith would not have been living in a cheap motel while they had their retreat in the Cotswolds. Kendra would not have had but a single shirt to her name, and she would not have lived in isolation for her entire life, forbidden to speak to boys. And Buffy's anger at their betrayal of her in Helpless would have been given serious consideration, not dismissed out of hand.

The most odious thing the Council has done, obviously, has been the test shown in Helpless. After the airing of this ep, many on the board speculated that the Council doesn't expect any slayer to survive or, at the least, it is an incredibly rare event for a slayer to survive the test. However, the head watcher guy said to Giles, "If this girl's everything you say she is, you have nothing,to worry about it." Since we can safely assume (I hope) that Giles has been sending sterling reports on Buffy, I think that what the watcher guy meant by this was that good slayers are generally expected to survive the test. Bad slayers, on the other hand are not. But why test them? Why not assume that if they made it to 18, they must be good slayers and let it go at that? But what if they were merely lucky slayers? Or they had the good fortune to live during a time or place when demonic activity was light?

Here we get into a whole other area of speculation. Bad Slayers are the ones who don't survive? Not necessarily. Because the thing that saves Buffy from Zach is not her quick-witted substitution of Holy Water for the glass of water he uses to take his pills. It is the sheer dumb luck of his having an attack just as he is about to put the bite on her when she is too weak to fight him off.. "I'm not going to take it all," he reassures her. Because he wants to turn her. Fortunately for the whole damn world, he gets his migraine headache at that moment and lets her go. Because if we are going to speculate, let's speculate that a vampire who used to be a Slayer would be one whale of a bad@$$ vamp!

The next area of speculation you get into involves the very nature of the Slayer, and the process by which she becomes the Chosen. You assume that there are bad slayers, slayers who aren't good enough to fight off really strong demons. You further assume that no amount of training or preparation will enable these Slayers to improve. And you also assume that, if there are bad Slayers, they will not be weeded out quickly and automatically in the course of the nightly war they fight, long before they make it to 18.

I am not sure that any of those assumptions are correct. The process by which Slayers are chosen is a mystic one. It stands to reason that the supernatural force for good which calls Slayers into being is going to make sure that the best possibile candidate is chosen. Currently, in a population of 6 billion human beings, there's gotta be a about a million potential candidates. What are the odds of that one in a million being someone who can't cut it? Vanishingly unlikely, I'd say.

Second, it simply isn't true that Slayers can't improve. This season Buffy is far more capable than she was even last year. Witness the scene in DMP when she does not need the warning Oz bears from Giles to know that she must go for the demon's eyes. Or the scene in Band Candy when she knows, based on no clue we can discern, that Ethan Rayne is hiding in the crate behind her. In the unlikely event that a Watcher finds a substandard Slayer on his hand, he trains her within an inch of her life. That's what Giles started to do in Season One. And it is what Merrick had to do in the movie. Now, if the Watcher's council really saw no shades of gray, and if they never saw Slayers improve over time, they would have regretfully decided that having a girl who had never received any training as a Slayer was utterly unsuited to the task. They would not risk a major evil attacking while this untrained Slayer was just starting out. They would have, doubtless shaking their heads at the necessity, given her a dose of some deadly, painless poison so that a suitably trained Slayer could take her place.

Finally, I can't agree that, even if I agreed with your first two assumptions, an unsuitable Slayer would make it to the age of 18. They appear to be called when they are 15 or 16. Just possibly, to judge by Faith, 17. But even if a Slayer is called just before her 18th birthday, if she truly isn't suited to her tasks, even with the preternatural abilities that go along with the job, it won't take long for her to become vamp fodder.

But in point of fact, it isn't that the Council tested Buffy that makes their actions not merely odious, but heinous, it is the way in which they conducted the test. Because if the aim of the test is to determine whether or not a Slayer can think on her feet, even when disoriented and weakened, there are other ways to find this out. Ways that do not involve sacrificing the Slayer. Ways that will help a Slayer learn so that, in the future, she can think more clearly, no matter how disoriented or weakened she becomes. As I've said before, in those societies where youth are expected to pass a life and death coming-of-age ritual, they usually spend their entire lives preparing for said ritual. It isn't normally sprung on them when they don't have a clue as to what's going on.

You'd want to weed out the poor ones so that should BIG DANGER arrive, you know you have a strong slayer fighting for you. In a special forces unit in a normal army, if you can't hack the training regimen, you wash out and they find someone to replace you (or they expect a certain washout rate and recruit with that in mind.) In the army against the demons, the only documented way to get a new slayer is for the old one to die. Unfortunately, this means that should a slayer not be any good, she can't just go into retirement, she has to die. Harsh, yes. Necessary, also possibly yes.

I think I already covered this one. But let me add that it is utterly foolish to replace a Slayer before you have to. Because you loose whatever experience she has. You lose whatever knowledge she has of timing, strategy and tactics. And you replace her with a raw recruit who has been trained in theory, but who is an unknown quantity…and may, if some Slayers are indeed incompetent, be even worse.

On another note…isn't it a bit nervy of the Council to second-guess whatever force is mystically calling Slayers? Playing God much?

Now what of Buffy? Why must she be tested? She's stopped Lothos, prevented the Master from rising (twice), killed the Judge, defeated Angel's attempt to revive Acathla, and so on. She's saved the world so many times, why should the Council risk her death now? There a handful of answers to these questions: first, the Council only really has Giles's reports to go on to judge Buffy. If they doubt his objectivity, they may doubt the veracity of the reports. Second, they probably know that Buffy has been receiving help from Angel, from her friends, twice from a second slayer, and from an overly active watcher. (I say probably because Wesley seems to be oblivious to all these facts, so its possible that Giles has not made it known.) If they know this, than they may doubt that Buffy could do it on her own.

Um, okay, and they would doubt Giles' veracity this late in the game because…? His objectivity doesn't really have a lot to do with this. Buffy destroyed the Judge. Who wasn't supposed to be able to be destroyed. Giles lack of objectivity might have him send enthusiastic, glowing and fulsome reports about the situation back to the council. But the basic fact of her having destroyed the Judge is independent of how Giles gushes about it. Second, if Buffy has been receiving help from her friends, why would that matter, either? The point is to get the job done. That she has friends who will back her up is an advantage that the Council would be foolish to throw away. And as we all know, when it comes down to it and push comes to shove, it is Buffy herself who has to act. In B2, we saw that even in the most overwhelming circumstances, Buffy can and does do it on her own. Giles knew that weeks before her birthday, when he finally got her to come clean about what was going on, in FH&T. His report on the matter should have obviated the necessity for any test.

Third, do we really know how good a slayer Buffy is? We've seen two other slayers. I will say that Buffy was a better slayer than Kendra and probably always would have been, although Kendra was less experienced and may have learned. I'm not as sure of the comparison with Faith. Buffy is clearly better than Faith is right now. However, we don't know what Faith was like before her Watcher was killed by Kakistos. Faith has shown that she is a superb fighter, however she lacks self-control, doesn't take time to think, and doesn't seem to train very often or very hard. Maybe this is from the recent trauma of her watcher's death, maybe this is inherent in her personality. But, bottom line, we don't know. Perhaps with hard work, close supervision from a good watcher, and experience, Faith could rival Buffy. Point is, even if we could clearly say Buffy is the best of the slayers we've seen, it is still quite possible that she is, historically speaking, an average or, even, below average slayer.

Uh huh. Which is why Spike, who has taken out 2 Slayers, doesn't want to go near her. Which is why Lothos, who made a career of scarfing up Slayers for about a millenium lasted all of a month against her. I think the evidence we have is against you on that one.

I'm not saying, mind you, that she is below average: I'm just saying that with a sample size of 3, we can reach no significant conclusions. Perhaps Buffy is a good slayer, perhaps not.

We have more than a sample of 3 to go on. We have the evidence of Spike and Lothos. Buffy defeated them where generations of other Slayers failed. We also have a casual comment by Giles in the first season. Taking a look at what she had accomplished to that point (negligible in comparison to what she would accomplish by the end of that season, let alone in the succeeding ones) Giles felt she was doing quite well.

If one accepts the head watcher's implication that good slayers are expected to survive the test, than this does become an accurate gauge of the slayer's abilities, a fair test in a certain sense. View the pre-18 years as boot camp and the 18th birthday as the final test to pass. In a normal army, failure means a discharge (or a transfer to another unit); in the Council's army, this is not feasible. If the current slayer can't hack it, a new slayer is needed. This means, unfortunately, death for the current slayer. Looking at it as someone who loves Buffy, this is a bad thing: I don't want to see her die. But looking at it as someone who wants the world to not be destroyed (and pretending to be living in the "buffyverse" for a moment) I wouldn't want a slayer who wasn't capable to be trying to save the world. Arguments have been made that the normal course of slaying will weed out the weak ones making the test unnecessary, but the test is a way to control for all other factors (outside help, an easy time, etc.) and make the slayer rely on other than their physical abilities.

Here you have the three assumptions I already covered, restated. And let me point out that your fourth assumption, only Slayers who 'can't hack it' die, is utterly wrong. Buffy ultimately defeated Zach by using her wits. But she survived to do so only because of dumb luck. Sure, a good Slayer, is expected to survive, but if she absolutely were going to, why would you test her in the first place? Wouldn't you know, long before her 18th birthday, if you had a strong slayer on your hands or a dud? I am here allowing that some Slayers are duds. An argument I do not actually buy into, again as discussed previously.

This leads us to another quarrelsome question: why must they go in without their abilities? I'm willing to accept the utility of a test that requires the slayer to think and to improvise. Buffy has many times faced demons as strong or stronger than she: she has survived on her wits for a long time. Faith, on the other hand, has survived on her fighting skills almost exclusively. My guess is she would fail the test if it were administered to her at this time. Now I really like Faith and this would make me sad. If I were living in the Buffyverse, though, I wouldn't want Faith (as she currently acts) as the only thing standing between the forces of evil and the survival of the world. From that standpoint, perhaps I'd want Faith to fail the test and the new slayer to be called. Callous? I'll admit it. Necessary? I'd say yes to that too.

Ack! Cannot go with you there at all! Fortunately, I think you sell Faith's survival instincts way too short. See, faced with Zach, and his stated intentions toward her, I think Faith would have gone seductive on him, 'til she got him in a vulnerable position and did the kind of lethal damage even us weak girly-girls can inflict if needed.

There is an alternative theory offered by Phil PhuD. I don't actually agree with it, but it paints the Council in an even more positive light, so I'll offer a version of it here as an alternative. The powers of the slayer are truly impressive and, like the Force, can be quite attractive. There is a mighty temptation to abuse the physical powers of the slayer and believe that because you have these superpowers you can "do whatever you want" and can follow the philosophy of "want, take, have." These slayers are likely to ignore the mental aspects of slaying, and focus on the physical. The test then serves as a way of eliminating the slayers who have gone to the dark side.

Oh, goody! Fresh Blood! See my answer to the preceding paragraph. Then consider this. Say Faith didn't think she could survive. Say she had turned to the Dark Side. She walks up to Zach and makes him an offer he doesn't want to refuse…and then when the Watchers come to remove her body, she turns them into a buffet.

Another issue of great concern to Bronzers has been Giles's firing. We all love Giles (at least, I know of no posters who don't love Giles) and seeing him get fired hurt. But was the Council wrong about firing him? It hurts me to say 'no.' What I wrote above about the test is conjecture, supposition, and stuff that I find possible but don't necessarily agree with. This stuff about Giles is my actual opinion and not just part of my theory. Giles has lost his objectivity when he comes to Buffy: he does love her. 99.9% of the time, this is, in fact, a strength. It makes him a better watcher, gives him more inspiration to help her, and gets him off his butt as opposed to most watchers. There are those rare times, however, when this love would hurt him. Giles demonstrated in Prophecy Girl his inability to send Buffy to her certain death (in point of fact, she had to knock him out because he wouldn't let her go.) He was more concerned with her life than with saving the world, and I'm pretty sure Giles loves Buffy even more now than he did at the end of the first season, so it'd be even less likely he'd send Buffy to her certain death now. As I argued above, loving Buffy like I do, I'd hate to see her die, but I'd also hate to have the world end because she didn't do her "sacred duty, yaddah, yaddah" and save the world because Giles was afraid to let her. (Wow, so much of this theory depends upon me distancing my emotions from my reason. I don't like that one bit.)

And of course, Giles never learned from his mistakes, either. After Buffy choose to go to her certain (but fortunately temporary) death, Giles tried to get her not to face the undefeatable Judge, and he didn't want her anywhere near Acathla. Right. But lets leave that question aside for the moment. By your own figures, Giles love for Buffy gives him the advantage 99.9% of the time. But we should throw that aside for the sake of the .01 % of the time when it is not an advantage? Doesn't that mean that you increase the odds of Buffy being defeated 99.9% of the time? Do you really want to do that?

Some have argued that Giles sends Buffy to possible death almost every day. I agree, but with the caveat that there is a difference between possible death and certain death (and probable death.) Giles knows that Buffy can take care of herself on patrol: there's a chance she'll die, but it's an unlikely event in Giles's mind. However he did end up warning Buffy of the test.

Because he saw the test for what it was: an unnecessary, barbaric betrayal of trust. An anachronistic ritual that did NOTHING to make Buffy a better slayer at all and put her into totally needless danger.

I believe that he was going to warn her regardless, the escape of Zach just gave him a good rationalization. This is pure speculation, though. Anyway, the council is aware that a Watcher must, for the greater good, on occasion sacrifice their slayer, send their slayer to her death. The Watcher shouldn't do this lightly, but should be capable of recognizing when it is necessary and then be able to do it. Giles demonstrated to the Council in helpless (and to us in PG) that he is not capable of this. This is an offense for which he should be fired. Of course, since his love for Buffy is helpful 99.9% of the time, if I had been the Council, I would have encourage Giles to stick around and continue helping Buffy, as long as he (and she) accepted that ultimate authority rests with the new Watcher. But since Buffy and Giles will never recognize the authority of a new Watcher (even if he isn't a sniveling ninny like Wesley) then it might be best to reinstate Giles, but keep tabs on his progress. Otherwise, things might start falling apart the 99.9% of the time when Giles would have been a superb watcher. I suspect, though, that Giles will be reinstated before the season's out.

You do realize that you've just made my argument for me, right? The Watcher should not send the Slayer to certain death lightly, but should be capable of recognizing when it is necessary? And therefore, when it is unnecessary. Like for this golblamed ritual! And you also agree with me that it is foolish to trade the 99.9% advantage for the .01% advantage. Good. :-)

In sum, the Council's actions look horrific when one views them with an eye towards loving Buffy and Giles, i.e. when one is a fan of the series. I suspect this is what Joss wants: he is setting us up to hate the Council. But when viewed through dispassionate eyes, I don't think their actions are that awful: they are trying to protect the world and are willing to risk what they have to in order to achieve that goal.

Um, no. They are willing to risk the Slayer. That is all they seem willing to risk. When Giles was trying to contact them to find out how to save the world from the reopening of the Hellmouth, they wouldn't even risk accepting his phone calls. It was saved despite their incompetence, not because of their lofty, selfless ideals (which they don't have, in any case).

Lastly, I want to say that I do believe that the Council needs some changes. they need to update their training regimen, both of Slayers and Watchers. (Also note that they are moving in the right direction: Wesley mentioned that they emphasize field work more now and he has to face vamps in controlled settings. Of course, the Watchers should be taught that controlled settings are not like real settings, but this is still a step in the right direction.) The Council has to take into account the modern world and realize that it will be nigh impossible to keep the Slayer isolated anymore. But reform does not mean killing them all and starting over.

I don't want to kill them. Um, well, not too badly. I will admit that the temptation to lock them in the basement of the Sunset Club and inviting Spike, Trick and company to an All You Can Eat Moron Buffet is overwhelming at times. So is the idea of unloosing Faith on them with a crossbow and a sheaf full of quarrels. S*C*R*E*W the B*A*S*TA*R*D*S wants to remove EXCESS Watchers from the council, not from the living. That is, those who are too hidebound to learn anything new, too married...

[Jade's note: Margot's post was dingoed at this point, ending her theory.]


 

Reply by mudpuppy

...OK, let me first admit where I was wrong or where I overlooked things: first, I love your theory of how Faith would survive the test. I still think she'd die, but your theory is great and I hadn't considered it. Second, I had overlooked the fact that Spike had killed two slayers in the past. (I'm leery to really include Lothos because I haven't seen the third part of the comic yet, so I don't know what happens inthe canonical version of that story.) Now let me backtrack and rationalize why this doesn't destroy my theory. First, this increases our sample size to five. Still not that big. Second, Spike was willing to face Buffy until he realized she had friends, a mother, and Angel on her side. that's when he suddenly lost confidence in himself! That backs up my point that the Council can imagine that Buffy would be toast if she were on her own. (They're wrong, but it's not a bad assumption on their part.)

I may have been too hasty to not include my ideas on why the Council should have authority over the Slayers. The question of the extent of the Council's legitimate power seems to be at the heart of a number of our disagreements. My feeling is that the Watchers are called as well. (Or at least, the Watcher families are called.) The same mystical force that chooses Slayers, choose Watchers and endowed the Watchers with authority over the Slayers. (Of course, John Locke's First Treatise of Government would tear this argument to shreds, especially if only the families that Watchers were drawn from was chosen by the mystical force, but let's ignore that problem right now.) The Council can abuse their authority, but in my opinion their actual right to have authority is not to be questioned unless one wishes to question the mystical force. Again, though, this is pure speculation on my part. I don't feel that this force is perfect, though: bad Slayers may be called; bad Watchers may be called. Some bad Slayers may survive the test and some good Slayers may die, but on avergae I would imagine that good slayers survive much more often than bad ones do, based on Travers's comment. And again, the reason why we cannot just take the fact that they survived to 18 as proof that they're a good slayer is that they may have gotten lucky, evil may be in a lull for a couple of years, or maybe they had the assistance of a powerful, yet good, vampire. The test allows for control over a lot of factors.

To your point that the Slayers can improve: I agree completely. That's the why the test is administered when they turn 18, to give them training time. If the test were administered the day they were called, I would agree it was unfair. Lastly, as to the 99.9% issue, the ideal solution, in my mind, would be to have someone with authority over Buffy and Giles be there but to have Giles still around and active. Giles and Buffy are not objective enough for this and so a second- best solution is needed: Giles in charge of Buffy but with supervision (or help) of some sort.


Opinions

Darkling 15/1/00
Any organisation that has been around for hundreds of years, with little if any reform, is bound to be behind the times, and have way too many rules and regulations, paperwork etc, and will be full of people who think they know best.

At best the Watchers Coucil would be slightly conservative, but it seems more likely that it has listened to itself for far too long, and those who gain authority in the Council are probably those who are the most conservative, and so a circle develops whereby a conservative organisation encourages conservatism and so becomes even more conservative as a whole.

We must also take into account the fact that, in all likelihood, when the council was established women were not viewed in a very positive light. A woman with the powers of the slayer needed, in their minds, the guidance and benefit of a group of men. (Majority of watchers seem to be men).

Aleea 7/2/00
In relation to the whole hierachy/dubious selection process problem I think that this could be assisted by some kind of Judicial Review. This is because, even though the Watchers are chosen they really aren't answerable to any force, not even the mystical power which selects them. This would also possibly encourage an easier yet practical evolution in the whole "Protection of Humanity" system. Or at least keep the Watchers on their toes as they are happy to keep Slayers on theirs.

Not that the Test is bad thing, I think that it's merit is generally undervalued. Buffy would have be adequate to whatever situation she was faced with, because she is an evolved slayer, it gave her more confidence in her abilities when she's in THE most vulnerable position and it also illuminated Gilles' glaring impartiality which should be looked into, although I agree that his punishment was too harsh for the crime as he is - no-one but the Watchers disagree- a damn fine Watcher.


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Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel: The Series are the property of the WB Network or perhaps Fox, maybe both. I'll leave them to work it out and contact me with the result. This web site, its operators and any content on this site relating to "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" are not authorized by Fox. No copyright infringement intended. This site is for entertainment purposes only and does not profit in any way.

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