Buffy s2e1 (When she was bad)

It's one of those perennial questions that's brought up every time postings turn to vampire metaphysiology: why weren't the Master's bones dusted with the rest of him? While we can all agree that the real-life reason might have had something to do with wanting a suitable closing shot for the first season and a plot for the beginning of the second, within the Buffyverse this phenomenon has never been adequately explained and stands as a rather glaring anomaly.

The traditional explanation has always been the Master's age, that, for some reason when vampires grow suitably antediluvian their skeletons will survive but that was thrown into doubt when Kakistos arrived and graced us with a full disassembly. Now, you could continue to argue that the Master was older than Kakistos and that vampires have to be _ even _ older than that before they leave bones behind but it seems less likely. Kakistos seemed to be just as old as the Master (if not more so) and so why should a few years (or even decades) make a difference at that level?

Leaving that theory aside we are left with the conclusion that the Master was different from other vampires in more than just his age. So what else? Well, throughout the entire first season the Master is trapped in that bubble in the Hellmouth, exposed to god knows what, perhaps the constant exposure to the magics of the Hellmouth somehow settled into his bones, mystically calcifying them or whatever, much as radiation 'sinks' into human bones. Again there's a problem. The texts Giles finds on reviving a vampire were in Latin (which means they could be anything from late BC up to the modern age) however he says they were translated from the Sumerian which pretty much takes us all the way back to the dawn of civilisation. If the Sumerians were writing about rituals that required vampire bones then it is unlikely that the Master was a one-off fluke. Other vampires must have left skeletons behind (though the successful resurrection of Darla shows that the bones are not required).

Also the Anointed One, Absalom and the other minions knew that the Master had left bones behind (unless they'd seen the Scooby Gang burying them) and also knew of the revivification ritual which means that the Master probably knew he was going to leave bones and instructed this followers as to what to do if he was ever killed. This makes it improbable that it is just the case that it is up to chance whether a vampire leaves bones or not. If he knew that he would leave a skeleton then (unless he just 'knew', could feel it in his… well… bones) either it's the case that every vampire of his period had a skeleton (which is doubted by Kakistos) or there was something innate about him and others like him or that, by some means, he gave himself a skeleton.

Given that the use of the skeleton is essentially to give the vampire a second lease on unlife I feel it most likely (though by no means the only option) that a skeleton is an attribute which powerful vampiric sorcerers (such as the Master) cultivate, perhaps even magically imbue themselves with, deliberately; while vampires whose temperament is to the physical, such as Kakistos, never fill more than a single vacuum bag.


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