crzy4fun

I agree. Completely emotion driven decisions all the time, probably would be bad.

But, what I was saying is that the characters reacted with their emotions sometimes. There were times when logic ruled. I mean look at Buffy killing Angel in Season 2. He was resouled, Buffy's love, and she killed him for the betterment of the world. That was purly logic driven.

I was just pointing out that you can't expect the characters to react with logic all the time. Their mistakes and emotions are what make them real to us. See end of previous post.

m&m fkan

I will never figure out why giving all the Chosen ones their slayer powers early could be considered a bad thing.

OH no!! Look at all the strong women there are! Now we're sure to win the fight!**shakes fist** darn you, Willow!!

they would have gotten their powers, one by one...when each slayer got killed. Would you have rather they got them that way? and all the potentials died?

They didn't "make" them. They were already chosen.

Claudia

Scythe

Not all of them would've been chosen. Think about how much Buffy wished she had been normal. Willow has just stolen a chance of a normal life from all of those girls.

AuntEverest

I never realized until now how uncomfortable this society is with the idea of many strong females. I guess we're really that much of a paternal society.


The new Slayers were destined to become Slayers anyway. Or die as Potentials. Even as Potentials, they were already slightly stronger and faster than the average human. They were never normal, thanks to the Shadowmen. Amanda's actions in "Potential" proved that.

Your comments seemed to hint to me that you have nothing wrong with the Shadowmen starting the Slayer line and arranging the "one Slayer at a time" system. Does this mean you have no problems with their actions, but you do with Buffy and Willow's? Is it because the Shadowmen are men and have a "natural right" to do what they had done?



I don't support eye for an eye. Willow should have killed Warren quickly and cleanly.


Willow should not have killed him AT ALL. Warren should have been taken care of by the police, since he shot Tara and Buffy.

m&m fkan

see, that's the thing....if they recieved the powers, it was because they were chosen. they would have been next in line.

It wasn't like a bunch of random girls got super strength.

Claudia

sum1

Yeah they weren't random, they were potentials. As in they had the potential to become slayers, not as in they were definitely going to become slayers. Only some potentials become slayers. It's been stated that the potentials that were made slayers by Willow's spell were hundreds or thousands in number. Do the math. Unless they were all to be slayers for only a really short time each (much shorter than usual for a slayer), there's no way they could all get to be slayers one after the other, not unless some were to become slayers when they were a few hundred years old or older.

AuntEverest

I'm willing to admit that I don't know for certain that all of the Potentials would have become Slayers. Are you willing to admit that NOT all of the Potentials would become Slayers?

And so what if they do become Slayers or not? It doesn't automatically mean that they will assume the duties of a Slayers. Some can make the choice NOT take part in Slayer duties. Buffy was never able to make that choice, because both Merrick and Giles had coerced her into assuming Slayer duties, despite her insistence that she wasn't interested.

The question is . . . were Buffy and the Scoobies willing to leave alone any Slayer who did not want to assume Slayer duties? Or did they use coercion, just as Merrick, Giles and other Watchers before them did?

Ragnarok

Exactly. The argument that "they were all going to become Slayers anyway" is nonsense. A few of them would have been chosen, but most of them would have lived out their lives as normal (or maybe slightly above average) women.

I have no problem with strong women. I do have a problem with JW deciding to contradict one of the central messages of the show in the last episode and trying to pass it off as "radical feminism".

For seven seasons, we were repeatedly reminded how unfair it was that Buffy had had the possibility of a normal life ripped away from her when she was drafted to become the Slayer. Nobody gave her a choice - one day the job was shoved into her lap and that was that. In case we missed the message, we got it beaten into our heads in Get It Done. Forcing a girl to become a demon fighter without her consent is wrong.

Fast forward to Chosen, and here's Buffy doing the exact same damned thing to every available girl on the planet. It was sickening. Sure, JW had her make a big speech about "making a choice". What choice? Did any of the potentials get the chance to say "no thanks, I'd rather not go fight Ubervamps in the Hellmouth"? If so, we certainly never saw it on screen. I'm sure many of them, Kennedy for example, would have said "bring on the juice!". But I'm not sure Rona would have jumped that way - the Rona I saw wanted no part of the Slayer gig and might well have gone for the "bus ticket out of town" option if it had been offered to her. Which it wasn't.

Let's try to be charitable, though. Let's assume all the girls in Sunnydale, who had seen Ubervamps and fought Bringers, who knew what The First might do to the world, sucked it up and decided to join the fight. Great! Those girls were in a position to see what being a Slayer was all about and make an informed choice. Buffy and Willow are in the clear - they've done nothing wrong, in fact they've done something very good. Cheers all around.

Except...what about all those other girls, all around the world? None of them had any idea what was done to them, by whom, or why. They weren't needed for the battle in the Hellmouth, none of them were or were going to be anywhere near Sunnydale. They certainly had no opportunity to decide whether or not they wanted to have their lives changed. Dawn and Willow's exchange at the end of Chosen (We have to find them!) implies that they were going to be drafted into the Slayer Army. Even if they weren't, the conferring of Slayer powers makes these girls freaks in their own societies. Some might be fine with that, but you can't say that doing that to them without ever asking their opinion in the matter isn't a violation.

I think even JW eventually figured out that he'd screwed up with that spell. Witness Dana, the superpowered psycho murderess in Damage. Yay Buffy and Willow, I'm sure her victims were thrilled by the Girl Power. And note that when Angel proposed the Big Battle to his fellow FGers in Power Play, he was meticulous in spelling out that they were probably doomed and he couldn't order them to do it. It's nice that JW finally figured out what the word choice means. It's too bad he had to ruin the BtVS series finale first.

m&m fkan

They were in line to become slayers. If one slayer died, the next in line got the power.
The only reason some potentials don't become slayers is that the one before them outlives them.

they never said how many other girls got the power anyway. You do the math.

Claudia

Ragnarok

He did do the math. While no number was given, it was clearly implied that there were hundreds, at least. If every Slayer survives at least 2 months, that's 6 new Slayers a year. Since there's apparently an age window (about 15-21) for being called (Kennedy, at apparently 21, thought it might be too late for her), a "bad case" scenario has fewer than 50 of those hundreds actually losing the lottery and becoming Slayers. The rest get to live out their lives normally.

AuntEverest

I think even JW eventually figured out that he'd screwed up with that spell. Witness Dana, the superpowered psycho murderess in Damage. Yay Buffy and Willow, I'm sure her victims were thrilled by the Girl Power. And note that when Angel proposed the Big Battle to his fellow FGers in Power Play, he was meticulous in spelling out that they were probably doomed and he couldn't order them to do it. It's nice that JW finally figured out what the word choice means. It's too bad he had to ruin the BtVS series finale first.


How do you know that JW "eventually figured out that he'd screwed up with that spell"? How do you if that is exactly how he felt? What if he knew that the spell wouldn't be perfect? The Shadowmen's spell didn't turn out to be so perfect . . . as Faith becoming a rogue Slayer would attest. How do you know that Faith wasn't the first rogue Slayer?

All of the Slayers have been victims since the moment they were born, when they became Potentials - thanks to the Shadowmen's magic.

Is this really about Buffy and Willow changing the Slayer line? Or is this about many young girls with powerful strength? And how do you know that all of them had assumed Slayer duties? How do you know that Dana would have NEVER become a Slayer, if Willow had not cast her spell? What if Faith had died in the near future . . . and Dana became THE Slayer?


Here is an interesting article on Willow called "A Broken Yellow Crayon":

http://www.zachsmind.com/Buffy/002BuffyCrayon.html

m&m fkan

Ok, regardless...Willow did what she had to do to save the WORLD.

I don't remember anyone implying that there were that many slayers.

They still get to live their lives normally, they are just stronger.




Claudia

Ragnarok

Willow did what Buffy told her to do. And the girls who weren't in Sunnydale had nothing whatsoever to do with saving the world.

If you believe your last sentence, you might want to rethink that. Few societies are kind to those who are "different". JW writes X-Men, he of all people should understand that. Those girls might be stronger, but they won't have normal lives whether they join the Slayer Corps or not.

And that would be fine, if they had been given the chance to decide that that was what they wanted. They weren't. If the Shadow Men had performed that spell, everyone here would be howling about how terrible it was. Because it was Buffy and Willow, people want to rationalize it so it's okay. I won't do that. Rape is rape no matter who commits it.

m&m fkan

The point is, these girls don't exist.

I am not going to argue anymore.

Claudia

sum1

In ATS season 5, in Damage, it was said that there were hundreds or thousands of them.