The Weekly Ascension
- Big Bad Series: The Master
by Jonathan Riggins -10.20.03
[ jriggins@blkswan.com ]

Why? Why on Earth do people continue to insist on battling over who the best of the big bads was? Oh, don’t pretend like you haven’t heard about these insane vocal arguments between fans of the craft. Everyone’s talking about it. From the coffee shop where I drink my half mug of a house blend every morning all the way to the drycleaners where I pay a buck seventy five just to sit around and chat up the Asian girls who walk in around midnight. I once even had a conversation with an employee at McDonalds who spoke just enough english to take my order and even he was talking about it in his free time.

So why are people conversing about it? I think one of the best answers is simply because each season of Buffy was greatly governed by the villains who were housed there. In other words, a great deal of the determining factor between one fan’s favorite season and another fan’s least-loved year is placed very heavily upon the shoulders of the villains who kept the plots during those episodes running.

I remember very vaguely the conversation I had with two fans of the show some four months back over which of the many seasons were the favorites between us all. A lot of the explanations I was given on which was better was driven heavily by who the villains of each year were. One of the two people kept referring back to Season Two, as they simply loved the Spike and Drusilla plot. Oh, yeah. And they liked Angelus too. They liked the idea of how these vampires were portrayed...the lovey-dovey gomez/morticia scenes between Spike and Dru...two people who had been together for over a hundred years and still acted like they were on their honey moon. Sure, that can be good entertainment. And after the person told me that had Drusilla and Spike been a big focus of Season Three they might have liked that season the best...I knew I had an idea for a topic.

Only recently though have I been able to find the time to write on this sketch. I mentioned a while back in an article that we’d have this sub-series on this topic. And guess what? Today marks the beginning of that series. So, without farther hesitation, I’ll go ahead and start off with the first of these villainous foes...The Master.

It’s a sad fact that The Master had very little potential...yet sold himself as larger-than-life in a world where he held such very little purpose. After all, when you really boil down to it, The Master did little more than create a stir when compared to his predecessors. But that doesn’t really matter, does it? After all, even though The Master may not have been Buffy’s worst fight ever...he still proved to do something that only one other Big Bad (still arguably two), managed to do. That’s right. You guessed it. He killed Buffy.

For that deed, and that deed alone, The Master deserves a bit of praise. His antics might not have been the strongest of the villains in his league, but it is also understandable why. For such a new show, the villain needed to be low-key yet high-maintenance. Therefore, we had ourselves a very basic set as far as villainous hideouts go...and a very complex characterization as far as short-lived parts go.

The idea of the first villain being anything but over-exagerated and overestimated would have been a bad idea. After all, if you’re seriously thinking about having more seasons than one...it’s best to have a villain you can top for the oncoming years. The Master proved to hold true to this virtue...and while he may not have been the hardest vamp to beat in the entire world, he still was the first of the big bads. And that’s gotta account for something.

But not only was the villain a prototype...for so also was his very home. The sunken church showed itself as a birthplace by which all future generations of super villains would take their claim into evolving from. As seasons progressed, the hideouts grew to become various locations...from an abandoned factory to a high-security government HQ to a highly-priced mansion. And after a while it became obvious that the atmosphere a big bad chose to inhabit was actually just as telling and revealing of the character who lived there as much as their personality, looks, and even deeds were concerned.

The Master’s personality, of course, became a keystone in determining how the show would portray its villainous foes. Even though arguably Darla and Luke had more of a stake in this predetermination of the enemies...it was still The Master’s playing field. So therefore, he gets credit. To present himself as a truly evil being...yet still maintain a goofy presence, The Master gave light to something that was so often missing in other television programs on various stations. That’s right...the vile and horrid Master was actually given human qualities. It is very easy to create over-exagerated monsters when writing scripts for television or films. We truly do enjoy the act of pointing the finger at something and labeling it as good or bad. It sells, after all. But such actions are actually quite sad when fully analyzed as they paint a black and white picture over a world full of grey and tinted shades.

What Joss did with his villains was somewhat comedic when you think about Hollywoodized bad guys. While his big bads truly seemed to be capable of winning inductions as haunted house exhibits...they still retained bits and pieces of themselves which seemed to showcase more sympathetic and emotional sides. Even The First in Season Seven began to show a side of itself that was overly emotional when confronted with the fact that it couldn’t touch people.

For The Master, though, we learned very quickly that his emotions were always somewhat suppressed and replaced with a very diplomatic air to him. He kept a great deal of his outbursts inside...and used his anger as a fueling engine toward simply being twisted in an intraverted sense...at least to the point that he would use humor as a means of driving nails into his victims bodies. For instance, if a minion screwed up something that The Master had ordered him to do...The Master would fair a much greater chance at simply making that minion feel as though it were no big deal...and then turn back around to kill that lower vampire brutally right afterward.

His tendencies created a cold character, sure. But not without at least exposing some portion of that inner demon within all of us. For how many of us have never dreamed of stuffing dynamite into our boss’s mouth at least once in our lives all the while maintaining a suave and witty personality? Such daydreams can be extremely relaxing to the mind, some experts point out. The Master was a classical villain in that sense for he employed a lot of the core elements of what being evil is all about.

The Master was also an older vampire. In fact, many of the big bads were older characters now that I think about it...but The Master was really the only one who ever showed this trait physically. His skin was very morphed into a vampiric state...a result of mutation caused by the very aging process of the vampire. Though this mutation hasn’t been fully analyzed by the show in regards to how or when it takes place, it is still brought up from time to time as a tool for reference. For instance, a vampire might develop hooved feet as time goes on.

It’s very interesting that the physical characteristics of the demons that changed over time were mostly centered around animalistic traits. The reason I bring this up is because I, myself, used to study demonology quite extensively and one of the key features I remember the most about awareness of demonic presences was the sound and sight of animalistic features. For instance, the sound of an animal breathing heavily or the slow clogging of hooved feet in a hallway...or a human aparition that appears to be scewed by animal parts along its body...both of these were considered to be evidence of demonic activity.

The Master had a plan, however, and that plan was very similar to the later villains who would grace the screen by the fact that he was simply attempting to reach a higher plain of existence. He did, of course, achieve this...and went on to walk the Earth once again before his untimely death. He worshipped a group of demons who were trapped in the Hellmouth known as “The Old Ones” ... and was on his way to set them free when confronted once again by the very girl he had killed. His own life in Sunnydale came to a halt soon afterward.

And sure, there would be those who attempted to resurrect him back from the dead. This attempt fell short of success, however (at least, unless you count video games as legitimate story arcs). And all that remains of The Master is a pile of dust, shattered from bone.

Regardless, it wouldn’t be the last time we saw The Master in action. After all, who could forget his bitpart in Season Three where he seemed to reign supreme in an alternate reality universe; a world where things seemed to go more toward his favor? And in that world as well he fulfilled his prophecy by a quick snap of the neck to Buffy Anne Summers.

While he may not have lasted very long series-wise, The Master still did have the trophy of killing Buffy before anyone else took a taste of her. And when we think about it, by killing Buffy...The Master altered the slayer’s state of mind. For from that point onward the slayer would be plagued by the nightmare that was life...forever an emotional rollercoaster who would keep her emotions bottled up inside and never again confide into a single living soul. Her spiral downward began with a single act. And that act was her death by the hands of The Master.

So perhaps The Master wasn’t such a let down after all. The well-hyped villain who stood within the ranks of the most powerful and most eldest vampires turned out to be a match indeed for the slayer. But one still must wonder how short a time frame he would have lasted had he met Buffy when she were much older and much more experienced to her trade. Perhaps then this famed vamp would have been nothing more than an episode-length villain. A sad truth...but fortunately also a truth that never shall come into being. For even though we only knew this vampire briefly, The Master still created the most powerful ongoing plot that had ever faced Buffy Summers...and that plot was, of course, the struggle that was life after death. Without him there, this plot would not have existed and this series might not have lasted as long as it had. So here’s kudos to Heinrich Joseph Nest. Well done, old bean. Well done.