You all know Buffy Summers:
A hero.
A noble warrior for the cause of good.
One who, with the aid of loyal Watcher Giles, trusty Xander and the increasingly powerful witch, Willow (and many, many others over the course of the years) has managed to keep Sunnydale safe from harm,
She defeated The Master, Angelus, Mr. Trick, The Mayor, Adam, and Glory, among many others, and turned Spike from a badass into a lapdog.
She killed countless vampires, demons and other baddies, with only occasional complaints about how much it was screwing her up.
And it’s all true.
Mostly . . .
Oh, vampires are evil. Glory, The Master, etc, all wanted to do assorted evil things to Sunnydale and environs, and Buffy Summers did have something to do with stopping them.
Just not what you think.
Oh, Cordelia, Oz, etc, are good and honorable people, despite their character flaws. As are Angel, Tara, and for that matter Wesley Wyndham-Price.
It’s the big four you can’t trust.
The key to successful propaganda is, don’t simply lie or you’ll be caught. Tell the truth, but have only a nodding acquaintance with The Whole Truth and Nothing But the Truth.
And that’s what Buffy Summers has done.
And she’s gotten away with it for five years.
But not any more.
The final straw came last May, when Buffy and her friends were in the middle of the final battle against Glory.
At some point I’m going to have to tell you about all the things wrong with the popular account. (For one, Buffy DIDN’T go catatonic. She panicked.) But this –
This one.
After all of her moralizing, all of her platitudes.
After Buffy broke Ben’s neck, she ran up to the top of the tower to see if her “sister” could be saved.
But Doc, Glory’s demonic follower, had already cut Dawn, and the portal opened.
And unfortunately for Buffy she couldn’t just cut and run, like her instincts screamed for her to do, because if the portal doesn’t get closed, the world – including her – goes poof.
And she threw Doc off the building, not even bothering to see if he survived or not. See, Doc was in her way; he was an inconvenience. And the thing Buffy Summers has always done with inconveniences is get them out of her way as fast as possible.
Collateral damage be damned.
After she untied Dawn, she and her quasi-sister spent a minute or so gazing into the abyss. Then she said, “Well. What the hell do we do now?”
“I guess I have to jump.”
And Buffy – who had figured out a long time ago the cute trick about “Summers Blood” being necessary to stop the portal, and had done her best to dig up her mother’s grave for samples – said, “Well. Listen to that. I love you, I’ll always love you, but if this what you gotta do, then go ahead and do it. It’s you or me, and I love my friends too much to take myself away from them now. They can’t take care of each other; they’re not strong. The hardest thing in the world is to live in it. At least your suffering will soon be over.” When Dawn, shocked, hesitated, Buffy added, “Jump! Do it for me!”
And when Dawn still hesitated, Buffy came forward . . .
And fell into the portal.
That’s right.
It wasn’t a sacrifice. She was bloody well willing to let her own sister die.
She TRIPPED.
So much for the unutterable nobility of Buffy Summers.
More to follow –
Part 2
Behold Willow Rosenberg.
A remarkable young woman, one might say, whose transformation from shy, quiet and nervous hacker to self-confident and powerful witch is nothing short of miraculous.
And certainly the outward shift in her personality has been amazing. To go from lacking social confidence, to possessing it in spades, is indeed a major change.
Which is not to say it was a change for the better, just that it was a change.
Allow me to retreat into definitions for a moment. Within the computer field, there are a couple of different meanings to the word, hacker.
One common one is simply “computer expert.”
Another, the original, is of someone who went out and tried to break into others’ computer systems for the thrill of it. If occasionally a few Kilroy-was-here level pranks were played, well, that was par for the course; money and power were never the objects. Not quite good, clean fun, but the next best thing.
The most recent, and most commonly known, is that of the person who likes to go around in computer networks and cause trouble. Money and power may not always be the objects, but they are a lot of the time. These are the people who break into the White House Web Site and leave messages from the Chief Executioner, George W. Bullsh**. Or similarly amusing puns. Or these hackers simply break into bank systems and have the money diverted.
Willow Rosenberg was the last of these, though she wasn’t in it for the money. One sin you can’t lay at the feet of any of the “big four” is the sin of being money-hungry.
Power-hungry is another matter. Willow Rosenberg thrilled in ordering three-star generals to secret meetings in whorehouses, reveled in changing headlines in the Boston Globe, and feasted on rearranging answers to the Sunnydale Police Department’s Sergeant’s Exam. (The REAL reason the Sunnydale PD was so incompetent – Willow’s tampering guaranteed that the fools got promoted.)
And of course she was shy in the real world. Yes, yes, I know there are computer hackers out there who are wonderfully wise and witty social butterflies, but quite a few are antisocial nerds.
But then she discovered the power she could get from magic. Guided by Rupert Giles, she went from a novice into a witch of substantial power with astonishing rapidity.
And she REVELLED in the power.
Nothing murderous; we are not, after all, discussing Dark Phoenix, and Willow Rosenberg is no Jean Grey.
But –
Just an example for now.
After her boyfriend, Oz, finally left town, Willow thought all of her friends were too selfish. Too concerned with their own problems.
So she intentionally cast a spell to make her wishes come true.
Read that correctly: Intentionally. She knew exactly what she was doing.
She then had Xander repeatedly attacked by demons, forced Buffy and Spike to fall in love with each other, and robbed Giles of his sight.
On purpose. It was not her clumsy bumbling.
Of course, not being stupid, they quickly figured out that something was wrong and tried several absurd ways to fix it.
But –
There were worse things.
Amy Madison, a witch in her own right, had been trapped in the form of a rat for over a year. Yes, through her own fault, but it was a forgivable mistake; she was trying to save her own life at the time.
She relied on Willow to figure out how to change her back.
Of course, Willow being, Willow, there was magic to learn, spells to cast, books to study, so she never quite got around to it.
And she LIKED the fact that the former witch was completely at her mercy.
So with the spell –
She changed Amy back to human.
And then back to a rat.
Repeatedly.
Willow was so pissed off, she was taking out her irritation on an innocent person.
Then, realizing that if she left Amy in human form NOW she’d be royally pissed off, Willow changed her back into a rat and threw her in the cage.
Then she was approached by D’Hoffryn. “You’ve shown quite a capacity for revenge,” the demon told her.
“Thanks,” Willow said.
“Ever considered becoming a vengeance demon?”
“What would I get out of it?”
“We have a great dental plan,” D’Hoffryn said.
“Hmmmm . . . No. I’d rather, you know, chart my own course. I’m kind of a free spirit about these things.”
D’Hoffryn nodded his head. “Alright then. It was worth asking. If you ever change your mind, just let us know.”
“I will,” Willow said. “But now, I kind of have to end the spell. I don’t want them dying, or anything.”
And Willow ended the spell, and when everyone had retreated back to Giles’ house, she came over with a plate of cookies.
To “make up” for the trouble her spell had caused.
Everyone got the real message, though:
Don’t ignore Willow. She gets mad when you do.
Well, everyone except Anya, but she makes Alicia Silverstone look like she has a clue.
More to follow –
Part 3
The Drive. The Shot ‘Heard Round the World. The Miracle on Ice. The Immaculate Reception
For those into sports, no other explanation is necessary. For those not, no explanation is sufficient.
There is one and only one such moment in the history of Buffy Summers, Vampire Slayer.
It is referred to as “The Lie.”
Presenting Alexander Lavelle Harris, the paradox who walks like a man.
There is much odd about Mr. Harris.
Alone among the big four, he has neither special training nor superhuman powers, and yet he continually throws himself in harm’s way.
Some call this heroism.
Others would call it stupidity.
Me, I wind up somewhere in the middle, leaning towards stupidity. There is much in Mr. Harris that is admirable. He cares greatly for his friends and would do almost anything to protect them. He has suffered through a horrible childhood and not emerged a Klebold, or anything even close. Mr. Harris channels his rage in the Hawkeye Pierce method: by making jokes, some of which are even humorous.
Beware when Xander Harris stops trying to be funny, for it is at those moments that he is the most truly dangerous.
And of course there are those moments when Mr. Harris has acted far, FAR from heroically. My favorite example of this is one that somehow slipped past the big four and made it into their propaganda: Out of a desire for revenge on Cordelia Chase – who had admittedly dumped him on Valentine’s Day, although the necklace he was presenting was far shabbier than we were led to believe – Mr. Harris blackmailed Amy Madison into casting a love spell on Miss Chase.
Not so they could be in love again, but so that he could dump her instead. This is one of the few tales that played out more or less as advertised.
And when the fates conspired so that Miss Chase believed that Mr. Harris had caused the spell because he loved her, he never bothered to inform her of the truth, instead stringing her along for another seven or eight months. By that time, her life was in a shambles it took her a long time to escape.
And yes, she ended up the better for her trials, and is certainly much better off now that she is no longer dating Mr. Harris. All of that is beside the point.
Now for “The Lie.”
As presented, it is either an act of courage and nobility on Mr. Harris’ part – a deliberate lie told to bolster Buffy Summers’ courage at a trying time in her life. To not mention the spell Willow Rosenberg was attempting to assay, to save Angel’s soul, was to make sure she would be able to follow through. That there would not be a doubt in her mind that killing Angelus was the right thing.
OR –
Or, it is an act of spite against Angel. His rival, whom Xander Harris always despised for being the one who “got there first.” It is done so that Buffy will definitely KILL Angel instead of possibly being able to save him.
As presented, it was equally open to either interpretation.
What actually happened was:
As an uninjured Willow Rosenberg tried to cast the spell – uninjured, note: They all bolted when the vampires hit, assuming Kendra would be able to take care of things –
Which, of course, she was tragically unable to do.
In any event, while Ms. Rosenberg, Miss Chase and Mr. Osborne attempted the spell, Mr. Harris intercepted Buffy Summers, on her way to the famed Crawford Street Mansion.
And he told her –
Nothing.
All he said was, “Hey, need some help?”
That was it. The rest of the encounter proceeded as shown. Xander Harris rescued Rupert Giles and took off, and Buffy Summers killed Angel and sent him to hell. (And then spent the next three months in Santa Monica “recuperating,” but that’s another story.) And Spike decked Drusilla and took off –
Except.
Except that, as Buffy Summers headed off towards the mansion, Xander Harris stood back and said to himself, “That ought to take care of the bastard.”
Ladies and gentleman, I give you the heroism and nobility of Xander Harris.
More to follow—
Part 4
Ah yes.
Good old Rupert Giles.
Also known as “Ripper” to those who knew him when.
You don’t get a nickname like that by sitting at home being a proper little boy.
Did you ever notice that you’ve never heard much about his formative years? Apart from that demon-raising in college which ultimately cost three people their lives?
There’s a reason for that:
It’s called “sealing of juvenile records.”
But of course the merry hijinks continued well into college. That’s the reason he ultimately became a Watcher, in fact.
Involuntarily.
What, you thought it was out of some noble pursuit of all that is good and pure?
Excuse me for a moment until I stop laughing.
Rupert Giles does have good qualities. He has a beartrap for a mind, a vast memory, and a ferocious loyalty to those he cares about.
It’s because when the British authorities finally tracked him down they offered him a choice: Use his skills as a Watcher, or spend the next ten years locked up with assorted thugs, hooligans, and terrorists.
It’s said that later in his life Giles said that had he known what he was getting into he would have taken his chances with the terrorists.
In any event, “The Big Four” would have you believe that Rupert Giles came to Sunnydale repressed and almost Vulcan-like, and that it was only through the auspices of the somewhat rebellious Buffy Summers and the free-spirited Jenny Calendar that he learned to express himself emotionally.
But, and trust me on this one, anyone with the teenage nickname of “Ripper” does not have trouble expressing himself emotionally.
A supreme case in point would be Buffy Summers’ eighteenth birthday.
The date of her “test” by the evil Watcher’s Council, who forced her loyal watcher to hypnotize and drug her so they could throw her into a building with a psychotic vampire, powerless, to see how she would handle the situation. Only something went wrong and Giles demonstrated how much he cared for Buffy by telling her the truth.
Following which Giles was fired by the interfering Council and replaced by the naïve, by-the-book prig, Wesley Wyndham-Price.
And practically every single word there is a lie.
For one, the test was not as described. The Watcher’s Council did not simply phone Rupert Giles out of the blue and demand that he perform the test. Instead, he’d known about it for a long time.
And so had Buffy.
Giles had given her ample warning about the upcoming test, but had never planned to force her to go along with it. Instead, he took the opportunity to rail against the “bastards on the Council” and used this test to rid himself of their influence once and for all.
“Besides, I’m getting damn sick and tired of them always trying to tell us what to do.” In point of fact, he was so little in touch with them that he’d never bothered informing them of either Buffy’s brief death or her three-month vacation in Santa Monica. One of the reasons they came was more basic than finding out whether Buffy had “the right stuff” – it was simply to find out what the hell she’d been up to.
Whether they had or not is a matter of definition.
Additionally, the “test” was not nearly as heinous as described, though it was no walk in the park. But Buffy Summers was not to be simply tossed into a locked house with a mad vampire, powerless, and devil take the hindmost. She was to be escorted to the house – NOT locked in – and Watcher’s Council guards were to be watching the exits, and were to take action if it appeared she was going to be killed. Failure would not have led to her death, simply to an intense training period in England.
But this would have meant Giles had failed; that this crew of humorless popinjays had somehow “won,” and that he had lost.
In any event, when Quentin Travers and his crew came to Sunnydale with the vampire, Giles chatted with them for a while. While he got information on the location of the test and generally distracted them, Buffy had the chance to slip into the testing location, deck a few Council Guards, kill the vampire psychopath, and slip out again. When word of this reached Travers, Giles made a few feeble protestations of innocence and then admitted the truth.
Besides, what were they going to do about it? With Willow Rosenberg and her magical hacking skills there to erase any records the British government had of any “agreement” concerning Rupert Giles, the most the Council could do was “fire” him and send in the ineffectual Wesley Wyndham-Price, who was either abused or ignored, depending on the Big Four’s mood.
All because Rupert Giles wanted free of the “harsh controls” imposed by the Watcher’s Council.
More to follow --
Part 5
A while back I specified five individuals who were more or less as presented, despite the propaganda. Those five were Angel, Tara McClay, Oz, Cordelia Chase and Wesley Wyndham-Price. To that list may also be added the names of Jenny Calendar and Joyce Summers.
Everyone else, though –
The two biggest examples would be Anya aka Anyanka, and Riley Finn.
Anya has been presented as naïve, a blunt-speaking babe in the woods – almost akin to those aliens from that stupid “Third Rock From the Sun—“ but one whose love for Xander Harris converted her to the side of the righteous.
Common sense alone should indicate how far off that was. The woman had been a vengeance demon for over a millennium, and she’d been getting scorned women to make wishes on her necklace for equally as long. In order to do that, you have to be able to blend into society – exactly the way she fooled Cordelia Chase into making HER wish. (Incidentally, miss Chase’s adventures in that alternate are 90% speculation, based largely on the existence of a Willow-vampire and their knowledge of exactly what wish was made. How in the hell would they know? They’d never been there.)
Admittedly, Anyanka had never had to carry on social interactions for more than a day or so, so the extended timeframe naturally brought some additional stress on her. But by and large, she melded right in to the role she’d created for herself.
So why this depiction of her as naïve and sarcastic?
Two words: Cordelia Chase. As Miss Chase had been forced to leave Sunnydale (through the computer treachery of one Willow Rosenberg, inventing some back taxes her parents had never paid), they needed someone to fit the role of the designated cabbagehead.
Anya fell into that role naturally. She’d survived for a millennium on her cunning and adaptability, not because she was the brightest bulb in the socket.
An excellent example of this occurred when an attack by a demon accidentally caused Xander Harris to split into two versions of himself. Despite what the propaganda shows, Anya had figured out that the suave and debonair Xander she encountered had something wrong with him.
She just liked him better this way.
With this version, she got all the looks, all the sex, all the humor, none of the klutziness or general incompetence. So when Anya ran across the goofy, clumsy, socially inept half, she did was any selfish, stupid ex-demon would have done: She hit him over the head and locked him in a closet.
Amazingly, he managed to escape and persuade Willow that something was wrong. But as soon as Anya had learned of the duplicate Xander’s flight, she’d made up some story about some fake Xander attacking her and how it must have been that evil demon who’d tried to kill Buffy in that junkyard. All of this nearly got Xander killed twice, once by Buffy, once by the demon, until Willow managed to set things to rights.
The thing is, the part about neither half being able to survive without the other still stood . . .
Only Anya had never bothered to ask.
As for Riley Finn, that cut-rate Captain America had his own problems. Of course, he wasn’t as apple-pie as he was made out to be. NO ONE is that clean-cut.
Oh, Riley Finn was a good soldier. Never questioned orders.
NEVER questioned orders, that is, unless prompted by his hormones.
When Oz returned to Sunnydale – and at some point I’m going to need to run over the circumstances of how he left, which as propagandized is phonier than OJ’s “I’m searching for the real killer –“ he found out that Willow had taken up with Tara.
Oz, understandably irritated, went wolf and tried his damnedest to separate Tara’s head from her shoulders. The Initiative popped up in the nick of time and carted the werewolf off for vivisection.
All the while Riley Finn, knowing this was Oz, knowing this was a friend of Buffy’s, stood by and let them torture him. Only when Buffy and her erstwhile commandos burst into the Initiative base and try to take Oz back did he switch sides, pretending to have been making plans for a breakout himself.
You will note, incidentally, that the Slayer and her friends were satisfied with springing their friend, never mind the other innocent creatures, demons, and sorcerers being held there.
And so Riley Finn turned against the Initiative, for the sake, essentially, of a nice piece of ass. Men have done worse things for worse motives, admittedly, but it still gives the lie to his pose of being a nice, decent guy.
More to follow --
Part 6
It’s been a while. Sorry about that.
And now for her.
She’s been stabbed in the back, she’s been misunderstood. (And it has to be said, her intentions were good.)
Yes, I know; Billy Joel wrote those lines, not I. But they seem appropriate when talking about the single most put-upon human being the Big Four ever encountered. She got screwed and screwed over, and when they released their propaganda –
Somehow, SHE became the villain.
I’m speaking, of course, of the much-maligned other Slayer, Faith.
Who, by all accounts, had a horrible childhood – and then, just when she thought she’d put all of it behind her, saw her Watcher die horribly, in front of her, at the hands of Kakistos. And when she ran to the one place she thought she’d be safe –
Well, the opening segment of Faith’s sojourn in Sunnydale is true, give or take a few odd details. When Buffy went to the motel to confront Faith it was less of an intervention and more of a reaming out, and Faith did most of the dirty work in taking down Kakistos herself. (If Buffy had known he’d been in the neighorhood, she might not have bothered dropping by.)
Despite this, Faith grew to trust the group.
It was only later, once she’d grown to know them, to TRULY know them for what they were, that she balked. Once she discovered that Buffy’d known Angel was alive and had been keeping him holed up in a mansion (and was using him repeatedly for sex); once Xander LIED to her about who Angel was, saying that of course he was evil, he had to be; once Xander had used HER for sex (and her mouthing off about the way to treat guys had been just that, mouthing off; she wasn’t a virgin but she was hardly the cold hard love ‘em and leave’ em as portrayed); and once Buffy had led her on a spree that eventually ended up with her being arrested –
Well, it would have been no surprise if she’d betrayed them.
But even then she didn’t. Because she’d seen them do good along the way. She’d helped them stop a cult from opening the hellmouth, and they’d killed vampires. So, no, she wasn’t going to go bad.
Until.
Until that night when they were tracking down Balthasar in that alley and Sunnydale’s Deputy Mayor leapt out at them. (And what he was doing in the alley, I still don’t know. Was he spying on the Slayers? Was he working for Balthasar? Was he selling the Mayor out to the Slayers? I haven’t the foggiest.)
And Buffy spun around and staked him.
That’s right: Buffy did. Not Faith. Faith was horrified.
And though briefly shaken, Buffy continued on her way.
A couple of days later, after Balthazar had been safely electrocuted and his cult of warrior vampires killed or dispersed, Faith screwed up her courage to go tell Giles what had happened.
Giles politely listened, then when Buffy came in said, “Faith just told me a most interesting story.”
“Really?” Buffy asked. “What about?”
“Murder.”
“Oh, right. That Finch guy. It was an accident, I swear.”
“I believe you. Unfortunately, Faith’s sense of ethics is demanding something be done about it.”
Buffy said, “We can’t let everything we’ve done go to hell because of a damn accident.”
“I know,” Giles sighed. “And we can’t take the risk that she’ll go to Wesley.”
“I’m not going to kill her,” Buffy said.
Giles sighed. “I know. But I may have another way . . .”
And so, of course, they framed her.
And finally, finally, once she broke free, she realized that they couldn’t be trusted. None of them.
So she decided to go alone and “hooked up” with the Mayor after killing Mr. Trick. Tried to play both sides against the middle. And wound up getting thrown off a roof and spending almost a year in a coma.
And when she woke up –
My.
First off, that story about the body switch? Not true. Except for the part about the Watcher’s Council hit squad.
And then, to LA and the protection of Angel.
And Angel would have protected her at that point. So would Cordelia, and Wesley Wyndham-Price. Why do you think they LEFT Sunnydale, anyway? They couldn’t stand to be around the big four anymore.
But that wasn’t enough for Buffy. She called the LAPD and made damn sure Faith was arrested for the murder of Allan Finch.
She’ll get out in ten years with good behavior.
What can I say? Nice girls finish last.
More to follow --
Part 7
It’s going to be a little short this time. Apologies, all; it can’t be helped.
In one of my earlier pieces I mentioned a “vacation” Buffy took, after that scene in the Crawford Street mansion with Spike and Drusilla and Angelus-become-Angel.
(Parenthetically, that part’s true. Angel did revert to Angelus; he did try to kill Buffy. More on the details later, though.)
The history as reported by the Big Four has it that Buffy Summers reluctantly stabbed Angel (nothing reluctant about it, I assure you) and then went off to sob quietly in Los Angeles for three months, trying to lose herself.
Poppycock.
To recover from her “emotional distress,” she went home, packed, and told Joyce Summers she’d be back whenever, and then took off for some quiet rest and relaxation in Santa Monica, where she basically laid on the beach for three months and worked on her tan.
Not that that’s a bad thing in and of itself. But everyone knew where she was; everyone knew when she’d be back. It just worked better for them as a “dramatic reconciliation” scene than as a “Hi what did you bring us” scene. Made her seem more vulnerable, and in the end, more human.
That hell-dimension in LA? Completely made up, though the Slayer did encounter the former Chantarelle during her stay in Santa Monica. The young woman had already adopted the name Anne.
For that matter, the details in the propaganda about the Slayer’s not-overly-triumphal return? Well, Joyce Summers brought a magical mask home, zombies invaded the Summers household, and Buffy and the Big Four DID stop them.
Everything else was false.
More to follow –
* * * * *
“Buffy?”
“Yes?” The Slayer said.
“Come in here and take a look at this.”
Buffy went into Willow’s room. The ex-witch had her laptop out and was sitting on her bed, apparently surfing the internet, and Buffy said, “What’s up? Got some hot spoilers for me?”
“No,” Willow said. “Look.” She turned the screen around so Buffy could get a look.
“The Secret History of Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” read the inscription at the top of the page.
“It’s updated every week or so,” Willow said. “Listen to this from the last one: ‘And then, of course, there’s the entire story of what happened with Jonathan Levinson that time he attempted suicide. Oddly, MOST of that piece of propaganda is true; lazy and self-interested as the Slayer and her friends tend to be they’re not quite at the level to stand idly by while someone commits mass murder. But then there’s what Buffy said to Jonathan once she discovered he was up in the Sunnydale clock tower to kill himself and not others. ‘You mean you wasted my time for THIS?’ Go ahead, kill yourself, I don’t care. I have better things to do. We all do.’ Is it any wonder Mr. Levinson decided to become one of the bad guys a few years later? With heroes like this, who needs villains? More to follow’—“
“What the –“ Buffy said, fists clenching. “What the HELL is that?”
“I have no idea,” Willow said. “I was checking the internet a couple weeks ago – to see if anyone decided to pull a Nuremberg Files and encourage people to come kill you. It’s something I do every couple of weeks. You’ve made a lot of enemies.”
“And this relates to this page how?” Buffy asked impatiently.
Sighing, Willow said, “Because I found this during my last search. It’s not quite an incitement to murder but it’s certainly something I think we’d want to know about.”
Buffy looked at the page and said, “Give me that,” then spent the next hour or so scanning the site. Other than the “Secret History” there wasn’t much else there – this was clearly a web page designed for maximum access, so there weren’t a lot of needless graphic bells and whistles.
“So who’s responsible?” Buffy asked when she was done.
Willow took the computer back. “I don’t know. It’s obviously someone who know us and knows their way around computers, but “View Info” and “View Source” haven’t done me any good yet. It’s going to require some actual hacking to figure it out.” Noting the look on Buffy’s face, she added, “So maybe I’d better get cracking.”
“Maybe you’d better,” Buffy said.
Part 8
I’ve mentioned in the past, I believe, that the secret to successful propaganda is to largely tell the truth. This has been the Big Four’s precise methodology when dealing with one of their perennial enemies.
This time I speak of Ethan Rayne.
And no, I’m not going to put forth any absurd notion that Ethan Rayne is secretly one of the good guys. You’d shut down your internet connection in disgust and run off to play the Sims if I suggested it, and justifiably so. Rayne is a sorcerer a chaos worshipper through and through.
This, however, does not mean he’s guilty of every sin laid at his feet.
So far Rayne has had four encounters with the Big Four and has come out on the losing end of every encounter. The first time, that Halloween a number of years back, Ethan Rayne indeed came to Sunnydale with the express intent of selling magically treated costumes that would turn their wearers into whatever they were dressed as. He wanted to screw up the life of his “old friend” Ripper, aka Rupert Giles.
He had no intent of TRULY putting lives in danger in the process, though a little collateral damage wouldn’t have bothered him any. Rayne is anarchic, not bloodthirsty. And once he was informed of the full extent of Sunnydale’s vampiric infestation, he went to the costume shop with the express intent of ending the spell, to give the town’s citizens a chance to run for the hills – or their bedrooms.
Of course, Giles came along and pounded the holy hell out of him afterwards, just for the exercise, even after he’d been informed that the spell had been cancelled. Apparently Giles had been restraining his natural proclivities for mayhem for far too long, and Rayne provided a convenient outlet, and one whom he could safely say he was beating up “for the good of all –“ as who would believe Ethan Rayne if he protested?
Willow Rosenberg was there along with him – and here’s where they made one of their errors. Willow indeed turned into a ghost as part of the spell. But, where Giles told Willow to leave, YOU CAN HEAR HER SLAM THE DOOR CLOSED.
Ghosts, of course, have no need for doorways; nor could they shut a door if they tried.
So much for the Halloween curse.
Ethan Rayne’s later machinations with Eyghon – a regrettable childhood prank – were because he was trying to SAVE Rupert Giles’ life, not end it. And that business with him cold-cocking the noble Slayer and transferring his tattoo onto her were pure invention – as was her reason for going over there in the first place. “Protecting” him, indeed. Now it was her turn to work over the hapless sorcerer.
And work him over she did. So much so that she and all the rest had completely forgotten about Eyghon’s possession of the doomed Jenny Calendar, until Angel happened by the scene – and you know the rest.
To cover their rear ends (and increase Rupert Giles’ chances of sleeping with the luscious Ms. Calendar later, of course), they pretended that why yes, of course, that had been the idea all along . . .
Ms. Calendar, being slightly smarter than that, figured out that something was up, but she wasn’t entirely sure what . . . she never slept with him, though. That sense of regret on his face when he found her lying in his bed with a broken neck was partly genuine; in his own way he cared for her . . . but a great part of it was simply that he’d never managed to get past second base.
In any event, Ethan Rayne: The storyline of the band candy is pretty much accurate, though of course Rayne had no way of knowing the candy was being used as a distraction while the Mayor sacrificed some children.
And of course, the poor bastard comes by a year or so later to commiserate with his old pal Ripper and gets himself thrown into a military prison. The Fyarl demon? Fiction, through and through. After the night of drinking ended – Giles’ idea, by the way – Ethan woke up and found himself in an Initiative prison.
Well might you wonder why you haven’t heard from him since.
More to follow --
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