Question Best Big Bad Master Plan?

[Buffyverse Fan]

Which Big Bad had the most logical "master plan"?

Which Big Bad was most likable?

Which Big Bad was most despicable?


Here are the options (let me know if I missed anything):

The Master - to turn Sunnydale into a vampire-run town, and eventually resurrect an Old One

Angelus - to suck humanity into a hell dimension

The Mayor - to become an Old One, and rule Sunnydale as such

Adam & Professor Walsh - to breed human/demon/cyborgs to presumably take over America, away from the government and demonic cabals

Glory - to temporarily merge multiple dimensions into Earth in order to go home

The Trio - to take over Sunnydale

Dark Willow - to destroy the world

The First - to release an army of ubervamps to destroy the world, and tip the scales of evil enough to regain a corporeal form

Twilight/Whistler - to destroy the Earth, and replace it with a better world with the best billion humans

Siphon - to undo Buffy's destruction of the Seed of Wonder, and save his girlfriend

Jasmine - to usher in world peace by destroying free will

 

[Robb Stark]

In terms of which plan had the best chances of success, probably a toss-up between The Master and Angelus. Both of them completely out-smarted Buffy the whole way and only screwed up the end game because of mistakes they made, not intelligence from Buffy. The Master in particular actually did a pretty good job. Unlike just about every other television big bad his plan wasn't stupidly convoluted and complex (see: First, The). He had some fairly straightforward moves that come mighty close to working.

Angelus was completely inside Buffy's head the entire time and really, could have ended her anytime he wanted. However, he let his emotions cloud his judgement, and he paid for it. He doesn't do that and Angelus easily ends the world.

I suppose an honorable mention should go to Wolfram & Hart. They were incredibly smart about their long-term plans and rarely allowed their anger and annoyance at Angel (holy alliteration Batman!) to get in the way of their operations.

Most of the other big bads didn't have great plans. The Mayor, Adam, Glory, Dark Willow, Caleb, The First, Jasmine and The Beast were all formidable warriors and antagonists in their own rights, but when you give it some thought they didn't have the best plans. I mean, they were huge threats to the heroes, sure, but they all had major flaws in the design. All Buffy had to do was blow The Mayor up. Adam was easily outsmarted. Glory only had a chance of succeeding because the Scoobies weren't willing to sacrifice Dawn. Dark Willow was operating on a whim. If Buffy had a brain Caleb wouldn't have been hard to take down at all. Like, not even remotely. His whole scheme was to sit in a house and wait for Buffy to come at him. Not the brightest. The First's plan didn't even make the remotest bit of sense. The value of the ubervamps in a take-over-the-world scenario really isn't that great. Jasmine was out-witted through a huge flaw and Angelus figured out how to stop The Beast in about two minutes.

 

[EffieT1]

I would love to give dark willow the win for all 3 because to me she was the most likeable in a love to hate kind of way ( sorry angelus fans I just could never get on that train) and also the most despicable in that it was willow doing all these horrible things and Athough I think her master plan was the most deadly, in terms of most logical plan I ll have to give that to the mayor just because he really planned it out every step of the way and thwarted the scooboies till graduation when they basically just blew him up

 

[Wesley Pryce]

Id say Sajauhn and Holtz