Chosen: Empowering the Potentials & Female Empowerment?

[danajsparks]

And having a drug forced on you is also quite different from being given slayer strength.

🙂

Are they really so different? The best real-world analogy I can think of for getting slayer strength is taking steroids or some other kind of performance enhancement drug.

 

[Buffy Summers]

Well, I'm just saying if you're going to discount another person's analogy, then your's doesn't work either. Just sayin' 🙂

 

[danajsparks]

I feel like the education analogy doesn't work as well because, unlike sitting in a classroom, the slayer activation spell directly affects a person's body - like a drug, or surgery, or an infection, or a tattoo.

Moreover, the reason that children aren't given a choice about their education is for the same reason that they aren't given much of a choice about anything in their lives; they're children.

Children are usually considered unable to either give or withhold consent. Their parents or guardians must do so on their behalf.

 

[Buffy Summers]

I didn't mean to argue the school thing, it was a just a comment. Nevermind.

 

[RomanticSoul]

I'm going to ignore the comics and focus only on the tv shows.

I wonder what message S7 was supposed to give us really. It's rape only when black men do it to women but not when white women do it to other women? I would have less of a problem with the whole thing if they had done at least 3 of the following things.

1) Didn't have Giles say all Season that these are the ONLY potentials left in the world. Then it would be ok because Buffy gave those a choice. Then Joss decides to negate the whole Season plot for one of his 'cool' moments again and we suddenly have thousands around the whole world who didn't consent.

2) Don't make it a rape metaphor to begin with earlier in the Season by showing the shadowmen have demon mist crawling under Buffy's skirt. You can't get more literal for a rape metaphor. Now I know that's not exactly what Buffy/Willow did but why else show us that?

3) Have the Scoobies talk about possible negative repercussions to non-Sunnydale potentials. I know this couldn't have been done because Joss would have lost the element of surprise for his *cool* moment montage but considering what happend I needed some aknowledgment.

The best case of a person who should never have been activated is Dana. I don't care how many people the other slayers go on to save. It's no comfort to the people that Dana ended up killing and I'm sure it's no comfort to their loved ones either.

What about the girl/woman in the montage that was clearly about to be hit by someone (abusive father/husband or whatever)? So she now gets a confidence boost and can stop the hit. What's to say that this boost doesn't also make her think...finally I can hit back. She does so and not knowing her own strenght ends up killing the guy. That slayer won't be of any use any time soon having to deal with murdering someone.

Baseball girl could very well hit the baseball over the fence into the parking lot and break someones skull with that ball (I know that is reaching but these are possibilities).

What about the fact that supernatural menaces seek out/can sense slayers? While they now have strenght they don't have training or knowledge when called. They'd probably be dead very quickly. Maybe hours after being activated.

Or for a very mundane example (and this is me really reaching). What if one of those 1.8k potentials planned to go into sciences or research later in life and discovered the cure for a deadly disease like cancer (whom probably more people die from every year than demons)? Because whether it's those activated who chose to fight (that definitely won't have normal jobs/careers) or those who don't fight (but will be affected anyway because again supernatural forces seek out slayers)...neither section will end up to take the path in life they wanted.

So for me it's not just an issue of 'no consent' it's also an issue of the consequences for each individual potential. I also have the same issue with the original concept of 'one girl in all the world' who didn't give consent either.

 

[The Bronze]

If I was looking for a rape metaphor in Season 7 then I'd be looking over the other side of the trenches.

From The First Evil: "Look, when this is all over, and our armies spring forth, and our will sweeps the world, I will be able to enter every man, woman, and child on this Earth, just as I enter you."

There you have it. The enemy wishes to violate every man, woman and child. That is what the fight is against.

I'm going to ignore the comics and focus only on the tv shows.

I wonder what message S7 was supposed to give us really. It's rape only when black men do it to women but not when white women do it to other women? I would have less of a problem with the whole thing if they had done at least 3 of the following things.

The message is that you can over come overwhelming odds to save humanity if you're brave and creative. No where does it say white women are allowed to rape other women.

1) Didn't have Giles say all Season that these are the ONLY potentials left in the world. Then it would be ok because Buffy gave those a choice. Then Joss decides to negate the whole Season plot for one of his 'cool' moments again and we suddenly have thousands around the whole world who didn't consent.

I don't remember Giles saying the girls in the house were the only potentials left. I could be forgetting of course, is there a quote available? I remember the end of Chosen Giles saying they had lots of work to do and Willow talking about lots of new slayers.

2) Don't make it a rape metaphor to begin with earlier in the Season by showing the shadowmen have demon mist crawling under Buffy's skirt. You can't get more literal for a rape metaphor. Now I know that's not exactly what Buffy/Willow did but why else show us that?

This was shown so that we know what the shadowmen were like and why their rules don't have to be obeyed. You're right that what Buffy and Willow did was nothing like this. Buffy and Faith know what it is like to be activated and know that it is entirely different to what happened to Sineya.

3) Have the Scoobies talk about possible negative repercussions to non-Sunnydale potentials. I know this couldn't have been done because Joss would have lost the element of surprise for his *cool* moment montage but considering what happend I needed some aknowledgment.

There was a whole group discussion. You don't get to hear the details but in a room full of people like that most of the good and bad would have been discussed.

The best case of a person who should never have been activated is Dana. I don't care how many people the other slayers go on to save. It's no comfort to the people that Dana ended up killing and I'm sure it's no comfort to their loved ones either.

It was a real shame that Dana was activated and of course the people killed and their loved ones won't find much comfort. They also wouldn't have found much comfort being slaughtered by The First's army or violated by The First afterwards if they survived.

What about the girl/woman in the montage that was clearly about to be hit by someone (abusive father/husband or whatever)? So she now gets a confidence boost and can stop the hit. What's to say that this boost doesn't also make her think...finally I can hit back. She does so and not knowing her own strenght ends up killing the guy. That slayer won't be of any use any time soon having to deal with murdering someone.

What if that guy beat her, raped her and killed her? Is that any better?

Baseball girl could very well hit the baseball over the fence into the parking lot and break someones skull with that ball (I know that is reaching but these are possibilities).

Or taken a passing plane out of the sky I suppose.

What about the fact that supernatural menaces seek out/can sense slayers? While they now have strenght they don't have training or knowledge when called. They'd probably be dead very quickly. Maybe hours after being activated.

Supernatural forces were hunting the potentials. The bringers were stabbing them all season. Humans also fall victim to demons. See Buffy saving them constantly for seven years.

Or for a very mundane example (and this is me really reaching). What if one of those 1.8k potentials planned to go into sciences or research later in life and discovered the cure for a deadly disease like cancer (whom probably more people die from every year than demons)? Because whether it's those activated who chose to fight (that definitely won't have normal jobs/careers) or those who don't fight (but will be affected anyway because again supernatural forces seek out slayers)...neither section will end up to take the path in life they wanted.

Yes you are reaching 🙂. We're shown slayers working in private security for huge salaries in the comics. There's nothing stopping them from pursuing other careers. Unlike the one and only slayers of the past. The First also had a smashing cure for cancer, it was just going to kill everyone.

So for me it's not just an issue of 'no consent' it's also an issue of the consequences for each individual potential. I also have the same issue with the original concept of 'one girl in all the world' who didn't give consent either.

There were some unfortunate consequences but the world isn't perfect and they don't compare to consequences of The First not being defeated.

 

[Robb Stark]

@The Bronze,

It was a real shame that Dana was activated and of course the people killed and their loved ones won't find much comfort. They also wouldn't have found much comfort being slaughtered by The First's army or violated by The First afterwards if they survived.

This gets thrown around all the time as a wipe of any culpability Buffy and Willow should bear for Dana, but it ignores the fact that "Chosen" was a horrible plan. They win, essentially, because of blind luck. They enter that cave having no clue what Spike's amulet would do, and were overwhelmed within minutes of entering the Hellmouth, Slayer spell and all. Without that maybe Buffy and company actually think before storming in with no idea of what the hell they were there to do.

It's a little rich, to me, to say that everything with Dana is all good because Buffy saved the world when the activation spell had little to do with it, Spike was the actual one to save the world and he did so through a W&H artifact no one had any knowledge of beyond "it's power".

 

[The Bronze]

This gets thrown around all the time as a wipe of any culpability Buffy and Willow should bear for Dana, but it ignores the fact that "Chosen" was a horrible plan. They win, essentially, because of blind luck. They enter that cave having no clue what Spike's amulet would do, and were overwhelmed within minutes of entering the Hellmouth, Slayer spell and all. Without that maybe Buffy and company actually think before storming in with no idea of what the hell they were there to do.

It's a little rich, to me, to say that everything with Dana is all good because Buffy saved the world when the activation spell had little to do with it, Spike was the actual one to save the world and he did so through a W&H artifact no one had any knowledge of beyond "it's power".

They entered the cave with all the strength they had and an element of surprise. It was a better plan than crossing their fingers and hoping someone else would do something.

They as a *team* saved the world. No one knows exactly what triggered the amulet or how things would have played out without the activation spell. The group in Sunnydale devised the plan and they executed it. They saved the world. It might have been possible to save it another way but there didn't seem to be a queue forming of people with good ideas and the courage to put them into action.

Obviously what happened to Dana is a bad thing. I bet Willow, Buffy and probably the whole team feel bad about it. That doesn't mean they did the wrong thing though or should be beating themselves up about it.

I think it's quite unfair to expect these people to save the world perfectly. Sometimes there's no fairy tale ending and a big decision has to be made. Defeat by The First would almost certainly have been worse for everybody.

 

[danajsparks]

Potentials had presumably been around for thousands of years, yet I get the impression that it wasn't until S7 that somebody began targeting and killing them. It sounds like it was a new problem.

Was turning them all into slayers the best solution to this new problem?

(In the real world, there are plenty of examples of how giving a targeted group the means to fight back can have unexpected repercussions. See Afghanistan.)

 

[Robb Stark]

They entered the cave with all the strength they had and an element of surprise. It was a better plan than crossing their fingers and hoping someone else would do something.

They as a *team* saved the world. No one knows exactly what triggered the amulet or how things would have played out without the activation spell. The group in Sunnydale devised the plan and they executed it. They saved the world. It might have been possible to save it another way but there didn't seem to be a queue forming of people with good ideas and the courage to put them into action.

Obviously what happened to Dana is a bad thing. I bet Willow, Buffy and probably the whole team feel bad about it. That doesn't mean they did the wrong thing though or should be beating themselves up about it.

I think it's quite unfair to expect these people to save the world perfectly. Sometimes there's no fairy tale ending and a big decision has to be made. Defeat by The First would almost certainly have been worse for everybody.

But there was no plan. Seriously, what was it? They walked into the cave with 15 odd Slayers and Spike against thousands of Turok-Han. What plan is that? Buffy turns down Angel's help and whatever it would have brought. She doesn't try to make Riley and the government aware of the situation. They would have been slaughtered had the amulet not picked that moment to act up. Yes, they won, but it was through stupid, blind luck, not any sort of discernible tactical skill (if I'm wrong please, by all means, enlighten me as to how they defeated The First through skillful planning. Tell me what the objective was other than "whack away until something happens"). Buffy is not some strategic genius who had to make a hard call. She acted rashly, got lucky that Spike was wearing the amulet at the right time (that episode could have gone the exact same way without Buffy even being in it, other than maybe motivation I guess) and didn't utilize anywhere close to the resources she had to do so.

Buffy knew how many Turok-Han they were facing, and just rushed in. What was the goal? What was actionable about reaching that goal? The entire season reinforces over and over how Buffy is leading an army. If so, then she should be held accountable for the tactical and strategic calls she makes. It's even worse in S8.

As such, they don't deserve to have the fact that Dana murdered several people wiped because of those actions, especially when the activation spell did nothing to defeat The First. The amulet did, which they had no clue about.

I like "Chosen" on an emotional level. It's fun, the music is awesome and it produces some truly amazing character moments (especially with Buffy, Angel and Spike), but it's not exactly a model of brilliant planning.

 

[The Bronze]

The plan was to strike first while the enemy is unprepared and do as much damage as possible. They had the high ground, the element of surprise, new slayers & the amulet. They also left the world with a slightly better chance if they failed by activating more slayers. I'll give you that it's a simple plan and could have failed but at least they did something. Taking that amount of firepower into an unprepared enemy always gave them the chance to do a lot of damage, which they did.

Riley and the government were doing everything they were going to do. They are fully aware of the situation in Sunnydale. The whole town didn't sneak out without anyone noticing.

Angel and his team might have been some use but the idea of another back up plan along with the new slayers has some merit as well.

 

[RomanticSoul]

The message is that you can over come overwhelming odds to save humanity if you're brave and creative. No where does it say white women are allowed to rape other women.

I thought the message was that even the stupidest plan can succeed through blind dumb luck. Guess we all take something different away from the ending.

I don't remember Giles saying the girls in the house were the only potentials left. I could be forgetting of course, is there a quote available? I remember the end of Chosen Giles saying they had lots of work to do and Willow talking about lots of new slayers.

I distinctly remember Giles basically saying that most potentials in the world were killed off and the few he brought with him were all that's left.

This was shown so that we know what the shadowmen were like and why their rules don't have to be obeyed. You're right that what Buffy and Willow did was nothing like this. Buffy and Faith know what it is like to be activated and know that it is entirely different to what happened to Sineya.

Except that the visual is clearly a rape metaphor. They could have done a hundred different visuals than that. Now Buffy/Willow didn't do it like that since the potentials were already changed. But there is a world of difference between being a potential and being a slayer. You can go through your life with a dormant demon inside you. However the activation changes a person's body by waking that demon and it brings physical and often also mental/emotional changes with it. And that's where the rape metaphor kicks in again.

There was a whole group discussion. You don't get to hear the details but in a room full of people like that most of the good and bad would have been discussed.

Except that we weren't shown. Joss decided it wasn't important for some reason. But I guess there was enough online discussion about it since he then devoted an entire episode of Angel to the consequences. That's too late for me. And the episode itself clearly didn't present the mass activation as anything positive (via Dana's case).

It was a real shame that Dana was activated and of course the people killed and their loved ones won't find much comfort. They also wouldn't have found much comfort being slaughtered by The First's army or violated by The First afterwards if they survived.

Whether Dana gets ruined through the activation done by Buffy/Willow or the First and it's army being set free by Buffy doesn't make much difference to me. She's responsible in both cases.

What if that guy beat her, raped her and killed her? Is that any better?

Two wrongs don't make a right last I checked.

Supernatural forces were hunting the potentials. The bringers were stabbing them all season. Humans also fall victim to demons. See Buffy saving them constantly for seven years.

As far as I knew up until the finale all non-Sunnydale potentials were safe. Because again those supposedly didn't exist until Joss changed his mind. And yes people fall victim to demons. That's not the point. It's been shown also over seven years that supernatural forces seek out slayers for whatever reason. Radom demon attacks aside those potentials were safer as potentials.

Yes you are reaching 🙂. We're shown slayers working in private security for huge salaries in the comics. There's nothing stopping them from pursuing other careers. Unlike the one and only slayers of the past. The First also had a smashing cure for cancer, it was just going to kill everyone.

I've said before I ignored the comics when I made my points. But private security sounds to me like a slayer specific career (utilizing their slayer powers). Far cry from jobs/careers they might have persued otherwise.

But please stop using the First as an excuse or justification. The First had NO chance at succeeding until Buffy made it possible with her moronic plan. Her plan would have unleashed the First and it's army on the world. The world and Buffy & Co. were saved by W&H. And the activation spell made no difference whatsoever on the outcome.

 

[danajsparks]

The First had NO chance at succeeding until Buffy made it possible with her moronic plan. Her plan would have unleashed the First and it's army on the world.

I pretty much agree with your above comments, but could you explain this part? I thought it was only a matter of time before the hellmouth was opened and the army unleashed.... I guess they could gone with the strategy of doing everything possible to keep the hellmouth closed?

 

[Robb Stark]

The plan was to strike first while the enemy is unprepared and do as much damage as possible. They had the high ground, the element of surprise, new slayers & the amulet. They also left the world with a slightly better chance if they failed by activating more slayers. I'll give you that it's a simple plan and could have failed but at least they did something. Taking that amount of firepower into an unprepared enemy always gave them the chance to do a lot of damage, which they did.

Riley and the government were doing everything they were going to do. They are fully aware of the situation in Sunnydale. The whole town didn't sneak out without anyone noticing.

Angel and his team might have been some use but the idea of another back up plan along with the new slayers has some merit as well.

Having the high ground and the element of surprise are virtually meaningless when you're outnumbered literally thousands to one. Yes, they did something, but it's not like what they went with was the only recourse. What were they hoping to do? Kill all the Turok-Han? That happened, but Buffy had no idea what the amulet even did. She can't be credited for the success when for all she knew it could have done nothing. Sure, she has courage and they were all obviously brave, but her plan was a dumb one. My point is that it, and the activation spell (which played zero part in the victory), can't be fairly used as justification for Dana's actions when it was so deeply flawed. If Buffy had thought those were the only remaining Potentials (which I suppose is possible) and she wanted to gear her crew up as much as possible then sure, that mitigates things a bit, but we aren't even given that information. It makes no sense.

And I have a very hard time buying the American government just permitting thousands and thousands of super-vamps to roam free across California. That makes zero sense whatsoever.

 

[thetopher]

Right, so now we've moved on to the 'it was morally wrong because it wasn't even nessesary' argument, which seems strange to me.

First off, when Buffy devised her plan (which admittedly was shakey- she relied pretty much on the element of surprise and being the aggressor against the First's army before it could be ready/organised) nobody knew what the amulet could do- Not Angel, not Willow , not anybody, so unless somebody could see the future then then didn't know that Spike was gonna destroy the Hellmouth with it.

Plus, its not like Spike destroyed the Hellmouth right away- it took ages (I'm gonna say 20 minutes to half an hour of fighting- given how cinema tends to 'squash' time for drama's sake) to activate itself.
And what exactly activated the amulet anyway? Being in the Hellmouth? Spike's soul, Spike fighting for his very life in Hell? Lots of slayers around? Lindsey? W&H- we're never told. Really, it could be any of these things. or a combination)
I don't see a 'just send Spike down into the Hellmouth alone' plan even working- in fact its even riskier and stupider than the plan we see on screen.

The Buffy, Faith and Potentials turned Slayers bought time for the amulet to work, plus if say, Buffy had fallen and that second front of Angel's was needed- he at least has some chance of building an army of slayers to stop the First's overwhelming numbers.
Angel, plus remenants of Watcher's council, plus Fang Gang, plus slayer recruits from all over the world equals fighting chance. 🙂

Saying that the plan was too risky and that the empowerment spell wasn't even needed are totally contradictory arguments. The empowerment spell made the plan less risky in the end.

 

[RomanticSoul]

I pretty much agree with your above comments, but could you explain this part? I thought it was only a matter of time before the hellmouth was opened and the army unleashed.... I guess they could gone with the strategy of doing everything possible to keep the hellmouth closed?

I don't doubt that eventually the army of the First would have gotten out. All they needed was time after all. That's not the point. Could have been 5 days later or 5 years. Point is Buffy's plan had 0 chance at succeeding and would have unleashed the army on the world maybe years before it might have happened.

I don't have a problem with the Scoobies going on the offensive. They have been way too reactive the past couple of Seasons. But Joss could have at least tried to make it make sense. And make it a true victory for Buffy. Instead she ended her own show as the villain who would have unleashed an apocalypse on the world if it weren't for outside interference.

Don't send Angel away to be the second front (and seriosuly you need a gazillion second fronts since the ubervamps can spread out in all directions from Sunnydale). Angel at this point doesn't just know an abundance of super-powered people but was also running a firm that had everything from shamans to toothsayers to high-tech to special OPS.

Call Riley who we have seen able to bring soldiers to Sunnydale quckly. They could have brought army technology with them. Everything from flamethrowers to napalm bombs.

If you don't wanna do either (for whatever insane reason) at least be freaking smart enough to rip the damn roof of the school. Don't do the activation spell AFTER already opening the seal. Use better weapons like rocket launchers or flamethrowers (and we have seen them be able to get those in past seasons).

 

[danajsparks]

Right, so now we've moved on to the 'it was morally wrong because it wasn't even nessesary' argument, which seems strange to me.

No... I think it's rather that some have argued that the activation spell was morally right because it was necessary for defeating the First.

So we're discussing whether or not the spell actually was necessary to defeat the First.

 

[Buffy Summers]

I think people are arguing that the spell was right because its intent was to defeat the First with it; the result if they don't do it is they all are killed by The First because they didn't even try.

How it worked out doesn't really factor in, imho.

🙂

 

[Black Eye Guy]

Buffy went head first into the Masters lair not knowing anything other than she had to go in there.
She was hoping to keep Angelus distracted long enough for Willow to return his soul in the original plan, that didn't work.
The gang were hoping that they had gathered enough explosives to to match a volcanic eruption and kill the mayor, what if it hadn't?
Did the gang know exactly what was going to happen with the enjoining spell?
What was Buffy going to do with Glory if she kept her on the ropes for long enough for her to miss her window?
Had Buffys plan gone according to plan, Buffy would have stopped a portal from opening, and would have had a pissed off God to deal with.

Lets not pretend that Buffy is some mastermind strategist, her planning skills and back up plans aren't a strong point of hers, the plan in Chosen is no different and no more flawed than most of her others, though particularly Season 5 - if her plan had worked, she'd have been completely screwed, Glory would have ripped the world apart.

1) Didn't have Giles say all Season that these are the ONLY potentials left in the world. Then it would be ok because Buffy gave those a choice. Then Joss decides to negate the whole Season plot for one of his 'cool' moments again and we suddenly have thousands around the whole world who didn't consent.

But thats all they knew, they were presumably going off the watchers files. To the best of their knowledge there was, as Giles describes it, "only a handful".
It also wasn't thousands it was 1800, and we know from the comics that girls are still being activated, so we dont know how many were activated at that exact moment in Chosen, it might have only been a couple of hundred.

2) Don't make it a rape metaphor to begin with earlier in the Season by showing the shadowmen have demon mist crawling under Buffy's skirt. You can't get more literal for a rape metaphor. Now I know that's not exactly what Buffy/Willow did but why else show us that?

This is completely incorrect.

When we saw the shadow men try to give Buffy more power, we saw the process to create the slayer - that process is already done to the potentials. They already have that power in them.
The activation spell released the power within them, already placed there by the original spell.
The spell in Chosen didn't, flirt around the girls, prod at them and pass through them, it came out from within them. The original process was shown as horrific and painful, the activation spell was shown as pleasant and euphoric - that is not the same as we saw with the shadown men, so it's incorrect to say it is. They have completely opposite depictions becasue they are not the same thing.

3) Have the Scoobies talk about possible negative repercussions to non-Sunnydale potentials. I know this couldn't have been done because Joss would have lost the element of surprise for his *cool* moment montage but considering what happend I needed some aknowledgment.

Just cuz you didn't see it doesn't mean it didn't happen.
The whole point was Buffy asked the girls, then ALL the girls opted to go into that cave, it's fairly easy to make the assumption that they all agreed this was the best plan.

The best case of a person who should never have been activated is Dana. I don't care how many people the other slayers go on to save. It's no comfort to the people that Dana ended up killing and I'm sure it's no comfort to their loved ones either.

It wouldn't have been a comfort when Buffy was killed and she became the next slayer and the same thing happened - which was a possibility.

Had the nurse in Dana hospital not made the incompetent mistake of mixing up drugs, she wouldn't have given one patient a seizure and not given Dana a sedative. The doctors were aware of Danas strength, they knew she had to be sedated.
The Doctor was keeping the severity of her case a secret to publish his works, when he should have had her in better care, then the nurse makes a mistake that leads to Dana getting free.

I finally found the bloody quote I've been going on about for most of this thread and another one around here somewhere, Andrew says the potentials have the dreams in this episode, not just the slayers but the potentials have the dreams. Angel also describes Dana as having had the dreams all her life.

What about the girl/woman in the montage that was clearly about to be hit by someone (abusive father/husband or whatever)? So she now gets a confidence boost and can stop the hit. What's to say that this boost doesn't also make her think...finally I can hit back. She does so and not knowing her own strenght ends up killing the guy. That slayer won't be of any use any time soon having to deal with murdering someone.

She also could have gotten a knife and stabbed him, even without super strength.

What about the fact that supernatural menaces seek out/can sense slayers? While they now have strenght they don't have training or knowledge when called. They'd probably be dead very quickly. Maybe hours after being activated.

How many can sense a slayer? I dont remember that. Word of mouth gets around about a slayer becasue there is ONE slayer, they seek her out becasue they know where she is. Vampires hear there's a slayer in Sunnydale, they go there to take her on, others avoid Sunnydale. Demons dont have a Slay-dar though, they can't seek her out just based ont he fact that she's a slayer.

Or for a very mundane example (and this is me really reaching). What if one of those 1.8k potentials planned to go into sciences or research later in life and discovered the cure for a deadly disease like cancer (whom probably more people die from every year than demons)? Because whether it's those activated who chose to fight (that definitely won't have normal jobs/careers) or those who don't fight (but will be affected anyway because again supernatural forces seek out slayers)...neither section will end up to take the path in life they wanted.

That is super reaching, as that could be said about anyone, anyone can change plans for whatever reason.
And again supernatural forces dont seek out the slayer based on the fact she is the slayer, they seek her out by reputation. If one chooses not to fight and doesn't build a reputation there's no reason to believe demons would try and find her.
Aside from that of a girl doesn't go on to cure cancer becasue she CHOOSES to fight, that's still a valid choice. It's like saying how dare she be given the choice to fight evil or become a doctor, she didn't have option to fight evil before, I can't see a downside to being given the option to fight evil or not fight evil. Especially when there is a chance that it could have been she had to fight evil.

The "cancer curer" might go on to do that becasue buffy gave her the choice, she might have been the next slayer and she would have had to fight, but becasue of the spell, she doesn't have to fight, gets to choose and goes off and curse cancer, your scenario works both ways.

Radom demon attacks aside those potentials were safer as potentials.

You mean except the sum of all Evil wanting them dead, sending his eyeless monks to kill them, with no way to protect themselves?

But please stop using the First as an excuse or justification. The First had NO chance at succeeding until Buffy made it possible with her moronic plan. Her plan would have unleashed the First and it's army on the world. The world and Buffy & Co. were saved by W&H. And the activation spell made no difference whatsoever on the outcome.

This is completely incorrect.

The First was absolutely going to win. If it took 10 more years it could wait that long.

The only reason it didn't release it's army was because it wanted to kill all the slayers.

You've actually missed the entire point of the Firsts plan, the plan wasn't to release all the ubervamps, the plan was to eradicate the slayer line, then release the army.
This shifts the balance into evils favour and evil wins.

If he could release the army without killing the potentials, why bother killing them, why not just release the army?

For whatever reason "balance" in BtVS is 1 slayer vs all of evil - we have no idea why, but that is the balanced position of the world of BtVS.
For the first to win, it has to tip the balance to the side of evil, and to do that it has to destroy the slayer line and release an army of evil, when thats done the balance leans evil and The First can enter every man, women and child.

Buffys plan, doesn't just give her army of girls super powers, it doesn't just mean that if Buffys plan failed the potentials aren't powerless and waiting to be picked off unknowingly.
It means she does the exact opposite of The First plan, she shifts the balance to good, she destroys the army of evil and overruns the world with an army of good.

For some reason the shifting balance element of both The Firsts and Buffys plans get lost and people think the plan was just about destroying the Firsts army.

Had Buffy not activated the potentials, gone into the cave, Spike went boom and the army is gone (which they wouldn't have gotten to that point without the new slayers), the first just needed to continue killing potentials, nothing changes, it can still go ahead with it's plan and start building a new army.

Buffys plan of activating the potentials has more after battle implications than the plan with Glory does.

 

[RomanticSoul]

This is completely incorrect.

The First was absolutely going to win. If it took 10 more years it could wait that long.

The only reason it didn't release it's army was because it wanted to kill all the slayers.

Incorrect according to whom? Read what I wrote. I said it could have been days or years. It's the same thing you are saying. Does that make you incorrect too? Both of us?

My point was about the specific battle in that episode. They sure as hell had enough time to come up with something smart and resembling an actual plan, instead of a suicide mission that would not only have killed everyone present but also unleashed an undead army on the world (then you have bringers+ubervamps hunting down the slayerline).

And you will have to excuse me if I don't take anything that was said or done in S7 seriously. The First and such might make sense to some people but they don't to me. Ubervamps that can't be killed by stakes but holy water works turn into ubervamps that can be staked but holy water doesn't work. One ubervamp so hard to kill that Buffy barely manages get slaughtered by the dozen by freaking Dawn. The First making one bogus attempt to mind**** the principle characters and giving orders not to kill it's enemy #1. Yeah this story made a whole of sense. Not.