Chosen: Empowering the Potentials & Female Empowerment?

[thetopher]

This thread has now gone from 'Is Chosen empowering?' to 'Well, Season 7 doesn't even make any sense anyway!' 🙄

I think we're all at an impasse'

You can criticise the end of Season 7 for being illogical, but you can also say the same about Angel's curse from 'Surprise/Innocence' way back in S2.

Or 'Why don't they use the 'enjoining slayer spell' again when going to fight Glory?

Or why don't they use rocket launchers more often on the show, if they have access (see 'Him').

You can pickj on any idea you don't like and poke holes in it, the ending of 'Chosen' is hardly unique, especially not compared to other Season finale's.

 

[Black Eye Guy]

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?

Well apologies if I read your point incorrectly, but you said The First wasn't going to win, till Buffy made it possible. The way you worded it made it seem like the First was never going to win, and if Buffy had done nothing, the first never could have won.

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).

What do you think they were doing all season?
All season long, they are clambering to stay afloat and beat the first, the best plan the have is to gather the potentials and it's not working.
You make it seem like they got the the point in Chosen and they should have started researching how to win.
They'd already been researching how to win, there's no information on The First, they can't seem to work out a absolute way to find potentials. the First is still moving ahead with Killing potentials around the world, while picking them off at home.

This wasn't the same as previous seasons were they get to a point where they have to fight Glory, or they have to fight Angelus. They are fighting The First all season long and they are loosing.

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.

If you dont want to take anything that was said in season 7 seriously, dont bother debating the topic. It's in the show, it's fact. You can't just ignore the part you dont like if you want to debate the topic with other people.
What doesn't make sense about the Firsts overall plan, that I didn't just rationally explain?
You ignored the part I explained to you and gave examples of other areas in the season that have nothing to do with the overall plan.

 

[Robb Stark]

I can't even believe people are trying to make the argument that Buffy's plan was tactically sound. It just defies logic.

@thetopher,

Not knowing what the amulet was going to do isn't a good thing. It's even worse to have no clue what it would do and then devise a plan around it it. That's insane! And no one has said that just dropping Spike in should have been the plan. Not one person here has said that. The entire thing, from start to finish, should have been conducted differently.

They won on luck. No one has been able to dispute that. The core of their plan was to send a dozen or so Slayers against thousands and thousands of Turok-Han. How can anyone even defend that? That's crazy logic. If I'm a general and I march 100 soldiers against 5000, and then a hurricane swoops in and kills the enemy, that doesn't make me some conquering hero, it makes me crazy. If they had established what the amulet could do, how it worked, then that would have been completely different. But they didn't. Buffy has no idea. Answer me this, anyone: What was her contingency if the amulet didn't do exactly what it did, which she had no way of honestly being aware of? What was the plan then? I'm all ears.

Seriously, the activation spell was not needed. It kills a few Turok-Han while the amulet kills the other several thousand. As Buffy didn't know what it did the argument of the activation spell keeping Spike alive until it kicked in doesn't hold up, because she didn't plan or account for that. She just marched in blindly. That's not tactical. That's not smart. That's lucky. Plus, there's no way of even knowing when the amulet would activate. It appears to kick in right when the tide is turning against them and Slayers start dropping like crazy. By that logic, why wouldn't it have just kicked in earlier (and again, I'm not saying just going in at all like they did would have been smart, it wouldn't have been).

@black eyed guy, Buffy making tactical mistakes in the past, like blindly going into The Master's lair, are not an excuse to keep making them.

 

[thetopher]

I can't even believe people are trying to make the argument that Buffy's plan was tactically sound. It just defies logic.

@thetopher,

Not knowing what the amulet was going to do isn't a good thing. It's even worse to have no clue what it would do and then devise a plan around it it. That's insane! And no one has said that just dropping Spike in should have been the plan. Not one person here has said that. The entire thing, from start to finish, should have been conducted differently.

They won on luck. No one has been able to dispute that. The core of their plan was to send a dozen or so Slayers against thousands and thousands of Turok-Han. How can anyone even defend that? That's crazy logic. If I'm a general and I march 100 soldiers against 5000, and then a hurricane swoops in and kills the enemy, that doesn't make me some conquering hero, it makes me crazy. If they had established what the amulet could do, how it worked, then that would have been completely different. But they didn't. Buffy has no idea. Answer me this, anyone: What was her contingency if the amulet didn't do exactly what it did, which she had no way of honestly being aware of? What was the plan then? I'm all ears.

Seriously, the activation spell was not needed. It kills a few Turok-Han while the amulet kills the other several thousand. As Buffy didn't know what it did the argument of the activation spell keeping Spike alive until it kicked in doesn't hold up, because she didn't plan or account for that. She just marched in blindly. That's not tactical. That's not smart. That's lucky. Plus, there's no way of even knowing when the amulet would activate. It appears to kick in right when the tide is turning against them and Slayers start dropping like crazy. By that logic, why wouldn't it have just kicked in earlier (and again, I'm not saying just going in at all like they did would have been smart, it wouldn't have been).

@black eyed guy, Buffy making tactical mistakes in the past, like blindly going into The Master's lair, are not an excuse to keep making them.

We have say, 24-ish slayers plus Buffy, plus Faith, plus Spike versus...its stated that the Firsts army is about a thousand Tukon Han (not tens of thousands as you claim...) and they attack before they're ready- always bad in military terms.

A small force, guarding/defending a choke-point, can win against overwhelming odds- its happened historically quite a few times, 'Thermopylae', 'Rouke's Drift', 'Crecy', ' 'Buccasso', 'Agincourt', 'The Battle Of New Orleans' all historical battles where the 'greatly outnumbered defenders' handily won the day by defending the high ground.

I'm not saying it was a great plan, but for the plan to work the spell was needed,
Buffy knew, or trusted Angel at any rate, that the amulet would do something.

people's arguments seem to be that the spell was not needed because Spike did all the work- that's plain wrong, as I illustrated.

 

[Black Eye Guy]

I can't even believe people are trying to make the argument that Buffy's plan was tactically sound. It just defies logic.

@thetopher,

Not knowing what the amulet was going to do isn't a good thing. It's even worse to have no clue what it would do and then devise a plan around it it. That's insane! And no one has said that just dropping Spike in should have been the plan. Not one person here has said that. The entire thing, from start to finish, should have been conducted differently.

They won on luck. No one has been able to dispute that. The core of their plan was to send a dozen or so Slayers against thousands and thousands of Turok-Han. How can anyone even defend that? That's crazy logic. If I'm a general and I march 100 soldiers against 5000, and then a hurricane swoops in and kills the enemy, that doesn't make me some conquering hero, it makes me crazy. If they had established what the amulet could do, how it worked, then that would have been completely different. But they didn't. Buffy has no idea. Answer me this, anyone: What was her contingency if the amulet didn't do exactly what it did, which she had no way of honestly being aware of? What was the plan then? I'm all ears.

Seriously, the activation spell was not needed. It kills a few Turok-Han while the amulet kills the other several thousand. As Buffy didn't know what it did the argument of the activation spell keeping Spike alive until it kicked in doesn't hold up, because she didn't plan or account for that. She just marched in blindly. That's not tactical. That's not smart. That's lucky. Plus, there's no way of even knowing when the amulet would activate. It appears to kick in right when the tide is turning against them and Slayers start dropping like crazy. By that logic, why wouldn't it have just kicked in earlier (and again, I'm not saying just going in at all like they did would have been smart, it wouldn't have been).

@black eyed guy, Buffy making tactical mistakes in the past, like blindly going into The Master's lair, are not an excuse to keep making them.

But this is the only one that people go on and on about not being tactically sound.

It is more tactically sound than season 5s plan.

Activating the potentials wasn't useless, it served multiple purposes.
Firstly if they lost, any other potentials out there had the strength to defend themselves from bringers, who haven't been shown to be very strong.
Secondly it's the only way to destroy the first plan. He needs there to be no slayers and an army of evil, instead Buffys plan is to make an army of slayers. Luckily the amulet went off and they destroyed his army.

Your saying it wasn't a tactical plan for the battle in the hellmouth, but it was a tactical plan for the overall war with the First.
Much better than going up against Glory with no plan to kill her, no plan to contain her and no idea what to do with her after they've distracted her long enough!

Not to mention, it's the ONLY plan.

There is no fighting the First, you can smack down his army, but he just rebuilds it, without shifting the balance to good you dont make a dent in his plan.
Creating a bunch of warriors for good where there was only 1 before accomplishes that, and shifts that balance.

There is loads more they could have done to have a better fight, knocked down the school, let sunlight in, bombs/missiles supplied by the government etc.
But that ALWAYS applies, why doesn't Buffy just shoot Glory with a rocket launcher, then ask the government to help contain her

---------- Post added at 11:49 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:47 PM ----------

A small force, guarding/defending a choke-point, can win against overwhelming odds- its happened historically quite a few times, 'Thermopylae', 'Rouke's Drift', 'Crecy', ' 'Buccasso', 'Agincourt', 'The Battle Of New Orleans' all historical battles where the 'greatly outnumbered defenders' handily won the day by defending the high ground.

This, this, this.
The First even says "You came pretty close to smacking me down"

 

[The Bronze]

The plan was to go in strong, inflict maximum damage on the unsuspecting enemy and hope the amulet helps. If the amulet doesn't help then the plan remains to do as much damage as possible before the army gets any stronger. The contingency plan if they all died down there was for Angel and the newly activated slayers to pick up the fight, hopefully with better odds now the army was reduced and The First rushed.

The government was in full swing helping as much as it always has and was always likely to. We're shown with Angel on the submarine during the war that the government are aware of demons. The Mayor of Sunnydale was a demon. Sunder and the head of police knew of vampires. The Initiative set up Base on the hellmouth. Everything there is a global threat the government do nothing and let Buffy deal with it. The whole town including government officials fled in Season 7. They didn't sneak out without the government noticing.

The first user vamp we see might have been juiced by The First like Celeb. It might have been a superior fighter like Angel compared to majority of regular vamps.

Buffy didn't become the villain of the series or rape thousands of people. The Sunnydale team had a plan, executed it and defeated The First Evil. This plan didn't have 0% chance of working since it worked.

We've seen the utopia of the world where Buffy isn't around to make big decisions and save the day, it was the wishverse and it sucked. If Buffy had walked away from this it would have been even worse and the potentials with no power wouldn't have thanked her when The First was massacring them and their loved ones.

 

[thetopher]

I really don't see much of a difference between Season 7's battle plan and Season 3 or 4, except for scale.

S2- Buffy, Xander and Spike versus Angelus, Drusilla, and an unknown (at the time) number of vampires. Hardly a sound plan. Buffy gets lucky.

S3- A hundred or so students with barely any weapons training, Angel, Buffy (who doesn't actually do anything except lead the mayor to his doom) and The Scooby's versus The Mayor in true demon form, and a very large gang of vampires.- hardly a fair fight yet somehow Buffy wins.

S4- Buffy goes to face Adam (who's handily defeated her twice.) without knowing if the enjoining spell is even going to work until she engages him in a fight- add to that the Intiative soldiers (and Spike, and Riley) versus the entire prison cell demon/vampire population of the base. Hardly an easy win. But Buffy gets lucky and the spell, which she didn't know would work, works


S5- BEG covered this fairly well, I won't repeat it.

And yet S7 gets singled out all the time as Buffy's stupidest hour- and suddenly BtVS gets broken down tactically and the plan gets analysed and people start saying 'well, that's not how I would've done it- I would've mobilised the government/gotten the Initiative/nuked Sunnydale!... or whatever.

They miss the point, the show has never been about that, not ever.

 

[RomanticSoul]

The plan was to go in strong, inflict maximum damage on the unsuspecting enemy and hope the amulet helps.

Except you can't suprise an enemy that is all-seeing and all-knowing. Which was said about the First this Season unless I remember it wrong.

If you dont want to take anything that was said in season 7 seriously, dont bother debating the topic. It's in the show, it's fact. You can't just ignore the part you dont like if you want to debate the topic with other people.
What doesn't make sense about the Firsts overall plan, that I didn't just rationally explain?
You ignored the part I explained to you and gave examples of other areas in the season that have nothing to do with the overall plan.

Why shouldn't I bother? And can you tell me what is actually FACT in s7? If I were to have an argument with someone that goes like this:

ME: Oh god that ubervamp beat the hell out of me. Those damn things can't even be staked. Only reason I escaped was because the holy water I threw on it worked long enough for me to run.

Other: Are you sure it was even an ubervamp? I tried the wholy water aproach and nothing happened. Thankfully I had a stake handy. Those things are easy to kill.

Well which one of us would be right? According to the show both of us. Which makes no logical sense whatsoever.

The First tried to torture Spike...by DROWNING. That's S7 in a nutshell.

Hey it's fine if the storyline works for you. But just because someone has a different interpretation of things doesn't make them wrong. We don't all see things the same way. I thought that's what debates are for. But clearly I was wrong since I'm being told not to. Guess I'll just go into 'remission' then.

 

[Robb Stark]

We have say, 24-ish slayers plus Buffy, plus Faith, plus Spike versus...its stated that the Firsts army is about a thousand Tukon Han (not tens of thousands as you claim...) and they attack before they're ready- always bad in military terms.

Do you have a source for the number of Turok-Han? And okay, 24 against that many is SO much different 🙄

A small force, guarding/defending a choke-point, can win against overwhelming odds- its happened historically quite a few times, 'Thermopylae', 'Rouke's Drift', 'Crecy', ' 'Buccasso', 'Agincourt', 'The Battle Of New Orleans' all historical battles where the 'greatly outnumbered defenders' handily won the day by defending the high ground.

24 winning against thousands and thousands is not a likely scenario. I don't care how small the chokepoint is (and it's not that small in "Chosen"). Plus, the battles you've cited do not have anywhere near the numerical disparity that "Chosen" did. I mean, you mentioned Agincourt, which by most accounts give the French a 4-3, or at most 6-1 manpower advantage over the English. Not quite "Chosen" levels man. They're not even remotely the same. Nor did you account for the huge strength of the Turok-Han, which is illustrated clearly numerous times across S7. Also, Team Buffy is being visibly overwhelmed by the time the amulet boots up. They were losing.

It is more tactically sound than season 5s plan.

But we're not talking about S5's plan. This is like bringing Angel into a Spike debate 😉.

Buffy makes the point countless times in S7 that this is a war and that she's the commander of an army. As a U.S. Army ROTC student it's much easier for me to in turn analyze it from a military perspective then.

Activating the potentials wasn't useless, it served multiple purposes.
Firstly if they lost, any other potentials out there had the strength to defend themselves from bringers, who haven't been shown to be very strong.

Now this I can get on board with. This is a solid, real argument. As a failsafe in case they lose in the Hellmouth, I can fully subscribe to this. I have to ask though...did they know there were more Potentials out there? I really don't know, it seems to be a point of debate in this thread.

That said, this is a very, very strong point.

Not to mention, it's the ONLY plan.

Debatable. When you're facing a demon-army rampaging apocalypse, why is involving the government a bad thing? Sure, the Scoobys don't trust them, I get that, but this is bigger than that trust.

There is loads more they could have done to have a better fight, knocked down the school, let sunlight in, bombs/missiles supplied by the government etc.
But that ALWAYS applies, why doesn't Buffy just shoot Glory with a rocket launcher, then ask the government to help contain her

You have made the case, numerous times, that when analyzing characters and their actions then out-of-show actions can't be fairly considered, a point I agree with. Why is that different now?

I really don't see much of a difference between Season 7's battle plan and Season 3 or 4, except for scale.

Well...scale matters.

---------- Post added at 04:33 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:31 PM ----------

The plan was to go in strong, inflict maximum damage on the unsuspecting enemy and hope the amulet helps. If the amulet doesn't help then the plan remains to do as much damage as possible before the army gets any stronger. The contingency plan if they all died down there was for Angel and the newly activated slayers to pick up the fight, hopefully with better odds now the army was reduced and The First rushed.

But this is proved directly wrong by the events of the episode. They go in and are immediately spotted by the Turok-Han before they can even set up. What surprise is that?

 

[Black Eye Guy]

Except you can't suprise an enemy that is all-seeing and all-knowing. Which was said about the First this Season unless I remember it wrong.





Why shouldn't I bother? And can you tell me what is actually FACT in s7? If I were to have an argument with someone that goes like this:



ME: Oh god that ubervamp beat the hell out of me. Those damn things can't even be staked. Only reason I escaped was because the holy water I threw on it worked long enough for me to run.



Other: Are you sure it was even an ubervamp? I tried the wholy water aproach and nothing happened. Thankfully I had a stake handy. Those things are easy to kill.



Well which one of us would be right? According to the show both of us. Which makes no logical sense whatsoever.



The First tried to torture Spike...by DROWNING. That's S7 in a nutshell.



Hey it's fine if the storyline works for you. But just because someone has a different interpretation of things doesn't make them wrong. We don't all see things the same way. I thought that's what debates are for. But clearly I was wrong since I'm being told not to. Guess I'll just go into 'remission' then.

But you are not seeing it from another point, I said my point and you dismissed it cuz of how crazy season 7 is.
You didn't give reasons for any of your points, points I've seen others give reasonable explanations for.

If I explain The Firsts motives to you and you just want to reply "Season 7 doesn't make sense" there's no point in discussing it with you, you're not adding anything.

But we're not talking about S5's plan. This is like bringing Angel into a Spike debate 😉.

Not really. This is the only plan that gets scrutinised, I've never seen a "what would Buffy have done with Glory" thread. People fight seem to care about the lack of planning in the others plans, if the lack of planning isn't an issue on others plans how's it any different here?

Buffy makes the point countless times in S7 that this is a war and that she's the commander of an army. As a U.S. Army ROTC student it's much easier for me to in turn analyze it from a military perspective then.

But she also realised that the nonsense she's been spouting all season was wrong and completely changes her style and chicks that whole military 'do as I say, answer only to me' thing.

I have to ask though...did they know there were more Potentials out there? I really don't know, it seems to be a point of debate in this thread.

Well they knew there was more but I assume they didn't know how many. We don't know how many all we know is the number by season 8, but don't know how many if them were activated post-chosen

Debatable. When you're facing a demon-army rampaging apocalypse, why is involving the government a bad thing? Sure, the Scoobys don't trust them, I get that, but this is bigger than that trust.

I presume because they are wild cards.
What if they wanted to try and control the über-vamps, take over that army.
They probably wouldn't have answered to Buffy's lead.
And like TheBronze said, the town was abandoned, a town they were still keeping an eye on, they didn't do anything.

You have made the case, numerous times, that when analyzing characters and their actions then out-of-show actions can't be fairly considered, a point I agree with. Why is that different now?

Sorry I wasn't saying that as an out if show reason, all of those can be explained in show.
She didn't use gun cuz she didn't like them, didn't use the government cuz she didn't trust them.
The First was raging war on The Slayer line, I'd never see Buffy inviting the military for something as personal as that.

And again, making all the slayers is the game changer here. Not defeating his army, but shifting the balance to good.











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[danajsparks]

Ummm.... could they have just rigged together some big explosive devices and tossed them into the cavern?

 

[Kairos]

Ummm.... could they have just rigged together some big explosive devices and tossed them into the cavern?

 

[danajsparks]

LOL Right! "Big explosive device" is basically what wound up happening. Except that they had no idea that the amulet would do that, whereas traditional bombs have an established record of blowing things up.

 

[AnthonyCordova]

I just read this entire thread (as usual, late to the party). Interesting thoughts from a lot of people. I can't add much, but reading everyone's posts left me with these thoughts:

Consent isn't asked for in most things in life. I wasn't asked my consent about the life I was given, or the circumstances of my life. Neither was some starving kid living in the 3rd World somewhere. Things happen in the course of life that aren't "fair" (although life really isn't fair or unfair, it just is, which is hard to reconcile with our need for morals...but life doesn't conform to morals. Don't get me wrong, I care about the plight of people and try to do what I can to make the world a better place for everyone, but still, the facts are the facts). So yeah, someone in life is given some responsibility they didn't ask for or want and feels like it is terribly unfair, and maybe it even could have been avoided...but it's all taking place in the larger context of a world that never asked your consent for anything to begin with anyway...

So how do I feel about the potentials all being activated? I feel for them in a way, but "potentials" of all stripes and kinds and variations are being "activated" in their own way every second of every day. Welcome to the sometimes cruel real world. Such is life. I am putting it really bluntly because I don't have the time for subtleties tonight, but...is Buffy/Willow cruel or whatever for activating them? Leaving aside all of the points everyone made in this thread about the situation in-story, maybe Buffy/Willow were cruel (or whatever) and maybe their intentions weren't, but I can't help but take everything within the larger context of life, and from that perspective, that question about the nature of Buffy/Willow's actions and how to interpret it from a moral perspective is a strictly secondary question for me.

Not to say that all moral questions are of a secondary nature to me, but in this case I can't help but see the topic that way.

 

[thetopher]

Do you have a source for the number of Turok-Han? And okay, 24 against that many is SO much different 🙄



24 winning against thousands and thousands is not a likely scenario. I don't care how small the chokepoint is (and it's not that small in "Chosen"). Plus, the battles you've cited do not have anywhere near the numerical disparity that "Chosen" did. I mean, you mentioned Agincourt, which by most accounts give the French a 4-3, or at most 6-1 manpower advantage over the English. Not quite "Chosen" levels man. They're not even remotely the same. Nor did you account for the huge strength of the Turok-Han, which is illustrated clearly numerous times across S7. Also, Team Buffy is being visibly overwhelmed by the time the amulet boots up. They were losing.

Actually it does, you can't just keep throwing 'hundreds of thousands' out there like it's a fact- it isn't.
I think Buffy mentions the number their facing in a speech in 'Storyteller' that's all I remember.

Rourke's Drift was 130 Welsh/English at a missionary hospital veresue five thousand Zulu warriors.- I call that about the equivelant.

About Agincourt- don't get your facts from Wikipedia, pick up a history book, 😉
the disparity in numbers was very much greater- it was a shocking defeat that resonated across Europe in its day.
And you still ignored about eighty per cent of my examples, my point still stands- well trained slayers at a choke-point can defeat larger numbers of ill-prepared, crappy Tukok Han vamps (they obviously weren't anything like the really strong 'Champion' Buffy faced- hell, even Anya and Giles were holding their own and killing them...).

And, no, towards the end, The First goes over and says to Buffy- 'You came pretty close to smacking me down' and then Buffy gets up (cue music) and smashes about five off a cliff- the slayers were winning at the end before Spike's amulet went all glowey and made the victory a decisive one.

Oh, and comparing climactic scenes is a valid argument, because it shows a pattern- Buffy, overwhelming odds and 'bad tactics' are kind of a theme- singling out S7 because you don't happen to like it is just silly. 🙂

 

[The Bronze]

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.

Yeah people are free to interpret it how they like. I'm not even convinced there has to be a grand message. Just the knowledge that Buffy saved the world again is good enough for me 🙂.

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.

Is there a quote for this? I don't remember it and even if he said it, clearly he was wrong. Perhaps he meant potentials he had records for, that the council had contacted previously?

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.

For the shadowmen yes it's a rape metaphor. As BEG has explained though it's entirely different to Willows spell.

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).

I thought it looked quite positive since there was no sign of The First and it's army. What it showed was a downside to a large positive which was mainly caused by hospital incompetence.

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.

This is nonsense. Buffy is not responsible for The First Evil.

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.

They did exist and were being hunted down. Moreover no one was safe from The First and it's army.

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.

That's not true at all. Buffy is on the hellmouth and puts herself in the firing line between demons and humanity. Spike enjoys fighting slayers and maybe one or two other demons enjoy it but they don't have a means to track them. The bringers could track potentials and were killing them, they were safer as slayers.

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.

Yes it's a new opportunity created for them by the spell. We're shown these because they are relevant to the story. There's no reason to assume that other slayers aren't in run of the mill jobs. Nothing is stopping them, there's just no story there at the moment.

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.

Again this is completely wrong. The First had every chance of succeeding. The army was being created (see the army), the bringers were slaughtering potentials (see all of season 7) & team Sunnydale were getting beaten left right and centre (vineyard, bomb etc.). The First and army weren't trapped in the hellmouth, they were waiting.

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.

Again this is wrong. Buffy's plan did succeed so the chance of it succeeding was obviously more than 0. 5 days, 5 years, 5 minutes... what difference does it make? The First Evil was going to "enter" or kill everyone. It needed putting down before that 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.

Completely wrong again I'm afraid. It was a true victory. The world didn't end, humanity survived and The First had to retreat. She wasn't a villain and she wouldn't have unleashed anything on the world. The army was coming regardless of her, she stopped it.

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).

Again this is wrong. They had a plan, it worked and they wouldn't have unleashed anything that wasn't coming anyway.

Except you can't suprise an enemy that is all-seeing and all-knowing. Which was said about the First this Season unless I remember it wrong.

I think you're remembering wrong. The First wasn't either of those things.

 

[Silverspike]

Just look at that shot when Buffy at the end of 'Get It Done' where the camera pulls back to reveal thousands of snarling Ubervamps.

52 INT. CAVE - NIGHT
A Turok-Han growls with a battle cry. There's many more behind it, jumping around with weapons. Pan out to show there's thousands upon thousands of Turok-Han forming an army somewhere underground.

Also look at screengrabs from the episode and there's seas of the damn things. Imo however powerful a few Slayers are they would be overwhelmed by sheer number alone very quickly.

You came pretty close to smacking me down'

Close but no cigar. 😀

 

[Robb Stark]

Actually it does, you can't just keep throwing 'hundreds of thousands' out there like it's a fact- it isn't.

Don't exaggerate. Show me one of MY posts where I said "hundreds of thousands". That's just you either misinterpreting or twisting my words.

About Agincourt- don't get your facts from Wikipedia, pick up a history book, 😉
the disparity in numbers was very much greater- it was a shocking defeat that resonated across Europe in its day.

Prove it wrong then (preferably in a way that isn't condescending). I trust a source that gets edited by a staff (and yes, it does get edited) on a prominent page a bit more than someone saying "oh it was much greater" without providing any substance to that comment.

And you still ignored about eighty per cent of my examples, my point still stands- well trained slayers at a choke-point can defeat larger numbers of ill-prepared, crappy Tukok Han vamps (they obviously weren't anything like the really strong 'Champion' Buffy faced- hell, even Anya and Giles were holding their own and killing them...).

I ignored the rest because I proved my point that you were providing false examples with Agincourt, which you were. If you would like me to go through the rest, I will this afternoon when I'm off work and have some time.

I can buy the champion Turok-han argument, even if there's nothing said in the show that backs that up. It's not outside the realm of possibility though.

And, no, towards the end, The First goes over and says to Buffy- 'You came pretty close to smacking me down' and then Buffy gets up (cue music) and smashes about five off a cliff- the slayers were winning at the end before Spike's amulet went all glowey and made the victory a decisive one.

You're ignoring the fact that Buffy was literally gutted. And what about the sad montage of Slayers getting killed quicker? Does that just not fit your narrative? Yes, Buffy is making a brief comeback right before Spike kicks into gear.

And they're not exactly "in a chokepoint" as you keep saying. They're surrounded on all sides by Turok-Han who keep coming in a spot with enough space for them to be vastly outnumbered. I don't know what you're definition of a chokepoint is, but that's not exactly an easy fight.

Oh, and comparing climactic scenes is a valid argument, because it shows a pattern- Buffy, overwhelming odds and 'bad tactics' are kind of a theme- singling out S7 because you don't happen to like it is just silly. 🙂

Wrong. When the circumstances are vastly different then the situations aren't directly comparable. Is Buffy facing thousands of vampires in S2? No. In S3? No. She's facing the face of her ex-demon lover and then a giant snake.

And saying "Buffy was crappy in those episodes, why not them!!!" isn't logical arguing. We're not talking about those episodes. Because Buffy screwed up somewhere else that means she's not open to criticism in S7? Huh?

BTW, I highly doubt we're going to find common ground here.

 

[Buffy Summers]

Can everyone try to take a deep breath before posting in this thread and try not to get agitated? Remember we're all friends here 🙂

[That is not directed at one particular person, just towards the general feeling going on in here, so please no one bite my head off.]

---------- Post added at 09:47 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:32 AM ----------

Robb Stark agrees: Probably a pretty good idea. My bad for the shortness.

No worries, everyone's just getting passionate about the topic - it's just a reminder.

🙂

 

[EVIL UU]

You guys, this is a good thread. Love threads like this, it's thought-provoking stuff. Anyway, another thought.

Female empowerment as I understand it is the empowerment of women as a group. Right? Correct me if I'm wrong but is this really what takes place in "Chosen"? Only a tiny bunch of chosen at random individuals is empowered and they are not women. Not really. The potentials are not human, they are supernatural creatures so is it fair to use the word empowerment with all its connotations to describe what happens in "Chosen"?

I don't know, it looks more like a potential slayer power up than actual female empowerment to me.