Disruption in the Chosen Line

[nerd4hire]

GILES
If The First has been around for all time, then why hasn't it attempted something like this before? Why now?

BELJOXA'S EYE
The opportunity has only recently presented itself.

GILES
Opportunity?

BELJOXA'S EYE
The mystical forces surrounding the chosen line have become irrevocably altered, become unstable, vulnerable.

ANYA
Something The First did?

BELJOXA'S EYE
The First Evil did not cause the disruption, only seized upon it to extinguish the lives of the chosen forever.

GILES
Then what has caused the disruption? What is responsible for letting this happen?

BELJOXA'S EYE
The slayer.

There is a disruption in the chosen line creating a vulnerability the First feels it can exploit. What is this vulnerability? How does the First plan to take advantage of it? Perhaps we could take an educated guess at the answer to this question if we knew what The First planned to do. What was it's ultimate goal? We could point the one thing to the other and suggest a reasonable connection. So what was the First's ultimate goal? Luckily we do know this.

FIRST/BUFFY
When this is over -- when our armies
spring forth and our will sweeps the
world -- I'll be able to enter every
man, woman and child on the face of
this Earth, just as I enter you.

also

BUFFY/FIRST
And the only man strong enough to be my vessel, and I know you feel me, but I know why they grab at each other. To feel. I want to feel. I want to wrap my hands around some innocent neck and feel it crack.

So there's 2 things The First wants. It wants to attack human reality with armies, and it wants to enter individual humans, giving itself a corporeal form.

We know at least one of the ways the armies of The First plan to attack is through the Seal of Danzalthar. So why doesn't it? Why didn't it a long time ago. There's nothing about the manner in which the Seal was opened to suggest it couldn't have been opened in the past. Even if it requires a souled vampire, Angel has been around in that form for a couple of hundred years.

Beljoxa's eye tells us the vulnerability in the "chosen line" can only be exploited as a result of something that happened recently. So what's happened that's new? Giles and Anya offer the following possibility..

ANYA
(limping) Yeah, I just-I don't understand how Buffy's death mucked up the whole slayer mojo. You know, it's not like she hasn't died before.

GILES
It's not because she died. The Beljoxa's Eye was quite clear about that in its enigmatic way. It's because she lives. Again. Buffy's not responsible for that.

ANYA
Oh. Oh. Willow and me and Xander and Tara. We're the ones who brought Buffy back. We're-we're the reason The First is here, the reason those girls were murdered. No, it's our fault. The world would've been better off if Buffy had just stayed dead. (walks off)

If we choose to believe what the text tells us, a couple of things become clear. The vulnerability The First plans to exploit was not created by Buffy's previous deaths. It was created by Willow's spell in Bargaining that brought Buffy back to life. Why?

If we accept what the text tells us again, we have to believe The First's ultimate goal is to enter humans, and become corporeal through them leading a massive demon army. As shown, process of elimination tells us the element of that plan not previously possible was the passing of The First into human hosts. How could Willow's spell bringing Buffy back to life allow The First to enter this reality in coporeal human form?

First of all there are some key differences in the way Buffy was brought back to life in Bargaining as opposed to the way she was revived in Prophecy Girl.

In Prophecy Girl Buffy is revived through natural means. In Bargaining Buffy is brought back to life by means of a magic spell. Magic can have unfortunate consequences in the Buffyverse.

In Prophecy Girl the cellular make up of Buffy is intact. In Bargaining all cellular activity is dead.

At this point I'm going to jump off the bandwagon of what the text actually tells us, and suggest a possibility. Accept it, or don't, it's just a possibility.

If Buffy's slayerness has been engrained into her cellular structure she would conceivably revive through natural means with her slayer powers intact in Prophecy Girl. In Bargaining all cells are dead and rotted. Willow must in effect create a whole new slayer, based on the template of the old one. She must then reconnect the connection between human slayer, and demon slayer energy to recreate the original Buffy as Chosen 0ne. Could she do this? I think so. Buffy tells us she's more powerful than all the Shadowmen combined. The books she absorbed at the end of S-6 were only knowledge. I suggest she always had the raw power, and potential to, in effect, recreate the Shadowmen's spell.

Here's the thing though. Willow has made the connection between the "new Buffy", and the dark demon dimension where the power of the Slayer originates, but did she close it? Is there now an open connection through which dark energy can travel?

If so, and The First wants to exploit it, we know from what Anya tells us in Get It Done ("Not without a catalyst. If you're talking about transferring energies, you need some kind of conduit.") there are 2 things The First will need to make a connection. It will need a conduit. Well that's what Willow opened up through reborn Buffy. Or at least that's what I suggest Willow may have opened up - a conduit through which dark energy can travel. Also according to the formula Anya tells us is necessary to transport energy through dimensional walls The First will need a catalyst. See here Purpose of the Scythe for a possible answer as to what the "catalyst" might be.

 

[Edmund Blackadder]

Your suggestion about Willow creating a new Buffy is further strengthen by the fact she 'came back wrong'.

 

[nerd4hire]

Yeah that particular thing fits in well here I think, because what I'm really suggesting is the connection between the dark demon energy of the slayer and Buffy is in some way jammed open creating a live conduit. As a consequence if chipped Spike were to try to bite Buffy he wouldn't get zapped by the chip, because he would sense demon energy.