Is Twilight Truly the Villian or Is It Buffy?

[CharmedSlayer85]

This is something I was thinking about while washing the dishes (I know random), but can Twillight really be considered the villian? I mean I know he's trying to kill Buffy and stop her army of slayers but in the end would that be a bad thing? The reason I say this is because it's pretty obvious that Buffy is not the same woman she was in Seasons 1-6. In those seasons she still had an innocence about her and was very much about protecting the innocent and not thinking so much about the big picture and of course was not willing to kill humans or let anyone die on her watch, if she could help it. She was even willing to let the world end in order to keep her sister alive and saying "the last thing she'll see is me protecting her." And of course Giles made mention that Buffy couldn't bring herself to kill Ben because he was human, which is what makes her a true hero, and how "she's not like us."

However Season 7 swings around and we see Buffy is not like that anymore, she even mentioned that if faced with the same choice she'd let Dawn die if it meant saving the world. So now Buffy thinks about the bigger picture and is even willing to kill humans for it as she even mentioned in Season Eight when she went Willow. Also we see that Buffy considered herself above the law by breaking into a bank and stealing money, using her powers for something other than it was meant for, we saw in this recent issue that she was willing to let humans die as a means to get what she ultimately wanted and so who's to say that General Voltz's prediction really won't come true? After all Buffy is showing signs of it already and who knows who or what is giving her her financial backing and what lengths she had to go to to secure it, cause nobody just gives away money.

So again my question is really is Twillight truly the villian, cause from whats being shown so far Buffy's actions are what truly ends up being villianous and it's Twillight and now as we know Willow that is trying to stop that from happening. After all they both mention Buffy doing what she does cause she feels its the right thing to do, however I'm sure murderers can justify their murder in their minds but that doesn't make it right.

 

[Lou]

Since they closed the OTHER thread about it.....just watching As You Were....and I'm thinking Twillight is Sam....of course, for all I know that question's been answered.

But, here's my take on the question at hand.
While an Army of Slayers was darn cool at the end of Chosen, I could see why MANY government type people would be against such an organization running about. I'm not entirely sure I think an organized Slayer Army is such a swell idea, myself.

We know the US already has a demon fighting unit. I think it's safe to imagine most countries do. So, a giant band of "rogue demon hunters" who don't appear to be sharing information and busting in all willy nilly seems a bit....not good.

I'd like it more if they were all just living in little towns like Buffy was. There'd be enough for all of them to have their own sectors and live fairly normal lives, mentoring the younger slayers, giving Giles time to make a new council.

But, that's just me.

 

[white avenger]

I think that the biggest change in Buffy in Season 8 is that now she has become the "Mama Slayer" for a couple of thousand girls who up until the time of their activation had never had any knowledge of Slayers or that the world of demons, vampires, and the people responsible for protecting the human race from them existed. She's gone from the role of being a simple foot soldier to being th general of an entire army. Whereas before, just about all that she had to worry about was whether Mr Pointy was good and sharp and what fashionable but affordable shoes she was wearing to having to be concerned with things like logistics and strategy. She has to either delegate, or supervise herself, the thousands of minor details associated with funding, housing, clothing, feeding, educating, and arming all of those young Slayers, and having to live with the fact that because of a single decision on her part, a whole lot of those young girls will never have the opportunity to have lovers, husbands, children, or any kind of a normal life. And, not only does she have all of those responsibilities, she also has to wage her war in such a way as to heve not only her force, but the war itself a secret from most of the rest of the world. Oh, and let's not forget having the fate of the world placed literally in her hands every few months or so.

It would be very strange, in my opinion, if having to live with that responsibility on a day to day basis, with little or no help from anyone outside of a few close friends wouldn't have changed Buffy drastically. It speaks highly of her character that she is capable of maintaining her sanity while handling such a job.

So, who is the real villain? No, ultimately, I don't think that anyone willing to undertake that monumental a task for the good of mankind would be the villain. As for Twilight, he just might be the minion of a much greater, as yet unrevealed, evil force. In fact, considering the fact that each season's "Big Bad" has been consistently stronger than the previous one. it would even be logical to assume that the real, ultimate villain of the season hasn't really been revealed as of yet. But it's not Buffy.

Maybe the Shadow Men are seeking revenge on her and the entire Slayer army for destroying their little "one girl in all the world" setup.

 

[Kemy]

We see a Buffy unlike the girl we knew in the series, abandoning her morality and treating Humanity with contempt when it suits her, endangering the people shes supposedly chosen to protect.

We also see Humanity turning on the Slayers, first a Human (Twilight) taking on the task of trying to rid the world of magic to protect it from the likes of her. Then the military who side with Twilight to stop her. And if the rumours for the next arc are true then the entire populace itself.

And now, Willow regretting performing the spell that created them and possibly even trying to end the line of the chosen herself.

Because of the Amulet Wolfram and Hart sent to Sunnydale, there was no need for the Army to be activated, it would have saved the day anyway. And there has to be a reason why the Shadow Men implicitly only allowed one Slayer to exist at a time, out of fear over something like this happening perhaps?

Buffy changed the rules without thinking, and has now unleashed 1800 demon powered warriors into the world who she cannot control. Many have already abused their power. *She* has abused her power. This can only end badly.

Buffy is the Big Bad, but in a tragic way, an unwitting one.

 

[Clem Rocks]

If you think about it, most of the big bads in Buffy aren't actualy evil

Only The Master, Warren and The First

 

[Blondie Bear]

Funnily enough, when I first saw this thread title, I thought you were talking about the NOVELS. I know there's a rivalry (I'm not sure how strong or serious) between the Twilight novels and Buffy, and I thought it was about to get really ugly!

 

[Kemy]

If you think about it, most of the big bads in Buffy aren't actualy evil

Only The Master, Warren and The First

I know, odd that.

ADAM just wanted to understand the world and to "improve it".

Glory just wanted to go home.

Angelus was enjoying himself in his own twisted way.

The Mayor, well he would probably have eaten enough people to ascend away from here before long.

 

[nerd4hire]

I have a theory Buffy's self-doubt, and her asking the same questions this thread does will turn out to be Buffy's real enemy.

 

[wehappyfew]

Wow, you guys are throwing me for a loop. I love when I have new Buffy insight to contemplate!
You all raised really awesome points and i'm not sure I have anything to add.

Just wow.

I guess at this point, I'm in agreement with all of you. do your thang posters. 🙂
[br][/br]
Edit:
[br][/br]
ooh ooh! :::raises hand desperately wanting to be apart of the discussion:::

perhaps...the first wanted this? or...i just remember buffy kind of disregarding the amulet and the first is taunting her with all of its "loneliness" talk and then buffy gets all arrogant with the "we're gonna win."
but like you posted above, the amulet was gonna take care of things anyway....what was the spell for?
so they staked a few ubervamps...was they really part of "the big picture" buffy had grown to see.
i don't know. it just seems like buffy got a little hotheaded and now she's all upset about there being no mention of her and her slayer comrades in the books.
again, i'm not adding anything new....this dicussion is just too cool to miss out on.

 

[UnKle]

Doug Petrie said something that completely caught me. It was in the commentary for "This Year's Girl":

"And we've never seen Buffy as the villain before. We talk about it a lot. We've played with it a little bit, actually, but the idea of doing a whole season where Buffy's the bad guy, and what do you do when a Slayer goes wrong? Pretty scary stuff. Maybe we'll do that with Season 7."​

Now my own commentary. I've never viewed Twilight as a "villain". His plot does not seem nefarious (qualifier - any more nefarious than Buffy's). Time and again he's stated a very real truth - the balance of nature has been upset by Buffy and she's going to pay the price for that, one way or the other. And obviously, Buffy did upset a precarious balance between good and evil.

Newton's Third Law: "Every action has an equal and opposite reaction." Simplified, this means "balance". One thing can't cause imbalance without the opposite thing reacting naturally to recreate balance.

And also, I have watched Buffy go from Season 1 to Season 8 and the change in her attitude, especially about who she is and what she's got to do, is enormous! By Season 7, she already believed she was "the law" - and to a great extent, applied in the realm of magic and demons, she was right.

But also along the path between Season 1 and Season 8, we've seen Buffy lose her sense of self. She's losing her own identity as Buffy, and the identity as "the law" is who she is now. She's no longer Buffy, she's the general of an army that's poised and ready to wipe out the balance of things, come hell or high water.

 

[La Luna Unita]

I agree that an unintended consequence of expanding the Slayer line is a chaotic mess of young women with supernatural power. Buffy's power comes from a dark place and her control and sense of responsibility cannot reasonably be expected to be replicated in every other woman gifted with Slayer abilities.

In her place, when fully realizing what I had done, I would be seriously panicking right now.

*spoiler* Faith discovered when working undercover one Slayer who had absolutely no sense of morals. And we've also seen through Faith herself what happens when a Slayer runs rampant.

Many new slayers are seeking out Buffy and her crowd out of a desire to work against evil, but what about the hundreds who don't? By choice or by accident, there are scads of powerful people out there with no guidance (Watchers) and no one to police them. I have confidence that Buffy's motives are always pure, but she definitely has displayed an attitude of "if they won't join you, beat them" in the past. If any of the myriad other Slayers share a similar attitude, then who will stop any of them from taking or doing anything they want? (I know, I totally sound like Twilight right now)

Also, as a side note to this discussion, what are our standards for "villainy" when talking about Season 8's villain? As noted above, lots of Big Bads in the past weren't really evil for the sake of evil "“ they had a totally reasonable goal and were just"¦ um"¦ morally flexible in how they tried to reach it.

Our current real world American attitudes foster acceptance of minority opinions into the majority "“ democracy in a loose sense. Our sense of justice and fairness hinges on the concept of unalienable rights for all humans. Previous centuries showed a broad range of thought on the topic of power and rights "“ including "might makes right." Could this be too tempting of an alternative for the Slayers who believe they are doing the world a favor? If they can create an evil-free paradise on Earth, can it really be paradise if there's no right to choose one's own actions freely? Are they becoming the very thing they fear?? Hmmm"¦

 

[CharmedSlayer85]

I don't know it's just seeming like so far everything is pointed toward Buffy ultimately being the villian. I mean take what Willow said to Fray (of course she could be lying) but that Buffy will eventually try to kill her because ultimately they'll want different things and will disagree, and going back to what they touched on in Season 7, Willow said slayers ultimately don't get their strength in numbers and that's been a theme in the Buffyverse for years that ultimately the slayer is alone. And also Buffy has become so "big picture," thinking that it might ultimately lead her to a darker path. For example during Season Six of Charmed one of the Elders wanted to destroy Piper and Leo's son Wyatt because he was suppose to turn evil and take over both good and evil magick and the Elder felt Wyatt was too powerful to exist especially with that dark future looming, so technically he wasn't a bad guy he was thinking "big picture," but because of that ended up doing things that wasn't good guy like in order to achieve what he felt was for the greater good.

Take for example Buffy wanting to let those humans die in order to track down Harth, the Buffy of old would have never let that happen and simply take one of the vampires and just simply torture them until it told her, or she would have figured some other plan not watch people get murdered because of the bigger picture.

 

[Perny]

Not into the whole season 8 thinkg yet, but I kinda hope it's Satsu (Just not into the gay Buffyness which occured)

It would make sense.-....to me

 

[white avenger]

Not into the whole season 8 thinkg yet, but I kinda hope it's Satsu (Just not into the gay Buffyness which occured)

It would make sense.-....to me

I hope not. I really like what little we've learned about Satsu, not the Batsu thing especially, but she just seems so sincere and dedicated to the Slayer mission, but that could be, of course, because she and Renee were the two new Slayers that we knew the most about, or at least saw the most of.

 

[Skanky Vamp]

I have a theory...

it could be bunnies?

 

[Perny]

I have a theory...

It could be witches, some evil witches (Amy and Willow!)

 

[InsaneMystic]

...or maybe midgets?



(to use one of the lesser quoted, though much loved by me, lines of that song. 😛 )

 

[Chase Summers]

hey guys,

wanted to add my opinion/views cause I think this is a very interesting subject. You guys have brought up good points, and I think there are clues being dropped by writers all ready in regards to the villain. Personally, I think it's Buffy, or at least her views...ego, etc as the "true" bad guys. Sure there are the external bad guys like Amy and Warren, but ultimately it is the inner turmoil that is our own undoing, right? I feel a double cross coming up. Amy and Warren represent the whole, "we want revenge against Buffy and Willow blah blah blah" group. Twilight has already brought it to our attention as an audience that he/she/it is a different creature entirely. Twilight's actions don't represent the whole "the town is ours!" view of Warren or the petty jelousy of Amy. They are more surgical strikes. Twilight is striking at Buffy's self image (a point that was made by another poster in another thread). I think Twilight is using Warren and Amy as a means to an end and is going to dispatch of them as soon as it's done with them.

Dark Willow makes a very telling statment by saying that Slayers do not gather strength from numbers. Evil in this universe doesn't mean stupid, and doesn't always mean dishonest. Buffy's villains have always had a talent for lying and causing trouble with the truth - purely evil or accidentally, it's doesn't matter. The truth is: Slayers are meant to be alone. There should be only one. It's odd that no one has (in the BuffyVerse) commented on the obvious imbalance when there was thousands of demons and 1 Slayer, but now that there's thousands of slayers and thousands of demons, you got people lining up to talk about the imbalance. But they are different imbalances. When there was one or two slayers, sure there were lots of demons, but a status quo always seemed to be maintained. However, with thousands of Slayers in the world, something is thrown off. I've noticed that Buffy doesn't exactly carry or instill awe anymore. I'm not feeling it, and I don't think her enemies are either. I think one Slayer in the world speaks volumes about power. I mean, this one girl is so powerful because there can be only one. Now that there's thousands, it's old hat. The Slayer is no longer this "myth" demons use to keep their spawn in line. It's odd because knowledge is a power. Most people think it's a power to have knowledge, but a more accurate phrase would be "control of knowlege is power." Now there's thousands of girls running around with this power. Some abusing the power, most having no idea how to use it, and all of them open to abuse of it, and inappropriate access to it from outsiders. Buffy's enemies no longer seem afraid of her. By sharing her power she has weakened it and I think preciptated her undoing. She's opened herself up as a target (I mean really, who takes up residence in a castle of all places...besides Dracula? Pretty dramatic. Another little interesting thing I noticed. Buffy is residing in a place that has traditionally been her enemies haunts!). No big moral difference between her and Dracula at this point. I mean, they even end up fighting on the same side this season.

Buffy and, in a sense, Angel, have always been about the power to choose. Angel got Wolfram and Hart (and his own undoing) by ending world peace or as he and his team called it: an evil plot because it took away our God given right to free will. Illyria has commented on Angel's access to power, but his quibble at the price. Buffy has forced a choice on girls around the world and in an sense robbed them of their will to choose. And I really feel like that spell had more to do with Buffy feeling alone, than with saving the world. She's still whining and complaining about being alone, even though now she's not. Other poster have pointed out that there was no real reason to perform the spell with Buffy and Spike in possession of the amulet. Although to be fair, they didn't know what it would do. However, it stands to reason that Wolfram and Hart would send something that would greatly aid Buffy, cause why on Earth would they want many more slayers in the world? I mean, help her out so's not to spread her power. I think by the time the sent Angel with the amulet they knew she had found the Scythe and probably knew a lot more about it than she did.

I think the writer's choice of plotlines are condemning what Buffy has done. You've got Buffy robbing girls of their free will (in essence doing what she resisted from the Shadow Men), abusing her power (what's left of it), rationalizing that abuse, humanity is now very concerned and gearing up for a war with her, and her closest friend has gone evil and reached out from the future to destroy her.

These writers have always stressed that there are consequences to magic (i.e., actions.) and Buffy is starting to get her taste. We don't know fully what's gonna happen or how she's going to be made to pay, but we already have an idea of how Willow has had to pay. There's always consequences and unfortuantely, this time Buffy may be making her entire world pay with her.

 

[CharmedSlayer85]

I think demons still fear Buffy, because instead of her being the lone slayer she is now the leader of a group of slayers and now more demons want her dead than ever before. If that was not the case Buffy wouldn't have need to have a decoy in the underworld and in Italy. Buffy Summers is basically now known as the Queen of Slayers and still will ultimately go down in history as the greatest slayer who has ever lived. As far as the multiple slayers thing, I personally don't see how thousands of slayers tips the scales of balance, because there is still far more evil in the world and on top of that there is more powerful evil in the world AND not all the slayers are good. And also as far as we know there is a First Evil but there isn't a First Good, so aren't the scales already tipped in favor of evil?

 

[La Luna Unita]

It's odd because knowledge is a power. Most people think it's a power to have knowledge, but a more accurate phrase would be "control of knowlege is power." Now there's thousands of girls running around with this power. Some abusing the power, most having no idea how to use it, and all of them open to abuse of it, and inappropriate access to it from outsiders.

Buffy has forced a choice on girls around the world and in an sense robbed them of their will to choose.

Wow, Phoenix, I think you have some deep stuff going on here. I quoted the section above because I both agree and disagree - I think that the idea of control of knowledge as power is a great one. The cat is out of the bag - if ever the demons of the world were on alert against goodness, it's right now. They are all looking over their shoulders and trying to expect what they can't know for sure.

I'm not as certain about robbing people of their right to choose their lives... I do agree with your point, however, I also think that each of these girls was robbed of that right when they were born and thrown into the pool of "potentials." Prior to Willow's spell, any one potential at a time could have been forced to choose the life of a Slayer... but only one at a time. Regardless, at the death of a Slayer, the new one is forced to choose. Waaaay back in Season 1 we saw initial resistance from Buffy when she learned that Giles was her new watcher; she thought she'd left that part of life behind (just for a second). But ultimately she discovers that she really has no choice. Is the crime any greater if it happens to the multitude suddenly, rather than trickling down to possibly 20 or 50 over a single generation? (This point is more for discussion - I can see that there are a lot of ways to look at it)

As far as the multiple slayers thing, I personally don't see how thousands of slayers tips the scales of balance, because there is still far more evil in the world and on top of that there is more powerful evil in the world AND not all the slayers are good. And also as far as we know there is a First Evil but there isn't a First Good, so aren't the scales already tipped in favor of evil?

I think that the scales are considered tipped because the initial balance was a ratio of 1 Slayer: Infinity Demons. That's what was established as a baseline "balance." Even though we're looking at even numbers now between Slayers and Demons, with more produced all the time, we aren't looking at the previous template for an established balance by any means.

Also, I love the idea of the First Good. We complain about Him/Her all the time in real life - so why doesn't He/She/It fix everything or support the Slayer more if He/She/It exists in Buffy's world? Who knows? I suspect it comes back to an issue of free will and doing the right thing for the sake of others, rather than expecting a reward to come down from the First Good (if there is one). Kind of a typical Judeo-Christian answer.