Knights of Byzantium Speculation

N

Nikkolas

Glory/Dawn Shipper.......
Joined
Jul 5, 2008
Messages
237
Age
37
Location
Fort Worth, TX
The knights seek to destroy Glory and the Key.

...but why?

Why is a medieval group attempting to kill a being that's only been in our dimension for 20 or so years? (however old Ben is)

The best explanation I got is something I read earlier. The knights are not native to this dimension. This explains their ability to appear in small and large groups really quickly as they just hop through a dimensional portal from wherever they are from.

I think it bears merit. These guys were tragically one of the biggest flaws with Season 5 in my opinion and I'm just trying to fill in the plot holes.
 
It's been a while I watched that part of the show, but... didn't the general say his ancestors had been hunting Glory too? I thought she had been in the body of many people. I might be wrong though.
 
Why is a medieval group attempting to kill a being that's only been in our dimension for 20 or so years?
Click to expand...

Because Joss Whedon sucks at plotting long story-arcs? Really, the entire arc is ridiculous from its very start. Just try to count the silly plot contrivances in No Place Like Home alone. I suspect the writers didn't really think much about the knights, they just thought it would be cool if knights on horseback chase Buffy. And knights of Byzantium is such a random sounding name, did they come from ancient Byzantium and travelled through time or something?
 
J
Justme
[No message]
But there is another possibility. Ben might not have been as young as he seemed to be. He and Glory are the same person, and if we assume that Glory is immortal, there's no telling exactly how long that she has been in this dimension just waiting for the proper time when she could return to her own private hell. Ben could have been around, like the Highlander's immortals, "since the very dawn of time," just being careful not to stay in one place long enough for his immortality to become noticeable. Move to a new country, establish a new identity every twenty years or so, then move on again. If Methos could do it for over 5000 years and the Macleods for more than 400 years, any hell god worth her salt should be able to do the same thing.
 
W
Willow My Love
Ben couldn't have been immortal if Giles killed him. I'm pretty sure the logic there was Ben would die, so Glory would too.
S
SlayerFae
Oh, Ben's mortal, but his life force is tied to Glory's. So he could have been around as long as Glory has (however long) until someone killed HIM, because he was the one capable of being killed.
I always figured that the Knights were a kind of dorment cult, moving through the ages, keeping tabs on The Beast, ready for the call to action when the long-prophesied 'Key' appeared.

A bit like those wacky-assed Knights Templar decendants who tried to kill Indiana Jones when he got too close to finding the Holy Grail in The Last Crusade. 😛

Except the Knights of Byzantium went into full-on weekend Camelot mode.
 
I agree with LyteHouse, I assumed that the prophesy was ancient and the Knights of Byzantium just passed their legacy through each generation.
 
Tome
Tome
[No message]
I never thought too much about it, but what if it wasn't just Glory they were fighting, but they knew what the key was and wanted to destroy it anyhow? Maybe they wanted to destroy the key just because of what it could do, and maybe Glory was just an extra push to destroy it.
 
Willowmylove agrees: Ben couldn't have been immortal if Giles killed him. I'm pretty sure the logic there was Ben would die, so Glory would too.

You're confusing immortal with invulnerable. The fact that neither Ben nor Glory aged didn't mean, necessarily, that they couldn't be killed. Buffy had just badly injured Glory with the Troll's Hammer, thus she, and Ben, would be in an extremely weakened state. That's why Giles could finish the job that Buffy started, killing Ben and, therefore, Glory.
 
I'm not too sure if Ben was immortal, though basically there are some bad contradictions to the story however you try to view it. Him being immortal is pretty much the only way that it'd make sense for Glory to be starting to take on human tendencies like she did. As she herself said, she started doing human things like "going for the hurt instead of the kill." She was also starting to really go insane from being in our world for so long. It seemed like she had been trapped on this world for ages and ages by the time season 5 took place; ~20 years just isn't enough time for that to happen or for the spell those other hell gods weaved to trap her with a human to fall apart like it did.

Basically, I think that Joss tried for something really epic with this story and filled it with lots of twists and turns, but did a very poor job implementing it. This whole story has a lot of "wow! isn't that cool?!" moments that when looked at in detail, are filled with holes. The knights and the Glory/Ben relationship in general happen to be a couple of them.
 
W
Willow My Love
[No message]
Ben could be eternal and not immortal, i.e. he can't die of natural causes, but continues to live until slain.

But on the Knights of Byzantium, I always assumed they were an ancient order that was awaiting the return of The Beast and the existence of the Key. Not that they had been tracking it forever - but that they awaited its arrival; waiting for the prophecy to come true.
 
Regarding Glory/Ben's time in this dimension, it's made pretty clear I think that it's been exactly 25 years:

"Uhh! Just a little tight in the skin is all. I've been waiting an eternity - well, 25 human years - and it all comes down to tonight." -Glory, "Weight of the World."

She's referring to the amount of time in our dimension that she's had human "skin." I believe it was said somewhere that Ben was a baby when their separate beings merged, but I could be totally wrong.

So, if "countless generations" of Knights have been trying to stop Glory from finding the key, (according to Gregor), we have to assume that they travel through dimensions so it's hard to say when exactly they got to ours. It could also explain why she's been here for 25 whole years but they've only just started to come after her--again--according to our perception of time.



Stakesteak said:
I'm not too sure if Ben was immortal, though basically there are some bad contradictions to the story however you try to view it. Him being immortal is pretty much the only way that it'd make sense for Glory to be starting to take on human tendencies like she did. As she herself said, she started doing human things like "going for the hurt instead of the kill." She was also starting to really go insane from being in our world for so long. It seemed like she had been trapped on this world for ages and ages by the time season 5 took place; ~20 years just isn't enough time for that to happen or for the spell those other hell gods weaved to trap her with a human to fall apart like it did.

Basically, I think that Joss tried for something really epic with this story and filled it with lots of twists and turns, but did a very poor job implementing it. This whole story has a lot of "wow! isn't that cool?!" moments that when looked at in detail, are filled with holes. The knights and the Glory/Ben relationship in general happen to be a couple of them.
Click to expand...
 
caitaintdead said:
I agree with LyteHouse, I assumed that the prophesy was ancient and the Knights of Byzantium just passed their legacy through each generation.
Click to expand...

I can buy this .... what I can't buy is that they still fight their battles with swords, chain mail and horses.

Whoever said above that the Knights are the weakest link in Season 5 was right. I thought I was watching crackfic dreamed up by a Dungeons-and-Dragons playing burnout
 
sylvanscribe said:
I can buy this .... what I can't buy is that they still fight their battles with swords, chain mail and horses.
Click to expand...

Why was that so hard to believe when we have a line of Slayers whose most modern weapon is a very primitive version of the crossbow? It wasn't as though modern weapons wouldn't work against demons, as Buffy's rocket launcher proved in Season 2. As for the horses and traditional armor, maybe they lost all their luggage on the flight to Sunnydale, and noone thought to bring a valid drivers' license.
 
sylvanscribe said:
I can buy this .... what I can't buy is that they still fight their battles with swords, chain mail and horses.

Whoever said above that the Knights are the weakest link in Season 5 was right. I thought I was watching crackfic dreamed up by a Dungeons-and-Dragons playing burnout
Click to expand...
If you believe the argument that they are traveling through dimensions and different time perceptions, then using what we perceive to be "archaic" weapons makes sense.
 
The main thing that bothered me about them was it was never said what exactly they were. I figured they were human, we see one in the hospital recieving care like any normal human, yet Buffy clearly killed some of them. Then, according to Giles in The Gift, 'She couldn't take a human life.' Sooo... were they not human? What the hell were they? Or did it just not matter if they were human because they were trying to kill Dawn?

I'm pretty sure I'm just over-thinking the whole thing, but their whole story was full of massive holes that made no sense to me.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom