Slayer knowledge

[disturbedvanity]

So I am watching Showtime and once again I noticed when Buffy asks Kennedy if she knows how to use a crossbow she replies, "since I was eight."

So a few of these potentials have always had watchers. Some of them knew they were potentials, whereas others like Rhona only had just found out.

I'm curious why some potentials had knowledge of their destiny for most of their lives, but Buffy didn't have any idea until she was called and others only found out when The First made itself known.

Any thoughts?

 

[Shayla]

Thats a very good guestion! And honestly I've really never thought about that, or even noticed it before.

Maybe some of the potentials parent's knew? Or the WC told the parents? Or the WC has a list of the potentials and tried to prepare them,...or ...I've got to think a bit more about this. hehe

 

[DrusillaRox]

Maybe they, like kendra, were raised by their watchers, for the calling.

 

[Skanky Vamp]

My thought is it is another reason (along with spike) why Season 7 ruined the series; the premise was that here was a normal ordinary girl who one day gets a strange man knocking on her door saying she is the slayer. Though there was Kendra who said at an early age she was sent to live with her Watcher, but that was do to the family taking the "calling" seriously, therefor it was downplayed that that happened en masse, possibly as a result of her nationality. The idea that there were dozen of girls all being trained as vampire slayers for nothing, that the world never knowing of vampires or slayers as a result, as well as the isolation factor of being a Slayer ruined the entire thematic focus of the series. Buffy was never alone per se, there were always more potentials being trained with whom she could hang out. Why wasnt she ever introduced to all these potentials that were being trained? It was crap by Mr. Whedon in my opinion to give the show a big finish and negate everything that came before.

 

[Tueuse de Vampires]

I'm not sure if I made that up for credibility reasons or I actually read it, but from 'Pretty maids all in a row' I got the impression that the Watcher's Council had a system to recognize potentials, but not every single potential. So I guess when they know a girl could be the next slayer someday they start training them, in other cases they just find out when it's 'too late'.

 

[DrusillaRox]

Sco, that's right, but it raises the question "If all these potential slayers know about the calling, why diesn't anyone help Buffy?"

 

[Lyri]

Sco, that's right, but it raises the question "If all these potential slayers know about the calling, why diesn't anyone help Buffy?"

Because they were Potential Slayers. As we'd established during S7, the Potentials did have more strength, better reflexes and were certaintly different to 'normal' teenage girls, but they had nowhere near the power of the true Slayer. The Watcher's Council probably figured it was better to keep them safe and away from the action until they were Called.

As for the part about Joss negating everything he'd created, I read the Christopher Golden novel 'Pretty Maids All in a Row' before I saw S7, so the whole Potentials, or 'Slayers-in-Training' as they were called in the book, was never a big surprise to me. I think I even wrote a fanfic sometime during S6 about a Potential waiting to be Called. I just figured that some Potentials were easier to find than others, Buffy beibng one of those harder to pin-point girls, probably because of her Valley girl status, lol.

There's aslo the 'Tales of the Slayers' series of short stories, some of them written by writers of the show, that deals with Potentials being Chosen, Watchers being sent out to find their Potential and start training her, or Potentials dying before they got a chance to be Called.

I never saw the Potentials and their history, Kennedy's in particular, as crap, or a bad plot point on Joss' part, I just accepted it.

 

[Skanky Vamp]

I never saw the Potentials and their history, Kennedy's in particular, as crap, or a bad plot point on Joss' part, I just accepted it.

I just thought Kendra was an anomaly. Lyri, so you are honestly suggesting that there are things that could not have been learned from either the Slayer or potentials teaching one another. Dont you think in six seasons there could have been made mention of other potentials in training?

You say 'they were not as powerful as the slayer' which is true, but neither were Willow, Xander or Cordy yet they still lent a hand. If there were actually girls being trained, who, as Buffy said had innate abilities other did not, that they could not have been beneficial? Yet there was no mention of them.

 

[Lyri]

Like I said, I figured the Council wanted to keep them out of the action, to keep them...well, not safe, but alive.

My theory is that the Council, being as selfish as they are, figured that the more Potentials they had, the less Slayers they had to waste energy hunting down. In their eyes, what would be the point of spending time and money training these giels to be the Slayer, then sending them into the field before they're Called, probably resulting in their death. This would have been a sever inconvenience for the Council. You know what they're like, they think about only themselves and not what's best for the Slayer, or most helpful to her.

I never said it wouldn't have been good for Buffy to have other girls who might on day be like her to help her out, I just se it from the 'in the story' point of view. I don't know why Joss never made more mentions of the Potentials before S7, but there was Kendra, and we know she was in training before she was Called, so it didn't come as a complete surprise, at least, it didn't to me.

Plus, I sorta figured that Faith was also a Potential, but I don't have anything to back that up other than a novel that isn't canon, so...

 

[Skanky Vamp]

but there was Kendra, and we know she was in training before she was Called, so it didn't come as a complete surprise, at least, it didn't to me.

Yeah but you're LittleMissFanGirl! 🙂 I just never thought there were more than her is all.. I think having the novels helped you cope with the idea more!

 

[Black Eye Guy]

Isn't in Kinda obvious why the potentials weren't helping Buffy all this time - They could die, the couldn't protect themselves in the same way.

Plus it seems when a slayer is called the watcher, if their not already with them, go to the slayers location, they couldn't just send a 16 old girl to somewhere in the world, far away from their family.

We were also shown in season 7 that there is a way for potentials to be found, I don't know for sure but I assume that the amount of potentials out numbered the watchers, so there wouldn't be enough watchers to pair with every slayer, so they choose them at random, in some cases it works out, like kendra, but because of lack of people they can't get to everyone!

 

[Skanky Vamp]

Here's another hypothetical question; If, as Buffy mentioned, without the Slayer the Watchers are just watching Masterpiece Theater, and if they had all these slayers-in-waiting, when Buffy become uncontrollable and quit the council in season three, why didnt they just element her? They proved on more than one occasion that they were less than ethical, so to remove an uncontrollable slayer for one they could control (and have trained, unlike Buffy) doesnt seem like a stretch. Also, what good would having all these slayers-in-waiting do if Glory opened the portal. The Watchers were looking desperately for a means to help Buffy, I am sure they would not have been sitting on the sidelines for that one either. There are too many reasons TO mention these potentials than not to mention them, so I can only conclude it was a spur-of-the-moment decision.

 

[Lindsey McDonald]

Were there really all that many? I always got the impression that the Council were relatively inept at finding Potentials. Is there any source that says they had more than a small amount?

 

[Edmund Blackadder]

I got bored halfway through so if someone has said what I am about to, well tough.

I don't really focus much on the locating of Potentials.
We're told in the movie (which is good enough for me) that they have a mark, one which Buffy had removed.
For whatever reason other potentials lose the mark or its not obvious.

As for the argument about why the Potentials weren't sent to the Slayer as an army - emm, did you watch season 7?
Why did the First want to wipe out all the potentials before it killed Buffy?
Oh yeah, it would wipe out the Slayer line.

I imagine the Council of Watchers was being cautious because it had this very same thought.

The 'eggs in one basket' thing comes to mind.

I don't see anything in season 7 as a contradiction in regards to this.
Heck, Giles even has a witches Coven locate all the potentials, but even they don't locate them all.

 

[Skanky Vamp]

As for the argument about why the Potentials weren't sent to the Slayer as an army - emm, did you watch season 7?
Why did the First want to wipe out all the potentials before it killed Buffy?
Oh yeah, it would wipe out the Slayer line.

So the slayer line has an expiration date? Did you not see the finale where there were slayers- fat slayers, skinny slayers, baseball player slayers- all over the world that no one knew about? A few girls in training, even if they were potentials would not be a great loss when compared to opening a hellmouth and/or bringing hell on earth.

 

[Lyri]

The reason for the First's attack was to rid the world of The Chosen One, we found that out during S7. The First planned on doing this by:

A) Destroying the Watcher's Council, which was the only way to track and find new Potentials. (Or so they thought, anyway)

B) Killing all of the Potentials currently in training, and those no in traingin.

C) Killing Faith

D) Killing Buffy, thus ending the Slayer line.

Get all the Potential Slayers in one place, the same place where the current Slayer is, and some Big Bad has a plan...blow up the hosue/warehouse/whatever they're all hiding out it, and boom! A big old dent in the Watcher's Councils plans.

IMHO, it was better, and probably safer, to keep them hidden, rom the demon community, from each other, and from the Slayer herself.

 

[Edmund Blackadder]

So the slayer line has an expiration date? Did you not see the finale where there were slayers- fat slayers, skinny slayers, baseball player slayers- all over the world that no one knew about? A few girls in training, even if they were potentials would not be a great loss when compared to opening a hellmouth and/or bringing hell on earth.

Emm, what?

IF you remove all the potentials, there is no person for the Slayer line to move into when the Slayer is dead.

There is nothing in the show to say that The First wasn't aware of all the Potentials.

As was said, The Watchers Council weren't aware of them all, that doesn't mean The First didn't.

You really ought to watch the season again.

 

[Lindsey McDonald]

Also, you have the thing with Potential Potentials. A potential has an age range in which the can be called - and presumably found. It's not really a stretch to think that all of the current active potentials were in Sunnydale or dead - the others were just potential potentials.

 

[Skanky Vamp]

As was said, The Watchers Council weren't aware of them all

That was the point I was making.. when push came to shove the ones they were aware of should have been AT LEAST mentioned as being able to assist. What's four or five potentials they knew of versus all the ones they didnt. Furthermore, as Lindsey pointed out, there was a self life on the potential of a slayer. What good is all the training, teaching and money spent on them if they simply outgrow their potential?

 

[Lyri]

For the simple reason we've just stated...the Council didn't want them to be used to fight, at least not yet, so they wouldn't have been able to assisst, so what would be the point of mentioning them? What would Buffy have thought, back in S1 or before, knowing that there were dozens of girls out there, training to take over from her when she kicked the bucket? It would have caused her major stress, knowing that she wasn't really the only girl in all the world, just the current one, and she had backups in case she failed.

Granted, maybe Joss should have mentioned the Potentials more frequently before S7, but he did mention Kendra. We knew she was in training to become the Slayer from a very young age. It wasn't a completely new angle he was springing on us. It had it's foundations as far back as S2.