The Slayer Line As of Season 10

H

Hero

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The Battle of Sunnydale in Chosen, dimensions collapsing and the war in season eight, Pearl, Whistler and Nash, and everything in between... We've seen A LOT of slayers slaughtered like cattle since Buffy changed all the potentials into slayers in season seven. My question is: are the new slayers carrying the slayer line or does it still lie with Faith? In other words, if all of the active slayers that were called during Chosen are to die off, does that mean eventually the line will go back to one girl in all the world a la Melaka Fray? Or as the spell states, "every girl in the world who might be a slayer, will be a slayer," will continue on and on?
 
As this exchange in "Enemies 3X17" shows, the Mayor, who was tuned in to all things occult, thought that even with Faith there, a new slayer line could still come from Buffy:

ANGEL
Well, gee sir, I thought I'd find that
Slayer who's giving you so much
trouble and torture, maim,
and kill her.
MAYOR
Fine! Nice to hear you're not one of
those "slacker" types running around
today. Torture Buffy. Killing her's fine,
but make it a slow one.
ANGEL
My favorite kind.
MAYOR
Wonderful. We don't want a
replacement Slayer anytime soon. They
can't all turn out like my girl Faith.
Have fun!

This implies that two slayer lines exist at this point after Faith succeeded Kendra who was called when Buffy was killed by the Master at the end of Season 1 then revived by Xander. It appears that any potential, once called to be the slayer, will have slayers as successors.
 
Ethan Reigns said:
As this exchange in "Enemies 3X17" shows, the Mayor, who was tuned in to all things occult, thought that even with Faith there, a new slayer line could still come from Buffy:

ANGEL
Well, gee sir, I thought I'd find that
Slayer who's giving you so much
trouble and torture, maim,
and kill her.
MAYOR
Fine! Nice to hear you're not one of
those "slacker" types running around
today. Torture Buffy. Killing her's fine,
but make it a slow one.
ANGEL
My favorite kind.
MAYOR
Wonderful. We don't want a
replacement Slayer anytime soon. They
can't all turn out like my girl Faith.
Have fun!

This implies that two slayer lines exist at this point after Faith succeeded Kendra who was called when Buffy was killed by the Master at the end of Season 1 then revived by Xander. It appears that any potential, once called to be the slayer, will have slayers as successors.
Click to expand...

I can see the argument, but it's just as likely that, by Activating all of the Potential Slayers in the world at one time, Buffy caused some kind of astral overload, throwing the Buffyverse into a condition that would completely nullify the normal process of a new Slayer being Called at the moment of the previous Slayer's death, something so severe that it would take until Fray's time for the Slayer Line to restabalize and go back to the "one girl in all the world" rule causing it to take generations for it to reset, reboot, regenerste, or whatever.
 
I just thought that there won't be any more 'new' slayers for an entire generation now (as in 'into every generation a slayer is born') and that as the slayers slowly die out (or get picked off or killed or whatever) we'll be left with fewer and fewer.

My betting is that either Buffy or Faith will be the last ever slayer in this time to kick the bucket during some final epic battle- probably Faith for extra pathos- and then there won't be any more until Maleka Fray comes along.
 
I think we can rule out a new slayer being called every time one of the "Chosen" slayers dies. Their deaths seemed to charge up Buffy for a time in Season 8 so I'm pretty sure they weren't also making new slayers. With the new magic I think it's anyone's guess what will happen if either Faith or Buffy dies. I don't think there's anything in the comics that says for certain.
 
The exchange in Enemies in Season 3 was the Mayor's guess at how it was, but the series proved him wrong as no one new was called when Buffy died in S5. Therefore the line rested with Faith from S3 onwards and only her death would call a new slayer.
There's not been any explicit explanation of whether future potentials are being born since the end of S7, but the hints have all been that there won't be any more until Frey.
PS the fact that the line lay with Faith makes it a lot meaner that no one told her about the First in S7... and it should really have been her up there with Willow at the end imo...
 
We don't know that no one was called when Buffy died the second time. We only know they didn't show up in Sunnydale and introduce themselves. We know the potentials were scattered all over the world, so if a slayer was called somewhere in, say, Africa, we didn't see it nor would we expect to see it.
 
Ethan Reigns said:
We don't know that no one was called when Buffy died the second time. We only know they didn't show up in Sunnydale and introduce themselves. We know the potentials were scattered all over the world, so if a slayer was called somewhere in, say, Africa, we didn't see it nor would we expect to see it.
Click to expand...

I've always though that something like that would be a distinct possibility, along with the almost certainty that, especially in the past, when communications ant travel were both much slower and less reliable, there could have been more than a few Slayers who were Called, lived out the rest of their short lives, and died, without ever being located by the Watchers. If nothing else, it could be the premise for some great fan fiction.

Joss, on the other hand, swears and be damned that the Slayer Line passed from Buffy to Kendra, then on to Faith, which kinda takes the wind out of the sails for that theory. That, however, brings up another point. The Slayer is the "one girl in all the world" designated by the Shadow Men, all those centuries ago, to fight the vamps and demons. If Faith is the current Slayer, shouldn't Buffy, technically, be something else? She is now outside the Slayer Line, unless, of course, her second resurrection somehow brought her back as the Slayer in a new Slayer line, so maybe she should be referred to as the Proto-Slayer, or the Uber-Slayer, or even something entirely lacking in the term "Slayer," like maybe the Guardian or the Protector. As I said, just a technicality, only important to nit pickers like myself.
 
I happen to be a fan of "death of the author" analysis which means if it's not on the screen, it isn't anywhere. Joss can backtrack all he wants, the show is the only evidence. Anya and Giles visit Beljoxa's Eye in "Showtime 7ABB11" and there is some amusing issues with this - the audio does not match up with the video when Anya is talking beginning with her conversation with Tork, so if we have a lip reader on the forum, I would be interested in what was really said. It looks like a bad English language overdub on a kung-fu movie with the actors saying more than we hear. From the text:

ANYA
I just... still don't understand how
Buffy's death mucked up the Slayer
mojo. Not like she hasn't died
before.

GILES
It's not her dying. The Beljoxa's
Eye was clear... in its enigmatic
way... It's because she lives.
Again.
(then)
Buffy's not responsible for that.

ANYA
NO. It's our fault. Willow and me
and Xander and... and Tara. We
brought her back... We're the reason
The First is here. The reason all
those girls were murdered--

According to Anya, it appears that the split of the slayer line at the end of Season 1 into the separate Buffy and Kendra -> Faith line made possible by Xander resuscitating Buffy was not the cause of the Season 7 problem. The Season 6 resurrection spell that brought Buffy back not only set up the demon in "Afterlife 6ABB03" but brought The First up from the netherworld. There were two slayer lines before that time and The First did not have the requisite conditions to attack either slayer line. Once Buffy returned from the dead the second time, the necessary conditions existed and the First began his attack.
 
So none of you think that the slayer line was split a thousand different ways during "Chosen?"

We know that the rules were broken, but we never really knew to the extent. When Buffy said, "every girl in the world who could have the power will have the power," how do we know for sure it was a one time gig?

Although I know when we get to Melaka Fray territory there is only ONE Slayer, but that's literally 300 years in the future. A lot could happen between then and now. As I mentioned in my earlier post, we've seen a lot of slayer massacres in Buffy Season 8 - 10 and Angel & Faith 1 - 2. By now I feel like they would be in short supply, yet they keep popping up. Simple plot device, maybe?

Also, I recently found a short story on Kindle for $0.99 called "The Fall of A Slayer" about a Slayer in 1972. It's only 27 pages long, but it was well written, thematic, and was a good story that's basically fan fic. Just incase anyone's interested.
 
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