The Slayer Line

[Black Eye Guy]

I think it's safe to say that the main theory on the slayer line is that it passed from Buffy to Kendra to Faith, who held it up to season 7.

Joss had confirmed that at a convention where he was asked a question and said the line runs through Faith now.

In season 7 everyone says it goes through Buffy now, and indicates that her being resurrected placed her back in the line, which is what messed up the line and allowed the First to attack.

But what do you think of this, it's a quote from the shooting script, I'd never seen it before and only read it for the first time today:

BUFFY (cont'd)
I've got strong allies: warriors,
charms, sorcerers, and I'll need them
all. But I'll also need you. Every
single one of you. So now you're
asking yourself, "What makes this
different? What makes us anything more
than a bunch of girls getting picked
off one by one?" It's true none
of you has the power Faith and
I have. I think both of us would
have to die for a new Slayer to be
called, and we can't even be sure
that girl is in this room. That's
the rule. So here's the part where
you make a choice.

this is what made it to the script:

BUFFY
I hate this. I hate being here. I hate that you have to be here. I hate that there's evil, and that I was chosen to fight it. I wish, a whole lot of the time, that I hadn't been. I know a lot of you wish I hadn't been either. (Kennedy and Rona look away) But this isn't about wishes. This is about choices. I believe we can beat this evil. Not when it comes, not when its army is ready, now. Tomorrow morning I'm opening the seal. I'm going down into the hellmouth, and I'm finishing this once and for all. Right now you're asking yourself, "what makes this different? What makes us anything more than a bunch of girls being picked off one by one?" It's true none of you have the power that Faith and I do. So here's the part where you make a choice.

Source for both

It's interesting that Buffy believed they'd both have to die for the next slayer to be called, I've had loads of discussions on the slayer line over the years, but I've never heard this brought up?

 

[Buffy Summers]

Yeah I never heard that one either. But it does bring up an interesting point about Buffy being reinserted into the Slayer line. Because if Buffy and Faith both have "the power" why wouldn't a new Slayer have been called when Faith died? So that is sort of interesting to think they shared the power now, and it would take both of them dying for it to be passed on.

 

[Black Eye Guy]

Yeah it gives more evidence to the idea of something disrupting the Slayer line.

I always assumed that the disruption was; Buffy being put back in and the line moved it from Faith to Buffy which messed it up, but the idea of it taking both slayers to die before another slayer is called, is actually cleaner than deciding which one it runs through or the whole theory of the double slayer line, if they needed to address it, it would have been easier to explain on screen than having to explain that the line was with Buffy then Kendra then Faith than back to Buffy.

 

[Lyri]

I think this is a better idea than assuming that Willow somehow has the power to take the Slayer line away from Faith and give it back to Buffy (which was always my personal fanon) or creating a brand new Slayer line that runs through Buffy, separate from the one that runs through Faith.

IF Fray!Verse is still the future for these characters (which I'm still doubtful about) it would make sense as to why it took so long for the Watchers to realize that the Slayer line was back.

If Buffy or Faith dies and the other one lives, then there what happens? Do we get half a Slayer?

 

[Buffy Summers]

Or does all the power go to the remaining Slayer, as we sort of saw in Season 9.

 

[Kean]

I think this is a better idea than assuming that Willow somehow has the power to take the Slayer line away from Faith and give it back to Buffy (which was always my personal fanon) or creating a brand new Slayer line that runs through Buffy, separate from the one that runs through Faith.

IF Fray!Verse is still the future for these characters (which I'm still doubtful about) it would make sense as to why it took so long for the Watchers to realize that the Slayer line was back.

If Buffy or Faith dies and the other one lives, then there what happens? Do we get half a Slayer?

Personally, I think the Fray!Verse is still on course, so what I'm wondering is, if it took until then for another Slayer to be called, did either Buffy, Faith (or both) of them end up living (at least not dying) until that point? Is this why Fray got the powers but Garth the dreams and connection to the lineage?

 

[Lyri]

Or does all the power go to the remaining Slayer, as we sort of saw in Season 9.

Like a Super!Slayer? That could be an interesting theory.

Personally, I think the Fray!Verse is still on course, so what I'm wondering is, if it took until then for another Slayer to be called, did either Buffy, Faith (or both) of them end up living (at least not dying) until that point? Is this why Fray got the powers but Garth the dreams and connection to the lineage?

I just don't like the idea that Willow - knowing what's in store for her from what Buffy told her - doesn't do anything to stop it from happening. Plus, I think it's really bad storytelling, because that can't do anything that would actively change anything from that future, so they've really painted themselves into a corner, as far as I'm concerned.

Well, going with the idea that the Fray!Verse IS the future, in the opening pages of Fray, we see what we're led to believe is the last remaining Slayer being sucked into a portal as she rids the worlds of demons. (I hope I'm remembering this correctly.) So, what if that Slayer (Buffy or Faith) didn't die at the point, but was taken to another dimension, where time moved differently, and she continued fighting the demons she had sucked in with her, ultimately dying in the process. But, because it's another dimension, what could have been minutes or hours for that Slayer, was actually hundreds of years in the real world.

Which is why no Slayer was called until Fray.

I like it. Still don't think Fray is the future, lol, but I'm willing to go with it for now.

 

[Buffy Summers]

So what would have happened to the world if Buffy & Angel had stayed in the Twilight world? Buffy would technically be alive?

 

[Kean]

So what would have happened to the world if Buffy & Angel had stayed in the Twilight world? Buffy would technically be alive?

My thinking is that Fray would definitely not have happened since the world would still be infused with magic. There's some other stuff too but I don't want to spoil you for S9 and its minis.

 

[EffieT1]

I am almost a 100 percent sure that the line runs through faith now i.e if buffy dies again nothing happens seeing as how she's already had her 'turn' but should faith die the power gets inherited, thats what threw things of balance because there are now two girls sharing the slayer bond/power even though technically only one of them can pass it on.

 

[white avenger]

If you consider the theory that time, instead of running in a single direction, splits at certain points (for instance, the Slayer and her friends attempting to avert an apocalypse creates two separate time lines, one in which they succeed and another in which they fail) then those two realities at other points either split once more or converge with other realities, then we can apply to time the Vulcan concept of "IDIC," which, as every real Trekkie knows, stands for Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations. Joss has stated somewhere that the final battle at the end of Season 8 was SUPPOSED to be the battle mentioned at the beginning of the "Fray" miniseries, and that he changed the outcome so that the Buffy story line could continue past that point. That means that at that point, two realities were created, one that stopped the Slayer line until Fray was called, and the other in which Buffy and her allies, and the Slayer line, remained alive and in tact, respectively. Then those two time lines re-converge at the point where Buffy travels to the future and has her arc with Fray and Dark Willow.

Now, we just need a story explaining why Willow turned Angel into a four armed monkey and cursed him to guard the Watchers' library for all eternity.

 

[ILLYRIAN]

Off Topic. ( My lame attempt at an intermission )

Answering that question correctly does open up some interesting discussions, which hopefully will be answered in the end.
Unless, of course, the end is Buffy being killed by the Master in season one, and everything after Buffy lying face down in the water is, 'Buffy seeing her life flash before her eyes' or are they memories of her life?
In which case, continue the discussion and ignore me.

EDIT:
I hadn't read the post by white avenger, before posting, honest.

 

[white avenger]

Off Topic. ( My lame attempt at an intermission )

Answering that question correctly does open up some interesting discussions, which hopefully will be answered in the end.
Unless, of course, the end is Buffy being killed by the Master in season one, and everything after Buffy lying face down in the water is, 'Buffy seeing her life flash before her eyes' or are they memories of her life?
In which case, continue the discussion and ignore me.

That would make everything after that point Joss' version of the old "Twilight Zone" episode, "An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge." That would be truly diabolical.

(For anyone who might not be familiar with that episode...)

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuP5kUQro40"]An Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge (1962) - YouTube[/ame]

It's worth the half hour to watch it.

 

[tbessie]

That would make everything after that point Joss' version of the old "Twilight Zone" episode, "An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge." That would be truly diabolical.

(For anyone who might not be familiar with that episode...)

An Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge (1962) - YouTube

It's worth the half hour to watch it.

I don't remember that as being a Twilight Zone adventure, just a short film.

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[white avenger]

I don't remember that as being a Twilight Zone adventure, just a short film.

____________________
Sent via TapaTalk

Yeah, it was on "Twilight Zone," I distinctly remember Rod Serling's narration at the end, something about the mind escaping reality even when life was leaving the body. But the actual program was French, if I recall correctly, which would explain why the Union soldiers' uniforms weren't authentic. Who in France either knew or cared what kind of uniforms were actually worn during the American Civil War?

 

[Robb Stark]

I actually never really knew there was so much debate about this topic. I always thought the line ran through Kendra, then Faith, after The Master killed Buffy. The fact that she was brought back was an anomaly, and that's why her death in "The Gift" didn't result in the activation of a new Slayer. At that point, according to the line, Faith is THE Slayer, even Buffy is number one symbolically and metaphorically.

 

[white avenger]

Though she continued to think of herself as such, once she was killed by the Master, Buffy Summers was no longer THE Slayer, and possibly, depending on your interpretation of the term, not even A Slayer. Granted, she continued to have the powers that she had had since being called, but if you accept the spell and the intention of the Shadow Men in its entirety, as it was originally intended to work, whenever the Slayer dies, a new one is called there was still only a single Slayer: Kendra, and then Faith. Buffy was something else entirely, something that the world had never seen before.The fact that she continued to perform the duties of the Slayer makes no difference whatsoever.

However...

Remember how the original Slayer was created? The Shadow Men bonded a demon of some sort with a normal girl, resulting in what was then known as the Slayer. Now, skip ahead through the ages to the beginning of Season 6. Willow and Tara, with the help of the others, succeeded in bringing Buffy, body and soul, back from the dead, and, in so doing, also brought into the Buffyverse a Rider demon. It's quite possible that the connection of Buffy and that demon, not Willow's spell specifically, actually was what formed a new line af demon fighters, virtually identical in all ways to the actual Slayers, but actually something else entirely. Think of Buffy from Season 6 on as Pepsi Cola rather that Coca Cola. We now have "Coca Faith" and "Pepsi Buffy". Both Colas, both with basically the same powers, but each with its own subtle, unique, virtually undetectable, properties.That's what created the imbalance in the universe that allowed the First Evil to attempt its attack on mankind.

 

[ILLYRIAN]

white avenger,
about that episode. As there is no Twilight Zone intro or any mention of Twilight Zone in the ending, the episode you posted isn't Twilight Zone.
About the shadow men doing that spell, what they said should happen and the outcome, the chances are they didn't know about CPR. So the last sentence of first paragraph, Buffy being able to be the slayer made every difference.
If anything, that is what gave the First the idea that something was about to happen.
As far as I remember it it was Willow who did the spell to bring back Buffy, Tara was like just one of the helpers.
The intricate extrapolations of the actual spell were not stated so your theories of the outcome are the same as mine; pure conjecture.
Willow brought Buffy back, but Willow brought Buffy back as she was when she was a slayer not as a normal girl.
That to me is where the deciding factor is.
Had Willow brought Buffy back as just a normal girl, Faith would have been the slayer. The First would not have come into being.
So Joss's plan to end the show at the end of S5 was good, maybe the S6 and 7 should have been titled Buffy and the Vampire Slayer.

 

[white avenger]

white avenger,
As there is no Twilight Zone intro or any mention of Twilight Zone in the ending, the episode you posted isn't Twilight Zone.

I'm not going to get into that other tuff, because I'm taking my wife out for dinner in just a few minute.

HOWEVER

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0734554/

and

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0734554/ (Read the last scentenance of the first paragraph)

and

[ame="http://www.amazon.com/An-Occurrence-Owl-Creek-Bridge/dp/B005HG31LM"]Amazon.com: Twilight Zone: Season 5, Episode 23 "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge": Amazon Instant Video@@AMEPARAM@@http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41B5ukuPj6L.@@AMEPARAM@@41B5ukuPj6L[/ame]

and

http://www.bestlibrary.org/sileng10/2010/03/twilight-zone-an-occurrence-at-owl-creek-bridge.html

There are other references, but they say basically the same thing. Regardless of who made the film, it WAS presented as an episode of Rod Serling's "Twilight Zone."

I'll address the rest after dinner unless the boss wants to se a late movie.

Y'all have a nice day, now, hyeah.

 

[ILLYRIAN]

white avenger, point taken.
So why didn't it have the start and finish of an episode of the Twilight Zone.