To me, before s7 the Hellmouth was never an actual... mouth

JCoatsworth

JCoatsworth

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In my opinion, this is a quite odd step the writers were taking there by making the Hellmouth a gateway that leads into the underground that is supposed to be hell. I always figured that the Hellmouth was some mystical place - not even a physical object - where the demonic activity was at its peak. The demonic activity was that powerful because the barrier between our world and the world of demons (short: hell) was very thin there. Or so I thought anyways.

Did anybody else feel this way?
 
Until Buffy invaded the Hellmouth in S7, I always sort of envisioned it as some sort of cross between a portal and a gateway. I actually liked the idea of the seal to the Hellmouth being hidden away in the school. I know we never saw it before then, but I can buy that that was what The Master was trying to open in the first season.

I seem to be one of the few, but I really liked the idea of Buffy going into the Hellmouth. Even if the seal was a really well-defined gateway to a hell dimension, we have seen that before with Angel and a few other characters (I know they didn't always go willingly, but still). Maybe they just didn't have access to it prior to the high school being re-built.
 
I don't really get what they did with the hellmouth. When there's the beast thing in 'The Zeppo' Giles says that's just the start and that there's much worse. Then when they go down there it is is just a hideout for the Turok-Han. 😕
 
JCoatsworth
JCoatsworth
Yes, I also thought that was weird.
BuffyElevated
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Sweet J
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Always Bangel said:
I seem to be one of the few, but I really liked the idea of Buffy going into the Hellmouth
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I liked that she went down as well, but I think it's a strange idea in general. When I think about hell, I picture a dark place with fire and lava or something and millions of different demons and all that. Instead it's a giant cave with nothing but àœber-Vamps. In fact, it's just a regular place on earth.
 
ashleigh said:
I don't really get what they did with the hellmouth. When there's the beast thing in 'The Zeppo' Giles says that's just the start and that there's much worse. Then when they go down there it is is just a hideout for the Turok-Han. 😕
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I found it weird too, but if the First had been the "boss of hell" since the beginning, maybe it just decided to change its monsters of places. Like it decided to put all its Turok-Han in the Sunnydale Hellmouth against Buffy and the Potentials and transfer the other monsters in Cleveland and other Hellmouths accross the globe.

That would actually have been both an aweful and a great idea... Aweful because it would have been harder to win against the slayers with only vampires. Great because if it were to loose, every major monster would be somewhere else and still be alive.

Or maybe I'm thinking way too much out of it and it was just a cop-out... But it seemed to me as the First was really smart......
 
ashleigh said:
I don't really get what they did with the hellmouth. When there's the beast thing in 'The Zeppo' Giles says that's just the start and that there's much worse. Then when they go down there it is is just a hideout for the Turok-Han. 😕
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Maybe I'm wrong, but I always thought that where Buffy and the team went in "Chosen" was just the entrance to whatever Hell dimension that was. Sort of the tip of the iceberg. I just always assumed that if they'd gone deeper, it would have gotten progressively worse.

And I think with the Turok-Han, they just massed there because The First was assembling them to siege Sunnydale. I mean, like you said, we've seen a ton of different monsters break through from time to time that aren't Ubervamps, so I'm guessing that they're still around.
 
AnthonyCordova
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I thought as the whole area as having multiple weak points between the hellmouth dimension, or multiple hell dimensions.

Like the point that the Master opened in Season 1, had that weird "octopus" demon, I can't remember but is that the same thing thats in the Zeppo?

There was also the "entrance" those demons that sacrificed themselvesin Season 4, the split in the ground that literately looked like a mouth, and then the Turok-Han Entrance.
 
I think perhaps they could of had an army of uber vamps and those demons that were shown in 'prophecy girl' and 'the Zeppo' I think that would of been better as there would be more variety I guess?
 
The hellmouth really annoyed me how it kept changing called me old fashioned but I prefer the big demon thing but it was weird how in season 4 it took them ages falling and then in season 7 it was just a jump and it's there. I think it would of been better if it wasn't just the umbervamps in there but also the demon thing and other demons maybe demons from the past like one of the buffy comics did
 
I'm not too sure what I think about it.
From my understanding all supernatural forces are drawn to the Hellmouth; the ones mentioned are Sunnydale, Cleveland and Melbourne.
There are thousands (if not more) of different types of demons in the world (and in their own dimensions) and the Hellmouth is possibly a portal from their dimensions into our own- since it's where the barrier between them is at it's weakest.
That being said, I do agree that there could be layers within it - just like we saw on Angel in AHITW, Angel and Spike discovered that the collection of those demons didn't just end, it kept going. That's how I imagine the hellmouth to be. The Turok-han were probably just the first warriors in line as positioned by The First.
I guess I would have liked to see it look more hell-ish. Fire, a bit darker and overall more threatening. I much preferred how the demons were unleashed into LA in the Angel series Finale.
 
So much doesn't make sense... but then this is season 7.

The seal, it seems, was always supposed to have been there. So where was it when those giant things came out of the hellmouth in The Zeppo? Or in Season 4 when those guys jumped in (and Buffy after them, and fell for what seemed like hundreds of feet, not just a few steps).

I'd have thought the seal would look ancient and mystical. But it looks hi-tech and mechanical (not to mention CGI.)

Apparantly Principal Wood's office was located right over the entrance to the hellmouth. For some reason they worry about this - apparantly it would be like getting showered (or bidet-ed) with evil every day. But, erm, yeah.... it didn't occur to them that in the old high school the library was right over the hellmouth. Like, the place where Buffy and the gang would hang out every single day. And they were never affected.

After the seal if first dug up, erm nobody notices it? Like Janitors or anybody?
 
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Sweet J
LOL yeah!
JCoatsworth said:
In my opinion, this is a quite odd step the writers were taking there by making the Hellmouth a gateway that leads into the underground that is supposed to be hell. I always figured that the Hellmouth was some mystical place - not even a physical object - where the demonic activity was at its peak. The demonic activity was that powerful because the barrier between our world and the world of demons (short: hell) was very thin there. Or so I thought anyways.

Did anybody else feel this way?
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We have seen portals to other dimensions in Giles and Anya's visit to Beljoxa's Eye, Rack's invisible crack house, the portal Glory was about to use and the portal to the ancient world that Buffy used to visit the three men who made the first slayer. I don't think you could say that Joss was unfamiliar with portals and dimensions, and the Seal of Danthalzar still had to be opened by the ritual bloodletting the slayers and potentials performed. So it was a physical place underground (much like the buried church that contained their first enemies in Season 1), with mystical barriers that prevented inadvertent opening, making it different from other caves (like the one Xander fell into in "Pangs") in that it had a mystical as well as physical presence.

Making the hellmouth a mystical object with some higher level of abstraction than a cavern with a mystical seal may have made the story too difficult to dramatize in filming and too difficult to follow for the audience. For an example of how higher levels of abstraction can fail to work for the typical audience, see Dollhouse.
 
To me, it's sort of the opposite. In my head the Hellmouth was never hell in the sense of Heaven and Hell, it was more so a portal that not only attract demons, but also contains them. This works with what is presented on the show (Turok-Han in s7 and other monsters throughout the show). I think it's fair to say that there is more than one "Hell" dimension (and probably one that is the opposite equivalent of Buffy's heaven), but I think this particular Hellmouth makes sense.
 
Never even considered what a poor concept this was, but now that you mention it.....I agree. Another reason for me to hate Season 7. Thanks....
 
What is Hell is it a single large cavern underground or could it be a series of large caverns underground that are positioned at many places underground all linked together, if so that would make the Hellmouth one of many such places.
The Watchers Council called it the Sunnydale Hellmouth, that infers they knew it was not the only one.
Buffy and co went into the entrance of the Hellmouth, who said it was an entrance it may have been one of many exits.
And lets face it, if a resident of hell wanted to go home it could use one of its front doors.
And where are those front doors? Where was it that Angel went to hell when Buffy sent him there? What happened to the statue afterwards?
 
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Sweet J
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I always pictured the hellmouth as a really deep crater underneath the school which housed all kinds of evil beings and forces. I don't think what we see in Chosen is the entire hellmouth. I think that's just part of it, where The First was keeping its army of Turok-Han vamps. I think it goes way deeper than that and there are other evil beings in it somewhere.
 
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