Were the slayers a good idea?

[DeepBlueJoy]

In a roleplaying game I actually went the opposite way. How do you get potential slayers? They are born from other potential slayers. Activating all the potentials meant you effectively ended the Slayer line, and the party had to fix that.

I figure that young women coming to puberty would become slayers after the 'big slayer' activation spell. Those with the gene who were too young to be activated by the spell would still exist. And there's nothing that says that ONLY potentials can make more potentials. There's no reason to believe that Joyce was a potential.

I think there are probably many families out there with the slayer genes and once they come of age, more slayers will be born.

Also, there's no reason for the living slayers to not have children. Nikki had a child (Robin). There's absolutely nothing to stop slayers from having families. Now that there are so many of them, they don't all have to be fighting all the time. Soldiers in the military have kids all the time.

 

[ILLYRIAN]

Was the series made shorter by having more than one slayer at a time?
The Watchers Council (humans) said that one is born into . . . . . That might indicate there was to be only one at a time.
Joss seemed to be of the opinion that there should be more, thing is the show began getting a bit lame the more there were.
So, as far as I'm concerned one is a good idea and there should have been only one.
If you want more change the name of the show.

 

[AlphaFoxtrot]

Well, the chief problems with having more slayers is how do you make the characters interesting and different from one another? Season 7 kind of did that with the potentials who were allowed to speak, although it very quickly went from American Girl Dolls to Barbie dolls in terms of complexity. It also requires you to dream up enemies who can challenge the Slayer Army, as an army of well trained Buffy's could clear out the world of vampires very quickly. Having never read season 8, I will have to reserve judgement, but from what I can tell, the run had a lot of problems.

I for one would probably do the same thing Season 4 did with Buffy's open secret identity, or Blade the Series did with the events of Blade 3, or what they did with the events of the Girl in Question. Handwave a retcon if you have a better idea. There was a finite amount of power in the slayer line, beyond five or ten or so, Zordon couldn't guarantee the stability of the pink energy.

You know, Giles being trapped in a blue tube fighting Dark Amy with the help of color coded Slayers as a 1990's born team would have been better than Giles in High School. Just saying.

 

[NoShip]

There were too many of them. They should have picked a few and gave them established arcs and personalities. Some powers too.

I agree.

The truly frustrating part is that the Show did such a brilliant job during the High School Years of showing a 'faceless' mass of students with a few (Theresa and Amy and Larry and Harmony and Jonathan etc.) having personalities and mini-arcs and appearing in multiple episodes through multiple seasons. I cannot think of a reason that Whedon and Co forgot other than sheer laziness and lack of caring.

 

[garfan]

I agree.

The truly frustrating part is that the Show did such a brilliant job during the High School Years of showing a 'faceless' mass of students with a few (Theresa and Amy and Larry and Harmony and Jonathan etc.) having personalities and mini-arcs and appearing in multiple episodes through multiple seasons. I cannot think of a reason that Whedon and Co forgot other than sheer laziness and lack of caring.

they'd forgotten how to, or maybe the people good at that had moved on. They didn't manage to establish it with anyone in college in season 4. Season 5 and season 6 were all about the Scoobies problems with barely any acknowledgement of the outside world. They don't actually know how to make people meet people unless they're forced together

 

[silvermoon]

yea there's truth in that, i remember the episode in six with the co-worker with the allergy and it was so weird, like she's just shoehorned in to the party with no end.

 

[Btvs fan]

The best episode with the Slayers was Damage in Angel Season 5.
It highlighted what Buffy did to her and even made Spike reflective

 

[NotASlayer]

The best episode with the Slayers was Damage in Angel Season 5.
It highlighted what Buffy did to her and even made Spike reflective

Sadly, it had Far Too Much Andrew, which resulted in me muting it whenever he was on screen.

But it did mark the start of Spike actually starting to reflect on what he had done and start to change. The real start of his redemption arc.

 

[AlphaFoxtrot]

Seriously.

Tucker's Brother: I would like to join the Gay Club.
Larry: No.
Tucker's Brother: No?
Larry: Why do you think you are gay?
Andrew: I have an annoying personality, strange fashion choices, a weird voice, an androgynous social bearing and I constantly make weird hand gestures?
Larry: That doesn't mean your gay.
Forrest: That's right kids.
Larry & Andrew: Agent Gates!
Forrest: Being a gay character on late 90s television is about scoring a 3-6 on the Kinsley Scale, it's not about having a funny voice.
Andrew: And now we know!
Forrest: And knowing is half the battle!
D.R. Initiative!