Who is your favorite Big Bad?
- Thread starter Joan the Vampire Slayer
- Start date
Glory.
Clare Kramer is fantastic, Glory has a surprisingly sympathetic backstory (exiled for her power, forced to live in a prison of literal meat and bone), the dual sides of her and Ben was one of the best reveals on the show, she's an incredibly powerful opponent which brings really high stakes into the show, she hits the Scoobies hard when she brain sucks Tara, and she's the only Big Bad that Buffy literally flees from. And her final episode is the best of the show.
Angelus is a close second, especially for the tragedy the storyline brings to the Bangel ship.
Clare Kramer is fantastic, Glory has a surprisingly sympathetic backstory (exiled for her power, forced to live in a prison of literal meat and bone), the dual sides of her and Ben was one of the best reveals on the show, she's an incredibly powerful opponent which brings really high stakes into the show, she hits the Scoobies hard when she brain sucks Tara, and she's the only Big Bad that Buffy literally flees from. And her final episode is the best of the show.
Angelus is a close second, especially for the tragedy the storyline brings to the Bangel ship.
Joan the Vampire Slayer
Great comments!
famicommander
Scooby
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1. Glory
2. The Mayor
3. The Master
4. Angelus
They stand far above the rest.
Glory requires the most effort on the part of the gang to defeat. They had a Slayer at her peak, a sophisticated robot, a magic macguffin that weakened and disoriented Glory, a literal wrecking ball, a troll god's hammer, two powerful witches, probably the most capable Watcher in the world, an ex-vengeance demon, and a powerful vampire and ultimately the battle still claimed Buffy's life. And, in general, Glory does damage to the gang or puts them on the run every time they encounter her. She brainsucks Tara, she takes Dawn, she beats Spike to a bloody pulp, she beats the hell out of Buffy more than once, Willow nearly dies trying to take her out, she chases the whole gang out of town.
The Mayor became completely invulnerable for a time, had a rogue Slayer at his side, and in the final battle against him several significant characters were killed (Larry, Harmony, Snyder, etc) and the entire school was destroyed.
The Master killed Buffy himself. Glory created circumstances that led to Buffy's death, but the Master straight up drained her blood and drowned her in a puddle. And you can just see how much fear he inspires in characters like Angel and Darla. Season 1 didn't have the budget or episode count to give him as much space to grow and menace the cast as the other big bads, but the performance and the writing for the character hold up.
Angelus kills Jenny and puts a lot of scares into the gang, but his intimidation factor suffers significantly because Buffy pretty much whoops his ass over and over again. The only time he really beats her is when she's super sick in Killed by Death. Every other time Buffy fights Angelus (or Angel, for that matter) she wins, usually rather easily. And the fact that Angelus breaks in to watch characters sleep, draw pictures of them, and kill their fish instead of actually hurting them sort of wears thin. What saves the character is that you can feel how much it hurts Buffy to have to fight him.
Angel as a show has a problem with a lack of strong individual villains. Instead it's mostly Wolfram and Hart as a whole and nothing ever gets resolved either way. Season 4 has Jasmine, but I hate everything about that character, her storyline, and what they did to Cordelia.
Buffy season six has a similar group villain problem with Willow, Warren, Andrew, and Jonathan all sharing villain duties and consequently making it all feel less satisfying.
The First doesn't have a physical ass to kick and the final battle is just a bunch of faceless grunts. Unsatisfying.
And Adam? Adam just sucks.
2. The Mayor
3. The Master
4. Angelus
They stand far above the rest.
Glory requires the most effort on the part of the gang to defeat. They had a Slayer at her peak, a sophisticated robot, a magic macguffin that weakened and disoriented Glory, a literal wrecking ball, a troll god's hammer, two powerful witches, probably the most capable Watcher in the world, an ex-vengeance demon, and a powerful vampire and ultimately the battle still claimed Buffy's life. And, in general, Glory does damage to the gang or puts them on the run every time they encounter her. She brainsucks Tara, she takes Dawn, she beats Spike to a bloody pulp, she beats the hell out of Buffy more than once, Willow nearly dies trying to take her out, she chases the whole gang out of town.
The Mayor became completely invulnerable for a time, had a rogue Slayer at his side, and in the final battle against him several significant characters were killed (Larry, Harmony, Snyder, etc) and the entire school was destroyed.
The Master killed Buffy himself. Glory created circumstances that led to Buffy's death, but the Master straight up drained her blood and drowned her in a puddle. And you can just see how much fear he inspires in characters like Angel and Darla. Season 1 didn't have the budget or episode count to give him as much space to grow and menace the cast as the other big bads, but the performance and the writing for the character hold up.
Angelus kills Jenny and puts a lot of scares into the gang, but his intimidation factor suffers significantly because Buffy pretty much whoops his ass over and over again. The only time he really beats her is when she's super sick in Killed by Death. Every other time Buffy fights Angelus (or Angel, for that matter) she wins, usually rather easily. And the fact that Angelus breaks in to watch characters sleep, draw pictures of them, and kill their fish instead of actually hurting them sort of wears thin. What saves the character is that you can feel how much it hurts Buffy to have to fight him.
Angel as a show has a problem with a lack of strong individual villains. Instead it's mostly Wolfram and Hart as a whole and nothing ever gets resolved either way. Season 4 has Jasmine, but I hate everything about that character, her storyline, and what they did to Cordelia.
Buffy season six has a similar group villain problem with Willow, Warren, Andrew, and Jonathan all sharing villain duties and consequently making it all feel less satisfying.
The First doesn't have a physical ass to kick and the final battle is just a bunch of faceless grunts. Unsatisfying.
And Adam? Adam just sucks.
NotASlayer
𝕮𝖍𝖔𝖈𝖔𝖑𝖆𝖙𝖊 𝕻𝖗𝖎𝖓𝖈𝖊𝖘𝖘 🍫 👸🏻
Glory is a wonderful, over the top villain.
The Mayor is a genuinely nice guy who gives useful relationship advice to Buffy and Angel (she could have done with him around in S6&7). He just wants to become a giant snake demon.
Angelus is scary, although in truth my most memorable villain from that season is Spike. S2 Spike was awesome. I miss him.
The Master is a giant ham of a character and a plotter.
Adam is probably the reason why S4 has so many good standalone episodes mostly unconnected to the arc.
No-one after S5 can really be classed as a Big Bad. S6 is an utter mess that is totally lacking an arc. S7 sees the return of a monster of the week so utterly boring that I cannot even remember it from its own episode. And Buffy can't even fight it and the Initiative were better qualified to fight the Turok-Han and would have made a better job of it.
The Mayor is a genuinely nice guy who gives useful relationship advice to Buffy and Angel (she could have done with him around in S6&7). He just wants to become a giant snake demon.
Angelus is scary, although in truth my most memorable villain from that season is Spike. S2 Spike was awesome. I miss him.
The Master is a giant ham of a character and a plotter.
Adam is probably the reason why S4 has so many good standalone episodes mostly unconnected to the arc.
No-one after S5 can really be classed as a Big Bad. S6 is an utter mess that is totally lacking an arc. S7 sees the return of a monster of the week so utterly boring that I cannot even remember it from its own episode. And Buffy can't even fight it and the Initiative were better qualified to fight the Turok-Han and would have made a better job of it.
thetopher
Member of the Church Of Faith
The Mayor. Way above everyone else. Well acted, well-foreshadowed, well conceived and well executed. His evil was subtle and understated, his human moments were organic and affecting. His end goal was understandable (not in the sense that we all want to be Big snakes but in that how he would go about it was communicated to the audience) and his foibles and quirks made him seem less like 'random bad guy'. He was the ultimate controlling patriarchal authority figure and so of course he had to blown up by a bunch of heavily armed rebellious school kids after devouring Snyder whole. So, he also worked thematically.
He was powerful, cunning and had access to plenty of resources and minions that he utilized. He tried to neutralize threats if and when it made sense to. He had great 'Mini-Bads' that he played off of- Trick and Faith. In fact his relationship with Faith is probably the number one reason I liked him and also its the reason he failed in his scheme, he never saw her coming. Sweet irony.
The rest:
Angelus: What he represented to Buffy and the gang was and is still very resonant; the villain with the face of a close ally, a feeling the writers would try and re-create with less success going forward. He was an escalation in terms of malignancy, not power, that wasn't ever the point. He was a more personal, intimate villain and felt more threatening for it. Also sadistic and charismatic and very fun to watch. Plus he really brought out great drama in the gang, having showdowns with Buffy, Giles and Xander. as well as internal conflict within the group. It was shocking when he murdered Jenny and that had lasting impact on characters we know and care about.
Glory: Brawn over brains plus some thematically rich story-telling. Also it took everything the gang had to thrown at her to best her. Orbs, hammers, wrecking balls and robots, before being finished off by ol' Ripper.
Other than that the only reason I put her so high is because of how many times she outright defeated Buffy and then brain-sucking Tara. And I do like the crusty minions and creepy Doc as her worshiper allies. But overall I don't find her particularly compelling, sympathetic, relatable or praise-worthy when she's onscreen, she's one of the Big Bads I would categorize as 'incompetent'.
The Master: Charismatic and melodramatic but ultimately a little hollow given that he couldn't do much until he was free. But whenever he was grandstanding onscreen he was enjoyable, plus he did kill Buffy for a bit.
Added to that Luke, Darla and all his minion followers and I'd put him in the middle of the pack.
Adam: Physically powerful and with a calculating intellect he probably had one of the best executed apocalyptic plans and was also smart enough to include Spike in his evil schemes to sneakily undermine the opposition. Also Buffy had to 'level up' to have any hope of defeating him.
Minus points for lack of charisma, lack of engagement with our heroes outside of punching, lack of personal dramatic connection to the heroes (Riley isn't really strong enough to qualify) and having a lame floppy disc drive in his chest.
The First: The worst evil. I put it here because of the strong opening monologue, blowing up the WC and it's overall ambitious scheme to wipe out the slayer line, added to that the reason it could act was only as a result of our protagonist's actions (although that was never really explored). I liked the cameo's of former Big Bads, we got to see The Mayor again and The Master.
Unfortunately whenever it approached the Hellmouth The First's IQ drops like a stone and it becomes incredibly incompetent, squandering it's resources all over the place, leaving Buffy alive for no reason and failing to even inconvenience the good guys for long stretches of episodes. At least The Master had been trapped/weakened, the oldest evilest of evils didn't do much with what it did have. The most disappointing Big Bad by far.
The Trio/Dark Willow: Three pointless nerds and the now tired idea of 'ally turning evil'. The nerd Trio have maybe two good schemes between them (testing Buffy and setting the crazy-making demon on her) but otherwise they are either incompetent or plain irritating to watch. They have no ambition or admirable villainous qualities, nothing much to hold the attention when they're onscreen.
Dark Willow is a last minute shot-in-arm but still pretty lame, plus lack of lasting consequences for Willow factored in here; the whole thing seems toothless, pointless and without real cost except for the death of Tara. But by the end of the show Willow has moved on so not even then really.
The only way these Bads even work is somewhat thematically and that just isn't enough; bottom of the pack by a long way.
He was powerful, cunning and had access to plenty of resources and minions that he utilized. He tried to neutralize threats if and when it made sense to. He had great 'Mini-Bads' that he played off of- Trick and Faith. In fact his relationship with Faith is probably the number one reason I liked him and also its the reason he failed in his scheme, he never saw her coming. Sweet irony.
The rest:
Angelus: What he represented to Buffy and the gang was and is still very resonant; the villain with the face of a close ally, a feeling the writers would try and re-create with less success going forward. He was an escalation in terms of malignancy, not power, that wasn't ever the point. He was a more personal, intimate villain and felt more threatening for it. Also sadistic and charismatic and very fun to watch. Plus he really brought out great drama in the gang, having showdowns with Buffy, Giles and Xander. as well as internal conflict within the group. It was shocking when he murdered Jenny and that had lasting impact on characters we know and care about.
Glory: Brawn over brains plus some thematically rich story-telling. Also it took everything the gang had to thrown at her to best her. Orbs, hammers, wrecking balls and robots, before being finished off by ol' Ripper.
Other than that the only reason I put her so high is because of how many times she outright defeated Buffy and then brain-sucking Tara. And I do like the crusty minions and creepy Doc as her worshiper allies. But overall I don't find her particularly compelling, sympathetic, relatable or praise-worthy when she's onscreen, she's one of the Big Bads I would categorize as 'incompetent'.
The Master: Charismatic and melodramatic but ultimately a little hollow given that he couldn't do much until he was free. But whenever he was grandstanding onscreen he was enjoyable, plus he did kill Buffy for a bit.
Added to that Luke, Darla and all his minion followers and I'd put him in the middle of the pack.
Adam: Physically powerful and with a calculating intellect he probably had one of the best executed apocalyptic plans and was also smart enough to include Spike in his evil schemes to sneakily undermine the opposition. Also Buffy had to 'level up' to have any hope of defeating him.
Minus points for lack of charisma, lack of engagement with our heroes outside of punching, lack of personal dramatic connection to the heroes (Riley isn't really strong enough to qualify) and having a lame floppy disc drive in his chest.
The First: The worst evil. I put it here because of the strong opening monologue, blowing up the WC and it's overall ambitious scheme to wipe out the slayer line, added to that the reason it could act was only as a result of our protagonist's actions (although that was never really explored). I liked the cameo's of former Big Bads, we got to see The Mayor again and The Master.
Unfortunately whenever it approached the Hellmouth The First's IQ drops like a stone and it becomes incredibly incompetent, squandering it's resources all over the place, leaving Buffy alive for no reason and failing to even inconvenience the good guys for long stretches of episodes. At least The Master had been trapped/weakened, the oldest evilest of evils didn't do much with what it did have. The most disappointing Big Bad by far.
The Trio/Dark Willow: Three pointless nerds and the now tired idea of 'ally turning evil'. The nerd Trio have maybe two good schemes between them (testing Buffy and setting the crazy-making demon on her) but otherwise they are either incompetent or plain irritating to watch. They have no ambition or admirable villainous qualities, nothing much to hold the attention when they're onscreen.
Dark Willow is a last minute shot-in-arm but still pretty lame, plus lack of lasting consequences for Willow factored in here; the whole thing seems toothless, pointless and without real cost except for the death of Tara. But by the end of the show Willow has moved on so not even then really.
The only way these Bads even work is somewhat thematically and that just isn't enough; bottom of the pack by a long way.
Nix
🤪
Angelus - MMmmmmm Yummy!
Faith - Mmmm Yummy
The First - 🤢🤯😳 Scary stuff, getting in your head and everything.
Faith - Mmmm Yummy
The First - 🤢🤯😳 Scary stuff, getting in your head and everything.
TheAnnoyingOne
Potential
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In terms of entertainment, The Mayor. He was a refreshing villain who wasn't just your run-of-the-mill demon and I liked his elegance. His "ordinary man" vibes paradoxically made him an unusual villain. Add to that his great relationship with Faith, which added nuance to his character.
In terms of drama, Angelus. I was always particularly fascinated with him, and his relationship with Buffy made him a very special villain. It was the first time she was dealing with someone we grew attached to before he became a villain.
Glory was up there too. First female Big Bad (Faith was technically a secondary villain) and her being an invincible goddess who completely outmatched Buffy made her look very threatening. Her backstory and motivations were great too, it was a nice departure from the "I want to end the world/humanity and cause chaos" tired and cartoony trope. Made her a "realistic" and relatable villain.
In terms of drama, Angelus. I was always particularly fascinated with him, and his relationship with Buffy made him a very special villain. It was the first time she was dealing with someone we grew attached to before he became a villain.
Glory was up there too. First female Big Bad (Faith was technically a secondary villain) and her being an invincible goddess who completely outmatched Buffy made her look very threatening. Her backstory and motivations were great too, it was a nice departure from the "I want to end the world/humanity and cause chaos" tired and cartoony trope. Made her a "realistic" and relatable villain.
Mott1
Townie
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Probably tied between Glory and Angelus. David Boreanaz is clearly enjoying himself massively and was born to play malevolence - he played a similar role in one of the Crow sequels and was the only good thing in it! Clare Kramer is supposedly very different off-screen but did a brilliant job as Glory, offsetting Buffy's power-issues brilliantly.
The Mayor was a wonderful 50s patriarch parody who corrupted Faith cleverly, the Master was slightly limited but played very well, and I still think Dark Willow caused issues for the rest of the show's run. Warren could have been developed out of his nerd-dom into genuine villainy, perhaps, and Caleb was more scary in his brief screentime than The First managed to be!
The Mayor was a wonderful 50s patriarch parody who corrupted Faith cleverly, the Master was slightly limited but played very well, and I still think Dark Willow caused issues for the rest of the show's run. Warren could have been developed out of his nerd-dom into genuine villainy, perhaps, and Caleb was more scary in his brief screentime than The First managed to be!
AlphaFoxtrot
Scooby
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Yes, I agree the Master should be my favorite villain, but he is hollow and cliche. It would be my hope that the next series does more with Vampire Court politics. Ideally, not put Drusilla in a business pantsuit.
NotASlayer
Perhaps Miss Edith could wear a matching one?
Stake fodder
What about my me?
NotASlayer
𝕮𝖍𝖔𝖈𝖔𝖑𝖆𝖙𝖊 𝕻𝖗𝖎𝖓𝖈𝖊𝖘𝖘 🍫 👸🏻
You know, I think this highlights one of the many, many problems with the Trio and season six as a whole and why it is so terrible. That is a description of a villain that would work in pretty much any police procedural or even a soap opera. He is not a Buffy villain, in other words.
Mayor Richard Wilkins III
He is just the perfect villain for the show. Both scary and humorous in a way that really benefits from the Whedon style of writing. Plus I just love his energy and cadence.
Few people could have “PTO Meeting” and “Become Immortal” on the same to-do list and genuinely pull it off
He is just the perfect villain for the show. Both scary and humorous in a way that really benefits from the Whedon style of writing. Plus I just love his energy and cadence.
Few people could have “PTO Meeting” and “Become Immortal” on the same to-do list and genuinely pull it off
Kendar
Scooby
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Have to agree with this. Caring, genuinely concerned about Faith, and wants to become a giant snake. What's not to love?
NotASlayer
And well-mannered too. Do not forget the politeness! And cleanliness!
Skanky Vamp
Sniffin' the Slayer
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"Who is your favorite Big Bad or villian in the “verse and why?"
Life. It's the only one that's real.
Life. It's the only one that's real.
TamsinValencia
Scooby
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KaitKat
Scooby
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Angelus was iconic, that arc is so deeply imbedded in Buffy’s legacy. There is a psychological horror aspect that just isn’t there with any other big bad not to mention Buffy’s inner turmoil.
I personally enjoy the Mayor the best. I love the tongue and check and how unnerving it can be to have this happy go lucky guy go let’s sacrifice babies after we go out putting.
I personally enjoy the Mayor the best. I love the tongue and check and how unnerving it can be to have this happy go lucky guy go let’s sacrifice babies after we go out putting.
Joan the Vampire Slayer
I love the Mayor too!
Ethan Rayne
Townie
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The Mayor.
Hey, if you're going to be a villain, what's the point of being gloomy. Just be nice and happy!
Hey, if you're going to be a villain, what's the point of being gloomy. Just be nice and happy!
SavvyScoobie
slayeeeeeeeeer
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Glory - I found her absolutely terrifying, because when Buffy fought her the first time I knew; Buffy's ****ing dying (again).