Who lives at the castle?

[white avenger]

Okay, we've got this huge castle out in the boondocks of Scotland swarming with eager young Slayers who spend their days training, and their nights off, presumably, slaying the various forces of Evil. Who does the cooking, washes the dishes, mops the floors, cuts the grass, unstops the drains, and does all of the other dozens of jobs associated with the running of a facility like that?

Granted, the Slayers could have some equivalent of K P duty that rotates through the ranks, but even that requires more than warm bodies. Somebody has to organize, co-ordinate, and supervise all of that. Even in a college dorm, there has to be someone who makes sure the rooms are fairly clean and orderly. They can't order out for pizza every night (is there a haggis take out service in Scotland?). Buffy and Xander simply couldn't do all of that, plus handle the training, surveillance, and day to day education of a group of girls like that, even with the help of Willow, and get any amount of rest, let alone retain a minimum level of sanity.

I don't think that this is one of those "minor details' that can be just taken for granted in the story, it's something that SHOULD be important.

 

[Joyce Summers]

Elves. It's all down to the elves. Course they never get credit. It's terrible.


Actually, I'd never ever considered this before. That is until you made me. Nurgh, it's gonna bug me all day now. I'll come back to this when I have an idea. Haha

 

[Rowan Hawthorn]

Okay, we've got this huge castle out in the boondocks of Scotland swarming with eager young Slayers who spend their days training, and their nights off, presumably, slaying the various forces of Evil. Who does the cooking, washes the dishes, mops the floors, cuts the grass, unstops the drains, and does all of the other dozens of jobs associated with the running of a facility like that?

Granted, the Slayers could have some equivalent of K P duty that rotates through the ranks, but even that requires more than warm bodies. Somebody has to organize, co-ordinate, and supervise all of that. Even in a college dorm, there has to be someone who makes sure the rooms are fairly clean and orderly.

At the college I attended, students who got financial aid through the Work-study program - which was quite a few - did most of the (non-skilled) maintenance work; there were about two male and two female students assigned each semester as "supervisors", the rest were split up into teams, and one person on each team was in charge of checking the worklist to see that everything got done (in addition to helping out with the work and divvying up the duties.) It worked pretty well, most of the time. The same thing was done for kitchen help - we had two regular cooks, who were in charge of the operation, students did most of the actual work.

 

[palabravampiress]

I'm with Joyce. Elves.

Either that, or... since the Scoobies seem to be into bank robbing these days, maybe they're also not above blackmail and bribery? Willy got to keep his bar because he was the slayer's informant, right? Merl got to live... until he didn't anymore... because Angel said so, right? Angel had a similar, yet less physically abusive, arrangement with Harmony. Maybe the Scoobies are kicking demon butt AND taking prisoners... and allowing captured demons to continue unliving in exchange for menial labor. Oooh. Or maybe they have a bunch of chipped vamps running around taking care of business. I wonder how much pig's blood sells for in Scotland. lol.


Oooh. Oooh. Maybe Willow enchanted the huosehold items a la Beauty and the Beast. That would be fun! Maybe there's a Spike-esque candlestick and an Angel-esque clock clattering about the castle duking it out for the affections of a Buffy-esque... stake? Crossbow? Certainly not a kitchen implement.

 

[Clem Rocks]

Glory's Jawa rejects, they needed someone new to worship and Buffy needed cleaners, they're just so small that you never see them in the comics =]

 

[white avenger]

At the college I attended, students who got financial aid through the Work-study program - which was quite a few - did most of the (non-skilled) maintenance work; there were about two male and two female students assigned each semester as "supervisors", the rest were split up into teams, and one person on each team was in charge of checking the worklist to see that everything got done (in addition to helping out with the work and divvying up the duties.) It worked pretty well, most of the time. The same thing was done for kitchen help - we had two regular cooks, who were in charge of the operation, students did most of the actual work.

We had the same basic system where I went to college. Even with that, though, there was always some sort of supervision who kept everything organized, set up the cleaning and washing schedules, prepared the menus, made sure that there was enough cleaning supplies and groceries...all the day to day details of providing food and shelter for all of the castle's residents, plus keeping the grounds in reasonable order. Those are full time jobs requiring trained personnel to do them. Buffy and two ex-scoobies just aren't capable of doing that and their primary jobs as well.

Mark my words, there are household staff personnel and grounds keepers lurking around somewhere.

 

[Allycat]

I think the Slayers themselves have to clean the rooms, and amongst all those girls there are bound to be a few good cooks. I think that next to their combat duties, they all have different "household"-tasks. I think it's probably run like a regular army.

 

[nerd4hire]

Once a week Dawn sticks her face in the window, and blows.

 

[Kemy]

They have a detachment of Psychics and Witches at the castle, all of whom have some level of power, all of them acting together could do quite a bit of work when the "troops" are too tired or don't have enough time to do it themselves.

But with a few hundred people living there and only using spartan amenities for food, sleep, bathrooms, there wouldn't be too much to clean up and a lot of people available to clean up.

 

[RogueHunter]

With all those girls, there better be a lot of bathrooms in that castle.

I think there is a butler named Alfred.