Who or what was the First?

[white avenger]

The First Evil as portrayed in Buffy was either the initial evil, and therefore the source of all evil that came afterward, or it was the embodiment of the most powerful (as in "Greatest" Evil) in existence. Take your pick. (Or maybe it was just a very powerful non-corporeal demon with delusions of grandeur and a whole lot of minions who only claimed to be the First Evil the way the vampire in Season 2 claimed to have seen the Crucifiction.)

 

[ILLYRIAN]

The First to me is the evil, a feeling, an emotion. if I was religious I'd have to put a face to evil because of the face I'd put on good. As it is, as far as I'm concerned the First pre-dates the need to put face on it, the First was there. If the First had a face, be it Satan, Lucifer, Devil or Bangwollop [my aplogies to Bangwollop], once dead that's it. To prolong the fight if the evil was taken as a force the story could continue, regardless of who is killed of. If there was to have been another season on the TV, the feeling, emotion or essence would still be there.