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3 theories about Buffy's resurrection.
Finally getting round to posting this. I've been tweaking for days now, so it feels good to 'get it out there'. Having said that, it doesn't really follow the most logical of paths, since I got an idea half-way through and I thought it'd be fun to keep my stream-of-conciousness as it first unfolded. So please forgive the jumps - I think I've sorted it out by numbering the different theories though. :)
So - did Buffy come back wrong? And why? And why did her resurrection make The First Evil rise? Follow me...
First of all, the show never bothered to explain why or how the spell the Scoobies used to resurrect Buffy created an opportunity for The First Evil to rise. All we have is this snippet from ‘Showtime’ (7.11):
BELJOXA’S EYE: “The mystical forces surrounding the Chosen line have been irrevocably altered. Become... unstable. Vulnerable.”
That isn’t a lot to go on. Now the first time Buffy died, she was brought back to life by Xander. But it was a natural way of revival, and Buffy quite simply carried on. Later we found out that her death had triggered the next Slayer, Kendra, to be called. When Kendra was killed, Faith was called. So the line went on as it had before, and - to put it bluntly - now Faith was The Slayer. Essentially ‘destiny’ was done with Buffy after The Master killed her. Any prophecies that there might be would now be Faith’s to fulfil. So now, Buffy is just a Slayer - f.ex. when she dies the second time no new Slayer is called. (I know that is never proven as such, but from the knowledge we are given, I’d say it’s a fact.)
“Osiris, keeper of the gate, master of all fate, hear us.
Before time, and after. Before knowing and nothing.
Accept our offering. Know our prayer.
Osiris! Here lies the warrior of the people. Let her cross over.
Osiris, let her cross over! Aah...
[snake]
Osiris, release her!”
Note the phrase ‘warrior of the people’. Now... what if that meant that resurrected Buffy was The Slayer again - that somehow they split the Slayer line, so now it runs through both of the living Slayers. That would be an instability, and a big one.
I’ll come back to that.
First I want to explain where I got the idea - because this isn’t just me making it up (well of course it is - duh! - but I think I have a good foundation!). You see I came across an unused line in the original ‘Chosen’ script. There is a bit of Buffy’s big ‘Are you ready to be strong?’ speech that (for whatever reason) was cut out. Buffy says:
“It's true none of you has the power Faith and I have. I think both of us would have to die for a new Slayer to be called, and we can't even be sure that girl is in this room.”
Both of them! The Slayer line split in two! Joss says so!
So - how did the Scoobies do that? They obviously wanted to make sure they got Buffy the Slayer back, and not just Buffy the Girl. I think this is why they used the line ‘Warrior of the people’ - to make sure they got the Slayer back. But considering the forces they were messing with, it’s not surprising that they got back The Slayer rather than A Slayer. It’s a very fine distinction - and one they probably weren’t even aware of. They just knew they needed her to be full of Slayer-y goodness. But messing with the Slayer power is dangerous ('Restless' anyone?), and also that Spike's chip no longer registered Buffy as human...
So what exactly was that 'molecular sunburn'? We know that a Slayer is a girl infused with 'the essence of the demon’ - in short very near to a vampire - except of course that a Slayer is still alive...
Oh! Big Thought! What if...
So what if... what if the spell that brought Buffy back was similar to a vampiric rising? Only much bigger and more complex (there was blood magic and sacrifice and an urn of Osiris and tests...)? Because it was a very big and ambitious spell: They restored her body back to a functioning level, pulled her soul out of heaven and... maybe... tapped the Slayer power, the essence of the demon, to 'fuel' her - to run the whole thing. So, like Dawn is fully human, but still created out of The Key and her blood can open portals (at the auspicious time), so Buffy (post-resurrection) is fully human, but created out of the Slayer demon essence. And that would throw Spike's chip.
Am I making sense?
So what about The First? To begin with, this would certainly explain why The First made an attempt at Faith's life - apparently just for the hell of it. If Faith’s death alone could not trigger a new Slayer, then The First had nothing to lose by killing her. Esp since it would have known that she would fight on the side of good if given the chance.
But back to our conundrum that’s never explained. From ‘Showtime’:
BELJOXA'S EYE: The First Evil did not cause the disruption, only seized upon it to extinguish the lives of the chosen forever.
GILES: Then what has caused the disruption? What—what is responsible for letting this happen?
BELJOXA'S EYE: The slayer.
[...]
ANYA: Yeah, I just—I don't understand how Buffy's death mucked up the whole slayer mojo. You know, it's not like she hasn't died before.
GILES: It's not because she died. The Beljoxa's Eye was quite clear about that in its enigmatic way. It's because she lives. Again. Buffy's not responsible for that.
So far so clear. Her resurrection was responsible. And if her resurrection did indeed split the Slayer line in half, then that would have implications for the future - if nothing else than for the number of prophecies concerned with ‘The Slayer’.
We know from AtS ‘Destiny’ that if there are two candidates for a prophecy, then the fabric of reality can begin to unravel, creating a big, gaping tear in the balance of the universe. My guess is that there being Two Slayers would be no different. Well there were no telephones going bananas and no one started bleeding from their eyes, but imbalances can manifest themselves in millions of different ways I should imagine. And Beljoxa’s Eyes says that it’s a Slayer-shaped disruption - the Slayer line is unstable and The First can now extinguish The Chosen forever. How exactly that works is uncertain - but it would seem obvious that The First stepped in through that breach in the universe and made a space for itself, building an army, getting ready to unleash hell - the Slayer might be just one girl, but the magic surrounding her creation was obviously very powerful. With that magic gone awry it’s obvious that something nasty would jump at the opportunity.
I think that’s all. I started going off on a tangent about the Scythe and stuff, but that’s really another topic. With this post I’m basically putting forth three theories - I think #1 is probably correct, #2 and 3 are just wild speculation. To summarise:
1) The resurrection spell split the Slayer line in two, and it was this instability which allowed The First to rise.
2) The Scoobies somehow used the Slayer power to reassemble Buffy, and this was ‘the molecular sunburn’.
3) Making Buffy The Slayer again was what confused Spike’s chip.
So there you go - three theories for the price of none! What do you think?
So - did Buffy come back wrong? And why? And why did her resurrection make The First Evil rise? Follow me...
3 theories about Buffy’s resurrection.
First of all, the show never bothered to explain why or how the spell the Scoobies used to resurrect Buffy created an opportunity for The First Evil to rise. All we have is this snippet from ‘Showtime’ (7.11):
BELJOXA’S EYE: “The mystical forces surrounding the Chosen line have been irrevocably altered. Become... unstable. Vulnerable.”
That isn’t a lot to go on. Now the first time Buffy died, she was brought back to life by Xander. But it was a natural way of revival, and Buffy quite simply carried on. Later we found out that her death had triggered the next Slayer, Kendra, to be called. When Kendra was killed, Faith was called. So the line went on as it had before, and - to put it bluntly - now Faith was The Slayer. Essentially ‘destiny’ was done with Buffy after The Master killed her. Any prophecies that there might be would now be Faith’s to fulfil. So now, Buffy is just a Slayer - f.ex. when she dies the second time no new Slayer is called. (I know that is never proven as such, but from the knowledge we are given, I’d say it’s a fact.)
Theory #1
Now when The Scoobies bring Buffy back to life in ‘Bargaining’ they somehow ‘irrevocably change’ the mystical forces around the Slayer line. Here’s the spell (well the bit that Willow says out loud):“Osiris, keeper of the gate, master of all fate, hear us.
Before time, and after. Before knowing and nothing.
Accept our offering. Know our prayer.
Osiris! Here lies the warrior of the people. Let her cross over.
Osiris, let her cross over! Aah...
[snake]
Osiris, release her!”
Note the phrase ‘warrior of the people’. Now... what if that meant that resurrected Buffy was The Slayer again - that somehow they split the Slayer line, so now it runs through both of the living Slayers. That would be an instability, and a big one.
I’ll come back to that.
First I want to explain where I got the idea - because this isn’t just me making it up (well of course it is - duh! - but I think I have a good foundation!). You see I came across an unused line in the original ‘Chosen’ script. There is a bit of Buffy’s big ‘Are you ready to be strong?’ speech that (for whatever reason) was cut out. Buffy says:
“It's true none of you has the power Faith and I have. I think both of us would have to die for a new Slayer to be called, and we can't even be sure that girl is in this room.”
Both of them! The Slayer line split in two! Joss says so!
So - how did the Scoobies do that? They obviously wanted to make sure they got Buffy the Slayer back, and not just Buffy the Girl. I think this is why they used the line ‘Warrior of the people’ - to make sure they got the Slayer back. But considering the forces they were messing with, it’s not surprising that they got back The Slayer rather than A Slayer. It’s a very fine distinction - and one they probably weren’t even aware of. They just knew they needed her to be full of Slayer-y goodness. But messing with the Slayer power is dangerous ('Restless' anyone?), and also that Spike's chip no longer registered Buffy as human...
So what exactly was that 'molecular sunburn'? We know that a Slayer is a girl infused with 'the essence of the demon’ - in short very near to a vampire - except of course that a Slayer is still alive...
Oh! Big Thought! What if...
Theory #2
Now we know that a vampire is a demon occupying a dead husk. It retains the dead person’s memories and personality (usually anyway), but not that person’s soul - it is replaced with the 'demon soul' (for lack of a better word). It can operate the body it inhabits (move and speak f.ex.) and to some extent be influenced by it (f.ex get drunk or high).So what if... what if the spell that brought Buffy back was similar to a vampiric rising? Only much bigger and more complex (there was blood magic and sacrifice and an urn of Osiris and tests...)? Because it was a very big and ambitious spell: They restored her body back to a functioning level, pulled her soul out of heaven and... maybe... tapped the Slayer power, the essence of the demon, to 'fuel' her - to run the whole thing. So, like Dawn is fully human, but still created out of The Key and her blood can open portals (at the auspicious time), so Buffy (post-resurrection) is fully human, but created out of the Slayer demon essence. And that would throw Spike's chip.
Am I making sense?
Theory #3
Actually what’s just occurred to me is that there might be another explanation. Spike only encountered Buffy after she had died the first time - when she was just ‘a Slayer’. He never met Faith (properly) until after the chip had come out. What if the chip didn’t register The Slayer as human, what with being the direct recipient of the Slayer power? Or something. What would have happened if he’d met and tried to hit Faith in ‘This Year’s Girl’ (pre-body swap)? Would the chip have gone off or not? Maybe... maybe Buffy didn’t come back wrong - maybe she came back right? ETA: This one is obviously a bit confusing - let me try to clarify my jumbled thoughts a little more: When Spike got the chip implanted it was after Buffy died the first time, and hence she was only 'a Slayer' and thus more human (or something), and gave Spike headaches. After her second resurrection she was The Slayer' (again) and therefore registered as 'not-human' to Spike's chip. In any case: many thoughts, few answers.Theory #1 (cont.)
Anyway, the split in the Slayer line would foreshadow the Chosen spell - or mirror it. If in 'Bargaining' the Slayer line was split in 2 - using the Slayer power to bring Buffy back to life - then in Chosen it was split out into hundreds (or thousands) of potentials. Altering the Slayer lines in a much more fundamental way - changing the rules of the game, rather than moving a piece in the wrong way. So what about The First? To begin with, this would certainly explain why The First made an attempt at Faith's life - apparently just for the hell of it. If Faith’s death alone could not trigger a new Slayer, then The First had nothing to lose by killing her. Esp since it would have known that she would fight on the side of good if given the chance.
But back to our conundrum that’s never explained. From ‘Showtime’:
BELJOXA'S EYE: The First Evil did not cause the disruption, only seized upon it to extinguish the lives of the chosen forever.
GILES: Then what has caused the disruption? What—what is responsible for letting this happen?
BELJOXA'S EYE: The slayer.
[...]
ANYA: Yeah, I just—I don't understand how Buffy's death mucked up the whole slayer mojo. You know, it's not like she hasn't died before.
GILES: It's not because she died. The Beljoxa's Eye was quite clear about that in its enigmatic way. It's because she lives. Again. Buffy's not responsible for that.
So far so clear. Her resurrection was responsible. And if her resurrection did indeed split the Slayer line in half, then that would have implications for the future - if nothing else than for the number of prophecies concerned with ‘The Slayer’.
We know from AtS ‘Destiny’ that if there are two candidates for a prophecy, then the fabric of reality can begin to unravel, creating a big, gaping tear in the balance of the universe. My guess is that there being Two Slayers would be no different. Well there were no telephones going bananas and no one started bleeding from their eyes, but imbalances can manifest themselves in millions of different ways I should imagine. And Beljoxa’s Eyes says that it’s a Slayer-shaped disruption - the Slayer line is unstable and The First can now extinguish The Chosen forever. How exactly that works is uncertain - but it would seem obvious that The First stepped in through that breach in the universe and made a space for itself, building an army, getting ready to unleash hell - the Slayer might be just one girl, but the magic surrounding her creation was obviously very powerful. With that magic gone awry it’s obvious that something nasty would jump at the opportunity.
I think that’s all. I started going off on a tangent about the Scythe and stuff, but that’s really another topic. With this post I’m basically putting forth three theories - I think #1 is probably correct, #2 and 3 are just wild speculation. To summarise:
1) The resurrection spell split the Slayer line in two, and it was this instability which allowed The First to rise.
2) The Scoobies somehow used the Slayer power to reassemble Buffy, and this was ‘the molecular sunburn’.
3) Making Buffy The Slayer again was what confused Spike’s chip.
So there you go - three theories for the price of none! What do you think?
no subject
And I'm so glad you looked up the prophecy thing - I didn't have the time and relied on memory. *g* And I think you're pretty much completely right - I figure the only difference between 'a Slayer' and 'The Slayer' relates to calling a new Slayer upon death and fulfilling prophecies.
Thank you so much for such an excellent comment. :)