1300 Slayers with Idle Hands

[Emmie]

One of the main themes of season 8 revolves around the question of whether Buffy was right to change the world and make every potential into a slayer.

We've seen the necessity of organizing and caring for these new slayers push Buffy into some morally/legally questionable behavior (robbing Swiss banks) as well as some slayers going rogue like Simone Doffler.

But Simone was one of the 500 slayers that Buffy successfully recruited. What about the other 1300? What are they doing with all this super-strength, slayer dreams and the physical urge to kickass? I don't think they're sitting around playing checkers.

Let's not forget Gigi, who I would count among the 1300 unaccounted for by Team Slayer. She was just one slayer with the ambition to attack Buffy. Just one. And there are 1300 more. The potential for trouble seems mind-boggling and I'm wondering if this might be a future issue in the season. If I was the Big Bad or Wolfram & Hart, I'd be recruiting these free-agent slayers.

[ded1]

I'd really like for them to get into this topic in the books.I mean,perhaps a slayer militia or slayer mafia type deal.
Personally,I think that by the end of the season Buffy will discover that calling all the slayers was a bad idea(right reason,bad decision)

[balesthebloody]

Well think that Gunn has gotten to some of these girls in Hell-A. As for W&H and The Senior Partners are a little busy with Angel at the moment to be recruiting slayers. I am sure there is already a band of rouges out there somewhere. We just haven't heard about them yet.

[illyria]

Im suprised we havnt heard anything more on Dana yet i really enjoyed her character was looking forward to hearing a bit more on her

[brandonr]

There is no way that Joss can go through the entire season, with 40 issues, and not touch this topic at some point. I think it would definitely be an interesting arc of 4 issues to explore this issue in.

[El Diablo Robotico]

I really have no idea, but knowing how seriously Joss takes every word he writes, it seems very unlikely that he just took those two numbers at random: 1800 and 500, leaving 1300 forever unaccounted for. Especially since he wasn't locked into anything by "Chosen"--he could just as easily had there been just 200 new slayers, with nearly all of them working with Buffy. I think "1800" and "500" were very deliberate, and will come up again as the season goes along...

[Skytteflickan88]

He can't not touch the issue.

I hope we have atleast two more stand alones about single slayers, preferably rouge. One who fights evil on her own terms, not willing to be part of an army, and then another one, a Faith-wanna-be.

I can't wait to see more or the 1300(funny how the people in the tv-show 1400 also gets mystical power out of nowhere).

[wenxina]

Also... it's possible that some of these 1300 odd girls are way too young to be doing anything serious yet. Possibly, they're being watched (by the new Watchers' Council... we've seen many times now that the WC has it's own field operatives), but possibly have not been engaged yet.
While it may be a good idea for the girls to be trained, just like Potentials were before (even though these girls are no longer Potentials), Buffy has plenty of girls working for her right now, and given her own yearning for a normal life, it's possible that she would want to allow them some of that luxury for now.
The Slayer line has always passed through young women, and it's been pointed out before (okay, by Kennedy, but she was by far one of the more experienced girls in the Potential camp) that the younger the better. Girls are identified at a young age as Potentials to be trained and prepped for the possibility of being called.
Since all Potentials became Slayers, it's highly likely that some 5-year old somewhere can now possibly benchpress more than her 16-year old brother.

[dane5by5]

Jun 25, 2008 22:04:28 GMT -5 Skytteflickan88 said:

He can't not touch the issue.

I hope we have atleast two more stand alones about single slayers, preferably rouge. One who fights evil on her own terms, not willing to be part of an army, and then another one, a Faith-wanna-be.

I can't wait to see more or the 1300(funny how the people in the tv-show 1400 also gets mystical power out of nowhere).

I like that idea of a standalone issue about a Slayer that fights evil on her own terms. Not willing to join Buffy's army, but not willing to let evil exist without her doing her part to stop it.

I also think El Diablo Robotico is onto something with the number of Slayers mentioned in issue one. It was a much higher number than I expected, but I'm sure that will have a story later in the series.

I hope this theme is addressed, the Slayers not working with Buffy. I would love if the finale of the season was an all out Slayer war. I think that story would be amazing. Buffy's army vs. Twilight and the Slayers he has recruited. It has huge potential.

[Skytteflickan88]

I wonder if some slayer was chosen while in womb. I do think Willow & Buffy thought of that option, because no one want their baby to alien out of them.

[wenxina]

Well, the kicking probably hurt a little more.
Also, whoever tried sticking a needle into that baby probably ended up with a tiny bruise.
But then again, infants don't really have motor control, so maybe not.

[Emmie]

I think the 1300 number is extremely significant and will definitely come back to bite Buffy & Co on the ass (and not in the sexy way). I would love to read about a rogue slayer who fights evil her own way. After reading Fray, I'm becoming more open to storylines that feature non-Buffy slayers.

This reminds me of the argument that Buffy and the Scoobs over the seven seasons progressed from being outsiders in high school to being the ultimate in-crowd who battles evil. Even more so now that they have a private army of slayers, a Big Honkin' Castle (nods to KOC), and hundreds of millions in stolen loot.

As has been shown with Gigi, not everyone wants to sign up to play on Team Buffy. They don't want to join the clique. Which cycles us back to the beginning when the Scoobies were in high school and cliques existed. Except now Buffy and the Scoobies are the in-crowd of the Slayer clique because they have all the power ("It's about power"). It's like the whole world is a clique-ish high school of slayers and everyone isn't going to get along. Add superpowers and the urge to kill things and we've got:

Slayer Factions ---> Slayer Wars, perhaps

Uh oh spaghetti-o, but really Buffy can't expect to create an army of Slayers and assume that she has control over all of them. Though with the scythe-slayer essence spell she does control them to a certain extent, but it's very Frankenstein-esque to create something powerful only to have it grow beyond your control. The polarization of slayer factions seems inevitable and very true to human nature and history.

The 'Slayer Wars' storyline is much more interesting to me than the 'end of magic'. Hope something comes of it and I think it will - it's too good of a story for Joss to let it lie. The seeds of an epic Slayer clash have already been planted:

- Buffy being called a queen and tyrant
- Twilight questioning whether Buffy has actually done a good thing
- Simone going rogue
- Gigi plotting to overthrow Buffy

Any other seeds?

Jun 26, 2008 5:01:33 GMT -5 Skytteflickan88 said:

I wonder if some slayer was chosen while in womb. I do think Willow & Buffy thought of that option, because no one want their baby to alien out of them.

OMG Skytte! That's horrifying. Demon child! Demon!

But seriously, what's to stop that from happening? Unless we say that there's a Gaia based magic that protects children while in the womb. Yeah I'm going with that explanation.

[Wyndam]

Going off of this Slayer Wars thing. What if the betrayal ends up being by Buffy's entire Slayer army?

[iloveromy]

Jun 26, 2008 10:11:44 GMT -5 Wyndam said:

Going off of this Slayer Wars thing. What if the betrayal ends up being by Buffy's entire Slayer army?

WOW. This is very much in line with an idea I've had all along. I think one of the decoys is going to overthrow Buffy and steal her army.

[Emmie]

The Slayer army betraying and overthrowing Buffy has some precedence from Buffy being voted off as leader in Empty Places.

What if in addition to overthrowing Buffy, the Slayer army uses the scythe to take away Buffy's slayer powers? I know there's been debate about whether the scythe would affect Buffy or not, but I don't see why it couldn't depower her too. This would explain how busted and cut-up Buffy looks from that flash in Anywhere But Here. The betrayal might also fall in line with 'Satsu as the betrayer' theories. Satsu would be the next choice for leadership of Buffy's Slayer army.

[Wyndam]

Jun 26, 2008 10:23:08 GMT -5 Emmie said:

The Slayer army betraying and overthrowing Buffy has some precedence from Buffy being voted off as leader in Empty Places.

What if in addition to overthrowing Buffy, the Slayer army uses the scythe to take away Buffy's slayer powers? I know there's been debate about whether the scythe would affect Buffy or not, but I don't see why it couldn't depower her too. This would explain how busted and cut-up Buffy looks from that flash in Anywhere But Here. The betrayal might also fall in line with 'Satsu as the betrayer' theories. Satsu would be the next choice for leadership of Buffy's Slayer army.

I think that would be very interesting. I think I would much rather see the "betrayer" be the Slayer army/Satsu as opposed to Xander, Willow, Giles, Dawn, etc. Plus wouldn't that also then make Buffy and Twilight allies? That would be pretty neat to see the Scoobies and Twilight vs. all of the rogue Slayers.

[balesthebloody]

I think that I read somewhere that Joss said that Season 9 would take place a few years after Season 8. So maybe Buffy will lose her powers at the end of this season and have to live a few years before she gets them back. That would be a cool twist, eh?

[El Diablo Robotico]

Jun 25, 2008 23:20:44 GMT -5 wenxina said:

Since all Potentials became Slayers, it's highly likely that some 5-year old somewhere can now possibly benchpress more than her 16-year old brother.

Not only that, but there's probably also an 85-year-old grandma out there somewhere who can now completely kick the ass of anyone dumb enough to try to mug her...

[Wyndam]

Jun 26, 2008 12:17:48 GMT -5 El Diablo Robotico said:

Jun 25, 2008 23:20:44 GMT -5 wenxina said:

Since all Potentials became Slayers, it's highly likely that some 5-year old somewhere can now possibly benchpress more than her 16-year old brother.

Not only that, but there's probably also an 85-year-old grandma out there somewhere who can now completely kick the ass of anyone dumb enough to try to mug her...

LOL I would love to see that. Maybe have one of Buffy's lieutenants/Slayer squad leaders be some old grannie. That would be just too cool.

[wenxina]

I did discount grannies, but it's totally possible. I'm just wondering if Slayerhood is the cure for osteoporosis?