The Clues: The Mole, The Betrayer, and The Prince

[Rebecca]

At the end of Issue #9, the mole was first mentioned, and ne'er since. In #10, we view the betrayal room and know that Buffy will be betrayed by the "closest, the most unexpected." At the end of #10, Buffy was told that the only thing of importance was to "save the Prince".

My personal theories are:

The Mole: Riley

We have already confirmation that he has been working against Buffy for Twilight. Whether he is a double agent and someone else is the real mole... we won't know till we get there.

The Betrayer: Buffy or Giles

My leading theory is Buffy, that she will betray her darkness by banishing the slayer power along with all other demonic magicks, leaving herself powerless and in the state seen in ABH.

Giles on the other hand seems to be in perfect position to betray her, they are obviously close (hugging him immediately and then confiding in him later, more than she's arguably done with everyone else), and he's definitely unexpected from Buffy's viewpoint even though he has a history of betraying her for her own good.

The Prince: Still questionable.

At first I thought of Buffy = Queen and Buffy's son = Prince. Buffy doesn't have a son, nor is she preggers, so either she has a son with someone (oh god, oh god, please let that be Xander) or possibly Xander himself (second in command, he who would succeed in leading the army if she died, that sort of thing). And then there's Robin Wood. He is the son of a slayer, is he not? If he makes another appearance this season, he would then shoot up to my number one suspect of being The Prince.

Who do you think are the Mole, the Betrayer, and the Prince?

[nickb123]

I forgot all about the mole thing from issue 9!! I agree that it is probably Riley, taking it literally as "the man on the inside"... the only alternative is Xander and I refuse to believe that all the men on BTVS are being crazy and turning against the empowered girls!

As for the Prince thing, I know a lot of people believe this was a reference to Dracula's reappearance in WATG... as he is the Prince of Darkness. But the quote never really added up to me, how did they "rescue the prince"...the prince kinda rescued them in the end, after causing the mess in the first place. Unless Robin meant they rescued Drac from being all pent up in his home and losing sight of who he was (something we see in Tales of the Vampire, that he's all old and past it, and something he gets back in WATG when he goes crazed on Toru).

Maybe the prince quote refers to someone else... but I can't imagine who. Unless it was to relate to a secondary definition of prince "a close male relative of a monarch". If Buffy is the Queen, then it might mean Xander. Does Xander need rescuing? Maybe he's more cut up about Renee's death than we thought?! Or maybe he is the traitory mole.... NOOOOOOOOO!

[neowhobaz]

Mole- Riley cuz it seems pretty obvious.

Betrayer: I'm leaning on dawn or xander bcuz giles has already betrayed so he'd be expected and buffy even though not elicitly obvious as fans we'd be expected to assume something way over the top like that the main character could or would betray herself. Not ruling her out but I feel like we need to see more of her state of mind becuz if the story is from her perspective alot of the time you'd think we'd gain some insight into possible thoughts of betrayal.

the prince: Since its gender specific I'd rule out any of our female suspects. Somehow xander doesn't stand out to me for this since i'm pegging him for the betrayer ...i'm gonna go with andrew becuz the prince title could be some weird nod to his boyish geekyness


just imo

[Rebecca]

I agree that it could have been Dracula to fill the role of the Prince, but that doesn't seem to fit with "the only thing of importance is to save the prince". Why was saving Drac so important if that were the case? Granted, he could prove more valuable later on, but from what we've seen so far, he doesn't fit the bill. In addition, it wasn't made clear to the audience that Buffy was following Robin's advice by doing whatever she herself did to save Dracula (that never happened?)

[faithswatcher]

Mole - Although i think its Riley. I always thought it was Satsu.
I'm still not over Amy's love spell in TLWH, it made no sense? Why choose a love spell? I always thought this was because it was not a love spell, it was a way of convincing Buffy that Satsu was in love with her, to get close to her. However, now Riley seems like the mole, I think the love spell was possibly a way of Twilight finding out who was in love with Buffy, maybe to kill them and hurt Buffy, or convince Satsu privately to do something with the threat of Twilight killing Buffy, using her own love for Buffy against her.

The betrayer - Humanity, I think the 'darkness' she cant kill isnt her slayer power, but her humanity. Perhaps Buffy's humanity will betray her role as slayer. Such as the slayer role needs her to kill Twilight, but her humanity will stop her from doing the 'right' thing. Like killing Dawn to save the world.

The prince - Twilight. If Buffy is the Queen (dream in TLWH, and Gigi refers to her as queen) Dawn has been referred to as a/the princess, don't remember when, think it was when she was a horse thing. Dawn/Twilight connection. Dawn the princess, Twilight the prince.

[nickb123]

The Dawn/Twilight connection is interesting, if only for their names. Tara's "be back before Dawn" in the episode "Restless" is a cool comparison with Twilight and how he only tends to appear at dawn or dusk. A bit a of a lame link there just with the names though, your logic of prince and princess was much better!

It'd be weird if Twilight is connected to Dawn, as I don't know of anyone she knew who could be big bad material. My money is still on Ethan Rayne / someone Ethan Rayne knew too much about to warrant a bullet in the brain pan squish.

[buffyfan21]

Jul 22, 2009 18:59:25 GMT -5 faithswatcher said:

The betrayer - Humanity, I think the 'darkness' she cant kill isnt her slayer power, but her humanity. Perhaps Buffy's humanity will betray her role as slayer. Such as the slayer role needs her to kill Twilight, but her humanity will stop her from doing the 'right' thing. Like killing Dawn to save the world.
.

Interesting theory.

[neowhobaz]

I was just thinking about something...and anybody feel free to correct me because I don't have it in front of me to verify it myself...but when Fray reads the old watcher diaries...doesn't it kind of come out and say that the last slayer, with the help of her firends banishedhe demons and magic...that if true would answer any doubts I had about who seals the deal as far as who the betrayer would be (buffy).

[trunkstheslayer]

Jul 26, 2009 16:30:07 GMT -5 neowhobaz said:

I was just thinking about something...and anybody feel free to correct me because I don't have it in front of me to verify it myself...but when Fray reads the old watcher diaries...doesn't it kind of come out and say that the last slayer, with the help of her firends banishedhe demons and magic...that if true would answer any doubts I had about who seals the deal as far as who the betrayer would be (buffy).

It's heavily implied that "that slayer" was/is Buffy, but it's never stated outright so it could remain up in the air. As for banishing demons and such, I think it would depend on the 'how' before I marked Buffy as the betrayer.
The current arc, with her aiming to suppress their magicks and slayerhood is what has me convinced she's the betrayer though. She's turning her back on the power she spread in Chosen and, given how Joss felt about that spell, I can't help but see that as a HUGE betrayal on Buffy's part.

[cheryl]

The mole = Andrew
The betrayor = Willow
The Prince = Angel or Connor

[Hallow Thorn]

Jul 27, 2009 0:11:06 GMT -5 cheryl said:

The Prince = Angel or Connor

Say what?

[vampmogs]

The Mole= Riley, though that does seem rather obvious.

The Betrayer= Buffy herself. Either because she’s betrayed her own morals and everything she was, or she betrays her friends. Who’s “closer and more unexpected” to Buffy but Buffy herself?

The Prince= Xander, Twilight… possibly both if you get what I mean

[loveisabird]

Mole : Id like it to be Satsu myself. The Satsu/Buffy thing must lead somewhere else since a big hullabaloo was made over it initially. Id love for Satsu love for Buffy to be a big fabrication in order for her to try and get closer to Buffy/make a connection with her.

Betrayer: Im definately thinking it will be Buffy herself which Id personally find interesting. If not, Id like it to be Dawn/Willow/Xander/Giles. .. even though It would p1ss me off lol

Prince: Someone mentioned Robin which would be interesting, so Id like to say him also.

[Skeptic]

Jul 27, 2009 5:13:44 GMT -5 loveisabird said:

Mole : Id like it to be Satsu myself. The Satsu/Buffy thing must lead somewhere else since a big hullabaloo was made over it initially. Id love for Satsu love for Buffy to be a big fabrication in order for her to try and get closer to Buffy/make a connection with her.

I thought about that, too, only we found out that Satsu really loves Buffy, else her kiss wouldn't have awakened her.

I had originally toyed with the idea that Satsu got Buffy to sleep with her so the Tokyo vamps could steal the scythe. But there were so many reasons that just didn't quite fit, so I abandoned the idea.

Plus, I think Joss is so painfully aware of the "evil/dead lesbian" cliche from the post-Tara fallout, that he may have doubts about making another gay character turn bad or die. But if Satsu wasn't truly in love with Buffy, as evidenced by the kiss, then she might be on my list as well.

I think the betrayer is perhaps Buffy, and the betrayee is Willow. The reason is because of the panels where Buffy asked Willow if she was going to betray her, and Willow said no, at least no more than she had already. I'm wondering still if that was an anvil - to say Buffy automatically assumes it's Willow, and never once considers that she may herself be the betrayer, and do it to Willow. And the theory kinda fits - because if Buffy abandons Willow so she can banish magicks and demons, it would probably kill them both (figuratively speaking, maybe even literally... we'll see).

[nickb123]

Love that theory that Buffy betrays Willow. Thinking about it, it makes a heck of a lot of sense. When Robin shows them the scene, Buffy immediately says "what happens to me here" - is this another case of typical Buffy "it wasn't about you, it's never about you"? To say that it is she doing the betraying works great with how she immediately accuses Willow, when actually it's she who is the one at fault. This interpretation also seems to fit in with the Fray arc in some ways, if Buffy betrays Willow by choosing to banish magic forever.

I definitely believe that the betrayal will be about Buffy herself, either in betrayal of her own moral code or her betrayal against Willow / the Slayers.

[balesthebloody]

I only real person I think The Mole could be at this point is Riley. As for the The Betrayer, it could be anyone on Team Buffy at this point. I am sure with "Retreat" a few more things will come out into the open as far as this goes.

[BlueJay]

Where is this mole person mentioned in #9?

Are you guys referring to the lady with the mole?

[nickb123]

lol. At the end of #9, the woman says "our man on the inside has confirmed Buffy is fine... the plan failed" or words to that effect - meaning there's someone on the inside at Slayer HQ... or it could just mean Riley though that's a little tenuous for him to be checking how Buffy is from the outside. I guess he has her ear though, so it doesn't matter.

[jellymoff]

So does everyone think Oz's son could be "The Prince"? He's kind of the "Prince of the Wolves" I suppose.

[neowhobaz]

It's possible. Sadly I think all these things will only really be clear when they're revealed and we look back in hindsight for confirmation....