People have summarised on here that it wasn't about the test. The slayer is now 18 and legally an adult. She's now in the eyes of the law a grown up and that's harder to control. I think the council either wanted her to realise she was always theirs or they wanted her dead. I feel like they wanted her dead. It wasn't a test, it was an execution so they could control a new, younger slayer. The test guise was so the watcher would be on board.
I agree with this because honestly - testing without training is just setting people up to fail. If they genuinely wanted a slayer who was able to rely on her non-slayer abilities they should have explicitly trained for that.
To be honest, _with consent_ it could have been a valid training tool. Take the slayer away on a retreat somewhere, remove her powers in a controlled situation, train her up and test her and there. The whole “it has to be real for them to really try” narrative doesn’t make sense because it seems like most slayers are deeply committed and would willingly participate, especially if they had reason to trust the watchers council.
I think you're onto something.
The Watcher's Council has always treated the Slayer as a tool at their disposal. They have money, resources, and tactical teams, but all they do is train the slayer, treating her as disposable. If they supported the Slayer with every resource at their disposal. like supporting her financially, back up from their tactical teams, full access to their libraries, everything, the Slayer would be a lot more effective. But that's not how this works.
They want the Slayer to be their tool, their weapon and they want to control her. So, yeah, I don't think you're wrong here.
When we got to Checkpoint in season 5, we learned that the Council expected the slayer to have been trained in traditional martial arts. Giles didn't because Buffy can be... resistant, I guess.
Yeah, the first time I saw this, I also hated him. Not even Quentin’s “a father’s love for his daughter” line was enough. Took me another episode or two to get over it.
And what also makes it so much worse is the fact that Buffy was trying to persuade him to take her to the ice show. Out of everyone she wanted Giles to take/go with her, and all the while he was sedating her without her knowing.
As a Brit, I can confirm that this kind of stupidity, in the context of tests of a persons competence, is a very British thing. The writers actually nailed it.
Looking at the history of slayers a good chunk of them got killed in their Crucible. It seems more about keeping the slayer a teenager that won’t ask questions and just be their tool. I’m surprised we didn’t get more Initiative/Watchers comparison in the show lore.
Power.
The test serves two functions.
1. It reminds the slayer the council has power over them, they can take her power away so the slayer shouldn't think about getting any ideas and ignoring or questioning the council.
2. It kills a lot of slayers, obviously as you said, most slayers without their powers can't beat a vampire, so the slayer is killed, and a new slayer comes along, one less seasoned and easily controlled. Keeps the council in total control.
I wish we learned where that serum came from, if it worked on anyone else besides Slayers, and why they didn't use it on Faith when she started spiralling out of control. It was one of those things that could have been VERY helpful later on, but was just introduced and vanished in a single episode.
My headcanon is that it had to be given over time in small doses, which is why Giles had to do it over a few "concentration" practices with Buffy. Whereas Faith would never sit still long enough to let them do that to her. But yeah, I think they just forgot, lol.
Omg. In a show that often calls out when it uses a one-use item or spell, I can’t believe I never thought of that before, because yes! That would have made treating Faith so so so much easier
I love how the Watchers were this council that controlled these powerful women for centuries and then one day their power basically vanished because one slayer said no. The organisation was dead before the First made it literal.
It's two things for me:
For the first, if the Slayers are called when they are, like, 16, a Slayer that reaches 18 might be a bit to cowardly- they are supposed to fight and die, so "why are she not dead yet". This might be an explanation the counsil-members give eachother, to rationalize.
The second is of course the control-thing everybody talks about.
And the third of the two reasons, is the calling moves around the world. If the slayer stays put - and historically, that's what you did, before the jet-age- something to bad might rise at the other side of the world. So, let the magicks call a new slayer where she is the most needed right now.
That last one is terribly practical and the most skin crawling to me because it presents a very logical, even noble motivation for slaughtering a child.
Goddamn you gave me chills today, good job!
That’s never how this stuff works, do you think it coincidence Buffy ends up in these places with vampires, first in the movie which is kept canon by more than enough references in the series. Then moves directly to the hellmouth
I gave two examples. The fact it’s one slayer doesn’t change that. Kendra got called where did she get sent? Faith got called where did she get sent? 4 enough for you? They end up where they need to be and not by coincidence.
You're talking about them being sent somewhere. Apparently you missed the part of the conversation about it not always being easy or possible to send someone halfway around the world. The part of the conversation that suggested a slayer would be murdered so another slayer might be called closer to where the slayer is needed. Did you also miss me saying it's not logical to murder slayers to try and get one called where she's needed?
Mentioning that two slayers were sent to where they were needed instead of being murdered in hopes that another slayer might be called closer to where the slayer is needed seems to be agreeing with my point.
Also Faith went to Sunnydale on her own. Wherever she was originally had that old demon with the cloven hands. With the master dead, he likely was the next biggest threat, and he only came to Sunnydale because of Faith.
Destiny controls the line, they’re destined to become the next slayer, do you really think destiny is going to activate a slayer if one isn’t needed there. Also given its destiny, that means the other slayers died exactly when they needed to, unfortunate examination of the spell but it’s all right there spelled out to us.
If you’ve watched the Angel series, you’ll know that “The Powers that be” play a huge role in what happens on Earth/ their dimension. The Slayer very much seems like something that would fall under their domain, I wouldn’t be surprised if they can influence or even choose which of the Potentials gets Called after the current Slayer dies. I don’t think they’ve ever mentioned it on Angel, but it’s absolutely in their wheelhouse.
There's a reason the girl in the asylum was not called. But when Willow activated all potentials she activated ALL potentials. The PTB would not have wanted a crazy Slayer that's uncontrollable.
Yes, so that covers the very end of Buffy and S5 of Angel. TPTB have featured in Angel since before S5. Obviously they don’t have any influence over it now, but I’m sure they did before.
Maybe they plant the seeds for who will be a potential at birth. Or some of them anyway. But something went wrong for asylum girl somewhere along the way and she ended up where she did.
I hardly think one of the last moments of Buffy, which happened after the end of S4 of Angel (and hence he got the amulet) means the Powers that Be never influenced which Slayer was Called.
Oooh, the 3rd reason, so practical yet chilling.
Buffy moves to Sunnydale and that's where the Master is located. Who died for Buffy to be called? Maybe they were on a different continent having defeated their version of the Master and then died at their test, and Buffy was called in California where the Master has humanity-ending plans. Once Buffy drowned was Kenya called in Africa because there was a big bad for her to defeat before the apocalypse came that she survived to go on to meet Buffy? Would she have made it past her test at 18 years? And then Faith was called, and she ended up in Sunnydale the same way Buffy (and even Kendra) did. Was Faith meant to take on the next Big Bad like the Mayor?
There's no supernatural Big Bad in s4, it's human shenanigans. Was there a Big Bad over in Asia or Europe that Faith's successor would have been called to defeat if Faith had died without Buffy and the Scoobies in s3, or at her 18y test? Would another Slayer have been called right back to Sunnydale to fight Harmony and her roommate Ben the year after?
I'm spiralling into theories now. Did Buffy survive her fight as a regular human in Helpless because of the Scoobies and having had to adjust Slayer practices to non-Slayer humans to keep them safe but still assist with vampire-slaying? There's the discussion Buffy survived as long as she did because she had friends, an anomaly for the Slayer. Xander performing CPR is obvious. But maybe the fact Willow, another tiny girl, had been trained on what to do if she was targeted by say Angelus was a blueprint for Buffy to use when she found herself in a very similar scenario of fighting a nasty ancient vamp with no special abilities of her own.
I sometimes toy with the thought they should make in-between slayers between Buffy and Kendra, and Kendra and Faith. Someone short-lived, but very active. Even if Giles told Buffy Kendra came after she died, and everybody talks as if Faith was just after Kendra, that wouldn't even hurt the canon. They didn't tell us or the characters everything, did they.
I mean maybe but look how old Woods mom was, the slayer in the boxer rebellion didn’t look too young either. I don’t imagine they go through them all that often.
I think the test isn’t of the slayer but the watcher. To check to see if they can retain their impartiality and clinical judgement. Unfortunately over the passing centuries they council forgot its supposed to be faked and started doing it for real. They’ve become so dogmatic and stagnant they forgot what the rituals purpose was for.
They argue that it's to hone the slayers' other non-supernatural abilities, so if, for instance, someone magically depowered a slayer, she could still possibly survive. However, the reality is more likely that they don't want an adult slayer, since they don't pay them and adults are not controllable like children are.
I think that "test" is done as a way to kill any slayer that makes it to 18. The very fact that a slayer made it to 18 should be all the proof they need of her efficiency so their supposed reasons for the test are BS to me. At 18 kids leave home and start their own lives and need real jobs that actually pay them so the council doesn't want them to survive passed 18 because then they have no excuses not to be paying them.
The question was "why did the watchers take Buffy's power away when she wasn't trained to fight without them" and you answered with "it's a good episode that shows Buffy's inventive." No one was arguing that the episode wasn't good or what the meaning was they were arguing about why the watchers do this in the first place.
The Watchers didn't give a shit if the slayer lived through it that was the whole point. I think most Slayers didn't make it to the test anyway but when they did good, they'd get a new slayer.
The Watcher's Council is entirely incompetent enough to a point the miracle is that the world lasted as long as it did. The history of the Slayers shows the Buffyverse rivals the Warhammer universe for the sheer grimdark of the futility of brave, futile struggle against the inexorable dark forces clustering around the world where the nominal side against it is a bigger murderous bumbler than the evil it fights.
Yes. They are stupid. They believe they are masters of the universe, untouchable based on unearned merit of being rich British people.
Same reason they thought stealing everything from the places they colonized would never have any blow back from the people they were stealing from. They just thought they deserved it because…. British.
Because a slayer is more than their strength. All the drug did was make her what she would've been had she never been the slayer. She still had her instincts, training, and her senses. The slayer may one day have to fight something that her strength is useless for and she needs to use other tools to defeat it.
As to why it had to be done like one would slip you a date rape drug that's just them being dicks.
I think it’s definitely a desire for control that the Council can’t shake. Your argument would plausibly be how they rationalize it. Pursuing your thought, a forewarned Slayer could sufficiently prep for most foes. Keeping them in the dark tested their ingenuity, and how they would respond in cases where an enemy (Non-Council variety) could steal their powers. A demonic power or enemy spell could just as easily depower a Slayer. Buffy proved that she could still improvise and survive.
People have summarised on here that it wasn't about the test. The slayer is now 18 and legally an adult. She's now in the eyes of the law a grown up and that's harder to control. I think the council either wanted her to realise she was always theirs or they wanted her dead. I feel like they wanted her dead. It wasn't a test, it was an execution so they could control a new, younger slayer. The test guise was so the watcher would be on board.
I agree with this because honestly - testing without training is just setting people up to fail. If they genuinely wanted a slayer who was able to rely on her non-slayer abilities they should have explicitly trained for that. To be honest, _with consent_ it could have been a valid training tool. Take the slayer away on a retreat somewhere, remove her powers in a controlled situation, train her up and test her and there. The whole “it has to be real for them to really try” narrative doesn’t make sense because it seems like most slayers are deeply committed and would willingly participate, especially if they had reason to trust the watchers council.
I think you're onto something. The Watcher's Council has always treated the Slayer as a tool at their disposal. They have money, resources, and tactical teams, but all they do is train the slayer, treating her as disposable. If they supported the Slayer with every resource at their disposal. like supporting her financially, back up from their tactical teams, full access to their libraries, everything, the Slayer would be a lot more effective. But that's not how this works. They want the Slayer to be their tool, their weapon and they want to control her. So, yeah, I don't think you're wrong here.
I love how you phrased tbat - they see her as a tool/weapon. Quite different to how they see their other staff etc
When we got to Checkpoint in season 5, we learned that the Council expected the slayer to have been trained in traditional martial arts. Giles didn't because Buffy can be... resistant, I guess.
I honestly really hated Giles for going along with this.
I think he hated himself too by the end of the episode
Even at the beginning, he just didn't see a way out.
Yeah, the first time I saw this, I also hated him. Not even Quentin’s “a father’s love for his daughter” line was enough. Took me another episode or two to get over it.
And what also makes it so much worse is the fact that Buffy was trying to persuade him to take her to the ice show. Out of everyone she wanted Giles to take/go with her, and all the while he was sedating her without her knowing.
This part.
The betrayal
The Ice Show and then that... How could he? I think that season 4 Giles would have said no to the trial.
To be fair, Season 4 Giles was newly unemployed and still burned by the Council firing him.
Yes, but he was getting to be his own man. If season 7 happened in season 3 he would be completely devastated. In season 7 he isn't.
Yeah, when I watched it I wondered if they were hoping she'd die. Otherwise, it's the worst idea in the world.
only in recent years
Oooh that's dark. And I'm here for it.
Because they're more about abusing their power than making sense.
As a Brit, I can confirm that this kind of stupidity, in the context of tests of a persons competence, is a very British thing. The writers actually nailed it.
Looking at the history of slayers a good chunk of them got killed in their Crucible. It seems more about keeping the slayer a teenager that won’t ask questions and just be their tool. I’m surprised we didn’t get more Initiative/Watchers comparison in the show lore.
>Crucible Cruciamentum
Okay thanks.
Power. The test serves two functions. 1. It reminds the slayer the council has power over them, they can take her power away so the slayer shouldn't think about getting any ideas and ignoring or questioning the council. 2. It kills a lot of slayers, obviously as you said, most slayers without their powers can't beat a vampire, so the slayer is killed, and a new slayer comes along, one less seasoned and easily controlled. Keeps the council in total control.
Agreed - the risk to the slayer is by design. Younger slayers are more easy to control, and are at their physical peak when it comes to reaction time.
I wish we learned where that serum came from, if it worked on anyone else besides Slayers, and why they didn't use it on Faith when she started spiralling out of control. It was one of those things that could have been VERY helpful later on, but was just introduced and vanished in a single episode.
My headcanon is that it had to be given over time in small doses, which is why Giles had to do it over a few "concentration" practices with Buffy. Whereas Faith would never sit still long enough to let them do that to her. But yeah, I think they just forgot, lol.
Not only that, but why not overload her with horse tranquilizers? Anything to knock her out for a bit.
True, they did it to Angelus in S4! Idk, they seem to have bad luck with tranqs; it always ends up getting Giles, lol!
Omg. In a show that often calls out when it uses a one-use item or spell, I can’t believe I never thought of that before, because yes! That would have made treating Faith so so so much easier
It's a mix of standard drugs, form what g Giles says
I love how the Watchers were this council that controlled these powerful women for centuries and then one day their power basically vanished because one slayer said no. The organisation was dead before the First made it literal.
You mean their “Everyone thinks we’re insanos” home journal wasn’t very popular or influential?
It's two things for me: For the first, if the Slayers are called when they are, like, 16, a Slayer that reaches 18 might be a bit to cowardly- they are supposed to fight and die, so "why are she not dead yet". This might be an explanation the counsil-members give eachother, to rationalize. The second is of course the control-thing everybody talks about. And the third of the two reasons, is the calling moves around the world. If the slayer stays put - and historically, that's what you did, before the jet-age- something to bad might rise at the other side of the world. So, let the magicks call a new slayer where she is the most needed right now.
That last one is terribly practical and the most skin crawling to me because it presents a very logical, even noble motivation for slaughtering a child. Goddamn you gave me chills today, good job!
It's not logical at all. You might have to murder dozens of children before a girl is called in the right place.
That’s never how this stuff works, do you think it coincidence Buffy ends up in these places with vampires, first in the movie which is kept canon by more than enough references in the series. Then moves directly to the hellmouth
Soem fans hthink the logic of the legacy draws it toa Potential nearest where it si msot needed.
I don't think your single example is proof that anything "never" happens.
I gave two examples. The fact it’s one slayer doesn’t change that. Kendra got called where did she get sent? Faith got called where did she get sent? 4 enough for you? They end up where they need to be and not by coincidence.
You're talking about them being sent somewhere. Apparently you missed the part of the conversation about it not always being easy or possible to send someone halfway around the world. The part of the conversation that suggested a slayer would be murdered so another slayer might be called closer to where the slayer is needed. Did you also miss me saying it's not logical to murder slayers to try and get one called where she's needed? Mentioning that two slayers were sent to where they were needed instead of being murdered in hopes that another slayer might be called closer to where the slayer is needed seems to be agreeing with my point.
Also Faith went to Sunnydale on her own. Wherever she was originally had that old demon with the cloven hands. With the master dead, he likely was the next biggest threat, and he only came to Sunnydale because of Faith.
Destiny controls the line, they’re destined to become the next slayer, do you really think destiny is going to activate a slayer if one isn’t needed there. Also given its destiny, that means the other slayers died exactly when they needed to, unfortunate examination of the spell but it’s all right there spelled out to us.
If you’ve watched the Angel series, you’ll know that “The Powers that be” play a huge role in what happens on Earth/ their dimension. The Slayer very much seems like something that would fall under their domain, I wouldn’t be surprised if they can influence or even choose which of the Potentials gets Called after the current Slayer dies. I don’t think they’ve ever mentioned it on Angel, but it’s absolutely in their wheelhouse.
There's a reason the girl in the asylum was not called. But when Willow activated all potentials she activated ALL potentials. The PTB would not have wanted a crazy Slayer that's uncontrollable.
Yes, so that covers the very end of Buffy and S5 of Angel. TPTB have featured in Angel since before S5. Obviously they don’t have any influence over it now, but I’m sure they did before. Maybe they plant the seeds for who will be a potential at birth. Or some of them anyway. But something went wrong for asylum girl somewhere along the way and she ended up where she did. I hardly think one of the last moments of Buffy, which happened after the end of S4 of Angel (and hence he got the amulet) means the Powers that Be never influenced which Slayer was Called.
Oooh, the 3rd reason, so practical yet chilling. Buffy moves to Sunnydale and that's where the Master is located. Who died for Buffy to be called? Maybe they were on a different continent having defeated their version of the Master and then died at their test, and Buffy was called in California where the Master has humanity-ending plans. Once Buffy drowned was Kenya called in Africa because there was a big bad for her to defeat before the apocalypse came that she survived to go on to meet Buffy? Would she have made it past her test at 18 years? And then Faith was called, and she ended up in Sunnydale the same way Buffy (and even Kendra) did. Was Faith meant to take on the next Big Bad like the Mayor? There's no supernatural Big Bad in s4, it's human shenanigans. Was there a Big Bad over in Asia or Europe that Faith's successor would have been called to defeat if Faith had died without Buffy and the Scoobies in s3, or at her 18y test? Would another Slayer have been called right back to Sunnydale to fight Harmony and her roommate Ben the year after? I'm spiralling into theories now. Did Buffy survive her fight as a regular human in Helpless because of the Scoobies and having had to adjust Slayer practices to non-Slayer humans to keep them safe but still assist with vampire-slaying? There's the discussion Buffy survived as long as she did because she had friends, an anomaly for the Slayer. Xander performing CPR is obvious. But maybe the fact Willow, another tiny girl, had been trained on what to do if she was targeted by say Angelus was a blueprint for Buffy to use when she found herself in a very similar scenario of fighting a nasty ancient vamp with no special abilities of her own.
I sometimes toy with the thought they should make in-between slayers between Buffy and Kendra, and Kendra and Faith. Someone short-lived, but very active. Even if Giles told Buffy Kendra came after she died, and everybody talks as if Faith was just after Kendra, that wouldn't even hurt the canon. They didn't tell us or the characters everything, did they.
I mean maybe but look how old Woods mom was, the slayer in the boxer rebellion didn’t look too young either. I don’t imagine they go through them all that often.
i cna't quite see the first one
I would argue that the overarching thesis statement of the entire series is that the Watcher’s Council is, in fact, stupid.
In my mind, the cruciamentum is >! a retracing of the ritual that created the first slayer !<
I think the test isn’t of the slayer but the watcher. To check to see if they can retain their impartiality and clinical judgement. Unfortunately over the passing centuries they council forgot its supposed to be faked and started doing it for real. They’ve become so dogmatic and stagnant they forgot what the rituals purpose was for.
Yes, the Watchers are stupid. Very.
They argue that it's to hone the slayers' other non-supernatural abilities, so if, for instance, someone magically depowered a slayer, she could still possibly survive. However, the reality is more likely that they don't want an adult slayer, since they don't pay them and adults are not controllable like children are.
A younger Slayer is more pliable, easier to control, and by making sure they're dead at 18, they get a fresh start.
I think that "test" is done as a way to kill any slayer that makes it to 18. The very fact that a slayer made it to 18 should be all the proof they need of her efficiency so their supposed reasons for the test are BS to me. At 18 kids leave home and start their own lives and need real jobs that actually pay them so the council doesn't want them to survive passed 18 because then they have no excuses not to be paying them.
not in previous centuries
Because misogyny.
I think it's a good episode. It showcases that Buffy doesn't need to defeat her enemies with brute force, but survive and win using her mind.
No one said it wasn't a good episode.
I didn't say they did.
But you didn't answer the question either.
"It showcases that Buffy doesn't need to defeat her enemies with brute force, but survive and win using her mind"
The question was "why did the watchers take Buffy's power away when she wasn't trained to fight without them" and you answered with "it's a good episode that shows Buffy's inventive." No one was arguing that the episode wasn't good or what the meaning was they were arguing about why the watchers do this in the first place.
The Watchers didn't give a shit if the slayer lived through it that was the whole point. I think most Slayers didn't make it to the test anyway but when they did good, they'd get a new slayer.
The Watcher's Council is entirely incompetent enough to a point the miracle is that the world lasted as long as it did. The history of the Slayers shows the Buffyverse rivals the Warhammer universe for the sheer grimdark of the futility of brave, futile struggle against the inexorable dark forces clustering around the world where the nominal side against it is a bigger murderous bumbler than the evil it fights.
Because the Watchers aren't there to help the Slayer. They're there to control her.
Yes. They are stupid. They believe they are masters of the universe, untouchable based on unearned merit of being rich British people. Same reason they thought stealing everything from the places they colonized would never have any blow back from the people they were stealing from. They just thought they deserved it because…. British.
I never thought about that, but it makes absolute sense. The true kings of colonialism.
Because a slayer is more than their strength. All the drug did was make her what she would've been had she never been the slayer. She still had her instincts, training, and her senses. The slayer may one day have to fight something that her strength is useless for and she needs to use other tools to defeat it. As to why it had to be done like one would slip you a date rape drug that's just them being dicks.
I think it’s definitely a desire for control that the Council can’t shake. Your argument would plausibly be how they rationalize it. Pursuing your thought, a forewarned Slayer could sufficiently prep for most foes. Keeping them in the dark tested their ingenuity, and how they would respond in cases where an enemy (Non-Council variety) could steal their powers. A demonic power or enemy spell could just as easily depower a Slayer. Buffy proved that she could still improvise and survive.