I wrote another essay, one that I think you might find interesting: (Original post here.)

This thing has been eating my brain since Thursday - I hope it makes sense to you too! :)

Epiphany: I think I understand The First Evil!

This was all brought on by reading deborahmm’s post on ‘Sleeper’ the other day. She was wondering why did The First use Spike to open the seal? Especially considering that he’d murdered all these people full of perfectly good blood. And Andrew and the pig? Yes it’s wonderfully comical, but why would the oldest baddest evil in the world try to get a kid to kill a pig?

Then I remembered the scene with Spike attached to the big wheel thingy, and The First says:
“I have to admit, I'm glad it worked out this way. I was going to bleed Andrew, but (sighs) you look a lot better with your shirt off.”
Now The First obviously wanted Andrew dead (since as we later learn that his tears could deactivate the seal), but why did it want to bleed him? Or rather, what was all the faffing around with the pig about? And also The First has loads of Bringers - they could have grabbed anyone off the street to bleed...

But then things suddenly started to add up - here’s D’Hoffryn in ‘Selfless’:
“Haven't I taught you anything, Anya? Never go for the kill when you can go for the pain.”

Now going back to Andrew - what if he hadn’t run into Willow? Because it’s a fair bet that the butcher’s blood wouldn’t have worked either. I don’t know if he could have thought of anything else, but whichever way he would have failed. Just picture the scene:

Andrew: “I’m sorry it didn’t work. I - I really don’t think I can do this thing...”
First!Warren: “Hey - no worries buddy. As always yours truly has a back-up plan! And you don’t have to do a thing... well not as such.”
Andrew (relieved): “Thank goodness, you’re a real pal!”
First!Warren: “No no, thank you - watching you digging yourself deeper and deeper into a hole has been the most entertaining thing I’ve seen since the end of X-Files! But - all good thing must come to an end... Go on, get him!”
Bringers come out, grab Andrew and tie him down.
Andrew (terrified): “But... but... I thought... you promised... we were gonna be as gods...”
First!Warren (gloating): “You said wanted to help - did I forget to mention the dying part?”

Because what suddenly struck me (also due to buttersideup’s essay mentioning how S7 is like S2) was the realisation that the Big Bad that The First most resembles is - Angelus! Just killing people is never enough if you can torture them first using every kind of mental and physical torment possible (of course if time is running short, grab a chain saw...). From ‘Innocence’:

Spike: “So you didn't kill her then.”
Angelus: “Of course not.”
Spike: “Now, I know you haven't been in the game for a while, mate, but we still do kill people. Sort of our raison d'être, you know.”
Drusilla: “You don't want to kill her, do you? You want to hurt her. Just like you hurt me.”

And that is The First all over - it wants to hurt people! And viewing The First as Angelus suddenly makes sense of stuff that previously looked very weird. Of course The First never appeared as Angelus (thankyouverymuch stupid network wars), but I have a feeling it would have made things a lot clearer. F.ex. Angelus is often described as someone who likes to play cat-and-mouse games. From ‘Sleeper’:

First!Spike: “There's an order. The slayer's not in order. But it can't hurt to play. Get your claws in the mouse, you know?”



Now, I’ll try to look at The First’s plan(s) in the light of this.

To take over the world, it has two plans, intertwined: To destroy the Slayer line and to build up an army of übervamps to conquer the world - then the scales will tip and The First will become corporeal.

Now the army bit is obviously running smoothly, so The First’s main focus is The Slayer and the Slayer line. Killing off the Potentials around the globe is fairly simple, as is blowing up the Watcher’s Council.

So The First concentrates on Buffy and those around her - her friends and allies, her ties to the world. And rather than just killing them off, The First uses a bit of finesse (“A real kill. A good kill. It takes pure artistry. Without that, we're just animals.” Angelus, ‘Fool For Love’.) - it is so confident in its eventual victory that it is quite happy just to play with them all for a while, inflicting pain and creating distrust, revelling in every word spoken in haste, every deed done in secret. Angelus tried to harass most of Buffy’s friends, and likewise The First happily messes with everyone in Buffy’s circle, exploiting their fears and weaknesses to great effect. Doing a quick run-through of the core group in S7 reveals the damage:

- Killing off (almost) all the other Watchers isolates Giles and makes him fall back on his basic Watcher training: Be ruthless and unemotional, save the world at any cost.

- The First talks to Willow, making her even more wary of her powers than before, feeding her insecurities.

- The First terrifies Dawn, then appears as her mother, causing her to doubt Buffy’s love and devotion.

- Caleb pokes out Xander’s eye, making one of Buffy’s main supporters distrust her when push comes to shove.

- The First terrorises the Potentials, making them question Buffy’s leadership and their own fates.

- The First does its best to sway Andrew back to its side, being obviously pissed off that Buffy ‘stole’ him. (He was clearly a ‘special project’.)

- Principal Wood is played very beautifully and skilfully indeed, since there is barely anything worse than a good guy who does something bad ‘for the common good’.

- Anya though is pretty much off The First’s radar post-’Selfless’, although D’Hoffryn is fairly sure of her ultimate demise.


And - although sometimes odd and muddled - The First actually has rather a good success rate with its tactics. Come ‘Empty Places’ Buffy gets thrown out of her house (“Now that's everything, huh? No weapons... No friends... No hope.” Angelus, Becoming II). All those little seeds of doubt have had time to blossom and the Scoobies and Potentials are just plain scared, all having their own personal reasons for acting the way they do.

So, Buffy has been very effectively separated from her ties to the world - all those things that make her go on. Of course this also ties in with the fact that she becomes incredibly self-reliant during a crisis, something The First is only all too aware of:

Its tactics re. Buffy are the slow separation from her friends (partly her own fault), and also making her doubt her own powers, when she comes up against the Turok-Han. Which was why it only ever raised one I think - like a ‘free sample’ to undermine her confidence. But Buffy is of course stronger than that. She does have a tendency for despairing and shutting down, but every time she has come back eventually, saying “I’m the Slayer! Don’t mess with me!” It all comes to a head in ‘Empty Places’ when it seems that she has lost everyone - and unlike ‘Becoming II’ there is not one vampire to kill (which was devastating emotionally, but not hard physically), but thousands upon thousands - this time Buffy would not be able to fight alone. And of course she doesn’t have to, because she has...

Spike! Spike the souled vampire that The First couldn’t break - it tried many of the same tricks it did on Angel, but with very different results (see this post). Maybe because Angelus was so much closer to The First’s way of doing things, revelling in his victims’ emotional pain (and thus easier for The First to understand). But Spike was never like that, which might be why The First had him kill when souled - to twist the knife a bit more. And I think the mind-control was (at least partly) so that Buffy wouldn’t trust him, a sort of flashing neon sign to alert the Scoobies. It’s also entirely possible that The First made him kill quite simply because it could.

Anyway, Spike is there to pick Buffy up - to give her back the ‘me’ she found back in Season 2, when everything looked lost.


And there is another character that The First can’t keep down either: Faith. Faith is a very straightforward character in many ways, and once she has chosen ‘the good path’, that’s where she’ll continue to walk, no matter what! And interestingly enough, this is all because of the friendship that Buffy extended, and then the trust that Angel showed. Angel who so often just let go himself, never let up on Faith. Which is why she tells The First exactly where it can stick it. From 'Touched':

First!Mayor: "You keep looking for love and acceptance from these people, these friends of yours, but you're never gonna find it. The truth is, nobody will ever love you. Not the way I love you."
Faith: "Get out."
First!Mayor: "They'll forever see you as a killer."

But Faith has just come from LA where she has been dealing with Angelus himself, needling her at every opportunity - she has all her defences well in place! From 'Release':

Angelus: "Come on, Faith, you're not even trying. Or is that why you really came back, huh? Not enough to punish yourself in prison? Is that it? Still looking for someone to help beat the bad out of you? You know what the funny part is, darling? I could beat you death, and it wouldn't make a difference. Nothing will ever change who you are, Faith. You're a murderer, an animal, and you enjoy it. Just like me."

Faith really has no part in throwing Buffy out, but does her best to pick up the pieces. Funny how each Slayer has a vamp as their rock.


Now I’m not sure what exactly The First had planned for Spike, although an interesting theory is that it’d activate him during the final battle. But there are other possibilities:
- To make Spike despair and turn to the dark side willingly.
- To make him such a danger that Buffy killed him.
- To make him kill Buffy (when most vulnerable).
- Or (and I quite like this) its plan was all along to make Robin kill him, using the side of good (a son’s rightful hurt and anger) to kill a possible champion. Which would have caused a huge rift in the Slayer’s camp and robbed them of a valuable fighter. How eagerly does Robin conspire with Giles, just as a solution is actually imminent? Did he have another visit from Mama that we never saw? Also Spike’s fighting skills were sub-par when controlled - all brute force and no finesse.
- Of course it’s possible that there either was no plan, except to create chaos and infighting in the Slayer’s camp, or that The First had several plans, and was biding its time to see which one would be the most effective.


In one way though, it doesn’t matter. Because The First miscalculates. In the last scene of Lessons, it is gloating over Spike and finishes off with the words:

“It's not about right, not about wrong... it's about power.”

And The First is pretty sure that nothing is more powerful than itself! It sees humans as feeble and emotions as a display of weakness:

“Oh, now, look... Things don't go exactly your way, so here come the waterworks. Ain't that just like a woman?” Caleb, ‘Empty Places’

Likewise Angelus despises humans and views love as a taint:

“She [Buffy] made me feel like a human being. That's not the kind of
thing you just forgive.” Angelus, ‘Innocence’

Angelus: “What do you know about it? I'm the one who was friggin'
violated. You didn't have this thing in you.”
Drusilla: “What was it? A demon?”
Angelus: “Love!”
‘I Only Have Eyes For You’

And in ‘Dirty Girls’ we have Caleb voicing his thoughts on the Slayer’s powers:
“So, you're the slayer. The slayer. The strongest, the fastest, the most aflame with that most precious invention of all mankind—the notion of goodness. The slayer must indeed be powerful. (with one powerful punch, he sends Buffy flying across the room) So, what else you got?”


But Buffy has always known that feelings and emotions are a strength.

Kendra: “Emotions are weakness, Buffy. You shouldn't entertain dem.”
Buffy: “Kendra, my emotions give me power. They're total assets!”
‘What’s My Line pt.1’

And it is something that Anya learns, the thing that makes her stay.

“And yet, here's the thing. When it's something that really matters, they fight. I mean, they're lame morons for fighting, but they do. They never... never quit. So I guess I will keep fighting, too.” Anya, ‘End of Days’

Humans are powerful because of their emotions. Humans are powerful because they care, because they fight even when it is hopeless. They took the world from the demons and they don’t plan on giving it back. They might not be as physically strong as demons, but as Season seven shows, the power of forgiveness and love - the notion of goodness - is far greater than even the oldest evil in the world!

So in the end it is forgiveness and love that saves the world - the one thing that Angelus, and The First, never understood!

First Slayer: “You are full of love. You love with all of your soul. It's brighter than the fire ... blinding. That's why you pull away from it.”
Buffy (surprised): “I'm full of love? I'm not losing it?”
First Slayer: “Only if you reject it. Love is pain, and the Slayer forges strength from pain. Love ... give ... forgive. Risk the pain. It is your nature. Love will bring you to your gift.”


ETA: Well knock me over with a feather! I think I actually converted someone to S7:
"Wow. Suddenly season 7 has stopped being lame and actually makes sense!"
Squeeeeeeeeee! ::dances::