Hypothetical Question [Spoilers for 16+]

[Black Eye Guy]

I was thinking about how there is only one slayer in Frays time, and with Buffy going to the future. There is 2 slayers in the future, what would happen if Buffy died in the future, would she activate a potential in the future?

I know there's no answer to this but I was just wondering?

[white avenger]

Well, since Joss and all of his minions insist that the Slayer line goes through Faith now, whenever or WHEREver Buffy dies should have no effect on it whatsoever.

[nerd4hire]

Well, since Joss and all of his minions insist that the Slayer line goes through Faith now, whenever or WHEREver Buffy dies should have no effect on it whatsoever.

OK, I'm game. I'll go another round of this. Joss and all his minions have made no such statement since after season 5, and before season 6. I keep asking for the link that says otherwise. Nobody's been able to produce it yet. You be the guy OK. It would be so great if this argument could be settled.

Until that time though I must continue to point out statements in Season 7 and now in Season 8 suggest the line can now pass through Buffy.

Personally, I don't claim to know exactly how the line passes now. I can make a pretty good case for the line now passing through Buffy as a result of the spell in Bargaining, but my only real claim is I'm not sure anybody does know for an absolute fact who the line now passes through.

Wouldn't it be great if the upcoming Fray arc told us?

[white avenger]

As far as I know, there is no link specifically stating that Buffy's resurrection at the beginning of Season 6 did not start a new Slayer line. Neither is there one that states that a second line WAS created. Maybe there was, from the period after the season 5 finale, a "lost Slayer" somewhere in the world. Giles and the Scoobies obviously went to great lengths to conceal Buffy's death, so if another girl had been called, the Watchers' Council would probably have no knowledge of it. Maybe there could have been an army of Slayers raised prior to the end of Season 7 just by stopping and re-starting either Buffy's or Faith's heart, creating yet another Slayer each time. That would be an interesting topic to debate, but I'm afraid that it would wind up being the same as the old, "If you could travel back in time and kill your father before he ever met your mother, would you cease to exist?" question. Maybe you're right. Maybe Joss will kill Buffy during that arc so we can find out for sure one way or another. I'll wait and see if you will.

[Edmund Blackadder]

I haven't read the comics so I don't really know know about what is happening in them and I don't care about spoilers but WA, I have something to say.

I'm convinced N4H will give you many examples of why THE Slayer line now passes through Buffy and not Faith up to Chosen, least of all because The First seemed to need to keep Buffy alive until all the potentials were dead so she couldn't pass the Slayer line on, yet it had no issue with trying to kill Faith, but on the Slayer Army stuff, I've often thought that the Watchers Council, had they known before Prophecy Girl that you could kill and then revive a Slayer and call the next one, that they would have.

Makes perfect sense really. The main portion of the Council don't care about the soldiers just the fight(which I don't disagree with - if as a whole the Council were affected emotionally when The Slayer died, it wouldn't get much work done) so they would have found the Slayer, deactivated her then reactivated and so on. The absolute worst case senario is a dead girl but another Slayer is awoken.

I don't understand what you mean when you say it would be like the Grandmother Paradox though.

Also, just as a point, Buffy doesn't need to die for the Slayer Line theory that it runs through her, through someone else, to be explained.

[nerd4hire]

Yeah, that heart-stopping thing might be interesting in a "what if" kind of way, but no, what I'm talking about is something different. Seriously White Avenger? You haven't heard it before? I thought it was widely known. Oh well I'll air it out one more time. It's not a what if kind of supposition such as the one you and BotD are suggesting. This one suggests the slayer line quite possibly does run through Buffy now, and to believe that all you have to do is believe what the text tells you.

OK, I'll spell that out for you.

In Season 3 Marti Noxon said the line could only run through Faith. Buffy died, and the line jumped to Kendra. Kendra died. The line jumped to Faith. Later in Season 5 Buffy died again. Previous to Season 6 the press asked Joss if there could have been another slayer called as a result of Buffy's death in The Gift. Joss said no, because the line ran through Faith at that point. That much I'm sure of. I think he might have also said that couldn't change unless the writers could think of a way, but I can't find that quote.

Doesn't matter though, because at the end of Season 7 we learn the rule can change. The line passes without Faith dying. So it is possible. The question then becomes is there any evidence the line jumped between Joss's "only through Faith" comment, and the obvious contradiction to that rule. It turns out there is.

In Potential Buffy tells the potentials the line can now pass through her. Now that could just be something Buffy said to motivate the girls, but later Dawn is concerned, because she thinks she might be a potential, and the only way to be a slayer as far as she knows would be for Buffy to die. Xander, Anya, and Willow appear to share this belief. The argument to that is well maybe the Scoobs don't know any better. The problem with that is Cordelia described the way she thought the line had jumped through dead Buffy to Kendra in an episode of season 3. The Scoobs did not contradict her. Also, I forget which episode but Giles described the process in another earlier episode.

But none of that even matters because in Chosen we get the clincher. The episode is written by Joss Whedon, and the First Evil tells Buffy the potentials won't know slayer power unless Buffy dies.

Since that time even more support has appeared. In Season 8 No Future For You Roden refers to Buffy as "the last of the First".

Ok so if it's true, if the line now runs through Buffy how did that happen?

In Showtime Beljoxa's Eye tells us the First has appeared, because a disruption has recently been created in the slayer line. The First Evil plans to exploit that disruption. Beljoxa's Eye says the slayer caused it. In fact, that's important so let's quote.

GILES
If The First has been around for all time, then why hasn't it attempted something like this before? Why now?

BELJOXA'S EYE
The opportunity has only recently presented itself.

GILES
Opportunity?

BELJOXA'S EYE
The mystical forces surrounding the chosen line have become irrevocably altered, become unstable, vulnerable.

ANYA
Something The First did?

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.

But how did the slayer cause the disruption? And notice here Beljoxa's Eye is referring to "The" Slayer.

Anyway they give us the answer. It's cryptic, but they give it to us.

ANYA
(limping) 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.

ANYA
Oh. Oh. Willow and me and Xander and Tara. We're the ones who brought Buffy back. We're—we're the reason The First is here, the reason those girls were murdered. No, it's our fault. The world would've been better off if Buffy had just stayed dead. (walks off)

As we know there are consequences to heavy magic in the Buffyverse. The resurrection spell was among the heaviest. When Willow brought back Buffy it disrupted the slayer line in some way. How is the slayer line disrupted? In the episode following this one we start getting told the slayer line now passes through Buffy.

So there you have it the Buffy-Boards version of the "No longer through Faith" theory in the form it has evolved into over I forget how many years, about 30 or more tellings, and countless spirited debates.

BEG knows this theory well, and like me no doubt assumes everybody else knows it as well. So I guess what he's really asking is assuming the line now passes through Buffy, if Buffy dies in Fray's future, will she activate a potential there as slayer? Come to think of it if Buffy and Fray die could they activate 2.

[white avenger]

BotD-- My reference to the "Killing Your Father" paradox was used simply to illustrate that the "Second Slayer Line" theory was something that there are valid points on both sides of the argument. I could just as easily have used the dreaded "Cave men vs Astronauts" example, but I try to avoid that one these days, just as, if you may have noticed, I no longer pursue the Spuffy vs Bangel debate, at least not with the fervor that I originally did.



N4H--Yes, I have heard the theory about the second Slayer line, both sides are perfectly valid. It's just that I prefer the other side of the argument.


And, yes, Joss would change anything that we believe is canon or "Buffy facts" if the new story required it. Hence my statement in another thread. We are sheep, and Joss is the shepherd. We will follow wherever he leads, and be grateful for the journey. Baaaa


Oh, and about my statement about the heart stopping method of forming a Slayer army, with as much trouble as the Council had controling either Buffy or Faith, I really doubt that they would have been too enthusiastic about having several hundred such girls roaming around the world defying them.

[nerd4hire]

I have a suspicion (hope) this question of who the slayer line runs through will finally be answered in the upcoming Fray arc.

There's another question raised by Fray more people seem curious about, and to answer that one you have to answer the "through Buffy or Faith" one, I think.

In Fray they talk of a battle at the end of slayer line we know. As a result of it all magic and demons disappear from this reality. It's not exactly an end to the line. There are still slayers for the next few hundred years, but they're not trained. Then Fray appears hundreds of years in the future, and the conflict between demons, vampires, and the slayer starts up again. Fray is the only slayer.

Fray was written before Chosen. In Chosen we have the creation of hundreds of slayers. In Fray we only have one (well one and a half maybe if you count her twin brother). How did that happen? Multiple slayers to one. Joss has promised to answer that question in the past. There's also the question of who the slayer in the final battle was. The thinking is it was Buffy. If it was then the discrepancy between multiple slayers to chosen one should have something to do with her. And again Roden calls Buffy the last of the first, so it would seem that's the direction Joss is going in.

I have a theory. At the conclusion of the final battle the slayer is sucked into an alternate reality. If that slayer is Buffy then an absence of Buffy in this reality could cause the slayer line to right itself, and the line could once more pass only through Faith - chosen one to chosen one.

So if that happens will the appearance of Buffy in Fray's future once more corrupt the line?

[crabby patty]

What if a potential dies? Doesnt the slayer line run through them all now they have been activated?

Also what happens to new girls born into the world that would be potentials? Are they activated or not as there were not even born when Willow activated the living potentials?

[RogueHunter]

Makes you wonder if they activated the potentials in this ONE generation or if any potential born will start showing the power. I also wonder if Faith has a separate, original, line and if Buffy has the other 'muddled' line. I'm still not clear on the power of the scythe and how it held the key to the whole line since it was made much later than the original slayer.
Sadly, I think this may boil down to the fact that Joss had a cool idea and made the back story up later. Its only obsessive geeks like us that over analyze everything. Thank God for Star Wars fans to make our geekness look minor.