The Powers That Be and Buffy

[Keanoite]

Ok here is my question, why did we only hear of the PTB's in Angel? They gave us the impression that they were an integral part of the good fight yet it in the whole 8 years of Buffy they were never mentioned. Anybody else find it strange that the Slayer had no knowledge of these big shakes?

[littlewilly]

I did find it odd but apart from randomly sending visions what else didi they do?
cosidering that they seemed quite powerful they didnt seem to do that much!

[palabravampiress]

I thought the slayer came about because mankind (and three men in particular, a corrupt group that eventually became known as the watcher's council) stole and harnessed a demonic power and forced it upon a defenseless young girl so that she would fight their battles for them.

The Powers have nothing to do with that. Buffy is the champion of the humans, not the champion of the Powers.

[Keanoite]

I know that but they were seen to be such a huge force for the white hats that I think it is strange that they were NEVER mentioned.

[Blondie Bear]

Maybe the writers wanted to give Angel something to fight for. Buffy had the Council, and the general good of humankind, but what would Angel have besides his own redemption--which he had no proof he'd ever get? The PTB gave him something bigger than himself to fight for AND the hope that he'd be rewarded for it. And it was something to separate AtS from BtVS.

[Kana]

The powers were a mysterious force by any measure. Angel lived 240+ years without any knowledge of them before they revealed themselves more readily and even then like it's been said, they didn't intervene that much. Also like it's been said, Buffy and the other slayers already had a system that existed. The PTBs perhaps thought this to be adequate. Angel needed prompting and so they intervened. It's possible that they intervened to recruit other soilders for good but as seen as slayers were already fighting the good the fight the power didn't need to reveal themselves to them. Or maybe they did somewhere along the line...

[white avenger]

Just at a wild guess, maybe there was something about the hellmouth (possibly the presence of the First Evil there) that repelled the Powers, or maybe they were for some reason forbidden to interfere with the Slayer and her direct area if influence. (But didn't Whistler deliver some sort of message to Buffy sometime in Season 2, or am I just integrating some fan fiction story into canon without realizing it?)

[Primal Slayer]

ya I also found it weird that TPTB never got involved in Buffy espically with The First reappearing in S7. It would be great to have Buffy have her first interaction with them in S8 or 9 (and maybe they can let Buffy remember her 24 hours with human Angel)

And yes Whistler was very much like Doyle when he first appeared with the whole giving messages to Buffy.

[Keanoite]

Yeah I totally forgot about Whistler. Just to touch on what the ladies said, I didn't mean that why didn't Buffy work for the Powers, it was more like why weren't they ever considered as a resource? There were times especially during seasons 5 and 7 where they were really scrapping the barrel help wise that I thought it would have made sense for the Powers to at least be suggested.

Also now that I think of it, did the Powers actually intend to work and help Buffy originally? They sent Whistler to Angel to show him his 'destiny' i.e. Buffy. Whistler told Buffy in Becoming part 1 that what happened with her and Angel wasn't supposed to have happened, Angel was to have done in Acthla not activated him.

[white avenger]

Yeah I totally forgot about Whistler. Just to touch on what the ladies said, I didn't mean that why didn't Buffy work for the Powers, it was more like why weren't they ever considered as a resource? There were times especially during seasons 5 and 7 where they were really scrapping the barrel help wise that I thought it would have made sense for the Powers to at least be suggested.

Also now that I think of it, did the Powers actually intend to work and help Buffy originally? They sent Whistler to Angel to show him his 'destiny' i.e. Buffy. Whistler told Buffy in Becoming part 1 that what happened with her and Angel wasn't supposed to have happened, Angel was to have done in Acthla not activated him.


Yeah, it would probably have been better if Giles and Anya had gone to the Powers as opposed to Botox's Eye to get that rather cryptic answer, or some sort of real information about either Glory or the First Evil.

As for Whistler on "Buffy," I don't think that he ever revealed just who he worked for at that point, though it's been awhile since I last saw those episodes, but I got the idea that he was there specifically to guide and advise Angel on his path to becoming the Powers' designated Champion and, ultimately, the Shanshu prophecy. Maybe because Buffy already was a Champion in her own right, they just figured that, unlike Angel, she didn't need any more guidance to her fate than would be provided by Giles (then again, maybe Giles himself was an unwitting agent of the Powers. He was not typical of Watchers and indeed might have been assigned to the hellmouth strictly as an observer or assistant to Merrick, Buffy's original Watcher.)