Ending Magic in the Buffyverse?

[NotASlayer]

So, apparently during the comics, an attempt was made to end magic, essentially on Earth, and I wondered what would happen if a serious attempt was made to do this, with all the side-effects not really covered. Should Buffy & co try to prevent it? Or cooperate?

Ending magic would be harmful for anything not human. Demons would most likely die; they may be part human, but probably not in a way that's easy to separate the demon part from the human. Those possessed by demons or other things - vampires, Fred, vengeance demons going by Slayers - would have the possessor thrown out, maybe even killed, returning them to their human state. Which for vampires would be an, often long-dead, corpse, and for Fred an empty shell. Old Ones like the Wolf, the Ram and the Hart that dwell in another dimension would no longer be able to get through. Hellmouths would cease, possibly collapsing as they did. Slayers and witches would lose their powers and become vanilla humans. Dawn would probably either die or be ejected from the dimension.

What would this mean? Well, demons would be wiped out. Now, they aren't all evil or prey on humans, but many of them do. Most, going by Buffy. Vampires are, for all intents and purposes, evil. Sure, Angel and Spike have souls, but that doesn't make them good and both have done horrible things with them. The other vampires seen to not prey on humans worked for W&H, so probably caused even more misery than those who simply fed and killed.

Slayers losing their powers means that they are no longer able to fight threats, but as the threats they were created to fight were, now non-existent, supernatural ones, this doesn't mean much (nor does the loss of Angel and Spike as champions, assuming post Angel S5; again, because being a champion against a supernatural threat is irrelevant when said threat doesn't exist).

There are good witches, but do they balance out the harm done by bad witches, and then add some? If not, then the loss of witchcraft makes the world better.

So, should Buffy cooperate with such? Likely killing if not outright wiping out demon- and vampire-kind. Plus any deaths caused by the destruction of Hellmouths, and some ancillary violence and destruction. But eliminating completely the supernatural threat and the deaths caused by it. Or try and stop it?

 

[wolfheart]

Im leaning towards fight and stop it, its a very interesting given no more demons etcetera, i think Buffy and co where lost in this scenario

 

[garfan]

so, ending magic was a side effect and it was revealed ending magic was a bad thing. But it didn't just destroy things that contained magic, they basically became finite batteries that would run down

 

[wolfheart]

Ive got another question /hypothese, when in another dimension the vampires and demons etc where good,and Buffy and co where evil, do you still want to watch this?

 

[NotASlayer]

so, ending magic was a side effect and it was revealed ending magic was a bad thing. But it didn't just destroy things that contained magic, they basically became finite batteries that would run down

In this case, ending magic isn't a side effect, it's the goal. Not destroying the Seed of Whatever, but actually ending all magic.

 

[AlphaFoxtrot]

The problem are retcons. The Scenario laid out by Giles in the pilot is that Earth was inhabited by a race of god alien monsters called the Old Ones, somehow they were forced to leave the planet by some means, and what we call “magic” is an otherwise incomprehensible exotic energy source that behaves according to alien rules of physics where cognition and consciousness play a greater role in the shaping of reality. It’s a very Lovecraftian world, very Cthulhu Mythos who had this great way of structuring everything in scientific terms, while still being able to make man feel like a flea that wandered into a particle accelerator.

Then, you get the Wicca witchcraft, then Gaia, then the Deeper Well, all things that change magic from alien technology to part of the mystic past. Magic is not a corruption of the Cartesian by otherworldly forces, but a natural, if poorly understood, fundamental force of our universe. In the old scenario, if you could shut the hellmouth, magic would cease to work. In the new scenario, shutting down the Hellmouth would only cut off certain kinds of magic, the ones native to earth would survive.

The comic claims that the Seed itself is the source of magic, that it brought demons here, and that it serves as the source of all human joy and inspiration, yada yada.

You see the difference; it’s not the same thing. Magic went from being alien and external to the universe, to a natural part of the universe.

 

[HowiMetdaSlayer]

Yeah, problem is that in any fictional universe the lore tends to be written as they go along. Rarely, no matter what some fans think, is there some sorta predetermined outlined back story. So almost invariably there will be holes along the way the longer a show/film series goes on. Definitely true in the Buffy verse.

 

[NotASlayer]

True, you can pretty much claim anything can work in Buffyverse lore, because it got changed so often. So it's not so much "Can this be done in lore?" because you can always argue yes, but "Which should Buffy do?"

Not the most original concept, but a classic moral dilemma. Do the needs of the many outnumber the needs of the few? Or the one?

 

[Btvs fan]

True, you can pretty much claim anything can work in Buffyverse lore, because it got changed so often. So it's not so much "Can this be done in lore?" because you can always argue yes, but "Which should Buffy do?"

Not the most original concept, but a classic moral dilemma. Do the needs of the many outnumber the needs of the few? Or the one?

The obvious one is Joss Retconned Buffy dating the Immortal, instead its just a decoy, the problem is he forgot that Both Spike and Angel should be able to smell that it's not Buffy !

 

[garfan]

The problem are retcons. The Scenario laid out by Giles in the pilot is that Earth was inhabited by a race of god alien monsters called the Old Ones, somehow they were forced to leave the planet by some means, and what we call “magic” is an otherwise incomprehensible exotic energy source that behaves according to alien rules of physics where cognition and consciousness play a greater role in the shaping of reality. It’s a very Lovecraftian world, very Cthulhu Mythos who had this great way of structuring everything in scientific terms, while still being able to make man feel like a flea that wandered into a particle accelerator.

Then, you get the Wicca witchcraft, then Gaia, then the Deeper Well, all things that change magic from alien technology to part of the mystic past. Magic is not a corruption of the Cartesian by otherworldly forces, but a natural, if poorly understood, fundamental force of our universe. In the old scenario, if you could shut the hellmouth, magic would cease to work. In the new scenario, shutting down the Hellmouth would only cut off certain kinds of magic, the ones native to earth would survive.

The comic claims that the Seed itself is the source of magic, that it brought demons here, and that it serves as the source of all human joy and inspiration, yada yada.

You see the difference; it’s not the same thing. Magic went from being alien and external to the universe, to a natural part of the universe.

well, it could have been something that had left the universe. In fact my take on Giles explanation of the Old Ones was that they were supposedly native and here first

 

[AlphaFoxtrot]

I agree, both Giles and Jasmine were very clear about that, Earth was hell until something happened to push the demons out.

But, if the wiki is to be believed, the seed brought demons to earth, and was present before the First Evil... Oh come on. You know who this is sounding like...