The First Evil's plan---did it have one?

[indri]

In a desperate attempt to rationalise the FE's behaviour, especially in Season Seven, I present the following outline of its motivation. Critique please!

"What is it? Why is it doing this to me?" (Spike in Sleeper)

So, from time immemorial, there has been the FE, who gets its kicks from corrupting others. The FE doesn't actually have a vast amount of power but didn't mind this: its job was too much fun. There was a sense of precarious balance that the FE relished.

Then, one day, Buffy dies and Kendra is called. Buffy is revived and for the first time ever there are two slayers. The FE thinks through the implications of this and realises that if there can be two, there can be many, which would upset the balance between good and evil and spoil the FE's fun. Fortunately for the FE, no-one else (except Rowan) seems to realise this. The FE decides to keep an eye on the situation, but doesn't worry too much about it. Buffy's just a better-than-average slayer and besides, to empower all of the slayers would take a witch of improbable power and a major magical artefact.

That doesn't mean the FE won't take shortcuts when they're offered. When it thinks it can manipulate Angel into killing Buffy, it tries to. But when Angel refuses, the FE has no problem with Angel killing himself instead, because souled vampires really piss off the FE. It's used to humans that change sides (that's part of the fun) but godammit, vampires are its playing pieces.

Still, no need to worry, and there's plenty of people out there to defile and corrupt. La, la, la...oh look, Buffy's defeated quite a few beasties now, hasn't she? Master vampires and powerful demons (well, that's her job), power-hungry mayors (well, he was human once, after all), a mad scientist and her creation and, er, a god. But Buffy's dead now, we're back to there being only one slayer and all's right in the FE's world.

Until Buffy's too-powerful-for-her-own-good witchy friend resurrects her.

It's clearly time for the FE to intervene and it may have tried to be subtle at first. Perhaps it manipulated the citizens of Sunnydale for a year to the detriment of the Scoobies. Maybe it spoke to Rack and Giles; surely it had long evening chats with Amy and Warren. And at first it worked: Willow became sick, distracted, unstable. Buffy was demoralised and detached. Warren almost killed Buffy; Willow almost killed Buffy. The FE's plans may have come close to succeeding. But Warren was weak and Buffy was strong and Xander was there to save Willow. So the FE came away empty handed and, to top it all off, another bloody vampire got a soul and it was voluntarily this time, and that just had to be the last straw.

The FE's never been this angry, ever. This is not playing the game! Black knights are dipping themselves in white paint as if that's somehow allowed. The nightmare scenario of All Slayers All the Time is a real possibility. No fun and no fair! Screw you guys, I'm ending the world.

So the FE starts a two-pronged plan. It will destroy the world and end the slayer line. These plans dovetail nicely because it'll be much easier to end the world when the slayers are gone.

The FE probably isn't thinking straight by now and it's trying out blunt instruments that it's never tried to use before. It juices up a promising young serial killer and starts organising the Bringers for real. (It almost brainwashes Spike into killing Buffy just because, well, it would be cool and the FE would feel vindicated that its original plan with Angel could have worked.) Potentials die and the Council is reduced to rubble.

But in the end, the furious, fallible, frightened FE brings about the catastrophe it was trying to avoid. Buffy hasn't really thought much about the Potentials before. Sure, she's had an interest in her slayer origins for a while now but got she sidetracked by small things, like gods and death and depression. But she doesn't wake up to the possibilities until she's had Potentials underfoot for months and the FE accidentally leads her to the Scythe.

Still, the FE thinks desperately, there's always the Turok-Han. But then along comes Angel with his deus ex machina and soon Spike's torching the lot of them.

So---failure. Absolute, bloody failure.

But the FE's still around. It might learn from its mistakes...

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Thank you. That's pretty much what I thought.

[binsoup.livejournal.com]

I can buy your take on the First Evil, in part because as a Buffy viewer since Day 1 I have this almost faith-like trust in Joss and crew that they do think through all their creative decisions. However, I am well aware that there is almost consensus among fans that all the characters, including the FE, got lost in S7. I think this is a fair enough reading.

Your FE sounds devious and a real strategic thinker, traits which I believe are plausible for entities with world-domination agenda. There is evil that is capricious, and their is evil that is calculating. I think your FE reads like it is capable of being both. This is a really scary combination.

Unfortunately, S7's FE for me (or the way it was shown on the telly) was only a notch higher from S4's Adam in the lame-o-meter of big bads. I get why some of us are now engaged in excavating the text. I for one appreciate the efforts of fellow fans to make the last season of Buffy somehow make (better) sense.

[marguerite-26.livejournal.com]

I think it’s a great fanwank. If ME had presented this all in one big speech, I’d have appreciated the effort but thought it a fanwank. But it is solid enough that they could have told a bit of back story throughout S7, explaining FE influence in S6. I would have gladly accepted your fanwank as a sound explanation.

The best part is – you can do it for them. I know you can. Please do. Take this explanation and squeeze it into canon and you’ve got yourself a great fic. My only suggestion is to include at least some backstory to make it convincing.

Please run with this. This fan is just begging to be wanked.

[caille.livejournal.com]

Fascinating. I like your depiction of the FE's recklessness, its power but its lack of omnipotence.

I think a lot of people were pissed off at the characterization because we have it in mind that something called the First Evil ought to be somehow unknowable, maybe even infallible. I think they have the same problem as I would with, for example, imagining God as a big guy with a white beard that's Out There somewhere. I mean, if God can be contained like that, he's not really God, you know?

But I don't need an all-or-nothing approach. The FE is huge, malevolent, tricky...and not God. Not even the anti-God.

I like how you've pointed out that whether or not the FE's particular campaigns prevail, it can always find something to enjoy about the process, that it's all about the process. La la la.