The Watcher's Council - Buffy: TVS Questions

[Technobuilder]

Granted, these questions are a bit outdated now, but I've been rewatching Buffy: The Vampire Slayer - Season 3 and it suddenly hit me...

1.) Why does the Council not support their Slayer(s) financially?
Endless resources for themselves it seems, yet never once did Buffy or Faith receive a dime or financial support. Why should a Slayer ever have to worry over money or job security when her job should be Slaying?

-Now granted, I know that Buffy changes the standard Council/Slayer Dynamic by living for more than a few years, but even if Slayers died constantly, it's incomprehensible to turn what's left of their lives into something much more complicated when they could be focused elsewhere.

2.) Why do they not send a team of Watchers to train a Slayer (not a potential) once she's been identified?

-The Team should consist of a Combat Skills Specialist, Demonology Research Analyst, Magicks Expert, Developmental Psychologist and Field Medic. (At the very least!)
-Even under the assumption of the Slayer as a lowly tool to be used and directed, you'd want to Train, Maintain, & Provide Logistical Backup so they have the best chance of succeeding in their assigned mission.

Thoughts?

 

[14thDoctor]

1.) Why does the Council not support their Slayer(s) financially?

They do pay the Watcher tending to the Slayer, perhaps part of that money is intended to be put towards the care and feeding of the Slayer?

Buffy seemed to be an unusual case, having friends and family and whatnot. Perhaps it's more common for a Slayer to abandon their former life and sleep on their Watchers couch?

2.) Why do they not send a team of Watchers to train a Slayer (not a potential) once she's been identified?

Because knowledge is power, and an empowered Slayer is more likely to challenge her Watcher. Besides, why care how many Slayers die if another one always rises to replace them?

 

[Hermiod]

It should be pointed out here that Giles is not representative of most Watchers. The Council hasn't changed its opinion of Slayers since their predecessors made the first one and then made up a load of "rules" to make sure she was kept in line.

They typically don't care about the Slayer, she's just a tool to be used. They aren't supposed to live much longer than their sixteenth birthday anyway. It was Giles not teaching his Slayer that way that got him in to so much trouble. Then Wesley absolutely and completely botched his handling of both Buffy and Faith. That could not have worked out any worse.

 

[Technobuilder]

Now I'm confused.

If the Slayer isn't supposed to live much past 16, then why have that Cruciamentum ritual at 18? It stands to reason that a slayer that's lived 2 years longer than most should be more resourceful already than those that haven't.

The methods of the council don't make any logical sense in how they use their "weapon" to hold back the darkness...

And the argument of limiting a Slayer's knowledge by limiting the number of watchers responsible for her to 1 is fairly wishy-washy as with a team, you'd have 5 times the information sources back to the council to watch each other for signs of getting to "close" to the slayer. Hell, with a Council Psychologist, you could probably manipulate a Slayer more effectively than ever.


It's not that the council aren't Arrogant Dicks who could care less about the Slayer... we know that they are, but their logic at using the Slayer EFFECTIVELY is what I'm trying to get to the root of here.

For example, A slayer like Faith would of been more trusting of the council if they'd given her a decent place to live in Sunnydale, or at the least a means of obtaining one.

That's how she turned Dark in the first place, the Mayor made with the nice face.

 

[Hermiod]

If the Slayer isn't supposed to live much past 16, then why have that Cruciamentum ritual at 18? It stands to reason that a slayer that's lived 2 years longer than most should be more resourceful already than those that haven't.

My point is that the life of a Slayer is typically a short one. Better to not get attached.

The methods of the council don't make any logical sense in how they use their "weapon" to hold back the darkness...

They send the Slayer out on patrol knowing full well that one night that Slayer is going to be just a little bit unlucky. One night a Vampire is going to get the drop on them and then that's it. That Vampire is famous amongst his kind and the next Slayer is called.

I'm not suggesting the way the Council treats the Slayer is the correct way, but it's clear that the whole organisation was corrupt and broken and needed to be brought down.

 

[FALCONX0N]

I can't say much on option1--yeah, they're just dicks. Though I suppose money can be traced, and if every time the forces of darkness offed a Slayer, another new girl somewhere came into a bunch of money out of nowhere, then the whole secret identity thing might be compromised? Eh, that's kind of weak, but it might be the rationale behind the 'lets not waste our money on a tool who's going to in a year' type of thing.

Question 2, though, I think was covered in the show. Each Watcher is supposed to be proficient in ALL of those catagories- -one stop shopping, so to speak. That's what makes them a Watcher.

 

[Lindley]

They actually do train Potentials when they're identified. Kendra was trained far longer than she was a Slayer. However, the Council's method for identifying Potentials is less than perfect.....

 

[Anwar]

The Council's training of Kendra wasn't all that great considering how easily she got killed by Drusilla...

As for the Watchers, I've always wondered why there aren't any Watchers who aren't all WASPS. I mean aren't they supposed to have been descended from those African Shamans?

 

[Lindley]

Hmm, perhaps at some point back in history, the descendants of those shamans lost a war to the predecessors of the current Council, who took control of the Slayer line at that point.

 

[Ethros]

1.) Why does the Council not support their Slayer(s) financially?

They do pay the Watcher tending to the Slayer, perhaps part of that money is intended to be put towards the care and feeding of the Slayer?

Buffy seemed to be an unusual case, having friends and family and whatnot. Perhaps it's more common for a Slayer to abandon their former life and sleep on their Watchers couch?

As seen in the canon TPB "Tales of the Slayers", yes most Slayers throughout history did that (well, the abandoning their life thing, not sure about the couch )

 

[Mr Light]

I think it's a little ridiculous that the super rich Watchers Council doesn't pay the Slayer... and that they send a single Watcher to mentor their single Slayer when there's hundreds of people in the Council... I think it's an artificial force of the story because they didn't want their character living a posh life with a lot of supporting characters. They wanted conflict and drama and struggle.

 

[Gojirob]

Granted, these questions are a bit outdated now, but I've been rewatching Buffy: The Vampire Slayer - Season 3 and it suddenly hit me...

1.) Why does the Council not support their Slayer(s) financially?
Endless resources for themselves it seems, yet never once did Buffy or Faith receive a dime or financial support. Why should a Slayer ever have to worry over money or job security when her job should be Slaying?

-Now granted, I know that Buffy changes the standard Council/Slayer Dynamic by living for more than a few years, but even if Slayers died constantly, it's incomprehensible to turn what's left of their lives into something much more complicated when they could be focused elsewhere.

2.) Why do they not send a team of Watchers to train a Slayer (not a potential) once she's been identified?

-The Team should consist of a Combat Skills Specialist, Demonology Research Analyst, Magicks Expert, Developmental Psychologist and Field Medic. (At the very least!)
-Even under the assumption of the Slayer as a lowly tool to be used and directed, you'd want to Train, Maintain, & Provide Logistical Backup so they have the best chance of succeeding in their assigned mission.

Thoughts?

I always picked up a bit of that (perhaps by now anachronistic) upper-crust British feeling from the WC that the US is still just a colony with delusions of grandeur, to be tolerated when needed--on a good day. Again, I don't know how much of that is kept in today's UK, but if strong traces of it held on in a secret society resistant to change, that wouldn't surprise me. Despite their own sexism, I'd lay odds that the shamans viewed slayers as disposable in a way that still tried to keep them alive for as long as possible, viewing the spell's 'New Slayer' nature as a last resort. By the time of Buffy, that had long since devolved into keeping them ignorant of their true power and letting them die quickly.

 

[Kryton]

I was just thinking earlier this morning how Buffy and Dawn and their houseguests managed to afford living there after Joyce. Then I started thinking that perhaps, in the event of a catastrophe like that which destroyed them, the council had instructions to place its holdings in trust for Giles and Buffy and/or any successors to follow them.

 

[Ethros]

I don't know how much of that is kept in today's UK, but if strong traces of it held on in a secret society resistant to change

Giles: Oh, right. Yes, yes. Um, always behind on the terms. Still trying not to refer to you lot as "bloody colonials."
- 4.08 Pangs

 

[captcalhoun]

The Council's training of Kendra wasn't all that great considering how easily she got killed by Drusilla...

As for the Watchers, I've always wondered why there aren't any Watchers who aren't all WASPS. I mean aren't they supposed to have been descended from those African Shamans?

there was an Indian ethnicity bloke in that one where they all came over and were interviewing Anya, Willow, Xander and Tara and Buffy stood up to them...

 

[CaptainCanada]

The depiction of the Council has been rather inconsistent over the years; early on (well, actually, it was the third season where they established that it even existed) through season five (where it was a plot point) they were said to be just a clutch of researchers who didn't actually fight evil themselves; but they got larger and more militaristic as BtVS and Angel went on, to the point of having a global network where, in fact, most of them actually did fight demons on their own (like when Wesley's fake-dad alludes to having led a team of Watchers that was mauled fighting Spike in the 1960s).

 

[CorporalClegg]

I don't know how much of that is kept in today's UK, but if strong traces of it held on in a secret society resistant to change

Giles: Oh, right. Yes, yes. Um, always behind on the terms. Still trying not to refer to you lot as "bloody colonials."
- 4.08 Pangs

Ah "Pangs." it wasn't all that great of an episode, but it does have some of the funniest stuff in it.

"A bear! You made a bear! Undo it! Undo it!"

And of course the syphilis gag still has me rolling.

 

[3D Master]

Granted, these questions are a bit outdated now, but I've been rewatching Buffy: The Vampire Slayer - Season 3 and it suddenly hit me...

1.) Why does the Council not support their Slayer(s) financially?
Endless resources for themselves it seems, yet never once did Buffy or Faith receive a dime or financial support. Why should a Slayer ever have to worry over money or job security when her job should be Slaying?

-Now granted, I know that Buffy changes the standard Council/Slayer Dynamic by living for more than a few years, but even if Slayers died constantly, it's incomprehensible to turn what's left of their lives into something much more complicated when they could be focused elsewhere.

They pay the watcher, who takes care of the Slayer. But Buffy is unique in that she still lives with her mom, and remains largely independent, and then fully independent of the Council.

2.) Why do they not send a team of Watchers to train a Slayer (not a potential) once she's been identified?

-The Team should consist of a Combat Skills Specialist, Demonology Research Analyst, Magicks Expert, Developmental Psychologist and Field Medic. (At the very least!)
-Even under the assumption of the Slayer as a lowly tool to be used and directed, you'd want to Train, Maintain, & Provide Logistical Backup so they have the best chance of succeeding in their assigned mission.

Thoughts?

Because they don't find Slayers period. They find potentials - take them from their parents - train them with all the stuff you mentioned (but by one person, namely the Watcher, who should be all of it), and then they get chosen. Buffy is the first in like a thousand or two thousand years that slipped through the cracks and only got found after she was chosen.

(According to the movie, although it was never used in the show, because she had the (ugly) mole removed that denoted her as a potential.)

For example, A slayer like Faith would of been more trusting of the council if they'd given her a decent place to live in Sunnydale, or at the least a means of obtaining one.

That, however, is not the Council's fault, it's Giles (and later Wesley's) fault, for not doing their jobs right. THEY are the ones who "watch over", hence "Watcher" the Slayer(s), and are supposed to provide for them with the money the get from the council.

They didn't.

And so, problems.

 

[Technobuilder]

^
The WC finds and trains Potentials yes, but I mentioned I wasn't talking about Potentials when I asked the question, I was talking about once the latest Slayer has been identified.

Once called, Why not maximize her training? Sharpen the blade and shove it down evil's throat?

 

[tharpdevenport]

Well, Slayers have a life expectancy of 25 years old; maybe the Council just doesn't want to plug money into someone who will be dead before that age (since that was the oldest age one had ever lived to, pre Season 7). And before that a mother and/or father would provide money needed.

And being a young girl still fresh on her period, becoming what passes for horny in girls, and discovering vampires and that you are way more different than everybody, then finding a group of old men who want to "train" you ... yeah. You might be blowing your safety whistle at that point.

Plus, as we saw throughout Giles' years as the Watcher, he was trained in combat teaching, magic, demon history, and I forget what else. He was even taught to use another language in teaching Slayers (which he of course forgot).