Giles as the Big Bad, Part II

[dragonyphoenix]

And Gabrielle nailed it: You could use Eyghon. Perhaps Giles didn't actually break off his whole "demon possession" fun.

The idea is that Ripper, either because he was more prideful than the rest of the group or because he thought of it first, performed a ritual that made him Eyghon's priest. This opened a permanent connection between them. It was in this ritual that Randall (is that the name of the one who died back then?) died, which sent a shockwave through the group, breaking them up and sending Rupert back to the Council. However because of the connection, Eyghon has been able to influence and corrupt Rupert over the years. Rupert's plan, as he arrives at the Hellmouth and takes over as Buffy's Watcher, is to corrupt the Slayer line by calling Eyghon down into the Scythe. He could replace the First Slayer as the root of the Slayer power-base which would allow Eyghon to possess them as they are called.

However, since I only saw season 7 once and that was about four or five years back, I need some background on the Scythe. Would this plan work?

Edited: Oh, and the original idea for Giles as the Big Bad came from Red Satin Doll's meta post.

More edits: And another question. I'm thinking that Giles will be a corruptor. For example, he'll notice Willow's power and lead her toward dark magics very early on. But I'm not sure what he might do to corrupt Xander. Maybe I'll get some ideas as I'm watching the episodes but maybe not. He's going to want to keep Willow alive so he'll have access to her power. His motivation to keep Xander around will be that he will want to use Xander's death to weaken Buffy if she starts getting out of line (or what he would consider out of line). So, Xander there for that reason but while Xander is there, Rupert will certainly not resist doing something corrupting. I'm just not sure what.

Comments

[red-satin-doll.livejournal.com]

That image of the two of them sharing power only makes EP that much more painful to me.

Xander has a line at the beginning of the ep when they're waiting for Willow at the airport. "I saved the world...with my mouth." It amuses me because it actually calls back to Prophecy Girl when he gave Buffy CPR (while Angel stood by uselessly); but I also can't help thinking he's probably said that more than once over the summer and has Buffy "saved the world a lot died twice and all I got was this lousy headstone" Summers gotten a wee bit tired of it by now in sort of an indulgent "yes you did Xander good for you" sort of way? I don't recall her reaction at the airport.

[dragonyphoenix.livejournal.com]

I don't actually recall that image. I remember Willow coming back and not finding anyone to meet her, the Scoobies wondering where she was, and the icky demon going to slice off her skin in strips. (Ugh!)

I do like that Xander line and can imagine him saying that all summer long. ;-)

I tried that once. I noticed that outgoing people would repeat themselves with some of their lines so when I went back to MI to visit family I told the same stories to different groups. My sister, who was with me that whole time, commented on it and I've never tried it again.

[red-satin-doll.livejournal.com]

Not sure if I can add the images here given that the thread is getting very slender (this is why I like having a template with a wide space to write and narrow margins):

The image is of course a precursor to Chosen: Buffy sharing her power. ("I've got enough for both of us.")

The scene also plays out in reverse of PG, which starts with the two of them on the bed then Buffy leaves to fight the Master; emphasizing their separateness as hero and damsel, Buffy's isolation as The Chosen One. STSP starts with Buffy entering the room and ends with the image above; connection and also forgiveness. (I think the bedroom is in fact buffy's old bedroom.) So I love it for meta reasons but after the harshness of TTG/Grave and their estrangement in S6 from the beginning, I also liked this scene in STSP for emotional reasons.

Prophecy Girl:

[dragonyphoenix.livejournal.com]

Those two images say a lot about how they've each grown over the course of the series and how their roles have changed.

And I do sort of wish LJ would revisit that "keep decreasing the width of the panels" policy!

[red-satin-doll.livejournal.com]

What policy is that? I'm pretty happy with my current template; I switched around two or three times before I settled on this one.

I'm not crazy about my DW template (similar to this white box white margins) but I hardly use it anyway.

[dragonyphoenix.livejournal.com]

Comments to the main post are a certain width across. Comments to those comments are less wide than what they are replying to. I don't know how far it goes but you were mentioning you weren't sure the pics would show up because the panels were becoming too narrow.

[red-satin-doll.livejournal.com]

Well the pics looked ok after I added them, they just crossed over the white into the green border a little. Quite satisfactory.

[dragonyphoenix.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I figured they were going to because I've seen words to the same thing.