@@TheMslucastro Generation here doesn’t mean 30 years or however long a typical human generation is usually measured. It means generations of slayers which means they come one at a time. It’s it as clear with the poetic language used. But it’s more clear with the rest of the slayer lore.
So you may have figured this out since you’re ahead. There are potential slayers around the world. The Watcher’s Council is able to find some of them and train them just in case they are activated. Some of the potential slayers are activated before they are discovered, like Buffy.
The Watchers Council has access to magic and seers who tell them where Potential Slayers are, and they assign a Watcher to train and control the ones they find, but they don't always find them all. The Powers that Be, or some other force or process, chooses one of the potential Slayers within a certain age range (about 14-20) to activate. We don't know what happens to potentials who age out of that range without being Called.
I always thought Kendra hinted that she came from a culture where they venerate The Slayer. Buffy's family wouldn't even consider such a thing, which is why Giles and her previous watcher couldn't tell her parents. Personally, I always wished they'd have a spinoff for Kendra. It's an interesting glitch in the Slayer timeline.
Kendra plays a huge role in the 2019 BOOM comics run where she even gets 2 or 3 starring issues of her backstory in a unique art style and sticks around in Sunnydale instead of going home. Also there's like a 6 issue spinoff about Willow (at one point Willow leaves town for a while and her story shows what she was up to offscreen.) It's worth reading Boom Comics Buffy, Hellmouth (crossover with their Angel comic) and the Willow miniseries, but avoiding the Angel comic, it was AMAZING for like fourteen issues or so but they fired the writers and changed the art style and then cancelled it. The Buffy run on the other hand was allowed to complete its entire run without the interference. They're a very good read.
So the details of where Slayers come from and how they're called get addressed later in the series. I think with this episode you can infer that slayers are called (get slayer power) as soon as the last one died and the watchers council has a way of detecting who might be in the running to become a slayer years before they are actually called
Let's take a moment to give a shout out to the Watcher's Council for being on the ball. They knew that, unprecedentedly, a second Slayer was activated. So the first thing they did was notify Giles and give him a heads up. Wait...no they didn't. Instead, for MONTHS they told neither Watcher of the existence of the other's Slayer...thus causing a near blue on blue and costing humanity possibly both priceless assets. Kendra represents the Ideal Slayer. Identified as a Potential and trained as a warrior since infancy. Deeply trained in Slayer-fu, thoroughly indoctrinated in operational methods and secrecy, she is laser focused on her Duty. She is a Samurai, a perfect weapon. Spoiler Alert The Council uses various Magical means to attempt to identify "Potentials", girls who might be called when the current Slayer is murdered. It's inexact, and they don't always locate them until they are actually called, as in Buffy's case. The mechanism of how the Slayer is Chosen is simply not understood. Possibly it's unknowable.
@@AnatoleVGC Well, the Council probably gets regular updates from Giles as well as updated by the other watcher once Kendra was activated. So someone on the Council should know both exist.
A great part 2 to What's My Line. We see Kendra as a total opposite to Buffy in how she approaches her work as a Slayer. Some great comedy moments too with Kendra talking about the Slayers Handbook, Buffy saying there's a handbook, and Giles saying when he saw Buffy, he thought the handbook would be useless. We also have the start of 'Xandelia', a most unlikely pair that absolutely nobody was shipping at this stage in the show. From vitriolic insults, to intense passion! Spike teaming up again with Drusilla as mentioned in earlier reactions, Spike, Drusilla and Angel/Angelus have a interwoven past down through the centuries which gives great drama to the show. An interesting point regarding Kendra and Buffy leaving their emotions separate to their slaying, even though Kendra seems detached from emotion, Buffy is very much aware of her vocation as Slayer and comes through in incredibly hard situations when having to choose the right path to follow, even though knowing it will seriously harm her emotionally. At this point you can really see the show becoming much more slicker.
Vampires do exist worldwide! But they did tell us about "one girl in all the world" back in the very first episode. So what's going on?!? This episode gives us an answer. The Watchers have ways of identifying and locating potential slayers, but they don't necessarily find them all. When a slayer dies, the power moves on to a potential slayer, we do not know how that selection is made. The Watchers try to train all the ones they can find so that when one is activated, hopefully it is one already trained, and can be put into play right away. Of course, even without the slayer's powers, having people trained to fight vampires means they might be able to do so if they needed to. There are apparently people who know about vampires, and they might be able to fight them if they work in teams. Also, the Hellmouth draws a lot more of them here to Sunnydale than are likely to collect in any one place normally.
the human drucilla used to be is no longer in existence. drusilla the evil vampire does not begrudge angelus creating her at all. probably grateful. being evil herself she probably admires angelus' treatment of the human who's body she took over. also angel is a different entity too. having a soul makes him a different person to angelus. so revenge from drucilla aimed at angel is not really a motivation she would have and if she did it would be aimed at the wrong "person".
Your powers get activated after the current slayer dies. So yes, there are a lot potential slayers out there getting trained. That’s the point of having watchers. They train the slayers. Buffy is unique cause they kinda missed the signs that she was a slayer so she wasn’t pre-trained like the others.
Personally, I wouldn’t explain the whole slayer process because it isn’t explained in any detail until a future season. There are people in the comments explaining it though. Perhaps more confusing are people using the process from the movie which is totally contradictory to the explanation from the series. The lore from the movie and the show are incompatible with each other. At best they could be considered separate worlds in a Buffy multiverse.
18:33 “She’s a pineapple-pizza fan. I’m also a fan of pineapple on pizza.” So am I. It’s odd, because pizza is not the sort of thing that _works_ with most types of fruit, but it works with pineapple. Ground beef, mushrooms, olives, pineapple and cheese have to be the _perfect_ combination.
They do explain about Slayers in the movie. The movie is supposed to be a loose prequel to this series. There's a Slayer born. the Watchers Council trains her. Apparently there's a common birthmark that the Watchers Council looks for. Buffy had it removed so they couldn't find her early enough to train her. The comics also have an explanation. I think the Slayer before Buffy was the Slayer for the third shortest amount of time.
@JLDReactions that's why I said loose prequel. Supposedly everything that happened in it really happened in The Buffy TV universe but details are slightly altered.
I think the birth mark went the way of flying vampires and vampire induced menstrual cramps. There’s a totally different explanation of how potential slayers are discovered presented much later in the series which has nothing to do with birthmarks.
@zemoxian since there is no reason that Buffy received no pre-slayer, the explanation in the movie is the only possibility. Maybe the marks removal interfered with the way Slayers are found before being called. And I'm trying not to give details about previous seasons.
Did you just say "reincarnated?" Um, there is no reincarnation in the Buffy universe. Reincarnation is when a soul is born again in a different human body. I think you meant to say activated. Yes, the slayers powers are made manifest only after the old slayer dies. But there are potential slayers all over the world, and sometimes, like in the case of Kendra, they can be identified before they're activated. Sometimes, like in the case of Buffy, they cannot.
Potential slayers can be identified by a birthmark. Buffy had hers removed, so the watchers weren't able to find her and train her before she was activated. It's in the movie
How funky is your chicken? How funky is your chicken? How loose is your goose? Our goose is totally loose! So come on all you Hogs fans! So come on all you Hogs fans! And shake... your caboose! And shake... your caboose!
@@JLDReactions The movie is loosely canon to the show. The show treats the original script of the movie, prior to all the executive meddling , as how events transpired.
There’s lots of stuff that’s true in the movie but not in the series. Like vampires don’t levitate or fly. Buffy doesn’t get menstrual cramps in the presence of vampires. Buffy didn’t reincarnate as a slayer. The watchers also don’t reincarnate into watchers. I see the relationship between the movie and the series as similar to the Scream franchise and Scary Movie 1. A lot of plot and character similarities but not the same story.
I don't know what the behind the scenes reasons were for Kendra to only be around these two episodes, but I would have loved to see her around for the rest of the season. She and Buffy could have become great friends.
EXTREME SPOILERS!!! DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN ALL SEVEN SEASONS!! I don't doubt that what happened with Buffy's death and a new slayer has happened before, but The Council _covered it up_ (take that to mean what you want) and never recorded it. It's part of why I never bought into other theories once S7 starts its story of Buffy's end of S6 death activating another slayer. Because she isn't the slayer, magically speaking, at that point. That has been transferred to Faith, as it is now Kendra, and technically has been since the end of S1.
Dude, you know novels, right? Novels are layered, They unfold in terms of story and character. They build on what has come before. You can’t build on something unless you have something to build on. And that is what Buffy does. The word unfolding should tell you something about what is happening and should clue you in to the fact that things will happen like the unfolding of slayer lore….Another clue: Buffy works with metaphor and allegory. You haven’t seem to clue in to how these metaphors and allegories are working in Buffy yet though the show does make this quite clear.
I also appreciate how they use the same exact romantic music stinger every time Cordy and Xander kiss
Narrator: *IN EVERY GENERATION THERE IS A CHOSEN ONE...*
Shadowcat: "But maybe one per country?"
Narrator: *DID I STUTTER?*
Well, slayers may die young and frequently we may witness more than one per generation, one at a time... Usually. It can be somewhat confusing.
@@TheMslucastro
Yeah, but you don't witness 170+ at the same time, all the time. 😉
@@TheMslucastro
Generation here doesn’t mean 30 years or however long a typical human generation is usually measured. It means generations of slayers which means they come one at a time. It’s it as clear with the poetic language used. But it’s more clear with the rest of the slayer lore.
So you may have figured this out since you’re ahead. There are potential slayers around the world. The Watcher’s Council is able to find some of them and train them just in case they are activated. Some of the potential slayers are activated before they are discovered, like Buffy.
The Watchers Council has access to magic and seers who tell them where Potential Slayers are, and they assign a Watcher to train and control the ones they find, but they don't always find them all. The Powers that Be, or some other force or process, chooses one of the potential Slayers within a certain age range (about 14-20) to activate. We don't know what happens to potentials who age out of that range without being Called.
Love watching your reactions to BtVS. This show really picks up. I hope you stick with it because emotions get high and laughter gets wild. 😄
Fun fact, Bianca Lawson (Kendra) was originally cast as Cordelia.
that is a fun fact! i mean, charisma is a perfect cordelia, but i wonder what prompted them to make that change
I always thought Kendra hinted that she came from a culture where they venerate The Slayer. Buffy's family wouldn't even consider such a thing, which is why Giles and her previous watcher couldn't tell her parents. Personally, I always wished they'd have a spinoff for Kendra. It's an interesting glitch in the Slayer timeline.
Kendra plays a huge role in the 2019 BOOM comics run where she even gets 2 or 3 starring issues of her backstory in a unique art style and sticks around in Sunnydale instead of going home. Also there's like a 6 issue spinoff about Willow (at one point Willow leaves town for a while and her story shows what she was up to offscreen.) It's worth reading Boom Comics Buffy, Hellmouth (crossover with their Angel comic) and the Willow miniseries, but avoiding the Angel comic, it was AMAZING for like fourteen issues or so but they fired the writers and changed the art style and then cancelled it. The Buffy run on the other hand was allowed to complete its entire run without the interference. They're a very good read.
So the details of where Slayers come from and how they're called get addressed later in the series. I think with this episode you can infer that slayers are called (get slayer power) as soon as the last one died and the watchers council has a way of detecting who might be in the running to become a slayer years before they are actually called
The slayer lore is reeeeaaaally spread out through the series. Occasionally you understand fully how it works
Let's take a moment to give a shout out to the Watcher's Council for being on the ball.
They knew that, unprecedentedly, a second Slayer was activated. So the first thing they did was notify Giles and give him a heads up. Wait...no they didn't.
Instead, for MONTHS they told neither Watcher of the existence of the other's Slayer...thus causing a near blue on blue and costing humanity possibly both priceless assets.
Kendra represents the Ideal Slayer. Identified as a Potential and trained as a warrior since infancy. Deeply trained in Slayer-fu, thoroughly indoctrinated in operational methods and secrecy, she is laser focused on her Duty. She is a Samurai, a perfect weapon.
Spoiler Alert
The Council uses various Magical means to attempt to identify "Potentials", girls who might be called when the current Slayer is murdered. It's inexact, and they don't always locate them until they are actually called, as in Buffy's case.
The mechanism of how the Slayer is Chosen is simply not understood. Possibly it's unknowable.
I think they didnt even consider the possibility of buffy being alive. New slayer, forget about giles and buffy and move on
I’d consider the middle paragraph spoiler territory. That information isn’t revealed for several seasons.
@@AnatoleVGC
Well, the Council probably gets regular updates from Giles as well as updated by the other watcher once Kendra was activated. So someone on the Council should know both exist.
@@zemoxian I wish more people understood that ANY information the show hasn't given yet is spoiler territory. Buffy fans just can't help themselves.
@@zemoxian I edited it and placed it under a spoiler alert. Thanks.
A great part 2 to What's My Line. We see Kendra as a total opposite to Buffy in how she approaches her work as a Slayer. Some great comedy moments too with Kendra talking about the Slayers Handbook, Buffy saying there's a handbook, and Giles saying when he saw Buffy, he thought the handbook would be useless. We also have the start of 'Xandelia', a most unlikely pair that absolutely nobody was shipping at this stage in the show. From vitriolic insults, to intense passion! Spike teaming up again with Drusilla as mentioned in earlier reactions, Spike, Drusilla and Angel/Angelus have a interwoven past down through the centuries which gives great drama to the show. An interesting point regarding Kendra and Buffy leaving their emotions separate to their slaying, even though Kendra seems detached from emotion, Buffy is very much aware of her vocation as Slayer and comes through in incredibly hard situations when having to choose the right path to follow, even though knowing it will seriously harm her emotionally. At this point you can really see the show becoming much more slicker.
Vampires do exist worldwide! But they did tell us about "one girl in all the world" back in the very first episode. So what's going on?!? This episode gives us an answer.
The Watchers have ways of identifying and locating potential slayers, but they don't necessarily find them all. When a slayer dies, the power moves on to a potential slayer, we do not know how that selection is made.
The Watchers try to train all the ones they can find so that when one is activated, hopefully it is one already trained, and can be put into play right away. Of course, even without the slayer's powers, having people trained to fight vampires means they might be able to do so if they needed to.
There are apparently people who know about vampires, and they might be able to fight them if they work in teams. Also, the Hellmouth draws a lot more of them here to Sunnydale than are likely to collect in any one place normally.
21:27 “Just _hit_ him, Buffy!”
Oh, check it out. They’re playin’ good-cop-bad-cop. I didn’t pick up on that, before. How cool is that?
the human drucilla used to be is no longer in existence. drusilla the evil vampire does not begrudge angelus creating her at all. probably grateful. being evil herself she probably admires angelus' treatment of the human who's body she took over. also angel is a different entity too. having a soul makes him a different person to angelus. so revenge from drucilla aimed at angel is not really a motivation she would have and if she did it would be aimed at the wrong "person".
As bad as Spike and Drucilla are I still love them so much. Lol
Their love is eternal! Twisted, but true!
Your powers get activated after the current slayer dies. So yes, there are a lot potential slayers out there getting trained.
That’s the point of having watchers. They train the slayers. Buffy is unique cause they kinda missed the signs that she was a slayer so she wasn’t pre-trained like the others.
Personally, I wouldn’t explain the whole slayer process because it isn’t explained in any detail until a future season. There are people in the comments explaining it though.
Perhaps more confusing are people using the process from the movie which is totally contradictory to the explanation from the series. The lore from the movie and the show are incompatible with each other. At best they could be considered separate worlds in a Buffy multiverse.
Kendra Young 😊
18:33 “She’s a pineapple-pizza fan. I’m also a fan of pineapple on pizza.”
So am I. It’s odd, because pizza is not the sort of thing that _works_ with most types of fruit, but it works with pineapple. Ground beef, mushrooms, olives, pineapple and cheese have to be the _perfect_ combination.
We learned Oz's name the first time we see him
...and his name was Randy! 😄
19:05, Yes! but buffy fell through the cracks. a watcher should have come to her earlier. I think the movie touches on it
They do explain about Slayers in the movie. The movie is supposed to be a loose prequel to this series.
There's a Slayer born. the Watchers Council trains her. Apparently there's a common birthmark that the Watchers Council looks for. Buffy had it removed so they couldn't find her early enough to train her.
The comics also have an explanation. I think the Slayer before Buffy was the Slayer for the third shortest amount of time.
The movie is not canon to the tv series. It has some similarities but does not take place in the same universe.
@JLDReactions that's why I said loose prequel. Supposedly everything that happened in it really happened in The Buffy TV universe but details are slightly altered.
I think the birth mark went the way of flying vampires and vampire induced menstrual cramps. There’s a totally different explanation of how potential slayers are discovered presented much later in the series which has nothing to do with birthmarks.
@zemoxian since there is no reason that Buffy received no pre-slayer, the explanation in the movie is the only possibility.
Maybe the marks removal interfered with the way Slayers are found before being called. And I'm trying not to give details about previous seasons.
So, here’s a question: Have you tried pineapple + jalapeño pizza?
Bianca lawson who plays kendra is the real life stepsister of beyonce
They're not stepsisters anymore.
Did you just say "reincarnated?" Um, there is no reincarnation in the Buffy universe. Reincarnation is when a soul is born again in a different human body. I think you meant to say activated. Yes, the slayers powers are made manifest only after the old slayer dies. But there are potential slayers all over the world, and sometimes, like in the case of Kendra, they can be identified before they're activated. Sometimes, like in the case of Buffy, they cannot.
❤🧡💛💚💙💜
❤🧡💛💚💙💜🤎🖤🤍
I'm a subscriber, and I enjoy your content. I just really wish you would stop bumping the microphone.
totally fair!
Potential slayers can be identified by a birthmark. Buffy had hers removed, so the watchers weren't able to find her and train her before she was activated. It's in the movie
How funky is your chicken?
How funky is your chicken?
How loose is your goose?
Our goose is totally loose!
So come on all you Hogs fans!
So come on all you Hogs fans!
And shake... your caboose!
And shake... your caboose!
The movie is not canon to the tv series though.
@@JLDReactions The movie is loosely canon to the show. The show treats the original script of the movie, prior to all the executive meddling , as how events transpired.
There’s lots of stuff that’s true in the movie but not in the series. Like vampires don’t levitate or fly. Buffy doesn’t get menstrual cramps in the presence of vampires. Buffy didn’t reincarnate as a slayer. The watchers also don’t reincarnate into watchers.
I see the relationship between the movie and the series as similar to the Scream franchise and Scary Movie 1. A lot of plot and character similarities but not the same story.
I don't know what the behind the scenes reasons were for Kendra to only be around these two episodes, but I would have loved to see her around for the rest of the season. She and Buffy could have become great friends.
Well knowing how Joss whedon was behind the scenes with ppl I would assume it probably had something to do with his charming personality. 😂
EXTREME SPOILERS!!! DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN ALL SEVEN SEASONS!!
I don't doubt that what happened with Buffy's death and a new slayer has happened before, but The Council _covered it up_ (take that to mean what you want) and never recorded it. It's part of why I never bought into other theories once S7 starts its story of Buffy's end of S6 death activating another slayer. Because she isn't the slayer, magically speaking, at that point. That has been transferred to Faith, as it is now Kendra, and technically has been since the end of S1.
Dude, you know novels, right? Novels are layered, They unfold in terms of story and character. They build on what has come before. You can’t build on something unless you have something to build on. And that is what Buffy does. The word unfolding should tell you something about what is happening and should clue you in to the fact that things will happen like the unfolding of slayer lore….Another clue: Buffy works with metaphor and allegory. You haven’t seem to clue in to how these metaphors and allegories are working in Buffy yet though the show does make this quite clear.