The Buffyverse Character Countdown (#21)

#21.

Hero: Robin Wood (Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 7)

I guess two good Season Seven episodes were enough for me to give this guy the nod over far more substantial characters; I guess that speaks to the somewhat inconsistent nature of the Buffy main cast more than Robin’s merits as a character. While Robin’s arc isn’t nearly so complete as those of Dawn, Riley, and Andrew, he ultimately possesses far better heroic qualities than any of them. He’s not a repentant murderer, an inferiority complex-ridden supersoldier, or a whiny teenager: he’s a high school principal, and a good one at that. Unlike the ineffectual, flimsy Flutie and the impishly evil Snyder, Wood is an actually competent role model and disciplinarian for his students. Throw in the fact that he’s the son of a murdered Slayer dedicated to revenging himself upon the vampire that killed his mother, and one’s got a character ripe for exploration. Unfortunately, Robin’s arc ends a little too quickly and his backstory is somewhat cliché, but his denouement is satisfying enough for a character who only gets one season of development. Consider him a better version of Kendra.

Robin Wood is the son of Nikki Wood, one of the two Slayers killed by Spike. This is especially important to consider, seeing that Nikki is the only Slayer in the series to have actually given birth to a child. Her absence from her son’s life, on account of being dead, shows another cost to the Slayer lifestyle; there are tremendous consequences should Buffy choose to be a mother and die in the line of battle. Sure, she’s a foster mother to Dawn and a guardian to her friends, but, were she someone's birth-mother, the trauma that child would undergo as a result of Buffy’s hypothetical death would be catastrophic. Thanks to the Watchers' Council, Robin manages to grow up a decently-adjusted adult, but he holds onto a tremendous grudge against Spike, whom he blames for all of his suffering. Robin becomes a vampire hunter as tribute to his mother’s memory, re-locating to the rebuilt Sunnydale High in order to fight vampires pouring out of the Hellmouth. It’s here that he meets Buffy Summers, whom he hires to be a guidance counselor.

Robin’s character arc comes to its climax in the episode, “Lies My Parents Told Me.” After a failed date with Buffy leads to his incorporation into the Scoobies’ army, Wood once again encounters Spike. After being informed by the First Evil that Spike is his mother’s killer, Robin schemes with an anxious Giles to kill Spike; while Giles goes along with the plan in hopes of protecting the Potentials from a vampire whose violent side can be triggered by the First, Robin agrees for the sole purpose of getting his revenge. His efforts, however, are to no avail, as Spike easily overpowers him after overcoming the First’s triggering mechanism. Spike’s subsequent comments to Wood – that his vampiric mother cared more for him than Nikki did for Robin – reveal quite a bit about the Buffyverse’s conception of parenthood. According to Spike, Robin only cares for his mother out of a sense of filial loyalty rather than out of personal affection and connection; after all, his mother did not care for him enough to stop slaying and keep Robin out of the line of fire. True parenthood requires engagement, even if the relationship is occasionally hostile. The battle between Spike and Robin is clearly a parallel to the battle between Buffy and her own foster father, Giles, that takes place in the same episode, but it’s a rewarding one for Robin’s character.

In spite of his attempt to kill a now-ensouled Spike, Robin maintains heroic status by virtue of his sticking with the Scoobies in the wake of “Lies My Parents Told Me.” He’s a competent teacher for the Potentials, and he even serves as a brief love-interest for Faith, even if their relationship is quite rushed. That said, his character arc post-“Lies My Parents Told Me” isn’t particularly developed. His presence is muted, and he doesn’t grow. His survival of the final battle in “Chosen” doesn’t even function to strengthen his story; it instead bolsters Faith’s. Ultimately, Robin is a character who is most interesting insofar as he provides a foil to the struggles of Buffy. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that, but he really doesn’t stand well in comparison to superior heroes who preceded him. He lands higher than the previous heroes for his genuinely kind nature, the strength of “Lies My Parents Told Me,” and the strong performance of D. B. Woodside. Otherwise, he’s about as generic as heroes come on this list.

Villain: The First Evil (Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 3 - "Amends"/Season 7)

The phrase “great concept, sloppy execution” is a gigantic cliché amongst media critics, especially in the blogosphere; it’s a concise way of avoiding substantive analysis of problematic elements in media that many take just to save time and space. However, I’m going to try to do better than this: the First Evil is a decent concept with only passable execution, and I’ll try to explain why it doesn’t quite work as well as others think it does. At the end of the day, one can only personify or characterize evil itself to a limited extent, an extent that works much better in standalone episodes than in overall seasons. As a one-off villain in “Amends,” the First Evil is the most terrifying villain Buffy and Angel have ever faced; as a Big Bad, the First is a generic antagonist whose overall inactivity places it on par with the Master as the most ineffectual Big Bad in the series. Its impact on the plot is seismic, but that’s just not enough to make it an enjoyable villain to watch.

As opposed to every other villain in the series, the First Evil is an almost entirely psychological threat – one only able to wreak havoc upon the world through the actions of others and through its henchmen than by virtue of its own actions. While Jasmine was the Buffyverse’s interpretation of the First Beast of Revelation, the First Evil is the series’ treatment of the Devil itself. It is ageless and can take any form it wants, yet it has no real ability to destroy others on its own. This is why, during the events of Season 7, the First summons a massive army of demon shamans known as Bringers and ultra-powerful vampires known as Turok-Han to break through the Hellmouth and bring the world to an end. That said, the First’s real menace is in its manipulative side; by taking on the forms of the dead, the First is able to either trick others into committing acts of evil or force characters to confront their insecurities. It’s through this trick that the First convinces Andrew to kill Jonathan and continually menaces the Scoobies and the Potentials throughout the entire season.

Whenever the First gets an opportunity to manipulate the Scoobies, it’s a deliciously villainous threat. The First is able to provide meaningful closure to multiple character arcs, including those of Robin, Dawn, and Faith. Some of these scenes are the very best Big Bad-protagonist interactions in the entire series. Unfortunately, this is only half of the First’s actions throughout the season. The rest of the time, it’s either rallying together its forces or telling Caleb what to do in a somewhat seductive way by taking on Buffy’s form. Sadly, the Devil as a villainous concept has only ever been effective as a manipulator rather than as the commander of a legion of evil – heck, even in Paradise Lost, Satan was more interesting when serving as a force of temptation than as the commander of a legion of demons. Part of the fault comes from the fact that the Turok-Han and Bringers - the main components of the First's army - are nameless mooks whose threat from their numbers rather than their powers, but part of the fault comes from the First not being a very interesting commander. It just rallies its forces and engages in the occasional skirmish. It might be decent strategy, but it’s not exactly villainous behavior. Plus, the First’s incorporeal form makes the battle with it somewhat of an anti-climax. Were it not for a few character deaths and the conclusion of Spike’s character arc during the fight, it’d be a decidedly boring sequence overall.

Heck, even the Scoobies’ manner of defeating the First is disappointing. Buffy and co. manage to activate the powers of every potential Slayer on the planet, swarming the planet with super-powered girls but also painting a giant target on all of their backs saying “drink me.” Their plan unreasonably forces a military burden on hundreds if not thousands of unsuspecting girls who didn’t ask for it. And, unlike the randomness of the selection of Slayers by the Watcher Council, there’s no serendipity here: this is a forced decision for everyone as opposed to just one person. And then there’s the deus ex machina of the pendant that defeats the First. Sure, it gives Spike a heroic exit to the series, but it’s not sufficient to cover up for the massive amount of plot convenience that is needed to bring the season to a close.

The First’s misguided execution throughout Season Seven is especially infuriating given how incredible its appearance in the Season 3 episode, “Amends,” is. Our first introduction to the First is legitimately terrifying, as we discover that the First was responsible for bringing Angel back from the dead yet wants him to kill the Slayer as a trade. In order to get its way, it transforms itself into Jenny Calendar, so far the only major character in Buffy the Vampire Slayer to have been killed off and one of Angel’s victims as Angelus; the guilt of facing someone he killed is enough to nearly bring Angel to commit suicide as the easiest possible option. The First’s actions lead to one of the most profound scenes in all of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, one in which heaven itself performs an act of mercy in order to relieve the tension and alleviate our sadness.

Nonetheless, I hesitate to say that if the First’s characterization was consistent with its appearance in “Amends” that Season Seven would have necessarily worked. The entire season is beset with so many structural issues that it’s hard to think that one fix would piece the themes together in a satisfying way. The First does suggest that evil will never quite go away within the human soul, a critical point for the moral universe of the series. Yet the split it must make between leading an army and terrorizing the heroes is poorly negotiated from start to finish. It says a lot that its henchmen are often more memorable than it is, despite their being nameless mooks… with one exception that we’ll get to next time.