The Buffyverse Character Countdown (#25)

#25.

Hero: Whistler (Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 2 - "Becoming")

Whistler is one of the most beloved characters in the entire Buffyverse in spite of his appearing in but two episodes of the series. But what a couple of episodes… “Becoming, Parts 1 and 2” are two of the very best episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and, by virtue of that, two of the very best episodes of television ever made. Personally, I think the limitations of Whistler’s presence must necessarily limit his ranking on a list like this, but his appearance is undeniably effective. We don’t know much about him, his backstory, or who he is, but the moral developments he introduces to the fabric of the series' philosophy are some of the most important in the entire Buffyverse. Even if he loses a lot of points on the scale of traditional character development, his symbolic meaning and broader teachings are rich enough to earn him the 25^th spot on this list.

Whistler is a demon recruited by the Powers at Be to maintain the balance of good and evil on Earth. To this end, he recruits Angel into joining the forces of good. Granted, he does this by having Angel fall in love with a very, very underage Buffy, but… I guess Angel’s love is pure enough to convince him to join the right side of history. (The statutory component of Buffy and Angel's relationship is a giant can of worms that I'll sort out in a later entry.) Fortunately for Whistler’s standing in the series’s moral hierarchy, he proceeds to train Angel to be the kind of man worthy of standing up for others as opposed to the depressed oaf terrified of interacting with human beings that Angel initially is. When Angelus returns, Whistler makes a brief return to inspire Buffy to put a stop to the killer vampire’s antics – even at the cost of destroying Angel. It's one of a few teacher-student showdowns in the entire series, even if it's not performed directly: another nugget of development for an otherwise minor character.

On his own, Whistler isn’t a particularly interesting character. While his off-screen impact is palpable – after all, Angel is one of the main protagonists of the Buffyverse and Whistler is his mentor – the demon himself doesn’t make any appearance outside of Season Two. Heck, even the plot-devices that are the Oracles of the Powers at Be make more appearances than Whistler in the series. We never learn much about him aside from the fact that his name is hard to pronounce, and his brand of smarmy humor doesn’t consistently land. To be fair, many of these limitations derive from production dilemmas. Apparently, Whistler was supposed to perform Doyle's role in the first season of Angel, but scheduling and contractual issues prevented Max Perlich from reprising his role. These issues don't absolve Whistler's flaws and limitations insofar as this list is concerned, but they do provide an explanation as to why he demonstrates so much potential only to be practically forgotten.

In spite of his many deficiencies, Whistler gets tons of points for possessing a philosophical wisdom that evades nearly all of the other characters in the Buffyverse. Whistler prioritizes, above all else, the value of choice and sacrifice. He is wholly aware that the most important moments of one’s life are defined by the choices we make and the personal integrity we develop as a result of opting for the tough yet correct path. In every season finale of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the main character must sacrifice some element of herself in order to save the world, even if that costs her her innocence or even her life. Each time, however, she comes out stronger, more mature, and more complete. The same moral principle holds for nearly all of the Scoobies, all of whom progress when they make sacrifices and all of whom regress when they think there is no choice to be had other than submitting to the vicissitudes of their passions. Whistler’s Sarte-inspired philosophy is perhaps the driving theme of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and its importance cannot be understated.

Sadly, philosophy alone isn’t enough to secure Whistler a higher spot on the list. His failure to take extensive actions against the menaces of the world make him too passive a player for him to feel truly heroic or interesting. Had he perished at Angelus’s hand during the events of “Becoming,” maybe he would have gotten a higher spot on this list. But, alas, Whistler is a character introduced purely for the purpose of the show’s meta-narrative. He works fine for the show, but not for a list like this.

Villain: The Master (Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 1)

I’m not going to make many friends for this one.

Putting Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s first ever Big Bad so low on the list in many ways seems like a disservice to his character and to the structure of the series as a whole. The Master not only had an outsized impact on the diegesis and an appropriately menacing backstory, but he also set the template for every Big Bad to succeed him: overwhelming powers, murdering his own henchmen, witty banter, and long-term scheming. However, the Master isn’t a particularly good Big Bad or a particularly effective villain. He might have been a Big Bad, but most of his actions and dialogue are outright laughable at times, and not in a good way. It’s only thanks to his stunningly good appearance in the Season 3 episode, “The Wish,” that the Master avoids a spot below even clumsily written villains like Jasmine.

The Master is one of the oldest and most powerful vampires in the entire Buffyverse. In addition to the heightened strength of most vampires, he possesses enhanced durability, hypnotic powers, and physics-defying reflexes. He sires the House of Aurelius, causing no small amount of suffering for all of Europe throughout the colonial era. Unfortunately for the Master, he is sealed away inside a magical barrier, limiting his powers and preventing him from bringing a new reign of terror unto the Earth. Thanks to an ancient prophecy, however, the Master discovers a way to use the Slayer to his advantage, break out of his prison, and unleash the full power of the Hellmouth onto Sunnydale. 

Insofar as allegory is concerned, the Master is definitely one of the more straightforward Big Bads of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Nearly every Big Bad is some extension of patriarchal power – be it Adam’s brute strength, the Mayor’s structural sexism, or Angelus’s emotional abuse. The Master, as I see it, represents the more ancient forms of patriarchal evil, the dangers of sexist rituals and traditions. Things such as carrying the bride over the threshold in marriage or statements like “a woman’s place is in the home” fall into this category. The Master’s broody, self-important nature and disdain for the Slayer as little more than a child certainly ties into the allegory. Internally, the Master is also the main barrier between Buffy’s adolescence and her adulthood; only by defeating the Master can she truly accept her destiny as a Slayer, even if that means accepting her own death at the Master’s hands. And, indeed, this is what Buffy does: the Master is one of a mere handful of Buffy villains who can claim to have killed a full-blown Slayer, if only temporarily in this case.

Unfortunately, these positive elements of the Master’s character pale in comparison to his poor execution throughout the first season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The Master’s appearances in the season are remarkably few, and, even during those appearances, he pretty much does nothing but send flimsy minions out to kill Buffy as if his name were Lord Zedd. He broods throughout the entire season, taking zero initiative in trying to break out of his force field on his own, making him a more complacent form of evil. Sure, this Fabian strategy might serve the allegory decently, but it does nothing to assist the Master’s character. Even the Master’s humor is off: he transitions from pure no-nonsense angst to campy, cartoonish evil glee within seconds, and it honestly doesn’t translate well. It says a lot that every single other member of the House of Aurelius is more interesting and threatening than the grandsire of them all.

The Master’s evil is all the more frustrating given his appearance in Season 3’s “The Wish,” in which we see an alternate universe where the Master reigns supreme. During this episode, the Master reveals just how sinister yet humorous he can be. He designs a machine to extract all the blood from human bodies, processing people in assembly lines like a vampiric Henry Ford. This breed of evil makes the Master more human and thus more threatening. He also sires both Xander and Willow, turning them into some of the most terrifying single-episode baddies in the series. At the end of the episode, we’re left questioning why we didn’t get to spend more time with this side of the Master during the first season.

The Master is best described as one of the greatest casualties of the growing pains of Buffy’s first season. I’ve said before that Buffy Season One is genuinely bad television, and the Master certainly doesn’t do much to redeem the series. He really isn’t much better than a Power Rangers villain, and his character reeks of 90s cheese and cliché. He could have been so much more… but he’s instead a footnote in the catalogue of great Big Bads in the Buffyverse.