In End of Days, Buffy tries to find out more about the shiny weapon she found in Touched. She discovers a tomb in Sunnydale where she runs into an old woman, who tells her she is the last guardian of Slayers and has been waiting and watching over the Slayer line since Slayers began. The guardian tells Buffy how the scythe she found was created to destroy the last pure demon, but it was made in secret and hidden from the Shadowmen.
It’s all a bit confusing as to whether the tomb and woman have always been in Sunnydale, and how exactly the guardians have been helping and protecting the Slayer (they certainly could have helped Buffy during the “Spuffy” debacle in season six, maybe with a cup of tea and chat about inappropriate sex) but I digress. As Buffy says, “I don’t understand. How is it possible that we didn’t know any of this?” I’ll leave it at that.
December 28th, 2005 at 8:43 pm
Also, she got to be one of only three who get to make fun of Buffy’s name outright.
Woman: What’s your name?
Buffy: Buffy.
Woman: No, really.
(How does she not know Buffy’s name if she’s been guardianing her? And why didn’t she step in during one of the many apocolypses? And why couldn’t they have explained this further? I wish they would have.)
December 28th, 2005 at 8:44 pm
Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t she say she had to go into hiding for summat or other?
December 28th, 2005 at 8:45 pm
poor buffy, cursed forvever witht the name ‘Buffy’ although i think superpowers may have made up for this fact.
December 28th, 2005 at 8:52 pm
She says, “We hid, too. We had to until now.” But still, I would think that if her job was to be a guardian to the Slayer(s), she’d… guard. Or advise. Or, hey, provide witty commentary, whatever. But she did a whole lot of nothing up until the end. her boss must’ve been mad.
Why wouldn’t Giles know about them? I mean, if they’ve been around forever. The hiding would be why they didn’t see the guardians, but wouldn’t something be written about them?
December 28th, 2005 at 8:54 pm
I guess not because anything written might have led whoever they were hiding from, to them.
December 28th, 2005 at 8:58 pm
That would be the reason why they didn’t want anything written about them, but not the reason why nothing was written about them.
December 28th, 2005 at 9:00 pm
I had to read your post a few times to understand what you meant (I’m a little slow). I can definitely see what you mean. I’m sure demons don’t want anything written about them (weaknesses etc), but it was.
December 28th, 2005 at 9:38 pm
the fact that Giles didn’t know anything about them might also have something to do witht the council not telling him, they may have known about the guardians however decided not to tell him, this is just a vague idea of mine, probably not correct but it may have been a possible explanation.
April 4th, 2006 at 11:30 pm
I think the reason they hadn’t intervened before was that it was never really necessary : Buffy always did save the world, so their help wasn’t essential. But in seventh season, maybe things got too extreme and they felt they had to step in in order to save humanity.
Also, they wouldn’t protect Buffy excessively, because she as an individual is not that important, the Slayer line is.
And I don’t really understand why it would be so impossible that Giles or anyone else for that matter didn’t know about them. Especially if they hadn’t done anything since their “creation”.
April 5th, 2006 at 1:39 am
I guess. I just think it is a little iffy that there are all these books and scrolls on such ancient things and Giles (even being in the esteemed Watcher’s Council) never heard of the Guardians. It would have been cool if they had dropped hints during the show so we could see this and go “Ohhh!”
April 6th, 2006 at 10:09 am
Here’s one I thought of.
Imagine that the Watcher’s Council had no idea about the Guardian. Remember that the Watcher’s Council was blowed up, which was no small accident.
It is possible that The First, because it was targeting the Slayer line specifically, had succeeded for the first time in truly endangering it.
This might have forced the Guardian into direct action: to seek out the Watcher’s Council and use the ancient channels to protect the Slayer line.
I mean, the Guardian’s mission to appear before the Watcher’s Council might have been dimensionally intercepted by the forces of evil, the specific event which led to/ accelerated to the Council’s demise.
So instead she had to get to Sunnydale, rent a cave, and meet the Slayer in person to give her that really cool scythe.
April 10th, 2006 at 8:42 am
I had the impression that the Guardians were in a kind of opposition to the Council. They both want the best for the slayer, but with a classic male/female clash on perspective. The Council and its Watchers carry on the daddy-knows-best philosophy of the original witch doctor ooga-booga men. Whereas the Guardian lady comes over as white witchey and girl power at a time around when Buffy decides to go all independent and slayer franchise-y. Hence with the hiding from the misogynist council until a time when the slayer line was truly in peril (as Lilwenn said).