SWEET. BtVS Demon/Monster/Villain.

An ancient demon--he "bought Nero [37-68 A.D.] his very first fiddle"--summoned to Sunnydale by an oblivious Xander in "Once More with Feeling":

Well, I didn't know what was gonna happen! I just thought there were gonna be dances and songs. [to Anya] I just wanted to make sure we'd . . . we'd work out. Get a happy ending.

He causes all of Sunnydale to behave as if in a Broadway musical, with each singer revealing his or her innermost thoughts and feelings in song. Under Sweet's influence, for example, Buffy confesses to her friends for the first time that when they resurrected her in In "Bargaining," Part 1, they summoned her from heaven and not from hell.

Sweet comes, as he reveals in "What You Feel," "from the Imagination." His method, as he explains it, is simple enough

 

I'm the hot swing

I'm the twist and shout

When you gotta sing,

When you gotta ... let it out.

You call me and I come a-running

I turn the music on

I bring the fun in

Now we're partyin'

That's what it's all about.

But his evocation of song has potentially fatal consequences:

 

All these melodies . . .

They go on too long

Then that energy

Starts to come on way too strong

All those hearts laid open, that must sting

Plus, some customers just start combusting

That's the penalty

When life is but a song.

"I can bring whole cities to ruin," Sweet brags, "And still have time to get a soft-shoe in." Anywhere there's trouble, he's likely culprit:

 

Something's cooking, I'm at the griddle

I bought Nero his very first fiddle.

Like Hades in Greek mythology, Sweet hopes to return to his "kingdom below" with a queen, with Dawn as his bride.

 

DAWN: No, you see

You and me

Wouldn't be very regal . . .

What I mean
I'm fifteen
So this queen thing's illegal.

Although he departs Sunnydale after failing to combust The Slayer and without his bride-to-be, he does take consolation (expressed in the song "What You Feel, Reprise") in his denial of a happy ending to the Scooby Gang.

 

What a lot of fun

You guys have been real swell

And there's not a one

Who can say this ended well

All those secrets you've been concealing

Say you're happy now,

Once more with feeling.

Now I gotta run

See you all . . . in hell!

--David Lavery