Hey, Voc,
I remember lines about the First becoming corporeal, too. I believe that it was in the finale, spoken to Buffy, but if not, it was in one of the last few, and it was spoken to the preacher.
Ditto people's issues with the uruk-hai becoming pansies at the end. I mentally rewrote it to "After Buffy killed that first one, everybody saw their weaknesses, and wasn't psyched out anymore, and also, the first one was really really powerful (maybe it gets more powerful once it reaches the surface world?)", but yeah, still have issues.
On the other hand, my feelings about the First were interesting. In the finale, in that final battle, when the First is taunting Buffy as she lays bleeding, my initial thought was, "Dude, the First is just trying to get Buffy to stand back up." It hit me that the First was one of those almost-sympathetic villains who like the fight more than the victory, and who will stop anybody else from killing the hero so that they can do it themselves. That's why the first let Angel back into the world -- not because of some "Oh, he'll kill Buffy" garbage, but because the First wanted Buffy to have to deal with Angel, and all the difficulty that entails, some more. That's why the first pulled some of its punches. It didn't really want to win. It wanted Buffy to recognize it as a threat. It wanted evil to be quantified again, because knowing about the existence of evil in the world gives that evil more power. Running around the world killing whatever humans are left would be dull. It's the struggle, the good people giving their lives, that makes the evil really happy, if what it is is evil for it's own sake.
Not saying that all of that was clearly in the show -- but it makes the First more interesting to me to see it that way. The First didn't have a goal, like Adam and the Master and Angel, because doing what it did was its goal.
But that's just me.
I remember lines about the First becoming corporeal, too. I believe that it was in the finale, spoken to Buffy, but if not, it was in one of the last few, and it was spoken to the preacher.
Ditto people's issues with the uruk-hai becoming pansies at the end. I mentally rewrote it to "After Buffy killed that first one, everybody saw their weaknesses, and wasn't psyched out anymore, and also, the first one was really really powerful (maybe it gets more powerful once it reaches the surface world?)", but yeah, still have issues.
On the other hand, my feelings about the First were interesting. In the finale, in that final battle, when the First is taunting Buffy as she lays bleeding, my initial thought was, "Dude, the First is just trying to get Buffy to stand back up." It hit me that the First was one of those almost-sympathetic villains who like the fight more than the victory, and who will stop anybody else from killing the hero so that they can do it themselves. That's why the first let Angel back into the world -- not because of some "Oh, he'll kill Buffy" garbage, but because the First wanted Buffy to have to deal with Angel, and all the difficulty that entails, some more. That's why the first pulled some of its punches. It didn't really want to win. It wanted Buffy to recognize it as a threat. It wanted evil to be quantified again, because knowing about the existence of evil in the world gives that evil more power. Running around the world killing whatever humans are left would be dull. It's the struggle, the good people giving their lives, that makes the evil really happy, if what it is is evil for it's own sake.
Not saying that all of that was clearly in the show -- but it makes the First more interesting to me to see it that way. The First didn't have a goal, like Adam and the Master and Angel, because doing what it did was its goal.
But that's just me.
