I agree about not-racist Spike. Really, I think it would have been silly for the writers to go so far as to make those Slayers he killed white, just to avoid having him killing off minorities. There is a whole world of cultures out there for Slayers to be born into! I'm sure the writers could have handled race better in other areas of the show, but in this case, I'm glad we got to glimpse those parts of Slayer history.
I am interested in the "subhuman" topic you mentioned. I haven't seen it discussed before, but human origins is a burning interest of mine. I had always assumed the First Slayer was an early Homo sapiens. Her being a Neanderthal wouldn't make much sense, since they lived, for the most part, in the same time frame as early Homo sapiens (both of us branched off from a single species--Homo heidelbergensis--and then Neanderthal went extinct). I don't think it would be wrong to speculate that perhaps the First Slayer was our ancestor heidelbergensis species, or went even further back. It would not make her less human (in my opinion) to be pre-Homo sapiens. The lines between species evolution is fuzzy. We don't know a whole lot about heidelbergensis, but they were sophisticated enough to make good tools and possibly bury their dead, and possibly have a simple language.
Anyway, sorry for that info dump. Like I said, I haven't actually seen this discussed, and now I'm interested, so I'm going to go see if I can find it. Early humans have a rich history in Africa and it's interesting to imagine when the First Slayer arose, but I do think it's most likely she was intended by the writers to be early Homo sapiens.
I think that due to the fact that the Shadow Men are from her same time period and seem like regular humans, I'd say the First Slayer was one as well (pre-demon essence insertion).
I am interested in the "subhuman" topic you mentioned. I haven't seen it discussed before, but human origins is a burning interest of mine. I had always assumed the First Slayer was an early Homo sapiens. Her being a Neanderthal wouldn't make much sense, since they lived, for the most part, in the same time frame as early Homo sapiens (both of us branched off from a single species--Homo heidelbergensis--and then Neanderthal went extinct). I don't think it would be wrong to speculate that perhaps the First Slayer was our ancestor heidelbergensis species, or went even further back. It would not make her less human (in my opinion) to be pre-Homo sapiens. The lines between species evolution is fuzzy. We don't know a whole lot about heidelbergensis, but they were sophisticated enough to make good tools and possibly bury their dead, and possibly have a simple language.
Anyway, sorry for that info dump. Like I said, I haven't actually seen this discussed, and now I'm interested, so I'm going to go see if I can find it. Early humans have a rich history in Africa and it's interesting to imagine when the First Slayer arose, but I do think it's most likely she was intended by the writers to be early Homo sapiens.
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I think that due to the fact that the Shadow Men are from her same time period and seem like regular humans, I'd say the First Slayer was one as well (pre-demon essence insertion).
If you do find those convos, please link me ;)
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