What does the Watchers' Council do?

[nwhyte]

We're currently working our way through Season 3 of Buffy, and were in the middle of "Faith, Hope and Trick" this evening, when suddenly we wondered:

If there's only one Slayer alive at a time (or in extreme circumstances, two), what do the rest of the Watchers actually do all day

Comments

[rfmcdpei]

That's a good question. Me, I think that they collate everything, try to maintain tabs on the world and a coherent stock of traditions.

[burkesworks]

If there's only one Slayer alive at a time (or in extreme circumstances, two), what do the rest of the Watchers actually do all day?

Not being possessed of the Joss Whedon gene, I'd say that they watch Slayer tribute bands all day.

[smhwpf]

Probably most of them, like Giles, have day jobs. Academics and museum curators and senior civil servants and so forth. Or they're aristocrats who don't need to work. Some sit on the Watchers Council that makes all the decisions. They hold interminable meetings. Others are in the field, watching over Potential Slayers, training them and preparing them and so forth. Others engage in various abstruse pieces of mystical research, collecting info that can then be sent back to the Council.

That's my guess, at any rate.

[agirlnamedluna]

I have to agree with this

And I don't remember exactly, but wasn't Wesley Faith's watcher until he moved on to Buffy and then went to the Angel series ?

[smhwpf]

He was Faith and Buffy's Watcher, appointed after Giles was sacked by the Council. Faith turned evil of course; then Buffy mutinied against the Council in Graduation Day part 2., and Wesley returned to England after the battle was over, where the Council sacked him. Then he showed up on Angel, and the rest, as they say, is history.

[agirlnamedluna]

Aha yeah that's what I was thinking, thanks for clearing that up - it's been a while since I've seen Buffy and I wasn't able to see the series anymore when they entered the season after Willow went crazy. And now I still won't be able to see it as I don't have the channel it's usually on anymore.

[purplepooka]

I suppose a slayer just ends up getting whatever watcher happened to be training her as a potential - Buffy is unusual in that she was never discovered as a potential, and didn't begin her training until she was chosen. However, her original watcher was killed, wasn't he? So Giles was sent especially to meet her when she moved to Sunnydale. It seems Slayer-watching is actually a pretty low-status job in the Watchers' council...

Everything you wanted to know about Council of Watchers...

[h0pal0ng]

even the stuff you didn't want to