Comments | stormwreath: (Meta) How Many Slayers?

stormwreath

(Meta) How Many Slayers?

Oct 19, 2010 15:59

I've been doing some number-crunching about how many Slayers there are in the Buffyverse. The headline figures are as shown below, the assumptions and hypotheses I made to arrive at the conclusions are under the cut. None of these numbers are set in stone - I had to make some fairly random guesses on some of the data - but they feel in the right ( Read more... )

meta, buffy

Comments 32

menomegirl October 19 2010, 15:47:37 UTC

Eeeek! Math!

Without thinking about math (because that's something I would never do) 10,000 Potentials seems like a very large number to me.

stormwreath October 19 2010, 16:28:10 UTC

It *is* a very large number. But it makes sense. (Remember, the number includes baby Potentials and toddler Potentials and cute eight-year-old Potentials as well as the ones we saw in Season 7.)

And if there were a minimum of a couple of thousand Potentials old enough to become Slayers in 'Chosen', how many more would there have been under the age of 14?

frogfarm October 19 2010, 17:57:27 UTC

I need a Barbie icon that says MATH IS HARD

stormwreath October 19 2010, 20:30:17 UTC

That's why I hid the maths part of the post behind a cut. :-)

deird1 October 19 2010, 19:26:27 UTC

I tend to go with a simple "one in a million": so Britain would have 60 Slayers.

stormwreath October 19 2010, 20:32:59 UTC

But how many new Slayers are Called each year? :-)

peroxidepirate October 19 2010, 19:38:55 UTC

Fascinating stuff! I see no reason to disagree. :)

stormwreath October 19 2010, 20:33:08 UTC

:-)

brutti_ma_buoni October 19 2010, 20:16:54 UTC

Another assumption I'm making, then, is that he rescued only "a handful" of the teenage Potentials, rather than saving most of them but leaving all the kiddies to die...

a) Meep. You know, I never thought of that.
b) Yes. Reasonable. We didn't see anyone under your '14-19' bracket dying.

Of course your numbers are open to all sorts of interpretation depending on whether you go with high or low estimates for your based numbers, but they broadly feel workable. As you say, could be out by 50% but probably not by x50. It makes me feel better about my post-Chosen Council, which clearly needs a cast of thousands to keep going but didn't have this as backup.

I like reading about practicalities...

stormwreath October 19 2010, 20:43:36 UTC

Yeah, it was only when I was writing this that I thought "What happened to all the Watchers with five- and eight-year old Potentials ( ... )

deird1 October 19 2010, 21:25:11 UTC

I reckon they'd end up in the Council, if they wanted to be. Otherwise, they'd just go on with their normal lives...

stormwreath October 19 2010, 21:59:45 UTC

That would be logical... but ( ... )

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