Amends

[avram]

More Buffy neeping, more spoilers for the most recent episode:

annathepiper pointed out that the Bottom Feeder, this season’s bad guy, seems to be the First Evil from the old episode “Amends”. (3rd season?) I found a summary of that episode which has an interesting bit of dailog:

Buffy comes out of the stacks, feeling a little groggy. Giles shows her some papers he found, describing something known as “the First.”

“First what?” asks Buffy.

“Evil” says Giles. “Absolute evil, older than man, than demons. It could have had the power to bring Angel back”

There’s an illustration on one of the pages of a man with symbols where his eyes should be. Buffy recognises it from her dream. Giles wants to hear more about her dream, but Buffy doesn’t want to tell him. She just wants to know what the picture is.

“They’re known as the Bringers, or Harbingers.” says Giles. “They’re high priests of the First. They can conjure spirit manifestations and set them on people, influence them, haunt them.”

“These are the guys working the mojo on Angel.” says Buffy.

Xander comes out from behind the counter. “We got to stop them.”

“You can’t fight the First, Buffy.” says Giles. “It’s not a physical being.”

“Well, I can fight these priest guys.” says Buffy.

“If we can find them.” says Xander.

Interesting bit: If this quote is accurate, the visitations various characters have been getting from apparently dead people (or actually, people who have died, a category which includes Buffy herself) may not be the act of a single entity, but conjurations by multiple people. This could account for contradictions in the apparent plan — a bunch of Harbingers are working together, but they don’t always get a chance to keep each other up to date about everything.