He's right about a lot of that; the "little Miss Muffet" Dawn-reference being the most brilliant of all of the interweaving and foreshadowing going on in the story arc over the years (I never got the 7-3-0 part until then, though, so yay for that). I do wonder, however, how far some of the later examples are more subsequent writing being made to fit existing trailing ends than the other way around.

alpen | June 26, 18:23 CET

Personally, one of my favorite payoffs was the whole "slayer origins" situation. All of these hints and questions throughout the series: Why did Buffy's blood free the Master?; Why is she drawn to demonic men?; Why is the Watcher's council so confining and why are there Watchers anyway?; Why did the level of discipline corrolate directly evil behavior (Played out by the differences between Kendra, Buffy and Faith)?;Why did Spike suspect a "bad side" of Buffy?...

Finally we learn in Season Seven that Buffy is indeed part demon (her power source being demonic) and the First watchers were indeed scared men who channeled this power into a girl whom they knew could harm them, so they sought to control her and use her to solve thier problems.

I was very pleased when it all came together.

protector | June 26, 18:23 CET

Ooh, protector, that's a really cool point. Although I'd kinda vaguely thought about some of those things as being somehow linked, I'd never realised it in such a comprehensive and inter-linked way as you put it there. So yay!

alpen | June 27, 18:54 CET