First Slayer
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 The First Slayer, as seen in Fray |
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The First Slayer (credited as Primitive), also known as The Primeval One (in an invocation spell) was the first in the line of Slayers in the cult tv series Buffy the Vampire Slayer and was portrayed by Sharon Ferguson. The enjoining spell used in "Primeval" refers to "Sineya, first of the ones".
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[edit] History
The First Slayer introduces herself (speaking through an image of Tara Maclay) in the finale of season 4: “I have no speech. No name. I live in the action of death, the blood cry, the penetrating wound. I am destruction. Absolute ... alone”, ("Restless").
In her first appearance she kills Giles, Xander and Willow in their respective dreams. Then The First Slayer attempts to kill Buffy in the same fashion after she refuses to leave her friends for dead. The First Slayer ultimately fails when Buffy manages to wake up from her sleep, thus pulling herself and her friends out of The First Slayer's nightmare.
Giles reveals that The First Slayer never had a Watcher, and attributes her appearance to the enjoining spell they cast with Buffy in "Primeval", claiming that invoking the essence of the Slayer's power was an affront to the source of that power.
[edit] Origins
In "Get It Done", the origin of the First Slayer is explained: Three elders from local villages got together and thought of a plan to rid their village of vampires. She was created by this group of shamans (also called The Shadow Men) thousands of years ago. They took a girl away and chained her to the ground, so she couldn't escape. Then, they mystically implanted her with the essence of a demon. It is suggested that this demonic energy originates from the same source that gives power to the vampires. She had incredible strength, stamina and a predatorial instinct, but she also lost her humanity.
The Slayer hunted and killed vampires, but her own people mistook her for a demon, due to her superhuman powers, and expelled her. The Shadow-Men failed to find her and so she never had someone to guide her. The Shadow-Men's descendants became the Watchers and eventually the Watchers' Council. Eventually, the Slayer died and her power passed on to another girl. The Slayer lineage had begun.
[edit] Invocation Spell
Following the Enjoining ritual, the Buffy/Giles/Xander/Willow collective inside Buffy's body invokes the power of the First Slayer, a power superior to that of later Slayers - which is confirmed in "Get it Done", as merging with the demon's essence would've given Buffy more power. The spell, in Sumerian, (as written on the script of "Primeval") goes as follows:
Sha me-en-dan. Gesh-toog me-en-dan.
Zee me-en-den.
Oo-khush-ta me-ool-lee-a
ba-ab-tum-mu-do-en.
Translation:
We are heart. We are mind.
We are spirit.
From the raging storm,
we bring the power of the Primeval One.
[edit] Appearances in the Buffyverse
- She first appears in the episode "Restless" (see above).
- The Buffy episode, "Get It Done", reveals her origins (see above).
- In the graphic novel, Tales of the Slayers, the First Slayer was asked to leave a village she defended from a vampire. They feared her even more than other demons.
- In "Intervention", a "spirit guide" appears to Buffy as the First Slayer, giving her the advice that she is full of love and will lose it only if she rejects it and that "death is [her] gift". Willow witnesses part of this conversation when she enters Buffy's mind in "The Weight of the World".
- The First Slayer also appears in the beginning of "Get It Done", telling Buffy that "it is not enough". Buffy later learns she means her power is not enough, and she must get more power from the original Shadow-Men.
- She appeared in the comic mini-series Fray Issue #3 : "Ready, Steady..." (August 2001).
- In the non-canon Queen of the Slayers, the First Slayer is named as Senaya, which sounds similar to the name Sineya, mentioned in the enjoining spell performed by Willow, Giles and Xander in "Primeval".
