The Beast (Buffyverse)
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 Vladimir Kulich as The Beast |
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The Beast is a fictional demon on the television series Angel. He first appears in the Season Four episode "Apocalypse, Nowish". He is brought to Earth from some Hell dimension where he was previously banished, by a powerful deity known only as Jasmine to pave the way for her entrance to the Earth. Note that this Beast is a separate entity from the Big Bad of Buffy Season 5, the hell goddess Glory, who is sometimes called "The Beast."
The first people to encounter the Beast are Cordelia Chase and Connor, who find the Beast arriving on Earth at the exact spot at which Connor had been born. A fight ensues, during which Cordelia is injured. Believing that he has something to do with the coming apocalypse, Connor distances himself from his teammates, who do not trust him.
Angel, Gunn, and Lorne decide to take on The Beast. Wesley rejoins them to help in the battle, but they fail nonetheless, and are all badly injured. The Beast then conjures a rain of fire over Los Angeles.
Meanwhile, Connor and a Jasmine-possessed Cordelia have sex, conceiving Jasmine's mortal form. The Beast, seeking to reach Mesektet (The Little Girl of the White Room), kills everyone working at Wolfram and Hart as he tries to reach the White Room. The only survivors of the massacre are Lilah Morgan, Wesley and Connor, who battles The Beast inside. During their escape, the corpses of the dead Wolfram and Hart employees are reanimated as zombies, either by the Beast himself, or as a part of Wolfram & Hart's automated defenses in case of an attack. The Beast kills Mesektet and drains her of her dark energy.
Following the death of Mesektet, the Beast hunts down the rest of her "family", an order of mystical beings known as the Ra-Tet. Ma'at, Ashet and Semkhet are killed by the Beast. The final Ra-Tet, Manjet, is killed by Jasmine/Cordelia in secret. Using the metal wings in Ashet and Semkhet and the heart of Ma'at, the Beast makes a ritual to eclipse the sun, which is completed when the dark energy of Mesektet is imbued in the orb which was extracted from Manjet's head. The eclipse begins as a sunlight-blocking spot that spreads covering Los Angeles and is supposed to eventually cover the totality of earth.
Believing that their only hope is in Angel's evil alter ego Angelus, who has known The Beast in the past, the heroes turn Angel into Angelus, hoping that Angelus will recall the encounter as Angel has apparently does not (this is revealed to be because all reference to the Beast in this dimension was erased, but Angelus was unaffected as he was not, technically, in this dimension when the spell was cast). This is accomplished by a shaman, who gives Angel the illusion of a perfect day in which he and his son are reunited and defeats the Beast with a sacred weapon, and he and Cordelia are allowed to be together.
Once freed, Angelus is eventually convinced to reveal the details of his encounter with the Beast; the Beast had attempted to recruit Angelus in 1767 to stop some priestesses who were attempting to banish the Beast, but Angelus declined and was knocked out before the Beast was banished. After Angel's soul is stolen and a ritual to restore his soul via dark magic is faked, Angelus breaks free and seeks out the Beast. Wesley breaks Faith out of jail to assist the heroes. She is beaten badly in battle with the Beast. In the end it is Angelus who, in an act of betrayal, stabs the Beast with a knife made from its own bones, as he had correctly surmised that the only thing that could kill the Beast was the Beast itself. The death of the Beast also undoes the spell to eclipse the sun, leaving Faith in the sunlight and Angelus confined to the shadows, much to the vampire's annoyance.
[edit] Powers and Abilities
The Beast possesses superhuman strength and durability greater than any other villain in Angel with the possible exception of Jasmine, Marcus Hamilton and Illyria. The degree of the Beast's superhuman strength is demonstrated in several instances. The Beast hits both Connor and Faith on separate occasions with a reverse punch which sends both characters flying back approximately ten to fifteen feet with no apparent downward arc in their trajectory, and in both cases their momentum is only stopped by impacting a large, solid object (in Connor's case, a metal dumpster, and in Faith's case, a large storage crate which is shattered by the force that she impacts it with). The Beast is also durable enough to withstand handgun fire, shotgun blasts, and a grenade at point-blank range with no apparent injury. His exceptional strength also allows him to leap great heights. He also resisted banishment to another dimension.
Unlike Jasmine, Illyria, and Marcus Hamilton, who all possess a level of strength comparable to that of the Beast, the Beast's additional mass and bulk, possibly due in large part to his rock-like hide, renders him rather slow. In fact, Angelus demonstrated the ability to dodge the Beast's attacks with ease during their only encounter, even finding the time and energy to taunt the Beast in the process.
It also has to be said that even though the Beast was immensely powerful, he was dominated by Angel in their one-on-one encounter in "Apocalyse Nowish" and was even brought to his knees. This act really showed the power of Angel but in the end it was useless as Angel's stake was reversed on him as he tried to stab the Beast.
