But that sort of argument ("What If They Misuse Their Power") has been trotted out to oppose giving women the right to vote, freeing slaves, you name it.

Those parallels only work if there were already an unknown number of men with superstrength that are only now balanced by the number of new Slayers.

Chosen didn't equalize any balance of power, it tipped it rather monstrously in favor of, not women, but hundreds of teenage girls. You seriously believe that's not a recipe for disaster?

hundreds of teenage girls. You seriously believe that's not a recipe for disaster?

'NSync is screwed....

Plus, seeing Jonothan (Jonathon? neither looks right, dammit) giving the award to her and making his speech is going to give me additional allergies given how things ended up.

'NSync is screwed....

BWAH!

Faith wouldn't have caused problems if Buffy would have just been nicer to her.

Think I can start a kerfuffle?

But that sort of argument ("What If They Misuse Their Power") has been trotted out to oppose giving women the right to vote, freeing slaves, you name it.

Those parallels only work if there were already an unknown number of men with superstrength that are only now balanced by the number of new Slayers.

No, you're working within the wrong categories. It's not a male-female thing. It's a human vs. demon thing, and as far as I can gather from canon, there are still way more demons than there are slayers.

Chosen didn't equalize any balance of power, it tipped it rather monstrously in favor of, not women, but hundreds of teenage girls. You seriously believe that's not a recipe for disaster?

Again, canon suggests there are likely to be way more demons around than slayer-powered humans.

Do I think there will be some slayer-caused disasters, girls who weren't ready, or can't handle it, or become corrupted? Oh yeah. But there's still whole army of slayers to help reign in corrupt!or-crazy!slayer. In the pre-Buffy past, there were no super-powered humans to reign in the Faithlike slayers.

The fate of the world has always previously rested on the shoulders of 1 teenaged girl. Now it's a problem because there are more? How does that fit in with the BtVS mission?

Jonothan (Jonathon? neither looks right, dammit)

That's because it is Jonathan.

With the Class Protector thing, I got a "Yeah, a cutesy umbrella makes up for three years of funny looks and shunning. I don't think so" feel. Cordy and Xander smiling at each other gave me a bigger happy. OK, well, and Angel in a tux. And Giles and Wesley in tuxes. And Xander in a tux. There's a trend there, isn't there.

One of my favorite things about the speech is that it acknowledged that Sunnydale as a whole knew that something was going on (why the hell did they stay?). The "we know that our school isn't like other schools" line satisfied one of my big issues with the show, which was how do these people not NOTICE this shit.

Plus, the "we're not friends", harkening back to "Earshot" was nice. and it was so "high school eloquent" - "When something wierd happened, you seemed to show up and stop it".

Okay, it was schmooperific. But I loved it. There are plenty of moments that I hate that other people love (i.e. every moment Kennedy or Dawn were onscreen), so we can agree to disagree.

No, you're working within the wrong categories. It's not a male-female thing. It's a human vs. demon thing

Ah, I see where you're working from.

I didn't get that from the episode even a little bit (would it have killed Joss to have one of the New!Slayers suddenly able to fight off the vampire attacking her? would it?), but if that's your argument, then ok.

I just didn't see it in Chosen. I saw a definite "girls now stronger than boys! Goooooooooooo grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrls!" type of feminism working there, which just pissed me off in defense of Xander, Giles, Andrew, etc.

(And now Elena and her DH are here, and we're going to the beach. So there won't be any more raining on Chosen for today, unless someone wants to take over from me.)

Faith wouldn't have caused problems if Buffy would have just been nicer to her.

Think I can start a kerfuffle?

You'll have to find someone who disagrees with you first.

Chosen didn't equalize any balance of power, it tipped it rather monstrously in favor of, not women, but hundreds of teenage girls. You seriously believe that's not a recipe for disaster?

About the only thing we can be sure of is, it will have an effect -- and different people will react differently. Because eventually, word will get out that these women have special powers. And possibly, that the powers were originally intended for demon-fighting -- which means the world might be forced to face, squarely, the fact that demons exist.

Some men will be more careful around women generally. Some men will be resentful and take it out on the "normal" women around them (at least until they cross the path of the wrong woman -- "normal" here meaning "non-Slayer.").

Some women will be thrilled that the strongest people in the world are now women. Others will resent the Slayer strength. And still others will wonder what it all has to do with the fact that the gas bill is due.

Slayers will react differently. Rogue Slayers could easily lead to a civil war -- there would likely be more than one Faith. And it'll take time (assuming it's even possible) to find all the new Slayers.

Plus, now Slayers have the option of sitting it out. They don't have to get involved in the fight because others will be. And even the fighters can take a vacation.

With many consequences -- what if, instead of actual developments, Buffy had asked Melinda in LA to cover her territory for a month or so late in S4 while she went to Puerto Vallarta for spring break? Would Buffy have been so eager to take her dive at the end of "The Gift"? Would she have been better able to handle the problems of S6?