Was Jasmine trying to stop The First?

[Lindley]

I've been re-watching Angel season 4 and Buffy season 7 concurrently lately, and it strikes me....both Jasmine and The First were making noises about being able to "become one" with everyone on the planet. And while they were both evil in their way, their goals and approaches were clearly different...and in conflict.

The First is a manifestation of the evil inherent in everyone. Jasmine tried to eliminate the evil by removing the free will of some, and organizing them against those she couldn't control (demons mostly). Jasmine probably came closer to destroying The First than anyone every had before! Not to mention, if The First tried to merge with one of the Jasmaniacs, I'm guessing that wouldn't work so well. (Probably induce a God War the left the attempted host a bit crispy....)

Jasmine was building an army of peace. So was The First---an army of Ubervamps. If they had been allowed to proceed unhindered, one wonders at the scale of the battle that would have resulted......

Do you think it's a coincidence that the power went out in Sunnydale just before Jasmine started appearing on TV? No, that was The First ensuring it's foothold wasn't overrun by true believers.

It's even possible that The First may have given Team Angel a bit of a helping hand against Jasmine. Clandestinely, of course......

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

Perhaps. I certainly know that both Jasmine & the First royally pissed off the Senior Partners. Sadly, it seems that Jasmine was able to absolutely blindside Wolfram & Hart, so all they could do was wait for Team Angel to bail them out. But as for the First, I'm convinced that he's not really the source for all evil in the world. I think he's just a powerful telepathic consciousness with delusions of grandeur. That's why it was so easy for W&H to give Angel the amulet (to give to Buffy to give to Spike) to put down the First like the pathetic dog he is and allow W&H's slow corruption of mankind to continue without incident. (Frankly, since Angel never seemed to quite equal the "popularity" of Buffy, I always got a kick out of the fact that, in the Buffy finale, the day wasn't saved by Buffy or Willow or even Spike. They all had their asses rescued by the villains from their redheaded spin-off series.)

 

[RoJoHen]

I was watching them simultaneously as well, and I honestly was convinced that the two apocalypses were one in the same. When they turned out to be different, I was convinced that they were actually two rival forces trying to beat each other in the apocalypse game. Jasmine, it turned out, didn't really want an apocalypse. She literally wanted to destroy all the evil in the world. The First, however, wanted to unleash evil everywhere. I had a feeling that Jasmine and The First were trying to beat each other more than they were trying to destroy/save the world.

 

[Anwar]

The theory is that the First did attempt to stop Jasmine. That scene where Darla's spirit tries to talk Connor out of listening to Jasmine? That was the First pretending to be Darla.

 

[RoJoHen]

The theory is that the First did attempt to stop Jasmine. That scene where Darla's spirit tries to talk Connor out of listening to Jasmine? That was the First pretending to be Darla.

Ooooh, that is interesting. I was wondering how Darla managed to become a ghost for that scene!

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

^There's also some speculation that the First also appeared as Lilah to Wesley in part of "Salvage." Not all of it. The first part probably is just Wesley's own grief-stricken imagination. But the part where Lilah starts to give Wesley the idea to break Faith out of prison.

 

[RoJoHen]

^There's also some speculation that the First also appeared as Lilah to Wesley in part of "Salvage." Not all of it. The first part probably is just Wesley's own grief-stricken imagination. But the part where Lilah starts to give Wesley the idea to break Faith out of prison.

I did wonder why she suddenly changed clothes.

 

[Gojirob]

I was watching them simultaneously as well, and I honestly was convinced that the two apocalypses were one in the same. When they turned out to be different, I was convinced that they were actually two rival forces trying to beat each other in the apocalypse game. Jasmine, it turned out, didn't really want an apocalypse. She literally wanted to destroy all the evil in the world. The First, however, wanted to unleash evil everywhere. I had a feeling that Jasmine and The First were trying to beat each other more than they were trying to destroy/save the world.

I've always wanted to see a Marvel/DC series set in 1986, wherein the Beyonder and the Anti-Monitor, at the climax of their series, 'notice' each other. (The two series finaled the exact same week).

Back on topic, The First vs. W&H always struck me as an old-line mob boss, a 'Mustache Pete' like Don Corleone, getting out of stir after a really long time, but having a sizable wad of cash hidden away, enough to get some no-necks lined up. W&H is the modern Mob, hiring the witnesses against them instead of rubbing them out, making sure their people are judges and such, instead of just bribing them. Thing is, they know the old boy is really good at causing trouble. The three capos are really tough all by themselves, but their real power lay in a favors network based much of the time not on fear but transactional self-interest. They know the friend of the friend of the cousin of the aunt of the roommate who has the right caliber of gun to take down the no-necks in one shot. They loaned them all money, just so they could call on them when they needed to. Jasmine was a bit like if the entire anti-Soviet operation of the CIA, in 1991, turned its attention towards ending all drug addiction forever, but by means so questionable and terrible that the other governmental agencies renounce them entirely.
They blast holes in the modern mob set-up, but some fringe operatives used and infiltrated by the rogues to enact the set-up take them down.
The modern mob gets up on its feet and realizes that, if the old mob boss is allowed to move out, until they are at 100% again, the old boss can at least carve out a large part of their territory and be very competitive, and very costly to bring down. They take in the fringe operatives who brought down the rogues, and smooth over some bad blood while the fringe operatives are exhausted and not thinking as straight. That special gun to whack the no-necks is passed through the new-hires to his prior fringe group, and the old mob boss no longer has the men or the cajones to move forward, maybe ever again. This was particularly shrewd of the modern mob : Not only do they co-opt the fringe operatives, once a source of trouble for them, but they prevent the small-town fringe operatives new recruits from engaging in a costly battle that would have left the survivors with mad battle skills, and little need of further training. One fringe group is now theirs, and another has dozens of new recruits that require the vets' constant attention. Both the rogue Black Ops and the old mob boss have been neutralized.

Phew. As to The First, I agree. He was simply a hugely primal embodiment of evil, he was not the source, who would have to be vanquished at least 7 times.

 

[RoJoHen]

Phew. As to The First, I agree. He was simply a hugely primal embodiment of evil, he was not the source, who would have to be vanquished at least 7 times.

I could not follow anything you wrote in your post except for this, and I thought it was hilarious.

 

[captcalhoun]

i could never buy into Jasmine on Angel because i never found Gina Torres that attractive. so to me, that whole thing about her being so wonderously gorgeous that everyone loved her just didn't work.

 

[Daneel]

The theory is that the First did attempt to stop Jasmine. That scene where Darla's spirit tries to talk Connor out of listening to Jasmine? That was the First pretending to be Darla.

Huh, I never heard that theory before. Interesting... I'm not entirely convinced, but it's not impossible.

As for the notion presented by the OP, that is also a possibility. Truly, there's nothing to say that the First and Jasmine weren't aware of each other and trying to beat each other to the punch, so to speak.

I admit, when I was originally watching the shows, around the time of the appearance of the Beast/the reveal of the First, I did kind of wonder if these two apocalypses were related. I soon discarded the notion -- and now, with the theories presented here... well, I'm still not totally convinced that it wasn't just coincidence. We know UPN and the WB wanted the two shows to remain as separate as possible, and to a certain extent, I imagine the series' respective writers wanted each to stand on its own as well.

Ultimately, we'll probably never know, but it is fun to speculate, isn't it? As I've said, nothing's impossible --some of these ideas do fit and may even actually make a good bit of sense-- but I tend to think there was no active attempt to connect the two storylines.

 

[Mr Light]

At the time of airing I was one of the ones desperately hoping that the Beast Master and the First were the same person and we were going to end on one massive crossover epic. Alas. They did a horrible tease too, when Cordy temporarily displays her beastial form it looks just like the one the First appeared as!

 

[Trent Roman]

It's an interesting theory. I always wondered why nobody higher-up at the state or even federal level seemed to care that everybody in Sunnydale decided to (finally) up and leave and go in to investigate. I figured that it was some memory of the Initiative, that the town had been designated a no-go area, but it makes more sense if you instead figure that they were all juiced up on Jasmine and lacked the wherewithal to act of their own initiative.

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

 

[Anwar]

The S8 Buffy comics deal with that. It has the Twilight group immediately going to investigate Sunnydale and hound the Slayers after the town was destroyed.

 

[Trent Roman]

Well, I'm only up to the third reprint, but from what I apperceive Twilight was activated after the spell to unleash slayer abilities in all the potentials was cast. The First was never their concern.

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

 

[Anwar]

Maybe he knew the Slayer would stop the First, but when he saw HOW she did it he decided to intervene afterwards.

It's implied in the time-travel arc with the future Slayer that Twilight succeeded and brought the era of Magic to a close for centuries.

 

[Ethros]

^ That had already been implied back in the original Fray comic series, that the era of magic had come to a close in the early 21st century.
Season 8 links it up to Buffy & Twilight though

 

[Anwar]

Well, Whedon did all those stories so he's pretty much filling in his own gaps and explaining that Twilight and Buffy's battles with each other ultimately led up to it.

Funny how Twilight is also for what Buffy wants, which is the extermination of all demons and magical creatures that can harm humanity.

 

[Ethros]

It's also funny that the Big Bad of Season 8 is called "Twilight", with that shitty vampire movie/books n' all.

I'm not sure if it was intentional though

 

[Anwar]

I think it has more to do with "Twilight of the Gods" or something like that. That he represent the end of their kind, for now at least.