Master (Buffyverse)
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| The Master | ||||||||||||||
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 Mark Metcalf as The Master | ||||||||||||||
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The Master first appeared in "Welcome to the Hellmouth", the first episode of Buffy, as Buffy's first Big Bad. The Master is the ruler of the Order of Aurelius, a vampire cult which has included the likes of Darla, Luke and The Three, amongst many others. (Note that it is a common misconception that Angelus, Drusilla or Spike were ever acolytes of the Order of Aurelius. They are part of the Master's bloodline, but they were never brethren of the Order.) He is mystically trapped inside the Hellmouth and seeks to escape, to claim dominion over the world.
The Master is unlike other vampires, and is similar looking to Nosferatu, presumably (although this is never confirmed) due to his extremely old age. When The Master was staked by Buffy in season one's "Prophecy Girl", he left bones, unlike most vampires. The Master was supposed to be revived by his right-hand child, the Anointed One, but his plans were stopped by Buffy, and the Anointed One was later killed by Spike.
Unlike ordinary vampires, The Master could exercise hypnotic control over Buffy. The only other vampires that later proved able to do so were another vampire king — Dracula himself — and Drusilla, who hypnotized and killed the Slayer known as Kendra.
The Master was also somehow connected with a three-headed demon, commonly referred as the Hellmouth Spawn. During his escape from the Hellmouth, this demon fought Giles, Willow, Cordelia, Jenny, and Xander inside the library, while Buffy fought The Master on the rooftop of Sunnydale High School, above the library. During the fight with the three-headed demon, a library table was turned over and a leg broken, so that it resembled a long, pointed stake. Buffy threw The Master through a skylight in the roof, and he was impaled upon the broken table leg. All the flesh on his bones streamed off, leaving only his skeleton behind. The Anointed One later tried to use these bones in his ritual to return The Master to life, but Buffy interrupted the ritual and crushed the skeleton with a sledgehammer.
The Master is known to have been very old. He sired Darla, who was the sire of Angel.
To truly understand the scale of The Master's reputation and power we look to the fact that when Buffy challenges Angel to fight The Master himself. Angel, an otherwise very brave and heroic character, refuses to, his excuse being "'Cause I'm afraid." Later when we see Angel (as the evil Angelus) and The Master's first meeting, The Master effortlessly beat him to the ground, despite Angel being a great and powerful vampire in his own right. Even during this battle, Angel still showed virtually no fear, no respect and no acknowledgement to the Master's superiority. He then demonstrated this by persuading Darla, who was sired by the Master, to operate outside of the Master's chain of command while he was right in front of them both. Years later, the Master described Angel as being the most savage creature he had ever known who he believed was destined to become his right-hand man.
Despite his death, The Master would appear several more times on both Buffy and its spin-off, Angel, usually in flashbacks involving specific vampires. A notable circumstance occurred in the Buffy episode "The Wish" in which Cordelia Chase inadvertedly wishes in front of Anyanka that Buffy never came to Sunnydale, thus throwing her into an alternate reality in which The Master rules the town with vampiric versions of Willow and Xander at his side, Angel as a tortured pet of sorts, and most everyone else cowering in fear once the sun goes down. Just before this reality is negated, The Master kills Buffy, thus fulfilling the same prophecy he carried out in "Prophecy Girl".
In the first Buffy the Vampire Slayer video game, the Master returns as a phantom and temporarily possesses Angel with the help of a trio of demons known as the Dreamers.
The Master's bloodline
The Master (????-1997) | +------------+ | | | | Luke Darla (????-1997) (1609-1997) | | + Liam/Angelus (1753) | | +---------------+-----+---------+-------------+-------------+ | | | | | | | | | Sarah Holtz Penn | | | (1764-1764) (1786-1999) | | | (according to script) | | | Drusilla | | (1860) | | | | | | | | +------+--------------------+ | | | | William Pratt/Spike | | | | (1880) | | | | | | | | | +--------+------+ | | | | | | | | | | | | Anne Pratt | | | | | | (1880-1880) | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Sam Lawson | | | | | (1943-2004) | | | | | | | Sheila | | Theresa | Mercer | | Klusmeyer | (1997) | | (1998-1998) Darla | | (2000-2003) | | Holden Charlotte Webster (2003-2003) (2003-2003)
- It is never explicitally stated who sired Luke, though his status as the Master's lead acolyte indicate the likely possibility of The Master being his sire.
- Darla was the one that is seen drinking from Sarah, Holtz's daughter, in the flashbacks of Quickening. However, Darla also states that Angel was the only vampire she has ever sired, so it is likely that they both feasted on her then Angelus sired her.
- Penn's siring year comes from the shooting script of Somnambulist.
- Besides Holden Webster, Spike sired a number of vampires while under the First Evil's influence, the African-American vampire that Spike stakes in Sleeper is called Charlotte in the shooting script.
Trivia
- Joss Whedon's notes for the pilot indicate that the Master's name was Heinrich Joseph Nest and his age was 600 years. However, the flashback to 1609 in the episode Darla shows the Master already with his bat-like demonic visage, meaning he was far older than just 600 years by 1997, as this would have made the Master just 200 by 1609.
- The Master was originally suppossed to have beard and long hair, yet Mark Metcalf came up with the bald, more demonic look as an homage to Nosferatu.
See also
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