A/N I like Glory, as far as villains go, she was very entertaining. She had a kind of child like or cheerfully insane menace. It's Dawn that doesn't make sense. Maybe the shock value of a previously unknown and unmentioned little sister kept me from seeing some giant issues, but on rewatch, the whole Glory arc just seems like another setup. It's never explained how Glory found the monk in the first place or why the monk went to Sunnydale at all. Dawn was supposedly created to hide the Key and was sent to Buffy for protection and then somehow the sole surviving monk manages to lead Glory right to Sunnydale and Buffy stumbles across Glory torturing the monk.
But how and why go to all the trouble of creating Dawn in the first place? But more to the point, how did they manage to do it while Glory was literally attacking the monastery? Okay, I might buy them succeeding in creating a human, maybe in the time they had, but rewriting reality to accommodate her existence? The logistics of her legal identity, which begs the question, how did monks living in seclusion in Czechoslovakia (according to the Buffy wiki, the monks were speaking Czech) know what it took to create a legal identity for a child they created and sent to America? How did they know what kind of education to drop into her head?
They'd have been better off, if they were going to create a human at all, with creating someone with a blank slate, amnesia and dropping them in the middle of no where. One person on a planet with more then six billion people, the odds of her finding that person before her time schedule ran out or her host died, astronomical.
And could she have accessed her dimension from anywhere or was that one spot in Sunnydale the only place she could do it? Which would make it really stupid to send the Key to Sunnydale at all.
But than we wouldn't have season five if they'd done the logical thing and season 5 existed for two reasons, in my opinion, Buffy's power speech and to give her and the show, an ending fit for a hero. Since season 5 was expected to be the last season, before another station picked up the show and gave Buffy another chance.
I could go on and you know Joss acknowledges the insanity of it, it's part the argument the doctor uses to convince Buffy she's in an insane asylum in the episode Normal Again. I think there were far simpler ways they could have managed it. And the amount of power needed to pull it off is arguably god level, it would have to be. Of course, nothing about the actual ritual is really known, I suppose they could have called on a god to help them.
In the end it comes down to Pure Freaking Magic. Move along, nothing to see, ignore the man behind the curtain. 😄
That being said, I'm one of those that actually likes Dawn, as a bratty younger sister, she was entertaining too. But the Dawn and Xander thing I heard was in the comics, ewww! (Yet another reason to pretend the comics don't exist.) 😝
But no Dawn in this story. 😃
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"While I was arranging for Mr. Chase's plane to take Brother Michael to England, I was also arranging for him to look after Gabrielle." Diana continued. "Hopefully we'll have this mess sorted out quicky and Gabrielle will be back home soon."
"Good." Faith was relieved, Gabrielle was safely out of the way and she could concentrate on this mess that had been dropped in her lap. "They'll probably spoil her and Lupe'll feed her fudge, but at least she's safe. Jesse may be right and Brother Michael might be the human they created as this key thing's flesh wrapper, in which case, this Abomination lady is hopefully out of luck and we're worrying for nothing."
"But it's better to err on the side of caution and Jesse's hypothesis makes sense," Diana agreed. "based on the information Brother Michael gave us. Do what Mason told you two and get over here, once he gets Brother Michael safely on the Chase's plane he'll join us and we can start digging into this problem. The Council is saving time by faxing me copies of the Book of Tarnis, we'll go over what it says as soon as we have it. Be careful and see you soon." Diana hung up the speakerphone from her end and the two teenagers headed out on foot to Diana and Faith's house, cutting across backyards and hopping fences and hopefully avoiding running into any more of the creepy little demons. Once there Diana sent them off to bed since the Council hadn't yet faxed anything from the Book of Tarnis.
"Their Library is huge." She told them with a grin. "And not well organized, prophecy books over here, history books over there, that kind of thing, I've seen it. Once they locate the Book, they'll start copying it and faxing it, hopefully by morning. Both of you try to get some sleep, I plan to try as well, the next few days could mean very little sleep and possibly a fight."
"Sleep would be great but the chances of it happening are pretty slim." Faith answered. "Aside from routine patrolling there hasn't been a lot for us to do since Mason and his team cleaned out the demons. Not to mention the Mayor being busted."
Twenty minutes later when Diana checked on Faith she was sound asleep and Jesse, in the guest room, was snoring softly.
She, herself, tossed and turned. Some strangers on the other side of the world had put her family in danger, hiding the Key from this Abomination seemed like a good idea, but hadn't they realized she'd be able to follow it right to where they supposedly were hiding it?
She could feel bad about them being dead and still be angry at them for endangering her family, couldn't she?