Caleb (Buffyverse)
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 Nathan Fillion as Caleb |
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Caleb, played by Nathan Fillion, is a fictional character in the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer created by Joss Whedon.
Caleb is an arrogant, misogynistic, defrocked priest who is allied with the First Evil and serves as one of the "Big Bads" of Season Seven. Prior to becoming a servant of the First, he was a killer responsible for the deaths of at least two girls, whom he lured sometimes with his sermons and his priest's collar. Among his victims was a showgirl in Nashville and a girl named Betty.
Caleb tries to help the First destroy the Slayer lineage by killing Potential Slayers one by one. He is given extraordinary strength by the First when they "merge". According to the First, Caleb is the only human strong enough to be its vessel. He likes to reenact his killings by asking the First to take on the form of the girls he killed, so that he may "kill them again."
Caleb is the one who organized the attack of the Bringers on the Potential Slayers around the world and the man responsible for setting up the bomb that destroys the Watchers' Council Headquarters in London and caused the deaths of Quentin Travers and all Watchers and Council Operatives present.
In the episode "Dirty Girls", Caleb murders potential slayers Dianne (by snapping her neck) and Molly (by stabbing her in the stomach), beats down Buffy, Faith, and Spike effortlessly, and breaks Rona's arm before violently blinding Xander in one eye by forcing his thumb into Xander's left eye socket, during an aborted initial attack on Caleb's vineyard.
Despite a dramatic arrival in Sunnydale when he bested Buffy and her army of Potential Slayers on several occasions, Caleb is eventually killed in a final confrontation with Buffy (although she did require the assistance of the newly-arrived Angel to get the drop on him). With Angel watching, Buffy sliced Caleb in two with a scythe from the crotch up within the opening minutes of the series finale, "Chosen".
Later, the First Evil appears to Buffy, manifesting under the guise of the slain Caleb. The First lectures Buffy on the futility of her campaign against it, and it's this meeting that encourages Buffy to come up with her plan to activate the remaining Potentials to full Slayer status using the essence of the scythe taken from the vineyard two episodes previous.
Caleb provided Buffy and her allies with a villain who was both a physical threat (in contrast to the non-corporeal First Evil) and a recognizable individual (as opposed to the nameless Bringers and Turok-Han, who were formidable but also more or less interchangeable).
His view of theology is also quite a mystery, mainly his views of God and Satan. Caleb delivers quasi-biblical quotes, frequently even making allusions to his belief that the First is actually God. When the First, in the guise of Buffy, asks him if he thinks it (The First) is God, Caleb believes the First to be beyond such definition. He states plainly in his debut episode, "And I don't truck with Satan, that was just me havin' fun back there. Satan's a little man."
Caleb also comments further on his admiration of the First, when it (under the guise of Buffy) vocalizes its envy of humans' ability to feel lust and engage in primal sexual acts, whilst several of the Scoobies engage in such activity elsewhere. He dismisses them all as "sinners," commenting enthusiastically that the First is miles beyond that, for it is "sin" itself.
[edit] Trivia
- Nathan Fillion is one of three actors who had appeared on Joss Whedon's Firefly who later played a villain on one of Whedon's other shows; Gina Torres and Adam Baldwin went on to play Jasmine and Marcus Hamilton, respectively, in Angel. Summer Glau, also of "Firefly," played a guest appearance on "Angel" as well, playing a nameless prima ballerina in the episode "Waiting in the Wings."
[edit] Appearances
Caleb appeared as a guest in 5 episodes:
- Season 7 (2002, 2003) - "Dirty Girls"; "Empty Places"; "Touched"; "End of Days"; "Chosen"
