The Master is the main antagonist of Season 1 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. He was an ancient vampire lord, the oldest known to exist, and was the founder and leader of the Order of Aurelius. The Order worshipped the ancient beings known as the Old Ones and sought to restore them to power by opening the Hellmouth, a nexus of mystical energy located in the town of Sunnydale, California. However, the Master was sealed away in an underground prison, mystically bound to the location and unable to return to the surface without the blood of the Slayer.
History[]
Origins[]
The vampire known as the Master was once a human known as Heinrich Joseph Nest, who was born at some point in the 12th century. At some point, he was turned into a vampire by a descendant of the demon lord Archaeus, giving him a link to the power of this ancient demon that he passed on to other vampires in his bloodline.
The Old World[]
By 1609, the Master had already lived past the "curse" of human features, becoming much more demonic in appearance than other vampires, to the point where he resembled the much older and more powerful Turok-Han.
At this time, the Master (posing as a priest) came to the Virginia Colony where he visited the deathbed of a prostitute suffering from syphilis. He tested her faith and discovered that she had lost all hope of having her soul saved. Alone with her, the Master revealed himself and that he had been the one that 'sang' to her from her window the previous night. She first believed he was Death, but the Master claimed he was actually her saviour. Assuring her that while God had never done anything for her, he would, he sunk his fangs into her neck and made her into a vampire. Darla become one of the Master's disciples and grew into one of his favourites.
In a sewer in London, England in 1760, the Master was introduced to Angelus, Darla's progeny after they had returned from Yorkshire. Angelus, mocking the Master's appearance and the Order's harsh dogmas, including enforced underground dwelling, was pummeled into the ground after the Master lost his temper during their confrontation.
Darla, despite the Master having made her the vampire who she was, preferred Angelus' offer of pleasure and adventure to remaining with the Master, leaving to Naples with the "stallion" after he offended and was beaten by the Master. Despite Darla choosing to abandon the Master and the Order to pursue her love affair with Angelus, the Master allowed the two to leave and ordered his henchmen to let them pass, but estimated that the couple would last no more than a century before breaking up.
Around 1880, the Master welcomed Darla back to the Order after she and Angelus had a fight. However, she soon returned to the arms of her lover.
Imprisonment[]
The Master believed the Seed of Wonder called him from across the sea into Sunnydale. By 1936, he had moved to the New World with the hopes of opening the Hellmouth located in Sunnydale and bringing about the end of the world by releasing the Old Ones. While in Sunnydale, he caused a notable ruckus by murdering a large number of people. However, months later an earthquake hit town in the middle of the ritual to open the Hellmouth, swallowing half the town, including the church in which the Master was performing the ritual. As the ritual had already commenced, the Master was imprisoned within a mystical barrier.
In 1996, after spending 60 years sleeping in a pool of blood, the Master arose again and used the acolytes of his Order of Aurelius, including Darla, to help him escape his prison within the Hellmouth. This involved a ritual called the Harvest. The Harvest occurred on a single night occurring each century where the Master could draw power from one of his minions as his Vessel. Each time the Vessel fed, the power was transferred back to the Master.
Hoping to gather enough power for him to escape. the Master selected an acolyte named Luke as his Vessel and sent him to out to find blood. Luke and many of the Master's other followers attacked the patrons of the Bronze nightclub, draining and killing a few of them until the current Slayer, Buffy Summers, who had just moved to Sunnydale, intervened. Buffy disrupted the ritual by killing the Vessel (and many other Aurelius vampires), thus foiling the Master's plan.
Buffy further upset the Master by killing more of his most cherished minions, such as Zackery. Angered by her meddling, the Master sent the Three to assassinate her but when Buffy and her friends defeated them, he had them killed as penance. The destruction of the Three proved to bring little solace or satisfaction. Darla offered to kill the Slayer her own way and the depressed Master agreed.
Jealous of Buffy, Darla's scheme involved making it appear that Angelus, then an ally of the Slayer and going by the name "Angel," had turned evil, making Buffy duty-bound to kill him; and in turn force Angel to defend himself and kill her. This plan backfired when Angel unhesitatingly killed Darla in order to save Buffy, thereby deepening Master's depression. Visibly distraught and grieving, the Master nearly lost the will to carry out his plans. Only words of encouragement from his right-hand vampire child, the Anointed One, brought comfort, strengthening his resolve to continue making preparations for his release.
Billy Palmer, a human boy in a coma, astral projected from his hospital bed and inadvertently caused the nightmares of Sunnydale citizens' to manifest into a false reality. In a manifestation of Buffy's deepest fears, the Master was briefly released from his prison and set upon the surface. He confronted Buffy at a cemetery before pushing her into an empty coffin and burying her alive. Buffy freed herself, rising as a vampire temporarily. Awakening Billy from his coma ended the realization of nightmares coming true.
Escape[]
Even though the Pergamum Codex prophesied that the Master would inevitably rise from his prison and kill the Slayer, Buffy resolved to deal with him after portents of the upcoming apocalypse encouraged the Master's minions to start taking people's lives on school grounds. The first sign that the Pergamum Codex prophecy would not work out as expected happened when the Master sent the Anointed One to bait the Slayer into entering his lair. Contrary to the codex, Buffy recognized the Anointed One instantly and asked him to fulfill his task as guide. The Master welcomed the Slayer but avoided confronting her directly. Instead, he taunted her from the shadows in order to prolong the moment.
Disgusted with his theatrics and eager to get the confrontation over and done with, Buffy told the Master to reveal himself. Appearing behind her, the Master easily disarmed and rendered her helpless through hypnosis. Holding an incapacitated Buffy and just prior to killing her, the Master happily informed her that if it weren't for her attempt to kill him then he wouldn't have been able to leave. The Master bit her, but drank only a small amount of blood, before dropping her and leaving her to drown in a shallow pool, with a sarcastic compliment about her pretty gown. Despite only drinking a small amount, the Slayer's blood imbued the Master with so much power he broke through the mystical barrier that kept him prisoner for so long.
Death[]
Fortunately for Buffy, Angel and her friend Xander arrived in time to revive her. Buffy confronted the Master just as he ascended to the roof of Sunnydale High School, above the library where the Hellmouth was located directly below. Though shocked at seeing her alive, the Master made another attempt at her with his hypnosis but she somehow resisted and the two began fighting, hand-to-hand.
As a creature from the Hellmouth rose and attacked Buffy's friends, the Master remarked on if Buffy would still be making jibes while his hell was raining on Earth. Buffy grabbed the Master by the neck and said if he was so excited about Hell, he should go there. She then ultimately defeated him by throwing him through the skylight and impaling him on a large piece of wood that had formed from a broken table. Unlike most vampires, who turned completely to dust upon their death, the Master left behind a skeleton. His remains were then buried in a cemetery and consecrated with holy water in a special ritual to prevent any vampires from retrieving him.
Legacy[]
Following the Master's death, the Anointed One assumed leadership of the Order. Working with Absalom, the Anointed One concocted a plan to resurrect the Master via a revivification ritual. He forced his minions to dig up the Master's bones (despite the holy water burning their hands) and kidnapped Rupert Giles, Jennifer Calendar, Willow Rosenberg and Cordelia Chase, all of whom where in the vicinity of the Master when he died as the ritual required.
Buffy returned to Sunnydale from Los Angeles around the same time as the Anointed One initiated his scheme and was suffering as result of her death at the Master's hands. Along with Angel and Xander, she intervened and killed all of the remaining minions present, before crushing the Master's bones to dust with a sledgehammer, ending his threat permanently and allowing herself to move on with her life.