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Going off a question at buffy-boards.com, why didn't the Council pay Buffy in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. We see in the episode, Checkpoint, that the Council pays Giles. Buffy insists that he

will stay here as [her] official Watcher, reinstated at full salary...to be paid retroactively from the month he was fired. -BuffyWorld.com

In the series she did save the world countless times. Being the slayer is a calling, but if the Council can pay Giles, why can't they pay Buffy.

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  • The council saw slayers as, well, expendable. Presumably the watchers were to be responsible for them, and I believe most were actually raised as dependents (like Kendra). Also, since exceedingly few survived to an age where they would be an adult (and might reasonably expect their own wages), I expect no one challenged their practice of paying watchers, but treating slayers like weapons who would never need anything else.
    – Megha
    Jan 10, 2016 at 1:07
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    Technically, past the end of Season 1, Buffy isn't the Slayer. When she dies at the end of Season 1, even though she's brought right back, and even though her abilities do not seem to have changed, Kendra became the Slayer when Buffy died, then Faith. Obviously, Buffy's acting as the Slayer, but it's not clear that the Council has a protocol for having multiple active Slayers.
    – RDFozz
    Sep 4, 2018 at 16:51

2 Answers 2

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My reading was that the Watcher's Council were paying a very considerable amount of money toward Buffy's upkeep as a slayer, just not by providing her with regular cheques. In the first 5 seasons Giles always has extensive access to a massive magical library, state of the art computers, training equipment, weaponry, etc etc all of which has to have been funded from somewhere. On top of that, they fund a suite for Faith and pay all of her expenses since she doesn't have a mother to live with.

In season 6, Giles puts a huge emphasis on Buffy taking on adult responsibility. Once the money from Joyce's life insurance runs down, Buffy is forced to get a job and actually pay some bills. During this time, she's at odds with the Watcher's Council and it's not like she wants to pick up the phone and ask them for cash.

At the end of Season 6 and the start of Season 7, she receives a cheque from Giles, then suddenly there are no further mentions of money. The Watcher's Council was destroyed, which presumably means that Giles just inherited all of their accounts and assets and given the urgency of their situation, he presumably just gives her money from that point onwards.

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  • Thanks for the answer. Do you have any sources that say that the Watcher's Council paid for the books and other tools?
    – Thirsty Kitty
    Jan 10, 2016 at 2:32
  • @ThirstyKitty - No, but we do know that some of the books in the library are magical, very old and/or unique. That tells me that they're liable to be very pricey indeed, far beyond what you'd find in a normal school.
    – Valorum
    Jan 10, 2016 at 9:13
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    When does the Watcher's Council " ... fund a suite for Faith and pay all of her expenses ..."? In season 3 she lived in a crappy motel room until the mayor takes her in.
    – varradami
    Jan 10, 2016 at 20:01
  • @varradami - It's mentioned that she was living in a hotel with another watcher (Diana Dormer) before she was murdered. Faith then moved to Sunnydale where the council apparently paid for a hotel room (unless Faith simply stole the money for it, not an especially big leap of faith, I'll admit) as well as dispatching another Watcher to continue her training.
    – Valorum
    Jan 10, 2016 at 20:08
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I really don't believe the council pays the Slayer anything. It's a sacred duty, they probably think she should do it for free. Yes they do pay Giles. And no they did not pay for Faith's suite... The mayor did. Before she worked with the mayor, she lived in a tiny hotel that cost money every Tuesday. Remember in the episode faith hope and trick, she apologized to the manager for not paying yet, and promised to pay him soon.

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  • I like that you listed individual incidents, but most of your answer isn't addressing the core question of "Why?" (or, rather, "Why not?"). Incidentally, I also agree that they likely just don't see it as the sort of job one gets paid for, the same reason we don't pay priests and people often argue that we shouldn't pay politicians as much as we do. But it would be good to have actual evidence.
    – FuzzyBoots
    Sep 4, 2018 at 16:42
  • I I said it's probably because they consider it a sacred Duty and that's why they do not pay slayers
    – Flitoangel
    Sep 5, 2018 at 1:02
  • @FuzzyBoots isn't that a reason for why?
    – Flitoangel
    Sep 5, 2018 at 1:09
  • :) I guess, as much as anything, it's that that's one sentence of a paragraph that heads in other directions.
    – FuzzyBoots
    Sep 5, 2018 at 1:41
  • Yes, I guess I should have commented part of the answer, because they were discussing if the council paid for faiths room. I guess that part should have just been a comment not part of my answer but it was relevant in stating how the council does not give them expenses.
    – Flitoangel
    Sep 5, 2018 at 3:31

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