Caleb (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)

Caleb is a fictional character in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer universe created by Joss Whedon.

Related Topics:
Buffy - Vampire - Slayer - Joss Whedon

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Caleb (played by Nathan Fillion) is an arrogant, misogynistic defrocked priest who is allied with The First Evil and serves as one of the "big bads" of Season 7. (Fillion is one of three actors who had appeared on Joss Whedon's Firefly series who later played a villain on one of Whedon's other shows.) He tries to help The First Evil destroy the Slayer lineage by killing the Potentials 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.

Related Topics:
Nathan Fillion - The First Evil - Joss Whedon - Firefly - Slayer - Human - Vessel

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Caleb 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."

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In "Dirty Girls," Caleb murders two potential slayers 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.

Related Topics:
Dirty Girls - Xander - Thumb - Eye - Vineyard

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Despite a dramatic arrival in Sunnydale when he bested Buffy and her army of potential slayers on several occasions, he is eventually killed at Buffy's hands by being sliced in two with a scythe from the crotch up.

Related Topics:
Sunnydale - Scythe

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Caleb is a less complex character than the other villains in the series such as the mayor Richard Wilkins or even The Master. Especially striking in this context is his relative lack of humor and wit compared to other bad guys from the series. This makes him perhaps not so richly constructed as other villains in the series. But what he lacks in witticisms, however, he gains in darkness and danger and it is probably agreed by fans that he makes one of the most serious threats the Slayer has come across.

Related Topics:
Richard Wilkins - The Master

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A few Christian groups have claimed that Caleb comes across as an attack on their faith. However, it is made fairly clear early on that Caleb is no longer a priest, having been stripped of his duties sometime before this (presumably as a punishment). To some degree, he is a reworking of a similar (if not supernatural) character played by Robert Mitchum in the film The Night of the Hunter.

Related Topics:
Robert Mitchum - The Night of the Hunter

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