The Fanlistings
A fanlisting is a site that gathers and lists the fans of a given subject. There are fanlistings for movies, characters, actors, foods, even fanlistings for other websites! This fun and addictive idea is the brainchild of the lovely Janine, and you can find out more about it here.

Ethan Rayne
We first met this mischievous and powerful sorceror in Season 2's Halloween. Running a costume shop, he called upon the forces of Chaos to turn the town's trick-or-treaters into the costumes he'd sold them. This stunt was, as he put it, "the very embodiment of 'be careful what you wish for'." Buffy wished she could be elegant and refined like the ladies from Angel's youth and found that powerless, corseted and meek wasn't all that fun. Willow just wanted to hide and found herself turned into a literal ghost. Xander's desire to be tougher turned out to be a pretty good wish because not only did "Private Harris" help protect Buffy and Cordelia, he gained a wealth of army know-how that would come in handy for years. But surprising as all these changes were, they were nothing compared to the drastic transformation that Ethan's arrival provoked in Rupert Giles.

Confronted with this face from his past, Giles showed us a side of himself we'd never seen before, and the difference was surprising, to say the least. Ethan called him Ripper, the name Giles used when he and Ethan were younger and still friends, and made cryptic comments about who Giles 'really' is and what he's capable of. Giles was more than willing to prove Ethan's point, delivering a savage beat-down to make Ethan tell him how to break the spell. Ethan slipped away, leaving Giles a note that promised we'd be seeing him again.

Ethan turned up again two episodes later in The Dark Age. As young men, he and Giles were members of a crowd of magick-users who tattooed themselves with the Mark of Eyghon and got high by taking turns being possessed by this demon, but when their friend Randall was taken over by it, they'd had to kill him. Eyghon returned in this episode to kill the remaining members of the group, and only Giles and Ethan still remained. Haunted by his guilt (and the fact that the demon had taken possession of Jenny), Giles was in no condition to face it alone. Ethan, of course, had no desire to face the demon at all and tattooed the Mark onto Buffy, burning his own away with acid to throw Eyghon off his scent. Sure enough, the demon tossed Ethan aside to attack Buffy instead. But Angel arrived to pull Eyghon into himself, where the two demons fought it out. Angel emerged victorious, and Ethan once again slinked away.

The next season, when Mayor Wilkins needed a diversion, Mr. Trick told him that he knew a beast who knew a guy. That guy turned out to be Ethan Rayne, who supplied Trick and the Mayor with a load of cursed band candy. The result was, predictably, absolute chaos. The adults of Sunnydale found themselves "sweet sixteen" again, which left the town (and more importantly, the hospital) vulnerable and unguarded. Unfortunately for Ethan, Buffy traced the chaos back to the chocolate bars and stormed the warehouse with a gleefully violent Ripper in tow. He cheered when Buffy finally hit Ethan to force him to talk, and once they had the information they needed, Buffy handcuffed Ethan and went to stop the Mayor. Nothing was said about what happened to Ethan after they left the warehouse, but it wasn't the last we saw of him.

In Season 4, Ethan turned up in A New Man. Faced with Buffy's new boyfriend and her growing involvement with The Initiative, Giles was feeling old, left out, and obsolete, which made it a perfect time for an old friend-slash-enemy to stop by. Over a few pints (make that a lot of pints), Ethan warned Giles that something new was harming demons, and it wasn't the Slayer. Which in and of itself wasn't necessarily a bad thing, but there was more to it - namely a shadowy project called 314 that was a serious threat to both sides.

Naturally, however, Ethan couldn't resist stirring up some chaos while in town. After their night of drinking, Giles lamented the hangover he'd have in the morning, but it was nothing compared to waking up a Fyarl demon. Fyarl Giles and the Scoobies each followed a separate trail back to Ethan (Giles taking a slight detour to scare the bejeezus out of Maggie Walsh) and found him in his motel room. Giles attacked Ethan, who told Buffy that the demon had killed Ripper. She attacked furiously, intending to kill him for what she believed he had done to Giles, but when she looked into the demon's eyes, she recognized who he was. Ethan being Ethan, he tried to slip away during the brawl, but Riley was more than happy to "forcibly detain" him until the fight was over.

After performing the ritual to return Giles to himself, Ethan sighed that he really needed to "learn to just do the damage and get out of town. It's the 'stay and gloat' that gets me every time." Sure enough, this time it got him good. Ethan taunted Buffy with her inability to slay him, what with his being human and all, but Riley's back-up arrived before he could make his exit. They arrested Ethan, promising to take him to a "secret detention facility in the Nevada desert." That was the last time we saw him.

Personally, I prefer to assume that a powerful sorceror like Ethan Rayne made his escape from Area 51 in short order. The Initiative readily admitted that they knew squat about magick, so I can't imagine that they were able to hold him for very long. Ethan's knack for self-preservation and penchant for chaos and mayhem would surely have had him out of there in no time.

[ back ]