Richard Wilkins (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
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- For the Australian television/entertainment personality, see Richard Wilkins (TV presenter).
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 Harry Groener as Richard Wilkins |
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Richard Wilkins III, also simply known as The Mayor, is a fictional character created by Joss Whedon for the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Played by Harry Groener, he was the villainous mayor of the series' fictional town of Sunnydale. Although the character is mentioned in season 2, Mayor Wilkins makes his first on-screen appearance in Season 3, eventually serving as the "Big Bad" of the season. He has several humans, vampires and demons working for him, including the renegade slayer Faith and Mr. Trick.
Wizard Magazine rated the Mayor as the 34th greatest villain of all time.[1]
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[edit] Biography
[edit] Past history
Richard Wilkins arrived in California in the 1800s, looking for gold. It is shown in Tales of the Slayers that he founded Sunnydale after the last Slayer died there. Wilkins found a place infested with demons, with whom he made a pact to avoid being killed.
He agreed to found a town atop the Hellmouth for "demons to feed on", on the promise of an Ascension and subsequent immortality once a full century has elapsed (cf. "Enemies"). Until Wilkins attains demon form, he would not age until after 100 years to the very day Sunnydale was founded, at which point he will supposedly lose his power. As it so happens, Richard Wilkins III was also Richard Wilkins Sr. and Jr., pretending to be the son in each subsequent generation to conceal his lack of aging. This created a problem when his wife Edna May, whom he married in 1903, began aging and probably contributed to his lack of romantic relationships later on (cf. "Choices"). Wilkins seemed to have sold his soul early in life (cf. "Lovers Walk") as one of his "campaign promises."
[edit] Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Throughout season 3, Mayor Wilkins works to ensure his transformation into an Old One, the pure-breed demon Olvikan. Unlike many villains featured on Buffy, he has quite a pleasant demeanor. A family man with an aversion to swearing, Mayor Wilkins almost always wears a smile on his face, and is obsessed with cleanliness. After sending his henchmen after her and Buffy in the episode "Consequences", Faith leaves the life of a Slayer and offers her services to Mayor Wilkins. Mayor Wilkins becomes a father figure to Faith; he even furnishes her room, complete with a PlayStation, because he does not like to see her stay at a place with an "unsavory reputation." When he discovers that Buffy has badly injured Faith, the Mayor tries to kill Buffy in the hospital. His affection for Faith even carries into his demonic form.
After Mayor Wilkins achieves Ascension into the gigantic demon known as Olvikan during Sunnydale High's graduation ceremony in 1999, Buffy exploits his love for Faith by taunting him with the knife he had given to Faith and with which Buffy put Faith in a coma. Buffy lures Mayor Wilkins into the empty library, now filled with bags of dynamite. Rupert Giles then presses the trigger that obliterates the Mayor and the school building. True to his avoidance of foul language, Mayor Wilkins' last words were "Well, gosh."
Mayor Wilkins is seen again in Season 4 on a videotape he had left for Faith in case she ever woke up from her coma. He is seen again in Season 7 as one of the many incarnations of The First Evil.
[edit] Non-canonical appearances
The Mayor has also appeared in expanded universe material such as Buffy comics and novels, most notably the 2002 comic Haunted. In the Haunted, Mayor Wilkins is shown to live on as a ghost for a while, possessing the bodies of dead animals and demons (as well as vampires). In the process, he is also responsible for the creation of Adam, when he possesses the corpse of a powerful demon (his earlier vampire body having been captured by the Initiative) and badly injures the then-human Adam. After a battle with Buffy in the clock tower, where Buffy finally learns of his inhuman nature after decapitating his current body to no effect, Willow, with the assistance of Xander and Buffy, sends him to the next realm. There is no evidence that they ever discover it was the Mayor who had been attacking him, although Faith later tells Angel in prison that she recalls the Mayor's ghost visiting her using the body of a dead bird while she was in her coma.
[edit] Characterization
[edit] Personality
Unlike other Buffy villains, Mayor Wilkins was rather pleasant. He loves the Family Circus cartoon strip, amused that P.J. is such a handful (cf. "Bad Girls"), but dislikes Marmaduke: Marmaduke's being on the couch seems unsanitary to him. Unlike his former deputy mayor, he does not read Cathy. The Mayor has an obsession with personal hygiene, and a penchant for golf.
Actor Groener has mentioned that "There's something the mayor knows about the potential of his power which makes him less afraid of people who threaten him. That's interesting to play because the closer we get to absolute power, the closer we get to the part that corrupts. Even the vampires are sort of scared of him."[2] Groener made some of his own conclusions about the character: "I think in his actual political life, he's a good mayor. He's probably a fairly conservative politician, a very conservative Democrat or a very liberal Republican. He likes to keep things clean. He likes things to be neat. He doesn't like a lot of clutter, so I imagine he likes to keep his town that way. It's only this other thing which makes him a little weird. Other than that he's a fairly standard mayor."[3]
[edit] Powers and abilities
Before transforming into a demon, Mayor Wilkins was a sorcerer adept at dark incantations, and had a cabinet full of shrunken heads, bones and supernatural paraphernalia. He became immortal and gained eternal youth thanks to demonic benefactors. For 100 days until the Ascension, he could not be harmed in any way, and was able to heal from massive injuries immediatly.
As the embodiment of the demon Olvikan, he possessed inhuman strength, endurance, and size, endowed with a thick, bone-armored hide, sharp teeth and mandibles, and a spiked tail-club.
[edit] Appearances
[edit] Canonical appearances
- Season 3 (1998 and 1999) – "Homecoming"; "Band Candy"; "Lovers Walk"; "Gingerbread"; "Bad Girls"; "Consequences"; "Doppelgangland"; "Enemies"; "Choices"; "Graduation Day, Part One"; "Graduation Day, Part Two"
- Season 4 (2000) – "This Year's Girl"
- Season 7 (2002 and 2003) – "Lessons"; "Touched" (both times as manifestations of the First Evil)
- "No Future For You, Part 4" - flashback
Other stories featuring the Mayor which are considered canonical include "The Glittering World" from the 2002 comic mini-series Tales of the Slayers.
[edit] Notes and references
- ^ Wizard #177
- ^ Stokes, Mike, "Absolute Power", from Buffy the Vampire Slayer magazine #10 (UK, July 2000), page 18-19.
- ^ Stokes, Mike, "Absolute Power", from Buffy the Vampire Slayer magazine #10 (UK, July 2000), page 19-20.
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