- 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, played by Harry Groener, is a fictional character created by Joss Whedon for the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. He was the villainous mayor of the series' fictional town of Sunnydale. Wizard Magazine rated him the 34th greatest villain of all time.[1] Although the Mayor of Sunnydale is mentioned in season 2, he makes his first on-screen appearance in Season 3, eventually serving as the "Big Bad" of the season. Wilkins is later seen in dream sequences and on a video recording in season 4, as well as a manifestation of The First Evil in Season 7. He has several humans, vampires and demons working for him, including the renegade slayer Faith and Mr. Trick.
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Biography
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 I and II, 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." 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. In the Haunted comic book series, 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. 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.
Writing and acting
- 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]
Romantic relations
- Edna Mae, his wife from 1903 until her death of old age.
Trivia
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- True to his avoidance of foul language, Mayor Wilkins' last words were "Well, gosh."
- 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.
- In a deleted scene of the series premiere of Firefly, it is learned that the Alliance troops who advanced on the Independents in Serenity Valley were led by General Richard Wilkins. The characters are not related, as Firefly is not part of Joss Whedon's Buffyverse.
Appearances
Canonical appearances
- Season 3 (1998 - 1999)- Homecoming; Band Candy; Lovers Walk; Gingerbread; Bad Girls; Consequences; Doppelgängland; Enemies; Choices; Graduation Day, Part One; Graduation Day, Part Two
- Season 4 (2000) - This Year's Girl
- Season 7 (2002 - 2003)- Lessons; Touched
Other stories featuring the Mayor which are considered canonical include "The Glittering World" from the 2002 comic mini-series Tales of the Slayers.
Non-canonical appearances
The Mayor has also appeared in expanded universe material such as Buffy comics and novels, most notably the 2002 comic Haunted.
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.
