Ethan Rayne
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Template:Infobox Buffyverse Character
Ethan Rayne (born in London, England) is a fictional character created by Joss Whedon for the cult television program, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The character is portrayed by Robin Sachs.
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Biography
Character history
Little is known about Ethan's early years. By his accent he is English. The first we know about him for sure is from the early 70s, when he met Rupert Giles, then known as Ripper. Giles had dropped out of Oxford and travelled to London to seek out the worst crowd that would have him. He was in a phase later described as an "electric Kool-Aid funky Satan groove". He and Ethan met and became "mates". They practiced small magics for pleasure and gain. And then Ethan and Ripper discovered something bigger - the demon Eyghon, the Sleepwalker. Along with Philip Henry, Diedre Page, Thomas Sutcliff, and someone only known as Randall, Ripper and Ethan tattooed the Mark of Eyghon on their inner forearm (the left arm, in Ethan and Giles's cases). They would take turns falling asleep, and the rest of the group would summon the demon into the sleeper. It was an extraordinary high, a euphoric feeling of power. It was also incredibly risky. There were rites to exorcise the demon from the sleeper, but when Eyghon was in Randall the rites didn't work. The demon took control, and started to be born from within the host. Randall died. The details aren't known - it could be Eyghon killed him, it could be that the group killed Eyghon while Randall was possessed and so killed Randall.
Ripper was changed by the event, leaving London and returning to the Watcher's Council. It is commonly believed that this was also the event that broke Ethan and Rupert's friendship. But when Ethan asked, years later, when things had changed, when had they stopped being mates, Giles replied "When you started to worship chaos."
We don't know if that means that Ethan worshipped Chaos before they summoned Eyghon, and they had ceased to be friends when doing that spell together (though the spell required a huge amount of trust from the vulnerable sleeper, so it seems unlikely), or if they remained friends after Eyghon but Ethan's changing religious affiliation drove them apart.
Ethan decided to hire out his talents. He became a magical subcontractor. Dealing with demons, vampires, and humans alike in his varied jobs, he gained a reputation for getting the job done.
It is also possible that he summoned Chaos for its own sake, or worshipped Janus. We saw him doing magic without apparent financial reward.
20 years after the Eyghon incident, Ethan and Rupert met again, this time in Sunnydale while Giles was working with the Slayer.
He opened a small costume shop in Sunnydale's business district around October of 1997. Ethan cursed his costumes in the name of the Roman god Janus, telling the god (in Latin) to seize the night for the deity's own purpose. Anyone who wore a costume involving an item bought from Ethan's shop would temporarily assume the personality, knowledge, and powers of whatever their costume identity was, and lose their own. For example, once the spell was cast Xander Harris became a military officer, Buffy Summers became an 18th century damsel, and Willow Rosenberg became a ghost. Giles, with Willow's help, found Ethan in his shop. He said he should have guessed that Ethan was behind the spell - "It's sick, brutal, and it harms the innocent." He then did violence to Ethan until he told him how to break the spell (by breaking the statue of Janus). Ethan left the shop while Giles was distracted, but he stayed in Sunnydale. The lease was paid up through the end of November.
Later that month, Ethan went looking for Giles in the school library. He'd been having dreams of Eyghon, and the fate of the others that wore the Mark. So he knew that somehow the demon had returned again and was roaming free upon the world. (The 'Monster Book' suggests that it happened when one of the group died of other causes and Eyghon possessed the corpse.) The Mark of Eyghon on the original group members acted as a beacon for the demon to locate them. It then killed them, and possessed each corpse in turn to hunt the next with.
Ethan's plan seems to have been 'hide behind the Slayer', which worked. The Slayer wanted to protect Giles, and to do that she had to protect Ethan. That involved turning her back on him, which was when he knocked her out and tied her up. He waited for her to wake up and tattooed the Mark of Eyghon on the back of her neck. He removed his own Mark with acid. The substitution worked, and the demon lost interest in him, instead going after Buffy. But Giles arrived, and then her friends, who stopped Eyghon from killing both of them.
One of Buffy's enemies, the vampire Mr. Trick, in the employ of the Mayor of Sunnydale, later called on Ethan's services when he needed Sunnydale's adult population distracted during a tribute ceremony for the demon Lurconis. Ethan cursed candy bars that were distributed to adults through Sunnydale High School students. The curse on the chocolate made adults act as if they were teenagers. This left many areas of the city unprotected, including the hospital where the tribute of small babies needed to be taken from. Buffy and Giles uncovered the plot and stopped Mr. Trick and Ethan (who claimed ignorance of the nature of the tribute), but they both escaped.
A year later, Ethan returned to Sunnydale yet again. He was first found in a crypt that Giles believed should be where the demon prince Barvain would rise. Barvain never put in an appearance. The Scoobies believed that the Initiative had stopped Barvain. Ethan later talked about the Initiative, so it is possible he had followed some Initiative soldiers to see what they were doing. However, the soldiers were never seen in that crypt. Only Ethan.
After Giles left the crypt Ethan stepped out of the shadows to say something rather interesting was about to happen... Which was when Giles returned and decided to beat up Ethan, mostly for recreational purposes (to improve Giles' day). Ethan hurriedly informed him that "Something bad is happening. Bad for both of us." He talked Giles out of the beating, and instead they went for a drink together. (More fun than kicking Ethan's ass - for Ethan, anyway.)
Ethan warned Giles that the Initiative was throwing the worlds out of balance, which goes "way beyond chaos", into "one hell of a fight". Giles didn't seem to take the warning seriously. He in fact seemed envious of the Initiative. He and Ethan spent the night reminiscing and drinking, and after a whole lot of pints, Ethan told Giles "I slipped a small pellet of poison in your drink. You'll be dead in an hour." Shocked pause. "Just kidding!" And the pair of them start laughing together.
The next morning Giles wakes up in rather worse shape than he expected - that of a Fyarl demon. He is the victim of a transmogrification spell, Ethan's specialty, so of course Giles knows who to blame. Giles initially attempted to resolve the situation without telling Buffy about it, but she and Riley caught up with Ethan Rayne through their own investigation just as Giles broke in and tried to kill him. Ethan told her the demon had killed Ripper and was trying to kill him. She stabbed Giles, then realised who it was. Riley stopped Ethan from running away. Ethan then restored Giles to his human form.
After that situation was resolved Ethan attempted to leave, since the Slayer had no authority over humans and would not kill them. The Initiative soldier Riley Finn arrested Ethan and placed him in military custody pending determination of his status, saying Ethan would be sent to a rehabilitation facility in Nevada.
Riley surmised that Ethan would probably be rehabilitated in a few months, but Ethan was never seen again after his arrest. It's possible Ethan was beyond rehabilitation and remains incarcerated in Nevada to this day. It is also possible that the Initiative determined his status to be 'experimental subject', as they had with every captured being and every soldier working for them. If so, his fate might be rather darker.
Powers & Abilities
Ethan's years of experience in the world of the supernatural made him a skilled sorcerer and chaos magician, adept at performing curses. He also had great knowledge of demonology and black magic as well as possessing fluency in Latin and presumably other languages. The Mark of Eyghon granted him a psychic link of sorts to the demon and gave him visions when the demon was in close proximity.
Romantic Relationships
Attempted unsuccessfully to chat up barmaid in 'A New Man'.
Writer of that episode has suggested he had rather more success with Giles, at least back in the day.
Buffyverse Appearances
In order of Buffyverse chronology, Buffyverse canon appears in bold.