was a
Demon in the
Television Series ''
Buffy The Vampire Slayer ''. Despite his origins, he is a servant
The Powers That Be who describes his duty as maintaining the balance between good and evil. "Whistler", is actually an alias, as his real name can only be pronounced by dolphins, which would mean it consists of a series of whistles and screeches. He appeared in the last two episodes in season two, and was portrayed by
Max Perlich .
Whistler first appears in a flashback in the episode "
Becoming, Part One " where he approaches a dirty and destitiute
Angel on the streets of
New York City . At first, he appears to be a human who dresses like a "bottom-ranked mafioso", but he reveals himself to actually be a demon. He tells Angel about his duty to maintain a balance between good and evil, and that Angel is destined to be a force of good. He then take Angel across the country to
L.A. where he shows the vampire with a soul the young slayer
Buffy Summers . Falling in love with the fledgling vampire slayer while he watches her, Angel decides to help her in her duty as a slayer.
Whistler does not interfere again until he learns that Angel, now without a soul, plans to awaken the demon Acathla. He confronts Buffy in
Giles ' apartment and tells her that Angel was never supposed to lose his soul. In fact, it had been his destiny to stop Acathla, not bring him forth. Buffy is less than impressed with his sarcastic attitude, and accuses him of having nothing useful to tell her.
What he does tell her--not in so many words, mind you--is that she will have to kill Angel to stop Acathla.
In the end, she is forced to do just that.
Although Whistler only appears in two Episode of ''Buffy the Vampire Slayer'', he is surprisingly well-known by fans. His narration in the episode "Becoming, Part One" is especially well-known and quoted often:
"''Bottom line is even if you see 'em coming, you're not ready for the big moments. No one asks for their life to change, not really. But it does. So what, are we helpless? Puppets? No. The big moments are gonna come, can't help that. It's what you do afterwards that counts. That's when you find out who you are''.
"''You'll see what I mean.''"
Whistler was originally planned to serve as a sidekick for Angel on the ''Buffy'' Spinoff,
''Angel'' , but Joss Whedon cited schedule conflicts with Perlich's film career as the reason for replacing Whistler with
Doyle , a similar character. Some fans contend that the "real" reason was a copyright issue with Marvel Comics, whose own character named Whistler is a sidekick to their "daywalker" vampire,
Blade .
