Whistler's History
Origins
Whistler was conceived by a pure-blood demon and an agent of The Powers That Be, an unthinkable union. The Powers and demonkind united to punish the couple; the couple was killed, but the child of their union was left behind. Though the demons wanted to kill it too, the child was subsequently protected by the Powers. They sought to put this unique child, Whistler, to good use, by making him an agent of maintaining balance in the universe. They bestowed upon him the power of precognition.
Whistler's career saw him appear in Ancient Greece, usher Arthur towards the Excalibur in the stone in medieval England, and even burn down significant buildings in later human history. Whistler was also present at Hiroshima shortly after the Americans dropped a nuclear bomb on it, and witnessed the dead and dying in its immediate aftermath. After centuries of this sort of activity, he became convinced of another way to maintain the balance between good and evil: the prophecy of Universal Recreation, which centered around the Slayer Buffy Summers and a vampire with a soul, Angel. Whistler believed this to be a sort of cosmic irony, given its resemblance to his own origin.
Putting Angel on his path
Whistler, whose real name was unpronounceable for a human as it consisted on a series of whistles, referred to his mission as "maintaining the balance between good and evil." In 1996, he was present in New York City, where he approached the Angel. At the time, Angel was living on the streets, feeding on rats and refusing to come into contact with any human being, fearing he would fall to his impulses and feed on one of them, as he had done in the 70s.
Whistler convinced Angel to join him on a trip to Los Angeles, where the two witnessed Buffy Summers being informed of her calling as the new Slayer, and later witnessed her first slaying. Whistler warned Angel that this new, unprepared Slayer would face serious danger. Having fallen in love with her already, Angel asked Whistler to train him, to show him how to become someone who could be counted on.
Two years later, Whistler, aware of the upcoming awakening of the demon Acathla, traveled to Sunnydale to seek out Angel, whom he believed was destined to stop the demon. He met Buffy in Rupert Giles' apartment, telling her he had not foreseen Angel losing his soul and she needed to be ready to do more than just fight if she wanted to stop the end of the world. Whistler's words proved true when Buffy was forced to send the re-ensouled Angel through Acathla's vortex in order to put the demon back to his eternal sleep.[4]
The Twilight crisis
Years later, Whistler approached Angel with the bleak news that in most possible futures he had foreseen, Angel fighting alongside Buffy would result in them losing against the coming darkness. Instead, he advised Angel to take up the identity of the masked Twilight and attempt to limit the power of the anti-Slayer factions and manipulate them by directing their actions, while also guiding Buffy toward ultimate power.
A few months after Buffy and Angel deserted Twilight, and the destruction of the Seed of Wonder, the heart of magic, Whistler apparently was unable to contact The Powers That Be, and his clairvoyant powers were no longer working properly, and he blamed Angel for not going through with the plan. He approached Pearl and Nash, a pair of half-demons who had been part of the Twilight Group, after they had massacred all the patrons of a bar, and informed them that the world, which didn't know it was dead yet, needed to evolve. The duo accepted Whistler's proposition, for the sake of bringing in the next stage of evolution and getting payback on their old boss.
Attempting to find Angel, Whistler tracked him to Rupert Giles' former apartment in London — where Angel then lived with Faith Lehane as he attempted to complete Giles's unfinished business and find a way to bring the now-dead Giles back to life —, but only discovered Giles's aunts Sophronia and Lavinia Fairweather, as Angel was currently in another dimension with Faith, Willow Rosenberg, and Connor. He informed the aunts that he intended to complete the ascension that Buffy and Angel had interrupted as part of a plan to save the world by evolving it to the next stage. Before he left, Whistler gave them a card with an address on it and told them them to tell Angel to meet him there on the anniversary of their first meeting.
Whistler's meeting with him went as scheduled, briefly coming to violence when Angel showed his fury of him working with Pearl and Nash, but it was quickly ended. He talked with him about destiny and expressed his anger that he had deserted the Twilight plan. Angel, however, remained unrepentant and defended himself, explaining that their friends were in danger and Buffy needed his help. Whistler admitted flippantly to him that at least two billion people were meant to die in order for the Universal Recreation prophecy to be completed but it was necessary for the balance. He revealed to him his origins and how Angel was predestined to meet Buffy but falling in love with her was unexpected, greatly shocking Angel. Whistler also mentioned to him that before all of this had happened, he saw a possible future for Earth that was dark and grim, one that he wanted to be avoided. He asked him to help him "save the world" and restore balance.
Though Angel admitted that he would always be grateful to Whistler for introducing him to Buffy and giving him a chance for redemption, he made it clear that he would not help Whistler if it meant killing any more innocents or causing any more collateral damage, bluntly stating his belief that Whistler had gone insane from being cut off from the dimensions. Outraged, Whistler attacked Angel and nearly staked him before managing to stop himself, stating that Angel was still his "favorite kid" and he didn't want to kill him. With that, Whistler took his leave, warning Angel to stay out of his way.
The plague ball
When Alasdair's cloaking device for his magical items was shut down in an effort to help resurrect Giles, Whistler and his group quickly arrived on the scene. Pearl and Nash fiercely fought with Angel and Faith, intending to steal the items necessary. Eventually, when the three managed to steal the items, Whistler ordered the two of them to retreat since they had gotten what they wanted. Reluctantly, they obeyed and Whistler left again with them on his mission.
Miraculously, Giles was successfully resurrected, but as an adult in a twelve-year-old body. With Giles' urging, Angel and the others headed out to stop Whistler's plan with the mutual agreement that not all of them would survive the fight. In the ensuing confrontation on a rooftop in Hackney, London, Angel desperately attempted to reason with Whistler, not wanting to fight his friend and benefactor, but his pleas fell on deaf ears; still believing that he was saving the world, Whistler unleashed the plague ball, mutating several people.
During a close fight with Angel, Whistler assumed his true form, a tall horned demon resembling his mother only surrounded in blue flames. His demonstrated dramatically increased strength and the ability to project flamethrowers from his palms. Angel tried to reason with him that certain costs are not acceptable, but Whistler maintained that, in the long run, the death of the few was an acceptable cost to save the many, citing the Hiroshima bombings as an example. Though he was briefly swayed when Angel stated exactly why he backed out of Twilight, forcing Whistler to look upon the suffering of those afflicted by the plague ball, he nonetheless declared that he had gone too far to stop now. Managing to retrieve the plague ball, Whistler was about to go out and spread it throughout the world, but Angel intervened and challenged him to a duel, declaring that now it was time to find out if Whistler's philosophy of "it's always the big moments that define who we are" was true.
After Angel overpowered him and drained some of his power through the plague ball, Whistler reverted back to his human form. Angel tried to reason with him one more time, reminding him of the damage and horror his plan would cause. This time, Whistler was remorseful, acknowledging that he was right and what he was doing was wrong. He absorbed the plague ball in his body to prevent it from spreading globally, charring his body to a fatal level. In his dying moments, he expressed to Angel his gratitude for saving him from himself, and his final realization: "It doesn't matter that you get what you were after if you wreck everything that gives it meaning. The planet needs balance. But you figured out something that I never did. You gotta find the balance in yourself before you can balance the world. You figured it out for me. Now comes the hard part. Now you gotta live it." With these last words, Whistler finally died.
