I'm rewatching this episode and, other than the casual sadism that comes with patriarchal degeneracy, I still don't understand the point of why this test was structured the way that it was, or why very educated and learned adults thought this was the most efficient way to ensure that the slayer was a good fit for the job?
- Survivorship bias - defined by Wikipedia as a "form of sampling bias that can lead to overly optimistic beliefs because multiple failures are overlooked, . . . . It can also lead to the false belief that the successes in a group have some special property, rather than just a coincidence, as in correlation "proves" causality." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias
The idea that the value of a slayer's "fitness" for the job can be determined by their ability to survive a fight against a vampire without having access to their vampire-fighting powers, is both a fallacy and a cognitive bias. If people could rely on their intellectual cunning without having superpowers to successfully fight vampires in a statistically meaningful way, then there would be no need for a superpower-ed slayer in the first place, correct?
Secondly, if most slayers die young because of the increased hazards of the job - even when their powers are still intact - then does this fact really imply that those girls and women were not "fit" for the job of a slayer? Or does it just imply that the probability of death significantly increases when the probability of fighting against a vampire increases? Surely, the Oxford grads on the Watcher's Council were aware of these issues with their experimental methodology?
- What was the point of keeping the test secret from the slayers?
If the actual goal was to make sure that slayers are prepared to use their wits and cunning in situations where they may not have access to their superpowers, then why not make this a regular (and consensual) part of the slayer's training? Or create a 6-month training period for slayers who will be turning 18 at the end of the 6 months, to actually prepare for the damn test by utilizing the "anti-power" serum and allowing the slayers to train in controlled conditions without the use of their powers? Why would very learned people think that randomly traumatizing a slayer for one night would magically increase the slayer's job skills?
Even Army Rangers are openly trained to be released into the Everglades wilderness without weaponry or technology before they ever get released there to survive and to later become official Rangers. Was the Watcher's Council filled with feeble minded simpletons? Or did they simply get hard-ons from torturing and humbling girls who were much more powerful than them?