At the park, Buffy talks with Angel, who convinces her not to give up fighting. When he makes a passing remark about the children and their parents, Buffy is struck by the thought that the children's parents were never seen or mentioned, and the fact that no one knows the children's names. After using the Internet to contact Willow, the Scooby Gang learns that every fifty years throughout history, the murdered bodies of two nameless children have been found, resulting in peaceful communities being torn apart by vigilante chaos. The earliest record dating from Germany during 1649, where a cleric from the Black Forest discovered the corpses of "Hans and Greta Strauss", inspiring the fairy tale of Hansel and Gretel. Giles explains that certain demons thrive on watching humans destroy each other through persecution and ignorance. According to Giles, this is what set off the Salem Witch Trials.
