it desires an end to all change but this objective is not made clear until the final few episodes. For much of the season it looks as if Buffy is the one who wants to maintain the status quo. So in Chosen everything flips

That's a really interesting point (not that the others weren't :>) I guess I always thought of change as more a way of maintaining a balance and wasn't thinking of it in the transformative sense. I like how you've applied that theme here though.