Buffy the Vampire Slayer?

I feel qualified to answer most questions regarding vampires. Really. But I'm a little unclear about precisely what your questions is. Probably because I'm too tired.

I've never really liked a lot of the rules and mechanics of vampires in Buffy. The whole "instant evil" thing is a problem for me because it's so limiting from a storyteller perspective. The vampires end up being nothing more than disposable villains meant to die a flashy on-screen death. Sure there are exceptions to the rule through some strange circumstances (Spike and Angel) but I really don't see the vampires in that world as being too conducive to plot and character development. Then again, Buffy isn't a story about vampires; it's a story about a vampire slayer.

As for the demon thing, I like it better than most explanations. I don't like my vampires too science oriented. I don't think one should be able to put vampire blood under the microscope and find out what makes it tick, come up with vaccines to prevent the spread of a vampire disease or provide any sort of technical explanations for why vampires are the way they are. Vampires to me are mystical, occult creatures. There's no explaining how they work, it's just magic.

Ann Rice went the demon route and I think she did it pretty well. The first vampires, Akasha and Enkil, were infected by some demonic entity that forced it's way inside them after they were stabbed and wounded. Ever since the demonic taint has been passed down through the blood from generation to generation of vampires. The demon within them hungers to spread it's influence which is why they have a strong urge to create more vampires all the time. Works for me.

As for the original question, a lot of the mechanics of vampirism may make sense within their own universe but probably wouldn't within someone else's. For example, Joss Whedon's vampires aren't the way I would do them in my world but they're exactly right for his world. The setting and the rules of the universe are a whole entity. Separating them from each other probably wouldn't make a lot of sense.

Speaking of making sense, I hope I just did in relation to your question.

Yeah, I've always felt that trying to apply science to the supernatural will in most cases open up a whole can of worms that's best left closed.

There are a reasonable number of legends and fiction where vampires are either demons themselves (not corpses or people), demon-possessed living people, or demon-possessed corpses.

A lot of these aren't the types of vampires inspired by the movie versions of Dracula, though. (The version that is a pale person with fangs, sunlight vulnerability, stake vulnerability, no reflection, etc.) That version is usually explained by a curse, or in more reason trendy copies of I Am Legend, a virus or genetic trait.

The Buffyverse vampires are mostly cannon fodder, which is why they have the instant-evil trait. Whenever they want a vampire that's not a dumb minion, they always make them special, sometimes retroactively (like they did with Spike when he was cooler than expeccted.) Works well for a show where they use vampire fights as brief decoration and mood setting before the actual story.

In general, fighting monsters just stood for the struggles of growing up on BTVS. It was all supposed to be metaphor, so that's why the vamps are ugly and you rarely see a demon that isn't all GRRRR! EVIL!

On "Angel", because the title character was a vampire, they could show human/demon hybrids and demons that weren't offensive toward humans.

The soul stands for a conscience on the show. In reality, the vampire is the same person, they just don't care about right and wrong anymore. They've lost the human empathy, as well. It's why they gave the chip to Spike in season 4 - to force him to look at humans as something other than food because now he had to rely on a few of them (until he discovered he could fight demons and wasn't completely helpless). They didn't think they could make Spike part of the group (series regular) if he was full unrestrained evil.

The "lose your soul" bit in BTVS was what initially turned off from the series. It seemed exactly as Viktor Night said, limiting to the storyteller. But then I got hooked after watching an episode or three. Also, the Buffyverse vampires turned out to be more complex than we might have first assumed. As it turns out, vampires lose their souls but not their minds. It is as if the soul is a kind of mystical organ that stores conscience and creates an emotional connection to other humans. Without that, and given predatory instincts to boot, little wonder vampires are vastly dangerous. They have literally lost all inhibitions vis-a-vis hurting others! But the rest of the emotional landscape is still present. Angel still had his father issues. Drusilla remained stark raving mad. Darla retained her sarcastic contempt for the Church and God. Spike was still a Romantic (note the capital R) while Vamp-Willow certainly gave a peak as to what lay buried under Willow's normal social mask. Even Harmony turned out actually to be just a little bit nicer undead than alive!

Likewise, it was still possible for vampires to form emotional bonds of one kind or another. That was shown time and again. Yeah, most were dumb brutes but then the majority of vampires were created by picking off the weaklings (i.e. the stupid ones). All the interesting ones were what I came to call the "Alpha Vampires", leaders of the pack much as with wolves.

One reason I thought so much about this was a fanfic I wrote set in an AU wherein Tara became a vampire, yet still fell deeply in love with Willow. Later some friends and I got together to make a (very) successful "virtual spinoff" called WaTchers in which we again visited the idea of someone becoming a vampire and what remained of the original.

If by losing your soul whole part-demon aspects, then those are sometimes seen in traditional vampire lore. Not so much in modern culture, nowadays it's all about being some sort of biological mutation...

I think Whedon stole this from Dracula, actually.

The position of the vampire is roughly equivalent to the position of someone who has sold their soul to the devil. He no longer has a connection to God, and is decadent and cruel. The soul itself is trapped in some sort of limbo, unable to ascend to heaven, or go to hell. Killing the vampire releases the soul. Furthermore, you can't make someone who's truly pure of heart into a vampire, because it requires some degree of cooperation; drinking the vampires blood three times and all that. So the vampire is doomed to hell, unless he's redeemed somehow.

Then of course he throws in the thing about vampires regaining their souls. That doesn't quite fit, but I guess if the soul is in limbo, it should be able to go back into the owner's body and you'd have a vampire with a normal personality.

It may not fit with being part demon, but then again he said Buffy was part demon also, and Tara was supposed to have been. (She wasn't, but no one said that it couldn't be true just because Tara was too nice.) So being part demon is what makes them physically different, but it isn't what makes them evil.

In my opinion, the Buffyverse vampires have the same problem that most vampires have, which is that logically either the whole world should be vampires by now, or vampires should have been extinct a long time ago. Given all the vampires they killed, we should be in that brief period where all humans know about vampires and most of them are fighting to make them extinct.

Furthermore, you can't make someone who's truly pure of heart into a vampire, because it requires some degree of cooperation; drinking the vampires blood three times and all that.

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Except all it takes to "cooperate" is swallow a bit of liquid pushed into your mouth following an attack in which you've been nearly bled to death. Methinks this hardly qualifies as a test for purity of heart.

As a veteran of Buffy fandom, I can tell you one of the most vexing issues discussed is precisely what in the Buffyverse a soul is supposed to be. I personally maintain that you've got to toss aside your own opinion of souls. Look at evidence in the episodes. The vampire hasn't sold their soul to the devil, but had it ripped out of their body and replaced with a demon (one evidently without any mind, because vampires on Buffy and Angel only displayed warped personality traits of the original human). More, regaining the soul wasn't enough because the demon was still in residence. When Angel was given something that loosened his inhibitions he reverted back to Angelus-like behavior. He didn't know perfect happiness and certainly nobody re-cursed him by the time he woke up. Rather, his self-control slipped (in this case due to drugs) and so the demon got to act out.

Methinks the type of demon involved is also vital. Vampire demons are predators and humans a food source. On the other hand, Lorne's species seems pretty harmless.

Also, in the Buffyverse it was established (more or less) that most humans simply refuse to believe in something outside their paradigm. While I agree this is problematical at best, it does explain why the world hasn't noticed real vampires (and werewolves, demons, necromancers, etc.).

I thought the drug temporarily made Angel/Angelus so happy that the curse took effect. It's been a long time since I watched the episode, but I think they discussed this pretty clearly.

The drinking blood three times is a Dracula thing, not a Buffy thing. In the Buffyverse it seemed to be almost random whether or not someone became a vampire. Sometimes it seemed that everyone who was bit and died came back as a vampire. And I only remember one example of vampires biting someone and not killing them, and that was Riley paying vampire prostitutes to bite him. I don't recall if they ever specified whether all those random vampires rising every night in Sunnydale had drunk vampire blood or not.

I don't recall if they ever specified whether all those random vampires rising every night in Sunnydale had drunk vampire blood or not.

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They did. If someone was just bitten, they died, but if they drank vamp blood after their own blood was drained, they became a vampire. In an example like Harmony, we just didn't see it happen.

This information coming from at least two places: Liam (Angel) drank from Darla after she bit him, and when Angel drank from Buffy in season three Xander asked if she would be a vampire. Angel said no because she didn't drink from him.

katiemac said:

They did. If someone was just bitten, they died, but if they drank vamp blood after their own blood was drained, they became a vampire. In an example like Harmony, we just didn't see it happen.

This information coming from at least two places: Liam (Angel) drank from Darla after she bit him, and when Angel drank from Buffy in season three Xander asked if she would be a vampire. Angel said no because she didn't drink from him.

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Sounds reasonable, but when did Harmony get to drink vampire blood? She was bitten when they were in the process of toasting the mayor, then they eventually killed or chased away all the vampires. Whatever vampire drained all her blood and made her drink his blood must have been really distracted by all the high school students trying to kill him.

ChristineR said:

Sounds reasonable, but when did Harmony get to drink vampire blood? She was bitten when they were in the process of toasting the mayor, then they eventually killed or chased away all the vampires. Whatever vampire drained all her blood and made her drink his blood must have been really distracted by all the high school students trying to kill him.

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I don't think it's really that serious. They might not have been thinking about bringing her back at the time of her death. But the way the show had it working, to be vamped, you had to drink vamp blood.

Harmony's bitten by a female vamp during the melee. It doesn't take a lot of vamp blood in the 'verse to turn someone, and they can drain a human fast if they want to, so it's entirely possible.......and Sunnydale always buries dead people, not cremates them.

I thought the drug temporarily made Angel/Angelus so happy that the curse took effect. It's been a long time since I watched the episode, but I think they discussed this pretty clearly.

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The actress gave him Ecstasy to loosen him up because she wanted to be turned and kept beautiful forever. Instead, she got Angelus. It was a false happy, so temporary, but it lowered Angel's inhibitions a lot. They managed to knock him out and tie him up until it wore off.

The thing that didn't really fit into the Buffy-verse system were some of the rules about vampires - like needing permission to enter someone else's home.

That just doesn't make any sense. Does it matter if the person isn't the legal owner? What if technically the bank owns the property?

The idea of becoming a Vampire in Buffy was best covered in the 'Lie to me' episode - where a friend of Buffy's with a brain tumour takes the very practical option of choosing to become a vampire as a cure for his terminal disease.

Mac

K. Taylor said:

......and Sunnydale always buries dead people, not cremates them.

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That's an interesting point. You'd think with all the freaking vampires running around there would be an upsurge in business at the crematorium.

Mac H. said:

The thing that didn't really fit into the Buffy-verse system were some of the rules about vampires - like needing permission to enter someone else's home.

That just doesn't make any sense. Does it matter if the person isn't the legal owner? What if technically the bank owns the property?

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A vampire being unable to enter your home uninvited is a very traditional vampire weakness. It comes down to the "My home is my castle" idea, where the master of the domain has to actually give permission. It's a faith thing, like forcing a vampire back by waving a cross in his face. It isn't the cross itself that's the threat, it's your believe in the power of God that forces him to retreat.

I believe there's a lot of feudal roots and an aristocratic etiquette element in the invite flaw as well. Originally I don't know if it was so much of a supernatural flaw as just plain rude; it wasn't that the vampire couldn't enter the home without an invite but he simply wouldn't because it was impolite. Later on the idea got adapted from "won't" to "can't".

I like the flaw itself but I'm not at all impressed with how the Buffyverse handled it. Making it a physical barrier just struck me as stupid. There are scenes where vampires are beating at the invisible force-field; even leaning on it like he's relaxing against a wall, then falling inward when the invite is given and the "field" drops. I like writing it like more of a mystical curse, more the way it's done in TrueBlood. The vampire can't bring himself to cross the threshold, or even try to cross, without being specifically invited by the living resident.

But that force field certainly worked in terms of the style of the show.

DavidZahir said:

But that force field certainly worked in terms of the style of the show.

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It's horrible and it's wrong and it made the baby Jesus cry.

DavidZahir said:

But that force field certainly worked in terms of the style of the show.

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Right. Magic, not just paranormal, ended up being at the roots of quite a few elements of the show.

katiemac said:

They did. If someone was just bitten, they died, but if they drank vamp blood after their own blood was drained, they became a vampire. In an example like Harmony, we just didn't see it happen.

This information coming from at least two places: Liam (Angel) drank from Darla after she bit him, and when Angel drank from Buffy in season three Xander asked if she would be a vampire. Angel said no because she didn't drink from him.

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Buffy also explains it working that way in "Welcome to the Hellmouth". She says "it's a whole sucking thing".