Becoming A Vampire

[midwesternwatcher]

The very first character we see turn from human to vampire is Jesse, I believe. Isn't he a killing machine right off? And in "Conversations With Dead People," Holden Webster seems to get the whole killing thing as soon as he wakes up.

[elenasaur]

Well, we don't know for sure about Jesse, seeing as there is a gap of a few hours where we don't know what goes on with him. He very well could have been reborn very similar to the Jesse we briefly knew, but then the other vampires brainwashed him before it got light out.

Holden is a good point though.

Still, I don't think this is like the invasion of the body snatchers. They may wake up ready to kill, but I still don't view it as there really being a different entity in their body. Maybe their soul just gets altered.

[midwesternwatcher]

I don't either. That's why the first theory, from Giles in The Harvest, doesn't work later in the series.

I'm going to suggest a radical theory.

Let's suppose that when a person becomes a vampire, NOTHING ABOUT THE PERSON CHANGES AT ALL, except that s/he is in a different situation. Even the part about "no soul" might mean nothing. A new vampire has a new appetite, and knows that s/he will never be accepted by other people, and doesn't need to "get along" with people the he/she did before.

I'm suggesting that there is no demon invasion at all. The person's body is transformed by magic, in more or less the same way a slayer's body is when she is called. The slayer is still the same person after being called. Why shouldn't the vampire be still the same person about being sired? But both of them are in a different situation, and so behave differently than before.

If you leave aside what people say about vampires, and just look at how vampires in BtVS behave and what vampires say about themselves, I'll bet you'll see very little to contradict that theory, and much to support it. In fact, I'm betting there will be nothing you can say against my radical theory that isn't based on prejudice against vampires.

Think about it.

[dravenuk]

My personal take on this is that in the Buffyverse when you are turned in to a vampire you become infected by an evil force which then banishes your human soul: the mystical force that makes a human essentially good discounting mental illness and freedom of choice to do bad things.

Once vamped you are still the same person with the same memories, but the infection makes you evil. The ‘demon’ is not a separate intelligent entity possessing someone ala The Exorcist but more of a mystical virus whose presence somehow evicts the soul (to who knows where) and makes the host act differently as a result. Just as people can in real life when under the influence of illness or drugs. The vampire is still the same individual they were before, but they’ve now been infected and driven to do evil by the demonic virus infecting them.

When a vampire is re-souled then the virus takes a backseat, though it is still present in the host, and the person retains all the memories of what they did and how they felt when the demon was in charge. I’d imagine how they react to those memories of evil deeds would depend on how good a person they were before being vamped. Anyway, soul back in place, the evil is suppressed and the person feels and acts as they did prior to their being vamped. Same person, just different forces at work within. At least that’s my take.

I’m sure I could find many instances to both support and challenge my own take on the mythology. But the simple the truth is that the writers never got a clear and definitive handle on how vampirism worked.

[midwesternwatcher]

Nov 3, 2010 13:10:40 GMT -5 dravenuk said:

But the simple the truth is that the writers never got a clear and definitive handle on how vampirism worked.

That is surely true. It seems to me they were making things up as they went along, at every turn looking for a good story, and embracing any take on vampirism that got them there.

I did say in an earlier post that vampires seem to become more and more human-like as the show proceeds. Is that the consensus? Or am i all wet?

[AngelFaith]

I'm loving a lot of the theories and thoughts people have on this, but they're all kind of proving my point - that the show (much as I love it) didn't seem to execute the "You die, demon takes your body" premise as well as it should. It really mucks around with it.

I like the theory someone mentioned, where the vampire infestation means that you become evil, but essentially it is still you underneath. None of this "Demon in your body" crap. Because that's pretty much how most other vampire movies/TV shows work, and it works well.

[Scarygothgirl]

I still like the idea that it depends on how strong the demon is to how much it changes you as a person. Angelus was taken over by a very strong demon, thus no hint of Liam. Whereas Spike was taken over by a pretty weak demon so he barely changed at all.

[midwesternwatcher]

Huh?

Remember Angelus was in a tearing hurry to kill his family once he was vamped. He was acting on resentments built up by Liam. It seem to me he had a lot of Liam in him.

And Spike was taken over by a weak demon? He hardly changed at all? Did Spike ever write any poetry as a vampire? As William, he was a milquetoast doormat. Suddenly this complete other personality comes out.

[Scarygothgirl]

Spike hardly changed at all once he was turned! First thing he wanted to do was turn his mother so she could live forever with him! When he changed into the Spike we know that was as a result of spending all his time with Angelus and having to kill his mother etc rather than because of the demon inside him. The demon inside him made hardly any difference to him.

[iigreenii]

There was hint of Liam when he first changed. Just like there was a hint of William, Drusilla and Darla when they turned. Both William and Liam were killing machines, they just had different relationships with their parents. That would explain why William wanted to turn his mother and Liam wanted to kill his father.

Liam became Angelus over time by being around Darla. She most likely trained him to be who he was. Just as William became who he was by being around Angelus. I'm willing to bet Liam even had a bit of humanity in him before becoming Angelus.

[midwesternwatcher]

I just figured something out. At least I think I did.

I started an earlier thread about what would happen if a Slayer became a vampire and why stories about that never seem to work. Now I think I know the answer. If a Slayer, particularly Buffy, ever became a vampire, that would hit us where we live, we'd really be up against this problem, we'd really have to know what happens when a person becomes vamped. And we just don't know! There's never been a clear understanding even among the writers.

I read a book called "Tempted Champions" not long ago. I didn't like it, but I couldn't put my finger on why. It's about a slayer-turned-vampire who tries to tempt Buffy to accept vampirism. Buffy sees through the deception, of course, and kills the Slayer-vamp. But ...

what exactly was the deception? What exactly was the difference between what Cassia (the Slayer-vamp) said and the truth? Really not clear, so I didn't get the nature of the choice Buffy made there.

To put it another way ... we know what a person gains by becoming a vampire, but what exactly does s/he lose?

Oh, I have to say something about Spike turning his mother. I hated that episode. Somebody wasn't thinking there. Spike says "my mother loved me, that was just the demon talking," but what about the demon in Spike himself, if that's our understanding? It seems that what happened to Spike, and what happened to his mother, were two completely different things.

[AngelFaith]

Nov 4, 2010 20:48:50 GMT -5 midwesternwatcher said:

Oh, I have to say something about Spike turning his mother. I hated that episode. Somebody wasn't thinking there. Spike says "my mother loved me, that was just the demon talking," but what about the demon in Spike himself, if that's our understanding? It seems that what happened to Spike, and what happened to his mother, were two completely different things.

My point exactly!

[iigreenii]

Spike has always acknowledged that he was a demon/evil. So I'm assuming he already knew about the demon inside of himself. Maybe he was in denial before?? I guess with the soul came clarity. It seems to be that way with Spike, Angel & Darla.

I'm just going to take the vampire/demon thing for what it is. Even though it makes no sense at times.

I really like dravenuk's theory on the whole thing.

[midwesternwatcher]

dravenuk also said that "the writers never got a clear and definitive handle on how vampirism worked." All these explanations have a forced and desperate quality about them.

I think you missed the point. If what Spike's mother says comes from a demon, then what Spike himself says must also come from a demon. That means that Spike, as a vampire, is not the son of this woman but someone or something else. Spike says, "my mother loved ME," emphasis added. It just doesn't add up.

Being infected by evil? I'm not a moral philosopher, but I detect a difficulty here. We need to think a bit about what evil is. Can it be an infection? Is it a power that comes from outside and exercises force? Is it a body of beliefs and judgments? The men of Wolfram & Hart say they believe in evil ("Conviction"), but what do you suppose their beliefs are?

The way I see it, a human becoming a vampire is like a soldier defecting to the enemy. Aren't humans and vampires at war? If you take an Olympian view, there is no good or evil, only differences of interest.

[iigreenii]

Nov 4, 2010 23:12:01 GMT -5 midwesternwatcher said:

I think you missed the point. If what Spike's mother says comes from a demon, then what Spike himself says must also come from a demon. That means that Spike, as a vampire, is not the son of this woman but someone or something else. Spike says, "my mother loved ME," emphasis added. It just doesn't add up.

Okay I'm sleep deprived and completely missed the point the first time...my bad .

[dravenuk]

Nov 4, 2010 23:12:01 GMT -5 midwesternwatcher said:

Being infected by evil? I'm not a moral philosopher, but I detect a difficulty here. We need to think a bit about what evil is. Can it be an infection? Is it a power that comes from outside and exercises force? Is it a body of beliefs and judgments? The men of Wolfram & Hart say they believe in evil ("Conviction"), but what do you suppose their beliefs are?

Whatever we might believe or not believe in the real world, in the Buffyverse evil IS a very real force. It IS a power that comes from outside and exercises force. Witness The First. Sure, this is a very simplistic view of existense and not one that I share, but it sure makes for fun stories.

But even in Buffy there are clearly two types of evil.

There is the real force for chaos and destruction Evil such as The First. And then there is the regular human evil: people who do bad things because they are selfish, arrogant, angry...whatever. People like Warren.

And let's not forget that in Buffy demons and monsters are mostly metaphors for real life. No matter how much fun it might be, to get too hung up on how and why Evil works kind of misses the point. But, I admit, it does irk just a bit that some of the mythology doesn't really make much sense if you sit down and think it through i.e. vampires.

[iigreenii]

Oct 31, 2010 23:39:05 GMT -5 tkts said:

I don't think it is William. I think it's still Spike.

It's never made entirely clear whether the soul Spike gets at the end of Season 6 is the soul that left William's body when Drusilla killed him or a brand-new soul, but regardless, I don't think there's any indication that getting a soul should cause him to forget his (un)life as Spike and become William.

I have to bring this back up because I just noticed something. I watched Spin The Bottle earlier and I noticed that when everyone lost their memory and thought they were 17 again, Angel went back to being Liam. So this leads me to believe that they get the soul of who they were before the demon took over their body. I don't think that they get a new soul.

[Miss. Rogueh]

... i remember a line from Doppelgangland


"Buffy: (reassuringly) Willow, just remember, a vampire's personality
has nothing to do with the person it was.

Angel: (without thinking) Well, actually... (gets a look from Buffy)
That's a good point."

This is right after they put Vamp Willow in the cage in the library...

[Scarygothgirl]

^the point of that being that the personality is actually to do with the perconality of them when they were human. Like Vamp-Willow could be seen as giving Willow a glimpse into her future, being gay and the whole evil thing.

[midwesternwatcher]

Remember I suggested an idea that Angel Faith also liked, that there might be no demon invasion at all, that a vampire is just the same human being as before, but in a transformed body and a new situation. The new vampire no longer has the needs for food, shelter and medical care that drive so much of human behavior. S/he may still need social support, but is now shut out of ordinary human society and must seek companions among other vampires, whose mores are different. I said before it was like defecting to an enemy in wartime. On second thought, I think it's more like joining a criminal gang. They still have a morality, but it's different. Only members of the gang (vampires in this gang) are recognized as moral agents. All others are legitimate prey.

In this new circumstance, of course people will behave differently. They will dare to do things they were afraid to do as humans. Suppressed tendencies will be expressed. Liam, for instance, always resented his father, but couldn't do anything about it until he became a vampire. Willow may have had feelings about other women that she couldn't identify until she got to college. In her wish-verse vampire form, that came to the front.

To my mind, this explains pretty much everything. The drawback? It makes the ethics of killing vampires a little muddier, especially since people usually become vampires involuntarily. And then there's the old slayer-goes-vampire conundrum. What's the ethics of that?

Miss Rogueh ... thanks for that quote from Doppelgangland. It seems to mean that the writers themselves were aware of the problem, that there were at least two different stories current in the Buffyverse about what it meant to be a vampire and they didn't quite square. They never attempted to bridge the gap. I can imagine several reasons for this.