post Buffy s3

Pippin proposed that there was more to ‘vamping’ than the soul simply being kicked out onto the street (or the ether). Instead that the original personality of the occupant of the body, (what, for want of a better phrase might be described as the residue of the soul) affected the traits of the demon that then possessed that body. The demon takes delight in amplifying the negative aspects and corrupting the positive.

Go to Masquerade's Pippin's corruption theory

 

I would suggest that you could go even further.

 

No personality trait can be described as totally beneficial or detrimental. Much like technology, they merely have potential from which the individual may act positively or negatively. Take ambition as an example, it pushes us to achieve our very best, without it human development would stall as society toppled into listless contentment. But ambition also drives us to be ruthless and dissatisfied. A person driven by ambition will never achieve peace because they will always desire that which they do not have.

 

When a person is vamped the nature of the evil of the demon possessing them is fixed by their original defining personality trait (their ‘prime facet’). In as much as it is possible for a character to be encapsulated within a single facet, it can been seen amongst the vamps of BtVS. The problem we face is the small amount of information on our vampires while they were mortal.

 

Angel à Power

Angel’s delight in torture isn’t taken in the infliction of terror or pain per se but in the power that it gives him over his victim. The reason why he is so slow, even unwilling, to kill in non-sustenance situations, is because death releases his victim from his control. His desire for control was evident during the unholy triumvirate where he delighted in displays of Drusilla’s affection, largely because it infuriated Spike, the opposing dominant male. It established his power over Spike by being able to evoke such strong emotion so easily from him. His mind-games with Buffy, similarly, were power plays abusing her emotional ties to him to establish a dominant position; an attitude which paid dividends in Becoming I where she fell ‘yet again’ for his personal challenge.

 

Even as a wastrel mortal in Becoming I we see his attraction to power as a concept, though his attempts to achieve it are clumsy and inexperienced. He hangs around in dingy taverns where he can lord it over others with ease, he uses alcohol to chemically induce the feeling of grandeur and when a young, beautiful noblewoman appears, a figment of the kind of real power that he has not yet attained, he is drawn to her as a moth to the flame. He follows her out into the street, with what intentions? The implication is that he intends to assert his dominance over her in some sexual act, except that he has underestimated her and it is he that is violated.

 

But what of the Angel, encumbered by soul, that has graced the majority of the series? The return of his soul did not reduce him to the ineptitude he displayed as a mortal, but it did redirect the expression of his prime facet towards Buffy. More often than not he remained aloof from her everyday battles, the mystery, his age and experience allowed him to dominate their relationship and largely dictate its progress. The veiled contempt in which he held her friends challenged her taste in keeping them.

 

But ‘soul’ Angel is undoubtedly a changed beast. Now his fight for power is internal, it is a battle for control over the schism in his mentality between his soul and the demon. Much as he may cite the protection of others as his concern in resisting his demonic desire, it is because giving into such urges would constitute a loss of control, a loss of power over himself, that gives him the strength to continue fighting, for he would prefer his existence to cease (as in Amends) than be so fundamentally powerless.

 

Drusilla à Love

Bizarre concept, isn’t it? But it is borne out by the evidence. The love Drusilla held as a mortal for God and all his creatures was as benevolent as it gets. When she was vamped by Angel, a different aspect of her love was exploited by the demon. It became a jealous love, a destructive love. If she was going to be denied all the benefits of life and the beauty of the world, then everything else would as well. This is why she enjoys inflicting pain on the objects of her previous affection, she loves them, but she hates them for having the one thing that is denied her. This also explains her apocalyptic desire, all creation will suffer as she has done.

 

Spike à Insecurity

We haven’t seen anything of Spike while mortal so unfortunately we can only speculate. His constant casual violent behaviour combined with his preoccupation for projecting a ‘cool’ up-to-date image despite being at least over a century old (there is some confusion as to his exact age) could indicate an underlying insecurity within his psyche. There are other possibilities, certainly all vampires have shown violent tendencies and you can’t shake the feeling that Spike the mortal was pretty much the same kind of guy as the vamp became. But consider this: Drusilla was Spike’s immediate sire, given her own predilections as to her victims, would she have imposed cursed immortality on the man Spike is today or upon an innocent William, vain, insecure and perhaps infatuated with her?

 

It has been in Spike’s relationship with Drusilla that his insecurity has been most evident. Though Drusilla is ostentatiously dependent upon Spike for her day-to-day existence, this is not a true representation of the balance of power. Drusilla is far more independent than she appears, she was perfectly happy to engage in intimate relations with Angel and when Spike tried to return to the relationship they once enjoyed she ditched him and ran off with a chaos demon. He was left distraught. Drusilla provided him with a focus for his insecurities; he could provide her with a comfort base in a way he could not do for himself. Spike’s creation of a scenario where Drusilla was artificially dependent upon him allowed him to find comfort in her need and vindicate himself through the medium of another.

 

Just as Angel realised the full horror of the demon within, Spike’s mental insecurities where given physical representation when he was crippled. For someone who has always placed such reliance on his body’s strength and abilities it was a heavy price to pay, especially as he was left at the tender mercies of Angel and his erstwhile love. I believe his period of incapacitation represented a turning point in Spike’s development, he was forced to face weakness and learnt that (in concealing his recovery) it could be transformed into strength. Being unable to respond in his usual violent manner taught him to temper his impulses and re-examine his goals. Death and world-destruction, once so very appealing in Surprise/Innocence, had lost his glamour by the time of Becoming. All he hopes for is a warm supper, Man U on the telly and the woman of his dreams in his bed (shame the chaos demon got there first). Seriously, his priorities have dramatically shifted since his return to form, and his conclusions leads us to question whether this really is a demon in human form talking.

The Doppelgangers

vampWillow and vampXander, didn’t appear to be very similar to the goofy twosome we know and love (for a start vampXander knew something about fashion). But the same process, the corruption of their prime facet, can be effectively applied. Admittedly it wasn’t our Willow and Xander that were vamped but I think their mortal lives in bizarro-world would be similar enough for the comparison to be viable. With vampWillow and vampXander our knowledge of them is reversed. We have a great deal of knowledge of their mortal lives but only few examples of demonic behaviour.

 

Willow à Curiosity

The girl’s interested in things: computers, witchcraft, the occult, sex. It’s not so much the subject as acquiring the knowledge that satisfies her. vampWillow is similar albeit with the sort of curiosity that is usually fatal to the victim of her inquiries. She becomes "Bored now…" as soon as her victims become lifeless and uninteresting. When she tortured Angel in The Wish it was not typical vampire behaviour nor was it done with Angel’s brand of dominating sadism. She was a child and Angel was the insect, and she was slowly pulling off its limbs one by one, just to see what would happen. Similarly while Willow’s curiosity about all things carnal is expressed by her flustered questions to her good friend Buffy, vampWillow’s emerges through an aggressive bisexuality in Dopplegangland.

 

Xander à Submission

It seems Xander gets bossed around by everyone, he complains about situations but he himself takes few proactive steps to seek a resolution. In his desire to eliminate Angel he did little more than berate Buffy about her responsibilities rather than seek any alternative methods of ensuring his destruction. During his fling with Willow it was her that had to lay down the law and perhaps she would have kept to it if outside factors hadn’t intervened. His attitude during sex is best encapsulated by the fanfic title ‘Deer in the headlights’. The few occasions on which he himself has taken steps to achieve his own goals (BBB, The Zeppo) are notable for their scarcity. He’s not a guy that makes things happen, rather he lets them happen to him.

 

How did this effect vampXander? While vampWillow ‘investigated’ Angel, he was content to stand on the sidelines. His mortal deference expressed itself through a sadistic voyeurism. He was far happier watching someone else than actually becoming involved.

 

 

Conclusions and implications

I think that Joss, despite the repeated declarations that the demon and the mortal are completely separate, has grown enamoured of the idea of a relationship between the mortal and the corresponding vampire. This is most evident in Dopplegangland where, in typical Joss throw-away style, Angel starts to refute the accepted line before realising the implication for the traumatised Willow and hastily back-tracking.

 

What implications does this have for the "when you look at him you’re not looking at your friend, you’re looking at the thing that killed him" approach? I think we’ve already departed from that. Case in point, neither Buffy nor Willow wanted to stake vampWillow. Why? Surely not some mere attachment to the physical host for the demon. They both sensed a similarity between the Willow and vampWillow that made the highly morally dubious act of returning her more attractive.

Go to Masquerade's Was it wrong not to stake vampWillow?

 

This piece of pop psychology probably reads far more into the characters than Joss ever intended, and possibly more than is justified. Nevertheless the evidence we’ve seen of the connection between mortal and demon makes established doctrine hard to swallow.

 

So why all the ‘demon and mortal are completely different’ lines? I suspect deliberate Watcher Council disinformation.

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