post Buffy s3

By any system of law every single vampire is a multiple-murderer. But they are, for all intents and purposes, a different species. They require blood, preferably human blood, in order for their existence to continue.

The only reason to judge them by our own standards is that they were once like us.

Their crimes against us are far less than our own against different species.

Vampire society is primitive, it’s still at the level of hunter-gatherer. There’s no infrastructure, individuals live with only their strength and their reputation to keep them safe. There is no law amongst vampires except that which is imposed despotically by the strong upon the weak and new-born. Laws which fall away as soon as that power is broken.

Vampires are not our equals, they are our predators. Poetic justice for a species that’s considered itself the top of the food chain for millennia.

Humanity as predator does and has done far worse things. We have destroyed entire species, we hunt for sport, we imprison cattle and then slaughter them. We take their young as a special delicacy. We torture for our own sake. We don’t even have the excuse of lacking a soul to justify it. We do not need to do that which we do, man can survive without meat, we can survive without eggs on the table, without cosmetics, without medicinal drugs. Do we want to? Of course not.

What sets vampires apart from what we have done as a species is the pleasure they take from their actions. But is the pleasure they receive based on the suffering they cause to others or from the sustenance they are about to receive, in which case how can we judge them any more harshly than a man who enjoys a good steak? In Amends the First haunts Angel with the words that he took more pleasure from killing than any beast, he is an exception in the pleasure he takes from inflicting pain.

My point is not to excuse their actions. They are killers, and ones for whom there is little chance of reconciliation or rehabilitation. I only ask that the war between human and vampiric society be accepted for what it is, a war, a battle for survival on both sides where anything goes, a war we are winning. And if we need to believe that we hold the moral high ground in our fight then we should know that we are deluding ourselves.

The ethics of a vampire can only be judged by their standards. And this is something we, the viewers, do, quite automatically, we make allowances for people’s state, for their culture. Spike’s love for Drusilla raised him in our eyes from the ranks of the rest of the herd despite the fact that he has committed horrible acts. Wesley's condescending tone and authoritarian attitude condemns him, not logically or rationally but rather in our affection for him, far more in the eyes of some.

Is part of the reason that we have such real consideration over the moral ambiguity of the bad guys a result of the reduction in violence necessary for a family show? Would we be less willing to forgive and forget the bad guys deeds if we saw the full extent of the consequences? The vamps bite, they do not suck, the amount of blood that is produced from a carotid artery is pathetically small. Most victims are bitten and die quietly, there are no death spasms, no looks of terror, no pathetic pleadings for mercy. We have very little knowledge of their victims or of the suffering that their passing will cause to those who loved them. The few times we do, as with the death of Jenny Calender, the act causes such moral debate as to condemn a character on that basis alone, blithely ignoring the fact that this occurs every single day. While we are sustenance to them, we are not to each other.

And of course there’s a reason for it. That’s not what the show is about. In the same way we do not concern ourselves with the baddie-victims of a trigger-happy hero in an action flick. It is merely a medium to get the point across, the actual specifics of how vampires live day to day is really irrelevant. They could be any monster, it would probably make it less popular, but it wouldn’t change the fundamental principles that the show is trying to transmit. Nor is it really reasonable to claim that the soft-core approach to vampires will provoke similar acts in the real world.

So what can we conclude? I think it is this, when you think about the moral ambiguities of the vamps, throw the body-count out the window. That doesn’t mean don’t consider their violent side, after all violence is one of the primary ways a vampire expresses his personality. But their ‘cattle-feeding’ (for want of a better name) is merely what they are, not who they are, nor who we are supposed to consider them as. They must be judged by the ethical standards of their species and, of course, you can freely condemn individuals for their excesses. Angelus stands out as an example of a vampire that took ‘more kinds of pleasure in killing than any beast’ and he is rightly reviled for it.

But when you do judge them by their own standards, just remember that they judge you by their own standards as well and in their eyes you and everyone you know has no more right to life than walking beef in the slaughterhouse.


Opinions

night 14/3/00

I agree with you whole heartedly, it's an issue of the food chain basically, vampires kill humans to survie humans kill other animals. The only way a vampire could turely be evil in my POV is if they treated us the way we treat cows before we slaughter them. Needless to say I have little faith in the human race as a species that can maintain themselves on Earth as well as other species. I think that the agent from the Matrix had it right 'Humanity is the cancer of this planet...' ...

Vampires are portrayed as creatures without a soul that enjoy killing, when in fact it is my belife that they look at killing as somthing to do when there is no other alternative... Take Nancy Bakers novels for instance her vampires do not kill unless they need to, and in the absence of human blood they drink that of animals.

What Joss has done with vampires like Darla, Spike, Drusilla and Angelus is admirable... he makes us think of things that we may not have considered before hand and gives the vampire thing a whole different perspective.

In the case of Angelus and the joy he gets out of killing humans I would agree with Xander 'Faster pussy cat kill, kill.' becuase Angelus killed for sport the same way hunters today do. For the pure enjoyment of the hunt and to know that you have the creatures life in your own hands and you can extingish it's life at any second makes anyone feel powerful.

I also agree that the bond that Spike and Dru shared makes them appear a little more down to Earth, or morality at least and that was what we liked about them. Also I think that we appreacated Dru's child-like lost innocence.

Think about it, the food chain us and them, who do you think is more likely to win?

nogger 12/4/00

Of course the humans hold the high moral ground in the fight against the vampires. It is true that we kill each other in horrible ways, but we recognise that when we do this we are doing wrong. It would hold no horror for us otherwise. The vampires of the Buffiverse kill people (and occasionally each other) without any sort of remorse. Indeed, they delight in it. Many of Spike's and Angelus' best one-liners have been about their joy in killing (for example, Angelus upon presenting Dru with a bloody heart "I got it from a quaint little shopgirl"). You might argue that this is part of vampire morality, but, crucially, vampires seem to get a kick out of killing and abusing precisely BECAUSE it is so abhorent to our morality. And don't forget that this is the morality they themselves inherited from their pre-vampire lives. I don't think vampires are bewildered by us calling them evil. They recognise the term and they run with it.

You also might argue that people kill animals without pity or remorse, especially when the killing is part of the process of getting food. But our food animals aren't sentient. You can't hold a conversation with a chicken. And if you swap blood with a cow, it isn't going to turn into a person.

BtVS vampires aren't just different. They're evil.

watchthebirdie 21/9/00
TO: Night
Nancy Baker portrays her characters as sympathetic because it seems to be intrinsic in the human psyche to make "special allowances" for power that they covet. For instance, the varying stories of werewolves, vampires and other various creatures of the night. Sometimes they change fully into wolves, bats, etc. There's always some kind of authority who will will quickly announce/denounce the "truth" in the mind of the author. It tells a lot about the author's personality. What does Buffy tell you about Joss Whedon? His vamps. are very traditional, he does not deify them.

foxyroxy_uk 5/10/00
I think a vampire can have a personality - it perhaps retains some of the knowledge, characteristics, etc. it had as a person, the only difference is that it has no conscience or 'soul'. It feels no compulsion to be good, like a psychopath. But that is not the vampire personality's fault, it is the demon inside it, like being possessed.


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