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.


Opinions on Angel

Lydia 7/2/00
I think Angelus's defining characteristic that makes him the "Scourge of Europe" is that he seems to be naturally a sadist, rather then most vampires who seem to acquire it. I base this theory mainly on the fact that even with a soul, Angel contiunes to enjoy beating the crap out of the bad guys and of course where he enjoys the dreams the kiling dreams that Penn sends him. I'm not sure if he was like this as a human, and that his continued love of pain is part of how he is not complety removed from his demon. But there is a destinct possiblity that he was sadistic as a human. It's almost like giving a psycho a gun. Without the demon possesion I don't think he would be that dangerous a person but with the fangs he felt free to incite mayhem.

jaymac 10/3/00
Angel's dominant characteristic or 'prime facet', it seems to me from Becoming 1, is the desire "to be somebody". As Liam, he tells Darla that he wants to see the world - it's the typical desire to get out of a repressing enviroment and make something of yourself in the outside world. Liam is a young, insecure, naive young man but already has a sense of ambition. In the demon Angelus, this becomes the desire to carve a mark upon the face of the world by bloody force. The logical conclusion to this is ending the world (hence Angelus' speech about destiny when he first attempts to re-awaken Acathla). Liam wanted to be somebody Angelus becomes a legend. And of course "I want to be somebody" is what Angel tells Whistler after he's seen Buffy in LA. In fact, this was the phrase Whistler used when he first came to the destitute Angel in Manhattan. Angel's desire to atone for his sins, to play a major role in the fight against evil, is at least partly motivated by this ambition and drive.

Vox 16/3/00
...as Liam he was portrayed as a big fish in a small pond, as Angelus he perhaps made his killings all the more horrific in order to gain his reputation as 'Scourge of Europe' and then as Angelus II he wants to be the one to destroy the world. And now he has the whole 'warrior of good' destiny ticket to make him significant in the world. I think perhaps this could be another, and quite separate from the one wrote about, symptom of his prime facet of his desire for power. Instead of him having to assert his dominance, if he is 'somebody' other people will go out of their way to display their subservience, if he has a reputation then they will automatically defer to him.

Tha Wrecka 27/5/00
I believe that you are basically right about the power thing with Angel but that, as we saw in this season of Angel, he preoccupation with power as a vampire could be something to do with how powerless his father made him feel. It's basically a self-esteem issue. He takes such pleasure in the murder of innocent people, particularly those that made him feel most human, as Angelus because it makes him feel powerful and as a human he felt powerless. It could also be that, as we learn how to relate in the real world from our parent's example, that he learnt from his father that we should hurt the ones we love and make them feel powerless in order to make ourselves feel more righteous or in control.

Opinions on Drusilla

jaymac 10/3/00
I think you're right that Dru is much more powerful than most people realise. This is largely because when we first met her, she was recovering from the Prague trauma. Once she was restored, however, we rarely saw her at full power, but note the instances when we did: she pulls herself out from under a collapsing church and FLIES off with Spike (have we seen any other vampires fly like that in the Buffy-verse?) she shrugs off Angel easily enough in BBB when she's in love with Xander and most significantly, she wastes a slayer soooo easily it's terrifying in B1. Dru, it seems clear, wore the trousers in the Spike relationship ("Kill her Spike, kill her!"). Look at it this way: if Spike's never really wanted to destroy the world, whose idea was the Judge? Note Dru's glee when saying "We're going to destroy the world... wanna come?"

Opinions on Spike

Lydia 29/1/00
I think Spike has a kind of subconsious desire to be human. He cites all sorts of pop culture (Weetabix, Manchester United etc.)He tends to try and repress this by acts of violence.

When the Initiative renders him incapable of harming humans, he clings on to his inherent "Evilness" so that he won't lose his principles completely while living with humans. Unfortunately seing that the only violence he can inflict is on other demons, who knows where this will leave him.

jaymac 10/3/00
...he never does anything but to prove he's "demon enough" for Dru. Spike is essentially a bit of a coward (four aginst one being the odds he likes to play, as he says in Innocence), and will switch sides in an instant. ... He's been totally directionless without Dru, and his apparent love of humanity is misleading: he would happily waste any of the 'Scooby Gang' if Dru came back (and, let's not forget, nobody's had the chance yet to take a shot at Dru for killing Kendra... least of all Buffy, who presumably wouldn't want to discuss the whole "shagging yer bloke while he was an evil demon" thang with Dru either).

Opinions on Willow

Tha Wrecka 27/5/00
I believe that perhaps vampires amplify the traits within the original human that they repressed most deeply. Willow, for example, has trouble talking about her sexuality or even talking to guys whereas evil willow is aggressively sexual.

Opinions on Xander

Craig M. 23/11/99
I don't think it's fair to say that Xander can be qualified as submissive. There are far more then two examples where he goes after what he wants. In Prophecy Girl he goes into the masters lair to save Buffy. He joins the swim team to investigate in Go Fish. He stands up to Angel at the hospital in Killed by Death... He stands up against the bullies in The Pack. In The Initiative we find out that he has requisitioned his own arsenal of weapons. He patrolled over the summer when Buffy was gone ... It was foolish when Giles went after [Angelus], but it is a sign of inactivity when Xander doesn't go after [him] ? ... In The Wish [vampXander] is considered one of the master's most vicious killers. I doubt that a vampire that prefers to just let things happen could gain that title.

Sententia 24/11/99
The times when Xander has taken action have mostly been when motivated by his attraction to either Buffy or Cordelia. Raging hormones provide Xander with the willpower and "get-up-and-go" he so often lacks. In Go Fish, Xander's joining the swim team is partly an attempt to show off to Cordelia that he was capable of making the team. In Prophecy Girl, he acts to save Buffy, motivated by his attraction towards her. In Killed by Death, it is Buffy he is standing guard over when he faces up to Angelus. He is able to take this pro-active approach against Angel, because of his love for Buffy and his extreme hatred of Angel/Angelus. This is the hatred of jealousy, caused by his feelings for Buffy and her rejection of him for Angel.

Xander has been pro-active on a few other occasions but these are exceptions that don't necessarily refute the basic proposition. I still think it's true to say that Submission is his key, defining characteristic.

Idiot Jed 20/1/00
Xander has a very anti-logical approach to life. He acts on his feelings and for the moment, not always considering the consequences of his actions. A personality trait which can, whether demon or not, have both positive and negative outcomes. In Prophecy Girl he goes to help Buffy refusing to think of the danger he is putting himself in and the odds he was up against (without him Buffy would have died). But lest we forget its also the same trait which leads him to oh, cast love spells after being dumped, and lose his virginity to someone he barely knows. This is a trait which I think any demon would find infinite pleasure in abusing. Seize the moment, not really something Xander needs to be reminded about.

Lydia 31/3/00
So maybe Xander is impulsive instead of submissive. (Think the Jello in Earshot) ... I think it's wrong to berate Xander for not trying to kill Angelus. It was after all Buffy's job and if he did it, he'd probably end up dead or undead.


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Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel: The Series are the property of the WB Network or perhaps Fox, maybe both. I'll leave them to work it out and contact me with the result. This web site, its operators and any content on this site relating to "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" are not authorized by Fox. No copyright infringement intended. This site is for entertainment purposes only and does not profit in any way.

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The Above the Law banner is an altered form of a screen-cap taken from the The Slayer Show, the original screen-cap is © the WB. > ght. He also likes to live to fight again. But where Drusilla is concerned, he'll walk through fire. Heroism can apparently exist in relation to a single being when pragmatic selfishness and thoughtless evil govern all other behavior. To me, it's still heroism. Though perhaps not the most useful kind if you aren't Drusilla.

Te 28/6/00
I definitely agree that he's more reactive than proactive, and those ugly hints about his family certain suggest some reason for it.

There's a certain kind of life where reactivism isn't simply the easy way out -- it's the way too survive. Pull out that old saw about the oak and the willow and how they are after the storm. And let's face it, even outside the family circle, when Xander missteps, Xander gets smacked down. One way or another.

I think my favorite example of that is BBB versus Something Blue. Both *hideously* irresponsible spells with consequences that could easily have been fatal, wholly different reactions to the caster. In BBB, Xander is, well, smacked down for his act. In SB, Willow is scolded, yes, but with *none* of the severity Xander was. What makes it even worse for me is that Willow was two years older and relatively experienced with magic.

I also found the reactions to the W/X fling similarly unequal. Hell, Xander took crap for both being with Cordy and *not* being with Cordy. He's gotta feel like the time has come for him to sit down and shut up. He may not be capable of the latter, but he's got practice at the former.

So he let's other people take the lead, and adapts. Reactive to a fault. Submissive, though... I'm not so sure about that. Xander chafes at the bit noticeably, never defers to anyone he doesn't have at least nominal respect for, and there's a long thread of anger running through the series that we finally get to see in 4th season.

Anger, depression, dissatisfaction... I don't know. If Xander were truly submissive, I think he'd be a bit happier.

As for being guided by his attractions... I think that's a narrow view of things. I can agree that Xander tends to only act for/in reaction to other people, but not just because of hormones. Xander is, as Joss drives home relentlessly, the logic-free heart of things. He, to paraphrase Faith No More, cares a lot. A lot a lot. And when someone hurts or threatens a person dear to him, he *has* to strike. No choice, no hesitation.

Still reactive, just not necessarily Horndog reactive. Unless we want to call his occasional fierce protectiveness of Giles slash.


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Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel: The Series are the property of the WB Network or perhaps Fox, maybe both. I'll leave them to work it out and contact me with the result. This web site, its operators and any content on this site relating to "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" are not authorized by Fox. No copyright infringement intended. This site is for entertainment purposes only and does not profit in any way.

The pictures are taken from The Official Buffy website and are © the WB.

The Above the Law banner is an altered form of a screen-cap taken from the The Slayer Show, the original screen-cap is © the WB.