After a few years away, I’ve returned to my slow journey through the Buffy/Angel epic with seasons 4 and 1, respectively. I’ve forgotten quite a bit while I was away, and I’m finding myself having a hard time figuring a few things out.
In particular, what are the “rules” for Whedonverse vampires, and for Angel in particular? He seems to get quite a bit of sunlight, but he only bursts into flame when it suits the plot. Does he just have plot-sensitive sunscreen, or is it something specific to him and the fact that he has a soul? Also, I had thought that Whedon vamps ‘infected’ their victims with a single bite, no further steps needed–hence all the vamps clawing out of the earth to be promptly dusted by Buff & Co. But I’ve seen a few freshly drained corpses go unstaked in the eps I’ve watched recently.
Thanks folks–avoid spoilers if you can. I know I can’t go into any other Buffy threads, but I’d rather they not start spawning in my own.
Angel (and other vampires) can supposedly withstand a certain amount of indirect sunlight. But yes, they will burst into flame or not as it serves the plot. Don’t think about it too much, a wizard did it.
Vampires are NOT made from a bite in the Whedonverse. They must be drained to the point of imminent death, and then made to drink the vampire’s blood.
Flames only occur with DIRECT sunlight. Angel can be in a sunny room, but not in a sunny patch.
A single bite is not enough to turn someone into a vampire. The victim has to suck the vampire’s blood as well. There’s an explanation in a very early (maybe the pilot?) episode of Buffy. It’s a whole big sucking thing.
Sunlight - I think that only direct sunshine is dangerous, although diffuse daylight can be difficult and disorienting for vamps to deal with. I think that they’ve done pretty good at sticking to that rule, although there are some slight exceptions where it definitely seems like a crack of light through a window is shining right on Angel.
He’s practiced more at being around the difuse daylight than most vampires, (Spike has too,) but it’s nothing about having a soul. Also other vampires seem to love sticking to the night more.
Making a new vampire - the sire vampire needs to drain their ‘candidate’ quite thoroughly, though not too much, and then feed the dying human some of their blood.
It was established very early on that the law offices of Wolfram & Hart all came equipped with magically enhanced glass that shields vampires from whatever component in sunlight causes them to burst into flames. Thus, vamps could stand in front of a large picture window in mid-day without burning up. Presumably, this mystical glass was very common in Whedonverse L.A.
Yeah, the main Buffyverse vamps (Angel and Spike) do suffer from “plot-sensitive sunscreen” as you call it. Where a red shirt vamp starts flamage at the merest pinprick of sunlight, Spike’s been known to run all over Sunnydale at high noon with a smoldering blanket up over his head.
But ask him to pick up a gallon of milk on his way home and he’s all, “Oh, no! Couldn’t go out in the sunlight, mercy me, I’m a VAMPIRE!” (Ok, not really.)
Some of this is fanwankable by an early Joss notion that vapirism is a progressive disease. Young vamps - like the red shirts that go poof with just a glimmer - are still pretty humanish, and fairly vulnerable. Older vamps are stronger, more monstrous looking, and generally more vampirey. That’s why The Master looked like he’d been sucking lemons in Buffy Season One; he was an old, old vampire, stuck in an extreme version of vamp face.
But Joss dropped the disease progress model fairly early in. I’m not sure exactly why, but I suspect it came up when he wanted Angelus to be the biggest baddest vamp on the block - but he’d already established that Liam was boozing it up in Ireland only a couple hundred years ago. By the old model, he couldn’t be young (for a vampire) and pretty and also a badass.
We could fanwank it around to the soul bit, since really it was mostly Angel and Spike who seem to have this ability, but as far as I remember, that’s not supported by anything Joss said or wrote. Plus, Spike was smoldering pre-soul, when he was the Scooby Gang’s chipped pet.
Joss didn’t abandon it completely. Kokistos, the vampire in Faith, Hope, and Trick had cloven hoofs, and his faces was also stuck in a in a pretty grotesque way. And in Why We Fight, Prince of Lies was very old, and not only was he grotesque (the script indicates he’s old by his pointed ears etc), he had a pretty awesome name (Prince of Lies). The “uber vamps” in season 7 where ancient, and looked it. Also, while Darla never began to grow animal characteristics, she was pretty much the strongest vampire in the 'Verse at one point, by the virtue of being oldest. The thing to remember about the vamps who progressed to animalistic virtues was that they were very, very, very old (the Master was supposed to be a bat…). Much older than Darla and Angelus. But Darla and Angelus being crazy strong didn’t necessarily violate the rules that Joss had established.
Also, while Angelus had a fair amount of physical strength, his real strength just came from being a mean SOB. You don’t have to have a progressive vampire disease to think it would be fun to “rape somebody to death.” You just have to be a sadistic sociopath.
I think it’s pretty well established in the show that vampires from the Order of Aurelius line are much more powerful than their regular counterparts. For example, Darla and Drusilla survived being completely engulfed in flames long enough to go outside, grab a hammer and smash a fire hydrant open. Compare this to a random vamp in Buffy season 6 that was dusted when his shirt was lit on fire.
The more ancient the blood is, the more powerful the vampire is. In “Not Fade Away” for example, Angel is immediately re-invigorated by Hamilton’s blood. Although the show never explicitly said so, I’m certain this is why Angel, Spike, Darla and Drusilla were able to survive so much over the years.
I’m not sure this breaks anything in the vampire disease theory. The Master was already hundreds of years old when he vamped Darla in the early 1600s.
Angel may be old in the “He’s 200 and Buffy’s 16” sense, but he (and even moreso Spike and Drusilla) are relatively young for vampires, thus they stay pretty.
Yes and he was pretty worn down by then. So the Master is worn out by 100, but Darla is still pretty at 400.
It think it is more about how much attention you pay to your skin rather than how old you are. Of course the older you are the more likely your skin is going to deteriorate.
The Master was older than 100 when he turned Darla. Of course, now I can’t remember why or how I know this (as well as his real name, H.J Nest), but he was probably closer to 400 than 100 when he turned Darla.
I think it’s also interesting that the Master was really into embracing his vampiric nature, and everything that means. Darla and Angelus were always far more…worldly for lack of a better word…than the Master. I mean, you would never, ever catch the two of them living in a sewer unless they absolutely had to.
Also, I’m not sure that Angel and Darla are young for vampires. They’re certainly young relative to how old vampires *can *get, but it always seemed to me that vampires have a pretty high “infant mortality rate”, if you will.
Obviouly a vamp’s life expectancy would probably be longer if not in the vicinity of a Slayer, but they ARE hunted by normal people. Angel, Darla, Dru, and Spike were always moving, and usually in a hurry. It was always (IMO) implied that Angel and Darla were seriously smart and good at what they did, and that most vampires don’t, in fact, live for hundreds of years.
The only thing that kept Spike alive all those years was being around Angel and Darla. As impetuous as he is, he should have gotten staked rather quickly. But he did seem to learn, slowly.
Exactly. And Dru was an even worse case, what with the batshit insane and all.
It’s hardly surprising really. You wake up one night and get told you’re immortal, you don’t wait to hear all the disclaimers before you go out and start doing reckless stuff.
To be fair there didn’t seem to be many people who knew vampires existed in the Buffyverse in the modern era. So it’s not like they had a lot of people gunning for them.
I think that vampires intentionally pick people who are a bit dim when they’re choosing who to turn. Think about it: a vampire creates more vampires because he wants lackys. But vampires are not exactly what you’d call innately loyal creatures. Every vampire is always looking for a way to advance themselves, usually at the expense of others. If you’re a vampire, the last thing you want is to turn someone who’s smarter and more ambitious than you into a vampire. You want people you can outsmart and control. Hence, vamps like Harmony. What makes vampires like the Master or Kakistos especially dangerous is that they’re so old, they can afford to turn a smart, dangerous human, because they’re still strong enough to control them. Hence, vamps like Darla.
Sometimes, you get anomalies like Angel and Spike. Both of them, as humans, were losers, but that was largely due to emotional damage, not intellectual limitations. Once they were freed of their human baggage, they turned out to be exceptionally dangerous vampires, generally to the surprise of the vamps who sired them.
Per the Buffy wiki, Joss’ notes for the pilot state the Master’s name was Heinrich Joseph Nest and he was 600 years old. That would have made him a little over 200 when he turned Darla in Virginia colony, though, and Angel was close to 300 when we first met him in Welcome to the Hellmouth.