Several times i’ve seen Buffy make comments to Spike,or holding her nose briefly when meeting him.
Do vampires stink?
Or smell like they’re rotting?
I don’t see how Spike could pick up those women in that bar if he smelled like death.
Maybe Vamps don’t shower as much as they should?
I haven’t seen her make that many comments about it, but it didn’t seem like Angel smelled.
Hmmmmm… Perhaps having a soul is what makes us shower.
Does it then follow that the French have no souls?
:ducks:
WAG, maybe they get rotten breath if they’ve been feeding.
I remember “blood breath” from when I got my wisdom teeth out – blehck! [sub]times like this we need a “grossed out” emoticon.[/sub]
I always got the impression that Spike and ANgel were both pretty anal about their grooming habits. The only times they “stank” was when they were crazy/guilty from the souls, and I imagine, too distracted to find a shower. (Angel stunk in Becoming, Spike in STSP).
Though Ican’t imagine why they would, I mean, it’s not like they should be able to sweat. BUt you just gotta accept things like that.
IMHO most of Buffy’s comments about vampires smelling have been in the context of a joke/insult during battle. For example, she taunts the 80s rocker vampire in “Fool For Love” by asking him if he smelled that bad before he died, because personal grooming has come a long way since he became a vampire. Of course the fact that he stakes her almost immediately thereafter give one some idea of how effective a tactic it is.
In “As You Were”, after a vamp she’s fighting comments about her smelling like grease, she comes back with “You’re dead, you smell like it”- Whistler makes a similar comment to Angel in “Becoming.” My guess is that if vampires neglect their personal hygiene, the start to smell, well, dead.
I’ve talked to people who live in nursing homes who have told me that they could tell if a patient was about to kick the bucket because their smell changed. I visited my grandmother about a week before she died, and she had that nursing home smell on her- I’d smelled it around the place before, but never on her. I imagine that’s what an unwashed vampire would smell like.
um, I meant “work in nursing homes”…
[sub]preview is my friend[/sub]
I think in this season’s eps (especially while Spike was in the school basement) he hadn’t been attending to his personal hygiene. We know that they shower, etc.
StG
Well, in “Him”, Xander complains that Spike’s having a soul doesn’t mean he picks up his own wet towels off the bathroom floor, and Buffy says “At least he’s showering”
Now, what I want to know is this…
In the older vampire literature, it is established that the reason vampires don’t cast a reflection in a mirror is because they don’t have souls. So, how come Angel and, I assume, Spike, don’t cast reflections? Somebody make Joss fess up…