Clearly some of the vampires in the Buffyverse stand apart. Most seem stronger than humans, but generally just foot soldiers and defeatable. Then we get the major characters. What is it about them that leads to them being superior vampires?
Spike, for example, seemed a pretty weak human before being turned. Angelus was a drunken wastrel. I would assume generally a strong, smart human would lead to a strong, smart vamp. But that doesn’t seem to be the case. Does it matter who sired the new vamp?
I think longevity has something to do with it, but I could be mistaken.
This was the case with The Master, but he’s the only character I can recall where age is specifically mentioned.
I would love it if there had been specific rules on this. About the only thing they were consistent about were that new vampires were weaker than “normal” and that, yes, the Master was powerful due to his age.
However, otherwise, it’s whatever the plot needs.
And, yes, to both Spike and Angel before they were turned but very different after. About the only thing I could say to explain it is a) they loved being evil and embraced it and gained power, b) they were special and gained power quickly or c) the vampire demons that inhabited them were powerful.
But that’s all me. Nothing the series has shown.
vislor
I think it’s just practice. If you’ve got to kill people to live, you got to learn how to fight. If you’ve been fighting people daily for 200+ years, you’re going to get really good at it.
So, longevity I guess.
That was apparently the original idea, that as vampires aged, they got more powerful and uglier. The Master was the original supervamp in the Buffyverse, with superior power simply because he was so old. They scraped that idea after Season One, though.
Angelus was a badass, it’s suggested, because Liam was an asshole. Even before he was vamped, he was selfish and boorish and violent - being vamped just gave him superior strength and made him harder to kill. Remember, Angel’s the one who hints that vampires retain their human personalities, when Willow’s surprised that Vamp Willow is gay, and Darla confirms this when she tells him, “what we were informs what we become”, and that his darkness as Angelus is because of his darkness when he was human.
Spike was, at best, a fair-to-middling vampire who happened to have a kick ass vampire “family” to hang around with and egg him on. His freak luck in killing Slayers doesn’t really seem to be because he’s a better fighter or stronger vamp, but because he can get into their heads and he’s persistent. And, since William was a lovesick poet/stalker, I guess that makes sense, too. Without Darla and Drusilla, he never really made it back to Big Bad status, although he tried.
So the simplest answer, once we move past Season One, is that vampires retain at least some of their human traits, and just like some people are bigger and badder than others, so are some vampires.
The ubervamps in the final (television) season were something else again. They were Turok-Han, an earlier, more savage race of vampires, analagous to Neanderthals in human evolution. They’re stronger, physically, and can withstand staking and holy water, but they don’t appear to be all that bright, and they will still die if beheaded or subjected to sunlight.
I can’t remember where I got the idea that how powerful a vampire is depends on how closely sired they are to a powerful vampire. If the Master sired you, you’re going to be (potentially) more powerful than if, say, Vamp Mook #3 did.
You got that from Anne Rice or White Wolf. It doesn’t apply to the Buffyverse.
My theory is that vampires have essentially the same personalities as their original hosts, but with all of the human weakness stripped away. By this logic, Angel and Spike were both natural badasses from birth, whose inherent toughness had been obscured by their souls.
Having never read Anne Rice and having no idea what White Wolf is, I feel confident in saying that I did no such thing. The ideas may have come from there, but I connected them to Buffy either because of something said here on the SDMB or at tvtropes.org.
It’s a pretty common fanon rationalization as to why The Master, Angelus, Darla, Drusilla, and Spike were all so prominent. There was also the small handful of vamps Angelus sired that showed up in his series with special abilities (one was superfast to the point where he was a blur while moving, and then there was the one from the U-Boat episode) that would seem to imply it.
The Prince of Lies from the aforementioned U-Boat episode was implied to be pretty powerful, I think, and the morbidly obese monster that had telekinetic powers but was otherwise immobile and stewed in a basin of water was a vampire, I believe. They were both pretty old and grotesque like the Master was.
I can see the age thing - if you aren’t deteriorating physically, then extra skill and experience must help. Or is the claim that the vamp’s powers also increase, like a fine wine developing in a cellar?
It was never really established consistently throughout Buffy or Angel as to what made for a particularly powerful vampire. To the best of my knowledge there’s no official rationale separating bad ass vampires from regular vampires but it’s fun for us fans to come up with reasons. Ultimately, who cares? I just want to see a good story.
Don’t forget Kakistos as well. It was also implied that Darla was considered so fearsome because of how old she was.
Vampires are a fractious, backstabbing lot. One of the things a vampire has to consider when creating minions is that, as soon as they see an opportunity, they’ll try to turn on you. Consequently, they tend to pick humans who have poor willpower or aren’t very smart to turn into vampires. So you get a lot of vampire mooks.
There are exceptions. Really powerful vampires (such as the Master) don’t have much to fear from even smart, competent minions. So they choose humans who are already cunning and ruthless, confident that they’ll still be strong enough to survive any attempts to overthrow them - thus we get vampires like Darla and Mr. Trick.
Ocassionly, a vampire will misjudge a human target. Angelus, as a human, appeared to be a drunken lout when Darla turned him. Turned out, when he sobered up and was able to resolve his emotional conflicts with his father (by eating him), he was an extremely smart, capable vampire - just as he could have been a smart, capable human if he’d been able to get his shit together without being turned into the undead. Vampire Willow and Xander were likely similar examples of tuis principle. Without Buffy in their lives, they were two losers who always got picked on, but I. The alternate Sunnydale, they seemed to be relatively high ranked in the Master’s service, despite only having been vampires for a year or two at that point.
Lastly, some vampires just don’t give a shit, and will turn a great leader or powerful warrior into a vampire just for the lulz. Angelus did this a lot - Drusilla being a prime example. Most vampires would not take the risk of creating a crazy vampire with psychic powers, because the potential threat of such a creature to themselves was too great. Angelus just didn’t give a shit about that. He went and did it anyway because it was too perfectly evil to pass up.
I think Spike was a combination of the last two. He had a great deal of unrealized potential as a human, but Drusilla’s psychic abilities allowed her to recognize that, and she turned him specifically because she saw he could be a force for great evil.
Does anyone else think that’s kind of sweet, in a really perverse way?
Spike and Drusilla’s love really was sweet, all the way 'round. And totally perverse.
I agree with the rest, but I’m pretty sure Drusilla wasn’t crazy when Angelus met - psychic, but not crazy; he made her insane by torturing her and her family.
I would have written the same ideas, less clearly - good job.
Willow: It’s horrible! That’s me as a vampire? I’m so evil and… skanky. And I think I’m kinda gay.
Buffy: Willow, just remember, a vampire’s personality has nothing to do with the person it was.
Angel: Well, actually… (Buffy quickly glares at him) …That’s a good point.
I didn’t mean to imply that she was. Making her crazy before turning her was a big art project for Angelus. If Etsy had a section for “victims of unspeakable torment,” Angelus could have listed her there.