OK, according to all the older vampire literature I’ve read, the reason a vampire doesn’t cast a reflection in a mirror is because it doesn’t have a soul.
Now…
There are currently two vampires in the Buffyverse that are, in fact, in possession of souls. Angel has been observed not casting a reflection. Spike hasn’t been caught near a mirror yet, but I’m assuming he wouldn’t cast one either.
Why the bloody hell not?
If a vampire’s reflectionlessness is a reflection of its soullessness, shouldn’t a vampire with a soul cast a reflection?
This bugs me almost as much as the whole “I have no breath” thing. I mean, ok, so they’re not actually using oxygen, but they need to move air in and out of their lungs to do things like talk, and in some cases, smoke. But that’s a whole nother issue.
Has Joss ever stated that the reason his vampires don’t cast reflections is because they have no souls? I don’t recall it from any episode and I don’t really seek out interviews or what-not.
I don’t recall that was ever brought up in Buffy as a reason for not casting a reflection.
And besides, most Vampire mythology doesn’t explain vampires as human bodies possessed by a demon beastie that is influencing the bodies host consciousness.
Pretty much what Otto says. Other vampire literature and myths just don’t apply to the Buffyverse automatically. Where there is overlap, it’s because Whedon deliberately did so, but it’s according to the rules he himself established.
The only vampire that doesn’t play by the rules as far as that goes is Dracula, and they write that off with “cheap gypsy tricks.” (Thralls, turns into animals, doesn’t die.)
Related question: does garlic do anything to vamps in the Buffiverse? I can’t remember if it’s ever been mentioned, either as something that’s effective or as a “popular misconception” that doesn’t really have any effect.
As a general rule, you simply can’t bring rules on how vampires act in one folklore and apply them to fiction that draws from another tradition of folklore altogether. Take a look at a [url=“http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a1_039.html” column Cecil wrote about this. From that column, a list of different ways to kill vampires:
SPECIES - COUNTRY - APPROVED METHOD OF DISPOSAL
Sampiro - Albania - Stake through heart
Nachtzehrer - Bavaria - Place coin in mouth, decapitate with ax
Ogoljen - Bohemia - Bury at crossroads
Krvoijac - Bulgaria - Chain to grave with wild roses
Kathakano - Crete - Boil head in vinegar
Brukalaco - Greece - Cut off and burn head
Vampir - Hungary - Stake through heart, nail through temples
Dearg-dul - Ireland - Pile stones on grave
Vryolakas - Macedonia - Pour boiling oil on, drive nail through navel
Upier - Poland - Bury face downwards
Gierach - Prussia - Put poppy seeds in grave
Strigoiul - Rumania - Remove heart, cut in two; garlic in mouth, nail in head
Vlkoslak - Serbia - Cut off toes, drive nail through neck
Neuntoter - Saxony - Lemon in mouth
Vampiro - Spain - No known remedy
Now, they’ve offed a lot of vampires on Buffy, but I don’t recall them ever using poppy seeds, or lemons, or cutting off toes to do it. Should the show be criticized for not following those bits of vampire lore? Of course not, because those are really stupid ways of killing vampires.
And when it comes to fiction, all bets are off. Bram Stoker’s Dracula didn’t like sunlight, but wasn’t actually harmed by it. Anne Rice’s vampires aren’t harmed by holy symbols, and aren’t even necessarily evil. The vampires in The Lost Boys were immune to garlic or holy symbols so long as they had been invited into the house. There was a movie some years back called Lifeforce, where vampires came from outer space and killed people by sucking magical glowing energy out of their mouths. Which, if any, of these fictions should Buffy follow? Which should it ignore? The answer to both questions is “none.” The vampires in the Buffyverse answer only to the laws of the Buffyverse, not of any other fictional world.
Lastly, on the topic of garlic: Apparently, it doesn’t bother vampires in Joss’ world. I seem to recall that there was an episode early on where Willow was wearing a garlic garland to ward off vampires, but I think that was because of her own Hollywood misconceptions about vampires. They’ve never shown vampires being adveresly affected by garlic in the show.
Actually, garlic has been seen in Buffy’s weapons chest, and, at the end of “Wrecked”, after talking about the need to remove anything magicky from the house so Willow won’t be tempted, Buffy is shown in her room with dozens of bulbs of garlic strung up by her windows, clutching a cross, her own way of eliminating Spike-related temptation. If the Slayer is using it, it’s probably effective as a repellant although, you’d think that peeling the cloves and rubbing them on the windowsills to make them all smelly would be more effective. Actually, in the folklore of many countries, not only garlic, but also some of the stronger varieties of onions and, especially in southern Asia, anything really spicy, like hot peppers is believed to be an effective repellant-a folkloric Spike would most decidedly not be enjoying spicy buffalo wings.
In Eastern Europe, the Orthodox Churches in former times when vampires were much more widely believed in did, in fact, define a vampire as a dead body that a demon had taken possession of and reanimated. I believe that the Catholic Church had a similar stance in Western Europe Folk belief has it that a vampire is the reanimated corpse of someone who had been very evil in life, someone who had a lot of unfinished business, or someone who died as a result of being preyed upon by a vampire over a period of time. Remember Love at First Bite? Apparently, there was a three drink minimum. Uncaught murderers and suicides were prime candidates for coming back as vampires- if the soul could not rest easy, neither could the body. A person who had been a werewolf in life was also considered to be extremely likely to come back as a vampire Also, there are many legends of men who died leaving nobody to care for their families coming back as vampires, and doing such dastardly deeds as plowing fields late at night, or bringing in harvested grain. And the vampires didn’t always crave blood. Frest milk and honey were favorite foods of the folkloric vampire. Near as I can figure, it was the vampire who was evil in life who came back with the need to feed on the blood of the living, and any of its victims who became vampires would presumably do so as well.
Interestingly, there is no mention of vampires in folklore not being able to cast a reflection in a mirror. The notion apparently stems from a folk practice in parts of what is now Germany of turning all mirrors in a house where someone had died toward the wall, lest the person’s soul become trapped in one as the body was being carried out of the house. Writers of literature took the idea and ran with it. The whole “siring” concept seems to be the invention of fiction writers as well- in some countries, eating bread with the blood of a vampire baked into it was believed to prevent a person who might be vulnerable from becoming a vampire after death.
Miller, I actually think a garland of garlic would be quite useless as a vampire repellant- it would give off minimal smell. In Dracula, the Bram Stoker novel, it is the oh-so smelly flowers of the garlic plant that are placed around Lucy Westenra’s room. You’d actually have to cruch and peel the cloves and let the smell out- something you’re probably not going to be trying in a combat situation. I think the idea is that garlic is an irritant - try eating a clove of raw garlic and you’ll see what I mean (great if you have a cold, btw, assuming your stomach can handle it).
Vampires have a degree of sensory hypersensitivity, but the downside is that really strong-smelling stuff like garlic is a serious irritant, and therefore would make a good repellant, if not an effective weapon.
Years ago, when I was trying to write the Great American Vampire Novel, one of the plot bunnies that attacked me was having a vampire’s would be dinner defend herself with pepper spray, with grisly face melting results. Actually, the whole thing turned out to be a giant litter of plot bunnies, and I abandoned the project when I couldn’t decide if I wanted Our Heroine to shag the vampire.
BTW, if you have a vampire that you’ve staked, nailed, tied up with roses, boiled in vinegar and hamstrung and the thing still won’t stay in its grave, pack it up in a crate and ship it to the Greek island of Santorini. The island has long been a hotbed of vampire activity, and there are some serious crack vampire disposal teams there, as necessity has been the mother of inventive ways of dealing with the problem.
I actually mentioned that in the “everything I know, I learned from Buffy” thread a few weeks ago. Of course, cooking garlic does mellow it quite a bit, so maybe it’s something Spike enjoys the way I enjoy a taco with Hellbenero Sauce (distilled essence of habenero peppers, this stuff will alter your state of consciousness, baby).
I assume at least some Buffy fans have read Kim Newman’s Anno Dracula books, a sort of fantasy alternate history in which Count Dracula marries Queen Victoria and vampires burst into the public eye in Victorian London.
At any rate, Newman handles the contrary mythologies by basically having different species of vampire – some show up in mirrors, some don’t; some can be photographed, some can’t; etc.
After reading AD, I have a strong desire to see Buffy fight one of the Asian vampires that operate under a completely different set of magic and vulnerabilities.
I decided that in Newman’s mythos, with silver being deadly poison to vampires, the distorted/absent reflections and photos was a by-product of the silver used in mirrors and film. The purity of silver would not allow for the image of the impure vampire to reflect properly. This is sort of related to something about Buffyverse vampires that annoys me, which is that they show up on film and video. It always seemed stupid to me that vampires wouldn’t cast reflections but would show up in photographs. No real reason for it to annoy me since Joss can make his own rules, but it bugs me that one is the case and not the other.
[hijack]
I had a total Comic Book Guy moment a few weeks ago during “Him” when Spike cast a reflection in the shop window as he and Xander went over the jacket disposal plan.
[/hijack]
That hasn’t been his first reflection this season (or, if you believe some people, his last so far). It’s been freaking people out on the BtVS and Spike boards. They can’t figure out if ME is doing it on purpose or not.
Also, there has apparently been a Blue-Shirt!Spike wondering around Sunnydale…I’ve been doing the freezeframe, but I haven’t seen him yet.
Y’know, I don’t even bother with the many times Spike’s reflection shows up in the show. I’m more concerend about how often they screw up with sunlight. Most egregious: Season 5 finale. Buffy is standing on the top of the giant platform, sees the sun rising over Sunnydale, and does her big swan-dive. A few scenes later, the cast is gathering around her lifeless body, all clearly in shock over her death. Spike is apparently so surprised he forgets to burst into flames now that the sun has come up.
Miller, that one bothered me too. I just decided that Spike got a one-time special dispensation from the Powers That Be to be allowed to grieve. Absolutely no textual support for it, and going down that road is the way madness lies but this one time it works for me.
Hey, that’s a good fanwank! That’s what we should all believe, Otto.
What about in S5, Intervention, when Glory throws him onto the bed—right into a patch of sunlight?
