Not unlike adolescence itself!
Okay, I watched Passions.
It was a phenomenal episode, and I think the caliber of acting has skyrocketed over the last, say, half-season, but for the love of god, please tell me it gets less… soul-crushing… than this.
These episodes have been really hard to watch. Being a teen sucks bad enough without… you know, vampires.
It gets worse.
Considering where Whedon went with Firefly, can’t say I’m surprised.
sigh
To be honest, I’ve got to say that nothing in Firefly/Serenity even comes close to as soul-crushing as the combined BtVS/AtS arcs. But somehow it’s still worth it.
For a second there I thought you’d decided to watch the soap opera * Passions* simply because it will be a favorite of a certain Buffy character later on. The episode is named Passion, singular.
“Passions is on! Timmy’s down the bloody well!”
And our nominees for “Biggest Understatement of the Year” are…
[spoiler]As others have pointed out, these are mostly examples of Harmony being incompetent, not of her being evil. And while, on Angel, she is able to choose not to do evil, that’s not nearly the same thing as choosing to do good. Harmony never does anything that could be reasonably called, “good.” The closest she can come is somewhere between “apathetic” and simply “pathetic.”
Of course, I think one could still make the argument that Harmony is pretty much the same after she’s turned as she was before, but I don’t think that tells us as much about the nature of vampires as it does about the nature of Harmony.
[/spoiler]
Passion is my favorite episode – closely followed by The Body. I just love the intensity, and how you realize that not everything is always going to be OK.
I always got the feeling that this was the joke that Whedon giggled quietly to himself about whenever he wrote for her character; that the evil of vampires is nothing compared to the evil of cliquish high school girls.
But her decision to “not do good” is very human in nature: it’s the result of self-centeredness and laziness.
Give her an easy job that keeps her occupied and provides the money to buy nice things, encourage social contacts, make sure she is nourished and leave no doubt at all, none whatsoever, that all will be taken away from her if she misbehaves – and the vampire will be as harmless as the human was.
If young vampires can be as close to their human hosts as Harmony appeared to be, the ones who are “born” in pretty mundane characters might react to the prospect of an easy life versus harsh conditions as favourable as most people do.
Well, isn’t that what the newly fanged ones do by joining the “vampire societies” and abiding by their rules and values instead of trying the very hard way of self-control and responsibility that some others chose? 
What does your last sentence mean, wintertime? What “vampire societies”?
[spoiler]100% speculative: now you’ve moved the goalposts so far back they’re not even on the original playing field. You’re no longer commenting on what actually happened on the show, but on what MIGHT happen under certain speculative conditions, none of which happened in 11 combined years of series, yet which form your only evidence. None of your original complaint remains in your argument. The fact remains that nowhere in the entire series–either one–did any vampire behave in the way you complained about originally. And even further, if you go back and watch the kind of vampire Angel becomes when he’s desouled–after a century of having a soul, and living among humans, and even falling in love, he becomes as horrifying a monster as he ever was–and the kind of vampire Spike was before the chip was implanted–your interpretation simply has no validity.
And by continuing to use only Harmony as an example, you’re continuing to overlook the fact that Whedon presented her not as a less than evil vampire, but as an incompetent boob, and as a jokey commentary on the banality of highschool-girl evil. She simply lacked the courage, the confidence, the smarts, to be more than passively evil. She was easy to foil; that doesn’t make her any less amoral, just lame.[/spoiler]
Okay, but so what? How the hell is Buffy supposed to be able to afford to bribe all the vampires in the world not to eat people? How is she supposed to police them all to make sure they’re not taking the paycheck and still snacking on the populace? We’re back at the same situation we have with the Initiative and their brain chips, where given essentially infinite time and resources, there’s a non-violent solution to the vampire problem. But no one on the show, including the folks in that spoiler box, have infinite time and resources. Meanwhile, there’s hordes of undead out there, eating people and occasionally trying to end the world. At some point, you’ve got to break out Mr. Pointy and go to town.
“Shit, meet fan. Fan, this is shit. Ah yes… you two will get along quite well, I see.”
That’s what *she *said.
Right, but if rational self-interest……can lead a vampire to do no evil, then breaking out Mr. Pointy and going to town shouldn’t be your first option. The original complaint is that she stakes on sight despite the fact that some vampires can choose to not do evil.
[spoiler]The point is that there is no “some.” Haven’t you been paying attention?
Harmony is pathetic and lame, and easily bullied. Spike was modified by a computer chip. There are no further examples.
[/spoiler]
Call it the exception that proves the rule, if you must.
Which has been proven pretty conclusively wrong.
In any case, isn’t the only other possible response to your paradigm the approach the Initiative took? Capture them all alive and “neuter” them? What’s the longterm plan? Are you advocating eternal–eternal, mind–containment? If they were human, I’d be more inclined to consider that; I’m anti capital punishment IRL. But in fantasy? With demonic monsters who suck blood? My heart is not as bleedy.
Of course, you’re right. But there we have reached one of the cracks of the Buffyverse anyway: if vampires or other nasties were limited to some hot spots in the world that were all guarded by a Slayer or other supernaturally enhanced heroes or if the humans had a world-wide initiative with troops everywhere to counter the otherworldies, it’d be plausible that they haven’t overrun them with their resilience, strenght and/or magical abilities. But we are never given any reason to believe that such a tight net of counter forces exists, otoh we hear from many sources that evil, supernatural beings can be encountered anywhere, so it’s not quite clear, how the world of the Buffyverse still belongs to the humans – or how the “hordes of undead” aren’t even noticed.
[We also have to accept that the really world-shattering events only happen, where a conveniently placed slayer/ensouled vampire can stop Armageddon – but since I can’t think of any explanation for that without going meta, I’ll just leave it alone. ;)]
My non-meta explanation for the “hordes” is simply that they make an afford to stay hidden – which means: control over impulses, selective feeding, very selective breeding etc.
If you have a better in-world explanation, lets hear it.
Lissener,
First of all, I used her as an example once, not continuously; maybe you confused me with someone else? I don’t think I ever said she was or turned competent and I agree with your characterization of her as amoral – but I don’t see any difference between her amorality prior and after her death. She also seemed to react quite the same way to benefits and penalties – which suggests that her impulses could be controlled by the same measures that work so well on people: education, integration, expectation.
Speculation, sure, but once we say anything about the world of a show beyond the events, words and actions as seen on the screen, it’s always nothing more (unless Joss confirms it, of course).
All right, then explain to me, within the rules of the verse, how the world is still ruled by humans if all vampires were like Angelus and Spike?
pepperlandgirl,
Don’t take the word “society” too seriously, I couldn’t think of the appropriate word to describe the milieu the vampires form among themselves. We have seen them hang around in groups, which means they need to have rules; if they stay together for any longer period of time, these rules become established. We have also seen hierarchy and status among them, and vampires with specific tasks. I don’t know if we have ever seen onscreen a vampire explain the 101 of vampire lore to a newly fanged one – but, though it might be speculation, it’s pretty reasonable to assume that some form of education has to happen in such groups too, at the very least between Sire and … whatever the new one is called.
All this together creates at least a rudimentary form of society (even if you want to call it nothing but a “horde”). And a society passes on their rules, their values, a code of conduct and even belief (see the Master).
The vampires have no reason to establish any code of conduct that is favourable to humans beyond their needs because we are either food or enemy.
Well, what I was talking about, is the possibility of change in their perception/attitude initiated by a more differentiated behaviour towards them. I was simply wondering about the inconsistencies within the verse and possible ways to solve some of them without a meta link.
From my pov, one easy way is the assumption of a healthy self-interest + a lack of evil fervor among intelligent vampires. And once I assume that, the continuing human survival isn’t too baffling any longer and co-existance not impossible.
And, once more, **Lissener **
Indeed. The world as seen on BtVS and AtS stumbles from one almost-Armageddon to the next and there seems to be no way to close the door on the supernatural. So, what is the plan? Hope that the few good guys always win? Shudder. I’d prefer to go with: adapt, gather allies, control the nastier guys by force if practical and vigilant tolerance if necessary and, above all, accept “reality” as it is.
Aside:
I am in Madrid for a couple of days to see the Champions League finale, so in case I don’t answer, it’s not out of rudeness.