A story that made me think of Sunnydale

[thrasherpix]

I just saw this on a Zuni doll that comes to life and tries to kill the woman that bought it. It was apparently part of a Trilogy of Terror made in the 1970s (with all the hokey special effects of the time so that I was torn between sharing the woman's terror and laughing at the effects while admiring Karen Black's acting that went on in spite of them), and the ending made me think a bit of vampires. I'll explain why in the spoiler section (but note the spoiler section gives away the ending of this story).

It actually could be adapted for Sunnydale True Crime (with Ethan Rayne narrating?) for the 1970s with almost no effort. They even have the same useless police (I think calls like that serve more to inform the police where NOT to go!). Makes me wonder how many Sunnydale operators back then remained when I'm sure they were used to getting calls of people shrieking in terror.

It also makes me wonder how often the Mayor had his hands full. After all, he'd prefer an ORDERLY Hellmouth, but that's just work, work, work. Maybe he was actually glad to have Buffy take over for awhile...

Spoiler

At the end the demon in the doll goes into Karen (or character) who gently calls mother and sounds all sweet, inviting mother over. And then it shows her waiting...it's her body, her memories, but it becomes very apparent that it's not her soul. When her mother looks upon her, surely the last thing she sees, which will include really bad teeth, btw, she will be looking upon the thing that killed her daughter rather than her actual daughter).

I've noticed some people don't seem to get that the vampire is the demon rather than the person. When I think of vampires in the Buffyverse I see the bodies as more of hosts for the demons rather than people who suffering a curse (or even just with some dietary changes).

Granted, the Buffyverse does seem to contradict that with Spike who still cared for his mother, but maybe that's because Spike's devotion was so pure that it influenced the demon (I believe Darla says the mortal mind "informs us" so it's like they get their lessons on how to blend in from the memories within the brain, but most of the time they never confuse themselves with the corpse they now inhabit). In most cases the love dies with the human because it's no longer the human but the demon. To mistake a vampire for the person it had been before the person was killed by a vampire is like mistaking the pod people from body snatcher movies with the people they used to be. (As Angelus told Buffy, "Dream on schoolgirl. Your boyfriend is dead.")

 

[DeadlyDuo]

I've noticed some people don't seem to get that the vampire is the demon rather than the person. When I think of vampires in the Buffyverse I see the bodies as more of hosts for the demons rather than people who suffering a curse (or even just with some dietary changes).

Granted, the Buffyverse does seem to contradict that with Spike who still cared for his mother, but maybe that's because Spike's devotion was so pure that it influenced the demon (I believe Darla says the mortal mind "informs us" so it's like they get their lessons on how to blend in from the memories within the brain, but most of the time they never confuse themselves with the corpse they now inhabit). In most cases the love dies with the human because it's no longer the human but the demon. To mistake a vampire for the person it had been before the person was killed by a vampire is like mistaking the pod people from body snatcher movies with the people they used to be. (As Angelus told Buffy, "Dream on schoolgirl. Your boyfriend is dead.")

I think there is still an element of the person within the vampire hence the different personalities but I don't think it's a case of the demon just acting on the information it's been given. I think the human side and the demon side kind of blend but that blending results in a soulless killer.

 

[Guy]

Well, Angelus also said "I am Angel, at last". So, the demon DOES consider himself to be the same person as the person he was before.

And Spike isn't that unique, really - Harmony was also the same regardless of vamping, and Drusilla too, and Holden seemed very human as a vampire, etc... Angel is the real exception among vampires, with his drastic change between ensouled and unsouled. And even then, Angel and "Angelus" seem to share a lot of traits - both of them have the same daddy issues, and both of them seem surprisingly similiar in their treatment of Spike, and both of them love the same art (a ballet made Angelus cry?).

 

[thrasherpix]

It's just a big contradiction then. Some see themselves as very different, others don't. "I am Angel, at last." IOW, he wasn't himself, the vampire (the demon that had killed Liam through its Darla-host), when he had a soul, which sounds to me like the vampire and the person are two different identities. And as another vampire said:

"Okay... Let's deal with this. Jesse was an excruciating loser who couldn't get a date with anyone in the sighted community! Look at me. I'm a new man!"

I guess even the writers couldn't decide. Luckily they're not real. I'd like to think that if I were killed by a vampire that I wouldn't then be turned into a murder weapon against those I love, as I'd still be myself with an attitude adjustment rather than the demon that killed me now able to wear my face and access my memories which is a much greater horror to me than the blood sucking undead. That, and if facing vampires, wondering which if my friends might have been converted and not themselves anymore, which if played right could be similar as in the ep Bad Eggs (or even many zombie stories when people are hiding that they've been bitten and are thus due for a change soon).

 

[Guy]

It's just a big contradiction then. Some see themselves as very different, others don't. "I am Angel, at last." IOW, he wasn't himself, the vampire (the demon that had killed Liam through its Darla-host), when he had a soul, which sounds to me like the vampire and the person are two different identities. And as another vampire said:

"Okay... Let's deal with this. Jesse was an excruciating loser who couldn't get a date with anyone in the sighted community! Look at me. I'm a new man!"

I guess even the writers couldn't decide. Luckily they're not real. I'd like to think that if I were killed by a vampire that I wouldn't then be turned into a murder weapon against those I love, as I'd still be myself with an attitude adjustment rather than the demon that killed me now able to wear my face and access my memories which is a much greater horror to me than the blood sucking undead. That, and if facing vampires, wondering which if my friends might have been converted and not themselves anymore, which if played right could be similar as in the ep Bad Eggs (or even many zombie stories when people are hiding that they've been bitten and are thus due for a change soon).

Angelus also said "I was going through a phase" when talking about his ensouled days. And he said that to Spike & Dru, not to Buffy, so he didn't have any motivation to lie. When he said "your boyfriend is dead", I think he just meant that as "I'm not your boyfriend anymore". I don't think there's a contradiction, I think that all vampires consider themselves to be the same as the humans they were, and some of them just like to say something different sometimes because they're ashamed of their human selves, or for some other reason. Like Jesse - he said he's a new man because he was ashamed of his human persona. Harmony, however, never had that issue. Neither did Dru. Neither did vampire Willow ("look at me, I'm all fuzzy"). Neither did many others.

 

[DeadlyDuo]

Spike's line in "Fool for Love" suggests that there is an awareness of being a vampire on the human side of things rather than just being a costume so to speak.

"don't make it sound like something you'd flip past on the Discovery Channel. Becoming a vampire is a profound and powerful experience. I could feel this new strength coursing through me. Getting killed made me fill really alive for the very first time. I was through living by society's rules. Decided to make a few of my own."

How could Spike recognise that he had become a vampire, feel "new strength coursing through" and had been "killed" if the person he was before his siring was non-existent? Therefore an element of the person still remains within the vampire.