Child Vampires

Lyri

Lyri

Buckle Up Tight
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Sineya
this is something that i don't think has really been discussed much...and if it has, i apologize for missing the thread.

as far as i can remember, there's only been two child vampires on the shows...The Anointed One, and the little girl Angelus meets in the street in S4.

but my question, or what i was wondering, was, what happens to them? do they keep the mind of the child they were for as long as they survive? what if they live to be as old as Angel? will they grow an adult's mind in a child's body?

there have been child vampires in other literature, i know, but the only one i'm familiar with is Valentina from the Anita Blake series. she's what, five or six? she acts like a child, but she's always referenced as having the mind of an adult, she just doesn't like to think that way.

would a child vampire be damaged? because they are stuck forever in the body of a child, would their mind be incapable of growing up like it should? subconsciously, they could be thinking, if their body stays the same and doesn't age, why should their mind?

all views welcome! 🙂
 
Claudia from Anne Rice's books was vamped at age 6 or so I think. She becomes essentially an "adult" over the years, grows to deeply resent being stuck in a child's body.

Seems like Buffyverse vamps can grow and learn in their own vampy ways. But yeah, they're limited to a degree by their original human mind. Drusilla's still mad, and still psychic for instance.
 
I'm no neuro-biologist or anything so I can't really tell, but I think that it depends on how maturation works. Basically the vampire is stuck with the brain of a child. If maturation involves bio-chemical or physiological changes to the brain it will obviously not take place. If on the other hand, maturation is simply a matter of accumulating more life-experience, it should still kick after a few years. Trick is, it's probably a combination of the two. There are obviously a number of bio-chemical changes going on in the body of a child as it matures, some of which, like hormonal balance will affect a person's mind (think puberty). These changes will then probably not occur, but at the same time the vampire may still acquire life-experience and learn and "grow" from them, although it obviously won't happen the same way as it would with a normal human being.

To further complicate matters, there's the question of how much vampire physiology differs from human physiology. We know that when a person is sired and becomes a vampire, their physiology changes (they grow fangs etc) but this might also affect their brain. I can imagine that these changes possibly also automatically mature the brain of the new vampire, effectively making every vampire an adult (of mind), regardless of age (of their body).

In other words... I have no clue... good question 😉

PS: If vamps don't mature, imagine someone being stuck in puberty for eternity... yikes!
 
The Chosen
The Chosen
oh god you scared me with that last comment...
I heard (and I can't remember where, or even if it was more than speculation) that the problem they had with the annointed one was that same problem telvision series have with a lot of child actors. They tend to grow. As the story went, that's why they killed him off. His story was originally supposed to continue according to what was probably a rumor I heard once.
 
A
Allycat
Interesting, I wonder what plot they had in mind for him.
Holtz's daughter was made into a vampire by Angelus and Darla. She acted like a child, by wanting to be held by her father or whatever. But seeing as vampires are creatures of evil, she most likely would have turned on Holtz eventually. Or maybe she would have wanted to turn him so they can be together as father and daughter forever.
 
I always thought that Holtz's vamped out daughter was just trying to kill him and was using her child state to weaken him emotionally so that he'd just give in or something. She was sired by Angelus after all, he might have groomed her to do so.

As for the maturing thing, I think allycat is right in the way that people tend to mature through experiences and the things they see, so if child vampires live long enough to have such experiences then they'll probably mature. The only one I know from Literature is Claudia from Anne Rice and as goldenboy said, she did resent her child body in the end but she still also acted like very much a child.

So maybe their minds do mature for them to understand things as they get older, but their actions and reactions will remain childlike? I don't know.
 
Xin Rong
Xin Rong
[No message]
It was said several times in both "Buffy" and "Angel" that when a person is turned, that person dies and a demon takes over their reanimated body. That demon has access to all of the person's memories, but there is nothing said anywhere as to whether a child vampire would retain the ATTITUDE of a child. More likely, it would assume the attitude of the demon inhabiting its body, a demon that

Edit:

(sorry, my computer has a mind of its own. To continue🙂 a demon that is immortal and neither adult nor child, but something entirely different from either. It may take on the outward traits of a child, but the inner demon is still the same. The Anointed One never acted like a child, even though he was inhabiting the body of a child. He was a mature demon in the body of a child.
 
white avenger said:
It was said several times in both "Buffy" and "Angel" that when a person is turned, that person dies and a demon takes over their reanimated body. That demon has access to all of the person's memories, but there is nothing said anywhere as to whether a child vampire would retain the ATTITUDE of a child. More likely, it would assume the attitude of the demon inhabiting its body, a demon that is immortal and neither adult nor child, but something entirely different from either. It may take on the outward traits of a child, but the inner demon is still the same. The Anointed One never acted like a child, even though he was inhabiting the body of a child. He was a mature demon in the body of a child.
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I don't entirely agree... or don't agree entirely. If it's only a demon that is in control, a demon that just happens to look like the former human, whose body they now use, then why do vampires retain aspects of their former human's personality. Why is Drusilla both an insane woman and an insane vampire. Surely, the demon part of her is not insane? Also, if from the moment someone becomes a vampire and according to your theory, the demon takes over, that Soulful Spike and Angel are still those demons in essence, and they're not related to the humans, William and Liam, they once were.
 
But then again in willows doppledanger episode angel hints that vampires do retain aspects of te person they once were
 
Interesting topic, I was actually thinking about something similar yesterday when watching Buffy, kind of cause mogwaid brought it up..

This was my immediate thought as well:
goldenboy said:
Claudia from Anne Rice's books was vamped at age 6 or so I think. She becomes essentially an "adult" over the years, grows to deeply resent being stuck in a child's body.
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It's kind of scary though. How they are still children, little tiny persons, and still kinda evil etc. Hm.
 
The Chosen
The Chosen
bcuz children are evil. hehe
I think as far as child vampires are concerned I think that with time and experience they'll eventually grow to have the mental state of an adult demon, because I mean look at humans what is it that allows a human to develop mentally it's not really the fact that we grow in size and such it's our experiences and knowledge that will eventually shape the adults that we grow into. Like the people that believe in Santa Clause or something like that with time and experience and knowledge, etc they come to realize he's not real and understand the true gift giver of Christmas. As far as Drusilla still remaining mad when she became a vampire that's something that can really only be cured by like a psychologist and since she never really sought one out then she'll basically always remain mad
 
Allycat said:
I don't entirely agree... or don't agree entirely. If it's only a demon that is in control, a demon that just happens to look like the former human, whose body they now use, then why do vampires retain aspects of their former human's personality. Why is Drusilla both an insane woman and an insane vampire. Surely, the demon part of her is not insane? Also, if from the moment someone becomes a vampire and according to your theory, the demon takes over, that Soulful Spike and Angel are still those demons in essence, and they're not related to the humans, William and Liam, they once were.
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Vampires retain the memories and mannerisms of their human bodies so that they can circulate among humans while hunting victims. It's similar to an animal's protective coloration, and those demons don't "happen to look like the former humans" any more than you would happen to resemble a new house you just moved into. As to why negative traits of the host's body are retained, obviously they aren't always, or Spike would be the same shy tortured inept poet that William was. Why did Drusilla remain insane after she was turned? I have no idea. Maybe it was part and parcel to her psychic powers, and the demon wanted to retain those, so it had to remain insane as well.

Another possibility would be that the demons that transform human corpses into vampires have no personality of their own, and have to initially assume that of their host until they can develop one if their own.
 
i think what White Avenger means is that Dru's psychic ability maybe enambled the vampire demon to adapt as it might have...like with Spike. Spike changed completely from William, so much so that he was vertually unrecognizable. but Dru was still the same, more insane thanks to Angelus, but she still had her powers, so maybe the demon was unable to change her into what it wanted her to be, and the demon had to make do with Dru's own personality...did that make sense?

i've been thinking a lot about this, and i've come to the conclusion, that, in the Buffyverse at least, child vampires might eventually go insane. being stuck as a child for all eternity, more or less, would have some serious side effects on the vampire's personality, especially if the vampire's mind continued to develop into adulthood. they wouldn't be capable of many of the things that adults are capable of. and i'm not just talking strength and things, here. i think they would either go insane, or rule the place, lol
 
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