Drusilla vs. Prague mob

[AbraxasP3]

I didn't see any real recent discussion of this anywhere, so I wanted to take a stab at it.
I'm really curious about the circumstances of the whole angry mob that she endured in Prague. This was supposedly used to explain why she was extremely frail, weak & unpredictable.

What I didn't understand is...was this the justification for her odd behavior?
Obviously, Drusilla is consistently strange & quirky throughout both "Buffy" and "Angel".
If I remember correctly, we later get other depictions of what a "sick" vampire looks like...so why is Drusilla's behavior so muddled & over the top?
My only real guess is that due to her having gone somewhat mad after Angel turned her, she appears to react and live quite differently than any other female vampire.
We never really see some of the characteristics in her again.
And do the dolls have anything to do with it? For example, her obsession over a doll named Edith, and her relationship with animals (the dead bird she was fixated on in an early Season 2 episode). We never see either of these devices again.

Maybe I'm over thinking it. It just has never made a whole lot of sense to me. Lol

 

[Taake]

The bird and the doll makes sense to me simply because she's mad and fixated on them at the time (then she basically seemed to be couped up inside constantly and it figures she would be prone to strange obsessions).

The sickness and weakness of Drusilla however is a tougher nut to crack. I really enjoy her when she's all frail and mad, Spike's achilles heel, but it has never made sense to me either exactly what a mob would have done to her to make her that way... voodoo? Hoodoo? It seems to me that simple violence or blood draining from a vampire would be easily reactified and wouldn't have left the lingering issues Drusilla suffered. So to the best I can guess it has to be some kind of magic involved? Truthfully this has always mystified me a little as well so I'm sorry I can't give much insight to this... :S

 

[white avenger]

The sickness and weakness of Drusilla however is a tougher nut to crack. I really enjoy her when she's all frail and mad, Spike's achilles heel, but it has never made sense to me either exactly what a mob would have done to her to make her that way... voodoo? Hoodoo? It seems to me that simple violence or blood draining from a vampire would be easily reactified and wouldn't have left the lingering issues Drusilla suffered.

Not necessarily. If you recall, Spike himself was confined to a wheelchair for awhile because of injuries sustained while fighting Buffy. Apparently, if the physical injuries are massive enough, even a vampire's physiology takes time to heal them. As for what Drusilla had done to her by the mob, I would imagine that it could have been an extremely violent and extensive beating, followed possibly by severe burning, and even an attempted staking that somehow missed her heart. Add to that the fact that she seemed not to be feeding sufficiently to support her proper healing.

 

[Lyri]

There is a comic that deals with Spike and Dru's run in with that mob. I can't remember if it was a stand alone, but something's telling me that it was part of the 'Tales of the Vampires' collection, I just don't know where my copy is to check, lol.

From what I can remember, there was one scene when Dru was held to a chair by spikes (no pun intended, lol) in several parts of her body, blood leaking steadily from the wounds. That blood loss could be enough to cause her weakened state, especially if the spikes were made of wood or coated with holy water.

Given Dru's mental state, it might have been hard for Spike to convince her to feed, which we actually saw in 'School Hard' when he had to bring Shelia to her and bribe her into eating, and would have resulted in her not able to recover quickly enough and she just got worse and worse. Until Spike thought the only possibility for her recovery was using magic.

As for Dru's mental state, most of that was because of what Angelus and Darla did to her before Angelus turned her, but her psychic abilities MUST have played a part in that. Other people have been tortured by vampires before they were sired, I'm sure, so there must have been something else inside of Dru that reacted to the torture the way she did.

 

[Ethan Reigns]

Drusilla was a clairvoyant before she was turned (and Angel killed the priest and told her that she was destined for hell when he took over the confessional), so she was constantly in turmoil with the visions she had and the church doctrine that no one can have any contact with God except through the priests. The belief that she was damned made her insane. She was very different even before she was turned.

She retained her abilities after she was sired and added a few - she could hypnotize people as she did getting Giles to say how Acathla could be unleashed by making him believe she was Jenny and putting Kendra in a trance before slashing her neck.

 

[Blaze]

I'll have to re-watch s2, I can't quite remember what my theory was, but I always found it pretty weird that she was ill, since it didn't seem physical like Spike in the wheelchair. It almost seemed like her blood was poisoned. To me it felt like she almost had some type of leukemia, which would explain the whole ritual think to cure her. But then, that doesn't really explain how anyone could do that to her, so the whole getting hurt really bad is more probable.

As for her craziness, I think a lot of it also came from her psychic abilities, which she obviously embraced more as a vampire. And well aside from that, she's simply a bit of a nut case, and I love it!

 

[Taake]

Not necessarily. If you recall, Spike himself was confined to a wheelchair for awhile because of injuries sustained while fighting Buffy. Apparently, if the physical injuries are massive enough, even a vampire's physiology takes time to heal them. As for what Drusilla had done to her by the mob, I would imagine that it could have been an extremely violent and extensive beating, followed possibly by severe burning, and even an attempted staking that somehow missed her heart. Add to that the fact that she seemed not to be feeding sufficiently to support her proper healing.

Fair points! I guess I blanked on the wheelchair incident... Angel seems so indestructable as a vampire on 'Ats' that I think I inferred from that.

 

[AbraxasP3]

Thanks everybody - I enjoyed reading what everyone had to say.
I'm just glad I'm not the only one totally confused by Drusilla's completely weakened state.
It definitely seems to me that something more than normal mob activity had to of taken place.
Perhaps if we would of known what the mob was actually caused by, we might have a direct answer.
I think it was in "School Hard" when Dru remarks about missing Prague. It's obvious that she is sort of oblivious to a lot of the things Spike has to say...including his comment about her having almost died from a mob in Prague. And actually, if I remember right, he may have sad angry mob.
Maybe the mob was directed at Spike & Dru - they had gotten themselves into trouble by being careless and some folks decided to seek revenge.
I think Lyri is on the right page as far as a blood poisoning or some sort of internal sickness. Dru's entire body is just so pale and almost lifeless...I don't think just any normal beating from what we assume are humans could have resulted in that.
Dru was able to recover really rather quickly when Angel sets her & Darla on fire...so something on a larger scale must have taken place. I wish Joss would have explored the vampire mythology more. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a big "True Blood" fan - but it appears that show has went to great lengths to educate the audience on exactly what happens to vampires in certain situations.
I wonder if genius Joss even fleshed out a real background for the mob story.

 

[KendraTheSlayer]

I've only seen 3 episodes but I can't stand Drusilla. Her voice, the way she carries herself among other things just turn me away from her.

 

[nightshade]

Miss Edith does make a small reappearance during season 5's Crush