The immortality of vampires in the Buffyverse

[JCoatsworth]

Hi everyone!

I have thought about this for a while now. We all know that vampires are immortal. Or at least they're supposed to be. But to what degree? There are some small things in the show that caught my eye. Some of them have been discussed here before. It's nothing heavy, really. I can easily ignore them, but still, I think it's an interesting subject. Here are some examples:

• Spike disinfects his burn wound with booze in Lover's Walk
• Angel gets poisoned in the Graduation Day: Part 1. Poison normally disturbs biological organisms and since a vampire is already dead, poison shouldn't be able to harm Angel. Anyway, the poison in this case is probably magical or mystical, since only the blood of a Slayer could to cure him.
• After Angel gets shot, Giles says, "Not too much blood here." Vampires are dead, so their heart is not beating and there can be no blood flow. And if there was lots of blood, who cares? He doesn't need it anyway.
• Spike gets (almost) drowned by the àœber-Vamp in Season 7. Same story here: Vampires are dead. So even if they were able to breathe, there wouldn't be any blood flow to transport the oxygen.

I would say with most of these irregularities the writers took some artistic liberty, which is totally fine, and the others are just small mistakes that aren't that drastic anyways.

I thought about all those examples and tried to figure out what exactly can hurt the vampires in the Buffyverse. Well, here's my attempt at defining the 'immortality of vampires in the Buffyverse':

When not physically harmed (staked, sunlight, holy water etc.), vampires live forever. They can't die of natural disease "“ they're practically dead already - and their wounds heal a lot quicker than those of humans.
To kill a vampire, the body possessed by the actual demon has to be completely destroyed (burned, decapitated) or the demon possessing the dead body has to be slain (by magic or another demon).



What do you guys think about it?
Is there anything I didn't think of or any possibilities and explanations I overlooked? (I'm pretty sure there are.)

 

[Robb Stark]

I think you're pretty spot on.

I think that vampires in the Buffyverse are a lot more human than most people make them out to be. They clearly exhibit many human-like traits, from personality characteristics to the way they live and interact. When it comes to them living forever, I think they were pretty clear about the ways that vampires could be slain. They can't die of natural disease or aging. That seems to make sense. I'm assuming that through the mystical means they were transformed into vampires, cell degeneration stopped which would mean they wouldn't age.

The poison that Faith infects Angel with in S3 is mystical in nature. It was specifically designed to take down vampires, so I think you can forgive that one. And while I don't think vampires can die from gunshot wounds, Darla makes it pretty clear in S1's episode "Angel" that they still hurt like hell. I'm assuming that Giles was speaking about immediate damage to Angel. You're right about the bleeding wounds though. Vampire's hearts don't beat, which means there's no perfusion to move the blood through the body, which means there's no blood pressure, which means there wouldn't be that type of blood wound. Every injury would just be a venous bleed. I just overlook that one. The First wasn't really trying to drown Spike, it was just a torture technique (I think anyways). Spike and Angel both say that they don't breathe several times throughout the series, but, well, come on, they obviously do at times. Maybe vampires don't really need to breathe, but it's intrinsic anyways?

I thought the overall continuity on vampires and how they "live" and die was pretty consistent. Staking, fire, beheading, holy water or some sort of advanced magic seems to be the only real way to definitively "kill" them. There's an episode in Angel S4 (can't remember the name of it) where a demon from another realm captures a random vamp and cuts him to pieces, and he doesn't die. All that's left is his head and chest (it was pretty gross), and the vampire asks him to "just stake me already".

 

[Gum Gnome33]

I understand where you're coming from; certainly for "immortal" beings, vampires are quite fragile! But in terms of writing errors I actually think that a lot of the examples you listed above are fairly easily justified, and it's still fairly consistent that vampires in the 'verse are not susceptible to the same ailments as humans, biophysically speaking, (or if they are, it isn't for the same reasons).

[*]Spike disinfects his burn wound with booze in Lover's Walk

I don't think he's disinfecting it, here; I think it's sort of a desperate attempt to numb it, even if the result would be temporary. He probably also instinctively wanted to throw liquid on the sizzling flesh even though it wasn't the best idea. 🙂 But anyway, I think the fear of developing an infection was far from his thoughts!

[*]Angel gets poisoned in the Graduation Day: Part 1. Poison normally disturbs biological organisms and since a vampire is already dead, poison shouldn't be able to harm Angel. Anyway, the poison in this case is probably magical or mystical, since only the blood of a Slayer could to cure him.

As you said, it's not any biological effect that would put Angel at risk here. It' just a magical substance that for whatever reason kills vampires and sort of defies all laws of science, anyway, just like a vampire!

[*]After Angel gets shot, Giles says, "Not too much blood here." Vampires are dead, so their heart is not beating and there can be no blood flow. And if there was lots of blood, who cares? He doesn't need it anyway.

It's true that vampires clearly don't need blood to be pumped through their bodies in order to survive. But we do know from the 'lore that they do need blood to "survive," or at least to be "other than dead" which is what they are. Again, there is a mystical reason behind the need for blood. We know they don't need the oxygen or the wbc's for example. But we know that "blood is life" and that they do drink it to survive, not just because they are evil.

So I think Giles' reaction is consistent with the 'lore here. While vampires don't seem to need any of their internal organs, (except the brain? Don't know how that works exactly with regard to bullets), it does stand to reason that getting shot could kill them if they lose enough blood in the process. I think it's just very unlikely for them, probably because they can survive for a while in that state, until their next meal.

[*]Spike gets (almost) drowned by the àœber-Vamp in Season 7. Same story here: Vampires are dead. So even if they were able to breathe, there wouldn't be any blood flow to transport the oxygen.

I know there have been lots of discussions here about this. 😉 I happen to think there are a couple of possible explanations, (and not simply that the uber vamp is horribly stupid and doesn't know what kills his own kind).

-Vampires don't need oxygen to survive, of course. But we do know that they breathe, (and yes, that's sort of a writing flaw but it's consistent at least and always explained away by the fact that it's "habit.") So if we accept the fact that it's difficult for a vampire not to perform the mechanics of breathing, then it's understandable that being dunked into water would likely mean extreme discomfort as the vampire would either have to hold his/her breath, (something they're not comfortable doing apparently), or experience the awful sensation of lungs filling up with water.

-The other (more widely accepted) explanation is that that stuff was "holy water!"

 

[JCoatsworth]

But in terms of writing errors I actually think that a lot of the examples you listed above are fairly easily justified[...]

I never said anything else 😉 Artistic liberty etc. I have no actual problem with all the things I listed.

I don't think he's disinfecting it, here; I think it's sort of a desperate attempt to numb it, even if the result would be temporary. He probably also instinctively wanted to throw liquid on the sizzling flesh even though it wasn't the best idea. 🙂 But anyway, I think the fear of developing an infection was far from his thoughts!

Yes, probably. Maybe he just wanted to cool down the wound. When I burn my hand, I try to cool it with cold water. Perhaps he tried to do something like that.

It's true that vampires clearly don't need blood to be pumped through their bodies in order to survive. But we do know from the 'lore that they do need blood to "survive," or at least to be "other than dead" which is what they are. Again, there is a mystical reason behind the need for blood.

True, but I don't think vampires could bleed to death from a wound, unless their stomach, or wherever they keep the blood they drink, is hit.

-The other (more widely accepted) explanation is that that stuff was "holy water!"

In that case, Spike would have started to smoke (or whatever happens if they come into contact with holy water) and I don't think he would have survived that long, unless it's extremely diluted.
My explanation would be that holding a person's head under water is a common and in movies popular torture technique and that the writer's just didn't think everything through.

Anyway, don't get my wrong. I'm not trying to list writing errors and such. I want to discuss to what extent they are immortal. (I wanted to say that, just in case.)

---------- Post added at 06:22 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:27 PM ----------

[MENTION=11629]Ripper666[/MENTION] agrees: "àœber"-Vamp! Netter versuch für Upper-Vamp

Wie bitte? 😀