The Vampire Curse: Your Views on It

[Charming Slayer]

Well, let me start out by saying that I didn't really search, and I haven't been here in awhile, so sorry if this has been done before.

My best friend and I have now gottn into the rountine where we (now having all 7 seasons of Buffy on DVD, and a few seasons of Charmed) watch at least one episode a day..it's hard to explain,but yeah, and we got through them, kinda like TV Syndication, except it's whenever we feel like it, lol. Aanyways, we just finished watching Season 2, and it got me to thinking about the whole Vampire Curse.

As we know, a Vampire is just the body of someone with a demon spirit to replace the human soul. Well, when the curse is placed upon them, the human spirit is returned and they feel remorse for their kill. This got me to thinking: the human soul had nothing to do with these crimes committed by the demon, so is it really fair for them to be punished and feel guilty for what some demon that poses as them did?

I mean, yeah, I understand the whole, vengeance thing, but when I got to thinking, I dont think this is very fair, considering.

Well, views are welcome. 🙂

 

[Black Eye Guy]

Well it is and it isn't, technically the body is not possessed by some one completely new, the demon is a Human/Original vampire hybrid, that still has the person in them. Think of the season 3 episode Doppelganger, where Buffy says something along the lines of :
Willow: Plus I think I'm kinda gay
Buffy: Just remember the vampire is nothing like the human
Angel: Well actually... [Stops off Buddy's look]
And We can see similarities to the person Harmony was, when she became a vampire, same with Spike.
The Vampire seems to still be the person minus their soul, but there is enough of them in there to be guilty about the horrible thing they did!

 

[*Darla Masters*]

I think the way it works is their personality stays, but that is all... their mind, and their conscience are gone, so they aren't responsible for what the do... the curse thing is kinda mean, but in some ways fitting...

 

[Angel's vision]

I think like Charming slayer said that the soul is the personality will and concience of that person, then when that person is sired that goes so we are left with a demon who can gain access to that persons memories (ie the brain) so i reckon that the curse was to punish the vampire by returning the soul so that it can taste humanity be aware of what it isn't, be helpless as it is trapped by the soul unable to have control over the host. That;'s just my thoughts i mean people's own persective on the soul is different.

 

[Croft Storm]

There's an interesting chapter about this in the book 'Five Seasons of Angel', i think it was called 'It's a Stupid Curse'.

I think the curse is a decent punishment for the demon, because they have to stand by and watch the human waste away. Example - in Orpheus Angelus was clearly disgusted by Angel's puppy saving. You can imagine his disgust when Angel began living off rats.

So it is a fairly fitting punishment for the demon, but the human gets caught in the crossfire. That said, Angel never fulfilled his life as a human, the curse gave him another chance to make his life worthwhile so maybe it wasn't all bad.

There is one very stupid part though - the fact that perfect hapinnes frees the demon. Why give the demon a chance to break free and cause more pain and suffering? It's nothing short of pointless, and the only possible reason I can see is that it was an unavoidable side effect of the gypsy magic.

I recommend reading Five Seasons of Angel for a great chapter on it (most of the rest of the book is good too, my fave Angel non-fiction, except for a few highly opinionated chapters).

 

[slayerpower]

The soul causes Angel to suffer and when his suffering temporarily stops, which is the true happiness moment, the curse is useless, which is why he became evil in Buffy's second season and Angel's fourth season. Just my thoughts.