Vampire personalities

[Robb Stark]

How do you think vampire personalities are determined? Buffy makes it very, very clear to Billy Fordham in S2's "Lie to me" that there's a distinct difference between a vampire and the person they were before:

That's not how it works. You die, and a demon sets up shop in your old house, and it walks, and it talks, and it remembers your life, but it's not you.

However, while I fully agree with this, there are clearly similarities between the personality a vampire takes on after being sired and the personality of the person who previously inhabited the body the demon takes over. The likenesses vary depending on the vampire (Harmony is almost a carbon copy of her previously sired self while the similarities between Angel and Angelus are far more subtle). In S3's "Helpless", Giles mentions as a point of note that Kralik was a serial killer before being turned into a vampire.

It is also clear that the demon taking over the body is influenced by events and relationships of the host body. Angelus' first act is to murder Liam's entire family, and when he resurfaces years later he immediately targets Buffy because she's so important to Angel. Spike still cares deeply for Buffy after regaining his soul, and right after being originally sired still feels a strong connection to William's mother.

It's kind of a strange dichotomy. Buffy makes it clear that Angel and Angelus, and Spike/Spike-us, are different entities and therefore not responsible for the crimes committed (a sentiment I agree with). However, both Angel and Spike vividly remember everything done when they didn't have souls to check the demon, and it seems equally clear that the demon was influenced by their previous personalities.

So why do you think that is? Is it the demon clinging to the first thing it grasps upon being thrust into a new world, an idea I'm inclined to go with, or is it a darker manifestation of the person being turned (which I'm not so sure about as a new demon is clearly "born")?

 

[Blaze]

I think for the most part I agree with you on this topic. The way I see it, being turned into a vampire is still being you, but a monster takes over. You keep some traits of your personality, as seen by Spike, Harmony and Angel, but a monster still takes over. Every single vampire has one thing in common, they kill. Some of them are rather quite nice aside from the killing, like Harmony or at times Spike, and some are vicious and violent, like Angelus or Dru, but they are all killers. I think Buffy was right in her saying that vampires walks, talks and remembers like your old self, but it's not you, because "you" would never kill and torture as a human. She could have almost added that they somewhat think and act like you, but they still aren't you.

Basicly, take out the evil part and you become your old self again, as shown by vampires regaining their souls. I think the monster in some vampires are more vicious or aggressive, after all Angelus has a more distinct difference between his souled and unsouled counterparts, but overall he still maintains many traits of his human self. Actually, Angel is quite dark like Angelus, as shown in s2 of Angel.

A lot of people mention how Spike has no real distinction between his soulless and souled personality, but I don't think that's unique to him at all. Like I said, compare s2 from BtVS Angelus to s2 from AtS Angel and you almost have the same guy. In both cases the real distinction is that regaining the soul takes out the monster in them. Both of them had very different monsters (both were horrible), but again both had that one thing in common, they killed. So really, I don't think becoming a vampire erase who you were as a human, but I think the monster in each human would express itself differently.

For example, like you said, Angelus goes after what Angel cares about, he goes after love and family, he goes after emotions. In both his soul and unsouled self, we see him use emotions as his drive. When he is souled, he uses it as a way to seek redemption, because he feels guilt. Love is a positive drive. As Angelus, it's the exact opposite, but it actually makes sense because he is the same guy, just evil, so he turns what he would use for good and uses it for bad. Emotions still lead the way he works, or else he would have never went after Buffy and her loved ones in s2.

Spike, on the other end, was always more intellectual, he might seem like a meat head, but he's a lot smarter than people give him credit for. As a human, he was this geeky, scared intellectual. As a vampire, he used his intelligence to manipulate people, he became a twisted version of his old self. He always seemed a bit softer, just like his human self (eg: turning his mom, wanting to save Dru). He was a romantic as a human, he stayed a romantic as a vampire. But because he was a monster, he also became sadistic, which showed through his twisted love for Dru and Buffy (just want to make it clear I'm not romanticising Spuffy, I'm just saying in his monster's mind he kept the trait and turned it evil).

I can basicly say the same about any vampires that we had on the show (that had background info). They keep the personality and turn it evil.

 

[white avenger]

Most likely, the demon who inhabits and reanimates the corpse has no memories or personality to begin with, or at least none that would work on human reality and society, so it relies on those of its host in order to survive initially. Since the soul is pretty much equated in the Buffyverse to be synonymous with a conscience, and the soul no longer inhabits the body, the vampire has no moral compunctions about killing to live, so feeding on the first available human is no problem. Over time, as the demon adjusts to its new body and humanity in general, it begins to assert more control, subjugation all or most of the human personality, though some vampires' human bodies retain enough influence to retain certain aspects, the ability to love, for instance, pretty much permanently.

As for Angelus killing his parents while William still, in a somewhat warped way, retains his love for his mother, remember that Liam had a less than close, one might even say, unfriendly, relationship with his family, William was very close to his mother. Those residual feelings COULD explain their different behaviors (though it wouldn't explain why William's mother immediately hated him, unless she never really loved him as much as he loved her, and was only pretending out of a sense of motherly duty) but we don't really have enough other examples of vampire personality to draw from. Harmony stayed pretty much the same up through Season 5 of "Angel," but she became decidedly more sinister in the Season 6 comics, so I'm not sure how she would fit in.

 

[EVIL UU]

As humans, we are our bodies and our bodies are everything we are. Upon the completion of the double suck ritual a demon reanimates a corpse and keeps it reanimated. The body is dead and has slightly different properties, it's nourished by blood and hated by the sun, but it's still the same body, that everything we were. Now, it's not the demon that makes vampires evil, it's the lack of a soul, at least in theory because soulless vampires are still pretty damn moral, I mean, even Angelus had friends.

So, what's a soul? Supposedly, it's an aspect of living beings, an immortal element that makes living things, I don't know, not malevolent? And by the way, it's just so ass backwards, living beings are not malevolent because they are alive, morality is beneficial to their survival, it's a product of evolution, not an effect of some metaphysical rubbish.
[MENTION=11975]Robb Stark[/MENTION]

which I'm not so sure about as a new demon is clearly "born"

The demon isn't born, it's an invader from another dimension.

 

[ILLYRIAN]

The double suck ritual? What is that? Will you say what it is and how it works please.

For starters, I see a vampire as a demon.
The way I see the vampire thing. A vampire can choose to kill you or it can choose to make you a vampire.
I agree that the vampire has the personality of the thing it inhabits. (thing referring to - if a vampire turns the neighbours cat).
When a person is turned the 'essence of the demon' is put into the body.
At this point I'll refer to when Angel Faith Angelus were in their hell their own collective hell, putting Angels soul back into his body. What Angelus said
was: I had to live inside Angel to feel and know what he (Angel) did. That I took to mean that the demon (haha, like a soul) is in the body.
Normally the demon is in control, so it has the characteristics of the person. In the case of Spike; as a human his character was as a nice person who wanted and valued love. The demon-vampire continued that characteristic.

However the demon can act without remorse; it controls the actions.
Example:
(character)
Spike is angry that 'A' isn't being nice to him.
(action)
So he sticks a railroad spike in a someone.
Because the demon acts without remorse, Spike has an outlet for his anger. He can go back to why 'A' isn't being nice to him with a clear head.

As far as I am concerned William and Liam were tricked into being vampires, William wanted something new, better. And Liam (being affected by drink) probably fancied the pretty girl with the sticky-out-tits in the alley. So as far as I am concerned they are not responsible for the deeds of the demon.
Should a human want to be a demon however, then they are responsible for their actions as that demon.

 

[The Bronze]

I think it might be comparable to having children in a strange way. If you take the original person as one parent and the demon invader as the other then the emerging vampire is the child. The child takes on personality traits from both parents with the final result being a bit of a lottery.

So basically it would be impossible to predict how any individual would turn out as a vampire because it's not an exact science.

 

[The Chosen]

I'd always thought that the invader demon is essentially a blank slate, its only real purpose being to reanimate the body. The memories remain, which inform this blank slate how to act, think, talk, etc. In essence, it's a copy of the person that was, but now without a conscience and a big hankering to do naughty.

That's my understanding of the situation!

 

[ILLYRIAN]

No! no, no, no, no, no!
A demon that wants to do the naughty? Good grief! What's the world coming too?

Right, that's the slightly humourous intermission over, now carry on with the thread.