One of the things that I struggled with the first time that I watched Buffy was the nature of the vampire in the show. Sometimes it seemed to change, by some unknown rules – I knew Whedon planned everything, for the most part, but I couldn’t figure out how the vampire, one of the most intrinsic parts of the show (the others being Buffy and Slayer), worked. Why were some vampires so dull, listless and easy to kill, while others were emotional and near human, stronger and full of personality? I didn’t want to accept the idea that – well, it is a TV show after all, it needs devices, so vampires important to the story get personality and are uber-hard to kill (like Angel, Spike, and The Master [remember him from “Nightmares”?), and normal vamps are mere things for Buffy to chase and dust.
Naturally, that is going to be partly true. But after talking about doppelgangers in class, I’ve thought of a new way out, a set of rules to describe how vampires work in Whedon’s universe. Vamp Willow held the key for me (not talking about Dawn here). Each vampire can be seen as an alter-ego of the human it used to be. Let’s face it: “normal” people in Buffy tend to be parodies of normal people in the real world, a little bit dull and uninteresting and not-entirely-three-or-even-two-dimensional – and there are only so many ways to re-emphasize those qualities, so the “normal” vamps are also a bit dull, and easy to kill. Over the course of the series, we get to know more about pre-vamp Angel and Spike, and their vamp-selves certainly work as an alter-egos, either by emphasizing characteristics that conflicted with and were therefore hidden in their “human” personality, or by exaggerating and worsening character traits (in a way, a reverse Guido…). I don’t want to spoil things (mostly about Spike) for those of you who haven’t seen the show. Ask me if you want my less cryptic analysis….
So the vampires can be viewed like the dwarf in “Transformations”: they’re both technically demons, but also a rearrangement/re-emphasis of their human “doppleganger’s” personality.
Naturally, that is going to be partly true. But after talking about doppelgangers in class, I’ve thought of a new way out, a set of rules to describe how vampires work in Whedon’s universe. Vamp Willow held the key for me (not talking about Dawn here). Each vampire can be seen as an alter-ego of the human it used to be. Let’s face it: “normal” people in Buffy tend to be parodies of normal people in the real world, a little bit dull and uninteresting and not-entirely-three-or-even-two-dimensional – and there are only so many ways to re-emphasize those qualities, so the “normal” vamps are also a bit dull, and easy to kill. Over the course of the series, we get to know more about pre-vamp Angel and Spike, and their vamp-selves certainly work as an alter-egos, either by emphasizing characteristics that conflicted with and were therefore hidden in their “human” personality, or by exaggerating and worsening character traits (in a way, a reverse Guido…). I don’t want to spoil things (mostly about Spike) for those of you who haven’t seen the show. Ask me if you want my less cryptic analysis….
So the vampires can be viewed like the dwarf in “Transformations”: they’re both technically demons, but also a rearrangement/re-emphasis of their human “doppleganger’s” personality.
I really like your vampire-as-another-type-of-doppelganger idea. Of course with Willow there is literally a doppelganger, but it's definitely important to see both sides of Spike or Angel as doppelgangers. I actually think that the vampire doppelganger is really similar to the Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde split where one part is a demon and the other is a well-rounded personality. Which is what I'm about to go write about in my post. Oh and I also wanted to say that I really liked this explanation for why the wimpy vamps are wimpy.
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