History Headscratchers / BuffyverseVampires

* What I can't stop wondering is whetheing in mind that real people have diverse ethical views -- have experienced some sort of moral crisis when they figured out that vampires are actually capable of ''choosing good'', particularly if they're given a bit of rehabilitative therapy?
** The meta answer is TheyJustDidntCare. In their quest to fluff Spike and appease his fans the writers didn't care if the whole vampire mythos could be destroyed in the process. The not so meta explanation would be that maybe the Scoobies suspected that Spike was lying - he had never intended to get his soul back, it had somehow happened in some other fashion. Of course, there is precious little evidence for that but it's a fanwank that makes that wallbanging nature of season 7 just a bit more tolerable, for me at least. Of course, Buffy took Spike word for his soul search but that's easily dismissible, since in season 7 Buffy is rather out of touch with reality, especially when it came to Spike.

* What I can't stop wondering is whether a lowercase "t" would have any effect. I just can't shake the thought of a vampire reading a book and wincing at every "t" he came across.
** It seems to only work with objects ''specifically'' made to be religious symbols. Not once does anyone take two vertical pieces of something, hold them at right angles to each other and use it against a vampire. It is only ever actual Christian crosses that are used.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Drusilla Doesn't Change]]
* The show explained that vampires are just demons that take over a human corpse, so basically when being sired the human actually dies, and a new demon is reborn in their body along with their memories. This kind of makes sense but is contradicted so often in the show, Drusilla being most notable. Why is the vamp version of Drusilla psychic and insane just because her human self was before siring?
** The show does actually say that the vampire personality is related to the human personality - explicitly in one case, in Doppelgangland, when Willow is freaked out about Wishverse Willow being so evil and skanky and gay. Someone tells her not to worry because the vampire personality has nothing to do with the human personality, and Angel goes, "Well, actually..." Buffy shuts him up, but it's actually been pretty clear from the first episodes. If vamp!Jesse has nothing to do with real Jesse, why does he go out of his way to get Cordelia? Vampire personalities are shaped by the personality of the body they get stuffed into, just with extra added evil and a rejection of social norms that allow them to express repressed elements of their personality. For people who are basically good, this involves a rejection of their despised previous persona (Jesse, and Spike, although it takes Spike awhile). For people who are already evil or borderline bad or just plain mean, like Liam or Harmony, they just get extra more so. Wishverse Willow is a lot like real, souled Willow after she becomes dark. "Bored now", anyone? With Drusilla, she's already crazy when Angel finally kills her, and she's not repressing anything. So Vamp Drusilla is still crazy but with extra bonus obsessing over dead things, blood, etc. -- This is all basically FanWank, I guess, so YMMV.
*** It may be that vampire personalities have the "distilled" versions of their mortal personalities. Vampire Xander and Willow were still together because their defining trait was their love for each other, something revisited in season six. Angelus was a sadistic monster because vampires take pleasure in pain and Liam was a hedonist. Drusilla was a loon because... well, Drusilla was a loon, but she became a kinky, slutty loon once her piety was stripped away by vampirism. Spike was a rebel because William didn't care much for his lifestyle and peers.
** Yes, there is nothing pointing to this "demon" being anything more substantial than a lack of conscience, desire to do evil and an appetite for human blood. There is not a single vampire whose personality doesn't reflect that of his human original, so obviously, it's not a case of demonic personality taking over the human body and using the human memories but case of the human personalities being twisted by the demonic influence.
** It's also worth noting that Dru as a human was pious and chaste, whereas Dru as a vampire was kinky and a big slut.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Buffy the Accidental Mass Murderer?]]
* So, for years, Buffy runs around Sunnydale happily turning vampires into dust whenever she sees them, because vampires are unredeemably evil and no good can ever come of them. Then one day, along tromps the Initiative, and with their foolish mortal book-learnin' and their silly, mundane technology, they manage to get behavior modification chip into the brain of one of history's most feared vampires. Within three years, that irredeemably soulless creature has volunteered to endure prolonged torture in order to get his soul back and not be evil. If this was possible all along, isn't that a pretty big "oops" for the forces of good? Shouldn't someone, somewhere in this story -- keeping in mind that real people have diverse ethical views -- have experienced some sort of moral crisis when they figured out that vampires are actually capable of ''choosing good'', particularly if they're given a bit of rehabilitative therapy?

*** The key word is repentant. By the end of "Seeing Red", Spike is supposed to be ''overwhelmed with remorse'' at having hurt someone he cared about, when previously, vampires were depicted as being ''incapable'' of remorse. Right before he goes to get his soul back, Spike directly attributes these strange feelings to the chip ("It won't let me be a monster, and I can't be a man"). The implication is that having the bloodlust of a vampire alongside some sort of emergent capacity for empathy is causing him to suffer, and that he choses to resolve this via resoulification rather than seeking a way to get rid of the chip. That doesn't make Spike a saint, but it does seem to indicate that he's reached some sort of a tipping point where geniune love and remorse may be the stronger motivators than selfish desire -- which raises the issue of whether all vampires are capable of that kind of personal growth.
**** And on the subject of Spike doing good, let's not forget when he was willing to die to protect Dawn. There is nothing self-serving in self-sacrifice.
** Of course, Angel is aware of an entire species of mercenary demons whose blood turns vampires humans in even very small doses. Granted, its not said to give back the original souls, but one wonders why he didn't try and scrounge up the money (especially as the head of Wolfram and Hart) to hire them for a blood drive or something, on the grounds that sociopathic humans are a lot easier to incarcerate/kill than sociopathic metahumans who can pass that condition on to others. Maybe they're just cautious about the blood being used against them via sympathetic magic or something?
* Joss is actually on record saying that Spike had more humanity in him from the start than most vampires, for an as-yet-unexplored reason.
** I think it was sufficiently explored through William, his former human self. Vampires carry the personality of their host in some form, and William was a very compassionate, moral romantic idealist. It carried over into Spike's personality: he's also an intensely loyal romantic idealist, with a greater sense of compassion than most vampires (not much, mind you, but when you're competing with nil) and a NobleDemon's sense of fair play. We've seen that happen at least one other time, with Gunn's sister: she was the the heart and the moral compass of their vampire-hunting gang, and when she turned, she still cared about Gunn and wanted to make him a vampire too (just like Spike did his mother).
** As for the larger question of whether Buffy's a mass murderer, though, I'd still say no. Vampires in the Buffyverse are TheHeartless. Just because the chip can force them to behave doesn't mean they have a potential for morality: it just puts them on a short leash, that's all. A rare, halfway-moral vampire like Spike or Alonna might appear every now and then, but even with the chip, they can't grow beyond that point (note that Spike realized this and went to get his soul back for that very reason). In this 'verse, they're TheVirus, created by a dying EldritchAbomination to prey on humanity. They don't have any more of an innate right to exist than a mad scientist's mutant ebola strain. Granted, all this runs headlong into questions about WhatMeasureIsANonHuman, but "soulless demonic energy possessing a corpse so that it can feed on and infect other humans" is a line I'm fairly comfortable drawing.
*** Vampirism is TheVirus, but vampires as individuals are sentient, emotional, and have varying degrees of morality. That said, they're also predators, which is where it stops being a moral problem. The number of vampires unwilling to kill humans to eat is extremely finite, with the end result that, no matter how sentient or even moral some vampires may be, they're still a constant threat to every human walking down the street. You could make the argument that vampires have the right to live as well, and maybe they do, but humans have the right not to be attacked and have our throats ripped out.
**** The number of soulless vampires that have been subject to any known attempt at rehabilitation, though, still stands at one. Even if we accept that Spike is the only vampire on earth who could possibly be rehabilitated because WordOfGod says he's special, Buffy and friends have no reason to suspect this; from their perspective, the initiative's chip has a 100% success rate. It's kind of creepy that no one feels even a tinge of regret over the number of vamps they've dusted after they're given reason to believe vampires are not as irredemably evil as they'd thought. Not even regret of the "I had no other choice but I still feel bad it happened that way" variety.

This isn't even ''considering'' all of the massively numerous, varied demons that also prey on humans, but vampires seems a good place to start.
** Actually,vampires have a number of flaws written into their "back story" that make them much weaker than they could be to survive as a species: 1) The aren't just nocturnal...they can't even operate in the day time. Given that is the time when your prey is most active this is a huge disadvantage. 2) They have numerous weaknesses against magic and religious items which are present throughout the world. 3) Their prey is at least as smart as they are which is rarely a good position for a predator to be in. 4) They are proscribed from entering a number areas w/o an invitation, and some (religious buildings) they can't enter at all and 5) Vampires possess immortality and that's something that the wealthy and powerful of the world would want more than anything. Unless they keep a low profile, vampires would be captured by the thousands and held in facilities to keep the privileged alive.
*** Wait, where do you get that vampires cannot enter religious buildings at all? Just off the top of my head, the Master is trapped in a church, Adam's vampire stooges break into a church to confront their fears, and Buffy learns about Spike's soul in a church.
*** There is little evidence that vampires kills every night. The number of people capable of killing them is higher than is being credited here and was probably much higher in olden times. Remember on [[Angel]] Holtz was tracking Angel and Darla BEFORE they slaughtered his family. Watchers were probably more active as well and as strong as vampires are most of history houses were quite flammable and in a world with no cars you're probably not too far away to find in daylight.
** Vampires are also incredibly territorial and competitive amongst themselves, so they are keeping their own numbers down so as not to outstrip their food supply (classic evolutionary theory in action btw), also scale. SciFiWritershaveNoSenseOfScale, but so do many of their critics. There may be a couple of million vamps in the world, but they are widely scattered, and don't think organisationally (as a rule it is every vamp for themselves, and even the best Vamp organisers have to rule with an iron fist and still have spotty results), plus while a couple of million seems like a big number, it is rather small when you realise there are 7Billion humans on the planet and humans are very good at organising into groups to defeat a common foe. If Vamps ever get too ambitious and pose an open thread then it would take all of a week (and then they'd be taking afternoons off) for humanity to drive them into near oblivion. The Initiative was making good inroads into the Hellmouth vamp and demon population on its own (if only it hadn't gotten sidetracked by a mad scientist) and that was without the special mystical Slayer. However, take away our tech, and the slayer and humanity could still crush the global population of Vampires through sheer weight of numbers.

[[folder: Bottomless vampire stomachs]]
* What happens to vampire food? I [[NoBodyPoops didn't think the vampires' digestive systems worked properly enough to let food go all the way through their system]], but that they only absorbed the blood and a few easy-to-absorb chemicals like alcohol and (debated) nicotine. They don't breathe, and their blood doesn't pump (which means drunkeness should be more of a psychological or mystical thing, such as a psychosomatic effect or a libation to the dead), and I thought it had been stated that vampires' digestive systems basically acted as a tank in which to store blood until they could absorb it. Do they purge their stomachs once it gets too full of stuff that isn't blood, like the vampires who eat but don't digest in some other works? Do they absorb everything, and the normally unusable stuff that can be digested is just burnt for calories or mystical energy? Does their demon poof it away? [[ImprobableFoodBudget Why does Angel even need a food budget if they don't]] ''[[ImprobableFoodBudget need]]'' [[ImprobableFoodBudget to eat]]? It makes it more confusing because Spike (possibly in addition to Angelus) has been shown urinating, but that was mostly to show respect and could have been completely voluntary, and it works completely differently, anyway (stomach to blood to kidneys then expelled, instead of just being pushed through a glorified tube while being broken down, with little bits absorbed along the way). Mostly, I just want to know what happened to Spike's Wheatabix.
** Spike has, on one occasion, mentioned how emaciated vampires look (though that was pleading for blood, so I dunno if it's true), so I would guess that what they eat is just converted into energy. Also, Angel does need to buy blood, so I'm not sure about that one. He doesn't go around killing people, or rats, and I think that even if they don't /need/ to eat, it's at least more comfortable to.
*** Right, sorry, I was referencing the entry on the ImprobableFoodBudget page, and should have made that more clear. Thanks for everything else, though.
[[/folder]]

** Rumor has it that Juliet Landau refused to appear in anything other than flashbacks or illusions after Buffy Season 5 to prevent her character from being killed off.

******** It's important to keep in mind that none of the human characters have ever been a soulless vampire, nor have most if not all of the human Watchers who passed on this information, nor the human authors who wrote books on demons, or any of the other humans of note. All they have is dogma from old books written hundreds or even thousands of years ago by authors who deliberately intend to paint the blackest picture possible. That isn't to say vampires aren't evil, they clearly demonstrate that they are on several occasions. Just that it's more complicated than, "You don't have a soul, so you can't ever feel love or do good things." I think the reason people cling to tend to this argument is because Angel himself supported it; he believes that vampires are emotionless killing machines just as strongly as the humans do, and helped foster this image. However, it's important to note that Angelus deliberately REJECTED his humanity and EMBRACED the idea of being an inhuman monster with open arms, as Angel himself notes, and this concept has painted his image of vampirism. Even his sire, Darla, contradicts this view; she had a very aggressive relationship with Angelus, but she makes it very clear during Angel's series that she DID love him, and was devastated and horrified to learn he did not return the sentiment.
******* I always thought Spike was different from other vampires...while Angelus is ridiculously, unrepentantly, coolly evil, Spike was often more pathetically emotional. His obsession with Drusilla is an example of this. I think fans find it harder to forgive Spike for the almost-rape scene because he was very ''human'' even without his soul, whereas Angel was completely empty without his. The creature Drusilla and Spike summon in Season 2 even says as much, condemning Spike as emotional but calling Angelus "clean".
******** Strangeness and inconsistencies about the whole soul thing aside, the rape issue is largely one of viewers liking their strict good an evil categories regardless of circumstance. Rape is widely seen as the worst thing you can do, worse than murder. I won't argue with the logic behind that, but regardless there are circumstances. Simply put, Spike didn't know what the hell he was doing. Buffy had been using him for cheap sexual comfort, while he in his own twisted way loved her deeply. Then all the sudden she cut him off. He simply didn't get it and in his soulless mind he didn't understand distinctions like consent, he thought that if he could just do it with her she would love him. Buffy understood this, which is why she wasn't angry at Spike afterwords, even though the rest of the cast was.
** Spike was pretty clever. Once he realized he was "de-fanged", he took steps to make himself useful to the Scoobies by selling information. Early on he did try to turn the Monster of the Week against them, but when Thanksgiving rolled around, he realized that they were the closest thing he had to family. Messed-up Vampire logic, but it worked.
*** Since Spike would have been utterly incapable of fighting back, any attempt to kill him would probably have felt unpleasantly close to outright murder (vampire or not). This would have resonated particularly with the Scoobies after the debacle with Faith.
** Spike offered useful information when he first arrived. Once they didn't want his information anymore, the Gang was too used to thinking about pathetic, bathtub Spike to consider him a threat - something he mocks them for twice that season (once with Faith, once in The Yoko Factor). So, in short, they are all tactically incompetent.
*** Its instructive to note that after 'Yoko Factor', when he'd really worn out his welcome, Spike stays away from them for the rest of season 4 unless they're ''desperate'' for his help and even then makes sure to duck out before they can find a free moment to punch him. He doesn't come back after that until they've had a chance to cool off.
**** Continuing from that, he only really became a member of the crew when Buffy went to him for his help after Glory identified Dawn as the Key, and they were able to trust him at THAT point because one episode prior, he had proven willing to die to protect Dawn. Before Intervention, he was just useful enough to be worth keeping around and just helpless enough that the thought of killing him in cold blood left a bad aftertaste, and after Intervention, he was one of the gang.

**** And vampires' ability to talk? You know, pushing air over your vocal chords? How's that happen with no breath?
*** And that (contrary to most TV and Movies) Rigor doesn't last all that long, and vampires do 'die' as humans before re-awakening, so it could have set in, and left by the time they rise.
**** Rigor mortis lasts a few days, and afterwards, your corpse doesn't really look human anymore. Nor will it move like a human; there's far too much decomp already.
*** Or how the First tortures Spike by holding his head under water, and that Spike gasps for air when he surfaces.
**** Well, it ''was'' holy water. As for Spike knocking Drusilla out like that, I assumed he just damaged her spine a little.
***** Or maybe it was shock.
** They also enough blood to do a siring.
** They borrow the Swedish penis pump from Austin Powers.
*** We have a winnah!
*** "One copy of 'Swedish Penish Enlargers and Me: That's My Bag, Baby!', by William the Bloody"
** The same magic that lets them have brain and muscle functions and avoid tissue necrosis without circulating blood also lets their "Vlad the Impaler" rise from the grave.
** About the breathing, just because they don't ''need'' oxygen doesn't mean they don't have the same drowning reflexes as a human. They can also talk, so moving air in and out of their lungs still works, even if respiration doesn't take place.
*** The Vampire RPG has explicit rules for this, basically saying that vampires can mimic any necessary human function by expending the store of blood in their bodies ("Blood Points"), allowing you to look and feel human, have body heat, have sex, etc.
*** Perhaps they have minimal breath - enough to talk or smoke, but not enough to give effective CPR.
**** This could be explained by their diaphragms eventually atrophying somewhat. I mean, what happens to ''any'' muscle you stop using?

[[folder:Vampire Entrance Rules]]
* How did the vampires get into Buffy's room in The Freshman, when they weren't invited?
** Kathy was living there. Kathy was a demon. Demons homes is exempted from the invite-rule.
** They only said that in regards to demons living alone.
** It was her dorm room, so perhaps she hadn't spent enough time in it yet that she considered it a home, but merely a public place (vampires are allowed into public places, like schools, with no invitation).
*** We already know vampires can enter hotel rooms. And also note that Spike was able to enter Willow's dorm room without an invitation.
*** Spike did have an invitation. He knocked on the door and Willow said, "Come in." Kinda stupid for Willow but, hey, it happens.
** OK, then how did Spike and Dru get back into Spike's house right after Dru sired him, in the flashback in "Lies My Parents Told Me"? Even Spike should have needed an invitation, since it was shown that Angel needed one from his sister to get back into his old house once he had been sired.
*** Maybe Spike was the owner of the house. We saw in the first episode of ''{{Angel}}'' that a vampire landlord doesn't need an invitation to enter his tenants' rooms, so it's possible that, if Spike was the legal owner of the house he wouldn't need an invite either.
**** In Victorian times he probably would have been the owner of the property after his father (apparently) passed on. The scriptwriters appear to have taken Victorian law into account in terms of estate rights. While Victorian women could inherit, the property in question appears to have been left to the male heir. At that point in history, only women who never married could own freehold land and control inheritances.
** Okay, but why were they always hanging out in the library and the school after hours in seasons 1-3 instead of Giles' apartment or anywhere vampires couldn't get? They were attacked in the library all the time. And especially when they were doing something important (Jenny with the translation, Willow with the restoration of Angel's soul, etc.). They should have known better!
*** One, the library is where Giles' research materials are. He can't fit all those books in an apartment, and until he owned the Magic Box he had nowhere else to put them. Two, using someone's home requires their parents being in on the deal, which didn't happen with Buffy until season 3. And last but definitely not least, until the kids graduate high school Giles is risking going up on the sex offender registry if he's known for regularly inviting students over to his apartment. On the other hand, nobody gets suspicious of the school's librarian being in the library, or of students staying late to study.
*** A librarian presumably very late into the night with the same group of students. Two (or three) of which are highly attractive female (Willow the subjectively least attractive of the three girls doesn't even qualify for Hollywood homely) and one boy who seems to spend the night two to three nights a month wouldn't raise brows? He'd probably raise less attention at his apartment out of sight out of mind.
*** Real answer: The issue of whether vampires can't enter dorms or hotel rooms is one of the biggest inconsistencies regarding vampires. Witness Angel, who can't get into Kate's dad's apartment. Or when he couldn't get into this one guy's apartment, and fall through the barrier when the guy died. Or how he couldn't get into Kate's apartment without help from the boys upstairs.
**** Kate's apartment was a genuine miracle. They note in the same episode that when Kate mentions she hadn't invited him in. Though while we know "I guess" is to vague neither show is terribly clear on what constitutes an invitation or when it has to be given. Cordelia's "When I get a place you're totally invited" was given at time when she was homeless and yet it worked. It's at least possible that Kate's desperate cry for help somehow counted as come in and save me damnit!
*** Actually dorms and such have been handled pretty consistently. Dorms and hotel rooms can be entered freely because they are spaced borrowed for a short time that the person doesn't consider home. Apartments, however, are considered home by the person living there and thus cannot be entered. as for the library question...
**** Incorrect. Angel had to be invited into Buffy's dorm in Season 4 and Spike was invited by Willow same season. Hotel rooms are interesting. I believe that the rule more accurately would be that vampires can't enter a HOME univited. Angel is for example unable to enter Fred's room at the Hotel without explicit invitation and he owns the building.
*** RealLifeWritesThePlot. They had limited money for sets and saving all that money by having things happen at the library or Buffy's house all the time saved them having to build another one time set, or take up standing set space (which is at a premium on any show) with a useless apartment. Giles' place substitutes in season 4 and the Magic Box later.
** Angel explained to Ms Calender [[spoiler: right before he killed her]] that he could get in to the school without being invited because the school's motto was "Those who seek knowledge, come forth" or something like that (which was a completely unnecessary explanation anyway, since [[spoiler: when he still had a soul]] he had been invited into the school and been in the library before). One wonders why the school didn't change it's motto at some point to say "Those who seek knowledge and are not dead."
*** Easy. The Mayor built the town for vamps and demons, so the motto is useful for them.
*** It also appears to be Angel's joke rather than the real reason, which is that the school is a public building so vampires can and do come in any time they want. Angel develops a sense of humor when he's evil.

[[folder:Heat Scanners and Vamps]]
* The Initiative determined that Spike was a vampire because, unlike the students on the far side of the paper-thin wall from them, his body temperature was "exactly room temperature". How could the thermal scan even pick him up? I would have settled for some technobabble that they were pairing the thermal imaging camera with a backscatter x-ray and looking for cold skeletons (or something similar), but Spike was a human-shaped mass of blue and they never even mentioned why they could see him at all.
** Probably just DidNotDoTheResearch, but there is one plausible explanation (or HandWave) in that motion would make a disturbance on the thermal scanner, so the moving "cold object" would tip them off. Of course, this doesn't explain why he showed up as a ''person-shaped blob'' of blue, but that could be so that the viewer clearly saw what they were talking about on the interface.
*** In the episode of ''Angel'' where he fights a blind MonsterofTheWeek, it's shown that vampires create heat when they move.

[[folder:Consecrated Ground]]
* If consecrated ground burns vampires, how do they dig their way out of graves without huge problems? I'd think it would function like holy water, where touching it just burns but too much can dust... did they just forget?
** I'm pretty certain it was never stated that consecrated ground hurts vampires. They're often seen in churches, for one thing. The only time any vampire grave caused trouble was when the Master's minions went to dig up his skeleton, and that was because Giles, Willow and Xander had performed a mystic ritual over the grave.
*** That's the incident I was talking about-- the vampires digging up the Master say (with hands smoking) "The ground is consecrated-- it burns!". But I guess maybe it's Willow, Xander, and Giles' extra protection, not the consecration, that's doing it. I guess it just seems like the vampires should know that.
*** This troper interpreted that what they meant by "consecrated" was "lots of holy water poured on the spot". Why should vampires necessarily use the standard meaning of the word, when it has much more significant meanings to them; stuff that hurts them by mystical means without being explicitly enchanted, like crosses and the holy water.
*** Maybe the consecration of graves is a specific spell that Christians once used (similar to the way the blessing used on holy water is an anti-vampire charm, and they used it as part of the funeral ceremony in place of putting all of their corpses face-down or head-down or putting burnt ash or a bag of some specific flower's petals in the grave dirt). Most funerals just don't do the spell properly any more, and if they do it's because of a fortunately placed bit of preformer error.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:No Wounds from Stakes]]
* Why does staking never leave a big injury in the vampire's chest? Whenever somebody jams a stake in their hearts, there's never a hole, they seem fine until they dust. Even that time Riley shoved a fake wooden stake in Spike. It wasn't real wood, but it was still sharp and big, Spike should've had a wound from that. Now, there are the usual answers for a question like, and I tried to think them all out. None fit for this show though. It can't be because that'd be too gory, as they've shown some pretty nasty vampire injuries before on Buffy. It couldn't be for special effects, as they have both enough SE power to make the lumpy vampire face, and around mid season 2, they can show the vampire skeleton as they die. They can render bones falling, but they can't make a messy hole on somebody?
** It wouldn't be that big and messy. Vampires don't have a pulse, so their blood is just kind of there; it wouldn't pour out like it would with a human. The hole in the vampire's shirt would be relatively small, or at least small enough that moving his arms would probably cover the mark in his flesh. Besides, an inch-wide hole just isn't that visible, especially if it closed when the stake was removed, as puncture wounds often do.
[[/folder]]

** Even the vampires don't know for certain. The Master, a vampire who is probably older than Christianity, wonders why he is so afraid of crosses while staring at one. To him, it's nothing but a couple planks of wood glued together. But it still fills his heart with dread.
*** According to WordOfGod, The Master is only about 600-800.
** Theory put forward in one of the unauthorised ''Buffy'' guides is that the early Christian church effectively "tweaked" the rules of reality (just as Willow later does with the scythe) and charges the objects sacred to their faith with anti-vampire mojo. That would also account for the absurdly useful invitation rule.
*** Why would the Christian church need to have had anything to do with the "absurdly useful" invitation rule? Threshold law is, in a number of religions (particularly wicca and most variations of witchcraft, including [[InterfaithSmoothie Joss's written and Willow's practiced version]]), an inherent property of a place being a home. That's why the dorm rooms (at least shortly after Buffy and Kathy moved in) didn't count, and nor do hotel rooms, because they are merely the place of residence for the people within and don't have the connection of being their home from which to draw power of threshold law. Vampires just happen to be one of the many demonic or magical species that aren't [[DependingOnTheWriter blind/powerless/lucky]] enough to ignore it the way humans can.

[[folder:Vampire Evolution]]
* The ancient uber-vamps are meant to be, in general, much tougher than modern vampires - then why the hell did modern vampires evolve that way? The point of evolution is survival; true they needed to become more human-looking, so they didn't die, but they probably should have kept the thicker ribcages.
** According to Giles, "As Neanderthals are to human beings, the Turok-Han are to vampires. They're a primordial, ferociously powerful killing machine, as single-minded as animals. They are the vampires that vampires fear. An ancient and '''entirely different''' race, and until this morning, I thought they were a myth." Modern vampires aren't descended from Turok-Han, just related to them, like us to Neanderthals.
** Moreover, vampires are plenty tough without being Turok-Han. And the more human in appearance, the more likely they are to blend, and the more humans they'll be able to turn, increasing their number.
** I also think that the first Turok-Han we saw was getting a power-up from the First, the same was that Caleb was. The later "uber-vamps" weren't nearly as tough.
** I always thought of the Turok-Han as just really old vampires, whose features changed over time along with their strength (like the Master).
** OK, try this one on for size: The Turok-Han were an earlier form of vampire, created before the Old Ones left. When the normal vampires showed up they were competing for the same resources, so ended up battling the Turok-Han. Obviously the Turok-Han were tougher, but the vampires were smarter, able to pass as human and probably able to turn humans more successfully, so they wiped out the Turok-Han. Except for a handful the First saved and hid under the future site of Sunnydale and slowly fed prisoners to turn into more of them.
** I always thought of the Turok-Han as a "pure" vampire. Since vamps are supposed to be human/demon hybrids, the Turok-Han would be a pure vampire demon without that pesky, fragile, human shell.
*** In Season 2 of {{Angel}}, (when the gang was in Pylea) we see what a vampire looks like unhampered by humanity. It's green and kind of scaly.
** Vampires cannot evolve. They do not breed, and evolution requires breeding.
*** They wouldn't have to evole, just be created by a similar source. Evidence for this: In Episode 2 Giles says that vampires were created by the last Old One to leave this dimension, but Illyria on ''Angel'' , who predates that time, remembers vampires from her time. So maybe she remembers the originally created Turok Han and the vampires we know were created later, resulting in the above suggested conflict.
**** That makes sense, as the last Old One created vamps as a last-ditch measure to maintain a presence on Earth. Giles isn't saying that the vampires evolved from the Turok-Han, just that the Turok-Han and vampires came from the same source: the last Old One. The Turok-Han were probably the foot soldiers in that particular Old One's army, created from a portion of its power. Later on, the same Old One used the last of its power in a different way, to infect human beings and change them into vampires. So the vampires and Turok-Han come from the same source and could be considered relatives, but, just like humans and Neandethals, neither one evolved from the other.
*** Vampires are TheVirus. This leaves plenty of room for evolution.
**** Evolution requires mutation. As far as we can tell, being sired by a vampire means acquiring all the standard strengths and weaknesses of vampirism, even with exceptional circumstances. Drusilla, for example, sired Spike, but he doesn't acquire any of her extra superpowers. Nor does Darla, who was sired by the Master. The only exception is Sam Lawson, sired when Angel had a soul and thus unable to take sadistic pleasure in the various vampiric atrocities, but that was an exceptionally unique case, and we don't know if Sam would have passed his "condition" down if he had sired anyone else. In short, vampires can't evolve because vampirism never changes: being sired is being sired, and you always get the same situation afterwards.
***** Though the fact that having a soul effects the vampires one sires suggests that the human side does have at least a tiny bit of influence on vampirism, and humans are theoretically a constantly evolving species. It would at least lead to vampires having different mental capabilities and initial physical structures as time goes on.
****** The only other vampire sired by someone with a soul that gets a lot of screen time is Holden Webster, Buffy's vamped classmate from "Conversations With Dead People". While he does seem a bit friendlier than the typical vamp, he's also pretty unapologetically evil in a way that Sam wasn't. It's possible that Sam is just an anomaly, or that the gypsy curse got passed onto him when he was sired. Which isn't really a mutation of the vampirism virus, but an artifact of the curse.
***** Regarding mutation, why do you assume LamarckWasRight about vampires? Skills acquired by a human before or after he became a vampire have no reason to be inherited by the next victim, nor is this necessary for the evolution of vampires. [[SufficientlyAnalyzedMagic Testing the existence of mutations would require bringing many vampires to Pylea in order to reveal the true form of their inner demons and then hunt for differences among them]].
****** That's the point. The discussion was initially about whether vampires can evolve, with one commenter suggesting that, since vampirism is TheVirus, that means that they can. I suggested that they ''can't'', because every vampire we observe being vamped gets the exact same powers and weaknesses, without exception, regardless of the circumstances. The reason the idea of Lamarck being right came up is because that's the only way for vampires to even ''potentially'' evolve. As it is, though, that's not the case. Vampirism can't change, so it doesn't evolve.
******* And I answered by pointing out that, since we don't see the demons within, we can't compare them. In StargateSG1, all goa'uld hosts had [[GlowingEyesOfDoom glowing eyes]], a [[EvilSoundsDeep deep voice]] and a [[HealingFactor healing factor]]. But goa'uld symbiotes, while similar, didn't look all exactly the same. On the other hand, now that I think again about it...
** "As Neanderthals are to human beings, the Turok-Han are to vampires" could mean that the Turok-Han were made from Neanderthals or other ancient hominids. In this case, vampire evolution would just be human evolution + vampirism.
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It seems like the length of time it takes for someone to turn into a vampire depends only on the necessities of the plot. Sometimes they rise after they're buried (Ford, Holden, and many others). Sometimes it's when they're in the funeral home (Theresa, that one woman in early S7). Sometimes it's in the hospital (like in "The Body"). Sometimes it's within minutes (Jesse and the watcher sired by Zachary Kralik). But it's always because someone rising then serves the plot in some way. It's annoying.

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*** There is little evidence that vampires kills every night. The number of people capable of killing them is higher than is being credited here and was probably much higher in olden times. Remember on [[Angel]] Holtz was tracking Angel and Darla BEFORE they slaughtered his family. Watchers were probably more active as well and as strong as vampires are most of history houses were quite flamable and in a world with no cars you're probably not too far away to find in daylight.

*** That's a pretty poor justification, she'd be a lot easier to kill and drain dry after you shoot her in the gut, the real reason is Josh seems to hate guns for some reason.

***** Regarding mutation, why do you assume LamarckWasRight about vampires? Skills acquired by a human before or after he became a vampire have no reason to be inherited by the next victim, nor is that necessary for the evolution of vampires. [[SufficientlyAnalyzedMagic Testing the existence of mutations would require bringing many vampires to Pylea in order to reveal the true form of their inner demons and then hunt for differences among them]].

**** Evolution necessitates mutation. As far as we can tell, being sired by a vampire means acquiring all the standard strengths and weaknesses of vampirism, even with exceptional circumstances. Drusilla, for example, sired Spike, but he doesn't acquire any of her extra superpowers. Nor does Darla, who was sired by the Master. The only exception is Sam Lawson, sired when Angel had a soul and thus unable to take sadistic pleasure in the various vampiric atrocities, but that was an exceptionally unique case, and we don't know if Sam would have passed his "condition" down if he had sired anyone else. In short, vampires can't evolve because vampirism never changes: being sired is being sired, and you always get the same situation afterwards.