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This worries me.
If a vampire stole your favorite jacket and then got staked, you lose your jacket forever.
That jacket could contain your wallet, your credit cards, your cell phone, precious keepsakes and mementos.
There's never anything left but dust. Not once have spare change, keys, or fillings been shown to survive a vampire's destruction.
You could have a one-of-a-kind McGuffin, and if it's in a vampire's pocket when they get whacked, *poof* gone forever.
What if a vampire had a living kitten in his jacket pocket? What happens then?
Didn't they do that in one of the shows? Buffy complaining about the dead vamp ruining her jacket?
What if a vampire had a living kitten in his jacket pocket? What happens then?
Instant black hole.
They are taking the comics and putting them together for a season 8, or is it 9?
I think that the idea is that their evil impurity is infused into their clothes; thus as the Sunlight destroys a vampire and even its essence; the clothes with are infused with their essence are destroyed. Vamps pretty much wear the same clothes all the time; perhaps if they were snappier dressers and changed their clothes more often it wouldnt get infused with all their evil demon spirit and might withstand the sunlight; but then again; dont vampires catch fire in sunlight; burn up the clothes?
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I remember Joss mentioning the bit about the entire vamp (and clothing) turning to ash in an interview (except when it was a plot relevant device, like a ring that signified membership in a special order), purely because it would have cost even more money (and, especially in the first season, when the budget was corset-tight) to have the clothing waft to the floor.
Plus the turns to dust thing *might* at least have some credibility if the vampire was 10,000 years old or something, but when Buffy staked someone that died two days ago? The logical result would be an freshly embalmed corpse of some co-ed with dirt under its nails and a stake-hole in it's chest, and that sort of thing would have caused major problems for Buffy, as even the Sunnydale police weren't *that* deeply stupid. :)
[Indeed, even a centuries old vampire would probably not really decay any faster than someone who died last week. The force animating them departs, but there's no reason at all that this lack of energy would generate the ridiculous amounts of heat necessary to flash-incinerate a human body...]
Perhaps the flash of heat and incineration is something to do with the natural world getting its revenge on the unliving creature that has defied it. It dug its way up out of the earth, denying the earth. It does not breath, defying the wind. It is as cold as the dead, and yet moves like something warm and alive, functioning without the hot spark of life, enraging the element of fire. It drinks no water, only the blood of those still alive. The trees that grow in the earth provide it's bane, a stake through the heart. Running water causes them discomfort. The sun, source of all warmth, punishes them. And, uh, something, something air...
I lost it. Air stumped me!
They don't need to breathe is air. Air and wind are part of the same element of nature, Set.
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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Well I could understand the 'dusting' in the sense that the vamp is actually a demon inhabiting the body, IIRC. Maybe we can kludge it as an 'area effect'? ;-)
And I think it was Xander trying to stop Spike from killing himself where he complained he'd lose his favourite shirt.
Well; hehe about vamps just raised; I remember the one where Buffy had the conversation with a vamp who was just raised and they fought; then sat down and talked; had a conversation; guy told how he got his life on track and studies karate; lol; then the break was over and they started fighting again. I am thinking that when the stake; an icon of life as living wood, disrupts the otherworldly energy of the demon possessing the body to make the vampire, the death energy breaks down all the clothes; which are usually living matter like cloth or animal skin like leather; but cost of production is certainly a big deal. Is intersting to consider in the Genre of Buffy. Considering the movie compared to the tv show throws a wrench in it.
It might be that the magic of the item protects it.
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I am thinking that when the stake; an icon of life as living wood, disrupts the otherworldly energy of the demon possessing the body to make the vampire, the death energy breaks down all the clothes; which are usually living matter like cloth or animal skin like leather; but cost of production is certainly a big deal.
In some African mythology, the tree is seen as a symbol of the intersection between the spirit world and the material world (symbolized by some by the sign of the cross, the flat plane of the earth pierced by the vertical tree, with roots extending below the ground and the trunk rising into the sky).
As such, some groups believe that standing beneath a tree, one can most readily commune with one's ancestors, as the spirits congregate where the barriers between the spirit world and material world are weakest, at these 'crossroads' between the two worlds that the trees represent.
A vampire is essentially a corpse that an evil spirit has wrapped around itself so that it can walk in the material world, which it couldn't do otherwise, wearing it like a protective spacesuit, protecting it from a natural world it has no place in.
By planting a 'tree' in the flesh of that corpse, a tiny micro-cosm of that symbolic arrangement is created, with the stake basically puncturing the 'environmental suit' that the evil spirit is wearing, and causing it to leak out of the corpse it has stolen, and be forced back into the spirit world.
I'd bet 200 quatloo Joss doesn't know crap-all about this, and didn't choose to have his first Watchers be a group of African mystics to take advantage of this fun connection between fictional critters and real-world African mythology, but it is a neat bit of mind-candy.
They don't need to breathe is air. Air and wind are part of the same element of nature, Set.
The point I was making was that a vampire's existence defiled the natural elements of earth, air, fire and water, and that traditional vampiric weaknesses ended up making it look like the elements of earth, water and fire had found ways to punish / restrict them in return.
I didn't find a correlating explanation for how the element of air had punished / restricted the vampire, so I was admitting that it was a weak analogy.
Not having to breath was the act of defiance, and not a punishment or restriction.
(One could argue that Angel being unable to give Buffy rescue breathing in the last ep of the first season could constitute a weakness, but how many vampires really are going to feel punished by being unable to perform CPR? Plus, IMO, the fact that they can speak and smoke and whatnot indicates that Angel was just covering, because there was no way in hell he was going to admit to Xander that he didn't have the slightest clue how to perform CPR anyway, being a 240 year old predator who'd never had the slightest reason to take a First Aid course...) :)
I will agree it does not necessarily punish them, but it would be an affront to nature and another reason for nature to be repelled by them and want there to be no trace left of their bodies.
In Buffy; the vampires are definately demons from another plane that take over/possess/share consciousness and empower dead bodies; so is kinda a rebirth thing; one vampire kills someone; allows another vampire spirit to animate the corpse; she finds that out when she goes into the Hellmouth.
Because it's cheaper and faster in Post Production.
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I remember Joss mentioning the bit about the entire vamp (and clothing) turning to ash in an interview (except when it was a plot relevant device, like a ring that signified membership in a special order), purely because it would have cost even more money (and, especially in the first season, when the budget was corset-tight) to have the clothing waft to the floor.
Plus the turns to dust thing *might* at least have some credibility if the vampire was 10,000 years old or something, but when Buffy staked someone that died two days ago? The logical result would be an freshly embalmed corpse of some co-ed with dirt under its nails and a stake-hole in it's chest, and that sort of thing would have caused major problems for Buffy, as even the Sunnydale police weren't *that* deeply stupid. :)
[Indeed, even a centuries old vampire would probably not really decay any faster than someone who died last week. The force animating them departs, but there's no reason at all that this lack of energy would generate the ridiculous amounts of heat necessary to flash-incinerate a human body...]
Perhaps the flash of heat and incineration is something to do with the natural world getting its revenge on the unliving creature that has defied it. It dug its way up out of the earth, denying the earth. It does not breath, defying the wind. It is as cold as the dead, and yet moves like something warm and alive, functioning without the hot spark of life, enraging the element of fire. It drinks no water, only the blood of those still alive. The trees that grow in the earth provide it's bane, a stake through the heart. Running water causes them discomfort. The sun, source of all warmth, punishes them. And, uh, something, something air...
I lost it. Air stumped me!
They are denied the breath of life and as such the foul the very air into which they walk. They have no protection from the spirit, as such things of power burn and are denied them.
You're discussing a pop teen TV show. (arguably one of the best made Pop Teen tv shows ever) in the context of academic examination? Did you question the way the baddies disappeqared every time you dropped them in a video game?
BTW, the living kitten question was answered dramatically in Angel. Angel's son Conner was born from a vampiric mother but because most of her birthing system was non functional the only way she could give "birth" was for her to stake herself. It was one of the shows more awesome and poignant momements.
Um. Ok, I never watched the show, although I am pretty sure that if I did I would have loved it. (loved the movie, obviously love monsters etc. because I'm here, like Joss Wheden stuff) BUT why not just do a C-section?
Also because Joss Whedon didn't want to have to worry about how Buffy isn't arrested for murder charges every episode.
To avoid a harsher rating?
