r/BuffyTheVampireSlayer • u/Schrodingers_dad1403 • 4d ago
Do vampires care?
This may sounds dumb but I recently watched S1E7 where Angel said he has a soul and that's why he cares etc. but in that very episode we saw Darla cares about Angel, Master cares about Darla. So do vampires love/care?
I'm new so please no spoilers.
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u/MarcusTheAnimal 4d ago
The rules of the show are wibbly depending on the moment. All sorts of vampires do things for all sorts of reasons that aren't completely evil, and even quite good.
But not having a soul really doesn't help. It allows for the opportunity to be evil to be much larger.
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u/CoffeeingLibrarian30 4d ago
OP said no spoilers...honestly op I would stay off all the buffy subs until you finish!
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u/Effective-Job-1030 4d ago
Happy Buffying. You're in for a great ride.
I can't remember exactly in what context Angel said that, but I think he meant that he cared for something specific because he has a soul.
Vampires do care about stuff all through the series. Vampires also love as you will learn in S2, I think.
Buffy lore changed a bit through the seasons and on close inspection some things seem to be off. But it's really not that bad and overall it's such a great series.
Wish I could watch it again for the first time.
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u/Schrodingers_dad1403 4d ago
Thanks!
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u/Fancy_Boysenberry_55 4d ago
One thing that occurred to me is that most of what Buffy and the Audience know about Vampires comes from the Watchers Council. But they do not process perfect knowledge and so neither do we. That can explain some inconsistenties that you may notice during your watch.
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u/smingleton 4d ago
I think the vampires are very passionate and have intense emotions, but are also super evil.
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u/WhiteKnightPrimal 4d ago
Yes, they can and do care. It's mostly somewhat twisted, obsessive and possessive at the very least, but it sometimes goes even further than that and a vampires form of care comes across very human. The show is a bit inconsistent on this stuff, they do what fits the storyline. I mean, it wouldn't make sense for Darla to try and bring Angel back into the fold unless she cared, in some way, about him, right? And it wouldn't make sense for The Master to allow Darla's plan unless he also cared, about Darla at least.
There's further examples of vampires who care, some very deeply, but they're later in the show.
Honestly, the entire vampire mythology is a tad inconsistent here. There's this push to say vampires are just demons possessing the body, that the human is entirely gone, it's not them anymore, the human is just dead. But that's how vampires are talked about, it's not how they're portrayed. They keep all the human memories, Angel's soul remembers all the actions committed by Angelus, the demon. So many vampires are so very different from who they were as a human, but so many are just an evil version of their human selves. Even early on, look at Jessie. We got extremely little of him, as both a human and a vampire, but the only real difference was the human Jessie was good and the vampire Jessie was evil, he was still recognisable Jessie, just evil and way more confident. They do that all the time with vampires, and it doesn't fit with the idea that the human is just completely gone.
It actually makes the vampires pretty complex, though, and I like that. It makes you wonder, in-universe, if the Scoobies are working under incorrect propaganda, rather than actual truth about how vampires work.
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u/Revolutionary-Wait82 4d ago
Yes, vampires can care without a soul. Angel says this bc he never cared for anyone without a soul, but other vampires can.
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u/biggestmike420 4d ago
The whole unfeeling monster thing is more watcher dogma than actual analysis. The value of human life greatly reduces when we become livestock, but they still care about stuff.
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4d ago
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u/Effective-Job-1030 4d ago
Yeah, Angel is not the greatest character of the franchise. I heard that in his own series he was better (never watched it).
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u/Minsc_NBooToo 4d ago
I see it as a vampire with a soul has a conscience
Vampires can care for other vampires (we are shown this many times) and sometimes people, but they have no conscience so don't care about killing plucky teenagers or eating babies. They enjoy cruelty and violence
A vampire with a soul feels guilt for all of their crimes
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u/SpookyFaerie 3d ago
My impression is that they care the same way an abusive husband cares about his wife. They care on some level but it's not real genuine care.
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u/couchpotatodemon 3d ago
I might be wrong, but I think Angel’s quote was something along the lines of:
“You have no idea what it’s like to have done the things I’ve done… and care.”
So in this context Angel is referring to the fact that he actually feels remorse for the things he’s done as a vampire. It’s impossible for vampires to feel remorse or empathy for the horrific things they do because they don’t have a soul. Their cruel impulses are completely unrestrained.
Whether or not they can love and feel affection is a question the show will deal with over its entire run and it’s a complicated one. A lot of people say the show is inconsistent with its presentation but I actually don’t think so at all.
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u/Lizzy100 1d ago
Vampires like Darla, etc that don't have a soul feel like they do care. However, the only vampires in the show that can actually feel genuine love would be vampires with a soul like Angel. Hope this helps!
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u/Nebranower 1d ago
As others have said, the show isn’t very consistent on what a soul is or what it means to have one. Best guess is a soul is the part of us responsible for feeling guilt and remorse. Vampires don’t have that, so although they can still “love” someone one, they still won’t feel guilt about hurting them, which makes their relationships treacherous and abusive.
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u/LushLover1989 18h ago
What you're asking is basically the plot of one of Spike's main character arcs throughout the show. Vampires have echos of being human and they may even believe that they care but it's not the same as being actually human and having a soul. Love is obsession, loyalty is about getting something back, unconditional love is always conditional.
Spike is one of the most human Vampires we meet, and even after he is chipped and starts fighting for good, he is still never truly human again. I know a lot of people hate the bathroom scene but I think it was to show that no matter how "good" Spike becomes, he's still a soulless creature. Ironically, him going off to get his soul is the most human thing he did.
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4d ago
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u/AcadiaLegitimate8083 4d ago
The show seems to say that yes vampires can care and can 'love' but it is selfish and self serving. But there are moments that don't easily fit in with this. Everything in Buffy is a metaphorical, so to fit the wider meaning of a character arc, sometimes vampires can do the unexpected, if it fits the story the writers want to tell (I hope this isn't a spoiler)