Life & Times...and a Small Bit of Meta
Well, I missed another birthday. *headsmack* Happy Birthday (about a week late) to cindermom. I hope it was everythin you wanted it to be.
Just so you know, I do check my birthday list. I do make a note of these things. And then, of course, I completely lose track of the days and by the time I look at the calendar again it’s too late. If you’ve got a birthday this year, Happy (early or really, really early) Birthday, just to cover my bases now. I’ll try to be better, really I will.
It rained and stormed most of last week. The Sunday night before last a couple of transformers were hit. Power was out in places for the rest of the night and into the morning. One of the lines was hit pretty good because after frying three replacement transformers the crew boss finally decided that they needed to do something different. It took them another day to get power back on. Such fun.
The climbing roses and tea roses are blooming out all over the place and the gladiolus’ are shooting up, along with the grass. All this rain has been good for something besides making a marsh out of my yard.
I’ve got plans for the flower bed that include new edging and more soil for filler. We’re putting in a vegetable garden in the back, but it probably won’t be ready for planting until next year. We’ll have to plan out what we want to put where and get the soil ready. The compost heap has gotten off to a good start.
Our spot at Devil’s Den has been reserved and the kids are looking forward to the annual Memorial Day Camping Experience. There are quite a few hiking trails and the boys love exploring the caves. It’s also nice to sit a spell in a cool cave after hiking for an hour or so.
So, that’s what’s been going on here and I’ll get all caught up on you guys sometime this week.
Now, there are a few things I’ve been wondering. These questions have probably been ruminated upon at length. But since I came late to the fandom, I have missed all the discussion. Forgive me if this is old hat.
Hopefully, this all makes sense and can be easily followed.
Ok, so we saw in Buffy, Season One- the Master- and Angel, Season Five- the Prince of Lies- that vampires who have been around for a very long time lose the ability to hide behind their human façade. The fledgling vampires come out of the grave in game face- pick any season of Buffy for an example- and seem to have trouble controlling the switch between faces at first. But it is not a problem of control that the older vampires seem to face. Instead, the human disguise appears to be steadily corrupted by the demon within, until there is no human disguise left.
To me, that begs the question: What effect does the addition of a human soul have on this process?
In Angel, the soul cages the demon- suppresses it. Angel is shown as being akin to a split personality to Angelus, or vice versa. The soul and demon share almost all of the same memories- the exception being the memory of the Beast in Angel, Season Four- but there is a noticeable lag in memory when the soul is returned- when Angel is re-ensouled in Buffy, Season Two- and a noticeable shift in personality characteristics, fashion sense- for some reason Angelus favors leather pants- and level of cunning, if not intelligence. Angel is able, however, to pretend to be Angelus- Buffy, Season Three- and vice versa- Angel, Season Four.
In Spike, the soul only seems to add a sense of conscience to the demon. It is more of a melding of the two. Spike with a soul is relatively the same vampire we’ve always seen- the exception being his crazy stint in Buffy, Season Seven while he sorts out the sudden guilt for over a hundred years of murder and mayhem. Once he is more coherent, he still seems to be Spike through the rest of Buffy, Season Seven and Angel, Season Five. There is no splitting of consciousness as we’ve seen with Angel.
Now, Angel and Spike came to their souls in different ways. Angelus was cursed with a soul he didn’t want and Spike went searching for his. This could be an explanation for why Angel is so different from Angelus and why Spike is just Spike.
Would the fact that one vampire was cursed with his soul and one vampire won his soul also have different effects on the process?
What about Connor?
Connor is the son of two vampires. (As an aside: I subscribe to the school of thought that Angel’s trials to win a second chance- a second life, if you will- for the human but dying Darla in Angel, Season Two is the reason Connor was able to come into being. Angel won the trials but Darla was already on her second chance at life, so they- the ever vague and shadowy ‘they’- couldn’t cure her syphilitic heart condition. They could have awarded Angel and Darla the won life by literally allowing them to be able to make a life, a baby. My opinion, and only my opinion, is that this is what happened.) But, Connor comes with a soul- Darla is effected by it while pregnant in Angel, Season Three and the soul-eater in Angel, Season Four attempts to, well, eat it.
We assume that Connor is fully human, and his hospital tests after birth seem to confirm this. However, the shield around the Hyperion preventing demonic violence- Angel, either Season Three or Four- does smack the adolescent Connor down. Connor also has some traits commonly associated with vampires: greater than human strength and reflexes, the ability to take large amounts of physical damage and the ability to track by scent. And none of their weaknesses: Connor has a reflection, has no problem with sunlight and doesn’t subsist only on blood. But Connor appears to age as a normal human.
We are not told anything about Connor’s expected life span. Will he continue to age as a human and die like one? At some point will his aging begin to slow? We are not given even a hint, so anything is possible.
If Connor does have an extended life span as another little perk of being the child of two vampires, will he begin to show the effects of whatever portion of demonic essence inhabits his more than human body? We can’t know.
And, of course, a human infected with demonic essence brings us around to slayers.
We learn in Buffy, Season Seven that slayers were created by infusing, infecting or whatever term you want to use an adolescent human female with demonic essence. We are never told exactly what kind (or kinds) of demon essence(s) was (were) used in the ceremony. I’m inclined to think the adage set a thief to catch a thief may apply, but that is just my opinion and doesn’t explain the prophetic dreams.
In any case, slayers are stronger, faster and can take more damage than a normal human. They are at least as strong and as fast as vampires. They seem to have heightened senses as well- the blindfold fight in Buffy, Season Five. The downside is an extremely short life expectancy once they go from potential to active slayer.
Buffy seems to get stronger as the years that she is an active slayer go by. There are increasingly difficult Big Bads to fight. Obviously she becomes ever more experienced, but is that all? Is the demon essence also expressing more as the years go by? We don’t know and aren’t told.
What we do know is that Dracula- Buffy, Season five- appears to know the origin of the slayers (or is posturing) and tells Buffy her ‘darkness’ is so near that of a vampire’s. The Shamen- Buffy, Season Seven- want to infuse Buffy with even more demon essence to give her enough strength to fight the uber-vamp army of the First. If Buffy had taken this ‘gift,’ how would that have effected her? Made her stronger certainly, or what was the point? But how else? Again, we stray into the unknown.
And there we go- a lot of questions without a lot of answers. So what do you guys think? Any theories? On any of the above?