Frey’s Day May 16 2003

Yesterday was a pretty good day. Not just because my Unemployment check came, and Scott Shepherd was a mensch among men, but also because I got my newest VCR working.

See, a few nights back, I found a very old VCR tossed into the dumpster out back. I mean, I’m going to guess this thing is 20 years old, at least... one of those early generation VCRs that is roughly the size of a Samsonite Tourister suitcase. No remote control, of course, and no fiber optic hook ups on the back.

Being a lifelong packrat, I salvaged the thing, brought it inside, dug around in my utility drawer until I found some old style connector cables (with the protruding filaments and screw on mating collars), hooked it up to my old TV (which is in the bedroom, on top of the old beat to shit entertainment center my neighbor gave me when he got his new one) and tried it out.

It seemed mostly functional, but while I could get the movie to more or less show on screen, you couldn’t really see it due to a lot of static and lines messing up the picture. I played around with every knob and couldn’t clear the problem up. So, I sighed, and stopped trying... eventually, I probably would have thrown it out again, but I wasn’t going to walk it back out there the same night I’d dragged it in, that would have been too depressing.

Last night, after a reasonably good day already, I decided to see if I could set the clock... then at least I’d have a functional clock out of the deal, albeit a very large, clunky looking one with a very small display. To my satisfaction, I managed to figure out how to do it with no problem (this thing has no on-screen programming at all, so I’d expected this might prove impossible). Then, deciding to give it one more shot, I tossed another tape in there, and once more started fiddling with the various knobs.

The key seemed to be using the STILL command. (Of course, I also brushed out the inside of the VCR near the tape heads and got rid of some dust and dirt, too.) After using the STILL button (just to see if it would work) when the tape started playing again, a lot of the static seemed to be gone. I started working the tracking wheel, and voila... suddenly, I had a clear picture.

So, I can now watch movies in the bedroom on a really old, obsolete VCR with no remote control. And you know what? That’s nice. It’s always very satisfying to me when I can make something work, since I have absolutely no technical acumen at all, and very little competence at anything beyond throwing words together in a pleasing and lucid fashion.

Meanwhile, May is absolutely flying by... I mean, it’s just making this huge FWOOOSH sound as it goes whippin’ on past. Assuming I spend money on nothing else for the rest of the month, I pretty much have the June rent covered, and I’m trying not to worry beyond that. However, since my lease is up at the end of June, and I have no idea if my apartment complex is going to renew it, or issue me some walking papers, I’m still a tiny bit stressed. On the other hand, I also have no idea where the July rent is coming from... but it would be nice to only be paying one month’s rent here, instead of frantically trying to find a way to raise a month’s rent and a security deposit to move in someplace else. (More realistically, that would probably involve the depressing prospect of putting everything I own in boxes and moving out to my brother Paul’s apartment in Zephyrhills.)

There’s probably a change on the horizon, though. The invoice for my first Unemployment check is about to roll in at my temp agency. I suspect they’ll prioritize finding an assignment for me once that happens.

A bit later... Saw X-2 today. It’s very enjoyable. I’m not going to analyze it in detail, I’ll just say, for all that one can see certain specific story elements and plot points and underlying themes (and, obviously, the characters themselves) being borrowed from the comics, the movie continuity is far more sensible than the New X-Men comic book has ever been. Having read the comics, at least, twenty years or so ago, however, I can tell what all the Jean Grey related foreshadowing in this installment is leading to, and it’s not gonna be fun.

SOUL SURVIVORS (Sidebar: ANGEL)

Before I get to the wrap up, where we discuss vampire identity and how it’s impacted by the loss of the original human soul, as well as why Watchers lie so much about the whole thing, let me take a few minutes to discuss the character of Angel, and what all this musing on souls means specifically in regard to him.

First, the point of all this in re: Angel should be clear by now... Angel and Angelus are not separate beings. They are two sub-personalities of the same person. Most humans converted to vampirism don’t go schizoid in this fashion, but that’s because most vampires never have souls reattached to them... the psychic evolution, or devolution, that begins when they are converted to an Undead body and lose their souls (while retaining their specific identity), is a more or less permanent change. Vampires may continue to exist for centuries after they ‘die’ and lose their souls, but as they continue to change over the course of that time (assuming they do) they do so without a ‘soul’. Their psychological course through the ages is not impacted in any way by empathy, or any instinctive feeling that any other individual is at all important, or even ‘real’. Vampires are, essentially, violent, bloodthirsty demons who were once human, and like all such demons, they live out their lives without the slightest tender feeling towards any other living being... with the possible exception of vampire sires and fledgelings, as we’ve seen with Darla and Angel, Darla and the Master, Drusilla and Angel, and Spike and Drusilla... and that ‘love’ may be a psychic connection formed by the act of siredom, and the only real connection vampires can feel to other sentient beings.

Angel, until recently, was unique... a human transformed into a vampire who, after a hundred years as a vampire, suddenly regained his soul. And I believe his response was unique, as well, leading to the current character known as Angel, Champion of the Higher Powers, who is also completely one of a kind.

When the mortal we know only as ‘Liam’ was taken by Darla and converted to vampirism, he was at a stage in his life where he had few gentler emotions anyway, and was not, spiritually, very evolved. He hated and loathed his father, and generally seemed to regard everyone else in the world (with the possible exception of his younger sister) much as a demon does... as potential resources, toys, annoyances, or obstacles. Thus, when Darla turned Liam into a vampire and Liam lost his soul and gained the permanent bloodlust of a vampire, he hadn’t far to fall... and as a fledgeling vampire, he was effectively ‘raised’ from his Undead infancy by one of the most evil bitches ever to walk the planet. Under Darla’s mentoring and influence, vampire Liam became Angelus, a paragon of bloodthirsty chaos and violent darkness. Darla encouraged every violent, viciously anti-social, power seeking, dominance displaying urge Liam had, and something extremely black and powerful and, well, brilliantly wicked within Liam flowered under Darla’s tutelage. As the vampire Angelus, Liam achieved a full potential for evil he doubtless would have only dabbled his fingers in as a mortal.

Then, BAM!, Angelus gets his soul shoved back into his body. Abruptly, he’s either connected to the higher powers again (model 1: religious) and they’re having his brand new Jiminy Cricket deliver a severe and long overdue emotional asskicking to the big freak, or he’s psychically linked to every other human being on the planet again (model 2: evolutionary) and can feel the unspeakable anguish he’s caused washing back to him from the grieving survivors of his victims.

At that point, and for some time thereafter, Angelus is still Angelus... he’s simply greatly crippled and hindered by the emotional pain we all call empathy or conscience, that he hasn’t experienced in a hundred years (and probably hadn’t experienced much for quite a while prior to that; Liam seemed to have eroded his own conscience quite nicely). Perhaps the brand shiny new psychic organ of a soul the Gypsies manufactured for Angelus out of the ether transmitted empathic grief and suffering and the torment of guilt far better than Liam’s original soul had. Whatever the case, Angelus, although he was still the evil, depraved creature he had become under Darla’s expert teaching, was now flailed and scourged by his brand new soul. The guilt, as we’ve seen in many flashbacks, was nearly paralyzing.

Over the next century, Angel had to learn how to become a functional human being again, and a large part of how he did it was, well, denial. He evolved a psychological belief, one he never fully articulated to himself... that he, the current ‘Angel’, hadn’t done all those things... ‘Angelus’ had. Angelus was the bad one, Angelus was evil, and now Angelus was locked away somewhere inside, a wicked, cruel spirit that Angel would never, ever let loose again. This psychological tool, unhealthy though it would be considered in standard human psychology, was effective in allowing Angel to survive (at any time he could have suicided simply by staying up to watch the sunrise some morning) but he could never accept it fully... never really integrate it well enough into his mental gestalt to be content, or even really all that functional. He was surviving, but nearly comatose... in withdrawal from the world, stumbling along... as Whistler once called him, he was ‘The Stink Guy’.

Whistler showing Angel the latest Slayer, and offering him a chance to redeem himself by helping her, was the necessary final component in Angel’s ‘recovery’. By giving him a job, a goal, something worthwhile to do, Whistler provided Angel with the necessary motivation to get his shit together. But in order for Angel to do that, he had to take one last step that he was probably completely unaware of, consciously... he had to fully commit to the ‘Angelus/Angel’ dichotomy. ‘Angelus’ was now fully formed as a sub-persona. ‘Angel’ was now free to function, under certain self imposed, never articulated conditions... that he help Buffy, that he behave correctly at all times, and (this one is especially important) that he never, never, never allow himself to lose control, or especially, to be happy, again. ‘Angel’ doubtless, on one level, felt he didn’t deserve happiness, but on another, he associated happiness with Angelus (who was generally always a cheerful sociopath and butcher of humanity) and distrusted the emotion deeply.

And, again, had the newest psychic shift... Angelus’ having his soul returned to him... been permanent, then this ‘unhealthy’ psychic dichotomy would never have mattered. ‘Angel’ would not only have been functional, he would have actually been upright, noble, and heroic... exactly the man the Powers wanted him to be, apparently.

However, again, to quote Whistler, ‘nobody saw [Buffy] coming... [she and Angel] made with the smoochies and suddenly, he’s a creep again!’

Personally, I don’t think this had anything to do with the Gypsy curse, and I suspect Uncle Janus (Yanos) was making all that shit about ‘vengeance is a living thing’ up so he wouldn’t have to admit he didn’t have a clue what was really going on. The curse was a one time spell.. it created a new soul for Angel out of the ether and jammed it into his psyche. It didn’t hang around after that. When Angel let himself go with Buffy, and allowed himself to truly be happy... and in that moment when he relaxed his guard, dropped his rigorous self control, and especially, was joyously content (especially as his joyous content came from a ‘sin of the flesh’) he flashed on being Angelus again... and bang! Angelus wakes up and starts fighting to take control of their shared psyche again. And when Angelus emerged triumphant again, the ‘soul’, which had become accustomed to the ‘Angel’ persona being in charge, fell away (a soul would never be a natural part of a vampiric entity anyway), leaving Angelus in the driver’s seat until some psychic trauma came along that allowed ‘Angel’ to re-emerge... which happened when Willow conjured up another ‘soul’ for him.

To sum up... Liam, who wasn’t a particularly pleasant guy to start with, became the wickedly, brilliantly evil Angelus over the course of a century or so of Darla’s expert corruption. Upon having a new soul grafted onto him, Angelus nearly became non-functional, and over the course of another century of guilt and anguish over his own actions, he developed into ‘Angel’, a distinct identity created specifically to let him not feel directly responsible for Angelus’ crimes. This unhealthy schizoid personality schism remains in Angel to this day; he flips back and forth between Jekyll and Hyde based on various different psychological triggers... the primary one of which is the sudden return or departure of the intangible psychic organ folks on Earth: BUFFY call a ‘soul’.

If Angel is ever to truly be ‘recovered’ or a ‘whole man’, he will have to somehow integrate his two separate selves into one comprehensive entity, and fully accept and take responsibility for all his actions, bad and good.

This probably won’t happen soon; it would make Angel a boring character, and also, the Powers That Be aren't concerned with Angel’s emotional health, they simply want a Champion.

SOUL SURVIVORS Part III

Finishing up our look at the ‘soul’, as opposed to the ‘self’, on Earth: BUFFY, and how this impacts the actuality of identity of individual vampires, as well as the rather different beliefs about such put forth by various individuals:

In "Welcome To The Hellmouth", Giles cautions Xander that when he looks at his now Undead buddy Jessie, he is not looking at his friend, but rather, at the monster who killed his friend. This seems to be, in general, the official party line on vampires... they may walk, talk, and when they feel like it, act like your old buddy, but they're not; they're a demon, and they'll eat you. Deal with it.

If what Giles says is true (and his statement is already clearly contradictory in one way anyway, but we'll get to that), then the 'real' person killed by a vampire has nothing whatsoever to do with the vampire itself created from that real person's body. The animating demonic spirit in the vampire body may have the previous inhabitant's memories as well as their mortal husk, and may, for reasons of its own, choose to behave in ways recognizeable and characteristic of the former living person, but it isn't them... it is an entirely separate, demonic entity.

So, again, assuming that what Giles says is the literal truth... that Undead Jessie, or Undead Harmony, or Undead Angel, or Undead Drusilla... are not, actually, in any way the real, living people who once bore those names before they were killed, their souls departed to wherever it is souls go, and their dead bodies were reanimated somehow by an infusion of some dark, necromantic energy that transformed them into bloodsucking monsters... then what we have in the vampire is a fairly simple case of demonic possession... albeit a possession that takes place after the body is dead and its original inhabiting human soul has departed.

As the body has not had time to decay, the new demonic inhabitant inherits it whole and undamaged, and thus, has full access to the recorded memories in the body's brain cells. It can, if it wishes (and apparently, inhabiting demons nearly always do) 'put on' the personality and memories of the now departed person and simulate them to an alarming degree... albeit, of course, without their provincial human morality or any semblance of human affection or regard for other humans.

This is a workable mechanism. Basically, it posits that there are, at least, two sorts of demons... those walking around in material bodies, and those without material bodies who take over the dead bodies of human vampire victims.

However, there is a problem with Giles' assertion that 'you're not looking at your friend, you're looking at the monster that killed him'. In point of fact, this isn't true. The monster that killed Jessie was ... well, it could have been any of several vampires, but let’s say it was Darla, for no other reason than that I can remember her name, and I can’t remember the name of the Brian Thompson character who is more likely to have been Jesse’s vampiric sire.

If our above hypothesis is true, then Darla drains Jessie's blood enough to kill him, or, nearly, and then cuts herself (as we saw her do with Angel) and has him drink her blood. This act seems to drive Jessie's own human soul out of his body and invite a demonic spirit in.

Yet Giles asserts that you are looking at 'the monster that killed your friend', and in fact, this isn't true. Undead Jessie is not the monster that killed Human Jessie, he's the one who took over Jessie's body after Darla killed Human Jessie. Darla is the monster who killed our friend Jessie, not Undead Jessie. In other words, the vampire's sire is the monster who killed the friend who used to own that body.

We can adjust this by increments to make Giles' statement technically correct... we could state, for example, that it is the entry of the new inhabiting demon that pushes the human soul out, because when a human is 'turned', their sire does not drain enough blood to kill them from that trauma and blood loss alone... and who knows, perhaps that's what Giles means. But emotionally, it doesn't seem valid. Ultimately, if Undead Jessie, Undead Harmony, and Undead Angel, are not really 'our friends', but are, instead 'the monsters that killed them', then we run into a whole host of problems revolving around Angel's moral responsibility for the various evil actions taken by the demon inhabiting his body when his soul is not in residence.

Which we’ve covered at length before, so let’s move on.

Let's look at Giles statement in another light. Let's assume that, instead of being literally true, Giles statement might well simply be something that the Watcher's Council has formulated as a sort of propaganda, for a complex series of reasons.

First, the ‘vampires aren’t humans, they’re demons that look like humans’ could well have been formulated to help humans fight vampires without conscience pangs. After all, if vampires are simply cursed human beings, with superhuman powers, no consciences, and an insatiable craving for human blood... well, then, while killing them in self defense during a battle is certainly morally justifiable, sneaking in to their tombs and staking them while they're helpless would rather smack of murder. After all, there have been human psychotics through the ages who thought they were vampires; morally, most people would feel they should be captured and put in prison, not have a stake driven through their hearts by a vigilante Vampire Slayer, which certainly smacks of a lack of due process.

No, it's only if vampires are monsters, who only simulate their former human identity as a convincing illusion, that a Watcher, a Slayer, or the average person can kill them without conscience pangs or troubling conflicts with the social contract. Let them retain their humanity, even slightly... let Undead Jessie actually, in some valid way, really be Xander's friend Jessie, just changed horribly... and it's a whole different moral and ethical can of worms.

Or, to put it another way, if Father Callahan tells Ben that Susan is, you know, still actually Susan, just, well, kind of a pissy, bloodsucking, rather evil version of Susan... it raises some moral issues. Ben may wonder if, since Susan is still, in some way, existent as a sentient being, he shouldn’t kill her, but instead, lock her up and hope someone can at some point figure out a cure for vampirism. (This would be the NEAR DARK treatment of vampirism, where the conditions is, basically, a disease that can be cured by a complete blood transfusion, and never mind how many people the cute she-vamp has killed over the several centuries she’s been ‘alive’ prior to that point.)

An even more compelling reason for Giles, and the Watcher’s Council, to fabricate a ‘cover story’ about what vampires are, is also a more subtle one. If, in fact, a person transformed into a vampire is still the same person they always were... if their ‘self’ continues to exist in vampire form, simply without a conscience, and now possessed of insatiable bloodlust as well as immortality and superhuman powers... then a significant percentage of the human population would not fear vampirism. They would seek it out. For thousands... perhaps hundreds of thousands, or even millions... of people, the notion of becoming ageless and immortal, in exchange for our consciences, would be a no-brainer.

We’ve already seen this, to an extent, in the second season episode “Lie To Me”. A friend of Buffy’s, dying of a brain tumor, decides to seek out Spike and bargain with him... he’ll betray Buffy into a trap, in exchange for being made an immortal vampire. Buffy, hearing this, spouts the usual line of Watcher propaganda... it’s not you who becomes a vampire, your soul goes elsewhere, the vampire is just a demon that looks like you, blah blah blah... and she seems to believe it. But this episode shows exactly why the Watchers’ Council might fabricate and put forward the notion that becoming a vampire does not actually allow the individual human to become immortal. Otherwise, there would be a stampede of self interested folks who want to live forever and don’t care if they become sociopathic blood drinking monsters in order to do it.

Last but not least, the Watcher’s Council may simply not want mankind in general to realize an unwholesome and unwelcome truth... namely, if vampires are merely humans without souls, then humans are merely demons with souls... and our ‘higher nature’ and ‘innate nobility’ are both simply the result of some weird psychic organ, and when that organ is amputated, humans immediately revert to the most vicious and remorseless sorts of behavior imaginable. Which is to say, ‘love’ is simply a psychic secretion, something manufactured by a non-physical organ, and is no more wonderful or grand than, say, adrenaline, or hormones. Which, if you think about it, is kind of grim and depressing and disillusioning all the way around.

All of which would explain why the Watcher's Council, and Giles, would take the 'it's not your friend, it's the monster that killed your friend' stance. It not only makes it easier for humans to kill vampires if they think vampires are simply monsters, it also discourages a huge vampire population explosion, as self centered humans the world over seek out vamps in hopes of being converted and gaining immortality.

So, in effect, a vampire is merely a human... the same human as before the vampiric transformation took place... but without a conscience, or any sense of the validity or humanity of anyone else.

Now, having suffered through more than enough BUFFY musings, you’re probably hoping to GOD, please, Jebus, let it be so, that I’ll go back to talking about pretty much anything else. But nooooooo. Next time, it’s “The Undead Yet Live, Part 1”... an in depth look at how vampiric bodies actually work, as opposed to how vampires insist they don’t work, on Earth:BUFFY. And I know you all just can’t wait for that.

THE INEVITABLE DISCLAIMER

By generally accepted social standards, I’m not a likable guy. I’m not saying that to get cheap reassurances. It’s simply the truth. I regard many social conventions in radically different ways than most people do, I have many many controversial opinions, and I tend to state them pretty forthrightly. This is not a formula for popularity in any social continuum I've ever experienced.

In my prior blogs, I took the fairly standard attitude: if you don’t like my opinions or my blog, don’t read the fucking thing.

Having given that some more thought, though, I’m not going to say that this time around, because I’ve realized that what this is basically saying is, ‘if you don’t like what I have to say, tough, I don’t want to hear it, don’t even bother to tell me, just go away’.

And that’s actually a pretty worthless attitude. It's basically saying, 'I don't want to hear anything except unconditional agreement and approval'. And that's nonsense. This is still a free country… for a little while longer, anyway… and if you really feel you just gotta send me a flame, or post one on my comment threads (assuming they actually work, which I cannot in any way guarantee) then by all means, knock yourself out.

Unless your flame is exceptionally cogent, witty, or stylish, though, I will most likely ignore it. You do have a right to say anything you want (although I’m not sure that’s a right when you’re doing it in my comment threads, but hey, you can certainly send all the emails you want). However, I have an equal right not to read anything I don’t feel like reading… and I’m really quick with the delete key… as various angry folks have found in the past, when they decided they just had to do their absolute level best to make me as miserable as possible.

So, if you don’t like my opinions, feel free to say so. However, if I find absolutely nothing worthwhile in your commentary, I will almost certainly not respond to it in any way.

Stupidity, ignorance, intolerance… these things are only worth my time and attention if they’re entertaining. So unless you can be stupid, ignorant, and/or intolerant with enough with, style, and/or panache to amuse me… try to be smart, informed, and broad minded when you write me.

Like it? Hate it? Hit me with your best shot.

NOTICE

There is such a thing as a social contract. Even among bloggers. And I pay attention to it.