Meta: Dracula vs Buffy

[beer_good_foamy]

Alright folks, it's confession time. Ready?

I like "Buffy vs Dracula." I think it might even be the best season opener the show ever did.

There, I said it. Phew. Feels like a weight off my chest.

So anyway, I've had a bunch of thoughts on it knocking around in my head for some time, so given the latest developments of the comics I thought I might as well rewatch the episode and philosophise on them.

Antiquated and Obsolete; Dracula vs Buffy

The episode opens by setting up what will prove to be the central theme of the entire season, that will culminate with Buffy sacrificing herself to save herself: Buffy vs the Vampire Slayer. Buffy's in bed, restless, Riley asleep beside her. Buffy gets up. Without a word, she gets dressed, goes out, hunts down a vampire, kills it, goes back to bed and falls asleep in Riley's arms. The Slayer and the girl coexist – but not without friction. When they try to have an ordinary picnic the next day, their attempt at a normal(ish) life is interrupted not only by Buffy's supernatural strength destroying their means of entertainment

RILEY: Buffy slayed the football.

but also by the arrival of what we soon learn is THE vampire above all others – and as is customary, he arrives in a thunderstorm. (I'm sure if the budget had allowed, we would have seen a ship wash up on the beach with the whole crew dead and rats pouring ashore.) Count Dracula's in town.

In a way, though, that's almost by-the-by in this episode; because BtVS was never a show about the supernatural – it was a show about what it meant to be human, using supernatural elements for illustrations. In addition to the opening scene, there's the scene with Willow and Giles.

WILLOW: No. It's fine. It's just, you've been Mr. Project all summer. You know? Labeling the amulets and indexing your diaries. I draw the line at making giant rubber band balls. That's when you'll just have to get a life.
GILES: That's what I'm trying to do, actually, is, um, get a life.
WILLOW: It might go better if you left the house.

"Get a life" seems like a theme here. Season 5 is the season in which Buffy really starts having trouble with being the Slayer. Throughout the whole season, every character is consistently shown to be at least two seemingly contradicting characters; we have Suave!Xander vs Scruffy!Xander in "The Replacement", we have Spike and William in "Fool For Love", we have Dawn as both girl and key, Giles as both father figure and watcher... and obviously, Buffy as both Buffy Summers and Buffy The Vampire Slayer. It's the season where we hear talk of death wishes, of hearts turning to stone, where even the Slayer is powerless when it comes to saving her mother. It's the season where the clash between the human and the supernatural not only without, but within Buffy seems to become irreconcilable; where the stakes become so high that she'll have to choose one side or the other – and finally does.

BUFFY: I knew ... what was right. I don't have that any more. I don't understand. I don't know how to live in this world if these are the choices. If everything just gets stripped away. I don't see the point.

It may or may not be a coincidence that when Dracula calls her "killer," she's wearing the same red leather pants she wore when she went to murder Faith. Plus, of course, it's a pretty iconic image; two seemingly irreconcilable versions of the same myth meeting up on a graveyeard in California...

DRACULA: We're not going to fight.
BUFFY: Do you know what a slayer is?
DRACULA: Do you?
BUFFY: Who are you?
DRACULA: I apologize. I assumed you knew. I am Dracula.
BUFFY: Get out!

(It's hardly an accident that Timur Bekmambetov's film adaptation (or at least the international cut) of Sergei Lukyanenko's supernatural thriller Night Watch includes a TV playing that very scene of "Buffy vs Dracula" right before the film starts expositioning on the nature of light vs dark and how everyone has to choose sides themselves. Iconic indeed.)

Anyway, "Buffy vs Dracula" is, for all its metaphorical angles (and more on those in a minute), primarily a comedy episode. It's very difficult for it NOT to be one, considering how Dracula comes across when you insert him into the Buffyverse.

Bram Stoker originally published Dracula in 1897 (exactly 100 years before BtVS went on the air) and while it wasn't the first vampire novel, it quickly became the vampire novel. Thanks to the success of the book, the play, and the occasional movie (IMDb lists 167 titles with the word “Dracula” in them) Dracula has pretty much become the definition of a vampire, and his rules (as Spike points out in this episode) mostly apply to all other bloodsuckers too. Every vampire story to follow it – and every adaptation of Dracula itself, from Max Schreck to Elizabeth Kostova - may play with the myth that Bram Stoker established, make fun of it, subvert it, invert it, pervert it, reinvent it, amp it up, play it down, parody it, play it straight, modernize it, take it back to basics, build on it, scale it down, fictionalize it, claim it as historic facts, or even try to ignore it completely – but if you scratch long enough at any Western vampire story from the last century, you’ll find some version of Stoker’s evil count grinning at you, still recognizable despite all the attempts to remake him. (Dracula himself, of course, is a heavily remade version of the real Vlad Tepes – allegedly, Stoker found the name in a book and thought “meh, it’ll do.”) Tvtropes.org calls the phenomenon “our vampires are different” and points out that "a show will usually address the baseline rules even if they're not enforced." That is to say, you’re free to invent your own vampire mythos, but much like Buffy spends a substantial portion of “Buffy vs Dracula” claiming to NOT be under Dracula's thrall you’re still trapped by him, because you're going to have to establish that vampires in your canon don’t fly/are invisible in mirrors/dress in long black coats/talk with a funny generic European accent/lust after English virgins/etc if you want people to accept them as vampires.* Which the Buffyverse did years before Dracula turns up.

BUFFY: I looked around, but soon's they got clear of the graveyard, they could have just, voom!
XANDER: They can fly?
BUFFY: They can drive.
XANDER: Oh.

And vampires in the Buffyverse are different. As monsters go, they’re pretty much ordinary people plus fangs, 86 the soul, with all the same hangups and individual traits as anyone else. They’re not larger than life, the creepy foreigner looking to seduce innocent women and destroy society like Dracula was; they’re very much real, very much IN the world, and the people who still see them as these immensely powerful, mythical, long-lived, lonely Dark Ones... well, they don't fare so well; watch "Lie To Me." BtVS didn’t invent that kind of post-modern vampire - the tag line for The Lost Boys pretty much summed it up 10 years earlier – but they carried it to a logical conclusion far, far away from the castles of Transylvania.

Sleep all day. Party all night. Never grow old. Never die. It's fun to be a vampire.

And with this change comes a change in those who hunt the vampires. Buffy is as far from Van Helsing – at least the original Van Helsing – as can be imagined, and Giles doesn’t really resemble him much either, at least not by season 5. Funnily enough, while Stoker’s Van Helsing was happy to use what was then the latest in modern science to defeat Dracula, Buffy largely rejects that. IMO, that ties back nicely to the basic idea of the show: if the monsters are metaphors for what you encounter in the daily course of your life (Joss introduced Spike and Drusilla specifically to have vampires that could interact with Buffy on a personal level) rather than the dangerous Other trying to get inside, then all the technological advances in the world won’t help you if you can’t rely on yourself. Buffy fights vampires hand-to-hand because the show is about her, not about them. As Dracula points out, the darkness is within the person fighting the darkness.

Next to your average Buffyverse vampire Dracula looks hopelessly out of place, and even more so since they don't even try to retrofit him to Buffyverse rules but play him almost completely straight. Pompous, snobbish, a relic from a by-gone age of both the human world and the vampire story, he makes The Master look up-to-date - not to mention that he has powers that no other vampire gets to have. And yet Dracula is perfect for this episode, exactly because he’s not a Buffyverse vampire and doesn’t even try to act like one. Being the original source of the creatures Buffy is destined to fight, the very essence of the myth, nobody is more qualified than him to teach her how they (and she) work – and sow the seed that will end with Buffy rejecting/transcending her own myth, the rules of her own verse, three years later. He is Vampire; hear him roar growl. But at the same time, being a vampire, he's shit out of luck in Sunnydale. Putting it in the parlance of our times, Buffy pwnz Dracula. The Buffyverse is so far removed from the Stokerverse that putting the classic Dracula in Whedon's world can never end well for ol' Vlad; there are no victims for him here – just a killer specifically designed to not only to stop monsters like him, but do it with a quip and a pun.

BUFFY: A guy like you should think about going electric. Seriously.

It's to Marti Noxon's credit that she manages to actually make him meaningful - not really as a threat, but as a guide. Because of course, "Buffy vs Dracula" is the flip side of "Restless," the magnificent character study that closed season 4. While having Dracula repeat some of the platitudes that the First Slayer tried to sell to Buffy might get a little heavy-handed

FIRST SLAYER: No friends! Just the kill! We are alone!
DRACULA: We are alone. Always alone.
TARA AS FIRST SLAYER: You think you know ... what's to come ... what you are. You haven't even begun.
DRACULA: You think you know ... what you are ... what's to come. You haven't even begun.

it doesn't so much repeat the "lesson" as reinforce it. It's one thing to hear it from the myth that's supposed to be on your side, but to hear the same thing from the one you're supposed to be fighting – both from the First Slayer and the first vampire: that the monster and the person fighting it so easily can become one and the same (and General Voll in "season 8" would probably agree). Buffy doesn't agree, though; she denies them both - at least for now. It's not the darkness in Buffy, the Slayer fighting alone, that ends up winning the day; it's Buffy Summers and the people around her.

That she can’t kill Dracula – another breach of Buffyverse rules - makes a perverted sort of sense since in BtVS, nothing gets solved easily or permanently just because you learn a lesson; the vampire still exists, the darkness is still there, but you learn to handle it (besides, if you slay The Vampire, you wouldn’t have a show anymore.) If you’re in the vampire business, Dracula will always follow you... but the thing is, and this is something that runs throughout the entire series but especially s5, Buffy doesn’t have to follow him or any old tradition; she can make up her own rules.

BUFFY: You're not the source of me.
BUFFY: That was gross.

The darkness that Dracula speaks of may be the source of the Slayer, but it’s not the sum total of Buffy Summers. Dracula as a representative of that darkness is necessary to set up the season; Dracula as a person is irrelevant once he's said his piece, and he gets soundly Eurotrashed.

BUFFY: How do you like my darkness now?

By contrast, the last episode of the season opens with Buffy fighting a perfectly ordinary vampire, one who's never heard of her or the whole vampire mythology; the absolute opposite of Dracula. That's an archetypical Buffyverse vampire: just an ordinary human robbed of his soul, with no sense of history, no mythical knowledge, no fancy name or title... just the kill. And when he looks at his opponent, he doesn't see another mythical warrior, no "renowned killer" – and so he's dust.

KID: But you're... you're just a girl.
BUFFY: That's what I keep saying.

And over the next 42 minutes of that episode, Buffy will struggle once and for all with the conflicting loyalties of the human and the supernatural, the light and the dark, life and death, and when the sun rises over Sunnydale, she will have figured it out.

No, Buffy can't kill Dracula, any more than any other adaptation of the myth has been able to. But even if Dracula hadn't been done to death over the last 100 years (and he has) it’s hard to see what could remain to be done with him in the Buffyverse after the role he plays here. He never returned to the show, though Angel used some Dracula-type vampires for a laugh in “Why We Fight”, and he rarely appears in fanfic (that I’ve seen). In his appearance in Drew Goddard’s crackalicious comic “Antique” (you know, the one that claims that Xander could spend a year as Dracula’s manservant without anyone caring...) he’s if anything even less compatible with the Buffyverse. Dracula must either be the supreme vampire or not be at all; he can't be just another vamp, or he'll lose that which makes him Dracula. But that kind of vampire hasn't fazed Buffy since "Prophecy Girl."

DRACULA: I’m sure you’ve heard the stories. The tales. The legends. Do try to contain your fears. Would be a shame if terror dulled this extraordinary event. After all, it’s not every day you meet... Dracula. Did I detect a shudder? Please, stifle your emotions. I assure you, as my guests, no harm will come to you. Do not be frightened.
BUFFY: We’re not.
DRACULA: What?
BUFFY: We’re not frightened.

Most of the reactions I’ve seen to his appearance in the new comics seem to take him as comic relief (and possibly a love interest for Xander). Which makes sense; it’s not like Joss hasn’t already dismissed him as a villain, though I suppose it’s quite possible that he forgot that. ;-)

...Aaaaaaaaand yet, we have this little bit from #10:

ROBIN: Oh, that was gloomy; I didn’t mean to be gloomy. The important thing is that you rescue the Prince.
BUFFY: Um… yeah?
WILLOW: Even I didn’t follow that one.
ROBIN: No, it follows you.

Hmmm...?

The tricky thing in the comics is that we’re now given hints that Dracula will not only take active part but also be an ally of Buffy's. Because for one thing, Dracula is not a good guy in any sense. His actions may inadvertently have good results – without him, Giles would have gone back to England and Buffy herself would probably have taken a very different path – and he certainly has a code; but as is made clear in his very first scene in “Buffy vs Dracula”, he’s still a monster, and even in the comics they make sure to point out that he’s accustomed to killing peasants and children for sport. For another, Dracula is the absolute antithesis of BtVS; the victory of traditional values over female empowerment (poor Mina Harker, forever denied that orgasm), of rationality over myth, of religion over sexuality. Does Dracula have anything left to teach Buffy that she hasn't already found out? And is it something she should learn?

Of course, it remains to be seen what their plan is; it might not be that simple. After all, Buffy’s dismissal of the First Slayer in "Restless" turned out to be overly simple too – there was still relevance to that storyline, as s5 and s7 proved. Or it might just all be a big joke. So I suppose the question isn’t so much whether the Buffy comics can defeat Dracula or rescue him from a bunch of Japanese Anne Rice fans, but whether they can rescue him from irrelevance. Whether there’s room, and what kind of room, in a Buffy story for the Dark Prince.

Bator.

---

* This is true of all classic horror characters, of course; after Night of the Living Dead, filmmakers could still have zombies who behave nothing like the ones in Romero’s movie – but somehow, most of them either do or go to some lengths to explain why they don’t, since that’s what the viewers expect when they hear “zombie.” Or, as they put it in the masterful horror comedy Return of the Living Dead, 20 years before Shaun of the Dead re-heated and repeated the idea:
BURT: I thought you said that if we destroyed the brain, it would die.
FRANK: Well, it worked in the movie.
BURT: Well, it ain't working now.
FREDDY: You mean the movie LIED? ^{Up again}

---

(This is where I'd include a poll on the best portrayal of Dracula on screen, but since LJ hates me it's not going to happen. Personally, I'd say Bela Lugosi by a nose before Klaus Kinski and Christopher Lee.)

ETA: Here's the poll!

Comments

[mymatedave.livejournal.com]

Very neat meta. You sounded or read, to me at least, a bit like a English teacher I had in college when I read this post and that's a compliment, not a criticism.

[snowpuppies]

*dies laughing at your icon*

[deird1]

Nice! And very interesting.

Buffy vs Dracula is one of the more underrated episodes, in my opinion.
But I really don't want to see him in the comics...

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

But I really don't want to see him in the comics...

Well... let's just say I'm waiting for them to sell me on it. So far, the idea that there are other vampires than Dracula who get to ignore Buffyverse rules of what vampires can do definitely rubs me the wrong way, and I have no idea what they're supposed to do with Dracula himself (unless he really IS in it just for comic relief, which I suppose is possible.)

[elisi]

I love your brain! This is brilliant, and I am far too tired to say anything coherent, so instead I'll applaud!

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

Awww, thanks!

*takes a bow*

*quickly puts bow back before cops get here*

[petzipellepingo.livejournal.com]

Very nice!
the basic idea of the show: if the monsters are metaphors for what you encounter in the daily course of your life (Joss introduced Spike and Drusilla specifically to have vampires that could interact with Buffy on a personal level) rather than the dangerous Other trying to get inside, then all the technological advances in the world won’t help you if you can’t rely on yourself. Buffy fights vampires hand-to-hand because the show is about her, not about them. As Dracula points out, the darkness is within the person fighting the darkness.
Indeed, and that what makes BtVS head and shoulders more interesting than The Lost Boys and their ilk.
Btw, it's Van Helsing not Van Hellsing.

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

Indeed, and that what makes BtVS head and shoulders more interesting than The Lost Boys and their ilk.

Oh, absolutely. I rewatched Lost Boys for the first time in 10 years or so a while back, and it's... um... not all that good, is it?

Btw, it's Van Helsing not Van Hellsing.

Thanks for pointing that out. I should have known. Time for a re-read, I suppose. :-)

[snowpuppies]

You seriously do some of the most readable meta I've seen.

I hadn't thought about a lot of this, and never noticed the parallels in dialogue between Restless and B vs. D, which kinda gave me goosebumps.

Very well thought out, and I, too, am waiting to see what Joss will make of Dracula's reappearance.

*strokes chin in a sage-like manner*
Huh?
Oh, no. My chin just itches.

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

Thanks! And aaah, itchy-chin syndrome, one of the plagues of academics everywhere.

[lynnenne]

Great essay! I really like the way you tie together the first and last episodes of season 5. Well done.

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I can probably go on forever about season 5; it has plot holes the size of... well, "season 8", but the ideas of it are endlessly fascinating - and there's a lot of hidden parallels and metaphors to explore.

[stormwreath.livejournal.com]

'Buffy v Dracula' was actually the first episode I watched (properly - I'd caught bits of earlier ones), and the one that hooked me on the show. I didn't understand the Buffy mythology or know who any of the chracters were, but I certainly knew the 'Dracula' story. What sold me was the contrast between the traditional gothic horror elements, and the wisecracking Californian teenagers who were constantly undermining and subverting it... in a nutshell, that's what Buffy is all about.

That she can’t kill Dracula – another breach of Buffyverse rules - makes a perverted sort of sense since in BtVS, nothing gets solved easily or permanently just because you learn a lesson; the vampire still exists, the darkness is still there, but you learn to handle it.
Which suggests a fascinating possibility - Buffy found a way out of the 'Slayer trap' at the end of Season 7, although her solution has brought its own problems. Will Dracula find a way out of the 'Vampire trap' - a way for humans and demons to establish a détente? In the rather awful and non-canon 'Spike vs Dracula' comics Dracula was acting as patron and protector to a group of gypsies, who taught him his "flashy gypsy magic", so he's got a history of cooperating with humans. If only he can be weaned off his one-Albanian-boy-per-month habit...

Well spotted on the #10 reference! I think you could be right, and the 'prince' Robin referred to that needs rescuing is Dracula, and he will end up following Buffy...

And yes, LJ's poll creation interface is truly awful. I usually end up creating the poll in a locked post with no text, then editing it to add in the text around it.

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

Which suggests a fascinating possibility - Buffy found a way out of the 'Slayer trap' at the end of Season 7, although her solution has brought its own problems. Will Dracula find a way out of the 'Vampire trap' - a way for humans and demons to establish a détente?

That's an interesting idea, but I see two issues with it (neither of which means it shouldn't or couldn't be done, of course):

1) Sure, we know that individual unsouled vampires can live in harmony (heh) with humans, given the right incentive; both Spike and Harmony manage it, at least for a while. But if it's possible for vampires as a group - what does that say about what Buffy has been doing for 8-odd years, and doesn't it sort of cheapen the arcs of both Angel and Spike? Yes, Dracula has always cooperated with humans, but they call him "Master" and it rarely ends well for them. (And as we've already seen, most vampires in the Buffyverse don't seem to think that highly of Dracula and would probably be less likely to follow him than... well, Buffy.)

2) That (minus Dracula himself) is pretty much the plot of Charlaine Harris' "Southern Vampire" novels, which are about to become a TV series that's already being hailed as "the new Buffy." ;-) In it, vampires have (and I swear this is Harris' joke, not mine) "come out of the coffin" and been accepted as members of society... at least nominally; the entire series is about the problems caused by that. It would be a bit weird if the big twist of "Season 8" turns out to be something another about-to-be-very-big canon will probably start subverting with its first episode.

I think you could be right, and the 'prince' Robin referred to that needs rescuing is Dracula, and he will end up following Buffy...

It could well be. I honestly hope it's not, but we'll see.

And yes, LJ's poll creation interface is truly awful.

I couldn't even get it to display a single radio button! WHY, LJ? WHYYYYYYY?

[jgracio.livejournal.com]

S5 was the season where I started thinking that maybe we weren't supposed to be thinking of Slayers as human but rather like an inverted vampire.

You know, with vampires the demon is stronger than the human part and with Slayers the human part is stronger than the demon part, but they're still both pretty much something not human.

That was at least my interpretation at the end of the Season, all the references to Buffy's darkness, how Spike viewed the entire "game" (which implies equal players but working for opposing goals) how you view Spike's assertions that Buffy needs a little monster in her man (or woman I'd guess), the glee that Buffy had in killing vampires in that first episode, well, S5 is a big part of why I think General Voll or whatever his name was, was on to something.

But I must admit I stopping caring all that much for the Buffy character I'm not exactly sure when, it was after S3, so maybe me not really liking Buffy the person colors my perception.

Oh... and I disliked the episode.

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

S5 was the season where I started thinking that maybe we weren't supposed to be thinking of Slayers as human but rather like an inverted vampire.

I think there's definitely a lot to that, but what I'm trying to say here is that that's not ALL it is or that I'd interpret it that literally. The Slayer, as the Council see her, is definitely something along those lines; again, see the quotes from the First Slayer in "Restless." But Buffy isn't just the Slayer, she's a human being as well. The entire point of s5 is the struggle between the two.

[http://users.livejournal.com/peasant_/]

Great post. Lots of nice ideas here to get me thinking in new directions :o)

That she can’t kill Dracula – another breach of Buffyverse rules

So you don't subscribe to the different types of vampire theory? If there are variations in the visual appearance of vamps (The Master as opposed to Kaikistos as opposed to Russel Winters) could there not also be differences in how they can be killed? Perhaps the best example being the Turokhan themselves. Perhaps Drac is just a different sub-species.

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

Hmmm... not really. We're told that The Master and Kakistos look different and are hard to kill simply because they're so old (by comparison, Dracula is a young vampire) and I really see no reason to doubt that. The Turok-Han are a different species, true, but... I dunno, making Dracula a different species of vampire just feels like it would defeat the whole point (at least as I see it). If he's supposed to represent THE vampire, why would he represent a DIFFERENT vampire?

[lusciousxander.livejournal.com]

(you know, the one that claims that Xander could spend a year as Dracula’s manservant without anyone caring...)

I can point out three events where Buffy ignored Xander for something more important. 1- Thanksgiving dinner was more important than helping out an ill Xander. 2- Relationship issues with Riley were more important than even shooting a startled glance at a recoiled Xander. 3- Checking out Spike who was barely hurt was more important than checking out on a bleeding Xander in First Date.

Then there's Willow who had gone missing for a year and no one was searching for her.

That doesn't say I enjoyed Antique.

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

I can point out three events where Buffy ignored Xander for something more important

None of which lasted for more than an hour or two, tops. Usually less.

Then there's Willow who had gone missing for a year and no one was searching for her.

As far as I recall, nobody believes Willow is in any danger (and wasn't it just six months)? Willow is immensely powerful; she can take care of herself if the situation gets hairy. Xander... slightly less so.

That doesn't say I enjoyed Antique.

I thought it was fun. Very poorly drawn and very cracky, but fun.

[tessarin.livejournal.com]

Interesting thoughts in your meta. Clicked in the wrong place last time.

For me personally I would say Buffy vs Dracula is in a neck and neck race for the worst season opener along with the opening of S6.

It's precisely because it violates so many rules and breaks the third wall with nods to the mysteriously appearing castle that I dislike it.

Further it reinforces the trend for using Xander only as comic relief and whilst at the same time as mocking Anne rice it turns the show precisely in that direction of a lots of over angsty moping.

Even though I've stopped reading the comics the Dracula ally angle continues imho the trekification of the franchise that started post S3.

I agree with it cheapening Angel's arc, I felt that about Spike and Harmony. Another example of failing to think through implications.

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

Thanks! And yes, the episode violates all sorts of rules of the Buffyverse - but for once, IMO, there's a plot point to that and I think it works. Though I realise not everyone agrees.

Further it reinforces the trend for using Xander only as comic relief

Really? I disagree. This is the episode where he decides to NOT just be comic relief, after all. It's after his experience here that he starts growing up - granted, not the most exciting or plot-centric of growing up, but still.

I agree with it cheapening Angel's arc, I felt that about Spike and Harmony.

Again, I don't entirely agree. Harmony never had an arc, and she ultimately ended up just as dumb and egocentric as every other vampire (OK, even dumber than most). Spike had a different arc than Angel, but it still wasn't like waving a wand and making him good overnight; arguably, it took 4 entire seasons. But regardless of that, what I'm wary of here is some sort of quick fix where redemption (cheesy word, but whatever you want to call it) is bestowed upon Dracula or a bunch of vampires wholesale, simply because it's convenient or necessary to defeat a greater evil. So far, of course, they haven't done that, so we'll just see if they do. Besides, it's just the comics anyway. :-)

[shapinglight]

Hmm. Reading through the comments on this post, it tends to look as if one's view of Buffy vs Dracula is also rather tied up in one's view of Xander.

I'm not particularly a Xander fan (don't dislike him, but he's not a favourite of mine), and I love all the comedy aspects of his relationship with Dracula, continued in Antique, and am looking forward to more in the comic (not for 'shippy reasons -that Xacula stuff was tongue-in-cheek).

None of which of course has any bearing on your meta, which is wonderful and explains exactly why that episode was the best season opener season 5 could have had (I agree, it was, though as a season opener, I prefer Bargaining). Thematically, it's perfect. I've always thought so without having the ability to explain why - but thankfully you've done that so well here I don't need to even try.

Re: Dracula in the comic - I'm pretty much of the opinion he's just being brought in because Drew Goddard thought it would be fun, not for any serious thematic reasons. Him fighting back to back with Buffy doesnt' mean a redemption story. It just means they have something they both want and combining forces is the best way to get it (like Buffy and Spike in Becoming). I don't read any more into it than that, though I agree he may well be the 'prince' mentioned in 10 (in this comic, the simplest explanation is usually the right one).

As for the Japanese vampires sharing Dracula's powers, I believe they are suppose to be vampires from Japanese mythology and have all sorts of powers, including some that struck me as odd, when I was told about it (can't remember by who). I think there's a page on Wikipedia.

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

Hmm. Reading through the comments on this post, it tends to look as if one's view of Buffy vs Dracula is also rather tied up in one's view of Xander.

Which, like I said above, is understandable but I disagree that he's JUST comic relief in this (and besides, all of the Buffyverse characters are comic relief at times). Yes, it's the episode where he's reduced to a bug-eating man-bitch, but it's also the one where he decides to start working at NOT being a bug-eating man-bitch. And for the most part, that's what he does over the next season or so. As with all things in the Buffyverse, you have to hit bottom before you can start turning yourself around; that's what both Buffy, Xander and to a lesser extent Giles does here.

Him fighting back to back with Buffy doesnt' mean a redemption story. It just means they have something they both want and combining forces is the best way to get it

I hope that's all it is, yes. I'm just a bit worried because of the line about rescuing him. From what, exactly?

in this comic, the simplest explanation is usually the right one

:-) Too true. I'm starting to think the Scythe is actually Occam's Razor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor).

As for the Japanese vampires sharing Dracula's powers, I believe they are suppose to be vampires from Japanese mythology and have all sorts of powers

I dunno about that. I'm not all that well-read in Japanese vampire mythology, but so far their powers seem to follow Dracula (written by an Irishman about a Romanian character and popularized by Americans) to a T.

[hello-spikey.livejournal.com]

I think "Buffy Vs. Dracula" is the best season opener by far, as well, and I have been considering it as the best First Episode to Show a Friend to Make Them Like the Show. (Er... but not wholely sure if it'll work. People kept showing me "Once More With Feeling" when I wasn't a Buffy Fan and it just made me irritated because the episode means nothing if you don't know the characters.)

Digression!

I saw "Night Watch" Before I saw "Buffy Vs. Dracula" and I have to say that little segment on the TV had me going "OMG was that Buffy? We have to get to that episode! Squee!") Yeah, I'm a first-watched-on-DVD-last-year Buffy fan.

Another Digression!

Hints of Dracula as an Ally? Well, it makes Buffyverse sense, I guess, because the character is cool and fun and can't be defeated without making fans sad, you make him an ally. (Reference Spike.)

Speaking of my favorite blonde vampire - have you read Spike Vs. Dracula? I loves it!

My favorite Dracula is "Love at First Bite," personally. Best made-for-tv-movie evah! "Renfield, you idiot! This book is as outdated as... as I am!"

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

I have been considering it as the best First Episode to Show a Friend to Make Them Like the Show. (Er... but not wholely sure if it'll work

It seems to have worked for at least one person commenting on this... :-)

I saw "Night Watch" Before I saw "Buffy Vs. Dracula" and I have to say that little segment on the TV had me going "OMG was that Buffy? We have to get to that episode! Squee!") Yeah, I'm a first-watched-on-DVD-last-year Buffy fan.

Heh. I saw it in a theatre with two other Buffy fans. The three of us cheered loudly when that scene came on - we got some pretty funny looks from the others... :-)

Speaking of my favorite blonde vampire - have you read Spike Vs. Dracula?

I've read very few comics before s8, actually. I'll add that one to the list of ones to check out sometime.

[moscow-watcher.livejournal.com]

Terrific essay!

Judging by the covers of the next issues, Buffy will be actively cooperating with Dracula. So, another cornerstone of Buffyverse will be turned upside-dowm.

Faith: "If you can't beat them...
Spike: "... join them."
(Drew Goddard, Dirty Girls)

The attitude to vampires has always been one of the hottest topics in this fandom. Shipper wars aside, I think it derives from BtVS appealing to both soap-opera and sci-fi audience. Soap opera fans easily accept "humans good vampires bad" attitude. But sci-fi fans aren't that antropocentric. They got used to judge both humans and non-humans by their actions, not by their "race".

I'm very curious if Joss plans to change the rules of the game completely. So far, we saw many instances of "slayer bad" on season 8. I wonder if Joss thinks we're conditioned enough to start a "vampire good" arc.

In any case, I think that Joss realises that Dracula is a special vampire and his reintroduction means that Joss plans something global. Then again, he reintroduces him in a blatantly farcical episode, so... we'll see.

(It's hardly an accident that Timur Bekmambetov's film adaptation (or at least the international cut) of Sergei Lukyanenko's supernatural thriller Night Watch includes a TV playing that very scene of "Buffy vs Dracula" right before the film starts expositioning on the nature of light vs dark and how everyone has to choose sides themselves. Iconic indeed.)

No Buffy in Russian cut. I specially checked the version I taped when the film has been aired on our TV. :(

P.S. I think you should read this ficlet in which Buffy realises something about Dracula :))))

[stormwreath.livejournal.com]

I wonder if Joss thinks we're conditioned enough to start a "vampire good" arc.

I know I realised the possibility of a vampire-human détente further upthread... but another thought strikes me, that Dracula could also be used to show the limits of tolerance... that there are some evils in the world that no amount of acceptance can reconcile with, unless you fundamentally change your own values to something unrecognisable. So Dracula cooperates with Buffy, is helpful and friendly, wins our sympathy... and still enjoys snacking on Eastern European refugees, so Buffy has to stake him anyway. And also cut off his head and bury it at a crossroads with holy wafers stuffed in the mouth for good measure.

[goodbyebird]

Great meta! I completely agree, Buffy Vs Dracula is the best season opener out of the bunch, because it does such a good job setting up the theme of the season.

I did notice some Lost Boys snidery further up. Tsk tsk! Not saying it's deep and all that, but I love that movie to bits without an ounce of shame ;p (not like 30 Days of Night, which I had an unfortunate runin with a couple of days ago. Downs syndrome vamps not really doing it for me, kthx. Why, oh why can't they make good vampire movies??)

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

And would you believe I just watched 30 Days of Night like, literally, 20 minutes ago? And... nah. It looks good, it's violent as hell and it has some decent scares, but... nah. Not really my kind of vampire movie at all; it felt like From Dusk Til Dawn VII minus the humour, except the vampires were even less human.

(And I'm trying to come up with some good ones made in recent years... um... Night Watch was pretty damn good, I thought, that's got vampires in it. And... um... well, the adaptation of Let Me In (http://www.amazon.com/Let-Me-John-Ajvide-Lindqvist/dp/0312355289/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1205272989&sr=8-1) is supposed to be very good, though it hasn't opened yet. But if it's half as good as the book...)

[erin-starlight.livejournal.com]

I can't help but like the BTVS Dracula, and I've never been into the character before.

" Most of the reactions I’ve seen to his appearance in the new comics seem to take him as comic relief (and possibly a love interest for Xander). Which makes sense; it’s not like Joss hasn’t already dismissed him as a villain, though I suppose it’s quite possible that he forgot that. ;-) "

Well I don't think he was really comic relief in Spike vs. Dracula except maybe #5. He did some damage there, which is one of the reasons I love that series. As a not-so-living legend he should IMO be more than a joke.

Overall a very interesting meta on the character.

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

I haven't read Spike vs Dracula, so I'm afraid I wouldn't know how he's presented there. But IMO... Dracula's been done. Repeatedly. Over and over by a thousand different writers in dozens of canons. He's not so much an undead legend as a dead-horse legend at this point... ;-) So I'd say it remains to be seen what can be done with him in a series specifically designed to NOT be intimidated by monsters like him; I'm not saying it can't be done, just that I'm wondering.

Buffy vs. Dracula

[ozma914.livejournal.com]

*whispers* I liked it too -- lotsa fun, in addition to the deeper stuff you detail so well.

Re: Buffy vs. Dracula

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

Don't worry, you're among friends here. :-) Thanks!

[skipp-of-ark.livejournal.com]

I sincerely hope that after this arc is over, Dracula goes away. I don't believe we "need" a resident vampire, as some have been pining away for. And as for "B vs. D" being the start of Xander declaring he won't be the buttmonkey anymore, so far, between that ep and Drew's comic book work with Dracula, one of the effects of using Dracula has always been to undermine Xander's efforts to not be a buttmonkey. I'm ready to see Xander being used as a serious character again, not to see the writers go back to revealing their glaring contempt for Xander.

And for gods' sake, I'll resort to child sacrifice if it will keep Dracula from being "the Prince/prince" that needs saving from Robin's prophecies. Hell no to that!

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

one of the effects of using Dracula has always been to undermine Xander's efforts to not be a buttmonkey

...and subsequently try harder. But yeah, I'm not completely happy about repeating the storyline either.

[devonkmiller.livejournal.com]

This was amazing. Intelligent, thoughtful fans like you are what makes the show great for me.
Thanks for posting.

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

Thank you! Glad you liked it!

[selene2.livejournal.com]

This is such a wonderful meta post.

I have to agree with you that "Buffy vs. Dracula" is one of my favorite episodes. I always assumed that Dracula himself was involved in "gypsy" magic before he was turned. Giving him some of his more unusual abilities... Maybe that is too simplistic of an answer, but it works for me. *g*

The only thing that I am leery of, with Dracula showing up the way he did, is that other original characters from the series have already been paraded around. *cough*Amy and Warren*cough* Now Drac is back. It's just too convenient to me... and makes me wonder how relevant he is going to be to the upcoming story line.

I really enjoyed reading your thoughts. Thanks for sharing this!

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

Thanks a lot!

The only thing that I am leery of, with Dracula showing up the way he did, is that other original characters from the series have already been paraded around.

I agree - and even more so since Twilight is rumoured to be a returning character as well. If Joss thinks he can create new love interests for the characters in the comics, why not come up with some new villains too? But we'll see... maybe he does have a brand new plot line for Dracula. I certainly hope so.

[simonf.livejournal.com]

I really enjoyed this, do you mind if I link to it at Whedonesque? (I'm one of the admins there).

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

Thanks! And by all means, link away.

[shinysayyadina.livejournal.com]

Here from Whedonesque-awesome piece, thank you! (friended you too!:))

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[blagh.livejournal.com]

I haven't read the latest issue yet, so I can't say how well he's fitting in there. He wasn't so anachronistic in Spike vs. Dracula, though, and I'd recommend reading it.

Isolated bit of poke-fun-at-the-ponce:

SPIKE: When it comes to Buffy, I know everything...including knowing in the biblical sense, nudge-nudge, wink-wink.
DRACULA: Nonsense! You...and that glorious creature?

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

People keep telling me to read that. :-) I suppose I'll have to find it somehow. Thanks for reading!

Staked It!

[marco143.livejournal.com]

Excellent! Buffy has needed this quality of critique for a long time now.

My own "Season 8" also assumes the characters are actual dramatic entities, not mere walking, talking and slaying stage properties.

Hope you like it.

(Someday I'll get an new Willow icon, and pay for the journal, and then get a bunch more, and ... *sighs the fanboy sigh*)

Re: Staked It!

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

Thanks a lot! And I'll have to check that out; I'm not completely happy with the "official" s8 either... :-)

[nut-ash.livejournal.com]

Hey, you know, i haven't read any Buffy comic books, so i'm taking it on faith that they have Dracula references... Now may we just recall the "Girl In Question" episode of Angel? Where Andrew says Buffy dates the Immortal who we never get to see but hear about him a LOT? Suddenly, Dracula comes to mind! I mean, what kind of name is "the Immortal"? But Dracula does seem to fall under that definition. Also, Spike said Dracila was "an old rival", which also falls right into place given the history with the Immortal.

Just seems neat to me if it were so.

Also, kind of boring of course, coz, how many reformed BigBad's can you tolerate in one 'verse?

Also, great episode in itself! I loved it. Don't know about the best season-opener - may well be, it's just that i haven't thought about it.

Also, good post!

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

Where Andrew says Buffy dates the Immortal who we never get to see but hear about him a LOT? Suddenly, Dracula comes to mind! I mean, what kind of name is "the Immortal"? But Dracula does seem to fall under that definition.

I've seen that theory, but frankly I don't buy it. For one thing, if it were Dracula, why wouldn't they simply call him Dracula? For another, the idea of Dracula as a flashy playboy living the high life in Rome doesn't really fit at all with how he was presented in s5...

how many reformed BigBad's can you tolerate in one 'verse?

Personally I think they've sort of reached their limit. I like my Dracula evil. :-)