Vampires- Narcissism, Spike, and Angelus

While Aria and I were watching LMPTM, I decided to bring up an article I read in the Psychology of Joss Whedon about vampirism as a metaphor for Narcissistic Personality Disorder. I’m not going to go into detail about how vampires display symptoms of this since if you have seen BTVS and ATS you… well.. know what vampires are like. I went to fetch a list of the symptoms for you here-

Someone with NPD displays 5 or more of the following…

1. has a grandiose sense of self-importance
2. is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love
3. believes that he or she is “special” and unique
4. requires excessive admiration
5. has a sense of entitlement
6. is interpersonally exploitative
7. lacks empathy
8. is often envious of others or believes others are envious of him or her
9. shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes

Another intriguing note- the presence of a soul seems to take away these qualities. And now a little exploration of Angel and Spike.

Liam -> Angelus -> Angel : Driven by Purpose

Liam was a drunken, whoring, son of a bitch. That’s pretty much the only way to put it. He was the rich white kid of the 1700s who didn’t have to do anything he didn’t want to, because his family had money and he was lazy. He had no purpose and hence was pretty much a mess. But that’s what makes his transition to Angelus so interesting. How this lazy boy becomes a feared killer- in becoming a vampire Angelus suddenly had purpose. He was a creature made to kill, made to feed, and he was going to do so to the best of his ability. But it was more than just ‘killing’, his purpose lay in destroying lives, hence the mind games and artistic slaughters.

When Angel got his soul back, he was no longer a full vampire, hence he lost his purpose which is what left him struggling for 90+ years, flailing to survive, doing nothing with his life except for moment and actions done on the spur of the moment, but not for any real reason. It was almost as though he was in a permanent dissociative fugue, cut off from any real identity as he made circles around the country, from New York to Chicago to Montana to Vegas back, eventually, to New York.

Things finally changed in 1996, when he had something to do- look out for Buffy. And you can see over the first few seasons of Buffy that this purpose kept Angel going. But it wasn’t going to last after they split. When he got to LA in the first season of Angel he was still in that isolated, drinking, closed off state. He got purpose again by his connection to the PTB.

In essence, what makes Angel a champion, is the exact same thing that makes Angelus a monster.

William -> Spike : Driven to Connect

William, in life, was someone who spent his time caring for his mother, writing poetry, and generally being a romantic, and about being connected to other people. Perhaps that is how he established his self worth, by connecting to others. In becoming Spike, he showed all the symptoms of NPD/Vampirism, but what I find interesting is that he shows them mostly in regards to his romantic points of view. For him, killing was not really done on his own, but mostly as what seemed like mating rituals with/for either Drusilla or Angelus, or if you don’t buy the Spike/Angelus bit you could say he was trying to prove his worth as a vampire to someone he admired.

He definitely was preoccupied by the concepts of ideal love, especially with Dru and Buffy. And can be seen as lacking empathy for others and interpersonally exploitative for this romantic ideal- case in point the scene where he is going to “make Buffy love him.”

Another interesting thing to point out is that he was not a violent vampire by nature, not until he met Angelus. Which begs the question, how does refined William become bad-ass brawling Spike. Again he is working on connecting to people and building up his self worth. No one will respect a vampire who just sits about writing poetry, they are going to respect one who gets out there and makes a scene. He is building himself up to show himself as someone spectacular, to be feared.

And as Aria pointed out to me, Spike getting his soul back was very different from Angel getting his soul back. Whereas Angel sort of… dissolved from his lack of purpose, Spike still had what drove him- the need to connect to others. And he did so in helping the Scoobies.