Willow’s explanation seems to imply that vampires are possessed by sentient demons from another dimension, as though a vampire actually has two wholly separate beings inside it (the human and the demon). IIRC, the show never stated anything of the sort.
The quote I've generally gone with is: "You die, and a demon sets up shop in your old house, and it walks, and it talks, and it remembers your life, but it's not you." (Buffy, Lie to Me). So for a typical vampire (e.g. not Angel or Spike), the human soul/sentience is completely gone. What you get instead is the person's brain (memories, skills, personality) animated with a demonic 'soul'.
I do agree that the show never portrayed the demon as sentient, and the Van-Tal!Angel in Pylea certainly seems to suggest that the demonic essence is inherently feral. This would suggest that it's the human brain which makes the vampire sentient, not the demonic essence. The implication is that if a vampire were to somehow sire, say, a dog, the resulting creature would have the sentience of a malevolent dog (that is, not much).
This does mean that there's a pretty big hole with the explanation given by the comics for the zompires so far. If the sentience of a vampire comes from the host, but the demonic essence is what animates it, then the zompires shouldn't animate at all (or they should animate as regular vampires, if the demonic essences don't actually come from another dimension but are created on the spot instead).
Wait a sec, if dimensional travel for souls is cut off, does that mean that when people die their souls aren't going to Heaven/Hell anymore? If so, where are they ending up?
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2011-11-11 08:19 am (UTC)The quote I've generally gone with is: "You die, and a demon sets up shop in your old house, and it walks, and it talks, and it remembers your life, but it's not you." (Buffy, Lie to Me). So for a typical vampire (e.g. not Angel or Spike), the human soul/sentience is completely gone. What you get instead is the person's brain (memories, skills, personality) animated with a demonic 'soul'.
I do agree that the show never portrayed the demon as sentient, and the Van-Tal!Angel in Pylea certainly seems to suggest that the demonic essence is inherently feral. This would suggest that it's the human brain which makes the vampire sentient, not the demonic essence. The implication is that if a vampire were to somehow sire, say, a dog, the resulting creature would have the sentience of a malevolent dog (that is, not much).
This does mean that there's a pretty big hole with the explanation given by the comics for the zompires so far. If the sentience of a vampire comes from the host, but the demonic essence is what animates it, then the zompires shouldn't animate at all (or they should animate as regular vampires, if the demonic essences don't actually come from another dimension but are created on the spot instead).
Wait a sec, if dimensional travel for souls is cut off, does that mean that when people die their souls aren't going to Heaven/Hell anymore? If so, where are they ending up?