Buffy the Vampire Slayer started out as a little, mid-season replacement series on the WB in the late 90’s, but quickly rose in popularity and has become one of the most beloved shows of all time. It has also become the textbook for all the vampire do’s and don’ts. There’s a lot of folklore and myth in this series. Almost every episode introduces a new demon or super vampire that Buffy must face.
In fact, a lot of those storylines stem from actual ancient storytelling, but a lot of it also stems from the inner-workings of Joss Whedon, the show’s imaginative creator. Whedon used pieces of folklore that worked for his show and left out the things that didn’t work, which made it a pretty close to perfect series. So without further delay, here are five ways Buffy the Vampire Slayer stays true to classic vampire mythology and five ways it diverges.
ACCURATE: Vampires Must Be Invited In
Everyone knows that as long as you never invite a vampire into your home, you’re safe from the undead. Buffy the Vampire Slayer doesn’t try to change this rule, which makes for some interesting scenes, especially in the beginning of the series when Buffy first meets Angel and doesn’t know who he really is.
The first time Buffy invites Angel into her home, she yells out, “Come in! Come on!,” because they’re being chased by vampires. It’s a fun little Easter Egg and also makes you wonder what would’ve happened if she hadn’t said that as soon as they got to her front door.
INACCURATE: Garlic
Though, we never see a vampire on the show attempt to eat it, it’s safe to assume that garlic is not a weapon of choice against vampires, demons, and the forces of darkness in Buffy’s world.
It’s been a popular and widely known antidote to ward off these demons in a lot of vampire tales. The idea of garlic being used against vampires originated from Bram Stoker’s “Dracula.” Some people also assume the garlic theory could have come from the fact that mosquitoes, another blood sucking demon, are repelled by it as well.
ACCURATE: Vampires Don’t Have Reflections
Both in Buffy and many other vampire tales, when vampires look into a mirror or a window or anything offering a reflection, they see nothing. This was another fact believed to have been invented by Bram Stoker when he wrote, “Dracula,” but there’s also evidence that it stems from the original Balkan mythology.
The two theories as to why there’s no reflection are 1) because a vampire doesn’t have a soul and your reflection is that of your soul, so you can’t reflect what you don’t have, and 2) mirrors were backed by silver, a kind of metal that vampires are actually averse and (in a way) allergic to.
INACCURATE: Sleeping In Coffins
The vampires in Sunnydale can not and will not be confined to small, wooden coffins. These big-bads actually tend to have pretty nice apartments and lairs, equipped with beds and other basic human amenities.
It seems as though the undead still appreciate some of the luxuries they had when they were living. Just because they can’t be in daylight and like to drain the blood from innocent victims doesn’t mean they can’t have nice things and a comfortable sleeping arrangement. Coffins are for the dead, after all, not the undead.
ACCURATE: Vampires Can’t Be In Daylight
This is probably the number one rule across all vampire folklore: Vampires can only come out at night. According to some legends, if a vampire steps into daylight, they will quickly burn up and turn to dust. Other myths don’t have such a dramatic end; instead, nighttime is simply described as the most active time for these creatures.
The idea of vampires only coming out at night makes the sun going down that much scarier, not just for the people of Sunnydale but for anyone who believes that the undead live among us.
INACCURATE: Vampires Don’t Turn Into Bats (But They Have Other Powers)
Early on while creating Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Joss Whedon decided that his vampires would not fly and did not have the availability to turn into bats. Mainly, this was a budget concern for the show.
The show didn’t have the money to create an effect like that and if they tried, it would have looked silly. So as a workaround, Whedon gave his creatures other abilities like super strength, a heightened sense of smell, and some of them could even read minds . There were notably much easier to factor into the show’s budget.
ACCURATE: Vampires Suck Their Victims’ Blood
This has always been the case since the invention of vampires in Balkan and Eastern European folklore. Vampires feed on blood, usually human blood, and usually by sucking it from their victim’s neck. But really, anywhere a vein or artery rests will do the trick.
This being their main source of sustenance has given way for the development of a lot of clever nicknames, including: Bloodsuckers, Leech, Freeloader and Buffy’s favorite term, a Big Bad.
INACCURATE: Their Looks
What vampires actually look like has been described differently across almost all folklore and stories about the creatures. Originally, it was said they were bloated with a purplish skin tone due to the fact that they were previously dead. The gaunt and pale vampire image dates back to early 19th century folklore and literature. The idea of vampires having fangs was also not in original tales.
Joss Whedon took vampire imagery a step further with his show. Here, the vampires look like normal humans until they are provoked to kill, which is when their face changes to something more demonic and monstrous.
ACCURATE: Vampires Must Be Staked Through The Heart
When it comes to killing a vampire, most folklore and storytelling gives you two options: You can either shoot the vampire through the heart with a silver bullet, or if you can get close enough to the demon, you can stab it in the heart with a wooden stake.
Some stories, including Buffy the Vampire Slayer, also say that decapitating a vampire will turn them to dust rather quickly. The most common method out of all of these is the stake-through-the-heart approach which, by coincidence, is also Buffy’s favored way of dispatching evil Bloodsuckers.
INACCURATE: Vampires Can Have Souls
Joss Whedon probably took the most liberties on the show when he started combining different folklore to create storylines. Never before had there been a story about a vampire with a soul, but that’s what Joss wrote when he came up with the character we now know as Angel, the undead love of Buffy’s life and a vampire who was cursed with a soul after killing a young gypsy whose family practiced magic.
Having a soul and the memories of all the people you hurt is the ultimate punishment for a demon like Angel, and it’s also a very clever addition on Whedon’s part. This, in more ways than one, was a new way to humanize nightmarish monsters that are known for feeding on people.
