A real basic question. What is a demon? by AURaptor

ANGELUS ARCANUM

A real basic question. What is a demon?

POSTED BY: AURAPTOR
UPDATED: Sunday, August 7, 2005 12:05
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VIEWED: 4914
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Saturday, August 6, 2005 1:18 PM

America loves a winner!

I gather that demons come in various shapes and sizes, etc. Lorn is a demon. And Angel is a vampire....with some demon in him? What's that all about? Is 'demon' just a generalized term for monster ?

So confusing.

" They don't like it when you shoot at 'em. I worked that out myself. "

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Saturday, August 6, 2005 2:41 PM

BATMARLOWE

What is a demon?

You got me.

That's one the few things about the Buffyverse I can get on a tirade about. And I do mean ti-RADE!

If you got a group of Mutant Enemy's best and brightest together and reviewed every episode of BUFFY and ANGEL with them, THEY couldn't tell you what a demon is.

So I'll just say they've been a tad...inconsistent and leave it at that. That way my blood pressure stays normal.

I am, however, certainly interested in the opinions of the Buffyites who are more calm when it comes to this subject.

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Saturday, August 6, 2005 3:53 PM

GREEKTOOMEY

My take is that demons are extraterrestrials. However, they don't come from other planets in our galaxy, as is typical of most science fiction ETs; instead, they come from planets in other dimensions. (Or this planet, in other dimensions.)

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Saturday, August 6, 2005 7:32 PM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!

Something that really threw me was when Angel goes to Pylea and turns all demony. Something about that dimension allowed his FULL demon to come out, and that just confounds me. I thought Demons and Vamps were seperate unto their own, like Werewolves and Vamps. So are Vamps just a subset of Demons ?

It seems to me that even fantasy should have some sort of order. Even if it's not all disclosed or understood by the viewer/reader. That's why I am such a fan of Tolkien. His stuff has layers and layers of history for each race, and still there's lots that is left unknown.

To be honest, this is the sort of thing which kept me from watching Buffy back when it was on. Did those Demons and creatures look like that to everyone, and just our happy Scooby gang see the monsters as they really were? At first it was so confusing, I didn't bother. Still bothers me a tad, but I basically got over.

" They don't like it when you shoot at 'em. I worked that out myself. "

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Saturday, August 6, 2005 8:06 PM

GTMAN8503

It's explained in Buffy and Angel that vampires are a sublevel of demons. I believe the episode that deals with it most directly is the season 1 Angel ep. with the fascist demons who are hunting and destroying all the "impure" demons. There are castes in the demon world, and vampires and other such part-human demons are of the lower class. The series essentially explains vampires as demons who have taken over the bodies of dead people, but retain general personality traits of the people they inhabit, thus making them "impure" since they have some human in them.

When Angel went to Pylea and turned Demon-ey, that was the true face of what was inside him trying to come out. Evidently, the rules there and on Earth were different, so where, on Earth only a part of the demon could manifest itself, on Pylea the whole thing could. He could completely switch between his human self and the demon inhabiting him.

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Sunday, August 7, 2005 1:25 AM

BATMARLOWE

Yet the fascist demons (The Scourge) are themselves impure if we are to believe Anya. 'Cause it was Anya who informed us "All the demons that walk the earth are tainted, are human hybrids like vampires. The ascension means that a human becomes pure demon. They're different."

I think it's pretty safe to say that the fascist demons are tainted. I mean, if the Mayor is the example, they certainly don't look like "pure" demons.

I know Joss can set up his own world and they said in episode 1 or 2 that vampires are demons in the body that's hosting them, but somewhere down the line, I think it's in an ep of BUFFY but it may be in ANGEL where someone says a vampire has nothing to do with what you were as a human (or something like that) and Angel starts to contradict them: "Well, actually..." and then he's cut off.

So, I had trouble with Angel's transformation in Pylea. I didn't buy that Angel had a "pure demon" side to show. Because he doesn't have a "pure" demon in him ('cause pure demons are like what the Mayor became). But it seems vamps are humans transformed. Demons don't seem to be transformed in spite of that "hybrid" thing. I just can't buy that vamps have an "other" possessing them. In spite of what Joss says I just don't think the show demonstrates that.

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Sunday, August 7, 2005 1:36 AM

EMBERS

Quote:
Originally posted by AURaptor:
Is 'demon' just a generalized term for monster ?

I think that 'demon' is just Joss' McGuffin, a way to explain away a plot point so we can get on with what is really important, the story and the characters.
here is a link about the term 'McGuffin':
http://www.wordsmith.org/words/McGuffin.html

over the years we were given lots of info...and a lot of it was contradictory:
Buffy's 3rd season Anya said you've never seen a pure demon (the Mayor was rising as a pure demon), you'd only seen hybrids, mixed demons...
so When Angel started they were making distinctions between:
1. demons like Loren
2. demons like Doyle (looks human most of the time)
3. demons like Angel (different from Doyle? Because the Vampire is part demon in a different way?)
4. demons like the Uber vamp in Buffy S7 (the First claims that he is a purer form of Vampire?)

pretty much, I don't think that consistancy is the point....

Join my crew: Fairfield Fireflies
http://browncoats.serenitymovie.com/serenity/index.html?fuseaction=gro
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Sunday, August 7, 2005 7:52 AM

BATMARLOWE

Yeah, but if think if consistency is not the point too often then story and character start to suffer. Of course, "too often" is in the eye of the beholder.

I suppose a demon is kind of like pornography--can't define what a demon is but you know one when you see one.

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Sunday, August 7, 2005 8:33 AM

GREEKTOOMEY

Well, let's start with what is generally agreed. A demon is a character that requires latex.

(Unlike pornography.)

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Sunday, August 7, 2005 9:31 AM

LOBOHAN

As I recall from the episode where buffy's friend from her old school comes to see her because he wants to be a vampire she tells him something along the lines of when he rises as a Vampire his soul will be gone and a demon soul will enter his body. It will have all his memories and think it is him, but the real "him" will be off to it's reward/punishment.

So I see the demons that inhabit Vampires as a weak, spirit only beast. I imagine Lorne's race is a demon/human hybrid which mixed some time in the past and currently breeds true.

"If they take the ship, they’ll rape us to death, eat our flesh and sew our skins into their clothing, and if we’re very, very lucky, they’ll do it in that order."

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Sunday, August 7, 2005 9:39 AM

BATMARLOWE

Greektoomey, are you sure pornography doesn't require latex? I guess not. But the option is there.

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Sunday, August 7, 2005 10:37 AM

HUITZIL

Demon. a low-level spirit that interacts with the material world. The term 'demon' is derived ultimately from the Sanskrit root div ('to shine'), through the Greek daimon ('divine power'). To the Grreks daimons were intermediary spirits between humans and the Gods.

In Western religion and occult lore, demons are classified into various elaborate systems, and hierarchies of hell, and have ascribed to them various chracters, forms, attributes and duties. The most complex hierarchy was devised by Johann Weyer, who estimated that there were 7,405,926 demons serving under 72 princes.

In Christianity, demons are associate only with evil. They include those demons who were cast out of heaven together with Lucifer, as well as pagan deities branded as demons by the church. Demons devote themselves to tormenting human beings, assualting them, sexually abusing them, and posessing them. The possibility of sex with demons was denied before the 12th century, but by the later Middle Ages belief in sexually voracious demons in alluring male or female form who preyed on sleeping men and women - masc. incubi, fem. succubi (pl) became widely accepted. In the 16th and 17th centuries in Europe witches were regularly accused of having sex with demons.

It was held that demons could be expelled or kept at bay by the ritual of exorcism, or by the use of certain prayers, or a specials charm, or by wearing an amulet / talisman.

(1996, Dictionary of the Occult, London: Brockhampton Press)

___________
All guilt is relative. Loyalty counts. And never let your conscience be your guide.

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Sunday, August 7, 2005 12:05 PM

BATMARLOWE

You're third paragraph is how I think most people would define "demon". And I think originally, that's what demons were on BUFFY, and that's it why it bugs me that beings like Lorne and Clem are also demons.

I also think a few succubi here and there would have been a good idea. They could have done some fun and interesting things with that. And some incubi too for the female fans. An episode with Xander or Wesley (pre-cool Wesley) or Oz or Gunn or Giles encountering a succubus? Could'a been fun.

Cordelia (BUFFY Cordelia) or Anya and an incubus? Lots of potential there.

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