In regards to this post.
xoxox
Tag: angelus
I just realized why Drusilla flips out when she sees the roses in “Surprise.”
ANGEL SENDS RED ROSES TO BUFFY IN “BEWITCHED, BOTHERED, AND BEWILDERED” AND SCATTERS RED ROSE PETALS IN JENNY’S HOUSE IN “PASSIONS.” Red roses are part of his stalking pattern. And whose stalking and siring constituted, by his own account, the worst thing he’d ever done before he got his soul back?
DRUSILLA.
No wonder she has a panic attack.
I was rewatching “Becoming” and now I want to read a million pages of meta about Cordy vs Dru wrt their visions and how a) Spike and Angelus regard Dru’s visions b) Angel regards Cordys vs Angelus regards Dru’s c) Angelus’ past with Dru impacts Angel’s future with Cordy (and Doyle when he’s the one w/visions). But also I want to know what Dru would be like if she somehow got her soul back. I was told you’re the person to talk to about these things. Hope your holiday was good!
What an awesome question, I can’t say I’ve ever thought about the parallels between Cordy and Dru before. :3 You’ve clearly thought long and hard about this yourself, and I’d love to hear your interpretation, seeing as yours is as good as mine. And it was wonderful, thank you for asking! ❤
First and foremost, I think it’s important that we establish their visions as a power that takes away their power. Sounds contradictory, right? But really, while clairvoyance in the Buffyverse is a rare and useful talent, it also has a nasty habit of taking away the seer in question’s strength. Doyle’s visions led to him discovering his demonic heritage, which led to his marriage falling apart, which led to his drinking and gambling addiction, for example. Drusilla’s made her a target of the sadistic Angelus. Cassie’s premonition of her death resulted in her feeling helpless and hopeless for the rest of her life. Cordy hadn’t inherited her powers for even a day before she was kidnapped and almost auctioned off as a fortune-telling slave, and that’s tame in comparison to the various miseries her visions caused for her later on.
So, we’ve made it clear that visions are a power that renders its wielder powerless. This is why when Cordelia gets a vision she experiences crippling migraines, whereas when Drusilla gets a vision she suffers stomach cramps instead. Cordelia gets headaches during her visions because her strength lies in her head. Her mind. Her sharp wit, her willpower, her determined mentality that has always allowed her to survive. Therefore, the visions inflict pain upon her head because that is the strength the visions are attacking. On the other hand, Dru doesn’t get headaches but describes her stomach as getting “all tied up” (Becoming Part 1) and clutches at her belly in obvious agony when she has a premonition in Passion. This is a reflection of how a vampire’s strength lies in their hunger for the hunt, their relentless thirst for human flesh that makes them so dangerous. It doesn’t explain why Dru had stomach pains before being sired, but that’s the best explanation I can think of. This is the most important difference between the two characters in regards to their powers.
As for the difference between how Angel regards Cordy’s abilities and how he regards Dru’s, I think the difference is that he saw Drusilla as a physic, and Cordelia as a person who just so happened to be physic. In other words, Drusilla was sired as a trophy. As an object. Used to entertain Angelus with her insanity and to provide him with useful insights of the future. On the other hand, Cordelia Chase was seen by him as a person in her own right. Not just a crystal ball on legs. This is probably because he met Cordelia with a soul, and as such with a degree of empathy.
And how does Angel’s past with Dru effect his future with Cordy? Well, I’m not sure if it does. Perhaps by helping Cordelia through her struggles with her visions, he sees this as a way of repenting for how he in turn exploited Drusilla for her visions?
In regards to how Drusilla would deal with a soul, my guess is very, very badly. The rest of the Fanged Four went insane with the guilt of it, and they were more or less psychologically stable beforehand. Imagine how that burden would effect someone who was already insane. I’m not sure if you think of the comics as canon or not, but in the Spike miniseries Dru does get a soul, and it drives her completely over the edge.
Summary: Cordelia and Drusilla’s powers are very different, and the way Angel perceives them is very different. While Cordelia gets migraines with her visions to reflect how her strength lies in her mind, Drusilla gets pains in her stomach because her strength lies in her hunger as a vampire.
Thanks so much for the question! ❤
xox
I think Drusilla hates herself. She was so good, a tool of the powers and a pure young woman and then to become what she is, evil and vampiric, finding pleasure in torture and killing of the worst kind, I think deep down under all of that insanity she hates herself. And I think that’s why she prefers Angelus to Spike. Spike loves her, loves who she is, the thing she has become, is utterly devoted to her, Angelus could care less about her, just uses her. So she goes to Angelus because she hates who she is and can’t stand the fact that Spike loves what she has become.
“Buffy was so whiny in season 6! Like, okay, we get it, your life sucks, but the rest of the Scoobies had it hard too and she pushed all her friends away! No wonder she got thrown out of her house, she was being such a pissy, cold, distant bitch! She should have pulled it together, watching her moan so much for so long was so annoying! Things weren’t that bad and her wangst dragged on and on and on!”
Okay, but wasn’t it strongly suggested that the reason Buffy was so “whiny” was because she had clinical depression, and quite possibly was experiencing suicidal thoughts or even tendencies?
“Dawn is so whiny and ungrateful! Like, oh my God, so annoying. All she ever did was complain and piss and moan! Other characters suffered way more than her but all she did was cry all the time and mope about her sister dying, when she came back anyway! Christ, I wish Buffy just left her on that tower!”
Well, couldn’t a lot of Dawn’s alleged “moaning” be attributed to the fact that she displayed many of (if not all) the symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder?
“I can’t believe Drusilla cheated on Spike, the slutty, selfish cow! What a whore! Spike loved her more than anyone else in the world and she just couldn’t keep her legs closed for ten seconds once Angelus came back. Pathetic. Spike deserves so much better than that bitch.”
Sexist terminology aside, surely at least part of the reason Drusilla was so receptive towards her sire’s advances was because she was implied to suffer from Stockholme Syndrome after decades of his abuses?
Cheloneuniverse 