Vampire Survival Puzzlement

This was almost certainly just sloppiness on DSs part, but I have to wonder:  why was BC able to go for incredibly long periods, almost entire storylines seemingly, without victimizing anybody and slaking his evil upon their cardiovasculary systems?   I mean, while he was definitely a vampire?

It's often occurred to me... if vampires are immortal except for staking etc., do they actually need blood to "survive"?     Not precisely, if they can be chained in a coffin for centuries, without it.    Julia certainly treats BC as if he could just avoid biting through willpower, if he wanted to.   Sometimes JH and BC talk as if it's just a "hunger" and not a "need".

All I've been able to figure... maybe vampires just get really anemic and tuckered out sans globulin, and can't move after awhile.   But no, not if he's up and about for so much of 1897, say.

To be honest, I like to take Anne Rice's take on the vampire, that vampires can survive off of animal blood, which is evident by all of the cattle being killed when Barnabas was first released. My thoughts are that in 1897, even though animal killings aren't mentioned, they are being done when Barnabas isn't on camera. Either that, or some nameless hookers are being killed and tossed in the ocean.

I've wondered the same thing.

Maybe it's more of a need than Hoffman realizes and Barnabas admits to, and he simply sneaks off and takes advantage of the availables in Collinsport while noone, including the camera, is looking?

But if it's simply a hunger, rather than a need, perhaps it's an excruciating hunger? Imagine 200 years of gnawing anguish...

Quite the Stoic, that Barnabas -

Well in 1897 Barnabas attacked both Charity and Beth, I also think that Barnabas probably had other donors besides these two, but that they didn't show them; the more attacks shown the more actors they would have had to pay.

There are lots of different stories about vampires, each with a slightly different theory on their needs. P.N. Elrod's vampires are able to survive on the blood of large domesticated animals like cows and horses, Anne Rice's vampires can get by on the blood of animals, but she seems to imply that they don't satisfy their needs, Louis finally seems unable to control himself and attacks Claudia.

I think that most of the stories say that a vampire needs to drink blood in order to stay rational, but being immortal  if they are unable to get blood they go into a comatose state. When they are again able to imbibe they recover.

Misa

   I am going to second what others are saying.  Barnabas probably did plenty of feeding "offscreen."  We simply didn't see every one of his victims.  I'm sure there were enough homeless unfortunates and unwary ladies of the evening to satisfy his needs.  Heck, maybe he even made nocturnal visits to neighboring towns and cities.  I also agree that the animal blood was likely a temporary, but ultimately unsatisfying, fix.  I assume that without blood, Barnabas would become increasingly feral and more "undead"-looking. 

BC in 1840 was able to jump right out of the coffin and go out wherever to dine, without attacking Julia first.    I like the coma theory, though.   I could see a vampire being able to attack the one person who lets him out, but then needing that one person's blood before he has the strength to get up and leave.     Strange that with all the vampire stories over my whole life, i've never seen it presented what happens to a vampire if she/he doesn't get blood.   Really strange.

As for BC and secret townie victims... that would change everything.
Barnabas just wouldn't be the person we think he is.   We can have some understanding for the position BC is in, the struggle, the corner he's often backed up into... but if he's really just wantonly snacking on townsfolk, that goes over a certain boundary, and at least to some extent makes him a fraud, as a DS protagonist.

I think that most of the stories say that a vampire needs to drink blood in order to stay rational...

Well, it sure didn't seem to help Barnabas stay rational.  

Ha ha hee hee ho ho.........ahem

 

Ya know, I've been watching some 1897 lately -- around the time Julia arrives to aid Barnabas in saving the day for Quentin and the future generation.  He is SO on my nerves.  What a bossy, Mr. Know-It-All Fop!  Here Julia's risked her life to help him once again, and all he does is order her around in his usual obnoxious way, your can't tell him ANYTHING, he's telling Quentin how and why everything's been happening in this superior, knowing way......AND to add insult to injury, he's reading it all off the damned teleprompter!!   I wanna kick him in the head!  LOL
Oh yeah, and if that's not enough, he's about to go chasing after the latest Josette incarnation and the hell with everything else!

Just once I would have loved to have had Julia say, "I'm sick and tired of your crap, Barnabas.  Get STUFFED!"
           

i've been thinking about this too.

i'm watching the 1897 storline now and there has been a remarkably low body count for there being a vampire in town.when barnabas first arrived in 1967 there was lots of talk of animal drained of blood and attacks on local girls.in 1795 he was fond of those dockside doxies.but in 1897 there is very little of that.

my theory is this.when b was first brought in he was to serve as the ultimate villian.so it was acceptable for him to do really revolting,animalistic things to survive.by the time they tell the 1897 story he serves as the show protagonist.it's bizzare "moral center".so it would not have been acceptable for him to be attacking animals and destroying everyone in sight.he'd been written into too much of a "gentleman" for that.he was a vampire because it made for interesting storytelling and on occasion he could bite pretty girls like charity and beth but the more animalistic side of his nature was off-limits.

 Still, he must have been commiting the attacks despite the fact that we didn't see them happen as often.  He must have been because he's a friggin' vampire!  He can fight the urge all he wants, but eventually his vampiric nature will take over.  IIRC he attacked Sophie Baker in 1897.  I assume he was still doing that all along.  The writers chose not to keep showing us the attacks because they were irrelevant to the plot at hand, and because the audience would likely turn on Barnabas. 

Just because he attacks someone doesn't mean that he has to drain all of their blood, I'd think that by having a group of people to supply him with blood he would be able to drink from one on Monday another on Tuesday and so on. If he needed more than that he could probably  drink from three different ladies a night and then a different three ladies the next night. In this way they would all have time to recover in between feedings. He probably just forgot to be careful sometimes and that's why Charity almost dies.

As to being the hero, when they show how Barnabas became a vampire they also show that being a vampire changed him, that he wasn't as caring as he was when he was human. They also show that he eventually started to fight this and tried to be kinder, but that sometimes he succumbs to his animalistic (vampire) behaviour. [spoiler]He kills poor Carl, and others,[/spoiler] he is rude to Julia, the pre vampire Barnabas was always pretty charming and polite. But I think that the writers tried to show him in the best light most of the time because he had become the "hero" of the show.

Misa

mcsbryk---  If he had been victimizing right and left, he'd cease to be the good guy.    It wouldn't just be ungentlemanly, it would make him a monster.    I like how forgiving everyone here is, though.  (Not sarcasm.)   BC himself has reformed, though, and keeps the sucking to a bare minimum.    Alright, you could make a case that he never really did reform, and point to Carl, but is this supposed to be a show about a hypocritical villain posing as a hero?    I enjoy the fact that BC is three dimensional and still has his harsh violent side.     But his conscience is obviously functioning and active.   Well, except for the problematic Carl thing.

I think that he just can't take blood from someone more than four times or so without killing her/him.     There's Willie.... maybe if he waited a really long time between, it wouldn't be fatal, but that means lots and lots of victims, and when everyone in town has a family member or friend wearing ascots or scarves or turtlenecks, and mooning over their 8x10 glossies of Barnabas and putting him on their speed-dial for no apparent reason, it won't stay a secret long.   Just thinking out loud.   I don't know.

you're right mangus,

that was sort of my point.as originally conceived barnabas was a monster.but by the time the 1897 story was told he had become the show's protagonist and deeply troubled 'hero'.

as such i think the writers knew that having him do really yucky things like drink animals blood was unseemly and likely to turn off viewers and that's why it wasn't discussed at this point.

i wasn't thinking about what a real vampire might need in terms of blood but simply how the writing for the character had changed between 1967 and 1897.

it would make him a monster. 

 Essentially he is a monster. 

 Barnabas isn't a hero.  In fact, he possesses many of the qualities of a villain (calculating, brutal, vampire, murderer, unforgiving, a liar) but has the soul of a hero (courage, willing to risk danger in order to help his family, guilt over his blood-drinking, strong romantic feelings of love for Josette and others).  This combination of traits makes Barnabas an anti-hero.  The anti-hero, as a literary concept, has been around since the dawn of literature and Barnabas, from 68-71, is the anti-hero to a T.   He definitely starts out as a villain, and that does change as the show goes on.  I'd never say he was a hero though.  He simply possesses too many non-heroic, flat-out villainous traits.  Barnabas killed quite a few more people after Carl, although viewers tend to forgive those murders because most of them were "bad guys." 

The period that really gets me is during the Summer of 1970; he's a vampire, but Julia isn't treating him, and there is no reference to cattle attacks, or ANYTHING!  Same goes for 1840 after the end of a certain subplot.  I know in the case of the latter storyline, Jonathan Frid flatly refused to do anymore onscreen fanging, which I think partly explains the introduction of the abrupt cure scenario by Angelique, even though she had tried and failed to cure him in a previous storyline (but at that point, she had yet to morph into SuperWitch!).

The other thing that always floors me is this episode in 1897 when the light of dawn is breaking and Barn is scurrying down to the basement, opens his coffin, and there's Rachel passed out inside, thoughtfully left there as a little love-token from Angelique.  By rights Barnabas ought to have dumped her on a sofa in the drawing room, dashed madly back after locking the basement door, and hit the hay.  But he stays and talks with Rachel for awhile, or gets Magda to attend to her (can't recall which).

By the series' own logic, he should have been burnt toast crumbs at that point.  But he isn't!

G.

I think that most of the stories say that a vampire needs to drink blood in order to stay rational, but being immortal  if they are unable to get blood they go into a comatose state. When they are again able to imbibe they recover.

I would agree w/this, although I am by no means a vampire expert.  The *rational* part totally takes care of the change from 1795 when Barnabas is rational and reasonable and begs Joshua to stop him by shooting him w/the silver bullet.  Then, in 1967 when Willie releases him, we all know he's completely insane and irrational, even "forgetting" his own past (Jeremiah being middle-aged, Jeremiah bringing his bride Josette back to Collinwood rather than her coming on her own to marry Barnabas etc...).  It helps me put aside all the inconsistancies from when Barnabas was only supposed to be on 13 weeks and his ending up on the show permantly and them changing his back-story.  

Also, in regards to the WB pilot, remember that when we see Barnabas in the crypt when Willie and his girlfriend are robbing it, he's all dried up and shriveled and when Willie's girlfriend's blood hits him he's revived.