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Entire Thesis (pdf)

Chapters:

  1. Summary of Known Information
  2. The Order of Aurelius
  3. An Alternate Theory of Vampirism
  4. Appearance and Habitat
  5. Feeding Habits
  6. Preferred Victims
  7. Sexual Idiosyncrasies
  8. Torture
  9. Other Known Idiosyncrasies
  10. Pre-Death Biography
  11. Summary of Strengths and Weaknesses
  12. Conclusions

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CHAPTER SEVEN: Sexual Idiosyncrasies - The Romantic Vampire

The primary obstacle to be faced, when detailing the sexual idiosyncrasies of a vampire, is that knowledge of such intimacies must be deduced from circumstantial evidence. Those with firsthand experience tend to meet their demise at the hands of their seducer. For that reason, this section depends largely on generalization and speculation.

To understand where William the Bloody deviates from the norm, one must first examine the 'vampiric' norm. The antiquated notion that vampires are impotent is incorrect. With their masochistic and sadistic tendencies, vampires may - by human standards - be considered sexually deviant, but they are not impotent. Male vampires have erections. In fact, with the exception of the heart and lungs, vampires have fully-functioning circulatory and nervous systems.

Demonic forces animate a vampire's body. This preternatural energy circulates the blood, usurping the function of the heart and allowing erections. This same force augments the vampire's strength, vigor, and endurance. Such an advantageous physiology means that vampires not only function sexually, but are also gifted with the ability to maintain erections for astoundingly long periods of time, while requiring exceptionally short refractory periods. (1) However, these enviable traits are counterbalanced by horrific disadvantages.

Vampires may be considered in some respects the supernatural equivalent of a psychopath, and psychopaths exhibit antisocial behavior ranging from the promiscuous to the sadistic to the homicidal. Specific behaviors vary with the individual. However, the ubiquitous trait of all psychopaths and vampires is a lack of remorse. They feel no guilt. They have no conscience. (2)

Research into the brain has shown that the frontal lobe acts as a master control for civilized human behavior. Lesions, tumors, or head injuries to this area can cause a normally moral or even passive person to begin exhibiting antisocial, aggressive, or violent tendencies. PET scans (positronic emission tomography), used to map the brain, have revealed that known psychopaths have noticeably less neural activity in the frontal lobe than most 'normal' humans. This suggests the possibility that what prevents most people from acting on violent or homicidal impulses may not be present in the psychopathic brain. (3) Vivisection of vampires reveals strikingly similar results.

It can be theorized that the process of siring a vampire damages the frontal lobe of the human host, and - as in the case of psychopaths - intelligence is unaffected but the moral center is lost. Or perhaps the demonic force animating the body provides inadequate neural activity to the frontal lobe. A conclusive diagnosis cannot be given without further research, which is difficult to do given the nature of the subject. (4) However, tantalizing questions are raised by Angel/Angelus, whose souling appears to have repaired this damage or at least stimulated normal neural activity in the frontal lobe. Should Angel or another souled vampire - if one exists - become available to the Council, further study is warranted. It may be possible to simulate the souling effect by electronic stimulation of some sort.

However, the reason for establishing the superficial correlation between vampires and psychopaths is to provide a working model with which to judge William the Bloody's case history.

Vampires and psychopaths do not care about the suffering they leave in their wake. In fact, they experience a thrill from it. Some psychopaths reach orgasm only by committing a violent act or by fantasizing about one. Ted Bundy admitted to climaxing at the moment of his victims' deaths. Unfortunately, even the horrific can become familiar. As old horrors become mundane, psychopaths need new thrills, greater violence, and more grotesque displays of carnage. Their violent rampages escalate. Their crimes always escalate. (5) Understanding this concept is vital when investigating William the Bloody's history if one hopes to divine his true nature.

A cursory glance through William the Bloody's history reveals the expected sorts of crimes. There are the impalings of 1880, the home invasion of 1881, the reign of terror in Baden-Baden in 1889. The list is extensive, appalling, and wholly expected of a vampire. What is surprising is the pattern which emerges when examining these crimes more closely.

Between the years 1880 and 1898, there are many crimes with dreadful sexual connotations. This sort of incident becomes more sporadic after 1898, and after 1900, it becomes so infrequent as to be the exception rather than the rule. (6) In fact, such offenses are so rare as to be considered anomalous.

This is significant because, as previously stated, crimes invariably escalate. That is not to say that William the Bloody's crimes in general have not escalated. Going strictly by headcount, the carnage exacted in the Krakow, Prague, and Liverpool massacres far exceed William the Bloody's body count of the late 19th century. And, if judged on an apocalyptic scale, William the Bloody's reassembling of The Judge is his most nefarious strategy to date. (7) It is just that transgressions of a sexual nature follow an inverse pattern to what one would expect. Instead of becoming more frequent, they become less so.

A possible explanation for this unlikely pattern of behavior lies in theories expressed in Charles Greenberg's and Lois Pearson's Master Vampire: The Alpha Male's Role in the Vampire Clan. Greenberg and Pearson spend a great deal of time establishing Angelus's dominant role in the Angelus/Darla/Drusilla/William the Bloody 'family'. Angelus was the alpha male whose personal modus operandi was the destruction of innocence. (8) Accounts of Drusilla's siring and the events surrounding it, including the rape and murder of her familial sisters and the Sisters of Mercy, illustrate Angelus's career long pattern of bloodlust killing, a pattern which escalated until the rape and murder of a gypsy, whose father cursed the monster with a soul.

What Greenberg and Pearson fail to address in their book is the beta male's role in relation to the alpha male. The beta male constantly challenges the alpha for dominance ­ 'challenge' being the operative word. It is a competitive relationship. If, as theorized, William the Bloody was sired some time between 1870 and 1880, it makes perfect sense that from until 1898 (the year Angelus was souled), (9) William the Bloody's exploits were fueled by a sense of competition with the alpha male, a competition played out on his grandsire's turf.

Angelus's modus operandi was defiling innocence and bloodlust killing. For William the Bloody to compete with Angelus, he had to compete in that arena. When Angelus was removed from the equation, there was a shift in William the Bloody's behavior, though, to some extent, he must have still been battling Angelus's ghost, as William had yet to earn the alpha male position.

It is significant that the most dramatic shift in William's behavior occurred in 1900. In that year he killed the Slayer, something Angelus had never accomplished. This singular event allowed William to end his competition with Angelus, or Angelus's memory, but perhaps twenty years spent in competition with his grandsire molded William the Bloody's vampiric identity in a surprising way.

William the Bloody is a competitor. He is consumed with facing challenges, overcoming obstacles, and throwing himself against impossible fates. This explains his obsession with Slayers. This also goes a long way toward explaining the New York Prostitute Slaying Competition. These are not bloodlust killings. These are competitive killings. While there are sexual elements to certain cases, they are incidental to the crime itself. His sex drive is not directly tied to his predatory nature. It is not an essential part of his modus operandi.

The most striking pattern in records, concerning William the Bloody, are the consistent references to his devotion to Drusilla. Sir Nicholas Brisby described a sighting of the Aurelian four in 1900 by saying,

The monsters strode down an avenue, filled with terror, fire, and blood as the chaos of the rebellion reached frightening proportions. Angelus, dark, swarthy and menacing, walked ahead of his companions. He never paused to look at his scarlet-clad paramour, Darla. He stood apart - unfeeling, uncaring, and cold. Darla followed her childe, never allowing her attention to waver from her demon lover as the battered, but unbowed, William the Bloody walked beside her. To his left walked the vampiress, Drusilla, who stumbled over wreckage in the street. She nearly crashed to her knees, but before she hit the ground William caught her. With one hand, he gently caressed her cheek in a baleful pantomime of a chivalric lover. After checking her ankle, he continued his gallant charade by sweeping her into his arms, kissing her ravenously, and carrying her down the street. Angelus never looked back." (10)

However, recent discoveries suggest that William's actions were not part of a 'gallant charade' or 'baleful pantomime'. As heretical as it may be to suggest it, William the Bloody's actions actually appear to be characteristic of him.

A recent documentary on the life of silent film star Louise Brooks made mention of a mysterious figure that she referred to as 'Wicked Wills'. Inspection of her private correspondence, which has been archived by Eastman House, revealed an intriguing letter, dated the Fall of 1978. Having hit rock bottom, after decades of having been sustained by liquor, pills, and rich lovers, Ms. Brooks was in a rather desperate period of her life. In the letter, she mentions running into a young man who bore an uncanny resemblance to the 'Wicked Wills' of her youth.

"He was the same," she wrote. "Despite the Harlow platinum hair, the torn t-shirt, and safety pins, he looked exactly like the delightfully wicked Wills. I'm sure you think the old lady has finally lost the last of her sanity. I sometimes wonder the same thing, but if I was superstitious or had an ounce of fantasy life left in me, I would think Wills had a portrait of Dorian Grey in his closet." (11) She goes on to describe several encounters in her youth with the aforementioned 'Wicked Wills'. Further investigation into these encounters suggests they were almost certainly with William the Bloody.

The American actress, Louise Brooks, was considered to be one of the great beauties of the 1920s and has been described as "willful, heartless, and immoral." She was also said to have "a strong sense of personal probity, was a loyal friend, and refused to succumb to what she called the 'pestiferous disease' of 'going Hollywood'". Indeed, Ms. Brooks had the audacity to tell the head of an American movie studio to "go to hell" before moving to Europe, where she made the most famous film of her career, 'Pandora's Box'. (12)

'Pandora's Box' is considered a masterpiece of early German Cinema. It investigates themes of love, lust, betrayal, envy, and murder, and in it, Ms. Brooks played the beguiling hedonist Lulu, who killed six men before she was murdered by Jack the Ripper. In her private papers, when Ms. Brooks describes the film's 1929 premiere in Berlin, she mentions 'Wicked Wills'.

"I asked him whether he liked the show. He laughed and called me by one of those nicknames, like 'pet' or 'love' or 'pigeon' that falls so easily from some men's lips. He told me he did like the show, but not the ending. I was far too interesting for him to want to see me die." (13)

In the final years of her life, Ms. Brooks became famous once again as a clear-eyed, dry-witted chronicler of the early days of Hollywood. No mention of 'Wills' appears in her famous autobiography, Lulu in Hollywood, but she did discuss him in a letter to the same friend to whom she mentioned the 1978 sighting of 'Wicked Wills'. "When I was young, I thought he resembled Valentino," she wrote.

"They both had expressive eyes and quicksilver temperaments. One moment, Wills could be the sensitive swain, but the next, he could become forceful, implacable, and dangerous. Looking back with the eyes of a jaded old woman, I think Wills reminds me most of Bogart. Not the Bogart fans worship at film festivals, but the man who suppressed his own character to project a tough-guy role. The Humphrey I knew in 1924 was a conventional, well-bred young man, and I suspect that, once upon a time, Wills was much the same. He may have spoken English in that dreadful North London dialect, but despite the odd lewd word, he spoke German with the grammar, diction, and accent of a graduate of Oxford." (14)

Ms. Brooks also made mention of Wills' longtime companion, whom she described as "Mad. The girl spoke in riddles that made a sane woman want to slap her. But Wills catered to her every whim." (15)

Near the end of her life, Ms. Brooks elaborated on her 1978 encounter with Wills.

"I ran into him on the train. It wasn't one of my better days. Things weren't going well for me then, and a woman with too many years behind her knows not to trust young punks on subways. He walked toward me and something about the fluidity of his gait reminded me of Wills. When I looked into his face, I was almost convinced he was Wills. I know it was impossible. Fifty years had passed, and he hadn't aged a day. He had to be some doppelganger or a trick of my eyes, but when he approached me, I shivered. Laugh at my expense, because I don't know whether I shook from fear or desire. Wills was a beautiful man. Yes, I called him beautiful. He had flawless skin, intelligent eyes, and bone structure any movie star would envy. He also had the most wonderful hands. . ."

She went on to say that, after an ominous initial meeting, some whim convinced her to allow the young man to walk her to her apartment.

"We stood in the hallway of the building that had become my home, and I saw how far I had fallen. I remembered the sybaritic days in Berlin. I remembered jazz and flappers. I remembered gin and champagne. I remembered being famous and adored, and I was all too aware of standing in a corridor filled with litter, grime, and ugliness. The young man smiled. Then he leaned in close. He kissed me, and his lips were soft and gentle, fierce and firm. It wasn't the kind of kiss a young man gives an old woman, and for one moment I was Lulu again. I was that wild, feral creature that men desired and could not control, and before he stepped back, he whispered into my ear, 'You're too interesting for me to want to see you die.' " (16)

There is, as unlikely as it seems, a true, gallant streak in William the Bloody. There is an extraordinary account where the Slayer, Buffy Summers, used Drusilla as hostage, to convince William to release potential victims. The astounding part of the account is that he did release the victims in exchange for Drusilla's safe return. (17) Shockingly, this vampire valued his lover's safety over his own. To quote the Slayer's diary, "He's crazy for the psychobitch." (18)

Even more extraordinary is that after Drusilla betrayed him with Angelus, William apparently did not seek revenge against her. Instead, he forged an alliance with the Slayer and helped prevent an apocalypse, in order to guarantee that Drusilla be given amnesty. (18)

The sheer number of accounts, such as these, leads one to the almost inescapable conclusion that William the Bloody is capable of some sort of romantic attachment. His concern for his lover's welfare exceeds concern for his own. He will forego his own pleasure for her. In a human, this quality is admirable. In a vampire, it is shocking, idiosyncratic, and strange. It's earth-shattering, because vampires aren't supposed to be capable of romantic love, but this vampire is.

NOTES

(1) Walsh, Margaret. "Dissecting Demon Physiology". Los Angeles: Swastika Press 1999.

(2) Wackernagel, Luhan. "Theory and Phenomenology of Siring: Towards a Behavioural Analysis of Vampirism". London 1974 (unpublished).

(3) American Psychiatric Association. "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders". Third ed., revised Washington D.C. 1987.

(4) Walsh, Margaret. "Dissecting Demon Physiology". Los Angeles: Swastika Press 1999.

(5) Walsh, Margaret. "Psychology of Night Creatures". Los Angeles: Swastika Press 1997.

(6) Everet, Thomas. "Demonology-A Class Below". 2nd ed. Hidden Creek Publishing 1992.

(7) Giles, Rupert. "A Watcher's Diary". (unpublished) 1986-1998.

(8) Greenburg, Charles and Pearson, Lois. "Master Vampire: The Alpha Male's Role in the Vampire Clan".London: Little Brown & Company, UK Ltd. 1980.

(9) Giles, Rupert. "A Watcher's Diary". (unpublished) 1986-1998.

(10) Brisby, Sir Nicholas. "The Death of Chen Ma". Slayer Death Reports. London: CoW Publishing 1914.

(11) Brooks, Louise. Letters. Eastman House Archive.

(12) Tynan, Kenneth. Essay. "The New Yorker" 1982.

(13) Brooks, Louise. Letters. Eastman House Archive.

(14) Ibid.

(15) Ibid.

(16) Ibid.

(17) Giles, Rupert. "A Watcher's Diary". (unpublished) 1986-1998.

(18) Summers, Buffy. "A Slayer's Diary". (unpublished) 1996-1998.

(19) Ibid.