h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Sorry to be sad but can anyone suggest how Spike manages to suck on a ciggy when it was stated in previous episodes that vamps have no breath?

Also, why the hell does Giles need a barometer in his house when the average pressure in California must vary by about 2 millibars over the year? Looks cool though.

I have to get out more.

I must admit, the whole Spike/ciggy thing has perplexed me and my family a great deal. Although if vampires can speak then we must assume that they are moving air through their voice box in a conventional manner, and therefore they can still inhale/exhale, even if they do not need to breathe. Therefore Spike could appear to be smoking a cigarette even if his body was not processing all those lovely toxic chemicals, and from what we've seen of his character I'm guessing a lot of what he does is merely for effect (the painted nails, the cool jacket, the fake working-class accent - have you seen the episode Fool for Love?) so it is not entirely unreasonable to assume that he would smoke just because he's a villain, even though he has no biological addiction to nicotine.

I hope this argument proves that I need to get out much more than you do

I have no idea why Giles needs a barometer, though.

Hmmmmm, have not heard the bit about vampires having no breath, but it doesn't really matter to me, as I think Spike looks sexy and cool while sucking on his cigs (or whatever else he happens to be doing -Not that I am promoting smoking, by the way, although it is something that I rather enjoy myself). And I would also like to add that I don't think he could be classified as a villian any longer, but rather, a poor creature of unrequited love.

Okay, so he's not *really* a villian anymore, in fact he's in danger of out-doing Angel in the 'mooching around like a kicked puppy' department, but he still wants people to think of him as 'The Big Bad', bless'im. And he probably knows as well as anyone that in the language of Hollywood 'smoking' translates as 'pure evil, in a dangerously sexy kinda way'.

BTW, I think the first time I heard about vampires having no breath was in the episode where the Master (briefly) drowns Buffy and Angel tells Xander to perform mouth-to-mouth on her because he can't do it himself.

10/10 on the "Breath" thing knitbunny, glad there's plenty more anoraks out there. I have to admit that compared to other SF/Fantasy shows, BTVS is impressively short of logic errors and plot holes, even when they dare to do the Angel crossover thing. Keep 'em peeled though...

I seem to remember reading a fanfic somewhere which explained Spikes breathing as "a bad habit i picked up when i was alive".

Maybe thats what it really is, just a habit

FABT

Well, whatever the reason for Spike's being able to smoke it would seem to suggest that Angel was just being stubborn and pedantic when he refused to do mouth to mouth on Buffy.

Which is fine by me because I can't stand him

Here's a rather more pressing one - how can male vampires, um, y'know, 'do it'? Sorry to lower the tone here but they don't have a heart beat, so how does the blood get pumped to the necessary part of the body? or is it just me who wonders about these things?

bad habit?

or is that classed as a good one?

fabt

ok, for vampires wanting a bit of erm.. you know what! here is my theory.

We know both Spike and Angel can't or won't kill, but need to drink blood to stay 'alive' this then suggests that somehow the vampire can circulate this blood round his body like his own. If you're wondering how much blood they need, they must take enogh from one vitim for them to die. As there is oxygen in the blood this keeps the vampire going until his next feed. So as it's circuating round thier bodies, it is possible for Spike and Angel to well you know!

sorry to change the subject but can anyone tell me if angel season three is repeated on sky one at any time?

It says in the watchers guide that vampires can stimulate breathing in order to smoke ciggarettes etc, but I myself feel this is a little bit of a lame excuse because if they can do this then why could Angel not 'stimulate breathing' to resussitate (sp?) Buffy when she drowns?

But I will of course not hold this to be a mistake, because Buffy is perfect

Angel season three is on at 9 oclock every thursday on sky one!

WHEN oh when will season 2 be on channel 4? I missed half of it!

Thanks for that but i was wondering if it was repeated other than the Thursday slot.

As for season 2, your guess is as good as mine. If you need to know what has happened in the rest of the season just give me a shout.

Oh sorry... no I don't think they do repeat it, because Buffy is repeated 6 o'clock on saturdays isn't it? And if they did repeat it it would probably be after that.

I kind of worked it out after watching season 3, thankyou anyway!

Anytime.

Either Angel or Spike said at one point that they don't need to breathe but do it to fit in. I assume this is just the writers way of explaning the fact that the actors have to breathe. As far as smoking goes it has been said that vamps can't taste so I don't see the point in spike smoking other than as a tool for the writers to show someone evil...like Angel went bad in season 2, the first thing he did was smoke...then kill someone... Smoking seams to be a prop for 'evil' in tv shows these days...

As for the whole sex thing thats always annoyed me and it's never been explained which is also annoying, we're all growen up and what with the current season 6 story line it's kind of more important...

We know they can have sex but how!

The "no breath" thing first appears in "Out of sight, out of mind" when Giles, Willow and Xander are trapped in the boiler room at the school and gas is leaking. Angel rescues them and then volunteers to switch off the gas as it won't affect him.

But wouldd you not have to have a heart beat to be able to circulate blood to the errm ..relevant areas, be it your own blood or not?

Still seems like this case is up for grabs ....

Backround notes

Looking through the thread we are starting to piece together. I think that without a doubt Spike had a circulatory system, his muscles work, his nose bleeds and he bruises. He feeds as someone has said and that implies that the food must get around somehow. He just doesn't have the same system as us, listen hard with that stethascope that Harmony left around and you'll hear some pumping action somewhere. Spike probably has a heart, maybe hearts, just not where you'd expect it/them to be and not the one he was born with. It goes without saying I think that he respires even if he doesn't need to breathe (in the conventional human sense) and he exists within certain biological constraints.

Being turned is a life changing event, no literally and your body changes too, its designed for and adpats to life as a vampire. The change is cathertic, quite painful initially (physically and otherwise), takes some getting used to and becoming a vampire is a process. You adapt to your niche, physiologically, psychologicaly and emotionally and your behaviour changes. So vamps do some things different to us, like circulate blood, breathe, their digestive sustem must change to but they do those very functional things. How they do it maybe the defining characteristics of the species but, no heartbeat, knobbley forehead when pissed off or hungry, no reflection, adversion to sunlight and cruxifixes equals vamp and is defining enough for me. The thought of broadening taxonomic classification to include the presance/absense of a soul interests me but that's by the by.

The only muscle to detrimentally affected by being turned is that cardiac muscle, the human heart is the only organ that is totally defunct once you have turned so it withers away. The performance of the other two muscle groups, skeletal and smooth, and certain tissue types (connective for instance) seem to be considerably enhanced when a human is turned so that they can do more and for longer when they are a vamp. Ho hum. Quoting the vamp himself under scrutiny in referance to his dick 'its a muscle' (and its not a cardiac oneand strictly speaking it has muscles and is composed of tissue) and from what I have seen in S6 (a limited number of episodes) everything seems to be in perfect working order which is what we would logically expect in a healthy specimen like Spike.

Funny we never questioned how Spike/Angel could jump so well as in jumping from roof to roof, nobody raised the issue of circulation then...... Which makes me think that do we really want to know how a vamp circulates his blood, or how being turned affects your muscle groups or is it that its this particular muscle that grabs our attention? Have to say I found it an interesting angle to take.

I'm going to sign off for now it appears that we have run out

Love Peanut xx

hey p, long time no speakies.


nice to see you again.




there is a fanfiction (when isnt there) which i wont link to cos it's not mind but by some geezer called walkswithwind, in this fan fic xander (longstory) is studying demonic chemistry. the rough explanations we get in between fires and explosions are that deomons run by a differnt rule of physics, i.e. magic.




that would explain a lot.