Darla
From The Black Vault Encyclopedia Project
Darla is a fictional character created by Joss Whedon for the television programs, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel. The character is portrayed by Julie Benz.
Contents |
Biography
Character history
Darla was born a human in the late 16th century. Her birth name has never been revealed and she herself eventually forgot it. As a young prostitute, she became independently wealthy but also contracted a fatal case of syphilis. By 1609, she lay dying in the luxurious house she owned in the British Virginia Colony in North America. She scoffed at a "priest" who came to her deathbed, before he revealed his true identity as The Master, and leader of the elite cult of vampires known as the Order of Aurelius. She despised the clergy and religion – a trait that would follow her as a vampire. The Master turned her into a vampire and named her "Darla", meaning "Dear One".
(As a historical note, Jamestown, Virginia barely existed at that date except as a small, primitive fort. Whedon may have been thinking of the lost colony of Roanoke Island which mysteriously vanished between 1586 and 1588, a few years after the birth of Virginia Dare.)
As a vampire, Darla enjoyed luring hapless males by appearing as a seductive and mysterious yet innocuous woman. Many examples would prove Darla as a predator who preferred using her good looks instead of hunting to obtain victims.
By 1753, Darla was out exploring the world and wreaking havoc when fate brought her to a small town in County Galway in Ireland. There she found a man named Liam, who was drinking and whoring his way through a rather uneventful life. Admiring him from afar, she lured him into an alley where she sired him. Liam became Angelus. Waiting for him atop his grave, she gave him his first lessons on being vampires after he slaughtered his entire village and killed his family, telling him that his acts were a way to react to his father's disapproval.
After cutting a bloody swath across Wales and England, Darla brought her new consort back to The Master in London, but Angelus had no interest in The Master, the Order of Aurelius, or anything other than living a decadent life of pleasure and sadism with Darla by his side. Darla chose Angelus over her sire. Over time, Darla and Angelus would make their way throughout Europe and North Africa, occasionally sparring with each other but constantly tormenting the vampire hunter Daniel Holtz. Back in London, their family grew when Darla lured Angel to Drusilla in 1860; and later the addition of Spike in 1880 would complete the vampire foursome known as the Scourge of Europe. Throughout their adventures, Darla always demanded a room with a pretty view. It was during this time that Spike first heard about slayers (Buffy season 5) from Angel while Darla and Drusilla watched them spar.
Finding themselves in Borsa, Romania, in 1898, Darla brought Angelus a gift: a Roma girl with whom Angelus could have his way, so long as Darla watched. Soon after, the family of the girl, the Kalderash Clan, cursed Angelus with the restoration of his soul. Darla sensed the restored soul in her loved and banished Angelus from her sight. Obviously bewildered, Darla tracked down the Kalderash Tribe alongside Spike and Drusilla and massacred the village, though she met with the girl's father, one of the Kalderash Elders, and offered him to spare his other daughters in exchange for the removal of Angelus' soul. However, Spike had killed the daughters of the Elder.
By 1900 Darla took Spike and Dru to China, never telling them about what had happened with Angelus. The trio ended up in the midst of the Boxer Rebellion in China, and Angelus found her. Darla tried to convince herself that she could still be with Angelus despite his soul, but she soon realized that it could never work, as Angelus could not bring himself to injure innocents. Little is known about Darla's activities between that time and 1997, but one can assume that she rejoined the Master and the Order of Aurelius and had been in Sunnydale, California at least since 1937.
When Buffy Summers, a recently chosen Slayer, ended up in the same town in Buffy's series opener, Darla met her in a mausoleum entrance to the dungeon. She did not know what a slayer was -- though she remembered everything she had done with Angelus. In any case, the Master was not pleased. After several attempts to kill the Slayer, Darla finally volunteered to kill her herself. Darla pretended to be a school friend of Buffy's and got Buffy's mother, Joyce, to invite her into the house. Darla bit Joyce but cleverly set it up so that it would appear that Angel had done it. After a tense three-way confrontation in The Bronze, Angel finally staked Darla, turning her into dust.
But that was not the end for Darla. She was resurrected, in human form, by Wolfram and Hart as a way to both torture Angel and to get him to turn evil. During her short time as a human, Darla found it increasingly difficult to live with a soul and desperately wanted to be a vampire again. Angel, through acts of bravery and nobility, finally convinced Darla to live out her remaining days as human (she was dying from syphillis as she would have if she weren't sired the first time) and re-assured her that he would help her. In an odd twist of fate, Wolfram and Hart brought in Drusilla to once again sire Darla. As a vampire, Darla went on another killing rampage that nearly ended when Angel set her on fire. She survived, and as Angel's life perspective grew darker, he came to Darla to help him "not care." Angel and Darla had sex, the expectation being that he would have lost his soul as a result of "a moment of perfect happiness" (the other half of the gypsy curse), but the next morning Angel was still en-souled. Not even one moment of perfect happiness, that whole night. Surprised, angry, and upset, Darla left Los Angeles, supposedly forever.
However, the unthinkable had happened. Angel had impregnated Darla. Darla visited every shaman in the Western Hemisphere, who all told her one thing: her pregnancy was inherently impossible, and yet also impossible to abort. With nowhere else to turn, Darla went to Angel. Various theories emerged about the child, from a cult of vampires worshiping it as a miracle, to the fear that it was the evil spoken of in the Tro-Clon prophesies. It turned out the child was simply a healthy human baby boy, with whom Darla was sharing a soul. This did not matter to Holtz, who had been brought through time by the demon Sahjhan to hunt and kill Angel and Darla. Darla realized that she would lose her soul after giving birth, and would no longer be able to love her child. Additionally, her undead body was becoming increasingly unable to sustain the life of her unborn child in time for it to be born. After telling Angel to make sure that their son knows that he was the one good thing the two vampires ever did together, Darla staked herself in the alley behind Caritas, leaving behind a pile of dust, and a crying, but healthy, infant baby. In one final moment of redemption, Darla ended her 400+ year run for the life of her son, whom Angel named Connor.
Some time later, Darla's spirit appeared to a now-teenaged Connor when he was being tempted by the villainous Cordelia to murder an innocent teenage girl. Claiming to have been sent by the Powers That Be, Darla pleaded with her son not to commit murder. Seemingly moved by his mother's words, Connor began to untie the girl, but at the urging of Cordelia, he killed her anyway. Darla disappeared, and Connor never mentioned their conversation to anyone. Some theorize that this apparition of Darla may in fact have been an incarnation of The First Evil attempting to prevent the coming of Jasmine, an occurrence that would interfere with the First's own plans. However, there is insufficient evidence to absolutely confirm this.
Darla has not been seen since (except in flashback).
Powers & Abilities
Darla has the standard powers and vulnerabilities of a vampire with an arguably greater lust for blood and destruction than most. She is immortal, regenerates damage, drains human blood to survive and is stronger than most human beings. She is vulnerable to holy items and sunlight and can be killed by decapitation and a stake to the heart. She cannot enter the home of a living human without first being invited by someone who lives there.
As a side note, Darla was also capable of sensing the presence of a soul in others, as she did when Angelus was cursed for the first time, which could be incidental with the fact that she sired him and was extremely close to him.
Romantic Relationships
Appearances
Darla has appeared in:
Series 1 (1997) - Welcome to the Hellmouth; The Harvest; Angel (killed).
Series 2 (1997, 1998) - Becoming, Part One (flashbacks).
Series 5 (2000, 2001) - Fool for Love (flashbacks).
Series 1 (1999, 2000) - The Prodigal (flashbacks), Five by Five (flashbacks), To Shanshu in L.A. (resurrected)
Series 2 (2000, 2001) - Judgment;
First Impressions;
Untouched;
Dear Boy;
Darla;
The Trial (vamped);
Reunion;
Redefinition;
Reprise;
Epiphany.
Series 3 (2001, 2002) - Heartthrob;
That Vision Thing;
Offspring;
Quickening;
Lullaby (killed).
Series 4 (2004, 2003) - Inside Out (as an apparation).
Series 5 (2003, 2004) - The Girl in Question (flashbacks).
Copyright
"Original data received from Wikipedia on April 16, 2006. Credit given to original authors can be seen Here."
