Drusilla

“	My mummy used to sing me to sleep at night. "Run and catch, run and catch, the lamp is caught in the blackberry patch". She had the sweetest voice, like cherries. What will your mummy sing when they find your body?	„
	~ Drusilla to a child on a playground.

Drusilla is one of the two secondary antagonists (alongside Spike) in Season 2 of Buffy The Vampire Slayer and the secondary antagonist in Season 2 of its spin-off, Angel.

She is of the few vampires to have battle both Buffy and Angel along with their respective crews over a prolonged period of time yet has survived time and again to menace them another day. She owes some of her survival to her tendency towards staying in the shadows rather than engage in outright assaults. Drusilla is psychotic, even by the standards of vampires. This is due to her tragic origins of Angelus murdering her family and brutally torturing her, destroying her psychologically before finally converting her into a vampire. Angelus regards her as his "masterpiece". Despite her mental state and childlike demeanour, she is a highly intelligent, ruthless, and more than capable of formulating intricate plans.

She was portrayed by Juliet Landau.

History

Drusilla was born in the mid-19th century in London, to a devoutly Christian family. She grew up to be innocent, chaste and devout, but was plagued by a precognitive ability to see the future. Her mother had her suppress these powers, claiming that the visions were from the devil. 

One night in 1860, she caught the attention of the vampire Darla, who recognized her prophetic abilities. She brought her to the attention of her lover, the ruthless vampire Angelus. Angelus became obsessed with her, and began mentally torturing her in an effort to create a "masterpiece" of torture. Angelus visited countless atrocities upon her, the worst of which were massacring her entire family before her eyes, only to allow her to escape and join a coven. He then proceeded to massacre her new sisters in the same way, on the day she was to take her vows. Drusilla's sanity was lost that day, rendering her insane. Angelus, in order to preserve his "masterpiece" for all eternity, turned Drusilla into a vampire. 

For the next twenty years, Drusilla joined her new family; Angelus and Darla, in wreaking havoc across Europe. Feeling lonely due to having to share Angelus with Darla, she sired a young poet named William, who would later take the nom de guerre Spike, she made a new addition to the "family." Spike was completely and utterly devoted to and in love with Drusilla, yet she continued to maintain a sexual relationship with Angelus, much to Spike's displeasure, leading to a rivalry between Spike and Angelus. 

After Angelus' soul was forcibly restored by a gypsy spell, leading him to be excluded from their company, Drusilla and Spike took their leave of Darla, journeying on their own for the next 100 years. In the late 1990s, Drusilla was kidnapped and tortured by a human inquisitor in Prague, which left her severely weakened. Spike took her to Sunnydale, the location of a Hellmouth, hoping that its demonic energies would help heal her. Unbeknownst to them, Sunnydale was home to the latest Slayer: Buffy Summers, as well as the now redeemed Angelus, using the name Angel, who fought by her side. Drusilla and Spike would frequently clash with them. 

Spike eventually found a way to restore Drusilla to health, in a ritual sapping Angel's life-force to restore hers. The ritual was successful in curing Drusilla, but the intervention of Buffy left Spike crippled, an allowed Angel to escape with his life. Shortly thereafter, Angel's soul was once again lost, restoring him to his former evil self. He rejoined Spike and Drusilla, much to their pleasure, though Spike would quickly grow to resent Angel once again, especially when he resumed his sexual relationship with Drusilla.

Angel concocted a plan to send the entire Earth into a Hell-Dimension, and Drusilla gladly aided him. Spike however, betrayed the two, siding with Buffy in exchange for his and Drusilla's free passage. Spike wanted things to go back to the way they were, and enjoyed Earth too much to have it be destroyed. Angel was defeated and sent to Hell (though he would eventually return, with his soul restored) and Spike took Drusilla and left the country.

Drusilla became sickened and disillusioned with Spike however, and broke up with him, starting a relationship with a Chaos Demon.

When the evil law firm Wolfram and Hart brought her grandsire Darla back to life to torture the once again heroic Angel, Drusilla was called in to make Darla a vampire once again. Drusilla and Darla resumed their acquaintance and hunting. They targeted Wolfram and Hart, slaughtering the higher brass of the company with Angel's blessing. They began recruiting demons to turn Los Angeles into their own "playground". but Angel, driven to depression and violence by his failure to save them, set them both on fire. 

Drusilla returned to Sunnydale to lick her wounds and convince Spike to return with her to attempt to restore their old "family". By this time however, Spike had fallen in love with Buffy and tried to kill Drusilla in order to prove his love. Heartbroken by Spike betraying her once again, Drusilla left, and thus remained at large.

Personality

Before becoming a vampire, Drusilla was chaste, innocent, kindhearted, and devoutly Christian. After being driven to insanity and turned into a vampire by Angelus, her personality changed drastically. She became extremely unstable, capricious, and unpredictable, with a love for victimizing the weak and innocent, especially children.

She also became a very infantile person, often behaving like a little girl and had a penchant for playing with dolls. She was unusually loving and sympathetic for a vampire, making her fellow vampires into a surrogate family, with Angelus as her "father", Darla as her "grandmother", and Spike as her lover, though these roles often overlapped (she maintained a romantic and sexual relationship with Angelus, and had at least one sexual encounter with Darla). 

Because of her insanity, she often spoke in riddles and babbled nonsense, though she was capable of carrying on normal conversations, particularly with Spike. She is also very fond of animals and plants, although she is terrible at caring for them. In Sunnydale, Angelus gave her a garden to tend to, to her immense delight.

Powers and Abilities

Drusilla possesses various superhuman abilities. As a vampire, she possessed several superhuman abilities, such as immortality, a regenerative healing factor, superhuman strength and stamina, all of which were amplified by her advanced age. She also possesses razor sharp fingernails. Even before her siring, she possessed precognitive abilities, allowing her to see glimpses of the future and sense danger. She also used divination in the form of tarot cards to predict the future.

She also possesses the power of hypnosis, allowing her to put her victim into a trance, rendering them helpless, as well as creating illusions and projecting false images. It is unknown if this ability is an extension of her precognition or vampiric abilities, since her fellow vampire The Master used similar powers. She also possessed the power of empathy, allowing her to perceive and sense emotions and memories, and predict future actions, as well as locating people. She could also sense psychic and mystical energies, allowing her to sense when something is powerful. While her fighting style appears odd, she has held her own in combat against the likes of Angel, Spike and Kendra the Vampire Slayer, using a mix of fighting technique, vampiric abilities and her psychic powers.

Trivia

• In the episode What's My Line Part Two, according to Joss Whedon, Spike should have been killed and Drusilla should thus have become the main antagonist, but the Spike end up being so loved by a huge slice of the audience that Joss Whedon had to change his mind about killing him.
• Drusilla is one of two main antagonists of the series not to be killed, the other being The First Evil.

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External Links

• Drusilla on the Wikipedia

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