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As Neanderthals are to human beings, the Turok-Han are to vampires. They're a primordial, ferociously powerful killing machine, as single-minded as animals. They are the vampires that vampires fear. An ancient and entirely different race, and until this morning, I thought they were a myth.
Rupert Giles[src]

Background

They are a race of ancient powerful vampires stronger and fiercer than the regular vampires. Judging by Giles' description of them, they are monsters even amongst vampires.

Turok-Han can be staked, but doing so is very difficult, like driving a stake through steel. They are also vulnerable to beheading and sunlight, though crosses and holy water do not affect them at all. They are intelligent enough to forge their own weapons, as some are seen doing in Chosen before the new Slayers engage them in battle.

The First Evil, via its Bringers, first used Jonathan Levinson's and Spike's blood to open the Seal of Danzalthar which released the first Turok-Han. Buffy's first encounter with the Turok-Han nearly killed her; however, she managed to kill it during their second fight.

File:Turokhan.JPG

Buffy killing the first Turok-Han

The Shadow Men later showed Buffy a vision, wherein it is revealed that there are actually thousands of sword-wielding Turok-Han living below the seal.

Eventually, more Turok-Han were released, but many more waited below Sunnydale for the time when the First would be able to free them all.

In Chosen, Buffy and the other Slayers go into the Hellmouth to fight the Turok-Han; in the end, all of them are apparently killed, including thousands by the amulet that traps Spike.

They were given the nickname of Ubervamp by the Scooby Gang, more specifically Anya. 'Uber' was first commonly used by German philosopher Nietzsche who coined the phrase 'Ubermensch' - which referred to the higher state that man may aspire to, and has come to be used synonymously with "superman". An Ubervamp is therefore a "supervampire".

Trivia

The performance of the Turok-Han army is far poorer than the first one in the series. While the first Turok-Han was nearly unstoppable, forcing Buffy to use every possible resource to defeat it, the newly-activated Slayers (and even the non-superpowered human members of the Scooby Gang, like Xander and Dawn) were able to defeat them with relative ease. In the audio commentary for the episode Chosen, Joss Whedon explained that he is aware of the continuity issue with the Turok-Han's powers, and explained that the story behind the season/episode he wanted to get across to viewers was more important than the continuity.

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The Turok-Han army

Appearances

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