Personality
Barnabas often blamed his moments of cruelty on his transformation into one of the undead or "nosferatu," but other characters revealed that Barnabas was not always the reluctant victim that he claimed. He carried on a sexual dalliance with the obsessed Angelique despite his claim of love for Josette, which set in motion many tragedies in his life. Jealousy and wounded male pride caused him to fatally wound his uncle in a duel, after Jeremiah's elopement with Josette. He attempted to back out of his agreement to marry Angelique after she cured his sister of illness. Given proof that his newlywed bride Angelique was a witch, he attempted to murder her. A drunken Ben Stokes admitted that Barnabas, prior to his change, "... weren't no good then, neither!" When the vampire tried to silence his own father by killing him, an astonished Joshua Collins exclaimed: "You would kill even me! You must have always had so much hatred in you. No one could be filled with it so quickly!" While many of his flip-flopping infatuations with nubile young women could be attributed to his vampire curse and his need to find a vampire bride, his romantic choices during his periods as a human were equally immature and baffling. In later interviews, Jonathan Frid admitted this was all part of the character's success, "... the lies he told to himself."
Barnabas nevertheless shows a softer side for Dr. Julia Hoffman as he becomes closer to her, and once mentioned that he cared for her more than he let on. He risked his life whenever she was in grave trouble, and only when the Leviathans gave the order to have Julia killed did Barnabas have the strength to break free of their control. When Angelique tried to endanger Julia's life, an enraged Barnabas warned her that if she ever tried to harm Julia again, he would personally see to her own destruction. His confrontation with Angelique over the deaths that his curse had caused revealed that he did care deeply for his mother and sister, and for Josette.
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