Oh, yeah. I hate that. Like, we get it, you're smart and witty. I have not, but that looks interesting. xD Oh well, I'll always go for action scenes.
What We Do In The Shadows popped into my head on more than one occassion in this thread - Such a good movie!
I also miss stories where vampyrs turnt into butterflies and not bats—I feel like it was Polish vampyrs, but I might be mistaken. There are so many cultures with distinct vampyr myths, sometimes I mix them up in my mind. Personally also love the Filipino shapeshifting vampiric were-witches, Aswang. I mean, they don't have hard & fast rules about characteristics from one region to the next, but overall I think they're rather amazing, underrated, and sadly unknown. I feel like people get hung up on some idea of some mythic proper "Western" vampyr lore, even though Europe actually had so much diversity in regional myths & distinct creatures and all these other cultures thrown to the wayside have just as fascinating vampyr creatures that I'm shocked no one is really tapping into them.
Thanks! I'm thinking that she also claims to have been the Zodiac Killer, but that nobody in the supernatural world has been able to confirm this conclusively (though neither has anybody been able to rule it out conclusively either). I hadn't actually intended it to be a thematic thing, it just started out as a way of getting around a bit of Fridge Logic (where you think something makes sense at first, but then realize later – such as when you get up to get a drink out of the fridge – that it actually didn't), and then accidentally turned out to be a good way of getting around a second bit of Fridge Logic (I love it when a single idea resolves two different problems that had appeared unrelated until the solution combined them ) The first problem: Vampires interacting with the world. Humans who live for 80 years can have trouble keeping track of how much the world has changed, and vampires that live for hundreds of years should have even more trouble. This is the perfect excuse for vampires to continue acting according to the oldest-fashioned mandates, but I wanted my specific vampire character to have no trouble making herself appear modern despite being almost 120 years old. At some point, I decided that it made the most sense for her to gain refreshers on how modern society works every time she feeds. Once I realized that healing potions were going to play a massive role in my story anyway, I realized that this would also make the memories she gains more vivid because the regenerating blood would last longer before digesting completely, and I realized that applying the same principle to other magic would create a better reason for her to keep my human villain protagonists on board. Most species of vampire in my world are solitary predators who see teamwork as something that slows them down and threatens their individuality "Vampires forming friendships is like humans volunteering or donating to charity. Sure, it happens commonly enough that you hear about it a lot, you just never expect to actually see it for yourself" But if she gains powers when she feeds off of people with powers, and if those powers weaken and disappear as the blood she drank finishes digesting, then she would want mages around that are available for whenever she wants their powers, but who have enough of their own plans that they leave her alone to do their own thing when she doesn't need them. Also, yet another reason why she would've been motivated to develop better healing potions than anybody else: if blood infused with healing powers takes longer to digest, then that means that every other power that the blood is infused with would also last longer. The best part is, this comes with an extremely obvious limitation: invulnerability magic. If a mage has developed defensive magic strong enough that drawing blood would be impossible, then that means that she has to suppress her invulnerability long enough for the vampire to draw blood, and no matter how many other powers the vampire gained from feeding off of her, invulnerability would not be one of them. I'm not hating on them, I'm hating on them being mistaken for vampires Me too!
Well, it's certainly not common, no, but there have been occasional reaches back into the cornucopia of European lore for source material. For example, I am currently indulging in Hemlock Grove, and as adolescent and soap-opera as it may it be, my ears immediately pricked up when they first made mention of the word упырь (upyr). Having worked as a Russian interpreter, I was immediately intrigued and made the Scooby-Do "Wha??" noise. Sadly, so far the упыри of Hemlock Grove are little more than day-walking vampires of ordinary American television ilk. In the middle of season two; we'll see where it goes. In the meantime, I get to enjoy the deliciously just-below-the-surface love/lust of Roman and Peter. Любовь упыря - оборотня. Мне очень нравится.
My question becomes (and as it relates to the OP's original sentiment): How do you make a creature of such ilk a hero? Псоглави would not be pleasant creatures, by nature. Is there internal turmoil as regards what this person's heritage would seem to impart?
I think the major difference between sparkly and classic vampires is mostly what they are based off of. Gothic vampires were reflections of humans. They represented greed, gluttony, sexuality during a world struggling to define itself during the political revolutions of the time. The monster was not so much a bloodthirsty evil-doing, but more a mirror for self-reflection. Highlighting our own carnal and animal urges is far scarier than a set of fangs.
The closest I'll come to liking modern vampires is Anne Rice (the books, not the movies). I found Lestat to be rather enjoyable, it celebrated the carnal and reveled in the bloodlust, but also showed that those natures dwelled in humanity from the beginning, or so I gathered from the book. I also liked that garlic, crosses, and any other "holy" relics were rendered useless against vampires. Stakes only grounded them, they did not kill, while fire and sunlight only burned them if it wasn't excessive. Apparently the only way to kill a vampire in her books was to decapitate and torch the remains. The idea of vampires is older than the term itself, which was stated by a previous poster I believe, and they are always meant to be evil. I like my vampires to be extremely powerful, very cunning, and exceptionally vile. No sparkles, please...it's not very covfefe.
I'm not portraying those the way I'm portraying vampires. I make an exception for vampires because that's as much a curse as it is a species, but for the most part, I'm thinking that a sample of non-humans in my world will normally have fewer dangerous villains than the same sized sample of humans. Spoiler: Somewhat off-topic So much of the suffering in the real world has come from one group deciding "They are Different from Us, and that makes Them dangerous, so we need to kill Them before They have a chance to kill Us" (retroactively proving the other group to have been right in saying exactly the same thing), and I don't like what it says about human nature to have so many fictional species – created by humans – be defined as being Evil™ on grounds that they are Different from humans. I don't want my work to be defined by the same "Us versus Them" mentality that has caused so much destruction in the real world, and in my work, this tendency towards an "Us versus Them" mentality is a uniquely human instinct considered a mental illness by most other species. I'm willing to make exceptions for some species in a work – either my own or someone else's – being "The Evil™ Species," but I need them to be the exceptions. My shapeshifting character cares about people when she's a human – more than I feel most humans do – but she cares even more about people when she's a psoglav, and she enjoys spending time as a psoglav for exactly this reason (even though she spends more time as a human in the human world than as human/psoglav shifter in the supernatural worlds).
I sorta' agree, but I also have to point out that vampires, werewolves, or any kind of "monster" like that is not created out of a desire to have an enemy species and create an "us verse them" scenario. These were beasts created from our fears, of things unseen in the dark and banished by the light of day. It goes back to a much earlier time when night was a lot more frightening than it is today, thus these creatures are born from the night. It's not about us not understanding vampires, or any such species, it's about humans being afraid of what lurks in the shadows. This is also why people have stopped fearing the vampire, they've stopped fearing the darkness so much, and the light and knowledge that technology has brought illuminates what is hiding. Those random sounds you hear can be explained, and now we know that there aren't actually vampires, whereas before people weren't so sure. Vampires aren't a race that's misunderstood...we completely understand, they're created by our fears. Now other races that are not vampires are fine to be whatever, and can be less frightening without any problem...but don't try to make vampires friendly, they are only here for one purpose, and that's to spread terror. Too bad they don't do that anymore though, even though I want to be, even I'm not scared by the idea of vampires. It's other humans that terrify me, doesn't matter the race. We're real, and we're pretty damn scary if we follow the wrong paths.
True to a point, I have plenty of Lovecraftian (mood, not Mythos) short stories about supernatural horrors, and I don't explicitly state that non-villainous people of the same species do or do not exist, but neither do I portray the mere fact that they are different as being the thing that makes them deadly. My point exactly One of the lead villains of my WIP is a vampire mage whose almost-100 years of magical experimentation scares other mages, and the lead hero of my intended sequel is a "werewolf" (shapeshifter with a human form and a psoglav form) whose psoglav mother has fought said vampire and lived to tell of it. The lead villain of my second book is a human with no knowledge of the supernatural whatsoever.
I can't reply to this thread. You forgot to add my option: all vampires! Good, bad, in-between. Except these.
I like my vampires cunning, manipulative and prone to spontaneous combustion when exposed to sunlight. Of course there's room for variation, in that you could have a thuggish bruiser vampire of few words or a paranoid loner who kills to feed himself but prefers to avoid conflict out of fear of getting hurt. I think I found the base of my first story now, thank you.
I would extrapolate from this sentiment (with which I agree, btw) that there are new vampires in the world of storytelling. We just don't call them that, but they have clearly fit into the niche vacated by vampires and vampyres and upiri... Today we call them xenomorphs! And we need them in order to talk about all the things you mention. Vampires have become chummy and are expected to pay taxes and attend school. Werewolves are the same. They have been tamed because their provenance has been tamed. When I read that the whole Twilight series is a metaphor about abstinence, I was floored. Vampires used to talk about abstinence? WT.... ? But I guess that's where we are, aren't we? The thing has become its opposite, or at least so removed from its origin that it can be flexed over to serve.
But we’ve been telling stories about these creatures since the invention of storytelling, so clearly there is a need for us to encapsulate our fears in a form that is at a sufficient remove from us so that we can talk about it without falling into constant cynical self-abasement. We need the vampire (or its modern replacement) to talk about the things we have a difficult time owning up to. The facet you mention as regards serving as a tool for othering feels like a modern dynamic, possible only because the vampire has become too much like our workaday selves.
Maybe the math and science nerd in me is just having trouble with the whole "fear of the unknown" thing No, wait, that doesn't make sense because of the short stories I've written along those lines. Hmm...
I would go so far as to say that Anne Rice actually addresses this modernization of the vampire within the context of her vampire novels, not only as they literally become more modern as they pass through time, but as a metaphor for the way the concept has changed. Akasha, whose video is posted above, is a much older style vampire than her children, as a character and as a trope. I love that segment of the film because - gay as I may be - I am not immune to a certain flipping of switches, because that's her nature. She is not a creature of the neocortex. She is deeply, deeply limbic. And isn't this, at its core, the issue that the other Riceian vampires have with her and with Lestat? That they have refused to modernize. That they have refused to shrink into mortal human guises. Akasha (always) and Lestat (progressively) want and have had mythic status individually. They want to inhabit that realm where logic is meaningless and fear is king or queen. ETA: It's even more obvious when you read the books, since the two films made from the books are a couple of books apart, and in the film version of Queen of the Damned, we are robbed of The Tale of the Twins. We only get Maharet as an almost cameo, and her sister Mekare is completely absent.
Monsters with manners? [Interior: Bill, a vampire with the appearance of a man in his early twenties, is sat at a table with his "aunt" Maud] Bill: But why do you drink it like this? When I try making it, it goes all lumpy. [he looks down at his fine china cup] Maud: It's all in the timing, dear. [she feels the teapot in front of her before taking it and pouring her nephew a drink of hot, red liquid, then the same for herself] Bill: I've been thinking of entering the games this year. I think I'm ready. Maud: You're as mad as your uncle. [her scowling face quickly shifts to a kind smile] Now drink up. Bill: Cheers! [he's about to gulp the lot down before Maud slaps him on the wrist] Maud: Remember who you're drinking with? [Bill holds the handle of the teacup between his thumb and forefinger before sticking out his little finger] Maud: That's better.
Well, maybe not vampires per se, but rather filling the void of the monster that it represents. We need monsters that are inherently evil, it takes our minds off of the the things we fear that are in our lives already, along with other functions. For some reason though, I don't even fear the new monsters, but I think that's because I know they aren't real. I suppose they can be scary though, but maybe it's already time for an even newer monster? It's a cycle almost, and it might be rotating faster than it was before... Fear of the unknown is a bit different than the fear we have for monsters. It's not that we don't understand them...we actually most certainly do, and that's why we fear them. We know vampires are motivated by one thing, to feed, and they feed on us. We know werewolves are motivated to hunt us. We know the xenomorph "Alien" is motivated by one thing as well, to inject us with it's eggs and use us as incubators. Whatever lies behind these motivations is almost inconsequential, they are made solely for the purpose of being evil. There's no conscious that's hidden behind them trying to be a better creature and not hurt people. No, they don't care, they take pleasure in the sport even. They represent the pure evil that lurks within all of us - albeit amplified to an extreme - the one that we silence because we try to be good people. These monsters are the manifestation of everything we hold as truly evil. There's no point in pitying them because they don't want it anyway...they want your blood.
Modern vampires exist in the White House and on Wall Street. They're draining your income and savings accounts to feed their castles.
Precisely. And thus, the modern habit of wanting to explain and give convoluted backstory to things like the xenomorph (cue the latest film in the franchise now in theaters) only serves to once again geld the creature. A review I gave of the film a couple of weeks ago. Some very mild spoilers...
