I_Write_Ivre
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- Posted: Tue, 09 Jun 2009 05:13:41 +0000
Warning: Many perceptions of vampires you may or may not agree with. If there is an actual blatant factual error, politely tell me and I will fix it. If it is your opinion, then it is your opinion.
This thread is not meant to be either a complaint or promotion of whatever the latest or greatest vampires are. This is a discussion of them in literature in your writing or as influence on your writing.
Vampires: the definition: Is a vampire purely a creature that drinks blood? To the modern western culture and those that take influence form it, yes. To the whole world and its history: Absolutely not.
A vampire is a creature that was MEANT to be a predator upon humans. A vampire is a creature that takes the life of a human for sustenance, essentially the hunter whose primary diet is us. It can eat flesh, bones, drink blood, take souls, or just plain waste your life away.
Vampires: the evolution
Vampires have changed from a mere thing that goes bump in the night and kills people and people need to accept that. You DO NOT need to accept versions you feel are badly written, but the fact that the vampire in society and literature has changed. The hunter has become the gatherer and even the baker, lawyer, or dictator.
Vampires in literature do not need to change with society, but society’s views and versions have.
Vampires: the weakness All things need a weakness. As a character, vampires need a weakness. As a race, vampires need a weakness. As a species, vampires need a weakness. Weakness can be metal, magic, or sunlight.
Overall, most weaknesses of vampires were symbols of good and holy. This is not necessary as society has veered away from taking religion literally for the most part, but this does not degrade the legends, new or old, of vampires. Though not universal, many are immediately recognizable as weaknesses of vampires and they and their connotation, now and historically, should be considered.
Vampires: the powers: Vampires, for the most part, were meant to be more than just lions or tigers or bears (oh my). Vampires had an advantage over us, which kept us afraid of them when we invented sticks that went boom.
Nearly all vampires have some sort of power, craft, and/or magic geographical, climatic, or environmental, or zoological.
However, this is not to say that vampires cna't overpower or outsmart their weaknesses. If they happen to do so, the weaknesses stil need to be there in the first place.
Vampires: the taxpayer: Above, I said that vampires were MEANT to be predators. This does not mean a vampire cannot sit on the couch and eat pizza. Whether vampires became civilized or domesticated, some put down their fangs and blended with some form of society and camouflaged as humans.
This type of vampire is an offshoot, not the newest and only version. But there must be a need for such a niche for a creature to move to it. Why would a vampire stop creeping through forests and move into a city? There are pros and cons for each situation, and both should be weighed carefully, both by the vampire and the author.
Vampires: the metaphor: Vampires in Europe began as metaphors; our psyche feared an aspect of society it did not like and could not solve and a belief in a creature was built upon it. In Polynesia, a different fear crated the belief in a similarly acting creature of a very different form and origin.
Even today, vampires often mean or stand for something, be it AIDS, human misery, corruption, or the dream of violence and explosions that embodied the decade. It is easy to see the fear of someone straying form the norm and seeking a supernatural element to blame. Jews blamed them for possessions (which caused anything from boils to illness to mania), Romani blamed them for pregnancies and being to close to foreigners, Polynesians blamed them for anything to do with the birthing process going wrong, as did the Inuit and their northern neighbors. All over Africa are different myths, most forms of explaining the disappearance of young men.
Vampires still imply something primal about the human psyche and human nature, but they are not bound to any sort of ideal or anti-ideal. Nor must whatever metaphor they are be a concrete and definite one instead of nightmare fuel.
Vampires the side effect: Vampires are unusual in the menageries of mythical creatures we’ve created over the ages. Like zombies, many vampires are thought to be able to make a victim one of them or use them to create more.
Their potential for inciting fear in enhanced as a creature that not only can breed and increase its numbers, but can do so from decreasing yours.
From a biologist’s view, this is fails utterly. Changing a food source into more of your kind is a quick way to starvation. Soon there will be no food and too many of your kind.
This creates a strange intermediary and secondary new kind of mythical creature: a vampire victim. A vampire victim can usually be spotted through varying symptoms, but they are not treated or perceived as human or at least fully human when discovered.
A vampire victim need not become a vampire. A victim might birth a new vampire, merely remain food, act insane, die, be granted a small amount of power in exchange for being food, or cause a small tornado in their room.
Vampires have also been known to cause environmental effects, such as terrifying the animals in the vicinity, withering plants, breaking glass, or changing the lighting or weather. Often there is a ‘feeling’ or notice that something strange or different is about, be it emotionally or physically.
Vampires: the appearance: The biggest debate, which encompasses many subspecies of the same debate, is their appearance. There are two main schools of thought: ‘vampires must be ugly’ and ‘vampires must look good’ and the two tend to go after each other like twin sharks in the womb.
The answer, I’m sorry to impose, is neither. Vampires can be either, including in the same mythology.
This, however, has become the most important aspect of the vampire, not its potential or ability to strike fear in people, readers or characters and there is a good reason for this. The appearance influences all other aspects of the vampire.
In fact, some vampires look average and some look strange instead of hideous.
Dissecting the appearance of a vampire is like anthropology. The appearance determines what it needs to survive. How does it take it and how does it consume it? It must be appear to actually be able to do such a thing, even with the aid of magic. A magical rabbit cannot eat meat without a change in appearance. Appearance influences the role it not only does take in society, but CAN take in society. An ugly vampire would have a hard time posing as an aristocrat. Appearance can even influence powers. A vampire covered in bells would have a problem stalking its prey while a vampire appearing to be an attractive human would have an easy time seducing prey (hiding the bodies would be something else).
Conversely, as appearance influences al aspects of the vampire, a vampire is not an actual thing. A vampire is fiction and just as easily (possibly more) appearance can affect aspects, aspects influence appearance. A vampire that burns in the sun might want a usual haircut if that part can set the rest aflame. Or if the vampire is arrogant, he might not. Both of those aspects influence what the resulting vampire will appear as.
Vampires the stupidity: Vampires are not one thing, have never been, never will be, and should never be treated as such. To do so would be to say all reptiles are snakes. Not all are beautiful, not all are dead, not all suck blood, and none share the same traits.
Vampires: the conclusion: Concepts are elastic. But there is only so much elasticity to them. The concept of a vampire could be stretched to include lagomorphs, and very possibly a spaceship-planetoid, but the elasticity snaps at say, a salad (though on was a potato).
Vampires themselves are just concepts, hard to limit off completely and always changing. As writers, we are artists and as artists we must accept that art changes and evolves. We, as artists can influence such evolution and while biological evolution can cause something to die off, ours follows no such rules. We can change, spread the population of, or even ‘bring back form the dead’ any concept we want, as long as we take care not to stretch it to the point of breaking.
Vampires: the resources:
Sadly, there are little resources I can find that encompass enough about vampires over time and over a large area.
Here are what little I can find:
Wikipedia-vampires (also mentions many examples in literature)
Encyclopedia Mythica (vague and takes a long time to navigate, sadly)
Starz Inside: Bloodsucking Cinema (Netflix instant, only about cinematic vampires, though many are based off legends and books.)
A meeting of vampires and hunters
Good, bad, origins,weirdness and trivia Many, many pages of details on all kinds of vampires in most forms of media
The Vampire Book: The Encyclopedia of the Undead, 2nd Edition-Very, VERY thorough book that includes pretty much everything world wide. (Thanks Tampopo_Hoshi!)
The Everything Vampire Book: A large dictionary of pop culture vampires in literature, TV, and film. I have not read it, but it doesn't say anything about history or mythology.
This thread is not meant to be either a complaint or promotion of whatever the latest or greatest vampires are. This is a discussion of them in literature in your writing or as influence on your writing.
Vampires: the definition: Is a vampire purely a creature that drinks blood? To the modern western culture and those that take influence form it, yes. To the whole world and its history: Absolutely not.
A vampire is a creature that was MEANT to be a predator upon humans. A vampire is a creature that takes the life of a human for sustenance, essentially the hunter whose primary diet is us. It can eat flesh, bones, drink blood, take souls, or just plain waste your life away.
Vampires: the evolution
Vampires have changed from a mere thing that goes bump in the night and kills people and people need to accept that. You DO NOT need to accept versions you feel are badly written, but the fact that the vampire in society and literature has changed. The hunter has become the gatherer and even the baker, lawyer, or dictator.
Vampires in literature do not need to change with society, but society’s views and versions have.
Vampires: the weakness All things need a weakness. As a character, vampires need a weakness. As a race, vampires need a weakness. As a species, vampires need a weakness. Weakness can be metal, magic, or sunlight.
Overall, most weaknesses of vampires were symbols of good and holy. This is not necessary as society has veered away from taking religion literally for the most part, but this does not degrade the legends, new or old, of vampires. Though not universal, many are immediately recognizable as weaknesses of vampires and they and their connotation, now and historically, should be considered.
Vampires: the powers: Vampires, for the most part, were meant to be more than just lions or tigers or bears (oh my). Vampires had an advantage over us, which kept us afraid of them when we invented sticks that went boom.
Nearly all vampires have some sort of power, craft, and/or magic geographical, climatic, or environmental, or zoological.
However, this is not to say that vampires cna't overpower or outsmart their weaknesses. If they happen to do so, the weaknesses stil need to be there in the first place.
Vampires: the taxpayer: Above, I said that vampires were MEANT to be predators. This does not mean a vampire cannot sit on the couch and eat pizza. Whether vampires became civilized or domesticated, some put down their fangs and blended with some form of society and camouflaged as humans.
This type of vampire is an offshoot, not the newest and only version. But there must be a need for such a niche for a creature to move to it. Why would a vampire stop creeping through forests and move into a city? There are pros and cons for each situation, and both should be weighed carefully, both by the vampire and the author.
Vampires: the metaphor: Vampires in Europe began as metaphors; our psyche feared an aspect of society it did not like and could not solve and a belief in a creature was built upon it. In Polynesia, a different fear crated the belief in a similarly acting creature of a very different form and origin.
Even today, vampires often mean or stand for something, be it AIDS, human misery, corruption, or the dream of violence and explosions that embodied the decade. It is easy to see the fear of someone straying form the norm and seeking a supernatural element to blame. Jews blamed them for possessions (which caused anything from boils to illness to mania), Romani blamed them for pregnancies and being to close to foreigners, Polynesians blamed them for anything to do with the birthing process going wrong, as did the Inuit and their northern neighbors. All over Africa are different myths, most forms of explaining the disappearance of young men.
Vampires still imply something primal about the human psyche and human nature, but they are not bound to any sort of ideal or anti-ideal. Nor must whatever metaphor they are be a concrete and definite one instead of nightmare fuel.
Vampires the side effect: Vampires are unusual in the menageries of mythical creatures we’ve created over the ages. Like zombies, many vampires are thought to be able to make a victim one of them or use them to create more.
Their potential for inciting fear in enhanced as a creature that not only can breed and increase its numbers, but can do so from decreasing yours.
From a biologist’s view, this is fails utterly. Changing a food source into more of your kind is a quick way to starvation. Soon there will be no food and too many of your kind.
This creates a strange intermediary and secondary new kind of mythical creature: a vampire victim. A vampire victim can usually be spotted through varying symptoms, but they are not treated or perceived as human or at least fully human when discovered.
A vampire victim need not become a vampire. A victim might birth a new vampire, merely remain food, act insane, die, be granted a small amount of power in exchange for being food, or cause a small tornado in their room.
Vampires have also been known to cause environmental effects, such as terrifying the animals in the vicinity, withering plants, breaking glass, or changing the lighting or weather. Often there is a ‘feeling’ or notice that something strange or different is about, be it emotionally or physically.
Vampires: the appearance: The biggest debate, which encompasses many subspecies of the same debate, is their appearance. There are two main schools of thought: ‘vampires must be ugly’ and ‘vampires must look good’ and the two tend to go after each other like twin sharks in the womb.
The answer, I’m sorry to impose, is neither. Vampires can be either, including in the same mythology.
This, however, has become the most important aspect of the vampire, not its potential or ability to strike fear in people, readers or characters and there is a good reason for this. The appearance influences all other aspects of the vampire.
In fact, some vampires look average and some look strange instead of hideous.
Dissecting the appearance of a vampire is like anthropology. The appearance determines what it needs to survive. How does it take it and how does it consume it? It must be appear to actually be able to do such a thing, even with the aid of magic. A magical rabbit cannot eat meat without a change in appearance. Appearance influences the role it not only does take in society, but CAN take in society. An ugly vampire would have a hard time posing as an aristocrat. Appearance can even influence powers. A vampire covered in bells would have a problem stalking its prey while a vampire appearing to be an attractive human would have an easy time seducing prey (hiding the bodies would be something else).
Conversely, as appearance influences al aspects of the vampire, a vampire is not an actual thing. A vampire is fiction and just as easily (possibly more) appearance can affect aspects, aspects influence appearance. A vampire that burns in the sun might want a usual haircut if that part can set the rest aflame. Or if the vampire is arrogant, he might not. Both of those aspects influence what the resulting vampire will appear as.
Vampires the stupidity: Vampires are not one thing, have never been, never will be, and should never be treated as such. To do so would be to say all reptiles are snakes. Not all are beautiful, not all are dead, not all suck blood, and none share the same traits.
Vampires: the conclusion: Concepts are elastic. But there is only so much elasticity to them. The concept of a vampire could be stretched to include lagomorphs, and very possibly a spaceship-planetoid, but the elasticity snaps at say, a salad (though on was a potato).
Vampires themselves are just concepts, hard to limit off completely and always changing. As writers, we are artists and as artists we must accept that art changes and evolves. We, as artists can influence such evolution and while biological evolution can cause something to die off, ours follows no such rules. We can change, spread the population of, or even ‘bring back form the dead’ any concept we want, as long as we take care not to stretch it to the point of breaking.
Vampires: the resources:
Sadly, there are little resources I can find that encompass enough about vampires over time and over a large area.
Here are what little I can find:
Wikipedia-vampires (also mentions many examples in literature)
Encyclopedia Mythica (vague and takes a long time to navigate, sadly)
Starz Inside: Bloodsucking Cinema (Netflix instant, only about cinematic vampires, though many are based off legends and books.)
A meeting of vampires and hunters
Good, bad, origins,weirdness and trivia Many, many pages of details on all kinds of vampires in most forms of media
The Vampire Book: The Encyclopedia of the Undead, 2nd Edition-Very, VERY thorough book that includes pretty much everything world wide. (Thanks Tampopo_Hoshi!)
The Everything Vampire Book: A large dictionary of pop culture vampires in literature, TV, and film. I have not read it, but it doesn't say anything about history or mythology.
