I was just going to post that. Well, not the comic, but the argument that the holy symbol’s power is in the belief of the wielder, not the belief of the vampire. Didn’t we have a thread about that a few years back?
IIRC, that was Stephen King’s take in Salem’s Lot…the belief in the symbol was the power, not the symbol itself.
I suspect this board has had quite a few threads that have addressed this. I think this is the most recent:
I’m not Jewish, but I’m not sure that’s right? My understanding of kosher laws are that, if the options are “starve to death” or “eat something non-kosher,” then its okay to break kosher rules, because preserving life is more important than keeping kosher. If a vampire is unable to derive sustenance from anything other than blood (and is not an inherently unclean abomination, as per the standard Stoker model) then drinking blood would presumably be okay, so long as he can do it without killing anyone.
Of course, if you are talking about the “inherently unclean abomination” type of vampire (the “Stoker Original,” as it were) then break kosher rules is probably the whole point.
Oddly enough in the original novel crosses are used less often as vampire repellant than communion wafers. Van Helsing even says he has a special dispensation to administer the Eucharist.
But are you preserving life by keeping a vampire active? (I was going to say ‘alive’, but that sabotages my point). It is “undead”, I’m not sure there is a life to save there?
Putting the life of the vampire over the life of the victim? Doesn’t sound legit to me.
Again, depends on the lore. I would certainly argue that considering most ‘modern’ vampires (and fictional) do not need to kill to feed, but failing to feed can cause them to fall into a frenzy in which they feed indiscriminately. Thus, short of suicide (which is strongly frowned upon in Judaism and a mortal sin for most of Christianity), moderate feeding in order to prevent accidental slayings is probably a legitimate reading.
I’m talking about blood banks, animal blood, and voluntary contributions. Using fascination/charm, seduction, or the like to take blood from an unwilling individual would be an unjustified assault, although if a blood frenzy is the only other option, you could make a case for mitigation.
In the book “What Is The Name Of This Book?” by Raymond Smullyan, he presents a very different version of the Dracula story. The author, skeptical of Bram Stoker’s tale, visits Transylvania to investigate for himself whether Dracula was truly destroyed. There, he finds that Transylvania is a land of truth-tellers and liars, with an additional twist. He must then spend months of arduous social climbing (by solving a series of truth-teller/liar puzzles) before he can score an invitation to Castle Dracula, and even more before he can have an audience with Dracula himself (who may or may not even still exist).
Finally, he is invited to an audience with Dracula. Dracula asks him the ultimate riddle, and finally crumbles to dust when the author solves it.
42?
But I need to find that book - sounds intriguing?
It’s on Amazon and any of the other well-known book-selling sites.