The thing is, why would you write a book about a “vampire” unless it is about an un-dead creature that has clawed its way out of the grave to feast on the blood of the living?
That’s what a vampire IS. Yes, they are fictional. But so is Superman. It would be like writing a story about Superman, but instead of being the last son of Krypton who uses his invulnerability and strength to protect his adopted homeworld, he’s a tortured guy without superpowers who fights criminals to make up for the fact that his parents were murdered by a criminal.
Why write a story about Superman if you really want to write a story about Batman? OK, you get to write ONE Elseworlds story where Kal-El is adopted by the Waynes instead of the Kents. And then you’re done. If you don’t want to write about Superman, then nobody is putting a fucking gun to your head, now are they?
A vampire is a monster. There is no getting around that fact. You can write a story about a sympathetic vampire, because you can write a story about a sympathetic monster. But a vampire is a creature that overturns the natural order of the world–birth, growth, then death. It is the ultimate in selfishness, because its existence requires the suffering and death of others. A vampire continually condemns others to death in order to extend its parody of life a little longer. A vampire is the guy who fights his way past the women and children to get a seat on the lifeboat. A vampire is really ruled by fear, fear of death, and therefore a vampire will commit any crime to postpone the fate that awaits all mortals.
If you want to write a story about a powerful and mysterious and sexy creature, knock yourself out, but why the fuck would you call that creature a Vampire? A hero Vampire is like a hero serial killer. It could be done, like the show Dexter. But a sparkly beautiful angel who never drinks human blood and will only have sex with you once you’re married? That ain’t a vampire.
Just for the sake of score keeping, BBC America is showing a pretty decent series, Being Human, which stars a vampire, werewolf, and ghost all living under the same roof. Bonus, the vampire and werewolf both work in a hospital and the main antagonist is a vampire-cop.
In one of the Twilight threads I wondered why the romantic hero wasn’t just, say, an elf. Or even an X-Men style superhero. Removing the vampire element from the book would have made virtually no difference to the story, which is basically just “I met this guy and he’s so hot” for hundreds and hundreds of pages until you finally get to “Some evil dude wants to kill me, luckily I have a hot boyfriend to save me!”
He showed up in BUFFY also in a not particularly great episode (played by a Rumanian actor who was playing him in an unrelated TV movie at the time). I’m down to just TRUE BLOOD now, so I hope he doesn’t pop up on that.
IIRC Anne Rice has a sister who writes werewolf novels. She’s nowhere near as successful as her sister but has a following.
ETA: Anne Rice’s sister wasAlice Borchardtwho died two years ago.
I like TRUE BLOOD (mostly) but I agree that the vampire overkill is ridiculous (though as long as it keeps selling…). I wonder why there hasn’t been more vampire parody though; Christopher Moore’s written a couple of novels but I’d love to see something really take on the genre.
I read a short-short once that had a Jewish vampire. Obviously, to protect yourself against a Jewish vampire you need various pork products and a Star of David.
Must be why The Hordie’s greeting when he got home last Sunday was “you realize everybody and his mom will be making a werewolf, right?” He meant for Christmas of 2010.
From what I understand, the plant that repells vampires vary from place to place. This being said, I figure in some of the sparklepire lit, it’s a food allergy… That is, if such ‘perfect’ beings can have food allergies…
(Yeah, put me in the ‘Vampires are blood-sucking fiends from beyond the grave’ camp.)
El Santo (The Saint) is the most famous Mexican wrestler of all-time. Using the name in Jesus Christ: Vampire Hunter (which, by the way, is the greatest movie EVER) was just an homage. The real Santo had been dead almost two decades at that point.
My friend and I were wandering through Wal*Mart, and ended up passing through the book aisle. She says “Enough with all the vampire books <beat> Oooo! I’m interested in New Moon!” and reaches for it.
It was the quickest contradiction I think I’ve ever seen, and she copped to it immediately too!