# If a human bites a vampire
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-human-bites-a-vampire/649139
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [February 2, 2013, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-human-bites-a-vampire/649139 "2013-02-02T19:53:37Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@carolshubby1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carolshubby1)
#### Post date: [February 2, 2013, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-human-bites-a-vampire/649139/1 "2013-02-02T19:53:37Z")
I searched the boards for this and didn’t find an answer so simmer down. What would happen if a human bite a vampire?
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### Author:  [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)
#### Post date: [February 2, 2013, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-human-bites-a-vampire/649139/2 "2013-02-02T20:13:12Z")
Vampires don’t exist. You might as well ask what will happen if a fairy loses a wing, a leprechaun stubs his toe, or a gnome drops his hat.
Are you asking what folklore claims will happen, or what is logically likely given the impossible premise that they do exist? In that case, I would imagine that if transfer of blood from a vampire bite causes trouble, a bite the other way would do the same thing, as fluids are likely to be exchanged in either case.
I don’t think a vampire’s “fangs” are thought to be an injector mechanism like poisonous snakes, they are just a puncture weapon. But I am not an expert in mythical beasts, so I could be wrong. And I doubt if there is a factual answer.
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### Author:  [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)
#### Post date: [February 2, 2013, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-human-bites-a-vampire/649139/3 "2013-02-02T20:13:48Z")
Well, Cordelia did this once on _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_, in the episode “Prophecy Girl”. She said, “See how you like it!” Nothing happened to her, and nothing appeared to happen to him. He was slain shortly thereafter.
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### Author:  [@Arkcon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arkcon)
#### Post date: [February 2, 2013, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-human-bites-a-vampire/649139/4 "2013-02-02T20:34:27Z")
Same thing that happens if a human leaps on top of a lion, or tiger or any other ravenous, mindless, carnivore. The predator doesn’t even waste time blinking, or standing there with a WTF? look, it uses its instinct to attack and devour the practically helpless prey human. This would be the typical response of the folk story vampire, which is a ravenous, mindless, reanimated corpse. The intellectual vampire, popularized by Bram Stoker, well, much the same would happen … Dracula, for all his intelligence and aristocratic pretension, isn’t stupid. If you could get a bite in, you could have staked him even easier, and he didn’t survive centuries by making slip ups like that. I didn’t watch much _Buffy_, but I assume they end up madly in love, or pregnant with a werewolf, or something. Or am I conflating the _Twilight Saga_? Hard to keep track.
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### Author:  [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)
#### Post date: [February 2, 2013, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-human-bites-a-vampire/649139/5 "2013-02-02T20:53:39Z")
Since there is no factual answer to this, let’s move it to IMHO.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
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### Author:  [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)
#### Post date: [February 2, 2013, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-human-bites-a-vampire/649139/6 "2013-02-02T20:56:51Z")
The vampire gets pissed off and rips your head right off.
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### Author:  [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)
#### Post date: [February 2, 2013, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-human-bites-a-vampire/649139/7 "2013-02-02T21:05:42Z")
Yeah, too much depends on what kind of vampire you’re working with.
The modern, cute, sparkly, friendly, loving vampire says, “Ooh!” and sex follows.
Others, you immediately spit out a mouthful of rotting, stinking, worm-crawling grave-mould.
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### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [February 2, 2013, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-human-bites-a-vampire/649139/8 "2013-02-02T21:38:11Z")
Depends on whose “mythology” you go with, doesn’t it? Classically, there isn’t any legend about it. The vampire was a walking reanimated corpse, or a vengeful spirit sucking out life force. In the first case it’s unspeakably gross and will probably make you very sick. In the latter case it’s impossible.
Bram Stoker was probably the first to address it. He has Count Dracula puncture one of his arteries and forcing Mina Harkerto drink from it, which binds her to him and forges a psychic bond between them. It’s depicted as a horrible thing for her to do, after which she feels physically and morally polluted.
In Charlaine Harris’ books, vampire blood is the drug “V”, which is life-enhancing and a turn-on. This carried through to the HBO series _True Blood_\*. AFAIK, this interpretation is unique to the Sookie Stackhouse seriies on TV and in print.
I can’t think of any other Vampire Blood drinkers out there, although I wouldn’t be surprised if they exist.
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### Author:  [@dougie\_monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougie_monty)
#### Post date: [February 2, 2013, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-human-bites-a-vampire/649139/9 "2013-02-02T21:59:03Z")
Al Jaffee speculated on what would happen if a vampire were to bite:
–An embalmed corpse.
–A whiplash patient with a neck brace.
–A mannequin.
And Sergio Aragonés showed what happens when Dracula sinks his fangs into:
–A drunk.
–Someone on an LSD trip. 😃
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### Author:  [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)
#### Post date: [February 2, 2013, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-human-bites-a-vampire/649139/10 "2013-02-02T22:43:10Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#):
>
> I can’t think of any other Vampire Blood drinkers out there, although I wouldn’t be surprised if they exist.
This is addressed at great length in White Wolf Games Vampire-The Masquerade. A mortal who drinks vampire blood stops aging, gains greater strength and speed, and is bound to the vampire. The game calls such humans (or other creatures) ghouls.
White Wolf staged an apocalypse and ended the world most of its games were set in. They started a new world and new games. But, I’m not familiar with them. Some other poster will have to tell us if this works in Vampire The Requiem.
In Dungeons & Dragons, there is a horror setting called Ravenloft. In the Forbidden Lore books, we discover that (at least in Ravenloft, it may not work in Athas, Krynn, Oerth, etc) if a vampire feeds from a human and then passes back a single drop of blood, the human ages much more slowly (I think it was a season for every year) and gains other advantages. IIRC This could take place no more frequently than once a month or the human went mad.
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### Author:  [@Balance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balance)
#### Post date: [February 2, 2013, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-human-bites-a-vampire/649139/11 "2013-02-02T22:45:38Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#):
>
> I can’t think of any other Vampire Blood drinkers out there, although I wouldn’t be surprised if they exist.
P. N. Elrod’s _Vampire Files_ series uses it as the means of transmitting vampirism. If a living person consumes vampire blood, there is a slim chance that they will rise as a vampire when they die. Most people are immune, though susceptibility is hinted to be at least partially genetic. So, in her setting, someone might eventually become a vampire after biting a vampire, if they managed to get enough blood in their mouth, but they’d have better odds if the vampire they bit happened to be a blood relative.
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### Author:  [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)
#### Post date: [February 2, 2013, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-human-bites-a-vampire/649139/12 "2013-02-02T23:15:55Z")
“To make you a vampire they have to suck your blood. And then you have to suck their blood. It’s like a whole big sucking thing. Mostly they’re just gonna kill you.”
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### Author:  [@Chef\_Troy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chef_Troy)
#### Post date: [February 3, 2013, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-human-bites-a-vampire/649139/13 "2013-02-03T00:08:41Z")
In Charlaine Harris’s Sookie Stackhouse novels (and the HBO show _True Blood_ that was based on them), drinking vampire blood heals humans and can make them super strong temporarily as well as serving as an aphrodisiac (with the unfortunate side effect of making some humans go completely crazy and start rampaging). A clandestine drug trade in so-called “V” has sprung up in Sookie’s world, with criminals who capture vamps with silver and drain them (and also a few vamps who develop relationships with V dealers and trade their own blood for various things).
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### Author:  [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)
#### Post date: [February 3, 2013, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-human-bites-a-vampire/649139/14 "2013-02-03T00:21:37Z")
It would be an interesting twist to write a book where the vampire gets bit (after 200 years of being a vampire) and wakes up mortal. A quasi serious spoof of all the paranormal romance out there.
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### Author:  [@dougie\_monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougie_monty)
#### Post date: [February 3, 2013, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-human-bites-a-vampire/649139/15 "2013-02-03T01:31:06Z")
“If a human bite a vampire comin’ thru the rye…”
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### Author:  [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)
#### Post date: [February 3, 2013, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-human-bites-a-vampire/649139/16 "2013-02-03T04:16:01Z")
> [@Dangerosa](#):
>
> It would be an interesting twist to write a book where the vampire gets bit (after 200 years of being a vampire) and wakes up mortal. A quasi serious spoof of all the paranormal romance out there.
While I’ve never seen that, I recall a funny novel where that worked on a werewolf in a fight, much to the werewolf’s surprise. One moment a nigh unstoppable furry killing machine, the next a naked guy being punched in the face.
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### Author:  [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)
#### Post date: [February 3, 2013, 7:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-human-bites-a-vampire/649139/17 "2013-02-03T07:09:35Z")
> [@dougie\_monty](#):
>
> “If a human bite a vampire comin’ thru the rye…”
If a human bite a vampire
He can’t keep his mind on nothing else
He’ll trade the world for the good thing he’s found
So was **carolshubby** already taken, or are you Carol’s first husband?
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### Author:  [@AaronX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AaronX)
#### Post date: [February 3, 2013, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-human-bites-a-vampire/649139/18 "2013-02-03T13:04:55Z")
> [@VinylTurnip](#):
>
> So was **carolshubby** already taken, or are you Carol’s first husband?
Husband before he got bitten?
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### Author:  [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)
#### Post date: [February 3, 2013, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-human-bites-a-vampire/649139/19 "2013-02-03T14:30:39Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#):
>
> While I’ve never seen that, I recall a funny novel where that worked on a werewolf in a fight, much to the werewolf’s surprise. One moment a nigh unstoppable furry killing machine, the next a naked guy being punched in the face.
“Barking” by Tom Holt?
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### Author:  [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)
#### Post date: [February 3, 2013, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-a-human-bites-a-vampire/649139/20 "2013-02-03T20:33:48Z")
> [@Andy\_L](#):
>
> “Barking” by Tom Holt?
Nope. It took some effort but I finally recalled the name; it was _Full Moonster_ by Nick Pollotta.
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