# If you could be a non feeder vampire (a la True blood) would you?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-be-a-non-feeder-vampire-a-la-true-blood-would-you/813207
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [April 27, 2018, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-be-a-non-feeder-vampire-a-la-true-blood-would-you/813207 "2018-04-27T05:43:21Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Ashtura](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ashtura)
#### Post date: [April 27, 2018, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-be-a-non-feeder-vampire-a-la-true-blood-would-you/813207/1 "2018-04-27T05:43:21Z")
You have every single common downside of a traditional, Stoker like vampire. But you don’t have to kill, because of a readily available blood substitute. In exchange, you get immortality and ONLY immortality.
Do you take it?
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### Author:  [@lisiate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lisiate)
#### Post date: [April 27, 2018, 6:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-be-a-non-feeder-vampire-a-la-true-blood-would-you/813207/2 "2018-04-27T06:39:30Z")
Isn’t this Peter Thiel’s goal?
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### Author:  [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)
#### Post date: [April 27, 2018, 8:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-be-a-non-feeder-vampire-a-la-true-blood-would-you/813207/3 "2018-04-27T08:51:00Z")
I’m not going to claim to be 100% rational, but I’m not irrational enough to want to spend Og knows how long enjoying old age.
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### Author:  [@Grrr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grrr)
#### Post date: [April 27, 2018, 10:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-be-a-non-feeder-vampire-a-la-true-blood-would-you/813207/4 "2018-04-27T10:08:40Z")
Screw that. Gimme all the other benefits and then we’ll talk.
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### Author:  [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)
#### Post date: [April 27, 2018, 10:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-be-a-non-feeder-vampire-a-la-true-blood-would-you/813207/5 "2018-04-27T10:48:19Z")
I wouldn’t want immortality even without the vampiric downsides.
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### Author:  [@Staggerlee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Staggerlee)
#### Post date: [April 27, 2018, 11:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-be-a-non-feeder-vampire-a-la-true-blood-would-you/813207/6 "2018-04-27T11:04:41Z")
You’ll need to throw in an eternally-beautiful sculpted torso for me to show off during my immortality (which seems standard in the True Blood universe) or it’s no deal.
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### Author:  [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)
#### Post date: [April 27, 2018, 12:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-be-a-non-feeder-vampire-a-la-true-blood-would-you/813207/7 "2018-04-27T12:56:29Z")
So I can’t go out during the day, cast a reflection, eat garlic, am tied to a coffin and have an aversion to holy symbols (plus perhaps things like being unable to cross running water and needing to be invited to enter a building) and all I get out of it is that I don’t grow old? No immunity to damage short of being staked, no turning into a bat, no hypnotizing people to do my dark bidding (…on this table), etc?
Hard pass.
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### Author:  [@Doctor\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doctor_Jackson)
#### Post date: [April 27, 2018, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-be-a-non-feeder-vampire-a-la-true-blood-would-you/813207/8 "2018-04-27T14:16:12Z")
I’m not one who considers immortality, in and of itself, to be a benefit.
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### Author:  [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)
#### Post date: [April 27, 2018, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-be-a-non-feeder-vampire-a-la-true-blood-would-you/813207/9 "2018-04-27T15:04:23Z")
> [@Jophiel](#):
>
> So I can’t go out during the day, cast a reflection, eat garlic, am tied to a coffin and have an aversion to holy symbols (plus perhaps things like being unable to cross running water and needing to be invited to enter a building) and all I get out of it is that I don’t grow old? No immunity to damage short of being staked, no turning into a bat, no hypnotizing people to do my dark bidding (…on this table), etc?
>
> Hard pass.
Count Dracula occasionally goes out during the day. Usually he’s pretty comatose, though, and he needs his handful of Transylvanian dirt in the coffin with him.
Regarding the premise, immortality is no mean feat, but the real vampires are never going to stop laughing at you for being such a screw-up. At least you have time to possibly get with the program.
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### Author:  [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)
#### Post date: [April 27, 2018, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-be-a-non-feeder-vampire-a-la-true-blood-would-you/813207/10 "2018-04-27T15:42:05Z")
Wouldnt life get boring when everyone you meet, you know they will grow old and die?
How could you have friends when they all will get old and you stay the same age?
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### Author:  [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)
#### Post date: [April 27, 2018, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-be-a-non-feeder-vampire-a-la-true-blood-would-you/813207/11 "2018-04-27T15:46:45Z")
So, basically Highlander who doesn’t do sunlight and has some weird compulsions about living arrangements? I’m not sure I’d see the point. Let me be a daywalker and I’d be much more interested.
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### Author:  [@Spiderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiderman)
#### Post date: [April 27, 2018, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-be-a-non-feeder-vampire-a-la-true-blood-would-you/813207/12 "2018-04-27T16:04:19Z")
I like garlic too much, so no.
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### Author:  [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)
#### Post date: [April 27, 2018, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-be-a-non-feeder-vampire-a-la-true-blood-would-you/813207/13 "2018-04-27T16:10:19Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#):
>
> How could you have friends when they all will get old and you stay the same age?
The same way you have friends now despite the fact you ALL are going to get old and die. The pluses for having meaningful relationships in your life outweigh the fact that they will end some day.
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### Author:  [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)
#### Post date: [April 27, 2018, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-be-a-non-feeder-vampire-a-la-true-blood-would-you/813207/14 "2018-04-27T18:47:36Z")
> [@Jasmine](#):
>
> The same way you have friends now despite the fact you ALL are going to get old and die. The pluses for having meaningful relationships in your life outweigh the fact that they will end some day.
True, but I’ve known many elderly who lament that one of the worse parts is going to the funerals of old friends. Well at least they knew their time was also coming close. Imagine knowing yours was not.
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### Author:  [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)
#### Post date: [April 27, 2018, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-be-a-non-feeder-vampire-a-la-true-blood-would-you/813207/15 "2018-04-27T19:00:20Z")
I guess I’m the only one who wants to be immortal.
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### Author:  [@Ashtura](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ashtura)
#### Post date: [April 27, 2018, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-be-a-non-feeder-vampire-a-la-true-blood-would-you/813207/16 "2018-04-27T19:00:22Z")
> [@Grrr](#):
>
> Screw that. Gimme all the other benefits and then we’ll talk.
I considered that, but vampire powers are all over the place.
Ones I’ve seen
- Super strength
- Super speed
- Flight
- Enhanced senses
- Immortality
- Mind control
- Shapeshifting
- Regeneration
- Daywalking (this is a copout for easy filming conditions - I don’t consider them “real vampires” but I will admit “The Originals” is a guilty pleasure).
Some of those are so awesome that they are super powers in their own right. The first 3 apply to Superman. Immortality seems to be the only near “universal” vampire “power,” so I went with that.
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### Author:  [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)
#### Post date: [April 27, 2018, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-be-a-non-feeder-vampire-a-la-true-blood-would-you/813207/17 "2018-04-27T21:51:55Z")
> [@Ashtura](#):
>
> Daywalking (this is a copout for easy filming conditions
No, it isn’t.
Quite the opposite, in fact. The ‘death by sunlight’ was invented by Murnau.
Ruthven, Varney, Carmilla, Dracula - the four posts on which modern vampire lore is built - could all go about in daytime, and suffer no more than some weakening of their powers.
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### Author:  [@ozaline](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ozaline)
#### Post date: [April 27, 2018, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-be-a-non-feeder-vampire-a-la-true-blood-would-you/813207/18 "2018-04-27T22:32:30Z")
> [@Kamino\_Neko](#):
>
> No, it isn’t.
>
> Quite the opposite, in fact. The ‘death by sunlight’ was invented by Murnau.
>
> Ruthven, Varney, Carmilla, Dracula - the four posts on which modern vampire lore is built - could all go about in daytime, and suffer no more than some weakening of their powers.
When the Sailor Soldiers confront Dracul with all the common weaknesses in the beginning of the Sailor Moon Vampire Musical Trilogy (yes there is such a thing), there’s a comical scene where Dracul sits them all down and references Carmilla, Dracula, and Nosferatu opaquely, to explain that the sunlight myth was recent.
As to the main topic, as long as my soul wasn’t automatically damned (like in Larry Hama’s the Stranger), or replaced by a demon’s (like Buffy), and I could maintain my own morality… I’d become a vampire with eternal youth even if it made me nocturnal.
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### Author:  [@Cartooniverse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartooniverse)
#### Post date: [April 27, 2018, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-be-a-non-feeder-vampire-a-la-true-blood-would-you/813207/19 "2018-04-27T23:55:28Z")
To read some in-depth ruminations on the severe downsides of immortality please regard the works of Anne Rice.
For me? No thank you.
Sent from my SM-N910V using Tapatalk
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### Author:  [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)
#### Post date: [April 28, 2018, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-could-be-a-non-feeder-vampire-a-la-true-blood-would-you/813207/20 "2018-04-28T04:02:19Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#):
>
> True, but I’ve known many elderly who lament that one of the worse parts is going to the funerals of old friends. Well at least they knew their time was also coming close. Imagine knowing yours was not.
At this point in my life I’ve already outlived most of my immediate family, my spouse, and many of my friends. I still want to be alive.
I’ll opt for immortality. If I tire of it I can opt out, as vampires are not unkillable.
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