I saw Underworld the other night, and it got me to thinking.
There has been a scene in several (no cite) vampire movies where the vampire jumps off of a tall building, lands gracefully, and walks away. I’m not worried about the apparently required long black coat that flaps in the air on the way down but doesn’t ever catch on anything, I want to know about the boots.
Assuming a body weight of about 180 lbs, would an ordinary pair of boots absorb the force of a ten story drop, or would the vampire wind up shaking scraps of leather off of his feet and trying to look all cool and angsty as he walked away in the rain in his socks?
Given that your classic vampire type of figure in literature, art and cinema is fictional, and leaps down from tall buildings where the character lands gracefully on his/her feet and can then saunter off is impossible, I’d say belief could reasonably be suspended long enough to allow that a vampire’s boots are protected from the strains of “normal” conditions.
Maybe the vampire flaps something to slow the descent?
Vampires bend their knees with supernatural swiftness and strength at the moment the soles touch the ground, absorbing the impact somewhat. They also like to wear sturdy footwear, like 8-eye Doc Martens.
Well, it’s more complicated than that - I always figured vampires had a much lower terminal velocity than humans. (I mean, take a look in replay mode - it’s like they’re on wires or something.)
But anyhow - I imagine your average shoe (even more especially a plain leather boot as vampires are wont to wear) could withstand any large straight-down force without strain. OTOH, most vampires tend to drift while they jump, so if the seams on those dockers are in trouble, it’ll be because of excessive shear force.
Maybe their clothes are a bit invulnerable too - like superman’s. Or they fly down slightly. OTOH, if the sole is just a big chunk of leather, how much effect would there be? A bit more tenderized perhaps, but would you expect ‘chunks of leather flying off’?
Most vampires are smart enough to wear boots with Nike AirShox™ in them to avoid that type of embarrassment. The air filled pockets absorb the impact and they cna then coolly saunter away.
The shoes are undead too. Leather is, after all, dead animal skin. Clearly, the shoes are merely showing the same resistance to harm exhibited by the undead. What the shoes feed on and how they do so is still unresolved.
As long as you land straight and don’t skid the soles of the boots should be able to take the blow. After all they take a constant pounding every day as you walk and are made to take vertical impacts. this is not to say that it’s not hard on the boot, it may very well pop some seams or laces.
Vampires fly. It’s one of the perks. So they never really freefall, they just fly swiftly downward and then slow up at just the right moment. This is a learned skill, of course, but by the time a vampire makes it to the silver screen they usually have it mastered.
As for the footwear, this too is critical, but only as a fashion statement. As Badtz Maru pointed out, no fashionable vampire would be caught … er … um … well, wouldn’t wear anything other than Docs. One might be taken for a minion and that would mean social devastation. This actually happend to a vampire I knew and he ended up having to move to Holland to feed on junkies. He was a loser anyway and developed a fondness for wooden clogs.
Well, if you stand there with your arms crossed, I’m sure nobody will notice you. [sub]geekboy! [/sub]
OP: It must be enchanted shoes. Just like their clothes. A vampire will often take many gunshots and in the next scene, there are no more holes in the clothing!
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