# True Blood 5-12 Save Yourself **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 27, 2012, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-blood-5-12-save-yourself/632781 "2012-08-27T02:48:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2012, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-blood-5-12-save-yourself/632781/21 "2012-08-29T19:15:05Z")
Another thing is that at one point, seniority in the vampire community was based on age. So Russell had seniority over Eric, and I expected that the Authority was going to be really old vampires. But they seem to have eliminated that plot point. ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2012, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-blood-5-12-save-yourself/632781/22 "2012-08-29T19:27:07Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > Another thing is that at one point, seniority in the vampire community was based on age. So Russell had seniority over Eric, and I expected that the Authority was going to be really old vampires. But they seem to have eliminated that plot point. Yes. The nature of The Authority was much more interesting in the first couple of seasons. Remember the Magister? ---
**Author:** ![TBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c89c15/32.png) [@TBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TBG)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2012, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-blood-5-12-save-yourself/632781/23 "2012-08-30T19:56:40Z")
> [@kjckjc](#): > > If there is one thing that irks me about the show (and books), it is the way they use the shapeshifters. Not so much the weres, but the shifters like Sam. In the show, and especially the books, shifters are treated like the bottom rung of the shapeshifting community. But to quote Superman from the HISHE webseries “I guess I would be jealous…if I wasn’t, like, ALL of you combined…” I get that with almost all storytelling, the characters are only as good as the story requires them to be, but the amount of time I spend watching this show thinking “Goddamn it Sam, just turn into a \!” is amazing. Or the scene in the finale where Luna is like “If only there was SOME way to get to you Emma, any way at all. Oh, hey Sam, you just shapeshifted back and forth to a fly. Cuz you are a shifter. Like me. Anyway, like I was saying, if only I was smaller and could fit through these bars Emma! Or if you had some way of changing from your wolf-form and breaking out of that plastic pet carrier!” Yeah, I mean I don’t know how many times Sam’s been in some situation that could’ve been much more easily solved if he’d just turn into a 10’ grizzly bear. Or a tiger. Or anything but a dog or fly. Luna as the Rev was quite funny, though. Way better than when she was Sam (did that even have a point?) ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2012, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-blood-5-12-save-yourself/632781/24 "2012-08-30T20:01:39Z")
> [@TBG](#): > > Luna as the Rev was quite funny, though. Way better than when she was Sam (did that even have a point?) Maybe they had money left over in their CGI budget that they had to spend. My personal hypothesis is that the actor who plays Sam pissed off one of the writers. ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2012, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-blood-5-12-save-yourself/632781/25 "2012-08-30T20:05:59Z")
I just thought of another one. Hoyt asked Jess to glamor him to totally forget her and Jason. Why didn’t she just glamor him to not love her anymore and to be happy that she and Jason got together? ---
**Author:** ![FordPrefect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e99b99/32.png) [@FordPrefect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FordPrefect)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2012, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-blood-5-12-save-yourself/632781/26 "2012-08-30T20:30:32Z")
> [@TBG](#): > > Yeah, I mean I don’t know how many times Sam’s been in some situation that could’ve been much more easily solved if he’d just turn into a 10’ grizzly bear. Or a tiger. Or anything but a dog or fly. Or a giant armidillo with laser beams for eyes. Seriously, conservation of mass doesn’t seem to be an issue in shifter-ville, so why stick with zoo-animals? ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2012, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-blood-5-12-save-yourself/632781/27 "2012-08-30T20:44:35Z")
> [@FordPrefect](#): > > Or a giant armidillo with laser beams for eyes. Seriously, conservation of mass doesn’t seem to be an issue in shifter-ville, so why stick with zoo-animals? He did say that he has to “imprint” on a real thing. They have to at least have been in close proximity to the type of animal they are becoming. Actually, it could be an animal or an insect. I wonder if they could become a fern or an apple tree. ---
**Author:** ![Fuzzy\_Dunlop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/848f3c/32.png) [@Fuzzy\_Dunlop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fuzzy_Dunlop)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2012, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-blood-5-12-save-yourself/632781/28 "2012-08-31T12:58:13Z")
> [@hajario](#): > > Yes. The nature of The Authority was much more interesting in the first couple of seasons. Remember the Magister? In the early seasons I inferred that there were at least 2 systems of vampire organization. The sheriff and king/queens seemed clearly influenced by the Authority but I originally didn’t think they were a part of it. I think I got that because Kings just seemed like they should be fairly autonomous, and Russel did in fact have little if any respect for the Authority. Evidently it was purely because of his age but it made sense to me that kings and sheriffs would be an older seniority/power/age based heirarchy and the Authority was an upstart movement trying to set themselves up as leading both vampires and the mainstreaming movement. I was disappointed that in the end it wasn`t at all complicated and none of it really made much sense. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2012, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-blood-5-12-save-yourself/632781/29 "2012-08-31T13:30:17Z")
> [@FordPrefect](#): > > Or a giant armidillo with laser beams for eyes. Seriously, conservation of mass doesn’t seem to be an issue in shifter-ville, so why stick with zoo-animals? Armadillos seem to have an odd relationship with vampires, so this’d be appropriate. Director Tod Browning, thinking they looked weird (maybe he thought of them as Giant Rats) stuck them in Count Dracula’s castle in Transylvania\*. Kim Newman makes some mention of armasdillos in _Anno Dracula_, and vampire historian Davil J. Skal has an entry for “Armadillos” in his book **V is for Vampire** \*\* \*The Spanish-language version, made at the same time on the same sets, but with different actors and crews, is mercifully armadillo-free. \*\*Not the current book of the same title by the unlikely-named Castro and Atomic, but this one: > **[V Is for Vampire: The A-Z Guide to Everything Undead: Skal, David J.:...](https://www.amazon.com/Vampire-Z-Guide-Everything-Undead/dp/0452271738)** > > V Is for Vampire: The A-Z Guide to Everything Undead \[Skal, David J.\] on Amazon.com. \*FREE\* shipping on qualifying offers. V Is for Vampire: The A-Z Guide to Everything Undead ---
**Author:** ![shy\_guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a6a055/32.png) [@shy\_guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shy_guy)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2012, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-blood-5-12-save-yourself/632781/30 "2012-08-31T14:42:10Z")
> [@hajario](#): > > Yes. The nature of The Authority was much more interesting in the first couple of seasons. Remember the Magister? The Magister was so much cooler and more threatening than the Authority turned out to be. So was Nan. The Authority turned out to be so much smaller and less impressive than I had imagined. It didn’t help that I don’t think the budget of the show was really up to portraying a leadership on a really grand scale; whenever there was a scene that took place at the Authority compound (and where _was_ that, anyway?), it just looked like an especially bloody Power Rangers episode. It didn’t help that the most hyped members of the Authority (and Russell) wound up basically doing nothing and then dying anticlimactically. Count me in as another who didn’t even realize that Erik killed Russell when he did. I agree with **kjckjc** regarding all the shifter stuff. Also, the increasingly elaborate setups to ensure that we don’t get a face full of full-frontal Sam make me feel like I’m watching Austin Powers. But the invisible fairy gateway plot hole bugged me the most. Why not just send out Sookie (or someone) to distract Russell and then immediately have everyone blast him through _the invisible doorway right next to him_? And while I’m being a giant nerd and thinking way too hard about this show, I laughed when the Army guy was talking about the military’s arsenal of anti-vampire weapons. Erik took out the most powerful evil vampire on the show with a chair leg, wooden bullets are more effective against vamps than real bullets are against humans, explosives with silver shrapnel can kill dozens at a time, we outnumber them by a huge margin, and the vamps are completely incapacitated for half of every day. Humans could wipe out vampires pretty easily with the weapons we already have. And worst case scenario, we hire a necromancer to hypnotize them all into walking into the sunlight. ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2012, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-blood-5-12-save-yourself/632781/31 "2012-08-31T15:30:08Z")
I was imagining huge banks of UV lights everywhere. Or systems of misters with silver water. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2012, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-blood-5-12-save-yourself/632781/32 "2012-08-31T19:55:34Z")
I was so happy for a few seconds. And then they brought Bill back. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2012, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-blood-5-12-save-yourself/632781/33 "2012-08-31T20:28:09Z")
> [@hajario](#): > > The show is full of stuff like that. > > Why do vamps need to earn money when they can just glamor people into giving them whatever they need or just take it by force or guile? > > If the older vamps are stronger, why can’t Eric, who is over 1000 years old, easily dispatch the guards? Well, he can but only if the plot calls for it. > > The writing has become so damn sloppy. One that especially bothered me in this episode (and lately) is the zoom-zooming of the fangers. They can zip around in a blur. But they all too often just run into dangerous situations for no good reason. E.g., in this episode when Jason is holding down the fort and vampire guard after vampire guard just trots in and gets blasted. Um, if you zoom into the room, a human ain’t going to be able to shoot you guys. They’ve also been sloppy on the “have to be invited in” rule. They did a trick so that the Stackhouse place is vampire owned but that’s about it for explanations. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2012, 6:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-blood-5-12-save-yourself/632781/34 "2012-09-01T06:13:34Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > Another thing is that at one point, seniority in the vampire community was based on age. So Russell had seniority over Eric, and I expected that the Authority was going to be really old vampires. But they seem to have eliminated that plot point. Not necessarily, the eight year old boy who got whacked early in the season might have been turned 5000 years ago. It’s the length of time you’ve been a vampire that matters, not how old you were when you were turned. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2012, 6:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-blood-5-12-save-yourself/632781/35 "2012-09-01T06:14:51Z")
> [@ftg](#): > > They did a trick so that the Stackhouse place is vampire owned but that’s about it for explanations. I was trying to remember how that situation came about; can you remind me? ---
**Author:** ![simster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/simster/32/1047_2.png) [@simster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/simster)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2012, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-blood-5-12-save-yourself/632781/36 "2012-09-01T13:19:19Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > I was trying to remember how that situation came about; can you remind me? Eric bought the house while sookie was missing in faerie land. ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2012, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-blood-5-12-save-yourself/632781/37 "2012-09-01T14:43:28Z")
It doesn’t even matter that much because they can just glamor you to invite them in when the plot calls for it. ---
**Author:** ![TBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c89c15/32.png) [@TBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TBG)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2012, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-blood-5-12-save-yourself/632781/38 "2012-09-03T22:50:36Z")
> [@hajario](#): > > It doesn’t even matter that much because they can just glamor you to invite them in when the plot calls for it. Or set your house on fire and wait for you to run out screaming. ---
**Author:** ![akrako1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c77e96/32.png) [@akrako1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/akrako1)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2012, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-blood-5-12-save-yourself/632781/39 "2012-09-06T22:50:03Z")
> [@hajario](#): > > I just thought of another one. Hoyt asked Jess to glamor him to totally forget her and Jason. Why didn’t she just glamor him to not love her anymore and to be happy that she and Jason got together? Exactly! While it was airing I was yelling at Jessica to just glamor him that he’s OK with how things are. That’s it, just have him get over her. Then he wouldn’t even be mad that you didn’t make him forget, wouldn’t have to leave, etc. :smack: I also was a bit confused by Russel’s death. It sure looked like Eric was simply holding the stake at his chest when Russel started to explode. I figured he’d absorbed too much fairy light when all of the fairies were blasting him at once. he thought he could take it, but ended up taking too much and exploding. eric did seem rather satisfied (like he’s done it) after tho… i’ll have to rewatch.. ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2012, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-blood-5-12-save-yourself/632781/40 "2012-09-06T23:09:37Z")
> [@akrako1](#): > > I also was a bit confused by Russel’s death. It sure looked like Eric was simply holding the stake at his chest when Russel started to explode. I figured he’d absorbed too much fairy light when all of the fairies were blasting him at once. he thought he could take it, but ended up taking too much and exploding. eric did seem rather satisfied (like he’s done it) after tho… i’ll have to rewatch.. He had to be careful. If the stake went all the way through Russell and the tip pierced his skin, he would have staked himself too. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-blood-5-12-save-yourself/632781.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-blood-5-12-save-yourself/632781.md?page=3)