Vampire Repellent

We all know a Crucifix will repel a Christian vampire and a Star of David will repel a Jewish vampire. Is there something one can wear on a chain around one’s neck that will repel a Moslem vampire?

Crescent and Star?

Blood and its by-products are forbidden in the Quran, so there shouldn’t be any Moslem vampires. Not good Moslem ones anyway.

Maybe Count Duckula. He’s vegetarian as I recall.

Drinking blood is forbidden for Jews also. Rare and tartar meat is forbidden. So let’s assume vampires are non-observant [insert name of religion here].

Nu, that couldn’t hurt. Good thinking

Mohammad

Say what?

Naw. If the lubuvitchers think it’s kosher, it’s kosher.

https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/682641/jewish/Is-a-Medium-Rare-Steak-Kosher.htm

Anyway, they are right. The red juice in rare meat is colored by myoglobin from the muscles, not hemoglobin from the blood.

If we assume that the observant vampire (Jewish or Muslim) has made the decision that it is the lesser evil to remain “alive” as a vampire, and they aren’t one of the varieties that can eat normal human food or other options, then YES they would likely be able to drink blood.

Both religions make exceptions for non-allowed foods if in otherwise dire circumstances and there are no other options available. Which, if you’re the sort of vampire that can only subsist on blood… well, there you go.

As for what you can keep to save yourself safe from the widest variety of supernatural creatures?

A follow-up thought though.

If you have a truly religious Vampire (remember, a lot of modern Vampire stories require the faith of the victim to be true, but the nature of their belief doesn’t matter, and icons don’t work passively), then would they be MORE likely to feed on a member of the shared religion, thinking that said person would themselves be less likely to be tainted by unclean foods?

In that sense, you might be able to give yourself some additional protection by rubbing yourself in bacon fat everyday. Or for the same reason some stories having vampires avoid garlic - they intensely dislike the smell. It doesn’t hurt them, but if there are 5 people to feed on, they’ll leave the garlicky one for last, the same way most young kids will avoid eating their veggies as long as there’s something else they’d rather eat first.

I was going to point this out. I disagree with the basic premise of the OP (“a Crucifix will repel a Christian vampire and a Star of David will repel a Jewish vampire”). In most modern stories, it’s the faith of the victim that’s important, not that of the vampire. Kitty Pryde had no luck warding off Dracula with a crucifix, but he was burned by the Star of David around her neck. The atheist Wolverine couldn’t keep him away with a cross, but the Catholic Nightcrawler could.

If you really want to keep vampires at bay, the simplest and cheapest thing to do is to carry one of those little packets of sunflower seeds on your person at all times. When you encounter a vampire, scatter the seeds in his path. He will be compelled to count each and every one of them, giving you time to escape.

I’ve read that is some vampire stories, but why did Stoker say?

Okay, for the record, Stoker popularized and mythologized various Vampire myths, but he’s neither the beginning nor the end of the genre.

But to answer the question, I would say that the symbols themselves, if properly consecrated would have protective value according to the raw text. But… by that token, it would be a solid assumption that the only symbols that have protective value would be Christian (and by some arguments, Catholic). If we are only going by Dracula, then as a work of it’s time, it is chock full of unspoken assumptions about which is the proper and therefore efficacious religion. And as the writer is Irish, there is an undercurrent that the modern, Anglican majority seems to lack the strength and faith to provide solid symbols and protection.

All of the above is subject to interpretation, but IMHO, it’s very informed speculation. So a Jewish or Muslim vampire would be driven away by the power of the cross or consecrated wafers, regardless of their own personal beliefs and the strength of belief of the possessor of said symbols. Not to mention how Dracula is a perfect embodiment of the danger of the OTHER to the good, proper, wholesome nature and world of his era, which could only be stopped by aged wisdom, faith, and the strength of good, honorable, Christian, white men.

No I didn’t write my thesis in part on all of this decades ago. :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:

Aaaaaanyway, the point is that Dracula made a huge splash and serves as an inspiration for most modern vampire stories, but is (IMHO) a lot more interested in telling it’s own story than serving as a blueprint for a mythology or series the way a lot of more recent works. So, as I pointed out in my first post, there isn’t really an independent answer to what would or wouldn’t work outside of how it works for a particular author.

It is, of course, my own opinion, but I view Stoker as canon, and others as fan-fic.
Otherwise, we have a rather conflicting mythology to deal with.

And in fact, Stoker sort of makes that point. When Jonathan Harker is first given a crucifix by one of the Transylvanian villagers during his journey to Castle Dracula, he at first hesitates to take it because, as he says, “as a good English Churchman [i.e., an Anglican] I had been taught to regard such things as idolatrous.” Nevertheless, the crucifix works for him, however idolatrous it might be.

It may be notable that Van Helsing seems to be Catholic, and uses specifically Catholic religious paraphernalia. Besides the crucifix, he also uses the Host, and he mentions having an Indulgence to allow him to use the Host in this manner. Who would have given him such an Indulgence, I can’t imagine.

Not so fast…

LOL - I was answering @carnivorousplant’s question in the section you quoted, using only Stoker as canon. See earlier in the thread where I discussed the greater spectrum of vampire fiction.

Rowan wood, live or dead, repels/destroys many supernatural evils, vampire included.

Well murder is forbidden in the bible and that ain’t stopping shit.

All I know is that Stoker scared the shit out of 11-year-old me when I read my big brother’s copy of Dracula.