# Vampires are dead to me **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 21, 2010, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vampires-are-dead-to-me/561454 "2010-11-21T17:12:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2010, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vampires-are-dead-to-me/561454/41 "2010-11-24T12:42:35Z")
> [@joew](#): > > I am waiting for this goldmine - vampires that keep zombies as pets. THe vampires can suck the blood and leave the flesh for the zombies to eat. They are a perfect symbiotic pair. And in the hand of the right writer it could actually be pretty good. The vampires would accidentally lose a zombie thus creating the zombie apocalypse and depriving the vampires of their food source. A weird three way battle ensues. Humans and vampires for survival versus zombies who are just really kind of gross. Come on someone needs to make this happen! Do the vampires zombie out if they get bitten by zombies? ---
**Author:** ![Hal\_Briston](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a9a28c/32.png) [@Hal\_Briston](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hal_Briston)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2010, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vampires-are-dead-to-me/561454/42 "2010-11-24T12:51:56Z")
I was fucking sick of them by the third time Samantha – my girlfriend in 1987 – dragged me to see _The Lost Boys_. ---
**Author:** ![Lust4Life](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecc23a/32.png) [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2010, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vampires-are-dead-to-me/561454/43 "2010-11-24T14:41:20Z")
> [@Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](#): > > Why are werewolves more difficult to believe in than vampires? Its the whole shape changing and altering of the bodies mass thing. Vampires I can rationalise as animated corpses in a similar but different way to zombies. I dont go for flying vampires unless we’re talking about vampire bats not vampire humans. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2010, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vampires-are-dead-to-me/561454/44 "2010-11-24T15:14:03Z")
> [@Paranoid\_Randroid](#): > > Well … I suppose a light-allergic humanoid entity who obtains nutrition from blood, and whose senses are more honed than that of a human, isn’t _impossible_ – whereas a werewolf _is_ impossible in a “Where is he drawing all that extra mass/fur/teeth/claws, is he borrowing it from the Hulk?” sort of way. But when you take into account the aversion to crosses, inability to cross a threshold without being invited, lack of visible aging, super-healing, the stake-through-the-heart requirement, etc., I think vampires lose the “realism” advantage. Yeah, well, you see _vampires aren’t real._ Neither are werewolves or zombies. They are fantasy. That means, even by the most basic standards, the normal laws of science as we know them do not apply. As for the werewolve’s mass – it’s converted into energy in another dimension. It’s converted back when they change. The moon acts as the gateway. (There’s a logical, scientific explanation you can paste in wherever you want.) The reason I believe that vampires are still viable as a trope is that there are so many variations you can play with. For example: 1. They can only be killed by a stake in the heart. 2. They can only be killed by a stake in the heart plus a beheading. 3. They can be killed by anything that would kill a mortal. 4. They burn in sunlight. 5. Sunlight doesn’t bother them, but they only have their special powers at night. 6. It doesn’t matter whether it’s sunny or not. 7. Vampires are romantic. 8. Vampires are evil. 9. Vampires have an erotic element. 10. Vampires have a homoerotic element. 11. Vampires are disgusting. 12. Vampires are funny. 13. None of the vampire myths are correct. 14. Vampires need to drink blood nightly to survive. 15. Vampires only need to drink blood occasionally; most of their food is the same as anyone else’s. 16. People know vampires exist. 17. Vampires guard their secrecy. You can take these and mix and match, or create others. Zombies, OTOH are much more limited. About the only variation is fast or slow. Their only interesting characteristic is their inexorableness, and they certainly don’t allow for clever dialog, like vampires do. Werewolves pretty much were covered with **The Wolf Man** and **Werewolves of London**. Other than them being tortured souls, there’s little to do with the concept (especially since you need to full moon to channel the energy created in the change to the other dimension). ---
**Author:** ![Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/malleus_incus_stapes/32/3293_2.png) [@Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malleus_Incus_Stapes)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2010, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vampires-are-dead-to-me/561454/45 "2010-11-24T16:45:31Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > Yeah, well, you see _vampires aren’t real._ Neither are werewolves or zombies. They are fantasy. That means, even by the most basic standards, the normal laws of science as we know them do not apply. > > As for the werewolve’s mass – it’s converted into energy in another dimension. It’s converted back when they change. The moon acts as the gateway. (There’s a logical, scientific explanation you can paste in wherever you want.) My explanation has always been that extra mass is converted to air, and missing mass is spun from air. ---
**Author:** ![Lust4Life](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecc23a/32.png) [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2010, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vampires-are-dead-to-me/561454/46 "2010-11-27T14:15:36Z")
I personally believe that the stake through the heart doesn’t kill a vampire, but pins its body to the ground to prevent it getting up and walking around. There is a human disease that afflicts people extremely badly if they are exposed to sunlight (Cant remember its name but will get a cite if required) If the vampire during its sleep goes into a form of suspended animation this would lengthen its life span. Where writers have exaggerated these effects they have IMO, made it harder for the suspension of disbelief, as far as the undead are concerned. I belive that the religious restrictions on vampires were just the churches way of trying to reassure the villagers. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2010, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vampires-are-dead-to-me/561454/47 "2010-11-27T14:41:17Z")
[Poryphria? The one Cecil wrote about?](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1321/did-vampires-suffer-from-the-disease-porphyria-or-not) Wouldn’t the vampire die anyway if staked because it’s unable to feed and would eventually be exposed to sunlight? ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2010, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vampires-are-dead-to-me/561454/48 "2010-11-27T17:54:47Z")
I just finished Guillermo del Toro’s book **The Fall** , second in his vampire trilogy. It’s pretty trashy, but the vampires in it are pretty much the opposite of sexy: rather, they’re weird parasitic organisms with worms in their capillaries. It’s refreshing precisely because there’s zero inclination to sympathize with them. ---
**Author:** ![code\_grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f4b2a3/32.png) [@code\_grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/code_grey)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2010, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vampires-are-dead-to-me/561454/49 "2010-11-27T18:29:47Z")
‘Minotaurs The New Vampires’ Says Publishing Executive Desperate To Find New Vampires > **['Minotaurs The New Vampires' Says Publishing Executive Desperate To Find New...](https://www.theonion.com/minotaurs-the-new-vampires-says-publishing-executive-de-1819571583)** > > NEW YORK—In a desperate effort to find a trendy new fantasy subgenre to succeed the ebbing vampire craze, Razorbill Books executive Graham Childress decided this week to throw all his professional weight behind a new series of novels featuring... [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vampires-are-dead-to-me/561454.md?page=2)