Digression: The Vampyre Site

Working on an actual post for before I go to bed tonight. In the meantime, check out my new site, The Vampyre Site! There are already a bunch of articles and short stories about vampires, as well as resources about everyone's favorite vampire opera, Der Vampyr. (Okay, so there aren't that many vampire operas to pick from.)

I noticed a while ago that none of the online versions of Varney the Vampire contain all of the illustrations (and few even have a couple), so I'm working on scanning those in to add to the website, plus some more stories & resources that I have to add in the meantime.

Digression: Vampire Story vs. Story with Vampires

This is a bit rambly. Consider yourself warned.


So this question came into my mind when I was watching Blood Ties (3 a.m. Eastern time on Lifetime! not that I stay up that late) and started comparing it to Forever Knight. There are a great many differences between the shows, but the major difference is the presence of the vampire.

In Forever Knight, Nick is the center of the story, and his struggle against his vampire nature is the driving force of the show's long-term story arc. In Blood Ties, on the other hand, the story is about a human, Vicki. Henry helps introduce her to the world of the paranormal, and the fact that he's a vampire lends a particular tone to the show, but the main story wouldn't change much if he were a different kind of supernatural creature.

But then again, you could say that about any story. When there are only so many basic plots and it's the details that make the stories different, it's not really fair to randomly swap out those details and claim you're keeping the essence of the story.

I haven't fully thought this through, but I wanted to open it up for discussion: what's the difference between a vampire story and a story with vampires in it, or is the difference even significant enough to be worth noting?

Digression: Vampire Reviews

So I've been working on my other project, Book of the Movie, and have a couple of video reviews about vampires:



Closed captioned version on YouTube



Real post coming later, though; don't worry!

Digression: The Vampyre

Sorry for the missed post on Wednesday. Here instead of a real update is a post about The Vampyre by David Campton, as mentioned in my sleeping pill-induced post about my vampire-related reading list. This isn't a proper review, just a few scattered thoughts on the book.

Let me first say that I don't like the Polidori's "The Vampyre" very much. I feel bad criticizing it too much, especially the plagiarism aspect, because of the circumstances surrounding it: in short, Polidori never meant for the story to be published. But the main thing for me is that it's written in that 19th century short story writing style I detest, where the story doesn't really take place in real time but in narration that glosses over the specifics of the actions -- rather like I'm reading a summary of a longer, better book.

So it feels like "The Vampyre" would be a good candidate for a novelization, and that's probably still true, but David Campton's novella isn't it. The characters are boring, Ruthven isn't terribly scary, and there's a lot of padding in the beginning of the story, before Polidori's original plotline really starts.

As for the ending -- it's not really a happy ending, which puts it a step above the other adaptations I've read (I mean, I love Der Vampyr, but seriously, not everything needs a happy ending). However, it's a stupid ending. Basically, Aubrey is able to save his sister from marrying the Earl of Marsden (i.e., Ruthven), and together they defeat the vampire by... having him accidentally trip backwards onto a fishing spear. And then they leave his body lying in the moonlight, so he recovers and escapes. So the characters can't defend themselves without deus ex machina and then are too stupid to use the deus ex machina to their advantage, hurrah!

Know of any novelizations of "The Vampyre" and are they any good? All I've seen are plays and operas, which range from okay to very good on their own and bad to meh in terms of an adaptation.

Digression: A Funny Video & My Reading List

Yesterday, I moved around pill bottles in my bathroom so they weren't scattered around on the counter. Today, I accidentally took a sleeping pill when I woke up instead of the pill I normally take in the morning. Obviously the old system was working just fine.

Anyway, I owe you a chapter especially since I just did a digression on Sunday, but I don't think my brain has that kind of focus. So, here's a funny video from the guy who does the "I'm a Marvel, I'm a DC" parodies.



Also, let's talk about my vampire-related reading list. I also organized my books last night, so I got a good look at the stuff I have around and keep forgetting to read.

• Skinners: Blood Blade, by Marcus Pelegrimas -- I found this at the library the other day and thought I'd give it a try. I can't comment much on the story since I've only just gotten past the obligatory-backstory-of-how-this-guy-became-a-vampire-hunter bits, but while I'm not in love with the writing style I think the author's doing interesting things with the vampire mythos so far.
• Night Child, by Jes Battis -- I picked this up when Half Price Books was having a sale. Seems like a "CSI -- but with vampires!" thing, which I kind of like, although I'm only about a chapter in.
• The Vampire Files: Bloodlist, by P.N. Elrod -- I bought this six months ago and promptly lost it. Found it again in the move. I have heard so many good things about this series and keep putting off reading it.
• The Vampyre, retold by David Campton -- Found this on clearance for $1; it's a short novel based on John Polidori's "The Vampyre," put out by this company Fleshcreepers which apparently sells retold horror classics for young readers. I skimmed through it enough to see that they the author gave the story a happy ending, which is bulls***, but it piqued my interest nonetheless.
• Laws of the Blood: The Hunt, by Susan Sizemore -- Another one I read a few chapters of and then forgot about. I enjoyed Susan Sizemore's Forever Knight tie-in novel, but haven't read any of her other stuff yet.

Comments on any of these? Like/dislike/recommendations?

Finally, I've been working on a new project, Book of the Movie, for which I just put up the introductory post I wrote a few days ago. It's been a while since I did anything with video (I used to edit music videos for my old fandom in high school), but I'm just really psyched about sharing another one of my bizarre and obscure hobbies.

Digression: Vampire Mob

For those of you who haven't seen this already, I found an interesting link at Suburban Vampire yesterday for a new web series called Vampire Mob. From their press release:

Vampire Mob follows Don Grigioni, a hitman and vampire, who just found out his mother-in-law is moving in, for eternity. Don became a vampire because "it was a good fit" for is nocturnal life of crime. He never planned on biting his wife, Annie, and making her immortal, "but then I got hungry." Annie felt bad that her mom would die one day and bit her, never discussing it with Don, and now mom needs a place to stay and blood to drink. With Don’s hit business slowing down, the last thing he needs is more "grocery shopping" to do.

They're releasing the episodes based on how many views they get, rather than on a set schedule, with the first episode up already on the Vampire Mob website.

I'll reserve my comments until I've seen the whole thing, since the first episode is basically just exposition. But I noticed in the previews for Episode 2 that it has Kirsten Vangsness in it, whom I absolutely adore, so I plan to keep watching.

Digression: What Makes a Good Vampire, Part 2

Now that I've discussed some traits of vampires in a few fictional works I enjoy (see Part 1 and Part 1.5 of this series), I'm finally ready to answer my own question: what makes a good vampire?

A good fictional vampire -- whether it is sympathetic or villainous -- has a balance of three type of vampiric traits: the benefits, the drawbacks, and the catch.

The Benefits


Vampirism must have some benefits, or no one would want to be a vampire. (In a story where vampirism is an epidemic, vampires are the risen corpses of evil people as in folklore, or vampirism is otherwise not generally a choice, however, the benefits may be slim.) Typical vampiric benefits include:¹

• Immortality.²
• Super strength.
• Super speed.
• Extreme sexiness.³
• Flying.
• Hypnotism.
• Cured diseases.⁴

The Drawbacks

Vampirism must have drawbacks to balance out the benefits, however, to prevent vampires from becoming overly powerful. Typical vampiric drawbacks include:

• Cannot abide garlic, holy objects, silver, running water, or sunlight.⁵
• Violent urges.
• Become unconscious and corpse-like during the day, leaving them weakened.
• Infertile.
• Cannot ingest food except for blood.
• Cannot have sex.⁶
• Cannot see their reflections.

The Catch

Still, the drawbacks do not often make the vampire's supernatural power less appealing. Would you give up food⁷ for the ability to live forever? I know I would.

So what we need is a catch: a drawback so major that it serves to make vampirism a lot more complicated and less appealing. Basically, the catch is what neatly answers the question, "If being a vampire is so awesome, why doesn't everyone do it?"

The catch, in my experience, falls into five basic categories (although there is some overlap):

• Uncertainty of success (it's difficult to become a vampire -- e.g., because the vampire must stop feeding just before the human is dead, as in Forever Knight, or because the process is painful, as in Twilight -- and there is a strong possibility of death).
• Loss of personality (e.g., losing one's soul, as in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, or suffering potential drastic personality changes, as in Forever Knight).
• Eternal bondage (becoming attached to one's sire and even compelled to obey them, as in Charlaine Harris's Southern Vampire Mysteries).
• Separation from other vampires (e.g., the urge to attack other vampires and defend one's territory, as in Tanya Huff's Blood Books).
• Compulsion to kill (either a need to kill while feeding, as in Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles, or a need to kill someone within a certain time limit, as in Der Vampyr ⁸).

Bottom Line

In my mind, a good vampire must have a catch as well as regular old drawbacks and weaknesses. The catch makes vampirism go from sounding like a good deal to something more complicated than human life, and adds a real conflict to human/vampire romance instead of just Generic Angst.

I honestly don't care about any other traits. I have some preferences, but I'll accept a lot of "non-traditional" benefits and drawbacks -- and even non-traditional vampires, like the emotion-sucking rather than blood-drinking White Court in Jim Butcher's Dresden Files -- as long as they make sense in context. What I won't accept, however, is a story that regales me with how awesome and consequence-free vampirism is and then tries to convince me that the average human wouldn't choose it.

---

¹ Items on this list are not necessarily compatible with each other or with the other lists. Each one must be taken individually. ^
² Technical immortality, at least; fictional vampires do not generally die of old age, but in many stories can be fairly easily killed. ^
³ Does getting vamped make one sexy, or do only sexy people get vamped? ^
⁴ That is, becoming a vampire cures the diseases one had as a human, not that vampires can cure diseases themselves. ^
⁵ The reasons and effects of sunlight vary: most commonly they burn, although some powerful vampires are merely weakened. And sometimes they sparkle. ^
⁶ If only this drawback were not so rare in today's overly saturated vampire romance market. ^
⁷ Vampires have no physical need for food, so it just means giving up a sensual pleasure rather than a necessity for living. ^
⁸ I mention Der Vampyr so much not because the concept is well-executed -- rather, the whole "must kill three people in a day" thing is mostly a way for the hero to kill the vampire on a technicality, by delaying the third victim, instead of attacking him outright -- but because I think it's a concept with much potential for ambiguity. While a person might reject super powers if they had to kill every time they fed, for example, it's easier for a well-intentioned vampire to make the ends justify the means if it's just one person (or three people), once a year. ^

Digression: What Makes a Good Vampire, Part 1.5: Blood

I realized soon after I posted Part 1 of this digression that I hadn't mentioned an important aspect of vampirism: what kind of blood is necessary. The way vampires have to feed in order to sustain themselves is not only a potential drawback of vampirism, but a way to separate the good vampires from the evil ones.

Let's start with an example I didn't mention in the last post: the Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter series by Laurell K. Hamilton. In one of the books, a vampire tries to drink animal blood in order to avoid harming humans, but as it turns out, only human blood can sustain vampires. On a steady diet of animal blood, their bodies start to break down.

Because of this limitation, feeding on humans in Anita Blake's universe is not an inherently immoral (or morally questionable) act. Rather, the issue is consent. All vampires must feed on humans to live, but only evil vampires feed on humans without permission -- an illegal act, as well as immoral.

Contrast the limitations on vampire feeding in Anita Blake with those in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Vampires in the Buffyverse can sustain themselves just fine on animal blood, with no negative physical or psychological effects. Only evil vampires feed on humans, and they almost always kill their prey. Because feeding on humans is not necessary, it is not something that good vampires do.

Forever Knight is perhaps somewhere in between. As in Buffy, it is not necessary for vampires to feed on humans. Vampires can sustain themselves on the blood of animals or even other vampires, or drink stored blood from human donors rather than biting a human outright.

However, drinking animal blood does have a few drawbacks. First, vampires sense human memories and emotions through their blood. It's not necessary for vampires to gain these memories in order to survive, but it's part of the thrill of the hunt and the rush of drinking blood.

Second, drinking blood is closely tied to sex. In fact, if you take the word of the show's creators, male vampires cannot have sex (the whole "no/slow circulation = no erection" problem), so biting symbolically takes the place of sexual intercourse. Drinking animal blood, then, is akin to sexual deviancy. Some vampires (carouches) prefer it, but they are looked down upon.

On the other hand, the issue of morality is a bit more fuzzy. Most modern vampires in the show drink bottled human blood not because they don't enjoy killing humans, but because they think it's stupid to endanger vampires by killing too many humans in the same area when bottled blood works just fine. Nicholas drinks animal blood not because drinking human blood is objectively wrong, but because animal blood is lesser, and he's trying to wean himself off blood entirely.

I'm glossing over a lot, and I'm ignoring a number of fictional vampires with different restrictions on blood drinking, but otherwise this post would go on forever. (It still turned into an entirely separate post just on blood drinking, rather than a conclusion on what benefits and drawbacks vampirism should have.) But once I started writing, I realized that blood was an important enough subject to address separately.

On the one hand, allowing vampires to live on animal blood seems to focus on the technicality of vampires needing blood, rather than the symbolism associated with blood drinking. It also makes the vampires less ambiguous: if it's not necessary to drink from or kill humans, vampires only do it because they like to. (This is not to say that the idea can't be handled well, and I think Forever Knight does that.)

On the other hand, requiring vampires to feed on humans allows them an easy way out for bad behavior: "Oh, you poor vampire, you couldn't help hypnotizing that person and feeding without their permission, or killing that human by feeding on them; it's just in your nature." This isn't bad when it's addressed in the story as part of the vampire's struggle against his instincts, or when the issue of non-consensual feeding has intentional creepy and morally ambiguous overtones. More often than not, however, the connection between blood and sex has Unfortunate Implications amounting to "it's okay to rape someone if it's In Your Nature."

So what's the best way for vampire stories to handle the issue of blood drinking? More on that in Part 2 of the series on What Makes a Good Vampire (consider this Part 1.5).

Digression: What Makes a Good Vampire, Part 1

After I wrote my post about Twilight, I got into a conversation with a friend about Twilight vampires compared to vampires in other stories. Her main complaint was that vampirism in Twilight doesn't have enough drawbacks.

Again, in the interest of full disclosure, I haven't read the books. However, I think that whenever "just vamp her and everything will be okay" is a reasonable solution to a romance between a human and a vampire, vampirism doesn't have enough drawbacks. Basically it just causes a humongous plot hole: if the only drawback for vampirism is Generic Angst, why doesn't everyone do it?

I've mentioned Tanya Huff's Blood Books before, because I think they're a great example of how to create realistic obstacles for a vampire who wants to be with his human love forever. Essentially, there cannot be too many vampires in any one place in order to avoid suspicion and keep the food supply up. Therefore, vampires have developed an instinct to fight any vampire who enters their territory, regardless of how well they got along when one or both of them were mortal.

(Spoilers for Blood Pact and Blood Debt follow.)

In Blood Pact, Henry -- the vampire -- vamps Vicki, his human lover, to save her life. After briefly teaching her how to hunt and survive as a vampire, he leaves to stake out a new territory. In Blood Debt, however, he needs her help on a case, and so they must learn to resist their instinct to kill each other.

Eventually, they realize that, with the growth of cities giving vampires more food sources and better places to hide, vampires' instinct to kill each other is no longer relevant in modern times. While this works well for rekindling a romance between Henry and Vicki, it negates much of the conflict in the previous books.

(End spoilers.)

Let's look at another very different obstacle for the vampire, laid out in Heinrich August Marschner's 1828 opera Der Vampyr. The libretto, by Wilhelm August Wohlbrück, was adapted from John Polidori's short story "The Vampyre" and J.R. Planché's theatrical adaptation, The Vampire, or the Bride of the Isles.

The vampire in Der Vampyr, Lord Ruthven, is clearly the villain, but a sympathetic one. The "catch" to his vampirism is that he must kill three woman once a year in order to remain a vampire. (The idea that the vampire must kill once a year to survive is implied in "The Vampyre" but not stated outright.) Like Varney, he attacks humans not necessarily because he wants to, but because his existence compels him to -- which is not to suggest that he doesn't enjoy it.

Let's look at a more well-known vampire story: Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Vampires in Buffy drink blood, but don't experience most of the usual drawbacks: not being able to eat human food, needing to stay in a coffin all day, being allergic to garlic, or not being able to have sex.

On the other hand, the "catch" to becoming a vampire is huge: you lose your soul entirely, and your body becomes an unambiguously evil killer. This works well in Buffy, because vampires are, for the most part, the enemies. There are a few sympathetic vampire characters, but they have something different about them: Angel has his soul, and so is moral, and Spike has a chip in his head, so he can't hurt humans even though he wants to (and then eventually gets used to the idea).

Of course, this falls apart as the story goes on and vampires as a whole start becoming more developed. In particular, why is Harmony suddenly fine to work at Wolfram & Hart in Season 5 of Angel, when she has neither a soul nor a chip? The main problem with vampirism in Buffy is that soulless, unambiguously evil vampires work fine when they're your enemies, but are difficult to handle, without increasing numbers of "special exceptions," when they become main characters.

Let's contrast this with an earlier TV show: Forever Knight. Some of the vampires are sympathetic, while some are just plain evil, and some are well-intentioned but misguided. Any change in personality is not a result of the vampirism per se, but the fact that power corrupts, and that most humans who suddenly gain immortality and superpowers will use them unwisely.

To balance this out, vampires in Forever Knight have more of the drawbacks that Buffy vampires lack: problems with garlic, not being able to eat human food, and (according to the show's creators, although not explicitly stated in the show itself) not being able to have sex. In Nick Knight's eyes, the simple fact that he isn't human is enough of a drawback in and of itself, but I don't count that because it's a personal preference, not an objective limitation.

Now that I've given an overview of vampire traits in just a small handful of my favorite vampire stories, it's time for the big question: what makes a good vampire? Unfortunately, I've gone on a lot longer than I originally intended. So stay tuned for Part 2 tomorrow, wherein I conclude my thoughts on the best balance of benefits and drawbacks for fictional vampires.

Part 1.5: Blood

Digression: In Which the Blogger, Having Threatened Fanfic, Makes Good on Her Promise

I wrote back in Chapter 16 that I really wanted to write a Flora/Charles fanfic. That will have to wait, of course, until I finish finding out what happened to Charles. (I don't like reading ahead too much as I write these posts; it makes my reactions feel inauthentic.)

In the meantime, though, have a Flora-related drabble (fic of exactly 100 words). I guess I just suddenly felt nostalgic for the bite-sized, angst-ridden fanfic I used to write in high school and didn't have a ready fandom to apply it to other than Varney, so this is what came out. Takes place around Chapter 28.

---

They don’t know me. They don’t know what I’ve been through, or they’d be afraid, too. They wouldn’t treat my fear as something strange and unnatural.

They haven’t seen it as I have. They’ve seen its human side, heard its smooth and confident speech. They haven’t been trapped in its grasp -- haven’t felt its teeth.

I sense their whispers. I know they’re trying to keep things from me, as if I’m too weak and frail to understand what’s happening.

Perhaps I am. I can feel myself wasting away. Maybe I’m not becoming a vampire -- I’m becoming Death itself.

Digression: Regarding Twilight and Sparkly Vampires

How can I possibly have a blog about vampires and not mention anything about Twilight?

Well, first of all, I haven't read the entire Twilight series, so you may take my comments with a grain of salt. But from what I've read, it doesn't seem considerably better or worse than a lot of typical "girl meets vampire and finds True Love" paranormal romance novels. Not really interesting enough for me to finish except to snark, and the snarking has been thoroughly covered by a lot of people already, most of whom are more interesting than me.

What I do want to comment on is the one thing everyone knows even if they don't know anything else about Twilight: the vampires sparkle. (Link is NSFW, by the way.)

People's main complaint seems to be that making vampires sparkle goes against all the traditional vampire tropes. To which I say: isn't that a good thing?

Don't get me wrong: I have my beef with Twilight vampires and similar fictional creations. The main issue is that there don't seem to be any drawbacks to being a vampire, other than a severe case of Generic Angst. Getting rid of the usual tradeoffs one must make for immortality, such as losing one's soul (a la Buffy) or not being able to be around other vampires (a la Tanya Huff's Blood Books), makes the vampire's existence way too simple. It also provides an easy way for the vampire to be with the one he loves forever -- because vamping the human girl will have no ill side effects whatsoever -- thereby removing the romance's essential conflict.

But, problems aside, I think it's a great thing when authors do something original with how the rules of vampirism work. I also find it frustrating when people treat the laws of Hollywood vampires as if they were the real traditional vampire, rather than old and varied folk legends -- or even early vampire fiction. If someone made a film of Varney the Vampire, for example, people would be pissed at how he's not super attractive, he can enter homes uninvited, and he can go out in the daylight.

Sparkly vampires seem silly on the surface, and it hardly has the same symbolic significance as vampires needing to avoid the sunlight because it could kill them. But it is an original twist and an interesting explanation for that particular vampire trope. It's a pity that Stephenie Meyer stopped there, because in the hands of a better author, sparkly vampires could have been the beginning of an intriguing deconstruction of the "traditional" vampire.

Digression: Regarding Sexy Vampires

Man, I am just not feeling good today. So in place of our Regularly Scheduled Program, here's a confession:

I don't understand why vampires are supposed to be sexy.

I mean, I get the whole sex-and-death connection, but the way vampires are presented in literature usually seems more unintentionally creepy than sexually attractive. More often than not, vampires are a hundred years old or more, hailing from the Good Old Days before men were generally expected to not be chauvinistic assholes. Yet they look young forever, which usually leads them to women in their teens as love interests. Combined with the fact that vampires are monsters and therefore can't control their actions, this leads to a host of behaviors that are at best unattractive and at worst emotionally abusive.

The best vampire stories, romances or not, present the vampire as a sympathetic yet problematic figure, and vampirism as a condition with downsides more severe than a chronic case of Generic Angst. Off the top of my head, I enjoy the portrayal of the vampire in Tanya Huff's Blood Books. Henry is a balanced character, intense and sexual but also genuinely frightening, and the relationships are more complicated than "sexy vampire = true love."

I prefer vampires as balanced, developed villains than woobiefied, misunderstood figures or generically supernatural love interests. But no one seems to write them like that anymore.

Digression: French Vampires

I don't have the level of concentration needed to write up a real post today, so I'll pose a short question: what is up with French vampires?

Is it just a matter of a simple equation: vampires=sexy, French=sexy, therefore French vampires=sexy²?

Is it Anne Rice's influence?

I mean, Dracula was Eastern European, which makes sense since that's where most of the popular vampire myths come from. The earliest two fictional vampires--Varney and Lord Ruthven from "The Vampyre"--are English. I can think of some modern English vampires--the ones in Buffy immediately come to mind--but most of the literature seems inundated with French Jean-Claudes and Luciens and DeNoirs (really? you couldn't come up with anything more obviously symbolic?). Even in Forever Knight, where one of the vampires was an ancient Roman, he was effectively French (spoke French, had a French name, etc.).

Just has me wondering why it's so much of a cliche.