I was making a paragraph-long note for Blood Bound by Patricia Briggs while I was reading today (7-27-23) about vampires. The note kind of got stuck in my head and so this post was born. This is part rant, part character study, part blather, part me gushing. There will probably be spoilers for a lot of things... I'll go ahead and list them before the next paragraph after I actually finish writing this thing.
Spoilers For: Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, Supernatural, The Vampire Diaries (TV Show)
I've read a lot of books that are about or include vampires. My favorite media properties also include vampires. Basically, if there are vampires, I'm at least going to check it out. Vampires are my favorite mythical creature outside of unicorns, which I collect. Vampires are just so darn interesting and come in all sorts of flavors. Every book series or media property has their own take and possibly even multiple takes on vampires. Everything from monstrous, barely human revenants to the ones you wouldn't even know were vampires at all if you weren't told and everything in between. And yes, even the sparkly ones count.
What really sent me down this rabbit hole this time was that Mercy Thompson, the main character of Blood Bound and where the series gets its name, keeps saying that vampires are evil. Over and over again. My note for that review was basically that vampires are evil because they're humans with a bit extra. No matter what form they're found in, vampires always start as humans... well... Bunnicula is a rabbit, but I haven't touched those books in so long I'm not even sure what was going on there. Anyway, humans, as we all know and deal with every day, are the absolute worst. It follows, then, that vampires would be even worse than that due to the fact they're basically us without society holding them back. They have powers and live outside human society and without human rules, a good chunk of them don't even have a soul.
My take on vampires is probably really unique among vampire fans, or at least ones I've come across on the internet. I've got this weird thing where I can compartmentalize according to what I'm consuming. That means my brain-space can have room for both Selene from Underworld and Edward from Twilight and they're not constantly locked in a death-match where Edward won't ever win... probably. I frankly think the mind-reading bit would give Edward an edge, but that's a discussion I'm not seriously having so... yeah. Basically, the multi-verse has room for all the different iterations of vampires and Edward really needs to watch some Buffy, The Vampire Diaries, and Supernatural in order to properly understand that he does have a soul.
Souls are actually an interesting component of vampire lore... and a fairly recent one, from what I can tell. The vampires of Buffy don't have souls unless they're cursed or go get them back. The demon that "infects" the vampires basically lets the meat-suit's soul go and takes up residence. The Vampire Diaries (TV show, I couldn't stand the books enough to get past a chapter or two) has vampires "turning off their humanity" which is basically letting the "soul" or conscience take a nap while the baser instincts take over. Supernatural... vampires kind of have souls, but they go to Purgatory instead of Heaven when the vampire is killed. There are more instances of humans not having souls than there is even discussion of vampires souls in Supernatural. Then there's The Hollows series by Kim Harrison where vampires are alive until they die and upon death lose their souls. That's just the four I can think of off the top of my head. Basically the lack of soul gives the vampire free reign to be as terrible as their little hearts desire without feeling any guilt over their actions... or much of anything, really, if Supernatural and The Hollows are to be believed. Again, this all comes back to humans without morals.
If the vampires do have souls -- which I'm going to assume most other iterations do -- they often have some form of society that's just outside our own. The Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter novels by Laurel K. Hamilton have a ruling class of vampires based on the amount of magical power they can wield over those weaker than them. Not just a ruling class, either, but just stronger and weaker vampires in a hierarchy inside of all that. The vampires of the Mercy Thompson series have a "seethe" to answer to, which also runs on who has more power... I'm pretty sure anyway. The Mercy series mostly deals with werewolves and it's been a while since I've read the entire series. Heck, even The Twilight Saga has the Volturi as their "vampire police." This sort of thing basically takes money (though the ruling vamps are often rich as well) and replaces it with magical power of some kind. Usually, if you have more power, your ego is also through the roof, whether you're human or vampire, it seems, and that leads to all sorts of fun (if terrifying) shenanigans within the power structures. The more power you have, often the more unhinged you become, even if you didn't start out that way and especially if you don't have a plucky human or two keeping you on the sane side... and most don't.
In addition to having societies of their own, vampires will also come in different flavors either from series to series or within a series. Got your bog-standard faster, stronger, compel you with their eyes like a snake vampires. Got your not-even-human anymore vampires, often called revenants and usually bad news for anyone if they're loose. Got your able-to-rot-but-not-die vampires. Got your illusion-creating vampires that only look human because that's what they want you to see. Got your immune to sunlight vampires, sparkly vampires, vampires that house demons, and vampires that are barely more than human. Vampires that are human aside from occasional blood-lust and slight speed and strength buffs until they die and lose their souls. That's not even touching on the powers vampires can possess.
Aside from strength and speed, these can include but are definitely not limited to:
- Telepathy
- Foresight
- Illusionists
- Elemental Manipulation
- Taser-like Electricity Powers
- Shapeshifting - animals or mist
- Lust Bringers/Feeders
- Lover Bringers/Feeders
- Anger Bringers/Feeders
- Teleportation
- Control over animals/therianthropes (basically were-animals)
The one thing most, if not all, vampires share is the blood-lust. Where there are vampires, there is their main food source: us. As we all know, the most dangerous game is Man so vampires have to be even more dangerous than that. Human blood does it for most vampires, usually because animal blood just lacks... something in the metaphysical/preternatural realm no one ever quite puts their finger on. Some vampires can feed off animals, but apparently humans just taste better in those universes so... yeah. Human blood or bust. Often there's a metaphysical/preternatural life-force thing that's conveyed through the blood, but I largely think a human chowing down on another human is better left to the zombies. Blood's just cleaner and technically renewable. Some universes even have synthetic blood: Underworld and The Southern Vampire Mysteries, to name a couple, but real human blood remains king.
Vampires are just plain neat. I feel like a discussion on what they allow us to explore about ourselves is a little outside of my wheelhouse and has been done to death elsewhere. I like them, I know a lot about them, and I can discuss them at length. I've also honestly only hit on a few of the series I've consumed in this write-up, and clearly a lot of what I've mentioned here are the Big Names in Vampire Media. I have also read Dracula, just so no one recommends I read it. That Netflix three-part mini-series from 2020 was mostly excellent, by the way. I've got a lot more on my TBR list and am looking forward to consuming much more vampire media.
This entire post has been written off the top of my head, with the exception of having to look up what the Sookie Stackhouse novels are actually titled... have not read those and the accents in the TV show just shut off my brain so... yeah. Hope you enjoyed this nonsense.
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