Vampyre: lust for... a carrot?

Me? I have an appointment on manicure...

   This struck me while writing another not kyaaa post at DA. I was sick on the slightest sight of Twilight. Yes, I hate the series. I am not afraid to say it. I hate it because it killed one of the best world myth about undeads. But, can undead be killed? This lady perhaps strangled it and buried under million tons of earth and rubbish, but she forgot to cut off the head. I believe vampire myth will reborn and all that twilight idiocy will be forgotten. What I have against it? Actually everything. From the style of the writing (yes, I managed to go through the first chapter in original), and let be frank, Stephanie Meyers is no Ursula Le Guin (yes, I cried reading Lavinia, I cried just because of words and their power), she's no Stephen King, she's not even close to Anne Rice in building luscious surroundings and evoking this overwhelming sense of nostalgy. She's even weaker than Joanne Rowling, who managed to sell the blabbering and convince everyone it's worth reading. I have no idea how promotion works, but it worked.

Vampire... as a figure as we know it, vampire exists over 100 years. Bram Stoker created someone/something, that haunts the imagination of people for over a century. It doesn't mean vampires didn't exist before. They did, they weren't just named vampires. The word comes from the same place Count Dracula comes from: Transylvania, Southeastern Europe.

In every world culture and civilization (yes, my dear readers, those two words are not interchangeable) on the border of human consciousness, pushed away in official mythology and beliefs, there is this figure of one we call now vampire. Being that feeds on blood and needs nothing beside it.

   What characterizes vampires?

1. They are afraid of sun and day.

This actually is more complicated than everyone thinks. It's not just sun and light. It's the whole ontology of creatures other than gods and humans. Gods live somewhere in the skies, on the highest mountains, in the places that are not easily reached and where there is a strict boundary between worlds. Remember the wall and gates in Asgard? Right. Humans have their own world.

Where the land of dead and demons is located? In the darkness. Darkness is not just the opposite of Light, it is its complementation, it is some primordial force. In many myths Darkness was the first, it is the darkness everything was created from.

Darkness, shadows, shades cover everything. The night is close to death, the sleep is a brother of death. Sleep and night are connected. Crimes are committed at night, hideous deeds happen at night. Night was full of terror and became a terror itself. That is why everything that had connections to evil was put into the night. Lamias, ghouls, demons, vetalas, lilitu, striges, mandurugo, and many, many more. They populate the night and people's minds. Everything that is abnormal is put into the night. The mythology of "night" is abundant in facts and complicated symbols that are sometimes impossible to decipher, because for us, people living after the Enlightement, night became lit with electricity. There is nothing to be afraid of.

Cemeteries are not lit. That is why they still possess the awe of unnatural, eerie territory. Cemeteries are still the stronghold of every fear. Even when they are located in the middle of a city. The fear of those bodies under our feet is enough for the imagination to go wild. We start to hear some scratching, we start to hear some voices. Even in the middle of a sunny day.

Vampires burn when exposed to sun. It is the power of fire. Sun is the symbol of fire. It cleanses everything, that is why in every temple there was a sacred fire. Even now, in Christian churches we can see a lamp or candles. It is ancient belief incorporated. In a sacred place HAS to be the fire. Sun is a fire. Sun is a god. It punishes the evil deeds, and punishes broken promises. Vampire (as we call it) broke the rule. He came back to life, he defied the rules of dying, thus has to be punished.

2. Vampires are more powerful than humans.

Because they are not humans. They ceased to exist as humans in the moment they became undead. That is why physiology and physics that apply to humans, don't apply to vampires. They can change their shape, but - very interesting fact - they turn into the animal usually connected with fear, hatred and darkness. Dracula from Francis Ford Coppola's movie is the best example. He turned into many animals and also shapeless green mist. He turned into some hybrid as well. This was the manifestation of his power.

I never drink... wine.

But this was a tragic story. Evil as hell where he belonged to, but tragic and sad at the same time.

Basically speaking, vampires are more on the animal side. The only thing that motivates them to go out is their unsatiable lust for blood. The instinct for survival also puts them closer to wild animals. They incorporated animal strength into their own bodies, because they are no longer bond by human biology. They can slumber for millenia (Queen Akasha, vampires from Underworld), but when they wake up, it's better you're not in your period, ladies...

3. Vampires are beautiful.

Awww, this is a modern bullshit.

Category 1: Animalistic vampire:

First vampire that appeared in the film industry was a monster. He was a classic example of what haunts people's minds. He was a pure animalistic force, driven by his lust for blood. Nothing cute in him, right? Except for ears (cause I can't find the relation in pointed ears and vampires), he's perfect, he has no body hair at all. Why? Because he is not alive, and hair grow on live people, his nails are long as well as his teeth. It can symbolize both his animal side (claws, talons and fangs) and the sexual side of the monster.

Category 2: Gentleman Vampire
Bela Lugosi was definitely first "humanized" vampire.

Sleeping with full make-up may be deadly for you...

He looked like a gentleman, he acted like one, he wasn't bald and disgusting like Schreck's Dracula, he didn't seem like a blood-lusting animal.
But lets be frank, under the tuxedos and bow ties, under the nice smile there is a beast. Like Terminator, the beast that can't be reasoned with and can't be bargained with.

Category 3: Tragic Vampire:
Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula was a beast in disguise.

Welcome to my humble abode. Leave the hope behind... and bring some bacon!

Count Dracula was a mischievous one. He was a shapeshifter, he was God's very own shadow. He was unbeatable, he could control the weather. But his true longing wasn't for blood but for death. He was a tragic vampire.
This movie also had few scenes that some prude critics couldn't explain, but Stephen King put it blantly: When Dracula sucks Lucy's blood, she has an orgasm that her brains explodes. Dracula was here an animal, and we see it clearly that he was "possessing" Lusy in his animal, or hybrid form, never in his human form. This is significant about my next point, after categorizing.

Category 4: Morality Vampire
It was Interview with the Vampire (as a movie) that gave to the vampires face of Brad Pitt or Antonio Banderas. Therefore, vampires started to be seen as sexy ones.

I will give you the choice I didn't have. Who is more gayish: Keunsuk or Twilight vampires?

But what's more interesting in this movie is the fact that we have the whole palette of vampires (like in the book). Louis is a vampire by the accident, yes, he was sad, yes, he longed for death and was unable to commit suicide. Yet he was unable to withstand the luring of Lestat.
It was the attempt to give more layers to the psychology of the vampire. We had Louis with his dillema and we had Lestat without any moral inhibitors. Going along Vampire Psychology (book written by Dammit Bullshit), Lestat is a true vampire. He just wants blood and more blood. He mocks Louis for drinking blood of rats. He has perseverance and will to exist. He's a superb example of a decadent, immoral vampire.

Category 5: Just-blood Vampire:

What? A wholesale at Happy Butcher??

Basically it was just blood what he wanted. Preferably blood of young virgins, whom he could lure with his magnetic gaze and vibrating voice. But not attractive at all in the vampire-mode. The same was with FFC's Dracula, he wasn't beautiful after tasting blood. Even if he wanted to break the mad circle, he couldn't do it.

Category 6: Vampires - researchers

Do I look like a gargoyle to you? Do I, punk?

First step to eliminate the blood lust and feeding on humans. They invented an artificial blood. OK, I can go with it as long as they have fangs and can put up a real fight proving they are NOT humans. But the movie fails badly in the vampire mythology point - they have sex.

Category 7: Glittering douchebags:

We are strong, we are white, we are douchebag dynamite!

Ok, I try to write something on those vampires... They are not vampires.
They are vegetarian. So they don't even taste a rat or a horse? Rats are yummy, just ask Louis^^ What a BULLSHIT!! Vampire is a blood-craving animal by the definition. Removing blood from their menu is like asking a snake to drink a flower nectar instead of munching on some nice mouse.
I know what Stephanie Meyers tried to achieve, she wanted to put her own beliefs in the form of the book, you know, no pre-nuptial sex, pure love, overcoming all obstacles and fighting the whole world. I got it, maybe this world is a bit hedonic, but for the love of fangs, don't make pussies out of the most dangerous mythical creatures!!
Lilitu suked blood in Mesopotamy, vetalas were highly seductive and blood-thirsty demons in India, striges were ravaging Middle European countries, but no one tried to civilized them! Because you can't civilize what belongs to the night, what belongs to the terror and is made out of fear and superstition!
Vampires and all their kind had their place in the imagination. They kept people safe, really. If anything happened in some village, inhabitants had the answer: dark powers are upon us. It was the perfect explanation, the line dividing sacrum and profanum. Creatures made of fear and darkness were substantial to the proper functioning of the society.

Now we got carrot-loving vampires that can parade under the sun. They don't do it because... OK, let me regain my senses... because they... glitter. Yes, glitter!!
(Omo, Keunsuk, are you a vampire??).
I have no idea what our mormon lady took that night (or day) when she imagined a glittering vampire. All the meth in the world wouldn't cause me the same outcome. I mean, I wanna take what she does, my life will be more... ekhem... sparkling.
They glitter and they have no apparent will to have sex.
OK, vampires actually don't need sex. They take the pleasure and have orgasm just because of sucking the blood (the symbolic of it is easy to explain). That is why Underworld movies are a bit unrealistic in that point. Haha! Unrealistic when talking about vampires, haha!!
Pure love, they live like a family and care about your feelings...
Lets be frank, vampire is a lone wolf. He's a predator, he can't share his territory with any of his own kind. That is why vampire is so frightening, because he has no relations to whatever except his mother-earth (symbolism of earth as a mother is very old, and proves once again, how old is the myth of vampires. Hiding into the coffin or sepulctrum is one of the rites so called going back to womb. Contact with motherland can bring back the lost strength, we all know greek mythology, right? That is why vampires hide in the earth. That is why Dracula voyaged to London with boxes of earth, and he didn't need the coffin to sleep in). He can sleep in the coffin or just inside the filled with earth box.
And here comes another Twilight bullshit!! Vampires don't sleep. Let me put this straight - then how they regenerate? They don't drink blood that keeps them alive and keen to surroundings, then how, how?? They are just paper dolls.
Stephanie Meyers just neglected one golden rule of writing fantasy. When you make up everything, just make it believable. If you create a new race, you have to think about everything. She just thought about glittering douchebags and screwed their biology up!
And I was worried my stories were bad...


How to kill a vampire?
Simple, write the continuation of Twilight saga.