September 6, 2016
The thing that people seem to have forgotten. Being undead isn’t supposed to be some blessing where you’re gifted these special powers. Traditionally being a vampire, in the classical sense, was a curse. Not dying was a bad thing. You didn’t complete your life, your soul didn’t go to heaven. You are forever trapped in this mortal world.
While the literary vampire really started to take shape with Bram Stoker’s novel, legends of undead creatures who roamed the countryside at night have been around for centuries and weren’t limited to the eastern European castle dwelling variety. No, there are tales of vampire-like creatures from every culture going back as far as ancient Mesopotamia. And in every instance, they were creatures to be avoided or destroyed at first possible chance.
Decapitating corpses was one method. The traditional stake through the heart, while it makes for great conflict when fighting vampires on the silver screen, was actually more along the lines of staking their bodies to their coffins so they wouldn’t escape and roam around at night. Other, simpler methods were running water. No, really. Ancient legends kept that vampires couldn’t cross running water. I need to follow up that one to figure out why.
Perhaps it was Mr. Stoker’s modern take on the legend that started the vampire’s super powers. Bestowing these figures with dark, mystical forces that allowed them to shift into other creatures of the night, become like the mist and every writer, looking for a new take on the same old story started to give them more and more powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men. Super speed? Sure. Flight? Why not? Glitter in the sunlight? Ok…
Oddly enough, most of those traits don’t bother me so much as the recent explosion of vampire dens. The pack mentality that has taken hold with writers with regards to vampires. That’s where I draw the line. Realistically, a larger “pack” of hunter/predatory creatures are going to need a larger base of livestock to draw from to sustain their numbers. Albeit, that depends significantly on their feeding pattern and just how much they actually consume to sustain themselves. But, as some movies have shown, if one vampire needs to feed on one victim per night, then a pack of say, 50 vampires (Underworld film series) are going to need that many victims per night to sustain their numbers. Can you imagine 50 people disappearing NIGHTLY in ANY city and no one panicking about it? Even in a film like, Interview with the Vampire, you had the French vampire theater with say, a dozen vampires? How many people could they realistically consume during their nightly performances even in post-revolutionary France?
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