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 Posted: Mon Jul 09, 2007 10:11 am
Statement no.1:I've said other things in the EFD about vampires; making statements that not all of them are evil. Sir Kirbance's argument was that they are all evil because of their nature. However, the truth be unknown as such, and I consider them to be a different "species". Indeed they are considered to be a kind of demon.
However, you have many stereotypes of many different beings in fantasy worlds. In the Forgotten Realms, all drow are said to be evil, yet Drizzt is not, and there have been a small number of others similar to him as well.
Thinking about things this way means you could say that all humans are good or evil, that all dwarves are good or evil, and that all elves are good or evil. We've created humans to be either, dwarves to be indifferent but mostly good, and elves in general to be good and righteous. Yet why are all the other races that we know to be primarily malevolent ruled out of every possibility of being good. Ogres are bad right? What about Shrek. Orcs are bad right? What about the orcs in the Elder Scrolls world, Tamriel.
Moving on to the subject area, vampires. They're all bad? Yes, D and Alucard are both dhampires (or in the VHD world, D is called a dunpeal rather than a dhampire), but there are others. These include: Meier Link (Vampire Hunter D - Bloodlust), Abel Nightroad (a Crusnik Vampire in Trinity Blood), Lestat and Louis (in Anne Rice's writing - though Lestat started off evil and became good over time).
My thoughts? Their nature and instincts are evil, but then the basic human nature is selfishness to a large degree even though there are many selfless people around. To some degree, every human being is selfish. Getting my drift here? Some vampires like those listed about have good intentions and are good individuals, but their instincts lie in darkness. This means that they can target people and execute their evil deeds on others who are wicked rather those who are innocent.
Statement no.2: I've always wondered about the anatomy of vampires. I've spoken to a couple of friends about it as well, including my ex (Matt - aka LazarusOwenhart).
You'll see in many vampire stories, films and games that a vampire can drink and drink and drink. How? It implies that as soon as they drink, the blood is metabolised immediately so they can continue as much as they want. Whatever happened to satiety?
Supporting Biological Information
Litres-Pints Supporting Information
There are almost 2 pints to a litre, and the human body has roughly 5 litres (about 8.81 pints) in the average adult. Have a look at the information provided.
If vampires metabolised the blood they drank immediately, they'd never feel sated, and you'll have seen that most do feel when they've had enough, yet you'll also have seen that some will drink several human beings dry in a single night. It doesn't make sense to me. Therefore, I've said that in my world, vampires would take one or two a night, spacing the times out like we do with our meals.
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Posted: Mon Jul 09, 2007 1:22 pm
We had a long talk about this didn't we?
I don't get it really...I just go by what I think and believe not what some book or film says. It's just something you have to decide for yourself right?
Just like you said, drows are seen evil yet some are not. Not all Vampires are evil....D wasn't....Louie wasn't..Lestat wasn't to an extent...it's up to what you want them to be to work in the ways you want.
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Posted: Mon Jul 09, 2007 3:08 pm
Care to elaborate on your opinions?
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Posted: Tue Jul 10, 2007 3:01 am
Dragoon_Arcadia We had a long talk about this didn't we?
I don't get it really...I just go by what I think and believe not what some book or film says. It's just something you have to decide for yourself right?
Just like you said, drows are seen evil yet some are not. Not all Vampires are evil....D wasn't....Louie wasn't..Lestat wasn't to an extent...it's up to what you want them to be to work in the ways you want.
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B-rad the Vampiric Shadow
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Posted: Tue Jul 10, 2007 11:42 am
B-rad the Master of Winds Dragoon_Arcadia We had a long talk about this didn't we?
I don't get it really...I just go by what I think and believe not what some book or film says. It's just something you have to decide for yourself right?
Just like you said, drows are seen evil yet some are not. Not all Vampires are evil....D wasn't....Louie wasn't..Lestat wasn't to an extent...it's up to what you want them to be to work in the ways you want.
I think everything has to have a logical explanation, and physical aspects are one of them.
I do hope people aren't going to agree with something just for the sake of it without presenting any evidence from the myths and stereotypes that we know, or stating why they think such things.
When it comes to vampires being evil, yes people can believe whatever they wish to. However, people get into the habit of believing in stereotypes, just because they're the norm.
On the other hand, what about my second statement? They obviously sense satiety, what would be your explanation?
Your example of a vampire disliking killing, but still being considered to be evil by some could put him/her on the same level as any other creature that kills, including humans. Many humans "kill". America, for example, puts murderers on death row. I say that's evil. However, you may say they deserve to die because they are murderers. How then could a vampire that kills only those who are wicked be construed as evil if (using humans as an example) humans who kill the wicked are not considered to be evil? Just because he/she is a vampire? See the pattern here?
Otherwise, there's also statement 2 to consider, like I just mentioned. If people are going to post saying "you can think what you want", please add your own thoughts because this is an Extended Fantasy Discussion topic.
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Posted: Wed Jul 11, 2007 2:33 pm
I've never really been into vampires, but I wanted to add to your list of "good vampires" Angel from Buffy the Vampire slayer series... later a spinoff series of his own.
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Posted: Wed Jul 11, 2007 2:45 pm
Ahh come on, they're great! ^_^' In many ways.
I don't really understand what's so sexy about them, but they just ARE. *Drools over Abel Nightroad.*
Ok back to the discussion!
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Posted: Fri Jul 13, 2007 10:43 pm
This gives many interesting things to talk about.
1. When I think of vampires as evil it is in a different context as thinking that something like drow elves (of Dridzzt fame) are evil. In the case of the dark elves, the evil is largely a cultural phenomenon. Drow are not inherantly biologically evil, they are just all raised that way. Vampires on the other hand are supernatural beings, undead. In my mind this is ultimately the product of evil. This is why in another thread I made a point to distinguish between true vampires, and vampire spawn which are just really the victims of vampires.
2. As for the biology of vampires, many intesting avenues are available if we study real world blood suckers. Vampire bats for example have saliva that prevents blood from clotting. I even saw a documentary once about sabre toothed cats where one professor theorized that these large carnivores were blood drinkers, using their sabre teeth to puncture the jugular veins of prey and then the blood would flow down grooves in the fangs into the mouth. As for instandly metabolizing blood, I am not sure what you mean unless you mean the blood is somehow absorbed directly into the vampires own bloodstream without digestion. This might make sense as vampires are technically undead and therefore maybe could not produce their own blood cells, or something like that.
This is all really very interesting.
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Posted: Sat Jul 14, 2007 8:57 am
I find it difficult to think of vampires as "undead". It's just a term that means animated corpse. Yet vampirism acts like a virus which overtakes the body, killing the human chemistry and replacing it with its own. I then think of the human aspects of the body are "dead", yet the person is still living, or dies and is resurrected as a different species. I hope that makes sense. confused
Hypnocrown would be able to shed more light on this aspect, because only people who've played Castlevania games or watched Vampire Hunter D are likely to recognise that Alucard and D are both dhampires (half human and half vampire). Personally, I don't think you can be both alive and undead at the same time. I'm not too sure about dhampires in my own world, because I've never thought of adding them to be perfectly honest. If vampires were truly undead, then they'd be mindless. They would just be corpses wandering around the place, when we know them to be - for the most part - intelligent and clever.
I'm not sure what you mean by "true vampire". In our world, the mythology is that it was all started by Vlad (The Impaler) Tepes, whose beloved killed herself when she thought that he had died. It was said that if you took your own life, God would not accept you into Heaven and you were damned. Therefore it is said that Vlad renounced God and took the power of the Devil which turned him into the vampire, Dracula.
However, there's a little bit of a difference between your thoughts and mine. Vampirism, like I said, acts like a virus. There are two said ways of a person being turned. Those are: that you are bitten and slowly change (Bram Stoker's version), and that you are bitten by the vampire and then the vampire makes you drink their blood also. That then takes hold and alters the chemistry of the human body to suit itself. This is how vampires "procreate". Therefore, all vampires are true unless they are dhampires.
As for their metabolism, if they were truly undead, that might be a factor. Yet this would mean they would need to continuously feed and pretty much never stop. I mentioned before that they do sense satiety (fullness). Zombies just keep going and going and going. They don't stop AT ALL. Their one thought is to keep their dead bodies moving, because if they could stop, there would be no way for them to replenish their continually dying blood cells. Vampires can sleep for days, weeks, months, years or centuries (whatever floats your boat), and they can go some time (a couple of weeks to a month) without feeding if they remain active.
If they were truly undead, they would need to keep replenishing their energy levels constantly.
Again, back to the issue of "evil". Only if you conform to the stereotype. If a person is easily influenced to do bad things, then I would assume they would be evil if given a supernatural power. It's no different to say "dragons hoard treasure". What about Orcs then? In Tolkien's world all Orcs are evil, yet in the Elder Scrolls world, Tamriel, there are a great number of good orcs who live just like other people, and they co-exist.
Ok, so all cats are predators, right? They're natural hunters. Some cats don't hunt. Why? You might say because their owners teach them to be that way because they get fed by them. I've never forced my cat to be the way he is, and he rushes outside and hunts. He's very successful I might add. Yet other cats we've had, we'ved never tried to teach otherwise and they've just been placid and laid back, and have never attempted to hunt.
YET! A cat's natural instinct is to be a hunter. Why should vampires be any different than that? If other species can choose to be different, why not a race that is known to be mostly evil? You'll always find a few exceptions in some places.
Sorry if I'm confusing anyone!
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Posted: Tue Jul 17, 2007 7:21 pm
DM_Melkhar I find it difficult to think of vampires as "undead". It's just a term that means animated corpse. Yet vampirism acts like a virus which overtakes the body, killing the human chemistry and replacing it with its own. I then think of the human aspects of the body are "dead", yet the person is still living, or dies and is resurrected as a different species. I hope that makes sense. confused If you think of vampirism as a virus that does make things a little different. I have kind of thought of lycanthropes that way, but never vampires. It does make sense in a way, though I would still argue that it is a big divergence from historical vampire lore. But that's what makes fantasy fun, it doesn't have to fit the historical lore perfectly. I even toyed with a storyline where there was alycanthrope colony, rather like a leper colony. In my story line people though that the lycanthropes were evil and viscious, but that steryotype came about because in my stroy lycanthropy as a disease was copandemic with rabies. Kind of silly I guess.
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Posted: Wed Jul 18, 2007 8:03 am
I don't really think of it as a virus, but rather that it acts LIKE one when a person is turned into one. I suppose the same can be said for lycans.
Once turned, the person is a complete vampire and there is no way to reverse the process or cure it (in the Elder Scrolls world it's considered to be an illness and can be cured). I simply think that a vampire's blood has something like a virus that initiates the process of turning a person into one. Once a vampire is created, I wouldn't then think of the race being so because they're under the influence of the virus. I don't think that at all.
Does that make sense? That it acts like a virus initially...?
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Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2007 8:55 am
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Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2007 9:28 am
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Posted: Tue Jul 24, 2007 6:28 am
"The Body Snatchers is a 1955 science fiction novel by Jack Finney, originally serialized in Colliers Magazine in 1954, which describes Earth being invaded by seeds which have drifted to Earth from space. The seeds take over human bodies and replace them with simulations grown from plantlike pods, perfect physical duplicates who kill and dispose of their human victims." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Body_SnatchersOn second thought that doesn't sound very much like vampires at all.
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Posted: Tue Jul 24, 2007 10:26 am
Alright...
Anyway, the idea that it acts like a virus, for me, demonstrates that the way a vampire's biology/chemistry works means that it needs to overtake the body.
My idea is that when a person is bitten, the only danger to them is the loss of blood which kills them. However, in most stories (though not all), the victim is bitten and the vampire drinks their blood, but to be turned the victim THEN has to drink the blood of the vampire. That's how it works in my world as well.
Hideyuki Kikuchi who wrote the books of Vampire Hunter D used Bram Stoker's idea of when you're bitten, you're already cursed and it takes a matter of time for the victim to become a vampire. I don't particularly like that way of doing it, but it doesn't stop me from reading in that style.
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