Biting Questions
I was thinking about vampires. They've got all sorts of crazy rules. Sunlight hurts them. Crosses hurt them. Garlic hurts them. (These are general rules--not all vampires follow them). A stake through the heart kills them (ditto for regular people). For beings so tough they've certainly got a lot of weaknesses.
But the biggest question I have is about mirrors. How come they don't have any reflection? Is it because they don't have souls, and you need one for a reflection? That can't be, since you can see non-living things in a mirror. And is this rule just for mirrors--what about glass, or any shiny surface where you might see yourself? And vampires usually have such neatly done hair? How?
For that matter, do vampires cast shadows? I know that's a different thing, but it seems to me if you don't have a reflection, you might as well not have a shadow.
posted by LAGuy @ 12:15 AM
5 Comments:
It seems every vampire series really has its own set of rules. One of the modern series (think it was called "Saints and Shadows")had this explanation- vampirism is a contagion (natch) which is for complex biochemical reasons- which confers upon the infected an incredible power to control every cell in one's body (in this series- the vamps are still essentially themselves but with super vamp powers) - because of this incredible mental control- they can cause a lot of the typical vamp damage to them selves- i.e. if they mentally convince themselves that sunlight or walking into holy areas* will kill them, it will. They can also drink other mammal blood to quench their blood thirst (but hey its like near beer- just not as good)- also there is a special procedure to create a new vamp and pass the virus so all the bitten don't just automatically turn. Failure to drink causes stasis but not death and they are not immortal just capable of living many thousands of year (so just as good)- I believe either Charlemagne or Barbarossa come back from "the dead" with his warriors to fight some menace. I'm forgetting how they did the mirror/shadow thing.
Of course, other books have other rules. True Blood has some weird rules of their own which were developed I believe for more cinematic reasons- like a good hit on the vampire sweet spot causes an immediate explosion of blood and guts (Walking Dead does this too with zombies)
* So the church is both much weaker and more powerful than we thought- its religion does nothing to the creatures but its had the ability to control the minds of its believers and the more general populace has caused vampires to acquire unshakeable beliefs which can't be questioned- of course they fact that we are discussing all of the vampire possibilities on an open web discussion kind of shows the limits of such power in a more modern age. I think the church was staffed generally with power-hungry magicians and pedophiles as well in this series. (I.e. the vampires turned out to be the real saints and hope for humanity)
I agree that the math makes no sense. Nearly all vampire fictions also agree that vampires can easily kill humans, and the vast majority of humans are unaware of the existence of vampires. So even without turning dead humans into new vampires, a group of vampires could annihilate a medium-size town very quickly.
There was one Angel episode where a Tony Robbins-type guy became a vampire and started a cult whose goal was for each new vampire to turn two humans into vampires, and expand exponentially. He led his audience in the inspirational chant, "Turn two; the rest are food." But that was the only time a vampire came up with that obvious idea.
In some vampire stories it's only the vampire who starts the line that can turn humans into vampires. Though how did that first one get the power?
In The Simpsons, if you kill the head vampire, all of his/her creations and sub creations die too. That rule would potentially limit vampire populations a lot.
It would also make being a vampire pretty unpleasant, since even if you avoid sunlight, crosses, garlic and stakes, you could still die if the head vampire isn't paying attention. (Though I think in The Simpsons killing the head vampire allows his or her creations to live on as normal beings. This is also the rule in the little-seen movie from last year, Vamps.)
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