A
adopted_heir
Guest
Haha–I call my kids “wiggle-wobble,” as in “Wiggle wobbles but he won’t fall down!”
Perhaps what’s missing here is what a vampire stands for. Not all fiction is allegorical, but the vampire in most cases definitely is. In the oldest European traditions, the vampire is symbolic of pure evil, of course, like the consequences of an evil life that live after the sinner is dead. It is a mundane version of Satan, prowling around and devouring, consuming the living. It’s a warning of the peacelessness that comes with dying in a state of mortal sin, a reminder that outside of Christ’s mercy, the soul’s eternal life is doomed to eternal death. Remember the adage, “There but for the grace of God go I”? So too thought the European villagers who feared vampires rising among their dead.
With most symbols, there is more than one meaning. Vampires can be construed as a picture of each of us, regular people, who are consumed and damned by sin. We are all obsessed and inclined toward sin, like the vampire desires the blood of its victim. These wiggle-woggle vampires embody the struggle that each of us faces when we try to defeat our compunction to sin. Meyer’s vampires especially seem to embody that. They are beautiful when exposed to sunlight, like we are beautifully made in God’s light, but made imperfect by our sins. They battle their sinfulness as we should, every day, and long for a time when they will be free of that stain. That also is why we see so many over-sexed vampires, or ones who not only crave blood but thrive on lust and passion and all that fun stuff. Over-emotional, maybe. Ridiculously romantic, yes.
But then wasn’t Bram Stoker’s Dracula? Hello, it was written at the height of Gothic romance. Stoker’s book was written in Victorian England, repressive of any overt passion or sexuality, and Dracula was a symbol of passion overcoming restrictive convention and propriety. Its sensuality was downright scandalous. Lucy and Mina swooned left and right. Jonathan was … attacked … by Dracula’s women and was made their sordid captive. As for vampires being loveless, Dracula loved Mina Harker! He seduced Lucy, but he loved Mina.
As far as eschewing convention and recreating vampires to be different than what they have traditionally been known to be, Eastern Europeans were outraged by Stoker’s mistreatment of their folktales, not to mention how their hero Vlad Tepes, “Dracul,” has been demonized by his story.
If you can’t change the story, or the details, or the characters, then there’s no use in writing the story to begin with. Dracula’s already been written, if somebody wants to read it they can pick it up in the library for free, they don’t have to reinvent the wheel. If somebody wants a new vampire story, the author has every right to challenge convention, upset the tables, topple some tradition and make things a little interesting again. The sympathetic vampire is still a vampire essentially (remembering that Dracula spared Mina’s life because he loved her and wanted her with him for eternity). The problem is that the evolution has stopped and all we have is sympathetic vampires, shmaltzing left and right and gooshing with teen angst and melodrama. That happens. The creative populace just has to give the genre a little boot to get things moving again, and the vampire will evolve again, picking up new themes and symbols as the cultural climate changes.
Changing vampires keeps them interesting, keeps them relevant to a constantly changing world. They have been in constant change since their beginning, that’s why we still care about them today.
Oh yeah, and it’s FICTION! The author can do whatever the heck he wants!!
Perhaps what’s missing here is what a vampire stands for. Not all fiction is allegorical, but the vampire in most cases definitely is. In the oldest European traditions, the vampire is symbolic of pure evil, of course, like the consequences of an evil life that live after the sinner is dead. It is a mundane version of Satan, prowling around and devouring, consuming the living. It’s a warning of the peacelessness that comes with dying in a state of mortal sin, a reminder that outside of Christ’s mercy, the soul’s eternal life is doomed to eternal death. Remember the adage, “There but for the grace of God go I”? So too thought the European villagers who feared vampires rising among their dead.
With most symbols, there is more than one meaning. Vampires can be construed as a picture of each of us, regular people, who are consumed and damned by sin. We are all obsessed and inclined toward sin, like the vampire desires the blood of its victim. These wiggle-woggle vampires embody the struggle that each of us faces when we try to defeat our compunction to sin. Meyer’s vampires especially seem to embody that. They are beautiful when exposed to sunlight, like we are beautifully made in God’s light, but made imperfect by our sins. They battle their sinfulness as we should, every day, and long for a time when they will be free of that stain. That also is why we see so many over-sexed vampires, or ones who not only crave blood but thrive on lust and passion and all that fun stuff. Over-emotional, maybe. Ridiculously romantic, yes.
But then wasn’t Bram Stoker’s Dracula? Hello, it was written at the height of Gothic romance. Stoker’s book was written in Victorian England, repressive of any overt passion or sexuality, and Dracula was a symbol of passion overcoming restrictive convention and propriety. Its sensuality was downright scandalous. Lucy and Mina swooned left and right. Jonathan was … attacked … by Dracula’s women and was made their sordid captive. As for vampires being loveless, Dracula loved Mina Harker! He seduced Lucy, but he loved Mina.
As far as eschewing convention and recreating vampires to be different than what they have traditionally been known to be, Eastern Europeans were outraged by Stoker’s mistreatment of their folktales, not to mention how their hero Vlad Tepes, “Dracul,” has been demonized by his story.
If you can’t change the story, or the details, or the characters, then there’s no use in writing the story to begin with. Dracula’s already been written, if somebody wants to read it they can pick it up in the library for free, they don’t have to reinvent the wheel. If somebody wants a new vampire story, the author has every right to challenge convention, upset the tables, topple some tradition and make things a little interesting again. The sympathetic vampire is still a vampire essentially (remembering that Dracula spared Mina’s life because he loved her and wanted her with him for eternity). The problem is that the evolution has stopped and all we have is sympathetic vampires, shmaltzing left and right and gooshing with teen angst and melodrama. That happens. The creative populace just has to give the genre a little boot to get things moving again, and the vampire will evolve again, picking up new themes and symbols as the cultural climate changes.
Changing vampires keeps them interesting, keeps them relevant to a constantly changing world. They have been in constant change since their beginning, that’s why we still care about them today.
Oh yeah, and it’s FICTION! The author can do whatever the heck he wants!!
A fictional universe cannot be equated to a fictional species since there have been many varied depictions of them in every story imaginable (these include elves, dragons, and yes, vampires).
I’d rather watch Samurai X than Care Bears any day.