A Serious Question

[seventhe]

Comment and tell me everything you "know" about vampires.

Comments

[selryel.livejournal.com]

So I've always been the mythology nerd that can distinguish between a cockatrice and a basilisk, and I minored in anthropology, so any answer I immediately give is going to shade towards the Teal Deer.

The blood/life-eating monster myths date back to, like Mesopotamia and cut across cultures, so the topic is... huge. Like "tell me everything you know about deities".

Is there any possible narrowing of the field, or should I just start spewing vampire words starting with Sumeria and going from there?

[first-seventhe.livejournal.com]

Well, we really are interested in that broad of a sense. But I don't necessarily need the lecture notes - more of a reference sheet. Perhaps a different way to phrase it might be "What would you "expect" to see from vampires in the literature, if you were reading a book and vamps showed up?"

Which is also its own broad question, but we're interested in both the foundations AND the modern cliches/perceptions. >.> (Which is why I've asked the general public-at-my-journal rather than just started hitting up the web.)

[salarta.livejournal.com]

"We" eh? Who are you writing with! :)

[selryel.livejournal.com]

I think for me part of what I would expect is based on the cultural tradition of the vampire in question. If it's your run-of-the-mill post-Dracula pop-culture vampire, turning into a bat is fine (no vampire bats in Europe, and "vampire bat" took the name from the myth, near as anyone can tell), but if it's a nukekubi, I'll want the head to detach and fly around.

I like the less well-known aspects of the myth, they make me feel like someone's at least paying attention to something that predates Ann Rice. Like in X-Files, the episode "Bad Blood" (one of my favorites) when Mulder threw seeds on the ground, making the vampire count them all, I got a wonderful frisson of nerd-glee (that one is interestingly cross cultural -- both European and Chinese myths mention the need to count). Casting no shadow and/or reflection is always good. Cannot cross running water.

Vulnerability to sunlight is actually one of the more modern additions to the myth. Count Orlok (the vampire from the 1922 film Nosferatu) dies when exposed to sunlight. But even Dracula was a-okay with the sun -- the are multiple instances in the book of him being out and about during the day. So when someone turns to dust in the sun, I immediately think "movie monster."