Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Vampire Physics

With all the Vampire media out there, many different versions of vampires come into sight. Vampires are placed into the modern world, and things are different from standard Dracula. Most are the usual, dead bodies with a soul in them walking the earth. Small differences make some Vampires more legit than others, and all seems to have strength higher than any human and speed fast enough to catch their own football pass. Take for instance the "Twilight" phenomenon (based on Twilight series of novels). In that world, vampires not only can walk in the daylight, but what happens to them isn't a burning like in most story lines, but they simply sparkle, adding to their "romance-ability". However, this seems to be the only media I have seen that allowed day walking so easily. Even in the Canadian "My Babysitter's a Vampire" there are consequences for day walking, or at least they are implied. In the movie, the vamps wear sunglasses. In both the mediums listed above, the formation of vampires is as simple as a single bite, which injects a venom that somehow kills the host and turns them into a vampire. The only thing I cannot get is the "fledgling" stage. While this is an interesting twist, it doesn't solve the case of the blood being living, and being human blood. That concludes what I call "kiddy vampires". For these, I choose the later vampires as being more legit. They are more believable to be vampires.

Going into the more advances forms of modern vampire, the earliest I can find is shown, being from Vampire Diaries. Based on novels written during the early 90s, these predate both Twilight and the True Blood vampires (which are based before Twilight in their own book series starting in 2001). I have only knowledge of this type of vampire from testimony, but do plan on watching some, renting from my local library if possible.  These vampires cannot day walk in any way without burning, die from all forms of death, and gain new forms such as holy water (which seems to be another form of weapon in most vampire media). I do plan on learning more about this story.

True Blood however I put on a pedestal, it places vampires in the modern world best. Vampires can day walk, but this is due to a loophole which I will only say involves drinking a certain creature's blood to near death levels. They have the same quick step, but it is based on age. The older the vampire, the stronger and faster they are. So far, the oldest vampire seen is 3000 years old, and he caused a ton of trouble (check out season 3). Vampires lived in a monarchy system, with each state having a vampire monarch. This is an interesting twist to vampire law, something that is only hinted at in most media I have seen. Vampires in True Blood have few death types. These include death by sun, fire, or stake. The last one has some great twists with wooden bullets near the end.

Personally, in the modernly placed Vampires, I love the True Blood ones best, then with the "kiddy" forms, the Canadian show, "My Babysitter's a Vampire" works well. But, I am simply a blogger, take your own spin on this, and decide for yourself.

3 comments:

  1. Dear Mr. Quick:

    I understand you have recently taken an interest in the mythos of vampires, and their depiction in modern popular culture. I am quite happy with this, as the depiction of vampires is an interesting subject to discuss and to research. You, unfortunately, seem to have chosen to barely scratch the surface of depictions of vampires in both classical and modern settings. Allow me to educate you:

    First of all, you make little to no mention of the 'classic' vampires of the era of "penny dreadfuls"- vampires like the sapphic Carmulla, or the infamous Count Dracula of Stoker's novel. These early vampire novels established rules that seem quite alien to the modern vampires in some ways- in addition to both being completely unfazed by sunlight beyond a slight aversion and preferring the night vastly, Dracula and Carmulla required far more effort to kill than a simple stake to the heart. Stoker's novel makes reference to the 'proper' method of killing a vampire being impaling them with a stake or knife, then cutting off their head and filling the mouth with garlic. Dracula himself is killed when stabbed with one knife followed by his throat being slashed by a second. These 'early' vampires exhibited a vast range of powers most 'modern' vampires seem to forget- the ability to change into bats, rats, and wolves, and the ability to manipulate the elements. Dracula was able to control many species of animals as well, at one point manipulating an asylum's guard dogs. These early vampires- particularly Dracula- formed the basis for the modern-day versions we are more used to.

    The power of sunlight to inflict lethal injury upon a vampire is a relatively recent addition to the mythos- it was introduced in the silent film "Nosferatu", and was so memorable that it eventually became absorbed into the vampire mythos of several adaptations which followed, including many film versions of "Dracula". Every vampire series since seems to feel the need to address the sunlight weakness of vampires, or the lack thereof, in some way or another.

    ReplyDelete
  2. You have a very short, incomplete list of modern vampires who are not "kiddie"- I respectfully submit the depictions of the undead in Hellsing, Karin, or even the visual novel Tsukihime as concepts of vampires that, while they deviate from the traditional stories in many ways, are both new, interesting, and in many ways frightening. Hellsing, in particular, pays quite a bit of lip service to old vampire legends- Alucard, the leading character, has many of his more impressive abilities as a vampire explained as being the result either of his exceptional age and the sheer number of souls he's consumed in that time, or the experiments performed on him by the original Van Helsing. Other, less-powerful vampires are far more vulnerable to such pitfalls as crucifixes, or even conventional military weaponry.

    In short, I found your report on vampire "physics" woefully inadequate, and inaccurately titled- there is little to do with physics in this entry, and precious little to do with early vs. more modern depictions of vampirism. I do hope you correct this at some point. As a hint, it helps to have actually read or watched the media you comment on. Just a thought.

    Cordially,

    -Twilight Sparkle

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hello Scarlet. I would first like to thank you for coming over to my blogspot. I am very thankful you have once again taken the time to comment me in other places of which aren't Janime. Second, I am very sorry for this confusion. I can see you are very upset about it. You see, I planned for my audience to be familiar with the old mythos of Vampires. such as Dracula and Nosforatu. I planned to detail more of modernly placed vampires, such as True Bloods, "coming out of the coffin" vampires, and how they interact with our modern world. This does not however excuse me for leaving out the obvious Hellsing and others of which I might have miss that might follow this. However, I am merely a blogger, what you read is what you get.

    Once again, thanks for coming to my blogspot, I need all the exposure I can get, positive or negative. I hope you enjoy your visit at Cohen the Quick

    ~ Cohen the Quick

    ReplyDelete