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[bloop_bleep]

This recent discussion just made me notice how many different things are attributed to vampires.

• No reflection
• Can turn into bat
• Burns in sunlight
• Is vulnerable to exposed crucifixes
• Cannot feel fear

There are dozens of others which I didn't list here. I understand that a lot of these traits are developed independently in folklore, and that any given description would contain only a small subset of them, but it's still staggering how many of them there are.

[Egan_BW]

Hehe, just look at the list of possible powers vampires can get in world of darkness. Complicated creatures.

[bloop_bleep]

Okay, will someone care to explain *why the hell* my post is rendered incorrectly like that? When I try to edit it, a bunch of list tags are added in which weren't there when I last saved. On mobile BTW.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

The list formatting has been broken since the broken SMF update.

[George_Chickens]

Do crabs think fish can fly?

[bloop_bleep]

Do crabs think fish can fly?

Depends on whether crabs have the mental capacity to understand the concept of flying, which they probably don't. Generally speaking animals can't think much deeper than "find food, move around, reproduce."

[Reelya]

This recent discussion just made me notice how many different things are attributed to vampires.

• No reflection
• Can turn into bat
• Burns in sunlight
• Is vulnerable to exposed crucifixes
• Cannot feel fear

There are dozens of others which I didn't list here. I understand that a lot of these traits are developed independently in folklore, and that any given description would contain only a small subset of them, but it's still staggering how many of them there are.

Okay, will someone care to explain *why the hell* my post is rendered incorrectly like that? When I try to edit it, a bunch of list tags are added in which weren't there when I last saved. On mobile BTW.

One of your "li" tags was capital-I-for-indigo instead of lowercase l-for-lima. So you've got broken tags meaning it sees the list "end" then sees new li tags, so decided that's a new list that lacks outer "list" tags, and that it should wrap the whole post in new "list" tags ...

...

Many of those traits aren't "folklore" at all, they started in 19th Century English fiction or the 20th century movie-era.

Vampires and Sunlight only dates to the 1920 silent movie "nosferatu"
https://www.vampires.com/sunlight-and-vampires/comment-page-1/

Vampires and Cruxifixes was a concept introduced by Bram Stoker
http://www.brokendownhalo.aftn.co.uk/crucifixes.html

Vampires and Mirrors, was also concocted wholesale by Bram Stoker
https://mythology.stackexchange.com/questions/1023/origin-of-the-vampires-have-no-reflection-myth

Same with the shapechanging to bats thing. While bats and bat-wings were associated with evil beforehand, there was no shapechanging-to-bat legend about vampires, specifically
https://www.vampires.com/who-originated-the-idea-that-vampires-turn-into-bats/

The "cannot feel fear" thing, I'm inclined to say that this is purely down to dungeons and dragons and how it systemized rules for effects such as Fear. Vampires in movies do express alarm about e.g. being exposed to sunlight or otherwise being about to die. Also, it's questionable whether ther D&D rules mean no vampire ever gets scared whatsoever, or whether they're just immune to magical "fear effects".

Also the "elegant" vampire only dates from an 1819 English short story. This was embellished on by writers leading up to Bram Stoker
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Vampyre

"Folklore" vampires were described as bloated and ruddy corpses getting up and feeding on humans. They looked like corpses, so there was no need for the "mirror" thing: that only became narratively useful once the English "vampire count" idea came along about vampires who pass themselves off as humans.

In fact, folklore vampire sound awfully like Romero Zombies, which might explain the popularity of the modern "zombie" trope. Originally, that role was filled by vampires! But when the Bram Stoker vampire became the staple, there was an "opening" for the "killer corpse" thing again.

[scriver]

Random weird thought for today: being vulnerable to a wooden stake through the heart is normal, it's going to ruin your day whether you're a vampire or not, isn't it?

Yes. The difference is that they won't have their say ruined by a clay stake, unlike us.

[Egan_BW]

Also staked vampires instantly turn into dust while living humans get a bit of time to excruciatingly bleed to death.

[bloop_bleep]

One of your "li" tags was capital-I-for-indigo instead of lowercase l-for-lima. So you've got broken tags meaning it sees the list "end" then sees new li tags, so decided that's a new list that lacks outer "list" tags, and that it should wrap the whole post in new "list" tags ...

Thanks, fixed.

[scourge728]

In fact, folklore vampire sound awfully like Romero Zombies, which might explain the popularity of the modern "zombie" trope. Originally, that role was filled by vampires! But when the Bram Stoker vampire became the staple, there was an "opening" for the "killer corpse" thing again.

If I recall, the original vampires and zombies were basicly the same thing, just from different places

As for a random thing, the point at which the inside of a chicken egg will violently explode out

[AzyWng]

Posting to watch.

[martinuzz]

I thought zombies came from Voodoo culture, unrelated to vampires.

<checking>

Indeed. Even the word 'zombie' comes from the Haitian creole 'zonbi'

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zombie

[AzyWng]

The word "Zombie" also sounds like "Nzambi a Mpungu," a Kongo creator god.

Wikipedia's article is pretty bare-bones, can probably find more info on him/her/it/some other fourth thing, but still. Nzambi.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

The concept of zombies predate voodoo, in fact. Some of the inspiration for "you gotta shoot em in the head" may or may not come from Zumbi dos Palmares, who rebelled against Portuguese slavery and was infamously unkillable to the point that both his friends and enemies started to spread rumors that he was immortal. After he finally was killed, they cut off his head to prove it.