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[The Transcendent Tyrant]

I don't get it.

What is the obsession with new age vampires? They all take away the essential concepts of what made vampires cool (and I can only presume attractive to women) and changed them completely.

Like the whole "emotionless" thing. Vampires are meant to be cold blooded killers who don't give a shit about anyone. When you give them emotions and make them just as human and irritating as everyone else, it kinda ruins it. I'd've thought it'd've put off women, too, but apparently changing something completely, making it drink blood and calling it a "vampire" makes it a god damn vampire.

In my mind, vampires represent death. They're cold, unstoppable and uncaring. Changing any of that for your average vampire (yes, sadly, Buffy falls under this too, but that's excusable due to "demons"), makes them not be a vampire.

As a contrast, werewolves are the forces of nature. Tornadoes, tsunamis, storms. They come fast and go fast and are barely predictable. They're emotional, hot-blooded and filled with rage.

But people try to be making vampires into werewolves that drink blood. I don't get why women LIKE this. Is the only thing sexy about vampires the fact they drink blood? That's a bit retarded and makes me feel like some women are seriously shallow. :|

Can anyone explain any of this?

[scriver]

Things change. Get over it.
edit: That was stupid, I regretted posting it the moment I submitted it, and I'm writing on a better post as of this moment. My apologies.

[fqllve]

Obviously they don't take away the concepts that make vampires cool, at least not to some people. Otherwise people wouldn't still think they're cool. They took away the concepts that you thought made them cool. For me, they haven't lost anything, because I never thought they were cool.

This happens, there's no reason to lament it. The cultural conception of vampires will change again in another half decade, and there's nothing about it that anyone can do except help it along.

If it bothers you so much why don't you write your own vampire stories done right.

e: I wish vampires were really New Age. Wearing all kinds of crystals, reading tarot, blathering about homeopathy. That would be hilarious.

[KaguroDraven]

Part of it might be that with newer vampire ideas it's no longer some form of magic that kills you then brings you back, IE representing death, and that in several newer things it's more of a disease. Another part might be the fact that one-dimentional "I keel you all and drink your blood, mwahahahahaha" characters are fucking boring. The fact is the single defineing fact that MAKES something a vampire is the fact they drink blood, hence Vampire Bats, though I'm not 100% which name came first. Yeah some of the newer shit is well....shit, IE twilight, but vampires themselves are based of myth, myths which have 1000 different versions. 

Also, as a large werewolf fan, I do feel the need to disagree with your assessment of Werewolves. Yes they are more connected to nature, but I fail to see how that would make them highly emotional and full of rage. If anything they would rely on instinct far more than emotion, since most animals use instinct more than emotion, humans are odd in that we use emotion over instinct.

[Nikov]

Things change, get over it.

Its okay Scriver, we can't all have balls like me.

[scriver]

Obviously they don't take away the concepts that make vampires cool, at least not to some people. Otherwise people wouldn't still think they're cool. They took away the concepts that you thought made them cool. For me, they haven't lost anything, because I never thought they were cool.

This happens, there's no reason to lament it. The cultural conception of vampires will change again in another half decade, and there's nothing about it that anyone can do except help it along.

This was posted during my edit and is basically what I feel. Remember, the kind of vampires you like did this to older kind of vampires once as well.

Also, as a large werewolf fan, I do feel the need to disagree with your assessment of Werewolves. Yes they are more connected to nature, but I fail to see how that would make them highly emotional and full of rage. If anything they would rely on instinct far more than emotion, since most animals use instinct more than emotion, humans are odd in that we use emotion over instinct.

Really? Instinct and emotion is basically the same thing. One begets the other in a very direct way.

Things change, get over it.

Its okay Scriver, we can't all have balls like me.

It's not a matter of balls, it's a matter of intellect and social skills.

[Vattic]

I find the idea of completely emotionless, cold, disconnected vampires nonsensical as they were once human after all. If you are going to have stories with any depth and which aren't simply good versus evil then some emotion is necessary. Vampires with emotion isn't exactly new either; More recent yet not new vampire novels like Fevre Dream by George R. R. Martin (1982) have emotional but no less scary vampires. I Am Legend by Richard Matheson (1954) is easily one of the best "vampire" novels I've ever read which has an interesting take on this but I won't ruin the story as it's only short and deserves reading.

I must admit I do not enjoy the latest breed of vampire fiction but it was never aimed at me so it's hard to complain.

Ninja'd.

[Soadreqm]

Traditional vampires are shambling, rotting beasts that drink blood and are rendered completely helpless if you throw a handful of rice in front of them. The kind of big, bad monster that could be easily bested by a medieval peasant if he kept his wits about him. Then came Bram Stoker, ruining it for everyone with his "ancient immortal supervillain" breed of vampire that owned a castle and entertained guests and could turn himself into mist and pour through keyholes.


Really, there's loads of vampire myths, and one of them isn't conclusively the "right" one. Even drinking blood isn't constant. Sometimes they drink some kind of vaguely defined "life energy". Sometimes they don't really HAVE to drink blood, but do it anyway. I'd say that any creature that drains life from other creatures to extend his own could definitely be called a vampire. The other approach is making up your own bullshit word, and those end up just sounding silly, half the time.

[ed boy]

Obligatory link in any thread about vampires in culture nowadays

[MrWiggles]

Vampires are not real, and therefore can never be portrayed wrong.

Though, I admit and agree, that Twilight vampires, and Vampire Diaries and some extent True Blood are annoying. But the acting and storylines in True Blood are neat. They're emotionally equivalent to whinny teenagers. However Being Human vampires, I think are rather neat. The main character vampire tends to be on the whiny side, but he seems to be the exception of the rule.


Though Vampires with emotions, are kinda of old. The one of the earliest Dracula movie is a love story, and was billed as such. In Bram Stoker Dracula, he is man who wears his emotions on his sleeves and his motivations are about fulling his emotional whims. His coldness comes from his lack of empathy and disregard for those in his way to get what he wants.

Some of the more recent vampires, such as Buffy the Vampire vampires are lacking empathy and kill without thought. Though, the older and more social these vamps get, emotions do pop back up but some are gone forever unless brought back through artificial means. I like this kind of vampire.

Would Anita Blake and Anne Rice count as recent still?

[Neonivek]

I don't quite understand why the topic creator doesn't understand (making me think he is lying in order to intentionally start something) what about newage vampires is attractive.

Originally vampires were not the coldblooded killers you seem to remember. They were more like undead rapists woman murderers brought about once again by either improper burial or satanism or some blaw like that.

Later legends gave them the weakest weaknesses ever turning them into a boogeyman (they couldn't cross moving water). Ohh and they were plain evil. They didn't become emotionless until way into modern times.

Is the only thing sexy about vampires the fact they drink blood?

And the fact that they have to give you a hicky in order to do it doesn't strike you as sexy? They are practically Succubi!

Heck they are either Rapists or Succubi (with STDs) it seems.

As a contrast, werewolves are the forces of nature. Tornadoes, tsunamis, storms. They come fast and go fast and are barely predictable. They're emotional, hot-blooded and filled with rage

This is an extremely modern interpretation of a Werewolf as it sort of contradicts their earlier appearances. At least if I am correct and forgive me if I am not.

Werewolves represented, oddly enough, the sort of isolation one would find in rural living (at least they seem to). They were rarely, if ever, natural and represented a sort of lunacy. They weren't unpredictable, Werewolf legends rarely were about random killing, they were linked to the original person.

Though indeed I guess they could be forces of nature but less Tornado and more the woods themselves. They represented the dark unknown.

Werewolves current form was created simply because the original themes of the werewolf couldn't hold up. A Werewolf is harmless in a modern setting, is too animalistic for us to take seriously as insanity, and most of us don't live in super rural towns.

[Sowelu]

I had a TL;DR but I think I can condense it to this:

I think it all comes down to character development.  Classic vampire works had monolithic villains who were utterly unchanging.  Modern literature (including TV shows) demands character development.  By definition, you can't develop the character of a classic vampire.

[MrWiggles]

I had a TL;DR but I think I can condense it to this:

I think it all comes down to character development.  Classic vampire works had monolithic villains who were utterly unchanging.  Modern literature (including TV shows) demands character development.  By definition, you can't develop the character of a classic vampire.

I agree with everything here but the classic part.

As classic vampire is an ill defined term here.

[Neonivek]

Well because there is such a wide variety of "Classic" vampires.

[MrWiggles]

Well because there is such a wide variety of "Classic" vampires.

I'm voting for Bob, the vampire.

But I can be convince to vote for  1931 Dracula being the classic vampire.