SPECIAL BULLETIN FROM THE WATCHER’S COUNCIL

To: All Buzznet MembersFrom: Watcher’s Council Headquarters, London, England

Good day.

It is with a heavy heart I write these words to you. For as you may or may not know, the Watcher’s Council was nearly decimated several years ago during an explosion at council headquarters.

We have done our best to rebuild, and as the new “public relations” arm of the council, it is my pleasure, nay my privilege, to reach out in order to educate you in the matters of all things vampire. As that will not be possible to do in the time allotted, I will be forced to give you the council’s brief primer.

ORIGIN OF VAMPIRES:

Almost every society on earth has some form of myth about blood drinking creatures. There has always been an acknowledgment of power in blood, from ancient sacrifices to modern medicine. Likewise, nearly every society has had some sort of myth or legend about the living dead.

Many believe this can be attributed to the lack of medical science in those days. When people grew ill and drifted into comas they were often indistinguishable from the dead. Occasionally, people were buried alive. If they were to wake up in their grave and cry out, they would be heard. When the graves were exhumed, the body would be found moved, from the person’s struggles, and blood could often be found on the body due to attempts to escape a coffin.

People assumed that, rather than the person having never been dead at all, the person had come back from the dead and attacked (hence the blood). This is why it became common practice to drive a stake through a supposed vampire’s heart, in order to pin them in the coffin so they could not escape. It was also customary to sever the supposed vampire’s head, to be sure they remained dead this time.

Folklore holds that there were many methods of detecting vampires. Aversion to sunlight and holy symbols aside, there was also the belief that a vampire could not cross running water and could not enter a home unless it was invited. Also, the idea that vampires were obsessed with counting. If you were to throw, say, seeds at a vampire, it could not come after you until it had counted all of them. Many people actually believed planting sunflowers outside of their homes would protect them from vampires, as the vampire would be distracted by counting the seeds. Possibly the strangest method of detection involved having a virgin on a white horse ride through a graveyard. If the horse refused to step on a grave, the person buried within that grave was a vampire.

Thankfully, science has brought us further.

ROMANTIC VAMPIRES

While Dracula may be the most recognized literary vampire, the romanticized vampire actually dates back to John Polidori and his story The Vampyre. The story, long attributed to Lord Byron (Polidori was his personal physician and in fact based the vampire on Byron), was one of the first to change the vampire from a drooling corpse into a well mannered man of society.

Polidori’s work would later influence Bram Stoker in his writing of Dracula, as would another gothic novella, Carmilla. This work, based on a female vampire who fed on young women, pre-dates Dracula. It is also a prime example of the dichotomy of male versus female vampires, but we will get to that later.

Perhaps the greatest influence in modern day vampire writing is Anne Rice and her Vampire Chronicles. These books, while intriguing, are of varying quality and I really do not suggest any following the original trilogy (Interview with the Vampire, The Vampire Lestat, The Queen of the Damned). Also, while the film version of Interview is intriguing, if incorrect, the cinematic disaster of Queen of the Damned should be avoided at all costs, if only for the sake of your sanity.

MALE VERSUS FEMALE VAMPIRES

This topic pertains more towards classic works, as in modern writing and film the stereotypes are being destroyed.

Classically, the male vampire has exuded power and control. He has great strength, a commanding presence, as well as a sexual draw. However, he is in control of his sexuality. Also, there is the idea that male vampires have a certain homosexual or bisexual subtext. This will be explained further on.

Female vampires, on the other hand, are normally high sexualized beings, occasionally overrun with insatiable lust. They may have great strength, but far more important is their sensual allure. They do not seek power, only to satiate their thirst.

This all makes sense, of course, when you consider what vampirism is, in it’s simplest form:

Penetration.

Fangs penetrating skin. In the world of vampires, it means males can penetrate females or males (giving it the subtext I mentioned). However, it also means that FEMALES CAN PENETRATE MALES.

Up until the relatively recent sexual freedom awarded to women, the idea of a woman penetrating and therefore BEING IN CONTROL of a sexual situation would have been both horrifying and scandalous. Women are, traditionally, the repressed and submissive gender. For a woman to be able to physically penetrate a man would have terrified most conservative parts of society. Hell, even in MODERN society the idea would probably disturb a good number of people.

Of course, women being the “weaker” sex, physically and morally (and I roll my eyes), they would be overcome by sexual power, needing it. A woman who was not only in touch with her sexuality, knew that she had a need and wanted it, would be a scandal. Remember, much of the vampire mythos became popular during a time when women were taught to revile sex, to “lay back and think of England” in beds with their husbands. Sex for women was only for procreation, never for pleasure.

This was the ideology, at least. It does not mean that it always played out that way.

Vampires are, really, all about sex.

VAMPIRES:

Will never hurt you >:)