The world of vampires evokes both fear and excitement. Vampires are exciting because we humans are scared of them and yet drawn to them.
Stephenie Meyer has made that dark world seem like paradise to teenage girls with her Twilight series, but vampire stories have always had their own audience. It’s evolved into a genre of its own and spawned books, films and TV series.
The success of John Polidori’s 1819 novella The Vampyre is said to have established the archetype of the charismatic and sophisticated vampire and inspired works like Varney The Vampire and eventually Dracula.
Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel Dracula is considered the quintessential vampire novel which provided the basis for modern vampire fiction. The legend has since caught on and has been portrayed in thousands of books, films and TV series, the most popular being Buffy and Angel. In most of these movies and TV series, vampires were considered the villains; an exception being the Tom Cruise starrer An Interview With A Vampire.
Cut to the 21st century and we have the same genre but the story turns on its head. These days vampires aren’t the bad ones and it’s acceptable to date a vampire. They are attractive, sexy, rich, well-read, intelligent and can feel great emotions despite being the cold ones, a la the teenage romance between Bella Swan and Edward Cullen. HBO’s TV series True Blood goes a step further where vampires are not only a recognised community who co-exist with humans but there’s also talk of granting them voting rights. And our new-age blood-suckers have found alternative ways to quench their thirst. Twilight’s Edward Cullen and his coven hunt animals and drink their blood. In True Blood, they satisfy their thirst drinking True Blood, a synthetic concoction.
The most common information about vampires in the public domain is that they are immortal. Tate Hallaway, in her book Tall, Dark and Dead, says that vampires’ hair don’t grow back if cut as the hair follicles being dead. Hallaway’s vampires even drink their girlfriends’ blood, they just know when to stop and quickly pass orange juice to the by-now-faint female to counter the blood loss.
Sunlight does not seem to affect our new-age vampires. Stephenie Meyer’s creations can venture out go out anytime of the day or night. They just have to be careful as sunlight reflects on their skin and makes it shimmer like diamonds. They avoid sunlight by living in areas that are cloudy or overcast most of the year.
Unlike the traditional stake through the heart approach, Stephenie Meyer’s vampires are almost impossible to kill.
All-in-all, vampires are an irresistible package. In fact, so much so that poor staid humans stand to lose out in the face of their charming appeal.