This is my term paper for RSSS315: Vampires and Werewolves. Might be interesting. Maybe I'll write an abstract so that you know if you want to read it. Its about vampires by the way; werewolves are lame.
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The vampire has existed for centuries in the literary world. Through time, the idea of the vampire has stayed remarkably the same in many ways. How a vampire appears, is killed, is transformed, and sustains itself, have changed very little over the last few hundred years. There are greater things about the vampire culture that have changed though. How vampires live, spend their time, and generally exist, has changed greatly over time, as some ideas have become old and must be revived with newer, more interesting ones. One of these ideas is what exactly the vampire race is. The classic literature of vampires describes a very small number of vampires. They can’t even be described as a race, but exist more like isolated monsters. The vampires of today’s literature, especially movies, live more as an organized race lurking among humans all over the world. This reflects a need for something new and exciting in the idea of a vampire. Classic plots of vampires have no room for expansion, and views of vampires must change dramatically.
In the same direction, the hero and villain of vampire literature have changed greatly. It is no longer about the psychological vampire. People do not fear something so ephemeral. People need a villain that is physically large and strong and has powers beyond a simple love spell and plague-spreading ability. By the same token, the simple Jonathon Harker character does not suffice as a protagonist. A new class of vampire hunters has emerged to fight the battle for ignorant and less able humans. These two differences between classic and contemporary vampire literature illustrate an important change in what a vampire is, and is important to note when studying the culture.
When one thinks of contemporary vampire literature, one of the first popular films that comes to mind is
Blade. Based off a comic book, this 1998 film was quite large in the box office, staring Wesley Snipes as Blade. Blade is a man born from a woman just recently bitten by a vampire, which caused Blade to become a half-vampire. He had all the strengths of a vampire (strength, dexterity, and sensory perception), and none of their weaknesses (in this series, weaknesses include garlic, sunlight, and silver). He fought the vampires, swearing to avenge his mother’s death, supposedly with a few other hunters. The central villain was one Deacon Frost whose goal in the film is to raise La Magra, The Blood God.
Blade II followed in 2002 as a sequel that extensively shifts the plot. In this film, Blade is called by the vampire overlord to aid them in destroying a new race of creatures called Reapers (quite remarkable resembling Count Orlok of Nosferatu) who are currently feeding on vampires and will soon turn to humans for sustenance. The trilogy was rounded off with
Blade: Trinity in 2004. In this film, Blade joins forces with a group of vampire hunters called The Nightstalkers to finally take out the entire race of vampires with a virus. The vampires, however, have a plan of their own to raise Dracula from a century-long sleep, in order to take out Blade once and for all.
In the
Blade Trilogy, the vampires are similar to those of classic stories. They are physically beautiful, young, sexual, wield fangs, fear daylight, and drink blood. The vampires are still quite different though. The
Blade Trilogy is an excellent example of how the culture of the vampire has changed. In the first scene of
Blade, we witness a rave in a shower room of a slaughterhouse. After some time, we see that the dancers are all vampires, and they are all soon drenched in blood from the sprinkler system. This scene alerts us immediately that vampires are not isolated individuals like the original Dracula, but are a race among humans. This makes the setting of the story entirely different. In classic literature, such as “Dracula,” and “The Vampyre,” the plot focused around one villain, and his story. Contemporary movies such as
Blade have a larger story, about a race with power over humans. In Bram Stoker’s Dracula, there is a large portion of time when the reader is learning what exactly Dracula is.
Blade and other films of today assume that the audience knows what a vampire is, and the plot moves from that point. On a similar note, the audience of
Blade knows that the film will not end with Blade killing the last vampire. This story was simply about Blade preventing the antagonist from furthering the vampires rule over humans – a minor plot in the overall history of vampires and humans. The same holds for the second two films. These are not stories about destroying the one vampire in the world. These are stories within the vampire culture, small snippets in the history between man and vampire. This is how the idea of a vampire expanded in modern culture.
Blade is only one example of this particular expansion. A very similar example is
Buffy: The Vampire Slayer. As a popular TV series, the show can be written as the unending fight between humans and vampires. As long as the fans are satisfied, the writers can keep writing episodes and twist the epic whichever way they want. In this way, the show tells the story of humans versus some “enemy;” vampires are merely “the enemy.” Except for specific traits of the vampires, they could be replaced with any epic enemy: robots, aliens, zombies, Nazis, dragons, or Sith Lords. On a very basic level, the story is interesting merely because it tells the tale of a fight for the survival of mankind, which is very unlike anything we do today. Being at the top of the food chain, a story of something higher is fascinating to us.
A film similar to
Blade in its scope is
Underworld. This film tells a very grand and epic story of how vampyres (they decided on this spelling) and Lycans (werewolves) came to be. Using a great deal of science, the movie tells of a Lycan scientist attempting to mix the two races and turn a descendent from the first vampyre and Lycan, Michael Corwin, into a hybrid creature, half-vampyre half-Lycan, but stronger than both. Again, this story takes place in a world where vampyres and Lycans have thrived for centuries. The “Underworld” is the world where vampyres and Lycans live and fight. Rather than a small side plot in the big picture of vampyres, this story tells of a revolution in the Underworld where Michael does change, and a new race has been created. The movie does not go into whether or not this is motion in a good direction that a hybrid creature has been created, but the audience knows that it’s big news. In any case, this is not the story of an isolated case of vampyre that ends happily. It is one story in a greater saga of the vampyre. Even more interesting is that there is very little mention of humans at all. Except for Michael, who is transformed into the new species, humans play no role in the film. This takes away any predatory plot elements the film can use. This removes so much of what was originally the vampire. Vampires were creatures who sustained themselves by feeding off humans, via their blood, emotions, etc. There is little, if any feeding on-stage in this film.
Anne Rice’s
The Vampire Chronicles share this movement away from the initial power of vampires. In this series of books, many themes and ideas are explored, including immortality and guilt derived from human-feeding. These put an entirely fresh spin on the aspects of vampirism. Classic literature does not really delve into the topic of immortality, though it may be assumed when a dead body rises again; it has already died. Immortality and its boredom are simply not a focus of the literature. Neither is the idea of guilt present. Ancient vampires need not drink blood every day, as contemporary vampires do. It seems more of a luxury or long-term desire in the classics. In this way they feed on victims which they have become intimate with. Vampires of today’s literature must feed much more often, and typically feed on strangers with whom they have no relationship. The themes of guilt and immortality follow the same road of widening the vampire culture into new alleys. Today’s audiences need something new to entertain them. New motifs, new lifestyles, new worlds.
A second way in which the essence of the vampire has changed is the identity of the protagonist and antagonist. No longer are audiences satisfied with a simple-minded Jonathon Harker and academic Van Helsing as the protagonists. The weather-controlling plague-spreading socially awkward Dracula does not scare a contemporary audience. Writers have had to expand the idea of vampire into a greater, more horror-, action- and adventure-oriented creature. Returning to the first example of contemporary vampire literature, the
Blade trilogy is a great example of this idea. In all three films, the protagonist, Blade, is a super hero of sorts. He is a man with super strength who has dedicated his life to killing vampires. Blade uses multiple weapons to kill vampires (guns, swords, knives, chemicals, and fire), drives a cool car, and wears cool sunglasses. He is the modern hero. The antagonists in each film reflect the change as well. In the first film, Blade is attempting to prevent La Magra, The Blood God from being raised. This concept was fabricated entirely by the writers, and is based off no classic stories. The second film’s Reapers are another entirely new entity. Comparing one of these creatures who feasted on vampires is similar to comparing Dracula to Jonathon Harker; they are entirely different beings. The Dracula of the third film is also an entirely different creature from Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Swordsmanship and martial arts are just the beginning of the differences. No simple man could fight the vampires of today. The world needs a super hero; Blade.
Similarly, the heroine of
Buffy, the Vampire Slayer is no simple human. She has been chosen by fate to be the next in a long line of Slayers; destined to fight humans’ battle against vampires. She may appear to be a petit blonde girl, still just a teenager, but becoming a Slayer has endowed her with several powers such as increased strength, agility, intuition, and healing abilities. Interestingly, these are quite similar to the powers that vampires feature, and therefore the features that some other vampire hunters from today’s literature feature. Buffy from
Buffy, the Vampire Slayer, Blade from
Blade, Michael from
Underworld, and D from
Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust (described below) all have attributes very similar to those they hunt.
Underworld holds the same changes. Selene turns classic literature on its head, as a female vampyre protagonist. Through the first section of the film, she and all vampyres are fighting against Lycans. There is very little interaction between vampires and humans, only condescending remarks. As the film progresses, however, one cannot tell if the vampyres are the protagonists, or if perhaps the Lycans are. Scrambling for an identifiable enemy, it appears that the creation of a new species is what the heroes are fighting against. By the end, a plot shift identifies one of the vampyre lords, Viktor, as the antagonist, based on two things he did (kill his own daughter, and kill Selene’s family and take her as his new daughter) centuries ago. The character of Craven can also be thought of as an antagonist, but is more of a minor character. The fact that there is confusion about the enemy is the device used in this film to progress beyond the simple idea of Dracula as the antagonist. As a matter of fact, this film describes the Corvinus family as the first vampyre and the first Lycan to live on earth.
Another example of the change in hero and villain is the Japanese film
Vampire Hunter: D. This 2000 animated film, modeled after a Japanese novel by Hideyuki Kikuchi, Japan’s “Stephen King,” describes one adventure in a world of vampires. The setting is the distant future (this is the setting for the entire series of seventeen novels in fact), after vampires have exposed themselves to the world, ruled over humans for a brief three hundred years, then been hunted down until their numbers dwindle. In this specific account, a woman, Charlotte, has supposedly been captured by a powerful vampire, Meier Link. Her family hired two teams to save her from the vampire before she is turned. The Marcus brothers are simply a team of five humans who hunt vampires. Each wields a different weapon, all very effective against vampires. Vampire Hunter D is also hired. He is a half-vampire, being the son of the Vampire King and a human mother. Hating his vampire heritage, he has spent his entire life hunting vampires, aiming for their extinction. The plot develops into a story of acceptance, as the hunters learn that Charlotte willingly traveled with the vampire; they were lovers. D hates the both of them for this because he sees his own parents in their love. At the end of the chase, Meier and Charlotte head for the castle of Carmilla (based loosely off Joseph le Fanu’s character and Elizabeth Báthory) where a spaceship to the City of the Stars, a place accepting of vampire-human love, awaits them. Interestingly enough, this story almost parallels the second half of Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” because of the long chase heading for the vampires’ safe haven. The Marcus Brothers use physical weapons as Jonathon Harker’s men used guns. D uses mystical weapons as Van Helsing uses unworldly powers such as the garlic, Holy Bread, and the Bible.
Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust even features a harem of vampires similar to Dracula’s; The Barbaroi are hired guardian vampire-demons who attack D and the Brothers, but are killed in the end.
The protagonist, D, is certainly no ordinary man. He is a half-vampire, maintaining the vampire’s pale skin, feminine features, graceful motion and voice, and strength. These traits make him an incredible hero for the movie. He is a master swordsman, over one thousand years old, son of the vampire king. This type of character shows another development in more contemporary literature. Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” was a story about the vampire, and perhaps some about his victim. There was not much focus on his hunters though; we knew very little of Seward, Arthur, or Morris. Contemporary films create a lot of development around the heroes, giving them back-stories which describe the origins of their hatred for the anti-heroes. Blade, Selene, and D each have a story depicting why they hunt. Moreover, each story intertwines with each hunter’s past; Blade hunts to avenge his mother, only to discover she is still alive, now as a vampire, living with the man who turned her; Selene hunts Lycans thinking they killed her entire family, only to find out her adopted father iss the murderer; and D hates his heritage which he sees mirrored in Meier and Charlotte’s love. These heroes have pasts in order to give them cause. Their causes make them worthy protagonists rather than murderers or mercenaries.
Proper names and titles may have some importance when dealing with the heroes and heroines of these contemporary literatures. A quick rundown includes: Blade from The
Blade Trilogy, the half-vampire half-human, is called the Daywalker, alluding to his immunity to sunlight, regardless of his vampire powers. In the third installment,
Blade: Trinity, Blade joins two other hunters to form the Nightstalkers, the title of the comic that Blade originated in. Buffy from
Buffy, The Vampire Slayer, is a Slayer. Selene of
Underworld, is a Death Dealer, as she is a hunter of Lycans. Michael, the only human in the film, turns into a half-vampyre half-Lycan, though is not given any other name or title. Anne Rice’s vampires in her
Vampire Chronicles, have no strange titles or names other than “vampire.” D from
Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust, another half-vampire half-human, is given the title of Dunpeal. This name is meaningless however; it is simply a mistranslation of Dhampir, the word from Roma Folklore that describes a half-vampire half-human, most commonly from a vampire father and human mother (as in
Blade, and
Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust). There seems to be little, if any historical literature of note that use this word, however. In this case, it appears that each word (Daywalker, Slayer, Nightstalkers, Death Dealer, and Dunpeal) has been made up for each individual work. This backs the idea that the contemporary vampire culture is an entirely new world. There are new creatures in modern literature that have no historical basis, and so have been given new names.
The general idea of the vampire has stayed the same throughout time: vampires suck blood from humans, don’t do well in sunlight, garlic, wooden stakes, silver, the Church, or some subset of these. They may live forever, or at least much longer than humans. The idea of the vampire species however, their race and culture, has changed entirely. Stemming from the desires of contemporary audiences, writers have had to expand upon the isolated incidents from classic literature, into a vampire world. Most contemporary literature now takes place in a world where vampires are quite numerous, and live hidden among humans. They have their own families, battles, love stories, etc. In addition to expanding upon the vampire, writers have expanded upon the protagonists of vampire literature. Jonathon Harker, the banker of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, is no longer a hero figure. Today, the heroes and heroines are typically not even human, but some new creature with powers greater than humans’ and often similar to those of vampires. Perhaps literature will keep this pattern of expansion, and soon vampire literature will not even feature humans as characters, somewhat like Underworld. The new literature may take place in a world made up entirely of vampires who perhaps fight against a greater enemy than themselves. Wherever it may turn, I imagine the vampire culture will continue to grow and fascinate us as the predator of humans; creatures who have defeated man’s greatest fear, that of death.
