Saturday, January 9, 2010

Vampire

Anyone who knows me knows that I love vampires, vampire stories and anything to do with them. Save the lovely "Twilight Saga". Today's word has been picked by me as sort of. . . a retaliation to the image of "vampire" that Stephanie Meyer's Twilight has put into people's heads.

Dictionary.com has many entries for "vampire". However, the only ones that I feel are really and truly appropriate for this entry are the first two. 1] A preternatural being, commonly believed to be a reanimated corpse, that is said to suck the blood of sleeping persons at night. 2] (In Eastern European Folklore) A corpse, animated by an undeparted soul or demon, that periodically leaves the grave and disturbs the living, until it is exhumed and impaled or burned.

Now. I consider myself quite an expert of vampires and all things related. As an aspiring sci-fi/fantasy/horror writer, I sort of made it my business to be so. I have researched (which means I bought a lot of vampire books and giggled maliciously as I poured over their pages) endlessly and have found most vampire books satisfactory to the legends of old. Save four. And that would be Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse, and Breaking Dawn.

Nothing has disappointed me more in my field than these books. And yes, I read all of them. At first, I thought, "Wow, that glittering in the sunlight thing? That's a pretty nifty twist. Nice way to get them to be able to be out during the day-- you know what? She may be on to something here!" Unfortunately I was quickly disturbed by Edward Cullen's character. Not only does he, and excuse me for my language, NOT FUCKING DRINK HUMAN BLOOD, but he's a virgin too! Not to say that virginity is a bad thing, because it's not, but a virgin vampire? They're supposed to be the seducers of the night. They're supposed to lure their prey in with unwittingly good looks and then kill them once they've had their fun.

Vampires are creatures that have fascinated me for a long time. (No, I don't believe they are real... though I wish. Oh do I wish.) They are supposed to be beautiful, blood sucking demons who shudder at crosses and can't cross thresh holds unless invited. They can fly without wings, and change their form to suit their purpose. They have inhuman strength, and are impervious to most normal methods of killing. They heal extraordinarily fast, and have speed beyond that of human capabilities.

And then there's the Cullen's. They glitter in the sunlight. They behave and don't drink the blood of Humans. Won't lie. This disturbs me. I know it's a running joke between the haters of Twilight, but little boys with body glitter sparkle too. Normal people don't drink the blood of humans either (unless they're cannibals... and let's face it, that's just disturbing). Body builders are incredibly strong, and some Olympic runners run faster than I can even imagine myself doing. Does that mean that those individuals are related to the Cullen's? No. it just means that the Cullen's are very sad impersonations of vampires. In the above definition of "vampire" I bolded a selection of words, "suck the blood" and "persons". I did so to emphasize that Edward Cullen defies even the dictionary in terms of being a vampire.

Dracula was a vampire. Simon from The Silver Kiss was a vampire. Jean Claude from Laurell K Hamilton's Anita Blake Vampire Hunter Series is a vampire. Bill Compton from the hit TV show True Blood (based on the books by Charlaine Harris) is a vampire. Louis and Lestat from Anne Rice's novels The Vampire Chronicles are both vampires!

The point I'm trying to make here is a creepy, virginal, glittering boy who drinks deer blood and crawls into unsuspecting girls windows at night is not a vampire. He's a sexual predator and in any society, he would be pin pointed and sent to jail where he would spend years of his life before being released and having his every move tracked so because of his prior actions. Edward Cullen is not the fantasy of every girls dream, he is someone to be feared, and I feel that girls, especially young girls should know that having a boy watch you sleep without your knowledge is wrong, and creepy. It's not okay, and if it has happened to you, please tell an adult or someone you trust. I would also like to take this moment and elaborate upon the safety of young women today. Edward explicitly says "I'm a killer, Bella." Girls. If someone says this to you, and you think he's adorable and glittery-- he is dangerous and not because he's pretending to be a "vampire." Run away from him and tell someone. Young women should not be allowed to believe that these are all desirable traits in a man. These are not the traits of a vampire. These are the traits of a sexual predator, and he's the main character in a children's novel!

I don't mean to offend anyone who may be a fan of Twilight, and I am certainly not trying to offend Stephanie Meyer in anyway. I quite like her writing, The Host was a fantastic novel and I read it in one day (during the summer, while outside tanning. I do not recommend this to anyone. I was a lobster for a week and then some). I just disagree with the way she chose to portray her vampire characters.

She turned fearful, hell-damned creatures of the night into glittery, stalker-like people who have to restrain themselves. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for the restraining part-- what good would a vampire book be if the vampire just kills people endlessly? The vampire in question must have some sort of restraint on themselves, or else we'd run out of characters! But I feel that taking the "bite" out of vampires makes the "vampire" no less than a strange, extraordinarily gifted person. And the glitter? Let's just say my fascination with that idea ended when I saw images of Edward Cullen with the captions "I wish my boyfriend sparkled!" It really killed the creative genius behind it.

Really though. I did enjoy the first Twilight book. I had read it before the vampire craze started and girls started freaking out and such. After that, the insane fan girls sort of. . . scared me off. I mean, I went to go see the movie (on opening night- some of my friends were lo and behold, fan girls) and I couldn't even hear the movie because every time Edward or Jacob walked on the screen, the theatre erupted into shrieks and giggles.

So this is an ode to the original, fierce, human-blood sucking vampires. I salute you and your creators.

As for Edward Cullen? You are not a vampire. You are a sexual predator and you scare me. And not because you glitter.

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