Recently there has been a rather large quantity of vampire literature published for the young adult market. This has proven to be rather irritating to me, largely insofar as every single author involved seems to be romanticizing vampires and their lifestyles. Do none of them retain a sense of what it is to be evil? Vampires are inherently abhorrent to nature, to morality, and to God Himself (even those with scientific explanations still require vile acts to sustain their lives). A vampire represents all that is base in humanity. They are essentially creatures of appetite. They fear death, and so have twisted immortality. They fear hunger, and so they need only the blood of their fellow men to survive (which is itself cannibilism). They typically are presented as alluring, whether physically, psychically, or simply by the attractiveness of the powers that they wield. Vampires do whatever they want without regard for any limitations of morality, ethics, or even basic politeness (unless being polite furthers their goals).
The way that modern authors glamourise these monsters, turning them into heroes who get all the "benefits" of their evil unlives without suffering any of the traditional consequences (killing people and such), making them entirely sympathetic characters, makes me sick. Even more, it is the fact that so many authors are jumping on the "good vampire" bandwagon. I'd type out a cry of frustration, but without the ability to modulate tone in the printed word (other than the stop-gap measures of bold, italics, and all caps) it'd be an exercise in futility.
Therefore I have resolved to write my own vampire story, only this time the main character will not be eagerly awaiting his true love's final decision to "turn" him, nor will his fellow vampires, living out their unlives to the utmost, seem like viable rolemodels for anyone who isn't a juvenile sociopath with a sensitivity to sunlight. Indeed, rather than the end of my book being the final conversion of my protagonist from a human into a vampire (see Stephanie Meyer's work for the prime example of this), instead it will culminate in one of two things: either he is devamped or he is destroyed. No other options exist for a moral man suffering the curse of vampirism.
That's enough on this topic for now...
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1 comment:
It's so refreshing to read something like this about vampirism and our culture's obsession with it. I think your analysis is spot-on, and I would be eager to read a well-written novel treating vampirism as it ought to be treated.
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