Rant: Vampires, what's the point exactly?

And just as importantly, what's next? Right now, we're in a vampire renaissance. The damn bloodsuckers are nearly inescapable. We've got Twilight, True Blood, the books thereof, with the Vampire Diaries...present as well. Even Buffy has returned in comic book form. Sure, zombies are holding their own, and they're kicking butt in the video game industry, but the story's never about THEM. It's about the humans surviving them and how; the zombies are just an obstacle. Vampires, on the other hand, are characters. They talk, they think, they have ambitions, and they can form romances. And dear Lonnie do they.

But what's the appeal, exactly? What makes vampires so interesting? Frankly, why aren't we talking about all the dragon, unicorn, demon, angel, troll, faerie, etc. fiction out there? I think there are a couple reasons, and a couple why some of the above will make their return once we get utterly sick of vampires (it has to happen eventually! You know, for a while!)

1: They're physically appealing. In other words, they look at least sufficiently human. That's pretty important. You can create a touching romance between any species, but if it's to an orc or mind flayer, you won't get many teenagers excited about it. Now, they don't have to be human ALL the time. Look at werewolves, AKA vampires' wingmen. When they're not slavering monsters, they're buff dudes and chicks.

2: They're dangerous. This brings me to the point I made in the last blog. Oh, he's so big and scary, and my life is in danger around him! But he's a gentleman, a man of honor and chivalry, unlike those other monsters. And he struggles against his natural desires to do evil, using only the power of our love! It's interesting how this metaphor changed over the years. Before, it was a matter of temptation. Vampires were beautiful, but if you gave into your desires to be with them, you would be killed or worse, enslaved for eternity. Now, they're the "bad boys." It's a story of redemption, to put it pleasantly. Effectively, the vampire is tempted by humanity now. And as I mentioned before, it's almost always a female human and male vampire. On the rare time I see it the other way, the female vampire's obvious physical superiority isn't really a topic, and the female vampire (Fempire? Vampirette? Vampiress?) is not a penitent atoner or noble teatoller. If anything, she's clueless about the very option. See Jessica from True Blood. She didn't give speeches about being "vampyre," she just doesn't get anything about her own nature yet.

3: They're complex and well-recognized. This leads to the "myth speech" every vampire story needs sooner or later. You know how it goes; once the vampire becomes well known, the human protagonist asks a friendly vampire how the whole vampire thing works. Because there are just so many concepts of a vampire, not all of them work, and many of them contradict other ones. So the vampire teaches the clueless human, and thus the clueless audience, how it goes down. Do vampires need to drink human blood, or will animal blood work? How do stakes and sunlight work? What about sillier things like garlic and more spiritually specific things like holy symbols? Do vampires really turn into bats and mist still? Do vampires not show up on mirrors or security cameras? Are they obsessed with counting things (yes, that was a real myth, and yes, Sesame Street's pretty much the only one to keep that one?) This is a big, very important speech, and woe betide you if your characters break the rules without a very good reason.

But let's face it. No fad lasts forever, and while I'm sure there will always be vampires in fiction, I doubt we'll always have multiple shows and hit movies and comics and...I don't know, probably vampire breakfast cereals somewhere. If there aren't any, somebody's missing an opportunity here. There will always be a next big thing, and it's just a matter of what that big thing is. Option one is ignoring fantasy entirely. Sick of vampires? Bring in the aliens! Science fiction is a pretty minor thing in television, but it's never been absent completely. Recently, we have V, superhero themed shows like Heroes and the upcoming No Ordinary Family, and the occasional cyborg a la Bionic Woman. In movies, it's inescapable. We have the lovable aliens in Avatar and District 9, the lovable robot on Wall-E, and about three million superheroes, nearly all of them based on genetics or robotics technology. They fit the criteria. Most are originally human, are part-human, or are aliens close enough to basically be human. Even the giant Red Lobster platters on District 9 manage to evoke sympathy. Most are vastly more powerful than normal humans, or at least have the technology to do so. And concepts like extraterrestrial life and scientific advancements have so many possibilities that they might as well be the "vampire myths" speech.

But it can't always be science fiction. The range is still too limited, and the stories risk becoming passé as real science advances. Fantasy is universal and ancient, and it always has an element of mystery and thus danger than science fiction offers.

I suspect that in the eventual feature, two creatures will eventually get recognition and may even (briefly) surpass the vampire/werewolf duality. The first are demons (and possibly angels for the same reasons.) Obviously, they're the next tier of "evil monsters" after vampires. I mean, after cannibalistic corpses, beings made of pure evil is the only way to really go. Of course, we learn they're not REAL evil, at least not universally. This brings in the convenient controversy that vampires lost somewhere around the Buffy era. Nothing provides free advertisement like people yelling how people shouldn't see your work! Danger's right there, of course, both to your body and your soul, and temptation is equally built right into the system. The only problem is how deep you want to go with the complexity level. Namely, if not all angels are good and not all demons are evil, what exactly does that mean for Satan and God? Are they nuanced (to put it lightly) as well or simply asleep at their respective wheels? Yes, controversy sells, but you can only have so many.

The other option I'd consider are a bit of a tougher sell; the fae. The problem is that according to the mainstream, faeries are harmless fun. They make cookies, help out Santa, or fly around Peter Pan. That's going to be a tough image to break. But that's what makes it perfect for a deconstruction. Imagine a horror story where the characters learn they are in danger of faeries and scoff at it. Then they meet a redcap, and...The thing is that faeries are pretty damn dangerous. They have incredible magic power, most are ageless, they exist in a reality alien to our own, and most importantly, they don't exactly "get" morality. Here's how a faerie thinks: take a child, a perfectly innocent child with all their imagination and capriciousness, remove any sense of empathy, and give them a love of pulling pranks. At best, they just don't give a damn about us. At worst, they're the disturbed child and we're the flies they're pulling wings off of. And if we think they're harmless, even silly? Then we won't expect it. They are also complex, with different species, complex politics, and unusual strengths and weaknesses like trouble with iron (a great weakness in our plastic world.) And they're beautiful by definition; there's a reason they're often called the Fair Folk. Maybe there's a cute Lord and/or Lady who is "cursed" with a conscience. It makes as much sense as expecting camaraderie from the monsters that eat us.

There are other options, but if you're going for originality and plausible success, these are the creatures that I think will do it. Now it just takes someone with the determination, innovation, and most importantly money to make one a reality.