They Don't Have to Sparkle
Over at John C. Wright, Famous AuthorTM's blog, he celebrated the feast of the Magi a.k.a. Twelfth Night by dissing good vampires. Or perhaps, he had a somewhat more extensive point to make: the reader can make up his own mind. As soon as the contrarian impulse fired, I wasn't really paying attention. Not my strongest suit, I admit. En avant:
So let's start by acknowledgeing that elitist blood-sucking parasites who treat human beings as their due chattel, to use, enslave, or use up at their pleasure ought to be monsters, or at least villains (I'm no socialist). Even if vampirism "really" is all about sex (could modern lit. crit. be more boringly predictable?), Count Dracula is still a serial rapist. So no: Not the good guy.
Consider the dual nature of what vampires could be. In the realm of speculative fiction: are they SF or are they fantasy? Science fictional vampirism can be a kind of disease (fast zombies), or a parasitic infection (c.f. Mr. Westerfeld's Peeps), or even an alien parastic infection (Stargate). As Stargate so ably demonstrated, pace Augustine, any alien-seeming creature, whether from some undiscovered earthly abyssal depth, or a far-off star, is, if a person, capable of being a brother. That is, created by God, and therefore capable of knowing God, that is to say, the good, and figuring out how to become, say Tok'Ra. For the non-Stargate fen, that means finding a way for the mind-controlling alien to legitimately share the host's mind and body with said host's full consent. Or, as the one-track-mind literati would put it: marriage, not rape. The needing-to-sustain itself with blood, even human blood, isn't enough in and of itself for villainy. Dietary peculiarities don't justify murder. Get a job; buy the stuff wholesale: 'nuff said. If Orthodox Jewry and the vegans can manage it, so can the vamp.
Ah, but what if, they're fantastical in nature? Supernatural vampires presuppose a super-nature, and depending on the setting that means dealing with God or His storytelling equivalent. And not simply as "this is something people believe, to which the author will give a passing nod to for the sake of characterization and world-building," but as a reality the author and reader must address. (Try to remember the last novel where a character prayed, and his prayer was answered. Happens all the time in real life, but not, apparently in SF. Maybe there's a special force field) For better or worse, the traditional vampire is a kind of devil, and if the author is going to have his vampire vulnerable to crosses and holy water, the Christian God who made the world, loved it, and died for it, is going to have to be on stage too. For the most part, that leaves the door wide-open for "only bad vampires" because they're Really Just Devils, but not quite. More anon, after the obvious question: This is fantasy, right? Why shouldn't there be an imaginary world with no God, and demonic monsters?
There can: Josh Whedon's vampires in the Buffy, the Vampire Slayer T.V. series are perhaps the best-known rationalistic supernatural vampires (Jim Butcher's are the best written, but don't really apply1 here.) At the moment of near death, when the human is weak and terrified, the vampire uses blood-, fear- and/or death-magic to bring across a fellow demon to possess the body. Because humans are amphibian: both spiritual and fleshly creatures; our memories can exist both in the soul, and as cellular data embedded in the physical structures of our brain. The demon moves, as it were, into a fully-furnished apartment. Being a hate-filled devil-thing, of course, all those loving memories of family and friends are pure torture; especially as every time said family (or friends) appear, neurons fire and memories are freshly released. Gollum voice: "...it burns us, my Precioussss! Burnssss!" So one of the first things a newly minted vampire does is kill off anyone near and dear to the host. Continuing the theme, there'd be absolutely no reason for garlic to work, but any traditional defense against demons themselves ought to be just the ticket, as the vampire is a kind of halfling: partly decaying human flesh maintained indefinitely by the blood-magic of the demon, part pure demon. Mr. Whedon never really seemed to have thought this through, or perhaps it was just the inherently sloppy nature of serialized TV storytelling. What souls really are, the importance of choice/will, why the power of True Love (and not just Eros) should be effective, etc. never really had a chance to shine through. And by the time the spin-off series rolled around, the demons turned into aliens and all bets were off. Be that as it may, however, those early Buffy vampires were pure monsters, and if this were the only model of What-A-Vampire is, the notion of "good vampires" would be repugnant, too.
Only if, however the human host's soul is utterly displaced, or destroyed by a possessing demon. Because if not, then the potential for good vampires abound as the human finds a way (magically or otherwise) to regain control of his body. If only, as in The Silver Kiss so that he can force himself to walk into the sunlight. If the human remains entirely; if there is no demonic possession, then the good vampire becomes a necessity if the story isn't to be utterly banal. We're back to a mere change in diet (albeit an addictive one)both creating and justifying serial killers.
Ultimately, monsters are either monsters: devils from hell, rabid animals; or people. If they're people, then they can chose to be monsters.. or not. And it's in that space, the "or not" that hang the best stories. Some of which, as it turns out, are going to have a vampire, trying to be good. Their success or failure depends not just on the writerly skills the author brings to the table, but on his own moral clarity and perceptiveness of the human condition. It is perhaps because the "or not" is so very stark in the case of vampires, that the failings of the average modern writer (It's all sex! And oppression! Can I be more conformist and boring? Let's find out!) when trying to tell a good vampire story seem so glaring.
*************************************
1. Jim Butcher's monsters use the moment of near death when the Will is weakest, to tempt a human into chosing to accept demonic possession. His is a version of the Hans Christian Anderson story about the young prince who despises Adam and Eve for losing everybody the Garden of Eden2. No matter how it plays out, it's devil's bargain: either the soul is displaced entirely and immediately (Black Court), or partially, at which point the mortal has to resist the live-in demon; one slip and then he's entirely and immediately replaced (Red Court), or partially and incrementally until he's gone (White Court). It's usually a losing battle but it doesn't have to be, which makes for the possibility of both monsters (the demons won), and "good vampires", i.e. people who've put themselves in the way of hideous temptation, but resist.
2. The Garden of Paradise
So let's start by acknowledgeing that elitist blood-sucking parasites who treat human beings as their due chattel, to use, enslave, or use up at their pleasure ought to be monsters, or at least villains (I'm no socialist). Even if vampirism "really" is all about sex (could modern lit. crit. be more boringly predictable?), Count Dracula is still a serial rapist. So no: Not the good guy.
Consider the dual nature of what vampires could be. In the realm of speculative fiction: are they SF or are they fantasy? Science fictional vampirism can be a kind of disease (fast zombies), or a parasitic infection (c.f. Mr. Westerfeld's Peeps), or even an alien parastic infection (Stargate). As Stargate so ably demonstrated, pace Augustine, any alien-seeming creature, whether from some undiscovered earthly abyssal depth, or a far-off star, is, if a person, capable of being a brother. That is, created by God, and therefore capable of knowing God, that is to say, the good, and figuring out how to become, say Tok'Ra. For the non-Stargate fen, that means finding a way for the mind-controlling alien to legitimately share the host's mind and body with said host's full consent. Or, as the one-track-mind literati would put it: marriage, not rape. The needing-to-sustain itself with blood, even human blood, isn't enough in and of itself for villainy. Dietary peculiarities don't justify murder. Get a job; buy the stuff wholesale: 'nuff said. If Orthodox Jewry and the vegans can manage it, so can the vamp.
Ah, but what if, they're fantastical in nature? Supernatural vampires presuppose a super-nature, and depending on the setting that means dealing with God or His storytelling equivalent. And not simply as "this is something people believe, to which the author will give a passing nod to for the sake of characterization and world-building," but as a reality the author and reader must address. (Try to remember the last novel where a character prayed, and his prayer was answered. Happens all the time in real life, but not, apparently in SF. Maybe there's a special force field) For better or worse, the traditional vampire is a kind of devil, and if the author is going to have his vampire vulnerable to crosses and holy water, the Christian God who made the world, loved it, and died for it, is going to have to be on stage too. For the most part, that leaves the door wide-open for "only bad vampires" because they're Really Just Devils, but not quite. More anon, after the obvious question: This is fantasy, right? Why shouldn't there be an imaginary world with no God, and demonic monsters?
There can: Josh Whedon's vampires in the Buffy, the Vampire Slayer T.V. series are perhaps the best-known rationalistic supernatural vampires (Jim Butcher's are the best written, but don't really apply1 here.) At the moment of near death, when the human is weak and terrified, the vampire uses blood-, fear- and/or death-magic to bring across a fellow demon to possess the body. Because humans are amphibian: both spiritual and fleshly creatures; our memories can exist both in the soul, and as cellular data embedded in the physical structures of our brain. The demon moves, as it were, into a fully-furnished apartment. Being a hate-filled devil-thing, of course, all those loving memories of family and friends are pure torture; especially as every time said family (or friends) appear, neurons fire and memories are freshly released. Gollum voice: "...it burns us, my Precioussss! Burnssss!" So one of the first things a newly minted vampire does is kill off anyone near and dear to the host. Continuing the theme, there'd be absolutely no reason for garlic to work, but any traditional defense against demons themselves ought to be just the ticket, as the vampire is a kind of halfling: partly decaying human flesh maintained indefinitely by the blood-magic of the demon, part pure demon. Mr. Whedon never really seemed to have thought this through, or perhaps it was just the inherently sloppy nature of serialized TV storytelling. What souls really are, the importance of choice/will, why the power of True Love (and not just Eros) should be effective, etc. never really had a chance to shine through. And by the time the spin-off series rolled around, the demons turned into aliens and all bets were off. Be that as it may, however, those early Buffy vampires were pure monsters, and if this were the only model of What-A-Vampire is, the notion of "good vampires" would be repugnant, too.
Only if, however the human host's soul is utterly displaced, or destroyed by a possessing demon. Because if not, then the potential for good vampires abound as the human finds a way (magically or otherwise) to regain control of his body. If only, as in The Silver Kiss so that he can force himself to walk into the sunlight. If the human remains entirely; if there is no demonic possession, then the good vampire becomes a necessity if the story isn't to be utterly banal. We're back to a mere change in diet (albeit an addictive one)both creating and justifying serial killers.
Ultimately, monsters are either monsters: devils from hell, rabid animals; or people. If they're people, then they can chose to be monsters.. or not. And it's in that space, the "or not" that hang the best stories. Some of which, as it turns out, are going to have a vampire, trying to be good. Their success or failure depends not just on the writerly skills the author brings to the table, but on his own moral clarity and perceptiveness of the human condition. It is perhaps because the "or not" is so very stark in the case of vampires, that the failings of the average modern writer (It's all sex! And oppression! Can I be more conformist and boring? Let's find out!) when trying to tell a good vampire story seem so glaring.
*************************************
1. Jim Butcher's monsters use the moment of near death when the Will is weakest, to tempt a human into chosing to accept demonic possession. His is a version of the Hans Christian Anderson story about the young prince who despises Adam and Eve for losing everybody the Garden of Eden2. No matter how it plays out, it's devil's bargain: either the soul is displaced entirely and immediately (Black Court), or partially, at which point the mortal has to resist the live-in demon; one slip and then he's entirely and immediately replaced (Red Court), or partially and incrementally until he's gone (White Court). It's usually a losing battle but it doesn't have to be, which makes for the possibility of both monsters (the demons won), and "good vampires", i.e. people who've put themselves in the way of hideous temptation, but resist.
2. The Garden of Paradise