How Society Defanged The Vampire

Caffiene

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RealRT said:
Is it silver that works against them (weird export from Werewolf mythos)
The silver bullet is actually found in a lot of different places. We associate it with werewolves these days, but that probably only comes from later editions (around 1930) of stories about the Beast of Gevaudan. It also traditionally applies to witches, like in Grimm fairy tales. The root seems to come from old beliefs that silver was useful for warding against disease, as a primitive recognition that silver has some anti-microbial properties, and so came to be associated with fighting off supernatural "infections" such as witchery, lycanthropy and vampirism.
 

briankoontz

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vid87 said:
Focusing strictly on the sex metaphor, I've always felt they represented rape and predatory tendencies in lieu of actual emotion, their being physically dead but in human form a kind of illusion of love and human intimacy that gives way to, since we're talking blood here, feral interactions that corrupts a live-creating act. I believe the older incarnations involve hypnotism and that you had to voluntarily invite one to be with you for them to get close. Plus, they're often charming, regal, sophisticated men or sexually drenched succubae, something that (at least in the stereotypes) attracts the opposite sex. I think a major reason vampires have lost their...bite is because we are not only more open about sex but have begun supporting sexual independence. I think it happened in something like Vampire Diaries (heard about it only), but the predatory aspect kind of fades when someone WANTS to be turned - it's a shift in the power dynamic.
There's a lot to what you're saying. Seduction isn't looked down upon anymore, and love is no longer required for sex. The amazing thing to me is that this is supposedly progressive - modern feminism for example celebrates women seducing men as representing "female empowerment", not as something terribly wrong on a basic moral level. Modern feminism doesn't seem to care or maybe even to understand that sex between people who don't love each other is traumatic, and degrades the people regardless of whether those people are sufficiently in touch with their own feelings to notice or whether they've been convinced by a pro-seduction society into believing it's right.

Back when seduction was deemed immoral, Vampires were symbols of that very immorality. That was WHY they had to hide in the shadows, have secret societies, and the like - because seduction was not permitted in society.

The way modern feminists would have it, sex has no emotional, relational, or psycho-chemical involvement whatsoever - it amounts to "getting your rocks off", it's merely a more pleasurable alternative to masturbation. The sex partner is, at least while he or she is in bed, not a human being at all, as pornography shows - he or she is a tool who gives you pleasure.

The underlying message of the Twilight series and why they appeal so much to young, pro-seduction people is that vampires are integrating into society. Vampires are no longer shunned - yes they have their own clique but they are allowed into school as students, allowed into hospitals as doctors - they are close to becoming fully integrated with humanity, at which point that "human" society will have fully accepted seduction as an acceptable social practice. For pro-seduction people, Twilight is saying "Your time is coming soon".

It's like a feminist in the Star Wars universe being approached by Darth Vader. She recoils instantly but then senses the power that she can use to "make the genders equal". So she accepts the Dark Side, believing that men celebrate seduction and she can't stop that so if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Women should celebrate seduction too, and the power it gives them! she triumphantly realizes. "I fuck who I want", the celebratory mantra, with a smile creeping across Vader's face.

It's not so much "how society defanged the vampire" as how the vampire fanged society. Once the vampire's work is done, there's no need for him in art.

Once human society integrates anything into it, it always calls the result "society" - the identical word is used for both the new society and the old society. So 1930 Germany was "society" and 1940 Nazi Germany was "society".

When something becomes real, it is no longer as interesting as fiction.
 

WiseBass

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Ugh, Daybreakers. They had an interesting, unique setup in the form of "what if humanity was involuntarily* transformed into vampires, but modern civilization survived?", and then wasted it on a stupid thriller plot. The premise would have been much better as a TV series, exploring how the involuntary vampirization plays out on society.

* Actually, I can't remember them being coherent on this. Sometimes it seemed like the vampirization was something that happened to humanity plague-style, other times it was more of a choice to become vampires.
 

Remus

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Actually, the vampires aren't just the X-Men with fangs, one of the X-Men is indeed a vampire. Jubilee was infected when a vamp exploded like a dirty bomb in the middle of a city, instantly infecting dozens of people.

The vampires from the Strain remind me of what a vampire should be - a ferocious beast that feeds on the blood of the living. It doesn't hurt that they can infect you from 8 feet away with a tentacle that shoots from their mouth. Perhaps that's the fear we can use, our fear of disease and the collapse of modern society as a result. With multiple bloodborn illnesses ravaging Africa, one of which we have a certain measure of control over after its introduction in the 70s and 80s, the other an old and well-known disease that has itself been the topic of Hollywood blockbusters, so that having a single infected person here has become newsworthy. Sure this is a niche that's currently occupied by our never-ending zombie craze, but vampires could fill it equally as well.
 

Lupine

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Sylocat said:
I liked Peter Watts's take [http://www.rifters.com/blindsight/vampires.htm] on vampires.

In this age, we're wrapped up in a quest for identity and terrified of losing connections to each other. Well, vampires, since they evolved to prey on us, are incapable of connecting to each other, or to humans on an emotional level, since they're also sociopaths. So, if you want the hyperintelligence/omnisavantism/super-speed and other goodies, you also have to deal with losing your conscience, and the loneliness that will come with it.
This is a concept that I've always liked. Darker Than Black was interesting as an anime to me for this very reason. Contractors do for superheroes/powered individuals what this would do for vampires. Darker Than Black dictates that "So yeah you can have a superpower, but here are your prices and here is what you sacrifice by becoming something that is essentially the human animal morphing into something inhuman that pushes the borders of human understanding. What I'm saying is that it works perfectly as a sort of new cautionary tale which is also a part of what came together to create the vampire mythos in the first place.

Someone earlier in the thread said that vampires were religious monsters. I don't really agree with that. To me, vampires evolved from two of humanity's bases fears and then sort of swirled them into something that basically represents both and then pieced together with societal taboos so that it can also be used as a cautionary tales.

We as human beings fear death and we fear the unknown. Vampires are essentially both. They are the dead (i.e. death which we fear) they come back to spread death to the living and they are unknowable monsters with motivations that we as humans can only really guess at. With that monster squarely in the drivers seat we then proceeded to make the cautionary tales. Don't be out in the dark. Don't follow strange men/women. Don't get lost in your desires and lusts. Don't invite strangers into your home. The vampire is more or less a collage of all the things that once worried society or were thought outrageous or taboo and even now they evolve to be new metaphors for newer worlds
 

putowtin

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RealRT said:
Well, that's the thing: virtually NO vampire rule bar "They drink blood" is set in stone. The sun? Dracula could give it middle fingers all day. Religious symbols? Blade vampires don't give a fuck. Neither of those are scary for Kain and his lieutenants, but water on the other hand is his acid. Night Watch and Let the Right One In vampires have to be invited to enter people's homes, while most just ignore it. Is it silver that works against them (weird export from Werewolf mythos) or iron like in Supernatural?
It's dead mans blood or beheading in Supernatural, iron seems to work on ghost and to identify other big bad's...
say's the fan girl in the corner...
and I only spotted the article because of it's use of a Supernatural image

[sub]Episode 5 season 4 Monster Movie[/sub]
 

RealRT

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putowtin said:
RealRT said:
Well, that's the thing: virtually NO vampire rule bar "They drink blood" is set in stone. The sun? Dracula could give it middle fingers all day. Religious symbols? Blade vampires don't give a fuck. Neither of those are scary for Kain and his lieutenants, but water on the other hand is his acid. Night Watch and Let the Right One In vampires have to be invited to enter people's homes, while most just ignore it. Is it silver that works against them (weird export from Werewolf mythos) or iron like in Supernatural?
It's dead mans blood or beheading in Supernatural, iron seems to work on ghost and to identify other big bad's...
say's the fan girl in the corner...
and I only spotted the article because of it's use of a Supernatural image

[sub]Episode 5 season 4 Monster Movie[/sub]
You gotta behead them with an iron blade, IIRC. Besides that, iron is found in early slavic myths about vampires.
 

bjj hero

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briankoontz said:
Seduction isn't looked down upon anymore, and love is no longer required for sex. The amazing thing to me is that this is supposedly progressive - modern feminism for example celebrates women seducing men as representing "female empowerment", not as something terribly wrong on a basic moral level. Modern feminism doesn't seem to care or maybe even to understand that sex between people who don't love each other is traumatic, and degrades the people regardless of whether those people are sufficiently in touch with their own feelings to notice or whether they've been convinced by a pro-seduction society into believing it's right.

Back when seduction was deemed immoral, Vampires were symbols of that very immorality. That was WHY they had to hide in the shadows, have secret societies, and the like - because seduction was not permitted in society.
Lots of things have been deemed immoral at some point in history and now the majority of us agree they're just fine and not harmful. Homosexuality, sex outside of wedlock, interacial relationships. Sex is no longer something to put on a pedestel, to be saved and remain "pure" for that one special someone. We're thankfully past the point where purity in relationship to your genetalia is linked to your value. It's recognised as BS in most of the civilised world. Thankfully weve moved away from the idea that women need to be virgins on their wedding day to have worth.

You are right, love doesnt have to be twinned with sex although its awesome when it is. Sex between consenting adults is far from traumatic or degrading, at least how Ive done it. You dont have to be in love with someone, just be honest and have fun so people dont get hurt.

I've had sex with people where we both knew it was for a short period and going no where, but it was enjoyable while it lasted and we both got what we were after. Equally Ive had sex with some once and never again. It made for an entertaining evening. Just dont tell people you love them when you dont and dont "play" with people who love you. Honesty is key and Ive neither been degraded or traumatised.

OT, I think vampires are just over exposed and thats why they're no longer scary. It is the same with zombies. They are also far from scary. As a child they were teriffying but now theyre everywhere and my son thinks theyre awesome because of this.
 

Scarecrow1001

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Guys, I agree! We need to have a new threat.
How about we take a leaf out of the book of Tony Abbot. You see, all we need as the new horror stars are people in burqas. Because, you know, they are horrifying and make children uncomfortable, apparently.
 

Kahani

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thaluikhain said:
But whenever they are created out of nowhere in a movie, they follow the same rather silly rules (for some reason) and nobody in the story knows what they are (for some reason).
Except that those reasons aren't silly at all; tropes exist for very good reasons. If something doesn't behave in a way that's at all familiar to the audience, you have to take time to actually explain it. Using a recognisable trope instead allows you to spend that time actually telling the story you want to tell. If zombies didn't follow largely the same rules, they simply wouldn't be zombies. A film (or book or whatever) explaining the details of how their not-zombies behave and why could be interesting in itself, but that's not necessarily the aspect the creator wants to address.

8bitOwl said:
Why do you think zombie movies became so popular recently? In this society of huge toxic cities where we meet hundreds of people walking on the street, but never talk to them?
That sort of thing may be part of it, but large, impersonal cities have been around since well before the recent zombie craze. I think a larger part of it is simply that vampires are far from the only monster to have been defanged in modern times. Frankenstein and other similar monsters* (The Island of Doctor Moreau) base their horror on things like defiling the human body and mixing human and animal nature. But surgery and transplants are now common, and not only do we know that humans are animals, you can hardly look at the news without seeing another story about some animal using tools, learning sign language, or otherwise showing behaviour previously thought to be uniquely human. Gross-out body horror still exists, but the more general societal fears about human and animal nature are largely gone.

And it's the same for so many other monsters. Demons and other religious based monsters have many of the same issues that vampires do. Werewolves are still somewhat popular, but both the fear of wild animals and our own animal nature are generally much less. Witches have lost their mystery since we understand most of the thing they used to be blamed for, and things like modern Wicca tend to give them a much less monstrous reputation. And the list goes on. Name any traditional monster, and the fears that originally made it scary have almost certainly gone, or at least been much reduced, in the modern world.

Except zombies. Loss of personality. Loved ones turning on you. Contagion. Implacability. Pretty much all the things that make zombies monsters in the first place are still very much in place, and in some cases potentially even more so than in the past. Zombies are popular monsters because they're one of the few that is actually still monstrous.


*Yes, the monster is also called Frankenstein; he took his father's name.
 

SonicWaffle

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RealRT said:
putowtin said:
RealRT said:
Well, that's the thing: virtually NO vampire rule bar "They drink blood" is set in stone. The sun? Dracula could give it middle fingers all day. Religious symbols? Blade vampires don't give a fuck. Neither of those are scary for Kain and his lieutenants, but water on the other hand is his acid. Night Watch and Let the Right One In vampires have to be invited to enter people's homes, while most just ignore it. Is it silver that works against them (weird export from Werewolf mythos) or iron like in Supernatural?
It's dead mans blood or beheading in Supernatural, iron seems to work on ghost and to identify other big bad's...
say's the fan girl in the corner...
and I only spotted the article because of it's use of a Supernatural image

[sub]Episode 5 season 4 Monster Movie[/sub]
You gotta behead them with an iron blade, IIRC. Besides that, iron is found in early slavic myths about vampires.
Nah, don't really matter what the blade is so long as the head comes off. In the first episode with Gordon Walker, Dean takes the head off one with a circular saw.

/Supernatural geek
 

barbzilla

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thaluikhain said:
Eh, let them fade away and be replaced by something new. Christ, anything new.

One of my gripes with vampires (and similar monsters), is that despite not existing, they are easily recognisable, with rules that are set in stone (sparkling vampires are bad because it's a bad idea, not because it's "raping the mythos" or somesuch nonsense).

Mind you, zombies have it worse. Nothing like zombies have ever existed, and yet everyone recognises them. But whenever they are created out of nowhere in a movie, they follow the same rather silly rules (for some reason) and nobody in the story knows what they are (for some reason). There are exceptions, of course, but they are exceptions.
Not true on both accounts. Vampires and Zombies both have historical placement. Not as the monsters they are not represented as, but there are plenty of cases of people drinking blood for entertainment and sustenance, and when you are dealing with a medieval culture the people are likely going to create a monster out of the concept.

As for zombies, they are even more realistic than you think. In the Caribbean there are voodoo and hoodoo practitioners who use tetrodotoxin to create zombies out of people. Now when I say zombie, I mean the historical meaning. The tetrodotoxin makes it look as though the subject has died, and while the body is on display, the priest will then administer the antidote and some drugs to keep the person docile and receptive to orders. They would then use the "Zombies" to harvest their fields and basically work as slaves. This is where the concept of zombies came from.
 

barbzilla

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RealRT said:
thaluikhain said:
Eh, let them fade away and be replaced by something new. Christ, anything new.

One of my gripes with vampires (and similar monsters), is that despite not existing, they are easily recognisable, with rules that are set in stone (sparkling vampires are bad because it's a bad idea, not because it's "raping the mythos" or somesuch nonsense).

Mind you, zombies have it worse. Nothing like zombies have ever existed, and yet everyone recognises them. But whenever they are created out of nowhere in a movie, they follow the same rather silly rules (for some reason) and nobody in the story knows what they are (for some reason). There are exceptions, of course, but they are exceptions.
Well, that's the thing: virtually NO vampire rule bar "They drink blood" is set in stone. The sun? Dracula could give it middle fingers all day. Religious symbols? Blade vampires don't give a fuck. Neither of those are scary for Kain and his lieutenants, but water on the other hand is his acid. Night Watch and Let the Right One In vampires have to be invited to enter people's homes, while most just ignore it. Is it silver that works against them (weird export from Werewolf mythos) or iron like in Supernatural? How do you kill them? Is just a stake in the heart enough or you should also cut their head off, put it upside down in their corpse and throw the coffin into the river? What kind of abilities they have? Vampires endure because they have little to no clear ruleset.
I agree with you, but I would like to expand on what you said. The reason that vampires have no clear cut rules is because almost every single culture has its own version of vampires. Now what we typically think of when we hear vampire is the Romanian Wamphr. That is what dracula was based on, and is rumored to have been set in motion by Vlad the Impaler (however most history buffs would say that he only reinforced the myth). However there are as many types of vampires across the world as there are serpent like creatures, and because of this there are almost as many rule sets for them.
 

Verlander

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Vampires are inherently sexual, and therefore inherently personal. Meaning that they'll always be adapted differently, and recieved differently. There is no absolute
 

Lupine

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Verlander said:
Vampires are inherently sexual, and therefore inherently personal. Meaning that they'll always be adapted differently, and recieved differently. There is no absolute
Except that isn't really true. Vampires weren't originally sexual at all. The post-Dracula vampire is sexual to be sure, but the pre-Stoker vampires were little different from creatures such as revenants and any dozens of ghouls, shamble men, what have you. The idea of a corpse animated against the living isn't an especially rare one in a ton of mythologies across the world and it got a lot less rare as plagues became much more prevalent and people found more superstitious outlets for their anxieties over the looming specters of sickness and death.

Totally agree about the lack of absolutes though, as someone else pointed out, there are so many vampire type creatures in so many mythologies that the amount of possibilities really are mind boggling. More than that, as with most mythologies, there are bound to be more interpretations and adaptions as more and more cultures lay hands on said myth.
 

Izanagi009_v1legacy

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DANGER- MUST SILENCE said:
Oh god, so much this. This is why as an angsty teen when my angsty friends wanted to play Vampire: The Masquerade I just could not get into it. "Oh woe, we are creatures of the night! We can stay up and do anything we want and our undead state is an automatic diet plan that lets us fit into leather pants and look beautiful unless we want to pick an ugly clan because sometimes it's more fun to be scary. We get powers that humans don't, we get to be the most powerful people in the world, and the downside that costs us our very soul is that we must feed on humans, an inhuman shameful habit that practically gives them an orgasm for free and has no consequences. Then our Storyteller de-fanged it even further by not actually making us roleplay the hunts, because that took too much time away from poncey pale people politicking and poking each other while dramatically flipping their bangs out of their faces, so at the start of each game we just assumed our blood pool was full. No horror, just gothic-superpowered posing.

But when it comes to de-fanging, Vampires ain't got nothing on elves and other denizens of faerie folklore.

Maybe one neat avenue for getting the tooth back in vampires is to play up the generation-gap angle. Make the different vampire denominations have really obnoxious rules they follow for some reason that could maybe reference vampiric folklore, and physically the vampires are under no obligation to follow the rules at all, but they're constantly being watched by more ancient vampires who impose vicious punishments for not following "the rules". Perhaps as the founders age they get more and more detached from humanity so they fixate on rules the way we might fixate on social cues and manners. So like one faction is perfectly able to walk into houses uninvited, but as the founder of that clan fixated on that rule anyone in their bloodline who violates the rule will somehow get caught out by an elder (some kind of psychic bond in the blood) and that elder will torment them in unspeakable ways. Another has no real need to count scattered corn, but their founder became obsessed with numbers and so they are something like undead accountants- constantly getting quizzed by elders about how many of any given thing they encountered until their own sanity breaks under the madness imposed upon them and they become the new masters tormenting the young. In this way vampirism is a metaphor for the kind of bullying that comes with trying to climb a corporate/social ladder- yes there is more power but your life becomes bound to people who don't care about you and who take away your ability to enjoy the power you have.
Interesting idea, I was thinking since the writer mentioned ash something involving the djinn mythos and how trying to take the easy route will end badly

also, how exactly have elves and faerie folklore been neutered? I only know that dwarfs of Norse myth used to be blacksmiths who were scorned by the people who used the weapons and cursed them.
 

barbzilla

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Izanagi009 said:
DANGER- MUST SILENCE said:
Oh god, so much this. This is why as an angsty teen when my angsty friends wanted to play Vampire: The Masquerade I just could not get into it. "Oh woe, we are creatures of the night! We can stay up and do anything we want and our undead state is an automatic diet plan that lets us fit into leather pants and look beautiful unless we want to pick an ugly clan because sometimes it's more fun to be scary. We get powers that humans don't, we get to be the most powerful people in the world, and the downside that costs us our very soul is that we must feed on humans, an inhuman shameful habit that practically gives them an orgasm for free and has no consequences. Then our Storyteller de-fanged it even further by not actually making us roleplay the hunts, because that took too much time away from poncey pale people politicking and poking each other while dramatically flipping their bangs out of their faces, so at the start of each game we just assumed our blood pool was full. No horror, just gothic-superpowered posing.

But when it comes to de-fanging, Vampires ain't got nothing on elves and other denizens of faerie folklore.

Maybe one neat avenue for getting the tooth back in vampires is to play up the generation-gap angle. Make the different vampire denominations have really obnoxious rules they follow for some reason that could maybe reference vampiric folklore, and physically the vampires are under no obligation to follow the rules at all, but they're constantly being watched by more ancient vampires who impose vicious punishments for not following "the rules". Perhaps as the founders age they get more and more detached from humanity so they fixate on rules the way we might fixate on social cues and manners. So like one faction is perfectly able to walk into houses uninvited, but as the founder of that clan fixated on that rule anyone in their bloodline who violates the rule will somehow get caught out by an elder (some kind of psychic bond in the blood) and that elder will torment them in unspeakable ways. Another has no real need to count scattered corn, but their founder became obsessed with numbers and so they are something like undead accountants- constantly getting quizzed by elders about how many of any given thing they encountered until their own sanity breaks under the madness imposed upon them and they become the new masters tormenting the young. In this way vampirism is a metaphor for the kind of bullying that comes with trying to climb a corporate/social ladder- yes there is more power but your life becomes bound to people who don't care about you and who take away your ability to enjoy the power you have.
Interesting idea, I was thinking since the writer mentioned ash something involving the djinn mythos and how trying to take the easy route will end badly

also, how exactly have elves and faerie folklore been neutered? I only know that dwarfs of Norse myth used to be blacksmiths who were scorned by the people who used the weapons and cursed them.
Allow me to answer the Fae question. The main reason elves, and other fae, have been butchered has to do with Tolkenien lore. Since LoTR, it became the standard for how they were treated, and the Shakespearian (as well as the Gaelic) fae have all but vanished. Probably the most notable movie in recent years that used Gaelic lore for the fae was Hellboy 2, and other than that I can't think of anything other than a few eccentric horror movies.
 

Izanagi009_v1legacy

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barbzilla said:
Izanagi009 said:
DANGER- MUST SILENCE said:
Oh god, so much this. This is why as an angsty teen when my angsty friends wanted to play Vampire: The Masquerade I just could not get into it. "Oh woe, we are creatures of the night! We can stay up and do anything we want and our undead state is an automatic diet plan that lets us fit into leather pants and look beautiful unless we want to pick an ugly clan because sometimes it's more fun to be scary. We get powers that humans don't, we get to be the most powerful people in the world, and the downside that costs us our very soul is that we must feed on humans, an inhuman shameful habit that practically gives them an orgasm for free and has no consequences. Then our Storyteller de-fanged it even further by not actually making us roleplay the hunts, because that took too much time away from poncey pale people politicking and poking each other while dramatically flipping their bangs out of their faces, so at the start of each game we just assumed our blood pool was full. No horror, just gothic-superpowered posing.

But when it comes to de-fanging, Vampires ain't got nothing on elves and other denizens of faerie folklore.

Maybe one neat avenue for getting the tooth back in vampires is to play up the generation-gap angle. Make the different vampire denominations have really obnoxious rules they follow for some reason that could maybe reference vampiric folklore, and physically the vampires are under no obligation to follow the rules at all, but they're constantly being watched by more ancient vampires who impose vicious punishments for not following "the rules". Perhaps as the founders age they get more and more detached from humanity so they fixate on rules the way we might fixate on social cues and manners. So like one faction is perfectly able to walk into houses uninvited, but as the founder of that clan fixated on that rule anyone in their bloodline who violates the rule will somehow get caught out by an elder (some kind of psychic bond in the blood) and that elder will torment them in unspeakable ways. Another has no real need to count scattered corn, but their founder became obsessed with numbers and so they are something like undead accountants- constantly getting quizzed by elders about how many of any given thing they encountered until their own sanity breaks under the madness imposed upon them and they become the new masters tormenting the young. In this way vampirism is a metaphor for the kind of bullying that comes with trying to climb a corporate/social ladder- yes there is more power but your life becomes bound to people who don't care about you and who take away your ability to enjoy the power you have.
Interesting idea, I was thinking since the writer mentioned ash something involving the djinn mythos and how trying to take the easy route will end badly

also, how exactly have elves and faerie folklore been neutered? I only know that dwarfs of Norse myth used to be blacksmiths who were scorned by the people who used the weapons and cursed them.
Allow me to answer the Fae question. The main reason elves, and other fae, have been butchered has to do with Tolkenien lore. Since LoTR, it became the standard for how they were treated, and the Shakespearian (as well as the Gaelic) fae have all but vanished. Probably the most notable movie in recent years that used Gaelic lore for the fae was Hellboy 2, and other than that I can't think of anything other than a few eccentric horror movies.
The fae from Hellboy 2, the one who tried to command the golden army and uses the tooth fairy as a weapon to consume people. I certainly find it interesting and different from normal lore but I have a feeling the research needed to get all the details at this point may be more than most of hollywood wants to do