Someone please give me the deatils on how a proper vampire functions

[Erttheking]

After Twilight ruined the concept of vampires for a lot of people I think we could all use a refresher course of how vampires work. It was at that point that I realized that I really only know the sterotypes of vampires (can't be in sunlight, doesn't like holy objects and garlic and bites people) so I was hoping that we could have a discussion on how vampires work with people reminding me how they do work. A couple of things kinda stick out for me.

How come when a vampire bites someone it just drains their victim's blood and sometimes it changes them, what determines that? In Hellsing it says that they're only turned if the person being bitten is a virgin of the opposite gender, but considering how over the top Hellsing is I'm hesitant to take it's word for it.

Can vampires reproduce via sex? If so, do they create full blooded vampires or just damphirs?

Or am I just shooting in the dark and are vampires a lot like demons and that the author can do whatever the Hell they want with them?

 

[iwinatlife]

for me vampires are made by almost fully draining then the vampire cuts their wrist and feed the victims some vampire blood. A la Vampire the Masquerade...but really vampires are up to author

 

[Asita]

How far back is 'proper'? Are we talking Anne Rice or Bram Stoker? Or are we talking folk tales? Convention changes quite a bit by author.

As to the questions:

How come when a vampire bites someone it just drains their victim's blood and sometimes it changes them, what determines that? In Hellsing it says that they're only turned if the person being bitten is a virgin of the opposite gender, but considering how over the top Hellsing is I'm hesitant to take it's word for it.

Hellsing was a bit of a break from the norm, yes, and in many respects. There are a lot of works that make the bite itself viral, but more respected works seem to have an additional caveat, that the victim can only turn by himself/herself drinking the blood of the vampire, as in Stoker's work.

Can vampires reproduce via sex? If so, do they create full blooded vampires or just damphirs?

Usually, no. This is due to two main points: 1) Vampires are undead and thus their organs don't properly function. 2) Vampires are almost always immortal and as such tend also to be granted an immunity to aging, meaning that a person will stay at a relatively fixed age after being turned. Some works even explore the implications of this with the turning of children. Without breaking this latter rule in some way, a vampire baby would remain an infant forever (one might even make the case for it being an early pregnancy forever). Some works do break the convention, however, through, one way or another[footnote]The Van Helsing movie starring Hugh Jackman, for instance, gave Dracula and his brides thousands of bat-like children...all stillborn. In order to circumvent this they needed to use Dr. Frankenstein's work on bringing the dead to life.[/footnote]

Or am I just shooting in the dark and are vampires a lot like demons and that the author can do whatever the Hell they want with them?

To one extent or another that certainly seems true. There are certain conventions that are generally followed, such as the need to drink blood, the fatalness of a stake to the heart, and being very vulnerable to sunlight. Additional traits include everything from transformative abilities, to OCD, to requiring an invitation to enter a house.

 

[Dags90]

To one extent or another that certainly seems true. There are certain conventions that are generally followed, such as the need to drink blood, the fatalness of a stake to the heart, and being very vulnerable to sunlight. Additional traits include everything from transformative abilities, to OCD, to requiring an invitation to enter a house.

Don't forget the mind raping, the mind raping is pretty popular. Along with hypnosis/mind rape, soothsaying isn't unheard of (though a more modern adaptation).

The two most common themes for transformation are vampire restraint (i.e. managing to not kill a human after biting and feeding some amount) and human participation (i.e. human drinks some vampire blood).

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Proper according to whom? There's no vampire canon, or rather, there's a canon for every work of fiction depicting vampires. Greek myth says vampires (lamiae, empusae) are female. Bram Stoker says they drink blood, are allergic to garlic, need to sleep in coffins filled with dirt from their homes, get staked to death. F. W. Murnau says they disintegrate in sunlight. Stephanie Meyer says they sparkle. Etcetera.

 

[Smertnik]

Or am I just shooting in the dark and are vampires a lot like demons and that the author can do whatever the Hell they want with them?

Since neither vampires, nor demons actually exist, yes.

 

[BeeGeenie]

There are a lot of different variations on the theme. Bram Stoker wrote that sunlight only weakened vampires, not killing them. Also there's a thing about being unable to cross running water (without the coffin full of dirt). Also, Dracula was killed with a Bowie knife in the heart, not a stake, although some sources say that the stake only paralyzes them, allowing you to cut off their head, and stuff the mouth with garlic.

So yeah. Though all sources agree: They drink blood, sunlight is a bad thing, and Stephanie Meyer's vampires are lame.

 

[someonehairy-ish]

They're generally changed to fill whatever role the author needs them to. Sometimes they're a metaphor for addiction or sexual deviance or whatever, sometimes they're closer to a metaphor for a spreading virus or disease, sometimes they're a exaggeration caricatures of various kinds of deviant or outsider. Sometimes they're undead, or just infected, or more like animals...

Drinking blood and being aversely affected by sunlight are the only things which most authors degree on, but secondary details like whether feeding kills the victim or not are altered based on how sympathetic the author wants them to be.

 

[Beffudled Sheep_v1legacy]

The only way a true vampire for me is made is through a powerful necromancer using magic to raise a dead human and then for that human-turned vampire to use parts of his own soul to raise other humans into a vampiric undeath.

They will also have a penchant for melodramatic speeches in faux-Shakespearean style and a severe allergy to water.

 

[Hagi]

It all really depends on the property in question.

In many of them vampires are made by giving mortals vampire blood, although sometimes it's required for the mortal to be drained dry first. But the Elder Scrolls for example has vampirism as a disease which you can contract like every other disease in that universe, by being hit by someone carrying it.

In most of them vampires can't reproduce either, their organs have lost most of their original functions. It's common for vampires to be unable to eat food without puking it right back up, their stomachs can only handle blood. Their lungs usually stop working as well, no need for oxygen. Their wombs or testes suffer a similar fate in most properties. But there are always exceptions and such, Underworld has vampires with children.

Each property has pretty much it's own unique attributes and vampires have been around for so long that it's probably impossible to find whatever the original was, if there even was such a thing.

 

[Headdrivehardscrew]

Since we all know that vampires do not exist, I think it's about time to focus on the archetype of vampires that did (and do indeed) exist.

In general, a vampire will influence people to do their bidding. A vampire will use good looks, high intellect and charming small talk to reel you in. A vampire will feed off the fear (or other emotion of choice that happens to be available) of their underling/victims/prey. A vampire is a very selfish twerp, and no matter how well-spoken or refined they might seem to be, they're are all social predators that will suck their victims dry. Most vampires won't mind killing others when it serves their purpose or goals in life.

As for the 'creating other vampires' bit - if you find yourself raised by a vampire, you will, most probably, be adept at manipulating others and walking the dark path. Your idea of 'love' will be twisted. Your true intentions will remain hidden from most other people, and you will not force yourself unto others. You will wait for them to let you into their lives, and only then will you start tearing their very souls apart and empty their hearts and wallets and brainwash them into loving you forever.

Vampires don't dissolve when you sprinkle holy water on them or poke them with crosses. They just don't dig the ten commandments much.

A proper vampire does, indeed, have a mirror image, but they tend to not like having their picture taken, for whatever reason.

They can withstand sunlight just fine, it's just that they prefer to act in darkness, where no one can see them.

They can shift not quite into bats and smoke and wolves, but into someone you, as it turns out, don't quite know as good as you thought you did.

They can also eat garlic just fine. But since it does not serve their purpose and is a major turn-off to potential victims, they like to play it safe, smell of vanilla, sandalwood or patchouli. Whatever they think will do the trick, really.

A proper vampire will damage you for life, so you will never, ever forget them. That's a rather special kind of immortality.

They are more complex creatures than, say, werewolves, who are mostly just ravaging lunatics and alcoholics.

 

[Mordekaien]

If memory serves me correct, the really old accounts of vampires were nearly identical with those of revenants, slavic old upiors, demons and such, spirits of evil humans that couldn't pass in the next world due to being sinners, revenge etc.
I've read an old transcript from medieval Germany that states two guards, killing a vampire with swords on one occasion.
I guess most of the stuff that are popular from vampires nowadays ( weakness to sun, garlic, running waters, etc.) were Stoker's inventions, but take all I've said with a grain of salt.
The weakness to silver was attributed to all demons due to various religions- 30 silvers for Judas, folk superstitions of paying for the ride to afterlife with two silver coins etc. That explained why vampires are not visible in mirrors (mirrors from the old times were made with a silver part in them for reflection).

 

[Lugbzurg]

What a coincidence. I was just marathoning the animé, Rosario + Vampire. However, it didn't really bring up anything I didn't already "know" about vampires. I did learn what a succubus was, though.

However, my sister did bring up some information she had researched on the topic, and it's... rather odd, to say the least.

Want to kill a vampire?
No problem! When he's asleep, remove his left sock, fill it with rocks, and throw it into the water. When he wakes up, he will feel compelled to dive in after it, and die instantly underwater.

Want to just slow one down?
All you need are seeds. Lots and lots of seeds! If you dump a bunch of seeds in a vampire's path, he will have no choice but to drop everything he's doing and start counting them. He cannot do anything else until he's counted every last seed.

 

[EHKOS]

Whatever's proper, garlic certainly doesn't work. Mostly I play by Masqurade rules.

 

[Olas]

Vampires are a Frankenstein's Monster of horror and literature conventions. Author's keep using the term but like to slap on their own set of rules, each adding to the increasingly convoluted and contradictory lore behind them. The Watchowski brothers siblings felt that even the goddamn Matrix movies needed vampires. So take your pick, because there is no "proper vampire", and aside from a few very common rules (drinking blood, eternal youth, hurt by sunlight) the different version's can be highly inconsistent.

Really this is true of all traditional monsters, vampires only stand out because they've been around longer than most and have been used more than any other.

 

[cthulhlu]

originally Vampire's zombies and werewolves were all the same monster, a rotting corpse that got up at night to eat you and could turn into various animals to escape/eat you, its only comparatively recently that we began to talk about the three separately.
a good example of this is the Strogi, a vampire from (i belive) the Slavic regions, its basically a rotting body with animal teeth that creep in through the windows at night to drain the blood of virgins, but will kill livestock if it cant get at you.

 

[Esotera]

It totally depends. Vampires in the real world were thought to basically be zombies - people who were buried could be reanimated in their graves, so a stake was put through them to hold them into the ground. I suppose the traditional vampire at the minute would be like Dracula - upper class, highly intelligent and intellectual, and able to turn people at will.

 

[Gizmo1990]

I think that Jim Butcher does them best in The Dresden Files as their are different types.

Red Court Vampires are blood drinking bat creatures that can take a human apperance called a Flesh Mask to walk in the sun. They infect humans making them into half vampires. Half vampires still have a soul and are stronger and faster but they also have the bloodlust. When they willigly consume human blood, their soul is destroyed and them become full vampires.

White Court Vampires look human but have a deamon type thing inside them that makes them immortal, ageless, stronger, faster and can control members of the opposite (or prefered) sex but they have to feed on emotional energy. There are different clans that feed of different emotions, (sex/plesure, pain, fear) normaly resulting in the death of the victim. White Court vamps are born mortal and then change later on.

Black Court are the most powerfull and are exactly as Bram Stoker wrote them.

 

[DoPo]

After Twilight ruined the concept of vampires for a lot of people I think we could all use a refresher course of how vampires work. It was at that point that I realized that I really only know the sterotypes of vampires (can't be in sunlight, doesn't like holy objects and garlic and bites people) so I was hoping that we could have a discussion on how vampires work with people reminding me how they do work. A couple of things kinda stick out for me.

Erm, there is no ONE TRUE WAY of vampires. I van point to several franchises that do vampires completely differently form one another and yet they are all vampires. I'll give you a quick rundown

How come when a vampire bites someone it just drains their victim's blood and sometimes it changes them, what determines that? In Hellsing it says that they're only turned if the person being bitten is a virgin of the opposite gender, but considering how over the top Hellsing is I'm hesitant to take it's word for it.

Yeah, that's just Hellsing (I don't recall the "opposite gender" being a requirement, though) - in Dracula, bites don't transform people, the count had to give them blood to drink. Several times, in fact - it was a more complicated process. Dracula himself became a vampire pretty much on a whim - he's the first one. In Anne Rice's works (and Vampire the Masquerade/Requiem), drinking a mortal's blood and turning them into a vampire are two unrelated things - the vampire has to give a dying mortal just a sip of their blood (few drops should be enough) and that makes a new one. The mortal need not be dying off blood loss, either, just generally dying. In Blade...hmm, I'm a little hazy there, but I think any victim turns into one of them, unless they die. Many horror movies have vampires spreading their curse like a disease - just a bite is all it takes (but that's more of a general horror movie trope - werewolves and zombies operate the same way). In the Elder Scrolls, vampirism is a disease - it can be transmitted through a bite, or a scratch or whatever. Twilight has the disease spread as well, it seems to be transmitted through a bite.

As for feeding requirements, again - different works operate differently. In some a vampire has to drink the blood of a whole mortal, or maybe more than one (though that is rarer) every night or every few nights (like, a week). In other works, vampires need just a little bit of blood and don't have to kill a mortal at all (back to the previous ones - some actually require a kill). Others don't actually need to feed. As in, they can happily operate without drinking blood, maybe even eat other food. Hellsing is one of these - Seras managed to stay quite long without drinking blood - she didn't starve or anything.

Can vampires reproduce via sex? If so, do they create full blooded vampires or just damphirs?

Depends - on both questions. Some works have them as walking cadavers. Pretty much zombies that don't call out "Bra-a-ains". Cadavers are generally not good for reproduction. Other times, vampires are actually living...to an extent, at least - they won't be undead, as a minimum. Living vampires may be able to have sex (well, undead ones might still get the...equipment to work, but it's more muscle control than actually working) but are more often than not sterile, alternatively they'll create a dhampir (if they exist in the universe) and least likely they'll create a new vampire. If they do, most likely that would be with another vampire.

Or am I just shooting in the dark and are vampires a lot like demons and that the author can do whatever the Hell they want with them?

Yup, pretty much. I haven't even touched upon the legends here - different works cover all the spectrum, the legendary ones might even offer more. The requirement for something to be a "vampire" seems to be "feeds on the living". More or less it's this. Blood is recommended but not a must. Similarly, having some sort of relationship with the night (or the dark/lack of sun) that makes them stronger or alternatively a relationship with the sun that makes them weaker is recommended but not a must again. Finally, new vampires would most likely come after some actions of other vampires. But that's it.

 

[Nickolai77]

Well the defining functions and general behaviour of a vampire should be relative to the kind of story the authors trying to write. Hollywood action movie vampires you want Underworld vamps, if you want OTT crazy vamps- Alucard, and i guess if you're writing teenage romance than Twilight vamps are most suitable.

How Mayer writes the Twilight vampires may be annoying- but that's because you'll also find her entire set of novels annoying. Can you imagine if Twilight vampires were written like Alucard?