Friday, July 23, 2010

Dying is Easy, Writing is Easy, Comedy and Taxes are Hard

Is there anything more overdone than the Vampire? The sheer amount of fang fiction that has come out the past few years is staggering. Still, I believe that writer can make anything interesting with a little work and imagination. Sometimes you just have to come to the subject through a new angle.

So, I was thinking of vampires (yes I often think of things that hopefully don't exist, don't you?), and a new angle did strike me. It doesn't seem all that new at first blush: Vampire as addict. We've seen this before haven't we? The vampire needing his hemo fix so badly. I can throw a stone at least a dozen films that has this at least as a subtext. So what's new about my take then?

It's not blood to which they are addicted. Blood is just their means to what they really want. What they will kill for. They are addicted to dying.

I like this and I work out the details. That what they are taking is life, either a little or all of it. Blood is just a convenient vessel of transfer. They use that stolen life to be able to die and to come back. Questions grow as I think about it:

  • What's so addictive about death?
  • If blood is just a convenient vessel can they take life in other ways?
  • What about the other bits of vampire lore can I fit them in?
  • Can the vampire use this stolen life for other things, would they want to?
  • Why would the vampire make other people into death junkies? Do they have a choice?

Given enough time I can come up with a pretty interesting tale. At least I hope I could. What do you think dear readers? Do you have any interesting ideas regarding the undead? Do you have any possible answers to the questions I have posed? An enquiring mind wants to know.

2 comments:

  1. So, I want to be clear that I understand your premise correctly. The vampire drinks life from others, not for the life it gives him, but for the death achieved after having been alive, if but briefly from that stolen life? His own death, recurring...Or do you mean he's addicted to dealing death thru his taking of the life's blood of others?

    I'd like to expand on this, so let me know if I've got it.?

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  2. yes by stealing the life of others the vampire is sort of a reverse phoenix. It can die again and again, and that is the addictive factor to these vampires. That the state of death is an incredible high. Such a high that they are willing to cause harm and even kill for the life. In these vampires they could theoretically "walk away" stop the cycle and go back to living as normal folks. So they aren't just damned but self damning.

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