Harry Potter vs. Twilight

Vampires

So, I just watched a documentary about vampires. Or, rather, the origin of vampire myths. Because they've clearly been around longer than Dracula.

People have believed in vampires since Medieval times. In isolated villages, people would become ill and they had no idea what caused it. Humans have an innate desire to blame someone or something for problems, so they blamed the dead.

People who died of bubonic plague, tuberculosis, and leprosy were most often thought of as vampires, probably because these diseases manifest themselves in such visible ways. The documentary had rather gruesome photos.

Each culture had their own ways of burying the dead. When the plague struck, large cities would dig pits and dump the bodies in. When they saw what the bodies looked like in their decaying state, they thought they were vampires. Allow me to explain:

The bacteria in the body causes a bloated stomach. More bacteria, or possibly maggots, creates blood around the mouth area. Grave diggers would see this and think the vampires would attack the living.

The word 'vampire' comes to is from Romania, as the English language has no original word for these creatures. That is why vampires in stories are often portrayed as Eastern European (think Dracula). However, evidence of the belief in vampires has been found throughout all of Europe.

Speaking of Romania, anti-vampire rituals have been practised there as late as 2004. The rituals are disgusting. The people doing the rituals would dig up the coffin, take out the body, cut open the chest, take out the heart, and burn it at a central place. They then would take the ashes from the fire and make a drink out of them, giving it to the sick person. This was believed to cure the ill person.

Many people practised anti-vampire rituals as a precaution, to ensure that the loved one did not become a vampire. This was a common practise in isolated villages throughout all of Europe. Skeletons have been found with axes in their necks, leftover from such rituals.

Each country had different rituals that they performed after someone had become a vampire. In England, they would cut off the body's head and place it at the feet. In Romania and small countries in Eastern Europe, the above mentioned practise concerning the heart was used.

As the church gained more power, vampires fell out of common belief, at least in Western Europe. It is still common for Eastern Europeans, especially in small villages, to believe in vampires.

A resurgence in vampiric belief happened in the early twentieth century, in America, of all places. There was a tuberculosis epidemic, and people reverted to the beliefs of the Middle Ages.

Quite possibly as a result of this epidemic, Bram Stoker wrote a book which would become famous, a book known to just about everybody in the world: Dracula.

The book was a hit, and the story of a man feasting on blood made its way to the stage. It was even more of a success there, as people saw this vampire for the first time. Dracula is still the iconic vampire.

Countless films have been made out of the story of Dracula. My brother, who is a fanboy, tells me that the late Christopher Lee was Dracula five or six times in his long career.

Knowing the history of vampires makes me disgusted with Twilight. We have had centuries of vampires. All of the vampires have been terrifying and macabre. Until now.

Now, we have glittering vampires who drink the blood of animals. Sure, the volturi drink human blood, but they're still not that scary. Twilight vampires are a disgrace to the long history of vampires.

In 2004, in Romania, a young woman said that a vampire was visiting her at night. She said it was a man who had died a few months earlier. The entire village, including the wife of the deceased man, said that the centuries-old vampire rituals must be performed. Late one night, a group of men went out and performed the entire gruesome ritual, complete with having the young woman drink the ashes.

This is what vampires are. Fear and terror. Stories scary enough to make grown men desecrate a grave. The medieval stories say that if a vampire consumes enough blood, it will walk on earth and kill.

I'm not one for vampire stories. I prefer high fantasy myself. (I'll put a list of high fantasy books at the end of this chapter). But I would rather read Dracula one hundred times, see each and every film, than read or watch the Twilight movies. Stick with the types of vampires that have been around for just about one thousand years. I think it will show how vampires are supposed to be portrayed.

Documentary:
Secrets of the Dead: Vampire Legends

High fantasy books:
The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis
The Eragon series by Christopher Paolini
The Prydain Chronicles by Lloyd Alexander