So, I typed this phrase into Google image search, expecting to find a whole hell of a lot of memes (if you live on the planet earth, chances are you’re familiar with Good Guy Greg), and the interwebs did not disappoint.
The one that struck me most was “becomes a vampire – doesn’t sparkle.” That, of course, led me into the age-old, multi-personality debate of: What makes a “good guy vampire,” and why do the the generic YA ones, like Twilight’s Edward Cullen suck (not in the good way, you understand) so hard?
Poor Twilight
Now, not to bash Twilight for the umpteenth time. The joke is old, tired, and honestly it’s become annoying like that painting you keep seeing every time you walk down the dark passage. It’s riddled with clowns, which used to freak you out, but now it’s just yet another pop culture reference that you forgot the source of ninety years ago. And, for the record, the Twilight books were not that dreadful. Don’t lynch me. They were Young Adult, what were we honestly expecting? They were sort of cute and humorous. The heroine was dull, but, that’s one of the pitfalls that face a lot of authors, and the boyfriends were rape-y. But while I doubt Stephanie Mayer intended it to be a commentary on the role of women in society, she did manage to capture just a bit of the vampire/human power play with that, which opens a jar of wonders that probably shouldn’t fit into YA ever. Like… Are vampire appropriate reading material for the young’ns considering that they are, by their very nature, rape-y? The neck is one of the most errogenous zones on the human body. Most vampires use some sort of mind control to lull their victims (important word choice, hello?) into a false sense of ease, take something intimate from them, and then leave them dazed, bewildered, and feeling just a tad assaulted. I would reference Stoker’s Dracula here, and the ultimate effect of forcefully engaging Mina Harker in naughty naughty blood exchanges here, but… That might be best left for another time.
Now, allll of the above might seem very much like I let my mind run away with me (and I did), but it did lead to some other interesting thoughts regarding “Good Guy Vampire.”
Remember, Remember…
I think we all sometimes need to be reminded of the blatantly obvious, so here it goes.
Vampires. Are. Monsters.
The origin stories of most mythical entities that resemble vampires are of things that intend to do us harm by taking things from us against our will. Blood, thought, will, you name it. We’ve grown accustomed to romanticising this concept, because it’s dangerous, sexy, and appealing to our fear of death, our want to live forever, our need to fit in, our desire to find family, etc. And with that romanticisation, we’ve tried to migrate the idea of this eternal thing that is completely inhuman, into human society. True Blood (deeper meanings aside) hit the nail on the head here too by suggesting that, if humans ever found out about vampires, they would try to integrate them, because that’s what humans do. Contemporary humans especially have a self-assumed moral and ethical obligation to co-join in the interest of one peoples of earth.
But this led to some less than entertaining illustrations of vampires in serials such as Twilight which over-humanised the human monster.
YA rules the world
Yeah, you read that right.
Not only does the Young Adult genre appeal to teens, it appeals to just about everyone. It may have been meant for young’ns, but it’s since become a highly politicised and dangerous angry mob.
One cannot just venture into young adult as a vampire writer without adjusting to suit the masses and their ideas of what the perfect boyfriend/girlfriend is. In YA, vampires are lovers, kind, self-loathing, and deeply troubled by their sordid pasts.
Apparently they all also attend school and sparkle in the sunlight…
Okay, maybe not all of them. Some have fancy shmancy daylight rings which are fueled by:
(I know it sounds like I hate YA. I don’t. I hate the self-righteousness of *some* of its reviewers and writers. I hate the strict laws that seem to govern it. I hate that creators are forced to bend to the will of the audience as if we’re dancing monkeys.)
Why should Good Guy Vampire be the same as Good Guy?
Vampires are anti-heroes. Sometimes they’re just jerks.
I’m pretty sure I’ve said that before.
They don’t all have to hate themselves and eschew nourishment to be defensible in literature. Good Guy Vampire isn’t meant to be some shining ideal of human empathy.
If Good Guy Vampire were a thing, he’d be the quintessential horror meets romance vampire. The dude who REALLY wants to drink your blood, but knows he has to woe you for it. Or the dude who scares you into a coma just to overpower you. Good Guy Vampire is the seductress who doesn’t have time for your hormonal twallop and uses her vampire-y lures instead of her feminine whiles on you to get this over quickly so she can get back to the important things of unlife.
Good Guy Vampire enslaves her prey to use him in whichever fashion suits her best.
I’m not saying your vampires need to antagonise the whole cast. But they can be brutal and redeemable. They can be themselves, man. Just, like, be free to be you…
But, vampire motivational posters aside…
Society has us so hung up on what the perfect human should be, that we’ve forgotten what the perfect vampire should be. If your vampire wants to go back to the wild and discover his roots, let him. He’s three hundred years old. Not a child anymore. You’ll always fret over his well being, but remember, he has to make his own mistakes in life <3
#FreeVampy #Who’sABigBoyThen #ILiveOnCoffee
