Vampires vilification and other nonsensical portrayals.

[Cauldrons]

Vampires being evil due to the trope of needing to drink blood to survive is weird to me. It depends on the media but a vampire feeding's side effects can vary from simply just blood loss, death, or even conversion. The most credible reason vampires can be called evil in media is that more often than not they prey on humans, but as stated before a lot of vampire media doesn't make that kill people if they even need to prey directly and can instead simply live off of blood packs. I think vampires in media have seen a tone shift in recent years what with romance stories idealizing them, but they still focus on the monstrous aspect of vampires. I think vampires being called monsters doesn't make sense and while yes I realize vampires have a lot of historical mythology around them we can't exactly claim our myths tend to make much sense. I mean compare how a vampire eats to how a human eats, vampires simply bite something drink blood, In a worst-case scenario, the creature they bite dies it's not exactly an inhuman way to kill something if they even die. Comparatively, humans butcher and tear the flesh off a (hopefully) dead creature just to consume it. If you were an outside source like an alien which of two would seem more monstrous to you?

Long rant aside what other creatures get villainized in a way that doesn't make sense to you as a reader or writer?

 

[Yi_San]

Demons... Another villainized poor thing. I mean cannon fodders.

 

[Agentt]

Well, there aren't many, since hating them is kinda justified, but there is the devil in many religions, since he is mostly potrayed as a misunderstood dude.

The witch's description in my culture doesn't make sense to me, since she went through many dramatization due to many movies starring her, so now she is a time controlling, mind controlling, telepathic, pyrotechnic succumbus who dinks blood. She is also able to control fate, and intelligence.
And her feet are backwards.

 

[Nahrenne]

Vampires being evil due to the trope of needing to drink blood to survive is weird to me. It depends on the media but a vampire feeding's side effects can vary from simply just blood loss, death, or even conversion. The most credible reason vampires can be called evil in media is that more often than not they prey on humans, but as stated before a lot of vampire media doesn't make that kill people if they even need to prey directly and can instead simply live off of blood packs. I think vampires in media have seen a tone shift in recent years what with romance stories idealizing them, but they still focus on the monstrous aspect of vampires. I think vampires being called monsters doesn't make sense and while yes I realize vampires have a lot of historical mythology around them we can't exactly claim our myths tend to make much sense. I mean compare how a vampire eats to how a human eats, vampires simply bite something drink blood, In a worst-case scenario, the creature they bite dies it's not exactly an inhuman way to kill something if they even die. Comparatively, humans butcher and tear the flesh off a (hopefully) dead creature just to consume it. If you were an outside source like an alien which of two would seem more monstrous to you?

Long rant aside what other creatures get villainized in a way that doesn't make sense to you as a reader or writer?

The evilness stems from how vampires were originally corpses that came to life and killed their loved ones and close friends. The communities would dig up the corpses, take out the heart and behead them to ensure they had 'killed the vampire'.

If you're curious about how the view on vampires has evolved over the centuries, I highly recommend you watch Ask A Mortician's video on the subject she did recently.

X

 

[T.K._Paradox]

While you make a good point @Slavin, I hate the current romanization of vampires, there is nothing wrong with having vampires actually being monstrous, and I am also not saying that you can't write vampires anyway you want it is your story to write them as you want to.

The macabre was what interested me, and I personally prefer a vampire that is simply horrifying or horrifying and charming. to me, there is no reason not to see vampires as evil, because they are parasites that appear human that lure you into a false sense of comfortability.

 

[Lloyd]

All variations of undead are demonic and hence it makes perfect sense to hate vampires.

 

[Jet]

A strange thing to say. It's obvious that humans are worse than vampires if you aren't viewing it as a human. But vampires are evil by definition, from humankind's point of view that is. Even if vampires don't kill, they are parasites who prey on human blood still. That makes them apex predators above humans on the food chain. They look like humans as well, so can hide well. To the point that it becomes impossible to tell who's a vampire. Consider the paranoia here. I don't understand why there is a thread like that even. Vampires will always be evil from human's perspective. The only way to overcome this is making a universe where vampires are too common to segregate. Humans tend to become cattle without a say then.

 

[Cipiteca396]

I also don't like an evil by nature creature, and honestly, drinking blood is way more humane than what normal animals(including humans) do for food.

Of course, what I like doesn't really matter. For every Underworld Vampire that feeds on blood packs and wears black for rule of cool, there's a Serial Killer who made a pact and came back to kill some more.

Hmm, about villainized creatures.... Well, practically anything can qualify, if you spin it right. Dragons are a common one, but there's so many not-evil examples that good dragons have become their own cliché. Good demons are also a cliché, especially Succubi.

Frankly, it would be harder to find a Creature species that is always portrayed as evil... And even harder to find one where that portrayal isn't justified.

 

[Kitsura]

The evil from vampires is in inherently Christian ideal. In nosferatu vampires emerged from bodies buried in cursed soil

 

[Snusmumriken]

Vampire prototypes had originated as early as Mesopotamia and most likely had tales even earlier than that, Christianity just appropriated the myth as it had done with many others.

Originally they were monster myths. not because of some trope. The notion of 'friendly' sparkly vampires is much more modern as our societies at large start to fear 'the night' less and less. We no longer fear being attacked by some evil creature, but mauled by a bear or stomped by a moose if we go into the wilderness. Nor do we fear bodies rising from the graves. Science made many old scary tales toothless simply by illuminating their causes.

 

[Irl_Rat]

It might be important to consider that vampires living off blood-packs was intended to humanize vampires and make them less dangerous in appearance. Sure they could form an oppressive elite that still treat humans like cattle, but they were now organized, intelligent, and efficient consumers of humans rather than some beast that would suck you off until you became a dried husk.

If I remember correctly the problem isn't necessarily that vampires drink blood, it's the sideeffects such as being turned into one without your consent, getting drained into a husk, turned into an unwilling thrall, and other problems. Similar to how mosquitoes would just be really annoying if they didn't have the possibility of transmitting horrifically dangerous pathogens such malaria.

 

[LilTV1155]

Werewolf / Hairy People Syndrome
Exception: Rabies

Fae/Fairy/Changelings - Fairies were considered temptresses/enchanting or descendants of angels that were nuetral during the war according to Christianity's version
- Changelings are considered evil, wicked, ugly, wierd, and disobedient
Reality: Children with malformity or disability were harmed because parents thought them Changeling. Even a wife or a woman was killed by the neighbor or their husband because he thought her a Changeling.
-
Witches / Shamans
- Called heretics or satanized offspring of humans and otherkind (demon, fae, etc. etc.) or satanized associates for practicing or sharing different things in various cultures
- Always get "kill-on-sight" Just because religion and politics; and age or capability do not matter because of mass hysteria/panic
- Witch Testing Methods are always fatal or very severely unfair torture methods
- - If she burns = Not Witch, but if she don't burn = Witch -> If she burns = Witch / She deserved it
- - If she drown = Not Witch, but if she don't drown = Witch ->If she burns = Witch / She deserved it
- - Everyone related to that "Witch" are on Death List even babies, daughters, etc.
Reality - They are your psychic mediums/spiritualists, herbalists, midwives, female scholars, widows, alchemists, doctors, and extraordinary humans with special skills or knowledges, etc.
-
Pagan Deities or Local Deities before Invader Colonist Invasion
- Satanized as devils or demons by whatever rule the politics and whoever write the history book
- Turned into monsters that have to be killed or converted by whoever write that story (Winner get the spoil, Loser get death or worse)
Reality - Gray zones
- "Pagan" Deities were actually official or pantheons of gods recognized in ancient cultures with certain domains
- Converted monsters = possibly "enslaved/brainwashed" people
- Defeated monsters / subjugated monsters = Justification for murders because they were different
- Monsters = Local Deities of people that were defeated by people of Invading Religions / Pantheon
- Could be criminals, but some might be simple victims of whatever

 

[Viator]

A point I will list is that humans simply do not like anything that can potentially replace them as the top of the food chain. If our species feels threatened by any kind of potential predator, there is a strong instinct to vilify and therefore eliminate that thing, no matter what it is. Not to mention vampires in the old tales were not quite so "humanized" as in the current ones.

More than just drinking blood, the old tales often tell of close family members dying and then preying upon those close to them, killing whole communities one by one. There is a lot of deep-seeded fear in the vampire myths; fear of unknown and curse-like deaths that would plague and befall communities. Vampires are far more than just blood-drinkers. but a kind of portent of unescapable doom preying on your weakest, and most loved; using them against you. A slow and creeping dread. Vampires are in one form, a manifestation of our fear of death in the dark, unknowable, oncoming, and eternal. to win against a vampire is to live for one more day.

What vampires have become in modern media are romanticized and tame things.

The current ones aren't so evil, I will agree. As they have gotten closer to human, they become more indistinguishable.

 

[Amok]

Primal human instinct: Big canines = Predator = Fear, flee, tame or destroy

With folk donating blood these days, I imagine vampires living under a welfare system where the government gives them their allotted gallons of blood each month. Those who like it fresh and circumvent regulation will be branded evil by the authorities.