Vampires and weres

[easol.livejournal.com]

Okay, we all know that in the LKHverse, therianthropy is sort of a limited-contagion disease, transmitted like rabies and sort of like AIDS after that except you don't die, but turn fuzzy next full moon.

But does LKH ever get around to explaining WHAT vampirism is and how it animates supposedly dead bodies? There are books like Ilona Andrews' and Guillermo del Toro's that portray it as a transforming virus, and there are books like Anne Rice's which portray it as being a supernatural transformation that science probably couldn't explain (ex: a sort of contagious influence by a blood-drinking demon). But I don't remember if LKH Who By The Way Has A Biology Degree ever bothered to craft an actual explanation for her vampires. Am I just suffering brain holes?

Comments

[kuzunoha.livejournal.com]

MAGIC!

I don't think she ever explained it completely. At least not in the first nine books. After that it all gets sort of hazy for me.

[mneiai.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure she never explained it. Had the perfect opportunity when she was babbling about Vlad Syndrome or whatever it's called, but I don't think she ever said anything there, either.

Considering the nature of it and all, I'm gonna go with magic. Although, lycanthropy is sorta a "magic disease," so, I don't know.

[easol.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that was one thing that bothered me -- how could a sort of magical necromantic existence transmit itself in the form of a fetal disease?

[mneiai.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but you're trying to apply Earth Logic to something LKH writes.

[cogitoergoilusi.livejournal.com]

I don't really mind if she never explains vampirism. It's enough of a staple theme that I don't mind suspending belief. It's better than her making a nonsensical theory due to her previous performance with research or copying someone else's. Stephanie Meyer's explaination made me set this opinion in stone.

[easol.livejournal.com]

Uh what was Meyers' explanation?

[easol.livejournal.com]

BTW I don't really mind if it's not explained either, but it's rather disconcerting that she gives it "disease" characteristics whenever it's convenient but classifies it as a purely supernatural transformation.

[cogitoergoilusi.livejournal.com]

That's alright. By explained I meant understood. The observation of vampirism must be consistent, such as vampires revert to their dead state at daytime, but what exactly causes them to do that can be unknown. And reasoning it to both disease characteristics and supernatural transformation is fine if it comes from more than one character trying to work it out for themselves. But we're talking about Anita, meant to be an authority on the subject, and as we know, consistency is not one of her strong suits.

Everything I know about Twilight I learned from Fandom Wank, so I'm trying to find that comment. But I remember it involved venom and making the flesh stonelike?

[icecreamempress.livejournal.com]

Yes, it's something like "The vampire venom transforms flesh into crystals, like quartz, which is why they sparkle." IDGI

[kuzunoha.livejournal.com]

They actually SPARKLE?

I totally thought that was just people being snarky.

[pastygothchick.livejournal.com]

They sparkle. It's nauseating. That's not the worst part of the series.

Click for recap of movie (scroll down for a pic of the sparkling), links to book recaps
http://community.livejournal.com/m15m/19551.html#cutid2

[subtle-shades.livejournal.com]

Question 1: Do they sink in water? I mean, is it physically possible for vampires to swim in that world? ('Cause if they're sparkly rocks, they got to weigh a ton.)

Question 2: Why quartz or crystal? Why not go all out and announce them to be diamonds? ('Cause vampyres r teh bestest!)

[sarah-k-o-m.livejournal.com]

1: Yes, they can swim. Carlisle is mentioned as swimming the English channel.

2: Because Meyers is, in my opinion, an idiot.

[dwg.livejournal.com]

As far as I know, it was never explained. There have been brief flirtations with the explanation -- the first clue came at the end of Bloody Bones when Jean-Claude "died" for the day, and Anita said it was like a true death, she felt whatever it was that kept him animated leaving for the day, like a soul leaving the body. Only not, because vampires can't have souls, right? And then another came around ID-ish when Anita was hopped up on her "power plateau" and thought she figured out what animated vampires only she stopped short of actually explaining it and it went back to being a mystery.

But basically it's a thing that's slightly beyond Anita's understanding (which could mean that vampires are created by magical faerie dust and hopping on one foot), but as long as it's daylight and they're asleep, they're just like any other corpse.

There's never really been any explanation as to how one becomes a vampire in the series either. I get that biting is involved, but it's never been treated as oh, you get bitten and infected with the vampire and noes, you're gonna die after a few days. There's never been anything about drinking vampire blood aside from the fourth mark for a human servant. Circus of the Damned hinted that maybe you have to be drained dry by a vampire? But there's more to it than that, because group feedings don't count and a single vampire cannot drain a human dry in on sitting.

As far as I know, the only way to become a vampire in the Anitaverse is to already be a vampire, or for the sake of plot.

[ukoku.livejournal.com]

Only not, because vampires can't have souls, right?

I was under the impression that this was general lore, but wasn't actually true.

There's never really been any explanation as to how one becomes a vampire in the series either.

I think that you had to be bitten three times in a specifc period? Er? There was the one book that involved someone biting the barely legal girl, and she'd been bitten twice, and they were trying to stop him from getting her the third time.... It's been so long I can't remember.

[dwg.livejournal.com]

I think that was because of the whole "a vampire can't drain a person dry in one sitting" thing, and they'd need at least three to accomplish the job. (I think the book was Bloody Bones and her boyfriend had been turned and he was coming back to visit her at night, but Team Good didn't anti-vampire the doggy door so the boyfriend got in and the girl died). But nothing specific is ever set out -- I mean, if all it takes are three bites, then Anita should be a vampire (technically, she is, I know, but I mean unliving, unbreathing undead kind) by now because Circus of the Damned proved that victims of multiple bites can still turn.

[ukoku.livejournal.com]

Ah ha, I knew there had to be some catch to the "three bites" thing. Yeah, maybe that's it? They need to drink it all until it kills the person, and then they might wake up as a vamp? That would explain why they need to keep an eye on the morgue's vampire victims.

(I'll dig out that book after work, maybe it'll give a clearer answer.)

Of course, all of this doesn't explain exactly how it works, per se, just how it happens.

[dwg.livejournal.com]

It's one of my points of irritation that we get this rehashing that lycanthropy is just an unfortunate metaphysical disease (but it's clearly not as there's an entire subculture attached to it) and how zombies are raised (but again, not, because it's one of those "how do you explain something to someone who is not psychic?!" things and there's multiple ways to raise a zombie, depending on your faith and choice of magical ritual) but very little on vampires. I don't know if it's because they closed ranks and don't want people to know (but why? The Church of Eternal Life is essentially an undead recruiting office) or it's just a general assumption that everyone's seen at least one Dracula movie (and again, why? LKH likes to hammer it into us that She Knows Best and The Movies Have It Wrong) and knows how this shit works. Whatever the explanation, it's just puzzling why it's been left out of the world building. Don't get me wrong, I like some ambiguity in my evil, but it'd be nice if this was something explored a bit more. We've had all these wonderful hints as to how vampires operate, their society and political structure, and it's clear that our heroine doesn't know all there is to know, so getting her research on might prove useful in the future in case there's more of this possession crap and rise of a new evil. But that'd probably be logical. :\

[ukoku.livejournal.com]

I think it's maybe all a matter of Author Blindness. It makes perfect sense in her head, so she doesn't understand why it wouldn't make sense to others.

I like using vampires in New and Fun Ways, so it's sort of sad that the Anitaverse is so full of fail.

[shadwing.livejournal.com]

Had a pal that suffered from the same thing, as far as she could tell her stuff was perfectly clear and why wasn't anybody else getting it? Why were they asking all these questions? It's all right there if they would just READ!

She was trying to GM a Forum post to post game...it got...messy.

And irony it DID deal with vampires too!

[ukoku.livejournal.com]

I try veeeeeery hard to avoid it when I write. I'm always asking, "This is what I meant, but is it really saying that??" My proofreaders get annoyed, heh.

(My biggest blindness is with buildings. I never describe them, because I forget people aren't all thinking the same thing when I say A House.)

[shadwing.livejournal.com]

TELL me about it. I try to avoid that myself but sometimes I slip which is why God invented Beta Readers

[mitrian.livejournal.com]

Three bites, over 3 days, ending in death.

Unless of course the bites are from a master vamp who has the ability to "contaminate" with every bite - like the group kills in Laughing Corpse, who rose as "animalistic" vamps after being drained in one night by 5 different vamps.

[ukoku.livejournal.com]

Thaaaaank you.

[mitrian.livejournal.com]

They can't have souls - that's her explanation for why it takes them 3 days to rise. That whatever it is that gives them life as a vamp can't work while the soul is still in the body, and it takes 3 days for the soul to leave.

[pandorasblog]

That's interesting - it makes me wonder what her definition of the soul would be. Often 'soul' is used as a synonym of 'spirit', with 'spirit' being the non-physical, personality/memories/consciousness part of a being, but I have the impression that Christianity may make a distinction between the two. I don't know; maybe the soul would be the spark in humankind that came from God, and that's why the thing that animates vampires can't do so until after it's gone. That depends on that animating power being an ungodly thing, though, and that just brings us back to the grey area LKH hasn't defined... we do know that vampires predate Christianity, from that really old vampire in one of the early books, who goes back to pre-history...

[mitrian.livejournal.com]

I don't know if there's such a distinction in her definition, but it's certainly an interesting idea. If it is, as you said, a spark from God, that would make sense in the context of the early books, but not so much the later ones.

If we look at the early books, she can't raise a zombie until it's been dead 3 days and the soul has left. The Catholic Church, also in the earlier books, demanded that all animators cease raising zombies or be excommunicated. The Church also declared all vampires to be suicides - which would make sense for the ones who were changed voluntarily at least.

Even though vampires were around long before Christianity, Christian dogma (regardless of flavor) says that God was around long before organized religion. So that might still be a good explanation. I do wish she would define things a bit more clearly.

[ukoku.livejournal.com]

Ahhh, I see. Sort of interesting to compare zombies versus vampires in the setting. It's basically like they're "plugged in" but not "on".

Although this conflicts with what someone mentioned above, that Anita could feel JC's soul leaving when he "died" during the day.... Maybe it was just a poorly written way to say she could tell he was dead and not just sleeping.

As for what a soul is, that's a bunch of inexplainable mumbo jumbo, since IRL people can't even decide if one exists, let alone what it is.

[naeko.livejournal.com]

Now I'm wondering why vampires aren't a little rotty. You rot within the first three days post-death; not like eyeballs collapsing and your innards turning to mush, but your body doesn't stay intact for three days. If the vampire...ness can't get into you for three days, and your soul isn't exactly go-go-gadgeting your cells, why aren't vampires a little smellier and gushier?

I may need to steal this idea for my own, actually...

[roguetailkinker.livejournal.com]

Maybe the three days is really the vamp magic taking over and transforming the body, hence no rot.

Don't let that stop you, though. ;-)

[jazzymegster.livejournal.com]

the first clue came at the end of Bloody Bones when Jean-Claude "died" for the day, and Anita said it was like a true death

I'd forgotten about that (shows how long it is since I read any of the books). I always liked that idea rather than, y'know, they're just sleeping (or whatever).

[darkese.livejournal.com]

>>they're asleep, they're just like any other corpse.<<

Shouldn't they start decomposing then especially during long summer days? My info is from CSI but I thought flies started laying eggs in corpses in hours after they are dead, rigamortis does it thing, blood settles, and decomposition starts internally immediately.

I don't have a problem with vampires not decomposing a little bit each day in stories but most stories don't have them be exactly like corpses either. They wake for a second when they are staked or are in some coma-like state where they can wake up if 'called' or they dream like MOAD seemed to be able to do.

[denelian.livejournal.com]

i always read it as "suspended animation", which is a bit different from "death". cuz you're right - if they were "dead", there is a *lot* of decomposing that happens in the first 12 hours (there are 3 stages that happen in that time frame in heat!)

[denelian.livejournal.com]

re: the vampires don't have souls thing:

i think that this is actually supposed to represent prejudice and wrong-thinking on the part of most people in the Anitaverse - i took the scene where she "felt JC's soul leave" as the first time we, as the reader, see something that shows that vampires *DON'T* lose their souls when they are tuned - that their souls leave and inhabit some weird place during the hours that they are "dead", but return immedietly when they come awake again - there have been lots of instances of vamps coming awake during the day - it happened in Bloody Bones, with the one vamp who kept bespelling Anita to think she was Anita's mother... and that "spark" (ie, what i think is the soul) is back - and it kicks out necromancy, too.

but that's just me. i get really angry at the idea of people being changed and then considered not human - biologically, if it can still breed true, it's still human. vamps in Anitaverse *can* still breed true until the get too old (in one book it talked about a female vamp who was pregnant, but the baby got auto "Vlad's Disease" - and this also makes sense and does not invalidate my point - i, personally, have a dominate genetic disease called porphyria, and this disease will kill me if i try to carry a pregnancy, but the men in my family can still breed, even if there is a 50%+ chance of them handing the disease on. does that mean i am not human because *I* cannot breed? no - and female vamps could probably have a child by surrogate, as long as they aren't too old, and the age cap seems to be a little more than 100). since regular humans *also* have an age cap on when they can breed, it's fine. male lycanthropes (of the contagious versions) can still breed "normal humans" - and female lycanthropes (of the same contagious bit) could also do surrogacy (and i have wondered for years why no one ever freaking tries this? there was HUGE drama hinted at when the mate of an Alpha (bears? lions? i don't remember, but the Alpha had been killed by Chimera) was pregnant and trying to keep the baby even though the change killed fetuses. why they hell would they not try surrogacy? sure, most people wouldn't want to take the chance of getting infected, except lycanthropy isn't contagious in human form, and they *baby* wouldn't have it unless it was concepted while one/both parents were in animal form - which *could not* happen in a surrogacy, as it's all lab done, no sex involved...

all that is just me, though, YMMV. but i can't read the books without looking at them this way and believing that things happen in other places :)

[easol.livejournal.com]

That brings up another question I can't remember any answer to: Do children of weres inherit it?

[denelian.livejournal.com]

sometimes yes, sometimes no -
there were two different types of weres - those that are genetic (the were-dogs, some of the were-snakes), and other things that got lumped into "were" that weren't, like the Naga. all of these could breed true (but i am unsure as to the rates - the actual-not-at-all-human like the Naga were a totally different race, they almost definitelty breed true all the time. the were-dog and were-snake both had children who were Were, and from what i have seen of most Tigers (haven't read Skin Trade) the Tigers in Families Breed True. if it is Were-to-same-Were breeding of inheritable lycanthropy, i would say at least 75%; assuming Were is a dominant genetic trait. which also means that if it is Were-non-Were, an inheritable lycanthropy would have about a 33% of being passed, or possibly 50%, if the non-Were had any Were in her background at all. these are straight Mendle chart numbers, and i am on pain meds at the moment, so if someone wants to check my math there it'd be happy :)

those who "caught" it - it is not passed on from the father (except a fucked up thing called Mowgli's disease that only happens if sex has been had with father in animal form). but assumng human sex, Infected Were male + UnInfected normal woman, no chance of passing it on. i would assume that Mowgli's would happen with a woman who had "caught" it, if it were implanted in her. if they use IVF and etc and implant in a surrogate, nothing of the Were-ness gets passed on (based on my understanding of the biology as explained and then modified and then modified again by LKH - this could change at any moment lol)

[fadeinthewash.livejournal.com]

In one of the books, Anita infodumps about a Victorian doctor's research into vampirism. He had apparently determined that it was strictly a blood-borne disease, but the only way it could be cured would be to pump all the infected blood out, which would, of course, kill the person. It is then never brought up again, so far as I know.

It also ignores that modern technology would make such a "cure" (assuming that doctor was correct) totally viable via blood transfusions and various pumps and filters and whatever that can carry out bodily functions when the organs can't. Hell, dialysis machines. Just change it up so different blood gets pumped in.

[denouement16.livejournal.com]

The scene you're thinking of was with Merlin at the end of DM. The problem with the virus was that it was the only thing keeping the vampire "alive" nd so if you remove it from the blood the vampire dies like any person.