Vampires and Werewolves and Witches, Oh My!

Ok I’ve been AWOL the last few days, but for a very good reason! Now, before I say what that reason is, let me give a little disclaimer:

I’m about to talk about vampires.

So, if you don’t want to have anything to do with such a topic – run away with your hands over your ears now.

Still here? Well. You asked for it.

So here it is. I used to be a vampire buff. I know all the lore and have read everything pertaining to traditional vampires that there is.

So, just imagine how much I hated Stephanie Meyers when she created this:

I mean, come on – sparkling vampires??!?!

To any true vampire buff – Twilight is blasphemy of the highest order. If I could have, I would have purchased every single copy of all the books in that vile series just so I could throw them into my fireplace and watch them burn.

I hated Twilight so much, that it turned me off reading or writing anything to do with vampires for a very long time.

Then a friend of mine told me about The Vampire Diaries. To say I wasn’t interested would have been the understatement of the decade, but I promised to take a look.

I stalled. And stalled. But finally I gave in and watched it on Netflix.

I was surprised to find that I enjoyed it a little – so I watched another episode. Then I watched another, and another – and now I find myself in Season 3.

The first season was epic and the others have been good, although not as good as the first.

And now that I find myself in Season 3, I’ve analyzed what kept me watching – what hooked me in.

First, the show kept to most of the original deadliness of true vampire lore. I did notice where it strayed and after some thought, I know why the vampires of today are different from the vampires of Bram Stoker’s world.

The vampires of today are being written by authors who don’t like having a religious bent to their stories, thus – holy water, crosses, churches – anything religious is not harmful to vampires. Also, more writers are taking poetic license with their vampires. Sometimes this works – sometimes it doesn’t.

The problem is, the vampires from Bram Stoker’s world were scary. Too many writers of today take out all the danger, the scariness from vampires by altering the lore.

The Vampire Diaries alters some of the lore successfully, while keeping just enough of the lore to make the vampires in the series truly believable as dangerous, murderous creatures of the night.

In any case, I’ve been enjoying the show and I’m looking forward to more.

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  1. Hey there. Have you tried the books? I don't watch much TV on my days off (it's usually stuck on Dora…groan). A friend said they're different from the series, but wouldn't elaborate. Let me know!

  2. I haven't tried the books – in fact, this is the first I've heard that they are out in book form lol. Thanks for the heads up – I'll have to check them out. 🙂

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