Wha its still being talked about!? Yeah the anime was good and it was building up to something great but so far as the anime goes there was some weak spot I found that didnt make sense. Also they all have these cool variety weapons to kill vampires yet they're fighting style is the same. As a Bleach fan with unique Zanpakuto and fighting styles, this is very noticeable to me. Anyways, it was enjoyable considering the lack of decent vampire genre media and let's not forget to give credit to the ost by Sawano
I recommend "What we do in the Shadows" both the movie and series playes around with different types of vampires. It is shot like a documentery about a group of vampires, how they live and how they interact with other fantasy creatures and humans. The series adds energy vampires, wich drink your energy instead of your blood. They look like regular humans, can walk in sunlight and aren't repelled by crosses. They drain you by talking to you. Everybody knows at least one energy vampire.
Humanity is close to extinction then, because by definition introverts would be the only real humans, by virtue of being the only ones being drained of energy.
I love What We Do In The Shadows The first time I heard of psychic vampires was in the satanic bible and in self-help books. The selfish nature of LaVeyan satanism encourages them to treat needy people and emotionally demanding people as evil, soul-sucking monsters. It's really sad and is a language I've seen use to really hurt innocent people.
Witcher Vampires are an interesting interpretation, basically akin to "aliens" that were stranded on earth along with others caught in a celestial event known as "The Conjunction of the Spheres."
yea, you can have more 'monster' types like the bruxa and other lower vampires, who act very animalistic and can't communicate, and then you can have vampires like Regis, who's a lot more magical and smarter.
I think the anime/manga Jojo's Bizarre Adventure has a cool version of vampires. Humans in the Jojo universe can turn into vampires by using artifacts called Stone Masks. Between the 12th and 16th centuries these masks were used by Aztec cults. Vampires in Jojo have the standard powers (enhanced strength, speed, regeneration, blood sucking) along with a few special ones. Vampires can turn people into zombies, creating their own personal army. They can control body temperature, so they can freeze people to death just by touching them. They can also shoot pressurised fluid from their eyes with enough force to destroy a stone pillar (Don't question it).
Also interestingly that's not what the masks were made for. Turning humans into vampires is kind of just a thing they do since they were never intended to be used on humans.
i think you would like Vampire the Masquerade, it has a lot of the elements you discussed done in an interesting way (there are a plethora of games such as Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines and it's also a TTRPG)
I'm old fashioned. Dracula is always my favorite: a creature that has forgotten how to be human, yet must force himself to pass as human. Shadow of the Vampire makes some interesting reflections on the loneliness of the vampire condition.
When it comes to Warhammer Fantasy I love how they have their vampires master necromancy and command armies of lesser undead (like zombies and skeletons), the idea of vampires as basically the aristocracy of an undead kingdom is just cool to me.
I've had this idea for a dark fantasy setting where vampires just openly rule society in a Caste system of sorts going from a 1st generation Vampire Queen at the top to thin-blooded vampires, human,s and vampire criminals at the very bottom. Vampirism would be transmited by eating a sizeable amount of flesh or blood from a higher class of vampire (at least around a pound) and would mostly cause greatly increased regeneration and longevity, ability to reshape one's flesh (just shaping your face like clay at the levels of thin-blooded vamps, kinda like the creatures in Parasyte at the levels of Count-level vampires, full on the Thing for the highest nobles), photosensitivy, the decreased ability to digest plant-based foods (at low level they would be like dogs, at higher levels plant-based foods would be actively poisonous), paranoia (actually implied to be some kind of telepathy but only for other people's ill thoughts, like a Spider-sense but more trigger happy), infertility (thin-blooded vampires would have a 10-20% chance of producing monstruous or insane offspring, higher nobles would have a 99% chance) and the final vampire trai.... ... would just be the passive trait to cause other animals to become hungry and try to devour the vampire. Especially carnivorous animals, but higher nobles would be unable to use horses because even their horses would try to eat them. Also, if a non-human animal eats a sizeable amount of a living vampire's flesh or blood, it immediately dies and sometimes becomes a monstruousity after a while, like the ones the vampires sometimes birth. It would be kinda implied in lore that vampires ate some kind of alien symbiote that reproduces by getting eaten, but something went wrong when it was eaten by a human. Vampires creating other vampires, either through feeding their flesh/blood or having kids, without consent of a Marquis-level noble would be punishable by law, and a Marquis would only theoretically be able to grant vampirehood if very specific conditions are met, however the system would be corrupt enough that sometimes even rich humans would just buy themselves vampirehood. Vampires killing humans would be technically illegal, but there would be many conditions that would enable it to still happen regularly,. Mostly that most vampires are waaay more powerful than most humans. Killing vampires of any class, except members of clans labelled criminals, would be illegal, so whenever a clan with vampires is labelled criminal, the vampire members tend to get hunted down for their flesh by other vampires and even humans. Since powerful vampires cant have kids of their own yet are still somewhat mortal, society would be structured by clans that use the Roman naming structure for its members (Name - Clan Name - Family Name). And there would be other magical elements in the setting, but mostly gross vaguely biological, vaguely lovecraftian stuff, like slugs that crawl into people's brains through their noses and cause long term brain damage, but can be used as truth serums (and not in the torture way, the slugs just prevent the diseased person to lie after entering the brain), a kind of moss that is brewed into alcohol that gives everyone visions of the future, but only painful events and always causes suicide after long term consumption, and such.
I am aware you haven't read the Witcher books, so, let me talk about Higher Vampires. Living beings, just like humans, thrust upon the world they didn't choose; many just want to get back to their own world. They are intelligent and unique to an individual, in a category of their own. Garlic, silver, sunlight and steaks have no effect on them. These facts are also joked about in the book series, although it is important to note that the higher vampires' abilities and classification slightly differ between the books, and even between each of the three games . They are incredibly physically powerful, yet there are very few of them in the world, less than "a handful" (a few thousand); this and their incredible discomfort by just being in the witcher world prevents them from taking it over (although, I will admit, they still could take over the world, it just really isn't in any of their interests. What would nigh-immortal beings so naturally disconnected from humanity want with this alien world?). There is no human infected, no blood transmitted disease; they are born vampires, and live their entire lives vampires. My favourite presentation of a vampire in the series is *Spoiler* Emiel Regis Rohellec Terzieff-Godefroy, a kind, grandfartherly 'man' who helps Geralt and his hansa, always willing to help, even if he is quite pretentious (well, he is 428 years old). He completely subverts most vampire tropes, and is one of my favourite fictional characters.
An aspect you did not mention: Do vampires get more powerful with age? In Twilight young vampires are stronger than older ones, but old ones become wiser and maybe even gain special powers. In True Blood, vampires become stronger and more powerful with age, even gaining abilities like flight.
an interesting take on this trope(and really any varient on older=stronger for monsters and/or magical objects) is the idea that its backwards, being older doesent make you stronger, its just those that are stronger are going to survive a lot longer, and since "ancient" is a much broader time period then "modern" even if an uberpowerful vampire is born only every 100 years or so you would have one uberpowerful modern vampire and a lot of ancient ones, and inversely for weak ones
One of the more valid criticisms I've heard about Twilight's sparkling vampires is that it makes them too overpowered. By removing this common weakness, no one could realistically defeat a vampire.
The criticism I saw was the Author forgot her own rules when it came to vampires. James had to be torn apart and burned but then later on simple decapitation did the trick for the other vampires like Victoria. Meyers disregarded her own vampire lore when it was convenient.
That reminds me, the idea that a vampire could be killed by sunlight actually came from Nosferatu. Some myths say that vampires could go out in the sunlight, but they would be weaker in the daylight.
The lore for the Elder Scrolls series certainly is inconsistent and insane. If I'm not mistaken, there is something in Elder Scrolls lore that is called a "dragon break," (the dragon being mentioned being Akatosh, the god of time), that exists to explain retcons and the cannon results of the player character's choices.
no, the dragon break was used to justify all the possible endings to Daggerfall (ES2) happening simultaneously (fans want to then use such a thing to justify things that are really just recons - and they need to get over it already). The god head stuff (etc.) can be used to think about the player/developer/mod-makers in some in-universe way, which is seems you were talking about.
@@xBINARYGODx there are a couple other ones canonically in the lore but yeah people do need to accept that stuff written over decades by several people just won’t always be consistent
@@stellabee2026 Good point. Also Dragon Breaks gets just even weirder, There is a book discussing the Dragonbreak Relating to The Alessian Order, an infamous religious order(with its own very complicated lore, i want to keep this inside the word count and not turn into an essay). And theoretically they ruled for almost one or two millennia, but they author dismissed the Dragon Break theory outright, saying that we only have actual events amounting to rougly 150 years. Here is the kicker though, i think it is first introduced in Morrowind. Though the author casually talks about the end of the Septim Imperial Family and the decline of the Cyrodillic Empire, which has not happened yet, and is going to take several years if not hundreds to happen fully, meaning the whole piece of literature is a small scale dragonbreak in itself, despite author protests. ES lore is indeed weird am i right?
@@keyboardstalker4784 true I remember when they made lore about Talos after achieving Chim getting rid of all the thick jungles that used to cover Cyrodil and replacing it with verdant fields and sparse woodlands retroactively through the entire timeline, and this was just so they could have a lore explanation as to why Cyrodil wasn’t completely covered in rainforest and jungles in the Oblivion game
@@KamiRecca dependent on the book but yeah there’s some crappy moments. I say that as a huge fan of the series. There’s also a lot of progressive stuff (again depending on the book) so it feels kinda weird sometimes
@@KamiRecca in the older editions, yeah. The current edition (5th Edition) has gotten rid of a lot of the more "socially problematic" aspects like those.
@@theveira realy? Not what i heard. But hell i might be wrong, so im not gonna say anything then. Exept this: i do not mind when ugly parts of life is portrayed. It is when it is presented with leading intent that it bothers me. "Socialy problematic" is just another way to say Human (read 'Sentient but not yet Enlightened'), and i realy dont like how for example Path Finder dulls down the teeth of its world in fear of triggering people, that is the opposit of presenting negative aspects with leading intent, and neither extreme is good for us, or the hobby. Good thing this is simple and not at all confusing ^^
@@KamiRecca there was a small controversy of probably some intern adding vaguely naziesque dogwhistles in the corebook, but after the backlash the WoD team has been on their best behavior to make sure any kind of racism/sexism/etc. is scrubbed off material going forward, plus they try to be inclusive and whatnot. It's not that they've sanitized the world in hopes of being "PC" or whatever, just got rid of some of the actually problematic stuff like changing a Clan that was previously a big Romani stereotype into more of a thrill seeking daredevil Clan, or entirely cutting out any mention of the Kuei-Jin, which were based on Asian stereotypes.
Watching the “What We Do In The Shadows” show,” one of the characters is an energy vampire. You know those people who always want to talk to you but are just so boring and infuriating at once that they manage to drain all energy from the room? That’s them.
Yes oh my god yes someone else acknowledges Rosario+Vampire is actually good. It change in genre was fantastic. It’s the definition of I come for the degeneracy and stay for the story.
I mean vampires are sort of a reference to the nobility class leeching of the peasantry right? Will this feature bloated, inbred, greedy vampires with a tendency to megalomania?
Thats a surface level reading of it, yea, if you want that to be the message. Vampires are a narrative tool to make mostly whatever point you wanna make ^^
I love vampires in shiki, incredibly underpowered, they have almost all the common weaknesses, sometimes made even worse, (not only will they die to sunlight, when they comes the automatically go into a sleep state when day comes, they can't enter houses without permission, they're only slightly stronger than humans, they have an intense fear of any holy symbols, they can hypnotise, but it's very limited in both it's rules of use and uses) but what makes them all the scarier is that nobody in the village knows about vampires, and what they can do, most of them don't even know they exist
I love Shiki too although not because of how underpowered they are or how many weaknesses they have. I think it might be cool to see vampires similar to Shiki but more spectral and incorporeal. Semi-tangible undead vampires.
I liked part of the Warhammer take on Vampires, in that they have their own lands, I borred it for a D&D campaign setting I'm working on, and because the general theme of that world was, "the world doesn't care that you're the Player," & "make something of yourself or die" it ended up being a bit on the grimdark side, with most human nations being places you probably wouldn't want to visit, with the rich being authoritarian despots, who will crush you underfoot to crush you under foot, and the poor being regularly attacked by powerful monsters that take literal armies to kill most of the time. Then there's the vampires lands, apart from the fact that everything there is bioluminescent, and or carnivorous, including most of the flora, and the fact that its a land of eternal night, with no escape, and the rulers are literal blood sucking monsters, its actually one of the nicer places to live in the world, because the vampires, while they treat their humans as chattel, they do go out of their way to protect them (They want their cows for their dinner table, not as a feast for some wolf pack, or some parasitic organism).
@@AnnaBowling Hear this, he's been on his own since he escaped his vampire family as a teen, after they put him through the rite of passage of him sucking the blood off a human they kidnapped. He's been trying to live a normal life among humans, hiding his identity and drinking the blood of wild animals he catches in the nearby forests. The other vampires plan on overtaking the human world, and now that he's cozied up to them, he doesn't want that. So he asks for the help of his friend coworkers at the gas station to stop the other vampires. How's that for you?
@@HeortirtheWoodwarden I hope they are welding scrapped car parts into flamethrowers and fill those with the gasoline from gas station to fight the vampires.
6:56 I like how "being repelled by garlic" is a "silly weakness" when garlic allergies exist along with people having an "ick" response to certain odors which is arguably more "scientific" and plausible than them being insta-killed by sunlight.
To this day I think the World of Darkness is the best vampire universe Edit: because vampires are all of the above and more. They are sexy seductive utterly inhuman creatures desperately clinging to what keeps them human. Vampires are parasitic leaches both predator and prey. The vampires are social Apex Predators. They are human but fighting the beast that keeps gnawing at them.
I really like Vampires as a metaphor for a cold parasitic wealthy class. It leaves room for both the sexy vampire and the dusty decrepit one. Both being alluring and being pure decay. It plays on the classic themes of Dracula and newer tropes.
One more possible point is the subcultural aspect, like Normie v Gothic or something like that. I don't know what the proportions here are but you can't deny that this is a thing.
Vampire the Masquerade (tabletop game and video games) have different clans and the whole vampiric line started when Caine from the Bible was cursed by god. Also, there are ghouls (humans who are blood-bound to a vampire) and thin bloods.
Vampires are suitable for horror more than most scary stereotypes. They can tick any box if you think of it, from existential horror, societal horror, body horror, mystic horror to whatever horror. Also are fit to do any SM, drugs, and debauchery without dying or even sparkle if you are into really depraved stuff. I currently write a gothic romantic horror about vampires in 1910 Russia. I tried to make vampires more terrifying than anything I ever read. But this horror and vampires are mostly for the comedy and contrast, cause main characters don't take them seriously due to more pressing problems on all fronts
@@marl3ymarl3y86 I should've finished it before that hell started. Now the whole book looks as if I'm covering my ass post factum, cause its main message was anti-killing-people whatever the goal is, whatever the horror is. Looks like I can't post links, so let me put the address like this (until my european servers are still up): "scifi" then dot, then evennot, then com, forward-slash "suns". It's an unfinished version, that is hard to translate I just felt an urge to say that I'm sane here in this pit of a country, I'm against this s-show even on the philosophical level, and I leave a proof
Warhammer fantasy of all things has my favorite vampire power couple in Vlad von Carstein and Isabella von Drak. Given the nature of the franchise it ends in tragedy but it's a wild ride.
I know right?!! This is heresy for me But on serious note, vampire the masquerade have all the tropes listed here combined into one cohesive worldbuilding it's amazing
I really enjoyed this video, it was a good breakdown of a trope, but had a lot more to say than summary. With the critique of poorly used aspects, and the encouragement to break the mold this was really great to watch as a writer. I honestly hope you make more videos like this one in the future! (Also fun hearing about Seraph of the End, I only watched it late last year, and although it has problems it has a certain kind of cheese I love)
I think the world of darkness handles vampires pretty well by having competition like werewolves, mages, and demons. While they’re powerful, there are weaknesses to exploit and they have to hide due to the aforementioned competition.
6:41 wanted to add that strigoi isn't just some lazy writer trying to come up with a new name for vampires, they're considerred some other, different mythological creature. According to Wikipedia the strigoi "are troubled spirits that are said to have risen from the grave. They are attributed with the abilities to transform into an animal, become invisible, and to gain vitality from the blood of their victims". It is believed that at some point in time, the strigoi blended with the vampire myths.
As a Romanian who has studied mythology pretty intensely, I would say that the Strigoi are simply the authentical mythologically correct Romanian vampire. Of course Romanians, residing in the Transylvanian, Wallachian and Moldavian regions of Europe, have developed different types of vampire creatures due to sub-cultural variety within the country, but as a starting point, the strigoi is the basis for the entire vampiric myth. It is mostly south eastern European culture to blame for foundational mythology of the creature, combined with aristocratic characteristics reminiscent of Austro-Hungary and western European nations. In Romania, the aristocratic hierarchy was significantly different then fiction portrays it as today. Dracula, the historical figure, was not a count but instead a Voievode, a title which is equivalent to the word Prince in English, when referring not to the child of a monarch, but to the monarch of a Principality. Another example of western characteristics being superficially injected into a Eastern myth to create the vampire is Castlevania, In which Chatolicism is present as a religion within Wallachia, something which is simply absurd for anyone that knows even the smallest amount of European history and culture.
You've made me remember maybe one of the most obscure cultural facts, that I know... So, in 2009 there was this nickelodeon show called "The Troop"... Three students were chosen to -ripoff "Man In Black"- protect the school from different kinds of super-secret monster... One of which were VAMPSTERS, a humanoid vampire-hamster hybrid... Instead of fangs they had a huge buckteeth, and could hold A WHOLE MAN behind their cheeks... And they act like fratboys, slurping energy drinks out of hamster water bottles... It's one of the more creative takes on vampires as I've seen, but "creative" doesn't mean "Not stupid as shit"... God has cursed me with this knowledge, and now you are cursed too...
In Dresden Files there ae three main species of vampires. There are sexy ones that drink life energy by inducing a certain emotion in victims. There are sexy/scary ones that drink blood, avoid the sun and any symbol that is empowered by faith of the wielder. And they are hideous under their "flesh mask". The third kind is scary/scary. Basically reanimated corpses that can use magic, breed like crazy and the older they get, the stronger they are. Dresden Files also has multiple species of werewolves, and mentions other were-animals. Dresden Files have most of the mythical creatures and monsters, and few extra ones...
Their vampires are actually pretty interesting Of course, vampires are but a small focus in the main storyline of the series, being overshadowed by the mystery behind Stands and etc. But for the duration they were relevant, I'd say Araki did great Unlike most vampires with supernatural abilities that the author just brushes off without any proper explanation, the vampires in Jojo are described as having total, absolute control over their bodies So, if in some other story a vampire is just described as "being able to control fire", then a vampire like Esidisi in Jojo Part 2 controls fire by superheating his own blood and sticking his blood vessels out from underneath his literally opened fingernails, which results in the blood that spills out on his enemies to combust and have them burn Or, there's also Wamuu, who uses bone-like holes that resemble an ocarina that grow out from his ribcage, to shoot out powerful gusts of air at his opponents, which are strong enough to shred their bodies There's also Dio, who used his eyes to shoot out body fluids at his opponents at high pressures, which basically ended up looking like laser vision; There's also how he could take away the heat of his own body parts to instantly freeze them and then touch his opponent, which ended up in his frozen body parts taking away the heat of the body of his opponent, which effectively resulted in ice powers Then there's Kars, who could grow a bone blade out of his elbow, that had several constantly moving small teeth-like bones that grew out of the blade's edges, which basically gave him a very sharp chainsaw This bone that grew out from him was capable of reflecting light at his opponents, which would hinder their vision greatly So, overall, even if the vampires in Jojo have elemental abilities, it is created from the masterful control they have over their bodies, not just magic - light control, ice control, fire control, wind control are all just pseudo-sciencey functions in their physiologies That's why I love Jojo's vampires
If you want a palate cleanser for vampire anime, Shiki is a legitimate horror one. And as far as vampire horror goes, even outside of anime as a medium, few can rival it in how, well, horrifying it gets. And this is achieved without resorting to disgusting or feral vampires, it portrays vampires with grace and horror at the same time.
"for teenage girls who have a weird relationship with their English teacher" fucking killed me lmao tell me why I knew at least thirty people that fit that description exactly
One vampire concept I've always loved is the Blue Bloods series, where the vampires were the fallen angels who fell with Lucifer and those who regretted it were cursed to constantly reincarnate through the ages (their angelic blood basically being their souls and was how they reincarnated) and drink the blood of humans. It was a really fresh and nuanced take in my opinion, and gave a nice coat of theological discussion over the usual teen vamp stuff
The first sexy vampire was probably Carmilla. Dracula was considered hot and sexual for his time too. Vampires were always sexy or seductive. That's basically one of the only reason to call your monster a vampire instead of a zombie or any other type of generic killer.
I have a suggestion on the theme of saving the world from Vampires. The most crucial is about the abilities of Vampires and the world itself such as for example giving vampires magic would make more sense if the world is set in the Middle Ages. Giving vampires higher intelligence than humans and being able to make better weapons than humans made more sense if the setting was the modern world. If the theme was vampires hiding among humans then it would make sense that they were weak creatures unless vampires were experimental creatures that only existed in modern times. The most important thing is that power is directly proportional to the setting to create a logical story (unless you just want the story to be cool and don't care about logic then whatever, I'm just explaining)
My fav type of vampire is the attractive yet also dangerous and powerful vampire who strangely usually tends to be kinda bi, tends to be rather aggressive and edgy both due to their darker past and vampiric nature, their character design design and overall vibe features a lot of references to rock artists/music/culture, and whose story features a lot of references to tarot cards.😆
Well yes, Xgzav, that guy does definitely fit that stereotype tho I was mainly referring to Marceline from Adventure Time and Dio from Jojo.😆 However that type of vamp that I did describe definitely consists of other characters that fit into that stereotype as well.
@@averytherockgod9822 hey, you're right I didn't thought about them and now I understand the tarot card part too😆. They're really the best vampire stereotype!
*glances at my seraph of the end fanfiction series from 6 years ago that still has the most hits out of all of my writing* The vampires were the most boring part of the show, honestly lol This video was fun, though, would like to see more “all the types of -“ videos. Like how you went fairly in depth without taking too much time and talked about depictions in different genres/mediums.
'fucking hell, japan' describes pretty much my entire relationship with anime. you start watching going 'i got questions', then 'huh?', and then what you said.
If he'd mentioned Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines and VTM Redemption. People would have reinstalled it. Reasons to hide: SURVIVE! How do they do that? Make up this law called the Masquerade. Different types/clans of vampires don't always get along so they also hide from each other. But James if you ever want to play VTMB. Warning it's pretty broken, only unofficial patches have kept it... somewhat playable. It came before Vampyr. The only reason some people played Vampyr because they hoped for something that could be like VTMB.
Sad (but not surprised) to not see the anime Blood+ mentioned in this video. IMHO it was one of the most creative and refreshing takes on vampires I've seen: they're another species of shapeshifting were-bats with a hive-like social structure. Very underrated & under-the-radar anime.
One idea I've played with since my early teens is a setting where necromancers have a union and are considered valuable members of society, adding a large additional workforce to all fields of physical and/or repetitive labor.
They can also produce a large standing army that costs almost nothing (unless large amounts of magic is required to maintain more powerful or intelligent undead), and wars can be fought with very few casualties. On the other hand, unless you also have powerful magical healers, disease rates will skyrocket due to all those rotting bodies walking around everywhere.
@@samueldimmock694 One generally doesn't have living people working alongside undead for this reason, even though it usually takes a long time for rotting to occur if you force most biological processes you can keep going to continue. That said they do rot eventually and it's better to have them in the ground *before* the liquefied meat starts oozing out, or at least before you get a surface rupture.
@@samueldimmock694 death often isn't seen as a terrible thing in the setting, in part because gods provably exist in the setting, and sometimes have avatars in the world, so people know their souls go somewhere, depending on what gods they follow ect. Plus the physical embodiment of death is always so nice, and tends to get around via public transit rather than any other way they could do so. And so there's this general feeling that once you're not using your body anymore there's no reason for the necromancer's union to get some more value out of it, if anything it's a good thing because it's less wasteful. That said, the gods tend to not actually tell people what happens to their souls when they get them, many just stripping the souls of any consciousness and using it as power, which is part of why the theocracy has made it illegal to try contacting dead souls who have left the world. It's possible with necromancy to do so, but only if the soul still exists, if they've been turned to power for a god you'll not get any response. That's some of the kinds of things related to thoughts on death of the general populous, people more in the know often have a bleaker view, and the aforementioned embodiment of death actually has a racket going on of "here's what's going to happen to you if you move on, but I can just put you in an unaging body if you work for me" the ethics of which are murky at best, no matter how well they treat anyone who agrees to the terms Honestly the setting was pretty anti-authority even from inception, whether I realized or not. Not necessarily against the specific people in power, but against the positions of power themselves, what with the whole system of government being based on the nepotism of various gods.
So in the Elder Scrolls there are 3 ways to become a vampire 1. Preform a ritual for Molag Bal (i think Boethia also created vampires as a middle finger to Molag Bal) 2. Get bitten by someone from group 1. 3. Get infected by someone from group 2. Argonians and Wood Elves are less likely to become vampires because of their disease resistance, but group 1 vampires are powerful enough to ignore that.
In my teenage years i wrote a first draft of a story about wizards fighting a coven of vampires. It was basicalky set in a Harry Potter type world, urban fantasy setting. There were a group of Aurors called by another name fighting a vampire lord. The vampired had magic powers just like the wizards. Funny enough, the main vampire villain was "played" in my head by Jude Law
I wouldn't mind reading a book where their are blood suckers, insectivores and fruit eaters all in the same universe. That would be interesting to see where it leads.
Yes it contains all the tropes listed here but somehow makes an interesting and understandable worldbuiding that actually makes sense to the setting provided
Just gonna say, you mentioned both Seraph of the End and Rosario Vampire. YET no Hellsing (The Manga by Kohta Hirano and its anime adaptations, not the drama that you did mention). That's my only gripe with the video, other than that you did a good job with this.
Thats what I love about True Blood. Yes, its a rather typical sexy vampire story, but right in the first scene its revealed that vampires made their existence public and theres fake blood for them to drink.
@@KamiRecca I have read berserk. The real fairies (puck’s race) was recently introduced and they are nothing like the list children or like the winter court in Dresden lol
what's your opinion on Discworld's portrayal of vampires as recovering addicts, attending blood-drinker equivalents of AAA sessions and finding something new to obsess since they can't have blood (like the one vamp who's super into photography.)
19:48 most fae are pretty humanoid, think Tinkerbell. I mean you CAN have fae like the tooth faeries from Hellboy, but mostly they are magically little people.
In relation to fairies, "inhuman" is more about personality than appearance. Stereotypical fae have a very different mentality to humans due to their magic nature, and it's much worse than with vampires. For fae/fairies, them being inhuman is often their whole point. Unlike vampires, who usually are either monsters or relatively normal people with a few personality quirks due to being former humans, the fae are all magic. They aren't impossible to make relatable, there are plenty of media that uses them effectively, but they are certainly more tricky to work with than vampires, and they stand much further from that "sweet spot" that was mentioned. They have too much magic, too much fantasy vibe to them to be used as widely as vampires.
Not all vampires suck blood though. There are awesome stories about vampires who steal life energy (for example German Nachzehrer), but unfortunately they aren't that popular nowadays.
The Mercy Thompson book series has a sort of interesting... _thing_ going with its vampires; Both fairies and werewolves had secret societies, but have come out of the closet in recent years, while vampires are still keeping their existence a secret, which the werewolves and fairies choose to respect. Basically, the vampires can't feed on humans without hurting them in some way, so there's no real way for them to be integrated into society at large.
I think my favorite interpretation is in the Witcher universe where there are many different species categorized (by humans/elves/gnomes/dwarves/etc.) as vampires but they are actually all essentially extra dimensional aliens that were trapped in the Witcher’s world after the Conjunction of Spheres so they can’t turn people into vampires, since they are their own species, though the common peasants and people have myths about vampires being able to turn you into one. There are a number of feral species which aren’t intelligent and look very beastial and are basically animals, these are known as “Lower Vampires”. And then there are a few human intelligence level vampire species that are known as “Higher Vampires”, these are the sort of classic type of vampires, they are extremely powerful beings and are effectively immortal being able to regenerate from almost any injury. It’s pretty cool since it includes both types in an interesting way
Garrett P.I had my favourite betrayal of vampire in the book 'Sweet Sliver Blues' where their extremely dangerous but are hunted down near extinction. So most people don't take them as a threat in common life. I believe it was mention that even during a war both sides would stop fighting sent an army to clear a discovered nest.
Vampires are real... I have a family of narcissists. Other than that my favorite vampire is the "dirt-bag" vampire like Lestat De Lioncourt, Collin Farrell's 'Jerry' and the True Blood vampires. Though I would not say Interview With The Vampire started the sexy vampire trope the movie Brides Of Dracula started that as the brides were sexy women. The sexy male vampire started with Frank Langella's performance as Dracula in that 70s Dracula movie.
I didn't realize so many of you loved Seraph of the End so much.
That series can go to hell.
It's Blood Red Sky that you shouldn't have harpped on you nard.😒
The premise was interesting, though. What are your thoughts?
grow your hair back pzlz :3
Wha its still being talked about!? Yeah the anime was good and it was building up to something great but so far as the anime goes there was some weak spot I found that didnt make sense. Also they all have these cool variety weapons to kill vampires yet they're fighting style is the same. As a Bleach fan with unique Zanpakuto and fighting styles, this is very noticeable to me. Anyways, it was enjoyable considering the lack of decent vampire genre media and let's not forget to give credit to the ost by Sawano
You did get a lot of stuff wrong about it. The series is actually still going too in the manga, though it's gradually heading towards the end.
I once had a discussion with someone on a writing discord about the concept of Vampires snacking on Pennies since they taste like blood
Maybe Vampires drink from copper straws so anything they drink tastes like blood
For a second I read Pennies as something else
I recommend "What we do in the Shadows" both the movie and series playes around with different types of vampires. It is shot like a documentery about a group of vampires, how they live and how they interact with other fantasy creatures and humans. The series adds energy vampires, wich drink your energy instead of your blood. They look like regular humans, can walk in sunlight and aren't repelled by crosses. They drain you by talking to you. Everybody knows at least one energy vampire.
I agree; additionally, the series incorporates many references and homages to previous depictions of vampires.
Humanity is close to extinction then, because by definition introverts would be the only real humans, by virtue of being the only ones being drained of energy.
I love What We Do In The Shadows
The first time I heard of psychic vampires was in the satanic bible and in self-help books. The selfish nature of LaVeyan satanism encourages them to treat needy people and emotionally demanding people as evil, soul-sucking monsters. It's really sad and is a language I've seen use to really hurt innocent people.
Witcher Vampires are an interesting interpretation, basically akin to "aliens" that were stranded on earth along with others caught in a celestial event known as "The Conjunction of the Spheres."
What makes them interesing to me is how much they differ within their own group/species
yea, you can have more 'monster' types like the bruxa and other lower vampires, who act very animalistic and can't communicate, and then you can have vampires like Regis, who's a lot more magical and smarter.
Yes they are cool
I think the anime/manga Jojo's Bizarre Adventure has a cool version of vampires.
Humans in the Jojo universe can turn into vampires by using artifacts called Stone Masks. Between the 12th and 16th centuries these masks were used by Aztec cults.
Vampires in Jojo have the standard powers (enhanced strength, speed, regeneration, blood sucking) along with a few special ones.
Vampires can turn people into zombies, creating their own personal army. They can control body temperature, so they can freeze people to death just by touching them. They can also shoot pressurised fluid from their eyes with enough force to destroy a stone pillar (Don't question it).
Also interestingly that's not what the masks were made for. Turning humans into vampires is kind of just a thing they do since they were never intended to be used on humans.
i think you would like Vampire the Masquerade, it has a lot of the elements you discussed done in an interesting way (there are a plethora of games such as Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines and it's also a TTRPG)
I expected Vampire the Masquarade mentioned in the video
As did I
I personally down voted because it wasn't mentioned even with perfect setups.
Also Vampire: The Requiam.
Yeah
Scary Vampires-nosteferatu
Rich vampires- Camirilla
They even have feral Vampires, asian vampires
I'm old fashioned. Dracula is always my favorite: a creature that has forgotten how to be human, yet must force himself to pass as human. Shadow of the Vampire makes some interesting reflections on the loneliness of the vampire condition.
When it comes to Warhammer Fantasy I love how they have their vampires master necromancy and command armies of lesser undead (like zombies and skeletons), the idea of vampires as basically the aristocracy of an undead kingdom is just cool to me.
I've had this idea for a dark fantasy setting where vampires just openly rule society in a Caste system of sorts going from a 1st generation Vampire Queen at the top to thin-blooded vampires, human,s and vampire criminals at the very bottom.
Vampirism would be transmited by eating a sizeable amount of flesh or blood from a higher class of vampire (at least around a pound) and would mostly cause greatly increased regeneration and longevity, ability to reshape one's flesh (just shaping your face like clay at the levels of thin-blooded vamps, kinda like the creatures in Parasyte at the levels of Count-level vampires, full on the Thing for the highest nobles), photosensitivy, the decreased ability to digest plant-based foods (at low level they would be like dogs, at higher levels plant-based foods would be actively poisonous), paranoia (actually implied to be some kind of telepathy but only for other people's ill thoughts, like a Spider-sense but more trigger happy), infertility (thin-blooded vampires would have a 10-20% chance of producing monstruous or insane offspring, higher nobles would have a 99% chance) and the final vampire trai....
... would just be the passive trait to cause other animals to become hungry and try to devour the vampire. Especially carnivorous animals, but higher nobles would be unable to use horses because even their horses would try to eat them. Also, if a non-human animal eats a sizeable amount of a living vampire's flesh or blood, it immediately dies and sometimes becomes a monstruousity after a while, like the ones the vampires sometimes birth. It would be kinda implied in lore that vampires ate some kind of alien symbiote that reproduces by getting eaten, but something went wrong when it was eaten by a human.
Vampires creating other vampires, either through feeding their flesh/blood or having kids, without consent of a Marquis-level noble would be punishable by law, and a Marquis would only theoretically be able to grant vampirehood if very specific conditions are met, however the system would be corrupt enough that sometimes even rich humans would just buy themselves vampirehood. Vampires killing humans would be technically illegal, but there would be many conditions that would enable it to still happen regularly,. Mostly that most vampires are waaay more powerful than most humans. Killing vampires of any class, except members of clans labelled criminals, would be illegal, so whenever a clan with vampires is labelled criminal, the vampire members tend to get hunted down for their flesh by other vampires and even humans. Since powerful vampires cant have kids of their own yet are still somewhat mortal, society would be structured by clans that use the Roman naming structure for its members (Name - Clan Name - Family Name).
And there would be other magical elements in the setting, but mostly gross vaguely biological, vaguely lovecraftian stuff, like slugs that crawl into people's brains through their noses and cause long term brain damage, but can be used as truth serums (and not in the torture way, the slugs just prevent the diseased person to lie after entering the brain), a kind of moss that is brewed into alcohol that gives everyone visions of the future, but only painful events and always causes suicide after long term consumption, and such.
I am aware you haven't read the Witcher books, so, let me talk about Higher Vampires. Living beings, just like humans, thrust upon the world they didn't choose; many just want to get back to their own world. They are intelligent and unique to an individual, in a category of their own. Garlic, silver, sunlight and steaks have no effect on them. These facts are also joked about in the book series, although it is important to note that the higher vampires' abilities and classification slightly differ between the books, and even between each of the three games . They are incredibly physically powerful, yet there are very few of them in the world, less than "a handful" (a few thousand); this and their incredible discomfort by just being in the witcher world prevents them from taking it over (although, I will admit, they still could take over the world, it just really isn't in any of their interests. What would nigh-immortal beings so naturally disconnected from humanity want with this alien world?). There is no human infected, no blood transmitted disease; they are born vampires, and live their entire lives vampires. My favourite presentation of a vampire in the series is
*Spoiler*
Emiel Regis Rohellec Terzieff-Godefroy, a kind, grandfartherly 'man' who helps Geralt and his hansa, always willing to help, even if he is quite pretentious (well, he is 428 years old). He completely subverts most vampire tropes, and is one of my favourite fictional characters.
Agreed the Witcher probably has my favorite vampire interpretation
An aspect you did not mention: Do vampires get more powerful with age? In Twilight young vampires are stronger than older ones, but old ones become wiser and maybe even gain special powers. In True Blood, vampires become stronger and more powerful with age, even gaining abilities like flight.
an interesting take on this trope(and really any varient on older=stronger for monsters and/or magical objects) is the idea that its backwards, being older doesent make you stronger, its just those that are stronger are going to survive a lot longer, and since "ancient" is a much broader time period then "modern" even if an uberpowerful vampire is born only every 100 years or so you would have one uberpowerful modern vampire and a lot of ancient ones, and inversely for weak ones
Strigoi and Dhampir are names that are older than vampire. People who use those terms are using them on purpose.
One of the more valid criticisms I've heard about Twilight's sparkling vampires is that it makes them too overpowered. By removing this common weakness, no one could realistically defeat a vampire.
The criticism I saw was the Author forgot her own rules when it came to vampires. James had to be torn apart and burned but then later on simple decapitation did the trick for the other vampires like Victoria. Meyers disregarded her own vampire lore when it was convenient.
@@alorapendrak9752 Yeah. When worldbuilding a fictional race, you have to make sure that they have their own consistent rules.
That reminds me, the idea that a vampire could be killed by sunlight actually came from Nosferatu. Some myths say that vampires could go out in the sunlight, but they would be weaker in the daylight.
@@alorapendrak9752 You're wrong, Victoria was burned after the beheading and the same happened to other vampires who were "killed"
G A R L I C. Unless they removed that too. Or religious symbols they believed were holy when they were alive.
The lore for the Elder Scrolls series certainly is inconsistent and insane. If I'm not mistaken, there is something in Elder Scrolls lore that is called a "dragon break," (the dragon being mentioned being Akatosh, the god of time), that exists to explain retcons and the cannon results of the player character's choices.
no, the dragon break was used to justify all the possible endings to Daggerfall (ES2) happening simultaneously (fans want to then use such a thing to justify things that are really just recons - and they need to get over it already). The god head stuff (etc.) can be used to think about the player/developer/mod-makers in some in-universe way, which is seems you were talking about.
@@xBINARYGODx there are a couple other ones canonically in the lore but yeah people do need to accept that stuff written over decades by several people just won’t always be consistent
@@stellabee2026 Good point. Also Dragon Breaks gets just even weirder, There is a book discussing the Dragonbreak Relating to The Alessian Order, an infamous religious order(with its own very complicated lore, i want to keep this inside the word count and not turn into an essay). And theoretically they ruled for almost one or two millennia, but they author dismissed the Dragon Break theory outright, saying that we only have actual events amounting to rougly 150 years. Here is the kicker though, i think it is first introduced in Morrowind. Though the author casually talks about the end of the Septim Imperial Family and the decline of the Cyrodillic Empire, which has not happened yet, and is going to take several years if not hundreds to happen fully, meaning the whole piece of literature is a small scale dragonbreak in itself, despite author protests. ES lore is indeed weird am i right?
Bethesda writers creating the most intricate lore you’ve ever seen only to throw it out or contradict it in the very next game:
@@keyboardstalker4784 true I remember when they made lore about Talos after achieving Chim getting rid of all the thick jungles that used to cover Cyrodil and replacing it with verdant fields and sparse woodlands retroactively through the entire timeline, and this was just so they could have a lore explanation as to why Cyrodil wasn’t completely covered in rainforest and jungles in the Oblivion game
In vampire, the masquerade we got
Angry vampires
Assassin vampires
Necromancer vampires
Beastlike vampires
Necromancer vampire mobsters
Crazy vampires
Ugly vampires
Three-eyed vampires
Pretty vampires
Flesh molding vampires
Wizard vampires
Business vampires
Vampire feudalists
Vampire tankies
And vampire jihadists
Also rampant racism and sexism in the writing unless im not wrong.
@@KamiRecca dependent on the book but yeah there’s some crappy moments. I say that as a huge fan of the series. There’s also a lot of progressive stuff (again depending on the book) so it feels kinda weird sometimes
@@KamiRecca in the older editions, yeah. The current edition (5th Edition) has gotten rid of a lot of the more "socially problematic" aspects like those.
@@theveira realy? Not what i heard. But hell i might be wrong, so im not gonna say anything then.
Exept this: i do not mind when ugly parts of life is portrayed. It is when it is presented with leading intent that it bothers me.
"Socialy problematic" is just another way to say Human (read 'Sentient but not yet Enlightened'), and i realy dont like how for example Path Finder dulls down the teeth of its world in fear of triggering people, that is the opposit of presenting negative aspects with leading intent, and neither extreme is good for us, or the hobby.
Good thing this is simple and not at all confusing ^^
@@KamiRecca there was a small controversy of probably some intern adding vaguely naziesque dogwhistles in the corebook, but after the backlash the WoD team has been on their best behavior to make sure any kind of racism/sexism/etc. is scrubbed off material going forward, plus they try to be inclusive and whatnot.
It's not that they've sanitized the world in hopes of being "PC" or whatever, just got rid of some of the actually problematic stuff like changing a Clan that was previously a big Romani stereotype into more of a thrill seeking daredevil Clan, or entirely cutting out any mention of the Kuei-Jin, which were based on Asian stereotypes.
vampires were originally a metaphor for rich people; they suck something out of you.
that, or (mega)corporations
R+V? a man of culture
Watching the “What We Do In The Shadows” show,” one of the characters is an energy vampire. You know those people who always want to talk to you but are just so boring and infuriating at once that they manage to drain all energy from the room? That’s them.
Now you gotta do every type of werewolf.
Yes oh my god yes someone else acknowledges Rosario+Vampire is actually good. It change in genre was fantastic. It’s the definition of I come for the degeneracy and stay for the story.
I mean vampires are sort of a reference to the nobility class leeching of the peasantry right? Will this feature bloated, inbred, greedy vampires with a tendency to megalomania?
Plus we have Zombies as a reference to the dirty, diseased, stupid, but innumerable peasant class rising up to eat the rich.
Thats a surface level reading of it, yea, if you want that to be the message.
Vampires are a narrative tool to make mostly whatever point you wanna make ^^
Vampires are friends we made along the way
“Insert strong closing line here” I actually laughed out loud omg
I love vampires in shiki, incredibly underpowered, they have almost all the common weaknesses, sometimes made even worse, (not only will they die to sunlight, when they comes the automatically go into a sleep state when day comes, they can't enter houses without permission, they're only slightly stronger than humans, they have an intense fear of any holy symbols, they can hypnotise, but it's very limited in both it's rules of use and uses) but what makes them all the scarier is that nobody in the village knows about vampires, and what they can do, most of them don't even know they exist
I love Shiki too although not because of how underpowered they are or how many weaknesses they have.
I think it might be cool to see vampires similar to Shiki but more spectral and incorporeal. Semi-tangible undead vampires.
Shiki is a remake of Stephen King's vampire novel, but actually 10x better
I liked part of the Warhammer take on Vampires, in that they have their own lands, I borred it for a D&D campaign setting I'm working on, and because the general theme of that world was, "the world doesn't care that you're the Player," & "make something of yourself or die" it ended up being a bit on the grimdark side, with most human nations being places you probably wouldn't want to visit, with the rich being authoritarian despots, who will crush you underfoot to crush you under foot, and the poor being regularly attacked by powerful monsters that take literal armies to kill most of the time.
Then there's the vampires lands, apart from the fact that everything there is bioluminescent, and or carnivorous, including most of the flora, and the fact that its a land of eternal night, with no escape, and the rulers are literal blood sucking monsters, its actually one of the nicer places to live in the world, because the vampires, while they treat their humans as chattel, they do go out of their way to protect them (They want their cows for their dinner table, not as a feast for some wolf pack, or some parasitic organism).
9:19
This made me visualize a nerdy vampire boy that works the night shift at a gas station, and I thank you for that
Somebody please write this.
@@AnnaBowling Hear this, he's been on his own since he escaped his vampire family as a teen, after they put him through the rite of passage of him sucking the blood off a human they kidnapped. He's been trying to live a normal life among humans, hiding his identity and drinking the blood of wild animals he catches in the nearby forests. The other vampires plan on overtaking the human world, and now that he's cozied up to them, he doesn't want that. So he asks for the help of his friend coworkers at the gas station to stop the other vampires. How's that for you?
@@HeortirtheWoodwarden I hope they are welding scrapped car parts into flamethrowers and fill those with the gasoline from gas station to fight the vampires.
@@johannageisel5390 Hell yeah
What a great video. Loved it all. What do you mean the video's only been up for a few minutes and there's no way I could watch it all? Pfft, trust me.
This man's got no time to watch at 1x speed.
6:56 I like how "being repelled by garlic" is a "silly weakness" when garlic allergies exist along with people having an "ick" response to certain odors which is arguably more "scientific" and plausible than them being insta-killed by sunlight.
To this day I think the World of Darkness is the best vampire universe Edit: because vampires are all of the above and more. They are sexy seductive utterly inhuman creatures desperately clinging to what keeps them human. Vampires are parasitic leaches both predator and prey. The vampires are social Apex Predators. They are human but fighting the beast that keeps gnawing at them.
I really like Vampires as a metaphor for a cold parasitic wealthy class. It leaves room for both the sexy vampire and the dusty decrepit one. Both being alluring and being pure decay. It plays on the classic themes of Dracula and newer tropes.
Sexy vempires?! Im so glad i never experienced this kind of degeneracy*looks ate a picture of dio
YES, IT WAS I ALL ALONG, DIO BRANDO!
bro are you Enrico Pucci?? /J
Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter is the only vampire movie I like
One more possible point is the subcultural aspect, like Normie v Gothic or something like that.
I don't know what the proportions here are but you can't deny that this is a thing.
An old anime that does the whole vampire can't enter a home without permission and strangely aren't all stronger than humans is Shiki.
You forgot to mention how some of these franchise has an inbuilt class system like in Blade. There are Born vampires, Turned vampires and day walkers
I'm loving how many of these are covered in Vampire the Masquerade...
You mean all of it?
@@Ivnnih2774 and then some, yes, lol.
Vampire the Masquerade (tabletop game and video games) have different clans and the whole vampiric line started when Caine from the Bible was cursed by god. Also, there are ghouls (humans who are blood-bound to a vampire) and thin bloods.
Vampires are suitable for horror more than most scary stereotypes. They can tick any box if you think of it, from existential horror, societal horror, body horror, mystic horror to whatever horror. Also are fit to do any SM, drugs, and debauchery without dying or even sparkle if you are into really depraved stuff.
I currently write a gothic romantic horror about vampires in 1910 Russia. I tried to make vampires more terrifying than anything I ever read. But this horror and vampires are mostly for the comedy and contrast, cause main characters don't take them seriously due to more pressing problems on all fronts
Your writing sounds really interesting
I would definately read what you're writing. If you ever get to publish (or if you had already), please tell us!
@@quintustheophilus9550 thank you, but it's in Russian. And google translate doesn't work well with the text stylized for that era
@@marl3ymarl3y86 I should've finished it before that hell started.
Now the whole book looks as if I'm covering my ass post factum, cause its main message was anti-killing-people whatever the goal is, whatever the horror is.
Looks like I can't post links, so let me put the address like this (until my european servers are still up): "scifi" then dot, then evennot, then com, forward-slash "suns". It's an unfinished version, that is hard to translate
I just felt an urge to say that I'm sane here in this pit of a country, I'm against this s-show even on the philosophical level, and I leave a proof
Warhammer fantasy of all things has my favorite vampire power couple in Vlad von Carstein and Isabella von Drak. Given the nature of the franchise it ends in tragedy but it's a wild ride.
Imagine talking about vampires and not bringing up vampire the masquerade
I know right?!!
This is heresy for me
But on serious note, vampire the masquerade have all the tropes listed here combined into one cohesive worldbuilding it's amazing
@@Ivnnih2774 Yeah WoD is not only a kitchen sink approach to urban fantasy it is a kitchen showroom.
I really think the Hellsing manga has the most interesting vampire mythology, and it’s short enough not to get old.
Hellsing is such a great take on a modern Dracula.
I really enjoyed this video, it was a good breakdown of a trope, but had a lot more to say than summary. With the critique of poorly used aspects, and the encouragement to break the mold this was really great to watch as a writer. I honestly hope you make more videos like this one in the future!
(Also fun hearing about Seraph of the End, I only watched it late last year, and although it has problems it has a certain kind of cheese I love)
"Maybe demons will become pure expressions of human emotion that help us understand how to live"
*Dragon Age has entered the chat*
6:40 this was probably already mentioned but Strigoi is the name for vampires in Romanian mythology.
I think the world of darkness handles vampires pretty well by having competition like werewolves, mages, and demons. While they’re powerful, there are weaknesses to exploit and they have to hide due to the aforementioned competition.
6:41 wanted to add that strigoi isn't just some lazy writer trying to come up with a new name for vampires, they're considerred some other, different mythological creature.
According to Wikipedia the strigoi "are troubled spirits that are said to have risen from the grave. They are attributed with the abilities to transform into an animal, become invisible, and to gain vitality from the blood of their victims".
It is believed that at some point in time, the strigoi blended with the vampire myths.
As a Romanian who has studied mythology pretty intensely, I would say that the Strigoi are simply the authentical mythologically correct Romanian vampire. Of course Romanians, residing in the Transylvanian, Wallachian and Moldavian regions of Europe, have developed different types of vampire creatures due to sub-cultural variety within the country, but as a starting point, the strigoi is the basis for the entire vampiric myth. It is mostly south eastern European culture to blame for foundational mythology of the creature, combined with aristocratic characteristics reminiscent of Austro-Hungary and western European nations. In Romania, the aristocratic hierarchy was significantly different then fiction portrays it as today. Dracula, the historical figure, was not a count but instead a Voievode, a title which is equivalent to the word Prince in English, when referring not to the child of a monarch, but to the monarch of a Principality. Another example of western characteristics being superficially injected into a Eastern myth to create the vampire is Castlevania, In which Chatolicism is present as a religion within Wallachia, something which is simply absurd for anyone that knows even the smallest amount of European history and culture.
@@sticlavoda5632 I mean, wasn't Transilvania the only region out of the three where catholicism was present?
@@justaname6011 Yes, but it was not the majority religion.
You've made me remember maybe one of the most obscure cultural facts, that I know... So, in 2009 there was this nickelodeon show called "The Troop"... Three students were chosen to -ripoff "Man In Black"- protect the school from different kinds of super-secret monster... One of which were VAMPSTERS, a humanoid vampire-hamster hybrid... Instead of fangs they had a huge buckteeth, and could hold A WHOLE MAN behind their cheeks... And they act like fratboys, slurping energy drinks out of hamster water bottles... It's one of the more creative takes on vampires as I've seen, but "creative" doesn't mean "Not stupid as shit"...
God has cursed me with this knowledge, and now you are cursed too...
So glad to see a cirque du freak reference 😁👍🏼
Honestly the inability to enter a home is typically meaningless because worst case scenario vampires just set it on fire.
Glad you loved Rosario Vampire. As fun as the anime is, I wish it got a remake since season 2’s manga was so amazing and fun.
In Dresden Files there ae three main species of vampires. There are sexy ones that drink life energy by inducing a certain emotion in victims. There are sexy/scary ones that drink blood, avoid the sun and any symbol that is empowered by faith of the wielder. And they are hideous under their "flesh mask". The third kind is scary/scary. Basically reanimated corpses that can use magic, breed like crazy and the older they get, the stronger they are.
Dresden Files also has multiple species of werewolves, and mentions other were-animals. Dresden Files have most of the mythical creatures and monsters, and few extra ones...
In the Dresden Files, I just assume everything from fantasy folklore is true (as opposed to folklore about aliens). I have yet to be proven wrong.
i cannot believe you did not mention Jojo's Bizarre Adventure. you danced around the subject so carefully, yet resisted the urge to bring it up.
Same probably for Tokyo Ghoul, but they also eat human flesh so they don't count??????
Their vampires are actually pretty interesting
Of course, vampires are but a small focus in the main storyline of the series, being overshadowed by the mystery behind Stands and etc.
But for the duration they were relevant, I'd say Araki did great
Unlike most vampires with supernatural abilities that the author just brushes off without any proper explanation, the vampires in Jojo are described as having total, absolute control over their bodies
So, if in some other story a vampire is just described as "being able to control fire", then a vampire like Esidisi in Jojo Part 2 controls fire by superheating his own blood and sticking his blood vessels out from underneath his literally opened fingernails, which results in the blood that spills out on his enemies to combust and have them burn
Or, there's also Wamuu, who uses bone-like holes that resemble an ocarina that grow out from his ribcage, to shoot out powerful gusts of air at his opponents, which are strong enough to shred their bodies
There's also Dio, who used his eyes to shoot out body fluids at his opponents at high pressures, which basically ended up looking like laser vision; There's also how he could take away the heat of his own body parts to instantly freeze them and then touch his opponent, which ended up in his frozen body parts taking away the heat of the body of his opponent, which effectively resulted in ice powers
Then there's Kars, who could grow a bone blade out of his elbow, that had several constantly moving small teeth-like bones that grew out of the blade's edges, which basically gave him a very sharp chainsaw
This bone that grew out from him was capable of reflecting light at his opponents, which would hinder their vision greatly
So, overall, even if the vampires in Jojo have elemental abilities, it is created from the masterful control they have over their bodies, not just magic - light control, ice control, fire control, wind control are all just pseudo-sciencey functions in their physiologies
That's why I love Jojo's vampires
Vampire Masquerade Bloodlines has the most interesting vampires.
Especially Malkavian
If you want a palate cleanser for vampire anime, Shiki is a legitimate horror one. And as far as vampire horror goes, even outside of anime as a medium, few can rival it in how, well, horrifying it gets. And this is achieved without resorting to disgusting or feral vampires, it portrays vampires with grace and horror at the same time.
"for teenage girls who have a weird relationship with their English teacher" fucking killed me lmao tell me why I knew at least thirty people that fit that description exactly
I noticed a distinct lack of dio brando
One vampire concept I've always loved is the Blue Bloods series, where the vampires were the fallen angels who fell with Lucifer and those who regretted it were cursed to constantly reincarnate through the ages (their angelic blood basically being their souls and was how they reincarnated) and drink the blood of humans. It was a really fresh and nuanced take in my opinion, and gave a nice coat of theological discussion over the usual teen vamp stuff
The first sexy vampire was probably Carmilla. Dracula was considered hot and sexual for his time too. Vampires were always sexy or seductive. That's basically one of the only reason to call your monster a vampire instead of a zombie or any other type of generic killer.
Not always, but it's certainly one of the most long-established vampire myths.
There's one type you forgot to mention, Jimmy James. We're all on to you, child.
I have a suggestion on the theme of saving the world from Vampires.
The most crucial is about the abilities of Vampires and the world itself such as for example giving vampires magic would make more sense if the world is set in the Middle Ages.
Giving vampires higher intelligence than humans and being able to make better weapons than humans made more sense if the setting was the modern world.
If the theme was vampires hiding among humans then it would make sense that they were weak creatures unless vampires were experimental creatures that only existed in modern times.
The most important thing is that power is directly proportional to the setting to create a logical story (unless you just want the story to be cool and don't care about logic then whatever, I'm just explaining)
V- Wars calls em Bloods?
So should crips be werewolves?
My fav type of vampire is the attractive yet also dangerous and powerful vampire who strangely usually tends to be kinda bi, tends to be rather aggressive and edgy both due to their darker past and vampiric nature, their character design design and overall vibe features a lot of references to rock artists/music/culture, and whose story features a lot of references to tarot cards.😆
So Lestat? I havent read a lot of vampire story yet but it sound much like Anne Rice😁
Well yes, Xgzav, that guy does definitely fit that stereotype tho I was mainly referring to Marceline from Adventure Time and Dio from Jojo.😆
However that type of vamp that I did describe definitely consists of other characters that fit into that stereotype as well.
And Marshall Lee too from Adventure Time, ofc, Xgzav
@@averytherockgod9822 hey, you're right I didn't thought about them and now I understand the tarot card part too😆. They're really the best vampire stereotype!
Fr, Xgzav😆
*glances at my seraph of the end fanfiction series from 6 years ago that still has the most hits out of all of my writing* The vampires were the most boring part of the show, honestly lol This video was fun, though, would like to see more “all the types of -“ videos. Like how you went fairly in depth without taking too much time and talked about depictions in different genres/mediums.
I desperately want more werewolf stories.
I love that you referenced the work of Michael J. Sullivan however briefly.
VTMB: yes
'fucking hell, japan' describes pretty much my entire relationship with anime. you start watching going 'i got questions', then 'huh?', and then what you said.
If he'd mentioned Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines and VTM Redemption. People would have reinstalled it. Reasons to hide: SURVIVE! How do they do that? Make up this law called the Masquerade. Different types/clans of vampires don't always get along so they also hide from each other. But James if you ever want to play VTMB. Warning it's pretty broken, only unofficial patches have kept it... somewhat playable. It came before Vampyr. The only reason some people played Vampyr because they hoped for something that could be like VTMB.
Sad (but not surprised) to not see the anime Blood+ mentioned in this video. IMHO it was one of the most creative and refreshing takes on vampires I've seen: they're another species of shapeshifting were-bats with a hive-like social structure. Very underrated & under-the-radar anime.
One idea I've played with since my early teens is a setting where necromancers have a union and are considered valuable members of society, adding a large additional workforce to all fields of physical and/or repetitive labor.
They can also produce a large standing army that costs almost nothing (unless large amounts of magic is required to maintain more powerful or intelligent undead), and wars can be fought with very few casualties. On the other hand, unless you also have powerful magical healers, disease rates will skyrocket due to all those rotting bodies walking around everywhere.
@@samueldimmock694 One generally doesn't have living people working alongside undead for this reason, even though it usually takes a long time for rotting to occur if you force most biological processes you can keep going to continue. That said they do rot eventually and it's better to have them in the ground *before* the liquefied meat starts oozing out, or at least before you get a surface rupture.
@@chocokittybo Looks like you put a lot of thought into this. I wonder what this would do to social classes and cultural attitudes towards death?
@@samueldimmock694 death often isn't seen as a terrible thing in the setting, in part because gods provably exist in the setting, and sometimes have avatars in the world, so people know their souls go somewhere, depending on what gods they follow ect. Plus the physical embodiment of death is always so nice, and tends to get around via public transit rather than any other way they could do so. And so there's this general feeling that once you're not using your body anymore there's no reason for the necromancer's union to get some more value out of it, if anything it's a good thing because it's less wasteful.
That said, the gods tend to not actually tell people what happens to their souls when they get them, many just stripping the souls of any consciousness and using it as power, which is part of why the theocracy has made it illegal to try contacting dead souls who have left the world. It's possible with necromancy to do so, but only if the soul still exists, if they've been turned to power for a god you'll not get any response.
That's some of the kinds of things related to thoughts on death of the general populous, people more in the know often have a bleaker view, and the aforementioned embodiment of death actually has a racket going on of "here's what's going to happen to you if you move on, but I can just put you in an unaging body if you work for me" the ethics of which are murky at best, no matter how well they treat anyone who agrees to the terms
Honestly the setting was pretty anti-authority even from inception, whether I realized or not. Not necessarily against the specific people in power, but against the positions of power themselves, what with the whole system of government being based on the nepotism of various gods.
@@chocokittybo Great setting. You should do something with it, or give it to someone else if you can't or don't want to.
So in the Elder Scrolls there are 3 ways to become a vampire
1. Preform a ritual for Molag Bal (i think Boethia also created vampires as a middle finger to Molag Bal)
2. Get bitten by someone from group 1.
3. Get infected by someone from group 2.
Argonians and Wood Elves are less likely to become vampires because of their disease resistance, but group 1 vampires are powerful enough to ignore that.
How can you have a bank account and claim that vampires aren't real?
Fantasy creatures being psychologically just human is a weakness of fantasy and sci-fi in general.
In my teenage years i wrote a first draft of a story about wizards fighting a coven of vampires. It was basicalky set in a Harry Potter type world, urban fantasy setting. There were a group of Aurors called by another name fighting a vampire lord. The vampired had magic powers just like the wizards. Funny enough, the main vampire villain was "played" in my head by Jude Law
World building advice as to how to keep the classical vampire weaknesses relevant:
1. Make them English.
I think Sergei Lukjanenko's Night Watch series has my favourite type of vampires that aren't feral.
I wouldn't mind reading a book where their are blood suckers, insectivores and fruit eaters all in the same universe. That would be interesting to see where it leads.
I know its not a book, just a show, but it would've been cool if you talked about Marceline in Adventure Time
i was surprised that you didnt mention vampire the masquerade bloodlines vampires in there, because i thought those were really neat
Yes it contains all the tropes listed here but somehow makes an interesting and understandable worldbuiding that actually makes sense to the setting provided
5:48 Someone doesn't wack it to Nurgle and it shows.
The Witcher has the best vampires of those that I've seen
also
12:15 , 17:05 hi, Uncle Vernon
Although I'd point out that a garlic weakness is very, very easy to explain.
15:02 As someone who watched Rosario as the junk food equivalent of TV for dumb fun
I'm now legitimately curious about the manga
Just gonna say, you mentioned both Seraph of the End and Rosario Vampire. YET no Hellsing (The Manga by Kohta Hirano and its anime adaptations, not the drama that you did mention).
That's my only gripe with the video, other than that you did a good job with this.
Litraly one of like 4 good vempires anime show i think (blood c ,shiki and Mars red
The only vampire thats been done well is jared leto's Morbius!
Shows Blade in Thumbnail, not s single mention in the video....
Obviously the most bad ass hybrid (who kick start marvel movies!)
Thats what I love about True Blood. Yes, its a rather typical sexy vampire story, but right in the first scene its revealed that vampires made their existence public and theres fake blood for them to drink.
Dresden Files is one of the few places I have seen fairies I.e. fae done justice.
A Practical Guide to Evil also has a pretty interesting depiction of them. Even if they mostly serve as a plot filler.
Read Berserk. I feel that the faeries there are pretty spot on.
Goddamn children playing at war
@@KamiRecca I have read berserk. The real fairies (puck’s race) was recently introduced and they are nothing like the list children or like the winter court in Dresden lol
Question what vampires goes like this:
Stop sign: ...
Vampire: "NO!! YOU STOP!!"
Stop sign: ...
Vampire: "STOP IT!!"
Stop sign: ...
Vampire: "AAAAAHH STOP!!!"
Stop sign: ...
Vampire: "you make a powerful enemy today sign"
what's your opinion on Discworld's portrayal of vampires as recovering addicts, attending blood-drinker equivalents of AAA sessions and finding something new to obsess since they can't have blood (like the one vamp who's super into photography.)
19:48 most fae are pretty humanoid, think Tinkerbell. I mean you CAN have fae like the tooth faeries from Hellboy, but mostly they are magically little people.
In relation to fairies, "inhuman" is more about personality than appearance. Stereotypical fae have a very different mentality to humans due to their magic nature, and it's much worse than with vampires. For fae/fairies, them being inhuman is often their whole point. Unlike vampires, who usually are either monsters or relatively normal people with a few personality quirks due to being former humans, the fae are all magic. They aren't impossible to make relatable, there are plenty of media that uses them effectively, but they are certainly more tricky to work with than vampires, and they stand much further from that "sweet spot" that was mentioned. They have too much magic, too much fantasy vibe to them to be used as widely as vampires.
Not all vampires suck blood though. There are awesome stories about vampires who steal life energy (for example German Nachzehrer), but unfortunately they aren't that popular nowadays.
OH MY GOSH YOU REFERENCED CRUCIFIX NAIL NIPPLES I'M SOBBING BRO
Edit: Please don't kill yourself. ❤
The Mercy Thompson book series has a sort of interesting... _thing_ going with its vampires; Both fairies and werewolves had secret societies, but have come out of the closet in recent years, while vampires are still keeping their existence a secret, which the werewolves and fairies choose to respect. Basically, the vampires can't feed on humans without hurting them in some way, so there's no real way for them to be integrated into society at large.
This is What We Do in the Shadows erasure
idgaf what you say...VAMPIRES DON''T SPARKLE!!!
I think my favorite interpretation is in the Witcher universe where there are many different species categorized (by humans/elves/gnomes/dwarves/etc.) as vampires but they are actually all essentially extra dimensional aliens that were trapped in the Witcher’s world after the Conjunction of Spheres so they can’t turn people into vampires, since they are their own species, though the common peasants and people have myths about vampires being able to turn you into one. There are a number of feral species which aren’t intelligent and look very beastial and are basically animals, these are known as “Lower Vampires”. And then there are a few human intelligence level vampire species that are known as “Higher Vampires”, these are the sort of classic type of vampires, they are extremely powerful beings and are effectively immortal being able to regenerate from almost any injury. It’s pretty cool since it includes both types in an interesting way
Great video as always!
Garrett P.I had my favourite betrayal of vampire in the book 'Sweet Sliver Blues' where their extremely dangerous but are hunted down near extinction. So most people don't take them as a threat in common life. I believe it was mention that even during a war both sides would stop fighting sent an army to clear a discovered nest.
There is one other trait most Vampires follow. Feed or become feral.
Vampires are real... I have a family of narcissists.
Other than that my favorite vampire is the "dirt-bag" vampire like Lestat De Lioncourt, Collin Farrell's 'Jerry' and the True Blood vampires. Though I would not say Interview With The Vampire started the sexy vampire trope the movie Brides Of Dracula started that as the brides were sexy women. The sexy male vampire started with Frank Langella's performance as Dracula in that 70s Dracula movie.