And that "who knows" is the space we fandom writers get to unleash our imagination.

Are vampire whores to be considered cliché? Killers yes... but whores?

 

Don't Know... What about Vampire whores, who are also killers?

 

*scowls* I'm tryin'. It ain't easy to come up with something that hasn't been done, redone and fished out of another person's ass, because at the end of the day it's still shit.

 

Well said, but even then, I have never read a story that includes vampire whore who, after you fuck them silly, drinks you dry!

 

Obviously you are unfamiliar with the works of White Wolf.

 

Another way you could write magical creatures who aren't uber-chiche in the HP universe is to add something to previously existing creatures. You can go all different ways with Goblins and the reasons they hate wizards. What's the real reason (in your mind) house elves are bonded to humans? What's the true purpose of an Ashwinder? If there IS a purpose, I doubt it's to survive until it's fire goes out.

My point: stop worrying about creating new species. You barely know enough about the few canon creatures to consider them unworkable. If you're creative, there is always another direction to go with them. Or you could just grab a fewer of the lesser-known creatures from FBaWtFT and do something bigger with them. *shrugs* You don't always have to MAKE UP something brand new to be creative.

 

Who is White Wolf, and where can I read his/her works?

 

They're the company that made Vampire: The Masquerade and a bunch of other tabletop games, in a universe that was called the World of Darkness. Now it's called the Old World of Darkness because they killed it all off with Gehenna and rolled up the nWoD. If you could sidestep the angst built into it's very bones, it was a hell of a lot of fun, and led to a couple of damn fine games and a rather large fandom.

 

Might check it out, if I have the time

 

In my opinion, to write a magical creature you need to make sure that it...well, frankly, it has to suck. When I say that, I mean that it has to has weaknesses that a normal human being doesn't have that can't be compensated by uber qualities.

Stories with cliche magical creatures that can jump into shadows and lift up buses with thier pinkies and have gigantic magical strength and all that crap, fail to take one very important fact into consideration. If they're so damn good, why is it that normal bumbling humans run the world and not them? The wizarding world opresses magical creatures, it's not the other way around.

So yeah, as a general rule, you gotta take that into account. Weaknesses rather strengths would make it non-cliche. Of course, if this is about Harry, then who wants to read a vampire!Harry story that gets roasted by a Death Eater using a lumos charm, or whatever.

Non-cliche magical creature... hard to do, methinks.

 

Yes, I totally agree. Although... maybe partway... Weakness are important but they have to be compensated some way or the magical creatures wouldn't exist at all... to turn that argument the other way.

For example while Vamps can be discouraged or even obliterated by sunlight (not lumos or they would die from neon bulbs too...), in the dark and against nonmagi or even magi without wands... they rule. Unless you hit a stake through their heart or behead them, they can slowly but surely cut you to ribbons and run circles around you as they don't get muscle fatigue or such crap. It's important to create some kind of situation in which they can show strength or you just have a bunch of losers and wimps.

Not Harry. Harry is human and should, IMO, stay human... Changing his species is a huge step towards total OOCness.

Oh srsly?

I think the biggest problem is that novice writers have great difficulties with creating characters with a... well character. If we read about flat stereotypes of a certain species... of course it won't seem original. But if it is a fully developed person you are writing about, their own quirks, thoughts and feelings detract from the cliché and enable a skilled writer to pick up the idea of a standard vamp without people pointing fingers and moaning "again?".

 

You're forgetting fire, garlic, crosses and holy water.

 

I am a firm non-believer in Christianity. If I was a vamp and someone would splash me with water some old man made a few strange gestures over... I'd laugh at them. Wave a piece of wood in my face... same reaction. If Christianity works... why not Muslim artifacts or Taoist or anything else...

The rest... anything dies through fire and garlic sounds spoofy... but I guess vampires could wear those nose-clamps swimmers do. Problem solved.

 

If you're going to get rid of part of vampire's weaknesses, then why not all of them? Yes, lets get rid of sunlight and stakes and beheading too, and make them invincible! Wouldn't that just be so cool?

Uh, no. If the multitude of bad vampire HP fanfics shows us anything, it's that you can't get rid of weaknesses just because you dislike them. Vampires not being able to stand crosses etc. is a part of the vampire myth, just as much as sunlight.

 

Personally, I like how Dresden dealt with spiritual objects as weaknesses. That is, it's not the object itself that hurts the unholy being, it's the belief behind the object.

 

@Taure

Nope. It's part of the vampire cliché. Let me quote wikipedia.

Or...

Ergo, when writing about such ancient and varied characters... there really is no such thing as "the vampiric myth", there is only "a vampiric myth" and it lies within my creative license to make and break them as I wish.


@ Demon_Vigilante

It fits the universe very well and I thought it was quite ingenious when I read it... although I'm pretty sure I had seen it somewhere else before.

 

Alright, I think its time to throw my two cents into this one. (Which is a blatant lie. Beware text-wall, I've put some thought here before. The main point I'm getting at is that cliche's aren't a bad thing if you have half a brain and a quarter talent.)

Cent number one, on vampires. Several good points have been brought up about the blood sucking dwellers of the night, but let's broaden our scope a bit shall we?

On the subject of vampires and religious icons, I'd like to point out that this solely applies to the Christian version of the classic monster. Almost every culture in the world has myths about the blood sucking undead with surprisingly few variations. Sun-light and wood (though the preferred wood varies) are less fickle than religious influence. It needs to be noted that the majority of holy-symbols-that-burn legends can be traced back to (who would have guessed) the church itself. Need to bolster your attendance at mass? Oh noes! There's a terrible creature that can only be killed by your faith in the Almighty! -,-

As for garlic... this is actually a common misconception of the myth based on people who couldn't be bothered to actually read Bram Stoker's Dracula. Its not a be-all-end-all by any means. The herb comes up three notable times: When the Count is enticing Lucy it is used to ward him away, and fails miserably. Van Helsing spreads garlic around Lucy's room and forces her to wear a garlic flower necklace, but the book states that this is to cast out a demonic possession, not to ward off vampires or prevent Lucy from turning. Later, Lucy's mouth is filled with garlic to prevent her from rising from the dead... after she has been staked and beheaded already (Even if the garlic doesn't work, overkill much?). The myth itself is different in every culture as to what commonly found house-hold plant will ward off a vampire. From garlic and hawthorn to lemons and rosemary, its a commonly found herb for the region. Seeing the pattern here?

So, how does one write the Kindred properly into a story? The first step is, of course, deciding how important a role you want them to play. If they're just going to be side-notes, or Voldemort's foot soldiers, or even a semi-interesting enemy that Harry fights once on his path to greatness... Don't even worry about it. Put in enough recognizable aspects of mythology or canon RAW to familiarize your reader with what's going on and run with it. If you spend five hours agonizing over how different and interesting vampires are in your story, only to have them killed off and rarely (if at all) mentioned again you have just wasted four plus hours that you could have spent actually making your story interesting. Because its fanfic, and no one really cares about the quirks unless they're going to steal them for their own.

Some people say that this is what the thread is trying to avoid, a cliche. They would be wrong, because they stand under the assumption that cliches are a bad thing. Sometimes, they are, and its noticeable. However the point of using a cliche as a literary device is familiarize the reader with a concept so you won't have to bore them to death over and over by explaining the little differences in concepts that they are already 95% aware of. No one will mind, because they're not playing a big role anyway.

Now the other side of the coin, lets say they are a big part of your story. Genfic Harry doesn't have any more Dark Lords to kill, but the bloodsuckers are on the rise and he needs to stop this new threat to the Wizarding World or some such.

Well, I'll say it again. A cliche can be your friend, if it is a well written cliche. Let the characters assume that the legends are all true, only to set up a dramatic reveal where vampire-x chortles wickedly and scorns the humans for their sheltered lives and naive assumptions. At this point, you've made a point of cliche reversal into interesting plot that is revealed in its own time, instead of bludgeoning the reader over the head with it Hermione style when nothing is going on. The changes you wanted to make can suddenly lead into somethign more dramatic, a hasty fire-fight, a desperate retreat, or a the-hero-is-captured! moment.

Honestly, even with all those weaknesses Vampires are scary mother fuckers. Again, read Dracula. Garlic, sunlight, holy icons and water, grave earth, hell Stoker even threw mirrors into the mix... And they STILL don't put him down for good in the end. If this doesn't convince you that the cliche is fine as it is, go read Salem's Lot by Steven King, the sequel in spirit to Stoker's Dracula.

Personally, any time I use vampires in a story I try to stick close to the cliche. This is mostly because I've always seen the Vampire as a thinking villain. Sure under that fancy court wear and elegant mannerism there is a hideous blood thirsty monster, but all those trappings aren't for show. Hundreds, maybe thousands of years of experience and cunning, are what truly make the monster dangerous. Who needs to change a cliche with a built-in immortality clause?

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Cent two, on Elves. Don't worry, this one isn't involved.

First issue, cold iron. Use it, its in the myth for a reason. Tolkien's elves were long-lived humans with a depth of character similar to a rain-filled pothole. While one could argue that this weakness is so formidable because of the whole immortality issue again, I don't think that's what needs to be focused on.

The story of elves versus man is a commentary on the advance of technology. They had society, they had politics, they had numbers, they didn't have this *taps his head* and that is why we won and they didn't. Making your elves immune to cold-iron spits in the face of tradition, because unlike vampires a fey's weakness is the point. You may quit fooling yourself and just change the name completely.

As for how to handle them, if you're looking for something different and don't want to work with the traditonal myth, I suggest reading Simon Green. His elves are beaten down and marginalized, subverted by technology and the loss of the forests just like most myths... But somewhere between The Old Days and Now they have changed. Their motives are alien, their only recognizable emotion is hate. Humans drove them out of this reality and they've had all of eternity to resent us for it.

When I write elves (not nearly as much as vampires) they're usually good-aligned but aloof. Their battle was fought long ago, the world has moved on without them and theirs, why should they interfere now? If all else fails, they pull a Tolkien and disappear over the horizon. They don't become convinced by the Charisma of an 11-17 year old boy to fight a war that will gain them jackshit.

The elves don't need equal rights, they don't need rights at all. Their world is gone, and no patch on society will turn back time and win that war differently.

Oh! A side-note. The "war" between elves and humans isn't always literal, but it may as well be. Technology advanced, Magic advanced, in either case Nature loses.

-=-=-=-=-

Hell, Simon Green's just awesome in general. =P You want a trip, go read his Nightside series.

Yeah, I believe I'm done now.

 

The problem with this is that vampires are well known to the wizarding world. There was one at Slughorn's Christmas party. They probably study them in DADA along with werewolves and other dark creatures. Quirrell went on a trip to study them (though this trip got interrupted). Having the wizards only have false information on them is rather unlikely.

But they didn't have magic. which makes things a lot easier.

 

Ah, and we have come to the point. The vampires exist, and integrate into wizarding society, but do we ever see someone kill them?

Immortality puts its own spin on life. Why bother attacking a small but powerful group (wizards) when you can prey on Muggles and be left relatively unmolested at the price of some elbow bumping and seclusion? If I remember correctly, there were vampires in the Forbidden Forest too. All they have to do is refrain from wandering into the castle for a quick bite (heh) to eat and they gain the benefits of the Hogwarts aegis and a home that won't see its share of torches, pitchforks, and holy water any time soon.

Neither did the vampires. Even if they can't cast a spell shield amulet goes a long way to evening the playing field. Anything that has been alive for that long has got to have a few tricks, they're just up to the author to think of.

 

This is a bit of a problem. You're saying that the greatest strength of a vampire is their vast experience due to long life. Yet for that long life to occur in the first place, they must first survive, and to survive they'll need their greatest strength...said long life. It's a bit circular.

The way I see vampires in HP is very similar to the vampires in Discworld.

No, but we never see a werewolf killed either, and yet we know that the wizards are aware of their attributes/weaknesses etc.