One thing I’ve always loved about vampire stories is that there are no hard rules. Vampires can be whatever the author wants them to be as long as they’re internally consistent within the story. This makes them extremely versatile monsters that can be constantly re-invented and none of them are “wrong”.
For example, sometimes all it takes to turn into a vampire is to be bitten by one. And sometimes you have to drink the vampire’s blood to turn. Or, sometimes a vampire can just drain your energy without transferring any blood at all.
Of course, the rules can also get a bit ridiculous. Maybe the vampire is required to obsessively count grains of rice first. Or maybe they’re required to hop around with their arms out (the chinese Jiangshi). Maybe they can turn into a wolf, a bat, or… fog.
So what’s the most ridiculous rule or type of vampire you’ve come across?
(For the image on this post I wanted the most ridiculous picture of a Jiangshi I could find. I went with a shot from Robo Vampire which has a really fun RiffTrax. The only other Jiangshi I’m aware of is in the NES game Phantom Fighter… because I’ve never watched any of the Mr. Vampire movies)
The whole “they need to be invited in before they can enter your home” always struck me as a weird one. What would happen if a vampire just ignored that and entered anyways? What if someone considered a forest their home? What if squatters moved in to the vampire’s home? Or some official declared it belonged to someone else? What if they are invited by someone who doesn’t live there?
In the Scandinavian vampire movie Let The Right One In, a vampire that enters uninvited starts leaking blood from every pore.
In the Artemis Fowl books magical beings like elves, fairies, dwarves and pixies lose their magic if they enter a home without invitation. And in one book it’s more or less said that a home is a building enclosed by walls and a roof.
See this is why vampire stories don’t have lawyers in them.
vampire lawyers tho… there’s an idea.
"At Tepes, Lestat & Orlok LLP we can provide the kind of legal services that will last even the longest lifetime.
Umm…
Might I invite you to join this Community’s readthrough of Dracula? For someone interested in talking about vampires, it’s very helpful to be familiar with the most famous work of the genre.
In “being human” US there is a hilarous scene (intended as very brutal) in which a vampire lure a bunch of ennemi in a mortal house as neutral ground, all the exit are blocked and they are uninvited, burning them to death.
Use them for proof of home ownership for disputes.
if the squaters claim it’s their house, they can invite a vampire, if he comes in, it’s they’re house. the landlord can try to invite the vampire too, and if he can’t come in, the landlord loses their claim.
A lot of vampire behavior may have arisen from neurodivergent behavior as witnessed by ignorant peasants.