RE: How To Scare a Vampire . . .? (NaNoWriMo)

A few days ago, on my blog and on NaNoWriMo, I asked How To Scare a Vampire . . .? This is my farther thoughts on the matter.

I’ve decided I want to base my vampires heavily on Dracula (the book & the Bela Lugosi movie – not the later newer versions which are changed quite a bit). With that in mind, I am now re-reading Dracula, which I haven’t read in about 20 years, and finding a lot of stuff I forgot.

For one thing, staking Dracula DOESN’T kill him in the book, it only stops him from rising back up. But if you remove the stake, he gets right back up like nothing happened. Well, I forgot all about that part! I got so used to seeing Buffy-style-stake-the-vampire-and-they-go-poof that I completely forgot that the wooden stake DOESN’T traditionally kill vampires! YAY! So my book isn’t going off track by saying the stake doesn’t work when it comes to killing vampires. Maybe, deep down inside I remembered that part and that’s why I had it so the stake couldn’t kill them??? The book itself hints that Dracula can never be defeated, but can only be stopped and held dormant, by a stake through the heart and being locked in the coffin by use of iron nails, and suggests that even though they stopped in in the end – they don’t know for how long and he could come back if someone undid their work.

According to Dracula (the book) garlic, holy water, and religious icons (not just crosses, but ANY religious icon which the wearer/owner holds as sacred) are REALLY big when it comes to defense against vampires.

I also forgot that Dracula spends a good part of the book, running around as a wolf, not a bat.

Sunlight is not used against Dracula, because he walks around town in broad daylight. Granted there is always a storm on those days, thus the sun is filtered by the clouds, but still. (a storm which he caused to happen, through use of black magic.)

Also in the book, people do not become vampires by being bitten by Dracula. It takes weeks of being bitten over and over again for them to die from blood loss, and only 4 females ever became vampires, because Dracula wanted them as wives and forced them to drink his blood, which thus caused them to become vampires. So, my using the whole vampires being extremely rare and not wanting competition, fits with that too.

Also, while Dracula himself seems to be undefeatable, his brides, are not, and can be killed by a stake through the heart followed by decapitation. Something to do with the fact that they became vampires by drinking his blood, which I guess was only a black magic spell and not real vampirism, and thus the spell can be broken with the use of a stake and decapitation. Apparently there is a difference between a REAL vampire, like Dracula, (who I guess is some sort of demon and never was Human) and Humans who are turned into vampires, like his brides, and while you can’t kill the real ones, you can kill the human-turned-vampire ones. Huh. I forgot all that stuff too. I’m glad I’m re-reading the book, because some how years of watching Buffy and Angel and Charmed, resulted in me thinking of vampires very differently than the way they were by traditional classic standards.

Anyways, seeing how garlic is such a really, really, REALLY big thing in the book, and having it around really pisses Dracula off, I think I’m going to put most of the emphasis in my story, on using garlic to drive the vampire out of town.

All Hail Bela Lugosi!

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