An invitation to an argument

[Rayne]

Dustin and I were just discussing the differences between zombies and vampires...Well, he was pointing out the differences, but I was correlating the similarities...

I said, "Vampires are just zombies that maintain possession of their human mental faculties and they don't rot" (I was oversimplifying my position at this point).

Dustin says that vampires don't have to die to become undead.

I would really appreciate your input here.


EDIT: I need to clarify something here...The main discussion is about whether or not people die before they become vampires, like people die before they become zombies.

[swiss tony]

I always thought of vampires as being like werewolves,in that they get infected by a disease/virus. Like HIV I suppose. They retain all their brain and motor function unlike zombies, whose decomposition continues. Vampires, I would say, have more in common with various super heros from the comic book world.

[Rayne]

~2 minute movie break~

Thanks for the input Swiss Tony...I don't have time to address that right now, but I'll come back to it when I can.

I have a question to add to this...

Where did the 'drink the vampire's blood to become a vampire' thing come from?...What was the first movie/book in which this was introduced?


Gotta go!

[ferretchucker]

Vampire lore has changed so much over the years. I think it was actually on this site that I first heard one of the old superstitions about if a corpse falls of a cart...they become a vampire. Essentially, the drinking blood thing is just one of many different ways to become a vampire.

However, I've always generally felt that a vampire had to have died, or at least, pushed the brink of death. Perhaps as part of the process. As in, you couldn't feed an already dead body and turn it into a vampire. Instead, you would feed them the vampire blood, the transformation may then begin and at some point it would kill the person.

[crabapple]

Vampire are "higher grade" monster than are zombie, i.e., yampire maintain intelligence, read books, sometimes go to movies, converse, reason, etc. Zombie go "zzzzzzzzip!" when you ask it question. Even the smartest zombie gets problem turning on the Walkman.

And yeah, zombie got "quasi-scientific" explanation for return--voodoo poiso9n, crashed space probe, etc. One foot in the non-mystical camp. Whereasm, yampire is kinda spiritual, "of the devil" so to speak, and has more supreme powers such as flyin', floatin', telepathy, animal transmutation, hypnotism, prestidigitation, and so up.

Yampires can have fairly unlimited powers depending on which version of myth; but Romeroian zombies, the most prevalent type nowadays, they generally is kinda weak and vanquishable except in large numbers,m whereupon they kinda walk all over ya and then do lunch with you payin' the bill, so to speak.

[TheWickerFan]

In response to the original question, I would say a person has to die to become a vampire. That would fit with most folklore on the subject.

[swiss tony]

Didn't Bram Stoker's Dracula drink cursed blood in the first instance to become a vampyr and later offered blood to Wilhelmina to convert her?

That's about as far back as I have read. I know that the legends of vampires are millenia old and too widespread to uncover the origins of that aspect of the legend. I know the term 'vampire' wasn't used 'til the 19th century so, I suppose, the answer has to be between now and then.

[bwind22]

Depends on what movie/book you're watching/reading. I don't think there's any 1 right answer here, nor is this a debate that's likely to see any type of resolution.

[ChronoGrl]

Originally Posted by Rayne

Dustin says that vampires don't have to die to become undead.

I think that's true in most of our modern manifestations of the vampire mythos. However, I thought that, historically, people did indeed have to die before they became vampires (I'm thinking Dracula).