in Congress, a novel called Interview with the Vampire was written by a woman named Anne Rice.
Published in 1976, it introduced the vicious yet tragic Claudia, a female vampire trapped in the body of a little girl.
This unlikely character was just the beginning, though, of a whole new era of female vampires: Miriam in The Hunger, Mae in Near Dark, Marie in Innocent Blood, and of course the countess in that timeless classic Once Bitten (come on, you 6882 Visitor's Guide to Mystic Falls[FIN].indd 57
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know you love it). These were women who could be strong, feminine, and damn evil all at once.
But the female vampire archetype didn’t just stop once it reached Dracula-level evil. It continued to evolve until we finally had strong, female, vampire heroes. I’m thinking, of course, of such characters as Selene, the gun-toting, leather-clad, ass-kicking, werewolf-loving vampire played by Kate Beckinsale in the movie Underworld. Now that, dear reader, is liberation.
The evolution of the vampire archetype was not limited to females, though. In the book that birthed the first truly fierce modern female vampire, Anne Rice also introduced the male tragic hero vampire. Louis was a guy who didn’t really want to be a vampire, felt pretty bad about it, and tried everything he could to avoid doing vampire-like things. You know, like killing and stuff. And since poor whiny Louis and his hopeless crush on Claudia in Interview with the Vampire, we have seen a slew of tragic, conflicted, impotent, or repressed male vampires: Edward from The Vampire Tapestry, Jack from The Vampire Files, John from The Hunger, Caleb from Near Dark, Angel from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Dracula from Coppola’s reinvented Dracula, Edward from Twilight,
and of course Stefan Salvatore in The Vampire Diaries.
Poor, pathetic Stefan Salvatore. He just wants to be a real boy! One-hundred-and-fifty years of arrested development can really mess you up. There are times when one sides with his brother, Damon, and wonders why Stefan can’t just get over himself already and dibble a little from the blood bank without turning into a psycho about it. At least it’s better 6882 Visitor's Guide to Mystic Falls[FIN].indd 58
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than making out with your best friend’s mom, then beating him up (leave that to the werewolves). But Stefan is so trapped by his own self-loathing, he can’t seem to accept that being a vampire doesn’t make him intrinsically good or evil. Even though he is a modern vampire, he’s stuck thinking of them in the old Dracula model.
But just as Stefan’s forebear Louis had Lestat to goad him out of his tragic paralysis, so Stefan has his brother, Damon.
I cannot think of a single vampire in all of the books and movies I have consumed (and trust me, that is a great many) who is more in keeping with the original model of Lord Ruthven, aka. Lord Byron. It pains me to admit, but not even my favorite vampire, Lestat, matches Damon in that celebration of self-absorbed, self-mocking, arrogant, charming, cruel, noble romanticism. It is his humor that sets him apart, a humor that is so self-serving yet so utterly beguiling that we cannot help but smile in spite of ourselves. Back in Lord Byron’s day, at a time when poets were like rock stars, Byron was the quintessential English heartthrob. People loved him.
They hated him. They loved to hate him. So it seems to be with Damon. But there is one important difference between the two: Lord Ruthven never had to contend with a female of his own species. Which is why Damon is having such a tough time being a truly scary alpha vampire in Mystic Falls.
Byronic heroes don’t really cut it these days because chicks don’t put up with that kind of crap anymore. Damon, by hearkening back to the original vampire model, doesn’t fare any better with the ladies than Dracula would, were he to turn up in Mystic Falls today. It almost seems purposeful the 6882 Visitor's Guide to Mystic Falls[FIN].indd 59
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