Discussion regarding Twilight vampires and reply to Drisina at link
First Part:
The thing is Drisina, one cannot by fiat change a legend to whatever one very well pleases with. Vampires have been in mythology from the 17th century, e.g. Countess Elizabeth Bathory who alledgedly drank her female servants blood to stay young.
So what Stephenie Meyer does is that she takes the vampire-myth, and discards the gorier details and imperfections, replaces them with what she thinks they should be and et voila, we have Edward Cullen.
Now I shall dissect why most people think its a bad thing to do. Recall that I said the vampire-mythology has been in existence since the 17th century, and have been established in its modern form by Bram Stoker and his likes in the 19th century.
It is per the standards of social inertia that conservatism will then be dominant. After all, the same story has been in circulation since the 19th century, do you not think that people will get used to that prevailing model? Yes, I applaud change but such large a change will often be the cause of extreme responses.
By analogy, who here would dislike the idea of calling Jedi's mechanical drones which rolls - literally rolls - around the universe in big starships? Who here would dislike the idea of the Star Trek Enterprise being a large space limousine and only a large space limousine?
I would, I think most fans of both Star Wars and Star Trek would deplore that model.
The thing is Drisina, Meyer's vampires are up against 400 year old ingrained traditions that has permeated every social class, do you not believe that most people will dislike that idea and criticise it?
It's related to out-group hostility Drisina, anything unfamiliar will be first disliked then if rigorously tested and proven that the general population likes it after a large amount of time, it will be received as tradition.
Second Part:
Yes, I hate out-group hostlity and xenophobia, but it is only some forms of it that I hate, it is those forms that have been hijacked from their original purposes. Originally, the purpose of xenophobia is exemplified by:
"A human meets one unfamiliar entity out on the African continent some 10 million years ago, he or she does not know this entity. For all that her or she knows, this entity may carry a lethal disease or is a dangerous animal, in which both cases he or she will die. Death for the selfish genes in his or hers body is monumentally bad, for they want to propagate and prosper, if the host they reside in dies, then there will be no chance of propagation, therefore they programme the host to avoid unfamilliar situations just in case those situations are dangerous."
Now because we are humans and because those same selfish genes have granted us the development of a moral and thinking brain, to which we are definitely solely possessing, we can override the evolutionary obstacles that is out-group hostility. Therefore it is possible for us to do things not to the liking of our in-group.
But what is the good part of "xenophobia" then? When we meet the same kind of people around our offices, read the same stuffs we usually read, does nothing out of the ordinary of our lives, we have stability.
Now one will probably infer that a normal life is pretty bleak. But lets give it a thought, if everyone did something new everyday, how long will it be before everything is descended into chaos? For a life without stability is inherently self-destructive. Balance, ladies and gentlemen, is my obvious conclusion.
Part Three and conclusion:
How did I start with discussing Meyer's vampires and transgress into a dissection of xenophobia people? xD
I conclude that what Meyer did was one of the bigger leaps of vampire mythology we have observed lately. But it is, at least for now, too vast a leap to be successfully appreciated. One does not impose vast flying changes to a mythology without dire consequences ladies and gentlemen. Balance, as I have noted earlier is the middle way. We cannot have a stagnant vampire mythology, because everything will be dull after ten years, but we cannot have vast changes all the time too, because after ten years we will be asking ourselves questions like: "What is a vampire?" Now would that be a good thing? Reply!
First Part:
The thing is Drisina, one cannot by fiat change a legend to whatever one very well pleases with. Vampires have been in mythology from the 17th century, e.g. Countess Elizabeth Bathory who alledgedly drank her female servants blood to stay young.
So what Stephenie Meyer does is that she takes the vampire-myth, and discards the gorier details and imperfections, replaces them with what she thinks they should be and et voila, we have Edward Cullen.
Now I shall dissect why most people think its a bad thing to do. Recall that I said the vampire-mythology has been in existence since the 17th century, and have been established in its modern form by Bram Stoker and his likes in the 19th century.
It is per the standards of social inertia that conservatism will then be dominant. After all, the same story has been in circulation since the 19th century, do you not think that people will get used to that prevailing model? Yes, I applaud change but such large a change will often be the cause of extreme responses.
By analogy, who here would dislike the idea of calling Jedi's mechanical drones which rolls - literally rolls - around the universe in big starships? Who here would dislike the idea of the Star Trek Enterprise being a large space limousine and only a large space limousine?
I would, I think most fans of both Star Wars and Star Trek would deplore that model.
The thing is Drisina, Meyer's vampires are up against 400 year old ingrained traditions that has permeated every social class, do you not believe that most people will dislike that idea and criticise it?
It's related to out-group hostility Drisina, anything unfamiliar will be first disliked then if rigorously tested and proven that the general population likes it after a large amount of time, it will be received as tradition.
Second Part:
Yes, I hate out-group hostlity and xenophobia, but it is only some forms of it that I hate, it is those forms that have been hijacked from their original purposes. Originally, the purpose of xenophobia is exemplified by:
"A human meets one unfamiliar entity out on the African continent some 10 million years ago, he or she does not know this entity. For all that her or she knows, this entity may carry a lethal disease or is a dangerous animal, in which both cases he or she will die. Death for the selfish genes in his or hers body is monumentally bad, for they want to propagate and prosper, if the host they reside in dies, then there will be no chance of propagation, therefore they programme the host to avoid unfamilliar situations just in case those situations are dangerous."
Now because we are humans and because those same selfish genes have granted us the development of a moral and thinking brain, to which we are definitely solely possessing, we can override the evolutionary obstacles that is out-group hostility. Therefore it is possible for us to do things not to the liking of our in-group.
But what is the good part of "xenophobia" then? When we meet the same kind of people around our offices, read the same stuffs we usually read, does nothing out of the ordinary of our lives, we have stability.
Now one will probably infer that a normal life is pretty bleak. But lets give it a thought, if everyone did something new everyday, how long will it be before everything is descended into chaos? For a life without stability is inherently self-destructive. Balance, ladies and gentlemen, is my obvious conclusion.
Part Three and conclusion:
How did I start with discussing Meyer's vampires and transgress into a dissection of xenophobia people? xD
I conclude that what Meyer did was one of the bigger leaps of vampire mythology we have observed lately. But it is, at least for now, too vast a leap to be successfully appreciated. One does not impose vast flying changes to a mythology without dire consequences ladies and gentlemen. Balance, as I have noted earlier is the middle way. We cannot have a stagnant vampire mythology, because everything will be dull after ten years, but we cannot have vast changes all the time too, because after ten years we will be asking ourselves questions like: "What is a vampire?" Now would that be a good thing? Reply!
Harry James Potter
