As discussed in Episodes 021, 023, and 029,
The State of Vampires episodes, vampires in film and literature have
been a staple in media for a very long time. From such novels as John
Polidori’s Vampyre, Sheridan LeFanu’s Carmilla and Bram Stoker’s
Dracula, never mind the penny dreadful serial Varney the Vampire, all
from the 1800’s, vampires have appeared as both the main character as
well as the barely seen threat in genre fiction.
After the written story, next came the
impressively done stage plays followed by movies. Culturally, vampires
became a large part of visual entertainment that made them larger than
life, in some cases as a monstrous and ugly villain as seen in Nosferatu
yet in other cases as a charming yet sociopathic individual as
portrayed by Bela Lugosi. But whether literature, stage play, or film,
the historical monster from folklore and myth has been twisted and
redefined from the original legends. Sometimes for the better and
sometimes for the worse, vampires have grown and expanded by becoming
many subgenres all under the name of the vampire.
Dark Discussions is joined by a very special guest, publisher, historian, and author Inanna Arthen of By Light Unseen Media
, to discuss the truth of what a vampire really is. Many questions
and confusions are answered including whether the vampire was specific
to one culture and/or religion or enlarged by biased single minded
historians to include monsters from other cultures that have little
traits of the vampire. Such topics as sunlight, garlic, religion, and
the rural superstitious mind of the Eastern European peasant are
discussed in great detail by Ms. Arthen and how the mythos of the
vampire evolved to include the more famous modern tropes as well as
those that have been forgotten or modified.
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