Final

The author of the Twilight Saga, Stephanie Meyer, is a Mormon. This is transparently obvious in many instances of the book but perhaps the most evident in Edward’s struggle with himself. Edward finds himself to be an abomination. He is ashamed of what he has become and believes he has no soul, that he is forsaken basically, and further that it is his fault. He calls himself a selfish monster. And despite this and his determination that he is damned we still find him trying to do the right thing, even though he claims to believe he is damned. Some interpret this as trying to save him self from this, but I think otherwise. I think on some level he finds that simply being a vampire and having this separation from the one he loves in and of its self is his damnation and see that as being unalterable. The fact that he continues to strive to be good “person” to me is an indication that he has as much a soul as any human could ever claim to have had. Time and time again Edward shows the ability to do the right thing no matter how hard it is or the cost to himself despite the belief that in the end this will not bring him salvation or change the facts for him. Honestly, what human does this? Who does the right thing when they know doing the wrong thing will have no ill effect on them and bring them the prize they are after and doing the right thing will give them nothing. Certainly not many people, if any at all.
In Twilight Edward leaves Forks because he is tempted by Bella and doesn’t want to harm her. In the end, of course, he comes back. He left because he was trying to avoid and resist temptation, which relates because giving into temptation is generally considered a sin. To listen to Edward the fact that he ever came back further condemns him but I, as do most who have read the book, disagree. Many of the saints were those who suffered to do what they believed was right. So the fact that Edward came back to Bella and owned up to his longings and desires shows bravery, not selfishness since in the end he saves her, not destroys her. In protecting her he is tempted to take the lives of those who threatened her and yet still resists this savage instinct. He is her savoir, of a kind and she is solace. He is more sorely tempted than us all and still preservers over his animalistic instincts. He could lie to her and keep the fact he is a vampire to himself, but he does not. Honesty is a virtue. He also shows trust for Bella even when advised not to, and when he can’t see into her mind and find out her intentions. It has been a century since he has trusted someone with out this assurance; literally he has entered an entirely new life. Despite all this though he has faith in Bella, another virtue.
After this Bella learns of Edward’s past, which could be considered sketchy by some, and Edward numbers himself among those. However I think his past shows more virtuous traits. The bible preaches an eye for an eye a tooth for a tooth, as well as turn the other cheek. For a while Edward practices the first method, with killing those who would do others harm. Eventually he realizes that this is not the right path for him. It’s unfair because he is playing god which is sort of a foul on the whole ‘though shall worship no false idol’. I think, at least, that acting as god yourself falls into that category. Realizing this Edward chooses to turn the other cheek which is, of course, harder for him. I don’t see the fault in learning from your mistakes and correcting your actions in the future, and any god that was not merciless would as well, and the Mormon god is supposed to be all forgiving. I also think that Edward’s leaving Carlisle as a learning experience and Edward obviously gathered the correct lesson from it, and therefore would not be faulted for this either.
Edward’s next trial comes in the form of the vampire James who loves nothing more than a great chase, and the Cullens have provided him with one in protecting Bella. Edward insists that he was selfish throughout this and blames himself despite the fact that it’s painfully obvious Bella would have found a way to get herself into trouble on her own. Edward shows clear judgment and gives justice to Laurent who leaves his coven but chooses not to side against James who Laurent believes to be the most formidable of his kind. Edward shows charity in telling him of a place to stay with a coven of vampires that are close friends of the Cullens. Edward continues to show restraint throughout the ordeal separating himself from Bella when he knows it’s best for her. He shows prudence when he kills James. James is truly an abomination that has lost his spirit and in the book seems to be an embodiment of the ‘devil’. This is also another display of Edward’s chivalry and justice. Edward undergoes the most laborious trial of all during the chaos of these events, when Bella is bit by James.
Edward must suck the vampire venom that is burning through Bella’s veins. He must do this and then stop before he kills her. He is, of course, terrified of doing it but he shows prudence in agreeing that it must be him, for to let anyone else do it would be to give him the ability to shift the blame to them should anything happen to Bella. He shows great restraint in stopping and he also shows something he has lead the reader to believe he lost. Despite his belief in his own damnation, his lack of soul, that he is ‘essentially a selfish being’ Edward shows hope. He hopes that some how he will be able to stop, even though he knows he will never be able to stop on his own when just the smell of Bella’s blood is more potent to him than the free running blood of any other human. In this moment Edward shows what is probably held as the highest virtue by those who are religious. He hopes and “places trust in Christ’s promises, and relies not on his own strength but on the help of the grace of the Holy Spirit”. This act alone shows he still has hope of a heaven, or even a hell, but some sort of final resting for his spirit and it shows faith in a god, or a higher being. God preaches love and his acceptance to all who have faith in him and ask for forgiveness.
Edward’s struggle is the real climax in each of the books in the Twilight Saga and the other events portrayed as the climax by many, such as the movie Twilight portrays the flight from James and Victoria as the climax, are truly only events used to give Edward’s personality and struggle a way to express itself. This is why I say religion is probably the strongest of underlying themes in this book seeing as Edward’s struggle with himself highlights so many points of it, as well as the outright discussion of it in the latter books in the series, specifically the scene in New Moon when Carlisle explains to Bella the fact that Edward believes becoming a vampire would cause her to loose her soul.

Dracula 3

It seems really obvious to us what is going on with Dracula, what he is, as the book goes on.  The boxes of earth in the tunnel leading from Dracula's room, not being allowed to fall asleep in any room other then his own, everything.  We have a very clear concept of the vampire at this point in time, it's nothing new.  So our dread comes from him not leaving the castle, not figuring it out.  It's like in a horror movie when we know that someone is about to be eaten by a monster or stabbed by the killer and we want to scream get out get out!  Because it hasn't all been from their point of view and we saw the last person who was killed.  But for the then population of England imagine how terrifying this novel must have been.  They saw only what the main character saw knew only what he knew, vampires weren't as defined and obvious they didn't have the same distinctive persona yet, because it was the book Dracula that gave it that.  So they had no way in the world of knowing what would happen and the book was, a result, much more scary to  them because it was more foreign.  Further in, I think it was, chapter three, when the character is aproached by the women it is even more strange to the readers.  Their idea of a women is very prim and proper and this, a women unabashedly approaching him in such a way, is unheard of.  We fear the unknown the uncommon and this book certianly was such in that time period.  Then when Dracula provides them the half dead child they are further removed from the common idea of a women, we loose the idea they could be mothers, and protective of children because it seems they are going to kill this one.  As we know, drink their blood, and though I can't be sure the original readers of this book would have figured out exactly what would happen to the child yet certianly they would know it wouldn't be good.  So another fear, beyond just death or imprisinment even, has arrisen in the readers mind.  This Dracula controls these women and now he is a threat to society as well.

Dracula

Okay, so I have been reading. I'm sorry i just haven't had a chance to post. So here's one of them. First of all I'd just like to say picturing Dracula with a long white moustacheas described took away from him being intimidating in my opinion. Which is probably why they took that out of the movies. As the book continues Harker is continuously given more facts towards Dracula not being a living creature. He shakes his hand and it's the cold dead firm grip of the undead. But he dismisses it as he dissmissed the carriage ride before hand. He also calls the castle uncanny. He's been brought up to think that he is beyond the kind of things like believing in vampires and such so he refuses to think like the transilvanians and go back to "primitive thinking". I think that's one of the main themes in the book, a comment on the fact the western world doesn't accept and examine the beliefs of other countries thinking that we're beyond that stage. Anyways I did look up some stuff about Bram Stoker and his story, one thing that kept poping up was Sigmund Frued's essay "The Uncanny" which discusses what brings up the feelings of dread and horror and it's one of two things; when primitve disproved beliefs seem to be proved true, as in the case of Jonathan Harker, or when "repressed infantile complexes are revived". The next day we don't see much of Dracula, I think this has to do with the fact that what our unconcious mind comes up with is going to be scariest to us, not what Bram Stoker thinks is scariest. That's why Jaws is so scary, we never see the shark. Though that was a fluke they couldn't get the thing to work. Hitchcock does the same thing, specifically with psycho. Does it not set off alarm bells that Dracula wants to purchase an old isolated manor surrounded by a lunatic asylum? Really? Harker should be going, um, creeper... And Dracula keeps him up all night then leaves at sun rise? Well Iguess that slightly disturbs him but then he writes it off again. Seriously dude, listen to your instincts. Just wondering, why does Dracula what a mansion near a church? Then of course Harker cuts himself and Dracula almost eats him and gets rid of the mirror. By this point in time any remotely intelligent person would be runnig screaming from the castle. And I think Harker tries, though he's telling himself he's exploring, and finds himself locked in.

Dracula

This book was really hard for me to get into. The only part that really stuck with me was the coach ride to Dracula's castle. And how Dracula had things set up. Dracula is cunning. All his town folk fear/worship him. They dare not cross him, but any passing through don't believe them they think it is just typical superstition of small town folks. And simce Dracula is not much known outside his town he can prowl freely without worry of higher up officials getting on his case. I don't think however that he is wise, he wants his name to be known everywhere, which seems stupid becasue seeing what the times are like people would eventually come to the conclusion he's a vampire and roast his head on a spit or something equally fun. Rather ironic though that in the story Dracula he is feared by his subjects and not known of by outsiders when in the real Count Vlad's time he was loved by his people and well known as a blood thirsty war lord in the outside provences.
I enjoyed reading about the ride there. The blue fire showing through the vampire. The wolves howling around them. I've always pictured werewolves and vampires at eachothers throats so I liked that aspect of it. However that the horses were soothed by someone we have been lead to believe is a memeber of the undead was strange to me because I have always felt that animals would be able to tell about supernatural and evil things better than humans can.

Modern Vamps!

Okay, so the thing I found most intriguing was the modern age vampires and their clubs what they do, ect. I researched several people, starting with Katherine Ramsland. I found this article about her.
http://www.nytimes.com/1998/11/01/style/a-night-out-with-katherine-ramsland-every-day-can-be-halloween.html?scp=1&sq=Katherine%20Ramsland&st=cse
It was good read. I also searched Susan Walsh and Father Sebastian, but I wasn’t finding much that was interesting and I was disappointed. Finally when they mentioned the Black Veil code of conduct type thing for vampires I googled it along with Michelle (can’t remember her last name) and Father Sebastian. I found an amazing site. It is SO cool. I’m going to blog about this as opposed to a certain person mentioned in the video. This site has answered like all the questions I had about vampires and more. A lot of the people who post there seem to just WANT to be vampires, not really are. Like one girl who posted about how she was a psi-vampire and she had two friends who were psi-vampires and one who was a sangui vampire. But a lot of the information on the site seems legit. They welcome people interested in learning about vampires, vampyres who are vampire lifestylers and attend the clubs while not actually being addicted to blood, sangui vampires, and psi-vampires who feed off psychic energy of others. And, of course, potential donors. A note, these psi-vampires would like to clarify, apparently, that they are not psychic vampires. The difference is a psi-vampire is a vampire who feeds off emotional energy or some other form of energy, while a psychic vampire is a vampire who has clairvoyance tendencies. The vampires who post do not believe that they are immortal; they do not profess to have special powers. They simply know that they craze blood. They are aware that other diseases have these symptoms but they have slowly eliminated all these possibilities and finally come to this conclusion- they can only be a vampire. They believe they are born this way. You cannot be “turned” by being bitten. The main theory that they seem to support is that blood may be addictive, or addictive to certain people. The psi-vampires profess to get a sort of “high” from feeding off the excess life force of others. They don’t think that their body naturally produces enough of this psychic/emotional energy. I loved the explanation in the video that the most dangerous type of psychic vampires are the ones who don’t even realize that they are. The people who provoke you and get your emotions going and you walk away feeling emotionally drained. I enjoyed reading the site, and I don’t really care if some of it is a work of fiction, the basic idea seems to be real and there is a culture out there that is addicted to blood and energy and feel that they need it. And if there is I don’t have a problem with it. If you get permission from someone to drink their blood then that’s your business. It might be little weird or even creepy, but it’s just a different life style from mine. Maybe I find this easier to accept because I’m use to having to accept the people who consume the flesh of animals with out the permission of the animal. Or maybe I’m just weird. Here’s the website, I suggest you check it out.

http://www.sanguinarius.org/

Vampire Secrets

This video was amazing. I really learned a lot. Probably the most interesting part to me was about the modern day vampires, but I’ll get back to that. I liked the explanation they used for why vampires have become pop icons and are being used as advertising gimmicks. To diminish their power over us. However I feel that, if this statement is correct, in trying to diminish their power, if they were real, we would be increasing their power over us. The reason I say this is because as we make vampires into cartoons and romantic figures we don’t believe in them, or what we do believe in has lost its potency. “Remember there are such things.” The vampires power is that we refuse to believe in them. Or if you want to get into the modern day vampires their problem is we DO believe in the vampires in books in movies.
I know that the vampire legends did not originate in Transylvania, but I was interested, though hardly surprised, to find that they originated in China and India. This is because I know many other legends and myths have originated in these two places, the most prominent of these probably being the myth of dragons from China. The connection of Christianity and Jesus to vampirism was surprising. It’s interesting that most people don’t seem to make that connection. Or if they do I’ve never heard about it before.
The whole bit about Elizabeth Bathory was very… I’m not sure what to say about it. I’m just incredulous I’ve never heard mention of this before. I’d think it would be more well known. At first I was amazed and startled at the simplicity of governments that would issue lists of symptoms for vampirism. Then I realized it isn’t so surprising, or shouldn’t be. In a time where people truly believed in vampires and countless unexplainable, even now, cases were being reported, it really makes sense that a list of “symptoms” would be issued to keep the malady from spreading.
The whole Vampire Masquerade RPG sounds fun. I googled it but didn’t spend much time on it and didn’t find anything. “It’s twister for vampires”. As for RPGs causing the problems with Rod Feral, BS. It’s obvious he was mentally unstable before the events and the press just wanted to use this to sell more papers and in doing so furthered the negative images for RPG players and modern day vampires. RPGs don’t cause people to have trouble distinguishing between the game and the reality, though I can see an RPG becoming the reality an already unstable person uses to further their violent impulses.

The Vampyre: A tale

I honestly did not enjoy this one very much. I read it, but I didn't understand it thouroghly so I looked up the summary of it on wikipedia. I find the plot intresting, but did not like the writing style of the author as it was lond winded and served only to confuse me.
So Lord Ruthven is not overly social, and seems free of vice. He is pale and his siloutte is handsome and he has cold grey eyes. He is also inteligent. All of which are traits of a vampire, at least by my definition. It seems that he gives money to beggers, but also sucks their blood. Aubrey seperates from Ruthven and finds someone who knows of vampyres and speaks of them often in a manner that implies Ruthven is a vampire to Aubrey. While walking in the forest during a thunderstorm Aubrey becomes lost. he is attacked by a being with superhuman strength, who I took to be Ruthven. Super human strength is another characterisitc of vampyres I have found to be common. It seems by the discritption of Aubrey's character after he was attacked he too has become a vampyre. Ruthven is killed and Aubrey agrees to tell no one of his death for 366 days and Ruthvens body vanishes. It seems that Ruthven killed the countess' family during this time. Aubrey reaches his home town and sees Ruthven and is reminded by a ominous voice of his oath not to speak of Ruthven's death. Ruthven has used the year in which Aubrey could not speak of his death to have his sister fall in love wth him and become betrothed to her. When Aubrey protests he is thought to be failing in mental health. Aubrey is finally able to speak of Ruthven's death and dies shortly after. His guardians attempt to save his sister but it is to late by the itme they find her she has been sucked of blood.