Let me just say right off the bat, I am not a fan of vampires. [Pun totally intended.] I've never been into the whole vampire craze. Not in the 80s when it was driven by Anne Rice or in the 90s when it was, again, driven by Anne Rice and not in the time since when it's been driven by
Twilight and
True Blood and almost everything else. Seriously, I hate that whole noble vampire thing, all that tragic, romantic bullcrap that vampires have become. Give me my vampires evil..., so I can kill them.
And that's probably why I like
Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Vampires are evil, and we spend our time trying to kill them.
Well, except for Angel. And, well,
Angel is a show I like even more than Buffy. That sounds like a conundrum, doesn't it? I mean,
Angel is full of all of that tragic, romantic shhhtuff. I realized why recently that I'm okay with
Angel. It's not a vampire story. Not that he's not a vampire, but that's not the kind of story it is. It's a Jekyll and Hyde story. I love Jekyll and Hyde stories.
The central conflict in
Angel is man vs himself, specifically Angel vs the demon inside him. It's a story about someone seeking redemption. It just so happens that he is a vampire, but that's not the driving force of the story. It's that ongoing conflict that Angel has with himself that makes the series interesting. Good vs evil bits. Whedon does a great job with it, but you should still read Stevenson if you haven't done it.
Speaking of vampires, I appreciate that Jim Butcher has kept his vampires evil. We're gonna give Thomas a pass, because there's something else going on there. Since I'm not all the way caught up yet, I don't know if it's been revealed or not, so don't go saying anything.
None of this is to say that I haven't written my own vampire story. A short one. But he was evil, so it's okay. It was just kind of to make a point.
And all of this to say that next week is going to be vampire week here at
StrangePegs. There's a new vampire story I need to review and, let me just say, it's fantastic! No, I mean it. But more on that next week. Also, in the spirit of Halloween, I'm going to tell you all about how to be a vampire. And, maybe, there'll be other stuff. I'm not quite sure, yet, what all next week will have in store for you, but there will be vampires, so stock up on garlic.
