The
Appeal of Darkness
By
Roxanne Rhoads
Why are we drawn to the paranormal? Perhaps because
it is the Other, it is the great unknown. The lure of the darkness that resides
inside us all.
Are Others real? Are there really paranormal
creatures that exist?
Who knows, but some of us sure like to believe.
Maybe we just need an escape from the everyday
existence that has become so…ordinary. In today’s world people want to stand
out and be noticed or at least experience something that is different. Perhaps
that’s why so many of us turn to the world of the supernatural for an escape
from the everyday.
Wouldn’t it be great to have super powers? Or to be
immortal? Super strong? Have mind control? Or just be super seductive and a
fabulous lover (we can all dream right)?
Of all supernatural creatures, vampires seem to be
the most seductive. People are drawn to the vampire more than any other
creature of myth and fantasy. Vampires grace the pages of books and appear on
the movie and television screen over and over again, each new vampire a source
of amusement and desire to us. But why? What is the everlasting attraction of
the vampire?
Before the 19th century vampires were
just mindless monsters, myths and legends that were horrible and frightening,
not sexy, not desirable. Literature changed all that.
Consider this description from the introduction of Blood
Read: The Vampire as Metaphor in Contemporary Culture written by Joan
Gordon and Veronica Hollinger.
[The vampire is] “an
ambiguously coded figure, a source of erotic anxiety and corrupt desire, the
literary vampire is one of the most powerful archetypes bequeathed to us from
the imagination of the nineteenth century.”
Vampires were turned into seductive and inherently
sexy creatures that we just haven’t been able to get enough of. The unknown
allure is there, evil has become sexy, darkness is beautiful. Once the monsters
of myth and legend were shunned for their differences but today we embrace them
because they are different, because they are Other.
Our modern society is full of disquiet, pain,
suffering, depression, things that spiral out of control-real monsters and
horrors face us every day on the news.
In entertainment we want monsters that we can
control, monsters…Others that are appealing in their difference and offer us an
escape. The vampire offers us all that and more.
I love many creatures of the Other world but the
vampire is my first love and will always hold the top spot in my monster loving
heart.
In my fiction, the characters are more often than
not, Others, with a vampire playing either the hero or the heroine of the
story.
In Hex and the Single Witch,
the vampires are all a little different from each other. Some have issues with
sunlight, some do not, some have silver sensitivities some do not.
In the Vehicle City Vampire series (Hex and the Single Witch is Book One)
I wanted to take all the myths, legends and variances of vampire abilities, mix
them all up and create an explanation as to why vampires are so different. I
hope that readers will enjoy my take on vampirism it’s a bit different than
anything I’ve read before- and I’ve read a lot of vampire fiction.
2 comments:
I think the reason why we are attracted to the dark things and the dark creatures - such as vampires - is that we want to go past the shroud of mystery and discover what is unknown to us. There's a certain dose of danger involved when you talk about the dark things, and that's exactly what stimulates us.
Mada Sch @ All Fantasy Worlds
Yes exactly, we love the danger, it seduces us.
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