Vampires: How Did it Come to This?

I know it's not Halloween. To quote Jim Carrey, "DEAL WITH IT!"

So, there's another vampire movie coming out, if today's commercials are any judge. Another one of those fancy-schmancy "Vampires are good, vampires fight werewolves, vampires are dreamy" chick-flicks. And it got me thinking that these modern monsters are so ridiculously different from their original forms. So, since I'm in a bit of a bad state thanks to tonight's episode of How I Met Your Mother (sitcoms aren't supposed to be this emotional), I'm going to distract myself/explain the original legends of vampires, and how the tales have changed.

Let's start off from the very beginning: although vampire legends are found all over the world, almost all of these demons are some variant of undead. No matter where you went in the past, vampires are dead beings that consumed the life-force of the living. Some were reanimated corpses, some were vengeful spirits, and some were even demons, but all were definitively dead. As for the life-force they drained, it varied from place to place. Many vampires fed on flesh, creeping up on their sleeping victims. Some consumed the soul itself, as was the case with certain demonic vampires. And a few particularly nasty vampires consumed the fetuses of pregnant women, sucking the babies out through their mothers' mouths. European vampires fed on blood, and so modern vampires do as well. Due to the western bloodsuckers' association with witches and the devil, they could assume the forms of creatures of the night, notably bats, wolves and owls. Why did people believe in reanimated corpses, you may ask? Well, back in the day, being dead didn't make you harmless. If an individual had hated you in life and you fell sick after your death, you might believe your enemy's vengeful soul was seeking revenge upon you - or worse, that they now lived as an undead vampire. If you suspected the latter, you would rile up your fellow villagers and dig up your enemy's coffin. Due to decomposition, they might be in a different position than they'd been buried in - but remember, the concept of decomposition didn't exist back then, so lo and behold, you were being victimized by an honest-to-goodness vampire. Of course, certain measures needed to be taken to ensure that your enemy stayed dead. In Europe, the most common practice was to drive a stake of ash or aspen through the heart, cut off the head, fill the mouth with garlic, and place the head between the feet - a practice immortalized by Bram Stoker's Dracula, which redefined the vampire myth. Wild rose, hawthorn, garlic and holy items kept attacking vampires at bay, but they were not vulnerable to sunlight. Our old friend from Nosferatu started that rumor. But then Dracula happened. And, although the nature of the myth remained essentially the same, the character of the vampire changed dramatically. Vampires were suddenly intelligent, suave, powerful beings, after centuries of being reanimated corpses. Once that took place, it wasn't much of a stretch for vampires to lose their old vulnerabilities. Modern fiction has annihilated the old weaknesses and turned vampires into immortal, bloodthirsty sex symbols. Now we have Twilight, True Blood, and The Vampire Diaries, and vampires are the beloved protagonists. Some old medieval villager is rolling in his grave right now. But don't worry - it's probably just a side-effect of decomposition.