So I think I've gotten addicted to the equivalent of a soap opera... only it's a series of books. To back up, let me say that I've always enjoyed vampire books, even before they were cool. I was close to the beginning of the train on the Twilight books, and while I've never really been all that thrilled with the "traditional" vampire (Aka Evil Incarnate, Bat Dude) I do really love the character of the misunderstood bad guy/girl who is reformed by goodness of some sort. It's not that I don't respect history, it's that I can only relate to evil incarnate on one level-fear/disgust.... ok maybe that is two levels. Whereas temptation, (a *huge* theme in vampire books) now that I can relate to on just about every level. So I started reading the House of Night books because 1) I like Vampire books 2) vampire books are insanely popular these days so they are easy to come by 3) it is a much different form of vampirism than normal (it's a genetic mutation/disease) so that's always interesting. And there is a lot in the books I don't really like, and I do *
not* recommend them for anyone younger than high school, and even then there are things I'm not totally comfortable with. One thing I
do really like is that the main character fights very much for the side of good in this fictional world, but at the same time it's "real." And what I mean by "real" is that she messes up sometimes and hurts her friends. She makes bad decisions and has to face the consequences, and even when she makes the right decisions not all of the consequences are good. Everything is messy, nothing is clear-cut, and choosing the right option isn't easy. But there is still a right option and at the end of the day/book series I know that
evil good is going to triumph, though I am usually surprised at the plot twist that gets thrown at the end. Oh and the part that makes it a teenage soap opera is the death/reincarnation, amnesia, love triangles (...squares... pentagons), trapping people in towers, final showdowns (that aren't final at all) and too much focus on sex. Though at least there are no pregnancy plot lines!
I think what all this points out to me, though, is my firm belief in the possibility of good inside everyone. Some people call this being naive but it's the only way I can live. I think it's really easy to see people in categories. It's what our minds naturally do to cope with all the millions of individuals who inhabit the same planet that we do. Where I think we run into problems is when the categories turn into enemies, or even just faceless "masses." It is easy to hate someone you think already hates you. It's easy to hurt someone else if they are just part of "them." But I think that if people were to look at each other and see the human being on the other end that crime/war/hate would start to end. I don't think that everyone on this planet is going to like each other, by any means and I don't think that the world can be changed if we just start blindly trusting everyone. I guess it all comes back to choice. People can choose good or evil (and yes I know that some choices are not that clear cut!) but the individual chooses and then has to live with the consequences of that choice (hopefully), but I (perhaps naively) think that if a person could see exactly what the people on the receiving end are experiencing/will experience because of their choice then they would choose for the good.
But you know, I'm not really that good at introspection, so it's hard to know which came first- rooting for the bad guy to find humanity and make a noble sacrifice at the last moment or the belief that the bad guys still hold on to a silver of humanity... or perhaps this is just my favorite of all soap boxes and it's late so I'm not properly editing myself. Ahhhh blogging, thy name is Written Babbling. And that's kinda an odd name. For reals, yo.
As I've mentioned. It's late and I am tired. Adieu, until the morrow.
Ok, I just wrote in two labels for this post- Vampires and inherent good.... I'm such a
weird kinda nerd!
Great post. Not rambling at all!
ReplyDeleteI like the good/evil/temptation struggle in vampire books, too. And all fantasy. What I've always liked about the Lord of the Rings was that the real battlefront of the war wasn't so much about Mordor vs. Gondor. The most powerful goodness is the everyday, small good the hobbits have. It's powerful enough to sway even the highly-corrupted Gollum for a while. Gandalf sees how powerful that is; most of the other characters, good or evil, don't.
I don't think it's naive to think that there is good in everyone. I think God made our hearts long for the good things. I think finding that longing in someone else is the key to sharing the power of the gospel-- instead of asking them to turn from the most important part of themselves, you're asking them to be true to it by letting go of the addictions and lusts that are just a shadow of the real thing.
3 am. Holy smokes. I woke up once last night at exactly 3:31 and then promptly fell back asleep. Then I actually got up at 6:54 to go run. So who is the weirder one? It's a toss-up.
ReplyDeletePoint of clarification:
ReplyDeleteWhen you said that at the end of the book "evil is going to triumph," did you mean good instead of evil? Because if you *like* a book in which evil is doomed to win, I am shocked, shocked!
Anyway, I regard vampires the way that Jake Taylor regards antagonistic aliens in video games. The point is to have something to unleash your blood lust on without guilt; if you start humanizing them, you ruin it! :)
That said, I think this preference is entirely idiosyncratic and has nothing to do with that esoteric thing called Taste (with a capital 'T' and that rhymes with 'P' and that stands for 'Pretentious'). Recognizing that, I'm going to take a moment and try look past my prejudice and read your post for what it is. To do this, I've had to re-read the post replacing the word "vampire" with "evil black bunnies," which I'll occasionally abbreviate EBBs.
Evil black bunnies are an excellent literary tool for engaging the topic of prejudice, and I think you've really unpacked one of the better aspects of EBB literature: it's underhanded hopeful message. If EBBs have a spark of good somewhere inside them, there's hope for everyone, right? If the ancient rivalry between Evil Black Bunnies and Werewolves* is founded on nothing more than ignorance and misunderstanding, then can't all racial tensions be overcome? I think that's the question Evil Black Bunny literature has been asking since... I dunno, Anne Rice? Who would you say the original EBBs-as-protagonists author is?
What I'd personally like to see is the EBBs-as-protagonists thing turned on its head: the sympathetic evil black bunny who is revealed as ultimately loathsome and deserving of rejection. I'm sure there's some fan fiction out there to satisfy this urge, but I'd like to see it done right; maybe as a Sondheim musical or something.
*Unreasonable personal prejudice part 2: I have no problem with werewolves as heroes or antiheroes.
Yes, I meant good, rather than evil.. it was late.
ReplyDeleteAlso I find myself with very little bloodlust in general, so while I know of your prejudice I do not understand it. Plus I don't actually like seeing characters turn out to be loathsome and deserving of rejection. But then again, you knew that, cause it was kinda the whole point of the post.