Lo so, lo so, gli speciali del podcast stanno quasi diventando le puntate ordinarie del mercoledì. Giuro che cercherò di aggiustare un po’ il palinsesto Oggi ho deciso di “podcasterizzare” un vecchio articolo del blog, ampliandolo con un consiglio di lettura.Si parla di mitologia greca, di soprannaturale, di…
you know that guy who gets bit by venomous insects on purpose and rates the pain on a numerical scale?
ok so a scientist who gets bitten by a vampire specifically so she can use herself as a test subject to rate cross-cultural religious objects on their effectiveness as anti-vampire deterrents. sure there’s anecdotal evidence that crosses probably work, but here is hard scientific data that vampires can also be threatened with menorahs
the christian cross and the pagan pentagram are equally effective. the eye of horus has a surprisingly strong bite given that it should be expired by now. the symbol of mjölnir invokes a migraine AND ear ringing that lasts for days. the star of david cremates the scientist instantly on the spot; her ashes have to be shoved in a jar and sprinkled w/ blood so she can reshape overnight. (the last discovery is going to make yom kippur at grandma’s house VERY awkward this year)
I like the implication that atheist vampires need the intervention of, like, a theoretical physicist brandishing recent journal articles at them. Effectiveness of publications vary by the rigor of the peer review involved in the publication process.
Scientist vampire branches out into rating academic journals’ peer review processes by how much they burn her when she picks them up.
(Just to be on the safe side - I’m just spitballing here, I don’t actually have a secret research paper about this secreted away. So, YMMV and all that.)
The reason why a vampire can be defeated by a holy man/ an object of faith is because they are the antithesis to what that religion views as good, as the spark of the divine that actually created a human, whatever creation myth you subscribe to. Being turned into a vampire means falling from grace, being cut off from the congregation, having lost your way. For obvious reasons, the figure that we would identify as a vampire in a piece of media is usually coded in the framework of christian faith, maaaaybe in the framework of jewish faith, though I have a hard time to come up with concrete examples where it is treated straight instead of just as a throwaway joke. It is because the first novels that wrote about vampire and codified the lore were usually written by european authors and even if they haven’t been christian, they would still probably have been influenced by the dominant faith. (But there are also throughout different cultures also various vampire-like myths. They are probably not what we would usually be able to identify as such, because despite slight variations - sparkles or no-sparkles, daywalking or nocturnal - the vampires as an established genre fit in a pretty narrow narrative purpose - and the folk-tales fit their cultures).
What I mean is, a christian-coded vampire is depicted the way he is for a reason. Because he is an agent of chaos and evil, he is a poor man’s devil. So it stands to reason that a jewish or a muslim vampire would be different from a christian vampire, according to those religions idea of evil. I don’t know enough about both faiths to even start speculating about it.
Which has hilarious implications. Namely, that a someone who upholds science as their foremost guiding philosophical framework (I hesitate to say an atheist vampire, because I have dealt with enough atheists who were science deniers - and there are enough scientists, who can follow both faith and science without finding one contradicting the other) - that person, upon being turned into a vampire would turn into a science denier and probably lose their ability to conduct those experiments.
The scientist-coded vampire is probably an anti-vaxxer and a conspiracy theorist.
I’m Muslim, and the idea of Muslim vampires is killing me. Here would be some things that would probably happen:
A Muslim vampire will be heavily irritated when people start reciting the Ayat ul Kursi. Which will be often, because Muslim communities are VERY jumpy. They see pale creepy person with sharp teeth, and they will be chanting it out before he can blink.
They will probably make a point to face away from the Qibla. (The Qibla is basically an imaginary straight line that goes from the Kaaba to every other place. To face the Qibla means to face the exact point where, millions of miles away, the Kaaba lies) Facing the Qibla will make their power levels drop slightly. Not much, but every bit counts.
People fighting Muslim vampires will carry around these babies
That, my lovelies, is a pocket Quran, and they are roughly the size of an incredibly tiny keychain. People will launch them out and pull them back in like yoyos to fight vampires. Trust me, it’ll work.
Forget about the dismemberment. They will go straight for the burning.
As for what the vampire itself will be like:
Two of the most commonly agreed upon no-nos in Islam is usury and alcohol. (Gambling, Zina, and consuming pork are the others. Everything else is up for interpretation. Do not fight me on this, the Quran said it itself)
Usury is financial interest. You know the loan kind?
Anyways, so basically, a Muslim Vampire is most likely to be an alcoholic islamophobic banker. Thank you for coming to my tedtalk.
Gambling and zina (nonmarital sex) also imply the banker frequently flies out to Vegas for a weekend of dabauchery. But I cannot get over the pork thing, because that, combined with the alcoholism and islamophobia, means that a Muslim vampire is exactly the sort of asshole who would wear one of these:
