In most mythology all kinds of revenants, including vampires, were feared. There might be exceptions, but they were rare. Certainly, vampires were not seen as sexy beings until recently due to - as you mentioned - modern western media, in most cultures, they were described as looking clearly dead and sometimes even rotting. True, they don't all drink blood, some absorb your life force (like the chinese Jiangshi) or eat your flesh (as in some legends from my home country Germany), but in most tales, they are not seen as anything than a terror.
I am Polish myself and I don't think the different portrayals of vampires in Slavic folklores (since this is where the word vampire originated from) were exceptions. Rather, they were never popularized in Western media, because they remained folklore stories until the technology progress and free education destroyed the myths, as people stopped believing in them. You won't find them in horror books, only in ethnographer works. Instead in Western media you get basically a repetition of Bram Stoker's version. And I am not a fan of throwing different "undead monster" from different mythologies together, while ignoring the differences in spiritual beliefs and cultures. I could as well say the German vampire is just a zombie, because it's undead and eats flesh.
To give an example, in some stories people believed that your undead spouse could come back and demand marital rights. And these could take either a dark, or a humourous note, e.g. in one story the woman told her undead husband to "kiss her ass" and that scared him off.
In most mythology all kinds of revenants, including vampires, were feared. There might be exceptions, but they were rare. Certainly, vampires were not seen as sexy beings until recently due to - as you mentioned - modern western media, in most cultures, they were described as looking clearly dead and sometimes even rotting. True, they don't all drink blood, some absorb your life force (like the chinese Jiangshi) or eat your flesh (as in some legends from my home country Germany), but in most tales, they are not seen as anything than a terror.
I am Polish myself and I don't think the different portrayals of vampires in Slavic folklores (since this is where the word vampire originated from) were exceptions. Rather, they were never popularized in Western media, because they remained folklore stories until the technology progress and free education destroyed the myths, as people stopped believing in them. You won't find them in horror books, only in ethnographer works. Instead in Western media you get basically a repetition of Bram Stoker's version. And I am not a fan of throwing different "undead monster" from different mythologies together, while ignoring the differences in spiritual beliefs and cultures. I could as well say the German vampire is just a zombie, because it's undead and eats flesh.
To give an example, in some stories people believed that your undead spouse could come back and demand marital rights. And these could take either a dark, or a humourous note, e.g. in one story the woman told her undead husband to "kiss her ass" and that scared him off.
I direct you to ArvGuys answer to your comment, so I don't have to repeat everything. And Bram Stoker did get his inspiration from different mythologies. And as ArvGuy said, just because, there are some stories, that might take a funny turn, in the overwhelming majority of the stories, vampires are indeed fearsome and dangerous.
Last edited by fylimar; 30/08/2110:35 AM.
"We are all stories in the end. Just make it a good one."
I direct you to ArvGuys answer to your comment, so I don't have to repeat everything. And Bram Stoker did get his inspiration from different mythologies. And as ArvGuy said, just because, there are some stories, that might take a funny turn, in the overwhelming majority of the stories, vampires are indeed fearsome and dangerous.
Finding inspiration is not the same as an ethnographer recording as much of the original folklore as possible. Fictional stories, whether teen romance or horror, are not a measure of popularity of those beliefs, but of the popularity of the story. Whichbis why I don't think that the Western literature is representative of the vampire mythos, especially since to my extend of knowledge most of the Slavic folklore never made it West.
As with any commercial products, the tropes that are portrayed in the media (including games) change based on what sells well at the given time. This is also why Astarion is popular, he reflects the current trend.
As with any commercial products, the tropes that are portrayed in the media (including games) change based on what sells well at the given time. This is also why Astarion is popular, he reflects the current trend.
Well, I didn't deny that, I even said, that Twilight vampires are the current trend (which drove me away from that specific kind of literature). So I don't exactly know, what you want me to say. I can acknowledge, it is a trend, but I can still not like it, simple as that
ANd I actually agree with more variety in this regard.
Last edited by fylimar; 30/08/2112:16 PM.
"We are all stories in the end. Just make it a good one."
even the vampires in folklore are as a rule more dangerous and dark than your typical Twilight vampire. And since Twilight, you seldom find anything else but those whiny wannabe vampires. ANd Astarion fits right into that.
Funny how everyone is blaming Twilight ... Have you actualy read the Bram Stoker's Dracula?
Especialy that part, where Dracula uses his supernatural powers to practicaly seduce (or mesmerize, w/e) young woman?
//Edit: Or mentioning vampires ... and looking at my profile picture ... Have you seen Hellsing? Do you know why Seras was turned into Vampire (actualy even Vampire Spawn), and not ordinary Ghoul? :P
My point here is simple ... Vampires was allways sexualized, Twilight just focused a little more on that part and lot less to everything else.
Last edited by RagnarokCzD; 30/08/2112:22 PM.
I still dont understand why cant we change Race for our hirelings. Lets us play Githyanki as racist as they trully are!
Lowkey, Twilight isn't about vampires. Much like Astarion, really. At the end of the day, it's all about the angst-ridden bad boy going to town on the self-insert character. That's what the trend is. The vampire bit just happens to fit right in, and enchance the danger and angst aspects.
Having said that, Cazador seems really cool, or at least seems to be more akin to a folklore vampire. Big shame that we're stuck with his mail boy.
Well, I didn't deny that, I even said, that Twilight vampires are the current trend (which drove me away from that specific kind of literature). So I don't exactly know, what you want me to say. I can acknowledge, it is a trend, but I can still not like it, simple as that
ANd I actually agree with more variety in this regard.
I dislike those tropes myself. What I disagreed with is that fictional work in horror is somehow a good representation of what the "real vampire" belief was, as opposed to teen romances. In the case of the vampire mythos, I'd say a lot of the original folklore was lost, simply because it was never made it into a work of fiction, and never got commercialized. So from an English-centric point of view it might seem rare or unusual nowadays.
even the vampires in folklore are as a rule more dangerous and dark than your typical Twilight vampire. And since Twilight, you seldom find anything else but those whiny wannabe vampires. ANd Astarion fits right into that.
Funny how everyone is blaming Twilight ... Have you actualy read the Bram Stoker's Dracula?
Especialy that part, where Dracula uses his supernatural powers to practicaly seduce (or mesmerize, w/e) young woman?
//Edit: Or mentioning vampires ... and looking at my profile picture ... Have you seen Hellsing? Do you know why Seras was turned into Vampire (actualy even Vampire Spawn), and not ordinary Ghoul? :P
My point here is simple ... Vampires was allways sexualized, Twilight just focused a little more on that part and lot less to everything else.
Dracula uses his powers to get slaves and food. And he anything but sexy in the book. He looks dead and smells bad. So it is more about him using some kind of brainwashing to get to his victims. If I remember correctly, Van Helsing warns the group, not to look into his eyes. Dracula was made sexy by Hollywood. In fact, the old movie by Murnau, Nosferatu, while not allowed to use the original names, was much closer to Bram Stokers Dracula than most of the later movies - and the vampire there was hideous (think Nosferatu frum Vampire the Masquerade - that clan was basically made after that movie).
I don't know Hellsing, since I'm not at all interested in manga. But the point is, that mangas, like Twilight and even Anne Rice and otehr modern vampire stories came long after Bram Stoker wrote his masterpiece. The sexualisation wasn't there from the beginning, it came with the movies, starting with Bela Lugosi.
I'm ok with sexy vampires as long as you have the other kind too, but nowadays, you mostly have the angsty teenager one. And the sexsymbol, who is not dangerous at all. I think, Vampire the Masquerade did a good job in portrying different kinds of vampires from different kind of lore background. I wish something like that would be more represented in nowadays media again.
Quote
Lowkey, Twilight isn't about vampires. Much like Astarion, really. At the end of the day, it's all about the angst-ridden bad boy going to town on the self-insert character. That's what the trend is. The vampire bit just happens to fit right in, and enchance the danger and angst aspects.
So much this.
"We are all stories in the end. Just make it a good one."
Folklore etc. does not matter. What are vampires in Faerun. That is the setting.
Vampires enjoyed fine things and engaging in decadent behavior, sharing such habits with liches. A vampire was always a creature of evil. If it was not evil in life, it became so in undeath.
A vampire spawn was innately subservient to the vampire that created it. They could only achieve free-will if their creator died[5] or if their creator voluntarily granted them freedom, but once free of their bondage a spawn could not be enslaved again.[6]
Spawn typically believed they were superior to other living or undead creatures, regardless of how powerful a creature actually was.[7]
When it came to a life of adventuring, vampire spawn would seek vengeance on their creators, or penance for their new damnation. If these monsters could overcome their ravenous emotions, they might seek out knowledge, glory, or power. Pride was the true driver of the vampire spawn, since they believed themselves better than others.
I don't know about you, but the picture it paints is one of a fairly arrogant but also actually cunning and quite scary character that isn't a full vampire but certainly does come fairly close.
And I have to ask myself, do Astarion's features appear hardened and predatory? Is he actually acting like he thinks he's the superior character and the rest of the party is there to be his followers? Is Astarion in any way a master of stealth and charismatic cunning? Would I consider him a terrible opponent? Speaking for myself, I would answer all these questions in the negative. So for me, no, he doesn't really fit.
He's more of an emotionally unstable jerkface that happens to also be bloodsucker than a "vampire". Or indeed even a vampire spawn, as defined in Forgotten Realsm.
I think there's a pretty clear superiority complex present. Astarion is certainly predatory, we know from one of Larian's shows that when playing as him you can drink a companion dry in the night. And he considers his trump card to be allowed to stay in the party, what "a powerful weapon he is", even if you want to argue if the game backs that up, similar to how, for the player, he's obviously a vampire, what we know and what might be true in the game aren't necessarily the same.
The discussion on folkloric vampires is interesting but it doesn't really help us considering that D&D, while it takes from many sources, is predominantly a Tolkienesque. As far as vampires go, that we haven't mentioned Strahd is criminal.
Vampire's can serve a few roles in the stories they're in, from elites out of touch with humanity, effete and unconsummatable passion, to drug addiction and passion as overriding animalistic need. I don't know if Hollywood was actually the beginning of the Romantic vampire, but I think that aspect has developed, thanks to YA, into its most visible trope, but if the question is if Astarion follows in this trope, I wonder if people playing and re-playing the EA doesn't exacerbate every characters foibles, Astarion being our, effete, apathetic, and unsympathetic chaotic evil character will suffer the most.
Look at the meme thread, check the BG3meme videos. You'll notice that most of the videos are about Astarion, because that's what he is, a meme.
So was Trump, but that didn't change anything. He was still the previous American president. Being a meme just means you've gotten people's attention. That's all.
What is the point of this entire thread? Are you all hoping they'll decide to axe Astarion?... change him?... or is this just a complaining thread meant to gripe about how you don't like Astarion?
He very much fits D&D FR lore. I see nothing wrong with his character. He's not fitting the vamp spawn perfectly, but that gives him a bit of unique qualities. He's not just a Twilight vamp or a Anne Rice vamp. He's his own unique self. He should be. He's been set free in an unconventional way.
And if the complaint is he isn't original enough, I ask you, "What is? What exactly would make him acceptable to you?"
[And obviously something can be true to a concept or less true. We all have ideas of what "dragon" means, be it the Oriental or the Western version, so imagine if someone decided to make a story where a dragon was a winged cow that has a very nasty swooping attack where it farts gas while belting "MOOOOOOOOH!" at a terrifying volume? Fun encounter, sure, but what does it have to do with the concept of dragons? Not a thing.
Astarion (and Twilight) have as much to do with the general concept of vampires as a farting winged cow has with dragons. And frankly it doesn't matter if you could find a funny folk tale somewhere that lets vampires be something other than monsters, because that doesn't change the general concept of vampires.
Damnit !! Now I really want to trade Astarion in for a secret vampire cow level in BG3's Underdark !!!
Look at the meme thread, check the BG3meme videos. You'll notice that most of the videos are about Astarion, because that's what he is, a meme.
So was Trump, but that didn't change anything. He was still the previous American president. Being a meme just means you've gotten people's attention. That's all.
What is the point of this entire thread? Are you all hoping they'll decide to axe Astarion?... change him?... or is this just a complaining thread meant to gripe about how you don't like Astarion?
He very much fits D&D FR lore. I see nothing wrong with his character. He's not fitting the vamp spawn perfectly, but that gives him a bit of unique qualities. He's not just a Twilight vamp or a Anne Rice vamp. He's his own unique self. He should be. He's been set free in an unconventional way.
And if the complaint is he isn't original enough, I ask you, "What is? What exactly would make him acceptable to you?"
If you see nothing wrong, if you like him as he is, well, Good for you. I personally just like him as a meme character, one that is over the top and uninteresting unless is to make fun.
even the vampires in folklore are as a rule more dangerous and dark than your typical Twilight vampire. And since Twilight, you seldom find anything else but those whiny wannabe vampires. ANd Astarion fits right into that.
Funny how everyone is blaming Twilight ... Have you actualy read the Bram Stoker's Dracula?
Especialy that part, where Dracula uses his supernatural powers to practicaly seduce (or mesmerize, w/e) young woman?
//Edit: Or mentioning vampires ... and looking at my profile picture ... Have you seen Hellsing? Do you know why Seras was turned into Vampire (actualy even Vampire Spawn), and not ordinary Ghoul? :P
My point here is simple ... Vampires was allways sexualized, Twilight just focused a little more on that part and lot less to everything else.
Dracula uses his powers to get slaves and food. And he anything but sexy in the book. He looks dead and smells bad. So it is more about him using some kind of brainwashing to get to his victims. If I remember correctly, Van Helsing warns the group, not to look into his eyes. Dracula was made sexy by Hollywood. In fact, the old movie by Murnau, Nosferatu, while not allowed to use the original names, was much closer to Bram Stokers Dracula than most of the later movies - and the vampire there was hideous (think Nosferatu frum Vampire the Masquerade - that clan was basically made after that movie).
I don't know Hellsing, since I'm not at all interested in manga. But the point is, that mangas, like Twilight and even Anne Rice and otehr modern vampire stories came long after Bram Stoker wrote his masterpiece. The sexualisation wasn't there from the beginning, it came with the movies, starting with Bela Lugosi.
I'm ok with sexy vampires as long as you have the other kind too, but nowadays, you mostly have the angsty teenager one. And the sexsymbol, who is not dangerous at all. I think, Vampire the Masquerade did a good job in portrying different kinds of vampires from different kind of lore background. I wish something like that would be more represented in nowadays media again.
Quote
Lowkey, Twilight isn't about vampires. Much like Astarion, really. At the end of the day, it's all about the angst-ridden bad boy going to town on the self-insert character. That's what the trend is. The vampire bit just happens to fit right in, and enchance the danger and angst aspects.
So much this.
Vampires were always sexual, as in western popculture: Stroker's Dracula is a literal allegory for veneral diseases for godsake. Even older versions have a sexual aspect to them (look at Jewish vampires, which predate the slavic ones). I would also argue that the Vampire Chronicles also had a big impact on the modern manifestation of the trophe, not just Twilight...
I don't know about you, but the picture it paints is one of a fairly arrogant but also actually cunning and quite scary character that isn't a full vampire but certainly does come fairly close.
And I have to ask myself, do Astarion's features appear hardened and predatory? Is he actually acting like he thinks he's the superior character and the rest of the party is there to be his followers? Is Astarion in any way a master of stealth and charismatic cunning? Would I consider him a terrible opponent? Speaking for myself, I would answer all these questions in the negative. So for me, no, he doesn't really fit.
Cazador was trying to enforce in those 200 years that Astarion wasn't superior, but some lowly underling, and reinforced that with both torture and mental whamming. How much of his current character is a trained act? Because two centuries is a very long time for behaviors and mannerism to become deeply ingrained, even if those behaviours run counter to the true nature of self. And I'd expect this true nature to reemerge only slowly, in the absence of his old master. If instead Astarion is supposed to act like the wiki description, what would be the point of his backstory?
If I create myself a halfling character, should I then run to the wiki and fit the description of "Because of their love for home and family, halflings made loyal and courageous allies, willing to put their own lives at risk for the sake of others"? Because oops, my evil halfling warlock was quite inspired by Montaron, and neither fits the wiki.
Seriously, you guys just need to get out and meet more folks and treat them on equal ground, cos you ain't that different. Some guys are camp - so the fuck what?! Posting up so much hate proper says some shite about the posters - you get that yeah? Oh yeah, and abuse is cyclic, If you're writing folks off, beware - couldv'e been you.
So, Yeah, I like the char. Not so effed-up as some real life mates of mine over the years, despite the fantasy setting. If you can't relate - try harder, for goodness sake, real life souls are on the line.
