flemmings | Because it must be said

And then there's people like me, for whom it took five Ann Rice novels to cure the vampire obsession. And I still fall for it when mangaka do it.

列祖列宗?

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列祖列宗

Is it. I remember it having five syllables but there was probably an 'O ye' tacked on to the end. Knew there was something vaguely WTF to my Japanese-reader's mind: it's the 列 that has all ancestors neatly queued up waiting for a bus or something.

The mangaka at least do pretty or interesting or plain batshit when they do it, though it still makes me groan at the way the Japanese make a beeline for the most vulgar aspects of our culture and go to town with them.

(There's probably more wincey-aargh! expressions in the series but that's the one I have.)

Was it when Gou Jian was talking to his ancestors before leaving for Wu? When he said 可是列祖列宗啊, did you ever think what kind of country you left to Gou Jian etc. etc.? 啊 is just an exclamation.

it's the 列 that has all ancestors neatly queued up waiting for a bus or something

Yeah in a line is about right, as in an unbroken line of ancestry neatly traced out all the way back to antiquity or something.

Edited 2008-05-15 16:16 (UTC)

Yeah, in 19 when he was talking to the ancestors and delivering the Spring and Autumn version of a Heidipology (mh- with reason, *I* think.) But he addresses them as strings-of-forefathers-strings-of-ancestors several times, esp right at the end where he says what I assume is 'Gou Jian will take his leave of you now: we won't be meeting again for some time' which the subtitles turned into something like 'Goodbye, I won't see you again.'

I totally agree. I don't get it either.

You'd think at this point someone would realize that 'hot sexy kinda-dangerous vampire' is as worked out a trope as 'hot sexy kinda-mysterious foreigner with an accent' which you never see any more in these international days. But kink buttons can withstand high heat and overuse, alas.

Anne Rice was never something I could read, and I saw the Tom Cruise film only once and whilst I thought it was good I never saw it again and don't think I can now. I have never really been impressed with Tom Cruise as an actor.

I must admit I went to see 'Bram Stoker's Dracula' because Gary Oldman was in it. I like to kid myself that I enjoyed Buffy for the characters and besides... the Nescafe "Gold Blend" man was in it!!! ^_~ ...

and I like Helsing, Vampire Hunter D, Blood+ AND Trinity Blood ... but really I don't get why I like them either. In my case sometimes it is best not to wonder too deeply about things.

Edited 2008-05-15 10:07 (UTC)

But why are there so damned *many* vampires, she grumbles. Anne Rice and Buffy seem to have persuaded half the writers in the world that Vampires are where it's at, and no one's proving them wrong yet. Whereas Harry Potter doesn't seem to have inspired huge floods of young wizards. There's books enough, yes, but it doesn't slop over into other genres and the Japanese don't regularly use it as a trope.

Vampires do it to people in a way that werewolves and ghosts don't. Sex, probably, but you'd think even the sexy vampire would pall after the 300th iteration.

Werewolves and ghosts aren't all about the seduction, I think. And they don't attack one in one's tickly spot just below the ear. And they are sartorially challenged, werewolves from the transformation and ghosts because they're, um, insubstantial.

I think the Jim Butcher way of categorizing vampires makes some sense out of the pop-culture fascination with them, if you're inclined to research along those lines. Personally, I have no problem with vampires in concept but avoid pop culture ones like the plague. The original novel was pretty good.

Werewolves are too doggy, I suppose, but the Chinese do very seductive and well dressed ghosts. And fox spirits, who aren't doggy either. Or fox smelly either. You'd think our popular imagination could be a tad more refined and a tad less peasants' literal thinking. (Don't get me onto the discussions about how vampires are *dead* hence ice cold and clammy and given to not breathing.)

Jim Butcher where?

Harry Dresden series by Jim Butcher.

This is the series I was ranting about being cliche and predictable several years ago. It got better, though not enough better that I would necessarily recommend it to you. The Discworld fans here are are seriously into it. I read it but then I read the sides of cereal boxes, too.

The interesting idea is he breaks vampires into two types, disengaging the blood sucking monster trope and the sex trope, as it were. What he does with them isn't all the important, though it's not bad, it's the idea that's intriguing. If you want, I can find out which book it is that deals with that issue in particular.

I'd prefer you simply spoil me for the idea involved. Life is short and I read slowly.

So Dresden vampires quick summary. Three types
black - undead monsters, not much known
red - monsters that can take on a human appearance, sucks blood, biased toward violence, directy actiony types
white - sexy human shaped monsters, emotion eating, mind control (crudely broken into three subgroups, fear eating, lust eating, and I forget what) In the books, appears to be the basis for all kinds of ancient fertility and sex gods. Heavily biased against violence and towards politics and finesse.

And no one has said anything snotty about the fact that the white monsters are sexy and human shaped and advanced in the ways of diplomacy but the black ones are mysterious and unknown (from the Dark Continent maybe even?) and the red ones are violent and threaten the white man?

Cause I would, for sure.

Black, if I recall correctly, are nearly extinct, thanks to Red.

There are no "people of color" that I can recall in those books, it's white, Catholic, European fairy tales all the way, all the time, from my impression of it. Emphasis on Celtic and Eastern European mythology, Catholicism, secret societies. But then, it's alternate world Chicago, as written by white, Catholic, European descent male writer. Shrug.

As for black, red, and white. It seemed very American. But now that you've pointed it out ... LOL!

Surely even white Catholic European-descended males in Chicago run into the occasional black person there, if nothing else? People, people.

So we're in a period of adjustment and periods of adjustment make everyone more sensitive to nuances and I have to look at my dragons occasionally to make sure I'm not going with this society's default assocations of brown, black, white and yellow. (Yellow is easiest because I never heard it as a human skin colour.) But it's supposed to make everyone more sensitive to nuances.

Most of the characters in this series are colorless, which defaults to white.

I'm running through all the major and minor characters in my head and there are a few black cops and wizards. I think. The major gangsters are all Italian. The cops are stereotype Irish, Italian, or black, which may be accurate for Chicago. The wizards include all major American token minorities? Hispanic, middle eastern, black. I don't recall any Asian asians in there, but I was skimming.

The low level witches are all dumpy, mousy, white (females). The fairie are stereotype Celtic-Welsh jonesing on Scandinavian stereotypes. The white vampires are pretty uniformly all Scandinavian-northern Italians. There was one character who was a Tibetian practicing Japanese, but he only lasted one book. There's a blond haired, blue eyed, Catholic, high school football star paladin. The females are all sexy, except for the mousy dumpy ones. The teenage city punks, if I recall correctly, read white suburban to me.

For the Butcher vampires, I think American emotional reactions to black, white, and red are convenient manipulation tropes. 'Twould it have been negligent of the author not to use them? They could just as well have been purple, orange, and green, as long as there are enough explosions to satisfy the reader.

I rather expected you would be careful of nuances, just because you're you. Dragons is enough disconnected from modern society that I would hope the nuances are a bit easier to catch.

I don't think western religion allows for good monsters, not really, anyway.

Probably that's half of it, but why don't our folk traditions either? It's still all kobolds and Grendel's Mum and a very pale tradition of the Fair Folk. Yeah, well- it was probably a lot less pale before the very proactive forces of Christianity got at them. Buddhists never seemed to care much about rooting out native beliefs.

Er well, except for the medical apocrypha(erythropoietic porphyria = heliophobia and blood-craving, which has been discredited, and TB mimicking Victorian notions of vampirism) and one admittedly cheesy film (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0338526/) which happened to push my friend-turned-enemy slash kink in my salad days of fic-writing, never quite saw the appeal of the practitioners of a habit which (alas for early exposure to HK comedies before the oeuvre of Stoker and such) I first associated with zombified ancestors in Qing Dynasty garb hopping around before being stopped by a fuda to the forehead.

Though IMHO the mangaka do make an admirable go of it.

zombified ancestors in Qing Dynasty garb hopping around before being stopped by a fuda to the forehead

I want to see that!!!

Here you go ^_^ (http://www.pennyblood.com/chinesevampires.html)

The Mr Vampire and Vampire Hunter series of movies, and the My Date with a Vampire TV series were big hits in their day.

Yes, thank you. The line between vampire and zombie is very fine, and certainly the zombified ancestors need a fuda to the forehead. So much simpler than the stake through the heart.

Nhh- the only manga vampire that sticks in my head is Alucard from Hellsing, whose fascination comes from his (very unvampirish) relationship with Integra. This because I haven't played/ seen anything of Trinity Blood, which I've always half-assumed was a Meine Liebe exercise in style without substance. Which mangaka are you thinking of here?

Quite enjoyed Hellsing and Blood:The Last Vampire; Karin for the crack. Have not read Vampire Hunter D but it sounds interesting.

Heee! I remember fondly hopping about with outstretched hands and yellow post it notes stuck to forehead fondly. We even went so far as to try and get the 5 different types of rice grain and the holding the breath thing! Purely for authenticity's sake!

(ok maybe we went a little far there! ^_~)

"I am not now, nor have I ever been, a fan of vampires. I just don't *get* it."

Here, here! (applauds) I would venture to pin some of the blame for the recent crapwave of vampirica on one Stephanie Meyer, who writes hokey teen-aged vampire romance novels that have inexplicably become insanely popular. The fourth one is even going to get a Potter-style midnight release party in our store, and the home office has already warned us that that it's going to have a 'prom night' theme. Oh, be still my wet, shivering loins.

Ohh certainly the latest wave of the thing is flipping Meyer's fault, but this trope goes waaay back to at least the mid-90s, is about the only time I ever saw a lot of people's original fantasy writing. And everyone wrote vampires. (Those who drew, however, drew catboys.) And even then- didn't see what the fuss about Anne Rice was, didn't see what the fuss about Buffy was (Spike has style, but that's about it), didn't see what the faux-decadent vampire thing was about, in a word.

(Full disclosure: I had a pair of vampires in my ongoing head novel, circa my mid-20s at that point. They were minor characters- a couple of opera queens, which is where my werewolf main chara met them. Their main appeal was their encyclopedic knowledge of opera and their record collection.)

Because it must be said

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