Moonlight Vampires -- what did you like/dislike about them?

A deeper discussion of Vampire Mythology
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Re: Moonlight Vampires -- what did you like/dislike about them?

Post by Penina Spinka »

I like to hear what others think. My question is why is alcohol okay, but never a glass of water? Blood is mostly water, and milk is another form of blood. I guess they didn't want vampires with a milk mustache. I agree that the freezer is extreme, but they found freezers that looked like cofffins. If they heal within seconds, how can they decay?
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Re: Moonlight Vampires -- what did you like/dislike about them?

Post by Josefismysire »

moonlight_vixen wrote:
Catmoon wrote:
eris wrote:Pfft. Josef has a walk-in, fully furnished, refrigerated bedroom.

(Does he look like the kind of guy who'd have a double wide... as if...)
Interesting you should mention that. I've never written Josef's freezer in my fic, but that's exactly what my OC has: a real bedroom with a cooling unit. He's more the old fashioned type, not like these L.A. vamps and their fancy freezers... :lol: That's my take on it, the freezer is an 'in vogue' kinda thing among vampires right now. ;) Everyone's doing it, you just have to have one!
I completely agree with this! Josef's not going to have just a freezer, he's going to have a fully-equipped freezing room with all the amenites :thumbs:
Now, see..that concept would have worked beautifully with the Sarah storyline!! That would've been in keeping with her "mostly vampiric" nature...all the writers would have had to interject is Beth commenting on how cold the room was...
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Re: Moonlight Vampires -- what did you like/dislike about them?

Post by Lucy »

I liked the slant of their heads as they "scented".....
How they did walk among us....(Gary Oldham's character did)
I liked they could see themselves in mirrors-how else would they stay so adorable?
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Re: Moonlight Vampires -- what did you like/dislike about them?

Post by Lucy »

Penina Spinka wrote:I like to hear what others think. My question is why is alcohol okay, but never a glass of water? Blood is mostly water, and milk is another form of blood. I guess they didn't want vampires with a milk mustache. I agree that the freezer is extreme, but they found freezers that looked like cofffins. If they heal within seconds, how can they decay?
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Liquor seems to be the universal beverage of choice. . . .in the shows and Fanfic it's the closest social thing they can do without breaking out a freshie. (Just like the old soap operas where everyone drank all day) :snicker:

Well, I forgot that Milk is another bodily fluid..... it's just that the concept of Vampires drinking cows milk is incongruous and the idea of Vampires drinking human milk would not have made it past the censor board. :reading:

The freezer makes sense to me since the legend had them in coffins in tombs (cold, dark) A freezer would preserve a dead body.... and they are a dead body. They animate as undead creatures, yet they need preservation.

The healing part always did confuse me. Remember the movie with Goldie Hawn and Meryl Streep, "Death Becomes Her?" how they never got killed, they just patched themselves up with putty, etc? :wtf: They looked pretty rough at the end of the movie!


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Re: Moonlight Vampires -- what did you like/dislike about them?

Post by MoonMad »

Interesting thread. Good point about the decay; it just didn't make sense when their appearance never changed. If they could heal - then they didn't decay. Apart from the decay idea, which I didn't like, the only bugbear I had was the fact that they didn't have a heartbeat. I much preferred the idea that they were irrevocably changed at a point NEAR death, but not quite dead. If it could be accepted that they could heal instantly from anything except decapitation and fire, then immortality makes sense too - kind of like Wolverine in X - Men, who was pretty ageless because of his phenomenal healing skill that renewed his body constantly. If there was decay then they wouldn't heal at all - like zombies.

I liked that ML vampires didn't have the whole religious vibe happening; holy water, lack of a soul, crosses. But if that was the case then they shouldn't have had silver being unable to reflect their image in a mirror or on film. That doesn't make sense, although I found it easy to believe that silver applied directly to them was poisonous.

I really liked the 'hint of vamp' rather than the full blown, red-rimmed eyes and cracked lips of the later episodes. It was incredibly hot. :drool:

All in all I thought the mythology was pretty good, especially given that it didn't seem particularly well thought out berforehand and they just made it up as they went along.
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Re: Moonlight Vampires -- what did you like/dislike about them?

Post by jen »

I have really enjoyed dissecting the vampire phylosophy as presented in Moonlight and I, too, was not a fan of the genre prior to Moonlight (which I just saw for the first time this January).

I may get a sackfull of rotten tomatoes and a lot of groans over this, but to me a lot of what we saw made sense in a way. Go with me a minute here--

rapid healing
not aging
can only relax and get any real sleep in a freezer
emit an odor they call 'decay'

These could be explained if cells reproduced so rapidly that they generate heat. I remember that Beth remarked in Fever that Mick was 'burning up' after having been in the sun for too long. Could a vampire's problem be that their cells generate too much heat and this could be the root of their problem with sunlight?

The heart not beating could be explained in other ways. We know that when an individual became a vampire, their DNA was fundamentally altered (but they still have DNA) and we know that the way organ systems function is altered, as well (they now must ingest blood, and the waste products that are routinely separated out and elminated in our bodies would have already been removed prior to the vampire ingesting the blood, so the food source is much more pure. The vampire has enhanced senses; strength and certain mental abilities hinting at a higher-than-human-norm energy requirements. What if the heart was no longer needed to circulate the blood, but was redesigned into producing additional electrical energy, like the brain does and it vibrates (OK, yeah. I know--it's a stretch) and if the vampire is staked, his brain does not produce sufficient energy for movement. He or she is paralyzed but not killed.

And the bloodlust. What if some normally produced hormones combined to produce a really horrible addiction response when the vampire doesn't feed. Can this be mitigated?

One thing I can't figure out is silver. It just doesn't compute.

Yeah. I know. I think waay too much. I think a tenant of Moonlight we would have seen later was a clarification that vampires are not 'dead' but they have seen a few too many Bella Legosi movies.

I think we would have seen Beth freak out and yell and scream at Mick after him nearly getting himself killed for real--calling him on the 'eternity' myth as a vampire could get killed from sunlight, silver, decapitation, fire and who knows what else the writers would have come up with.

Then, I have thought about the origin of that virus. What if it was not naturally occurring? We know it has been on Earth for thousands, maybe millions of years.

Wow. This speculating is fun!
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Re: Moonlight Vampires -- what did you like/dislike about them?

Post by bluedahlia3 »

The freezer thing never bothered me. I just ignored it, 'cause it made no sense. I'm glad they moved past the coffin thing...although I could see Lance sleeping in a coffin. :dracula: I too wish they had stuck with the smelling / sniffing blood and being able to 'read' the past from the blood. The running fast and jumping seemed to fit, as previous 'historic' models had super human powers. These assets made more sense than some of the traits like the hypnotic stare or freshies so bound with their vampire they do their bidding without question. :giggle:
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Re: Moonlight Vampires -- what did you like/dislike about them?

Post by Josefismysire »

bluedahlia3 wrote: freshies so bound with their vampire they do their bidding without question. :giggle:
Hey!! I resemble that remark!! :laugh:
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Re: Moonlight Vampires -- what did you like/dislike about them?

Post by moonlight_vixen »

bluedahlia3 wrote: freshies so bound with their vampire they do their bidding without question. :giggle:
Who? Me? Are you talking about me?? :whistle:

Yes, I am Josef's beck and call freshie. :hearts: I just can't help myself. And I LOVE every second of it. I am rewarded, you know.... :angel:
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Re: Moonlight Vampires -- what did you like/dislike about them?

Post by nutmegger911 »

bluedahlia3 wrote: freshies so bound with their vampire they do their bidding without question. :giggle:
Do you see that as canon or fanon? I see the high as canon, but the rest, maybe fanon. Any thoughts folks?
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Re: Moonlight Vampires -- what did you like/dislike about them?

Post by m00nlight_babe »

wpgrace wrote: Well, and you notice Josef's Sarah is lying in a bed, not a freezer... and she's been there for 50 years... so I would say freezers maybe feel good, but aren't de rigeur... and that Mick always has to do everything the hard way...
I always assumed that the room was cold. Beth kept her coat, scarf, etc on while in there. If the room was normal temperature, she would have been burning up. I thought he gave her a freezer temperature room so if she did wake up, she wouldn't freak out. Imagine waking up in a freezer alone for the first time.
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bluedahlia3 wrote: freshies so bound with their vampire they do their bidding without question. :giggle:
Do you see that as canon or fanon? I see the high as canon, but the rest, maybe fanon. Any thoughts folks?
I think the high and bidding were canon. In NSTAV, all Josef had to do was say "HUNGRY!" and a girl appeared ready to feed him. And she did her sharing of enjoying in the shot we saw of him biting her.
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Re: Moonlight Vampires -- what did you like/dislike about them?

Post by nutmegger911 »

m00nlight_babe wrote:
nutmegger911 wrote:
bluedahlia3 wrote: freshies so bound with their vampire they do their bidding without question. :giggle:
Do you see that as canon or fanon? I see the high as canon, but the rest, maybe fanon. Any thoughts folks?
I think the high and bidding were canon. In NSTAV, all Josef had to do was say "HUNGRY!" and a girl appeared ready to feed him. And she did her sharing of enjoying in the shot we saw of him biting her.
Interesting. I kind of saw that particular girl as paid arrangement freshie.

In the "Red or White" party scene I got the impression those girls were party girls... it seemed to me as though they were really enjoying the bite.
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Re: Moonlight Vampires -- what did you like/dislike about them?

Post by Catmoon »

jen wrote:I have really enjoyed dissecting the vampire phylosophy as presented in Moonlight and I, too, was not a fan of the genre prior to Moonlight (which I just saw for the first time this January).

These could be explained if cells reproduced so rapidly that they generate heat. I remember that Beth remarked in Fever that Mick was 'burning up' after having been in the sun for too long. Could a vampire's problem be that their cells generate too much heat and this could be the root of their problem with sunlight?

Yeah. I know. I think waay too much. I think a tenant of Moonlight we would have seen later was a clarification that vampires are not 'dead' but they have seen a few too many Bella Legosi movies.
Some good points, there! If we're looking at pseudo-scientific explanations not supernatural ones, when they heal so fast something has to be going on with their cells. Did I say this before? Forgive me if I'm repeating myself but if a vamp is "immortal" what's the big deal be about decay? Makes no sense, since they apparently don't die by natural causes. Unless they can't stand the stink of themselves so they want to minimize it?? :giggle: :tomato:

In the original "interview with a vampire" bit before the cast changes, she asks Mick about sex. He says "I'm undead, I'm not dead." It may not be canon in the strict sense since it never made NSTAV, but it's good enough for me. Un-dead can be taken literally as not dead. PS: I tracked down the longer one, if anyone wants to check it out who hasn't seen it. It's got some interesting stuff that never made it to an ep: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYXZp3_DkzU
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Re: Moonlight Vampires -- what did you like/dislike about them?

Post by allegrita »

One of the things the Moonlight creators seem to have decided on, as regards the decay aspect, is that the damage only shows up when the vampire is fully vamped out--that's when we see the cracked lips, the discolored skin around the eyes, etc. When they have their "human" face on, they look fine.
Incredibly fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine, as a matter of fact. :laugh: :flirt: :hearts: But I digress. :snicker:

So maybe the freezer slows the rate at which the "decayed" aspect is manifested in the fully vamped-out state.

I love the longer Interview, thanks Cat. The "ridiculous vertical leap" makes me laugh.
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Re: Moonlight Vampires -- what did you like/dislike about them?

Post by jen »

I totally agree about the longer interview!! Thanks, Cat!

More pseudo science--What I was trying to suggest about 'decay' is that if cell renewal was significantly accelerated, their bodies would slough off the damaged/dying cells more rapidly, too, and an odor would be a reasonable result. What the vampires themselves call 'decay' -- and wasn't it mentioned that it gets stronger as the vampire ages?

I really liked the implication that vampires on Moonlight were alive and simply an altered state of human (even though Josef would probably at least threaten to put anyone to suggest it to the tarpits). At the beginning of the first episode, when Mick introduced the viewers to his best friend Josef, the first thing Josef said to Mick was something like, 'You look good. Been working out? A little bit?'

If they were dead, there would be no benefit to exercise. No stubble and need to shave. There are other examples.
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