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Exploring vampires and Irish roots in True Blood and Buffy: the Vampire Slayer
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Berthe: Les Vampires (Public Domain Image)
It's no secret that vampires have continued to captivate the attention of audiences for centuries. HBO's True Blood was record-breaking--according to Metro Philadelphia, the second season's premiere boasted 3.7 million viewers. Many credit this to Alan Ball's successful treatment of the southern vampire world created by Sookie author Charlaine Harris.
However, one might argue that the genre sells itself--for some very specific reasons. Vampires are of course sexy, scary, forbidden, and undead. In True Blood, they also happen to be capable of amazing feats in the bedroom. The most gripping aspect of the show is arguably during the first season, when the community of Bon Temps, Louisiana starts to recognize vampire Bill Compton (Stephen Moyer) as an individual.
The Descendants of the Glorious Dead (a group in the show which gathers to discuss the Civil War and the role their ancestors played in it) takes particular interest in Compton, who was a soldier in the war. It is this aspect of intrinsic heritage--the ability to touch and listen to a being of living history--that encourages many of the residents to interact with Compton rather than fear him. This primary appeal and fascination of vampires is vital to the success of the brand of vampires created by Charlaine Harris and further explored by Alan Ball.
The enormous success of this vampire revival is not to be attributed to True Blood alone--the success of Twilight with the too-young-for-HBO crowd is staggering--but not surprising.
Naturally, it's an Irishman to blame for all this hype. After all, without Bram Stoker's Dracula, would we even think of vampires today? In Dracula, Stoker managed to take very real cultural standards and fears and prey on them using a vampire--his notoriously extensive research on the subject matter helped him immensely.
Most importantly, Stoker managed to utilize his innate and distinct Irish storytelling practices to relate Dracula in epistolary form. These storytelling sensibilities combined with the mythical ambience of vampires inevitably married the style and the content in a way that furthers the cultural appeal of vampires today (no doubt others might postulate the same about Rowling's handling of magic and Britishness in Harry Potter in years to come).
The Irish connection in contemporary vampire stories is not limited to style and fancy--it appears in very concrete fashion in vampire tales of various sorts. In Buffy: the Vampire Slayer, Angel (David Boreanaz)'s vampire creation flashback takes viewers to a time in Ireland, highlighting the importance of the Claddagh Ring to the vampire (the ring itself, of course, having always been wildly popular among Irish Americans).
Without providing spoilers, it is imperative to mention that heritage--and Irish heritage specifically--does play an important role in the future of the True Blood characters--unless Ball decides to deviate further from the books. Like Stoker, author Charlaine Harris conducted detailed research on her subject matter, which does grow to include legend and lore of mythical and very Irish proportions.
Again, this connection to heritage, and Irish heritage in particular, is very important for the audience of any vampire tale. As we humans all have heritage, it provides a clear way to connect with the other, the unknown, and the vampire itself.
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