Transcript
[0:06] Hello and welcome to Mythmakers. Mythmakers is the podcast for fantasy fans and fantasy creatives brought to you by the Oxford Centre for Fantasy. My name is Julia Golding. I am the Director of the Centre and I'm also definitely a creative in that I write novels and many other things.
And today as we approach the season of Halloween, I am joined by Jacob Renneker, who is often my podcast pal, because we thought we would take on the subject of werewolves and vampires. So get ready with your fancy dress for Halloween because we are going to be talking about your favorite spooks. So Jacob, you're going to be leading the conversation today, but do you want to just tell us a little bit about your Halloween memories? Have you ever gone out dressed up as either a werewolf or a vampire? I have not, but I have played a vampire in a middle school play. This is something most people don't know. Most people in, I think, my family don't even know that. Okay, there we go. So we've revealed a secret exclusive.
[1:20] Okay, so off you go. Where do you want to start? Vampires or werewolves?
Who gets first? Let's start with vampires. Let's do vampires. I'll just kick it off with vampires, unless you want to work up to vampires. I'll start with vampires, why not? They certainly seem to be the most persistent in kind of the spooky genre, certainly in popular novels, films.
So, starting out with Bram Stoker's Dracula, which really- No, no, no, we don't start there. No, absolutely not. Us who study romantic literature, as in.
[2:04] The Romantic period, know, and this is where I'm going to come in with my Byron knowledge, that actually there is an older vampire story than that, than Bram Stoker. And that is a book called Their Vampire by a man called Polly Dory, who was the doctor to Byron in that famous meeting on the shores of Lake Geneva, where they had the bet about writing a story. And at that same event, Mary Shelley went away and wrote Frankenstein. Hurrah for Mary Shelley. And the doctor to to Byron, who was an inspiring writer.
Wrote a book called The Vampire, spelt with a Y for the I. And it's the first vampire story which cast the vampire as a sort of gentleman, as opposed to a sort of creature in the forest kind of thing, how it had been in folklore. And it said that it's based on Byron, with whom he had a love-hate relationship. Because Byron was a bit vampiric, if you think about the the image of the vampire and the way he treated people.
I'm not a fan of his interpersonal relationships with Byron.
He needed some serious therapy.
[3:23] And so that is actually what then feeds into your guy. So you can now bring us into the later Victorian period and who do we get?
Bram Stoker's Dracula and its Enduring Popularity
[3:33] Yes, yes, Bram Stoker was probably, as I say, probably, as I say, that's starting with probably the most the most popular vampire novel, Dracula and epistolary. And it's it definitely holds up in terms of form. Really, yeah, really.
[3:55] Intricately crafted tale. And, you know, the archetypes that continue through strongly to today you get we have every few years or so, there's a reimagining of Dracula in some way, shape or form, right. So one of the most recent ones, because, of course, you're reimagining or just retelling the main primary story or following certain characters is the voyage of the Demeter recent film that kind of follows the ship, you know, as the Dracula's body and dirt and coffin are being transported. You have kind of an episode where it's on a ship. And so this is kind of focusing in on that. It's kind of a horror story taking place kind of more contained on a ship. People are fascinated with lots of different aspects. Van Helsing as this kind of archetypal, supernatural.
[4:55] Hunter, somebody who has arcane knowledge, has done a few different films. One starring Hugh Jackman, that was in Biggs bag but fun and you have reimagining Van Helsing as a.
[5:11] Female character. And in a few different kind of television adaptation, so there's there's certainly a lot of meat there for people to to revisit and reimagine something that I stumbled across a few years ago was the Icelandic translation of Dracula.
Are you familiar with this, Julia? The powers that are in us.
[5:40] So it's, so it's, it's, it's, it's billed as kind of the lost version of Dracula.
And it appears to be a translation of a, an early discarded draft of Bram Stoker's Dracula.
So you have, there are large overlaps with the plot and characters, but there's some some significant differences and some of the episodes that are expanded upon in the book are shrunk in a Stoker's published novel or compressed for a completely different reading experience. But yeah, so it's unclear if it was, you know, a translation that was just a very loose translation or if it was from this, you know, an earlier novel that it received.
[6:33] That the author had received, or a combination, probably more likely a combination of the two. And there's some fun tweaks in there as being an Icelandic, you know, an Icelander who's translating this work, any derogatory references to the Norse are kind of downplayed a little bit as being, you know, barbaric, you know, Vikings, barbaric folk. That part does not appear, does not quite make it over in translation to the Agathist-Scythian version, I think understandably so. But yeah, so it's fun. So in different languages, it's had a long life, not just in English, but in going out into a number of different languages and cultures.
So.
[7:18] I think it's worth sort of some of the main themes in the book, because a lot of people may feel they know the story who haven't read the Bram Stoker, because it's, as you say, become so familiar in films. And we all can do I want to suck your blood and all that kind of thing. So it starts in Romania, in the Carpathian Mountains, where you meet this charming nobleman, that's picking up the Polidori idea of the nobleman in an isolated valley. But it's also picking up on the idea of, I think, was it Vlad the Impaler? A sort of previous leader who's known for his bloodthirstiness and the stories, the wild stories that generated around him. So, it's.
[8:02] Calling up on, it's pulling on some folklore. And then, I think it's Jonathan the character, isn't it? He escapes, but the problem follows him. And I think that's the voyage you're referring to, because the other part of the story happens in various places in England, including Whitby.
And if you go to Whitby now, it's all Dracula. I mean, the whole place has become, a sort of goth paradise. Maybe goths don't have paradises. Anyway, a goth universe. So, So it's a case where a book has seeped out into a town, and made its sort of reputation.
I mean, Whitby's also known for Captain Cook, but I think the vampire influence on Whitby is far stronger.
Victorian Gothic and the Birth of Vampire Lore
[8:56] There's some other things that are interesting in this version of it, which is sort of late period Victorian. It's part of the Victorian Gothic. You can think of other books in the same sort of Gothic monster genre. It's quite a lot of them. They're kind of Victorian superheroes, if you think about it. Because Count Dracula, he can shapeshift. And a lot of the things which we have as a connection with vampires start there the idea of holy water and stakes and wooden stakes being a way of killing them, not having a reflection. Those things all start in this period.
[9:38] And in fact, one of the fascinating little bits of trivia which my social media team dug up was that the reason why vampires aren't supposed to have a reflection in a mirror is because old-fashioned mirrors used to be backed by silver. And silver is one of the things which is supposed to be the sort of killer of a vampire. So, the idea it kills and werewolves too. Supposed to sort of negate the image somehow, which is an interesting theory. I don't know if it's true, but it seems a nice theory. So, there's all these, the vampire folklore, but I think there's a huge thing here, which the 19th century vampire has then put into 20th century and 21st century.
[10:27] Which I'm sure we're going to talk about now, is that vampires are considered to be be sexy. It's about a form of sublimated sex.
Without actually the idea of being bitten and turning women into sort of vampire maidens, all this kind of stuff. There's a kind of Harem thing that he has going. There is an element of adult pleasure going on in vampires, which you don't get with an ogre or a troll or anything like that. And I think there's, you can see that thread, if you just think of who is cast in the movies to play these characters and what the modern version of vampires have done with it.
It has taken that element very much more strongly, with some exceptions, which we'll get to when we talk about the modern period.
I think that Bram Stoker, and there's also a connection here to the theatre, because I think Bram Stoker often wrote, I think it might even have started as a melodrama, But anyway, he was from that world of the Victorian stage. So, there's a connection there to.
Dracula: Silly Drama and Strong Female Characters
[11:41] The mustachioed twirling villain of Victorian, tying maidens to train tracks. It's got that kind of heightened silly drama in it, which is quite enjoyable if you sort of go with the make believe. And the other thing I'd say about it, actually, there's some interesting female characters in Dracula. And I think her name is Minnie, I think, not Lucy, the one who, was sticking in, but the other one, because she's got a typewriter and she's sort of an early woman, a new woman, sort of doing, she is more active than sometimes the heroines were in, Victorian novels of the same period. So, you can see how that then transfers for them to be the vampire hunters of the female Van Helsing and.
[12:28] Of course, Buffy later on, you can see the growth of a female character here coming out of that.
[12:35] So, should we move on from Bram Stoker? Because I think what then happens is, of course, that the story gets picked up by early Hollywood. It's one of the sort of early films, isn't it?
Right, yeah, Bela Lugosi. Yes, kind of iconic, yeah, as Count Dracula. And that's, yeah, so it has a life, definitely on film, in other novel adaptations. The one that I'm probably most familiar with in the early-er period is the mid-50s with Richard Matheson's I Am Legend, which is a kind of development of vampires. So in I Am Legend, and it was adapted into a film with Will Smith, but in the film adaptation, the vampires are depicted more a zombie like uh creatures whereas in the the novel itself uh they're they're definitely vampires um kind of referred to as such what's interesting with matheson's treatment is he kind of tries to come up with scientific reasons why.
[13:56] Vampires would react the way they do to garlic to sunlight uh to metals and so he's it's, So it's it's it's really interesting in that sense kind of trying to provide a more kind of rationalistic.
[14:10] Explanation for how if vampires existed How might that work because this is this is also one of the first uh, or not one of the firsts and it's an early, Example of a novel that takes the idea of a pandemic, Ravishing, you know ravaging the the globe and then transforming, the population into some.
[14:29] Decimating or transforming the population into something monstrous.
And so, yeah, so the pandemic is responsible for turning most of the world into these kind of vampiric creatures.
And so you have kind of this kind of semi-scientific or rational approach to how that might develop to make it more, I guess, reasonable, plausible, even, perhaps, kind of.
So it's more kind of like a science fiction-y strain, but not going into space science fiction, rather trying to root, trying to take the vampire mythos and root it in science or tie it in some way to a scientific process and method, which was, which I found is really interesting.
[15:13] Kind of a different take on vampire.
And then my next sort of stepping stone is the Anne Rice vampire series and then the film Interview with a Vampire, which I've seen they've just remade, haven't they? I haven't watched it yet but I saw there was a new trailer coming out. Adaptation. I know there's a series, a television series. Oh, it's a series is it? A more long form television. Yeah.
So I think, was that an early Tom Cruise film? Am I got that right?
Yes, yes, yes, Tom Cruise, Kirsten Dunst, Brad, Brad, I believe is there.
So it was just, yeah. So when you were talking about the people that they cast as vampires, you don't get much more of an attractive slant to vampires than you do with the film, Interview with the Vampire.
[16:02] So there's that. And then the Anne Rice books, I think, maybe the films as well, have spawned a whole genre of urban fantasy.
I think we can just hit on a few headlines on that. There are some that follow pretty much the same playbook of the sexy gentleman vampire type, which you see in, actually, that's the kind of thing you get in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, isn't it?
They're all incredibly good looking and they have that appeal to them.
But then you get, there's a very long series by a writer called Christine Feenan that has, what she does is she separates out the vampires into like the original kind of healthy, unfallen, Carpathian people and then they have a subset who are the ones who are sort of degenerating and they're like the vampires.
She's able to keep a healthy relationship going between her characters by having the real evil done by a separate sect of people. And then another way it was handled is of course in Twilight.
[17:24] Where you've got the story, that series basically has vegetarian vampires, if that's them. I think they call themselves that. So, Jacob's, which way around is it?
He's the werewolf, yeah, Jacob. Edward's the werewolf. Edward. Edward Cullen, that's right. Gosh, it's terrible, my memory of twilight is fading.
Yeah, it might not be that. Every terminally are sort of...
Basically controlling their appetites with very strict rules. And this is where I think that the.
[18:07] Connection to sex is apparent because it's all about restraint. And I've got this little theory that in the same way as you can have romance, really intense romance, as you can in something like a Jane Austen with very little physicality. There isn't a Jane Austen sex scene. It's not necessary because it's all intense emotion and romance. I think what was happening in Twilight, which obviously was a YA book before they get married in the last book, but it was all about a very intense sublimated romance with the metaphor of not going too far was about sucking him succumbing to the temptation of drinking her blood.
And it's quite funny when you actually see that because it's a kind of language that allows young teen readers to feel all those emotions without doing a sort of erotica.
[19:05] Fifty Shades, which is where it went next when someone did fan fiction.
So those intense rules connected Twilight to a sort of romance world of vampire.
And so it meant that the people who were the bad vampires were the ones who were living outside the strict rules.
They were basically very promiscuous in terms of their blood drinking and murderous.
So yeah, it's quite fascinating watching how that develops.
Have you read a book where anyone's done anything very different with vampires?
Yeah, a couple that come to mind. One that's probably the most different would be Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter. I don't know if you're familiar with that one, right? So yeah, Seth Graham Smith, it was adapted into a film by the same title. The book is surprisingly good.
I don't want to say that you would expect it to be just a pulpy kind of adventure, it's silly, but he grapples with some really serious themes.
Lincoln's Reflections on Life and Death
[20:19] Around death and it's Lincoln and there's trying to understand life and his place in the world, and then kind of recasting it as a kind of an alternate history, really alternate history, but really like what was really happening was in the South, the reason why the slave trade wasn't just economic, but it was also as kind of a.
Vampires as Plantation Owners and Slavery Metaphors
[20:46] A ground for vampires who were coming over to the Americas to feed so that they were being used as, you know, essentially the plantations were also feeding troughs for vampires. And so the South gets recast not just as like economically, the morality of slavery takes an additional dimension.
[21:07] There. And so there's some really interesting things that they're able to do with with vampirism and living off of the life of someone else.
So taking themes of slavery and the kind of more of economic rather than the romantic, like you were saying, but more of the economic angle of vampirism.
So it's, yeah, I highly, actually, I actually highly recommend the novel.
No, that sounds great.
Vampire Hedgehog. So I'm carrying on this theme of vampirism as a metaphor.
That's a really fascinating one.
Because I think the sort of gentleman vampire, the aristocrat, the 19th century version is a sort of almost like an economic analysis of the class system, of the way they live off the peasants.
So then it becoming a metaphor for a sort of a personal romantic metaphor and then you're saying it's got this economic slavery angle. This is good stuff. So, one writer who I feel does a really different thing with vampire is, in fact, they're a couple, the Ilona Andrews couple who write under the name Ilona Andrews. And they've got a series about a character called Kate Daniels and there's a whole kind of universe of Kate Daniels, very successful writers.
And in this world which is...
[22:34] A world where tech is failing because there's like this magic influx and it has periods when technology works and then it gets shifts to a the magic comes back so everything's so if you've got a car you have to have a magic engine as well as a petrol engine and the magic engine takes yeah a hybrid exactly i mean again there's another sort of mocking of our ways isn't it uh you have to take 15 minutes to get the magic engine working by chance. It's great. Anyway, but what they've decided to do with vampires is in this, it's got elements of dystopia in this world.
[23:15] That if you are dying, and you want to get a sort of some money for your family, you can sell your body, like selling your body to science, to people who ride. They basically take human bodies and then they sort of pilot them. So for them, it's more like the zombie idea, but the vampires are like husks of people who then get super strong and other things, which are piloted by this corporation who are using them as labor and as kind of armies. And it's a very, very different way of thinking about it. And when I first, I didn't start at the beginning of the series, I came across it by dipping into a book that was way in a completely different.
[24:04] It was very established narrative by then. So, they'd stopped explaining and I just couldn't get it to start with. So, I had to go back and read the first one and think, oh, right, that's what you're doing with your vampires because it's the opposite of the attractive, sexy vampire. These people, they've gone for, well, what's the opposite to that?
And I suppose there, it's saying that rather than the vampires do have the ability to sort of attack people, but actually it's humans living off vampires.
And it's like switching the whole model.
So that's quite an interesting take on vampires.
The Historian: A Literary Vampire Novel with Historical Research
[24:46] Yeah, that's great. I'll have to look at that. Yeah. Daniel's series is great fun.
It's one of my, I follow it, that whenever there's a new one out, I will get it.
I think it's at least 10 books or so long, but they're very prolific writers.
And it's, the vampires are one segment of their world. just one part of the magic economy.
[25:12] So yeah, I'm going to read Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter. Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter, yes. Last one I just want to make sure I mention is The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova. And that one, I feel like, I kind of want to end with that one, is it's almost kind of a return to Stoker where it's taken more seriously and more historical research. So it's another one that I highly recommend. It's really a literary vampire novel, that is blending history, monastic history, Carpathian history, and folklore, and weaving those together. And whereas in Stoker's Dracula, you have, through epistolary form, you're kind of piecing things together to find out what's happening in real time or slightly staggered time.
This one is really kind of trying to uncover a mystery that's happening a thousand years or so ago and a present day timeline and the main character is a historian that's looking to this time period. And so it's really well done in terms of research and she also cites all of her sources that she used in creating this novel so it's clearly well thought out, well researched.
[26:37] Pacing's great and so if you want something that is a little more literary in your vampire fare, then I'd recommend The Historian. Great, okay let's turn now to werewolves.
What did you find out about the origin of werewolves? I was having a little think, little brutal about in this. What did you find out?
You know, this is, werewolves is where there's a little more, it certainly isn't as prominent culturally. One of, I want to say in terms of novels, the werewolf of Paris in 1933 was one of the first ones as I was kind of looking into this. Did you find anything?
Yes, yes, I did. I can raise you the epic of Gilgamesh, which is a Western prose.
So this is thanks to Westport library, library guides.
It says that.
Ancient Myths and Legends of Werewolves
[27:44] That Gilgamesh jilted a potential lover because she turned her previous mate into a werewolf.
[27:52] So, yeah, dangerous women turning lovers into werewolves. And another version is the Greeks apparently got into the act because Zeus turns Laco on and his sons into wolves. This is all, thanks to Westport Library, so do go and look at their article. And then going a little bit bit further on from the Greeks, we've got the saga of the Volsungs, which tells the story of a father and son who find some wolf skins. If you put them on, you turn into a wolf for 10 days, which they do. And they go on a killing rampage and then the father ends up almost killing the son. So, that's quite... I like that idea of putting on a pelt and become. That's very good. So, it's got a very ancient lineage. You can't get much earlier than Gilgamesh. But let's go back to novels. And now this is where good old Durham University has come to my aid. The earliest one they have on their list is by Marie de France. The story of Bisclavere, and in Melian. So, you've got people turning into wolves in that story.
So, they've got medieval examples. So, yeah, this is pretty consistent, isn't it?
[29:21] And then you mentioned one from, what was the date of yours?
33. 33, so 1933. Yes, 1933. Yes, CE. I'm not sure. I'm trying to think if there's any famous werewolf films until, it'd be interesting if anyone can put us right on this, but the first one that comes to my mind is that Teenage Werewolf in London film. There probably was one. There must have been one before then, surely.
Werewolves in Early Cinema
[30:02] Yeah, there was a Wolfman part of the Universal. Yeah, Universal early, Universal Studios films had Wolfman along with Dracula and Frankenstein. So it was black and white. Yeah.
Oh, I've just realized something. This is a sidebar for those before you write in and say we've forgotten something obvious. In the vampire genre, in films, there's of course the spoof, What We Do in the Shadows, which comes from, yeah, we haven't forgotten you, What We Do in the Shadows. Anyway, going back to werewolves, thinking about, you know, the, sort of favourite versions of this, then we actually do have quite a lot of options.
[30:49] There's a very strong feminist theme of recent times with werewolves, thanks to Angela Carter, because she wrote the story The Company of Wolves. I think it's in her Bloody Chamber collection of retelling the fairy tales. And I remember seeing that when I was in my early 20s, or maybe even younger. It was Helena Bonham Carter's debut. It's the story of the girl who becomes a wolf. It's like a Red Riding Hood retelling, where rather than seeing the wolf as a predator, you sort of, the women become the wolf. It's quite, you know, that's sort of one way of claiming that story for feminism, which I thought was an interesting, untold story.
[31:41] Yeah, Alan Moore, in his run on the Swamp Thing comic, so Swamp Thing had, yeah, this kind of anthology horror going through, they had a whole new arc that was called American and Gothic, so it's taking all of these Gothic ideas and as a British author, kind of exploring those in America and kind of largely in the South, Southeast America.
But they had similarly an entire kind of well-received issue that had those, yeah, the female kind of reclaiming this idea of feminist empowerment through werewolf.
The link between the moon, the cycle of the moon with werewolves and the feminine, something that was in several different media has certainly been part of the cultural conversation.
[32:36] Yeah, and then I think there was like a peak werewolf moment in the early 2000s when we had Harry Potter and the prisoner of Azkaban, the prisoner of Azkaban, I think it is. Yeah, that's the one where we first meet Professor Lupin, isn't it? Actually, Durham University, you've got this wrong. You've put it as the Deathly Hallows. It's not, it's earlier. They do get Fenric Reback. They're quite right. He comes into as a baddie in the Death Eater side. But what you've got there is a really interesting idea of.
[33:19] Being a werewolf is a kind of illness. Lupin is suffering from something equivalent to epilepsy or fits, something like that, which he tries to control but he can't control because he has, the power of the moon means he has to change at certain times. I think that's a really brilliant idea of... Because you love Professor Lupin so much and then seeing the pain that he experiences, of transforming and how this explains how Harry Potter's father's generation became the animals to be with him during his illness. There's lots of bits of the plot that this explains and falls into place at this point and the shaking shack and all that. Yeah, so that's good.
And then also going back to Twilight, of course, we have, as well as the vampires, we've got the werewolves of Jacob and all that side in the Twilight saga. So, we had loads of stories about, werewolves coming through at that point, which has then since fed on into urban fantasy literature of all sorts. And I think it's that big bulge of readers of Harry Potter generation going through.
[34:44] Still wanting stories that involve werewolves and whatever that's powering the ongoing presence of werewolves in urban fantasy and very often now as a urban romance. I suppose it has, so whereas the vampire is your gentlemanly Byronic figure, werewolves is literally an alpha male. I suppose that's a bit like Wolverine. I know Wolverines aren't the same thing as a wolf, but that character, the Hugh Jackman character, all those physical traits of being the strong and the protector and with the claws and what have you, it's all that kind of stuff. That's the fantasy going on there. Yeah, so it has a sexy side to it as well.
[35:34] Right. And I think, yeah, that there's really kind of a, it seems to be, be, and as like you said, in urban fantasy and more like YA books, a good example, I think Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater, that has the primary werewolf that the protagonist is interacting with, quotes Rilke, is always reading Rilke. So you have kind of this like intellectual.
An intellectual werewolf. Yeah, an intellectual werewolf, um, but then changing.
And I think that, that, that use of the werewolf, um, kind of highlights this, you know, and, and the use in why a transformative period, right.
So adolescence as changing from one sort of...
Innocent harmless creature into something that can do much more damage or is like uncontrollable, right? So you almost have a, Jekyll and hide Yeah kind of situation here, right? So this is so the werewolf in some cases becomes a.
[36:36] Venue for releasing pent-up, you know Untamed energy right being free from the you know strictures of society propriety, that sort of thing. So I think that there's part of that going on in YA literature is like as transformation, as metaphor for adolescence, like development, from, you know, youth into something different and scarier than youth.
Yeah, because you get the muscles, don't you? And you get the hairy, all those things. I hadn't thought of it like that, but you're right. It's definitely puberty on steroids, it? And we have an Oxford connection here, of course, which is both in C.S. Lewis and J.R.R.
Tolkien. So, in C.S. Lewis, you've got a werewolf character in Prince Caspian that I remember, in the battle in the mound where the stone table is. So, it's part of his, not individual character, but they're part of that world.
And then you've got in the Silmarillion, you've got.
Werewolves in Tolkien's Silmarillion and their significance
[37:49] They unfortunately get a bad press in the Silmarillion because they're part of the fallen world.
[37:56] There's Drauglin, I don't know if I've said that right, Drauglin, who's the first werewolf who's bred by Morgoth in the first age.
Sauron himself is called Lord of Werewolves.
And I think he transforms into a wolf, yeah. Yeah, he does.
Yeah. And perhaps the most interesting one is Karcharov, who is the greatest werewolf to ever live.
This is all thanks to Durham English program who summarizes nicely for me.
And what's important about him is he consumes or eats the Solmaril and Beren's hand.
Right. And runs off with the Silmaril burning in his stomach, which means when Beren turns back, to meet Luthien's father, he's able to say the Silmaril is in my hand.
Right, that's such a great thing. Yeah, so that's very saga, fulfilling the prophecy but in a different way from what everybody expected. So, of course, that's drawing on the Fenrir, that myth of the Great Wolf from Viking sagas. So, yeah, there is a that kind of...
[39:22] Version of the werewolf. Yeah, and I love, and something that in addition to that with the Baron and Luthien story is that I think adds to the creatures transforming themselves is when Luthien and Huan are favorite talking dog.
They rescue Baron from Sauron at Minas Tirith Gareth and then they're going to a kind of storm Angband where Morgoth is to take the Silmarils but to get in, they have to disguise themselves, right? So so Baron, it takes on the skin of Drauglin and it says, you know, Luthien uses her magic to kind of fit it to him. So he in essence kind of looks like Drauglin, so he looks like a wolf, and in some cases might seem to be like riding or running, kind of taking on the characteristics of the wolf.
So it's kind of a second degree transformation there.
[40:29] And as he's running in, Luthien takes on the skin of Thuringwethil, who was this vampire, some sort of bat creature that does not really flesh out well.
So you have this kind of werewolf creature and a bat vampire creature who are, the best of friends and lovers uh and this this passage i just want to read i want to read this passage because it's just so great this is great i love this both the spooky the spookiness as well as kind of the romantic connection um so this is from the silver alien um baron became in all things like a werewolf to look upon dave that in his eyes there shone a spirit grim indeed but clean.
[41:10] And horror was in his glance as he saw upon his flank a bat-like creature clinging with creased wings. Then howling under the moon, he leapt down the hill and the bat wheeled and flittered above him. So this kind of like play this romantic play run, frolicking in a very horror laden tense. This is so great. Yeah. So you have this kind of ideal, platonic ideal of a couple of kind of a separated couple from two different worlds joining together to then kind of change each other and each other's cultures, but then like here in this episode, they're changing themselves as well.
In, they're kind of unified in their changingness as they're working together to then steal one of the Silmarils for, to go back so that they can be together again.
So it's kind of like multiple iterations of like transformation, both like physically, culturally.
[42:13] And then as we find out, you know, later, that kind of in terms of their lifespan and how they're categorically considered in the afterlife, the Beren and Lothian, this kind of transformation changing categories that nothing is truly fixed, but that there are costs for changing from one category or realm into another, but it's really fascinating in the Silmarillion, and the legendarium as a whole.
So have you got a favourite contemporary werewolf story that you like reading?
[42:45] It's a good question. I haven't read much in more adult. I think probably the one that I enjoyed most was that Shiver by Maggie Steve Potter. So it was kind of an upper YA. It's probably the the best one that I've enjoyed. And it was, yeah, again, it's more of a slightly more intellectual YA from within the YA category. It's more of like an a cerebral take more of a cerebral take on uh the werewolf genre. But I haven't I haven't gotten into the horror. I know that there's a whole you know string of more horror and suspense adaptations of or reimaginings of werewolves, but that hasn't been a corner that I've walked into yet. The one I like, again, in the urban fantasy genre is by Patricia Briggs. Again, she's quite a prolific writer. She does have an Alpha and Omega series, which I'm less keen on, but the one I really like is the Mercy Thompson series.
What I like about this is it brings together different folkloric traditions. So, yes, there is werewolves in it who are the traditional werewolves who are, you become a werewolf and you're bitten by another werewolf.
[44:09] And you can be pretty much immortal, but you can die. And because they're a violent species.
Introducing the main character, a skin changer from Native American folklore
[44:22] People do die, characters do die. But the main character is a skin changer from the the American, Native American population.
So taking a different set of folkloric ideas about people who change into another animal, but she changes into a coyote.
And it's got this lovely setup that her mother doesn't know that she's got this ability because her father dies while she's still in the womb.
A Coyote Raised by Werewolves: An Unlikely Love Story
[45:03] And the first time she comes across this is when she finds a little coyote pup in the cradle.
And thinks, you know, where's my daughter gone? But the daughter comes back and she's a baby.
So the closest she can get to someone who can raise the daughter is one of her neighbors relatives knows about the existence of werewolves and says, well, they do this thing. It's a bit similar. So, she gets raised by the person who's in charge of the werewolves in America.
But because she's a coyote, not a wolf, it has this already this tension between the two. And it's a love story as well. And they're great that she has such attitude. And it does examine some really important themes in fantasy realm. So, it's the themes about prejudice, it's themes about.
[46:01] Whether or not you come out. So, do the werewolves exist? There's lots of really interesting things going on. And she also travels. Some of the installments in the episode, she goes, ends up in Europe looking at the sort of European version of it and how they run their societies.
They're really fun. I like them very much. So Patricia Briggs, the Mercy Thompson series, if you want a beach read, or maybe a beach read is the wrong thing to say now, a sort of fireside read for those of you who like a little bit of romance, but not a sort of twee sickly romance.
It's got, yeah, it's an adult set of relationships, thinking about adult behaviours, how you're dealing with stepchildren, dealing with ex-wives, you know, it's got a sort of properly grown-up environment that she's in. It's not a teenage YA title at all. So that would be my tip.
OK, so I think we've covered...
Vampires and werewolves, but I suppose we need to put them together a bit like Batman versus Superman.
Successful Treatments of Vampires and Werewolves in the Same Universe
[47:15] And I think we can't really top your Baron and Luthien example, but is there any particular treatments of the two species in the same universe that you think is particularly successful?
Let's see, there's the Underworld film series. You do have some of that, you do have, I think, I think some of that in Blade, there's tend to be more, I think in films, I mean with Twilight as being, you know, a kind of landmark in terms of popularity and widespread reading with clashing ideals between vampires and werewolves.
And so, yeah, that's just, I'm interested. So we've talked about transformation, right?
They're both working as different metaphors.
Is there something that you see about that makes the clash of those two types of transformations compelling?
Well, I think you have to define your type because if you can't really do a vampire who turns into a wolf and a bat, if you've got them versus wolves, that's just muddling up your transformation.
Yeah, so I can certainly think of some good contemporary ones, I can certainly think of some good contemporary ones to put the two together.
Creatures of the Night: Exploring the Halloween Theme
[48:42] But I think that they're put together in the same world because in a way that it's like if you're writing about the night, they're creatures of the night.
This is the Halloween theme. So they're often in books where there's also witches.
So it's like Halloween in a book, isn't it?
They also, so you could write it where quite often the populations are both living alongside each other, like rival nighttime populations.
And there you've got this idea of they have different rules, but they are equally powerful.
I think that's why it works. So they're both super strong.
They're both pretty indestructible. They both have their, mixing my metaphors, they both have their kryptonite.
So the silver for the werewolves and then I don't think people really do the garlic very often now, do they?
But certainly the stake through the heart and beheading and again, silver in some cases or some kind of faith object.
It's quite interesting in modern treatments of vampire often it's more than just a cross.
It might be whatever your faith object is.
So if you're a Muslim, it will be a symbol of your faith and if you're Hindu, it'd be a symbol of your faith. idea that your faith overcomes that darkness. So I think that's probably where it comes, the idea of.
[50:07] The things that go bump in the night, isn't it? That's where they come in.
[50:13] Yeah, and it's interesting that you said that they're both the creatures of the night. So, if you open up the door for the possibility of vampires to exist in your world that you're creating, then it almost, you know, is that, does it end there or is there the possibility of other kind of supernatural creatures? And so, if you want to open it up, you know, open the fantasy door up wider than either starting with werewolves and then opening up the possibility of vampires.
So it is a more, I think, a slightly more inclusive approach. But I liked what you said about the kind of the two different societies, right, that are kind of so becomes kind of a, I wouldn't say like class warfare, although you do see, I think, in some of the treatments of, you know, vampires as being the more civilized, right, and the werewolves as being kind of almost representing a non aristocracy, right?
Well, usually vampires are seen as high society and then werewolves as being at least treated.
Yeah, that's absolutely right. The werewolves are on building sites and things or running bars and vampires are like nightclubs and castles or gothic houses.
Yeah, so again, it's that sense of a class structure in a way.
[51:33] Yeah, no, so I think where we might want to end is these things have been done again and again and again.
And again, that they are.
[51:44] They're like a kind of shorthand that people can say, right, I'm going to put a vampire in it, and certain things fall into place. And the problem is, it may no longer be original.
[51:56] Do you think it's now possible to actually do something in the vampire werewolf world, which is original?
Yes, that's always possible. And so it's up to one of our dear listeners to take that challenge on and take it but I think yeah I think always like you said like if like we mentioned with the um the Abraham Lincoln vampire hunter right so like the economic metaphor so if you're looking at at vampirism werewolfism uh if you're looking at not just as a kind of mechanic that you're using writing or just as a as a as a trope or a um you know an image a visual that you're looking at I I think really exploring the idea of transformation and the different ways that that occurs, using it consciously as a metaphor for something to explore a question of transformation, of changing from one category to another.
[52:52] I think there's still, as long as there's, in our contemporary world, as long as there are tensions that come from changing categories, transitioning in any way, shape, or form, yeah, I think it can be relevant and can be informed by unique approaches to the idea of transformation in our own day.
Transformation as a Metaphor in Contemporary World
[53:16] So yeah, I look forward to seeing authors, screenwriters who are taking these ideas of transformation and really working them, taking an issue that is important to them, a question that's raised, and then seeing how that plays out using vampires and werewolves as kind of your operating image to kind of explore that metaphor. Yeah, I'm looking forward to it.
[53:43] I mean, the one, the theme that came immediately to my mind is the idea of werewolves and climate change. So thinking of all the forest fires we've had, places that you could do something quite fascinating about that and reintroduction of werewolves back into the environment.
[54:02] You can take real world events. Well, how would this impact a story where my character is a werewolf or interacting with werewolves? So yeah, because the world keeps changing, there's always going to be something new. Okay, so what's our last question? We always have a where in all the fantasy worlds is the best place for something. Have you got your question ready? Yeah, and you kind of touched on it when you referred to the wizarding world where you have, I think one of the best places to be a vampire or werewolf, I think it seems to be the the Wizarding World because you could it's a place where you can have friends who can join you in your otherness.
Right. It's a world where possibly where you're not alone in being different, but that there's a community that can support you and actually enter into that kind of otherness with you. I just I found I found that kind of particularly moving from kind of a sense of sense of community or usually we think about werewolves and vampires as othering and as dangerous, but then the stories where people can overcome the initial visceral reaction to someone who looks, thinks, acts different.
[55:22] And really embraces that, kind of enters into that or sits with that person in that space is something that I find powerful and necessary very important in the time we find ourselves in today.
[55:37] I think what would put me off going into the Harry Potter world is the idea that being a werewolf is akin to having an illness. So if I wanted to be a werewolf, I want to be somewhere where it's actually a thing of strength and I could enjoy running through the forest.
So I'd quite like to, the Mercy Thompson books I mentioned, it's quite good being a werewolf in that world. That's, you know, if you're part of a community as a structure, that's not too bad.
But I'm not sure I'd be very good under authority because they're under a sort of a pack structure.
So perhaps I'd actually want to take myself as a vampire or myself as a werewolf into a world world where I'd be completely free and it's not necessarily known too much.
So you could do something wild and say, take it into the Star Wars universe where you're, not hunted because you're just one of the aliens at the bar.
[56:44] So that might be a place to really sort of shake off any authority structure or prejudice against you because you're just part of the general background diversity.
So I think I'd quite like to do that, take vampires and werewolves into space and see what happens there.
I'm sure someone's written the book, Werewolves in Space or Vampires in Space.
But I think there's still more planets to explore.
Anyway, Jacob, thank you so much. And yeah, I'm looking forward to seeing the pictures of you as a vampire, you were dressed up as.
I'm hoping you're going to share those with me, but thank you very much to everybody for listening.
