Werewolves and Vampires

[CrypticIdentity]

I started this to say that something that should be considered when defining werewolf attributes is any similarities to vampires. Lately, it seems that some qualities have been getting interspersed--silver, the ability to transform, age longevity, coming out at night (can't really be avoided, although I saw talk about werewolves being able to transform whenver they want if they're experienced enough, which is fine by me), even the need for blood to some extent. I know there aren't going to be any vampires in this movie, I just want to be sure people won't think they're just vampires with fur. Also, people often associate vampires with werewolves, so to make distinct differences between them would probably make the movie more interesting.

Close this if this is in another topic.

[Vuldari]

You think our interpretation of a werewolf is too similar to a vampire.

...do you have any suggestions in mind as to how we could/ should differentiate them?
At no point, (so far), in our discussions here have I ever thought, "...well, that just sounds like a "Vampire with fur".".

[Terastas]

Personally, I tend to think of lycanthropy and vampirism as being chemical opposites. For example:

Werewolf: Tradiditonally shifts exclusively under a full moon, the brightest celestial body seen at night -- suggests that werewolves may be at least psychologically photogenic.
Vampire: Ultraviolet intolerant.

Werewolf = Light. Vampire = Darkness.

Werewolf: Shifts as a result of increased adrenaline.
Vampire: Undead.

Werewolf = Life. Vampire = Death

Werewolf: Alergic to Wolfsbane and Deadly Nightshade, two of the most poisonous plants on earth.
Vampire: Alergic to garlic.

Werewolf = Life. Vampire = Death (again)

It is true that some of their behaviorial traits are similar, but when you compare the viruses instead of the carriers, they could very well be exact opposites of each other.

[Kzinistzerg]

Cryptic Identity! You know me as KZM on the BZP forums, if you can't remember... KM will be updated later. Okie?

anydeedliewho , I figure they are unique and unrelated. Vampirism is an actual affliction, ut with a different name. I see no reason for vampirism and lycanthropy to be related.

[Figarou]

leeches



bleh

[Aki]

To argue this point, you would need to define a vampire, as there are many interpretations....

To compare our Werewolf to all would be impossible.

[outwarddoodles]

I really don't think of them as similar. Vampires seem more dead, while I don't like 'living dead' (living and dead..hmm....) werewolves.

[Kzinistzerg]

YEs, werewolfes and vampires are entiirely different things.

[Scott Gardener]

The confusion of the two goes back to Eastern Europe, where the Vlkolak (spelled various other ways) had aspects of both. Bram Stoker didn't help matters when he drew from lycanthropy lore in describing Dracula. (Dracula in the original novel had hair on his palms, a lycanthropic trait, and the convergent eyebrows thingy.) I suspect that the recent rash of werewolves walking on ceilings came from Dracula, where the Count in the original novel and in some movie renditions (including the Francis Ford Coppolla version of the nineties) climbed down the vertical side of his castle on all fours.

Anyway, to clear things up, here are some common overlap areas and an explanation of each:

Infectious bite: I love this as much as the rest of you, because it gives normal people the opportunity to get converted to werewolves. But, it's ultimately a vampire thing first. It got incorporated into werewolf lore with Universal Studios movies of the 30s and 40s. Yeah, I'm guilty of using it, too. It's too fun.

Silver: Obscure werewolf legend turned mainstream, again by 20th century movies. Vampires also had at times sensitivity to it, too, however, because of the idea that it was "pure." Still, in contemporary pop culture, silver bullets kill werewolves, while stakes through the heart do in vampires. Any Buffy-wannabe knows this.

Wolvesbane: Same thing as monkshood and aconite, as featured in a Harry Potter pop-quiz. In old lore, it and Belladonna (which, by the way, is NOT wolvesbane, but a different plant) were both used as active ingredients in shapeshifting ointments and potions. So, while they may kill werewolves today, they originally helped them transform. No vampire confusion here.

Full Moon / Night: popular, fun, lovable, but, contemporary. No direct vampire associations, except that it comes up at night, and vampires generally don't get out at daylight. There's no hard, fast rule that forbids werewolves from shifting by day, except for those who can only shift on full moon nights.

Running water: vampire lore, but people mistakingly believed that wolves would also avoid running water because it was "pure," not because it would hurl a hapless dog-paddler against rocks.

Blood: vampire lore. Werewolves eat flesh, though blood's good for flavor. But, the idea of bloodlust is classic European werewolf lore. Plenty of overlap, because both creature myths were meant to instill a sense of horror. Feeding off blood or life energy is a vampire thing. Werewolves just like the taste in some cases, though some contemporary interpretations make it obligatory. The compulsion to kill for its own sake is a mid-twentieth century thing.

Pentagram: movies. Legendary werewolves had hair on their palms, but the star was added later. As a side note, the Pythagorans, a secret cult of Greek mathematicians, used pentagrams on their palms as a secret sign of identification.

"Know ye thus, the dark Pagan secrets of old, that the sum of the squares of the legs of a right triangle is equal to the square of the hypotenuse...."

[CrypticIdentity]

You think our interpretation of a werewolf is too similar to a vampire.

Did I make it seem like that? Sorry, I didn't mean to; from what I've seen so far, I really like this movie's take on werewolves. I was saying this more about pop-culture, in that werewolves and vampires are usually associated together.

Terastas, you've made a lot of good points, thanks.

Shadowblaze! Yeah, I remember you.

Figarou...I'm not gonna ask .

Scott, thanks for all the input.

I guess what I really want to do is to get this into people's consideration when defining those elements I mentioned, but you guys are already doing that . Thanks anyways.

[Ozone Grif]

YEs, werewolfes and vampires are entiirely different things.

Actually, Werewolves are the exact opposite to vampires
Werewolves are full of life - Vampires are dead
Werewolves are choosen to defend Gaia/Nature - Vampires are cursed by the evil to destroy it
Werewolves are extreme animal - Vampires are extreme human
Werewolves are social (in pack) - Vampires always try to betray other vampires
I can continue...

[Figarou]

Figarou...I'm not gonna ask .

I like werewolves allot. But I never bothered to go deep into the physics of a werewolf. After finding this forum, I became interested.



As for leeches, feh. Meesa no likey.

Bleh

[Kzinistzerg]

They are parasites, he means.

[Terastas]

Actually, Werewolves are the exact opposite to vampires
Werewolves are full of life - Vampires are dead
Werewolves are choosen to defend Gaia/Nature - Vampires are cursed by the evil to destroy it
Werewolves are extreme animal - Vampires are extreme human
Werewolves are social (in pack) - Vampires always try to betray other vampires
I can continue...

This is actually pretty close to what I was already trying to imply.

Werewolves thrive on adrenaline, whereas vampires are classically undead.
Werewolves tradionally thrive in lush forests, whereas vampires are more at home in crypts and cemeteries.

Werewolves are definitely an extreme animal, but I think that would be more or less tied to the nature by which the two syndromes distort the recipient. Compared to lycanthropy, the only thing that distorts physically for a vampire are the length of his canines.

Also, I agree with your points on society, but I think it would be more accurate to classify werewolves as being social and vampires as being hierarchal. A werewolf hierarchy would, in the most organized of instances, have an alpha, a beta, and possibly an omega, whereas a vampire society is tightly organized: the ancients, then the pureblood nobles, the favored infected, the shock troops, all the way down to the human familiars. Moreso, a werewolf pack would not involve a process which lables any member as being expendable.

Another thing you could consider is the relationship between the syndrome and the recipient. Lycanthropy is more of a simbionic relationship -- the recipient gains the ability to shift. Vampirism behaves more like a parasite -- it damages his own blood in such a way that he requires frequent "replenishing," and also causes an "allergic reaction" to sunlight. The benefits of lycanthropy are obvious, whereas vampirism is more of a double-edged sword.
So yeah, I think they would naturally hate each other's guts.

[Scott Gardener]

The bit about werewolves defending Nature / Gaia is based on White Wolf's Werewolf: the Apocalypse role-playing game. It's a great concept, but it's not old lore; it's a contemporary idea that kind of makes sense when you looked at Native American gift shop stuff or listen to The Cult's Ceremony album backwards, and see the spiritual ties between wolves and Earth.

As for vampires and werewolves hating each other, I can see it in some contexts. (Like, the aforementioned White Wolf games.) But, to say they're life and death embodied and perpetually at each other's throat by definition is to overlook other possible interpretations.

Consider, for example, the real world. Spiritual vampires exist in much the same sense as the therians here can term ourselves werewolves. We generally don't profess to be able to shapeshift, and real-world vampires don't profess to be immortal, but both have spiritual identities that tie in to the mythos, drawing identity and strength from it. Both are too similar camps in terms of lifestyle, outlook, and methodology to hate each other, as we're both kind of in the same boat, cruising in fact right next to the Witches, who also exist in the real world as practicioners of the Wiccan religion. If you have to reduce things to "us versus them," (and, sadly, too many people do,) then the most obvious two camps include the entire group of werewolves, vampires, witches, etc. on one side, and the mundane humans on the other--the people who don't participate in any of the various "otherkin" movements.

It's not hard to extrapolate a fantasy world based on the real world, with it's hybrid-reality/fantasy images re-converted back to literal reality. In such a world, vampires and werewolves would be aligned by default, though we know politics would be mostly inevitable, because even though technically possibly not human, the vampires and werewolves would be close enough.

[Ozone Grif]

I have to disagree with you about the White Wolf games. Not because it's not true, but because Werewolves who protect Gaia and hate Vampires weren't invented by WhiteWolf, it's the true nature of a Werewolf from the most ancient stories and legends.

The White Wolf game invented few things actually, they took their informations from many and many concept which already existed in legends.

Though I have to agree it would be a little simple to reduce this hate to "us versus them" like they tend to do in movie. It's much more complex. When you really hate somebody or something, what do you do? Usually, you avoid it, period. Plus a true war between Werewolves and Vampires would end rapidly to the death of all Werewolves.

[Terastas]

Though I have to agree it would be a little simple to reduce this hate to "us versus them" like they tend to do in movie. It's much more complex. When you really hate somebody or something, what do you do? Usually, you avoid it, period. Plus a true war between Werewolves and Vampires would end rapidly to the death of all Werewolves.

*nods* This is sort of what I was leaning towards. Werewolves might not be defenders of of gaia, but they would be better equipped and better accustomed to living in nature settings. Vampires, on the other hand, have been known to sleep in coffins, so while they are not necessarilly embodiments of life and death, they do have clear inclinations towards one side or the other.

There couldn't have been a war since vampires and werewolves were never that numerous, but considering the vast differene between one and the other, it's unrealistic to assume they would find any common ground other than a distrust in humans, but even in regards to their opinion of humans they would be divided. As mentioned in an above post, vampirism is parasitic and lycanthropy is simbionic. A werewolf would have the luxury of being able to either isolate himself and his pack from humans as much as possible or, in a more fanatical instance, infect all of the locals so he's no more a monster than any of they are. A vampire, on the other hand, would need the local population to sustain himself, so his regards to humans would involve a desire to live among them or, in the fanatical case, to rule over them.

Which leads to another difference. Spiritual definitions aside, lycanthropy in original legend is described as being the result of spellcasting, and as already stated, werewolves thrive better in natural settings, so it would make sense to assume that werewolves in history were often pagan. Vampires in legend, on the other hand, tended to be more focused on their social status in both vampire and human societies. In all the legends and all the representations I've heard of, the only time I've ever seen or heard of a vampire praying was in the movie Underworld, and even then it was to one of the old ones and not a spiritual diety.

Vampires = physical. Werewolves = spiritual.

Just to note again, I know that's not a fair definition to practitioning self-made vampires, but I would again like to specify the difference between being a vampire out of identification with the mythos, and being a vampire by being infected with vampirism.

[Apokryltaros]

I have to disagree with you about the White Wolf games. Not because it's not true, but because Werewolves who protect Gaia and hate Vampires weren't invented by WhiteWolf, it's the true nature of a Werewolf from the most ancient stories and legends.

The White Wolf game invented few things actually, they took their informations from many and many concept which already existed in legends.

The Garous' Earth-Mother worship was borrowed by White-Wolf from animism.

[ABrownrigg]

I also have one other thing to put into this stack of helpful material.

Werewolves are in this movie, Vampires arent.


(a segment of the script)

FAY
I can't even begin to comprehend all this. What about other stuff, like, vampires.. are they real too?

JACK
(shrugs) I never saw one. Beats me.

[Ozone Grif]

Mental/Spiritual vampires are somehow real. They are people who enjoy making their surrounding sad, with a natural ability to make their victims suffer and eventually suicide. They play with your beliefs, the things you enjoy in life, and slowly destroy everything: your positive vision, and hopes.

You can call them vampires or psychopathes, both works.

[Figarou]

I also have one other thing to put into this stack of helpful material.

Werewolves are in this movie, Vampires arent.

Now that material I like!!

Vampires, BLEH!!

(a segment of the script)

FAY
I can't even begin to comprehend all this. What about other stuff, like, vampires.. are they real too?

JACK
(shrugs) I never saw one. Beats me.

Heh, spoiler.

[Set]

Hmm, something interesting just crossed my mind. Everyone's heard the version of the vampire where it's some undead guy who sleeps in a coffin. No one I've ever come across has heard of the vampire in its half bird half human form. Not too surprising considering this type of vampire was found exclusively in Egypt, and anything written on the subject was extremely rare.

When you begin to talk about different types of vampires then it gets interesting. But out of all the stories I've heard the ones with the most similarities to werewolves were of European origin. In my opinion they're not alike but I don't see them as polar opposites like some people do. And it helps that there aren't any vamps in the movie.

[Apokryltaros]

Hmm, something interesting just crossed my mind. Everyone's heard the version of the vampire where it's some undead guy who sleeps in a coffin. No one I've ever come across has heard of the vampire in its half bird half human form. Not too surprising considering this type of vampire was found exclusively in Egypt, and anything written on the subject was extremely rare.

Were you thinking of the ba?
The ba was not a vampire, but a part of the soul that resembled a bird with the face of that particular deceased.

[Set]

Were you thinking of the ba?
The ba was not a vampire, but a part of the soul that resembled a bird with the face of that particular deceased.

I'm just going by what I remember (which admittedly isn't much). I did come across the subject in a book somewhere once but I can't for the life of me think of which one. It yammered on about offerings and things, and how if the spirit didn't get the offerings (or rather the energy out of them) it would...die? Or something. Well ok they're already dead but I think you get it. There was something about how some of them didn't want to die and would begin to leech of of whatever they could find, plants, animals, people...anything with energy. As far as what it looked like I think it ended up being more human than just a bird with a human head. I do happen to remember vaguely something about a monster bird that liked to feed on humans but I'm not sure if it's the same type of creature. I forget.

Anyway...weren't we talking about werewolves?

[CrypticIdentity]

Anyway...weren't we talking about werewolves?

Yah. I believe I've caused a little off-topic discussion...Sorry . Though this topic has given me ideas for stories... This topic can be closed if you want.