I know why the vampire sparkles, alas ...

In what may possibly be the best fantasy fanwanking ever, writer Kay Holt presents a creepily dead-on theory explaining the characteristics of Twilight-series vampires (up to and including the sparkliness) via revised taxonomy. Ladies and gentlemen, vampires are insects.

• [James]

  That’s a really fun article. Actually, though, I am pretty sure Twilight’s Cullen family of vampires are intended to be metaphorical angels: they radiate light, are immortal, secretly do good, watch over us while we sleep, keep us from harm, etc. (Evil vampires never actually glow in the four Twilight books.) A reference, fwiw:

  http://twilightnewssite.com/news-twilight-new-moon-eclipse-breaking-dawn/is-bella-a-zero-or-a-hero/

  Yes, the assimilation of Twilight by academia has begun. Resistance is futile.

• [Nadreck]

  Oh rats, she beat me to the insect/scary beast connection that I made over in the caterpillar thread.

• [bklynchris]

  Please tell me that she is a comparative entomologist, bug theory such as hers should not be wasted on only us. Brava Ms. Holt!

  BUT, I am convinced that babies are vampires, up all night and sucking the life out of us. As they reach adulthood we just become more decrepit.

• [nanuq]

  So the way to kill these vampires is to spray them with DDT? Knew it!

• [Anonymous]

  If they would just have their mouths open sideways, vampires could be decently creepy again.

• [psuliin]

  The sad truth is that Meyer wrote her “sparkly vampires” because she literally didn’t know any better. It’s hard to believe, but she admitted in an interview (link below) that she wrote the Twilight novels without ever researching vampire lore. So it wasn’t a clever departure from the classic model; it was plain ignorance.

  http://chbookstore.qwestoffice.net/fa2006-08.html

  • [Brainspore]

    There’s rules for how to write about fictional creatures now?

    • [psuliin]

      Rules? No, I don’t think that’s what I said.

      A writer can present his or her creations in any way that the muse directs. However good writing generally begins with good research. Many people (both fans and detractors) believe that Meyer’s take on vampires arose out of a careful study of the traditional lore of vampires, followed by a deliberate decision to do things differently. That’s not the case. In reality Meyer just had no clue how vampires have generally been conceived. As near as I can tell she didn’t know that there was a traditional conception.

      This is like writing a book in which cars run on soda water, because you didn’t realize that they actually run on gasoline – and didn’t bother to check.

• [Anonymous]

  Wait, so, does that mean…

  All Twilight fans are furries? (scalies? chitinies?)

  WAHAHAHAHAHA

• [Anonymous]

  Thanks for the compliments everyone!
  –Kay Holt

• [trifles]

  True story: In May 2009 a paranormal romance I cowrote came out from Tor Books. In this book, the common creatures (vampires, werewolves, etc.) were slightly skewed toward insects. As such, the vampires were, indeed, butterfly-like, with wings and proboscises. Quote:

  “Vampires are like… they’re like butterflies. Evil fucking butterflies. They’re always gorgeous on the outside, like the goths who hang around the East Village, wearing perfectly applied makeup and knee-high boots with lots of buckles and elaborate corsets even in the summertime. But people forget that butterflies use their proboscis — that’s kind of like an antenna that they use to suck up food — to do all sorts of things besides poke at flowers. Some butterflies will drink rotten fruit, or slimy dung, the sweat off your shoulders — they’ll drink carrion. Corpse-sucking butterflies, people.

  “That’s what vampires do with their mouth and their wings; they just wrap up their prey and suck all the life out of them.”

  –Little did I realize that all our super-genius ingenuity had nothing on regular old mythology: halfway through writing the book, we discovered that Filipino folklore has the mandurugo, a vampire-like creature with wings and a feeding tube. (Link goes to a wonderfully thorough discussion of various Filipino vampires and how to kill them, and why Twilight just seems horrible to contemplate.) We added a shout-out to the real thing in the book, and it’s been one of the most popular bits of folklore by fans of the book.

  • [Anonymous]

    Great follow-up, thanks!

• [spcfgt]

  The Anti-Twilight is beginning to be just as annoying as the Pro-Twilight.

  • [Antinous / Moderator]

    mcgotes. tlaut is def hawter than rpattz

• [Anonymous]

  A doctor friend of mine actually told me of a case where a man sparkled in the sun, this person had crabs all over his body, and the light shimmered against the insects carapaces.