{"id":191,"date":"2017-12-28T20:54:57","date_gmt":"2017-12-28T20:54:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordof.jim-butcher.com\/?page_id=191"},"modified":"2022-02-08T17:37:04","modified_gmt":"2022-02-08T17:37:04","slug":"woj-on-vampires","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"\/index.php\/word-of-jim-woj-compilation\/woj-on-vampires\/","title":{"rendered":"WoJ on Vampires"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/wordof.jim-butcher.com\/index.php\/word-of-jim-woj-compilation\/\">Link back to the main Dresden Files WoJ compilation<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h1><span class=\"bbc_color\"><strong><span class=\"bbc_u\">Wampires<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/h1>\n<div class=\"quoteheader\">\n<div class=\"topslice_quote\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.jimbutcheronline.com\/bb\/index.php\/topic,1221.msg22003.html#msg22003\">Quote from: jimbutcher on December 11, 2006, 04:29:10 PM<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<blockquote class=\"bbc_standard_quote\"><p>However, while taking your killer down with you might be the most immediately gratifying thing to do with a death curse (assuming that they haven&#8217;t up and prepared to defend against that kind of magical retaliation, which only a real moron *wouldn&#8217;t* do if they knew they were off to murder a wizard), it might not be the SMARTEST thing you could do with it.\u00a0 Still, magic in the Dresden universe is only as formidable as a wizard&#8217;s imagination can make it.<\/p>\n<p>I mean, Maggie&#8217;s death curse on Raith did \/more\/ than render him virtually powerless.\u00a0 It freaking crippled the entire White Court by rendering its head executive suddenly unwilling to get aggressive.\u00a0 It took that same executive&#8217;s focus and warped it from an outwardly-oriented expansionist agenda (What, did you really think Raith just bumped into Maggie at a \/bar\/ somewhere?) to one of frantic power-defense, paranoia, and infighting.\u00a0 Had she merely killed Raith, another vampire much like him would simply have stepped into his shoes.\u00a0 Instead, her curse sandbagged the entire White Court for two or three \/decades\/.<\/p>\n<p>It isn&#8217;t until the events of White Night that the White Court really begins to . . .<\/p>\n<p>. . .but perhaps I&#8217;ve said too much.\u00a0 \u00a0<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"smiley\" title=\"Roll Eyes\" src=\"http:\/\/www.jimbutcheronline.com\/bb\/Smileys\/default\/rolleyes.gif\" alt=\"::)\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Anyway, Maggie&#8217;s curse, of course, also made Raith suffer.\u00a0 Horribly.\u00a0 It made him live in a constant state of drug-withdrawal-level hunger, and fear, and eventually reduced him to outright slavery to someone with centuries of comeuppance to dish out.\u00a0 But that was just icing on the cake.<br \/>\nJim<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<hr \/>\n<p><a class=\"bbc_link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.jimbutcheronline.com\/bb\/index.php\/topic,11734.msg504484.html#msg504484\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">2009 Lexington signing<\/a>:<br \/>\n<strong>Q:\u00a0 What protections are there against the White Court?\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><br \/>\nA:\u00a0 True love \u2013 real true love, not just romantic love \u2013 protects only against WC vamps feeding through lust\/intimacy.<br \/>\n<a class=\"bbc_link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.jimbutcheronline.com\/bb\/index.php\/topic,11734.msg780995.html#msg780995\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">2010 Lee\u2019s Summit signing<\/a><br \/>\n<strong>Q:\u00a0 Do you have to have sex in order to have protection from the White Court?<\/strong><br \/>\nA:\u00a0 No, you don\u2019t have to.\u00a0 It is helpful, though.<br \/>\n<strong>Q:\u00a0 Can homosexuals be protected from the White Court?<\/strong><br \/>\nA:\u00a0 Of course.\u00a0 Any time it is Real Love between equals, there\u2019s the possibility of protection.\u00a0 A parent and child couldn\u2019t be protected because they are not equals.<br \/>\n<strong>Q:\u00a0 Are the White Court affected by thresholds?<\/strong><br \/>\nA:\u00a0 Not really, they\u2019re too mortal.\u00a0 But they might be affected if they were mostly vamped out when trying to cross a threshold.<br \/>\n<a class=\"bbc_link\" href=\"http:\/\/bittenbybooks.com\/?p=6529\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">2009 Bitten by Books Q&amp;A<\/a>:<br \/>\n#62\u00a0<strong>\u201cYou\u2019ve said that True Love (real True Love) only protects against WCVamps feeding on lust. What protects against the other WCVamps?\u201d<\/strong><br \/>\nIt isn\u2019t real complicated that way. The vamps who feed on fear get bad effects from real courage. Those who feed on despair choke on hope.\u00a0<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"smiley\" title=\"Smiley\" src=\"http:\/\/www.jimbutcheronline.com\/bb\/Smileys\/default\/smiley.gif\" alt=\":)\" \/><\/p>\n<div class=\"quoteheader\">\n<div class=\"topslice_quote\">Quote from:\u00a0<a class=\"bbc_link\" href=\"http:\/\/bittenbybooks.com\/?p=22804\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">2010 Bitten by Books Q&amp;A, (this one&#8217;s wordy and a single response so I&#8217;m throwing it in quotes)<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<blockquote class=\"bbc_standard_quote\"><p><strong>\u201cWith regard to True Love, you commented that it needs to be self-sacrificial love\u2026 some folks have pointed out that you (generally) can\u2019t get more self-sacrificial than a parent\u2019s love for a child\u2026 are parents protected because of that love?\u201d<\/strong><br \/>\nNot necessarily, because it\u2019s got to be reciprocated equally or it doesn\u2019t work. While a parent\u2019s love for a child can be something pure and selfless, the child doesn\u2019t return the same kind of love. Children can\u2019t. The nature of the relationship isn\u2019t one of equals exchanging trust and affection, but of the greater protecting the lesser.<br \/>\nAlso, frankly, not all parents give a flying frack about their children. I\u2019ve been close enough to it to see how sad it is. Like everything else, the depth of affection varies from person to person, and the depth of emotion which some claim to feel is sometimes not matched by action. It\u2019s easy to claim sweepingly intense emotions. Being the person who has to do distasteful, boring, and irritating things to keep faith with your child, day in and day out, is another matter entirely.<br \/>\nDon\u2019t get too hung up on the True Love thing. What\u2019s written in the books is what Harry understands and hears. It isn\u2019t necessarily how things are, or at least \/all\/ of how things are.<br \/>\n<strong>\u201cIf True Love only protects against feeding on lust, could Thomas change his mode of feeding (like Madrigal did) and then be able to be with Justine again?\u201d<\/strong><br \/>\nIf Thomas was comfortable with the idea of terrorizing Justine to sate his appetites, or consciously putting her in a state of despair for the the same reason, I think it would be safe to say that the love between them wouldn\u2019t really exist any more.\u00a0<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"smiley\" title=\"Smiley\" src=\"http:\/\/www.jimbutcheronline.com\/bb\/Smileys\/default\/smiley.gif\" alt=\":)\" \/>\u00a0In which case, no, it would not be an obstacle in the first place.<br \/>\nLove\u2019s kind of complicated. The devoted, pervasive kind especially so. This isn\u2019t a problem Thomas can game his way through.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><a class=\"bbc_link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.jimbutcheronline.com\/bb\/index.php\/topic,26792.msg1201162.html#msg1201162\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">2011 NYC Signing Q&amp;A<\/a><br \/>\n<strong>Can a human becomes a White Court vampire?<\/strong><br \/>\nNo, you gotta be born that way.<br \/>\n<a class=\"bbc_link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.bittenbybooks.com\/45367\/author-jim-butcher-guest-appearance-qa-and-contest-live-here\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">2011 Bitten by Books Q&amp;A<\/a><br \/>\n<strong>How many sisters does Thomas have?<\/strong><br \/>\nI can\u2019t find that notebook, grr. I think it\u2019s nine. Papa Raith\u2019s bodyguards minus one who is utterly bonkers and kept more or less in the attic, and Inari, the one who got away.<br \/>\n<a class=\"bbc_link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/playlist?list=PLBB39BBF26C1BE999\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">2011 Atlanta Signing<\/a><br \/>\n<strong>The three families of the White Court feed on different emotions, is that like knife, spoon, fork, or can they mix it up?<\/strong><br \/>\nThey can mix it up, and it\u2019s one of the things they fight about a lot, about what they do.\u00a0 There\u2019s all this \u201cyou are what you eat\u201d sort of thing in play, and the different houses have different aspects [unintelligible] divide things up by territory.\u00a0 And you could feed on all sorts of stuff.\u00a0 You could probably be a White Court vampire that fed on the warm happy feeling that people get when they\u2019re holding a puppy.\u00a0 Although you\u2019d be a really\u2026.you\u2019d probably sparkle if you did that.\u00a0 [Unintelligible] it might actually be fun to show that in some future files.<br \/>\n<strong>Unverified WoJ from the 2011 Naperville signing:<br \/>\n&#8216;Are there White Court vampire wizards?&#8217;<\/strong><br \/>\nYes, there are. Thomas is middle-of-the-road in power and [ed: think I&#8217;m remembering this correctly] the strongest don&#8217;t get as strong as mortal wizards [\/ed], but they can pull off some strong tricks with their Hunger.<br \/>\n<a class=\"bbc_link\" href=\"http:\/\/griddaily.com\/jim-butcher-qa\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">2015 Grid Daily interview<\/a><br \/>\n<strong>Question about Lord Raith.\u00a0 In Blood Rites, Lara bests him in the fight, but in the White Knight he\u2019s still up, walking and talking, with her controlling him.\u00a0 How does that work?\u00a0 Is he a ventriloquist dummy?<\/strong><br \/>\nHe appears to be in charge, but he isn\u2019t, because Lara can do terrible things to him if he doesn\u2019t play along, and that\u2019s his option now.\u00a0 So he has to play along with Lara and wear the target on his chest while she runs things from behind the scenes.\u00a0 Everyone else in the White Court, it doesn\u2019t take them very long to figure out this is what\u2019s going on.\u00a0 But that\u2019s the play that they have going on, everyone has to pretend that Lord Raith is the one in charge even though they know better.\u00a0 Until it comes time to unseat Lara, and they\u2019ll have to take Raith out of his position in order to get Lara out of hers.\u00a0 Lara, at the same time, she\u2019s got to ferociously protect his position.\u00a0 It gets very byzantine in the White Court.\u00a0 They\u2019ve basically got a figurehead emperor, and a pile of ministers with the real power.\u00a0 Lara happens to be on top of that pile of ministers at the moment.<br \/>\n<a class=\"bbc_link\" href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/4Gmu76ritoQ?t=2510\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">2016 Reddit Podcast Q&amp;A<\/a><br \/>\n<strong>How old is Lord Raith?<\/strong><br \/>\nHe&#8217;s a couple thousand years old.\u00a0 He&#8217;s got 2 thousand years of paranoia kinda built up.\u00a0 Plus he&#8217;s been absolutely bonkers the past 30 years or so.\u00a0 He&#8217;s hardly functional as a vampire, he&#8217;s getting to where he&#8217;s not evne functional as a figure head for much longer.\u00a0 That&#8217;s going to be a problem for lara to deal with.<br \/>\n<strong>Will we find out about Lord Raith&#8217;s library?<\/strong><br \/>\nThere&#8217;s kind of a long game going on in the Dresden Files, and Lord Raith has been involved in\u00a0<em>it<\/em>\u00a0in the last couple of cycle&#8217;s it&#8217;s gone on.\u00a0 He&#8217;s been trying to educate himself about it, and he meant to be a player in it this time it came around, but getting involved with Margret kind of screwed him over.<br \/>\nLara&#8217;s got his library now and knows everything he knows, which explains a lot of her actions.<br \/>\n<a class=\"bbc_link\" href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/4Gmu76ritoQ?t=3586\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">later in the video<\/a><br \/>\nParaphrased:\u00a0 A gestating Wampire&#8217;s Hunger feeds off the mother in the same way the fetus does in order to generate enough essence to sustain itself until later, and then it goes dormant until the teenage years.<\/p>\n<h1><span class=\"bbc_color\"><strong><span class=\"bbc_u\">Blampires, and the Stokerlipse<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/h1>\n<div class=\"quoteheader\">\n<div class=\"topslice_quote\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.jimbutcheronline.com\/bb\/index.php\/topic,26717.msg1138970.html#msg1138970\">Quote from: jimbutcher on June 21, 2011, 08:59:27 PM<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<blockquote class=\"bbc_standard_quote\">\n<div class=\"quoteheader\">\n<div class=\"topslice_quote\">Quote from: Drulinda<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<blockquote class=\"bbc_alternate_quote\"><p>if it came to it would he [Harry] actually be able to use necromancy on mavra?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<div class=\"quotefooter\"><span style=\"font-size: 1rem;\">Harry wasn&#8217;t bluffing.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"smiley\" style=\"font-size: 1rem;\" title=\"Roll Eyes\" src=\"http:\/\/www.jimbutcheronline.com\/bb\/Smileys\/default\/rolleyes.gif\" alt=\"::)\" \/><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<hr \/>\n<div class=\"quoteheader\">\n<div class=\"topslice_quote\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.jimbutcheronline.com\/bb\/index.php\/topic,26542.msg1138587.html#msg1138587\">Quote from: jimbutcher on June 21, 2011, 02:19:09 PM<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<blockquote class=\"bbc_standard_quote\">\n<div class=\"quoteheader\">\n<div class=\"topslice_quote\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.jimbutcheronline.com\/bb\/index.php\/topic,26542.msg1131040.html#msg1131040\">Quote from: Serack on June 13, 2011, 08:02:50 AM<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<blockquote class=\"bbc_alternate_quote\"><p>I think that was all within the text.\u00a0 I didn&#8217;t record Jim saying it, but that doesn&#8217;t necessarily mean he didn&#8217;t.<\/p>\n<p>The text definitely says that the Wampires somehow motivated Stoker to write his books though.\u00a0 And Jim does sorta confirm that Stoker was killed for being spot on.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<div class=\"quotefooter\"><span style=\"font-size: 1rem;\">Stoker was killed for being delicious.<\/span><\/div>\n<p>Lara: Bram, Bram, Bram.\u00a0 You&#8217;ve done so well.\u00a0 Time for your reward.<\/p>\n<p>Lara (later): &#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Lara (in her journal):\u00a0 It&#8217;s so easy to get carried away when one works with the creative talent.\u00a0 So much enthusiasm.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<hr \/>\n<div class=\"quoteheader\">\n<div class=\"topslice_quote\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.jimbutcheronline.com\/bb\/index.php\/topic,26542.msg1138602.html#msg1138602\">Quote from: jimbutcher on June 21, 2011, 02:38:48 PM<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<blockquote class=\"bbc_standard_quote\">\n<div class=\"quoteheader\">\n<div class=\"topslice_quote\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.jimbutcheronline.com\/bb\/index.php\/topic,26542.msg1138593.html#msg1138593\">Quote from: Lash Dresden on June 21, 2011, 02:27:53 PM<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<blockquote class=\"bbc_alternate_quote\"><p>See, so I was right.\u00a0 He didn&#8217;t die of syphilis.\u00a0 Lara wouldn&#8217;t have had it (her demon would have killed it, assuming she&#8217;d ever been exposed), and I doubt she&#8217;d have had fun times with Stoker if he already had it.\u00a0 So Lara ate him, and then spread the story that he died of syphilis.\u00a0 (OK, I admit it, my theory was that the black court killed him and spread the false story.\u00a0 But I still claim being right that in the DV Stoker did not die of syphilis.\u00a0<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"smiley\" title=\"Cheesy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.jimbutcheronline.com\/bb\/Smileys\/default\/cheesy.gif\" alt=\":D\" \/>\u00a0)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<div class=\"quotefooter\"><span style=\"font-size: 1rem;\">Die of syphilis?\u00a0 God, no, man.\u00a0 Stoker was the cutout.\u00a0<\/span><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"smiley\" style=\"font-size: 1rem;\" title=\"Smiley\" src=\"http:\/\/www.jimbutcheronline.com\/bb\/Smileys\/default\/smiley.gif\" alt=\":)\" \/><\/div>\n<p>The BC didn&#8217;t \/know\/ about the WC&#8217;s involvement until well after the fact, at which point it was entirely academic.\u00a0 The BC who are left survive because they are extremely pragmatic.\u00a0 They don&#8217;t have enough trouble surviving \/without\/ picking a fight with the entire White Court, who will only send the peasants and pitchforks anyway?\u00a0 If one needs to vent one&#8217;s spleen, one does it on hapless mortals, preferably those no one will miss.<\/p>\n<p>The BC who wanted to get all ballsy about Just Vengeance died in the fifties and sixties, culminating in the heyday of the Hammer films.\u00a0<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"smiley\" title=\"Smiley\" src=\"http:\/\/www.jimbutcheronline.com\/bb\/Smileys\/default\/smiley.gif\" alt=\":)\" \/><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<hr \/>\n<p><a class=\"bbc_link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.jimbutcheronline.com\/bb\/index.php\/topic,11033.msg494010.html#msg494010\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">2009 WoJ forum post<\/a><br \/>\n<strong>4. if the elders of the black court could have taken mab, then HOW ON EARTH did any mere force of humans manage to go up and stake them? i mean, they should&#8217;ve wiped out anything that was coming after them if they can take on MAB herself&#8230;just a thought<\/strong><br \/>\nPower in the spirit world isn&#8217;t the same thing as power in the material world.\u00a0 And a one-on-thirtyish fight (Mab vs the elders of the BC) is WAY different than a one-on-20,000 fight (a BC vampire against a modest mortal city).\u00a0 Especially when the 20,000 know what your weaknesses are, and how to kill you with them. Smiley\u00a0 And that&#8217;s assuming that you don&#8217;t have a saint, or an independent wizard, or a shaman, a Knight of the Cross or some other champion, or other spiritual allies on your side which was not uncommon.\u00a0 Hell, for that matter, you might well be aided by vampires from the other Courts.\u00a0 *Everyone* resented how powerful the Blacks had become.<br \/>\n<strong>(and shouldn&#8217;t the black court be the most numerous? in blood rites, ebenezer mentioned after a few weeks, there would be dozens or even hundreds of vamps, so y don&#8217;t the black court vamps just settle down in africa or india and start biting away?)<\/strong><br \/>\nNukes.\u00a0\u00a0<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"smiley\" title=\"Smiley\" src=\"http:\/\/www.jimbutcheronline.com\/bb\/Smileys\/default\/smiley.gif\" alt=\":)\" \/><br \/>\nYou get all \/that\/ assertive, and you risk stirring mortals into awareness.\u00a0 And we monkeys are \/dangerous\/ in large groups, especially with all our ferromancy (technology).<br \/>\nThere&#8217;s also a psychological issue on behalf of the vampires.\u00a0 Bear in mind that evolution made a pretty brutal selection among the Black Court.\u00a0 The ones who survived and prospered were those who avoided notice, respected the potential danger mortals represented, and who were generally quick to leave town rather than charge into a confrontation.<br \/>\nIn any personal-scale conflict, a mature BC vamp is gonna tear holes through any mortal or White Court vampire.\u00a0 But the mortals started cheating, and doing all their fighting in angry mobs, and creating weapons that were ridiculously overpowered for the job of killing one another which could actually inconvenience, wound, or even kill a BC vamp.\u00a0 Murphy did all right in that BC nest, because she had allies, appropriate weapons and (most importantly) knowledge and a plan.<br \/>\n<a class=\"bbc_link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.bittenbybooks.com\/45367\/author-jim-butcher-guest-appearance-qa-and-contest-live-here\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">2011 Bitten by Books Q&amp;A<\/a><br \/>\n<strong>Are individual BC vamps capable of feeling affection fo those they cared about in life and could they hold back from eating them if they really tried? maybe go to the blood bank instead? i know vamps as a whole dont do this but actions of individuals fron the other courts like thomas not killing justine in BR and susan dying for maggie seen to imply its not all black and white.<\/strong><br \/>\nOh, it\u2019s possible a BC vamp could feel something toward those it knew in life, but those feelings wouldn\u2019t really motivate it toward a given behavior. If it\u2019s hungry, it feeds, and if it happens to be eating its own child from life, it might think \u2018Ah, I recognize that one. Interesting. This should probably be upsetting me, but it tastes so \/good\/\u2026\u2019<br \/>\nIf the blampire had a rational, cynically self-centered \/reason\/ to keep someone alive though, it certainly would, and it is entirely possible that some blampires have enough of a sense of enlightened self-interest to preserve a few mortals that have proven useful. Until they don\u2019t.<br \/>\n<a class=\"bbc_link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/books\/comments\/3lye65\/i_am_jim_butcher_author_of_the_dresden_files_and\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">2015 AMA<\/a><br \/>\n<strong>Are all red courts and black court vampires evil?<\/strong><br \/>\nThis is a pretty huge question and depends a lot on how you view the world.<br \/>\nRed Court vampires, by definition, to become a vampire, have to murder someone else to become what they are. They have to end another person&#8217;s life to satisfy a desire that does not \/need\/ to be satisfied in order for them to continue living. Every single one of them makes a choice to sate that desire rather than allow another human being to live&#8211;the Fellowship of St. Giles proves that.<br \/>\n(Of course, there are shades of grey involved&#8211;a half-vampire who was kept starving and without water in a basement for three days before they were thrown a mortal has a much more difficult time making a clear-headed choice than a half-vampire who was restrained yet cared for by a group of religiously fanatic monks at a Fellowship stronghold, but there&#8217;s still a choice being made.)<br \/>\nThat could, by some people, be considered a working definition of evil. Sometimes unfortunate, sometimes understandable as to how someone could make that choice, but evil nonetheless.<br \/>\nBlack Court Vamps are a different story. They&#8217;re actually tainted by something hideous and unworldly. They are driven to kill to survive. They don&#8217;t really have a lot of choice about it. They enjoy being what they are, and doing what they do. They can be sad that they don&#8217;t have someone who loves them, or upset that the world has passed them by and has changed on them, but at the end of the day, they&#8217;re basically black-hearts who occasionally pull out a few of the tattered remains of their humanity, fail to fit back into them like they used to, and get maudlin about their glory days when they could watch the sun rise.<br \/>\n<strong>And also what is Drakul a scion of?<\/strong><br \/>\nDrakul wasn&#8217;t a scion of anything! He was something entirely unhuman that got trapped in human form. Dracula was his half-human child, who naturally had enormous paternal issues, and wound up creating himself as the first Black Court Vampire in an effort to win his father&#8217;s approval.<br \/>\nIt didn&#8217;t work out so well.<br \/>\n<a class=\"bbc_link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/books\/comments\/3lye65\/i_am_jim_butcher_author_of_the_dresden_files_and\/cvaehmz\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">2015 AMA<\/a><br \/>\n<strong>How are Black Court Master Vampires made\/elevated? Elders?<\/strong><br \/>\nMainly by growing more powerful by feeding on more lives. The more you kill, the stronger you are, as a Black Court vamp. Also by demonstrating that you can beat the stuffing out of your rivals. They&#8217;re very much a Darwinian society of might-makes-right.<br \/>\nBut most of the old ones worked out that you can&#8217;t just go on killing sprees to farm XP. You&#8217;re helpless a large portion of every day, and the food will come find you and end you. So they wait for good opportunities for that kind of thing. Wars, famines, and plagues are awesome for leveling up.<br \/>\n<a class=\"bbc_link\" href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/4Gmu76ritoQ?t=1314\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">2016 Reddit Podcast Q&amp;A<\/a><br \/>\n<strong>When are we going to see Mavra again?<\/strong><br \/>\nUm&#8230; 19?\u00a0 *pondering*\u00a0 Wait, I&#8217;m sorry we&#8217;ll definitely see her in Mirror Mirror.\u00a0 She&#8217;s a fast ally of Dresden&#8217;s in Mirror Mirror.<br \/>\n<a class=\"bbc_link\" href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/4Gmu76ritoQ?t=1386\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">2016 Reddit Podcast Q&amp;A<\/a><br \/>\nWhen your a black court vampire who essentially just gets to stay alive for as long as you want, time is much different to an immortal or virtual immortal than it is to one of us.<br \/>\n<strong>How old is she?<\/strong><br \/>\nI think she&#8217;s about 600.<\/p>\n<h1><span class=\"bbc_color\"><strong><span class=\"bbc_u\">Other Vampires<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/h1>\n<p><em>2000 LKH fan board post Jim made about Vampires shortly after he researched them for Grave Peril.<\/em><\/p>\n<div class=\"quoteheader\">\n<div class=\"topslice_quote\"><a href=\"http:\/\/wordof.jim-butcher.com\/index.php\/old-woj-pulled-from-laura-k-hamilton-yahoo-email-list\/\">Quote from: jimbutcher on March 30, 2000, 05:42:00 AM<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<blockquote class=\"bbc_standard_quote\"><p>Also keep in mind that Christianized (then Stokerized) vampires changed from what they originally were: literal animated corpses that emerged from the grave to feed on the life forces (not necessarily blood) of the living.\u00a0 Fangs are a Stokerism, for example&#8211;vampires were considered to be nighttime visitors who were never seen, but who would appear in the dreams of the victims. The victims would grow weaker and weaker, usually developing respiratory problems, and if the vampire was not found they would eventually perish.<\/p>\n<p>(This changed from being called &#8216;vampires&#8217; to being called &#8216;consumption&#8217; eventually, but the root of the word, ie &#8216;consume&#8217; is kind of amusing, in a dark way. Even if it wasn&#8217;t a supernatural horror eating people alive any more, it was something \/else\/ eating them alive, and that&#8217;s the only word they could really call it.)<\/p>\n<p>Vampire folklore stretched up into the early 1700s in New England (cf, Mercy Brown) but vampire folklore was fairly narrow and fairly unknown in Western Europe and the Americas, until Stoker&#8217;s book was published. then they were still obscure, while Stoker&#8217;s book fell flat on its face, until a play began to popularize the image of the vampire as a sex object and all of a sudden it caught on in Victorian England.<\/p>\n<p>Well, after that, you can&#8217;t have enough kinds of stakes, holy objects, symbols, hexes, curses, crosses, or nubile virgins to make the audience happy, and lots of variants developed. Always favorite for killing vampires was beheading and dismemberment (or as Buffy would call it, &#8220;Slice and dice, cool.&#8221;), which you have to admit is a pretty darn good way to kill \/anything\/.<\/p>\n<p>In any case, if you actually go out and dig into vampire lore, it&#8217;s tough to find much before Stokerism swept the vampire world. There&#8217;s more Hammer films than pre-1800s books on vampires, at least that are popularly available. Montague Summers (a rather creepy guy himself) compiled what he claimed was a collection of accounts from various priests in the Church who had battled the Undead from not too long after the death of Christ. It makes for interesting reading, though it has more in common with Ghost stories or Demon possession stories than the conventionally accepted vampire.<\/p>\n<p>Internationally, creatures that sap the lifeforce or drink the blood are entrenched firmly in darn near everyone&#8217;s folklore. The\u00a0<strong>Malaysian<\/strong>\u00a0version of the vampire is like some enormous hair mosquito that attacks infants in their coffins, and is a sort of spiritual hit man for hostile gods, delivering death and disease at their instruction.\u00a0<strong>China<\/strong>\u00a0has some odd vampires, but then their ghost legends blend pretty well into the whole &#8216;dead drawing life from the living&#8217; concept, as much of their ancestor-worship-custom taps into some of the same beliefs.\u00a0<strong>Africa<\/strong>\u00a0has vampires, though they are often identified with snakes, and in<strong>\u00a0South America<\/strong>\u00a0vampires were lined up with vampire bats (duh) and with a couple of different nasty old gods and monsters that I found. It&#8217;s a really interesting, if time consuming bit of research, but rewarding in the long run.<\/p>\n<p>As much as we&#8217;d rather pretend it&#8217;s an antiquity, the vampire as we see generally is a fairly recent invention, rivaled by very few modern monster myths. Aliens, Bigfoots, and maybe the Immortals, from Highlander, are just about the only thing with a mythos that is at all comparable in volume or following. I gleefully mutated vampires for my own books (they come in 47 flavors, like Baskin Robbins) and I would heartily encourage other writers to swirl freely from the melting pot and to not feel overly hidebound by &#8216;what everyone knows&#8217;. Laurell&#8217;s innovations with vampires (such as Human Servants and the Marks) are formalizations of vague happenings in earlier movies, and a neat area to choose to explore (though I am WAY more fond of what she has done to build a plausible lycanthrope society).<\/p>\n<p>Sheesh, I babble. Hurry up dinner, and finish heating up.\u00a0<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"smiley\" title=\"Smiley\" src=\"http:\/\/www.jimbutcheronline.com\/bb\/Smileys\/default\/smiley.gif\" alt=\":)\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Jim<br \/>\nLALA<br \/>\nAAA<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<hr \/>\n<p><a class=\"bbc_link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.jimbutcheronline.com\/bb\/index.php\/topic,15927.msg743165.html#msg743165\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>Per Priscillie:<\/strong><\/a><br \/>\nJim mentioned at ConDFW that there were a total of seven courts, but the final three were little more than mosquitoes.<br \/>\n<a class=\"bbc_link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.jimbutcheronline.com\/bb\/index.php\/topic,11734.msg772851.html#msg772851\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">2010 Huston signing<\/a>:<br \/>\n<strong>Q:\u00a0 Do you have any plans for the Jade Court to show up?<\/strong><br \/>\nA:\u00a0 The Jade Court is adamantly not involved.\u00a0 They are very busy being not involved.<br \/>\n<a class=\"bbc_link\" href=\"http:\/\/bittenbybooks.com\/?p=22804\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">2010 Bitten by Books Q&amp;A<\/a>:<br \/>\n<strong>#215 \u201cWas the White Council and the Red court ever at war before this last one? what kind of diplomatic relationship did they have? friendly? peaceful? trying to kill each other at ever other turn?\u201d<\/strong><br \/>\nMostly it was small-scale conflicts between individuals. The Red Court has pretty much been headquartered in South and Central America, generally, while the White Council stuck to the wealthier nations of Europe, the US, and the upper end portions of Asia. It moderated the potential for conflict, though individuals fought in outlying areas where those general borders overlapped\u2013places like Chicago.<br \/>\n<a class=\"bbc_link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.archive.org\/details\/JimButcherTurnCoat\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">2009 Kansas City Q&amp;A<\/a>\u00a0@34:30<br \/>\n<strong>Why did you set up the vampires into 3 different courts<\/strong><br \/>\nI didn&#8217;t want to do a kind of stock Hollywood vampire, I was kind of tired of that and everybody was doing it still.\u00a0 This was in the early 90&#8217;s when and they were telling everybody &#8220;stop writing vampire fiction it&#8217;s about to die!&#8221;<br \/>\nSo I decided, what if the Hollywood version that we have is not the truth but is the result of several fragments that we&#8217;ve all put together.\u00a0 What if the vampires are built on the same principals as the blind men and the elephant (he gives the analogy).<br \/>\nSo I broke out the three broad different vampire elements.\u00a0 One was that they were these hideous monster dead things that crawled out of the grave and came back.\u00a0 The other was that they were these blood drinking monsters who were driven by their hunger and could never be sated.\u00a0 The third one was that they were just damn hot and sexy.<br \/>\nSo I said ok, we will have the hot and sexy vampires, the blood lust vampires, and the animated corpse vampires.\u00a0 That would be three times as many vampires and that makes things harder on Harry, and I&#8217;m always for that, my whole career is based on torturing Harry Dresden.<br \/>\n<a class=\"bbc_link\" href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/4Gmu76ritoQ?t=3678\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">2016 Reddit Podcast Q&amp;A<\/a><br \/>\nDusk till Dawn was the inspiration for the Red Court<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/wordof.jim-butcher.com\/index.php\/word-of-jim-woj-compilation\/\">Link back to the main Dresden Files WoJ compilation<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Link back to the main Dresden Files WoJ compilation &nbsp; Wampires Quote from: jimbutcher on December 11, 2006, 04:29:10 PM &hellip; <a href=\"\/index.php\/word-of-jim-woj-compilation\/woj-on-vampires\/\" class=\"more-link\">More <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">WoJ on Vampires<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":144,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-191","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=191"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/191\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":244,"href":"\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/191\/revisions\/244"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}