Vampires, souls and sentiency: Or why zombies are so blanking scary.

Hi all,

I may be dating myself (I’m almost 40 these days) but if you ever get some time, watch some episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and the next series, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (the Dax character who has the brain of a man and the body of a woman is just such an incredibly rich, complex character) . I forget which episode and year (someone reading this blog may remember and if so, I thank you for it) but anyway, there was a wonderful episode about determining whether the android Data was sentient. It was a beautifully crafted episode from a writer’s point of view because it showed how an robot could be ‘human’ in everything but flesh and blood. Though Star Trek never took sides with religious issues, the fact that Data was declared sentient brought up the idea that he could also have a soul (an interesting idea from the religious angle of things).

Anyway, as a writer of vampire fiction, I’ve always been more interested in writing about sentient vampires. Not necessarily moral vampires since being sentient has nothing to do with morality. But vampires who remain essentially ‘themselves’ after they change, yeah, those are the type of vampires I enjoy writing about.

I just saw “30 Days of Night” and enjoyed it but most of the vampire characters (with the exception of the lead vampire character) only seemed partially sentient, if at all. And the human male character who was changing slowly into a vampire character after being bit was afraid of changing and of losing himself. And yeah, I can definitely understand the horror of this idea.

As a person, it is a scary thing to lose one’s sense of self. I never experienced it firsthand but rather, second hand, with my father who had a stroke. For two years, my mother and I were his primary caregivers and though he knew who we were until he passed away, there were times in the hospitals where he was not himself nor did he know who I was. It was a very scary thing to witness and it was extremely heartbreaking to try to speak to him at these times (when he did not know who I was).

And that’s why I think zombies, non-sentient/semi-sentient vampires are so scary and disturbing. Because on a primal level, one sees the characters and unconsciously is reminded of the diseases (such as dementia, Alzheimer’s) that can affect a human person’s sentiency. For all the Star Trek fans out there, that’s also probably why the Borg were so darn upsetting (as was Picard‘s morphing into Locutus). The Borg were like zombies in a way since one lost their sense of self (We are the Borg, you will be assimilated) when they were captured. 7 of 9 (and a Star Trek episode about the capture of a Borg child) brought sentiency back to the Borg characters and though they never lost their scariness, some did become humanized and we, as television viewers began to want to understand them as a race rather than just to be blanking afraid of them. In other words, when we could see the Borg as individuals (again, only the characters that I previously mentioned), we felt a ‘connection’ to them and felt that they could almost be understood. Well, some of them anyway. The others, yeah, you just need to escape from fast. Very fast.

That brings me back to vampires and sentiency. It is a scary thought to think of becoming immortal means losing one’s sentiency or sense of self. Even if one does not lose it completely (some vampires in the movie “30 Days of Night” seemed semi-sentient), being in a twilight state can seem even scarier to some. And I’m with that group. If becoming a vampire means giving up one’s sense of self, then, nope, I’d not sign on the dotted line. However, as I’ve said before, being a sentient vampire has nothing to do with how ‘moral’ a vampire character is or isn’t. Vampires can have a sense of self. And they can also be some mean SOB’s. But somehow, even seeing a cruel, evil vampire, while scary, is, in my opinion, less scary than seeing non-sentient beings. And they are interesting characters to write as well. Which is always a good thing:)

Take care all,
Chris