Okay, this is ridiculous. Has anyone been reading Blood Copy, HBO’s marketing strategy for the Tru Blood series? If you’re not familiar with the show, then crawl out from under a rock and pay attention (kidding), it’s based on Charlaine Harris’s Southern Vampire Mystery novels. It has a really great cast, including Anna Paquin (X-Men, the Piano) and Ryan Kwanten (Flicka, Summerland), and I’ve been told by a couple of people who have seen some leaked episodes, that it’s being done well.
Back to Blood Copy. The basic idea is the blog is written from the perspective of someone who lives in Harris’s world. Dead Until Dark, the first SVM novel, takes place well after the “great revelation” – when the vampires revealed themselves to the world. The blog is set just after the event and humans are still trying to adjust to the fact that vampires do exist. The idea of the marketing scheme is kind of brilliant. It gets people familiar with the world so HBO won’t have to do a lot of back story once the story does air this September.
However, the part that gets me was yesterday’s post, The Funding Puzzle. Here’s the part that gets me.
A picture and a comment from one of our readers allowed me a sort of an epiphany. The vampires had to have human conspirators to keep from being outed. People who can do their daytime business for them. Their daytime banking. Like this guy. Our reader has good reason to believe that the man in this picture is actually a banker who works on behalf of the vampires. (picture is posted)
Does anyone else see what is wrong with this paragraph? Humans working for vampires still cast a shadow. You don’t get any special skills or become something you’re not just because you work for the undead. I’m not familiar with one vampire novel, movie, or adaptation that transforms humans when they associate with vampires. Even LKH’s human servants still cast a shadow and they are metaphysically bound to the vampire. Granted, they do earn some bonuses, but it’s mainly just the strength and immortality. They still can go out in the sun and see their reflections. Think of how hard it would be to stay a secret when you’re a measly human who no longer casts a reflection? People would start to notice and eventually the vampire you’re working for would be found out. Vampires have the hypnotic gaze, at least most of them do. Humans don’t, so they have not defense mechanism in place to handle the speculation.
If the guy had just said “oh look, this guy is obviously a vampire”, that would have been one thing, but whoever wrote this post obviously has no knowledge of the current vampire mythos. What does everyone else think? What is everyone else’s opinion? Are there sources out there that change the human when they begin working for vampires?
Either that or he’s Peter Pan. LOL. In Harris’ world, Sookie gains strength and speed when she drinks from a vampire, but in so many stories drinking from a vampire DIMINISHES a human’s abilities.
But Sookie DRANK Eric’s blood to get the extra boosts. She didn’t get it just from working for him.
I don’t think I’m familiar with anything that diminishes a humans abilities after drinking vampire blood.
If you read the comments, the character that runs the blog dismisses the whole reflection hypothesis:
Andrew – I think it’s just the angle. There’s no reflection of the car, either.