Suzy McKee Charnas - Vampire Tapestry
change. We began to get the sympathetic vampire, the Byronically doomed but brave and wise and artistic vampire, and the heroic vampire. It's partly about doing something new and different with an old pattern so you can stay awake while you write the story, and maybe make a commercial hit with your unusual take on it, and partly about the modern curiosity about mindsets and lives outside of the ordinary. We don't demand cautionary tales so much any more, we just want to be distracted from our own helplessness in the face of the increasingly horrible and demanding stresses of ordinary modern life. The immortal being, bound to us by his (usually his) dependence on our blood, becomes our plenipotent surrogate in popular entertainment's version of our stressful world.
Why do you think vampires have become such a popular topic for romance novels?
Well, if the mighty-chested frontier scout or the Scottish nobleman or the tycoon with the proud and piercing eyes can give our heroine wealth and security and endless admiration plus hot lovin', why not go on from there to a hero who can give her that *forever*? This is wish-fulfillment fiction. Once women figured out that even the scout or the tycoon would happily abandon our heroine for the next damsel in distress (or just for the Hell of it) in *real* life, I think we began to wish for a hero bound to us more tightly than merely by the ties of lust. There's also this notion that a real heroine/self-surrogate would be gorgeous and attractive etc., etc., enough to win the heart of not just the spoiled playboy-with-the-heart-of-gold next door, but of a tragic immortal with a hole in his heart shaped just like her. It's just so much more ROMANTIC. We live in a desperate, decadent age, and our fears and frustrations drive us to further and further extremes in our efforts to feel safe, loved, and significant -- preferably to some one even more significant than ourselves. Also there's been substantial leakage of fantasy and science fiction ideas into the Romance genre for some time, because hybridization is healthy and stimulating and can reinvigorate a form of art that is becoming too standardized and repetitive to survive. For the more arcane reaches of the personal psychology I see here, check the essay on my website called "The Beast's Embrace". It applies to vampires as well as
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