I woke up a couple of days ago thinking about vampire biology. In most novels, they don't have heartbeats. It is a lack remarked upon by bedmates in the vampire sex books and victims in others. Also the lack of breathing. So if they don't have heartbeats, how does their blood flow? This is also remarked upon in the context of giving their blood to lovers/victims and the forming of erections. When I told Husband my thoughts, he also asked, how can they digest the new blood without a heartbeat to move blood around their bodies? Blood flow is needed for everything that vampires do because they act like humans and have human biology. They clearly have to have heartbeats to be walking around and functioning. While it is not necessary to explain vampire biology in one's novel, it is necessary to engage in enough world-building to understand the biology of one's monsters/paranormal characters in order to prevent writing on one page that said character lacks a heartbeat and fifty pages later comment upon her/his blood flow. And "vampires can consciously control their bodily functions" is a cop-out.* One can do better, and if one cannot, one should stick to writing about humans.
This is not brought about because of one particular novel, but rather a lifetime of vampire-novel consumption. And apparently my brain's need to come up with problems to think about while I am asleep. (Literally, the first thing I thought when I opened my eyes was not of the baby sleeping next to me but "of course they have to have heartbeats.")
*Although, to be fair, that is the logic given in Robin McKinley's Sunshine, which is one of my very favorite vampire books. But she is consistent, and so it works in this case. Consistency, people.
3 comments:
This very point has bothered me about both vampire novels and zombie novels for YEARS.
"You're over-thinking it," people tell me. "It's a metaphor," people tell me.
But if it's a metaphor, it's got to work on both the actual and the metaphorical level, or it's lousy story-telling.
Pff.
(Though I do like Sunshine.)
Hmm - an excellent question.
I write about vampires now and then, and my vampires do not have heartbeats. Neither do they have souls. They are essentially reanimated corpses.
I have never considered how they digest the blood, but thinking about it now it seems clear that they don't digest it. They are subsisting on something about the blood other than its protein content, which makes sense given that I also write about spells written in life's blood having especial power.
Though really, if you argue that they need blood flow in order to digest stuff you could also argue that they need a normal body temperature, the ability to secrete digestive enzymes, a working autonomic nervous system, and cellular metabolism -- in essence, they need to be alive rather than being vampires.
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