Effects of vampire bites (SPOILER ALERT!!)

Maybe this was addressed a long time ago on a BFS topic, but I couldn't find anything under the search "vampire bite(s)."

It seems there are at least four different kinds and effects of vampire bites in the two novels:

non-fatal, partial feeding -- two results:


non-turning (Jody's feeding off Tommy in BSF and Abby in YS; J. & T. feeding off Chet);

turning (Jody at beginning of BSF, Tommy at beginning of YS);

total feeding, fatal -- two methods and results:

feeding on live body, with body ending up as dust;

feeding right after victim is killed; body left whole, but bloodless (the old vampire's usual method).

I can't think of any others. Did you see The Office this week? They had a bat in the office. A Vampire practical joke ensued. Joss Whedon directed. I didn't know he was involved in the Office.
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Re: Effects of vampire bites (SPOILER ALERT!!)

mllefifi wrote:

feeding right after victim is killed; body left whole, but bloodless (the old vampire's usual method)

I was under the impression that the bodies Elijah left to get Jody's attention fell into the non-fatal, partial feeding category - i.e. he fed to near death, and then broke their nacks. Partially because the bodies weren't described as bloodless but as having "...shown evidence of extreme blood loss, but no external wounds..." I guess I was assuming that the only way for the bite wound to heal was if the victim was still alive after the feeding.
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Re: Effects of vampire bites (SPOILER ALERT!!)

mllefifi wrote:

Did I catch all of the methods?

The only other one I can think of off hand is that in some novels partial feedings bond the human to the vampire.

knikkki wrote:

I can't think of any others. Did you see The Office this week? They had a bat in the office. A Vampire practical joke ensued. Joss Whedon directed. I didn't know he was involved in the Office.

I saw it, then Jim pretended to be a vampire. Joss Whedon isn't involved with the show. He's just a big fan. Awesome.

Laveric wrote:

mllefifi wrote: Did I catch all of the methods? Razz The only other one I can think of off hand is that in some novels partial feedings bond the human to the vampire.

Does this one count? Because Tommy and Abby did become minions.
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I believe that turning is caused by the thralled victim being fed some of the vampire's blood
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mllefifi wrote:

Did I catch all of the methods? Razz

Laveric wrote:

The only other one I can think of off hand is that in some novels partial feedings bond the human to the vampire.

Darquewillow_Lily wrote:

Does this one count? Because Tommy and Abby did become minions.

Yes, but ... in most vampire fiction I've seen where partial feeding creates a minion, the minion's will is overridden. That certainly wasn't the case with Tommy or Lily. In fact, Lily was a minion before first bite. I can't see that she acts any different afterwards.

Longer term, I don't think we're going to get any consistent explanation here without some sort of off-scene event. Here's what I think might work:

One path to vampirism is when a victim is partially drained, then allowed to return to health. On natural death, the victim returns as a vampire. This works for Tommy. It also works for the cat if we assume he got killed off-page (ie hit by a car, heart attack, what-have-you).

Another path is if blood loss is enough to cause eventual but not instantaneous death (body doesn't immediately turn to dust after feeding), there is enough time for the vampirism to take root before the heart stops. This is what happened with Blue, and may be what happened with Tommy and Jody.

There could be other paths as well - perhaps Elijah used some immediate method on Jody which she in turn used on Tommy.

Frankly, I think Chris is better off not attempting to define this publicly. As soon as you write down rules, the rules lawyers come out of the woodwork to tell you what you did wrong, or how the rule means that such-and-such should have happened elsewhere.

I'd love to see a little meaningful-only-to-longtime-readers scene in an upcoming novel where someone accidentally runs over a huge, shaved cat and then hides the body in a dumpster when he or she can't find an owner. Consider that scene yours, Chris.

I have to look back into the two novels to revive my memory as to whether Elijah breaks the necks first, then drains most of the blood, or the other way around; in any case, he was using that combination of methods in order to leave a body. I would assume that the healing of the bite marks is a SUPERNATURAL OCCURRENCE, caused by inherent properties of the biter's saliva or some such thing.

Although there have been references here to Chet as a vampire-cat, I didn't get that impression from the novel (note that William, too, is not "turned"). After Jody feeds on her, Abby only imagines that she is a real part of the blood-club, when obviously she doesn't become a vampire yet, either.

Please excuse my poor attempt at literary analysis.


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I've always read vampire lore as that the only way to be turned to a vampire is to drink some of the vampire's blood. Just having the vampire feed off you but not kill you isn't enough to turn you, not even later when you die of whatever cause...

Blue was turned because before Tommy killed her, he bit his own lip to the point of drawing blood, and then Blue kissed him, thereby drinking some of his blood. I believe in most cases it's done so that the victim is fed some of the vampire's blood and is then killed, and wakes up as a vampire. Not sure what would happen if you just drank some vampire blood and let it make its way through your system but weren't killed. Is the blood itself enough to turn you? Or is the death after drinking part crucial?

mllefifi wrote:

...Although there have been references here to Chet as a vampire-cat, I didn't get that impression from the novel...

It's the last sentence of the book....
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Wonko wrote:

It's the last sentence of the book....

Ooops! That's what I get for trying to finish the book too fast! Thanks for the correction!
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For those of you concerned about Vampire attacks, I bring you Holy Water to go:

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2007/03/06//news/state/18_08_733_5_07.txt

Quote:

The bottles... carry a label that warns sinners who drink the water that they may experience burning, intense heat, sweating and skin irritations.

No verified info on its effect on "vampyres".