this post was submitted on 04 Nov 2025
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Don't be mean. I promise to do my best to judge that fairly.

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[–] waterore@lemmy.world 58 points 2 weeks ago (6 children)

If you're immortal and can't get your hands on a castle or 2 then what are you doing with your infinite time?

[–] dylanmorgan@slrpnk.net 34 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

“I had a castle, then I got ruined in the S&L collapse in the 80s. I did eat a few of those bankers, though.”

[–] Makhno@lemmy.world 13 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

Pretty much what we do in the shadows

[–] waterore@lemmy.world 6 points 2 weeks ago

I would describe the house they lived in on the tv show as a mansion, which is basically a New World Castle, that basement alone seemed endless

[–] Hadriscus@jlai.lu 3 points 2 weeks ago (7 children)

I heard it's ending (or has ended?) with the new season, I am so sad.

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[–] Dragonstaff@leminal.space 31 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

This is what the sensitivity training was about. You can be immortal but still only like 37.

[–] waterore@lemmy.world 6 points 2 weeks ago

Speaking only for myself, within a year of being turned into a vampire if I want a castle I'm getting a castle.

yhea, because being immortal makes you immune to global financial crisis.

you vamphobic twat.

[–] HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 7 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

pursuing the perfect cup of tea

[–] moakley@lemmy.world 6 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

What is this...? Blood?? Again?

[–] HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 6 points 2 weeks ago

Excuse me I asked for a cup of b negative and got oolong how much tea did this dude drink

Oh

[–] dread@lemmy.world 3 points 2 weeks ago

It’s a skill issue by the 2nd or 3rd generation you live through, honestly.

[–] rumba@lemmy.zip 3 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

If you’re immortal

Yeah can't find any stories that don't have him alive for hundreds of years before the castle.

You know, there's probably a movie in that somewhere...

Dracula beginnings.

Wife dies, leads him to learning dark arts, accidentally turns himself into a vampire instead of reanimating his wife, he works his way up through the aristocracy as an assassin, slowly grows tired of humanity, perhaps a little evil, and slowly kills/controls his way into the aristocracy.

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[–] rumschlumpel@feddit.org 37 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (3 children)

Vampires are anti-nobility allegories! Dracula is a vampire because he is a count.

[–] AllNewTypeFace@leminal.space 30 points 2 weeks ago (8 children)

At a generalisation, vampire fiction is left-wing (bloodsucking elites preying on humanity), zombie fiction is right-wing (“the peasants are revolting!”)

[–] BigBananaDealer@lemmy.world 13 points 2 weeks ago

that is not zombie fiction. what zombie fiction is depicting it like that?

the george romero stuff were about consumerism and brainless shoppers mindlessly spending on crap. the dead rising series (spoilers here) literally has the bad guy be a corporation and the us government and military are complacent in it (the corporation even has an actual cure for zombies but that doesnt make them money like their once a day doses)

also zombies are basically what humans are to animals. seemingly never getting tired and always slowly catching up to you

[–] IAmNorRealTakeYourMeds@lemmy.world 8 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

you forget the queer side of vampire left wing stories. which focus on horny lesbians rather than class issues.

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[–] rumschlumpel@feddit.org 8 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Vampire fiction being leftwing tracks, but zombie fiction being rightwing doesn't seem as clear-cut. There's definitely a "finally I get to be a real man doing survival-stuff and justifiably kill humanoid beings with personal weapons" aspect to it that feels rightwing, but there's also all the anti-consumerist and anti-corporation themes that are common to zombie fiction.

[–] Susaga@sh.itjust.works 7 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

That's one reading. Another reading is that vampires are bloodsucking foreigners using their exotic charms to tempt and corrupt innocent women into sinful acts. And if a foreign noble is a vampire, then it's justified for ~~America~~ the heroes to depose them. Plus, they found a novel way to weaponise Christianity.

[–] foodandart@lemmy.zip 6 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

What does that make Frankenstein?

[–] dylanmorgan@slrpnk.net 21 points 2 weeks ago (4 children)

A doctor, didn’t you read the book?

[–] Velypso@sh.itjust.works 6 points 2 weeks ago (5 children)

Frankenstein is the monster

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[–] stevedice@sh.itjust.works 5 points 2 weeks ago

No, he wasn't. He dropped out. Didn't you read the book?

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[–] ViatorOmnium@piefed.social 9 points 2 weeks ago

Deontology in engineering and applied sciences fiction

[–] Catoblepas@piefed.blahaj.zone 7 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Antinatalist maybe? The monster didn’t ask to be born into a world that hates him because they find him ugly, his creator denies him what he views as his only chance at happiness by refusing to make a wife for him, he ultimately kills a bunch of people and then himself because he’s angry at humanity… oh god, is the monster the original incel???

[–] eestileib@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 2 weeks ago

I feel like I've seen a few zombie movies that are critiques of consumerism and unthinking conformist politics, which are not typically conservative themes.

But it's not my preferred genre so I haven't seen many.

[–] ryedaft@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I have never ever heard of anyone interpreting zombie fiction as right wing. Like, just look at Night of the Living Dead. Actually, is any zombie movie even marginally right-wing? Zombieland?

[–] rumschlumpel@feddit.org 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Walking Dead certainly satisfies those gun nut fantasies.

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[–] blarghly@lemmy.world 2 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (3 children)

This sounds like something that was made up post-hoc because it sounds good. I have yet to run into a zombie story where they talk about how great traditional gender roles are, or a vampire story where they talk about taking control of the means of production. They are just stories. There is no reason that they need to be inherently political - much less to run along the particular political lines we have in society today.

We could even make the case that the opposite is true - the most common trope I know of in vampire stories is feeling sympathy for the vampire when they have their monologue about how hard vampiring is. And the most common trope in Zombie movies is that the people need to work together, be honest, and sacrifice for each other in order to overcome the hoard.

[–] Hawke@lemmy.world 3 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

in order to overcome the hoard.

Those are dragon movies. It’s dragons that hoard things.

[–] spittingimage@lemmy.world 3 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Any dragon who would hoard zombies has got to have their self-esteem in the shitter.

[–] Droechai@piefed.blahaj.zone 3 points 2 weeks ago

At least they last longer than peasants as toys for the brood, and the peasants wind up smelling the same in the end anyway

[–] grue@lemmy.world 2 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

I watched Night of the Living Dead (1968) on Halloween and was surprised that the black guy was the only one portrayed as competent. I suppose part of the surprise was due to me assuming the movie was even older than that (1950s) because it wasn't in color. (Then again, maybe they could do that because it was a horror movie and it just made it extra-scary for racists, LOL)

The "traditional gender roles" trope was definitely fully in play, though: the men fortified the house against the zombies while the women mostly sat around being useless, if not counterproductive.

[–] Catoblepas@piefed.blahaj.zone 3 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Horror has always been a genre ripe for pushing social boundaries, and there’s been a lot of critical analysis about Night of the Living Dead as a critique on the Cold War and racism. So you’re not picking up on nothing, that was a purposeful casting and writing decision.

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[–] magnetosphere@fedia.io 4 points 2 weeks ago

I’m pretty sure it was something like “Dracula doesn’t have a castle because he’s a vampire. He has a castle because he’s a Count.”

If this is annoying and pedantic, I apologize. For whatever reason, the original post isn’t displaying for me.

[–] BartyDeCanter@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Vampires are classically allegories about scary foreigners spreading diseases and sexual immorality. See Stoker’s Dracula and Le Fanu’s Carmilla for the Ur-examples. There is, however, a really good modern reading of Dracula as healthy queer polyamory vs toxic polygamy. And Carmella is the inspiration for many of the canonical works of lesbian literature.

[–] rumschlumpel@feddit.org 4 points 2 weeks ago

Eh. It's true that Dracula was a scary foreigner, but he was also nobility, and most subsequent vampire works definitely lean into the nobility aspect instead of the foreigner aspect. Debaucherous nobility is a common theme in works that deal with non-monstrous aristocrats, too.

[–] aeronmelon@lemmy.world 15 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

This is something The Elder Scrolls got right. Vampires could be anyone. The Mayor of a city, the homeless guy in the cave outside of town. You won't know until they find you wandering around at night.

[–] samus12345@sh.itjust.works 8 points 2 weeks ago

Most fiction that has a society of vampires portrays it this way. It wouldn't make sense for every single one of them to be a count who lives in their own castle.

[–] practisevoodoo@lemmy.world 9 points 2 weeks ago

And just because they're a count, don't assume they have a castle.

Count Notfaroutoe | Discworld Wiki | Fandom https://share.google/wiH9PiHcXPlg9LJLs

[–] Septimaeus 5 points 2 weeks ago

Vampires don’t sparkle. Ed just had a weird thing about glitter. Racist.

[–] HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 3 points 2 weeks ago

dracula became a vampire because he impaled too many people when he was count

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