Latest / Mythmakers / Vampires v. Werewolves - the Halloween Edition

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Vampires v. Werewolves - the Halloween Edition · Mythmakers

• 0:00
  Hello and welcome to MythMakers. MythMakers is the podcast for fantasy fans and fantasy
• 0:11
  creators brought to you by the Oxford Centre for Fantasy. My name is Julia Golding, I am
• 0:18
  the director of the Centre and I'm also definitely a creative in that I write novels and many
• 0:23
  other things. And today, as we approach the season of Halloween, I am joined by Jacob Renica,
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  who is often my podcast pal, because we thought we would take on the subject of werewolves
• 0:37
  and vampires. So get ready with your fancy dress for Halloween, because we are going to be talking
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  about your favourite spooks. So Jacob, you're going to be leading the conversation today,
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  but do you want to just tell us a little bit about your Halloween memories? Have you ever gone
• 0:55
  out dressed up as either a werewolf or a vampire? I have not, but I have played a vampire in a middle
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  school play. You are the most people don't know, most people in I think my family don't even know
• 1:13
  about that. Okay, there we go. So we reveal the secret exclusive.
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  Okay, so off you go, where do you want to start? Vampires or werewolves? Who gets?
• 1:23
  Let's do some of the vampires. Let's do vampires. I'll just kick it up with vampires, unless
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  we want to work up to vampires. Let's start with vampires. Why not? They certainly seem to be the
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  most persistent in kind of the spooky genre of the sort of popular novels films. So it was starting
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  out with Bram Stoker's Dracula, which we don't start there. No, absolutely not. I'll start
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  the romantic literature as in period of the romantic period. No, and this is where I'm going to come
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  in with my Byron knowledge that actually there is an older vampire story than that. Then Bram Stoker
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  and that is a book called The Vampire by a man called Polydory, who was the doctor to Byron in
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  that famous meeting on the shores of Lake Geneva, where they had the bet about writing a story
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  and at that same event, Mary Shelley went away and wrote Frankenstein, her offer Mary Shelley,
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  and the doctor to Byron who was an aspiring writer wrote a book called The Vampire,
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  Spelt With a Y for the Eye, and it's the first vampire story which cast the vampire as a sort
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  of gentleman, as opposed to a creature in the forest kind of thing, how it had been in folklore,
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  and it said that it's based on Byron, with whom he had a love-hate relationship because Byron
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  was a bit vampiric, you know, if you think about the image of the vampire and the way he treated
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  people, I'm not a fan of his interpersonal relationships with Byron, he needed some serious therapy.
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  And so that is actually what then feeds into your guy, so you can now bring us into the
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  later Victorian period and who do we get? Yes, Bram Stoker, which is probably, as I say,
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  the starting with probably the most popular vampire novel Dracula in a piscillary, and it definitely
• 3:47
  holds up in terms of form, really, yeah, really intricately crafted tale, and, you know,
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  archetypes that continue through strongly to today, you get every few years or so, there's a
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  reimagining of Dracula in some way, shape or form, right? So one of the most recent ones,
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  of course, you know, reimagining or just retelling the main primary story or following certain
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  characters is the voyage of the Demeter recent film that kind of follows the ship, you know,
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  as the Dracula's body and dirt and coffin are being transported, you have kind of an episode
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  where it's on a ship, and so this is kind of focusing in on that. It's kind of a horror story,
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  taking place kind of more contained on a ship. So people fascinated with lots of different
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  aspects about van Helsing as this kind of archetypal supernatural hunter, somebody who has
• 4:55
  arcane knowledge has done a few different films, one starting Hugh Jackman, that some fixed bag,
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  but fun, and you have reimagining van Helsing as a female character in a few different
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  kind of television adaptation. So there's certainly a lot of meat there for people to revisit
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  and re-imagine. Something that I stumbled across a few years ago was the Icelandic translation
• 5:33
  of Dracula, are you familiar with this? Julia, powers it. So it's build this kind of the lost
• 5:44
  version of Dracula, and it appears to be a translation of an early discarded draft
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  of Bram Stoker's Dracula. So you have the large overlaps with the plot and characters, but
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  there's some significant differences and some of the episodes that are expanded upon in the book
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  are shrunk in Stoker's published novel or are compressed for a completely different reading
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  experience. But yeah, so it's unclear if it was a translation that was just a very loose translation,
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  or if it was from this earlier novel that had received or a combination, probably more likely
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  a combination of the two. And there's some fun tweaks in there as being an Icelandic,
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  an Icelander who's translating this work, any derogatory references to the Norse are kind of
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  downplayed a little bit as being barbaric Vikings, to barbaric folk. That part does not appear,
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  does not quite make it over in translation to the I get signed a conversion, and I think
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  understandably so. But yeah, so it's one so in different languages, it's had a long life,
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  not just in English, right, but in going out into a number of different languages and cultures.
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  So I think it's worth sort of yeah, some of the main themes in the book because a lot of people
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  may feel they know the story who haven't read the Bram Stoker because it's as you say it
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  becomes so familiar in films, and we all can do, I want to suck your blood and all that kind of
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  thing. So it starts in Romania, in the Carpathian mountains, where you meet this charming nobleman,
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  that's picking up the polydory idea of the nobleman in an isolated valley, but it's also picking
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  up on the idea of I think was it Vlad the Impaler, a sort of previous leader who's known for his
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  bloodthirstyness, and the story is the wild stories that generated around him. So it's calling
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  up on it's pulling on some folklore, and then I think Jonathan the character isn't it, he escapes,
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  but the problem follows him, and I think that's the void you're referring to because the other part
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  of the story happens in various places in England, including Whitby, and if you go to Whitby now,
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  it's all Dracula, I mean the whole thing is the whole the whole place has become a sort of
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  goth paradise, I mean maybe goth don't have paradise is that's right, anyway a goth universe,
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  so it's a case where a book has seeped out into a town and made its sort of reputation.
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  I mean Whitby's also known for Captain Cook, but I think the the vampire influence on Whitby is
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  far stronger. There's some other things that are interesting in the this version of it which is
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  sort of late period Victorian, it's part of the Victorian goth it, you can think of other books in
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  the same sort of gothic monster genre, which is quite a lot of them, they're kind of Victorian
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  superheroes if you think about it because count Dracula he can shapeshift and a lot of the things
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  which we have as a sort of connection with vampires sort of start there the idea of holy water
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  and stakes and wooden stakes being where killing them not having a reflection those things
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  all start in this period and in fact one of the fascinating little bits of trivia which my
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  social media team dug up was that the reason why vampires aren't supposed to have a reflection in
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  a mirror is because old fashioned mirrors used to be backed by silver and silver is one of the
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  things which is supposed to be the sort of killer of a vampire so the idea it kills a and where
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  was to first to sort of negate the image somehow which is an interesting theory I don't know if it's
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  true but it seems a nice theory so there's all these the vampire folklore but I think there's a huge
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  thing here which the 19th century vampire has then put into 20th century and 21st century which
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  I'm sure we're going to talk about now is that vampires are considered to be sexy it's about a
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  form of sublimated sex that the without actually the idea of being bitten and having your
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  turning women into sort of vampire maidens all this kind of stuff there's a kind of hard
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  thing that he has going there is an element of adult pleasure going on in vampires which you don't
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  get with an ogre or a troll or anything like that yeah and I think there's you can see that thread
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  who just think of who is cast in the movies to play these characters and what the modern version
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  of vampires have done with it it has taken that element very much more strongly with some exceptions
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  which we'll get to when we talk about the modern period I think that Brahms Stoker and there's
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  also a connection here to the theatre because I think Brahms Stoker often wrote I think it may have
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  started as a melodrama but anyway he was from that world of the Victorian stage so there's a connection
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  there to you know the moustacheo twirling villain of Victorian tying maidens to train tracks it's got
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  that kind of heightened silly drama in it which is quite enjoyable if you sort of go with the
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  make-believe and the other thing I'd say about it that actually there's some interesting female
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  characters in Dracula and I think her name is Mini I think not Lucy the one who dressed to key
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  in but the other one because she's got a typewriter and she's sort of an early woman a new woman
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  sort of doing she is more active than sometimes the heroines were in Victorian novels
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  at the same period so you can see how that then transfers for them to be the vampire hunters of the
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  female van Helsing and of course Buffy later on you can see her that's also a growth of a female
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  character coming out of that so stream with one from Brahms Stoker because I think what this happens
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  is of course that the story gets picked up by early Hollywood it's one of the sort of early films
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  isn't it where you get to go see yes kind of iconic yeah as as as as count Dracula and that's yeah
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  so it has a yeah a life on definitely on film in other novel adaptations some the one that I'm
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  probably most familiar with in the early early early or period is the mid the 50s with Richard
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  Matheson's I am Legend which is a kind of development of vampires so in in and I am Legend and
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  it was adapted into a film with with well Smith but in that in in the film adaptation the vampires
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  are more depicted more as zombie like creatures whereas in the the novel itself they're they're
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  definitely vampires had referred to as such what's interesting with Matheson's treatment is he
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  kind of tries to come up with scientific reasons why vampires would react the way they do to
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  garlic to sunlight to metals and so he's it's it's it's it's it's it's really interesting in that
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  sense kind of trying to provide a more kind rationalistic explanation for how if vampires existed
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  how might that work because this is this is also one of the first or not one of the firsts and it's
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  an early example of a novel that takes the idea of a pandemic ravishing you know ravaging the
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  the globe and then transforming the population into some estimating or transforming the population
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  into something monstrous and so yeah so the pandemic is responsible for turning most of the world
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  into these kind of vampiric creatures and so you have yet kind of this kind of semi-scientific
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  way of rational approach to how that might develop to make it more I guess yeah reasonable
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  plausible even perhaps kind of so it does more of kind of like a science fictiony strain
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  but not going into space science fiction but rather trying to route trying to take the vampire
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  mythos and route it in science or tie it in some way to a scientific process of method which
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  which I found is really interesting kind of a different take on a vampire and then my next sort
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  stepping stone is the kind of an rice vampire series and then the film interview with a vampire which
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  I've seen they've just remade haven't they I haven't watched it yet but I saw there was
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  a trailer a new trailer adaptation there's I know there's the there's the series the television
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  series oh series is it more long form television yeah so I think what's an interview was that an
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  early Tom Cruise film oh my god that yes yes yes Tom Cruise Christian Dunst Brad Brad I believe
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  is there so it's just yeah so when you were talking about the people that they cast as vampires and
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  you don't get much more of a an attractive slant to vampires than you do with the film interview
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  so so there's that and then the Anne Rice books I think more maybe the films as well have spawned
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  a whole genre of urban fantasy I think we can just hit on a few sort of headlines on that there
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  there are some that follow pretty much the same playbook of the this sort of sexy gentleman vampire
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  type which you she see in actually that's the kind of thing you get in buffy the vampire slayer
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  isn't it they're all incredibly good looking and you know they they have that appeal to them
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  but then you get there's a whole very long series by a writer Christine Feenan that has what she
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  does is she separates out the vampires into like the original kind of healthy um unfolded
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  carpathian people and then they have a subset who are the ones who are sort of degenerating and
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  they're like the vampires so she's sort of able to keep a healthy relationship going between her
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  characters by having the real the real evil done by separate separate sect of people and then
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  another way it was handled is of course in twilight where you've got the the story that that
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  series basically has vegetarian vampires I think they called themselves that um so
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  Jacobs and if Jacob's were which way around is it
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  and that's right um okay so I'm with terrible my memory of twilight is fading um yeah
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  and family are are sort of basically controlling their appetites with very strict rules
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  and this is where I think that the the connection to sex is a parent because it's all about
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  restraints and I've got this little theory that in the same way as you can have romance really
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  intense romance as you can in something like a Jane Austen with very little um physicality there's
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  there isn't a Jane Austen sex scene no it's not necessary because it's all intense emotion and
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  romance I think what was happening in twilight which obviously was a YA book and before they get
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  married in the last book but it was all about a very intense sublimated romance with the metaphor
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  of of not going too far was about sucking you know her him sort of succumbing to the temptation
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  of drinking her blood and it's quite funny when you actually see that because it's a kind of
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  language that allows young teen readers to feel all those emotions without doing a sort of
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  erotic uh 50 shades which is where it went next when someone did fanfiction so that those
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  intense rules connected twilight to a sort of romance world of vampire and so it meant that the people
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  who were the bad vampires were the ones who were living outside the strict rules they were basically
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  very promiscuous in terms of their blood drinking and I'm murderous so yeah it's quite fascinating
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  watching how that develops have you read a book where anyone's done anything very different
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  with vampires yeah yeah a couple yeah a couple that that come to mind one that's probably
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  you know the most different would be Abraham Lincoln vampire hunter all right yeah I'm not
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  too familiar with that one right so um yeah um Seth uh Graham Smith it was adapted into a film
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  by the same title um the book the book is surprisingly good I don't know what's that there's a you know
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  that you would you would expect it to be you know just a like pulpy uh you know it has adventure
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  it's silly but there's some there he grapples with some like really uh serious themes or a death
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  and it's uh the it's Lincoln and there's uh you're trying to understand life and his place
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  in the world and then kind of recasting it's a kind of an alternate history not really alternate
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  history but really like what was really happening was in the south the reason why the slave
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  trade wasn't just economic but it was also as kind of a uh a ground for vampires who were coming
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  over to the Americas to feed so that they were being used as you know essentially the plantations
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  were also feeding troughs for vampires and so the south gets recast not just as like economically
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  the the morality of slavery um takes an additional dimension um there and so that there's some
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  really interesting things that they're able to do with um vampirism and living off of the life
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  of someone else so taking themes of slavery and kind of more of economic rather than the romantic
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  uh like you're saying but more of the economic angle of um vampirism oh so it's yeah I
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  I highly actually I actually highly recommend the novel no that sounds great I can vampire
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  headbutt so I'm carrying on this theme of vampirism as a metaphor that's a really fascinating one
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  um because I think the the sort of gentlement vampire the aristocrats the the 19th century
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  version is is is a sort of almost like an economic analysis of the a class system um of the way they
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  live off the peasants uh so then it becoming a metaphor for sort of a personal romantic metaphor
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  and then you're saying it's got this economic um slavery angle this is this is good stuff
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  so one place one writer who I feel um does a really different thing with vampir
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  it is um in fact there are a couple the Alona Andrews couple who write under the name Alona Andrews
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  um and they've got a series about a character called Kate Daniels and there's a whole kind of
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  universe at Kate Daniels who's very successful writers um and in this world which is uh a world where
• 22:35
  tech is failing because there's like this magic influx and it has periods when technology works
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  and then it gets shifts to a magic comes back so everything's so if you've got a car you have to
• 22:47
  have a magic engine as well as a petrol engine and but the magic engine takes yeah hybrid exactly
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  I mean again as another sort of mocking of our ways isn't uh you have to take 15 minutes to get
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  the magic engine working by chance you know it's great anyway but what they've decided to do with
• 23:05
  vampires is in this it's got elements elements of dystopia in in this world that if you are dying
• 23:16
  and you want to get um a sort of some money for your family you can sell your body like selling
• 23:24
  your body to science to people who write they basically take human bodies and then they sort of pilot
• 23:29
  them so for them it's more like the zombie idea but the the vampires are like husks of people
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  who then get super strong and other things but are piloted by this corporation um who are using
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  them as as labor and as um kind of armies and it's a very very different way of thinking about it
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  and when I first I didn't start at the beginning of the series I came across it by
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  dipping into a book that was way and it's completely different it was very established narrative
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  by then so they'd stopped explaining the and I just couldn't get it to start with so I had to go
• 24:08
  back and read the first one and think oh right that's what you're doing with vampires because it's
• 24:13
  the opposite of the attractive sexy vampire or these people are they've gone for well what's the
• 24:19
  opposite to that and I suppose they're it's saying that um rather than the vampires do
• 24:31
  do have the ability to sort of attack people but actually it's humans living off vampires
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  and it's like switching the whole model so that's quite an interesting take on vampires
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  um yeah that's great but I'd like to look at that yeah now the the Kate Daniel series is great fun
• 24:50
  it's one of my I'm I follow it that whenever there's a new one out I will get it it's I think it's
• 24:57
  at least ten books so long but they're very poetic writers um and it's the vampires are one
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  one segment of their world it's just one part of the magic economy um nice
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  so yeah i'm going to read uh ibrahim Lincoln vampire
• 25:16
  you're probably in vampire adventure yes last one i just want to make sure and mention is the
• 25:21
  history and by Elizabeth post of us um and that one i feel like i'd like what kind of
• 25:27
  want to end with that one is it it's almost kind of a return to stoker um where it's taken more
• 25:33
  seriously and more historical research so it's uh this is another one that i highly recommend um
• 25:40
  it's so it's it's taking it it's really a literary vampire novel um that is blending history
• 25:47
  monastic history carpathian history uh and folklore and weaving those together with you kind of
• 25:54
  uh just you know and whereas in stoker's Dracula you have through you know the pissillary form
• 26:02
  you're kind of piecing things together to find out what's happening in real time or slightly
• 26:07
  slightly staggered time um this one is really kind of trying to uncover a mystery that's happening
• 26:14
  a thousand years or so ago um and a present day timeline and uh the main character is a historian
• 26:22
  that's um looking to this time period and so it's it's really well done uh in terms of research
• 26:28
  and there she also cites all of her sources that she used in creating this novel so it's clearly
• 26:33
  well thought out well researched um uh pacing's great uh and so if you want something that is a little
• 26:39
  more uh literary in your vampire fair uh then i'd recommend uh the historian great okay let's turn
• 26:49
  now to werewolves what did you find out about the origin of werewolves i was having a little
• 26:54
  think a little brutal about in this what did you find out you know this is where and where was this
• 27:00
  where uh that there's a little more uh it certainly isn't as prominent uh culturally um one of
• 27:09
  honestly the in terms of novels uh the Werewolf of Paris in 1933 was one of the first ones as I was
• 27:18
  kind of looking into this did you find anything yes yes i did i can raise you the epic of Gilgamesh
• 27:27
  which is the own western prose um so this is thanks to uh westport library library guides um it says that
• 27:43
  that Gilgamesh jolted a potential lover because she turned her previous mate into a werewolf
• 27:49
  so um yeah dangerous women turning lovers into werewolf and another version is the Greeks apparently
• 27:58
  got into the act um because Zeus turns lacco on and his sons into wolves this is all thanks to
• 28:07
  westport library so do good look at their article um and then going a little bit further on from
• 28:12
  the Greeks we've got the saga of the volsongs which tells the story of a father and son who
• 28:19
  um find some like wolf skins if you put them on you turn into a wolf for 10 days
• 28:26
  which they do and they go on a killing rampage and then the father ends up killing
• 28:30
  this almost killing the son um so that's quite i like that idea of putting on a pelts and become
• 28:37
  that's a very that's very good so it's it's got a very ancient lineage you can't get much
• 28:44
  earlier than Gilgamesh uh but let's go back to um sort of novels um and now this is where good old
• 28:54
  Durham University has come to my aid um the earliest one they have on their list is by married
• 29:02
  to France um the story of Beast Club Ray um and in million so you've got people turning into wolves
• 29:11
  in that story so that we they've got medieval example so with it yeah this is pretty consistent
• 29:17
  isn't it um and then you mentioned one from was that what was the date of yours 33 33 so 1933
• 29:29
  yes yes 1933 uh yes uh uh yes CE yeah I'm not I'm not sure um
• 29:42
  I'm trying to think if there's any famous werewolf films until uh it'd be interesting if anyone
• 29:51
  can put us right on this but the first one that comes to my mind is the satin eight werewolf
• 29:56
  in London film there probably was one but there must have been ones before then surely uh yeah there
• 30:02
  was a wolfman part of the universal yeah universal early uh universal studios films had wolfman
• 30:09
  along with Dracula and Frankenstein so it makes sense yes in black and white yeah oh I've just
• 30:16
  realized something this is a sidebar for those before you write in and say we've forgotten
• 30:20
  something obvious in the um vampires genre in films there's of course the spoof what we do in
• 30:26
  the shadows um yeah just we haven't forgotten you um what we do in the shadows uh anyway go back
• 30:35
  to werewolves um thinking about sort of favorite versions of this then we actually do have quite a
• 30:45
  lot of options um there's a very strong feminist theme in of recent times with werewolves thanks
• 30:54
  to Angela Carter because she wrote the the story the company of wolves I think it's in her
• 31:03
  a bloody chamber collection of sort of retelling the fairy tales and I remember seeing that
• 31:08
  from my when I was in my early 20s maybe even younger it was Helena Bonham Carter's debut
• 31:15
  it's the story of the girl who becomes a wolf it's like a red riding hood retail retelling
• 31:21
  um where the rather than seeing the wolf as a predator you sort of
• 31:26
  that the women become the wolf it's quite you know that's a sort of one way of claiming that
• 31:32
  story for feminism which I thought was a yeah um yeah I'm sorry yeah Ellen Moore uh in uh his run
• 31:43
  on the swamp theme comic uh so swamp thing had yeah the this kind of anthology or going through
• 31:50
  they had a whole new arc it was called American Gothic so it's taking all these Gothic ideas and
• 31:55
  as a british author kind of exploring those in america and kind of largely in the the south
• 32:00
  uh southeast america but they had had similarly uh an entire uh kind of well received uh
• 32:08
  issue that had those yeah this kind of began the female kind of reclaiming this idea of feminist
• 32:14
  uh empowerment through werewolf or the link between right the moon the cycle of the moon with werewolves
• 32:22
  and uh the feminine um something yeah that those in in in several different uh media has certainly
• 32:31
  than part of the cultural conversation yeah and then I think there was like a peak werewolf moment
• 32:39
  in the early 2000s when we had um harry potter and the prisoner of azkaban I think it is
• 32:51
  um yeah it that's the one where we first meet professor loopinism so oh actually um
• 32:58
  darmy university you've got this wrong you've put it as the definitely hallows it's not it's
• 33:01
  earlier um so they do get fenwick rayback they're quite right he comes into
• 33:08
  as a baddie in the death each aside um but what you've got there is a really interesting idea of
• 33:17
  being a werewolf is a kind of illness um loopinist suffer it's like he's suffering from
• 33:24
  something equivalence whose epilepsy or fits something like that which he tries to control but he
• 33:30
  can't control because he has the power of the moon means he has to change at certain times
• 33:37
  and I think that's a really brilliant idea of um because you love professor loopin so much and then
• 33:44
  seeing the pain that he experiences of transforming and how this explains how harry potter's father's
• 33:53
  generation in became the animals to be with him during his illness it's lots of bits of the plot
• 34:01
  that this explains and falls into place at this point and the shaking shack and all that um yeah so
• 34:10
  that's that's good and then also going back to twilight of course uh we have as well as the vampires
• 34:17
  we've got the werewolves i'm jacob and all that side um in the twilight saga so we had
• 34:25
  loads of stories about um werewolves coming through at that point which has then since fed on
• 34:32
  into urban fantasy literature of all sorts and I think it's that that big bold of readers of
• 34:40
  harry potter generation going through still wanting stories that involve werewolves and whatever
• 34:47
  that's powering the ongoing presence of werewolves in urban fantasy and very often now as a
• 34:55
  um urban romance I suppose it has so whereas the vampire is your gentlemanly bironic figure
• 35:04
  werewolves it is literally an alpha male is that idea of you know yeah this sort of I suppose
• 35:11
  that's a bit like wolverine uh I know wolverines aren't the same thing as a wolf but that character
• 35:17
  the Hugh Jackman character all those physical traits have been the strong and the protector and
• 35:23
  with the claws and what have you it's all that kind of stuff that that's the fantasy going on there um
• 35:29
  yeah so it's like the sexy side to it as well right and I think yeah that there's there's really kind
• 35:35
  of a it seems to be and as it like you said in urban fantasy and more like YA books um what a good
• 35:44
  example um I think shiver by maggie steepfotter um that has the the primary werewolf that the
• 35:53
  protagonist is uh interacting with a quotes world guy is always reading real cut so you have
• 35:58
  has like intellectual uh to wear wolf yeah an intellectual werewolf um but then changing and I
• 36:04
  think that that that use of the werewolf um kind of highlights this you know and the use in YA it is
• 36:11
  you know transformative period right so adolescence as changing from one sort of innocent harmless
• 36:19
  creature into something that can do much more damages like uncontrollable right so you almost
• 36:24
  have a a jekyll and hide that kind of situation here right so this is so the the werewolf in some
• 36:32
  cases becomes of of then you for releasing pent up you know untamed energy right being free from
• 36:41
  the you know strictures of society um propriety that sort of thing so I think that there's part
• 36:47
  of that going on in YA literature it's like as transformation as metaphor for adolescents
• 36:53
  like development um from you know youth uh into something different and scarier than youth uh
• 37:01
  yeah because you get the muscles don't you and you get the hairy all those things right right right
• 37:07
  right right I hadn't talked about like that but you're right it's definitely puberty on steroid
• 37:12
  doesn't it um yes and we we have an Oxford collection connection here of course which is
• 37:18
  both in C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien so in C.S. Lewis you've got a werewolf character in Prince
• 37:26
  Caspian that I remember um in the battle in the the mount where the stone table is um so it's part of his
• 37:37
  not individual character but the part of that world and then then you've got in the Silmarillion
• 37:45
  you've got um they unfortunately get a bad press in the Silmarillion because they're part of the
• 37:52
  fallen world um there's Drauglin so I don't I see I've said that right Drauglin who's the first
• 37:59
  werewolf who's bred by Morgoth in the first age um Saren himself is called Lord of Werewolves
• 38:08
  uh and I think yeah he has forms in transforms yeah yeah he does yeah and perhaps the most
• 38:14
  interesting one is Karcherov um who is the greatest werewolf to ever live this is all thanks to
• 38:22
  Dara English program who summarises nicely for me um and what's important about him is he consumes
• 38:30
  what eats the Silmaril and Berren's hand and runs off with the uh somewhere burning in his stomach
• 38:43
  which means when Berren turns back to um meet Lutheon's father he's able to say the Silmaril is in
• 38:53
  my hand yeah it is that's very Saga fulfilling the prophecy but in a different way from what
• 39:02
  everybody expected yes so um of course that's drawing on the sort of Fenrir that that
• 39:12
  myth of the great wolf from Viking Saga so yeah there is a that kind of
• 39:20
  version of the werewolf yeah and I love and something that have been addition to that with the
• 39:26
  Berren and Berren and Lutheon uh story is that the that I think adds to the creatures transforming
• 39:35
  themselves is when you know Lutheon and Huwan are favorite talking dog um by the
• 39:43
  they rescue rescue Berren or Berren from Sauron at Minnes Tirith um and then they're going to
• 39:51
  a kind of storm uh uh engband where more goth is to take the Silmarils um but to get in they have
• 39:59
  to disguise themselves right so um so Berren it takes on the skin of Drauglin uh and it says
• 40:07
  you know um Lutheon uses her magic to kind of fit it to him so he in essence kind of looks like
• 40:17
  Drauglin so he looks like a wolf and in some cases might seem to be like riding or running
• 40:21
  and taking out the characteristics of the wolf so it's kind of a second degree transformation
• 40:27
  and as he's running in uh Lutheon takes on the skin of Thuring Wethil uh who was this vampire
• 40:35
  that like some sort of bat creature I mean that does not really fleshed out well so you have this
• 40:40
  kind of wolf wherewolf creature and uh bat vampire creature who are the best of friends and lovers
• 40:48
  and this this passage I just want to read I want to read this passage because this is so great
• 40:52
  this is great I love this book both the spookiness as well as kind of the romantic connection
• 40:58
  um so this is from the Silmarillion um Berren became in all things like a werewolf to look upon
• 41:04
  save that in his eyes they're shown a spirit grim indeed but clean and horror was in his glance as he
• 41:11
  saw upon his flank of bat like creature clinging with christwings then howling under the moon he
• 41:18
  leapt down the hill and the bat field and flittered above him so this kind of like play this romantic
• 41:24
  play run frallicking in a very horror laden hence um there's just so great yeah so you have this kind of
• 41:34
  ideal had a uh a iconic ideal of a couple a kind of a separated couple from two different worlds
• 41:42
  joining together to then kind of change each other and each other's cultures but then like here
• 41:48
  in this episode they're changing themselves as well in they're kind of unified in their changing
• 41:56
  myth as they're working together to then uh steal one of the the Silmarils for uh to go back so that
• 42:04
  they can be together again so it's kind of like multiple iterations of like transformation but like
• 42:08
  physically culturally um and then as we find out you know later that kind of in terms of their
• 42:14
  lifespan and how they're categorically considered in the afterlife uh Berren and lithium this kind of
• 42:21
  transformation changing categories that that nothing is truly fixed but that there are costs for
• 42:28
  changing from one category or realm into another that uh it's really fascinating and the
• 42:34
  Silmarillion and uh the Legendarium as a whole so have you got a favorite contemporary uh where
• 42:40
  will story that that you like reading that's a good question i had um not i haven't read much in
• 42:49
  more uh adult i think i think probably the favor the the one that i enjoyed most was that shiver by
• 42:54
  naggy steep potter so i can have an upper um YA is probably the best one that i've enjoyed and it
• 43:02
  was yeah again it's it's more of a slightly more intellectual YA from within the YA category
• 43:08
  it's more like a a cerebral take more of a cerebral take on uh the werewolf genre but i haven't
• 43:17
  i haven't gotten into the or i know that there's the whole you know the string of kind of more
• 43:24
  more horror um and suspense adaptations of or you know reimagining some werewolves but that hasn't
• 43:31
  been a corner that i've walked into yet the one i like uh again in the urban fantasy genre is by
• 43:40
  Patricia Briggs again she's quite prolific writer um she does have an alpha and omega series which
• 43:48
  i'm less keen on but the one i really like is the mercy Thompson series what i like about this is
• 43:54
  it brings together different folkloric traditions so yes there is werewolves in it who are
• 44:02
  the traditional werewolves who are you become werewolf and you're bitten by another werewolf
• 44:08
  and um you can you can be pretty much immortal but unless you but you can die and because
• 44:17
  of violent species you know people do die characters do die um but the main character
• 44:28
  is a a skin changer from the american in native american population so taking a different set of
• 44:38
  folkloric ideas about people who change into another animal but she changes into a coyote
• 44:46
  and it's got this lovely setup that um her mother doesn't know that she's got this ability because
• 44:56
  her father dies while she is um still in the room and it's first time she comes across
• 45:05
  this is when she finds a little coyote pup in the cradle i think you know it was my daughter gone
• 45:12
  but the daughter comes back and she's a baby so the closest um she can get to someone who can raise
• 45:18
  the daughter is um one of her neighbors or relatives knows about the existence of werewolves and says
• 45:26
  well um they they you know they do this thing it's a bit similar so she gets raised by the person
• 45:33
  who's in charge of the werewolves in america but because she's a coyote not a wolf it has this
• 45:38
  already this sort of tension between the two and it's a love story as well um and they're great
• 45:46
  that she has such attitude she's uh and it does it does examine some really important themes in
• 45:53
  fantasy realm so it's the themes about prejudice it's themes about whether or not you come out
• 46:01
  so do the werewolves admit they exist it there's lots of really interesting things going on
• 46:07
  and she also travels there's some some of the installments in the episode she goes
• 46:14
  ends up in a in Europe looking at the sort of European version of it and how they run their
• 46:19
  societies it's it's they're really fun uh i like them very much uh so Patricia Briggs the mercy
• 46:27
  Thompson series if you want uh so beach read or maybe beach read is the wrong thing to say now
• 46:32
  a sort of fireside read um for those of you who like a little bit of romance but not
• 46:39
  not a sort of twee sickly romance it's it's got um yeah it's an adult set of relationships thinking
• 46:47
  about adult behaviors how dealing with stepchildren dealing with xy's you know it's got a sort of
• 46:53
  properly grown up environment that she's in it's not a teenage YA title at all
• 47:00
  so that would be my tip okay so i think we've covered vampires and werewolves but i suppose we
• 47:07
  need to put them together a bit like Batman vs Superman um and i think we can't really top your
• 47:15
  barren and luthian example but is there any particular treatments of the two species in the same
• 47:22
  universe that you think is particularly successful um i think there's the underworld film series
• 47:32
  you do have some of that you do have i think some of that in blade there's the the tend to be more
• 47:38
  i think in films and be with twilight as being you know a kind of landmark uh in terms of
• 47:45
  popularity and widespread reading with with clashing ideals between vampires and werewolves and so
• 47:54
  yeah that's just yeah i'm interested so we've talked about transformation right they're both
• 47:59
  working as different metaphors uh is there something that you see about the that makes the
• 48:04
  clash of those two types of transformations compelling well i think you have to define your
• 48:11
  type because if you can't really do a vampire who turns into a wolf in a bat if you've got them versus
• 48:16
  wolves right is that's just muddling up your transformation um right yeah so
• 48:30
  i can certainly think of some good contemporary ones to put the two together um
• 48:35
  but i think that because i think that they put together in the same well because
• 48:47
  in a way that it's like if you're writing about the night they're creatures of the night this is
• 48:52
  the halloween thing so they're often in books where there's also witches so it's like halloween in a book
• 48:58
  isn't it and they also so you could write it where um quite often the populations are both
• 49:06
  are living alongside each other like rival night time populations and there you've got this idea of
• 49:13
  they have different rules but they are equally powerful i think that's why it works so they're both
• 49:19
  super strong um they're both pretty indestructible they both have their mixing my metaphors they both
• 49:28
  have their kryptonite so you know the silver for the werewolves and then i don't think people really
• 49:34
  do the garlic very often now do they but certainly the stake through the heart and beheading and
• 49:39
  and again silver in some cases or um some kind of faith object it's quite interesting in modern
• 49:46
  treatments of vampire offering it's more than just across it might be whatever your faith object is
• 49:50
  so if you're muslim it will be um a symbol of your faith then if you're Hindu it will be
• 49:56
  symbol of your so it's the idea that your faith overcomes that darkness uh so i think that's
• 50:02
  probably where it comes the idea of the things that go bump in the night isn't it that's where
• 50:09
  they come in yeah and it's interesting i used to that they're both the creatures of the night so
• 50:14
  if you open up the door for the possibility of vampires to exist in your world that you're creating
• 50:20
  then it almost you know it is that does it end there or is there the possibility of other
• 50:27
  kind of supernatural creatures and so if you want to open it up you know open the fantasy door up
• 50:34
  wider than either starting with werewolves and then open up the possibility of vampires uh so it
• 50:40
  is a more i think a something more inclusive approach but i like what you said about the kind of
• 50:45
  two different societies right that are kind of so it becomes kind of a i wouldn't say like class
• 50:51
  warfare although you do see i think in some of the treatments of uh you know vampires as being
• 50:56
  the more civilized right and the werewolves as being kind of almost representing a non aristocracy
• 51:05
  right well usually vampires are as high society and then werewolves as being at least treated
• 51:11
  yeah that's absolutely right the werewolves are actually on building sites and things are running
• 51:16
  bars and vampires like nightclubs and castles or you know gothic houses yeah so again it's that sense of
• 51:27
  um a class structure in a way uh yeah no so i think the quick where we might want to end is
• 51:37
  these these things have been done again and again and again that they are
• 51:43
  they're like a kind of shorthand that people can say right and put a vampire in it and certain things
• 51:48
  fall into place and um the problem is it may no longer be original you think it's now possible
• 51:56
  to actually do something in the vampire where werewolves which is original yes that's always
• 52:04
  possible and so it's up to one of our dear listeners to take that challenge on and take it but
• 52:10
  i think yeah i think always like you said like if like we mentioned with the the Abraham Lincoln
• 52:14
  vampire hunter right so like the economic metaphor so if you're looking at the at vampirism
• 52:19
  werewolf is um uh if you're looking at not just as a kind of mechanic that you're using writing or
• 52:28
  just as a as a as a trope or a um you know an image of visual that you're looking at i think
• 52:34
  really exploring the idea of transformation and the different ways that that occurs using it
• 52:40
  consciously as a metaphor for something to explore a question of transformation of changing from one
• 52:48
  category to another i think they're still that as long as there's in our contemporary world as
• 52:55
  long as there are tensions that come from changing categories uh transitioning in any any way shape
• 53:03
  or form uh yeah i think it's it can be relevant and can be informed by unique uh approaches to the
• 53:12
  idea of transformation in our own day um so yeah i look forward to seeing authors uh screenwriters
• 53:21
  who are taking these ideas of transformation and really working them taking an issue that uh is
• 53:27
  important to them um a question that's raised and then seeing how that plays out using vampirism
• 53:32
  werewolves as kind of your uh operating image uh to kind of explore that metaphor yeah i'm looking
• 53:40
  forward to it i mean the one the theme that came immediately immediately to to my mind is the idea
• 53:46
  of um werewolves and climate change so thinking of all the forest fires we've had
• 53:52
  places that you could do thank quite fascinating about that and reintroduction of werewolves
• 53:57
  wolves back into the environment so right you can take real world events yeah well what how would
• 54:03
  this impact a story where my character is a werewolf or interactive of werewolves so yeah because
• 54:09
  the world keeps changing there's always going to be something new okay so what's our um our last
• 54:14
  question we always have a were in all the fantasy world is the best place for something have you got
• 54:19
  your your question ready yeah um and you kind of touched on it when you referred to uh
• 54:30
  the wizarding world uh wherever you have i think one best places to be a vampire or werewolf uh
• 54:35
  i think it seems to be the wizarding world because you could it's a place where you can have friends
• 54:41
  who can join you in your otherness uh right it's a world of possibly where you're not alone
• 54:49
  in being different but that there's a community uh that can support you and actually enter
• 54:55
  into that kind of otherness uh with you i just i found i found that kind particularly moving um
• 55:01
  from kind of a sense of sense of community we usually think about you know werewolves and vampires
• 55:07
  as as othering and as dangerous but then the story is where people can overcome the initial
• 55:14
  you know visual visceral reaction to someone who looks thinks acts different and really
• 55:21
  embraces that kind of enters into that or sits with that person in that space is is something
• 55:26
  that i find uh powerful and necessary and very important uh in uh in the time we find ourselves in
• 55:34
  today i think the what would put me off going into the harry potterworld is the idea that
• 55:40
  being a werewolf is is akin to having an illness so if i wanted to be a werewolf i want to be
• 55:46
  somewhere where it's actually a thing of strength and you'd enjoy running through the forest so
• 55:53
  i'd quite like to um the mercy Thompson books i mentioned uh it's quite good being a werewolf
• 56:01
  in that world that's you know if you're your part of the community um as a structure that's not too
• 56:09
  bad but i'm not sure i'd be very good under authority because they're under a sort of a pack
• 56:16
  structure so perhaps i'd actually want to take my myself at the vampire or myself as a werewolf
• 56:22
  into a a world where i'd be completely free and it's not necessarily known too much so you could
• 56:30
  do something wild and say take it into i know um the star wars universe where you're not hunted because
• 56:38
  you're just one of the aliens at the bar right um so that might be a place to really sort of shake
• 56:44
  off any authority structure or prejudice against you because you're you're just part of the
• 56:50
  general background diversity so i think i'd quite like to do that take take vampires and werewolves
• 56:55
  into space and so i'm sure someone's written the book where you're from space or vampires in space
• 57:04
  but i think there's there's still more planets to explore
• 57:09
  anyway Jacob thank you so much and uh yeah i'm looking forward to seeing um that pictures of you
• 57:14
  as uh as it was a vampire with the stoppers. That's a vampire yeah i'm not having any
• 57:20
  we're going to share those with me but thank you very much to everybody for listening
• 57:29
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