SECRET MAGICAL VAMPIRE ELVES

[osprey_archer]

I have a pet peeve in fantasy books. Actually, I have lots of pet peeves in fantasy books, which is one reason I don’t read very many of them any more. But one of my biggest pet peeves is worlds that are exactly like ours - except with SECRET EVIL WIZARDS.

Or secret vampires. (Twilight, I am looking at you. Also Buffy. And everything Amelia Atwater-Rhodes has ever written, and in fact probably nine-tenths of vampire fiction.) Or ANY creature that has super-awesome super-powers yet has inexplicably opted to hide itself because, uh. Because?

And no, “regular people find magic frightening and therefore kill wizards/vampires/whatevers” is not an acceptable explanation, at least assuming your magical beings have powers that are actually good for anything, which they usually do, because weak powers are totally boring. You know why mobs managed to kill witches historically? Because the witches didn’t actually have magic.

A pitchfork-wielding mob is not going to take on a being with magical destructive capability roughly equivalent to an rocket-launcher. If they are stupid enough to try, they will lose, and their wretched descendants will pay tribute to Mr. Magical Vampire Elf forever and ever.

My exasperation ratchets up ten-fold if the author is trying to sell his/her world as DARK, man, DARK. You want to convince me that your wizards/vampires/secret magical beings from the black lagoon are dark? BRING THEM OUT OF HIDING.

They have astonishing powers and little to no conscience! Obviously they’re not going to hide! They’re going to blow up anyone who irritates them and use their powers to take over the world!

And “there aren’t enough Magical Vampire Elves to rule the world!” is also not a good excuse to send the vampire elves into hiding. You just need enough Magical Vampire Elves to stock the upper echelons of the aristocracy (which is tiny) - the lower aristocrats, the day-to-day civil servants, can all be human collaborators.

Sure, maybe if no one believes in magic, magical beings will be able to get away with things on the sly. But you know how they could get away with even more things? How they could get away with all the things? BY BECOMING DICTATOR FOR LIFE/UNLIFE.

Secret magical beings are always in danger of being found out. It’s like being a mob boss; you may have wealth and power, but it’s contingent on not getting thrown in jail. Magical beings who actually make use of their powers and take over countries? They’re like Stalin, man. They can do whatever they want and no one is ever going to stop them.

And that’s so much darker than magical vampire elves skulking in dark alleys.

Comments

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Amen!! I totally agree!

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Yay we are a movement!

[konstantya.livejournal.com]

Not that I ever got heavily into them (I only read the first two before I lost interest), but that was one thing I rather liked about the Sookie Stackhouse/True Blood books, as far as world-building went: The vamps had "come out" into society instead of being this super-secret sect. It was refreshing.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

I don't know why so many authors insist on having super-secret supernatural sects. (Oooooh, it's a tongue-twister! Maybe that's why.) Doesn't having them out in the open make for more fun story possibilities?

But I suppose it also makes more work. That's probably why.

[konstantya.livejournal.com]

I keep pronouncing that as "super-secret supernatural SEX."

Though there's usually a lot of that going around, as well. XD

[artemis_wandering]

LOL, you are so right about that. It's part of why I hate vampire lit. Also just vampires in general annoy me. But I tend to avoid such literature. I definitely prefer fantasy literature that is about wholly created worlds or parallel universes like LoTR or Xanth or Anne Bishop's works...I guess the closest to the kind of thing you're talking about would be Gaiman's American Gods, but people do worship the gods, they kind of do run things (in a way) and while they are also hiding, his plot makes sense, unlike Buffy.lol

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

I've never actually watched Buffy. Everyone keeps telling me I should, but every time I catch an episode I am all "YOUR VAMPIRES MAKE NO SENSE" and simply can't watch anymore. It's kind of embarrassing.