WTF: An Intelligent Discussion of Vampire Mythology

I have often scoffed at the recent resurgence in the vampire mythology as another passing fad on par with making blockbuster movies out of recycled plots from video games or television series from the 1980s, with about the same degree of attendant intellectuality surrounding the efforts.  However, this poignant and penetrating analysis of why vampires cannot abide crosses really reaches the essence of the meaning of vampires, regardless of whether their popularity has anything to do with that mythology today.

Most vampires don’t believe in the cross, but that hardly matters. It’s the idea of the thing that gives them fits. The cross confronts vampires with their opposite — with the rejection of power and its single-minded pursuit. It suggests that no one is to be treated as prey — not even an enemy. The idea of the cross, in other words, suggests that vampires have it wrong, that they have it backwards, in fact, and that those others they regard as prey are actually, somehow, winning.