Aww, vampy wanna cry?
Xander: And Ruffles have ridges. Uh, Buffy, there's actually a more serious side to all this.
Part of the appeal of fiction is the conceit that gaining super powers, becoming a vampire, or generally just
changing somehow upon contact with the
Masquerade makes
you characters into cool, debonair, threatening or just generally
Bad Ass, no matter how
mundane they were in life. Kind of like some great supernatural equalizer.
Yeah. Fiction doesn't always play that way.
Usually getting
Stock Superpowers or being
Cursed With Awesome makes you, well,
awesome. However, some characters are just so snot-nosedly uncool no amount of
undeath,
lycanthropy,
cyborg implants,
Super Serum can change that. It takes a certain
Je ne sais quoi that this character lacks. Maybe it's because they're too much of a
Jerk Ass,
aren't assertive at all or maybe are hopelessly
geeky/
nerdy/
ditzy etc. Rather than become a fearsome vampire, they won't even inspire fear in old ladies... who
will kick their ass. Rather than a
Superman Expy, the guy who just became a
Flying Brick is still a dork, just with heat vision. Kind of like a
Law of Conservation of
Butt Monkey status.
This trope can apply to characters of any kind, from protagonist to minion (though not usually antagonist, unless
they're a
minor one). A Hero who starts off as a Super Loser does usually
manage to get the hang of it eventually, either
taking a level in badass or becoming competent in the use of their powers while being, personality wise, the same loser they were pre-change. Interestingly, this kind of Super Loser can be very endearing. Minor antagonists and minions are usually
Smug Supers with an
overinflated ego, frequently due to a bad case of
Transhuman Treachery. Expect the
Comic Relief to take them down most satisfyingly, and force them to help talk about the
Big Bad's plan.
This trope is easily explained when the transformation is
Blessed With Suck, so only characters who were extremely cool beforehand can keep a measure of that afterwards. See also/compare
Your Vampires Suck. See also
Our Vampires Are Different.
Please limit examples to in story applications. Fan derision outside of a work is not this trope.
Examples:
Anime & Manga
- In Hellsing, the titular organization often has to deal with "lesser" Villain Of The Week vampires who see themselves as cool, but are rarely more than a Smug Super who makes short work of some hapless Red Shirt Army only to be quickly cut down by one of the main characters. Ironically, Seras, who plays the Comic Relief role, is the only vampire character who comes across as legitimately tormented; Alucard is a Psycho For Hire Anti Hero, and Integra is The Woman Wearing The Queenly Mask. Alucard basically calls several Villain Of The Week vampires wimps to their face before killing them. Of course, he's nearly a Cosmic Horror himself, So Yeah.
- In the Vampire Hunter D films, only the top ranking vampires (Magnus, Mier, and Carmilla) come across as suave. Even Lamika is pretty much a Lonely Rich Kid turned Harmless Villain.
- Rei Ginsei angrily demands Count Lee make him a full vampire; Count Lee just laughs at him.
Film
- Pearl the record keeper from Blade.
- In The Lost Boys, the coven of vampires might seem "cool" at first, but in the end, only the Man Behind The Man is able to stand up to the Frog brothers, who are hardly top of the line in the world of fictional vampire hunters.
- In Innocent Blood
, the infected gangsters ought to be the ultimate villains you'd Love To Hate - suave mob bosses with supernatural powers - but it's pretty obvious that compared to Marie, they haven't a clue what they're doing.
Literature
- Best Discworld example is probably Arthur Winkins. He's middle aged and not particularly slim, which carries over into his bat form, leading to one scene in which he was thrown around in that shape, iirc by the ears. His wife is very much into the whole style thing, despite not being a vampire herself. However, she doesn't let him bite young women's necks. He complains a lot about having to wear evening dress all the time, and the difficulty of trying to build a dungeon when you live in a row house.
Live Action TV
- George from Being Human is probably the nerdiest werewolf ever. Plus he's Blessed With Suck, so it didn't make his life any easier, either. In contrast, Tully who is also a werewolf actually manages to carry it off pretty well, managing a raw animal magnetism at times and being very genial. Of course, the show doesn't really like dogs, and he's actually very emotionally scarred over his situation, having lost his family. He's overjoyed to find George, and becomes suicidal over his rejection once George finds out he was the werewolf who turned him.
- Most vampires in the Buffyverse are either badasses or nameless cannon fodder. However, Buffy mentions staking a few pimply teenage vampires who called themselves Lestat.
- Interestingly, Alternate Universe Willow and Xander, as vampires, are utterly terrifying. Harmony? *snerk* Despite the former being shy and goofy in life, the change made them grade A Dragon material. The demon that inhabits vampires had a lot of untapped potential to work with in both. Harmony... well, even demon's can't make monsters out of brain dead mice.
- On Angel, there was a vampire Darla found while looking for someone to turn her into a vampire again. He was so pathetic she decided to stake him instead.
- Anyway, Eddie from True Blood was a frumpy middle-aged closet case before becoming a vampire... and while he's still frumpy as a vampire, at least he's out of the closet...
Tabletop RPG
- White Wolf has this as the default for starting PC's in just about every gameline. The default for Vampire is for player characters to be this. Yes, you'll get special powers, and are vastly superior to even the greatest of muggles, but you're now caught up in a massive political system were everyone else is much more experienced than you, and every move you make is at the beck and call of beings whose power you could never reach by experience.
- Promethean The Created goes one step further - the superpowers come with the rejection of every living thing on the planet. And the planet itself.
Web Comics
