Is Slaying Vampires Murder?

I'd like for my superhero to fight some vampires, but she has a no killing policy. The vampires would be the classic Dracula kind; they look human but are still monsters. If I have her slay some vampires, would I need her to have a "oh-my-god-I-killed-someone" BSOD for her not to seem like a sociopath, or do vampires not count as people? It's a lighthearted comic, so it'd be nice to avoid all that.

Sidenote: What would be a Catholic priest's stance on the issue? He's not the hero, but I'd like him to be included

It depends on the vampires.

It depends on how you write them. I Am Legend the book definitely saw it as murder, to an extent.

I'd say so. If they were just super-villains who hadn't passed into undeath, she wouldn't kill them would she? Or are they mindless animals?

Though in Buffy I think when you slayed a vampire the demon being hosted was just sent back Hell weren't they? So actual killing took place, the person died when they were turned. I think.

And if you have the "can't enter without invitation" rule in effect, you could easily imprison them in a reverse house, a la Wonko the Sane.

edited 11th Jan '12 4:25:47 PM by Luthen

For these purposes, yes. If you live in a place where a "no killing" policy would actually be relevant to everyday life, you're going to have a shitty time of it... and then you die because in such a place people who don't defend themselves are going to get pwned.

You might as well go the "kills the vampires and then freaks the fuck out" route and be done with it...

I'd say yeah, it'd count as murder. Vampires aren't so different from run of the mill villains the hero wouldn't kill. Honestly, What Measure Is a Non-Human? always kinda bugged me, especially as seen in Buffy. She had no problem killing vampires left and right, but freaked out at the thought of killing Warren, despite the fact that he was just as evil and remorseless as any vampire. The only difference being his heart was beating.

If they look like people, there is still some knee-jerk "I killed something that looks like it's the same species as me" regardless of whether they count as people or not.

Though if your hero has a "no killing" policy, is it "no killing humans, kill animals all I want" or "no killing anything"?

I guess killing vampires counts as murder to me, though I don't really feel as bad about it if they're characterized as Always Chaotic Evil since I'm not sure what else you do with something that cannot be dissuaded from attempting to drink your blood until you're likely to die in the next few minutes. I'd count killing vampires who function on rules that make Friendly Neighborhood Vampire possible more reprehensible. Because I think killing zombies is pretty guiltless 99% of the time and those are undead people too... But zombies are icky and generally don't talk in any endearing manner. @_@' I don't want to kill anything that will talk to me for reasons not including self-defense (I'd kill animals for a few other reasons).

If the vampires in your setting are undead, then They Are Already Dead and therefore eliminating them does not equate to "killing", since "killing" implies a living being. "Murder" requires "killing", so eliminating the undead is nor "murder" because it is not "killing".

Um...no. Are the vampires sentient? If so, it's murder (or at least killing; 'murder' implies a lot of moral implications that might or might not be appropriate). If not, then it isn't. Ending the existence of beings that are still sentient but don't work according to usual biology (undead, AI, what-have-you) is just as morally significant as killing a human.

If you want to get technical, checking a dictionary defines murder as "the killing of another human being as covered in law."

Meanwhile, to kill is defined as "to deprive of life", which I argue that the undead do not have, as being undead implies that they've already died. I'm not saying it's moral to eliminate vampires, I'm saying "murder" is not the right word.

edited 11th Jan '12 10:34:02 PM by burnpsy

This would be my basic answer, although I'd also question whether the vampires are Always Chaotic Evil as well. If there's literally no place for compromise, then whether the vampires were sentient or not, I honestly can't say I'd feel guilty about killing them (though it still depends on the details to some degree).

edited 11th Jan '12 10:37:51 PM by nrjxll

Okay, granted, but nobody calls the moral aspects of murder based on law. If you kill someone, then essentially buy off the judge to get a not guilty verdict, then it's still murder.

And yeah, it might be necessary, but if the vampires are sentient then it's still killing. (There isn't a quick and easy word for 'destruction of sentience', so I'm just using 'killing', dictionary be dratted.)

I would agree that the character in question would likely have issues with trying to get rid of sentient vampires for the same reasons why he'd find it against his morals to murder.

edited 11th Jan '12 10:51:57 PM by burnpsy

Yeah, she'd probably have a BSOD over the fact that she killed a sentient being. It is killing, but it does raise the issue of what should be done in a situation like that. When you think about it, they can't even be imprisoned, because they'd die anyway from starvation, just more slowly than from a stake through the heart. So she has two choices: slay the vampires, or let them roam around causing mayhem left and right (meaning she fails to protect humanity). She has to choose one species over the other. I can imagine she'd be highly troubled by it, what with her code.

This is something I've been thinking over too, as one of my planned stories is about a vampire hunter.

Depends on how vampires are viewed morally and socially. If the world treats them as essentially an intelligent version of a viral infection then that's going to carry a lot less moral weight then if they're legitimate members of society.

If the world mostly doesn't treat them at all, then that's going to probably be a question for the person who handles the task and their reaction is likely to be based on how the vampires act.

The whole priest thing is probably going to go with the general flow. There aren't any specific commandments against sucking blood, so it depends on the behaviors of the vampires and their place in society. We don't generally think of vampires as being good Catholics because we've spent way too long making them hypersexualized versions of serial killers, but it is technically possible.

About what a Catholic priest would think of the issue - vampires are meant to be unholy, so I doubt a priest would think too highly of them, but he may believe they can be redeemed.

Here's some advice: You might want to have your heroine try to find a way to redeem or cure the vampires at first, instead of immediately resorting to lethal force. Even if she ends up having no choice but to kill them, at least she'll have tried to avoid doing so, and it seems like it would be in character for her to look for alternative solutions.

Depends on the vampires. Even though I do like vampires, I wouldn't really blame anyone for not wanting undead bloodsucking predators roaming the streets; it would be the same thing if there were polar bears freely walking around in the middle of New York. It's complicated by the fact that vampires were human, at one point (again, depending on the vampires), still appear and act like humans (depending on the vampires), and are probably able to communicate with humans to some degree (if they weren't, then there would be much less of a dilemma here, since they'd be as difficult to reason with as a man-eating tiger). Anyone sent to kill vampires might (or may not) feel as though they were committing genocide (if they are given 21st century attitudes on the matter), slaughtering other human beings simply for the fact that they like to suck blood. Of course, they could rationalize it the other way, if the vampires really are a significant enough danger to warrant extermination (or at least, being driven out of society to the point where they wouldn't be a danger to the rest of humanity); if they're killing humans left and right, are unreasonably savage, threaten the existence of society, etc, etc. It also goes without saying that killing a vampire bent on killing you carries no significant moral dilemma with it, at least, not one that would make most people denounce you as a murderer.

No, I wouldn't call it murder if the vampires are sufficiently dangerous, inhuman, or are attacking the protagonist. That doesn't mean that your protagonist won't consider it murder; she might consider them as human as you or I, just with a weird blood-fetish. She might even look at it as putting them out of their misery; doesn't make sense to me, since if they wanted to die, they'd bloody well ask her, but it's amazing what people will tell themselves to soothe their consciences. Of course, she might be hunting them down for revenge, or she might have bought into the idea that vampires are evil, unclean monsters; it all depends on her personality.

edited 13th Jan '12 9:10:21 PM by tropetown

Heck, killing a human mugger who's attacking you isn't murder. (Assuming you're not doing something dumb like chasing them down and killing them as they try to escape.)

Well, the situation would be that their is one Head Vampire Queen who wants to get her vampire henchmen out of their country (Possibly Romania, but maybe I'll just make up a country) and spread vampirism, adding to her army. The superhero and the priest get stuck in her castle and must fight their way out while simultaneously stopping her plan.

The large amount of vampire henchmen wouldn't have characterization, they pretty much would be monster mooks. The only vampires who would talk would be the Queen and maybe her three main henchmen.

I've been toying with the idea that the mindless army could be turned from freshly dead (not-yet-decayed) corpses, thus killing them would just bring them back to their previous state, and the ones who talk would be either turned from living people or born from vampire parents

Would the hero be okay with killing a human doing the same thing? If the vampires aren't mindless zombies that only care about blood, I'd make the response the same if I were you.

If they're mindless then no, I wouldn't say it's murder. She'll have a huge moral dilemma on her hands when she faces the vampire queen and her main henchmen though - she'll have to either break her code or let the queen spread vampirism through the population.

The problem with this kind of situation is evil humans can be dealt with in other ways. They can be imprisoned. They can be rehabilitated. There isn't so much that can be done about a vampire though. The worst thing is, if you let them go, they'll keep wreaking havoc for all eternity.

Maybe you could break away from the light-hearted feel for this arc, make it darker and more serious than the rest of the comic, and if she does kill the vampires, at the end you could have her break down and say "I know they were vampires, but that didn't make it any easier."

Hell, if it's just an arc, I'd let at least one high-ranking vampire get away; preferably some clever bastard/bitch that could return and make trouble for the heroine (Genocide Backfire, anyone?). If he's sufficiently clever, he could paint the heroine as a bigoted murderer, becoming a demagogue of sorts; if he's even more clever, he (or she) will be secretly recreating his (or her) race of vampires while blinding the people to the truth of their nature, while simultaneously turning everyone against the one person who could stop him/her. By the time anyone realized what was going on, it would be far too late, and the vampire would have become too powerful to stop.

Naturally, this course of action would mean that the vampire would have to pretend to be human; it would probably also help to give the vampire some human connections (maybe to a previous, powerful enemy of your heroine?) to make it a bit more realistic. Obviously, some people would be in on the plan, and someone will be greedy enough to want to profit off of it (maybe a Corrupt Corporate Executive, a la Lex Luthor?).

Just some food for thought.

EDIT: Now I really want to write this story.

edited 17th Jan '12 2:40:23 AM by tropetown

It depends on what sort of vampires you have and how you want to write it.

Although mostly on the former - if you want to portray it as perfectly okay, but write your vampires as sympathetic and largely human-like characters, readers are going to see it differently.

Not human? Not murder. Simple as that. I mean, is a person killing a cow murder? No, and so it applies to non-humans as well.