Vampire Sun, Werewolf Moon (pt. 2)

By Wes Unruh

It's VD day, which has come a long way since Lupercalia's formalized whipping ceremonies to make certain the women would be fertile for fall deliveries. Now VD means Valentine's Day, Venereal Disease, and Vampire Diaries, apparently concurrently if the commercials I saw during station breaks on Supernatural are any indication. Irreducible forms of sexual archetypal anxieties been with us forever - literally to pre-literate times and (as if as in a full eclipse) it has been overlayed by VD in the CW's programming. Here's the concise description given in wikipedia of the Lupercalia:

"...the Luperci cut thongs from the skins of the victims, which were called februa, dressed themselves in the skins of the sacrificed goats, in imitation of Lupercus, and ran round the walls of the old Palatine city, the line of which was marked with stones, with the thongs in their hands in two bands, striking the people who crowded near. Girls and young women would line up on their route to receive lashes from these whips. This was supposed to ensure fertility, prevent sterility in women and ease the pains of childbirth."

Who knows how long this had been going on; certainly as far back as the founding of Rome. This kept going until the vampire pope completely lost his shit and deliberately forced it to be enfolded into the purification of the Virgin aka Candlemas. Still, a good deal of the naked flogging is alive and well on V-Day if you go to the right shows. That aside, in part one of this post I labeled vampires and werewolves as lunar and solar inversions of the hero. Of course, labeling vampire solar and werewolf lunar then implies there are other planetary attributes which could manifest archetypes. One can find that the whole planetary array of these forms occurs in Buffy, Supernatural, and True Blood: fairies as Uranian, elves/aliens as Venusian, angelic or dragon forms as Mercurial, demonic or sadistic archetypes from Saturn, etc. - and while these other planetary presences are not always explicit, they are discursive gaps awaiting narration. However, barring the inner planets which perform slow, intricate dances across the night sky (if/when you can see the sky) the planets themselves are not nearly as visible as the sun and the moon - and likewise the impact of vampire and werewolf archetypes economically trumps all other mythic forms.

Secondly, at least as far as the werewolf is concerned, the linkage to the lunar cycle is a very modern invention. Frank Hamel's book Human Animals, published in 1915, relates a good number of 'wer-wolf' tales from the past four hundred or so years and the moon is incidental. The first (and now lost) filmic portrayal of The Werewolf (1913) was more firmly rooted in colonialist fears of vengeance by witchcraft. It wasn't until Werewolf of London (1935) that lunar light and werewolf bite came together to create the first filmic 'bipedal werewolf' - all of the modern tropes of the werewolf were present. And this 'bipedal werewolf' runs naked through the streets looking more like a man wearing goatskins than the traditional origins would have us believe. I'm making the case that Lupercalia is part of the essential mythic strand that generated the werewolf, even more-so than the lunar connection - that the full werewolf form of Twilight's wolves comes from a different folklore than the bipedal werewolf descended from ancient shepherds who were imitating Pan. The werewolf Lon Chaney portrays is almost identical to the Teen Wolf (1985) Michael J. Fox portrayed, a satyr more than a wolf, pure sexual Id run rampant upon transformation.


Now, just as the first filmic appearance of a werewolf's transformation is lost, so too is the first filmic appearance of Count Dracula in Dracula's Death (1923). I can't presume to know the elements in place in a lost film made in a language I don't speak, but in both Nosferatu (1922) and again explicitly with Dracula (1931) the vampire is clearly shown to be destroyed by sunlight - the vampire's position as an inversion of the solar hero seems always to be clear, it was for the 'children of the night' to be entrained into signifying the lunar, a position that didn't fully coalesce until Lon Chaney materialized them in The Wolf Man (1941) and its sequels. The first meeting of the werewolf and the vampire is in House of Dracula (1931) and it is on this tenuous strand that countless reoccurring forms continue to overlap.

But perhaps there's something more going on underneath - this solar, lunar inversion is a clue - the vampire and the werewolf come from the same space, a shadowy understanding of superstitions and an overlay on demonized and outmoded beliefs. It is a long way from House of Dracula to True Blood, both in terms of geographic setting and temporal space, but also in terms of how the idea of the world these entities require to exist has evolved. In True Blood, the vampire elite rule through an elaborate global empire, a regime based on bloodlines, secret allegiances, and brutal violence carried out by vampire assassins and the occasional pack of nazi werewolf henchmen. Unpacking all the new mythographic materials layered into the last few seasons of True Blood will keep some lucky television studies scholar occupied for the next decade.

Where there is an empire, there are the voiceless and often faceless victims of power. Especially in True Blood both vampire and werewolf elite are able to murder with impunity, protected by the invisible empire. In Blade II the vampire elite control the world in ways that go far beyond that, where farming blood is true industrial production. This is a far cry from the fate of the Werewolf of London, as a sole victim murdered was enough to unwind the sole villain into an act of suicidal self-sabotage.

Now the normalized narratives are strewn through with the unacknowledged/unacknowledgable, there only to be consumed in service to the true rulers of the regime. Constantly the theme in these inversionary archetypal tropes is one of social acknowledgment - either as a lover or acknowledgment of hunger - here vampire treads close to zombie perhaps, the starved vampire, strung-out and scrambling through sewers like del Toro's vision in Blade II, contrast the vampire Illuminati bloodlines that orchestrate a vast world government behind the scenes. These archetypal signifiers now carry so much cultural currency that they appeal to the weakest, the unacknowledged, who see themselves as that nameless, voiceless victim and long to be the empowered. Then there are those local news organizations who are willing to exploit those caught up in the glamour of their own fetish and report on it as spectacle:

(more to come)



Pre-order a copy of The Immanence of Myth, published by Weaponized in July 2011.

Vampire Sun, Werewolf Moon (pt. 1)

By Wes Unruh

Two thousand years ago, today would have been the first day of Lupercalia. Now bear with me, I haven't blogged like this in a while, but there is a link between Valentine's Day, the werewolf, Pan, and this post I'll explain in part 2. James' article on True Blood back in August of '09 convinced me to give that series a shot, and it's only fitting that this be the first post I publish to this blog, for reasons that will become clearer in tomorrow's post.

In this post I'll begin to highlight how the vampire manifests as an inversion of the solar hero and werewolf as inversion of the lunar hero's path. If you have seen contemporary texts like Buffy, True Blood, Underworld, Supernatural, or Twilight you're more than empowered to know what I mean when I say vampire and werewolf

While it seems that there are a lot of different ways that people manifest fantasy and fetish in their adult lives, fantasizing about vampires and werewolves is a consistent and resilient trend. More than enough ink has been devoted to why the vampire and the werewolf have continued to evolve alongside culture-and continue to also bring in revenue. With Twilight, vampires and werewolves created a high water mark in terms of pure profit for the publishing industry. Vampires and werewolves are the twin archetypal draws in western commercial pop culture.

The zombie comes in at a strong third, of course, especially when you lump in the promethean Frankenstien's Monster - clearly a manifestation of fear of death combined with fear of eternity and given significant anchoring both in religious references and an entirely predictable fear of the exploited seeking vengeance. There's also the mind-controlled killer, a shadow of the zombified murderer most purely expressed in Fritz Lang's The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and referenced nowadays as alternatively a 'manchurian'/'monarch mind-control' assassin or as a shambling, brain-eating ghoul. I suspect there are far fewer teens laying awake at night longing to be turned into a mind-controlled killer or shambling, feral ghoul than there are teens hoping to be bitten by a werewolf or a vampire (although, if Poppy Z. Brite had written Twilight, perhaps things would be different.)

This hints at a kind of mythomathematics - there are certain innate qualities that dictate where vampire begins and ends, where werewolf begins and ends, and they both oppose and unite, a constant dance. The vampire is the inversion of the sun, specifically - not of light. The sun cannot see itself in the mirror, because it does nothing but radiate light - the vampire is the sun's shadow, and in it's presence ignites, becomes enflamed, and the vampire's individual self is eradicated.

The moon, however, is a reflective, mutable space - when the werewolf bathes in lunar light it changes, cycles. Why is the vampire destroyed by its symbol while the werewolf is transformed? It speaks to a larger mapping of symbol to myth.

The vampire is not a solar hero, it's an antithesis of that archetype - the solar hero is a conquering and vanquishing hero - so the vampire is changed, often destroyed utterly by the sun, and exists as the shadow of the sun. The werewolf, on the other hand, is lunar - the lunar hero does not conquer, the hero transforms, transcends, and overcomes through metamorphosis. The werewolf, on the other hand, is the inversion of the lunar hero - the werewolf is overcome by transformation when exposed to the full moon, and the transformation eradicates the consciousness, leaving only the Id behind and in charge.

Let me be clear, I do not think that writers sit down with a mythic map scripted, but rather that these mythic entities resonate in ways which lead the writer down culturally indicated paths. Stephanie Meyer distilled the essential duality then played within it as a melodramatic frame for teen angst. It is a formulae that produces catharsis and is obviously well-adapted to the present zeitgeist, much like J. K. Rowling's remarkable placement of Harry Potter into the vacuum left in culture by the evolution of Disney away from being the conduit by which magick and witchcraft could be safely sampled. Neither Meyer or Rowling ar transgressing into the myth space - they are reinforcing it, and in many ways expanding it. Still the dualism of Sun and Moon remains strewn throughout the vampires and the werewolves of Stephanie Meyer, and the elite and the technologically enabled magical children, once almost entirely the dominion of Walt Disney's kingdom, are now flooding into the mindshare of the memeplex geographically materialized in the Wizarding World at Universal Orlando.

The sheer publishing glut of vampire and werewolf narratives ensures that every possible iteration of plot will eventually be explored, something that requires fan texts to enact this transgressive allegorythym. Transgressive Star Trek fan-fiction could assimilate the borg through some klingonicization into a functional part of the Federation - which to a Trekker is as queering of a social space as Harry/Draco fanfic is of a personal space to a young fan of Harry Potter.

Transgressive mythmaking becomes a space that calls to a writer because there a kind of synthesis can be achieved - transgressive art an inroad to synthesis - "Rejection" is a by-product of "acceptance" since it acknowledges existence, and allows the rejected a voice. Once the voice begins utterance, the possibility of a dialogue towards synthesis begins. For a writer, there are a number of ways to play with transgression. Blade, for example, is an outsider, a queer in both vampire and human worlds, able to walk in sunlight. Underworld and its sequels all follow transgressive trends that seek a synthesis - as all thesis and antithesis must synthesize - and also in Underworld the vampire and werewolf trangressively merge into a queer razor-taloned green-skinned mutant who is both lunar and solar - conqueror of transformation.

(more to come)

Pre-order a copy of The Immanence of Myth, published by Weaponized in July 2011.

The Appearance of the Horned God / Dionysus in True Blood

There seems to be a lot of confusion circling around the use of the horned God in conjunction with Dionysus and the Maenad in True Blood- the most recent outcropping of this meme in mainstream media. This should be neither a surprising nor a new connection, although the Christian association with the devil falls more in line with the bastardization that occured with most heathen (e.g. non-Christian) mythologies after Christianity lost its Gnostic edge, and turned from a revolutionary cult to a traditional one. Would it come as any surprise that in fact the "horned God" and the mythic image of Jesus have a great deal in common?

Dionysus is commonly billed as the "God of wine," however, it is the intoxication that wine brings that is more closely linked to Dionysus- it is the means by which mortals can touch this divinity, though merely drinking wine doesn't bring you to him any more than holding a guitar makes you a guitarist. Wine is also commonly a metaphor for blood, (think of Jesus at the last supper), and this too is a useful key for understanding his "divine madness." Dionysus is not the "God of wine" so much as a god of divine intoxication, creativity, a force that smashes all social order, imposed rules, and restrictions. The wrath of Dionysus is only incurred, in the original sources, when it is restrained, or when he is not properly respected.

Looking at the additional meanings of his epithets - the other names he has been known by - also provides some insight. Zagreus, Sabazios, Tammuz. All of these make connection with air/thunder Gods like Zeus, who in the Greek rendering of this image is his father, even though his Mother's identity changes depending on the story. Zeus is also identified with the bull, as is Tammuz. Additionally, all of these images save Zeus are slain and resurrected gods. Note this: "...Some scholars, beginning with Franz Cumont, classify Jesus Christ as a syncretized example of this archetype."

Yes, Osiris, Tammuz, Dionysus, Orpheus, all re-appear, in a modified form, in Jesus Ben Panther - Jesus Christ. (Note also, the panther and leopard are sacred animals of Dionysus.)

There is much more on this topic in the notes I've gathered for the forthcoming Immanence of Myth book, though they are certainly in need of updating. Some of the background on some of the personal experience that led me to study this particular grouping of myths is in this post.

True Blood: Dionysus, the Maenad

The appearance of a maenad, and the bacchante, in popular culture through the HBO series True Blood has been entertaining me lately, although it also points out to me just how ignorant mainstream America seem to be to mythology, or perhaps how much it has permeated my own thoughts. For instance, I'm always a little shocked when people don't have any clue what a maenad is. (This certainly doesn't apply to many people that I know, who also seem to realize that even if you're not interested in myth for philosophical, religious or occult reasons, they are a necessary knowledge-base if you want to write or really produce art of any kind.)

Though people that read Kerenyi (etc) might accuse True Blood of various historic and conceptual inaccuracies of "the Maenad," I'd flip them the finger for missing the point. Borrowing from myth to serve a story is well and good, but it has to be adapted not only to the narrative necessities of the piece, but also to the time and place of the story. In other words, it has to be modernized. This might be the most attracting factor of this series, that it borrows from a vast array of myths, tosses them into the same world together, and streamlines them for pop-culture consumption. I've been involved in projects with similar intentions myself, though those never managed to gain the benefit of the financial backing necessary to bring them to the market. Such is the fickleness of the media industry.

This also further demonstrates the fact that you needn't be truly original in a work for it to be successful, and a work - a book, an episodic series, a movie - can serve as a gateway to new knowledge even in the process of "watering down" for the sake of the story and the audience. I've gone on rants before about how artists overrate originality, when quality of "traditional" elements like character development and successful blending of existing forms and genres are so much crucial to producing "good work."

I hope the show leads some people to explore more about the Dionysus myth, or the entire pantheon that exists inside of the symbol of this single God. He is full of different aspects, and the show tends to gloss over a key element. Even traditionally the maenads / bacchante tore people apart with their bare hands. In Euripides' The Bacchae, Pentheus' mom slaughtered him and touted his head around on a pike without realizing what she was doing. However, they gloss over what actually unleashes his ire. I've seen little in original sources about the need of a blood sacrifice to sate some urge in and of itself; it is as I said usually vengeance against those who try to uphold an unnatural order - specifically a patriarchal one. Dionysus is an agent of nature, which is traditionally characterized as both female and pure chaos. (Nor is this a connection limited to Greek Mythology. e.g. the Babylonian Tiamat or the many other "devouring mother" forms of the goddess archetype. Dionysus himself is clearly not female, but he is commonly referred to as "bi-valent" or "bi-natured," which aside from the commonly observed overtones of bisexuality applies more to an implication of symbolic hermaphradism. It's also fairly evident that often it is the agents of Dionysus- the bacchante, the maenads- who generally do the "dirty work.")

The patriarchal gods represent the social order, and Dionysus is the son of Zeuss, though his mother changes depending on the origin of the myth. So while they're playing Maryanne as a villain, which works just fine for the purposes of this story, it'd be even more interesting to see these two forces (patriarchy and order, matriarchy and chaos) come into direct conflict, not to mention wiping clean the stigma that chaos is bad, let alone evil. This is more what I tried to focus on in Fallen Nation, though I clearly toned down the blood frenzy because that didn't serve the purposes of that particular story.

Each story brings out different elements of a myth. Addendum: I've commented some in past posts on this blog about Dionysus, but based on the interest this post appears to be getting, I'll look to make another post (or series of posts) about the "horned god."