Pineapple Express: Someone Is Wrong on the Internet?

FrogReaver said:

Why are there no werewolf vampires

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There is an intimate relationship between the two in Slavic folklore, so much so that folks have argued they are (or were) identical.

Gradine said:

More specifically, werewolves stand in for our societal discomfort regarding the mentally ill (lunatics) and vampires stand in for our societal discomfort with brazen (often, but not always queer) sexuality

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Hmm, that lunatic comment reminds me of something. In the Path to Carcosa campaign for Arkham Horror LCG, one of the themes of the campaign revolves around whether the things you experience are real or not, and in particular one of the scenarios takes place in an asylum. In the original version, many of the enemies you would encounter during the campaign (and in particular in the asylum) would have the "Lunatic" keyword.

In the compiled version that came out a few years later, the Lunatic keyword was replaced with "Possessed" – I believe because of sensitivity issues with people who struggle with mental health themselves. But in retrospect, I think that might be doing the larger theme a disservice: if the game outright states that these people are possessed rather than crazy, it also outright tells the players that yes, the things you are experiencing are real. The change is probably still a good idea though.

Gradine said:

More specifically, werewolves stand in for our societal discomfort regarding the mentally ill (lunatics) and vampires stand in for our societal discomfort with brazen (often, but not always queer) sexuality

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There is some truth to this but I think there is a broader range of interpretations that are common.

The Firebird said:

There is an intimate relationship between the two in Slavic folklore, so much so that folks have argued they are (or were) identical.

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That’s interesting.

To answer my own question werewolves seem to represent wild untamed chaotic evil and vampires seem to represent a hierarchal and charismatic lawful evil. Those 2 characterizations are simply at odds.

The Firebird said:

There is some truth to this but I think there is a broader range of interpretations that are common.

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Of yeah, everything is going to have a broad range of interpretations. I mean, there have been movies where the vampires are literally nazis. Frog I think hits the nail in the head with the chaotic/lawful split. Werewolves are unpredictable, untamed, directly violent. Meanwhile, the danger of vampires has classically involved seduction (again, often but not always sexual seduction); we've had plenty of vampires-as-stand-ins-for-drugs stories as well.

Zombies have always been the classic "contagion/plague" stand-in for me, but then, even Romero used zombies as metaphors for all kinds of different things depending on the movies (racism, consumerism, isolation, etc.)

The Firebird said:

There is an intimate relationship between the two in Slavic folklore, so much so that folks have argued they are (or were) identical.

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There's certainly a messy line between them, same as there is between what we tend to now think of as zombies and vampires.

Gradine said:

Zombies have always been the classic "contagion/plague" stand-in for me, but then, even Romero used zombies as metaphors for all kinds of different things depending on the movies (racism, consumerism, isolation, etc.)

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Well, as I note above, the line between vampires and zombies as we now use the term is not historically that thick.

trappedslider said:

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...Werecastle?