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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tharivious" data-source="post: 4183127" data-attributes="member: 28105">According to the overwhelming majority of real-world society?  Yes.  Admittedly, there are those that think eating meat at all is wrong, as well, so it's not a unanimous opinion, but in general, a higher value is placed on the life of something that thinks, can logically reason, and can communicate what it is thinking in a discernible manner.Majority real-world opinion has always gone: Human > Animal > Plant > [non-living matter].Fantasy world opinion would then logically be: [Sapient (humanoids, dragons, fey, outsiders, etc)] > [Non-Sapient Life (animals and the like)] > [Non-Sentient Life (non-sentient plants)] > [succession of non-living things in the same order (undead complicate the chain)] > [Never-living matter (such as rocks and soil)].I'm sure a minority would disagree about humans and animals being of unequal value, but those same individuals would then lead vampires further into condemnation by making feeding on animals just as evil as feeding on people.Hmm, a chlorophyll vampire sounds like fun, though...This was addressed by the descriptor of Sapient.  Sapient, not sentient.  Very noteworthy difference there, and very, very relevant to my point.And the tapeworm is not a sapient being.  Find one that is, and see if it knows what it's doing, then it becomes relevant in comparison to the vampires.Really?  Even if that meant eating, say, your next door neighbour?  While they were still alive, blood-flowing, heart-beating, still-breathing alive?  Knowing that with each quantity taken, death was coming closer and they were slipping farther away?  Let's say you do only take a small quantity.  You're still talking about robbing another sapient (there's that all important word again) being of life-giving nutrients that they had already obtained, impacting their circulatory system in a negative way, and putting them at risk for the effects of blood loss and anemia (among others).  Still not evil on the basis of self-preservation?  Really?Or at the all-too-common animal angle, where the animal in question would likely be panicking and struggling, terrified by the experience (cruelty, no matter the purpose, is still cruelty, and therefore evil - and I'd say forcibly restraining an animal and draining its blood is cruelty at its finest)?  Still not evil on the basis of self-preservation?  Really?Sorry, not buying it.  I doubt if you'll find many who will agree with the assertion that if you were starving, you would chow down on something that was still alive.  And if the vampire kills to feed before drinking (slowing the blood flow and making feeding more difficult), especially with humanoid victims, then it becomes murder for personal gain, and is therefore... that's right, evil.  It might, might mitigate the animal optionHell, for the sake of argument, I'll even throw in the blood bank option.  They're still taking blood that could save the life of another sapient being.  The "best" moral option that a vampire has is still, at best, a morally neutral option.  Nebulous arguments could be made that it is adding a variable for putting emergency victims at risk if the vampire snacks on a rare blood type by mistake.And I believe that every anti-stereotype can and should be questioned in the realm of logic to see whether it is a legitimate possibility, or an impossibility by nature of the creature in question.  That's one of my problems with modern fantasy literature - no quality control, because no one wants to question the how and why of things to avoid hurting someone's feelings.  We can question things, we can determine the logical validity of things, and we can say that something just doesn't make sense.  They can still do it anyway, they still have that option, but those who disagree are no less correct because of that option to go against consensus.Vampires exist as a sapient parasite that has to take life-blood from living beings to survive and are fully aware of what they are doing (this is fact) - that's evil, by it's very definition, regardless of motivation, and certainly never be good.  Can a vampire have heroic tendencies?  Sure they can.  They make fine anti-hero characters in that regard: Flawed, morally ambiguous heroes with a strong tendency to not always do what's morally right in order to survive and succeed.But to claim that they can become truly and honestly good at heart?  That's either selectively leaving behind aspects of what a vampire is (and if one wants to, go ahead - but that's breaking from vampires in general, and therefore irrelevant to discussing the standard conception), willful delusions that altruism can counterweight the inherent evil in being a sapient parasite (which cuts back to a previously mentioned aspect - these vampires are dangerously close to acting as sociopaths by devaluing the life of those they feed from), or a vampire that leads a very difficult and tedious life of self-denial and near-starvation (which you rarely see, if ever, outside of World of Darkness games with themes of Golconda involved).</blockquote>

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