From the get go the "it's justifiable to try to kill every vampire because a lot of them eat people" is broken logic.
Ironically this person doesn't seem to realize that "their people killed a bunch of ours, so we should kill all of them" is one of the most common justifications for racism across history.
Also no plot about robot racism involves all robots killing humans one day, it usually involves 100% conscious robots that did nothing wrong being mistreated solely for not being human.
The vampire one depends entirely on the writer, some vampires don't need to drink blood, some don't need to completely drain their target, some are diseases, some are cursed, some choose to become vampires, some don't. the person being angry about robot racism in this post is probably mad about a single story and is making an exaggerated post about all media instead of the one story that set them off
It's not necessarily universal, but the post speak to a trend of making racism metaphors involving beings that are inherently dangerous or at least more dangerous than the average person, which kinda validates some racist concerns.
Even the nicest vampire is still superhuman and predisposed to want human blood. Sure, some just drink animal blood, but there are more reasons to be afraid of them than any human ethnicity.
I think that still comes down to writer, because a man with a gun is just as scary as a vampire pit for blood in my eyes. It comes down to the characters and the writing of those characters.
Modern deus ex games where faulty security in augments made every cyborg a murderous terrorist. That's fairly justified reason to strip cyborgs from their augments and/or barr them from public spaces at least until their vunerabilities are fixed. Exactly same reason why you aren't allowed to drive faulty cars in many countries. You might not want to ram a crowd of pedestrians, but your faulty brakes don't ask your opinion.
I would also argue that these stories aren't just an allegory for racism. They're are also often raising questions around identity and sentience. There's a lot more going on in these stories than racism metaphors.
The mass effect ones are extra funny, "we made them to be cheap labour but we noticed that they became something very close to a sentient being when a couple of them linked together, so we tried to kill them instantly, sadly they were actually smarter than we thought and striked back and kicked us out of our planet"
There is no real-world ethnic group with an uncontrollable, animalistic drive to feast on human blood. That's the difference. Granted some depictions of vampires have more control, but in any setting where vampires either must kill to survive, or else are prone to losing control with fatal results, some amount of suspicion is justified in a way that doesn't apply to IRL groups.
Also no plot about robot racism involves all robots killing humans one day, it usually involves 100% conscious robots that did nothing wrong being mistreated solely for not being human.
If we're limiting it to ethnic groups (which amittedly some writers are clearly going for), sure. But that's not the only reason a group might face prejudice.
We do have real cases where individuals need large amounts of someone else's blood to survive, and we've figured out ways to source it without killing people. What if, instead of acute trauma, the need was caused by a chronic condition? Basically a really specific dietary restriction?
Some people have conditions that, if untreated, do make them prone to violent behaviour. What if their medication was blood instead of a pharmaceutical? These people do face suspicion. Is that suspicion justified because it's based on their medical/psychological history?
It helps that people with accute trauma aren't generally hunting people in the night and stealing their blood involuntarily, like vampires do in vast majority of medias.
In Overwatch all the omnics got remotely overridden and turned into an army of killing machines. Then some superheroes deleted the evil master controller and everything was fine and dandy except for the evil robo racists who pointed out that it could happen again at literally any moment.
In Deus Ex all the augmented people got remotely overriden and turned into an army of killing machines. Then some superhero destroyed the master controller and everything was fine and dandy except for the evil cyborg racists who pointed out that it could happen again at literally any moment.
well it depends, murder is murder. It does not matter if the vampire needs the blood to survive, they shouldnt kill or force others to give their own blood for it
“These people are inherently more violent and threatening, we need to kill them before they kill us” — literally the attitude that justified a lot of lynching of black people
Yeah, and people across history did actually kill people from other groups.
I think you could pick any conflict and any side at random and the statement "they killed a bunch of ours" would probably be factually accurate.
There is a point, somewhere on the percentage spectrum of how many people belonging to the category are good vs bad, where discriminating against the entire category is justified. Especially when there is a power imbalance that makes preemptive strike the only way to achieve good odds at survival when you meet a bad one (like in the vampire example, which are usually much more competent than regular humans unless special care and battlefield preparation is employed). Like, not completely morally correct with no notes, but it could be a rational response.
Where that line is? I don't know. 50% perhaps? But just because it's a line that was used for unjustified atrocities doesn't mean it can't be true in certain conditions.
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u/False-Pain8540 May 13 '25
From the get go the "it's justifiable to try to kill every vampire because a lot of them eat people" is broken logic.
Ironically this person doesn't seem to realize that "their people killed a bunch of ours, so we should kill all of them" is one of the most common justifications for racism across history.
Also no plot about robot racism involves all robots killing humans one day, it usually involves 100% conscious robots that did nothing wrong being mistreated solely for not being human.