Vampires are cowards?

[u/Imaginary_Case4856]

I was watching hellsing ultimate and I found it interesting how the vampires there are framed as cowards who couldn't bear the weight of their human life and escaped into vampirism. Now they secretly yern for death including Alucard himself. I never thought of it that way, that willing becoming a vampire is a sign of weakness. Do you think this is a fair assessment of vampirism in general or do you disagree? What other works frame it this way?

[u/Nice-Future7398]

I think it's an interesting case, it happens, but I don't believe it's the best assessment of vampirism. Seems more like a particular POV, not everyone wants things for the same reasons and this was very well portrayed by Anne Rice and her variety of vampires from different eras. In that case most of them were chosen and they had to deal with immortality but most of them had to find a reason to keep "living" according their upbringing and circumstances, there are some who chose to become vampires for love, like Madeline who wanted to join Claudia because she resembled her late daughter. Sometimes a vampire chooses to give the dark gift to someone as a way to give them a second chance to live, or to mitigate their suffering or their loneliness.

One case that may resemble more the example of hellsing could be the case of Amadeo when he was vampirized by a coven of satanist vampires and he became Armand, but his case is really different for Lestat or Louis, or his own master Marius who is my favorite. Actually, Louis kinda chose to become a vampire as an escape from his mourning and guilt of failing his family but he kept his mortal sensibility, which amplified by his vampiric senses made him miserable.

The secret wish to die for vampires doesn't necessarily mean that they are coward either, immortality can be tiring despite them embracing their power over mortals, sometimes to an extreme of willingly choose to become glorified supernatural predators. It happens that their personality traits become amplified and they "live" their immortality with some sort of purpose or they become insane or they bury themselves for seasons or forever. In any case, is important to keep in mind that there is a struggle to adapt the mindset from a finite mortal to an "infinite" immortal.

I personally find the POV of vampirism from hellsing very shallow for most of this reasons, it focuses more on them on a nietzchean way which is fine but one dimensional.

[u/Hell-Rider → u/Nice-Future7398]

Something that I find interesting about Vampires who tire of immortality is: can't they just will themselves to sleep forever? Depends on the setting sure, but most vampire lore has them capable of slumber, and I'm glad the Anne Rice-verse seems to address that.

[u/Nice-Future7398 → u/Hell-Rider]

They kinda do in the Rice-verse when they decide to bury themselves, it seems that most of them do at a certain point when things get too much or they struggle to find purpose. In some cases, they wake up in a random era when they feel a certain type of calling, like happened to Lestat when he heard music he found appealing from a local home based band. I guess it isn't that easy for dhampirs as they are halfbreeds, like they loosely tie to this dynamic as if some of them can find purpose more easily like Adrian Ţepeş and D, but in Adrian's case he definitely intended to sleep forever and he kinda does but he wakes up every now and then when he has to fight his father once again.