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Why don't Vampires cast shadows?

I read a booklet (related to pen and paper gaming) on this when I was a kid, there was this special Halloween article which discuses various vampire mythology. There were these legends of ephemeral vampires (basically ghosts) that couldn't be killed by normal means. Their physical bodies, which were already buried in the ground because they're dead, could be destroyed and that would stop their shade however.

If the vampire that was attacking innocent people wasn't actually there it naturally stands to reason that they wouldn't cast shadows or reflections.

Now that I think about it this about sounds like a case of Shrödinger's Vampire, being both there and not there at the same time.
 
Spektator said:
When they stand in the sun, they dissolve, so no shadows.

Yeah, I know, that's totally a movie trope and not in real folklore. However, considering the reality of vampires (as you say, none), does it matter?
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Yes. If someone says "What is Tom Bombaill?" it's completely inappropriate to resopnd "He's a Sith overlord".

When the mythologies were developed we didn't have a good understanding of whta light was, or how it worked. It stands to reason that people made screwy claims. Similar sillyness surrounds werewolf claims, which were much more prevelant in the Middle Ages than people think. That said, given the archaeological evidence of vampire belief (yes, it's a blog, but the photos come from the citations at the end, which is what I'm really citing), I find it rather difficult to believe that all vampire myths included the "no shaddow" thing. I mean, those corpses quite clearly would have cast shadows, and an agrarian people would knwo about that sort of thing you'd imagine.
 
Crossbow said:
Because the writers said so.

The writers of vampire stories often change and/or create vampire attributes to fit the story that they are writing.

In some stories vampires casts shadows, in other stories they do not.
In some stories vampires cannot handle exposure to sun light, in other stories they can.
In some stories vampires cannot look at Crosses, in other stories they can.

And so on.
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.
That's it... goes for zombies, also. Yours can run a child day care center, and lurk at night...
 
Loss Leader said:
I agree. I don't think Buffy/Angel ever gave any reason why vampires don't have reflections.

On the British show "Ultraviolet," vampires don't even show up on video camera.

On "Being Human," I'm pretty sure vampires do have reflections.
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Don't know about the American version, but in the original Being Human, vampires neither have reflections nor show up on video.

Personally, my favorite vampires are the ones that can be stopped with a handful of sesame seeds. :D
 
IXP said:
If vampires don't cast shadows, why was a show about vampires called "Dark Shadows"?

IXP
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I realize I'm probably taking your question more seriously than it was intended, but "Dark Shadows" wasn't originally "about vampires" or anything else supernatural. The vampire character of Barnabas Collins was introduced a year into the show's five year run.
 
Cainkane1 said:
Vampires of course don't exist but how could the folklore concerning them come up with the idea that Vampires don't cast a shadow?

I think it might be a allusion to Vampires not supposed to exist in nature and the light shines through them because they aren't supposed to be there????

Thoughts?
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I think you got it right with the statement "light shines through them". Translucent wings are a common feature of unexplained winged entities seen during the day. See here:

Man in Atlanta: The Mothman Told me About the Storm

"The mysterious figure then turned his back on the house owner, showing two translucent body parts coming coming out of the spinal region, which Hickman believed to be a pair of wings."


......................


Here's the giant insect root identity of the mystery entities imv:

Giant Insect Seen on Passenger Flight

"“Then it unfastened its legs from the glass and his green, metallic body opened up. Two wings came out, I should say “rolled out”, like a rug. They were translucent and I could see it full of red veins. It looked like tree branches, or a leaf. The thing glided for about 2 seconds then it started flapping its wings, slowly. It was incredibly slow, not like a regular insect where you can’t even see the shape of the wings. His eyes stared at us, looked like a red flashlight” He stopped."





:dragonfly
 
Why don't Vampires cast shadows? Because not having a shadow is a spooky characteristic to have.

Don't appear in mirrors? Spooky.

Why are some supernatural creatures hollow? Spooky.

Impervious to lead, but not silver? Spooky.

Burned by iron? Spooky.

Afraid of the sun? Spooky.
 
Vortigern99 said:
This is, quietly and modestly, one of the funniest things I've ever read on this forum.

Bravo, sir. Well played. Kudos, etc. :cool: :newlol :D
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Very much so. I took the liberty of nominating it. (Besides being hillarious initself, it's a great way of making the argument.)
 
I Ratant said:
.
That's it... goes for zombies, also. Yours can run a child day care center, and lurk at night...
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Thanks. I have noticed that as well.

Originally, Zombies were the product of Voodoo. Dead people reanimated by magic.

Later, Zombies were the product of some sort of weird disease that would cause dead people to come back to life.

And now, Zombies are often portrayed as being barely alive, but terribly infected with some sort of disease that is very easily spread.

Again, one sees the same pattern. The writers change the details as needed in order to keep the story going.
 
In some folkoric traditions, one's shadow is somehow connected, if not directly equivalent to one's soul, and vampires are soulless revenants, so... I think that the same applies also to some devils/demons - no (Christian) souls, no shadows.

In Bulgarian folklore, there's a tradition of "building someone's shadow into something", usually some bridgebuilder's young wife into the bridge, with fatal consequences. And there's also Oscar Wilde's fisherman removing his soul by cutting off his shadow, though I'm not sure what was the inspiration for that - 1001 Nights?
 
bjornart said:
Why don't Vampires cast shadows? Because not having a shadow is a spooky characteristic to have.

Don't appear in mirrors? Spooky.

Why are some supernatural creatures hollow? Spooky.

Impervious to lead, but not silver? Spooky.

Burned by iron? Spooky.

Afraid of the sun? Spooky.
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I don't think y'all are taking this seriously enough; making unfounded or misleading statements about these spawns of satan jeopardizes all of humanity. Even self-proclaimed “definitive” web sites get things wrong:

http://www.vampirewebsite.net/howdofindvampire.html

If my auntie Rose had known about crosses and holy water, she would have run straight away to the catholic gift shop down the street instead of trying to fight off uncle Sol with day old matzoh balls. :eek:

Scordatura

And, yes, I'm joking – there are no such thing as vampires, though I am on the fence about zombies.... ;)
 
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