This all gets pretty straightforward if you do the sensible thing and start from the premise that, yes, vampires are supernatural.
Well, yeah. If you just say, "Oh, well, they're magic", you can accept a lot of things. And sometimes, for the sake of reading a book or watching a TV show that's otherwise fabulous, I do exactly that.
But every once and a while I really do wonder about these things, because I don't like the idea that some authors/creators of urban fantasy/paranormal works feel like they have no obligation to have any kind of internal logic or to make their worlds and characters make sense.
And that frustrates me sometimes, because I think it gives the genre a bad rap for being very pretty but very dumb - like a lot of the heroines I'm frustrated with.
As for the "they just don't exchange oxygen for C02" answer, I've heard that before and it doesn't satisfy me in the slightest. Because they used that excuse for the Jossverse in explaining why the vampires had breath you could see during filming on cold nights.
And if that is true, then Angel is an idiot. Because at the end of the season 1, when Buffy drowns, Angel turns to Xander to tell him that he CAN'T do CPR because he has no breath.
CPR isn't about giving the person oxygen. If you're breathing into their mouth, you're just keeping air moving at all. Because that's the point.
So, if the "there's air, just no oxygenation" explanation is true and Angel can still press air in and out of his body, then he's an idiot. Because if he can do that, he's perfectly capable of administering CPR. But when the love of his life is laying there, he says, "I can't. I have no breath."
This is what I mean about internal logic. Okay, if vampires push air in and out but don't oxygenate, fine. But they better not say they can't do CPR because that's the authorial equivalent of pissing down my back and telling me it's raining.
no subject
Well, yeah. If you just say, "Oh, well, they're magic", you can accept a lot of things. And sometimes, for the sake of reading a book or watching a TV show that's otherwise fabulous, I do exactly that.
But every once and a while I really do wonder about these things, because I don't like the idea that some authors/creators of urban fantasy/paranormal works feel like they have no obligation to have any kind of internal logic or to make their worlds and characters make sense.
And that frustrates me sometimes, because I think it gives the genre a bad rap for being very pretty but very dumb - like a lot of the heroines I'm frustrated with.
As for the "they just don't exchange oxygen for C02" answer, I've heard that before and it doesn't satisfy me in the slightest. Because they used that excuse for the Jossverse in explaining why the vampires had breath you could see during filming on cold nights.
And if that is true, then Angel is an idiot. Because at the end of the season 1, when Buffy drowns, Angel turns to Xander to tell him that he CAN'T do CPR because he has no breath.
CPR isn't about giving the person oxygen. If you're breathing into their mouth, you're just keeping air moving at all. Because that's the point.
So, if the "there's air, just no oxygenation" explanation is true and Angel can still press air in and out of his body, then he's an idiot. Because if he can do that, he's perfectly capable of administering CPR. But when the love of his life is laying there, he says, "I can't. I have no breath."
This is what I mean about internal logic. Okay, if vampires push air in and out but don't oxygenate, fine. But they better not say they can't do CPR because that's the authorial equivalent of pissing down my back and telling me it's raining.