Prejudice and superstition

[Ireth]

I'm having some issues with a scene in my vampire novel. The hero has just stumbled upon a farmhouse belonging to a family of humans, and has been invited inside out of the cold. Not a bad thing in and of itself, but it conflicts with ideas I put forth earlier in the story -- that the hero would be feared and shunned by others because he has a physical deformity which potentially marks him as not someone to be trusted. Less obvious are the facts that he is a newly-turned vampire (he looks entirely human aside from pointed eyeteeth and pale, cold skin), a Celt in a predominantly Christian world, and on top of that he may or may not be homosexual. Despite these hindrances, I need for the protagonist to be welcomed by the human family and befriend them for plot reasons.

I'm not sure whether it would be better for them to mistrust him at first and have him slowly earn their trust, or for them to take him in right away, deformity and all. I only intend for him to stay among them for a short time before moving on, so it might not be in his best interests to stick around and try to befriend them over a longer period, especially since he only approached their house in the first place to put some venison that he couldn't eat himself on their doorstep and leave, as an act of charity. (He wasn't expecting anyone to answer the door before he was gone.) What are your thoughts on this?

 

[Queshire]

The blind and those too young to know better tend to be good for a don't judge a book by its covers type of moral. Maybe have the first person he meets be a blind old grandmother with the rest of the family out doing.... something. The rest of the family might recongnize the signs, but it's granny who's the real head of the family and won't take the rest of the family's rudeness.

 

[Ireth]

The family in question are a father, mother and son: the parents are middle-aged, the boy is about ten. In the scene as it is right now, the mother answers the door for the hero and invites him in. It's easily editable, of course. I hadn't planned on having a grandmother as well, though it's a possibility; it reminds me a lot of the De Lacey family in Frankenstein, and the blind, elderly father who accepts the Creature while his adult son and daughter are terrified.

Blindness would be superfluous in my story, since as I said the hero looks all but indistinguishable from a human (as long as he doesn't grin too widely), unlike the Creature who was monstrous. His physical deformity is quite minor (an extra finger on his right hand), but would be easily discerned by someone who were to take him by the hand, whether or not they could see him. The only other issue would be the chill to his skin, which is easily blamed on the cold weather, and would stop as soon as he drank something warm.

 

[Penpilot]

Getting caught in the act of leaving venison is a great way to get him inside. If this family is kind at heart, I can see them inviting him in regardless of deformity, to share the venison. Maybe their religion compels them the let him in. But like any stranger, they would will be suspicious of him, and if the deformity is a stigma of some sort, the family may be repulsed by him even.

Since he needs a place to stay, maybe they strike a deal he gets a place to stay in exchange for him hunting for them every few days or so. And through his stay all you have to do is get the family and the guy talking so they come to an understanding of one another and find some common ground to base a friendship. I think you can easily hide his vampire status if he isn't there for too long.

My two cents any way. Hope it helps.

 

[Ireth]

I agree about having him caught in the act, but having the family be repulsed by him is part of the problem I stated above. If they turn him away out of revulsion or fear and don't end up befriending him, then I'll have to totally rework an important part of the later plot. And like I said, he can't afford to stick around long enough to gain their trust over an extended period (mainly because I want him to be elsewhere after a short amount of time and pages); they might grow frustrated with him hanging around like a beggar, regardless of what good he does for them.

The only reason the hero is going anywhere near a human's home is to get rid of the venison, which he can't eat and might as well give to someone who can. His plan was to leave it on someone's doorstep and then avoid human settlements altogether, more for their safety than his. Staying with the humans any longer than for a night or so would be problematic, as they would eventually notice that he comes back from his hunts always conveniently too full to eat the food the humans themselves eat, and they might get offended. Even blaming his sickly pallor and need for a liquid diet on an illness of some kind (he can drink broth and other liquids to no ill effect, but they don't fulfill his dietary needs like blood does) might not work for an extended period.

 

[Kelise]

Could they be religious? Flanders in the Simpsons takes anyone in after all. A friend of mine in a church also has several church members (not all, but some) who would take anyone in (which is a bit dangerous where we live, really).

 

[Ireth]

I imagine the humans are Christian, but the hero is pagan, which might be a problem in their eyes if he accidentally reveals it.

 

[Kelise]

Or they could hope to convert him with a showing of their good care and nice ways - though that could be a bit modern, I'm not sure how common that was back in older times.

 

[Penpilot]

Or they could hope to convert him with a showing of their good care and nice ways - though that could be a bit modern, I'm not sure how common that was back in older times.

I'm on boat with this. I'm not 100% sure but I believe that in the bible it says they have to spread the word.

 

[ThinkerX]

Something worth thinking about: deformaties, in the age before modern medicine, were *much* more common. That alone probably would not put the family off.

Also, if the family is christian, they would presumably know of the stories of how Jesus hung out with less than desirable sorts.

Plus, at least initially in many places, christianity and paganism sort of peacefully coexisted. Christians did a *lot* of borrowing from the pagan faiths, and all too often, the pagan dieties would reappear disguised as christian saints.

 

[Ireth]

@Kelise: That's a good possibility. Though I highly doubt the hero will convert, as the Celtic gods/goddesses are real within the context of the story, and one goddess, the Crone, makes an appearance early in the novel, just after the hero becomes a vampire (since she is responsible for the existence of vampires in the first place). I'm not sure if the hero would actually worship her, but at least he would acknowledge that she is real and presumably the rest of the Celtic pantheon are too, and he'd probably deny the Christian God all the more strongly because of that.

@ThinkerX: Good points. With what you've said in mind, I'll have to do a bit of editing as far as the hero and his family's backstory goes -- I establish them in the first chapter as an isolated nuclear family, shunned by their neighbors because of both their paganism and the deformity that runs in their family on the hero's mother's side. I'll rethink that and see where it goes.