Question about age gap

[PurpleNoxandPizzaDough]

*a mixture of cultural, political, socioeconomic, and personal circumstances

 

[Rosemary Tea]

Minor point: The Vampyre predates Dracula by like 70 years and it’s a bit more romantic, I’d say. And then there’s Carmilla which had some serious lesbian subtext some 20 years before Dracula was published. Really, Dracula de-romanticize vampires quiet a bit (at least until the 90’s film adaptation). I don’t believe there were too many romantic vampires between 1900 and like 1990-ish.

Anne Rice's vampire trilogy (later a much longer series) was written in the 1970's and 80's. I'd call it erotic more than romantic, but those vampires are certainly erotic creatures.

Really, vampire stories are a stand in for sexuality, often for taboo sexuality. Carmilla, for example, with its lesbian elements, which were even more taboo then than now. After she published Interview With A Vampire, Anne Rice said she heard from many gay men that they identified strongly with Louis and Lestat (erotic bond between two men, one being initiated into a hidden culture by the other... and what do you know, they even coparent a child).

Also, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that the age gap is nowhere near the most off-putting thing about the romance in Twilight. I’d say the stalking, codependency, endangerment and so forth are more what people don’t get behind. The age difference is pretty negligible to most people. Like, if it was just the age difference, I don’t think too many people would care.

Agreed. But that's because Edward appears to be, and gives himself out to be, the same age as Bella. If he'd been turned at 25 instead of 17, and were living as a twenty-five-year-old, and still managed to attract and date seventeen-year-old Bella, that probably wouldn't have gone over so well. And would have added to the outcry over the stalking, codependency, and endangerment.

 

[MiaC]

You have written a lot, I haven't read it all yet, but the reason I said "there's no way a vampires mental maturity is the same as a young mortals" is because mental maturity is developed by life experiences. Therefore, they'd have to be more mature, mentally. Being 100-1000 years old or however old an immortal being may be, they'd have to experience life and many different aspects of life. They would have most likely experienced many different situations and learn from those situations. So, by thinking they stay the same age mentally just like they do physically would mean they couldn't learn any new information from their life experiences?

 

[MiaC]

And I'm referring to vampires or immortals that were able to live a fairly "normal" life, not ones that hide most of their life. Say, they've been able to socialize and be around other mortals for most of their life. The thought that an immortal wouldn't be able to retain any new information is kinda, far fetched, imo. But it is fiction, so if people want to believe an immortal wouldn't be able to retain any new information from life experiences, that's fine with me. But imo, it's not very probable.

 

[MiaC]

And when i asked "is it because the immortal looks the same age as teen?" I was trying to come up with a conclusion to my own question, so yes, I did/do think that is why. People don't really question it because they look the same. Most people aren't looking that far into it. Or if they do, they believe the immortals mental maturity level stays the same. And well, in that case that would be fine. But in my mind, as I stated, I don't think it would but it could I guess, since it's fiction. So it is what it is really.

 

[WooHooMan]

Anne Rice's vampire trilogy (later a much longer series) was written in the 1970's and 80's. I'd call it erotic more than romantic, but those vampires are certainly erotic creatures.

That’s fair but I was talking about the general trends in the genre - there’s always exceptions.
I guess it makes more sense to say monster vampires, which were standard from about 1900 or so, began to decline in the 1970s and romantic/erotica vampires began to regain popularity before becoming more of a rule than an exception around 1990-ish.

Also, I thought Rice’s vampire books were more late 80’s so I stand corrected. I thought the movie came-out closer to the books than it actually did.

 

[Rosemary Tea]

Also, I thought Rice’s vampire books were more late 80’s so I stand corrected. I thought the movie came-out closer to the books than it actually did.

Interview With the Vampire was published in 1976, The Vampire Lestat in 1985, and The Queen of the Damned in 1988. Late eighties by the time that finished. But she wrote even more vampire books. Those three were the first set, and while I have read a few of the later ones, I've lost track of how many there are. Seems that all her characters, even from other books, manage to end up as vampires sooner or later. Kind of like the Oz series where each book ends with still more characters becoming permanent residents of the Emerald City.

 

[Rosemary Tea]

You have written a lot, I haven't read it all yet, but the reason I said "there's no way a vampires mental maturity is the same as a young mortals" is because mental maturity is developed by life experiences. Therefore, they'd have to be more mature, mentally. Being 100-1000 years old or however old an immortal being may be, they'd have to experience life and many different aspects of life. They would have most likely experienced many different situations and learn from those situations. So, by thinking they stay the same age mentally just like they do physically would mean they couldn't learn any new information from their life experiences?

I think you're right. An immortal would, by virtue of having so much life experience, be mentally older than everyone. Old, young, and in between. And they'd probably come across as more mature every time they spoke. Or just leave people thinking, something's odd about this person.

I had that "something's odd about that person" reaction when I, as an actual teenager, had a classmate who was a twenty-something posing as a teen. And that was just a nine year difference between the age they were claiming and the age they actually were, not a hundred plus years. I now know there's a certain aura of maturity that no one has before their mid twenties, not even young people who've grown up fast. With an immortal, I would think the difference would be even more pronounced, especially if this immortal is claiming to be a teenager.

 

[Stevie]

You had a twenty-something class mate posing as a teen? That is deeply disturbing in any number of ways you want to look at it.

The discussion above, about vampires staying fixed physically and emtionally, at a single age, reminded me about the Harlan Ellison short story, "Jeffty Is Five". About a little boy who never grows up and about the creepiest story you might ever read.

I'm with MiaC on this one. The idea of the type of vampires in Twilight; intelligent, emotional, 'human' beings, being fixed at one level of emotional maturity, seems too far-fetched. To be stuck at the same emotional level forever, to be forced to repeat the same emotional experiences over and over and to remember them, I doubt would result in a sane and sensistive soul after a while. See 'Groundhog Day'. Twilight seems to want its cake and eat it, with Edward starting out as a regular high school student, then suddenly starting to acquire further emotional maturity when he meets his love. Hell of a co-incidence.

Not a great fan of Twilight-type vampires. I find them irredeemably naff. Give me the Count or Jerusalem's Lot any day.

 

[PurpleNoxandPizzaDough]

I agree, if we tried to imagine how Twilight vampires would be if they were actually real, the reality of them being totally fixed mentally doesn't make much sense, as learning some things, even if they aren't epiphany-deep, life-changing things, are inevitable. Not being able to retain new knowledge doesn't track with humans and vampires' metacognition. And vampires, no matter the franchise or revision, would theoretically and more realistically, be much more knowledgeable (in most mental aspects) than a human. (If the vampire has lived at least a whole generation before that human and isn't too self-entitled Self-entitled people tend to be very ignorant and unwilling/unable to retain new knowledge, especially if that knowledge jeopardizes the knowledge that keeps them confident in themselves. But now I'm getting off track.)

This is one of the things about Twilight vamps that could have been clarified and gone into detail more, for the sake of our material-science-driven world, a world that sometimes doesn't go that deep into the emotional psychology of humanity. And I'm not talking about brain chemistry, that's physical or social psychology. More like, why do some people laugh in real-life tragedies? What do comedy and tragedy (the genres) do for comforting people? Could be explained physically, but there's still the question of why media has that sort of influence in the first place?

I feel like readers were given the task of plugging up holes that Meyer could've considered or revised. (In the guide, btw, because that's where she attempts to explain the context of the series. Vampire abilities, etc.) I could say that Meyer meant that when humans become vamps in the series, it's not that vampires become mental rocks...after all many vamps do pick up skills. Rosalie didn't know how to fix cars before her vamp life. Instead, it seems like Meyer suggested that her vampires typically cannot and do not experience large changes in their personality, philosophies, priorities, and the kind of preferences that could change (as in when you were a kid you like chocolate, but now at age 30 you like vanilla bean and despise chocolate). Similar to, but even more substantial and permanent than, when humans have an ideology they can't depart from. Not saying vamps are brainwashed or indoctrinated or learn not to change; it's a comparison of permanence, and for Twilight vamps it's a rooted state of permanence.

The only way, it seems, they could change a little is when a vampire falls in love with someone, as when Edward's near intolerance for what he perceives as pettiness becomes a bit softer when Bella comes around. He talks about that and it's shown in Midnight Sun, but you know there are many other logical holes in terms of race-creation. It may be that Twilight simply wasn't technically good (not good writing but less than good set-up) before we get into why it's not ethically good, which is a whole other argument.

 

[PurpleNoxandPizzaDough]

I also agree that some people don't go past appearance and sometimes argue that the suggestive appearance of goodness or harmlessness is justification for prior ideas and actions that were questioned as unethical. They say: Edward looks like a teen, so it's all good; which is a horrible argument. Completely disregards the note that his body is 90 years old and tries to close further discussion about the possible unethical implications of that. They try to disallow thinking.


(A Note of a Possible Explanation and Further Consideration)
I will say that someone in this chat pointed out that many people feel fine with immortal/mortal pairings with decades-long age gaps because if a writer makes it so that vampires' personality, philosophies, strong/deep preferences, and priorities don't change no matter how long they live, then they technically (Meyer suggests they do) live as their teenage selves if they were teenagers before their turning. One of the reasons why many people don't approve of age gaps is that the teen/younger hasn't led a fuller and more informed life as their adult/much older partner has. If we keep this in mind, then the argument shifts back to our situation with mentally immortal immortals. The implication is then that if Edward became stuck at 17, still looks at life like a 17-year-old--as we can say he might, given his impatience with a lot of things, broodiness, and the rebellion of drinking from evil humans at the beginning of his vamp life instead of going full animal-drinker--then Edward is an immortal 17-year-old rather than a 90-year-old vampire.

But honestly, I think both can be true: being an immortal 17-year-old and a 90-year-old vampire. At least, that what's implied. The vampire society in Twilight doesn't care about age-when-turned; everyone is gonna live forever if they don't get killed, and that sort of thing (what is age?) is determined according to the priorities/knowledge of a society. Twilight vamps seem to more count age as years you've lasted, and even then they don't really care because they don't change. One piece of possible supporting evidence is that they call newly-turned vampires "newborns" in a similar way to how humans call humans "infants", "toddlers", etc. (Newborns are vamps that are newly-turned and they stop being newborn after an approximate full year). That sort of, age-by-stage, but only newborns and everybody else. There's isn't a term for ancient vampires. "Ancient" isn't an age term like "newborn", just a descriptive adjective, like how people call 65-year-olds "old".

Meyer seems to be counting on this thought/phenomena that come with many vampire stories: Living forever sort of makes you have to and able to drop certain whatever things that keep you from surviving or enjoying eternity. Of course, this isn't some rule that applies to everyone; after all, each vampire is also an individual who retains some code of behavior, ethics, or ideas from the ethical/social system they were born and lived in as humans. Aro is an ancient Greek vampire, and while he loves power like a greedy, Greek king with slaves (the Volturi are definitely slaves/servants) and prefers to stay in his Volterra castle, he is also able to adapt his plans/methods according to the situation.

In other words, even though Twilight vampires'...personalities?--don't change, they can pick up skills, learn personas for whatever purpose. They can still have a purpose or reason to keep living their lives other than surviving to survive, no matter how petty or disturbing (James' hunts). They both don't change but can do perform and do new things, it's just that it seems their psychological personality and some core ethics can never change without some drastic intervention, like (as Meyer meant) falling deeply in love with someone where they're forced to reevaluate.

 

[Rosemary Tea]

Here's another angle to consider: vampires are dead. The moment when they were turned into a vampire was the moment of their death. Only difference is, they became a vampire instead of their body decomposing, their soul going to heaven, what have you.

Any story about the dead (or undead or quasi dead, as the case may be) will have them frozen at the age they were when they died. Ghosts don't age. Zombies don't age. So, logically, neither do vampires.

 

[WooHooMan]

I can’t say for sure if this is pseudoscience or whatever but don’t they say the brain doesn’t conclude it’s development until one reaches their mid-twenties or so?
So, if a vampire (or what have you) stops aging totally once they are turned then, despite their experiences, they’d basically be stuck with a teenage brain - albeit a very worldly teenage brain. Granted they’d be less of a teenager and more of a developmentally stunted adult in a teenager’s body but still.
If a writer tried to pull that excuse to explain why their century-old vampire is acting as a high schooler, I could see myself thinking “okay, that makes about as much sense as vampirism so I guess I buy it”.

There’s also the traditional Dracula method of drinking blood to literally reverse the aging process rather than vampirism naturally halting aging but I honestly have no idea what the neuroscience would be in that case. I guess it helps that Dracula’s default age is well into adulthood.

 

[A. E. Lowan]

To address the agelessness thing, Tanya Huff, in her Blood Books, has her MC briefly give voice to the opinion that vampires tend toward the dramatic because so many of them were made during late adolescence - in other words, they're still teenagers and have all the angst that goes with it. The MC in question becomes a vampire in her 30's and has little issue with it.

 

[Rosemary Tea]

On the other hand, there's also precedent in vampire fiction for the vampire to grow mentally if not physically: Claudia in Interview With the Vampire. Physically, she remains the child she was when she was turned, but her mind keeps growing. She becomes an adult stuck in a child's body.

 

[WooHooMan]

On the other hand, there's also precedent in vampire fiction for the vampire to grow mentally if not physically: Claudia in Interview With the Vampire. Physically, she remains the child she was when she was turned, but her mind keeps growing. She becomes an adult stuck in a child's body.

See, that seems a little strange to me. Wouldn’t that imply that vampires could likely go senile fairly early into their un-life?

And on the subject of this thread, I’d imagine there’d be a point where this pseudo-adult would want some companionship and whether they go for a child or adult, that’s super creepy.

 

[PurpleNoxandPizzaDough]

Don't you just love fantasy fiction? There is a lot of potential to having to buy into a thing...

 

[PurpleNoxandPizzaDough]

I forgot about Claudia! Are there really other vampire pieces where vamps halt physical aging/physical change but are still able to mentally age? As you say that precedent is set? I always found that about Claudia fascinatingly tragic.

 

[Rosemary Tea]

I forgot about Claudia! Are there really other vampire pieces where vamps halt physical aging/physical change but are still able to mentally age? As you say that precedent is set? I always found that about Claudia fascinatingly tragic.

I don't know of any others. That doesn't necessarily mean there aren't any. I haven't read or watched every piece of vampire media out there, by a long shot. But even if it's just that one character in that one book/movie, that's enough to set a precedent. Whether or not any other creator of vampire fiction has ever followed that precedent, it's still set.

 

[PurpleNoxandPizzaDough]

If we're still talking about Twilight I don't think a vampire would consider the age much, especially if they lived pre- postmodern times. Other than that, I also don't think they consider the age of potential partner because, again, Twilight vamps don't really care about age-when-turned as much as when (what time in history) you turned...unless you were turned when you were 11 or 12, like Jane and Alec. I don't know if those two will ever get a vampire lover if the prospective lover wasn't attracted to young kids like that or just uncaring of morals/postmodern morals.

Even in some cultures from ancient "periods" to medieval times, most people didn't really think a 13-year-old was an ideal spouse. Not because the person is too young to handle themselves or others but because if they have a womb/are female they are more at risk of dying in childbirth. If equipped with a penis/male, it's less likely they'd actually get someone pregnant. Then there's the religious side for medieval times, where a few priests, religious writers, etc, didn't think 13-year-olds had the closeness to God to be part of a successful marriage, which they believe makes you a better/true member of the Church. Priorities.