Yes! Although coagulation is also a huge problem (used to know a guy whose wife worked at a blood bank of all places, and she wrote me a looong letter after reading my book). After the person dies, apparently there’s only like a 20-minute window where the blood’s fresh enough to drink properly…
This fact has almost ruined all vampire movies for me, btw
I’d think that child vampires would be extremely rare (to nonexistent), given the slim likelihood of surviving the transition process in the first place. Like other viruses with high death rates, young healthy adults just have the best chance of survival.
This is such a great question, and I’m gonna answer YES. The human brain goes through a LOT of changes and doesn’t fully “bake” until a person has reached their mid to late 20’s. So I’d think that even though a person with a child’s brain may keep learning/maturing, the way they “process” the information would still be childlike.
For example, Paul and Rich are supposed to be mentally and emotionally “frozen” (stunted) in their early 30’s. They aren’t supposed to act like old men. Hope that makes sense.
When I picture a vampire snapping someone’s neck, though, I kinda imagine them twisting the head almost all the way off (and severing all those big juicy blood vessels that feed the brain). I’d think this would be a pretty quick/painless death.
A human being snapping another human being’s neck is a totally different matter, though. Not sure how difficult that would be. I guess it would depend on the strength of your opponent?
Wow, this got pretty morbid pretty quick, but here we go.
I don’t know about quick and painless. I mean, arguably there’d still be an excruciating amount of pain since your brain would still be able to receive information from the nerves the moment they’re severed, though I imagine that after a while it would subsist, if only because after that single moment there’s no more information being relayed.
That said, one thing I’ve always wondered (thanks to the phrase, talking heads) is whether or not a decapitated person, if attached to some sort of respiratory system, would be able to…talk. I mean, after a while it’d probably turn into the nonsense of death throes due to massive blood loss, but in those first few moments proceeding a decapitation, a person should, arguably, still have their wits about them.
But besides all that, that’s a horribly inefficient way of feeding. I mean, I doubt that either Rich or Paul could drink 3-5 liters of blood (with the average amount of blood varying between 5-7 liters) in under twenty minutes (assuming the blood would go bad that quickly), and there’s still whatever’s left and dribbling out of the head, I mean…Rich would have to end up going full It’s Always Sunny serial killer and store severed heads in his fridge just to make sure he didn’t waste anything, but damn it Rich can’t do that because he hasn’t thought of the smell, that bitch!
Meh, I’d still prefer it to being torn apart by someone’s teeth, but I do agree it isn’t exactly akin to dying peacefully in your sleep while surrounded by all of your grandchildren.
OMG so I don’t know about talking, but there were some studies on people who were killed via guillotine and the results - while not totally conclusive - are concerning at best. Seems like people (well, their heads) were able to blink in response to the sound of their name That said, I’d still take this death over a bunch of others (cuz I do have a list… totally normal, right?)
YES!!! This is why Paul/Rich often share their victims.
Richard also recognizes that it’s inefficient, btw, which is why he’s got the poor MC hooked up to that tube…
I picture them as normal mammalian fangs - just retractable, if that makes sense.
Okay, maybe not THAT big.
Lions and tigers (as well as other mammalian predators) also go for the neck, btw (according to the all-knowing Google). Apparently, it’s the fastest way to take their prey down. Kinda makes sense when you think about it.
Ahem. Yes, I do realize vampires are fictional creatures… But I like my horror backed with pseudo science.