"I'm watching you when you are asleep"
"oh my goooood! You must love me! :O"
I think it just need to be accepted that any story that's a vampire romance that takes place at some kind of learning facility is gonna be compared to Twilight for a while.
Just like any story that's about kids going to a magic school is going to be compared to Harry Potter.
All the effort put into worrying about being compared to some well known title could better be channeled into other more productive outlets.
I wouldn't really say that Twilight ruined it per se, since Vampire themed stories have been gaining a lot of popularity (or notoriety, take your pick) over the years before Twilight even got insanely popular. I think Twilight just added to it's popularity/ notoriety because of the added limelight?
I guess vampires sometimes feel 'ruined' because Twilight vampires have become the icon for vampires recently. When someone says 'vampire' , people don't usually think of the scary fanged vamps anymore but of the more recent sparkly kind? This is only based on the people I usually interact with though.
But at the end of the day, it really depends on how you use vampires in your story. It could still be a romantic story with vampires and it might get compared to Twilight but what matters is how you manage to make your own story unique and distinct from the pre-existing franchise.
Agreed. I have things that I really like about vampires and that make them seem like "real" vampires to me, but when it comes to mythological creatures, there are no rules, only guidelines. Different countries and cultures have different takes on what makes a vampire a vampire, although certain aspects are pretty consistent.
I haven't read the Twilight books, only seen the films. I personally didn't like them, but my issue wasn't with the vampires. I think it's okay (maybe even necessary) that people experiment with these creatures - even though I didn't fancy the sparkly skin. What I thought was way worse was basically everything else - the romanticising of abusive relationships, how terribly boring the main character was, and the really awkward dialogue.
Yup, Dracula in Bram Stoker's story was pretty stalkerish himself. Abusive relationships aren't a new thing to the vampire genre, Twilight wasn't the first to bring that up. Vampires are actually useful metaphors for these kinds of themes - they are abusive creatures from nature's side; they suck out your blood! Their blood lust is sometimes also used as a metaphor for addiction to drugs or eating disorders.
I think the problem with Twilight (as many have pointed out already) was that this abusive relationship was never portrayed as abusive (talking about the films still, because I haven't read the books). It was portrayed as romantic and every girl's dream. That's what a lot of people disliked about it - in addition to the sparkly skin. I didn't like the sparkles either, but I thought it got more negative attention than it deserved, compared to the real problems with those books.
Twilight didn't ruin vampires for me anyway. I still have Bram Stoker's Dracula, and I can watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer whenever I want 
I agree with a lot of people that vampires didn't ruin Twilight, all it did is create a familiarity larger than the classic one in pop culture temporarily, and yeah a lot of annoying things came out of it like Vampire Diaries, and such. (All the twilight jokes from my vampire characters get old after a while~~~~ )
However, this isn't the first time?
Back in the 1847 (20 years before Carmilla, and more than 50 before Bram Stoker's Dracula) there existed a looooong series called Varney the Vampire.
(not even purple nor dinosaurs, what a jip)
And it was considered SO POORLY WRITTEN. People couldn't even follow the story, the characters were inconsistent and it received a lot of negative reviews. And yet...a lot of the lore that Carmilla and Dracula based themselves out of started from this.
The idea of leaving a bite mark for example.
It was terrible, but people learned from it and improved it. So really, Twilight is just another Varney where we as readers and enthusiasts learn (especially the lore that is always inconsistent) what works and what doesn't.
@AffectedMind Omg, no don't say that, I think I was around 10 -12 when I started watching it XD
I think Twilight didn't so much ruin vampires as much as the vampire craze that happened during the same time it became popular. For a while there were quite a few popular shows sharing pretty much the same theme. They were majorly romances with big emphasis on the sexual nature of vampires. I feel like people just got sort of burnt out and now associate vampire stories as just trying to follow that trend.
There's also the factor that Twilight is kind of like "cool" to hate because it got so popular even though it was pretty silly and was favored by young girls.
So no, Twilight definitely did not ruin vamps with it's sparkles, people just sort of grew out of the fad. For me personally I generally don't like main stream vampire pop culture and have a running joke about hating "vampire boners" just cause I'm tired of how intertwined vamps are w themes of sex (even though I totally understand why they are).
I get why'd you ask this question though, I have a vampire main characters (and vamps are a big part of my world building) and before I started I was pretty worried about being written off before anybody could even learn my interpretation of vampires.
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Vampire's definition had evolved a lot, there are more movies of romance of a vampire with a "young girl" before Twlight, just Twilight got more popular. But like Twlight ruinning vampires I would say no, more stuff came before. Just Twlight set up the vampires for teens (either if it did it good or bad).
I still have my book from Bram Stoker's Dracula and still enjoy it xD (if we see about literature composition, obviously, I stay with Dracula)
And like someone said up here, there's also Vampire Knight xD
I find it kind of funny Dracula gets a lot of praise and even if i have a copy of the book, I found it tedious, preachy and boring to read. I preferred Frankenstein loads more in terms of narrative and pacing |D
But yeah, most of the big change in vampires in making them more human or exploring their pain comes from Anne Rice's works. And even if I think they haven't aged very well (minus the lore), they made a huge impact. Regardless, people still wrote about vampires being mindless killers, or just focusing on vampires co-existing without the trauma, and such.
The genre is so varied, I don't think anything can ever fully define it. It's what makes it great
Even though I bring up Dracula quite a bit as an example since it's the vampire story everyone knows about, it's actually not my favorite either. I like parts of it and respect it for making the type of vampire most are familiar with now, but it's still not my favorite.
(...and of all the Dracula movie adaptations, I prefer the rip-off counterpart Nosferatu. XD)
(...and of all the Dracula movie adaptations, I prefer the rip-off counterpart Nosferatu. XD)
Right?? Nosferatu is really fun, and without it we wouldn't have the 'dies by sunlight' trope which tbh I enjoy it. I find it ridiculously funny for traveling-vampire stories where they have to worry about time zones and sunrise/set times.
If we're going down this route of "did a single work of fiction ruin vampires?", I'm going to say no, Twilight didn't ruin vampires. Every single popular modern vampire novel has ruined vampires. Bram Stoker romanticised vampires. Folkloric vampires were either monsters that preyed on the living, genuine threats in the dark - some traditions had them being barely human, and closer to a slobbering beast, while others had them look human but be monsters - and the horror lay in the fact that someone you loved and was close to could suddenly turn into a monster and need to be killed; it was a betrayal, and an invasion of your safe home.
Folkloric beliefs in vampires was in some cases a way to deal with loss and the fear of death, and in some cases a way to explain the progress of a disease we didn't yet understand - like when an outbreak of tuberculosis triggered the New England vampire panic.
My main problem with Twilight (mind you, I've only watched the first two movies - which are great, if you view them as unintentional comedies) is the way it romanticises an abusive and frankly creepy relationship. I mean, Bella wakes up at one point in the middle of the night, to find and uninvited Edward standing in her bedroom watching her in her sleep. And we're told that she thinks that's cute and romantic instead of incredibly creepy and invasive. Bella literally hurts herself in an effort to be closer to Edward - and we're told to think that's romantic, instead of very worrying and a cause for alarm.
Bella, abandoned by Edward for "her own good", sits motionless in a chair for months, because she simply cannot function without him, and we're told that's romantic - instead of a clear sign of a very unhealthy relationship.
The fact that Twilight vampires sparkle isn't even the start of what's troubling about those books. I mean, I haven't even gotten to the bit where the werewolf dude basically falls in love with a newborn infant. :T
Same is happening with zombies.