If you guys have ever read any cliché editorial from me, then you probably know that I have roasted the legacy Twilight has left on the vampire genre multiple times.  I complained almost five years ago that Edward watching Bella sleep was completely creepy and not romantic, a grievance I still hold strongly to this day.  When it was not about borderline stalker-like behavior from the characters in the series, I complained that the fact the vampires in the series could walk in the sun was offensive to the scary legacy of the monsters, all starting with creepy beasts such as Bram Stoker's Dracula.  Heck, I even roasted particular characters for either being too clingy or completely flat Mary Sues.  It would seem that I have complained about almost every grievance available with the popular young adult book series. 

  However, I did miss out on discussing one particular cliché in the series that wraps up all my rantings with a pretty red bow and explains why the heck I attacked the Twilight book series so hard in the past.  That cliché is something I have scraped the surface of multiple times before, the legacy Twilight has left on vampire fiction, but never really explained.  Even when reviewing the book about a year ago, I neglected to talk in-depth about this issue that justifies every single argument I have made about the series.  That cliché is the neutering of the vampire lore that the series has left as a nasty aftertaste on not only horror, but multiple genres of fiction.

  For those who do not know, the main idea of the vampire when created by fearful superstitious people was the mysterious eeriness of the night.  It was at night that most crimes were committed and when nocturnal predatory animals came to hunt, something that back in the day people did not connect the dots to.  The lore gets deeper through the nighttime being connected to the darkness that is death itself, especially during periodic disease outbreaks.  Through the mysterious happenings of the night, the idea of the vampire was invented to explain the scary unknown.  With these undead bloodsuckers, people found an explanation for the random violence or unnecessary deaths that plagued the streets.  Vampires are a deep metaphor for the potential danger that comes with the night, a fear that to this day many people still come to experience in some way.

  The lore of the vampire got deeper over time with fictional accounts of the beasts, depicting them as unpredictable seductive-type monsters who used their charms to trick innocent people.  This ideology of the vampire was fleshed out best with both Bram Stoker's Dracula in 1897 and then Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire in 1976.  Through this depiction of the vampire, suddenly these creatures were complex characters, capable of much more than draining the life essence out of innocent people.  They were a representation of the darkness lying inside the human spirit, which anyone could be capable of becoming if they indulged in selfish acts for themselves.  The fear vampires resonated with people suddenly got a lot deeper, becoming a well respected icon of the horror genre over the years to come.

  Ancient unexplained actions during the night and the added seductive characterization were the elements that made vampires so special to the horror genre.  They were completely different from most monsters in the genre, who mostly lashed out at people in very animalistic matters.  Vampires stood out for being so mysterious and capable of doing so many things unexplained by even the most complex of science.  Though romantic, vampires were primarily symbols of fear that many people found a strange respect for as more stories depicting the beasts continued to be told. 

  But then, stories like Twilight came out to overemphasize the romantic layers of the vampire.  At first, it was not all that bad.  Early stories that focused on romantic, more humanized vampires such as The Vampire Diaries book series back in 1991 deleted a few elements such as vulnerability to the sun from special Lapis Lazuli rings, but still balanced enough horror elements to be respectful to the past depictions of the vampire.  However, that element as more and more writers came to interpret vampires in this light started to become more and more diluted from the growing overemphasis of the romantic elements.  The monstrous elements became more and more ignored, until the publication of Twilight in 2005 turned vampires into just sexy, immortal humans.  The fear in future stories following the fairytale themed writing of the Twilight book series crushed most of the mysterious, dark charm vampires once had, turning them into jokes for the horror community. 

  It is because of the neutering of vampires through the overemphasis of romanticism that makes Twilight for me and a lot of other horror fans one of the worst things that ever happened to the supernatural creatures.  Twilight's neutering of vampires created slew after slew of clichés for not only vampire stories, but other genres in fiction.  Though unintentional by the author, the book series killed most of the charm vampires once had on many people.  This is why I have complained so much about this book series in the past and why inevitability I will accidentally probably do so again before the end of this very editorial.  Twilight created a plague on the vampire genre of stories that still to this day reeks its aftereffects.

  People need to stop overemphasizing the romantic aspects of the vampire and instead focus on the fearful elements that made them so respectful to horror fans in the first place.  By looking at interpretations of vampires from the past, we can potentially revive the lost aspects of the basic vampire that made them so scary in the first place.  Vampires are far from figures that should be icons of the romance genre.  They are horror icons that need to desperately reclaim their respect.