Warped Werewolves, Venal Vampires, And The Top 5 Myth Bastardizations1

by A.J. Focht

Today’s media is overrun with rehashed tales of old myths. It is nearly impossible to come across a fantasy story that doesn’t re-use mythical beings. Vampires, werewolves, and zombies all come from traditional myths and plague our airwaves and book stores; every author is looking for a way to put their own spin on this time tested material.

Some authors are very good at taking traditional myths and adapting them, whereas others should be hanged, drawn, and quartered for their crimes against them. Most myths have grey areas that can be adapted, but they all have their canon – lists of facts and pieces of the myth that cannot be changed without altering that which is intrinsic to it. When an author starts altering these facts they upset the status quo. They weaken not only the fabric of the mythological being – but our ability to suspend our disbelief. This leaves their final product looking like a cheap bastardization of the original.

With the large boom in fantasy tales being sold these days (if you don’t know what I am talking about go to your local book stores “young adult literature section”) there have been a lot of myths bastardized. I present you with the five of the worst mythical creature bastardizations.

1. Shape-shifters NOT Werewolves
I don’t know who is to blame for this one, but this problem is probably the most aggravating of them all. Werewolves are rarely used and instead are replaced by ‘shape-shifters’. Smallville, Twilight, True Blood, and many more have come to replace the werewolf with more manageable creatures. These shape-shifters can change on will, can be hurt by non-silver weapons, are not bound to the cycles of the moon, and are not inflicted with the disease lycanthropy. This means they have all the fun stuff about being a werewolf (the ability to become an overly powerful wolf) and none of the major drawbacks.

The shape-shifter has weakened the werewolf while making it stronger at the same time. Having the ability to control the shape change is very powerful but the lycanthropy disease allows the spread of more werewolves. For use on an individual basis, the shape-shifter is more flexible, but these creatures really no longer resemble werewolves. This is unfortunate because at the rate this transformation is taking hold, the traditional werewolf might be gone forever. Perhaps if they didn’t always use the wolf as the shape-shifted creature, the werewolf could maintain its image.

2. Twilight
Twilight has been mocked and ridiculed for countless things but none so more than the sparkly vampires. Stephenie Meyer’s concept that sunlight causes vampires to sparkle like diamonds to warn their prey is unique, but it takes away from an essential part of the vampire myth. Vampires have always been harmed by the sunlight, making it one of their major weaknesses. Giving them the ability to go out in the day at all really just gives them a head-up on their prey. Humans have been reliant on the sun to kill these vampires, and in Meyer’s reimagining she didn’t leave the humans any defense. If the sun doesn’t kill them, there is no way in hell a human is driving a stake through one of their hearts. This leaves me questioning Meyer’s entire world, because there is no logical reason the vampires wouldn’t have enslaved all the humans; after all, humans have no defense against these godlike creatures. (Let’s not even mention her giving them supernatural powers above and beyond the norm).

3. Smallville
Smallville is a show that should not try to operate with myths outside of the DC universe. Three of their worst episodes came about because they tried to adapt traditional myths using Smallville’s laws. “Skinwalker” from Season 2 was the first episode to adapt traditional myths. The episode deals with a Native American girl who can change in to a wolf. The episode wasn’t particularly bad, just bland. They didn’t really mess up big time until Season 5’s “Thirst.” In it a group of sorority girls have been infected with a meteorite version of vampirism. It was bad enough that the episode was about vampires, but they were obnoxious sorority girls as well. Overall it was just a poor excuse to let Lana play with powers. The last episode to make this mistake was “Rabid.” In it, the entirety of the metropolis is turned into zombies via a disease which Clark’s blood is the cure for. The error was the producers decision to including the myths at all. They had to make up such elaborate (or see through) stories to justify why these things existed in the Smallville universe. Overall these episodes just felt forced and weak in comparison to the rest of the series.

4. The Walking Dead
Now don’t get me wrong, I love this show. It has done a phenomenal job of creating a post zombie apocalypse world, but I have still one major hang-up. In the second episode, a zombie is seen using a rock, albeit rather ineffectively, to help smash open a window. This shows that the zombie has some of his cylinders firing still, and that just isn’t right. Zombies are not only dead – they are brain dead. They don’t have the ability to come up with plans of attack or use weapons to take us down because they don’t need to. Their pure numbers and infectious bite makes them all the threat we will ever need. I don’t know if this was just a oversight when filming, or if they intended to highlight the zombie using tools – either way I don’t like it. What is to stop the zombie from learning to use a gun? Then we are all screwed.

5. Underworld
Underworld is a movie that did most everything right. The only reason it is on this list is because I blame it for the mass surge of vampire/werewolf integrated media. Vampires and werewolves were not creatures that traditionally appeared in the same myth, but our children will never know that. Now, it seems as if every vampire story has to have werewolves, and vice versa. The chemistry between these creatures is forced and has really caused the werewolf to be rewritten. The vampire often manages to stay the same and the werewolf ends up getting the short end of the stick/stake.